Govt’s holistic development of Vadnagar to include state-of-the-art museum, ‘Prerana vernacular school’ at PM Modi’s restored school

NEW DELHI: With archaeological finds in Gujarat’s Vadnagar throwing up evidence of continuous urban civilisation dating back to over 2500 years, the government of India has decided to undertake a “holistic development” of the Western city that will marry tourism with the regions’s archaeology and heritage.
The ambitious project includes the restoration of the school Prime Minister Narendra Modi studied at, which will be developed as a ‘Prerana’ vernacular school for 1500 students to be drawn from across India’s 750 districts, teaching them everything from valour to compassion through inspirational stories of India’s Param Vir Chakra awardees and holograms of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru.
A state-of-the-art museum to be readied by October this year will take visitors to the site through the 7 distinct civilisations the evidence of which have been found at Vadnagar, starting from the 2nd Century BC coinciding with the Mauryan dynasty, to the current 19th century AD.
Incidentally, the development push follows the government’s bid last year to have Vadnagar included on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Top government officials said the Culture ministry has undertaken several research projects in the region to study how Vadnagar survived through the centuries despite various challenges the region faced. This includes a study of Vadnagar’s irrigation systems, which allowed the city to survive 2500 years as a ‘continuous living city’ like Varanasi, Ujjain, Patliputra, and Madurai, even though it is not based on the banks of a major river, and is unlike any other in the country.
“Vadnagar has about 40-50 small lakes which were interlinked thousands of years ago. This irrigation system gave the city civilisational continuity, evidence of which we have not found anywhere else in India. The region also suffered a major earth quake in the 9th century but there is evidence that Vadnagar’s architectural techniques withstood this quake,” a senior ministry official said.
The government also said it has commissioned several research projects related to Vadnagar, which includes a study of the region’s Nagar community, who served as think-tanks for all of India, a study by IIT Kharagpur that attempts to establish links Vadnagar and the Indus Valley Civilisation, one by BHU that looks at how Buddhism travelled from Eastern India to Western India, and Lucknow’s Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleosciences ascertaining through DNA studies how the assimilation of various cultures happened in Vadnagar, as it served as a major port and trading centre between India and the rest of the World.
As an extension of the developmental initiatives, culture ministry officials said a documentary film on Vadnagar will also be aired by Discovery Channel at 9pm on Wednesday.