Vice President releases commemorative postage stamp on the 200th birth anniversary of Swami Dayanand Saraswati
Swami Dayanand Saraswati’s vision and action for combating social evils continue to remain relevant to this day, and find resonance in Government initiatives such as Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and the New Education Policy. This was highlighted by the Vice President, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar during the release of a commemorative postage stamp on the 200 th birth anniversary of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, in New Delhi today. He noted the dedicated efforts of Swami Dayanand ji for the eradication of social evils like untouchability, and towards the empowerment of women through education, that continue to form the foundation of social welfare in Independent India.
The Vice President paid tribute to Swami Dayanand’s contributions as a thinker-philosopher of modern India, and as the founder of the Arya Samaj. During colonial rule, when India had lost its spiritual and cultural moorings, Swami Dayanand Saraswati reinfused Vedic wisdom with a rational outlook to revitalize India’s civilizational ethos, he said.
Shri Dhankhar recalled that Swami Dayanand Saraswati was the first to give the clarion call for Swaraj , which was amplified by Lokmanya Tilak and went on to become a Jan Andolan. Independence, for Swamiji, was not detached from true independence of the mind and spirit, Shri Dhankhar highlighted.
The Vice President said that it is painful to see some people going abroad and trying to malign their own country from there. He stated that a true believer of Bharat & Bharteeyata would always think of his or her country first and contribute to nation’s reform process; rather than making unfounded comments on our institutions from foreign soil.
Shri Dhankhar underlined Swami Dayanad’s contribution towards ensuring that languages like Sanskrit and Hindi get their deserved recognition. “There is no language in the world and no grammar which has the depth that Sanskrit is possessed of. It is like the mother of all languages,” he noted, calling on citizens to never forget their roots.
The postage stamp release program was organized by the Satya Foundation in collaboration with the Ministry of Communications & IT, and Ministry of Culture.
Shri Devusinh Chauhan, Hon’ble Minister of State for Communication, Dr. Satya Pal Singh, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), Swami Sumedhanand Saraswati, Swami Ramdev, Patanjali Yogpeeth, Haridwar, Swami Chidanand Saraswati, Parmarth Niketan, Hrishikesh and other senior officials from the Ministry of Communication were also present on the occasion.