INDIA. Mumbai: Union Minister of Culture, Tourism, and Development of North Eastern Region G. Kishan Reddy inaugurated an exhibition to mark the 79th anniversary of the ‘Quit India Movement at the National Archives of India (NAI) in New Delhi, in presence of Ministers of State for Culture Arjun Ram Meghwal and Meenakshi Lekhi, on Sunday.
The exhibition has been put up as part of ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ being celebrated to commemorate 75 years of Independence. In the exhibition, the Quit India Movement in India’s freedom struggle is being depicted through public records, private letters, maps, photographs, and other relevant material. The exhibition will be open to the public from August 9 from 10 am to 5:30 pm till November 8. It has several segments which outline the circumstances leading to the Quit India Movement, how it became a mass movement, the heroes of Quit India, impact on the ground, imprint of the movement, atrocities by the colonial rulers, and its consequences among others, an official statement said.
On the occasion, Reddy said that the independence struggle is gilded with golden chapters of unity, strength, and determination and one such proud event was the Quit India Movement and how even almost eight decades later, it stands as a shining example of the power of the masses. It will remain so for many more decades to come.
Earlier, signing the visitor register after inaugurating the exhibition, Reddy wrote, “The template for the Quit India Movement is relevant even today as we commemorate the 79th year of the struggle. In 1942 Mahatma Gandhi’s Quit India drove out the colonial forces. In today’s New India, as shared by the Prime Minister last year, we can pledge to wipe out poverty, inequality, illiteracy, open defecation, terrorism, and discrimination and say Quit India to these evils”.
Throwing light on the history related to this exhibition, Meghwal said that after the arrest of other senior leaders including Mahatma Gandhi, the Quit India movement had spread spontaneously across the country. During that time, the command of the movement passed into the hands of the youth like Ram Manohar Lohia, Aruna Asaf Ali, Jayaprakash Narayan among others. The youth of 1942, with their leadership and public participation, turned the challenge into an opportunity and forced the British to leave the country.
The Quit India Movement was started by Mahatma Gandhi on August 8, 1942, at Gowalia Tank(August Kranti Maidan) in South Mumbai,during the Second World War, demanding an end to British rule in India. It is significant especially because it brought home to the British that it would not be possible to continue to govern India and forced them to think of ways they could exit the country. The Movement was accompanied by a mass protest on non-violent lines by which Mahatma Gandhi called for “an orderly British withdrawal; from India. Launching the movement, Gandhi declared in his immortal “Do or Die ” speech, “Let every Indian consider himself to be a free man”.
