Swadeshi Melas
Recently I visited three Swadeshi Melas in the लास्ट month and I was overjoyed to see the participation of common masses in these Melas. First of all I went to the Jamshedpur Mela held in Mazdoor Grounds. Vandeshanker ji with his team of workers was full of enthusiasm to see the rush of people participated, purchasing, and giving the positive reactions regarding it. About 150 kiosks were spread over in the ground and on the final day several dignitaries were on the dais to discuss the plight of Swadeshi movement and its necessity in the period of globalization. Some seven to eight kiosks belonged to garments and say khadi garments. Two or three big shops were there which I have never seen anywhere in Swadeshi Melas and these belonged to furniture prepared of marble. After the popularization of herbal products by Baba Ramdev and other preachers, there was a mushroom growth of stalls having such indigenous medicinal stuffs. Oh, I shouldn’t forget to mention the stall where plants of ayurvedic herbs were sold in earthen pots alongwith supporting literature, in order to popularize the indigenous medicines. About 5000 persons visited the mela on that particular day. Anyhow, in all this din and cry of kiosks, the organizers were not forgetting the distribution of Swadeshi/Videshi products’ list to all the visitors.
Second Mela I visited also belongs to Jharkhand and it was held at Bokaro Steel City, and though comparatively slender in kiosks and visitors compared to the above mentioned Mela, has several strong points to its credit. The number of volunteers or activists of SJM who were conducting all the activities surpasses any other Mela, to the best of knowledge and belief. The stalls of eatables have a specialty of its own and there is always seen good rush at the kiosk of litti-chokha there. The public programme where Deputy Commissioner, local MP, Pashupatinath Singh and one of the highest official of the Steel plant, all sat on the dias and spoke well about the Swadeshi Mela and appreciated this effort of popularizing local products and swadeshi thinking. The young DC Satyendra Singh was much lauded when he lambasted the Chinese policy of flooding and dumping our market with their products and appealed people to boycott such products. It amused everybody when Prant Sanghchalak Jagannath Shahi while giving his presidential remarks said that he had neither visited any fair in his childhood nor in youth, and it is at this fag end of life that I have visited this Swadeshi Fair and the credit goes for it to SJM. Anyhow I appreciated the efforts of organizers, especially Sachindra Badiar and Deepak shuklaji, in the sense that such public dignitaries are called at one stage to ponder over the ill effects of globalization and how to inculcate the indigenous spirit among the masses. I was especially attracted towards one kiosks where locally prepared swords and knives were sold.
And the third Mela I visited on 10th Jan was Raipur Mela of Chhatisgarh. It topped the all in number of participants and visitors and kiosks. On Sunday we could not muster the courage to visit it alongwith Rajendra Dube because of messages coming to him that all roads leading to Mela were blocked by people’s rush. Everyday they invite some particular community to organize the cultural stage show and happily that day belonged to punjabi Sabha. I got a flavour of Punjab in their exhibition of swords, lathi demonstration and other activities and a jubliant crowd was giving a big hand in clapping over every event presented. Really a mega event it was to bring different sections of people at one vantage point of Mela. I was particularly impressed to see two big canopies where one Slam Bhai’s stalls exhibited and it was really a big attraction in the Mela. One stall of eatables run by local Jail inmates was also attracting people. One surprising factor was that wherever we went in the Mela, but one of the enthusiastic organizer Parveen Jain was found there, he was really, say, omnipresent. What created jubilation in me was one other incident. One organizer was announcing on the mike that owner of one particular stall has been caught selling some Chinese products and so all his paraphernalia has been confiscated. The spirit of Swadeshi was at its height among the audience.
Arvind Singh, senior office bearer of CBMD proudly said that with this Raipur Mela, the charming number of 150 melas in the country had been achieved, and this number is excluding a dozen or more Swadeshi Mela which have directly arranged by independent local SJM activists and Bokaro’s Mela you know is one of them The spirit with which Lokmanya Balgangdhar Tilak started this concept of Ganesh Chaturthi procession is reverberating clearly in these Swadeshi Melas.
Recently I visited three Swadeshi Melas in the लास्ट month and I was overjoyed to see the participation of common masses in these Melas. First of all I went to the Jamshedpur Mela held in Mazdoor Grounds. Vandeshanker ji with his team of workers was full of enthusiasm to see the rush of people participated, purchasing, and giving the positive reactions regarding it. About 150 kiosks were spread over in the ground and on the final day several dignitaries were on the dais to discuss the plight of Swadeshi movement and its necessity in the period of globalization. Some seven to eight kiosks belonged to garments and say khadi garments. Two or three big shops were there which I have never seen anywhere in Swadeshi Melas and these belonged to furniture prepared of marble. After the popularization of herbal products by Baba Ramdev and other preachers, there was a mushroom growth of stalls having such indigenous medicinal stuffs. Oh, I shouldn’t forget to mention the stall where plants of ayurvedic herbs were sold in earthen pots alongwith supporting literature, in order to popularize the indigenous medicines. About 5000 persons visited the mela on that particular day. Anyhow, in all this din and cry of kiosks, the organizers were not forgetting the distribution of Swadeshi/Videshi products’ list to all the visitors.
Second Mela I visited also belongs to Jharkhand and it was held at Bokaro Steel City, and though comparatively slender in kiosks and visitors compared to the above mentioned Mela, has several strong points to its credit. The number of volunteers or activists of SJM who were conducting all the activities surpasses any other Mela, to the best of knowledge and belief. The stalls of eatables have a specialty of its own and there is always seen good rush at the kiosk of litti-chokha there. The public programme where Deputy Commissioner, local MP, Pashupatinath Singh and one of the highest official of the Steel plant, all sat on the dias and spoke well about the Swadeshi Mela and appreciated this effort of popularizing local products and swadeshi thinking. The young DC Satyendra Singh was much lauded when he lambasted the Chinese policy of flooding and dumping our market with their products and appealed people to boycott such products. It amused everybody when Prant Sanghchalak Jagannath Shahi while giving his presidential remarks said that he had neither visited any fair in his childhood nor in youth, and it is at this fag end of life that I have visited this Swadeshi Fair and the credit goes for it to SJM. Anyhow I appreciated the efforts of organizers, especially Sachindra Badiar and Deepak shuklaji, in the sense that such public dignitaries are called at one stage to ponder over the ill effects of globalization and how to inculcate the indigenous spirit among the masses. I was especially attracted towards one kiosks where locally prepared swords and knives were sold.
And the third Mela I visited on 10th Jan was Raipur Mela of Chhatisgarh. It topped the all in number of participants and visitors and kiosks. On Sunday we could not muster the courage to visit it alongwith Rajendra Dube because of messages coming to him that all roads leading to Mela were blocked by people’s rush. Everyday they invite some particular community to organize the cultural stage show and happily that day belonged to punjabi Sabha. I got a flavour of Punjab in their exhibition of swords, lathi demonstration and other activities and a jubliant crowd was giving a big hand in clapping over every event presented. Really a mega event it was to bring different sections of people at one vantage point of Mela. I was particularly impressed to see two big canopies where one Slam Bhai’s stalls exhibited and it was really a big attraction in the Mela. One stall of eatables run by local Jail inmates was also attracting people. One surprising factor was that wherever we went in the Mela, but one of the enthusiastic organizer Parveen Jain was found there, he was really, say, omnipresent. What created jubilation in me was one other incident. One organizer was announcing on the mike that owner of one particular stall has been caught selling some Chinese products and so all his paraphernalia has been confiscated. The spirit of Swadeshi was at its height among the audience.
Arvind Singh, senior office bearer of CBMD proudly said that with this Raipur Mela, the charming number of 150 melas in the country had been achieved, and this number is excluding a dozen or more Swadeshi Mela which have directly arranged by independent local SJM activists and Bokaro’s Mela you know is one of them The spirit with which Lokmanya Balgangdhar Tilak started this concept of Ganesh Chaturthi procession is reverberating clearly in these Swadeshi Melas.
Swadeshi Mela 2024: Bridging India and America – A Spectacle of Trade and Culture at Chicago's Mall of India
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Swadeshi Mela 2024: A Confluence of Indian and American Commerce and Culture
An Invitation to Connect and Celebrate. We are excited to extend a warm invitation to the Swadeshi Mela 2024, a vibrant showcase of trade and cultural exchange between India and America. This event is proudly organized by the DTribals Foundation, with a mission to foster business relationships and cultural understanding between these two great nations.