In­stead of only ru­ing, sulk­ing and com­plain­ing about it, the Pan­jab Digi­tial Li­brary, which has so far dig­i­tized mil­lions of pages, takes on the her­culean task of dig­i­tiz­ing 35000 pages in one day on 8 June 2019 to com­mem­o­rate the day of de­struc­tion of the Sikh Ref­er­ence Li­brary within the precincts of Dar­bar Sahib on 8 June 1984.

ON 8 June 1984, 35 years ago, Pan­jabis lost a li­brary to fire, theft and van­dal­ism. Hun­dreds of man­u­scripts be­long­ing to Sikhs, Hin­dus and Mus­lims were lost. The pain of that loss lingers.

“The Pan­jab Dig­i­tal Li­brary which has since 2003 dig­i­tized over 20 mil­lion pages will dig­i­tize 35,000 pages in one sin­gle day and com­mit to more steep tar­gets of pre­serv­ing and pro­tect­ing in­valu­able her­itage and legacy,” said Pan­jab Dig­i­tal Li­brary founder-di­rec­tor Davin­der Pal Singh.

Af­ter killing the Sikh fight­ers and the in­no­cent within the precincts of Dar­bar Sahib Am­rit­sar by the night of 6 June, the In­dian armed forces de­scended on de­stroy­ing, van­dal­iz­ing and loot­ing the Sikh Ref­er­ence Li­brary housed in the com­plex of the Sikh holy of the holi­est shrines.

On 7-8 June 1984, they at­tacked the Sikh Ref­er­ence Li­brary. A large sec­tion of the li­brary was bombed and burnt; a sub­stan­tial num­ber of arte­facts, man­u­scripts and rare hand­writ­ten Granths of the Sikhs and other holy books of other re­li­gions were col­lected in gunny bags and taken away by the In­dian army. Till to­day, no one knows the fate of these items from the Sikh Ref­er­ence Li­brary. The SGPC and other Sikh bod­ies -re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal, have been cry­ing hoarse but there has no of­fi­cial re­sponse of ei­ther ac­knowl­edge­ment or re­turn of the same.

“With the grace of Guru Nanak Sahib, the tar­get of dig­i­tiz­ing 35,000 pages in a day will be achieved to­day. The tar­get for the com­ing months and years are fur­ther steep. Let us fo­cus on the work needed, even if no­body is lis­ten­ing and no­body is both­ered.”

Davin­der Pal Singh, Founder-Di­rec­tor, Pan­jab Digi­tial Li­brary

Pan­jabis, In­di­ans and even South Asians have scant re­gard for her­itage and legacy -ar­chi­tec­ture or lit­er­a­ture or oral his­tory. The Pan­jabis, par­tic­u­larly the Sikhs have been guilty of de­stroy­ing their own her­itage with­out a thought and with lit­tle or no re­morse.

In 2003, the Pan­jab Dig­i­tal Li­brary de­cided to change this. Pan­jab Dig­i­tal Li­brary (PDL) is dig­i­tiz­ing the pre­cious her­itage of Pan­jab since 2003. Start­ing with a sin­gu­lar hu­man re­source, with one com­puter and a cam­era and a measly monthly bud­get of Ru­pees Ten thou­sand, Pan­jab Dig­i­tal Li­brary en­vis­aged on a mis­sion to in­stil a change in think­ing and ac­tion on her­itage preser­va­tion in the Pan­jab and the neigh­bour­hood.

The mis­sion is still on.  There is a glim­mer of hope. Not only schol­ars, the gov­ern­ment, the uni­ver­si­ties, stu­dents, ac­tivists and even the layper­son has started tak­ing cud­gels on grounds of pre­serv­ing the legacy of the past. The re­cent in­ci­dent of pub­lic out­rage on the is­sue of Dar­shani De­ori at Tarn Taran Sahib is a case in the point.

To com­mem­o­rate the event of los­ing a li­brary and at the same time com­mit­ting to con­tinue work in this area, on 8 June 2019, the Pan­jab Dig­i­tal Li­brary will dig­i­tize 35,00 pages in one sin­gle day.  For the record, the Pan­jab Dig­i­tal Li­brary has dig­i­tized over 20 mil­lion pages of rare her­itage in the past 16 years, at the pace of 35000 pages a day.

“The strug­gle of man against power is the strug­gle of mem­ory against for­get­ting.”  Fore­warn­ing, as these thoughts are, re­mind us that the peo­ple who sus­tain and in­vig­o­rate their mem­ory, live to lead and be re­mem­bered. Lament­ing about lost her­itage does not help a cause. We need to de­velop a more ap­pre­cia­tive at­ti­tude to­wards our rich her­itage and work zeal­ously to con­serve what re­mains of it,” said the PDL press re­lease.

Adding a fi­nal­ity to their mis­sion and re­it­er­at­ing their com­mit­ment, the sheet an­chor of this in­valu­able pro­ject, Davin­der Pal Singh said, “With the grace of Guru Nanak Sahib, the tar­get of dig­i­tiz­ing 35,000 pages in a day will be achieved to­day. The tar­get for the com­ing months and years are fur­ther steep. Let us fo­cus on the work needed, even if no­body is lis­ten­ing and no­body is both­ered.”

PHO­TOS COUR­TESY: PAN­JAB DIG­I­TAL LI­BRARY