Politicians, Artists Protest Near Amartya Sen's Santiniketan House

Politicians, Artists Protest Near Amartya Sen's Santiniketan House
Advertisement

'Rakta Karabi' is a powerful and poignant play where commercial expoitation, oppression, power, love and obsession operate on different levels and manifest themselves in different shades.

Visva Bharati spokesperson Mahua Banerjee said, "The matter is in the court. We respect its order and the law of the land. We have lodged a complaint to the competent authorities.

Advertisement

"Since Section 145 is in force to maintain peace and tranquility in the area near Pratichi, how is such a kind of gathering permissible?"... This will be our response regarding the activities (by the protestors) since May 5, 2023," she said.

Set up in 1921 by Rabindranath Tagore, Visva-Bharati was declared a university in 1951 and is West Bengal's only central university. The prime minister is its chancellor.

Calcutta High Court on May 4 gave an interim stay against an eviction order of Visva-Bharati asking Sen to vacate 0.13 acres at his ancestral Santiniketan residence by May 6. An appeal for a stay on possible eviction was fixed for hearing later in the month at a court in Suri.

Visva-Bharati had sent the eviction notice to Sen on April 19, asking him to vacate 13 decimal of the 1.38 acres land of his residence within May 6. The university has been claiming that Sen is in possession of 1.38 acre of land in the Santiniketan campus, which is in excess of his legal entitlement of 1.25 acres.

The economist in his petition to the court said that the 1.38 acres plot on which 'Pratichi' stands was given on lease for 99 years to his father Ashutosh Sen in October 1943 by the then Visva-Bharati general secretary Rathindranath Tagore, Gurudev's son.

Sen had earlier moved a court in Suri against the eviction notice, but the court set May 15 as the date of hearing well after the university's deadline to vacate the land. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Source link