Destroying the prologue

In 1985, Raza Ali Abidi, a prominent and distinguished broadcaster with BBC Urdu Service, published his book Kutb Khana (the library). The book was based on the programme with the same name he had done in late 1970s (the audio recording of the whole 24-part programme is available on his website). The book, and the radio programme, are divided into small chapters — each chapter focusing on rare book and manuscript collection in a particular public or private library all across Pakistan and India. Raza sahib goes to Rampur and Patna, Karachi and Bhopal, Lahore and Calcutta and many places in between. In shrines and in homes, in villages and in cities, he learns from scholars, librarians, collectors and custodians about the collections, the efforts to preserve the heritage and the challenges of that lie ahead. The book, that I must have read countless times, opens a window into an almost unreal world of scholarship, sacrifice and the love of knowledge. It is also a world that is unlikely to exist for much longer.

I caught up with Raza sahib over the weekend over WhatsApp. I was troubled by reports from friends and colleagues in Pakistan who paint a very troubling picture about books in the country. The local publishing industry is struggling (more than ever before) due to high inflation, crippling economy and a high cost of paper. Books that were published in India, and were relatively affordable, are no longer available in the market. The absence of libraries and a general decline in reading culture has meant that researchers and bibliophiles are unable to access new books. With fewer new books available, I wanted to ask Raza sahib about books of our past. I was curious whether he ever went back to the same libraries and collections he had visited nearly half a century ago, or if he had any information about them?

Raza sahib did not have many words of comfort for me. The world has changed — he reminded me. A trip between, and through, India and Pakistan, just in search of libraries and rare manuscripts would be impossible today. But it is not just the politics that is bad, he said. More importantly, it is the disappearance of appetite for books, language and our heritage. When he saw the private collections decades ago, they were already in a state of decline and even then the younger generation had no interest in preserving them for the future. The youth of that period are probably quite old now, and it would be a miracle if their next generation has done anything to preserve those treasures. Raza sahib believes that most of the manuscripts he saw in private collections in the 1970s are probably lost due to apathy, natural disasters and above all neglect. I could only nod in agreement.

I recognise in the chaos and the loud voices that surround us today, we are unsure of our identity and our destiny. There are competing claims of who we ought to be, and perhaps about who we are. At this time, talking about the past and its written word may seem like bordering on insanity. But perhaps we are uncertain of our identity precisely because we have never bothered to learn deeply where we come from, and who we are. The gaps in our own understanding are filled by Turkish soap operas, not by actual knowledge of our heritage. It is deeply ironic that a society that wastes no time talking about the illustrious past has absolutely no interest in preserving it. Perhaps because we have chosen to disregard the past, or in the Shakespearean world the prologue, our present does not make much sense.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 17^th, 2023.

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