GUWAHATI, April 27 - Glowing tributes were paid to the memory of Maniram Dewan, the outstanding martyr of India�s first organised freedom struggle of 1857, at a function held under the auspices of the Maniram Dewan Trust in the auditorium of Hotel Ambarish here today.
The function was presided over by senior journalist DN Chakravartty, president of the Trust.
Inaugurating the function, former State Chief Secretary Harendra Nath Das described Maniram Dewan as one of the pioneers of India�s industrialisation and a great freedom fighter. He said Maniram Dewan, who was 29 years senior to Jamshedji Tata, could be described as a pioneer of India�s industrial growth.
Since the birth anniversary of Maniram Dewan was celebrated as �Entrepreneurs� Day�, Das stressed the need for proper motivation of 19 million youths of Assam to take up the new economic challenges to transform Assam into a hub of economic growth.
Manoj Kumar Das, Director, Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIE), in his speech, analysed the causes of economic backwardness of Assam and called upon the younger generation to take up the challenges of the times and harness the vastly available economic resources for accelerating the economic growth of the State � plugging the loopholes and clearing the backlogs of the last few decades.
Das added that a good number of fortune-seekers from outside had taken undue advantage of the subsidies offered by the government only to garner wealth for themselves without bothering about Assam�s development.
Writer Arup Kumar Dutta, who is also an adviser to the Trust, in his speech, hoped that the younger generation of the Assamese people would translate into reality the great dream and vision of Maniram Dewan.
Uttam Baruah, Jayashree Baruah and SK Sarma, in their speeches, criticised the attitude of the Assamese people in not offering due homage to a great patriot like Maniram Dewan.
Chakravartty, in his presidential speech, said Maniram Dewan was the most outstanding person among all the prominent freedom fighters of the 1857 freedom struggle. He said Dewan was not only a politician but was a great visionary, economist, industrialist, administrator, scholar and historian � all rolled into one.
Earlier, Arun Baruah, working president of the Trust said that there are discrepancies as in the cellular jail in Andaman the name of Maniram Barbhandar Baruah had been inscribed on the walls as a prisoner � for which the Trust had been drawing the attention of the cellular jail authorities to correct the error.