Rabindranath Tagore ‘disappeared’ from DU campus
A statue of poet Rabindranath Tagore that was installed protesting all kinds of censorship and repression has been removed from Dhaka University campus.
The persons involved with setting up the statue said Rabindranath has been ‘disappeared’. In protest, they hung a banner near TSC’s iconic Raju Sculpture that reads ‘Rabindranath has been disappeared’.
The statue of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore was set up on Tuesday afternoon in protest against censorship on free thinking, creativity and freedom of expression and all sorts of repression in the country.
A group of students of Institute of Fine Arts built the 19-feet sculpture.
The statue made of bamboo, thermocol and paper portrayed a depressed Rabindranath standing with the mouth taped and holding a nailed copy of his famous book ‘Gitanjali’. Leaders-activists of left student organisations were also involved with the process of setting up the sculpture. They intended to place the statue here in February to protest infringement on freedom of speech of writers, artists, journalists and people of all walks of life.
Shimul Kumbhkaar, president of a faction of Chhatra Union and a student of sculpture faculty of fine arts of DU, was at the forefront of the initiative.
“We found out this morning that the statue of Rabindranath has gone missing. The statue has been disappeared. We don’t know who did this,” Shimul told Prothom Alo Thursday afternoon.
Contacted, DU proctor AKM Golam Rabbani criticised the installation of the statue in the first place.
“Setting up a new statue beside an already existing sculpture has drawn question. We are trying to figure out who did this on the campus without taking permission.
They should have shared the matter with the university authorities no matter what thinking worked on their minds. There are some rules of setting up sculpture on campus. Whoever removes the sculpture, it is not expected that someone would install a sculpture on the university premises (without permission),” he told Prothom Alo.