Saturday, June 16, 2012

Viswa Bharati and Constitution

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis was given the responsibility of preparing and printing the Constitution of Viswa Bharati. He came to Santiniketan to discuss about it. Having come back from Santiniketan he wrote to Thomson on 27th April;
" I have gone to Bolpur for a few days and came back only yesterday. Rabindranath is very much worried about V.B. - there is no money, a deficit of Rs.6000/-in current expenses and about Rs.30,000/- in Capital        expenditure. We are keeping to have the Constitution registered next week."
Rabindranth wrote three letters regarding this constitution, 1. to Jagadish Chandra Bose, 2. Muhammad Shahidulla of Dacca university, 3. Dr. Jadunath Siecar.
He wrote to Jagadish Chandra ; "Now the time has come to hand over Viswa Bharati to the public. I want that you take the chair of Vice-President and send a  letter of consent. No serious responsibility is to be taken. Of course, there is scope of work if you like to do."
He wrote to Shahidullah, prof of Sanskrit and Bengali in Dacca University, " Procedures to hand over Viswar bharati to the public is almost done . We are going to make the constitution  registered. You are welcome to become a member of Managing Committee. I hope that you will not have any objection. Please send your consent letter as early as possible."    But for reasons unknown, he did not agree.
Rabimdranath sent a letter to Dr. Jadunath Sarkar in his place of work a registered letter asking his consent on 21st May, 1922.
Dr. Jadunath Sarkar rejected the proposal showing two reasons in a letter dated 31 May;
Firstly, He stays at a far distance from Santiniketan and it is not physically possible for him to look after the work of the University. Specially, when there will be a problem.and
 Secondly, in his opinion santiniketan is goos as a School. The students can develop their health and mind in a nice environment. After passing the school they could have developed their efficiency fit for the universe learning from a college. Moreover, in university their should be specially trained  teachers with special aptitudes in different subjects  which is not possible here. The students of Bolpur is not accustomed with "exact knowledge" and "intellectual discipline" which is necessary in higher education."

Having received the letter Rabindranath got much shock.