Felling an icon: Vandalising Vidyasagar’s statue goes against Bengal’s intellectual legacy | The Indian Express

Felling an icon: Vandalising Vidyasagar’s statue goes against Bengal’s intellectual legacy | The Indian Express

Written by Biplab Lohochoudhury |Updated: May 17, 2019 10:28:31 am

The writer is professor at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan

Felling an icon: Vandalising Vidyasagar’s statue goes against Bengal’s intellectual legacy

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was the foremost figure against whom the Naxals had a huge grudge. The reason given by them supposedly was that their views did not match with the spirit of liberal thought that Vidyasagar demonstrated in his unique ways of protest against the British Raj and Hindu superstition.

Is it that in search of a strong issue against the BJP, in the final phase of the Lok Sabha election, mostly in Kolkata, this cultural icon has been resurrected? (Express Photo by Shashi Ghosh)

Elevated intellectualism was once a forte of Bengal, and Vidyasagar was one of its most eminent proponents in the 19th century AD. But times have changed.