 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the British Library South Asia Seminar Series, which is part of our research and digitization project called Two Centuries of Indian Print. We are very happy to have Dr. Arun Kumar amongst us today, who's going to speak on workers libraries in colonial Bombay. Arun is a historian of modern India with an interest in social, economic, education and labour history. He's an assistant professor of British imperial and colonial history at Nottingham University. His work explores different facets of working class life histories, including their aspirations, education, nighttime histories and childhood. He's currently working on his first book project on working class caste education in modern India. Arun has very kindly entrusted me with the responsibility of being a respondent for his talk today, and I will try my best to justice to his paper. Those of you who do not know me, I'm the curator for the Two Centuries of Indian Print project and my name is Priyanka Basu. But without much further ado, I will now hand it over to Arun to start his work. We'll follow our usual format where Arun is going to present for about 40-45 minutes, after which we'll have a short discussion for about 15-20 minutes, following which I'll open it up for audience questions. But if in the meanwhile while Arun is presenting or we are having our discussion you want to put in your questions, please use the chat box or the Q&A box to do so, and I'll take them in order in our question-answer session. So Arun, it's over to you and we are eagerly waiting to hear you speak on workers libraries in colonial Bombay. Thank you so much, Priyanka, for inviting me and for giving me this opportunity to present at the British Library. I would say that's probably the mecca for South Asian scholars because their work, their research work could not be finished if they don't look at the material which is the rich material which is at the British Library, especially in the Asia and Africa section. And I've used a lot of material from the British Library in my work, in my doctoral work and postdoctoral work, and some of it I will be showing it to you in this talk as well. But thank you so much for inviting me and as I was doing the PR for my own talk. I was saying that I was very much what you can say surprised by the stark contrast, sharp contrast and difference between the two kind of institutions that are connecting us together. So on the one hand, workers libraries are back in the 20th century, in the early parts of the 20th century and the British Library. And these two libraries are probably too extreme in the literary word I can say, and as you'll see that, like the British Library, they have been kind of generating knowledge and a generation of workers who are trained to read books, who know how to discuss a book and how to learn from a book. So I'm going to share my screen so that I can start presenting my work. And just to say one more thing that I'm very much closely involved with the free library movement in our rural areas of North India, where a team of young enthusiasts have come up to set up rural libraries, and these are city libraries, catering to the needs of villagers, giving them books, which are usually available in bigger urban centers like Bombay, Bangalore, Delhi, which rarely reach to rural areas. So we're trying to kind of provide these word class books quality books to rural people to rural folks. Through donation and through other ways, and these libraries are working, even during this period, through home loan, basically, the books are given for a month, and they could be kept with a reader for a month or so, and then they can return. Many of the times they don't come back to return the books, but precisely that's the point in the sense that we're trying to kind of spread the quality books to people who have been kind of denied excess, maybe because of their own situation or because of the structural inequalities that we are part of. So these libraries that I'm going to talk about, they're also kind of doing a similar kind of work. So in a way they're an inspiration for many of us who actually do work with community libraries and advocate for the community libraries. So I hope you are able to see my screen. Priyanka, just to confirm, are you able to see my screen now? Yes, it's perfect. Great. Thank you so much. So I'll start directly from my first slide, which is that what is this lecture about. On one hand, I'll be mapping workers libraries in late colonial Bombay. I'll be studying mainly the libraries which were situated in the working class neighborhoods. So neighborhood is going to be a primary spatial category through which we are going to recognize the role of workers libraries in late colonial Bombay. For many of you, this theme might seem a little bit strange because in the usual labor history and social history and education history of India. We haven't talked much about libraries and more so of workers libraries. Perhaps I didn't know anything about them until I started researching on workers libraries. So I hope many of you will find this talk interesting from that perspective that it has something new to offer. We're going to know that who established these libraries and where, why did workers I can these libraries and why should we bother about these libraries or workers literacy. Before entering into the world of workers libraries, let's know a little bit about Bombay's working class. As many of you know that Bombay is a metropolis in the western part of India. It is a historic urban center, a center of textile and a center of industrial activity. So Bombay was a city, plus it was also an industrial center. It had textiles, it had railways, docks, and other institutions like like the Times of India printing workshop or the postal stations of the Western India in the late 90th and early 20th century. This is the period where I'll be discussing the workers libraries most. The historian of Bombay, one of the prominent historians of Bombay, Rajniraj Chanda worker, who spent his lifetime working on the history of Bombay as a city and the history of working Bombay's working class. He suggests that industrialist strategies and the colonial estate shaped the migrant, the migrant working population, as much as workers on cultural views and community ethos. So the nature of the Bombay working class was shaped by the accents of the colonial estate, the decisions taken by male employers or the rich industrialist and the cultural views and community ties of the workers, whether on the lines of caste, religion or other lines like ethnicity or reason. As you know that Bombay was a city of textile mills. The first textile mills appeared in the 1854 and by 1885 there were about 70 mills operating in the Bombay city. But the working class was shaped by other factors as well. The Bombay as a land escape city where the land was little because of the coastal frontier as a middle class and professional service class hub. And as an anti caste political center that also saved Bombay's working class and we're going to touch upon these themes very briefly. At least these themes are shaping the history of Bombay's reading culture, Bombay's workers literary culture. Now the question is that what Bombay's workers illiterate in colonial understanding by that I mean colonial officials, yes they were, they were not only illiterate but they were also ignorant. Now these terms you would find in many colonial records in colonial sociology in colonial ethnographic works where there isn't kind of a junction that that the people in India especially the poor people or the working people. People are illiterate and ignorant and hence they are also, they are also poor. So it's a kind of cyclical nature of poverty, illiteracy and ignorant that you find in many colonial records that remains a dominant understanding, even after postcolonial times. In academic understanding, workers are seen as an illiterate. There is an assumption that the workers were illiterate the vast majority of the workers. Those who are working on the labor history of Bombay or other parts of India, they assumed that the workers were illiterate. But they were also political beings, so were interested in strikes, organizing themselves against the encroachment of employers and showing class and caste solidarity. In workers understanding we do not know what workers thought whether they were illiterate or ignorant. We don't have much sources, much sources from workers side. But anyway, the dominant knowledge including the academic knowledge has been dominated by certain assumptions and lack of new questions. By that I mean that there is an emphasis that we should do labor history from the standpoint of work, that the work should be our primary criteria that should define the working lives. I find that a little bit limiting, if not problematic because we cannot know about the working lives if we just focus on the work or from the standpoint of the work. So we have to ask new questions, that is that what workers are doing outside work hours, if they are doing anything, are they just sleeping? Are they imagining any life outside work? And if they are imagining a life outside work, which is beyond strikes, struggle at the workshop, or fights with employers, or basic struggle of life, what are they doing? And my work in a way tries to kind of capture that ethos of working lives beyond the work regime. Of course, the work regime is very central in informing that beyond the work life regime. So it's not that the work and the workshop and the work environment is not part of my analytic, but I'm saying that we need to move beyond the work analytic to understand the working lives. And we will see this through the case of libraries and night schools. My focus will be on one institution called the Social Service League, which was established in 1911 in Bombay, who started traveling libraries from 1912. So this is very much in the early decades of the 20th century. By now, the Bombay's working population is huge. It's more than 200,000 workers in terms of factory workers, but then there are other types of workers who are working at railways, working in various small factories, which are not counted under the factory laws in small household industries as domestic servants, as postal workers, as transport workers, and as clerks. So the work, so the population of the Bombay has increased and by the 20th century, there is a certain character which could be given to Bombay as a working class city because of the domination of the workers. And the workers were living in various parts of Bombay and I wouldn't go into detail as to neighborhoods which I look after, which I look in my work. Straight jumping on to the Social Service League, which was a body of middle class Bombay people headed by NM Josie, who was very much active into the politics. And the League is an institution that starts the very idea of social service in India, one can say that it's organized on the lines of classes rather than on the caste, even though caste would become an important factor in organizing its work. So the Social Service League is scattering to the poor working classes of Bombay. Their aim is to look after people in terms of their health, their reading habits, their education by providing them different kind of services, whether it is the help through petition, whether it is through dispensaries or through schools and libraries. The SSL, I'll call it SSL, which is Social Service League, they started 70 traveling libraries with 5000 books in 1912 and 13. These libraries covered about 104 hosting centers which were located in the poor working class neighborhoods, especially in South Bombay. These 70 traveling libraries were basically library boxes, where each library had about 50 books, and they were taken care by one Chal resident librarian. These boxes would move from one center to the other. So at one point, one center will have at least one library box or two or three library box at the same time depending on the reading capabilities. Now, they were not just catering to factory workers. Of course, the factory workers were major part of their reader audience, but they were also kind of catering to clerical workers, to postal workers, to hawkers, to domestic servants and railway workers. Now, the interesting thing is that these libraries were looked after by a Chal resident librarian who was also typically a night school teacher, which I'll talk about these night schools in a while. But what's interesting to note is that these libraries were traveling, so they were not static. They were static in one sense because the library box would be kept at one hosting center for a month. But these books would move, which means that the each center is actually looking at different books over a period of time. So in a one year period, one center may actually be exposed to five, six library boxes. Yeah, so they're exposed to different different books. And, and, and then there is also kind of broader point that people are reading similar literature. The interesting part is, which fascinates me is the way the SSL started mobilizing its resources to capture the working classes or the, or the laboring population of Bombay, because their focus was on these backward what they call backward lower caste people. The league aimed at three types of audiences. In their words, the middle and low caste females, the depressed classes that the lids, and the backward classes. The interesting feature of this, these libraries were that they were really very low caste libraries. So they didn't have a proper building they were just, they could be actually housed in one of the educated or literate person's house. So night, and they would be kind of usually read during the night so night and neighborhood was the entry point for these libraries. And they catered to different linguistic social groups and occupational categories, as we will see. I will be talking a lot about some statistics, but I think these statistics are useful to understand the extent of the leading culture among Bombay's working population. So please don't get bored when I'm talking about the statistics, because these are perhaps one of the rare statistics that we get about the literary culture of workers in India in modern India. So as per the leaks record between July 1912 to July 1913, at least 2765 low and middle caste readers borrowed about 10,000 books, and then they give further the linguistic, the linguistic description of the types of books which have been issued. So these terms low and middle caste are interesting, and we will look what does that mean in a while. The same in the same period about 455 women from the poor from the poor neighborhoods borrowed about 1400 books. So, so what we're seeing is that that the females are also involved as readers, which was the stated aim of of the SSL libraries, and about 663 Dalits borrowed about 1900 text in this period, which is just one year. This is the kind of archive that I'm talking about. This is the social service quarterly reports, which were published by the social service league. And towards the end you would see that way below if you could see that there is a section called quarterly report of the social service league Bombay. My archive comes from those social service league reports, which are quarterly or yearly sometime. And then I'm also using the Times of India archive. Now these social service quarterly reports are at the BL. So I'm very thankful to the British Library for preserving these rare, rare material. What we see is that workers are not just readers of the SSL libraries, they're also managers of the SSL libraries. In 1905, and this is the time when the World War One has already started, the demand for books was so much that there were 161 library hosting centers. 60 more hosting centers were opened. Out of these 161 centers, 27 centers were handled by female librarians, 20 by Dalits, three by poor Parsees, and the rest by the backward classes. The phrases in quotations are the one that are being used by the SSL reports. So I kept them as it is, they were being reported. Of course, there is a lot of interpretation and deconstruction that needs to be done with these phrases, and perhaps they're telling more and hiding a little bit about the social profile of people who are actually attending and using these circulating libraries. So we see, we have seen that the Marathi and the Gujarati population was the target, but in the early years Urdu and Hindustani speaking, working population was left out in the beginning. As you know that Bombay attracted a lot of weavers and peasants from North India, especially from the United Provinces, which is today's Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar, who came to work not only just as weavers, but also as factory workers and within factory as weavers, or outside the factory as handloom weavers and also at the railway workshops. So there was a substantial presence of working population from North India in neighborhoods or areas like Madanpura. So the Hindustani speaking, Pardesi or Purabiyas, as they were called from the North, were left out initially from the scheme. The worker librarian Mandule raised this point in February 1913 library meeting, suggesting that few libraries of Hindu-Indian books were needed in the Charles occupied by Purabiyas people. So what he's saying that we need to expand the SSL libraries to this segment of working population, which had been left out initially. So what we are also kind of seeing is that there is a dialogue which is going on within the SSL as to the target audience. So we see there is a broadening of that reader audience from the reports. I already mentioned that there were quite significant female readers of the SSL libraries. In terms of female readers, it increased from 445 in 1932, 1913 to 1832 in 1914 and 15. To promote reading culture among working women, one library each was established or kept at the receiving class of the Mahila Mandal in Parail, which was a working class neighborhood, and at the Noorajiv idea lying in hospitals perhaps for the nurses as well. And in this period, the large majority of the female leaders were Gujarati speaking background. That intrigued me as to why there were so many books which were being issued by females from Gujarati speaking or Gujarati affiliation background. And I looked at the records, it appears that Gujarat was one of the prominent reason in terms of educational statistics, educational records. It had the highest literacy rates in Western India as a state or as a province, which kind of gives certain idea perhaps new research questions as to the number of literate people on the gender lines. And also the role of mothers, Gujarati mothers in educating their children. I will leave this here and move, we can come back in the question hour session. Of course, lots of books were lost and stolen. I'm sure the PL has a very interesting system of recovering the books which are lost or stolen, but these libraries actually struggled to recover those books because here we are talking about about an extremely mobile and precarious population or laboring group who are actually at the mercy of employers in terms of their occupation in terms of their job security, and also in terms of the larger events that are affecting their lives, whether it is plague, whether it is World War One, or the strikes, which are forcing workers to leave Bombay for various reasons, for health, for political reasons, or for military reasons. Again, the librarian Mandule reported about difficulties in recovering books from the mill hands on account of their abruptly leaving Bombay. That's the report saying in the first year about 105 books were lost in a July 1913 librarians meeting the same meeting. It was decided to not lend books to people living very far from the lending center so that a control over the books and the readers can be maintained. And the person or the librarian or the resident librarian, the worker resident librarian can actually collect the books when required if they're within the chal or in the neighboring chal. Later, by the 1918 onwards, we see a shift in SSL's policy that they started to having standing libraries, which is that physical library, not just traveling libraries, of course, they would continue to, they would continue with traveling libraries, but they would also establish standing libraries, which will be housed at one particular center. So they established various welfare centers. I'm going to talk about one or two centers. But just to kind of reiterate certain points about the league that it was run with the financial support of Bombay's rich people, usually the aristocratic class but also the mill employers, and other service class like lawyers, judges, academics. And it was helped and sustained by young volunteers, social reformers of Bombay University and elsewhere. What we see is that in this period, what Prasanth Kedambi calls the broadening of the notion of social service. And there is from from social reform. So we are moving within the history of modern India, we are moving from social reform that were concentrated on the idea of reforming their inner communities or the actions or the practices of the inner communities to a reform of classes or a broadly one social group. So outside the community reform and social service league is one of the prominent institution that makes that departure in terms of broadening the very meaning of social service and national service. So these middle class social reformers young students and young volunteers cadets of the social service league are not only just doing a social service but also a national service. And, and they're interacting with different cast different class groups, which is the most interesting part of this social service in this period. The social service league would establish welfare centers in the working class neighborhoods, particularly Madanpura, Parail and Tardew, of course there were also other centers as well. But I'm going to focus on these three centers. In the 1920s, just to show that how certain areas of working class became the center of literary activities. Which we usually miss if we are just focusing on the factory records are on the colonial estate or the records of the colonial state. The 1920s was also the time of extreme unsettlement for working classes. It was also time of political exuberance. Young Bombay's factory and workshop workers strikes were becoming common across the industry from just from department they were like there was a shift in the way strikes were being organized. There were industry wide strikes. And there was also the emergence of left left politics the communist politics. There was also the emergence of the Guinea-Kangar Union 1926 and also various other political bodies like the workers and presence party, which was very much critical in supplying and translating a number of Marxist text into Marathi and other very recently discussed by Junit Seikh in his book, Outcast Bombay that looks at the translation of Marxist text into Marathi and also the reading kind of scope within Dalit and other workers of Bombay. Now focusing on the Madanpura. So the Madanpura as I said was sent was a neighborhood or area where Muslim we was lived predominantly and the SSL established a library there. The Madanpura Center established an Urdu library in 1918 with 87 books, two Urdu weeklies and one in his monthly. Now, you would see that here they're not supplying so many Marathi or Gujarati books, but rather they're trying to cater to migrants from North India who are mostly and we was and we was in the factory. And for the wives and daughters of these beavers they're also kind of running for circulating libraries in the Madanpura region. What is interesting is to know is to notice the expansion of the Viva library in this period. So from 1918 to 1920, we see that the library has expanded in a significant manner. In 1920 there was 700 books, 10 Urdu daily is three Urdu by by weeklies two weeklies to English that is six weeklies three monthlies. And then few Gujarati and Marathi Journal including the Samas Sehwag which was published by the social service league. Now, one would wonder why there is some why there is so much demand for these journals and newspapers. I think people here were looking for news, I think as a as a as an important source of information. As I said, this is the time very unsettling time. This is the time of the war. And you see that libraries are reporting that workers are interested in knowing about what's happening at the war front, but they are also interested in following about the textile industry or the industry wide protest that are happening. Then the SSL also established a library for mill workers, railway artisans, hawkers and servants at Chinspokli. This library continues to survive and I'm using in fact I'm taking this picture from the social service leagues website of their Chinspokli library, which is continuing work even now. And I think has celebrated its probably 100 years in 2006 2017, I think This library again was very hit among workers and among the labouring population. In the last quarters of 1921, there were about there were about 4000 readers who were registered and they borrowed books about 1000 or more than 1000 times. In 1926, this number increases, you can see that the number of readers was increased to about 1400 and they borrowed about 2200 items. At present, there is a collection of 21,000 books. This information I just took it from that library page. And I thought that they established a Dalit library or library exclusively for the lids, which shows that that SSL is very attentive to the caste, caste ethos, Shinde who's also kind of participating in anti-cast politics. It's very much kind of part of the depressed class mission, which started in early 1900s. Here you see that again, same kind of enthusiasm for library among Dalit population, mainly the labouring people who are working at Great India Peninsula Railway Company. In the first quarter of 1919, about 1400 readers visited the reading room and 98 members issued books. So the library was making prominent members who could issue books. And in the last quarters, the number were 2500 and 225 respectively. Seeing the success at the Tardew library, the SSL also established other exclusive Dalit libraries in various neighborhoods and Charles where Dalits resided. So in Pabha Devi, Baikula, Valkhari, the library in Baikula for example, it was located in Rippon House at Ballasas Road and it housed 300 books and was open between 8am to 11am perhaps for the kids for the children and between 6pm to 10pm for adults who are working population. So you could see that these workers, these working libraries are actually running in Charles in one of the rooms which was either being, the rent was even being supported by one of the members of the SSL or what was being born by the residents of that Charles collectively. I don't have much information about how the rent was worked out. Now, how can an illiterate working population read so much? That's the question. And I think if we think that, or if we take the logic of colonial understanding or academic, dominant academic understanding that the workers were predominantly illiterate, then either these reports are speaking lie or we are doing something which is not up to date. And I think my sense is that our questions have been not so sophisticated to actually understand the dynamic of working lives. I think if workers kind of work for 11 hours on an average in the 20th century, of course they were working more than this, but I'm saying as an average, how could they learn reading and appreciate book learning. That's a very common sensical question. Perhaps they would not be interested in learning books after doing that much of labor. They would need sleep or they would rest. But actually, you would be surprised and I was surprised to know that the workers used night time, the time of the night to imagine a life beyond the manual labor. They attended night schools, which were opened by the social service league, but also by workers themselves and by other social reform bodies. And they learned to read and write. This is a picture of a night school from Bombay and I cover the history of night schools in my work. We can pick on this in the discussion. So what I'm suggesting is that to understand this dynamic and very interesting history of the working lives we have to actually explore and ask nuanced methodological questions but also analytical questions which is to explore the workers night their sleeping patterns and the history of the night schools. The question is that can we still assume that the working classes in Bombay were illiterate. I wouldn't assume that what we are actually seeing that there is actually a proliferation of a subaltern literary culture in the 20th century in Bombay. And that could be particular to Bombay. It may not be replicated but I think I've looked at the figures in Kanpur which were actually on the lower sides. Again, it was a textile center. But you see again similar kind of dynamic in the working class neighborhoods in Kanpur as well, which I discussed in the paper, but I haven't brought it out in the presentation for the sake of time. So the figures that have discussed or presented were perhaps inflated by those who are reporting for the SSL head office to show the success of their libraries and to show the success of the league for the rich public who are their funders. But the problem. But the question is that could they inflate those kind of figures to this extent. And for that I try to kind of look information elsewhere. And one finds that beyond the beyond colonial records, you find that Morris de Morris reports that in 1940, the average literacy rates among Bombay workers was about 29.7%, which increases to 42.1% in 1955. He writes in his work. Morris de Morris is an economist who worked on the Bombay. He was one of the earliest person who actually explored Bombay's working class history in the 1960s. And he writes, by comparison with five years ago, I have been struck by the number of workers I've seen in the mill area sitting on the pavement teaching others to read. Now this is an interesting quote. Morris de Morris himself hadn't talked about the educational life of workers, but he gives interesting insights, which I thought will be worth picking up. So I tried to look what was these reading culture or reading allowed culture, which we also I think one of our libraries in the rural areas currently that we are looking after is also kind of inculcating the reading allowed culture. The SSL was doing the same in the 1920s. So the illiterate would participate in large numbers in the public book readings, what they call the public book readings. For example, in 1913, at least 2,500 workers attended 131 public reading of books at 20 centres. So one of the statistics about this, which shows that an increasing interest for literary texts. But what was it that the SSL wanted workers to read? And we all would be asking, what is it that workers are reading? We don't get much information actually in terms of collection of the books that the SSL, but we get some understanding. Of course, the aim of the SSL was to create an educated civil sober working class in Bombay in the times of plague, in the times of increasing militancy and violence. And this is also the time when communal violence would start hitting Bombay from late 90th century. And of course, the coming of the fear of a Bolshevik revolution in India. So an early report of the library is mentioned that each travelling library actually contain books on biographies of important personalities, history books, religious books, books on mythology, travel, sanitation and hygiene and several essays. And of course, the newspapers and magazines. The interesting thing is that one could guess the sense of what kind of books actually would have been circulating. But of course, we don't get the name of the books, but we can guess from the fact that these books were being donated by middle-class people or the traditional literary caste people, those who were working in courts or in the municipal offices who had the ability to buy books or keep books, they were donating books for the SSL. So it is possible that the workers are actually reading literature, which is just not quote unquote, one could say that the cheap literature, but they are also actually reading high-class literature, which actually was being read by the middle classes. And this comes via the donation. So out of 3000 books in 1913, 2000 were donations from people. The rest were bought from booksellers. The library at the leak's head office in Parail was exclusively consisted of books on social and labour problems, numbering in all about 1400, about 1400 books, 1800 pamphlets and 80 periodicals. Anyway, I think I should be coming towards the end of my presentation. The question is that how are workers using this literary literacy skills or literary skills? Of course, one possible answer that I provide in my work is that they are, of course, holding books and enjoying the privilege of reading, which in this period in the early parts of the 20th century and the late 19th century is just still very much embedded in the caste hierarchies where knowledge is very much into the hands of certain literary caste. And it's a, it's a heritage of pre-colonial times, but a heritage that is kind of given a new life with the colonial states and be willing to position on whether to actually educate the lower caste or the unstable caste or not, or whether to actually not educate them. So, so in that kind of environment, we are actually seeing a democratization of reading culture and the privilege of the reading is being demanded by workers who, of course, are predominantly from either from lower caste background, quote unquote, untouchable background. And they have been denied this reading culture, either because of poverty or because of access to schooling or libraries or to caste. And I look some other figures like how in the normal or like the usual libraries of the city, whether there was an entry for lower caste or untouchables. So for example, I found the evidence of a library, which is like not in the Bombay city, but India, like about 50 kilometers from Bombay in a region where actually the elites were not allowed to enter into the usual city or town libraries, public libraries of the town. So, they're also using this reading ability to read religious literature in early morning so I look at the records family records of certain families, which is being provided by sociologist in this period or interested in reading about the religious lives and they say that they explain that how actually Dalit workers and others are reading religious literature on in the morning before the work and on holidays. And of course, they're using the literary skills to read and write letters and to become poets and writers in the paper I give an example of of a working class poet, who becomes very popular, and is being co-opted by the, by the present and by the workers and present party, and also by the communist of Bombay, and he narrated or he wrote poems on on strikes, 1928 strike 1929 strike, and was used by by communist parties to mobilize workers. Again, literate literate workers were co-opted by the mill management for clerical positions or supervisory positions at higher salaries. So there is an kind of expedition to move beyond the more kind of yeah the more extremely harsh manual labor positions by the communist and socialist parties to actually work for the party as a propagandist or as workers would write material for the party and by the social reform bodies like my like the social service lead by MCA and other bodies like Prathana Samad and of course the low level literary jobs requiring reading and writing skills such as postman type writers type is in this period. I would like to end my talk as to kind of relevance of this kind of work and I think one way of kind of analyzing this material is to actually kind of enter into new terrain of labor history writing which is to explore the subaltern literary cultures or the other or the working class intellectual histories, and perhaps there is a need to do that kind of history and to explore that history of aspiration and desire of reading and writing because we don't know much about that and that lack of knowledge is actually also kind of giving us certain assumptions on which our understanding whether it is policies or the government activities are actually based on that the workers would not be interested in any kind of literary efforts if we make so those kind of assumptions are kind of being being kind of circulated. For example that oh why should workers be interested in this kind of high works perhaps we need to engage more with these kind of histories to make sense of to make sense of this this world. Thank you. Thank you so much Arun for that fascinating presentation and I have had the good fortune of reading your paper so my responses would be based around that but I would like to start by, you know, thinking of your work in terms of recent scholarship on labor histories focusing on Bombay, and one that you have already mentioned Prashant Kidambi's work but also Aditya Sarkar's work on the mills of Bombay. In thinking about Kidambi's work especially where he speaks about associational activity in late colonial Bombay, two caste associations, clerical unions, libraries, nationalist groups, commercial bodies, cricket clubs, etc. The idea here is that associations were methods of non antagonistic relationships with the urban poor. So where do you see your work in this proposition where the libraries and aims for literacy also being developed to create the style bodies as opposed to strikes sit in protests communal clashes and rebellion against capitalists. And also how do you see the librarian as a political middle actor in this so that would be my first set of questions to you. Yeah, you have raised very important question, which is, what is, what is the aim of these libraries or what is the actually eventual implication or after effects of these projects of course as you say that they're trying to kind of blunt that militant nature of the working class in this period. And of course to create an aware citizenry in terms of one which could follow at least the orders, when there is a, like, like a pandemic crisis. Yeah, so remember this is the time I mean this is also the time when Bombay has witnessed series of plagues. Yeah, cholera. So, so that, so they have identified that working population is something which is unmanageable. And this is not a problem which is peculiar to Bombay it is a problem which peculiar to every industrializing city in this world, which is seeing militancy also disorganized nature because of course, it's not the land scarce or houses scarce societies, leading people to kind of live in some areas or in crowded overcrowded Charles. So you see actually that of course that effort is that but the question is that is that the history of, is that the only history of these working class libraries and I think my tentative answer is that no, actually, you would never know that how workers are going to use the literary skills or the reading and writing skills that they have mastered, either through the night schools or through the working class libraries in their lives, they could use it for their own better, like, better futures, or to educate their children, or to even to be part of the community as, as, as someone who's reading a lot things or reading a lot interpreting things, reading newspapers for workers. So you would never know actually the end outcome, unless we have those kind of sociological studies and we do find that actually some of these. Some of these readers actually become SSL's night school teachers, they become full time librarians, and they become here they aspire that they try to kind of apply for jobs differently but many actually don't do anything they just, yeah they just become the trade and probably at some point they also become illiterate, because they don't engage with the reading or sustain the reading culture. So you, you would never know in that sense like what is the actual outcome in large, in large time period. So, yes it is interesting to kind of find like found out what the, what the people who are organizing these libraries wanted, but also to understand why workers are actually participating in that program. Yeah. My second question is with regard to women, you do speak about them. And you speak about women as readers and boring books from the traveling libraries. Could you shed some light on what was the content and nature of books women were reading. And are there any records, where the nuances of women's domestic labor, their work in factories and other sectors, and the cultural labor of reading books are highlighted are their ways of you know, digging this up from the literature or the archives that you're looking at. Unfortunately, I don't have much information on this Priyanka. The SSL reports don't provide as to what the nature of books that each library contain. So I really don't know. Yeah, about this as to what actually the I mean other than like the reading profile which is that language profile linguistic profile of women that we come to know I myself was interested kind of in knowing exactly what what is it that they want them to read. So, yeah, it doesn't give much. Yeah. Yeah, maybe someone from the audience will be able to help. I was also thinking of your work in terms of no Craig Koslovsky's book on evenings empire, history of night. I mean he follows the time period which is much earlier than the one that you are looking at looks at early modern Europe, but he talks about street lighting as changing the you know entire rhythm of upper crust lives, but it doesn't affect a rural life as such because it follows it's different from the way it affects life in urban spaces. So do you see a resonance of this in the work that you are doing like the way workers are being affected in Bombay, but how are they responding, you know beyond beyond the city in rural areas. That's a very interesting question actually. So, Bombay starts having a street lighting at the end of the 19th century becomes the mills also start having electric bulbs. And one thing that they did was that that it extended the work hours so the night shift starts opening up in many meals and which workers protest, but others found find it as a source of employment. And others find it as a source of exploit exploitation, but it definitely I think changes the very way urban patterns were kind of emerging people could use the streetlight for various purposes. And I wanted to what extent it was there in the neighborhood working class neighborhoods so I'm not sure in that sense. But regarding the question about the rural and urban I think definitely what what is interesting is that more than electric lights they're using the gas light. Yeah, so the gas cylinder bulbs that are being used are prominent in urban areas but also like in areas like not poor where the Tata mill, the Tata mills that the Empress mill, it was organized by or run by Tata. So, there you again you find like, I mean the picture that I shared for the British library. It has a I think gas bulb, I think in front. But I think what's interesting is that and there's not much work actually which is the history of the kerosene and how it changes the rural areas, and I was watching one documentary which is towards the 1940s and and it's on that Burma oil company and how people are actually using starts using the tin holders that the company is providing for for not just I mean using the oil for purpose but also kind of using it to kind of create a structure houses structures. So, so the left over team is being used differently for for using it as a kind of light also keep making a lamp. So, so there is a kind of definitely history of kerosene so one I wouldn't say that the rural part was living in the darkness. Yeah, we need the history of like much boxes and kerosene to actually know more about the rural. My next question and which was like, I mean, I was thinking constantly about it when you were presenting is the nexus between print and performance. I think it is linked directly to what you talk about workers emerging as poets, on the one hand, and the community rituals of singing and reading together in the Charles, and the example that comes to mind immediately is that it's a later who was a folk singer, the late folk singer writer poet, and he was also employing folk forms like for water love me at the Marsha, and was roped into the Marxist cultural movement, Indian people theater association, and the people newspaper reports on his performances, and you bring in the an earlier example of Gangaram and Pandu Deval, and the poem. I don't know if it is a performed poem or if it's a performed piece, but a poem which is talking about rebellion against the capitalist order but employ allusions towards form to Shivaji to you know be in Indian like Ramayana Mahabharat, and also to the larger concept of Kali Yuk. So, do you have like examples, I know the IPTA history focuses a lot on exemplary figures but is there a way to you know, kind of dig out the involvement of these worker poets in in cultural movements Marxist cultural movements which are beyond the IPTA are their examples of that, which you found in the archives. I think that would be very fascinating if. Yeah, I tried to kind of follow some of these poets and writers and one of them, I just I think I was looking at. I mentioned also like the lots of novelist which are being kind of read by your workers. And these are of course, workers, sorry novelist who are writing in Marathi. So, which language which I don't know myself. So, except like to read it in a very brittle form. So, in terms of like I think ritual book so what I'm saying is that yes there is a larger kind of body of workers emerging as poets as novelist. Definitely, more kind of like work in the like vernacular libraries would yield insights into this. And regarding the ritual, I think that poem that I shared it was actually performed during the strikes and to also kind of mobilize people. So, and I think it was picking up from the popular folk like culture of performances, both in terms of I think public oriented but also kind of very very kind of politically oriented kind of performances. And remember this is also the time when the cinema is coming in the 1930s and 40s. So that again becomes a way so not the cinema but basically more like lantern slides if you know those things. So those were like slides, visuals, which were shown to work us in these welfare centers and they were mainly centered around various religious themes like Mahabharata and Ramayana and others. And of course, the regional histories like of Sivaji and others. So they would so and of course there were themes on hygiene and all that. So there is a kind of an element of performance that is definitely there in the social service leagues attempt because it has to be like that because even the very idea of reading allowed is a kind of performance. Yeah, it has to be performed for a number of people. So, so the performance becomes important because they're dealing with a very fluid, literally fluid category of population, which is, which is kind of on the bottom line so whether they can read or not. Yeah, so they might be able to read one or two words but they might so so it becomes performance becomes very important. Yeah. Thank you so much. And my last couple of questions is related to your to the work that you are doing in terms of rural development library. So I have like three related questions. One is more immediate like how has the pandemic impacted it. The second is about what roles can we play in propagating it like actively. And the third is about how do you situate your own historical research vis-a-vis the work that you're doing with the free library movement the work that you are involved in. Yeah. So, yeah, thank you for asking that question. I think that gives me some time to talk about my own work, practical work, the field work. So this rural development library was something that I thought of long back but it never like got it never got realized until 2020 when I visited my home and there's already like three libraries which have come up in UP they are called community library and two of them are very close to my village like about 10 kilometers away. So I got in touch with those people and then we thought, okay, we can have one library in my area as well. So the idea of the library is to kind of, as I said, to provide quality books. Yeah, things that you cannot access from village because usually like this whole idea of book shops is very urban in that sense. Usually in rural areas, you have actually shops which sell textbooks. They can't be called book shops. Yeah, they're basically selling books for students. And so there's no kind of that independent book shop culture so we thought, okay, we'll try to kind of bring books from Delhi, Bombay and I think that's where the role of people can come. I mean people can send books and they can help people in terms of like getting interesting things whether it is the online technology methods or any other kind of learning technology tool. So a lot of people have come up like in terms of giving books to us and we're using an Amazon wish list to actually create a book list what we want and also what people from village actually want. So it's a mix of like what we want them to read and what they want to read. Yeah, so it has to be kind of, because there is a kind of information gap whether we accept or not between people who are in the rural areas and people who are in the urban areas who have been exposed to higher forms of education. And in terms of the pandemic, I think this Kalanpur library, the rural development library has been kind of officially kind of shut for physical access but we are still kind of lending books to people. So about like 20 books are actually issued to people and we hope to come back into action once the lockdown is kind of lifted or things improve. Thank you so much, Arun. I'm not going to take up more time and I'm no expert in labour history. Those are very general questions that came to my mind when I was reading your paper and hearing you speak but we have questions coming in already and we have five of them so I'm going to take them in order. The first one is from Shashwath Panda. Thank you Dr Kumar for the richly insightful talk. My question is in connection with the Bolshevik Revolution and its impact on the working class. Did the colonial authorities keep an eye on the library suspecting secret circulation of pro Soviet literature, where such kind of literary works popular among the workers. Yeah, that's a very interesting question, Shashwath. So this theme has been dealt also by one of historians who I actually cited in presentation, Junaid Sheikh, whose book Outcast Bombay actually touches upon this theme very centrally as to the kind of Bolshevik literature that is actually infiltrating into India and through various young Marxists who are actually visiting Germany, Russia and the parts of western world and are actually bringing. So there is a lot of censorship which is involved in this period, but still there is, as Junaid shows that there is a lot of like circulation of Bolshevik Revolution, not just circulation of the original text but also the translation and transliteration of those texts. And to the point that actually you have a citizen case against Indian political actors, which this colonialist state called them as in kind of revolutionaries who wanted to actually Yeah, who wanted to basically dethrone the British crown from India. So they worked trial. It was actually made at conspiracy case in 1930. And the trial records, which I use extensively in my work shows the kind of Marxist literature which has been being kind of circulating but also which has been seized by the colonialist state. And it shows the fear that the colonial state has about the infiltration of revolutionary literature within Bombay but also in Kanpur and Bengal and in rural areas as well. So you see a number of socialist parties coming up in various parts of India after 1930s, or during the 1930s. So, yes, it is, it is a big thing, actually. The next question is from Sruti Kopikar. Insightful presentation. Thank you. My question is this, do you draw a link between this library culture among working class and Dalit writing in Bombay that came decades later. If so, how No, actually, but Junaid does it. He has a chapter on postcolonial Dalit literature. So I think if you are interested in that, you might be actually be interested in reading his book, which is titled as Outcast Bombay. Thank you Arun. The next question is from Lalita Jisooza. Was there any censorship of book donations to these workers libraries? That's a very interesting question. I have no answer to that. I'm sure there must be some censorship, some consideration, but maybe not in the initial years when they are actually trying to create a like collection of books. Definitely towards the like maybe late 1920s, like 25, 26, 27, 1927, 28, which becomes like extremely critical years for Bombay in terms of militancy, workers' militancy. So there might be an attempt to actually censure those kind of works which might, yeah, which might actually invoke revolutionary feelings among workers, but also maybe there might be some censorship involved in terms of literature, which is overtly probably quote unquote sexual in nature for them. So yeah, but the reports they don't talk about this. The next question is from Babasaheb Kambalit. Who were the readers of the library run by Dalits? Did non Dalits use, did they go into the Dalits library as well? How was the seating arrangements for the Dalits readers in the general libraries? Was there untouchability followed in these libraries? Yeah, so my understanding, it doesn't give much sense actually in terms of like untouchability question or the seating arrangement, but I think my sense is that the SSL had to come up exclusively like quote unquote libraries for depressed classes, but I think it's kind of needs some attention from our side and reconstruction, which is why is it that the SSL is needing these exclusive libraries and perhaps one of the reasons was that the Dalits were not so much welcome into normal neighborhood libraries of the SSL. So the two possible kind of answers to that, which is that one that there is an increased number of Dalit population in certain neighborhoods which required a separate library or the other was that the Dalits were not welcome into other libraries of the SSL. Both possibilities are there. The SSL reports they're silent and so is the Times of India, which I use extensively. In terms of readers within the Dalits, I think mostly they are the one who are working for the GIPR and the one, I mean the visible ones that the reports talk the GIPR, the Great India Peninsula and many workshop workers, the municipal workers and the factory workers themselves. So those are like the prominent people from quote unquote what they call the depressed classes that they are kind of entertaining in their libraries. The next question is from Deepak Barkare. Is working class readership part of the mainstream forms of communication. What is the relationship between a logic of readership and communication. How much privilege do you count this sort of history in with regard to the Dalits. I did understand the communication part if, if he could write as to what he meant by communication and. Okay then moving on to the next question. This is somebody who hasn't provided her or his name. Regarding the rural development library I was wondering if there are big regional discrepancies in access to libraries in different regions. For example, does someone in rural West Bengal or Kerala have more access to libraries and up or be hard. If not, are there similar projects in these regions. There are regional discrepancies very much. I think Kerala has a long tradition of neighborhood libraries, especially I think the Communist Party, leading culture. So, definitely they have much longer tradition of libraries. North India did have a library movement back in the 1930s and 40s which was called the Gram Sudha library movement. And somehow kind of was stopped or was, yeah, what's not worth kind of giving attention in the 1960s or it dropped. So, and post that I think there was hardly any attempt to actually start new libraries in rural areas. So, even the schools they don't have proper libraries so forget about normal libraries the schools also don't have like even own their own libraries. And the government school, they might have one room but that will be always locked so the school that I went, which was a government school. For my senior secondary it had a library, but it was always like logged. Yeah, so you would never go there. The other schools that I went for my high school and previous classes, they, they didn't have even a library so which I think is even the case now so. So, yes, I think there is a reason. The next question is from Amanda Lancelot. Thank you for this wonderful talk, I was struck by your emphasis on the importance of newspapers in these libraries, particularly because they do seem so evocative of a space where literacy and morality intersected. Could you talk a bit more about which newspapers were subscribed by the libraries, where these also newspapers that serialized stories. Did they reflect middle class reading preferences in the same ways as some of the books where their newspapers aimed explicitly at workers in Bombay. Yeah, I think they were looking for newspapers which were in regional languages so for Madanpura library they were definitely looking for Urdu newspapers and Urdu magazines. And of course the SSL have they had their own what they call like a journal newspaper, the Samasudhar. Yeah, so they, they subscribe that to every each and every library that they were kind of having as a kind of permanent understanding library. So, so the regional newspapers, which I actually compile a list actually, which I mean, I'm happy to share that list with you Amanda of all these newspapers, but beyond, you know, these middle class and newspapers which the SSL wanted the wanted the worker to read. There are also a lot of kind of worker initiated kind of newspapers which had come so for example, I think the one on the I think the pyame must do I think there was one. If I'm, I think remember correctly, and then grantee of course by by the communist, which again become very popular among workers and few most which I write in my paper. I don't remember their name. Exactly. So the, the, there is quite an emphasis on newspaper in that sense. Yeah. So we have two more questions. One is again, the person hasn't provided any name in terms of archival sources. Do you also find or explore library catalogs. If yes, what sense do they give us about the workers about what the workers are reading. So if you actually look for library catalogs, you get library catalogs of normal libraries, yeah, like the public libraries, the big public libraries but you don't get any catalog for these workers libraries, and the only information about these libraries is either in the reports of the social service leak, or any commentary on the social service leak by any other reporter. Yeah. So, so you and there again you don't get any information so the Times of India is constantly reporting on the SSL activities. And I think they're feeding on all feeding on the reports that these that the SSL is producing. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if they're actually doing any kind of independent investigation, which leaves us with very kind of very little material and yeah I think I shouldn't. I tried to go to Bombay and explore this, the archive the SSL archive which was kind of unsuccessful. And I wonder if I could actually go to this Chinspokli library and see if they have any material left. That would be very interesting. Yeah, but I, yeah, I understand that. Thanks Arun. And your last question is from Madhav Nayar. In terms of archival sources, did you also find or this, this is the last question you've already answered it. So, I don't think, I don't think we have any more questions unless you wanted to say something else. One that Deepak, Deepakji asked about the working class and communication. I would like to know more about what he meant by communication, because I couldn't get a sense, but I will be happy to answer that for email as well. My email is there on like a few. Yeah, I think on the university's website, so it should be there. Thank you. Thank you so much Arun for that fascinating presentation and all the work that you are doing in terms of your own research and also the free library movement which I'm very interested in and please let us know how from the British library we could, you know, connect and help in getting this, you know, in propagating and spreading more information about this and contributing in terms of books and to reaching out to people. Thank you all the audience members who joined us tonight. I know a lot of you have joined from India so it's really late for you. Thank you for staying up. Our next talk is by Adahee Adho from SOAS. It is on 28th of June, same time 5.30pm. And she will be speaking on the gender journey of the Roopkatha so we will be moving to West Bengal from Bombay. Thank you again. Stay safe. Good night and take care of yourselves. Thank you.