As night falls on the city, the bustling lanes of Chandni Chowk light up and dot the Old Delhi landscape. In the midst of this glittering lane, shrouded in darkness, is the Lala Hardayal Municipal Heritage Library. A 161-year-old landmark, one of the oldest places for public reading in the national capital, has had no electricity for over 45 days due to the non-payment of bills.
The Lala Hardayal Municipal Heritage Library, one of the oldest places for public reading in Delhi, has had no electricity for over 45 days due to the non-payment of bills. (Sanchit Khanna/ HT Photo)
In the afternoons, the sun rays filter through the door and cast light upon the first few tables inside the library. But as the winter sun sets, members of the library – mostly students – begin lighting up their corners with phone torches attached to power banks. Some stand on top of tables and hang LED illumination strips from the arches and the rotunda of the historic edifice, angling them in a way that the light falls on the books laid out on the table. This is the only way for the students, who are preparing for competitive exams, to retain their quiet corners in the library.
Apart from this, the library complex’s four toilets don’t function. There is no drinking water. And the 95 staffers haven’t been paid since February 2021. Caught in a political slugfest between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), one of Delhi’s oldest public libraries – home to over 170,000 books – is in a state of sorry disrepair.
HT visited the two-storey library on November 6 and found at least 50 students struggling to study in the dark.
Every day, 19-year-old Afifa Rashid finds a corner in the library at 11am to prepare for the NEET medical entrance exams. “I have paid the annual membership fee of ₹1,200 but this keeps happening. There was a similar power outage due to non-payment of bills in May and June this year. This time we pooled in money to buy torches and power banks so that we can stay here longer every day,” said Rashid.
The students and the staff members rely on paid toilets at the Chandni Chowk Metro station, around 200 metres away, and for drinking water, they head to the Kotwali police station, located behind the library.
“Even we, the staffers, are suffering. We have not been paid our salaries for the last two years and eight months. The magazine and periodical subscriptions stopped three years ago and no new books have been procured since 2020,” said Sunita Bharadwaj, the library’s technical assistant and former head caretaker.
Rajendra Singh, acting librarian, told HT that the electricity bill worth around ₹5 lakh is pending, and around 95 staff members have not received their salaries, as funds have not been provided by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
“We still work and keep the library open till 10pm but everyone is suffering. Students use torches to study. We have taken loans,” Singh said.
A rich historyLala Hardayal library has seen better days, even glorious days. It was set up in 1862 as a part of a reading club meant for the British.
On December 23, 1912, a bomb was hurled at Lord Hardinge (viceroy and governor-general of India from 1910-1916) while he was moving through Chandni Chowk as a part of a procession that was making its ceremonial entry to the new capital of India. He was atop an elephant near Company Bagh (now known as Gandhi Maidan) when he was attacked, and suffered several injuries.
To commemorate his escape, a committee was formed to construct a building for the Delhi Public Library. The name “Hardinge Municipal Public Library” was further shortened to Hardinge Library in 1942, after an agreement was reached between the library and the erstwhile municipal committee which gave the library the status of an autonomous body with 100% grant-in-aid from the civic body. In 1970, Hardinge Library became Hardayal Municipal Public Library -- named after Lala Hardayal, a freedom fighter and founder of the Ghadar party.
The books brought by the Englishmen on long sea voyages kept accumulating during the colonial era. The library now boasts a collection of 170,000 books – including 8,000 rare collections and manuscripts, many first editions, some block-printed in the 17th and 18th century, and a few old Persian manuscripts with golden inscriptions.
“We have a gold illuminated Persian manuscript of the Mahabharata, a 1677 edition of Sir Walter Raleigh’s The Historie of the World: In Five Books, and an 1881 edition of Lallulal’s Prem Sagar written in Braj Bhasha,” said the librarian. The preservation and restoration of these books was launched in 2016 by the then-LG Najeeb Jung.
Electricity woes, however, have halted this too. “Of the 9,000 books that were supposed to be digitised, around 4,000 are still pending. Machines do not operate without electricity,” said Mukesh Sharma, a counter clerk.
Complaints going unanswered
Umashankar Prajapati, a 30-year-old UPSC aspirant, has been a library member since 2017.
“This is the not the first time. Usually, power would be restored in a day or two, sometimes a week, but it has never been this bad. All mails regarding complaints to the library secretary, mayor, and the administration go unanswered. The staff tells us they haven’t been paid either,” he said.
In 1916, the Maharaja of Kashmir who gave ₹10,000 to the library, was one of the 16 principal donors, as per a black plaque outside the library. Inside the library is a list of another set of 62 donors -- mostly students who have pitched in ₹200- ₹400 each in 2023 to keep the bare minimum facilities going, including collecting ₹20,000 for the air conditioner this summer.
Jatin Sharma, 26, a student preparing for CA exams, said, “This is government property but it’s the students who had to finally take care of the funds to ensure a conducive environment. No new books have been added for years, and there are no magazines. The library must have been in a better condition in the previous century.”
Casualty of tussle between AAP, BJPThe AAP won the municipal elections in December last year with 134 out of 250 wards. Since then, the AAP and the BJP have been tussling over formation of various key panels and committees, and Hardayal library too is one of the conflict points.
The outgoing secretary, Poonam Parasher Jha, who was appointed when MCD was run by the BJP, has objected to the procedure followed to conduct elections. On October 30, new mayor Shelly Oberoi’s office held elections for the post of the secretary and the joint secretary, and also constituted a new managing committee of six -- with five AAP nominees and one Congress nominee. Preeti, the AAP councillor from Dilshad Garden ward, is the newly elected secretary of the Hardayal library, and took charge on Wednesday.
“I am dismayed at the state of the heritage library. It is such an illustrious institution with many rare books but the BJP has reduced it to this state. I was sad to see students using hanging torches to study. I have decided not to use the official vehicle unless the basic needs of library are met. I will request the mayor to use contingency funds to help restore the electricity supply,” Preeti told HT.
Meanwhile, Jha has demanded that elections be declared void as correct legal procedure was not followed as per the library constitution. She alleged that the meeting was called by the personal assistant of the mayor, who does not have such powers. “We do not recognise these elections and I am not going to surrender the office and resources of the library. We will soon approach court to get this election void,” Jha added.
Oberoi, the mayor and the AAP councilor from East Patel Nagar, said that the first objective of the new management committee is to release the salaries of the employees till 2021. “Remaining salaries will be released as soon as possible. An investigation will be conducted into the scams here,” she said.
As the political slugfest continues, all that the library’s members want is for the lights to work.
“Irrespective of who controls the library, we just want the situation to improve, said Nitin Verma, 20, a member of the library, “Are we asking for a lot?”
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