Table Of ContentHEDGEHOG AND FOX
HISTORY A"JD POLITICS SERIES
"The fox knows many things,
but the hedgehog knows one big thing"
General Editor
RUDRANGSHU MUKHERJEE
TAGORE'S UNIVERSITY
A History ofVisva-Bharati
1921-1961
SWATI GANGULY
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
IX
Introduction 1
1 A Poet's Ashram School and a World Centre
of Culture 11
2 Visva-Bharati: An Idea and an Institution
1921-1941 31
3 A Period of Adversity 1941-1950 83
4 In Search of Fresh Paths 1951-1961 133
5 Orienting Research Studies 189
6 Visual and Performing Arts 245
7 Rural Reconstruction in Sriniketan 316
8 Santiniketan: Settlement, Community, and Culture 366
Epilogue 426
Bibliography 433
Index 455
PHOTOGRAPHS
1.1 Rabindranath Tagore c. 1915-16 13
1.2 Gurudev and the Mahatma 18
1.3 Class of children of the ashram school in
mango groves 21
vi CONTENTS
1.4 The toron (gateway) to the gourprangan, the
main quadrangle of the ashram 24
1.5 Older students ofVisva-Bharati in the
gourprangan 26
1.6 Salbithi, or the Avenue of Sal 29
2.1 Rabindranath Tagore, founder-president of
Visva-Bharati 32
2.2 Sylvain Levi teaching at the Amrakunja,
Santiniketan 37
2.3 Kshitimohan Sen 44
2.4 Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, and his wife
Nirmal Kumari Mahalanobis 68
2.5 The last birthday of Rabindranath, 7 May 1941 82
3.1 Chhatimtola, or the Grove of Chhatim 84
3.2 Abanindranath Tagore, the second chancellor
of Visva-Bharati 88
3.3 A young and stylish Rathindranath Tagore 92
3.4 Rajeswari Vasudev 101
3.5 Alex Aronson 104
3.6 C.F. Andrews and Rabindranath 116
3.7 Gandhi, flanked by Rabindranath and
C.F. Andrews 117
3.8 Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath 129
4.1 Eleanor Roosevelt with Rathindranath Tagore
and other dignitaries 148
4.2 Rathindranath Tagore, the first vice chancellor
of Visva-Bharati 157
4.3 Prabodh Chandra Bagchi and Jawaharlal Nehru 166
4.4 Satyendranath Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru 171
CONTENTS Vll
4.5 Indira Gandhi, Kshitish Chandra Chaudhuri,
Jawaharlal Nehru, Padmaja Naidu,
Sudhi Ranjan Das 185
4.6 Kshitish Roy, Pratima Tagore, and
Kshitimohan Sen 187
5.1 Group photo showing Sylvain Levi, Rabindranath
Tagore, Madame Levi, Prabhat Kumar
Mukhopadhyay, and Vidhusekhar Bhattacharya 192
5.2 Tan Yun-Shan taking a class in the main hall of
Cheena Bhavana 208
5.3 Young Buddhist monk reading in Cheena Bhavana 210
5.4 Prabodh Chandra Bagchi in his study 216
5.5 Shriram Sharma, C.F. Andrews, and Hazariprasad
Dwivedi 230
5.6 Inauguration of the Hindi Bhavana, Visva-Bharati,
31 January 1939 232
6.1 Nandalal Bose and a young student 252
6.2 The Chaitya 258
6.3 Rabindranath with a troupe 267
6.4 Young women artists in the Kala Bhavana studio 271
6.5 Sujata, by Ramkinkar Baij 278
6.6 Santhal Family, by Ramkinkar Baij 279
6.7 Benodebehari and Ramkinkar 281
6.8 Satyajit Ray 286
6.9 Nilima Sen and Kanika Bandyopadhyay 289
6.10 Indira Devi, Radhakrishnan, and Santidev Ghosh
with young artists 293
6.11 Three women student artists at Kala Bhavana
in the 1940s 297
6.12 Nandalal Bose, Ustad Allauddin Khan, and
Sailajaranjan Majumdar 303
viii CONTENTS
7.1 The Surul Kuthibari 322
7.2 Elmhirst and Rabindranath 326
7.3 Kalimohan Ghosh with the brati-balakas 336
7.4 Pottery and other artifacts in Silpa Sadana 347
7.5 Weaving in Silpa Sadana 349
7.6 Woman artist engaged in batik work 350
7.7 Elmhirst and Rathindranath 354
8.1 Rabindranath conducting a prayer meeting
in the Mandir 370
8.2 Santiniketan Bari 372
8.3 Thatched roof cottage built around a palm tree 374
8.4 Udayan 378
8.5 Udichi 379
8.6 Andrews, Pearson, and Gandhi 389
8.7 Rabindranath and Amiya Chakrabarty 397
8.8 Women dancing during Basanta Utsav 406
8.9 Girl reading on a tree 407
8.10 Cha Chakra (the Tea House) 414
8.11 Gurudev and the Mela 424
Preface and
Acknowledgements
W
RITING THIS PREFACE means putting formal closure to
the research, thinking, and processing that have re
mained open in my head for a very long time - it has been
years since I began to conceptualise the project, to now when it es
capes my clutches. The sense of a very prolonged engagement with
it comes also from long hours spent musing on a balcony over cool
summer mornings listening to birdcalls and walks taken in the
Santiniketan ashram campus on late winter afternoons. On an easy
chair in my study or strolling past the Hindi Bhavana and the Chee
na Bhavana towards the playground, I seem to have long been
in a reverie that allowed me to move beyond the present into the
past.
I grew up in Calcutta, read English Literature at the university,
and moved to Santiniketan more than two decades ago when I
joined the Department of English, Visva-Bharati, as faculty, and
set up home quite close to the ashram campus. I wasn't the privi
leged insider - I had never been a student in the institution where
I was now teaching, but neither was I a rank outsider lacking all
formal connection with the institution. My location in-between
was fortuitous when it came to writing the present book on the
history of four decades ofVisva-Bharati. It allowed me to retain
possession of my critical gaze even after I had formed an affective
bond with the institution and the place.
If the beauty of the campus, with its unique architecture and
environmental sculpture, spoke to me silently, written accounts - offi
cial documents, articles in newsmagazines, memoirs, and letters -
X PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
created a buzz in my brain. I recall vividly the physical exhaustion
of intellectual labour; it created a blurring of my already myopic
vision, and stiffness of back and limbs. Occasionally, as I trudged
back wearily from the archive and library, there were moments
of epiphany: less than a hundred years ago, Rabindranath Tagore
had walked along these paths, stopping to look at a flowering tree
or watching cranes fly in an azure sky. Living in his time became
part of my existence. People and places came alive in my imagi
nation and this I felt was the only way I could write of the past.
The narrative here - the story of the founding and nurturing of
Visva-Bharati - took shape in my mind during these reveries
and reflections even before I began writing. Narratives have their
own compulsions, creating a desire to probe in directions that did
not exist in the "original" scheme. So I would often stop after com
pleting the first draft of a section and go back to hours of reading in
the library of Rabindra Bhavana, or rummage through the small
but precious collection I had painstakingly built over three years
and more.
The excitement and joy of the early phase of my work - when
I spent hours reading in libraries and archives, wrote essays which
evolved from archival work, and travelled in India and abroad
to give talks on Visva-Bharati and Rabindranath Tagore - were
unluckily followed by a difficult time during which my father and
two beloved cousins passed away, and the Covid pandemic was
followed by traumas brought on by certain events in my life which
left me humiliated, helpless, and despairing. I survived because I
could return to the manuscript of this book, immersing myself in
thoughts of a quieter and happier time in the past that took me
away from present chaos. As things fell apart, the work became
the still centre of my being. I sought consolation in the fact that I
taught at the university founded by Rabindranath a hundred years
back co provide space for those who wished to pursue learning and
creativity in a time of political and civilisational madness. I believe
one of my sources of strength was the memory of my early days as
a teacher in Visva-Bharati. That was a time when the values I held
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi
dear had not crumbled entirely, when all laughter was not hollow
and every human interaction not continuously guarded.
The recent transformation of the world of the academically
respected and functioning Indian university has been bewildering,
but it has also strengthened my resolve to write about this universe
that so many of the country's teachers and students have lost. My
hope lies in remembering that Rabindranath, who reinvented him
self at sixty by laying the foundation ofVisva-Bharati and working
tirelessly to nurture it till the end of his life, would probably
have sympathised with the delayed completion of this book: by a
felicitous coincidence, it has been sent off to be published in the
centenary year of his - and my-institution.
The research and writing having far exceeded the time I had
thought it would take - I had even begun to regard this mono
graph as an Odyssey with no destination in sight - the debts I have
accumulated are many. I was lucky to have had family and friends,
eminent scholars and editors, colleagues and former students
along the way; their assistance, guidance, and encouragement
were my sustenance over the many periods that I was plagued by
self-doubt.
Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, beloved friend since my college days
and collaborator in many projects, nudged me towards thinking
about Visva-Bharati as I was toying with the idea of a work on
Rabindranath's intellectual legacy, as well as towards the New India
Foundation (NIF) before I had thought of applying to it for a fel
lowship. Her love and concern for my well-being has kept me going
and no expression of gratitude to her can suffice. Sudeshna Baner
jee, friend and editor, provided valuable advice on the proposal I
sent; I have never been able to thank her adequately either. Indira
Chaudhuri, a pioneer in the field ofinstitutional history, read the
first draft of the proposal and sent valuable critical observations.
Bikash Chakravarry, my former colleague and mentor and well-known
