Bhubaneswar: August 26: On the first death anniversary of eminent tribal scholar and Kui exponent, Pandit Raghunath Rath , his son handed over his precious and valuable collection of 2500 books and journals to the National Archives of India’s Bhubaneswar Record Centre.
A self-trained anthropologist, the Late Raghunath Rath’s passion was the study of the history, culture and traditions of the Kandhs. He spent many years of his life with the Kandh tribals’ and had mastered the Kui language. In his nearly six decades of studies, he had observed and recorded the transformation and changes that were happening to these original people, and how so called modern development was obliterating and obscuring the ancient traditions. Rath has written more than a dozen books and hundreds of articles. He was conferred with many awards, including the Sahitya Academy and the Itihas Sankalan Samiti award.
The books were handed over to the Dr. T. Hussain, Deputy Director of Archives NAI, New Delhi. Speaking on the occasion, Amiya Bhusan Tripathy, the former Director General of Police and State Convener of Intach told about the great work done by Raghunath Rath. He said that Rath was a true scholar who based his studied on first hand research. Sanjib Hota, the former State Election Commissioner said that Rath was a true Karmayogi whose humility knew no bounds. Dr. Lalatendu Dash Mohapatra, the Assistant Director of Archives said that the books donated by Rath would be kept in a special gallery and that it would be of great use for researchers and scholars. Anil Dhir said that another 2500 books would soon be handed over to the Odisha State Archives.
A.B.Tripathy made a request to the Deputy Director of the NAI for making available many important and valuable records pertaining to Odisha which are kept at New Delhi. He mentioned some important records which include Orissa State Agency(1917-1947) in 18 Volumes. ‘Balasore Factory Records’ and ‘Bengal Public Consultations’ (22 Vols).The Original Will of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in which he had bequeathed the Koh-I-Noor to the Jagannath Temple at Puri too should be displayed at the Bhubaneswar office. Presently, scholars and researchers from Odisha have to go to Delhi for their work. The Deputy Director promised that copies of the Odisha papers will be sent within a week’s time.
The handing over ceremony was attended by eminent academicians and scholars including Dr. D.P.Pattanayak, Dr. Bimalendu Mohanty, Dr. Sanjay Acharya and Dr. Jatin Nayak.
