IN the dead of night on July 20, some ‘unknown miscreants’ made away with a full-size statue of Rahul Sankrityayan which had been standing at a major crossing of Ranigunj, an industrial city in West Bengal. HISTORY OF THE STATUE AT RANIGUNJThe statue of Rahul Sankrityayan at the Ranigunj crossing, however, has a very special history of its own. Complaints are sometimes made, perhaps with some justice too, that an extraordinary scholar, intellectual and activist in the Freedom Movement like Rahul Sankrityayan has not been given sufficient space in its annals. He chose the name Rahul Sankrityayan for himself as an itinerant Buddhist scholar and earned wide repute and respect as such when his quest for knowledge took him to Tibet, to Sri Lanka and to Soviet Russia. Yes, Fascists have need to fear the untrammelled human mind that Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan represents.