[tempytempytemp]

The lack of respect for books in India is ridiculous. Very few use libraries, and forget temperature/humidity control: most feel no shame in mishandling books they borrow. The availability and care shown to books, new and old, in the US is very commendable.

Our prime minister and most citizens love to brag about "ancient culture" and "proud history", but preservation of our own history and public record was and is done much better by the British and Americans. It's truly nauseating.

[EliRivers]

I sometimes wonder if feeling good about "ancient culture" and "proud history" creates an attitude that there's no need (or no point) to add to any of that in the present. For how long can a people use the achievements of those who died a thousand years previously as a crutch to not to live up to those achievements.

[lupire]

It's a bit reversed. The history doesn't make people lazy, but lazy people rationalize their laziness by claiming clout from history.

Peoples who achieved more than their ancestors have less history to be prideful of, since they are proud of their present.

[dustypotato]

Kinda tracks. India, Italy, Greece, pride themselves on culture and lacks in development compared to peers. US, China (after cultural revolution), Germany don't and are top among their peers.

[hnfong]

I'd dispute the claim on China, at least for today's China. Anecdotally, the Chinese are very conscious of their/our "ancient culture" and "proud history".

It's also in state sanctioned ideology too, eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Dream

`Xi said that the Chinese Dream is the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation"`

If more literally translated, this is pretty much the Chinese version of "Making China Great Again".

You're probably correct that this doesn't apply during the cultural revolution (and maybe for the most of the 20th century), but that's like a long gone boomer era.

[FullGarden_S]

>Our prime minister and most citizens love to brag about "ancient culture" and "proud history"

Yes. I think so too.

The bragging is mostly patriotism and it wouldn't be a wonder if the same patriotism made them wish they could erase or forget their own embarrassing past two centuries of history. Most of the historic records before that point were totally destroyed or lost so feeling proud of what's left and moving on is not bad but seriously not prioritizing preservation is really ignorant.

[fakedang]

> Most of the historic records before that point were totally destroyed or lost so feeling proud of what's left and moving on is not bad but seriously not prioritizing preservation is really ignorant.

It's actually cultural. Even foreign historians from a thousand years back such as Al Biruni criticized the Indian cultural norms of focusing on oral traditions, instead of written text, and the use of assumptions, story telling and exaggerations instead of facts and accurate retelling, which in turn feeds into a culture that prioritized fantasy over curiosity. It's stunning to say how we can obtain accurate records of the locations of the homes destroyed in the Great Fire of London in the 16th century, but don't have an accurate account of many kings in the Indian subcontinent during the 19th century.

This could have been a direct result of the caste system, wherein the deep study of literature was only allowed for Brahmins - not even the kings and nobility.

[rayiner]

What's wild to me is how British/British Americans can trace their families based on detailed records kept by random villages going back to the Middle Ages. Meanwhile my dad's legal birthday is off by six months because his village in Bangladesh didn't issue a birth certificate until he was five (in the mid 1950s) and then kind of just guessed.

[anon291]

That's a Christian thing, isn't it? Baptismal certificates are very important.

[anui293]

This could have been a direct result of the caste system, wherein the deep study of literature was only allowed for Brahmins - not even the kings and nobility. The sentence itself shows the why the oral tradition failed to capture accurate records. From "The beautiful tree" by dharampal -> "in which it had been assumed that education of any sort in India, till very recent decades, was mostly limited to the twice-born amongst the Hindus, and amongst the Muslims to those from the ruling elite.

The actual situation which is revealed was different, if not quite contrary, for at least amongst the Hindus. It was the groups termed Shudras, and the castes considered below them who predominated in the thousands of the then still-existing schools in practically each of these areas."

[tempytempytemp]

My comment isn't exactly about embarrassing pasts or patriotism. There is lack of basic understanding about preserving data, records and books properly; not just the "how", but also the "why". Just go to any college in the country and see how librarians and students deal with the books they hold, and compare it to how colleges in the US/Europe do the same. The difference is night and day. This can be any type of book; doesn't matter if it's history or math.

Treat a book properly, and thousands of people across future decades will be able to peruse it. Treat it like garbage, and that knowledge won't be available in the future. It's the same with digitization. You need a plan to keep all the books you digitize, or else it's in danger of getting lost if the government/responsible person gets defunded/deprioritized.

All talk about "glorious history of culture and science" is hollow if you cannot store proof of it properly.

[anon291]

> their own embarrassing past two centuries of history.

I think part of the problem is exactly this. We don't say Spain should be embarrassed at the Muslim conquest, yet we're expected to say India should be 'ashamed' (for what?) for their past two centuries? History just is... We should stop assigning emotional value to it.

The issue here is twofold. Firstly, India is not unique in this pursuit. China also has taken charge of constructing its own history, and sometimes it's at odds with Western thinking. Often time, the oral / traditional accounts are found to be true.

Secondly, the West also falls into magical thinking. For example, right here, you are parroting the idea that Indian heterodoxy over their own history is misguided. However, it has a clear historical basis in the fact that Britain tried to expropriate most of its history. I don't mean taking various artifacts.

I mean that, for many years, Western historians pushed the idea that the Indus Valley Civilization inhabitants were not related to modern Indians. They couldn't deal with the fact that Indians may have had one of the oldest, largest, and richest ancient civilizations. Of course history has proved them wrong.... Harappan genes are well represented in the Indian subcontinent.

So, sure, we can make all kinds of claims about Indian historians inflating their own history (I would agree), but to then say that Western historians don't is just wrong... Remember, Nazi Germany's racial policy is the direct result of a ridiculously flawed and fantastical understanding of Indian history by Western historians. Like it or not, the Nazis were western too (and besides, plenty of non-German historians agreed with them... we just like to forget about that).

Finally, we cannot ignore the impact of Nazism here. Even today, it is difficult to talk about Aryans without conjuring up images of genocidal Germans. Research has to be qualified and disclaimed so that people don't take the objective historical record and try to justify more atrocities.

For example, going back to the IVC. European historians were insistent that the Aryans civilized India, and many insisted that the IVC was Aryan, and not really 'Indian'. Again, the evidence is very clear that the Harappans have no steppe ancestry. But again, we have an example of the very sort of behavior you accuse india of, except by British historians.

[FullGarden_S]

>India is not unique in this pursuit. China also has taken charge

No? India is unique in this pursuit because China didn't take as big of an hit as India did. The fact that The Vedas were preserved till now is well enough proof that oral accounts were not useless.

I'm an Indian. I myself can't trace my ancestry past my great grandfather lol(similar to most of the current native black Americans living in the USA) because no records were maintained as that was how insignificant avg. Indian life in India was viewed as back then, thanks to great philanthropists like Mr. Winston Churchill(not like I care). I don't think I can get through to the other comment that started out with the "c-word" and pointed out about castes and oral accounts but lineage of nobles and kings were well maintained by Brahmins and after a rough 2 centuries, very little was left to back up such claims of proper record maintenance so there's no point in fretting over it. Thanks sharing about Nazism, that's news to me.

After seeing people around me, I started to believe that Indians have an inferiority complex engraved into them due to the colonialism and they don't value books or their own history because they don't value themselves in the first place, which was the context behind my previous comment. I think it resulted as a side effect due to the helplessness they felt after what they lost, namely their heritage and their identity along with it. All this makes it seem like their inferiority complex is not going away anytime soon. Gotta see.

[screye]

Huh, that doesn't compute.

I've known Indians to treat books with respect. It's ingrained in the culture. Books can't be on the floor or touched with a foot. Kids spend days learning how to create books sleeves with brown crafts. Texybooks are well treated due to hand-me-down culture. Vidya (books) is specifically worshipped online home idol-houses. Pirated books or fake photo copies get mistreated, but mostly because they're printed on low budget paper backs. The state of libraries is bad, but so is the state of all infrastructure generally.

In the US, I have yet to see individuals take extraordinary care of books. Yes, textbooks worth $100+ are well treated, but anything that expensive is well treated. (I still have an old HC Verma copy). Libraries are exemplary, but the budgets are incomparable.

I will agree on the sorry state of Indian liberal arts including museums and libraries. The education, quality of scholarship and resulting professionals are subpar compared to the western world. India has excellent STEM and Medical education. The rest have a long way to go.

[chengiz]

You're right about the respect part, but it does in fact compute. We (I'm Indian) treat books with respect, but we have no preservation ethic beyond treating them with respect. An old book is in our home until it disintegrates or termites get it. But beyond that, shrug. Humidity control etc, what's that. This is of course partly because India is a poor country, and partly because of corrupt government, but it's also because of the fatalism - we simply do not care about the past as is the norm in the West. You know how even a tinpot town's history is available in the local library in the US? Beyond rarefied academia and the odd hobbyist, India just does not have that culture.

[anon291]

An interest is antiquity is a characteristic of the Rennaisance in Europe. India has not really gotten there, although interest is growing it seems.

[tempytempytemp]

In my experience, the worship part is purely theatrical, and is largely the reason stuff like this happens. I'd rather have books treated well for practical purposes than because "Vidya is God" - it makes more sense this way, and you aren't bound to a holy/unreachable ideal.

Feet don't have any use for books, so that doesn't matter much. Book sleeves and brown crafts are because of school rules, else those don't happen. Anyway, you should see how the books within those brown sleeves get by end of school year. Books get handed down in good shape only when a parent is unusually strict about those books (mine were, which is why I have a chip on my shoulder regarding this topic) or if the kid is conscientious. Woe betide you if you loan a book to a random friend; there are good chances it won't come back whole because of the "why-should-I-care-I-don't-own-it" mentality.

Part of it, as you imply, is the cheaper price, and thus quality and binding of the books made in India.

[anui293]

I don't how many are interested in preserving or knowing about indian history. Some of them might open up skeletons which might make some sections uncomfortable. Its like let bygones be bygones.