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Ullashkar Datta
Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma strongly advocated rewriting of the Indian history books to enlighten the students of their past glory as well as to put the India’s independence movement from the angle of nationalist. He made no bones while saying that for the last 75 years the history books did not really reflect the true Indian mind- it remained amiss till date in the history books that students read for the last 75 years.
The Deputy Chief Minister was addressing a programme organized to mark the 132nd birth anniversary of Ullaskar Datta, a revolutionary hailed from undivided Tripura in Agartala Press Club
“What we read, what we learnt was an incomplete and skewed history”, he said and pointed out that many a hero of the Indian freedom struggle who made sacrifices and got subjected to tortures under the British Raj for their contribution to the freedom struggle were not at all mentioned in the History books. They were simply consigned to oblivion due to apathy of the History writers of the yesteryears.
He felt that the nationalist perspective was ‘missing’ in the history of India’s freedom struggle which was taught to the students till date. He reasoned that the independence history that we were forced to read was influenced by people belonging to either right or left or centre.
“However:, of late, he said “ efforts are on to revisit the history and reorient the entire thing by the scholars to put our past and our glories in right perspective for the new generations”, he said added that the unsung heroes of especially the Bengal region would now get due recognition and that would evoke nationalism among the young minds..
Dev said, “In my student life, I studied history of Mughal emperors, British administration and non-violence movement of Gandhiji but very little about the Bengal Renaissance of socio-political awakening in the arts, literature, music, philosophy, religion and science that helped influence the movement,”. He added that the kings of Tripura had never supported the British unlike Assam and that’s why none of the tea gardens here had any European owner.
He pointed out that the school or college syllabus didn’t have due coverage to hundreds of unsung heroes of undivided Tripura, Assam and West Bengal like Ullaskar Datta.
“The history book started with Europe, Russia and the Asian sub-continent but when it reached eastern India, the syllabus was over and the generations of 75 years lost the nationalist sentiment because of studying the incomplete history of the freedom movement,” the report quoted Dev Varma.
Born in Kalikachha village in Brahmanbaria of undivided Tripura, Ullaskar Datta had immense contributions in the fight against British suppression even in Presidency College. Besides, Swadeshi movement landed him to Andaman jail where he underwent inhuman torture.
