Prime Minister Narendra Modi began his address to West Bengal's Visva Bharati University on its centenary celebrations via videoconferencing.
"Visva Bharati is the worship place for the vision of India that Gurudeb Rabindranath Tagore had envisioned for India", he said in his speech.
"Guided by Gurudeb, Visva-Bharati presented a strong image of Indian nationalist sentiment during Independence. Gurudeb wanted the entire humanity to benefit from India's spiritual awakening. Atmanirbhar Bharat’s vision is also a derivative of this sentiment,” he further added.
"Today we must remember the circumstances that led to the establishment of this university. It wasn't just the British rule, but in the background, were our rich ideas & history of hundreds of years of movement," he went on to say.
The celebrations at the Visva Bharati University, founded by Rabindranath Tagore, were also attended by Governor of West Bengal Jagdeep Dhankhar and Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank'.
The prime minister is the Chancellor of the University.
This comes soon after Union Home Minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah visited the University and paid homage to Tagore in a two-day trip to West Bengal.
The University found by Tagore in 1921, is the oldest central university in the country.
In recent times, Visva Bharati has been in the news for political turmoil and violence. In January this year, BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta was gheraoed by protesting students when he came to the University to deliver a lecture on the CAA.
Soon after, there were allegations by Left students that masked attackers attacked them inside the University hostel. The further alleged that the attackers were aided by the Vice Chancellor of the University.
The address also comes at a time when the BJP's campaign for the upcoming West Bengal elections have begun in full swing. The party is on a mission to counter the "outsider" tag accorded to it by Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress.
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