Doordarshan will telecast the serial ‘Swaraj – Bharat Ke Swatantrata Sangram Ki Samagra Gatha’ from August 14.

Addressing a press conference at Doordarshan Kendra Raipur on Friday, Deputy Director of Press Information Bureau (PIB) Raipur Sunil Kumar Tiwari said that the 75-episode serial will be telecast at 9 PM every Sunday. The serial will highlight the contribution of the freedom fighters and unsung heroes of the freedom struggle, he added.

The serial is also being dubbed in nine regional languages- Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Odia and Assames and in English. The regional version of the serial will be telecast from August 20 on regional channels of Doordarshan. This serial will also be broadcast on All India Radio from August 20 at 11 AM every Saturday.

‘Swaraj- Bharat Ke Swatantrata Sangram Ki Samagra Gatha’, is a 75-episode mega show illustrating the glorious history of India’s freedom struggle from the 15th century onwards when Vasco-Da-Gama landed in India. This serial will showcase several aspects of Indian history featuring the lives and sacrifices of lesser known heroes of the freedom struggle.

The serial being presented in a docu-drma format has been researched well by a team of leading historians.

Popular film actor Manoj Joshi plays a stellar role as the narrator (sutradhar) of the serial. The serial has a grand production quality and promises to be a visual treat.

‘Swaraj’ serial was launched on August 5, at a function at Akashwani Bhavan by Union Minister of Home & Cooperatives Amit Shah in the presence of Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting Anurag Singh Thakur and Union Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Dr. L. Murugan. The serial will be on air on August 14 in Hindi on DD National and subsequently in regional languages for telecast on regional network of Doordarshan. Every fresh episode of Swaraj will be aired from 9 to 10 PM on Sunday on DD National and it will be repeated on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Its audio version will be broadcast on All India Radio network from 11 AM on Saturdays. The idea behind the serial is to reproduce an audio-visual history of India’s search for ‘Swaraj’. The repertoire of photographs, films, oral histories, personal memoirs, autobiographies, biographies, multi-lingual regional literature remain mostly unexplored and largely absent from the public consciousness. Audio-visual representations of such issues, icons, events, organizations will be produced in this larger comprehensive framework of ‘search for Swaraj’ and presented to the public in the form of 75 episode serial of top notch quality production. Onscreen historical narrative framed in the larger discourse of search and establishment of ‘Swaraj’ in India will help the national and international audiences to understand the spirit of the country with a fresh and new perspective and give the due to the lesser known heroes as they deserve. ‘Swaraj’ is envisioned as the iconic serial of Doordarshan which will turn into a national movement inspiring the public especially the youth about India’s rich history and fill every Indian’s heart with pride! Along with Swaraj, Doordarshan is launching four other serials. These include ‘Jai Bharati’, ‘Corporate Sarpanch’ and ‘Yeh Dil Mannge More’. These serials have messages of patriotism and women empowerment and will be telecast at prime time on DD National, Monday to Friday, starting from 15th August, 2022. Another serial “Suron Ka Eklavya” has high entertainment value as a reality music show and pays tribute to Bappi Lahiri. It will be telecast on Saturday and Sunday at prime time 8 to 9 PM, starting on 14th August, 2022. A show focusing on startups is also coming up on DD News and DD National. “Startup Champions 2.0” showcases journey and success of 46 national award winning startups. It will be on DD News on Saturdays 9 PM and on Sunday on DD National at 12 noon. It is a very interesting depiction of how the entrepreneurial culture is growing in the country. The English version of this show will be on DD India every Saturday at 10 PM. The new serials will go a long way in revamping DD National, the lead channel of Doordarshan. In the follow-up, Doordarshan is planning to revamp its regional channels by introducing new programmes and news shows with meaningful discussions on current topics, he added. Doordarshan Raipur Director (Engineering) S K Deohare, News Editor Manoj Sonani, Assistant Director Programming P K Shrivastava and others were also present at the press conference.