Mita Mukherjee
Visva Bharati announced on Wednesday that it would organise the Pous Mela after a gap of five years next month.
At a meeting of senior officials of the varsity and acting vice-chancellor Binoy Kumar Saren it was decided that instead of allowing the state government to play the lead role, the fair should be organised by the university and Santiniketan Trust at the Purba Pally ground.
Till 2019 the fair was last organised by the Visva Bharati and the trust. The university, last year had given permission to the Birbhum District administration to hold the fair at Purba Pally ground, the traditional venue of the fair.
The fair could not be held in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. In 2022, Bidyut Chakraborty the then vice-chancellor did not grant permission to hold the fair citing problems of not having adequate infrastructure.
During Chakaborty’s tenure, a resolution was passed in the executive council, where it was decided that the university would not associate itself with the fair.
The fair starts on the seventh day of the month of Pous in the Bengali calendar and continues for three to four days. It begins on December 22 or 23.
The fair was started by Rabindranath Tagore’s father Maharshi Devendranath in 1894. The Santiniketan Trust was originally entrusted with the responsibility to organize the fair. But gradually Visva Bharati started organising jointly with the trust because of lack of adequate man power and infrastructure.
” This year the mela will be organised in the way it used be till 2019. The event has a rich and long history. It is important to hold the fair in the traditional format considering the recent UNESCO heritage tag awarded to the institution, ” a senior official said.
After the end of Chakraborty’s tenure in last November, the university allowed the local Birbhum district administration to organise the fair.
This decision, however, had created a controversy and the oppostion particularly the BJP had described the move as an attempt of the Trinamul Congress to establish control over the historical event.
However, the high-level meeting on Wednesday reached a consensus that the varsity will approach the state government and seek its support to organize the fair.