Significance of Vidyasagar more relevant in present times: Mamata

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee, in view of the attacks and harassment of Bengali-speaking migrant workers in different states, said the significance of Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s life and work is more relevant in the present times.

On the death anniversary of social reformer Vidyasagar, Mamata Banerjee wrote on her X handle: “I pay tribute to Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’s birth anniversary. Vidyasagar is our heritage and our pride. We cannot forget his contribution to spread education and his fight to improve the condition of women in India.”

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Coming down heavily on the BJP she said those who had waged attack on Bengal and Bengalis had vandalised the statue of Vidyasagar at Vidyasagar College on his bicentenary. “We have reinstalled the statue. We had held programmes across the state to celebrate his bicentenary,” she said, adding, “Birsingha Development Board has been set up in Vidyasagar’s native village. The museum at his house in Badurbagan has been refurbished. Vidyasagar College has been upgraded to a heritage college, an archive named after him has been set up in the college and financial assistance to the Metropolitan Institution, which he had set up.”

The death anniversary of Vidyasagar was held with due solemnity across the state. At Badurbagan, his statue was garlanded. He lived in this house. Sri Ramakrishna had gone to see him and the duo had conversed for several hours. Sri Ramakrishna had invited him to visit Dakshineshwar.

After Vidyasagar’s death in 1891, Rabindranath Tagore wrote: “One wonders how God, in the process of producing forty million Bengalis, produced a man.”

Vidyasagar’s death anniversary was held with due solemnity at the Women’s College Calcutta. Weeklong programmes to be organised by the department of Sanskrit and other departments, IGNOU unit of WCC. Bengali books were distributed among underprivileged children and organising seminar on Bengali language and its ramifications which include linguistic nationalism where language is a powerful symbol of identity and a catalyst for social change said Professor (Dr) Anupama Chowdhury principal of WCC, adding: “The survival and flourishing of this language are crucial for the preservation of Bengali culture and heritage.”