Remembering the unsung heroes of freedom struggle
AAHL through its airports celebrating Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav
Mangaluru, May 19, 2022: To expose the current and future generations to the valor of many forgotten revolutionaries and to create awareness about the spark and fire that they held, Adani Airports Holding Ltd (AAHL) is conducting a campaign to remember the fallen heroes of freedom struggle who were not part of our popular discourse on independence.
The campaign is a part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav – an initiative of the Government of India to celebrate and commemorate 75 years of independence and its glorious history. It commenced on 15 August 2021, to be culminated at India’s 75th Independence Day this year. It was after 200-years of struggle that at the stroke of midnight in the middle of August in 1947, India woke up to life and freedom.
Yes, it isn’t Independence Day nor Republic Day neither any red-letter day. But it’s today and every day that we should remember the ones who laid down their lives for the free India we live in. As a part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav, it is a golden opportunity to make new and old generations aware of not only the freedom fighters but also the freedom struggle.
AAHL, which manages 7 airports across the country including Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati & Thiruvananthapuram, is using the public announcement (PA) system and flight information display (FID) screens to create awareness among the passengers about these heroes, forgotten movements and incidents to remember them as a tribute.
Each month, as per the directive of the Union Civil Aviation Ministry, all the Indian airports use PA and FID systems to run pre-recorded audio and display messages on the unsung heroes based on either their birth/ death anniversary date or a historically significant date.
The month of May is also significant as it marks the 165 years of India’s first large scale freedom movement popularly known as the Revolt of 1857. This month, AAHL will create awareness about six revolutionaries, that is Pursottam Kakodkar, Pritilata Waddedar, Alluri Sitarama Raju (https://twitter.com/mlrairport/status/1522918545688264704), Durgabai Deshmukh, Kartar Singh Sarabha and Bishni Devi Shah.
The campaign has been successful in strengthening the feeling of patriotism with passengers appreciating the drive and soaking in the patriotism glory. A recent survey showed more than 80% of the respondents giving ‘excellent’ rating to the campaign. Respondents used expressions like, “…good initiative reminding about our freedom fighters to the younger generations…”, “…good step taken forward…”, “… enrich common men’s knowledge about our struggle for freedom.”
To widen the reach of the campaign, AAHL also ran the campaign online using popular social media channels – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and received overwhelming response with engagement rate as high as 9 percent on its posts, with the posts reaching thousands of people.
