A History of Santiniketan: The ‘Vessel’ That Carried Rabindranath Tagore’s Best Treasures |
Originally reported and written in May 2023, this story has been republished as part of our archival content.
Author Gaura Pant ‘Shivani’, in her book Amader Shantiniketan, recalled Santiniketan as “a peaceful retreat that remained unshaken by the din and terror of the world beyond.” And through the course of history, scholars, writers, students, historians, and even simple admirers, have recalled the neighbourhood — which was founded bythe Tagore family — in similar ways, as a land that transcends the bounds of religion, regions, caste, and any such limitations that tend to divide us.
The university town, located in Birbhum district’s Bolpur town, is among West Bengal’s — and India’s — most important heritage icons. A campaign to give it a place on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites first began in 2010, when the Archeological Survey of India submitted a formal request to the UN body to include parts of the neighbourhood in the list.
The bid had failed then, but last week, began inching closer to a revival when the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) — the advisory body to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre — made a recommendation to include it on the list based on a file moved by the Government of India. If selected, Santiniketan will be the state’s second cultural symbol to make it to UNESCO’s list — in 2021, Kolkata’s Durga Puja was noted as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Santiniketan embodied polymath Rabindranath Tagore’s vision for education that explored and challenged the boundaries of traditional classrooms. In recent years, it has moved away from this dream, but the UNESCO recognition could perhaps set it back on its path.
A barren land and two Chhatim trees
In the 1860s, Tagore’s father Debendranath was traversing western Bengal. When he arrived in the Birbhum region, he was instantly captivated by the beauty of the land, where “two large Chhatim (Alstonia scholaris)trees [offered] gentle shade on the dry, red land”. It is said that he took 20 acres of the land on permanent lease from its then owner Bhuban Mohan Sinha, who was the talukdar of Raipur. Here, he built a guest house and christened it Santiniketan, or the “abode of peace”.
Years later, in a trust deed drawn in 1888, Debendranath would say the land would allow “no insult to any religion or religious deity”, and “apart from worshipping the formless, no community may worship any idol depicting god, man, or animals; neither may anyone........