Tagore's Santiniketan caught in a political tug-of-war

Late last Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “Delighted that Santiniketan, an embodiment of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s vision and India’s rich cultural heritage, has been inscribed on the @UNESCO World Heritage List. This is a proud moment for all Indians.

- SUPROTIM MUKHERJEE

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee followed minutes later. She tweeted her delight and added: “We from the Government of West Bengal have significantly added to its infrastructure in the last 12 years and the world now recognizes the glory of the heritage place.”

Immediately afterwards, protests came from people like Vice-Chancellor of Visva Bharati, Bidyut Chakraborty, and Dr Anupam Hazra, BJP’s national secretary, who is a former professor of Visva Bharati, who criticised Mamata Banerjee’s attempts to appropriate credit in her tweet.

The actual situation is very different at Santiniketan which houses Visva Bharati, the only national university in West Bengal, which was set up by Rabindranath Tagore at Bolpur in Birbhum district.

Santiniketan, a sylvan abode Tagore created over a century ago as a melting pot of global ideas, is now in the news for the pulls and pressures between the Visva Bharati University authorities under the Central Government and Mamata Banerjee and those part of her Trinamool Congress.

Insiders say that in the past 12 years, Mamata’s Trinamool Congress has systematically assailed Tagore’s legacy and creation. She has even announced the establishment of Biswa Bangla university at Bolpur, to be situated just outside the precincts of the original campus, to compete with the national university.