Tuesday, Nov 12, 2013
Shantiniketan: The transformation of a nameless village to a university town was started by Maharishi Debendranath Tagore, father of Rabindranath Tagore, within a year of the poets birth.
It was 1862, when Maharshi was taking a boat ride and came across a landscape of red soil and lush green paddy fields. Rows of palm grove and chhatim trees charmed him. He built a small house there and planted some saplings.
Debendranath Tagore decided to call this place Shantiniketan after the serenity it brought to his soul. He turned it into a spiritual centre where people from all religions, castes and creed came and participated in meditation. The following year, Debendranath Tagore established an “Ashram” at that place and he himself became the initiator for the Brahmo Samaj - the worshiper of one supreme God.
Years later, in 1901, Tagore opened a school in Shantiniketan and called it Brahmachary Ashram. He gave an entirely new meaning to the word education. He took the education system to the glorious old days of the Gurukul system. The aim of this school was to blend the new Western and the traditional Eastern system of education. He later opened a university in December 23, 1921.
However, in the twilight years of his life, Tagore was extremely worried about the future of Visva Bharati. He felt that his dream of creating a new generation of Indians who will not be afraid to amass the vibrancy of divergent cultures and create a new India, where “the mind is without fear”.
He even shared his fear with three men, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose who then had assured him that his dream would be realised, recalled Sujata Devi, one of the few living individuals who has studied directly under Tagore.
“His classes used to be fun. He let us use our creativity, allowed boys to climb trees and even encouraged girls. He wanted us to believe that we could express our thoughts the way we liked,” recalls the octogenarian lady, sitting at her home in Shantiniketan.
“He believed that discipline is an inward process drawn collectively by students and not enforced. The system of students council where the students decided on punishments of wrongdoers were initiated by Tagore,” she recalled.
But 72 years after his death, Visva Bharati has neither proved to be a pathbreaker in educational experimentation nor does it remain a centre of excellence and achievement.
The university boasts Indira Gandhi, Satyajit Ray and Amartya Sen among its illustrious alumni, but, its universal flavour is now a thing of the past. The university, which once attracted litterateurs, thinkers, philosophers, economists and artists from far and wide now rarely draws brilliant teachers, even as visiting faculty.
Tagore would have been pained to see how Santiniketan has changed. The pulls and pressures of “modern life” threaten to tear apart his Patha Bhavan from Visva-Bharati. He would have been hurt to see teachers and employees divided into factions and students involved in brawls, desecrating frescoes at Kalobari.
Classes are hardly held in the open air. Buildings of all kinds dot the landscape. The sculptures that used to beautify the campus are disintegrating and even his residences are in dire need for repair. A vice-chancellor of the university was put behind bars for allegedly giving a job to a teacher with a fake mark sheet.
Tagore believed creativity only happens under informal systems. He started various indigenous festivals encouraging students to participate. The Pous Utsav — held in January — is celebrated with the foundation day of the university when the entire campus breaks into a happy atmosphere of songs, tribal dances, baul performances. The Basant Utsav — organised in March — is celebrated on the occasion of Holi. The Holi of Shantiniketan is famous the world over for its colourful mood and various cultural programmes.
But today he would have been pained to see the mindless commercialisation of these festivals. “These festivals were started to encourage students and locals to participate and earn from traditional handicrafts, also to showcase traditional arts like Baul music, but these days corporates sell condominiums and other imported goods along with televisions and refrigerators, which goes completely against Tagore’s ideas of social development,” rues Pinaki Sengupta, an ex-student of Viswa Bharti.
“In the 25 years that I have spent in Shantiniketan, I have noticed that the environment, tradition and history of Santiniketan have fallen victim to sheer neglect. The authorities have not been able to protected the way they should have been.
“I have witnessed the decay in the various murals and the buildings of the institution. I had once started a cleaning drive with my students. But the gradual deterioration of Santiniketan continues,” says Jogen Chowdhury, emeritus professor of Kala Bhavan, the art school at Viswa Bharti.
Chowdhury blames the erstwhile Communist government for the deterioration.
“Then state government co-opted the Sriniketan Santiniketan Development Authority [SSDA], and the vice-chancellor of the university no longer had a say in the decision-making. “The government insisted that the local Member of Parliament ex-speaker of Lok Sabha Somnath Chatterjee should be chairman. The body did not take an idealistic approach in keeping with Tagore’s concepts, and clearly showed that it was only interested in developing Santiniketan and turning it into a township. Plots were offered for buildings. The SSDA played a negative role in the whole murky affair,” he said.
“The cultural denigration is evident everywhere,” believes Aadityo Sen, a former student. “Drugs, women and all other vices have entered amongst the students of the campus. Somehow they don’t feel the pride in studying in what is supposed to be the premier education institute in Asia.”
However, Vice-Chancellor Prof. Sushanta Dattagupta doesn’t believe all is lost. “Yes, of late Viswa Bharti has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. But all is certainly not lost. We cannot look into this institution in isolation. The degradation has happened all over society where horrific crimes have become day-to-day incidents. There is no magic curtain to shield this institution from societal deterioration,” said Dattagupta who is now working towards restoration of Tagore’s residences and most importantly attract best of minds from all over the globe.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has been roped in for the restoration and renovation of Rabindranath Tagore’s mud house — Shyamali — the poet’s summer retreat, constructed in 1935.
“The condition of the mud house has deteriorated over the years. The roof is badly damaged and is leaking. This is harming the interiors. So we have decided to restore the house. We have requested the ASI to take up the project,” said Tapati Mukhopadhay, the director of Rabindra Bhavana.
Workers have covered Shyamali, where Mahatma Gandhi had stayed with his wife twice, with plastic sheets to protect it from rain. ASI officials said the mud would be chemically treated to increase the longevity of Shyamali.
“It is a challenging job. It is very difficult to find construction workers who have expertise in making such mud houses. We have found after a long search workers from Midnapore and Birbhum.
“There are some bitumen art works of Nandalal Bose outer wall of the house. Restoring the building keeping the art work intact is also challenging,” an ASI official told Gulf News.
The institution has also started to offer more varied courses to attract foreign students and is now leaning more heavily on Tagore’s ideals to restore “balance”.
“Even during Tagore’s time, the institute faced dire financial trouble. Everyone is keen to appreciate it, but no one is willing to fund. Like any other university we are also dependent on the University Grants Commission and have to live with its diktats, where path breaking solutions are open turned down and often lost in bureaucratic dilemmas. But we will live to his ideas,” said Dattagupta who is hopeful of getting governmental support to bring in chances that represent Tagore’s ideals.
By Archisman Dinda Correspondent
Gulf News 2013. All rights reserved.
