Jawaharlal Nehru University's Special Centre for the Study of North East India organized the 3rd Governor's Acharya Award in honour of the freedom fighters of North-East India on Thursday (13 January). Initiated by the efforts of P.B. Acharya, the award has been conferred to five students who are undergoing research at the university on subjects related to the North-Eastern region of India.
Tejasvita Duarah was selected for Shambhudan Phonglo, Krishna Hazarika for Babu Jeebon Roy, Rajendra Kumar Joshi for People's Leader Hijam Irabot, Ajanta Das for Deying Erring, and Devapriya Sarkar were honoured with the Padmasambhava Award this year.
The award ceremony was organized virtually with the former Governor of Nagaland, Padmanabha Acharya, Dr Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, Minister of State (MoS) for Education and External Affairs, and vice-chancellor Jawaharlal Nehru University, Prof. Jagdesh Kumar attended as special guest, chief guest, and president respectively.
In his speech, special guest P.B. Acharya referred to the fact that the North-East plunged into India's freedom movement from 1828 onwards while remembering the contributions of its people at every level of the movement. "Despite significant contributions made by the North-East in India's freedom struggle, the freedom fighters from this part of the country have not found a place in the academic discourse, which stinks of a major conspiracy on the part of the successive ruling dispensations of the post-Independence era," said P. B Acharya.
The Chief Guest of the event, R. K. Ranjan, talked about the important facets of the New Education Policy that would help foster pride in India's identity, of which the freedom movement is an indispensable part. While appealing to the academic community to study and conduct research on the freedom fighters of North-East India, which have been deprived of for the last 75 years, the Minister also made special emphasis on documenting the freedom struggle of this region and the life histories of its forgotten freedom fighters at the national level, on ensuring sustainable and holistic development of the region, free from poverty and narrow-mindedness. Emphasizing the need for spreading the idea of creativity propounded by King Bhagyachandra of Manipur across the country, the Minister also expressed happiness over the recent international recognition of Mount Manipur in the Andaman and UNESCO's inclusion of Manipur's Nat Sankirtan in the list of intangible heritage.
Giving special importance to the freedom fighters of the Northeast in his presidential speech, Vice-Chancellor Prof. Jagdeesh Kumar said that in a bid to promote the North-East and tribute to the freedom fighters of the North-East, the JNU has named a main street of the university campus after Rani Gaidinliu, a famous freedom fighter from Manipur and Nagaland. Besides, a new hostel, namely Barak Hostel, would be accessible for allotment to the students. The Vice-Chancellor also expressed hope that in the times to come, this special study centre (Center for Special Studies in North-East India, JNU) will further expand its multidisciplinary activities to bring to light the diverse aspects of biodiversity and traditional knowledge sciences of the region, onto the academic platform.
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