Visva-Bharati's Basanta Utsav Likely to be Shelved for Fifth Consecutive Year

For the fifth year running, Visva-Bharati's Basanta Utsav, the festival of colours that falls around Holi, is unlikely to happen this month because university administrators are concerned about causing any harm to the campus, which is a Unesco-recognized world heritage site.

The festival, which was founded in the 1920s by Nobel laureate and polymath Rabindranath Tagore of Visva-Bharati, was postponed in 2020 and 2021 because to COVID-19. Under the controversial vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty at the time, the varsity administration withdrew the school from the event in 2022 and 2023, ostensibly to avoid having to handle a sizable throng on campus.

According to a senior official, varsity administrators have opted not to host the event for a fifth year running, fearing that crowd misbehavior could cause damage to historic structures and sculptures that are included in the Unesco World Heritage Site.

The main campus area, which includes Tagore's five residences, was added to the list of Unesco-recognized sites on September 17 of last year.

Our main goal is to preserve the World Heritage designation. With our current infrastructure, managing one or two lakh people on a day like Holi would be nearly impossible. Now that the general election dates are known, we are unsure if the state government will be able to assist us with police arrangements this time around," a top university official stated.

The interim public relations officer, Ganesh Malik, stated that despite Basanta Utsav being just one week away on March 25, there was no meeting regarding the festival.

"There hasn't been a single meeting regarding Basanta Utsav thus far. I am therefore unable to confirm if the event will go place," Malik stated.

According to a senior official who has been involved in the event's organization on multiple occasions, "planning and meetings for the Utsav usually begin a month ago."

The spring and winter festivals of Basanta Utsav and Pous Mela in Santiniketan draw hordes of visitors and strengthen the local economy.

This year, the Bengal government, in collaboration with Visva-Bharati, organized Pous Mela, which had also been postponed till 2020, following a four-year hiatus.

"We anticipated that Basanta Utsav would also be organized by the varsity this time." "It is regrettable that we artisans will also be suffering a great loss this year," stated Aminul Huda, secretary of the Santiniketan artisans' collective Kaviguru Hastashilpa Unnayan Samiti.

The festival is also supported by the faculty association of Visva-Bharati University.

President of the faculty association Sudipta Bhattacharyya stated, "We want Visva-Bharati to organise Basanta Utsav with the help of students, teachers, traders, and old-timers of Santiniketan."

A post-Holi small-scale event with restricted community access is being considered, according to a varsity official.

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