While the entire saffron brigade from Delhi to Calcutta has suddenly become conscious of the existence of Rabindranath Tagore, image of the Bengali culture and ethos, the public face of Hindu culturism Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have been striving hard to exploit the legacy of greatest Bengali synagogue and use it for their electoral success.
With election to the state assembly hardly four months away the BJP has been frantically trying to project itself as a party of Bengalis which represent their aspiration and also embodies the legacies of great Bengali icon Rabindranath Tagore.
But unfortunately the compulsion of the sectarian ambition for power has landed the BJP in an egregious situation which has exposed duality of political practice and preaching. While the leaders claim to inherit the legacy of Kabiguru, their actions and speeches betray their claim. Being Bengali they ought to have known about Tagore, his legacy and Bengali cultural ethos. Their lack of ignorance simply underlines the fact that they have not been provided enough cultural space by the protagonists of Hindutva and Jai Sri Ram. One really feels pity at their extremely poor knowledge about the greatest son of Bengal.
With Modi and Shah invoking Rabindranath Tagore, one is reminded of the dire warning issued by Tagore in his speech, “Robbery of Soil”, delivered in 1922 at Calcutta University where in he had observed that sectarian ambition for power would endanger unity and amity among people and imperil harmonious relations among the different organs of collective life. He said “Whenever some sectarian ambition for power establishes a dominating position in life’s republic, the sense of unity, which can only be generated and maintained by a perfect rhythm of reciprocity between the parts is bound to be disturbed.” Tagore’s words and fears, articulated in 1922, have come true.
While the BJP leaders have been trying to reach out to the people by identifying themselves with the name and legacy of Tagore, these leaders have portrayed their cultural bankruptcy by catering wrong information about him. It is tragic that those who are invoking Tagore are the same people who are persecuting citizens and Tagore’s vision of an India that is the embodiment of the ideal of a land “[w]here the mind is without fear and the head is held high”.
The BJP’s attempts to establish its Bengal connect has suffered many jolts. The most recent has been its national spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia rebuked a co-panellist during a TV debate, telling him Rabindranath’s surname was Tagore and not Thakur. It is really sad that some Bengali BJP leaders are also not aware of Rabindranath’s correct name and his birth place. The list of BJP leaders’ gaffes is quite long. BJP’s desperation to prove its Bengali credentials ahead of next summer’s election is quite pathetic.
This has helped the TMC to beat the BJP with the “bahiragawto” (outsider) stick. Trinamul spokesperson and minister Bratya Basu reiterated saying the Tagore-Thakur confusion was proof of the BJP’s disconnect from Bengali culture. “This is why we call them outsiders. They don’t even understand Bengal,”
Ever since this design of claiming Tagore’s legacy featured, the BJP has become quite aggressive to stake its right on Vishwa Bharati University. In its game the BJP has been ruthlessly using the power of the vice chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty. Ironically the most prominent target of saffron attack has become the noble laureate and economist Amartya Sen.
Vishwa-Bharati authorities on Friday sealed the office of a women’s socio-cultural organisation set up on the campus on Rabindranath Tagore’s instructions. The action against the Alapini Mahila Samity comes days after economist Amartya Sen’s assertion about a big gap between the Shantiniketan culture and that of Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty, “empowered as he is by the central government in Delhi”. A senior university official confided: “The decision to vacate the office had been taken by the VC.” Samity members said the office at Notun Bari, a thatched mud house near the Mrinalini Ananda Pathshala, was given to the organisation in 1956 when Indira Devi Chaudhurani, daughter of Tagore’s elder brother Satyendranath, was Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor. Visva-Bharati’s estate department had on December 10 written to the president and secretary of the Samity, asking them to vacate the office by the end of the month on the ground that the university wanted it for academic activities.
Over a century ago Rabindranath had advised women of the Tagore family to set up the Alapini Mahila Samity so they could get involved with Shantiniketan’s culture. Samity president Aparna Das Mahapatra, 86, said the organisation represented the Tagorean tradition and the university authorities had in a way dishonoured the poet by sealing its office.
Little doubt the real motive behind this action of the VC was to silence Sen because of his questioning certain policies of the Narendra Modi government. Visva-Bharat has also planned to evict Sen from the campus. It has prepared a list of “illegal occupants” that included the name of Sen as his house, Pratichi, occupies around 138 decimals while the original lease was given on 125 decimals. On his part Sen only last week had told; “The Visva-Bharati land on which our house is situated is entirely on a long-term lease, which is nowhere near its expiry. Some additional land was bought by my father as free hold and registered in land records under mouja Surul.”
Mamata Banerjee echoed Sen by saying the authorities of the central university were trying to end some of the old traditions of Shantiniketan by stopping festivals like the Basanta Utsav and Pous Mela. She also expressed surprise at the “baseless allegations” by “nouveau invaders” and urging him to count her as a “sister”. She also said; “Amartya Sen is being attacked for his views against the Union government. This is completely unacceptable. Just like I am being attacked for my political views”. The Nobel laureate had been openly critical of economic measures like the demonetisation and the growing intolerance in the country under Modi’s rule. (IPA Service)