A Ramta Memorial meeting was organized on 29 October 2017 by Jan Sanskriti Manch to commemorate the birth centenary of people’s poet in Hindi and Bhojpuri Ramakant Dwivedi ‘Ramta’.
The programme started with the recital of Ramta’s poems, including the famous ‘Kranti ke Ragini Hum ta Gaibe Karab’ (We shall sing the song of Revolution), sung by comrades Rajan and Anil Anshuman of Hirawal. Com. Raju Ranjan and comrades from Yuva Neeti sang ‘Aisan Gaon Bana De’ (Make our villages thus). The meeting was presided over by a Board comprising comrades Ramnihal Gunjan, Suresh Kantak, Niraj Singh, Chandreshwar, Arvind Kumar and Jitendra Kumar.
Interesting reminiscences of Ramtaji were narrated by poets and intellectuals who had known him. Santosh Sahar, who has collected about 300 of Ramtaji’s unpublished works, threw light on his creative contribution and said that in addition to revolutionary songs in Hindi and Bhojpuri Ramtaji has also written poems on love, nature, rural life and farmers. CPI(ML) MLA Com. Sudama Prasad spoke of Ramtaji’s fighting spirit and personality. Com. Suman Kumar spoke about Ramtaji’s post-independence poetry, his political evolution till the time he joined the Communist Party and came close to the CPI(ML) and how he made this evolution a subject for his poetry.
Comrades Anil Anshuman, Sudhir Suman, Suresh Kantak, Arvind Kumar, Niraj Singh and Gunjan spoke on various aspects of Ramtaji’s literary significance and the language of his poetry. Posters on Ramtaji and other Bhojpuri poets were put up in the auditorium by Sambhavana Kala Manch activists. Paintings by Rakesh Diwakar were also put up. Dr Balbhadra conducted the programme which was attended by poets, intellectuals, activists and common people.
