Rabindranath Tagore brought together Prime Minister Narendra Modi with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, at least for few hours, at Tagore’s abode of peace in Shantinketan on Friday. The meeting happened at a time when Banerjee has been on the warpath against Modi and relentless in her opposition to the Teesta Water Treaty with Bangladesh.
On Friday, the trio assembled at the convocation of the Visva-Bharati University, set up by Tagore, and later at the inauguration programme of the Bangladesh Bhavan in Shantiniketan.
Hasina sat between Modi and Banerjee. In her speech, televised across West Bengal, Hasina equated the land deal done during Modi’s tenure as being as significant as her country’s victory in the war against Pakistan in 1971. While Hasina thanked Modi for carrying out such a mammoth task of exchanging enclaves between two countries, which was held back for more than 70 years, she reminded the Indian Parliament also played a role, with all political parties voting in favour of the endeavour of Modi.
The Bangladesh prime minister’s mature method of dealing with the political situation in West Bengal nonetheless was exemplary, making even Banerjee, known as a strong Modi baiter, smile.
“I cannot control tears from coming out of my eyes when I think of the land deal for the people residing in enclaves on both sides of the border. How Prime Minister Modi and all political parties of India did it in the Indian Parliament. It was as important a victory for us as 1971,” Hasina said.
Later, the Bangladesh premier gave a pleasant 'blow' to Tagore aficionados in India when she said Bangladesh has more stake to Tagore than Bengalis or Indians as a whole.
“I see Tagore is being portrayed as a legend in this part of the world. But I want to remind people that Tagore is as much important to Bangladesh as India. In fact, we have more claim of Tagore when I say that Tagore did most of his work staying at his property in Bangladesh,” said Hasina.
Modi did not hold back either. He reminded the audience in Visva-Bharati, a Central University, about Tagore’s influence in Gujarat.
“Satyendranath Tagore, our beloved poet’s elder brother, was the first civil servant in India. And he worked for a long period in Gujarat. If I am not wrong, he was also commissioner in Ahmedabad. (Rabindranath) Tagore used to come to Gujarat and take tuition in English from his elder brother,” said the Indian prime minister.
Modi was seen calling Banerjee at the Bangladesh Bhavan during a photo session but was reportedly not engaged in much conversation with the West Bengal chief minister. However, the fact that both of them shared the dais speaks volumes itself.
Modi's speech, being chancellor of the university, did not emphasis any grand plan of the government to turn Visva-Bharati into one of the finest centres for studies and traditional education in the world, as envisaged by Tagore.
Visva-Bharati has been suffering from a huge identity crisis. Tagore wanted to turn the university into a place where more than syllabus, experimentation would be the key and application of such learning to society at large would take prominence. But Visva-Bharati today is like any other institution in India, without proper facilities to study art, culture, international relations or even oriental studies and culture.
The prime minister of India felt proud to be the chancellor of such an institution where he is not a guest but an authority. More and more technology-driven education has been pushed to the curricula by the authorities, which has not been the focus of the institution.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh had tried to get the university back on track along with Gopal Krishna Gandhi, former governor of West Bengal, who was the rector of the university. But the task was incomplete and should have been sped up. Under Modi, it has not been done. All grand plans at Visva-Bharati—like opening new oriental studies programmes and pursuing art and cultural links with the Asian countries—have been put on hold.
Many educationalists feel that Visva-Bharati needs an environment having the special courses of education Tagore had thought of. It needs more guest houses and better connectivity, which could be possible only through proper planning and development of Shantiniketan into a full-fledged centre of educational excellence.
Modi said, while walking down the Visva-Bharati, he felt emotional thinking that it was the same place where Tagore once walked and had discussions with other luminaries including Mahatma Gandhi.
But the irony is the sanctity of such a place has to be restored and Modi would have to pursue the need of modernisation of Visva-Bharati like his predecessor Singh had tried to do but was not fully successful.