West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has made an appeal to the Central Government to remove plaques commemorating the UNESCO World Heritage Site status of Santiniketan. She expressed her concern that these plaques do not include the name of Visva-Bharati's founder, Rabindranath Tagore, which she considers an affront to the Nobel laureate.
Santiniketan, located in Birbhum district, was officially designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on September 17. Banerjee emphasized the fact that Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore created this world heritage site, which has now received international recognition from UNESCO. However, the plaques erected on this occasion bear the name of the current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who serves as the ex-officio Chancellor of the university, as well as the name of the Vice-Chancellor, Bidyut Chakrabarty. Strikingly, there is no mention of Tagore, who established the university over a century ago.
Banerjee views this omission as disrespectful to Tagore and as a diminishing of the anti-colonial heritage that was created by the nation's founding fathers. She calls upon the central government to promptly remove these plaques, which she perceives as a display of arrogant self-promotion, and to bestow upon Gurudev the tribute that the nation rightfully owes him.
Notably, Banerjee had previously criticized the university authorities for their failure to include Rabindranath Tagore's name on the plaques, and she had warned of staging demonstrations at Santiniketan if this matter was not resolved by Friday morning.
The Trinamool Congress, West Bengal's ruling party, organized a demonstration outside the Visva-Bharati University on Friday due to the plaques not being removed.
Visva-Bharati has clarified that the plaque is a temporary installation meant to mark Santiniketan's recognition as a world heritage site and that the permanent plaques will incorporate UNESCO's text.
According to UNESCO's website, Santiniketan, founded by the renowned poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore in 1901, is a residential school and an art center rooted in ancient Indian traditions. It is built on a vision of the unity of humanity that transcends religious and cultural boundaries. Tagore established a university there in 1921. Visva-Bharati was later declared a central university and an institution of national significance by an Act of Parliament in 1951.
