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Press Release

India's history needs to be revisited and rewritten - Sanjeev Sanyal

Jan 23, 2020


 

NEW DELHI, 23 January 2020: Principal Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Finance, Govt of India, Mr Sanjeev Sanyal today said that the Indian history needs to be revisited and rewritten to help future generations appreciate the true history of India.

 

Speaking at the 14th Netaji Subhash Memorial Lecture, organized by Netaji Subhash Bose - INA Trust at FICCI, Mr Sanyal said, "India needs to begin to revisit its own history. And, what better place to start than by starting with the story of India���s freedom struggle."

 

He said that if one reads the conventional, official history books, one will get the impression that India's freedom struggle was a uniquely peaceful one. "Basically, we gently suggested to the British that they should leave, and they politely left," he said.

 

However, he said that there is a completely different story to be told about an armed resistance to the British going back over a long period of time.

 

"This is not to suggest that the non-violence movement did not play a role, it did. But there was an armed resistance too. And, that story was just as important but unfortunately, sadly rubbed out of the usual narrative," he added.

 

Mr Sanyal said that false narratives never get replaced merely by criticism and it can only be replaced by a new narrative, which needs to be written down. Changes in the textbooks can only happen at the end of this process. Somebody has to actually write down the alternative story, he said.

 

"But the writing of the new narrative itself takes effort and we are not, I am afraid, putting up enough effort into this. Please take up one section of Indian history and simply look at the evidence and rewrite it," he suggested.

 

Brig (Retd) RS Chhikara, Founder and Chairman, Netaji Subhash Bose - INA Trust, said that the trust has submitted a few important ideas to Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi and has his assurance for organising a tourism circuit for patriotic pilgrimage, which will include INA Memorials at Delhi, Kolkata and Kohima, and improvement of existing memorials at Moirang and Cuttack.

 

Mr Subhash Kashyap, Chairman, Advisory Board, Netaji Subhash Bose - INA Trust, thanked Mr Sanyal for giving a new perspective to the entire freedom struggle and expressed hope that it goes down in history.

 

Mr Dilip Chenoy, Secretary General, FICCI, said that India can achieve its goals if we all work collectively and if the schools produce motivated young people.

 

Mr Sanjay Choudhry, Secretary General, Netaji Subhash Bose - INA Trust, gave the vote of thanks and said, "Hope history of ours can be retold quickly."

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