Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav: Govt searches for 'seditious writings' banned by British regime

As part of its Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, the culture ministry is collecting pieces of any form of nationalistic writing which the British regime had banned as seditious in India. These literary pieces are being collected from various national and international sources.

Under a special initiative 'Swatantrata Ke Swar', Cabinet ministers will recite these poems to spread the feeling of patriotism in people ahead of the Independence Day.

Through 47,000 events across 150 countries, the ministry seeks to arouse nationalism in people and be part of the 75th year of India's independence. For the upcoming event 'Har Ghar Tiranga', states have been directed to ask all their self-help groups to participate in huge numbers to produce thousands of flags as the amended flag code allows machine- made, cotton, polyester, wool and silk flags. Earlier, only hand-spun, hand-woven or Khadi flags could be used. People will be urged to buy and display flags on their rooftops, a senior official said.

For 'Swatantrata ke Swar', the ministry has reached out to state governments, historians and organisations that work in the area of archival research. The ministry has also built on the work of people such as SAI Tirmizi who as director of National Archives published 'Patriotic Poetry banned by Raj' in 1982 and archivist RK Perti who brought out a book on banned patriotic literature in the 1980s. Tirmizi writes that numerous poems eulogising Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Rajguru, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Jawaharlal Nehru were banned by the British. He says there was also an increase in communist and socialist literature that was dealt by the British with censorship and high-handedness. The ministry has also looked into the British Library's collection of publications proscribed in colonial India between 1907 and 1947. This library has one of the largest archives of primary sources relating to the freedom movement.

In videos released by the culture ministry, I&B minister Anurag Thakur is seen reciting the poem 'Rashtriya Pataka' from the banned book 'Azadi ki Bansuri' while culture minister Kishan Reddy is reading aloud 'Bharat Mata Geetham' from the banned book Swarajya Geetamrutham. Health minister Mansukh Mandaviya is seen reciting the legendary Gujarati poet Jhaverchand Meghani's 'Kasumbi No Rang' while education minister Dharmendra Pradhan is reading out the Odia poem 'Daridra Nian'.

The attempt is to bring out the work of many revolutionaries whose writings were banned by the British and have not been procured by conservationists, a senior ministry official said. He said the culture ministry also wants to bring out the works of freedom fighters who were part of the 1857 revolt, after which the British brought in the Press Act to censor nationalistic work. At least 2,000 poems have been collected so far, of which 262 are in Hindi.