Mumbai: Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Sunday that many forces attempted to erase India’s radiant knowledge, which stood ready to guide the world, but they could not succeed.
Speaking at the inauguration of the ‘Ganesh Gyanarthi Exhibition’ organised by the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, HM Shah said a nation which cannot protect its ‘smriti’, history, values, language, records and traditions, no matter how powerful it may be, does not take long to decline.
He said a country which protects its ‘smriti’, history, traditions, values, records, language and grammar, no matter for how many years it remains enslaved, cannot truly be enslaved by anyone.
HM Shah said that he has come to the Asiatic Society not as a Minister but as a participant in the movement to carry forward the Indian knowledge tradition for thousands of years.
The Home Minister said that India’s knowledge was not being written in India’s voice.
It was being written in the language of the colonial perspective, whose purpose was to create a collective inferiority complex within society and to diminish the self-confidence of our people, he said.
Home Minister Shah said that Maharashtra is the land of the ‘Saraswats’. The primacy and importance of ‘Saraswati’ are already inherent in the energy of this land. He said that the new team of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai is expected to expand the storehouse of knowledge that lies here.
This expansion should take place from three perspectives. He said that the Asiatic Society should expand, and the manuscripts available here should be fully linked with the Gyan Bharatam National Manuscript Mission launched by the Government of India.
The Asiatic Society should explore the possibility of running a campaign to collect ancestral documents from villages across Maharashtra and from the homes of scholars, and link them with the Gyan Bharatam Manuscript Survey.
He said that research arrangements under the Gyan Bharatam National Manuscript Mission should be considered for all the departments associated with the manuscripts present here.
The Home Minister said that research is essential on the vast knowledge contained in the manuscripts. These hold the power to take the country forward.
He said that in the first informal meeting of the Gyan Bharatam Manuscript Mission, a Jain monk had said that the seed to make India the best in the world in economic and defence terms is contained in these very manuscripts.
Arrangements for research on this must be made, he said.
Home Minister Shah said that he has told Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to empower the Society.
He said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Government of India is providing every possible support and cooperation to the Asiatic Society of Mumbai and will continue to do so in the future.
The Home Minister said that all such institutions existing in every village, every town and every state of the country should be linked with the Asiatic Society of Mumbai to create a shared repository of knowledge, so that it becomes available to students, researchers and scholars across the entire country.
(IANS)
