Santiniketan, a town located in West Bengal’s Birbhum district, set up by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore on September 17 made it to the UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Now, India has 41 Sites in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
About Santiniketan
- Santiniketan which means ‘abode of peace’ started taking shape in 1901, and it was this place Tagore later put up the foundations of Visva Bharati University.
- A few months ago, the landmark site was recommended for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List by international advisory body ICOMOS.
- The France-based International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) is an international non-governmental organisation. It is dedicated to the conservation and enhancement of the architectural and landscape heritage around the world.
- Santiniketan, earlier known as Bhubadanga, was owned by the Tagore family. In 1862, on a boat journey to Raipur, Rabindranath Tagore’s father Debendranath Tagore spotted this landscape of red soil and lush paddy fields and decided to build an ‘Ashram (hermitage)‘ .
- He built a house Santiniketan “abode of peace “ that stands even today. The area was renamed Santiniketan as he found the place conducive to meditation.
- In 1901, Rabindranath Tagore started a school at this place on the ‘Brahmachary Ashram’ modelled on the ancient Indian Gurukul system.
- The school was later upgraded to a University and was renamed Visva Bharati that was described by the poet as “where the world makes a home in the nest”.
- A ‘world university’ was established at Santiniketan in 1921, recognising the unity of humanity or “Visva Bharati”.
- Santiniketan represents approaches toward a pan-Asian modernity, drawing on ancient, medieval and folk traditions from across the region.
