About Us

The organization has proffered a very simple exercise, i.e. integrity building exercise, through a pledge drafted in 15 languages with uniformity in contents for promoting citizenry consciousness among the students across the country on an occasion called national pledge festival day celebrated on the third Saturday of January every year. Many institutions have undertaken this exercise as per their convenient dates. Now it is being celebrated on November 26.

The significance of November 26 is that on this day in 1949, the status of 35 crore people got transformed from being subjects in their respective kingdoms to that of sovereign owners of this country.

The pledge in English reads, “we the people of India today do solemnly pledge ourselves to the service of our nation; with honesty, sincerity and commitment always keeping our nation’s interest paramount in all that we think do or say for the greater glory of this land”. The exercise also includes students giving a written commitment in their mother tongues that, “we reject violence, we promise to keep our environment clean and tidy and we promise to be good citizens “.

Pledge drafted in 17 languages i.e. Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu, Assamese, Bengali, Odia, Telgu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Manipuri, Santhali and Kashmiri besides that of English are already in circulation across the country. On the appointed day, students do recite the pledge, already signed by their parents, in unison in a charged ambiance and affirm the handwritten document by appending their signatures on it. The exercise takes along with it various cultural activities i.e. dance, drama, songs, poster competitions, debates, essay writing and collage making etc. on nationalism as the theme. The organization had a humble beginning at Chamber No 12 in Delhi High Court in September 2006 at the instance of journalist turned lawyer BirajaMahapatra and joining with him lawyers Nishant Dutta, ShanmugaPatro, Kiran Kumar Patra, journalists GautamBasu, SudhaPassi and Avtar Nehru and management professional Nabajyoti Das. Upto 2008, they had a number of brain storming sessions on several social and political problems including corruption and terrorism. The program came to be public on the third Saturday of January 2008 at erstwhile Baijnath School in New Friends Colony, New Delhi with lady member SudhaPassi calling the founder members to first take the pledge. BIG founder Mr BirajaMahapatra came out with a book titled MY CALL in February 2008 giving the roadmap to the organization. The experiment started from a school named City Prince Public School in East Delhi on August 14, 2008. It took a dramatic turn on April 9, 2011 with Principal of AGDAV Public School, Model Town, Delhi, Mrs Mala Sood organizing in the institution campus a three-hour long pledge festival that kept the audience mesmerized.
On the third Saturday of January 2012, with Vice Chairperson of Gandhi Smriti and DarshanSamiti, Smt Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, who is also the granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, coming in support of the BIG, the organization could showcase its idea to a larger audience. Over 12,000 students from various educational institutions in Delhi and NCR shared their posters on nationalism as the theme for a massive display at Gandhi Darshan on the occasion of pledge festival. Build India Group could see a cause partner in Gandhi Darshan, an autonomous organization under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister from this day onwards. Now this festival has spread to various parts of the country with over 1000 educational institutions having organised the programme. Keeping in view the encouraging response, the organization suggested to the Government of India in 2012 that November 26 be celebrated as the Citizens Day across the country when students should undertake this integrity building exercise. Since then plethora of letters have been sent to various authorities.
With noted Gandhian leader and octogenarian Rajya Sabha MP Sh A V Swamy mentoring the organization, the idea of Build India Group could come to the notice of the government of India and Prime Minister ShNarendraModi announced November 26 as the Constitution Day in September 2015. However, Build India Group insists that November 26 should be celebrated as a National Day and it should be an activity day dedicated to the nation instead of being a holiday. To make the day truly a historical one, Build India Group has suggested that the celebration moment should be ushered in by all religious institutions at an identical time with conch bleats from temples, sirens from mosques, bells from churches and all religious institution joining the rendition across the country. This proposal has been forwarded by cause partner Gandhi Darshan to Minister of Culture Dr Mahesh Sharma, who has promised to make it a huge national cultural event on November 26 every year.
The organization is having its office at D-289, Defence Colony, New Delhi and the main guiding team comprises Rajya Sabha MP Sh A V Swamy, former Supreme Court judge Hon’ble Mr Justice Justice A K Patnaik, former Judge of Delhi High Court, Hon’ble Mr Justice Kailash Gambhir, Advisor to Election Commission of India, Dr Bhagaban Prakash, former Additional Solicitor General of India Sh Rakesh Khanna, Former MP and labour leader of international repute Dr R C Khuntia, Makhanlal ChatturvediUniversity of journalism and Mass Communication (Bhopal) Vice Chancellor Prof B K Kuthiala, India Islamic Cultural Center (New Delhi) Trustee Sh H R Khan Suhel as Advisors. The team is headed by MrBirajaMahapatra and being actively supported by among others, V K Sharma, ShRamakant Gaur , Pankaj Sukhija, D Rajeswara Rao, Anant Trivedi, Dipesh Satapathy, Promod Chawla, Nabajyoti Das, Kiran Kumar Patra, Nishant Dutta, Rakesh Chitkara, Shanmuga Patro, Rajeev Mallik, Shailendra Srivastava, Abhya Kumar Behera, SangramDhar, Debendra Rout, Dr Umakant Mishra, Porf RanjanMahapatra, Rajeev Saxena, Ashwini Kumar Dubey, Ashwini K Sood, Narendra Pal Singh, T S Kehar, N V M Ramana, and Prakash Nanda. While the organization is now concentrating on citizenry building exercise, its main aim is to working towards making an institution of politics with sole aim that every individual has to be guaranteed food, health care, education and employment in his own milieu with dignity and a Sarpanch has to be responsible for it.
Build India Group is indebted to display of hardwork with commitment by Educationist SmtBushra Rani, Hirmi, ChattishGarh, the late Mr P J Naidu, Madras-based educationist who unfortunately passed away early this year, Sh S N Mishra, prominent social worker and journalist in Odisha’s Keunjhar District, prominent story writer Sh Dash Benhur and ShPromod Kumar Ray in Bhubaneswar, Sh Raj Narain in Bangalore, Sh Rajesh Asthana in Mumbai, Advocates A K Sood, D Rajeshwar Rao, SangeetaTomar, educators Mrs Mala Sood, Sh A P Sharma, MrsPradosh, Sh S L Arya and Mrs Preety Goel in Delhi among others. We are specifically grateful to large number of DAV schools which happily undertook this exercise. We are not able to name a large number of people who have already undertaken this exercise. We express our gratitude to all of them individually but more than our naming them, they already have received appreciations from thousands of parents and students and that is how Build India Group, notwithstanding it has not taken any financial help from any quarters, came to be discussed in the Parliament.

We thank you all for taking pains in studying it. Join this movement and “let us keep country’s interest paramount in all that we think, do,or say for the greater glory of this land”