When a group of people claiming to be July activists attempted to smear black ink over a graffiti portrait of Rabindranath Tagore outside Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy in Dhaka's Segunbagicha on 10 October, the incident was about more than an act of vandalism.
The woman seen applying the ink described the action as a protest against "Indian aggression", identifying Tagore as Indian and arguing that his image should be removed. Police detained four people over the incident, and a court subsequently placed them on remand.
The four, including Al Nur Mohammad Ayash, member secretary of the Rashtra Sanglap Forum, face charges under Penal Code Sections 120B, 153A and 295A, covering criminal conspiracy, promoting enmity between classes and deliberately hurting religious sentiments. The latter two each carry up to two years' imprisonment, a fine or both.
This has been a recurring theme in our post-Uprising Bangladesh, where the line between art and politics is blurred under the guise of "preventing Indian aggression".
Tagore, whose song "Amar Shonar Bangla" is Bangladesh's national anthem, has long been caught between those who regard his work as integral to Bangali identity and those who see its association with India as grounds for suspicion.
An old battle over Bangali identity
The politics surrounding Tagore did not begin in independent Bangladesh. Its roots lie in the tensions between religious nationalism and Bangla linguistic and cultural identity that shaped the subcontinent's history, particularly under British colonial rule and the Pakistani state.
Historian Willem van Schendel notes in "A History of Bangladesh" that the Ayub Khan regime's restrictions on Tagore's songs "revived the politics of language". The campaign against his music made the celebration of Bangla culture an act of defiance against state-imposed cultural conformity.
Today, that historical record matters because it exposes the danger of treating Tagore as an alien cultural imposition. His relationship with Bangladesh cannot be reduced to the geographical boundaries of his birthplace or the contemporary politics of India.
Even today, debates over Tagore have continued to reflect the country's unresolved contest between linguistic-cultural nationalism and religious nationalism.
A 2026 study in the International Journal of Asian Studies, titled "Swing of the pendulum: Identity politics and the ideological strife over Rabindranath Tagore and the national anthem in Bangladesh" by Mohammad A Quayum examines precisely this recurring ideological struggle and the attempts to challenge Tagore's place as the author of Bangladesh's national anthem.
How hatred becomes political capital
The contemporary campaign against Tagore becomes easier to understand when viewed through the mechanics of identity politics. He is an easy target and can be portrayed simultaneously as a symbol of India, a representative of Hindu cultural influence and a challenge to a narrowly defined religious identity.
Once those associations are established, accepting his songs or literature can be framed as a political choice rather than a cultural or intellectual one.
The danger is that a legitimate political grievance can be redirected towards a cultural scapegoat. Instead of examining the actual terms of a bilateral relationship, its asymmetries or the conduct of the Indian state, political actors can mobilise anger against a familiar cultural symbol. The resulting spectacle may generate attention and solidarity among supporters without resolving the underlying grievance.
The difference between criticism and communal hostility
Rahman Mofiz, joint general secretary of one faction of Udichi, said that Bangladesh lacks the political and intellectual maturity needed to navigate these competing interpretations of Tagore.
"Of course, Tagore must be open to criticism. There should be multidimensional academic analyses and observations of his work, and criticism of his ideas should be encouraged. We should neither deify him nor reduce him to a communal symbol," he said.
But Mofiz warned against repeatedly presenting Tagore as an Indian, anti-Indian or even anti-Bangladesh figure to serve entrenched political interests. He argued that the inability to distinguish scholarly criticism from identity-based hostility reflects a broader failure of political and cultural understanding.
That failure can operate in both directions. Defenders of Tagore can discourage legitimate criticism by treating the poet as beyond reproach. His opponents can exploit any criticism as evidence that he should be rejected altogether. In both cases, the space for genuine intellectual engagement contracts.
Social researcher Firoz Ahmed makes a related point about the relationship between cultural debate and coercion.
"There is a mob in our country who fear debate and seek to suppress cultural diversity, creativity and other forms of expression through brute force," he says. "But that is no reason to discourage debate. Instead, society must establish a clear distinction between debate and acts of vandalism or physical attacks."
What Bangladesh must do differently
The first requirement is historical literacy. Claims about Tagore's alleged opposition to the establishment of Dhaka University, his political loyalties or the supposed incompatibility of his work with Bangladesh should be tested against reliable documentary evidence.
The second is to make cultural education less dependent on political symbolism. Schools, universities and cultural institutions should encourage students to read Tagore critically alongside Kazi Nazrul Islam, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Muhammad Iqbal and other figures who helped shape the region's intellectual history, as Mofiz said.
Firoz Ahmed argued, "Bangladeshis must celebrate their own eminent figures without becoming intellectually insular."
He cautions against allowing pride in cultural heritage to turn into either extreme Bangali nationalism or an exclusionary religious identity. "A mature national culture should be confident enough to accommodate multiple influences without treating them as threats."
Finally, the state must distinguish peaceful disagreement from coercion and respond to unlawful conduct through due process.
Syed Nizar, associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Jahangirnagar University, said dissent itself is not the problem.
"Disagreeing with Tagore's philosophy or anyone else's ideas, and expressing that dissent, is a fundamental civic right," he said. Grievances could have been raised with the Shilpakala Academy's director general or the culture ministry, he added, "but damaging state property and defacing public murals crosses an acceptable line."
He also suggested, "State-led cultural initiatives must be far more inclusive — a consideration that cultural policymakers frequently ignore. There should be a clear institutional guideline on how such graffiti or artwork be chosen by institutions."
At the same time, he questioned whether the state's response fits the offence, arguing that invoking colonial-era enmity provisions for symbolic acts routinely curtails freedom of expression.
"Following the July Uprising, where the expansion of freedom of expression was central, resorting to such heavy-handed legal tools directly undermines that spirit," he said.
Law enforcement must remain impartial. The answer to an attempt to deface a cultural figure's portrait is not to make that figure immune from criticism, nor to criminalise every expression of dissent. It is to establish accountability for demonstrable offences while protecting peaceful speech, academic inquiry and political disagreement.
Firoz Ahmed said that countering hatred requires both grassroots cultural awakening and the firm enforcement of the law. He invokes the American civil rights movement to illustrate how social mobilisation and legal accountability must work together to confront organised prejudice.