'Amrit Mahotsav' spirit ruled 2022, 'Netaji' occupied India Gate canopy

The spirit of "Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav" ran high among the masses, epitomised by the "Har Ghar Tiranga" campaign, while "Netaji" occupied the historic India Gate canopy in 2022, when the country celebrated 75 years of its independence.

The AKAM (Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav) calendar kept the culture ministry busy through the year gone by, as the country also marked the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the nation in paying tributes to the freedom fighter in December.

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Though the "Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav" officially commenced from March 12, 2021, it reached the crescendo on August 15, 2022, when a free nation turned 75 and houses, offices and public places were bathed in a dominant tricolour theme.

The celebrations will continue till August 15, 2023.

AKAM is an initiative of the government of India to celebrate 75 years of independence and the glorious history of the country's people, culture and achievements. It has five pillars -- freedom struggle, ideas at 75, achievements at 75, actions at 75 and resolves at 75.

More than 1.36 lakh events have been organised under the aegis of AKAM, including several mega events such as "Har Ghar Tiranga", "Vande Bharatam" and "Kalanjali".

Modi launched the "Har Ghar Tiranga" campaign on July 22 to encourage people to hoist or display the national flag at their homes to celebrate the 75th year of independence.

"It reached 23 crore households and six crore 'Selfie with Tiranga' were also registered digitally. The official website also had a feature of 'Pin a Flag', which accumulated more than five crore entries," according to the culture ministry, the nodal agency for the AKAM celebrations.

Patriotic fervour and festive spirit ruled the events organised under the banner of the "Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav", and the theme was evident at several key events, from the Republic Day celebrations on the Rajpath on January 26 to the Independence Day event at the Red Fort on August 15.

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The year also saw the installation of a 28-foot-tall statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in the India Gate canopy that was originally occupied by a marble statue of King George V till it was removed in the late 1960s.

Bose's statue was carved out of a monolithic block of jet black Telangana granite and was unveiled on September 8 by Modi, who had described it as a rich tribute to "Netaji" from a grateful nation.

The installation of the statue and renaming of the Rajpath (originally built as Kingsway and rechristened after independence) and the Central Vista lawns flanking the ceremonial boulevard to "Kartavya Path" had drawn criticism from several quarters.

The year 2022 also witnessed the inauguration of the "Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya" housed in the historic Teen Murti Bhawan by Modi on April 14. The first light-and-sound show of the new museum, on the journey of the country's space programme, was also launched in December.

As part of the "Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav", the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) illuminated 150 monuments in a tricolour theme in August.

And from Lucknow's historic Residency, a place of key events during the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, to Mahatma Gandhi's birthplace in Porbander, the national flag was hoisted at the sites of 150 centrally-protected monuments on the Independence Day.

The ASI comes under the purview of the culture ministry and from December 1 to 7, it had lit up 100 of its monuments across the country, bearing the G20 logo, as India took over the presidency of the influential bloc on December 1.

From the Ajanta and Ellora caves in Maharashtra to the Qutub archaelogical park in Delhi, the country also plans to showcase its centuries-old architectural heritage to the G20 delegates by hosting excursions and gala dinners at many ASI sites in 2023, official sources had earlier said.

In September, the Hyderabad Circle of the ASI had illuminated the Golconda Fort and Charminar as part of the Centre's celebrations to mark the "Hyderabad Liberation Day".

On the cultural front, the year came to end on a cheerful note for India as three new cultural sites -- the iconic Sun Temple at Modhera, the historic Vadnagar town in Gujarat and the rock-cut relief sculptures of Unakoti in Tripura -- were added to the tentative list of UNESCO world heritage sites.

Vadnagar is the hometown of Modi.

The UNESCO website describes a tentative list as an "inventory of those properties which each State Party intends to consider for nomination".

India had, in early 2022, submitted the nomination dossier for the UNESCO tag for "The Sacred Ensembles of Hoyasalas" to the World Heritage Committee for the cycle 2022-23. It is a serial nomination consisting of three monuments -- the Hoysaleshwar temple at Halebeedu, the Somanathpur temple at Somanathpur and the Channakeshava temple at Belur -- in the southern state of Karnataka.

Besides, the country has nominated the traditional Garba dance form of Gujarat for inscription on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list.

"The nomination files will be examined by the evaluation body mid-2023 and the inscription will be decided at the 2023 session of the committee by the end of next year," UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage Secretary Tim Curtis had said during an event here in August.