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| - Fact Check: Not extremists, Dhaka University admin removed Tagore statue from premises
The Nobel laureate is not only a cultural symbol for Bengalis but also a national icon for Indians and Bangladeshis, as his literary works were adopted as national anthems by both nations.
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India Today Fact Check
The statue was removed by the Dhaka University administration. A member of the students’ union confirmed that no extremists were involved.
While barbed fences divide India and Bangladesh, veneration and love of Rabindra Nath Tagore unite both countries. The Nobel laureate is not only a cultural symbol for Bengalis but also a national icon for Indians and Bangladeshis, as his literary works were adopted as national anthems by both nations. Bangladesh's national anthem “Amar Shonar Bangla” was penned by Tagore.
But it would seem that Tagore’s legacy in Bangladesh is under attack. A Twitter user shared two photos of a vandalised statue of Tagore, claiming that “extremists have defaced the sculpture of Rabindranath Tagore,” at TSC, Dhaka University.
The first photo shows a statue of Tagore whose mouth is taped-up, holding a book with a large nail piercing through it. The second photo shows the dismantled head of the sculpture. The archived version of the tweet can be seen here.
AFWA’s investigation found that the statue was removed by the administration of Dhaka University itself.
THE CONTROVERSIAL STATUE
A group of students of Dhaka University's Faculty of Fine Arts designed and erected a sculpture of Tagore on February 14, in a symbolic protest against “censorship” and “stifling freedom of speech” in Bangladesh. This reportedly included this year's “Ekushey Book Fair” not allowing a stall for Adarsh Publications.
The statue, which was composed of thermocol (polystyrene), bamboo, and pages taken from old books, was installed next to the Raju Memorial Sculpture outside the Teacher-Student Centre (TSC) in the university. The 19.5 feet tall statue’s key features were a nail piercing through Tagore’s collection of poems, “Gitanjali”, and a tape shutting the mouth of the poet.
DID EXTREMISTS DEFACE TAGORE’S STATUE?
Reportedly, the statue was removed on February 16. Following this, the students put up a banner at the same place reading: "Rabindranath has disappeared!" Later, students recovered vandalised pieces of Tagore’s statue, among which was the defaced and severed head seen in the viral photo.
A keyword search on Google led us to multiple media reports which contained these pictures. Speaking to New Age Bangladesh, Shimul Kumbhakar, the president of the university’s unit of Bangladesh Students’ Union said that they came to know from eyewitnesses that the sculpture of Rabindranath was removed by the university’s proctorial team early on February 16 morning, adding, “But the proctor told us that he did not know anything about that.”
The university administration, after an initial denial, conceded that the protesting sculpture was removed by them as it disrupted aesthetic beauty. A Daiji World report quoted university proctor AKM Golam Rabbani saying, “The university has a policy of placing sculptures on the campus. The sculpture (of Tagore) was placed without informing the university administration. Therefore, the administration removed it.”
AFWA spoke to Kumbhakar, who confirmed that it was the university administration who had removed the sculpture. Kumbhkar verified that the viral photo of the vandalised Tagore statue was authentic and said that the proctor was responsible for removing the sculpture and that possibly during this process it had gotten damaged.
Kumbhkar also confirmed to us that no extremists were involved in the incident and there was no religious angle to it. Students later managed to find several pieces of the statute and attempted to build it again. Kumbhkar told AFWA that the statue has been placed again in the same place.
Thus, it is amply clear that the sculpture of Tagore at Dhaka University wasn’t dismantled by extremists.
(Written by: Vikas Bhadauria)
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