Stone statue of leftist poet Sukanta Bhattacharjee installed in Jawhar Lal Nehru Vidyapith senior basic school, MLA Kalyani Roy unveils statue

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, July 12, 2025

Appropriation of great individuals and institutions by political parties from the rival formations is nothing new in politics, specially in India . Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, the ‘Iron Man’ who as the first home minister of independent India had banned the RSS following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on January 20 1948-albeit unwisely, without sufficient evidence-now towers above and adorns the sky in Gujrat in the world’s tallest statue. The statue was ordered to be built by the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in his ‘avatar’ as Gujrat chief minister (2001-1013).

Sardar Patel, for all his undoubted greatness, had always been opposed to the Congress’s politics of appeasement that had been initiated by Gandhiji since the Lucknow pact of 1916 in order to create illusory goodwill in the Muslim community. He was also the integrator par excellence in free India with a no-nonsense approach and naturally endeared himself to the Hindu nationalist camp.

But what explains the appropriation of leftist poet Sukanta Bhattacharjee (1926-1947), uncle of late West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who had consistently penned poems spread over six volumes dedicated to socialist ideals ? Known as the ‘Young Nazrul’ and ‘Teenaged Rebel Poet’ Sukanta in a memorable and oft-quoted poem had compared the shining moon in the nocturnal firmament to a baked bread in the kingdom of hunger. A tubercular, Sukanta was always scared of visiting hospital for treatment as if he had known intuitively that he would shortly leave the world but had been forced to check into hospital for treatment by none other than late Tripura chief minister Nripen Chakraborty who in late forties of the last century was the key man in the Bengal CPI and the driving force behind then Bengal party secretary Md Ismail. Nripen could never forgive himself in the rest of his life for having sent Sukanta to hospital against his will for treatment.

But leaving aside this anecdote, the installation of a stone statue of poet Sukanta Bhattacharjee in the premise of the Jawhar Lal Nehru Vidyapith senior basic school in Teliamura today at the initiative of the Teliamura Municipal Council came as a surprise. The MLA of Teliamura and BJP chief whip in the state assembly Kalyani Saha Roy adorned the occasion and spoke highly of poet Sukanta Bhattacharjee as did the TMC chairman Rupak Sarkar. This struck a sharp note of contrast as right from the early days of 2018 an iconoclastic frenzy had rocked Tripura ,manifested in the uprooting and destruction of statues of Lenin , Stalin et al. Even the statue of venerable Baidyanath Majumder, former deputy chief minister of state in the left dispensation, failed to escape a humiliating uprooting in Kailasahar last year. The question that the installation of the statue of Sukanta Bhattacharjee spawns now is whether it is a change of heart of or course correction by the ruling class .

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