Kolkata : The Visva-Bharati University is coming out with a book containing unpublished letters written by Jawaharlal Nehru to Rabindranath Tagore besides rare photographs of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

The coffee table book, titled 'Three Chancellors', will depict the relationship between the Nehru-Gandhi family and the Tagores. Congress President Sonia Gandhi personally came to the aid of Nilanjan Banerjee, the editor of the book, and mailed him some rare photographs of her late mother-in-law Indira Gandhi.

"Responding to our request, Mrs Gandhi has recently sent us 18 rare and personal photographs featuring Indira Gandhi during her student days in the Visva-Bharati," Banerjee, who works as a curator of Tagore's museum at Santiniketan, told reporters.

The book will also for the first time publish little-known letters written by Nehru to Tagore and different vice-chancellors of the university, he said. Some rare images of Indira Gandhi's signature in Bengali and her taking merry-go-round joy rides with Nehru at Santiniketan will also be a draw for the readers.

The compilation illustrates the lives of former Prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi during their tenure as chancellors of the university. "The attempt is to see the three statesmen from the Nehru-Gandhi family through the looking glass of Visva-Bharati," Banerjee said.

Inspired by the gurukul ashram, Rabindranath Tagore had set up an open air school in Santiniketan that blossomed into the Visva-Bharati University in 1921. Nehru, an ardent disciple of Tagore, actively took part in the affairs of the prestigious institution after he became its chancellor in 1951.

"In one of the confidential letters to be printed in the book, Nehru had written to the then vice chancellor K C Choudhuri in 1959 giving him a free hand to deal with hooligan elements in the campus," the author said. He had also convinced his teenage daughter Indira to study in this unconventional university in 1934.

Though Indira had to discontinue her education at Santiniketan the next year due to the illness of her mother, she always gave credit to the influence the varsity and Tagore's ideals had in her life. Along with her son Rajiv Gandhi, Indira strived to realise Tagore's vision of a global and borderless place of learning in Visva-Bharati, said to be very close to the poet's heart.

Nehru's three-page telegram to Tagore's son Rathindranath after the poet's demise will also be featured in the book, Banerjee said. In an exchange of letters between Nehru and Indira, the father-daughter duo shared their reverence and admiration for the principles and thoughts of Tagore and his university.

Tagore also had high regards for Indira and had even given her the middle name of 'Priyadarshini' out of love and admiration. Some of the letters written by Tagore will also find place in the book to be published this October. In one of these letters written in 1935, Tagore had pleaded with Lord Wellington, then viceroy of India, to release Nehru from prison considering her wife's ill health.