Local TMC leaders, intellectuals and residents of Bolpur, continued their protest near the ancestral house of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen at the Visva-Bharati university campus, in Santiniketan in West Bengal’s Birbhum district for the third day on Monday (May 8).
The protests began on Saturday over a notice issued by the university to Sen, asking him to vacate part of the land on which his sprawling house ‘Pratichi’ is built.
The protestors held sit-ins, local artistes sang songs of protest by Rabindranath Tagore on two podiums built near Sen’s residence decrying Visva-Bharati’s eviction notice to him.
They also performed his Shapmochan dance drama. Locals and intellectuals from Santiniketan and Kolkata had launched the stir against the university on the issue on Friday.
Also read: Calcutta HC stays Visva-Bharati move to seize part of Amartya Sen’s land
The central university, however, stuck to its programme to hold Rabindra Jayanti celebrations slated for later in the week. It’s spokesperson Mahua Banerjee told PTI that the celebrations will be held on the bard’s birth anniversary on May 9.
The university, on the other hand, kept the Rabindra Bhavan, which houses Tagore memorablia and objects associated with his memory, closed for the fourth successive day citing “unavoidable circumstances”.
“This is to notify all concerned that Rabindra Bhavana will remain closed on May 8 due to unavoidable circumstances,” the notice signed by VB officiating registrar Manabendra Saha said.
Visva-Bharati authorities had earlier informed the local administration to see that the academic atmosphere of the university is not hampered by the protests against the notice sent to Sen.
Ashramites, university students and teachers claimed that this was the first time in the history of Visva-Bharati that Rabindra Bhavan was closed for four consecutive days ahead of Rabindra Jayanti, when thousands of his admirers visit Santiniketan.
Also read: Visva-Bharati University tells Amartya Sen to vacate 13 decimals of land by May 6
State minister Chandranath Sinha and councillors of Bolpur municipality were seen seated on a dias. The ashramites held placards denouncing the university’s actions and folk singers performed.
“Our sit-in will continue tomorrow. A dance drama by Tagore will be staged to commemorate his birth anniversary,” Sinha said.
The central university has claimed that Sen, who is now abroad, is illegally occupying 0.13 acres out of the total 1.38-acre plot on which Pratichi stands and asked him to vacate it by May 6, failing which he would be evicted.
The economist moved Calcutta high court against the notice and it issued a stay on the notice. An appeal for a stay on possible eviction was fixed for hearing on May 15 at a court in Suri in Birbhum district.
Visva-Bharati is the sole central university of West Bengal and the prime minister is its chancellor.
Also read: Visva-Bharati varsity terms Amartya Sen ‘illegal occupant’
The university was founded by Asia’s first Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in 1921 and was declared to be a central university and an institution of national importance by an Act of Parliament in 1951. The land on which Sen’s ancestral house stands was leased for 99 years to his father, Ashutosh Sen in 1943 by Rathindra Nath Tagore, Gurudev’s son, who was the then general secretary of Visva-Bharati.
On May 3, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asked state ministers to begin a sit-in outside Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s residence in Santiniketan to protest against the Visva-Bharati’s eviction notice, an official said. She asked them not to move from the spot even if the central university authorities send bulldozers to take possession of the land.
(Inputs by agencies)