CURATED BY – GAURAV SINGHAL | CITYCHIEFNEWS

Saharanpur, Today, Mokshayatan Yoga Sansthan and Nation Builders Academy celebrated the birth anniversary of Pandit Vishambar Singh, born in 1907, by organizing an inspiring Tiranga Yatra. This unique fighter, who became active in the freedom struggle by rejecting the Mahanta of the huge Jalgovind Math in Bihar, believed that our aim is to free the country from British rule at any cost. Our aim was not to go to jail but to live and die to liberate the country if needed. He used to say that if the aim was only to go to jail or to be hanged, then the fight could not have continued. He used to say that whatever we get while walking on the path of the nation is also right. Pandit ji, along with being a freedom fighter and social reformer, was the first teacher of the city who was awarded the National Teacher Award by Sarvepalli Dr. Radhakrishnan himself. After the country became independent, his fight to get freedom turned into a fight to protect freedom. Many revolutionaries became teachers to keep themselves away from the eyes of the British government and to keep the spark of freedom burning in the new generation. Pandit Vishwambhar Singh, the confluence of education, religion and patriotism, respected all religions. Perhaps this was the reason that everyone in social life had such faith in him that even after fighting cases up to the High Court, people used to get justice at his doorstep in complex cases. Pandit ji's son and international yoga guru Padmashree Swami Bharat Bhushan told that former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh once told him about his childhood relationship with Pandit Vishambar Singh and said that his way of fighting was unique and he never missed to protect and help active revolutionaries. Chaudhary sahab had told that we did not fight to get pension, it was just a passion and the inspiration of our guru Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati. Narrating an interesting anecdote, Charan Singh Ji told that during the freedom struggle, Pandit Ji once hid me in the garden of his house to save me from the police and the guard had to return empty handed. It is worth mentioning that Pandit Ji was a resident of Bamnauli and Chaudhary Sahib was a resident of Chhaprauli, a neighbouring village. Simplicity, service, self-respect, self-study and protection of culture were the specialties of Pandit Ji. After independence, Dr. Sampurnanand, who became the Education Minister of Uttar Pradesh, took the historic decision to make Sanskrit compulsory along with Hindi from class 6 to 12 in Uttar Pradesh on the initiative of Pandit Ji. In honour of this great man who received the first National Teacher Award while being a teacher in the municipality and a great recognition for his sacrifice in the interest of the country, the grand Pandit Vishwambhar Singh took such pride in naming the road in his name that former President Ram Nath Kovind came to Saharanpur and inaugurated the gate which will remain a source of inspiration for teachers, students and the society. Apart from a large number of students and teachers, Sumanyu Seth, Dr. Ashok Gupta, Nand Kishore Sharma, Mukesh Sharma Advocate, Satish Chawla, Poonam Verma, Keshav Verma, Yash Rana, Vijay Sukhija and Lalit Verma etc. were present in the event, who narrated memories related to Pandit ji.