Kolkata: The Centre has asked Visva-Bharati University to remove the earlier plaques that were installed on its premises to mark the Unesco heritage tag to Santiniketan. The Union ministry of education has also sent a detailed text in English and Hindi for the new plaque with Rabindranath Tagore’s name.
As instructed by the ministry, VB has formed a six member panel to prepare the text in Bengali. The new text does not mention the names of PM Narendra Modi or the varsity’s former vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty.
A source said the Bengali translation has already been done and sent to the ministry. Visva-Bharati’s interim V-C Sanjoy Kumar Mallick said: “The office of the vice-chancellor hasn’t issued any official statement, yet.”
The text sent by the ministry is in a plaque-like format with Unesco logo on the left, national emblem in the middle and VB’s logo on the right.
Santiniketan, Tagore’s ‘abode of peace’ that houses Visva-Bharati, was inscribed as a Unesco ‘World Heritage Site’ on September 17. Following this, the VB authorities put up three marble plaques, which bore the names of Modi and Chakrabarty, the then VC. It triggered a major row for leaving out Tagore’s name.