GUWAHATI, April 27 - Tributes were paid to martyr of the 1857 Sepoy Revolution Maniram Dewan on the occasion of his 212th birth anniversary today.
The memorial function held on the occasion at Hotel Ambarish was presided over by Bhupen Das, president of the Maniram Dewan Trust and retired Deputy Commissioner.
Delivering the inaugural address, senior journalist DN Chakravartty described Dewan as a most outstanding freedom fighter, statesman and martyr of India�s first organised struggle for freedom.
He said that besides being a freedom fighter, Dewan was the first modern historian of Assam, the first Assamese journalist and India�s first entrepreneur and industrialist senior to Dadabhai Naoroji who is regarded by the nation as India�s first industrialist.
Chakravartty added that as a historian, Dewan wrote three volumes of Assam history, two of which had been lost. He said that whatever materials were available intact, manifest that the Assamese people could produce most attractive ivory and cane bamboo works in the seventh century when Assamese king Bhaskar Varman gave presents to king Harshavardhan with expensive items like ivory-ornamented fan and a variety of exquisite materials made of bamboo and cane.
Delivering the keynote address, Dr Kulendu Pathak, former VC of Dibrugarh University said that besides being a statesman and an organiser, Maniram Dewan was a great writer, journalist, historian and entrepreneur. He said Dewan�s monumental work Buranji Bibek Ratna should be rendered into modern Assamese language from the mixed version written by Dewan on the history of Assam.
Surjya Hazarika, Madhabananda Dutta Bardoloi and Mridula Hazarika also spoke on the occasion.
Earlier, Arun Baruah, great grandson of Dewan, in his welcome address, spoke about the legacy of Dewan and the conspiracy hatched by the British to malign the great patriot.
