With Haryana’s year-long golden jubilee celebrations beginning on November, the State will witness a year full of merriment and entertainment. The people of Haryana will witness a series of fairs and festivals throughout the year, many of them for the very first time.
To celebrate 50th anniversary of the State, the Haryana Government has lined up prominent international and national events to showcase cultural heritage of India, generally and Haryana in particular. To name a few, Haryana International Film Festival, Swarna jayanti literary Festival, Divine Music Festival, Haryana lok Kala Utsav will be organised in various districts where artists from all across the country will brought alive the diverse musical, theatre and dance culture of their respective regions.
A day before, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the year-long haryana swarna jayanti celebrations from Gurugram in a cultural extravaganza.
Haryana State was formed on November 1, 1966 out of the former State of East Punjab on linguistic basis.
Apart from cultural festivals, the State Government has planned to organise national conventions and launching of welfare schemes from November 1, 2016 to October 31, 2017 to celebrate the special year.
Haryana International Film Festival
Movie buffs are up for a really good time as maiden Haryana International Film will be organised in April and May next year. The film festival will witness a line up of big names in Indian film fraternity. There are more than 50 Haryanvi films. Notably, ‘Pagdi The Honour’ released in 2014 received two national film awards at the 62nd national film awards. Another Haryanvi film ‘Satrangi’ had won the national award for best Haryanvi feature film for year 2015.
Cultural heritage fest/classical cultural circuit
A cultural heritage fest will be organised covering all the districts, with a vision to introduce the youth of Haryana to the rich Indian cultural heritage. The programmes of classical music and dance, folk arts, crafts, yog, classic cinema screenings, heritage walks etc will be organised in school and college campuses throughout the state to make students aware about Indian heritage.
This classical cultural circuit will be organised in collaboration with Spic Macay (a political nationwide voluntary movement that organises programmes of classical music and dance, folk arts etc) to increase awareness about different aspects of Indian culture and inspire the young minds and their parents to imbibe the values embedded in the rich cultural tapestry of Indian heritage.
Swarna Jayanti literary Festival
literary Festival is scheduled to be organised from March 3 to 6, 2017 at Panchkula. This will be a combination of a book fair and a writers’ workshop involving literature stakeholders such as writers, publishers, sponsors, citizens, academics, literary magazines, awarding organisations, language and granth academies etc. The festival will also feature variety of presentations and readings by authors, writers’ conference as well as other related events with an objective of promoting literature and literary appreciation.
Swarna Jayanti dance festival
Swarna Jayanti dance festival will be organised in all the districts in Haryana. Main dances of Haryana namely Saang, Chhathi dance, Khoria dance, Ras leela, Dhamal dance, Jhumar dance, loor dance, Gugga dance, Teej dance, Phag dance, Chaupaiya will be performed during the festival. The state has a rich tradition of dances for various occasions (weddings, festivals etc) and seasons (harvest, sowing of seeds, monsoon etc).
Swarna Jayanti Swaang Festival
Seven days Swarna Jayanti Swaang Festival will be organized in Jind, Rewari, Jhajjar, Rotak, Sonipat, Kaithal and Panchkula. Swaang performance, an old traditional folk theatre in Haryana will also be organised in each of the remaining districts after the festival. Haryana Swaang follows in the old tradition, being the most popular variety of performance based on the ‘open stage’ techniques. It is an all-male cultural troupe of twenty to thirty artists, including director, producer, musicians and actors. Haryana Swaang has enriched itself by borrowing and adopting a variety of themes also based on epics such as Kichak Badh, Draupadi Chir Haran, Amar Singh Rathore etc.
Ragni Festival
Swarna Jayanti Ragni festival will be organised in all the districts of the state apart from a national Ragini competition. Ragni is a popular singing style in the state. Ragni based folk stories or on different contemporary themes on social issues such as awareness against female foeticide, women empowerment etc will be performed during the festival. In the Swaag performances also, Ragini is sung intermittently.
Haryana to have an year of merriment and entertainment
National Youth Festival
National Youth Festival will be organized from January 12 to 17, 2017 to enable youth from all over the country to connect with the ancient land of Vedas. The activities to be held during the festival include competitive and non-competitive cultural events, martial arts, exhibitions, intellectual courses, young artists camps,seminars and adventure programmes. The youth festival aims to propagate the concept of national integration, spirit of communal harmony, brotherhood, courage and adventure amongst the youth by exhibiting their cultural prowess on a common platform.