Guwahati: Indian Council of Historical Research celebrating 75 years of Indian Independence through its lecture Series "Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav". Recently, it organised the 4th lecture on "Indian Freedom Movement and Uttar Purba Bharat (North East India): Glimpses of Swaraj and Swabhiman Bharat "by professor Dr. Subhajit Choudhury of IIT Guwahati.
Dr. Subhajit Choudhury started his lecture by saying that the saga of the Swabhiman Bharat in this region started in 1206 when the King of Kamrupa Rajya 'Prithu' who defeated the bloodthirsty invader from Turky Ikhtiyār al-Dīn Muḥammad Bakhtiyār Khilji popularly known as Bakhtiyar Khilji who had destroyed many of our centre of learning (e.g. Nalanda University), temples, shrines and maths and also desecrated their murtis.
Dr. Choudhury stated that our freedom struggle did not start only under the banner of any one party or a bunch of few English speaking, foreign-educated graduates, but by many more people from every nook and corner of our country. It was a movement of the people against colonial plunder and domination. He mentioned the recent findings on the freedom movement by unsung heroes of various states of Uttar Purba Bharat, starting from Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura and Nagaland. It was noteworthy to mention that most of the researchers whose works were mentioned are based on authentic records, even based on personal interviews, jail diary, gazetteers, papers, etc. Further giving examples such as Dr. Vekho Swuro's father P. Swuro (102 years of age now) who was appointed as 'Doobhasi' or interpreter in April 1944 by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in INA. 937 INA freedom fighters from Nagaland fought along with Netaji against the Britishers.
Similarly, Dr. Haradhan Saha gave 75 women freedom fighters from Tripura and Dr Sukhdeb from Manipur found 24 Manipuri freedom fighters sent to Kalapani by British rulers. Dr. Choudhury, while mentioning the contribution of Assam to the freedom struggle of India, he pointed that a major decision was taken at Dhubri (Assam) by Netaji in February 1938, 3 Britishers were killed, and 150 soldiers were executed under the leadership of Gobha Raja (Tribal king of middle Assam) Chatra Singh. But these facts were never included in the history of India's freedom movement. All eminent lecturers in the series opined that there are hundreds of such facts from the North East still to be known by the people of our country, which were kept in the dark by a vested interest section.
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