The house where Tagore stayed during his visits to Mungpoo. Picture by Suman Tamang

Mungpoo, Aug. 8: The state government has decided to set up the Nepali Akademy at Mungpoo, made famous by Rabindranath Tagore’s visits.

The assurance on the Akademy’s revival — the second in a month — came on the bard’s death anniversary.

The Akademy has been defunct since 1985 and on July 13, on the birth anniversary celebrations of Nepali Adikavi Bhanubhakta Acharya, a Mamata Banerjee aide had promised its reopening. Theatre personality Bibhash Chakrabarty had visited Darjeeling on that day and had conveyed Mamata’s message that the Akademy would be revived.

Today’s announcement was made by north Bengal development minister Gautam Deb at a programme held in Mungpoo, 32km from Darjeeling, to observe the death anniversary of Tagore.

“The chief minister wants to set up the Nepali Akademy here in Mungpoo. I will also propose to her to set up a Rabindranath Tagore International Research Centre at the museum here.”

The Akademy had been established for the promotion of the Nepali language which was recognised under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution in 1979. It used to award the Bhanu Bhakta Puraskar for literature, drama, music and art.

But with the Gorkhaland agitation starting in the 1980s under Subash Ghisingh, the Akademy stopped functioning. Even after the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council was formed in 1988, Ghisingh, who was then at the helm of affairs, did not attach much importance to the Bhanu Bhakta Puraskar.

Instead, the DGHC instituted the Agam Singh Giri Puraskar in literature and demands for the revival of the Akademy fell on deaf ears despite several pleas from quarters like the Kurseong Pustakalaya and Nepali Sahitya Sammelan.

The Bhanu Puraskar was revived in 2002, but from then onwards it came to be awarded by the Bangla Akademy.

Indra Bahadur Rai in whose name a college is being set up at Gorubathan in Kalimpong sub-division received the Bhanu Puraskar that year. However, the awards for the other three fields have never been revived.

Even the Bhanu Puraskar for literature was stopped after 2006, this time because of the uncertainties in the hills that preceded the revival of the Gorkhaland agitation the next year.

The details of the new Akedmy are, however, unknown. The earlier Akademy had a 23-member committee with then chief minister Jyoti Basu as the chairperson and then information and cultural affairs minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee as its vice-chairperson.

“The district magistrate, who used to be called the district collector was the executive chairman of the Akademy and the secretary used to be of the rank of the assistant director of information,” said a district official. The Akademy also had two other government employees as committee members.

The chairperson of the Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Authority Rudranath Bhattacharya, who was also in Mungpoo today, said: “The people of Siliguri and Jalpaiguri would also be happy to extend financial assistance to the Rabindra museum at Mungpoo, apart from the government’s initiative.”

Since Mamata Banerjee government has taken over, there have been frequent visits by ministers and people’s representatives from the plains to the hills to bridge the gap between the two regions.

Minister Deb said the government had sanctioned Rs 5 lakh for the museum recently and the electricity connection would be immediately restored. The museum is currently being looked after by the directorate of cinchona and other medicinal plants even though no separate funds have been allotted by the government for the purpose.

The museum is of much importance as Tagore had visited Mungpoo four times from 1938 to 1940 because of his love for the place and special bond with Maitreyi Devi, the daughter of his friend Surendranath Dasgupta. Memoirs of his stay here were published by Maitreyi Devi in her book Mungpoote Rabindranath (Tagore by Fireside).