Dr Nita Mukherjee finds a fledgling idea that has taken wing—keeping alive women-related history by archiving invaluable reference materials

Way back in 1988, when ‘gender studies’ was not as popular a subject at Indian universities as it is now, those researching on women’s issues had to run from pillar to post to collect reference materials. Often, they found invaluable archival papers lying in old trunks in family closets. “It was then that a group of us in Mumbai, including the then head of women’s studies department at the SNDT University—(late) Dr Neera Desai—thought of setting up the Sound & Picture Archives for Research on Women (SPARROW),” says Dr CS Lakshmi, founder trustee. SPARROW was registered as a trust in 1988 with the objective of building national archives of women-related print, oral history, visual and pictorial materials. For the past 23 years, it has been engaged in recording, reviewing, recollecting and reflecting on women’s history and life and communicating this information in various ways. SPARROW now has a broad-based board of trustees—academics from various disciplines—including Maithreyi Krishna Raj, Divya Pandey, Roshan G Shahani, Dr Usha Thakkar and Shoba Venkatesh Ghosh. Mihir Desai, a human rights lawyer, is also now a trustee of SPARROW. All of them believe that positive change in emancipation of Indian women and achieving gender justice is possible “with knowledge and awareness of women’s lives, history and struggles for self-respect and human dignity.”

In addition to collecting archival materials and organising them, SPARROW runs awareness drives through exhibitions, seminars & workshops, research studies and by organising school visits. The scope of SPARROW’s collection on women freedom fighters, activists, educationists and social reformers extends to the entire Indian subcontinent now, including Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. In the past 10 years, SPARROW has brought out 33 publications and several research reports, and held 17 workshops. It has also started digitising its archives now. “We find that it is the only way forward to reduce the pressure of space. But it requires a lot of resources,” says Dr Lakshmi. SPARROW is also keen to archive cultural traditions as well as folklore and documenting traditional knowledge which often lies with women.

As with all such efforts, garnering funds was the main hurdle, especially since space was needed to house the archives. “Our initial fund-collection exercise started with sale of feminist calendars and diaries that we brought out. And the space that the archives had was, well, my bedroom! That was all we could afford then,” says Dr Lakshmi. After shifting around from one rented space to another and failing to get any support from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, it was only in January 2008 that SPARROW shifted to its own building ‘The Nest’ in Dahisar (a western Mumbai suburb), acquired with a generous grant from HIVOS (a humanist network with headquarters in the Netherlands) and donations from friends and supporters.

Today, the archives comprise an impressive collection of 14,160 photographs; 6,771 media slides, 609 documentaries in seven languages, 585 popular films in 11 languages, 4,888 books in 11 languages, 4,448 journal articles in seven languages, 21,025 newspaper clippings in eight languages, 274 private papers, 1,983 brochures in nine languages, 3,042 newspaper cartoons, 3,578 print visuals, 1,714 posters, 120 calendars, 8,000 cartoons by Maya Kamath, 649 music audio-cassettes/CDs and 550 oral history recordings.

Dr Lakshmi says: “SPARROW has traversed a long distance and there is a long journey ahead of us. But when a fledgling sparrow decides to fly, the sky is the limit!” You can support SPARROW by corpus donations, contribution to The Dr Neera Desai Memorial Library and by partnering for events like exhibitions, book fairs or seminars.

SPARROW
The Nest
B-101, 201, 301 Patel Apartment
Maratha Colony Road
Dahisar (E)
Mumbai 400 068
Tel: 022 2828 0895,
2896 5019
www.sparrowonline.org
[email protected]