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India used the local currency to buy American grain, then financing the purchase of books for American universities.
In 1996, Ananya Vajpeyi, a doctoral student in history, discovered the legendary collection of South Asian books at the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library.
“I have spent time in some of the greatest libraries in South Asia, at Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard and Columbia. But nothing has ever matched the infinite wealth of the University of Chicago,” said Ms. Vajpeyi , today a visiting professor. at Ashoka University in India, told me.
The 132-year-old University of Chicago houses more than 800,000 volumes related to South Asia, making it one of the world’s premier collections of studies of the region. But how did such a treasure trove of South Asian literature end up there?
The answer lies in a program called PL-480, a U.S. initiative launched in 1954 as part of Public Law 480, also known as Food for Peace, a hallmark of Cold War diplomacy.
Signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, PL-480 allowed countries like India to purchase U.S. grain with local currency, thereby easing their foreign exchange burden and reducing U.S. surpluses. India was a major recipient of this food aid, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s when it faced severe food shortages.
Local currency funds were provided at minimal cost to participating US universities. These funds were used to purchase local books, periodicals, phonograph records, and “other media” in several Indian languages, thereby enriching the collections of more than two dozen universities. As a result, institutions like the University of Chicago have become hubs for South Asian studies. (Manuscripts were excluded due to Indian antiquity laws.)
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The Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago was a major beneficiary of the PL-480 program.
“PL-480 has had astonishing and unexpected consequences for the University of Chicago and more than 30 other American collections,” said James Nye, director of the South Asia Digital Library at the University of Chicago, at the BBC.
The process of building an impressive South Asian library collection was not a simple task.
A task force of 60 Indians was established in Delhi in 1959. Initially focused on collecting government publications, the program expanded over five years to include books and periodicals. By 1968, 20 American universities were receiving materials from a growing collection, as noted by Maureen LP Patterson, a prominent bibliographer of South Asian studies.
In an article published in 1969, Patterson recounted that in the early days of PL-480, the team in India faced the challenge of sourcing books in a large and diverse country with a complex network of languages.
They needed the expertise of booksellers renowned for their good judgment and efficiency. Given the size of India and the complexity of its literary landscape, no single dealer could manage the purchase alone, wrote Patterson, who died in 2012.
Instead, resellers were selected from different publishing centers, each focusing on specific languages or language groups. This collaboration worked seamlessly, with retailers sending titles they weren’t sure about for approval. Final selection rested with the Delhi office, Patterson noted.
University of Chicago Photographic Archives
An archive photo of the reading room of the Joseph Regenstein Library
The program wanted to bring together a comprehensive collection of Indian fiction in all languages. “This policy has generated a large number of detective stories and novels of no lasting value,” Patterson wrote.
By 1963, the choice of acquiring books was reduced to “research-level material” – and admission of fiction in many languages was cut in half. By 1966, more than 750,000 books and periodicals had been sent to American universities from India, Nepal, and Pakistan, with India providing more than 633,000 items.
“We sent works like History of India from 1000 to 1770 A.D., Handicrafts in India, Hindu Culture and Personality: A Psychoanalytic Study, and much more,” says a report on a meeting in a American library on the program in 1967.
Todd Michelson-Ambelang, librarian for South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, questions whether the region’s vast collections in the United States and other Western libraries have taken away the subcontinent’s literary resources Indian.
Founded during Cold War tensions and funded by PL-480, its university’s South Asia Center has grown its library to more than 200,000 titles in the 21st century.
Mr Michelson-Ambelang told the BBC that the removal of books from South Asia through programs like PL-480 “creates knowledge gaps” because researchers from there often have to travel to the West to access these resources.
It is not clear whether all the books acquired by American universities in India at that time are still available there. According to Maya Dodd of FLAME University in India, many of the books now unavailable in India are in the collections of the University of Chicago Library, all marked with the “PL-480” stamp.
“Most of the books from the PL-480 program are still available in South Asia. But preservation is often a challenge due to the presence of white ants, pests and a lack of temperature and humidity control. the West remain well preserved thanks to preservation and conservation efforts in our libraries,” says Mr. Michelson-Ambelang.
Ananya Vajpayee
“Unparalleled wealth at the University of Chicago,” says Ananya Vajpeyi, photographed at the university in 1996.
Another reason Mr. Michelson-Ambelang calls colonial archives Western libraries “is partly because they serve academics, often excluding those who are not part of their institutions.” While librarians understand the disparities in access to South Asian materials, copyright laws limit sharing, reinforcing these gaps.”
So what happened when the PL-480 program ended?
Mr. Nye says the end of the program in the 1980s shifted the financial burden to American libraries. “American libraries have had to pay for the selection, acquisition, collection and delivery of resources,” he said. For example, the University of Chicago now spends more than $100,000 a year purchasing books and periodicals through the Library of Congress field office in Delhi.
Ms Vajpeyi believes that the pounds-for-grains deal has had a positive result. She studied Sanskrit, but her research at the University of Chicago covered Indian and European languages—French, German, Marathi, and Hindi—and touched on linguistics, literature, philosophy, anthropology, and more. “At the Regenstein Library, I never failed to find the books I needed or get them quickly if they weren’t already there,” she says.
“Books are safe, valued, accessible and used. I have visited libraries, archives and institutions in all parts of India and the history of our country is universally dismal. Here they have been lost or destroyed or neglected or very often made inaccessible.
