Hoshiarpur- Dr. Jaswant Rai, who is serving as a Research Officer at the District Language Office, was specially honoured at a function organized by the Federation of Rationalist Associations and DK in Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu. This honour was given to Dr. Jaswant Rai for his Punjabi translation of the book ‘Collected Works of Periyar’ based on the life and writings of the great social and rationalist leader E.V. Ramasamy Periyar, which was edited in English by Dr. K. Veeranmani, former Vice Chancellor of Annamalai University and President of DK.
The name of the book translated by Dr. Jaswant Rai is ‘Periyar Rachanavali: Nave Yug Da Socrates’ which has been published by the renowned publisher Autumn Art Patiala. Periyar was a renowned social activist of his time who fought a long fight for the rights of the marginalized people. Periyar, who worked on many issues like women's education, social equality, rationality, science, education in mother tongue, dedicated his entire life to the 'Self Respect Movement'. Periyar, who owned crores of rupees, dedicated all his property to the equality movement. And he lived a simple life for the rest of his life, working hard for the welfare of the people.
Dr. Jaswant Rai has previously made a proud contribution to Gurmukhi literature by translating Punjabi folk tales, the Ghadar movement, the Adi Dharam movement, the poetry of Madan Veere, and the writings of Mahatma Jyotiba Rao Phule into Punjabi. For translating the writings of the Adi movements of South India into Punjabi, Dr. Jaswant Rai and his better half Babita Rani were specially honored by the office bearers of the Federation of Rationalist Associations and DK.
At this time, Dr. K. Veeramni, Narinder Naik, President of Fira, Prince Enaras Periyar, V. Amburaj, Veeramni Raju, R. Tamil Selvan, Dr. Sudesh Ghoderao, Sumit Singh, Damanjit Kaur, Atma Singh, Lak Rajinder Kaur and thousands of scholars, educationists, intellectuals, social activists and students from the country and abroad were present.