AIR’s Sardar Patel lecture gets a Modi-Shah twist — annual event changed after 60 years

The lecture has been an annual feature since 1955 and involves eminent personalities addressing a select audience, which is then broadcast on AIR.

All India Radio | Commons

New Delhi: For over 60 years, All India Radio (AIR) marked the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, which falls on 31 October, with a one-hour broadcast of a memorial lecture in his name.

This year, however, the public broadcaster has tweaked its plans.

Instead of a lecture delivered by an eminent personality, AIR will broadcast a radio report comprising excerpts of addresses by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat and Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi. Excerpts from the PM’s episodes of Mann Ki Baat, a song made for the event and some available archival excerpts of Sardar Patel will also be part of the broadcast, government sources said.

“The annual Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture, which is delivered by an eminent personality, is recorded in the last week of October and then broadcast on the 31^st,” a source in the government said. “This year it was not held. No reasons were provided as to why the lecture is not taking place.”

Others claimed that it was a last-minute decision.

AIR has, however, decided to keep the name of the programme — Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture — unchanged while only tweaking the content. The programme will be aired at 9.30 pm.

All the AIR stations across the country have been informed of the development.

AIR Director General Fayyaz Shehreyar told ThePrint that the lecture is just being broadcast in a different format.

“The Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture 2019 will be in a different format, bringing to audiences a capsule encompassing Hon’ble Prime Minister’s address in Kevadia, Gujarat, as a tribute to the Iron Man of India and the Hon’ble Home Minister’s address in Delhi throwing light on the role of his predecessor, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in the reorganisation of India that culminated into the reorganisation of the State of Jammu & Kashmir, recently,” he said.

“These two addresses and the Hon’ble PM’s mention of the Rashtriya Ekta Diwas in the bygone episode of ‘Mann Ki Baat’ plus the iconic song made by All India Radio relevant to ‘Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat’ as the theme, will also be one of the components of the capsule,” Shehreyar added.

A 62-year-old lecture

The annual Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture, delivered in English, was started in 1955, in the memory of Patel, who had served as India’s first information & broadcasting minister, apart from being the deputy prime minister and the first home minister.

A gamut of eminent personalities across fields has over the years delivered this lecture to a select audience on a variety of chosen themes.

Some of the prominent names who have delivered the lecture include the last Governor-General of India Dr C. Rajagopalachari; former presidents Dr Zakir Husain, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam; former PM Morarji Desai; anthropologist Dr Verrier Elwin; Congress leader Vasant Sathe; former ISRO chief Dr K. Kasturirangan; agricultural scientist Dr M.S. Swaminathan and historian Romila Thapar, among others.

In the last five years, several ministers of the Modi government have delivered the lecture, including Arun Jaitley, Dr Jitendra Singh and Smriti Irani. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval had delivered the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture 2018 on the theme: Dream India 2030 — Avoiding the Pitfalls.

The other series of lectures organised by AIR, but in Hindi, is the Dr Rajendra Prasad Memorial Lecture Series. The hour-long lecture is organised in the second fortnight of November every year and broadcast on 3 December every year, the birth anniversary of India’s first president.

BJP and Patel

The ruling BJP has been trying to appropriate Sardar Patel since it came to power in 2014 and has repeatedly projected him as the anti-thesis of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister.

Apart from unveiling the iconic Statue of Unity on Sardar Patel in Gujarat last year, the Modi government celebrates his birth anniversary as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas or National Integration Day.

This year, PM Modi will be in Kevadia, Gujarat, on 31 October for the celebrations of Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, while also marking the first anniversary of the Statue of Unity, which is dedicated to Patel. Shah is set to flag off a Run for Unity event in New Delhi on the same day.

The government has also planned a variety of activities to promote its flagship programme, Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat, which was first announced in 31 October 2015.