Stories based on Kunwar’s contributions to freedom movement will be taught to children, says Bihar CM
3 min readPATNA: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar on Wednesday said stories based on Veer Kunwar Singh’s contributions in the country’s first freedom movement would be made available to children and youths so that new generation could take inspiration from the great freedom fighter who ensured participation of all sections of society- irrespective of religion and caste- in his fight against British rulers.
“Contributions of Babu Kunwar Singh in the first freedom movement was generally kept limited to Bihar. His long march upto Riwa, Kalpi, Kanpur and Luchnow, Faizabad, Azamgarh and many other provinces covering a road distance of more than 2,380 kms was neither widely publicised nor discussed. We now want that stories about his contributions reach to the children and youths,” Nitish said while addressing inaugural session of a national symposium on “Veer Kunwar Singh and revolution of 1857” at Bapu Sabhagar here.
He said Veer Kunwar Singh took support and assistance from all sections of society in his fight against the foreigners. Many of his warriors hailed from other religion. He even built mosques at Ara and Jagdishpur.
“New generation should take a lesson from Kunwar Singh’s skill of taking all people along. It is very important aspect of his life especially at a time when attempts were made to create an atmosphere of bitterness in the society,” Nitish said while hinting towards some recent incidents in which attempts were made to disturb social harmony in different districts during the festival of Ramnavmi.
CM further asked the historians and writers attending the symposium to prepare factual stories on the great contributions of Kunwar Singh. State government would make those stories available to the youths and children.
Expressing concern over fast increasing pollution on earth, Nitish said though eminent physicist Stephen Hawking warned that earth would cease to exist in next 200 years, he didn’t believe it would exist even for 200 years. “The way we are misusing natural resources, earth would not exist for 200 years,” he said.
Speaking in detail about the welfare schemes undertaken by Bihar government for welfare of girl child and women, Nitish said his government recently launched a unique ‘Kanya Uthan Yojna’ to improve female child mortality rate which is much higher than the male child mortality rate in the state.
He said under the ‘Kanya Uthan Yojna’, an amount of Rs 2,000 would be transferred in the bank account of parents soon after birth of a girl child, while another Rs 1,000 within a year after generation of Aadhar number for the girl child. Another Rs 2000 would be provided to the parents as soon as they complete the cycle of total immunisation for the girl.
The national symposium was part of the concluding day events of the three-day Vijyotsava celebration, organised to mark 160th year of Kunwar Singh’s victory over British army on April 23, 1858.
Bihar CM also released two books, a souvenir and a pictorial on the life and history of Kunwar Singh on the occasion. Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, Industries minister Jai Kumar Singh and art, culture and youth department minister Krishna Kumar Rishi also addressed the inaugural session of the national symposium.
Courtesy: TNN
