KOLKATA: The Bangladesh government has given the go-ahead for the completion of the Bangladesh Bhavana museum in Santiniketan following Sheikh Hasina’s victory in the recently concluded election, said an official of the state government. Bangladesh Bhavana was inaugurated on the Visva Bharati campus in 2018 but its museum has remained a makeshift one.
“We have received approval from the Bangladesh government about completion of the museum’s pending work. Since the Covid pandemic, the museum’s work came to a halt.
The approval came shortly after Sheikh Hasina’s victory in the election in Bangladesh,” said an officer of the central university. Sources in the university said a team led by Md Kamruzzaman, director of Bangladesh National Museum, is likely to visit Santiniketan end of this month to finalise the plans for the museum’s future activities.
On May 25, 2018, Bangladesh Bhavana was jointly inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sheikh Hasina but Covid forced the makeshift museum to close in 2020 stalling its completion too. The 44,261 sqft facility set up with funds provided by Dhaka encompasses a museum, a library, an auditorium and a centre research on the Liberation War of 1971 apart from the neighbouring country’s history, culture and art.
A senior official of the university said the museum needed not just to be curated properly but also renovated since it had been closed for over three years for the pandemic. “Apart from funding for the construction of the Bangladesh Bhavana, Dhaka had allocated a corpus of `10 crore for the day-to-day functioning and maintenance of the institution. We are trying to complete the renovation from the interest generated by the corpus,” he added.
The official said that Visva Bharati would propose inclusion of a panel highlighting India’s contribution to the liberation of Bangladesh, along with the role played by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. “India’s role is crucial behind Bangladesh’s liberation.
We will propose to highlight. So highlighting India’s role in the museum will be our request to Bangladesh government,” he said. The museum has a digital exhibition dedicated to the Liberation War and the pivotal role of Mujibur Rahman and his contribution to Bangladesh’s independence.