A playground of Visva-Bharati was decorated with flex banners bearing the photographs of Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the inauguration of the Narendra Cup on Friday, prompting charges that such practices went against the Nobel laureate’s ideology, as the bard was purportedly opposed to idolatry.
A source has said the BJP, without using political banners, has been organising weeklong football tournaments across Bengal to mark Swami Vivekananda’s 1893 Chicago lecture and the 75th birthday of Modi on September 17, when the final is scheduled to be held.
“Around 1,200 football teams and 25,000 players across the state are participating in the weeklong tournament that began on September 11, the date of Swamiji’s Chicago lecture. The final will be held on Modiji’s 75th birthday, September 17,” said BJP state general secretary Jagannath Chattopadhyay, who was among the leaders to inaugurate the Narendra Cup in Birbhum’s Santiniketan on Friday.
Although the Narendra Cup has been organised under the banner of various apolitical outfits, BJP leaders have been instructed to participate in them. Sources said senior BJP leaders in districts played key roles in organising the tournament to connect “Swamiji (Narendranath Datta) to Modiji, one Narendra to another Narendra”.
In Santiniketan, the tournament was held on the playground of Visva-Bharati in Sriniketan. While there was no objection to the football match being organised on the campus of the central varsity, whose Chancellor is the Prime Minister, many long-time residents of Santiniketan, including some from Tagore’s family, objected to the large flex banners with photographs of Tagore, Vivekananda, and Modi. They questioned how Visva-Bharati could permit such displays, especially of Tagore, who had explicitly opposed idolatry and directed that his photographs or statues not be displayed on the university premises.
“That is why there are no photographs or statues of Tagore anywhere in Santiniketan. You won’t find a single official programme, including Poush Mela or Basanta Utsav, where his photographs were used. Tagore was firmly against such image worship or idolatry. We think this was a direct disrespect to Tagore’s ideology as well as to the Prime Minister, who may not have even known about his photograph being used in Visva-Bharati in violation of Tagore’s wishes,” said Sudripta Tagore, a descendant.
Several professors underscored that Tagore opposed idolatry, believing it reduced a person’s ideas and legacy to a lifeless idol or image.
His philosophy centred on
the religion of man, rather than institutionalised or symbolic worship.
“It is unfortunate that the Prime Minister was dragged into the controversy. I think it escaped the notice of our current vice-chancellor, who is an alumnus of Visva-Bharati. I am sure, had he been aware of this disrespect, he would have taken steps,” added Sudripta.
Asked about the alleged violation of Tagore’s ideology, BJP state general secretary Chattopadhyay claimed there was nothing unusual about paying respect to icons such as Tagore and Swamiji.
“We took permission from Visva-Bharati to use the ground. It was a completely apolitical football tournament. Rabindranath Tagore and Swami Vivekananda are universal icons, and we paid homage to them. We don’t see anything unusual or controversial in that,” he said.
The Trinamool Congress and the CPM criticised the BJP for disrespecting
Tagore’s ideology.
“Although it was not directly a BJP programme, everyone knows it was the party’s event. For the first time, Visva-Bharati permitted a political force to use its campus. The BJP actually cannot even begin to stomach Rabindranath Tagore and his ideology,” said CPM Birbhum district secretary
Gautam Ghosh.
Trinamool spokesperson Malay Mukherjee added that BJP leaders had repeatedly dishonoured Tagore, and linking their football tournament to his ideology was another such instance.
“The BJP should first read and learn about Rabindranath Tagore, his ideology and principles. Since they don’t understand Tagore, they are bound to make such mistakes,” Mukherjee said.
Visva-Bharati’s acting public relations officer, Atig Ghosh, said that once the administration came to know about it, all the photographs of Tagore were removed from the ground.
“There are many people connected with Visva-Bharati among the organisers who should have known the subject. As soon as we learnt about it, we removed all the photographs and flex banners of Tagore, as such displays are not allowed on our campus. However, we have no objection to photographs of the Prime Minister, who is our Chancellor, and Swami Vivekananda,” said Ghosh.