TMB Report
Imphal: Union Minister of State for Education & External Affairs Dr RK Ranjan maintained that the concept behind the idea of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav is to bring forth the history of those persons, institutions, writings, etc. that contributed immensely in creating swajagran and sacrificed everything including life for it.
Addressing a national seminar on Freedom Struggle and Bharatiya Nationalisn held at Port Blair on Sunday, Dr RK Ranjan stated that Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav is the occasion to find them out and their contribution from oblivion and place them in the annals of freedom movement of India.
He stated that for attainment of Independence, thousands of people died and lakhs of people suffered agony but unfortunately, we don’t know or know very little about our many such obscure heroes.
He stated that being premier body for historical research, the onus falls on Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) to bring forth the stories of obscure heroes of freedom movement before the posterity.
The Union Minister conveyed that under its Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav program, the ICHR planned a series of seminars on the contribution of Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and one such seminar was organised at Ratnagiri in October 2021.
It is the most appropriate that the Andaman chapter of the series has included another frontline hero, Netaji Subash Chandra Bose, he added.
He recalled that both Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and Netaji Bose fought for freedom movement in their own way according to their conviction and their patriotism and charismatic personality had influenced millions of Indians particularly the youth to sacrifice even their lives fighting for freedom of India.
Both the son of the Bharat mata had special connection with Andaman – while Veer Vinayak Savarkar suffered over a decade of torturous imprisonment here, Netaji managed to get the Andaman free from the British with the help of Japanese forces and unfurled the Indian flag here in 1945, he recollected.
He stated that besides being ardent freedom fighters, they were also committed nationalist and propagator of Indian culture outside India.
When we study Netaji’s journey to Europe, we find that there were people in Europe who were intluenced by the Indian culture and supported Bose in his quest for independence of India.
Likewise, Savarkar’s journey as a revolutionary had impressed people abroad to support the Indian freedom struggle. Unfortunately, we lost Netaji mysteriously on the verge of independence but Savarkar was there to guide the nationalists, he continued.
Dr RK Ranjan also noted that one of the major concerns of Savarkar was to remove untouchability from the Hindu society for which he worked hard to dismantle casteism.
He expressed belief that the Amrit Mahotsav celebration has provided us an opportunity to delve into the search of our hitherto unknown or unsung heroes of freedom movement and highlight their contribution and sacrifices.
He appreciated the efforts of ICHR in chalking out such programmes for the celebration of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. He further expressed belief that experts and scholars will unearth various aspects of these two monumental personalities of our freedom struggle.
