Libraries started millennia ago with the formation of institutions that held accounting and historical records, as well as books of knowledge. The Library of Alexandria in Egypt, established in the third century BC, is credited as the world's first library. The Arabs opened the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikmah in Arabic) in Baghdad in the eighth century. Hundreds of translators worked day and night at Bayt al-Hikmah to translate treatise in science, philosophy, astronomy, medicine and statecraft in foreign languages into Arabic.

In the mid-15th century, the Italians came up with the concept of a public library—a library financed by a public agency with open access to every citizen. The Malatestiana Library in Cesena, Italy opened in 1454 and became the world's first public library.

In Europe and America, public libraries started being considered as essential services in the mid- to the late 17th centuries. In 1850, England passed the Public Libraries Act and began providing library services across the country. Soon, other countries followed, and libraries became a critical fabric of these countries' public education programmes. India is reputed to have established the first public library outside Europe and America. The State Central Library in the state of Kerala opened in 1829.

Nepal National Library

Sadly, when other countries were establishing libraries, our rulers were doing everything they could to stop the nation’s intellectual growth. In 1938, tens of Nepali young men, including poet laureate Laxmi Prasad Devkota, were charged with treason for requesting permission to open a library. Except for a few rural libraries established with local initiative and help from non-governmental organisations, to this day, two decades into the 21st century, Nepal, a country of over 30 million people, does not have a single public library worth its name. The country does not have a Library Act, and the government shows no interest in library development.

About 10 years ago, when I visited the so-called Nepal National Library housed in Harihar Bhawan, Patan, it was dark, dingy and rather uninviting. Regardless, its collection included documents of historical importance and rare books. There was also a place for researchers to sit down and study, as long as they had the patience to go through the library's outdated document retrieval system.

The 2015 earthquake severely damaged Harihar Bhawan. Thousands of books and historical documents were buried and exposed to the elements. The then chairman of the library, Yadav Chandra Niraula, and the volunteers he assembled rummaged through the rubble and retrieved the documents. Without a place to operate from, the library went out of operation.

After strong lobbying by library enthusiasts, about two years ago, the government of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli allocated about one acre of land in the Jamal area of Kathmandu to construct a new building for the Nepal National Library. The design of the library progressed rapidly, and the groundbreaking for its construction was planned for sometime this year. It looked like, at long last, Nepal was going to have a decent public library. Then suddenly the axe fell. Oli’s Cabinet, without any explanation or warning, issued a stop-work order to the Nepal National Library. According to reports, even the minister of education did not know it was coming. It was all a hushed affair.

In the absence of the government’s explanation, we are left to speculate the reasons. They could be related to a commercial interest in the Jamal land, ideological resistance against libraries or general apathy towards knowledge and information.

The Jamal property is located at the heart of Kathmandu and has huge commercial potential. Before the stop-work order, Kathmandu was rife with rumours that the Yeti Group, a real estate developer allegedly with strong ties with the prime minister, was sniffing around to wrest the land from the Nepal National Library. Yeti’s hand in the government’s volte-face is a popular theory among library supporters. They cite the Oli government's extension of Yeti’s lease on the Gokarna Forest Resort by 25 years, six years before the current lease expired, to support their argument.

Oli’s partners in government gutted a library with a valuable collection of Sanskrit literature and attacked several rural libraries during their insurgency. Communists worldwide have an aversion to unrestricted public access to information, non-Marxian knowledge and history. Nepal’s constitution prohibits outright information control. The government has tried to circumvent this constraint by passing a bill to control airing of information they consider unsuitable and have imposed a hefty tax on imported books. (Communist governments all over the world—from China to Cuba—control the import of foreign books to prevent 'the pollution' of citizens by foreign ideas.) They seem to be unclear on how to manage the growing demand for public libraries as they are unrestricted centres of information. Their flip flop on Nepal National Library and dithering on the Library Act prove it.

A majority of the politicians who dominate Oli’s Cabinet and members of our Parliament are not known for reading—neither for pleasure nor to grow intellectually. Politics has made them rich, and in their own sense, 'successful'. Unaware of a library’s transformative power, they probably consider it an unnecessary luxury. This probably explains their general apathy towards library development.

No justification

The Nepal National Library site at Jamal is not only at the centre of Kathmandu, it is also close to several of Nepal's educational institutions. This makes it an ideal location. To trade the site for a commercial enterprise is anti-knowledge. Nepal is a democracy, and any attempt to stifle the flow of information is unconstitutional. Libraries are the antithesis of ignorance and a source of enlightenment. Apathy towards libraries is the perpetuation of ignorance.

Whichever way one looks at it, there is no justification for the stop-work order, and it should be revoked. The government should prioritise passing the Library Act and launch a national library development programme. Today's Nepalis are sophisticated, educated and ambitious. They know that learning has to be a continuous process to advance in today's knowledge-driven world. They need and want public libraries, and the government has a duty to provide it.

Albert Einstein once said, ‘The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library’. Where is our library, Mr Oli?