New Delhi, Jan11: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday took a dig at the previous governments, saying “India’s independence is the collective result of efforts, but one-sided narrative were imposed on the masses through education, legends and writing of history”.
Shah’s remarks came at the book launch event of ‘Revolutionaries, The other story of how India won its freedom’ by Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister, in the national capital. “In India, one-sided narrative were imposed on the masses through education, legends and writing of history. If the country’s independence is analyzed, it will be seen that many people and organizations tried to achieve the same goal and the country’s independence is the collective result of those efforts,” Shah said after launching the book at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.
After independence, Shah said, who had the responsibility of writing our history from our point of view and evaluating our freedom movement from the Indian point of view and placing it in front of the young children, there has been a “mistake somewhere”.
“History was written by reading from the prism of the British, due to which confusion happened. Through this book, the task of clearing this mist is going to be done.”
People say that history has been distorted till date due to various reasons but now no one can stop us from writing it correctly, asserted Shah.
The Home Minister called upon the students and teachers of history to interpret the country’s pride without distorting it and create real history through their hard work and research and search for 300 such persons who made India a great country.
Shah said there were many people who fought in the revolution of 1857 even in the event of not getting anything. “And this revolution tried to inculcate the rites of Swaraj in the minds of the people of the country for the first time after Shivaji Maharaj, from where our freedom struggle started.”
“Whether it is a non-violent movement or an armed revolution, the foundation of all is in the revolution of 1857 and it is the responsibility of the government as well as the historians to keep the true historical facts in front of the new generation of the country by including all this information.”
The Home Minister stressed that “we have to extract history from the stream of extremists vs moderates and make it realistic”.
“The penance and sacrifice of thousands of people cannot be denied to glorify any one movement. We have to understand that we have not got freedom in grant, this freedom has been achieved after the sacrifice and bloodshed of lakhs of people,” said the Home Minister
“Today, when the statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose is installed on the Kartavyapath, then the mind gets a lot of satisfaction.”
Netaji is not in competition with anyone and how can his works and great efforts be devalued with the spirit of competition, said Shah, adding “Netaji is that ‘Tejpunj’ (light) who will inspire thousands of youths to become patriots for generations”.
“History is very cruel and it shines like lightning in dark night and it has to be accepted, no one can suppress, vanish and hide the history of the freedom struggle of our country,” said Shah. (ANI)
India’s independence would have been delayed by decades if armed revolution had not started: Amit Shah
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday stressed that India’s independence would have been delayed by decades if “armed revolution had not started”.
Referring to the Congress-led movement, the Home Minister said that it was successful “only because of” the spark created by the armed revolution by freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh and others. “History is ruthless, it can’t be distorted. It shines like lightning on a dark night and eventually, it comes out and has to be accepted. Nobody can suppress or hide the history of India’s independence,” he added.
Shah’s remarks came at a book launch event by Sanjeev Sanyal titled ‘Revolutionaries (The other story of how India won its freedom).
“When Bhagat Singh was hanged by the British, people from Lahore to Kanyakumari lamented his death. I am not only talking about Bhagat Singh but we need to understand that if the violent revolt against the British hadn’t started independence would have been delayed by decades. Many others like me believe that the Congress-led freedom movement was successful only because of the nationalism arisen from the armed revolution. I can also prove that if armed revolutions had not taken place, independence would have been delayed by decades,” Shah said.
“Revolutionaries from every part of India were housed in cellular jail and this proves that the violent revolution against the British was not an isolated effort,” he added.
The Home Minister said that those responsible for writing India’s independence history failed to present the Indian perspective.
“People responsible for evaluating and writing the history of our independence for our youths have made mistakes as they failed to provide our perspective. British had gone but their mentality remained engraved and this book will help remove that confusion,” he said.
Shah pointed to the loopholes in the history of India’s independence and said that the Indian perspective of the history of Independence is imperative as history was seen from the perspective of the British and was written likewise that’s why there’s this confusion.
Stating that History can’t be distorted, Shah said that India’s independence history cannot be suppressed.
“History is ruthless, it can’t be distorted. It shines like lightning on a dark night & eventually, it comes out and has to be accepted. Nobody can suppress or hide the history of India’s independence,” he said.
Highlighting India’s past, the Home Minister said that there have been empires that have ruled the country even before the Mughals, as opposed to what is propagated.
“Can we not identify at least 300 persons who made our country great? Every time we have been told that the Mughals were the first Empire, but that isn’t the case! There have been empires that have ruled this country for more than 200 years,” he said.
Shah also said that history should not be written on the basis of defeat or victory, rather on the basis of reality.
“History gives rise to many beliefs. But history cannot be written on the basis of defeat and victory. Efforts also have many dimensions. History should be written on the basis of reality. Should write on the basis of an evaluation of efforts.
“The independence movement was defined as Moderate versus extremist by a few people, while Aurobindo Ghosh termed it nationalist versus loyalist. We will have to remove history from Moderate vs extremist and will have to make it realistic,” he added. (ANI)
