Santiniketan in Bengal now part of Unesco’s World Heritage List
Santiniketan, the town in West Bengal where Rabindranath Tagore built Visva-Bharati university, has been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The famed Santiniketan town in West Bengal where Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore built Visva-Bharati — the state’s only Central university — over a century ago, has been inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage List.
“New inscription on the @UNESCO #WorldHeritage List: Santiniketan, #India. Congratulations!” the organisation posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday. India was striving for long to get a Unesco tag for this cultural site in Birbhum district.
The decision to include Santiniketan in the list was taken at the 45th session of the World Heritage Committee currently underway in Saudi Arabia.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the inclusion of Santiniketan a proud moment for all Indians. “Delighted that Santiniketan, an embodiment of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s vision and India’s rich cultural heritage, has been inscribed on the @UNESCO World Heritage List. This is a proud moment for all Indians,” he posted on X.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who is touring Spain, welcomed UNESCO’s decision in her message on social media. “Biswa Bangla’s pride, Santiniketan was nurtured by the poet and has been supported by people of Bengal over the generations. We from the Government of West Bengal have significantly added to its infrastructure in 12 years and the world now recognizes the glory... Kudos to all who love Bengal, Tagore, and his messages of fraternity...,” she posted on X.
India had been striving since 2011 to get a Unesco tag for Santiniketan, retired bureaucrat and Rajya Sabha MP Jawhar Sircar, who was principal secretary in the Union culture ministry till 2012, said. “This is Bengal’s first man-made historic site to be declared a World Heritage Site. The other two... on this list are the Sunderbans biosphere and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway,” Sircar added.