Assam: Row over Tagore’s Bengali song as university anthem

GUWAHATI: A controversy has erupted in Assam’s Rabindranath Tagore University (RTU) over the use of a Tagore song as its anthem in the Bengali language. Ethno-regional organisations have demanded that this practice be stopped immediately.
The All Assam Students’ Union (Aasu) has moved the chief minister and education minister, seeking reversal of the state university’s decision. Hojai College, which was upgraded to RTU in 2019, had an anthem that was written by its former faculty member, Sarada Kanta Goswami, but the RTU vice-chancellor, Amalendu Chakrabarty, claimed the anthem was never performed after 2019.
Chakrabarty on Thursday told TOI that the university has adopted an Assamese translation of the Rabindra Sangeet “Biswa Bidyatirtha Prangana” as per the decision of the university executive council. “We won’t drop Kaviguru’s creation as the theme song. The Assamese translation of the Rabindra Sangeet will send a message of harmony and bring Assamese and Bengali speakers closer,” he said.
Resentment started brewing after the Bengali anthem was played on the foundation day of the university on June 1. Aasu’s memorandum to the CM and education minister demanding reversal of the anthem, about which the media was informed on Wednesday night, may spark another dispute for linguistic fusion attempts in the Brahmaputra valley, said Aasu insiders. Hojai town in central Assam has a special place in the language movement of 1972 as Aasu hero Anil Bora, who wanted Assamese as the only official language, was killed in Hojai.
The V-C said, “After Hojai College was transformed into a university, we felt it would be odd if the varsity anthem was penned by someone else other than Kaviguru,” Chakrabarty said. He said only on the foundation day the Bengali version was sung as the Assamese translated song is yet to be recorded. “We don’t have a problem singing the Assamese translation. But our resolution is to make his creation the anthem.”