India is the world’s largest, oldest and if you exclude the last 300 years then the wealthiest civilisation. We can call India the cradle of human civilisation, the birthplace of speech, the mother of history and numerous languages, the grandmother of legends and traditions and the birthplace of science, mathematics, astronomy etc. From caves, temples to palaces, India boasts an architectural diversity like no other country in the world. Indian architecture is rooted in its history, culture and Dharma.
Glorious Civilisation Annihilated by Invaders
India has seen a number of waves of invasions. For centuries India has been a land of sages and higher learning. Before the Islamic conquest, India already had seats of higher learning such as Nalanda and Taxila to which scholars from all over the world travelled in order to study. History is witness to the fact that everyone lived in peaceful coexistence in India. After Islamic rulers destroyed Indian civilisation, Britishers damaged it more tactically. The relationship of the Hindu masses of India with the Mughals as well as Britishers remained that of the conquered with the conqueror. The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in world history. During the rule of both British and Mughals, India not only lost its economy, self dependency but also its past glorious civilisations.
Unfortunately when India got its Independence, Governments were also not focused on restoring India’s past glorious civilisation. Even talking about our past glorious heritage, culture was considered as backwardness in politics. Even after India’s Independence from colonial oppression, the new political and educational forces in independent India also reflected colonial and Marxist influences that portrayed India’s enduring civilisation as a myth or a prejudice, as occurred before Independence.
Breaking Shackles of Colonial Hangover But things have changed now. Since 2014, Narendra Modi has established his credentials as a reformer and has stood as a Prime Minister par excellence.
With him coming to power, India is gradually breaking the shackles of colonial hangover steeped into the socialist era of Nehruvianism. What Modi has been doing in these years is an attempt at undoing the Leftist machinations of the last seven decades. There was a time when politicians were ashamed to go to temples but all this has changed under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Modi Government is working fearlessly to renovate and restore ‘forgotten’ centres with complete devotion and respect. He is now laying the foundation for a glorious Hindu future that can withstand the test of time.
Implementing New Education Policy
Under Narendra Modi’s Prime Ministership, with an aim to make it more relevant to Indian society and culture, the Education policy has been changed in the country after 34 years. Emphasis is being laid on imparting education in regional language. NEP 2020 has been envisioned to help the country to rediscover its old glory and that the policy will be the key to India’s leadership on the global stage in terms of economic growth, social justice and scientific advancement, among others. The school history books currently in circulation across the country are replete with innumerable botched stories regarding the rich history of Bharat. There are several kingdoms and kings whose reigns are barely mentioned in the books. Freedom fighters who died for the motherland are reduced to caricaturist figures while the likes of cruel, blood-hungry rulers like Tipu Sultan are glorified as the apostle of patriotism. The NCERT and various boards of education are currently in the process of revamping their curricula across subjects and streams to bring the same in sync with the National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2020. The exercise of seeking suggestions from the public is additionally going to help the government in bringing the real and unabridged history of the country to the present as well as the future generations.
International Yoga Day First Temple in Abu Dhabhi
During his first visit to the UAE, Prime Minister Narendra Modi managed to secure 14 acres of land for the first Hindu temple in the UAE. According to some reports this is the first Hindu temple in the entire West Asia. In his second visit to UAE in February 2018, he laid the foundation stone of the temple. BAPS organisation is constructing this temple at a cost of about 888 crore rupees. The temple has an area of 27 acres on Abu Muraikhah.
Shri Adi Shankaracharya Samadhi and Statue in Kedarnath
PM Modi inaugurated the reconstructed Shri Adi Shankaracharya Samadhi at the premises of the Kedarnath Temple in Uttarakhand and unveiled the statue of Shri Adi Shankaracharya on November 05, 2021. The Samadhi was damaged in the 2013 Kedarnath flood. The unveiling programmes of the statue were organised at the 12 Jyotirlingas & Jyotishpeeth including Char Dhams (Badrinath, Dwarka, Puri and Rameshwaram).
Mahakal Lok Corridor
Narendra Modi on Oct 11, 2022 inaugurated the Mahakal Lok corridor at Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. The corridor is part of the first phase of the Rs 850 crore Mahakaleshwar Temple Corridor Development Project. Under the Mahakal Lok project, the temple precinct will be expanded nearly seven times.
Kashi Vishwanath Dham
On December 13, 2021, PM Modi inaugurated Rs 700 crore Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, which many called a historic moment for the country and Hindus all over the world. Under this project, around 40 temples have been restored to their original glory and 23 buildings have been added to the structure providing various facilities. “Today history has been created by reviving the socio cultural history of this ancient city, which is vibrant with Hindu philosophy as enshrined in our religious books,” Modi had said at the inauguration.
Statue of Bhakti Saint Sri Ramanujacharya
PM Modi on Feb 5, 2022 inaugurated the Statue Of Equality in Hyderabad, commemorating the 11th-century Bhakti Saint Sri Ramanujacharya. Sri Ramanujacharya worked tirelessly for the upliftment of people with the spirit of every human being equal regardless of nationality, gender, race, caste or creed.
Somnath Temple
After he became Prime Minister, the restoration of the Somnath Temple received a boost. In August 2021, Modi inaugurated the seaside promenade, an exhibition centre and the reconstructed precinct of old Somnath at the Somnath temple complex near Veraval. The 1.48-kilometre promenade has been developed under PRASHAD Scheme at a total cost of more than Rs 47 crore.
Ram Mandir
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August 2020 laid the foundation stone for the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya in a grand ceremony. The grand temple will be ready by December 2023 and is being built at an estimated cost of Rs 1,800 crore. According to sources more than 40 per cent of the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya has been completed.
Temple Restoration in Kashmir
Ever since Article 370 was repealed and Jammu Kashmir became a Union Territory, the Government has started working on the renovation of several Dharmik sites in Kashmir. As per available estimates, there are a total of 1,842 Hindu places of worship in Kashmir including temples, shrines, holy springs, caves and trees. One of the first temples being restored is the Raghunath temple, situated on the banks of the river Jhelum in Srinagar. Besides this Mathura-Vrindavan, Umiyadham Temple in Gujarat, temples in the south and many more centres have been revived.
New Transport Links
At a national level, the 15 thematic circuits being developed as part of a New Swadesh Darshan Scheme include a Ramayana Circuit as well as a Buddhist Circuit. IRCTC has launched the Sri Ramayana Express, a special tourist vegetarian train to take pilgrims to places associated with Ramayana in 18 days. All-weather Char-Dham road is near completion. Also on the anvil is connectivity for the religious sites of Mathura and Prayagraj, as well as Agra, on the proposed Delhi–Varanasi bullet train route.
National Maritime Heritage Complex
The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways is building the National Maritime Heritage Complex at the historic Indus Valley civilisation region of Lothal in Gujarat with a total cost of 3500 crores rupees. The first-of-its-kind complex in India, this centre will showcase India’s rich and diverse maritime heritage. The foundation stone for the NMHC project was laid by PM Modi and the consent for the Master Plan was given in March 2019.
Promotion of Sanskrit
The Central Sanskrit Universities Bill, 2020 was passed by the Parliament for more opportunities to spread the knowledge of Sanskrit language not only in India but also across the world in a better way. This bill made Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, New Delhi, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, New Delhi, and Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, Tirupati into Central Sanskrit Universities. This was one of the landmark Bills which has fulfilled the aspirations and long standing wish of many Sanskrit lovers, scholars and Sanskrit speaking people in the country. Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan was allocated ₹231.15 crore in 2019-20, around ₹214.38 crore in 2018-19, and ₹198.31 crore in 2017-18.
Rashtriya Adarsh Veda Vidyalaya
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Oct 14, 2022, inaugurated the country’s second Rashtriya Adarsh Veda Vidyalaya (RAVV) in Puri, with the objective of spreading knowledge of the Vedas. Maharishi Sandipani Rashtriya Ved Vidya Pratishthan is the first such school in Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain. Four more such schools will come up at Badrinath in Uttarakhand, Sringeri in Karnataka, Dwarka in Gujarat and Guwahati in Assam. Civilisation Aspects of Padma Awards PM Modi continuously tried to uphold the lost glory of the Padma Awards since he resumed office in 2014. The list of winners has made headlines, and proclaimed that it’s no longer an award reserved for the exclusive class. The award winners were among those who came from a very humble background.
Veerendra Heggade, administrator of Karnataka’s Dharmasthala temple, Shivakumara Swami, head of the Sree Siddaganga Mutt, Swami Rambhadracharya, Swami Satyamitrananda Giri, Jagatguru Amrta Suryananda Raja, Vedic guru David Frawley, Jagat Guru Ramanandacharya Swami Rambhadracharya, Swami Rambhadracharya, Baba Balia of Odisha, are few from the lists who got India’s highest civilian awards during last 8 years.
Saluting Real Heroes of India
The PM has honoured the great political guides who provided the basis for modern India, including Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Subhas Chandra Bose, Sri Aurobindo and Veer Savarkar, who were previously neglected. The monumental statue by the sea in Gujarat of Sardar Patel and the Subhas Chandra Bose statue in Delhi are the most notable of these. Modi has honoured India’s Kshatriya dharma tradition of great kings and warriors, extending from historical figures like Rana Pratap and Chhatrapati Shivaji to the many freedom fighters of the Independence movement. The PM has honoured the great gurus of India such as Adi Shankara, Ramanuja, Buddha, Mahavira, Guru Nanak and many more, recognising the Dharmic roots of India’s civilisation.
Celebrations of Festivals
The ‘Devtas’ of Bharat as Shiva, Krishna, Rama, Sita, Saraswati, Durga and Kali, Ganesha and Hanuman have been empowered once more in this New India, with the PM visiting their temples and invoking their guidance, a practice many other social and political leaders have begun to follow. Modi celebrates the great Dharmik festivals of India at both national and regional levels.
Bring Back Lost Heritages
Whenever he goes to any foreign land, he ensures that the lost heritage which has been either stolen or forcibly taken away is brought back. It includes many artefacts, sculptures of deities and other manifestations of art and culture. Promoting India’s Common Cultural Values Bharatiya culture is projected as soft power at the international level. He has revived the ancient cultural roots with Nepal, Japan and other South-East Asian countries underlying the Buddhist cultural values. Wherever and whenever he goes to any foreign land, the first connection he revives is the common cultural values. PM Modi usually offers the Bhagavad Gita to foreign Heads of States. Finally we can say that India is restoring its glory and prosperity and the whole world and humanity will benefit from this.
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