Mere hours before she can sit down with mid-day to talk about India’s library ecosystem, Purnima Rao has been in a meeting with prison officials. The subject of this interaction? Prison inmates’ right to read. Though it has been proven that reading books can assist in their rehabilitation, inmates and undertrials have been woefully ignored and excluded. It may seem like an unusual, if unlikely cause, for people to rally behind, and yet state organisations are working hard to make prison libraries a reality. 

The People’s National Library Policy 2024, drafted by the Free Libraries Network (FLN), wants to enable causes like it. A 200+ grassroots libraries-strong network, led by Rao and other library activists across India, it has produced a 65-page document that it aims to place on the desks of a variety of stakeholders, bringing to their notice alarming statistics. Our country has one urban library for every 80,000 people, and one rural library for 11,500 people. This is a world apart from the accepted global norm of one library for 3,000 readers. What can change the dismal ground reality in India? Rao says there’s no magic bullet. “There has to be a people-led movement to demand changes to the ecosystem. A transformation is also needed in the very perception of libraries, which are still seen as study halls where aspirants prepare for entrance tests,” Rao explains.