Rabindranath Tagore honoured at UK's Palace of Westminster

LONDON: In a first of its kind event, India, Bangladesh and the UK joined hands to honour Bengal's greatest son — Rabindranath Tagore at the Palace of Westminster.

In a landmark event hosted by Labour party MP for the west London constituency of Ealing Southall Virendra Sharma, Tagore was celebrated as one of the greatest literary giants of India.

Speaking at a packed committee room of the parliament, the former Indian foreign secretary and now India's high commissioner to the UK, Ranjan Mathai said, "Tagore was one of the most celebrated sons of India, a towering figure, who wrote our national anthem. The range of his achievements are extraordinary — literature, music, art."

Bangladesh's high commissioner to Britain, Mohamed Mijarul Quayes said that Tagore imparted greater glory to the Nobel prize than the Nobel did to him.

At the event, he said, "There are strong links between Tagore and the UK. British poets such as WB Yeats played a major role in Tagore becoming the first non-European, non-American, non-white to win the Nobel Prize."

Nrityakala Dance Heritage, a London-based cultural body, collaborated with Sharma to organize the event.