State yet to implement light and sound project on Sepoy Mutiny
tarun goswami
tarun@thestatesman.net
Kolkata, 7 August
The Trinamul-led state government&’s tall claims of having done so much doesn’t hold true in Barrackpore. A light and sound project set up at an estimated cost of Rs 80 lakh is gathering dust due to the indifference of the minister and senior officials of the tourism department.
After coming to power in 2011, chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee had asked the tourism department to develop Barrackpore as a place of tourist attraction. Accordingly, the then minister in charge Rachpal Singh took up a light and sound project depicting the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 at the Malancha tourist lodge premises. Barrackpore was the centre of political activities when Mangal Pandey, a sepoy, was hanged for raising the banner of revolt against the East India Company in 1857. From here the mutiny spread to Jhansi, Nagpur and Lucknow. It may be noted that Karl Marx in an article published shortly after the mutiny had declared it as a national war of Independence. The light and sound project was prepared by a private firm and it was decided that the show would begin after sundown and the entire path up to Malancha was illuminated for the purpose. The department will organise a conducted tour. Barrackpore is important to History students the world over. Every year many history students from universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Cornell and Heidelberg visit the Flag Staff House where statues of George V, Lord Curzon, Lord Montague, Lord Woodburn are kept. These statues were removed from the Maidan area by the United Front government in the late 1960s. The project was supposed to have been inaugurated by the chief minister. But after Mr Singh was transferred to the planning and development department no initiative was taken any more. Mr Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury who took over as the tourism minister expressed his ignorance of the project and said he would look into the matter. It will be recalled that a team from the United Kingdom comprising History teachers and archaeologists had met the then chief minister Jyoti Basu in early 1990s and expressed his desire to repair the building where Robert Clive lived in Dum Dum. The government remained silent as it did not want to highlight the imperialist history. A portion of the building has collapsed and the remaining part may fall down any day.