Maritime part in freedom movement not projected: Indologist

The maritime part of India's freedom struggle has never been projected properly in the history books, according to renowned Indologist Sanjeev Sanyal.

Speaking at a seminar, Sanyal, who wrote several books on ancient Indian history, pointed out that there were a number of coastal historical events which were left out of history text books.

For instance, Sanyal said, "Guns were smuggled along the eastern coast on Chirstmas Day in 1915 to engineer disturbances in Kolkata. Then there was the Royal Indian Navy revolt in 1946 in which 20,000 sailors mutinied in 75 ships. The latter was a defining moment of the freedom struggle."
 

The seminar, organised by the IIT-KGP under its SandHI project and the Ramakrishna Mission, Golpark, was held on 'Historical Evolution of India'.

He cited the instance of the voyage of Odiya-Bengali maritime explorers in ancient India and said that this had seldom been referred to in our history text books.

"There is a ritual in remembrance of 'Balijatra' when women in Odisha light lamps in boats made of banana and set them afloat on water in the month of November. This has reference to the expedition to Bali undertaken by our sailors centuries back," he said.

"As the wind starts blowing in southern direction in November (Kartika) the ships would set sail for Lanka and then faraway Indonesia and some would ultimately go to Cambodia, Vietnam. This is how Indian civilisation had reached South East Asia shores. How many of us are aware of it," he said.

Sanyal said that on the western coast merchants sailed out all the way to Iran and beyond.

"While we only consider countries in the Indian sub-continent as our neighbours, if we take a maritime view coastal countries of South East Asia are also our neighbours. And they are proud to be linked to India. Only we are not aware of this fact," he said.

Earlier, Director IIEST, Shibpur Prof Ajoy Kumar Roy, talked about the inner significance of 'History of Evolution' in India and the changes in technology over centuries.

Srimat Swami Bhajananandaji Maharaj of Ramakrishna Mission, Belur Math, talked about political, cultural, spiritual identities of a man and how Swami Vivekananda wanted to bring back those identities.