Shambhu Boro
Tezpur, Feb 6: “When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your better tomorrow, we gave our today....”
Echoing these immortal words written lyrically on a bronze plaque at the Kohima War Cemetery in memory of the martyrs during Japan’s invasion in the Second World War, in Sonitpur district also, many patriotic figures established an example of supreme sacrifice by laying down their lives before the bullets of the British on September 20, 1942.
Assam witnessed an unprecedented game of blood, sweat and tears during the 1942 Quit-India Movement, when Kanaklata Baruah and Mukunda Kakoti of Gohpur and Moniram Boro, Ratan Kachari, Mangol Kurku, Sarunath Sutia, Kumali Devi, Khohuli Devi, Lerela Kachari, Doyal Das Panika, Tileswari Baruah, Muhiram Koch and Manbar Kachari of greater Bargaon and Naharbari mouza under Dhekiajuli revenue circle made the ultimate sacrifice for the country’s independence.
Sadly enough, even after 74 years of India’s independence, these martyrs have not gained due recognition. Though different organisations have over the years been pleading successive governments to do justice, yet to no avail.
Not surprisingly rather, despite a lot of lip service by noted personalities from time to time, nothing much has been done in the real sense for granting adequate recognition to these unmatched heroes.
The socially conscious section of people here feel that those who have enjoyed political power as a fruition of the supreme sacrifice of those brave heroes, should have been pricked by conscience and need to show their collective responsibility towards the martyrs of yore.
Meanwhile, just ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Dhekiajuli town on February 7, social worker of Tezpur and senior advocate of Gauhati High Court, Subhas Biswash in a letter to the Prime Minister urged him to take every possible initiative for according due recognition to these martyrs of the Dhekiajuli episode during the Quit India Movement of 1942.
