NEW DELHI: The 450th bin anniversary celebrations of the Mughal emperor Akbar have been postponed.

Resource constraints have been cited to postpone the five-month Jong nation-wide festivities by the Human Resource Development ministry. The latter is however going ahead with extravagant plans to observe the golden jubilee of the Quit India movement from August 9.

The Akbar carnival now stands reduced to a three-day international seminar in the capita sometime in October. It will be organized by the Indian Council for Historical Research (CHR) and funded by the HRD ministry and is expected to cost about Rs 3 lakhs.

However the rest of the gala festivities associated with the Akbar carnival originally scheduled from October 1992 t0 February 1993 have now been postponed to October-December1993 Ministry sources said this would “reduce the time pressure on the organizers and facilitate higher quality of programs. Asked if the resource crunch would be over by then the sources replied “God willing.”

Congress sources said Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh would have gone ahead with the celebration the resource crunch notwithstanding had the celebrations not generated a controversy within the minority community itself as well as in the Southern states from where the railing party received its mandate in the general elections.

The sources pointed govt that in north India the emperor Akbar is held in high esteem because of his spousal of the Din-i-llah (universal faith) and the patronage he ave to the musician Tansen the  learned Birbal and the renowned warrior Raja Mann Singh.

But in the southern states the Mughal kings have historically been viewed as invaders who tried to conquer their territory. Thus after the ministry announced the proposed nationwide “Akbar celebrations it received feedback that it would not be possible to conduct the festivities in the southern states.

This meant confining the festivities to on India especially Delhi Jaipur and Agra. While the proposed for might-long recreation of Akbars court at Fateh pur Siri would no doubt have given a boost to tourism in this area celebrations confined to the northern states would not have served the “political purpose of the centenary.

Congress sources alleged that Arjun Singh was the leader of the Akbar carnival in order to grab the party’s secular platform Interestingly the Tourism ministry which was initially behind the proposal to recreate the Mughal court backed out on the plea that “tour is misstate subject. “The ministry is headed by Arjun Singhs arch rival Madhavrao Scinda.

 But what seems to have clinched the decision to “post-pone” the Akbar carnival is the reaction of| the party’s minority members. There are reported to have cautioned Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao that since emperor Akbal was never the hero of the Indian Muslims it was not advisable to observe his birth anniversary with so much fanfare at a time when fundamentals forces are sweeping the world. This they warned could well give obscurantist forces an opportunity to entrench themselves by clarifying that the state was trying to dilate their faith

The members are reported to be particularly irked by the presence of Penguins Zameer Ansari on the committee organizing the extravaganza. It was Penguin which published Salman Rushdies controversial The Satanic Verses which has inflamed passions in the community all over the world the sources said.

When the HRD ministry discreetly announced the postponement of the Akbar anniversary party sources gleefully pointed out that the Prime Minister had availed of the controversy generated by the proposed celebration to rebuff Arjun Singhs attempt to grab the “secular platform and emerge as the messiah of the minorities. The carnival they said was Arjun Singhs counter-offensive to the Prime Ministers espousal of the cause of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the wake of the elections to the Congress Working Committee. The move to cash-in on the Mughal emperors secular values and the cultural synthesis he had tied 19 bring about was indeed brilliant the sources said and would have succeeded but for the fact that the communal situation in the country was not conducive.

With the Akbar extravaganza put off the HRD ministry and the ruling party are concentrating upon making the golden jubilee celebrations of the Quit India Movement a success.

The Prime Minister is expected to give a new slogan and project his own leadership of the party and the country while hoisting the national flag in the grounds of the Red Fort at a freedom fighters function on August 9 (On August 15 he will again unfurl the flag from the ramparts of the Fort.

On Aug9 the government will re-enact the unfurling of the national flag wherever it was done.

50 years ago the ailing Aruna Asaf Ali has been requested will reenact the moment when she un furled the ago at the Gowalia Tank.

Article extracted from this publication >> July 24, 1992