Relief for Tagore event - Morcha relents

BIRESWAR BANERJEE AND VIVEK CHHETRI

The bungalow at Mungpoo where Tagore stayed. File picture Siliguri/Darjeeling, May 6: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has made an exception for biswakabiRabindranath Tagore by deciding not to boycott his 150th birth anniversary celebration at Mungpoo on May 8. But there is still confusion over whether any Morcha leader will be present at the Mungpoo event and share the dais with north Bengal development minister Gautam Deb. The Morcha had called for the boycott of all government programmes to protest the denial of permission to the party to hold a public meeting at Nagrakata on April 22. “The Morcha will continue to boycott all programmes organised by the state government. But we want to exclude the Mungpoo event from the ambit of the boycott as it will be an occasion to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Tagore,” said Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri. Tagore had visited Mungpoo four times between 1938 and 1940 because of his love for the place and special bond with Maitreyi Devi, the daughter of his friend. She was married to then director of the Directorate of Cinchona and Other Medicinal Plants Plantation, Manmohan Sen, and had published a book Mungpoote Rabindranath, containing an account of the poet’s stay at the tiny hill hamlet. Later, Maitreyi Devi established Rabindra Smriti at the director’s bungalow in 1944 to preserve the poet’s memories. The place was converted into a museum by the Left-Front government in January 2000. Mungpoo is 35km from Darjeeling and is in Kurseong subdivision. Kalimpong MLA and Morcha spokesperson, Harka Bahadur Chhetri, has said nobody should politicise the Nobel laureate’s birth anniversary. “One should understand that Rabindranath Tagore was not just a poet of Bengal but abiswakabi and we should not politicise his birthday celebration. The bard was the first recipient of the Nobel prize from Asia and I will be delivering a speech on him in the Assembly on Tuesday,” said Chettri. Although the Morcha has decided to keep the Tagore birthday celebration out of the purview of its call to boycott government programmes, no party leader has committed to attending the Mungpoo event. Even the state information and cultural department is not sure about who will be present on Tuesday. “The programme will be a low key affair as many artists haven’t given a confirmation on their participation. The local people were also apprehensive about attending the function till yesterday. In this confusion, we did not print invitation cards and merely tried to invite people over the phone,” a senior official in the department told The Telegraph. He said the organisers wanted Kurseong MLA Dr Rohit Sharma to preside over the event. “We have verbally communicated our intention to Dr. Sharma. He, however, told us that he would be out of station from tomorrow,” added the official. When contacted, Sharma said: “I have not yet received any invitation card for the event. I will be leaving for Calcutta tomorrow and will return only on May 9.” In Siliguri, minister Gautam Deb told journalists today that he would attend the day-long programme at Mungpoo on Tuesday. “There will be cultural activities like song, dances and recitation. I will reach Mungpoo on Monday afternoon so that I can attend the next day’s celebration.” The Morcha had boycotted a meeting chaired by Deb at the Darjeeling District Hospital on April 25. The foundation laying of a column in memory of Bijanbari bridge collapse victims by the minister on April 29 was cancelled because of the hill party’s boycott call. The minister said a process had already begun to open an international research centre on Tagore’s works at Mungpoo. “On Mamata Banerjee’s instruction, the north Bengal development department has allotted Rs 4 crore in this regard,” Deb said.