On
the eve of the Tagore Centenary year in 1961, Soumendranath Tagore,
a descendant of Rabindranath Tagore came to Jamshedpur and in
course of his address he emphasised the necessity of forming a
society to propagate the culture and philosophy of Rabindranath
Tagore. Inspired by Soumendranath, the like minded organisations
running on the ideals of Tagore were clubbed together and thus
The Tagore Society, Jamshedpur was established in 1961.
By the initiation of Sir J.J Gandhi, former Managing Director
of Tata Steel a piece of land in the central part of the town
was given and the foundation stone of Rabindra Bhavan was laid
by the then Vice-President of India, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. By
the patronage of Tata Steel and with unconditional help from the
admirers of Tagore, a small but compact building with aesthetic
beauty was gradually erected. In 1967, a school of music, dance,
art & craft was inaugurated by Mrs. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay
and within a short span of time it emerged as a principal training
centre in the eastern region of the country. It is worth mentioning
that a good number of students could learn Rabindra Sangeet under
the able guidance of teachers like Subinoy Roy, Maya Sen, Sailaja
Ranjan Majumdar and many other renowned teachers of that period.
Side by side in the area of classical vocal, students were taught
by the then famous performers cum teachers like Sachin Das Motilal,
Prasun Bandopadhyay, Meera Banerjee and others. In the field of
classical dance, stalwarts like Pt. Ramgopal Mishra and Prahlad
Das came regularly to teach the students. Some teachers of fine
arts & crafts faculty who were the products of Visva Bharati
University and Bengal Art College had joined this institution
and some of them are still serving with best of their ability
and efforts. Gradually, six centers of the Tagore School of Arts
were opened in the different corners of the town to facilitate
the training programme of music, dance and art.
To popularise Rabindra Sangeet among the people of Jamshedpur,
a 3-day ‘Rabindra Sangeet Conference’ was started
in 1973 with famous exponents like Amiya Thakur, Sahana devi,
Rajeswari Dutta, Kanika Bandopadhyay, Suchitra Mitra, Debobrata
Biswas and many others. This has been continuing till this year
i.e. 2019. Now a days, music lovers of the city eagerly wait for
the conference.
In the year 1967, a spacious library started functioning with
a few reference books. It was a sincere effort by the Society
to cater to the needs of the Society members. This small endeavour
grew slowly and after a span of few years, a large number of books
for children were introduced in the library. And today it is one
of the biggest and the finest libraries of the city with more
than 17,000 books to its credit.
In the meantime, the management of the Society felt the dire necessity
of an air-conditioned auditorium which the people of Jamshedpur
were lacking. So again by the help of Tata Steel and some other
corporate houses, a 1050 seater air conditioned auditorium was
built in 1982 and was inaugurated by J.R.D. Tata, the then Chairman
of Tata Sons.
In 1985, Tagore Society started the Jamshedpur Book Fair within
Rabindra Bhavan complex and after having completed twenty six
years successfully, it now stands at the peak of its glory and
is perhaps the best book fair in the whole of eastern India excluding
Kolkata.
Convocations of the School of Music, Dance, Art & Craft are
being held regularly for awarding Diplomas and Certificates to
the successful students of Rabindra Sangeet, Fine arts and Decorative
arts & crafts. Eminent personalities like Sudhi Ranjan Das,
Pratul Gupta, Nemai Sadhan Bose, Amlan Dutta and many others have
graced the occasion delivering the convocation address.
In 1995, the members of the Tagore Society felt that apart from
the Bengali speaking community, the philosophy and ideals of Tagore
should be spread among the non-Bengali speaking sections of the
city as well. They thought that this message could be best conveyed
through the student community for which an educational institution
might be set up and keeping this view in mind, Tagore Academy,
an English medium school under ICSE board was started as an educational
wing of the Tagore Society, Jamshedpur. With the same idea, a
2–3 days students’ camp was started named ‘Rabindra
Charcha Kishore Shibir’ where about 700–800 students
from different schools of the town took part. Different sessions
on different aspects of the creations and life of Tagore have
been taken by several eminent speakers of the country, specially
from Santiniketan, Kolkata and Delhi. This unique venture of propagating
Tagore’s culture among the student community is unparalleled
in the country.
Tagore Society has also provided the citizens of Jamshedpur a
unique opportunity to get familiar with Tagore’s works by
establishing an Archive. The archive houses many invaluable photographs
and paintings related to Tagore’s life and works. The Society
hopes to spread awareness about Tagore’s philosophy in the
future generations through this venture.
Another unique feature of our Society is the monthly ‘Sahityer
Majlis’ which is organised to bring together people with
a literary bent of mind. Many informal discussions and exchange
of ideas on various aspects of literature and literary works are
a part of this Majlis. These two-hour long literary sessions go
a long way in creating an ambience where various literary ideas
and concepts are discussed, emphasising Tagore’s works and
ideals.
At present Tagore Society runs two schools viz. Tagore School
of Arts and Tagore Academy with about 5000 students. It is a unique
example where both academic and cultural activities run under
the same umbrella.
In a nutshell, Tagore Society Jamshedpur is such an organisation
which propagates the philosophy and culture of Tagore in the country
irrespective of religion, caste and financial status.
Mr.
Ashis Chowdhury
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