Amid the chaos and roaring sounds of engines of lakhs of vehicles in the northeast’s biggest city — Guwahati — Sarania hillock with its serene environment is standing amid the 18 hills of the city to teach the values and principles which “the Father of the Nation” Mahatma Gandhi had sowed in order to build an empowered society.
Gandhiji died in 1948 but his philosophy remained in the hearts of not only Indians but also people across the world. The ashram at Sarania hillock in Guwahati, which is popularly known as “Sarania Ashram”, is a living testimony of how Gandhiji’s ardent followers are still practising his principles and philosophy.
On the Sarania Ashram premises, the Assam branch of the Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust, which was formed in memory of Kasturba Gandhi after her death on February 22, 1944 in prison, and the Kasturba Gandhi Sevika Vidyalaya are located. Apart from these, the hut constructed using bamboos and thatch, where Mahatma Gandhi had stayed for three days in January 1946 after he inaugurated the Assam branch of the Trust on January 9 that year, is still there without any modification over the decades while the neem tree, under which Gandhiji was said to have spun yarn, is still standing tall, providing shelter to the birds.
Beauty Das, pratinidhi (representative) of the Trust’s Assam branch, said one has to go down memory lane to 1939-40 to know about the history of Sarania Ashram. She said freedom fighter Harikrishna Das was greatly attracted to Gandhiji’s constructive works and wanted to do something for society. “His wife Hema Prova Das, who advanced the cause of women’s education, went with her daughter Amal Prova to Maganbari in 1939 and took training in oil pressing, bee-hiving and paper making. After returning to Assam, she started a permanent constructive work centre with an idea to produce Assam silk yarn. However, before she could realise her dream, she died in 1945,” she added.
The groundwork of the Assam branch of the Trust was conducted mostly by Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi and Amal Prova Das, as almost all other prominent leaders of the freedom movement in Assam were in jail during the Quit India Movement. “They initially decided to set up a provincial educational institution. Amal Prova Das visited Sevagram, Gandhiji’s Ashram, in 1945 to learn the work. She returned after meeting with the Mahatma and settling on a new scheme, based on the handloom of Assam,” she added.
That is how, Das said, the Kastruba Gram Sevika Vidyalaya was started in 1946, which was inaugurated by Gandhiji in Sarania Ashram. The ashram property was donated by Harikrishna Das. On Mahatma Gandhi’s second visit to the state in 1934, he resided in Das’s house at Panbazar. Upon his wife Hema Prova’s demise in 1945, Harikrishna Das donated his house at Sarania along with the 54 bighas of land in her memory to the Trust, where the ashram is now located.
The house was built in 1928 as a vacation home for the family by Harikrishna Das. When Mahatma Gandhi made his fourth and final visit to Assam in 1946, a bamboo cottage was built in the ashram complex for his stay. That house is still there and is known as Gandhi Ghar.
The Assam branch of the Trust is facing a financial crisis to continue its activities on Gandhiji’s thoughts and principles across the northeast through its 20 centres. “Earlier, the state government used to provide a yearly grant of around Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh through the social welfare department, which stopped in 2018-19. The labour commission used to provide a around Rs 70,000 yearly for running the centres, which stopped after 2015. We are now running the centres in the region with the fund provided by the Trust headquarters,” said Beauty Das.
