Shantiniketan
Shantiniketan is a small town near Bolpur in the Birbhum district of West Bengal and about 212 kms north of Kolkata. In 1862, Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, the poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore s father, while on a boat journey to Raipur, came across a landscape with red soil and lush green paddy fields. He decided to plant more saplings and built a small house. He called his home Shantiniketan, the abode of peace. He founded an Ashram here in 1863 and became the initiator of the Brahmo Samaj. Shantiniketan was later expanded by Rabindranath Tagore, whose vision became what is now a university town Visva-Bharati University. The place now attracts thousands of visitors each year. A certain portion of Bolpur right across Shantiniketan was a part of the zamindari of the Sinha family of Raipur. Bhuban Mohan Sinha had developed it as a small village and named it Bhubadganga. Bhubadganga used to be a den of a gang of notorious dacoits and murderers. Construction of Santiniketan led to a situation of conflict and confrontation multiple times, but ultimately, the leader of the gang joined forces with Debendranath and started helping him in developing the area. In 1901, Rabindranath started a Brahmacharya Ashram, which was later called Patha Bhavana. In 1921, he founded the Visva Bharati University, which was declared to be a central university and an institute of national importance in 1951.
