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Santiniketan West Bengal • India

Santiniketan

Coordinates:

Area • Elevation| | •  m ( ft)

District(s)| | Birbhum

Coordinates:

Santiniketan (Bangla: শান্তিনিকেতন Shantiniketôn) is a small town near Bolpur in the Birbhum district of West Bengal, India, approximately 180 kilometres north of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). It was made famous by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, whose vision became what is now a university town (Visva-Bharati University) that attracts thousands of visitors each year. Santiniketan is also a tourist attraction because Rabindranath wrote many of his literary classics here, and his house is a place of historical importance.

Santiniketan was previously called Bhubandanga (named after Bhuban Dakat, a local dacoit), and owned by the Tagore family. Rabindranath's father, Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, found it very peaceful and renamed it Santiniketan, which means abode (niketan) of peace (shanti). It was here that Rabindranath Tagore started Patha Bhavana, the school of his ideals, whose central premise was that learning in a natural environment would be more enjoyable and fruitful. After he received the Nobel Prize(1913), the school was expanded into a university. Many world famous teachers have become associated with it. Indira Gandhi, Satyajit Ray, and Amartya Sen are among its more illustrious students,

Kala Bhavana, the art college of Santiniketan, is still considered one of the best art colleges in the world. Other institutions here include Vidya Bhavana; the Institute of Humanities, Shiksha Bhavana; the Institute of Science, Sangit Bhavana; Institute of Dance, Drama and Music, Vinaya Bhavana; Institute of Education, Rabindra Bhavana, Institute of Tagore Studies and Research, Palli-Samgathana Vibhaga; Institute of Rural Reconstruction, and Palli Shiksha Bhavana; Institute of Agricultural Sciences. There are also other centres, affiliated to major institutions such as Nippon Bhavana, the Indira Gandhi Centre for National Integration, Rural Extension Centre, Silpa Sadana; Centre for Rural Craft, Technology and Design, Palli-Charcha Kendra; Centre for Social Studies and Rural Development, Centre for Biotechnology, Centre for Mathematics Education, Centre for Environmental Studies, Computer Centre and Indira Gandhi Centre for National Integration. As well as Patha-Bhavana, there are two schools for kindergarten level education; Mrinalini Ananda Pathsala, Santosh Pathsala; a school for primary and secondary education known as Shiksha Satra, and a school of higher secondary education known as Uttar-Shiksha Sadana.

Santiniketan is also home to Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobel Prize winner in Economics.

Major events

Numerous social and cultural events taking place through out the year, have become part and parcel of Santiniketan.These include - Basanta Utsav, Barsha Mangal, Sharodutsav, Nandan Mela, Poush Mela, Magh Mela, Rabindra Jayanti to name a few. Of these, the Poush Mela deserves special mention, this being a major tourist attraction.It is a 3-day fair (Bengali, mela means a fair ),starting on the seventh day of the Bengali month Poush(usually, last week of December).It fetches not just tourists, but also artisans, folk singers, dancers, and the traditional Baul from the neighbourhood.

Recent developments

Santiniketan has changed considerably since the days of Tagore. Although Visva-Bharati University still plays an active role, Santiniketan has become a haven for India's nouveau riche, and large houses have been built on what used to be barren, khoai (desert) and condominiums are becoming commonplace. But travel beyond the outskirts of the ever-expanding "small town" and one is soon back in village India.

The idyllic existence envisioned by Tagore in Santiniketan is rapidly disappearing, but it still maintains a "college town" feel, with many large shade-covered open spaces on campus where students can congregate. The student population remains international in origin, as does the faculty, and some of the best thinkers and intellectuals in India remember their college life in Santiniketan with fondness.

The calm & peaceful University township has today become a haven for the urban rich with intentions beyond cultural. Sometime around the late eighties Shantiniketan became a playground of the rich intellectuals of Bengal. Some of the best known contemporary Bangalee Poets and lyricists built their houses in the outskirts...the trend began a 'land-rush' thereby converting most of the serene khoai and the green fields into a modern day urban jungle. A famous ex-student recently made a comment in UK on this ..."Shantiniketan today has more outsiders with different purpose than what Tagore had originally envisioned" ...I don think he is wrong. Its fashionable among upmarket Bangalees today to have a house in Shantiniketan. The land prices have swollen way beyond the common man's reach. The support system lies in shambles, the ecosystem is soon to be affected (if not already), Shantiniketan needs some serious thinking in terms of its ability to sustain ecologically.

External links

• Art and Santiniketan
• Visva-Bharati University: Official website
• West Bengal Government Official Santiniketan site
• Official Santiniketan website
• Shantiniketan
• Pictures of Shantiniketan

See also

• Visva-Bharati University
• Patha Bhavana
• Debendranath Tagore
• Rabindranath Tagore
• Poush Mela

•  • [ e] Cities and towns in Birbhum District
Birbhum	Bakreshwar Bolpur Dubrajpur Rampurhat Sainthia Santiniketan Siuri Tarapith Nalhati
Cities and towns in other districts