Hon’ble Vice President Sri M. Venkaiah Naidu inaugurates the 3-day Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav at NTR Stadium!

Press release

• 02-04-2022

Hyderabad, April 1st, 2022: Chief Guest and Hon’ble Vice-President of India, Sri M. Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated the biggest and most colourful cultural extravaganza in the recent past, Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav (RSM) 2022, the three-day National Cultural Festival of India, organised by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, at the NTR stadium, Hyderabad, today. The entry to the event for the general public is free on all three days. Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav, a dance and musical treat presented by artists from pan India, coincides with the Ugadi festivities and is an opportunity for connoisseurs of Art and culture to spend a blissful extended weekend.    

Sri M. Venkaiah Naidu said, I am delighted to part of India’s mega cultural festival which depicts our glorious culture and tradition, which has evolved over several centuries. Our ancestors developed our art, culture, literature, dance, theatre they fine tuned over centuries and it serves as an immeasurable treasure for the world. The objective of the Government of India’s Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, is to remember and pay tributes to the selfless sacrifices made by freedom fighters. It is our bounded duty to celebrate the lives of great people who made the supreme sacrifice for the liberation of the country from the clutches of the foreign rule, that is Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. Thousands of people from different communities, regions, castes participated in the long struggle for India’s independence. It is our duty on this occasion of 75 years to remember and recall their sacrifices and the deeds of those great people, not about one person or region or religion, all those thousands of people who made the sacrifice in their own ways, we should revisit their lives, recall their sacrifices and tell our youngsters this is what they did and we all should follow their path and at the same time we should also preserve our country’s culture, traditions and heritage. This is the twin purpose of our festival, one is Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav and another is preserving the Indian culture.  We are a country with great civilisation, very old civilisation. Indian civilisation and is surviving because of our principle of Sarve jana sukhino bhavanthu, Vasudevaka kutumbakam, entire universe is one family, this is our tradition, our culture and our thinking. We don’t want to attack any country, don’t want to monopolise, like some countries have tried earlier or trying now. We want the entire world and humanity to live in peace and harmony and happiness, that is the greatness of Indian culture. The Hindu culture is the best and most evolved culture that’s why it could survive despite being invaded for so many years, we heard about Athens, Greek, Roman, Egypt, we heard about there other old civilisations but what is happening to those civilisations and how India despite being invaded for so many years has survived. Thanks to the initiative of people from various walks of lives, especially youngsters, we are making progress in every sector, India is marching forward and I am sure it will become a super power of the world with the efforts of the people that is our wish. We don’t want to become super power to capture the power and rule over others and boss over others, we want everyone to live in peace and harmony, that’s the greatness of this civilisation, this culture. We have 64 arts like music, theatre, dance, literature, painting, this festival is bringing them all together and providing encouragement to those, to show where what we have culturally. It is the duty of our youngsters to remember various cultural values and civilisations of our people and importantly because they give us inspiration. As part of this we should preserve our mother tongue, traditions which are very special. There may be different cultures and languages in this country but what brings us together is Indianness. Let’s not divide our country on the basis of caste, religion, region etc., we should strive hard to protect the integrity of this country and our togetherness. There is talent in every sector and segment of the society, we must recognise, encourage and promote that talent. Before we visit other countries as tourists, first we should the touristic places with in our country. It is the duty of the state and central governments to include the teachings and preaching’s of all great people who worked for the freedom of  the country and social reforms of the country.           

G. Kishan Reddy, Hon’ble Union Minister of Tourism, Culture and Development of North Eastern Region, Government of India; said, there were no socio-cultural activities for the last two years due to the pandemic and only recently thanks to the world’s largest vaccination program our Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiated, enabled us to come out to attend an event like Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav. This festival has artists from all the states of India and there are over 500 local artists from Andhra and Telangana as part of this festival. This festival is being dedicated to our tribal traditions and practices. Shri Narendra Modi wanted this colourful cultural program to be part of the 75 years of Indian independence celebrations, Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, which depicts the enormous sacrifice our freedom fighters made for gaining our freedom. This Mahotsav displays culture, dance, music, traditions, food of different sates of India. We are also celebrating the fond memories of Ghantasala, freedom fighter Alluri Sitarama Raju, SP Balasubramaniam, Sirivenalla Sitarama Sastry at this festival, while paying tributes to the martyrs who laid down their life for the country. There will be several entertaining cultural programs and I request Hyderabadi’s to visit the festival venue during the three days.   

Haryana Governor Shri Bandaru Dattatreya said, the Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav is a reflection of our country’s diverse cultural traditions, despite the diversity we are all Indians. 

Earlier in the day, Smt. Tamilisai Soundararajan, Hon’ble Governor of Telangana; inaugurated the craft and food exhibition. Prior to Hyderabad, the Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav 2022, was organised at Rajamahendravaram, Andhra Pradesh on March 26th and 27th, 2022, later at Warangal in Telangana on March 29th and 30th, 2022.  

Over a thousand artists from different parts of the country and different traditions including Classical, Folk and Popular culture traditions, are performing in this unique celebration of India’s culture, craft, cuisine. Padma Shri Ananda Shankar Jayant, presented a Classical Dance Performance followed by Shankar Mahadevan-Ehsaan-Loy’ s music performance; today.

The Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav is the flagship festival of the Ministry of Culture, that aims to preserve, promote, and popularise Indian Heritage. The RSM has been organised since 2015 with the active participation of Seven Zonal Culture Centres (ZCCs) and has been playing a pivotal role in taking India’s vibrant cultural diversity out to the masses instead of confining it to auditoria and galleries. RSM has been instrumental in showcasing the 3Cs of our heritage - Culture, Craft and Cuisine of one state in other state reinforcing the cherished goal of “Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat”. At the same time, the folk and tribal art, dance, music, cuisines & culture that are being demonstrated provide an effective platform for the artists and artisans to support their livelihood.

The program details for the next two days are as follows:

2nd April, 2022

5:30 PM - 6:30 Inaugural Programme

6:30 PM - 7:00 PM Performances by Local Artists

7:00 PM - 7:45 PM Choreographed Folk Performances

8:00 PM - 8:45 PM Classical Music Performance ‘’Taal India’’ by Banyan Tree

9:00 PM - 10:30 PM Music Performance by S. Thaman

3rd April, 2022

5:30 PM - 6:30 Inaugural Programme

6:30 PM - 7:00 PM Performances by Local Artists

7:00 PM - 7:45 PM Choreographed Folk Performances

8:00 PM - 8:45 PM Classical Dance Performance by Smt. Jayaprabha Menon

9:00 PM - 10:30 PM Music Performance by Padma Shri Dr. L. Subramaniam & Padma Shri Kavitha Krishnamurthy 

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