PM, Visva Bharati VC taking undue credit for Santiniketan’s UNESCO heritage tag: TMC MP Sircar

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is also Visva Bharati university Chancellor and its Vice-Chancellor Biduyt Chakraborty of taking undue credits for UNESCO declaring Santiniketan a World Heritage site.

In a post on his official X handle, Sircar shared a photograph of a plaque purportedly installed by Chakraborty, mentioning that Santiniketan is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The plaque contains the names of Narendra Modi as the central university’s chancellor and Chakraborty as the VC.

“Established in rural West Bengal in 1901 by the renowned poet and philosopher, Rabindranath Tagore, Santiniketan was a residential school and centre for art based on ancient Indian traditions and on a vision of the unity of humanity transcending religious and cultural boundaries,” according to a UNESCO website. The Nobel laureate poet set up a university there in 1921.

On September 17, Santiniketan in Birbhum district was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

“UNESCO specifically said they are honouring Rabindranath Tagore and his unique legacy by declaring Santiniketan as a World Heritage Site. A megalomaniac VC and his boss seem to think UNESCO is honouring them,” Sircar, a former bureaucrat and a known critic of the Modi government even before he became an MP, said on X on Friday night.

BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya claimed that Sircar’s words bear little significance to the people of the state.

“Jawhar Sircar is known to the people of this country. He thinks he has to utter such things as he has been made a Rajya Sabha MP by TMC,” Bhattacharya said.

When contacted, Visva Bharati spokesperson Mahua Bandyopadhyay, said the university has no comments to make.

After the university received the honour, Visva Bharati officiating registrar Ashok Mahato had said, “We are thankful to the prime minister, the ministry of culture and the ASI. We are delighted. This is a great day for Visva Bharati and Santiniketan.”

Modi too had said on X, “New inscription on the @UNESCO#WorldHeritage List: Santiniketan,#India. Congratulations!”

Former Visva Bharati officiating vice-chancellor Sabujkali Basu had earlier stated that the honour has not been bestowed to any university located in the area, but to the entire place of which the central varsity is an integral part.

“Part of a continuing contemporary university campus, Santiniketan is an ensemble of historic buildings, landscapes and gardens, pavilions, artworks and continuing educational and cultural traditions that together express its Outstanding Universal Value,” the UNESCO site said.

Weeks after the UNESCO honour, Visva-Bharati authorities wrote to President Droupadi Murmu and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee seeking their intervention in getting back the responsibility of a road lined with heritage buildings on the central university's Santiniketan campus from the West Bengal government.