Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Saturday inaugurated the Chinar Book Festival at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Conference Centre (SKICC) in Srinagar.
Speaking at the inaugural event, Sinha said that India must take pride in its rich history while also focusing on the future. “India has been a nation that has suffered centuries of foreign invasions, yet the civilisation has continued to thrive even in difficult times,” he said.
He praised the country’s rich legacy, adding that civilisations such as those of Greece, Egypt, and Rome have vanished, while India’s has endured. “India's civilisation, unlike others, has grown across the spectrum, be it science or spirituality,” he added.
He said that to move forward, there is a need to transform the country's cultural, literary, scientific, and spiritual development into a knowledge system that reaches all levels of society.
Sinha mentioned that India’s contributions to critical fields like science, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine existed when other regions were still in early stages of development.
He went on to say that the early Indian texts were translated into Arabic and brought to Baghdad and Persia, leaving a significant influence on scientific thinking in the Islamic world.
Sinha said it was Indian critical literature that contributed to the European Renaissance. He said that colonial mindset have weakened the roots of India’s knowledge system, but those roots remain.
“We must remove the distortions and bring forward the evidence-based contributions of Indian civilisation,” he added.
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