Doors of iconic Visva-Bharati University founded by Tagore to open for tourists after 5 years

Kolkata, March 21 (IANS) Almost after five years, the gates of the legendary and iconic Visva-Bharati University, founded by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore at Bolpur-Santiniketan in Birbhum district of West Bengal, will be open again for the tourists.

An announcement on this count has been made on Friday, by the new chancellor of the university, Probir Kumar Ghosh.

For a long time, the campus of the university was a special attraction for the tourists coming from different parts of the country as well as abroad.

In fact, the university authorities used to encourage an inflow of tourists to spread the message worldwide on Gurudev’s concept of an ideal ambience of liberal and free thoughts within a university campus with which Visva-Bharati was founded.

However, amid the crisis of Covid-19 pandemic the gates of Visva-Bharati, the only central university in the country with the Prime Minister of the country as the Chancellor, were closed for the tourists.

Even after the pandemic period was over, the-then Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty refused to lift the prohibition on entry of tourists on grounds that undesirable elements might enter the campus posing as tourists.

At that point of time, the entry of the tourists was restricted only to the university museum after purchasing tickets.

Although the students, alumni and even a section of the faculty were against the decision of prohibiting tourist entry within the campus, Chakraborty chose to stick to his decision on this count.

The demand for lifting of the ban on tourist entry within the university campus aggravated further after the legendary institute was given the tag of UNESCO World Heritage Site in September 2023.

Besides announcing the decision to reopen the doors of the campus for tourists, the new vice chancellor said the University authorities are also discussing the initiatives to be taken for the tourist facilities within the campus.

“Being UNESCO World Heritage Site, the university truly is a point of global attraction,” he said.

Besides being founded by Gurudev, Visva-Bharati University is also globally acclaimed for its association with legendary personalities like Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen and iconic actor Late Balraj Sahni, who had been a teacher of both English and Hindi at the university, among others.

–IANS

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