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Picnic at National

The National Library deserves to be left alone… in splendid isolation. A decade after a paramilitary rehearsal for the Republic…

Picnic at National

Representational Image (PhotGetty Images)

The National Library deserves to be left alone… in splendid isolation. A decade after a paramilitary rehearsal for the Republic Day parade ignited a controversy on the misuse of the sprawling complex, the wedding celebrations at the Central Services Officers’ Club were vehemently opposed by readers and borrowers of books.

The environmental pollution has now been exacerbated with an allegedly “unauthorised” employees’ union holding a picnic inside the complex on Saturday. Altogether, such events have made a travesty of what ought to be a serene atmosphere to facilitate learning and reference work for research. It reflects poorly on the authorities if all the unions of the library are “unauthorised and unregistered”. This is but one facet of the current controversy.

The other is that such “get-togethers” ~ to quote the National’s Director-General ~ are a regular feature at this time of year, when Kolkata is at its salubrious best. Mercifully, outsiders are yet to use the complex as a picnic spot ~ next door to the Agri-Horticultural Garden and across the road from Alipore Zoo. The singular casualty of this deliberate mess has been the National Library itself.

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More accurately, the pride of India has been trivialised. The authorities would appear to be pretty helpless, even wimpish, despite the imprimatur of the Union Ministry of Culture that “picnics are not to be allowed inside the library complex” for such distracting sideshows and loud film music can only disturb the readers. Going by a report in this newspaper, the authorities have failed on two counts ~ to address the problem of “unauthorised” unions and the holding of picnics.

The second, verily an annual frivolity, has compounded the first. As the band plays on at wedding receptions and picnics, the utility of what academics refer to as “National” has been considerably denuded. It is rather distressing that the users are more concerned than the authorities over the misuse of the library.

Director-General Arun Chakraborty has made a strained distinction between a “picnic” and a “get-together” that can be no less distracting ~ “It’s a get-together and not a picnic. All unions organise such programmes every year. Some time ago one union had organised a similar programme where 500 people had participated. I have no idea whether the organiser has used the sound-box to blare the music on Saturday. All the unions inside the library complex are unauthorised and unregistered and this has been going on for years.”

The short point must be that such distractions lend no scope for semantic quibbling. The travesty of discipline calls for a stern crackdown… and not a defensive, even facile, response of the authorities. The sound-box was used by the employees in flagrant violation of the rules advanced by the Ministry of Culture. Quite plainly, the authorities of the institution at Belvedere must crack the whip.

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