Lothal complex represents India’s resolve to celebrate maritime history: PM Modi

The National Maritime Heritage Complex coming up at Lothal in Gujarat represents the country's resolve to celebrate its rich maritime history, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on 18 October while reviewing the progress via video conferencing.

"India's maritime heritage is one of those essential topics that hasn't been discussed extensively as it was ignored... The shackles of colonialism impeded our maritime prowess... We'll bring back the glory of Dholavira& Lothal. We're seeing rapid progress in this mission," PM Modi said.

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Adding more, the PM said that the long period of slavery and indifference towards India's maritime strength made us forget about Lothal and Dholavira, and the complex will act as a centre for learning about and understanding India's diverse maritime history.

"Centuries ago, India's trade was spread over a large part of the globe. We had a relationship with all the civilisations of the world. India's maritime strength had a big role to play in this," Modi said.

"The long period of slavery not only broke this capability of India, but with time, we Indians also became indifferent towards this. We forgot that we have great heritage like Lothal and Dholavira that were famous for maritime trade," he said.

"We had great maritime kingdoms in the past," he said, adding that this heritage "has been little talked about, it was forgotten."