Visva-Bharati Finalizes Bengali Draft for New Plaques to Replace Controversial Ones
Final Texts to Be Sent to Union Education Ministry for Approval
In addition to proposing "minor" changes to the English and Hindi texts sent by the Union ministry of education last Tuesday for inscription on plaques to replace the contentious ones installed by former vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty to mark the Unesco heritage tag on Santiniketan, the six-member committee, which was formed by Visva-Bharati, finalized the Bengali draft on Saturday.
"We completed the Bengali draft and made some little edit suggestions for the Hindi and English versions. The final material was sent by committee chairman Amal Pal to our acting VC, Sanjoy Kumar Mallik, for his approval "special officer of Rabindra Bhavana, Nilanjan Bandyopadhyay, said.
The six-person group that the varsity assembled on Thursday to develop the text in Bengali has Bandyopadhyay as its secretary.
According to a source, Mallik intended to avert more controversy by sending the three texts back to the government for a final approval before putting them on the plaques.
On September 17, Chakrabarty erected two marble plaques on campus without the name of Rabindranath Tagore, who founded both Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati. Only Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chakrabarty were listed on the plaques, along with the chancellor of Central University. The dispute that erupted over the two plaques, which were placed in front of Rabindra Bhavana and Upasana Griha, extended beyond the boundaries of Bengal.
We take great caution while handling the plaques since they caused a national uproar. Because of this, the ministry's ultimate decision is probably going to be made by the temporary VC," an official said.
According to a source, the panel also recommended the linguistic order for the new plaques, which will display the national insignia in the middle, the Visva-Bharati logo on the right, and the Unesco logo on the left.
"We suggested the Bengali version be on top, followed by English and Hindi," according to a source.
The new plaques, which would have around 600 words total—200 in Bengali, Hindi, and English—would be larger than the contentious ones.
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