The 60-year-old ex-politician Pradeep Rawat decided to build a library in his Pune residence after his term as a Member of Parliament ended. The library houses the vast collection of books he has collected over the decades. The library was built to help people get hands on to scientific literature that otherwise not available to the general public. The library having over 5,000 books on science and evolutionary biology is named as Rawat’s Nature Library and is open to all for free.
Since its onset, the Rawat’s Nature Library had become highly popular, particularly among the students preparing for Civil Service examinations. Over the past three years, more than 30,000 students appearing for civil service examinations have visited the library and benefited by its collection of books. The library is now planning to open its doors to the scientists from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) to conduct academic debates as well as discussions in the near future.
According to Dr. L S Shashidhara, the head of Biology at IISER, the library has a vast collection of books on various aspects of science and the collection is even better than the IISER or Pune University. The amazing fact is Pradeep Rawat has read all these collections despite not being a science stream graduate. All these scholarly books are usually read only by the science researchers and not even by the general science graduate students.
All the books in Rawat’s Nature Library library are properly filed under different categories such as Plants and Animals, Brain and Behaviours, Classical Science, Environmental Science and Science in Marathi. The collection also covered the works and biographies of eminent Indian scientists.
Pradeep Rawat, who lost his father at the age of 13, always had a strong interest to study science. He took admission in the Abashabeb Garware College in the science stream to follow his goal. However, he ended up being put behind bars due to his active participation in the JP movement and could not complete the degree course after the incidence. Fortunately, this never stopped him from becoming an autodidact and reading more science literature. He used to come back with eight to ten bags filled with books of different genre whenever he traveled abroad. You can visit the website and enquire about the library to visit or donate books. The library address is:
“The Pentagon”
109-111, Hotel Panchami Lane,
Pune Satara Road, Pune – 09
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