Bharatpur: The 112-year old Hindi Sahitya Samiti, which is known as the main repository of knowledge of North India in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan, is staring at bankruptcy due to lack of support from the government. On one hand the government talks about promoting Hindi. However, due to lack of support from the government, Hindi Sahitya Samiti, which is the caretaker of 1500 priceless manuscripts and all the literature older than 450 years, has been facing budget crunch for years.
Sources said that the committee employees have not received salaries for years with the court now sending a notice to the government asking it to auction the Samiti property to pay the employees. Trilokinath Sharma, a clerk at the Hindi Sahitya Samiti, said that the auction notice has been pasted by the court. The court has fixed January 16 as the date of the auction. “If Rs 1,11,94,942 is not paid before that, the Hindi Sahitya Samiti will be auctioned,” he said.
Trilokinath informed that there were six employees working in the Hindi Sahitya Samiti, out of which four employees have retired. At present, there are two employees who were not paid salaries since 2003, due to which the employees had to approach the court, he said. The previous Congress government had announced a budget of Rs 5 crore for the Hindi Sahitya Samiti, but even that budget was not received by the Samiti, he added.
He however added that the Congress government had released partial salaries to two employees from 2003 to August 2019 after directions by the court. Although the committee is now under the control of the state government, the budget has not been made available for the outstanding salaries of the employees and other works/responsibilities, due to which the court has issued a notice for the auction of the Samiti property.
History: Hindi Sahitya Samiti was established on 13 August 1912 with the inspiration of former Rajmata Manji Girraj Kaur. When the committee was started, people of the city had brought five books from their homes and kept them here. Later, the committee gradually expanded and became the major library of North India. Currently, 33,363 books on 44 subjects are available in the Hindi Sahitya Samiti Library, which includes more than 1500 priceless manuscripts that are 450 years old.
The Samiti has books on 44 subjects, which include Vedas, Sanskrit, Knowledge, Upanishads, Rituals, Philosophy, Tantra Mantra, Puranas, Discourses, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Astrology, Political Science, Bhoodan, Economics, Prashna Shastra, Environment, Hrithik Granth besides many subjects including poetry, geography, foreign history and Indian history. Trilokinath said that the first session of Hindi Sahitya Samiti was organized in the year 1927 in which Nobel Laureate and national poet Rabindranath Tagore also participated.
Besides Tagore, Madan Mohan Malviya, Rajarshi Purushottam Das Tandon, Morarji Desai, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia, Russian Hindi scholar Barannikov and Pakistani playwright Ali Ahmed have also visited the Samiti. It is noteworthy that Hindi Sahitya Samiti has been facing financial crisis for years now in absence of a budget and lack of financial assistance provided by the government.
