Santiniketan

Outstanding Universal Value

Brief synthesis

Established in rural West Bengal in 1901 by the renowned poet and philosopher, Rabindranath Tagore, Santiniketan was a residential school and centre for art based on ancient Indian traditions and on a vision of the unity of humanity transcending religious and cultural boundaries. Santiniketan is an embodiment of Rabindranath Tagore’s vision and philosophy of where ‘the world would form a single nest’ using a combination of education, appreciation of nature, music and the arts. It represents the distillation of Rabindranath Tagore’s greatest works and the continuing legacy of his model of education that reinterpreted ancient Vedic traditions with open air classrooms arranged under the canopies of trees.

Santiniketan exhibits the crystallisation of the ideas of Rabindranath Tagore and the pioneers of the Bengal School of Art. Set within the historical and geocultural context of early 20th-century colonial India, the ideas embodied in Santiniketan influenced educational and cultural institutions in south Asia. Santiniketan is therefore an outstanding example of an enclave of intellectuals, educators, artists, craftspeople and workers who collaborated and experimented with an Asian modernity based on an internationalism that drew upon ancient, medieval and folk traditions of India as well as Japanese, Chinese, Persian, Balinese, Burmese and Art Deco forms.

The built elements of Santiniketan demonstrate experimentation in construction techniques, materials and designs, a counterpoint to prevailing colonial templates. Santiniketan displays eclectic influences and a revived attention to the local in a search for a modernity based on internationalism. Santiniketan represents the physical manifestation of a utopian ideal of a community that became a crucible for intellectual and artistic ideas that were to have a decisive impact on 20th century art, literature, poetry, music and architecture in the south Asian region.

Criterion (iv): Santiniketan was an experimental settlement in education and communal life in a rural setting. The community was in many ways meant to represent a uniquely Indian example of a ‘total work of art’ (Gesamtkunstwerk) where life, learning, work and art along with the local and the global intertwined seamlessly. The built and open spaces constitute an exceptional global testimony to ideas of environmental art and educational reform where progressive education and visual art are intertwined with architecture and landscape: with the Ashram, Uttarayan, and Kala-Bhavana areas forming the prime sites of these practices in the most significant periods of development. Santiniketan represents in an outstanding way, the emergence of post-colonial centres of cultural, philosophical and spiritual exploration in the early 20th century in south Asia.

Criterion (vi): Santiniketan is directly and tangibly associated with the ideas, works and vision of Rabindranath Tagore and his associates, pioneers of the Bengal School of Art and early Indian Modernism. Against the backdrop of the Partition of Bengal, Santiniketan became the crucible for an artistic and intellectual renaissance in the early 20th century. As a cultural and intellectual incubator, it had an indelible imprint on the leaders of the Indian Freedom Movement, including Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Indira Gandhi. The significant influence of the ideals and philosophies represented in Santiniketan are demonstrated at other early 20th-century locations of cultural learning in south Asia. Santiniketan represents the distillation of the ideas and continuing legacy of a unique model of education recalling ancient Indian ideas as well as internationalism through a living institution, embodied in the buildings, landscape, artworks and continuing festivals and traditions. And while many of Tagore’s art and literary works bear a unique association with Santiniketan, his experimentation through education with an internationalist humanist ideology finds its manifest reflection in Santiniketan.

Integrity

Part of a continuing contemporary university campus, Santiniketan is an ensemble of historic buildings, landscapes and gardens, pavilions, artworks and continuing educational and cultural traditions that together express its Outstanding Universal Value. The property is of adequate size and all the attributes needed to convey its significance are included. The property includes the areas developed at Santiniketan during the life of Rabindranath Tagore and his family and associates, a period of experimentation and flourishing of ideas. Changes to uses, building alterations and installation of some new artworks and plantings have occurred, yet these areas and the elements within them are generally intact. The state of conservation of the property has been improved over the past decade through institutional partnerships. Santiniketan is in use as part of the Visva-Bharati campus. Spirit and feeling of the place reside in both the tangible (buildings, artworks, pavilions, gardens and landscapes) and intangible attributes (educational philosophies, building practices and cultural celebrations). The integrity is potentially vulnerable to development pressures, particularly on the periphery of the buffer zone.

Authenticity

Santiniketan meets the requirements of authenticity through its ability to convey Tagore’s philosophy and global learnings. There is a high degree of continuity in the spatial layouts of the Ashram, Uttarayan, and Kala-Bhavana areas. Despite changes in uses and new artworks in some areas, the buildings and other attributes retain their eclectic forms based on experimentation with techniques and materials ranging from brick, mud, coal tar, living tree, sandstone, glass, cast iron, thatch, timber, bamboo, laterite, precast concrete, and reinforced concrete. Some of these attributes could be vulnerable through decline in traditional skills. The pavilions, gardens and platforms that were central to the education philosophies are in place and in continued use; and the murals and frescos, wooden windows and furniture retain their authenticity, depicting oriental influences and local indigenous plant species. Aesthetic development of the senses went hand in hand with intellectual development at Santiniketan. The festive celebrations that have come to form a special culture of the institution, and within the local communities use traditional Indian forms and rituals, including decoration of the site, use of flowers, alpana, chanting of Vedic hymns and blowing of conch-shells.

Protection and management requirements

The property and buffer zone are within the Visva-Bharati campus. The legal protection is provided by the Visva-Bharati Act of 1951, a national law established to continue the ideals of Rabindranath Tagore that establishes Visva-Bharati as an institution of national importance. Because there are no other heritage designations in place at the national or state level, further strengthening of the legal framework and management system is recommended.

Further documentation of the attributes of Outstanding Universal Value has been identified in the management plan as a priority. While the historic buildings have been relatively well documented, the same standard has yet to be achieved for the other attributes. A fully integrated inventory is needed as a basis for the future effective management of Santiniketan, including the recording and safeguarding of traditional practices and celebrations. The main factors affecting the property are development pressures (particularly in the buffer zone and wider setting), construction of new roads, visitor management pressures, and deterioration of physical materials. The value of the maintenance regimes for the landscape and buildings cannot be over-stated; and the engagement with national and state specialist agencies for heritage conservation, such as the Archaeological Survey of India, is an important component of the management system. The development of individual conservation plans for the attributes of the property is recommended.

There will be no new developments approved within the property boundary, and all conservation projects will be overseen by the Visva-Bharati Heritage Committee. Due to the delineation of the buffer zone based on the area within the Visva-Bharati campus, it is relatively narrow and vulnerable to development pressures in several places. The importance of the wider setting of Santiniketan has been recognised and a range of state land management laws and protective mechanisms apply to the wider setting.

A campus masterplan is being developed to ensure that the needs of the ongoing uses of Visva-Bharati as a contemporary educational institution are aligned with the long-term obligations arising from World Heritage inscription.

Within the management system, the effective operation of the Visva-Bharati Heritage Committee is essential to the long-term conservation of the property. This should be further strengthened through the development of guidelines for the Heritage Committee’s responsibilities, and by ensuring that Heritage Impact Assessments are prepared for the Heritage Committee in a written format in accordance with the requirements of the Operational Guidelines.