A Night of Cultural Reckoning: Professor Sarat Mahanta Memorial Lecture Rewrites the Narrative

The 10th Professor Sarat Mahanta Memorial Lecture was organized with grandeur at Royal Global University, Guwahati, on Thursday evening and was attended by a prominent assembly of academics, cultural stalwarts, and public personalities. Curated by Dr Upasana Mahanta and organized by the Professor Sarat Mahanta Foundation in association with the university, the programme marked the birth anniversary of the great educationist, journalist, and social reformer, Professor Sarat Mahanta.

 

Acclaimed author and speaker Akshat Gupta presented the keynote address, confronting the colonial ideology of terming Hindu scriptures as "mythology" and calling for India to return to its ancient wisdom and cultural pride. Gupta, who rose to fame as an author through his best-selling trilogy "The Hidden Hindu," advocated that the Ramayana and Mahabharata were not myths, but eternal truths, and pleaded for education reform to ground Indian children in their own language and spiritual heritage. His controversial address also touched upon the need for reclamation of language and identity, generating fervent debate among the participants.

 

The function commenced in the evening with a invocation by Zublee Baruah and was honored with Assam Governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya, who highly commended the lecture as an apt remembrance to the memory of Professor Mahanta. Senior bureaucrats, cultural stalwarts, academicians, and well-wishers filled the gathering, consolidating the event's reputation as an intellectual and cultural phenomenon of some substance in Assam.

 

Source: Pratidin Time