By Our Correspondent
ROURKELA/BHUBANESWAR: Since 1949, ABVP has been one of the best ‘free universities’ in post-independence India, building a successful leadership for ideological clarity and creating a large and youth movement, said Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan while attending the 50th state session of ‘Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Odisha West’ in Rourkela.
Shri Pradhan said that ABVP has completed 76 years of its formation in India and it has made a profound impact on the social life of Odisha. Exactly 34 years ago today, I attended the Rourkela provincial session as a lay worker. Since then, it is a matter of great pride and honour for me to attend as a guest while holding the charge of the Education Minister of India. This journey from 1983 to 2025 is not only my personal achievement, but it is also a reflection of ABVP’s work ethic and ideological commitment.
He said that we give slogans to great personalities like Swami Vivekananda, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Birsa Munda, Bakshi Jagbandhu, Veer Surendra Sai and Veer Baji Rout, who are the inspirations of the youth, who sacrificed their material comforts and dedicated their lives for the society and the country. The ideology of ABVP is not a new ideology, rather it is a means of bringing the age-old Indian civilization, culture and education system to the new generation.
Rourkela is called ‘Laghu Bharat’. The work of the council in Sundargarh and western Odisha is about 40 to 45 years old. ‘Shishu Vatika’, which started from the inspiration of the Saraswati Sishu Temple in Rourkela, is today a part of India’s new education policy. He said, we were not only slaves under British rule, but we also endured slavery from the 10th to the 19th century. During this time, there were many attacks on our civilization and culture, but the Indian spirit survived. I firmly believe that the leadership of the next 50 years will be taken by our youth.
Shri Pradhan said that since 1949, ABVP has continuously ignited the flame of patriotism among the youth. In this movement of nation building, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the main tree, of which ABVP, working as a branch, has a lot of responsibility. There is no alternative to Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in taking the responsibility for the prosperity of the country.
The Union Minister advised the ABVP students to fulfill 7 major responsibilities to fulfill the dream of a developed Odisha and a developed India. They are to take the resolution of a prosperous Odisha on the occasion of the centenary of the formation of Odisha in 2036, to promote education in the mother tongue as per the National Education Policy, to take responsibility so that no child in Odisha falls victim to malnutrition, to increase the workforce of our human resources from 50% to 75% for a ‘developed India’, to create an environment where the youth can ‘create jobs’ instead of ‘finding jobs’, to move towards solving the problems of the world to become ‘world teachers’ and to grow further towards keeping the environment clean and creating health awareness, he said.
