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The answer lies in a programme called PL-480, a US initiative launched in 1954 under Public Law 480, also known as the Food for Peace, a hallmark of Cold War diplomacy.

Signed into law by President Dwight D Eisenhower, PL-480 allowed countries like India to buy US grain with local currency, easing their foreign exchange burden and reducing US surpluses.

"PL-480 has had amazing and unexpected consequences for the University of Chicago and for more than 30 other US collections," James Nye, director of the Digital South Asia library at University of Chicago, told the BBC.

In a paper published in 1969, Patterson recounted that in the early days of the PL-480, the team in India faced the challenge of sourcing books from a vast, diverse country with an intricate network of languages.

Founded during Cold War tensions and funded by PL-480, his university's South Asia centre grew its library to more than 200,000 titles by the 21st Century.