Mamata breaks precedent of accompanying Prime Minister and insults Rabindranath Tagore all on the same day

Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday skipped the Centenary celebrations of the reputed Visva Bharati University, which was founded by Rabindranath Tagore in 1921. This came days after Banerjee had gone on to suggest that Christmas should be declared a national holiday, along the lines of Independence Day, Republic Day and Gandhi Jayanti. By giving a miss to the centennial celebration of Visva Bharati University, Mamata Banerjee showed just how much she respected Nobel Laurette Rabindranath Tagore. Additionally, the precedent of the Chief Minister of a state being present when the Prime Minister of the country is visiting the state was dumped down the drain by the TMC matriarch.

Of course, due to the prevailing pandemic, Prime Minister Modi addressed the event at Visva Bharati University via video conferencing. Nevertheless, sanity would demand that precedents be followed in online modes too. Yet, despite being invited by the University on December 4^th itself, the Bengal Chief Minister skipped attending the event owing to narrow-minded politics, with the TMC covering up saying that the Chief Minister was invited at the last moment to the event. This triggered yet another war-of-words between the ruling party and BJP.

The TMC deemed it to be fit to drag Rabindranath Tagore into the political mud-fest of Bengal, even though the Prime Minister’s message on the occasion of VBU’s centenary celebration was one which cut across ideological and political lines. PM Modi revealed a lesser-known fact – Rabindranath Tagore’s connection with Gujarat. The Prime Minister, who is the Chancellor of the University, shared Gurudev’s vision for Visva Bharati and said that it is also the essence of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, which is the path of India’s welfare for world welfare.

The TMC, obviously, did not like the Prime Minister’s address at the event, and went on to point supposed ‘factual errors’ in his speech. TMC MP Bratya Basu claimed, “Tagore’s brother who stayed in Gujarat was not the eldest brother…His wife’s name was Gyanadanandini, not Gyanandini which is what the prime minister said.” He claimed that Modi’s assertion of Tagore’s sister-in-law learning to drape a saree differently from Gujarati women was not entirely correct.

In her own words, Visva Bharati University was Rabindranath Tagore’s greatest experiment on creating the ideal human being. “We must preserve the vision and philosophy of this great visionary,” she said earlier on Thursday. Yet, keeping her ego on the forefront and not attending the all-important centennial celebrations of such a “temple of learning” only due to the fact that Prime Minister Modi was the Chief Guest at the event shows just how much Didi thinks of Gurudev Tagore.