The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Religious symbols ``had a role in freedom struggle''

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 02, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Religious symbols ``had a role in freedom struggle''

Staff Reporter

Historian delivers endowment lecture

P. K. Shukla, member-secretary, ICHR. — Photo: R. Ragu

CHENNAI : The use of religious symbols for restoration of civil rights is a defining aspect of the country's freedom struggle and added impetus to the anti-colonial movement, said P. K. Shukla, member-secretary, Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), on Monday.

Delivering the Sir William Meyer endowment lecture at the Department of Indian History, University of Madras, Mr. Shukla said it was not only popular revolts in the mainstream but also the anti-oppression struggles launched by tribal communities, which used religious symbols as a galvanising and unifying factor.

As remarkable as the phenomenon during Mahatma Gandhi's salt sathyagraha of people from all walks of life going to jail with the Gita, the Bible or the Koran in hand was the more or less similar engagement of religious symbols in the liberation struggles that characterised the Birsa Munda Rebellion (1890-1900), Mr. Shukla said.

Though a few chroniclers of history dubbed tribal struggles as obscurantist, the Birsa Munda rebellion typified the many tribal movements for restoration of land rights taken away by the British, Mr. Shukla said.

These struggles, which saw a merger of different religious identities for a common goal, are very much at the heart of the freedom movement, he added.

G. Venkataraman, Head, Department of Indian History, University of Madras, also participated.

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