Four members of Mahatma Gandhi's family - three grandchildren and one great-grandchild of the Mahatma - will be in Patna on April 10 to take part in the inaugural function of Champaran Satyagraha centenary year celebrations.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Rajmohan Gandhi, Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, the three grandchildren of Mahatma Gandhi, and Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of the Mahatma, have consented to take part in the event which chief minister Nitish Kumar and a host of intellectuals will also attend.
Rajmohan, Tara and Gopalkrishna are siblings and children of Mahatma's son, Devdas Gandhi. While Gopalkrishna is a retired civil servant, who also served as governor of Bengal from 2004 to 2009, Rajmohan is a well-known academic and writer.
Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee is more into social service and has been closely associated with the Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti and Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust. In 2016, she was honoured with one of France's top honours, The Order of Arts and Letters for her contribution in promoting peace, solidarity, culture, education and development.
Gandhi's great grandson Tushar is the son of Gandhi's son Manilal Gandhi and he runs the Mahatma Gandhi Foundation.
A senior officer in the education department told The Telegraph on Thursday. "All the four members of Gandhi family have sent their consent for participation in the inaugural event after the state government sent invitations to them for this purpose."
The education department has been made the nodal department for organising events to mark the centenary year of Champaran Satyagraha.
He said the list of prominent participants in the inaugural function might get longer. "We cannot reveal much now unless we get a final decision of dignitaries who have been invited for the event."
The inaugural event would be a two-day affair (April 10 & 11) and apart from the two-hour of the inaugural session, it would also witness six technical sessions during which experts would talk about different aspects of Gandhian thought and methodology.
Gandhi had first come to Bihar in April 1917 and after his brief stay at Patna and Muzaffarpur, he had gone to Champaran to study the plight of local farmers reeling from the exploitative tactics of the indigo planters. After studying the problem, Gandhi went on launch a mass movement, the first-of-its-kind experiment in India after coming back to South Africa. Gandhi had decided to visit Champaran after constant persuasion of a local farmer, Rajkumar Shukla.
Apart from organising events in Patna to celebrate the centenary year of the Champaran Satyagraha, the state is also organising a series of programmes in Muzaffarpur, East Champaran and West Champaran districts to recreate the main events, which took place during the Champaran Satyagraha.
Also, special teams are being prepared to deliver Gandhi's messages to all the places including villages so that people could imbibe the values propagated by the Mahatma. These programmes would be organised over the next year.
The inaugural event will take place in the newly constructed International Convention Centre near Gandhi Maidan. Chief minister Nitish Kumar has been taking special interest for completion of this project and on February 26, he had visited the construction site and had directed the officials to ensure timely completion of works.
The project, conceptualised in 2012, was scheduled for completion by November 2015 but it got delayed owing to various reasons.
The project is being executed with a cost component of Rs 417 crore and the convention centre has the capacity to accommodate 5,000 people.
The main convention hall is a 35m high quake-resistant structure constructed with 21,600 metric tonnes of steel.
