History of freedom struggle confined to one family till Modi became PM: Shah

PTI, Apr 1, 2023, 9:52 AM IST

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said the history of India’s freedom struggle was confined to one family but Prime Minister Narendra Modi put an end to it by “immortalising” Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

The Ram Temple issue was stuck “since the time of Babur”, but just after the Supreme Court order, the prime minister did Bhumi Pujan in Ayodhya. Shah said Lord Ram will be in his grand temple by next year’s Ram Navami.

Soon after landing at the Bhalla College helipad here, Shah was faced with denunciatory slogans by Congress workers at Parashuram Chowk against over the disqualification of Rahul Gandhi as MP. Some of them showed black flags to the home minister and were detained by police.

Addressing the 2nd Sanyas Diksha Mahotsav at Yoga guru Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth here, Shah said the prime minister immortalised Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel by erecting the Statue of Unity at Kevadia in Gujarat in his memory.

“India’s freedom struggle was confined to one family, but prime minister Modi put an end to it by immortalising Patel with the Statue of Unity,” Shah said.

He said Modi has revived the symbols of Hinduism, reconstructed centres of the Hindu faith like the Kashi-Vishwanath and Somnath temples and retrieved idols from across the world, which were stolen from India during the period of slavery.

The Union minister highlighted the reconstruction projects undertaken in Kedarnath and Badrinath under Modi’s guidance to further substantiate his point.

Shah also credited Modi for getting Yoga the recognition it deserved on an international platform by standing up for it at the United Nations.

He said Ramdev was a yoga therapist, a swadeshi pioneer competing with International companies, a seer who had waged a war against black money and an educationist who is fully committed to “Indianise” education.

Congratulating 100 new ‘sanyasis’, including men and women, who were conferred with “sanyas diksha” by Patanjali on Thursday at a ceremony on the banks of the Ganga held earlier in the day, Shah said he is happy to see that ancient Indian knowledge will derive new energy from the “army” of young sanyasis prepared by Patanjali.

He said Ramdev’s individual contribution to yoga, Ayurveda and swadeshi was more than an institution could do for them.

Shah praised Ramdev’s close aide Acharya Balkrishna for his extensive research work in the field of Ayurveda, saying he had published more than 500 research papers on Ayurveda.

Shah performed a havan at Patanjali Yogpeeth before beginning his address.

Earlier in the day, Shah hailed the central government’s New Education Policy for its emphasis on learning in the mother tongue and universal education based on the teachings of Indian visionaries such as Mahatma Gandhi and Dayanand Saraswati.

Addressing the 113th convocation of the Gurukula Kangri here, Shah credited the university (deemed to be) for the revival of vedic education in India and combining it with modern education.

Shah paid tributes to the university’s founder Swami Shraddhanand saying he set India’s education system free from the stranglehold of the British and revived the country’s vedic education system, all the while emphasising culture and modern education.

The home minister also addressed a programme at Rishikul to mark the total computerisation of 670 cooperative centres.

“It has been done in just 17 months. I heartily congratulate Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and Health and Cooperative Minister Dhan Singh Rawat on this achievement,” Shah said.

Shah gave the credit for this achievement to the separate cooperative ministry set up under the leadership of the prime minister.

Computerisation of cooperative platforms will lead to total transparency and greater fiscal discipline, Shah, who is also the Union cooperative minister, said.