Inscribe Rabindranath Tagore name on the plaque or else face protest, Mamata Banerjee warns after Shantiniketan ‘UNESCO’ plaque row

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has given an ultimatum to Viswa Bharati University authorities to change the controversial plaque by Friday morning and include the name of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore marking the honour of UNESCO’s heritage recognition of Shantiniketan. She has given time till 10 am Friday morning to the Central university authorities to remove the current plaque, recently installed, that has the names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and University Vice Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty but had conspicuously missed the name of Tagore.

“They are changing history. They are removing the name India. They have removed the name of Rabindranath Tagore from the plaque. If Shantiniketan has received UNESCO recognition it is because of Tagore. Because of Durga Puja, we have stayed quiet but not anymore. Change it by Friday 10 am or else we will launch our protest there. This is unacceptable”, said Mamata Banerjee in a press conference, first after a long lull due to her ill health.

PM Modi is the Chancellor of Viswa Bharati, the central university. UNESCO conferred the World Heritage site honour to Santiniketan on September 17. The university had put up a plaque outside the gate which had stoked the controversy. University authorities, after being trolled on social media and the backlash, had later clarified that the current plaque was a temporary arrangement. "It was a purely temporary structure raised to demarcate the heritage site…”, said Visva Bharati spokesperson Mahua Bandyopadhyay. A university official on condition of anonymity claimed that three such controversial plaques had come up within the university premises. University had even security cover to the plaques fearing for any untoward incident. The university is currently shut down owing to Durga Puja vacation.

UNESCO gave credit to "renowned poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore" for setting up of Santiniketan which is uniquely different from the "prevailing British colonial architectural orientations of the early 20th century and of European modernism". A tall Bengali icon, Tagore along with other legends was also at the heart of the political discourse revolving around ‘Bengali Ashmita’ in the run-up to the 2021 Bengal Assembly Election. Mamata Banerjee has lashed out at the BJP for trying to appropriate Tagore and give UNESCO heritage credit to PM Narendra Modi.​