West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said Visva-Bharati should not be run in an autocratic manner.
Banerjee virtually inaugurated from Kolkata the Poush Mela in Santiniketan in Birbhum district. The heritage fair is being held after a gap of three years. It was not organised in the first two years due to COVID-19, and in the third year due to infrastructural problems cited by authorities of the central university.
“We won’t allow anyone to pollute this place associated with Rabindranath Tagore. Visva-Bharati should not be run in an autocratic manner. Each and every student and ashramite should be given equal respect,” she said.
Banerjee’s comments seemed to allude to the controversy-ridden tenure of former vice chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty, who had frequent run-ins with a section of the students and faculty over certain academic and administrative actions, including the suspension of student leaders and senior members of faculty.
His tenure also saw a land controversy involving Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and the university and omission of Tagore’s name from the commemorative plaque installed by the institute after UNESCO honour to Santiniketan.
The state came forward to organise the five-day Poush Mela after Visva-Bharati and Santiniketan Trust, who had been hosting it traditionally for years, opted out in the first week of December saying there was not much time left to organise a fair of such scale and traders and locals approached the administration.
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