The conclusion ceremony of Bhopal Literature and Arts Festival (BLF) began with a marvelous Bharatnatyam performance on ‘Ram-Stuti’ followed by a prize distribution ceremony in the presence of BLF Director Raghav Chandra, Meera Das, Abhilash Khandekar, Vikram Sampath, Prof Sandeep Shastri and Brig Sanjay Agrawal.
A poem recitation competition was organised prior to this ceremony, and many a youth took part in it.
A series of interesting sessions held on last day of Bhopal Literature and Arts Festival (BLF) kept the audience members glued to their seats. Some sessions were organised virtual, some were offline but all of them were informative.
Lt Gen (Retd) Milan Naidu narrates historical facts about Bhopal Battalion
The Vagarth gallery witnessed an insightful session on Lt Gen (Retd) Milan Naidu’s book ‘Nizam-e-Bhopal’ in presence of discussant Vertul Singh. Naidu, who served the country through the army for 41 years, has been honored with PVSM, AVSM, and YSM.
Lieutenant Naidu, who was commissioned in 1967, was born in Bhopal, so naturally post-retirement he returned to his hometown, and he began writing columns for a newspaper. He was advised to give these columns shape of a book. But for a long time he failed to work in this direction. When he made up his mind, he kept scouring the National Archives for 5 consecutive years, but the documents were in Arabic, Persian, so he had to face many problems. In the end, he wrote a book on the Military, Strategy, Regulations and Rules of Bhopal State.
In this book, he has written about 2 different types of forces during the reign of Begums of Bhopal. He said that at that time there were two types of armies, one came under the British rule, while the other used to be the exclusive force of Begums. Begum's army was paid more money, so that they would not join the Central Forces. Naidu also said that Begum had a very important contribution in the development of railways. These railway lines were built by the British to expand their trade route. Later, they were developed from north to south direction. When there was a shortage of money to build the railway line, Begum contributed her personal money.
Vertul Singh asked the author why Nawab Hamidullah used to bring people from Aligarh Muslim University to Bhopal for jobs. Naidu replied that the Nawab himself had studied from AMU and most of the educated people of Bhopal used to work outside. In such a situation, it was easy for them to bring people from AMU. The author also said that Bhopal Battalion was the first army to land in France during the First World War, for this he was also awarded the Victoria Cross. The Sultania Infantry did extremely well in Greece. The British also praised him and the then Nawab gave him the award. Retired Lieutenant General Milan Naidu concluded saying that his book is not yet available in Hindi, but soon it will be available to the Hindi readers.