Swarajya Journalist Swati Goel Sharma And Contributor Sanjeev Newar Get ‘Cultural Warrior’ Award By Yogi Adityanath and Uday Mahurkar

In an event organised on Sunday (26 June), Swarajya journalist Swati Goel Sharma and contributor Sanjeev Newar were honoured with ‘Sanskritik Yoddha’ award by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and former Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

The award, that translates to ‘cultural warrior’, was instituted by journalist, historian and presently Central Information Commissioner Uday Mahurkar under his pet project ‘Save India Save Culture’.

Sharma, a journalist with a decade-long experience, was awarded for her reporting on the marginalised sections of the society, particularly the women and children, and adverse impact on them of the sexually perverted audio-video content streaming on social media.

Newar, an alumnus of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (Guwahati) and Indian Institute of Management (Kolkata) and founder of social organisation 'Agniveer', was felicitated for his Gems of Bollywood initiative, which highlights religious and perverted propaganda through mainstream films. His work in uplifting the tribals was also recognised.

Sharma and Newar have jointly published several articles in Swarajya calling out the immoral and anti-women content served by the films-producing entertainment industry, particularly the Urdu-Hindu industry based in Mumbai. Some of their articles can be read here, here and here.

Other awardees included Supreme Court advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain; Abhay Shah, who runs the Swachh Cyber India movement; Manish Prania, creative branding and maker of Ek Ladki, Vaishali Shah, senior writer and CEO of Pixel; filmmaker Praveen Chaturvedi, 'Hindu Janajagaran Samiti' spokesperson Ramesh Shinde and television news anchor Pradeep Bhandari.

Each awardee was given a citation and a cheque of Rs 1 lakh. The event was held at Gautam Buddha Nagar University in Greater Noida.

Yogi Adityanath said on the occasion said that India’s true identity is its culture, just like for France, it is art and for Britain, it is business interests. “Sanskriti and culture are the identity of India and no one is allowed to play with this. You can’t serve anything in society in the name of freedom of expression. It also has some rules and regulations”, he said.

Mahajan said that along with sexually perverted content, violent content such as graphic representation of gory crimes must also stop.

Mahurkar, who founded Save India Save Culture Foundation to put an end to sexually perverted audio-video-print content on OTT, social media platforms and film that he says encourages rape and pedophilia, said that the time has come to take an aggressive stance against the menace.

He said, “The question before India is while becoming an economic, military and scientific Superpower will it become a cultural pauper? Our great saints Swami Vivekanand, Shri Aurobindo, Swami Dayanand Saraswati and my guru, Swami Pranavand , founder of Bharat Sevashram Sangh, predicted that India will become a Vishwaguru. Is the onus not on every patriotic Indian to prove them correct? The nation must ponder”.

The CM also launched the website of the Foundation. A short film titles ‘Kripya Dhyan Dein’, which showed a young girl voicing her objection to showing perversion in cinema for eyeballs and money, was also released.

Industrial Development Minister Nand Gopal Gupta ‘Nandi’, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs and Industrial Development Jaswant Singh Saini and Minister of State for Public Works Brijesh Singh also attended the programme.