HP govt to convert Pahari Gandhi's house into heritage site

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said that his government has decided to convert the ancestral house of Pahari Gandhi Baba Kanshi Ram, an activist for independence, in Kangra district's Padhyaal village into a heritage site.
Ram was involved in spreading Mahatma Gandhi's message through his poetry and songs in the Pahari languages after the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, which had a deep impact on him, he said.
He was a great admirer of Gandhi and an activist for independence. The government has decided to take over his house, preserve it and also erect a memorial, the chief minister said.

The title 'Pahari Gandhi' was given to him by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in 1937, an official release said, adding that he was arrested nearly 11 times by the British for spreading patriotic messages through his poems.
In 1984, former prime minister Indira Gandhi had released a postal stamp in Ram's name on his 135th birth anniversary, it said.