How Santiniketan finally got the well-deserved UNESCO recognition

K.S. Radhakrishnan’s sculpture Maiya as bow and arrow at Uttarayan in Santiniketan.
| Photo Credit: Ashis Dutta

Nandalal Bose, a pioneer of modern Indian art, was zealously supervising the relief artwork on the walls of Shyamali — the mud house. Rabindranath Tagore would often live here. So would Mahatma Gandhi during his visit to Santiniketan.

Shyamali and many such priceless architectural structures, sculptures and frescos are sprinkled across this otherwise fickle landscape, 160 km from Kolkata, where Rabindranath Tagore created this open-air institution in 1901 and named it Santiniketan.

Kala Bhavan (The Black House) in Santiniketan was constructed with experimental methods using mud and tar. 
| Photo Credit:
Ashis Dutta

The first attempt at UNESCO tag happened in 2010, which did not succeed. From 2021 onward, a renewed effort was made, and this time, it clicked.

Conservation architect Manish Chakraborti, who spearheaded Santiniketan’s UNESCO-project team and created the dossier which clinched the deal, explained how, strategically, they departed from the 2010 approach and settled for a smaller core heritage area. They then painstakingly recorded the integrity and authenticity of all the tangible buildings and assets, and mapped them to the philosophy of Tagore.

“The dossier, thus, has multiple layers,” says Manish. “Take for instance, the stain-glass Upasana Griha, also called, Mandir, Rabindranath Tagore transcended the archetypal mental-model of ‘mandir’ and made it a space for larger humanism. Under the tempestuous drumbeat of the Second World War, his seminal last speech in Santiniketan, ‘Crisis in Civilisation’, was delivered here.

Iconic sculptor Ramkinkar Baij’s Mill Call at Uttarayan in Santiniketan.
| Photo Credit:
Ashis Dutta

Conceived in the ancient Indian concept of ‘Tapovan’, Santiniketan was Tagore’s alternative path to education from Macauley-imposed colonial highway. Ancient, yet modern and universal.

The low brick-layered half-rings — under a banyan tree here, a mango tree there — would go unnoticed. But during school sessions you would never fail to wonder at the students squatting on those half-rings, facing the teacher. That’s a regular class in progress, in the open. A dry leaf would mischievously fall dancing down from the branch above and land softly on an open exercise-book while one is diligently taking notes. The sun can play shadow-games through the foliage above. Santiniketan teaches what not to look for — solid boundaries.

How such environment impacts the students? Says Sayar, who just graduated from Santiniketan’s higher-secondary school, Patha Bhavana, and still basking in the glory of the UNESCO tag. “We in Santiniketan can clearly understand each season, and celebrate their arrival. When the orange flame of palash blooms, we know spring is approaching.” Here, students continuously renew their intimate connection with Nature.

Santiniketan becomes the only living, running, institution to get the World Heritage tag. But with it comes challenges. Prof. Swapan Dutta, Vice Chancellor from 2015 to 2018, was articulate about both challenges and opportunities. “A lot of positives,” he says. “Young generation may now have renewed interest in Tagore’s philosophy. And the larger world would be aware of his contributions beyond literature. In welfare and universal humanism.”

But he continued. “Santiniketan still doesn’t have a proper gallery to display many of Tagore’s and other eminent artists’ paintings and sculptures, which are stacked in the stores.”

Swapan Dutta, during his term had tried to protect the campus from noise and air pollution caused by fumes from vehicles and the sound of their honking. “They are all back,” he rued, “and are threat to the irreplaceable Ramkinkar’s sculptures, Nandalal Bose’s frescos, all in the open. Archaeological Survey of India also have to pull up their socks now.”

The Central and the State governments have to rise above their political one-upmanship and work together.

This is an opportunity to revisit Rabindranath Tagore’s monumental cultural contribution and ensure it reaches new-age learners.