Visva-Bharati invited political leaders to its annual Halakarshana (ploughing ceremony) on their Sriniketan campus in a first for the central varsity.
While varsity administrators insisted the invitees’ profiles were consistent with the past tradition of the agrarian event — started by Rabindranath Tagore in 1929 as a tribute to pastoral livelihood — a section of the alumni and professors have raised concern about the “politicisation” of the event on Friday.
At the programme in Sriniketan, the dais was shared by chief guest Bibek Debroy, the chairman of economic advisory council to Prime Minister, Sunil Ambekar, national organising secretary of the Akhil Bharaya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), state tourism minister Goutam Deb and varsity vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty.
Sources said that all four drove the plough together following a cultural ceremony on Friday morning.
“Goutam Deb loves Santiniketan. Ambekarji is a social worker and thinks about higher education,” said Chakrabarty, when asked about the rationale behind the guest list which happened to exclude Deb’s name from print.
“It is not a tradition to allow political leaders to share the dais at a prestigious programme like Halakarshana. Persons like governors or academics, like agriculturalists or economists, are invited,” said Supriya Tagore, a former Patha Bhavana principal and a member of the Tagore family.
In 2018, then governor Keshari Nath Tripathi was the chief guest. Sources said the chief guest was normally the only one to drive the plough.
Insiders said Friday’s event was a reflection of the varsity’s attempts to appease the BJP and Trinamul following the BJP’s rise in Bengal in the general election.
“Visva-Bharati is a central university and it is located in Bengal, which is run by Trinamul. We need the Centre for funds and the state for local administration and police. So, it is better to take a balanced stand politically,” a varsity source said.
The public relations officer of Visva-Bharati, Anirban Sircar, said “there is no question of politics at all”.
