Robin Jeffrey
donates personal library to CDS
The
well-stocked library at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Ulloor, has
just got richer.
Robin
Jeffrey, Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies,
National University of Singapore, on Wednesday formally handed over his library
of books on India and Kerala to the CDS. The personal collection, 400-book
strong, will be maintained as a separate section as the ‘Prof. Robin Jeffrey
Collection’, CDS director Sunil Mani told The Hindu.
Prof.
Jeffrey, who has researched extensively on India and Kerala, became familiar to
Keralites in the 1970s with his work ‘The Decline of Nair Dominance.’'
“'He did
field work in Kerala during the 1970s and managed to collect a lot of
historical material on different aspects of Kerala. And also on the historical
aspects of other States, especially Punjab,” Dr. Mani said.
The
collection was kept at Australian National University, Canberra, where Prof.
Jeffrey had taught. It was brought to Thiruvananthapuram two
months ago. The formal handover took place on Wednesday when Prof. Jeffrey
arrived to deliver the tenth B.G. Kumar Lecture.
Literate in Malayalam
Prof.
Jeffrey. who, with a smile, described himself as literate in Malayalam,
attributed his decision to two factors: that many of the books were in
Malayalam, and the CDS, unlike many similar institutions, had managed to build
a well-stocked library over the decades.
“'I wanted
them to go where Malayalam would be readily understood. I lived in
Thiruvananthapuram in 1971. And that's when I did most of the research for the
‘The Decline of Nair Dominance.’ I first came to the CDS in 1974 and since
then, whenever I was in Kerala I would drop in to meet someone or the other,”
he said.
This is not
the first instance of the CDS accepting a personal library. The institute,
established by economist K.N. Raj in 1970, has in its proud possession the
personal collection of Nicholas Kaldor, the Cambridge economist invited by
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1950s to design an expenditure tax
system for India. “That too is about 400 books,” Dr. Mani said.
The CDS
library also boasts the personal collections of Joan Robinson, another noted
Cambridge economist, and that of economists Sanjaya Lall, K.N. Raj and B.G.
Kumar, who was an associate professor at CDS during 1990-93.
Regards
Mr. Pralhad Jadhav
Master of Library & Information Science (NET Qualified)
Research Scholar (IGNOU)
Senior Manager @ Knowledge Repository
Khaitan & Co
Twitter Handle | @Pralhad161978
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