Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that the Chauri Chaura incident was not only limited to a police station being set on fire and added that the message conveyed by it was huge. Modi said that the fire was not just in that police station but also in the hearts of people.
“Incident of Chauri Chaura was not limited to a police station being set on fire. Message of the incident was huge. Due to various reasons, it was treated as minor incident, but we should see it in context. The fire was not just in the station but in the hearts of people,” the Prime Minister said during the inauguration of the ‘Chauri Chaura’ centenary celebrations.
The incident which took place in the Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh- is regarded as a crucial event in India’s independence movement against the British Raj. On February 4, 1922, A crowd of the Non-Cooperation Movement clashed with Police personnel who opened fire.
The demonstrators in retaliation set fire to the Chauri Chaura police post in which 23 personnel were killed. The killing of the police personnel led to arrests of numerous demonstrators with 228 put on trial, 172 of them were ordered to be executed, six of them died during the trial while the remaining demonstrators were sentenced to long-term imprisonments.
Addressing the centenary celebrations through video conferencing, PM Modi said that the martyrs of Chauri Chaura had not been talked about as much as they should have been. “Although, they have not been given significance in pages of history but their blood is in the soil of the country and keeps inspiring us,” he said. Accompanied by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Modi also released a postage stamp to mark 100 years of the episode.
{{/usCountry}}Addressing the centenary celebrations through video conferencing, PM Modi said that the martyrs of Chauri Chaura had not been talked about as much as they should have been. “Although, they have not been given significance in pages of history but their blood is in the soil of the country and keeps inspiring us,” he said. Accompanied by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Modi also released a postage stamp to mark 100 years of the episode.
{{/usCountry}}While talking about the agriculture sector, the Prime Minister said that farmers had been behind the country’s progress and they had also played an important role in the Chauri Chaura struggle.
“The Center has undertaken several steps in the past 6 years to make farmers ‘Atmanirbhar’ and due to this, the agriculture sector continued to grow despite the prevailing coronavirus disease (Covid-19),” he said.
Towards the end of the event, Modi announced that 1,000 more mandis would be linked to the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) in order to make mandis more profitable for the farmers.
(With PTI inputs)