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12/03/24 21:50 PM IST

Redeveloped Sabarmati Ashram

In News
  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi will perform the ‘Ashram Bhoomi Vandana’, a symbolic laying of the foundation stone, and unveil the masterplan of the Rs 1,200 crore Gandhi Ashram Memorial and Precinct Development Project in Ahmedabad.
About project
  • Prepared by Ahmedabad-based HCP Design, Planning and Management Pvt Ltd (HCPDPM) led by Bimal Patel, the masterplan proposes to restore, conserve, and rebuild about half of the 63 structures that existed in the original ashram that was spread over 120 acres of land on the banks of the Sabarmati River on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. In all, 36 buildings will be restored.
  • The place that is popularly known as Sabarmati Ashram currently, and is open to the public, covers only 5 acres of this original space.
  • It is managed by the Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust (SAPMT).
  • The new memorial will be spread over 55 acres, and the entire precincts will sprawl over 322 acres.
  • 20 buildings will be conserved — this list includes Hriday Kunj, the residence of Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba; the Gandhi Memorial Museum designed by the late Charles Correa which opened in 1963; Nandini Niwas, which served as the guest house; Manav Sadhna, run by Jayesh Patel, son of its Gandhian founder Ishwarbhai Patel, and the son-in-law of Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandi Patel; Vinoba-Mira Kutir, where Vinoba Bhave stayed; the Jay Jagat Amphitheatre; and the Junu Rasodu (Old Kitchen).
  • Thirteen buildings — which include two gaushalas, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s office, and Dus Ordi (Ten Rooms) — will be restored.
  • And three buildings — the Dehla Puni Kendra (place for storing cotton bales), Saat Ordi (Seven Rooms), and Anand Bhawan Sanghralaya — are proposed to be rebuilt.
Significance
  • Gandhi set up five settlements during his lifetime — two in South Africa (Phoenix Settlement in Natal, and Tolstoy Farm outside Johannesburg), where he lived from 1893 to 1914, and three in India, where he arrived in January 1915.
  • Gandhi set up the first ashram in Ahmedabad in Kocharab in 1915.
  • In 1917, Gandhi founded the ashram at Sabarmati — his fourth ashram — on the western bank of the Sabarmati River.
  • The location was to the north of the village of Juna Vadaj, beyond the Chandrabhaga rivulet, a tributary of the Sabarmati. On the opposite bank of the river from the ashram.
  • Apart from the Dandi March that Gandhi began from here on March 12, 1930, he also launched the Champaran Satyagraha (1917), the Ahmedabad mills strike and Kheda Satyagraha (1918), the Khadi movement (1918), the Rowlatt Act and Khilafat Movements (1919), and the Non-Cooperation movement (1920) while living in Sabarmati.
Source- Indian Express

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