IP_ Tagore Issue - Final.indd - high commission of india mauritius

play-acting in the school. Theyplayed games in the afternoon.Tagore thought that man isborn in the world with onlyone advice from God – thatis – ‘Express yourself!’ Thereforechildren of the ‘Poet’s school’were allowed to expressthemselves through tune andrhythm, lines and colour, andthrough dance and acting. EveryTuesday there would be literarymeetings in the ‘ashrama’where children read out theirstories and poems, sang anddanced and put up short playsin the presence of all theashramites (the inmates of theashrama). In their classes tooit was the self-expression thatwould be encouraged and notcramming of possible questionsand answers. They wereencouraged to use their limbsAn open-air class at the Patha-Bhavana today(left) and Basantotsav celebration (below).Samiran Nandy, Rabindra-Bhavana, Visva-BharatiSamiran Nandy, Rabindra-Bhavana, Visva-BharatiINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 14 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 15

in craft classes and gardeningclasses. It was the belief of thepoet that by using their limbseven dull students improved intheir academics.Tagore thought that childrenhad a three-fold relationshipwith their environment,especially in the relationshipbetween Nature and Man.At the lowest level childrenlearned to use theirenvironment. This was the levelof ‘Karma’ (action). Man useshis environment for a living –he has to till the soil, buildhis house, weave his clothes.Therefore, children must betrained in various physicalactivities. At the next levelthey must gather knowledgeabout their environment. Theymust search for natural rulesand correlations, and formconclusions. They have to lookfor unity in the world of diversity.Only then would they be ableto achieve the true Jnana or‘knowledge’. This way, theywould try to gather knowledgeabout Nature and Man.At the highest level, it wasPrema (love) that binds anindividual to Nature and to theworld of Man. Through lovean individual loses his identityand becomes one with theworld. In the Poet’s schoolall such relationships werecultivated.Tagore was a believer inunity where each elementhad its own space. Thus,compartmentalization of one’sknowledge of and skill fora particular work and lovefor it were not exclusive toone another – they alwaysoverlapped. But for the sakeof better understanding, thesedivisions are made.Tagore also believed thatnone of these three levelscould be ignored for a properdevelopment of personality.One must give its due toKarma, Jnana and Prema forthe fullest growth of man.The finer things in life cannever be taught in a class.Children imbibe them fromthe environment or from thepersonalities around them.Tagore believed that thesequalities were already therein the child. Therefore, it wasthought essential to createa proper environment inthe school to bring out thedormant qualities in a child.The environment created atSantiniketan was, therefore,most appropriate for theeducation of children. Thechildren grew up in the midstof nature, however, onlyclose proximity to nature wasnot enough. It had to be aconscious encounter.Santiniketan was a beautifulplace with shady mangoand other fruit-bearing trees,under which children attendedtheir classes. Tall Sal treesshaded the avenues. Thechildren had their gardensto look after. There wereNature-study classes as part oftheir curriculum. They learntabout trees, birds and insectsat the Ashrama. Also, seasonalfestivals were celebrated tomake the children consciousof the spirit of the season,and establish a connect to theagricultural cycle.It was an experience for thechildren to sing Tagore’s songs,going round the Ashrama inthe moonlit night to feel thespirit of spring in their minds.What could be a better way ofKala Bhavana Painting class in progress in early yearsgrowing up in nature? Tagorefelt that a person was not fit tobe a teacher if the child in hismind was not alive still. Theyhad to share their experienceswith the children.Then the children were madeaware of the problems ofthe villagers living aroundSantiniketan. They regularlyvisited nearby villages to studytheir life and problems.The school subjects weretaught through experiments anddifferent types of experiencesas far as practical. Creativityin children was alwaysencouraged.Wednesday was the weeklyholiday in the school instead ofSunday.The children in the morningattended the weekly servicein the prayer hall. Theservice essentially was nondenominational– not cateringto one or the other dominantreligions. Devotional songs byTagore were sung. Carefullycreated and crafted, theseprayers would be such thatthey would be acceptableRabindra-Bhavana, Visva-BharatiINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 16 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 17

to everybody. Once Tagorewas asked if he would liketo recommend the kind ofreligious training the schoolsshould ideally impart. Heclearly replied that no religiousinstruction should be given inschools. There should rather bean effort to cultivate a ‘senseof infinity’ in the minds ofchildren. That we are a partof a very vast and wonderfulcreation should somehow beconveyed; a sense of awe aboutthis huge creativity should begiven to the children.Santiniketan has always beenlike a big family. Teachers knowall the students personally,and vice versa. The wives ofthe teachers are like mothersto the students. Therefore, theinstitution had to be small forTagore’s ideals to be fruitful.Big institutions have a differentlogic of their own. It is, thusan environment of beauty, loveand co-operation. Competitionhas no place here. Tagore usedthe word ‘becoming’ which hethought was more importantthan anything else in the Poet’sSchool.◆The author was the Principal of Patha-Bhavana, the school set up by RabindranathTagore at Santiniketan.Samiran NandyPrayer in progress today in the heritageUpasana-griha (Prayer hall).INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 18 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 19

Tagore, Gitanjaliand the Nobel PrizeNILANJAN BANERJEETagore felt “homesick for the wide world.” Further, he wasconstantly struggling to overcome the barriers of language.He thought that the Nobel Prize awarded by the SwedishAcademy “brought the distant near, and has made thestranger a brother.”Rabindranath Tagore, in a letter to E.J. Thompson, wrote in1916, “I feel homesick for the wide world.” A few years beforehis death, he criticized his own poetry for not being universalin expression, arguing that his paintings had rather overcome thebarriers of language. It was likely that Tagore, a seeker of universalconcord, would not have been satisfied in restricting himself to anaudience in the colonial, undivided Bengal where he was born andraised in the second half of the nineteenth century. Rabindranath,who translated Shakespeare’s Macbeth at the age of thirteen, turnedout to be a prolific bilingual writer of his time often taking pleasurein translating his own works into English.It was in June 1912 that Rabindranath desired to share the Englishtranslations of his poems with his British painter friend WilliamRothenstein (1872-1945) in London, (Rothenstein later went onto become the Principal of the Royal College of Art). A leathercase, containing the translatedmanuscript entrusted to Tagore’sson Rathindranath (1888-1961), was discovered to bemissing. Rushing to the Left-Luggage Office of the Britishunderground, Rathindranathmanaged to retrieve thebaggage that he had left in thetrain by mistake while gettingdown at the Charing Cross tubestation. Rathindranath wrotein his autobiography, “I haveoften wondered what shapethe course of events mighthave taken if the manuscriptof Gitanjali had been lostdue to my negligence.” Therecovered translations came tobe published in the form of abook Gitanjali (Song Offerings),on 1 November, 1912 by theIndia Society of London with anintroduction by the English poetW.B. Yeats (1865-1939).In 1910, Tagore published abook of poems in Bengali titledGitanjali. By that time he hadestablished himself as a poet,an essayist, novelist, short storywriter, a composer of numeroussongs, and a unique educatorwith an experimental school forchildren at Santiniketan. Heunderwent a number of personaltragedies by the time Gitanjaliwas published. Tagore lost hismother Sarada Devi (1875),adored sister-in-law Kadambari(1884), wife Mrinalini (1902),second daughter Renuka (1903),father Debendranath (1905),and youngest son SamindranathNobel Medallion (top), the reverse ofthe medal (middle) and the title pageof the 1912 Gitanjali.(1907) within the short spanof thirty two years. Thisexperience with death refinedhis sensibilities and gave himthe impetus to consider life inits contrasting realities with joyand wonder.In the beginning of 1912,Tagore became seriously ill.Cancelling a planned visitto England, he went to hisancestral home in Silaidah (nowin Bangladesh) on the banks ofthe river Padma for a changewhere he translated some ofhis poems from their original inBengali. After his recovery hesailed for England in May 1912,without any specific mission,with the mind of a wayfaringpoet, primarily obeying hisdoctor’s advice. During hislong sea voyage to England, hecontinued his experiments withtranslations presumably with adesire to connect to a distantand wider horizon. Before 1912,Tagore had translated only acouple of his poems.William Rothenstein, whoknew Rabindranath since hisvisit to India during 1910-1911,introduced Tagore and hispoetry to his illustrious circleof friends including W.B. Yeats,Thomas Sturge Moore (1870-1944), Ernest Rhys (1859-1946),Ezra Pound (1885-1972), MaySinclair (or, Mary Amelia St.Clair, 1863-1946), StopfordBrooke (1832-1916) amongmany others. They wereinstantly carried away withINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 20 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 21

uying its rights, publishing tensubsequent editions of the titlewithin nine months betweenMarch and November, 1913.While the Bengali Gitanjaliwas brought out without anydedication, Tagore dedicated hisfirst English anthology of poemsto Rothenstein as a token oftheir friendship that lasted tillthe death of the poet in 1941.Tagore, left England in October,1912 for America before hisEnglish Gitanjali could bepublished and returned to Indiain September, 1913. Ezra Poundand Harriet Monroe (1860-1936)took the initiative in publishingsix poems of Tagore in theprestigious American magazinePoetry with a note by Poundin December, 1912. Gitanjalireceived wonderful reviews insome of the leading newspapersand literary magazines includingThe Times Literary Supplement,Manchester Guardian, and TheNation among others, shortlyafter the publication of thebook.The British littérateur ThomasSturge Moore, in his individualcapacity as the Fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature of theNobel Prize citation‘Where the mind is without fear!’: A poem from Gitanjali in Tagore’s calligraphythe mystic vision and rhetoricsplendour of Tagore’s poetry.Yeats suggested minor changesin the prose translations of theGitanjali songs. Speaking onthe charm of Gitanjali, Yeatswrote in his introduction:“… These prose translations havestirred my blood as nothing hasfor years. …I have carried themanuscript of these translationswith me for days, reading it inrailway trains, or on the top ofomnibuses and in restaurants, and Ihave often had to close it lest somestranger would see how much itmoved me.”While the Bengali Gitanjali hadone hundred and eighty threepoems, the English versioncontained one hundred andthree poems from ten previouslypublished anthologies includingfifty three poems from itsBengali namesake. It was dueto Rothenstein’s efforts thatthe India Society of Londonbrought out these translationsas a book. A limited editionof seven hundred and fiftycopies was printed, amongwhich two hundred and fiftycopies were for sale. Thebook was received with muchenthusiasm in England and theMacmillan Press of London didnot miss the opportunity ofINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 22 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 23

United Kingdom recommendedRabindranath Tagore’s name forthe Nobel Prize for literatureto the Swedish Academy whileninety seven other membersof the Society collectivelyrecommended the name ofnovelist Thomas Hardy forthe award. Initially Tagore’snomination was stronglyopposed by the Chairman ofthe Academy Harald Hijarne.Vocal members of the Academylike Per Hallstorm, Esais HenrikVilhelm Tenger (who knewBengali) and Carl Gustaf Vernervon Heidenstam, familiarwith Tagore’s literary genius,wholeheartedly supported hisnomination. Tagore’s namewas finalized for the awardfrom a total of twenty eightnominations “because of hisprofoundly sensitive, freshand beautiful verse, by which,with consummate skill, hehas made his poetic thought,expressed in his own Englishwords, a part of the literatureof the West.”A cablegram from the NobelCommittee arrived in Kolkataon 14 November 1913 andthe news was communicatedto Tagore at Santiniketanthrough a series of telegrams.Memoirs reveal that the wholeof Santiniketan rejoiced at thisachievement of the Poet.held that the ‘Novel’ prizecame to Santiniketan onlyfor the deserving novels thatTagore had written. Amidstthis unprecedented storm ofexcitement, a grand felicitationwas organized on the 23 rd ofNovember in 1913 at Santiniketnin honour of the Poet, presidedover by his scientist friendJagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937). A special train reachedBolpur from Kolkata with fivehundred enthusiasts. Tagorewas led to the venue where henoticed some of his critics whohad criticized him personally onvarious occasions in the past.These individuals were nowgathered to felicitate him as thePoet had received recognitionoverseas. Tagore’s speech,which echoed his immediateill-feelings at the sight of hisdetractors, disappointed manyof his genuine admirers whenhe expressed, “I can only raisethis cup of your honour to mylips, I cannot drink it with allmy heart.” Overnight, Tagorewas inundated with attentionand praise which made himwrite to Rothenstein in 1913,“It is almost as bad as tying atin can to a dog’s tail makingit impossible for him to move,without creating noise andcrowds all along.”Tagore could not be present inSweden to receive the NobelPrize as the first Asian recipientof the award and a telegramfrom him was read out at thetraditional Nobel Banquetwhich stated “I beg to conveyto the Swedish Academy mygrateful appreciation of thebreadth of understanding whichhas brought the distant nearand has made the stranger abrother.” The Nobel medallionand the diploma were sent toLord Carmichael (1859-1926),Governor of Bengal, whoA portrait of Tagore by William Rothenstein,his painter-friend (right) and Tagore withRothenstein and son, Rathindranath.handed them over to the Poetat a ceremony on 29 January,1914 at the Governor’s House inKolkata.Gitanjali and the Nobel Prizeset Tagore on the world stageraising him to the glorifiedstatus of Visva Kabi, the WorldPoet, who could celebrate lifebeyond any boundaries:“I have had my invitation to thisworld’s festival, and thus my lifehas been blessed. My eyes haveseen and my ears have heard.”(Gitanjali, 16)◆The author is a poet and a painter who iscurrently designing several museums on thelife and times of Rabindranath Tagore forVisva Bharati.While some students debatedthat Tagore had securedthe ‘Nobel Prize’ for hisprofound nobility, othersFacsimile of a page from The Statesman(daily) of Nov 15, 1913 announcingRabindranath getting the covetedNobel Prize.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 24 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 25

RABINDRANATH TAGOREAS A PAINTERSANJOY KUMAR MALLIKThe multifarious personality of Rabindranathcovered diverse terrains of creative expression,but he ventured into the world of paintingquite late in life.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 27

In a letter to his daughter,Rabindranath Tagore hadonce commented thatpainting wasn’t really hisforte – had it been so hewould have demonstrated whatneeded to be done. But muchbefore this lament, in an earlierepistle addressed to J.C. Bose(1858-1937), he had mentionedin an ebullient tone that itwould surprise the latter tolearn that he had been paintingin a sketchbook, although theeffort with the pencil was beingovertaken by the effort withthe eraser, such that Raphaelcould lie peacefully in hisgrave without the fear of beingrivaled.The multifarious personality ofRabindranath covered diverseterrains of creative expression,but he ventured into the worldTagore selecting his paintings in Moscowof painting quite late in life.The pages of his manuscripttitled Purabi, a book ofpoems published in 1924, isconventionally identified as thefirst evidence of articulationthrough full fledged visualimages. In the process ofediting and altering the text ofthese poems, the poet beganjoining together the struck-outwords in rhythmic patterns oflinear scribbles, with the resultthat these connected erasuresemerged into consolidated,united and independent identityas fantastic visual forms. Aboutthis process, he later wrote: “Ihad come to know that rhythmgives reality to that which isdesultory, which is insignificantin itself. And therefore, whenthe scratches in my manuscriptcried like sinners, for salvationTagore at his exhibition at the GalleryPigalle with Victoria Ocampo (seated).and assailed my eyes with theugliness of their irrelevance,I often took more time inrescuing them into a mercifulfinality of rhythm than incarrying on what was myobvious task.” (‘My pictures’, 1;28 th May 1930).The Purabi correctivecancellations, deleting theunnecessary and unwanted,finally fused together intoa unity of design; but morethan that, this rhythmicinterrelationship gave birthto a host of unique forms,most often queer, curiousand grotesque. This nearlysubconscious birth of forms,springing up unpremeditatedon the sheet of paper, is anecessary corollary to the poet’sinnate concern with rhythm. Itwas not the sheer delectablebeauty of swirling arabesquesAll paintings illustrated in this essay areby Rabindranath Tagore.that interested the poet, but theemergent unpredictable thatdelighted him. These creaturesmay certainly defy classificationaccording to strict conventionsof zoology, but are very muchvalid as entities in a painter’sworld. They even possessdistinctly identifiable moods,emotions and characteristics,such that they becomepersonalities rather than blankforms.The manuscript is a privateand personal domain;as the presence of theseemergent forms began todemand more independentexistence, the poet-painterturned to full scale paintings.However, having originatedfrom the subconsciousplayfulness of the erasures,somewhat unfortunatelyand for a considerable time,Rabindranath’s pictorial practicetended to carry the stigma ofbeing a dilettante’s dabble.While it is true that he didnot possess any academicinitiation into the domain ofthe visual arts, he did takelessons in painting in hischildhood, as most childrendo, from home-instructors.In his reminiscences titledChelebela (my childhood days)Rabindranath had recalled howin the interminable sequenceof home-instructors, an artteacher would immediatelystep in once the instructor inphysical education had justleft. While that is no pleasantrecollection that may inspirelater indulgence in the visualarts, in the Jeebansmriti (Myreminiscences) he had recordeda slightly different childhoodmemory – at bed-time he wouldstare at the patterns of peelingINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 28 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 29

whitewash on the walls, andthese would induce a range ofvisual forms in his imaginationas he drifted off to sleep. Onemay infer that Rabindranath didpossess the elemental faculty ofvisual imagination.By 1930, however, Rabindranathwas relatively confident of hisefforts as a painter. In a letterdated 26 th April addressed toIndira Devi (1873-1960), hewrote that it would surprisethe latter to learn the entirestory of how the once-poetRabindranath’s current identitywas that of a painter, though hewould rather modestly wait forposterity to bear that news toher rather than declare his ownachievements. He went on tomention that the inaugurationof his exhibition was scheduledon the 2 nd of May, 1930 – thatthe harvest at the year-end hadbeen collected together onthese foreign shores. But, hewrote, he would prefer to leavethem behind, considering itfortunate that he had been ableto cross over with these fromthe ferry-wharf of his own land.Rabindranath’s acclaim fromthe series of foreign exhibitions(1930) even before one washeld in his own country hasbeen the other long-standingcause for suspicion of indulgentpraise. What counters thesedoubts is the consistency ofINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 30 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 31

his pictorial quest and theenormous output – scholarsclaim that he had broughtalong as many as fourhundred paintings for the1930 exhibitions. What is ofinterest beyond numbers,are the choices exercised byRabindranath as a painter.In a period when nationalistrevivalism was triumphantin the country, he had thestrength of will to proposea larger vision beyond therestrictive criteria of national/geographical boundaries inmatters of creative expression.In fact, it is tempting to viewRabindranath’s pictorial practiceagainst the phrase that assumedthe role of a guiding motto forVisva Bharati, the university heinstituted: yatra viśva bhavatieka nidam – where the wholeworld comes to meet as in asingle nest. This catholicitydistinguished Rabindranath’screative process, and hisapproach to the notion oftradition was thereby liberated.Coupled with this, his Europeantours had probably contributedconsiderably to make the artof those lands a directly feltexperience. But even whenone identifies, for instance,echoes of the expressionistic inthe paintings of Rabindranath,the images in their ultimateINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 32 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 33

totality of visual language are soutterly individual that they defycategorization into strait-jacketsof stylistic periodization ormovements in world art.It is, therefore, necessary tocomprehend Rabindranath’schoice of themes in conjunctionwith, and as a logical corollaryof, his choice in the realm ofpictorial language. Not onlydid he opt not to hark backto past pictorial traditions, healso rejected associations ofthe literary. Even when hispictorial compositions deal withdramatic ensembles of multiplehuman figures, the narrativeis entirely contained withinthe perimeter of the paintedpage, without drawing directreference to literary allusions,whether belonging to a sharedtradition or to those of his owncreation. What unfolds in frontof the viewer of these paintingsis a narrative told exclusivelythrough the visual language– and meant to be read so aswell. The pictures that he drewfor his own books Shey andKhapchara are in the true spiritof illuminations, independentexpressions in their own right– complementary, rather thansupplementary, to the text.Then there are faces – bothmale and female – and theseare not illusive portraitsstanding in for an individual.They may have taken off froma particular individual, but inthe final rendering becomerather character studies thanvisual impressions. It is thusthat they do not lack inpersonality but instead havedistinctly personal presences,with expressions ranging fromthe sullen and sombre to thecalm and contained, and rareinstances of the joyful or themerry. However, whicheverbe the particular expression,the painted faces invariablyexude a feeling of untoldmystery, as if the whole of apersonality is beyond completecomprehension.Very similarly, Rabindranath’slandscapes are hardlydescriptive passages such thatit may be nearly impossible todetermine the inspiring sourcein actual locations. Nonetheless,some of the glowing yellowskies behind the silhouetteof trees in the foregroundmust invariably be the resultof nature’s manifestation atSantiniketan. Once again, thefact, that despite a broadlygeneral identification thelandscapes remain largelynon-specific. These paintingsrendered with a dominant toneof chromatic emotions, wherenature’s mysteries unfurl beforeus through the liquid tones ofcolour.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 34 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 35

But above all, what drawsour attention from amongsthis entire collection is a seriesof reworked photographs.The May 1934 issue of theVisva-Bharati News carried aphoto-portrait of Rabindranathon the cover. A number of thesecovers were painted over byhim in ink, pastel and watercolour, transforming each ofthe faces into distinctly differingidentities. In many of these, theink scribbles and colour tonesspare the eyes which continueto glow piercingly out frombeneath the cloak of pictorialtransformation, but in a few hehad even painted over them.Not only does this exerciseaddress the issue of the ‘real’as an illusory appearance thatsubstitutes an object, it alsointroduces within the samedebate the issue of identity,especially when one realizesthat a couple of these reworkedfaces tend to look distinctlyfeminine.Addressing questions ofconsiderably wider implicationsthan those that were ofimmediate concern to hiscontemporaries in the fieldof visual arts, Rabindranathpersonified a vision of muchlarger dimension. Approachingpictorial language from thevantage point of a widerhorizon, he indexed a directionand a possibility in pictorialpractice that was exemplarywithin the modern in Indian art.◆The author teaches Art History atVisva-Bharati, Santiniketan and taughtat the Maharaja Sayajirao University ofBaroda.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 36 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 37

IN SEARCH OFA NEW LANGUAGEFOR THEATREABHIJIT SENThough Rabindranath maintained his search for an alternativelanguage for the theatre, yet it must be remembered that whenit came to matters of actual performance he was never rigidor inflexible. He combined in himself the roles of author-actorproducer,therefore, he was ever alert to the requirements ofproduction and reception, kept adapting his staging principlesaccordingly, thereby giving his theatre a broader perspective.spectators sitting all aroundthe stage) but also the nondramaticforms like kathakata(Didactic story-telling tradition),kabigan (literally, poets’ songs),panchali (Poetic texts singingthe glory of a deity), or kirtan(religious singing in chorus).These forms were looked downupon as being fit only for theriffraff – as vulgarisation ofthe Hindu pantheon merely toentertain the lower sections ofthe society.Rabindranath and his brothershad a close association withthe theatre; one of them inparticular, Jyotirindranath(1849-1925), had writtenseveral plays for theprofessional theatres, and hadexperimented extensively withWestern melodies, which,in turn, are said to haveinspired Rabindranath’s ownexperimentations in the earlyoperatic pieces like ValmikiPratibha (1881), Kalmrigaya(1882) and Mayar Khela (1888).Though some of his workswere staged in the publictheatre, Rabindranath himselfThere is no need for the paintedscene; I require only the scene ofthe mind. There the images willbe painted by brush-stokes of themelodious tune.In a prelude that he lateradded to his play Phalguni,Rabindranath Tagore makesKabisekhar (the poet) speakthese words, and when hewent on to play this role duringperformances of Phalguni(1915), the created and thecreator seemed to speak inthe same voice. Rabindranathhimself is known to have madesimilar declarations regardingthe theatre and the languagethat it needs to adopt, more soin our socio-cultural context.The Bengali theatre of the19 th century, which emergedas a product of the BengalRenaissance, was first, a colonialimportation, and second, anurban phenomenon. TheEnglish theatres in Calcutta,constructed chiefly for theentertainment of local Britishresidents, provided the modelsfor the theatres of the Bengalibaboos (the elite nouveauriche); so the theatres ofPrasannakumar Tagore (1801-1886) or Nabinchandra Basu(with his home production ofVidyasundar in 1835) or thekings of Paikpara, all emulatedthat Western model. The otherimportant characteristic of thisBengali theatre was its urbannature. It evolved principally inthe city, patronized by the richelite classes, and increasinglypushed to the margins theearlier forms of popularperformance, which includednot only the jatra (a form ofindigenous musical theatre withA scene from a dance drama by Tagore, also seen in the pictureINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 38 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 39

did not seem to care much forthe contemporary professionaltheatre. He was envisaging a‘parallel theatre’, distinct fromthe contemporary professionaltheatre.This search for a ‘paralleltheatre’ kept Rabindranathpreoccupied throughout hisentire dramatic career, thoughhe began with early dallianceswith the Western model – first,the operatic experimentationsin Valmiki-Pratibha (1881),Kalmrigaya (1882) and MayarKhela (1888); next, his useof the Shakespearean five-acttragic structure in blank verse,in Raja O Rani (1889) andVisarjan (1890). Most of theseearly performances weremarked by their use of overtrealistic stage-conventions,whether it was the illusion ofa forest created with actualtrees for the staging of Valmiki-Pratibha (1890), or the stagestrewn with realistic stageproperties for the mounting ofVisarjan (also 1890).Between Visarjan of 1890 andSarodatsav of 1908, despitesome sporadic attempts atplaywriting, there was virtuallyTagore (left) and with Indira Devi (below) in Valmiki Pratibha.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 40 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 41

a gap of almost eighteenyears. The return to seriousdrama with Sarodatsav in 1908marks a major shift, not merelydramaturgical or theatricalbut even ideological. On theone hand, Rabindranath stillhad a sense of regard for the“great English” (whom heassociated with all that wasgood in the English culture)and distinguished them fromthe “little English” (whom helocated in the colonial masterswho had taken control of thiscountry). On the other hand, hewas influenced by the upsurgeof the nationalist/anti-colonialideology that was increasinglygaining momentum.Oscillating between the two,Rabindranath had started to‘imagine’ a modern Indiannation that would recover muchof its lost ancient glory. Thisurge was articulated in severalpoems, songs and essayscomposed during this period(among which were essayslike “Prachya O PaschatyaSabhyata”: 1901, “Nation ki”:1901, “Bharatvarsher Samaj”:1901, “Bharatvarsher Itihas”:1902, “Swadeshi Samaj”:1904). He was making aconscious departure from theBritish system of educationby founding a school inSantiniketan, approximating theIndian concept of a tapovan(1901). He was even activelyinvolved in the political protestsagainst the British-policy ofpartitioning Bengal; he steppedinto the streets singing songsand celebrating Rakshabandhanbetween members of the Hinduand Muslim communities (1905).Alongside, he was also‘imagining’ a new kind oftheatre, which would besignificantly different from thecolonial mimicry then practisedon the public stage. This newtheory of theatre is formulatedin the essay “Rangamancha”(1903), in which he voiceshis disapproval of Westerntheatrical models, particularly ofthe realistic kind, and suggests areturn to our indigenous culturaltraditions. Rabindranath’sespousal of the cause of jatra isparticularly significant becausethis indicates his disapproval ofboth the colonial and the urbannature of the contemporaryBengali theatre. In the prefaceto Tapati (1929) he is criticalof overt realism in theatre,particularly the use of paintedscenery. In imagining a “paralleltheatre”, he was trying to ridit of the unnecessary colonialtrappings and urban inflections.He was seeking to ensure thatthe imagination of the audiencewas not limited.When he moved to Santiniketanand the open-air environs of theashrama-school, Rabindranathwas able to put into practicehis notions of a ‘new’/‘parallel’theatre – both in the dramaticand theatrical languages –particularly in the productionsof seasonal plays likeSarodotsav and Phalguni. Forthe 1911-Sarodatsav production(in which Rabindranath playedthe Sannyasi, or the ascetic),the students are reported tohave “decorated the stage withlotus flowers, kash, leavesand foliage”. Rabindranathallowed only a blue backclothto stand in for the sky, andmade Abanindranath removethe mica-sprinkled umbrella:“Rabikaka did not like it, andasked, ‘Why the royal umbrella?The stage should remain clearand fresh’; so saying, he hadthe umbrella removed.” Thebare stage was the appropriateTagore as Raghupati in Visarjansetting for the two scenes ofthis play: the first located on theroad; the second, on the banksof the River Betashini.Again, for the first performanceof Phalguni at Santiniketan(25 April 1915), the stage décorwas in tune with this poeticstructure of the play. As SitaDevi reminiscences, “the stagewas strewn with leaves andflowers. On the two sides weretwo swings on which two smallboys swung gleefully to theaccompaniment of the song…”Indira Devi, referring to a1916-Jorasanko performance(a charity show for the Bankurafamine), comments: “In place ofthe previous incongruous Westernimitation, a blue backdrophad been used; it is still usednow. Against it, was a singlebranch of a tree, with a singlered flower at its tip, under apale ray of the moonshine.”The reviewer of The Statesman(1 February 1916) noted: “‘Phalguni’ is a feast of colourand sound and joy. 1 ”Around this time, Rabindranathalso wrote what were arguablyhis maturer plays – Raja (1910),Dakghar (1917), Muktadhara(1922), Raktakarabi (1924)and Tasher Desh (1933). In1 Cited in Rudraprasad Chakrabarty, RangamanchaO Rabindranath: Samakalin Pratrikiya,pp. 125-126.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 42 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 43

each of these he experimentedconsiderably with thedramaturgical structure, butthe performance of the twoseasonal plays in the open-airambience of Santiniketanencapsulated his notions of anew theatre scenography in amanner that would not/couldnot be available in any otherludic space. Though Raja,Dakghar and Tasher Desh wereScene from a Tagore dance-dramaproduced by Rabindranath, hecould stage neither Muktadharanor Raktakarabi, though heread them out before severalpeople on different occasions.In 1926, Rabindranath tookyet another bold step as heintroduced dance as a mediumof theatrical expression in hisplay Natir Puja. When it wasdecided to take the productionto Calcutta, there was a senseof unease because this waseffectively the first time that agirl from a respectable family– Gouri, the daughter of theartist, Nandalal Bose – wouldbe seen dancing in a theatricalperformance. To tide overthe problem, Rabindranathcreated the only male characterof Upali and played the rolehimself. For the later dancedramas, he made it a pointto be seen on the stage ina bid to give legitimationto the performances. TheStatesman noted withapproval Rabindranath’son-stage presence during aperformance of Parishodh (theoriginal version of Shyama) inOctober 1936: “He makes thestage human. Everyone elseon the stage may be actingbut he is not. He is reality.Moreover he gives a dignity tothe performance – nautch istransformed into dance.” 2Rabindranath by this time hadpaid several visits to the FarEast: he went to Japan thrice,twice in 1916, and again in1924; to Java and Bali in 1927.To him, the Japanese dance“seemed like melody expressedthrough physical postures…The European dance is …half-acrobatics, half-dance…The Japanese dance is dancecomplete.” 3 Of the dance of Java2 The Statesman, 14 October 1936; cited inRudraprasad Chakrabarty, Rangamancha ORabindranath: Samakalin Pratrikiya , p.298;emphasis added.3 Japan yatri, Rabindra Rachanabali (CompleteWorks) Visva-Bharati Edition, vol. 10 (Calcutta:Visva-Bharati, 1990) p.428.he observed: “In their dramaticperformances [he uses the termyatra], there is dance from thebeginning to the end – in theirmovements, their combats,their amorous dalliances, eventheir clowning – everything isdance.” 4 This exposure to thedance-languages of the Far Eastinspired Rabindranath to evolvehis own theory of ‘theatre asdance’, which resulted in thecrop of the dance dramas ofthe final phase that commencedwith Shapmochan (1931). Withthe following trio – Chitrangada(1936), Chandalika (1939), andShyama (1939) – Rabindranathwent even further with hisexperimentations of the dancedramaform. Rabindranathadopted the style of kathakata,so that the lines of the proseplay (of 1933) were easilyset to tune. The Statesmanremarked: “The technique of thedance-drama in ‘Chandalika’ isin many ways a revival of theancient Indian form in whichthe dialogue is converted intosongs as background music,and is symbolically interpretedby the characters through thedances. 5 ”Though Rabindranathmaintained his search foran alternative language forthe theatre, yet it must be4 Java-yatrir patra, Rabindra Rachanabali,(Complete Works) Visva-Bharati Edition, vol. 10,1990, p.525.5 The Statesman, 10 February 1939, after theperformance at Sree Theatre in Calcutta (9 &10 Feb); cited in Rudraprasad Chakrabarty,Rangamancha O Rabindranath: SamakalinPratrikiya , pp. 271-272.remembered that when it cameto matters of actual performancehe was never rigid or inflexible.Because he combined in himselfthe roles of author-actorproducer,he was ever alert tothe requirements of productionand reception, kept adapting hisstaging principles accordingly,and thereby gave his theatre abroader perspective.If Tagore was imagining aliberally comprehensive conceptof a nation, he was alsoimagining a more inclusive kindof theatre, as is evident fromhis later experiments (as actorand producer). He retained hisfondness for the indigenousresources but never believed ina blind replication of the jatraor yatra-model. At the sametime, though largely critical ofthe Western stage importations,he did not reject them outrightif they served the purposesof theatrical exigencies. As aproducer, he often concededto the actual staging conditionsat hand to uphold the modelof an eclectic theatre wherecomponents realistic andnon-realistic, urban and rural,borrowed and indigenous,Western and Eastern, could allco-exist.◆The author teaches English literature atthe Department of English & Other ModernEuropean Languages, Visva-Bharati,Santiniketan.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 44 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 45

The Scientist in TagorePARTHA GHOSETagore was a perfect antithesis of the cultural divide betweenthe sciences and the humanities so poignantly exposedby C.P. Snow in his “The Two Cultures”. All truly creativegeniuses have straddled this divide.Rabindranath Tagorewas a quintessentialpoet-philosopher. Yet,he had a deeply rational andscientific mind. He was a perfectantithesis of the cultural dividebetween the sciences and thehumanities so poignantly exposedby C.P. Snow (1905-1980) inhis “The Two Cultures” (1959).All truly creative geniuses havestraddled this divide. Darwin(1809-1882) wrote in The Originof Species (1859):There is grandeur in this view oflife, with its several powers, havingbeen originally breathed into afew forms or into one; and that,whilst this planet has gone cyclingon according to the fixed law ofgravity, from so simple a beginningendless forms most beautiful andmost wonderful have been, and arebeing, evolved.Einstein admitted:A knowledge of the existence ofsomething we cannot penetrate,our perceptions of the profoundestreason and the most radiant beauty,which only in their most primitiveforms are accessible to ourminds – it is this knowledge andthis emotion that constitutes truereligiosity; in this sense, and thisalone, I am a deeply religious man.(From ‘The World as I see it’ 1931).Rabindranath’s song akash bharasoorjo tara expresses the samesense of ‘wonder’ in the universe:The sky studded with the sun andstars, the universe throbbingwith life,In the midst of all thesehave I found my place –In wonder whereof gushes forthmy song.The blood that courses throughmy veins can feel the tugOf the sway of time and the ebband flow that rocks the world –In wonder whereof gushes forthmy song.Stepped have I gently on the grassalong the forest path,My mind beside itself with thestartling fragrance of flowers.The bounty of joy lies spread allaround –In wonder whereof gushes forthmy song.I have strained my ears, openedmy eyes, poured my heart outon the earth,I have searched for the unknownwithin the known –In wonder whereof gushes forthmy song.How wonderfully the poetdelineates the essence of sciencein the line, ‘I have searched forthe unknown within the known’.It is this aspect of science ratherthan its utilitarian value thatmakes it a deeply spiritual questand that fascinated Rabindranath.In the Preface to his only bookon science, Visva Parichay(1937), dedicated to the scientistSatyendranath Bose (1894-1974),he wrote about this fascinationfor science from his childhood– how his teacher Sitanath Dattaused to thrill him with simpledemonstrations like making theconvection currents in a glass ofwater visible with the help ofsawdust. The differences betweenlayers of a continuous massof water made obvious by themovements of the sawdust filledhim with a sense of wonder thatnever left him. According to him,this was the first time he realizedthat things that we thoughtlesslytake for granted as natural andsimple are, in fact, not so – thisset him wondering.The next wonder came when hewent with his father, MaharshiDebendranath, to the hills ofDalhousie in the Himalayas.As the sky became dark inthe evenings and the starscame out in their splendourand appeared to hang low,Tagore and Albert EinsteinMaharshi would point out tohim the constellations and theplanets, and tell him about theirdistances from the sun, theirperiods of revolution round thesun and many other properties.Rabindranath found this sofascinating he began to writedown what he heard from hisfather. This was his first longessay in serial form, and it wason science. When he grewolder and could read English,he started reading every bookon astronomy that he could layhis hands on. Sometimes themathematics made it difficult forhim to understand what he wasINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 46 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 47

The Wayfaring PoetAMRIT SENThe sheer range of Tagore’s travels fascinates us, consideringthe enormous difficulties and hardship he had to encounter.He was always eager to familiarize himself with other cultures,integrating the best aspects within his self and his institution.Among the many aspectsof Rabindranath’smultifaceted personalitywas his fascination fortravel. “I am a wayfarer ofthe endless road”, he wrote.He travelled widely acrossEurope, America and Asiaat different points in his lifeand left behind a copiousrecord of his travels in hisletters, diaries and reflections.Tagore with Helen KellerFor Tagore, travel not onlybroadened his selfhood, it alsocontributed to his philosophyof internationalism and thedevelopment of his institutionVisva-Bharati.Tagore’s earliest experienceof travel was his trip to theHimalayas in 1873 with hisfather Debendranath Tagore.Apart from inculcating abonding with nature, thistrip also provided a senseof freedom and explorationthat Tagore was to cherishthroughout his life.Accompanied by his brotherSatyendranath, the youngRabindranath travelled toEurope in 1878 to study law. Hereached London via Alexandriaand Paris and visited Brightonand Torquay. He enrolledhimself in the faculty of Arts andLaws in the University CollegeLondon, but his trip was cutshort and he returned to Indiain 1880. One of the interestingaspects of this trip was Tagore’srecognition of the freedom ofwomen in European society,already discussed in anotheressay in this volume. The youngTagore in Argentina (right) and in Persia(below).Rabindranath also visited theBritish Parliament and noted thebustle of English life. Tagoreundertook his second trip toEurope in 1890 with his brotherSatyendranath and his friendLoken Palit visiting London,Paris and Aden. On both thesetrips Tagore familiarized himselfwith western music and wasdrawn to European art, visitingthe National Gallery and theFrench exhibition.Tagore’s third trip to Europein 1912 was a landmark in hiscareer. Recuperating in England,the ailing Rabindranath camein contact with the leadingliterary personalities of Englandincluding William RothensteinW.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, C.F.Andrews, Ernest Rhys andBertrand Russell (1872-1970).His translation of Gitanjali wasreceived with great enthusiasmas Tagore left for the USA. Hevisited Illinois, Chicago, Bostonand New York and deliveredseveral lectures at Harvard.On his return to England,his play The Post Office wasstaged by the Abbey TheatreCompany. Tagore’s growingINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 52 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 53

popularity as a poet can begauged from Rothenstein’sletter to him, “When you lastcame, it was as a stranger, withonly our unworthy selves tooffer our friendship; now youcome widely recognized poetand seer, with friends knownand unknown in a hundredhomes”. Tagore left for India inSeptember, 1913.The award of the Nobel Prizetransformed the reputation ofTagore and he was invited allacross the globe. His ideas ofinternationalism also spurredhis desire to travel and interactwith cultures. In 1916 hevisited Rangoon and Japan,stopping at Kobe, Osaka,Tokyo and Yokohama. Tagorewas keen to locate in Japan a“manifestation of modern lifein the spirit of its traditionalpast”, and he was moved by theaesthetic consciousness of thepeople. Tagore was, however,disappointed by the emergenceof nationalism and imperialismin the country.In September 1916 Tagorewas invited to the USA todeliver a series of lectures. Hetravelled to Seattle, Chicagoand Philadelphia deliveringhis critique against the cult ofnationalism. Although he waswarmly received, his viewsgenerated a lot of hostility.Tagore returned to Europein 1920. In England, he wasdisappointed to find thathis strident stand againstnationalism and war had cooledthe ardour of his friends. Hetravelled to France and wasdeeply moved on his trip tothe battle ground near Rheims.At Strasbourg, he delivered hislecture titled “The Message ofthe Forest”. His subsequentvisit to USA to generate fundsfor Visva-Bharati proved to beunsuccessful. Not only did hefail to raise significant funds,he also encountered a distinctlyhostile audience for his criticismof materialism and nationalism.In 1921, Tagore travelled toParis to meet Romain Rolland,immediately warming to thevision of internationalismthat both shared. Tagore alsovisited Holland and Belgium,Denmark and Swedendelivering an address at theSwedish academy. He travelledto Germany looking withTagore with dignitaries on a visit to Japan, 1929 Tagore addressing people during his visit to Singapore, 1927INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 54 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 55

interest at the Universitiesthere and proceeded to Viennaand Prague. Tagore’s poetrywas now being translated anddiscussed all across Europe andoffered a significant acceptanceamong a population that hadbeen ravaged by war. Hereceived a rapturous welcomeeverywhere as he spoke aboutpeace and world unity.In 1924, Tagore travelled to China.He visited Shanghai, Beijing,Nanking and Chufu. Tagoreinteracted with a number ofpoets, educationists once againreviving the notion of an Asiansolidarity. He visited the tombof Confucious and addressedthe Chinese youth on severaloccasions reminding them of thetradition of cultural exchangebetween China and India.Tagore’s visit to South Americatook him to Buenos Aires,Chapadmalal and San Isidro. Anailing Rabindranath recuperatedat the residence of VictoriaOcampo (1890-1979). Thevoyage to South America wassignificant for Rabindranath’spreparation of the manuscriptof Purabi with its copiousdoodlings. It was from this pointonwards that Tagore’s career asan artist would find expression.In 1926, Tagore visited Italyat the invitation of Mussolini(1883-1945). He received arapturous reception, but oncehe realized the fascist leaningsof Italy he severely denouncedthe Italian government. Tagoreproceeded to Oslo, Belgrade,Bucharest, Athens and Cairo.At Germany he interacted withAlbert Einstein (1879-1955).The translations of his poetryensured that he receivedrecognition and appreciationwherever he went.In 1927, Tagore undertook atrip to South East Asia, visitingMalaya, Java, Bali, Siam andBurma. The overarching motifof this voyage was to study therelics of an Indian civilizationand to forge closer cultural tieswith these regions. Tagore’stravelogue on this trip shows hiskeen interest in the music anddance of this region.In 1930, Tagore travelled forthe last time to Europe. On thistrip he exhibited his paintings atseveral cities including Paris andthey were warmly applauded.He travelled to the Universityof Oxford to deliver the Hibbertlectures, later published as TheReligion of Man. He travelledA photograph from Tagore’s USA visit, 1916Tagore with students in Russia, 1930INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 56 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 57

Painting by Tagore on board S.S. Tosa Maru, 1929across Munich and reachedRussia. He was warmly greetedby the Russian governmentand intellectuals. Tagore wasdeeply impressed by the ruraldevelopment and co-operativemovements here and laterattempted to replicate them inSantiniketan.In 1932 Tagore travelledoverseas for the last time toPersia on the invitation ofthe King of Iran. He visitedBaghdad, Shiraz, Tehran,Bushehr and he appreciated themodern measures to improvethe state under Reza ShahPehlavi (1919-1980). Onceagain Tagore reminded thisaudience of the deep culturalbonds shared by the nations. Hevisited the tomb of the famouspoet Saadi and interactedwith the King, emphasizingcommunal harmony as aTagore on arrival in Berlin, 1926necessary condition forprogress. The youngerRabindranath had admired thefree spirit of the Bedouins in anearlier poem. Having travelledfor a lifetime, he had finally metthe subject of his fantasy.Tagore’s travels within thecountry are too numerous tocatalogue. He travelled to allparts of the country for variouscauses. The last journey toKolkata from Santiniketan in1941 came immediately afterhis stirring address titled Crisisin Civilization where Tagoreobserved the darkening cloudsof war and destruction gatherover the world. His only hopewas for the saviour who couldredeem mankind.The sheer range of Tagore’stravels fascinates us, consideringthe enormous difficulties andhardship he had to encounter.He was always eager tofamiliarize himself with othercultures, integrating the bestaspects within his self andhis institution. The youngRabindranath had travelled forpleasure and education. Oncehe was recognized as a worldpoet, he travelled as a voice ofhumanity to a society recoveringfrom war, warning againstthe dangers of nationalism,fascism and imperialism.He retained an unflinchingstance despite the hostilitythat he faced. As Tagoredevoted himself to the growthof Visva-Bharati, his travelswere directed to enrichingthe institution by creating aspace where different culturescould coexist harmoniouslyin one nest. Everywhere hewent, he interacted with thebrightest intellects and creativepersonalities debating issuesof philosophy, politics andaesthetics.Writing to his daughter, Tagoreonce commented, “I feel arestlessness swaying me… Theworld has welcomed me and Itoo shall welcome the world…I go towards the wide road ofthe wayfarer”. As he travelledacross unknown ways dreamingabout a globe without borders,he searched for the self thatwould be at home in the world.◆The author teaches English literatureat Visva-Bharati, and is a specialist onAmerican Literature.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 58 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 59

“Everyone has something specialcalled ‘my religion’… which is hisreligion? The one that lies hiddenin his heart and keeps on creatinghim.”– Rabindranath Tagore (Of Myself, Tr ofTagore’s Atmaparichaya by DevadattaJoardan & Joe Winter, Visva-Bharati, 23)Rabindranath Tagorewas born in the familyhouse of the Tagore’sof Jorasanko, a centre of 19 thcentury Bengal renaissance.When he was born, the Hindurevivalist movement already wasin progress. Raja RammohanRoy had founded the BrahmoSamaj, Pandit Iswar ChandraVidyasagar started his socialreforms from within Hinduismand Sri Ramkrishna Paramhansa(1836-1886) was preaching hisinter-religious understanding.Maharshi Debendranath Tagore,father of Rabindranath Tagorewas an ardent follower of RajaRammohan Roy, the maker ofmodern India. Debendranathabjured idolatory, acceptedinitiation into Brahmo Dharma,Tagore’s ReligionSABUJKOLI SENRabindranath’s mission is – the divinization of man and thehumanizing of God. Tagore’s journey to “Religion of Man” startedwith the shlokas of Upanisad in his childhood. It was enrichedby the philosophy of the Gita, the teaching of the Buddha, theMahavira and also by the Christian tradition besides the indigenousBaul and Sufi traditions.gave it a shape, and becamethe leader of a re-orientedfaith founded on the puremonotheism of the ancientUpanisads. Every morning hissons had to recite, with correctpronunciation and accent theverses culled from the Vedasand Upanisads. The daily recitalof these beautiful as well asmorally uplifting verses and thesimple prayer introduced bythe Maharshi influenced youngRabindranath and made alasting impression on his mentalmake up.As a member of Tagore’s familyin 1884 at the age of twentythree Tagore had to take chargeas the Secretary of Adi BrahmoSamaj. During this time BrahmoSamaj was the target of adverseHindu criticism. As a reactionto Brahmo Dharma a groupof Hindu educated men wasformed. They called themselvespositivists or atheists. AkshayKumar Dutta (1820-1886)was one of them. TheHindu revivalist Pt. SasadharTarkachuramani (1851-1928)invented a new religion calledScientific Hindu Religion. Itstwo organs, Navajivan andPrachar systemically publishedarticles against Brahmo Religion.Bankim Chandra Chattapadhyaythe famous Bengali novelistused to write articles in thesepapers supporting Hinduism.The young Secretary of BrahmoSamaj, Rabindranath, took upthe challenge of the Hindusand replied to the articles ofBankim Chandra. BankimChandra replied back and thewordy duel of these two famouslitterateurs continued for sometime. In the long run both ofthem forgave each other andfriendship was establishedbetween them. It will beinteresting to mention here thatthe date Feb.26, 1891 was fixedfor the census in India. SomeBrahmo sects used to thinkthemselves different from theHindus. But the Adi BrahmoSamaj sect of Brahmo Dharmato which Tagore belongedconsidered themselves as aspecial branch of Hinduism.In a letter to C. J. O’Donnell(1850-1934), in charge ofcensus, Tagore requested him torefer the Adi Brahmo Samaj as‘Theistic Hindu’. He publisheda circular in Tattvabodhinirequesting Adi Bramho familiesto classify themselves as“Hindu – Brahmo” (Rabi Jivani,Prasanta Kumar Pal, AnandaPublisher, Kolkata, Vol.III,165).As a Brahmo, Rabindranathwas against the practice ofidolatory in Hinduism. He wasagainst the ‘Incarnation-theory’or avatarvada of Hinduism.The taboos and prohibitions ofHinduism were repugnant tothe poet. In Dharmer Adhikar(Vide Sanchaya, RabindraRachanavali, Vol. XII). He says :“There are two sides of man’spower. One is his ‘can’ and theother is his ‘should’. The mancan do certain actions, this is theeasy side of his power. But heshould do certain actions, thisconstitutes the utmost exerciseof his power. Religion stands onthe high precipice of the ‘should’and as such, always draws the‘can’ towards it. When our ‘can’is completely assimilated by our‘should’, we attain the most desiredobject of our life, we attain Truth.But these impotent people who cannot act up to this ideal of religion,try to pull it down to their own level.Thus taboos and prohibitions arise”.Rabindranath did not spareany opportunity to protestvehemently against orthodoxRaja Rammohan RoyHinduism be that through hisliterary works or through hisletters to Hemanta Bala Devi(1894-1976) or Kadambini Devi(1878-1943). But Rabindranathhad an unprejudiced mind anddid not subscribe to the viewsof any particular conventionalreligion. We have an idea ofhis religious view from thefollowing statement “I havebeen asked to let you knowsomething about my own viewof religion. One of the reasonswhy I always feel reluctant tospeak about this is that I havenot come to my own religionthrough the portals of passiveacceptance of a particular creedowing to some accident of birth.I was born in a family whowere pioneers in the revival inour country of a great religion,based upon the utterance ofIndian sages in the Upanisads.But owing to my idiosyncrasy oftemperament, it was impossiblefor me to accept any religiousteaching on the only groundthat people in my surroundingsbelieved it to be true… Thusmy mind was brought up inan atmosphere of freedom,freedom from the dominance ofany creed that had its sanctionin the definite authority of somescripture or in the teaching ofsome organized worshippers(Lectures And Addresses,R.N. Tagore, Macmillan & Co.Ltd., London, 11).Throughout his lifeRabindranath Tagore neverclung to one belief, however,his thoughts went throughchanges and developed further.From the fiftieth year of hislife we find a change in hisideas about religion. He wasno longer against Hinduism.He was eager to incorporatethe best of Hinduism intoBrahmoism. At that time therewas a debate in the country:Are the Brahmos Hindus? TheBrahmo leaders were dividedon this issue. According tosome, Brahmos are separatefrom the Hindus like Christiansand Muslims. But as we havealready mentioned earlieraccording to Tagore Brahmoswere Hindus and in supportof this view, he read a paperin the Sadharan BrahmoSamaj Mandir under thecaption Atmaparichaya. Hesaid: “Brahmoism has receivedits spiritual inspiration fromHindus, it stands on theINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 60 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 61

oad basis of Hindu culture.Brahmoism has a universaloutlook but it is always thereligion of the Hindus. Wehave thought and assimilatedit by the help of the Hindumind. Today Hinduism mustopen the sacred, secret truth ofits own heart. It must preachthe gospel of universalismto the entire universe. Todaythrough the salvation ofBrahmoism, Hinduism hasbeen fulfilling its own mission(from Atmaparichaya, inTattvabodhini Patrika, 1919).Tagore’s unique ideas aboutreligion began to take shapefrom this time. What hebelieved was neither Hinduismnor Brahmoism but a synthesisbetween the two. He didnot discard the old orthodoxreligion totally, and yet at thesame time he did not acceptBrahmo religion with thesame enthusiasm as before.Brahmoism could not satisfyhim any more. He had seenthat Brahmoism also hadbecome conventional and rigidlike Hinduism. Brahmoism ofRammohan Roy, the aim ofwhich was to unite peoplefailed to serve its purpose.Brahmos also used to think ofnon-Brahmos specially Hindusas opposed to themselves. Fromthis time we see Tagore wasnot confined to any particularreligion and sect. His novel‘Gora’ published in 1910 depictsthe condition of the society.There is staunch BrahmoHaranbabu, ritualistic HinduHarimohini and characters likePareshbabu and Anandamayeewho believed in the “religionof man”. The central characterTagore in Nara, Japan, 1916of the novel ‘Gora’ initially wasa staunch Hindu. He was veryparticular to observe Hindurituals. However, when he cameto know of his Irish birth andChristian origin, his previousYoung Tagore with father Maharshi Debendranath – a painting by Gaganendranath Tagorenotions were shattered. Whenhe saw Anandamayee, whobeing a Brahmin Hindu ladytook the orphan infant Gorain her lap – unthinkable atthat time, Gora declared thathe was free then. He has noreligion, no caste, no creed, nobondage of doctrines. He wakesup to a new awareness of hisidentity. He is a human being,neither Hindu nor Christian.Then he was able to realize hisuniversality. From ‘Gora’ wefind a seed of ‘The religion ofman’ in Tagore. Professor AsinDasgupta rightly observed thatthere is no doubt Rabindranathspoke through Pareshbabu’smouth and Anandamayee’swork (Vide Rabi Thakurs Party,Asin Dasgupta, Visva-BharatiQuarterly, New Series, Vol. IV,Nos. I & II).The years 1910 & 1911 arevery important to understandTagore’s views on religion. In1910 “Christotsava” (celebrationof Jesus’ Birthday) was firstobserved in Santiniketan’sprayer hall. On Tagore’s requestHemlata Devi, wife of Tagore’snephew Dwipendranath Tagoretranslated a book on Sufism, thefirst issue of this was publishedin Tattvabodhini Patrika in1911. In Tattvabodhini in thesame year Tagore published“Bouddhadharme Bhaktivada”(Devotion in Buddhism).Rabindranath Tagore wasvery much interested in thetranslation of the great Sufipoet, Kabir (1440-1518). Hewas the inspiration behindPandit Ksitimohan Sen Sastri’s(1880-1960) translation ofKabir’s Doha. It is evident thatRabindranath wanted to cull thebest of all religions and formedhis own view in the mannerin which honey is formed in aflower.Tagore’s journey to “Religion ofMan” started with the slokas ofINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 62 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 63

Upanisad in his childhood. Itwas enriched by the philosophyof the Gita (though he didnot like the context of theGita, i.e., the warfield andalso he was against the idea ofarguments in favour of war),different schools of Vedantaand the philosophy of medievalsaints. Vedanta was his naturalinheritance but like his fatherDebendranath, Rabindranathdid not accept entirely theAdvaitic interpretation. “Brahmasatya jagat mithya” wasnever acceptable to him. LikeDebendranath he also had areverence for the world. He saidsalvation through the practiceof renunciation was not forhim. He wanted to taste thefreedom of joy in the midst ofTagore at the Santiniketan Templeinnumerable ties. What attractedhim was Vaisnavism, speciallythe Visistadvaita of Ramanuja(1017-1137). Vaisnavism,the cult of the deity and thedevotee, the love between thetwo attracted him. Rabindranathreceived the inner significanceof creation and love from themedieval Bengali VaisnavaPadavali (lyrics). The Vaisnavaconcept of beauty is imbibedby the poet, as beauty and loveform the keynote of Tagore’swritings.Rabindranath’s mission is – thedivinization of man and thehumanizing of God. Tagorewas influenced by Buddhismalso. Buddhist philosophyof Pratityasamutpada orKsanikatvavada did not attracthim, neither he was attractedby the Buddhist concept ofNirvana where there is nopain or pleasure. He wasattracted to Buddhist conceptof Ahimsa. He was fascinatedby the Buddhist’s teachings ofMaitri (brotherhood), Mudita(happiness in everything),Upeksa (indifference) andKaruna (compassion).Rabindranath was attracted towhatever was humane. Theperson Buddha was near toTagore’s heart. Rabindranath’sview on Buddha will betransparent from his saying“This wisdom came, neitherin texts of scripture, nor insymbols of deities, nor inreligious practices sanctified byages, but through the voice ofa living man and the love thatflowed from a human heart”(Creative Unity, RabindranathTagore, Macmillan India Ltd.,1922, 69).Tagore was also influencedby the Baul tradition. Baulis a non-orthodox faith thatflourished in Bengal. The Baulphilosophy is very similar toSufi philosophy. The simple lifestyle of Baul singers wanderingaround singing and dancing –always absorbed in the joy oflife touched Tagore. The Baulsbelieved that there is God inevery man’s heart and He maybe realized only by sincerelove and devotion. There is noroom for distinction of casteand sex. At Silaidaha (Tagore’sfamily estate) Tagore cameinto contact with Baul GaganHarkara, Fakir Fikirchand(1833-1896) and Suna-ullah. InTagore with people at Silaidaha (his family estate)Santiniketan he came to knowNabani Das Baul. Tagore wasalso acquainted with LalanFakir’s songs though there is noevidence of their meeting. Thesongs of Bauls had such impactupon Rabindranath that hisnovel Gora starts with a Baulsong. In his book ‘The Religionof Man’ (Hibbert Lecture,Oxford, 1930) he quoted anumber of Baul songs and hecomposed many songs in theBaul tune, in keeping with theBaul spirit, such as:O my mind,You did not wake up when theman of your heartCame to your door.You woke up in the darkAt the sound of his departingfootstepsMy lonely night passes on a maton the floor.His flute sounds in darkness,Alas, I can not see Him.[Tr. cited from “The Spirituality ofRabindranath Tagore”, by Sitanshu SekharChakravarty, in The Spirituality of ModernHinduism, 274]Here the relation between thesinger and the God – “the manof the heart” – is very intimate.Sometimes Tagore calls this “manof the heart” the “Eternal Friend”,sometimes he calls him ‘lover’.This ‘lover’ is Tagore’s JivanDevata, the ‘Lord of Life’, theguiding principle of his life. ThisJivan Devata sometimes appearsto him as male, sometimes asfemale. Like the Bauls, he wasalso looking out for this “man ofheart”.◆The author teaches Philosophy and Religionat Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 64 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 65

Gandhi and TagoreAMARTYA SENRabindranath knew that he could not have given India thepolitical leadership that Gandhi provided, and he was neverstingy in his praise for what Gandhi did for the nation.And yet each remained deeply critical of many things thatthe other stood for.Tagore and Gandhi – a painting by Jamini RoySince Rabindranath Tagoreand Mohandas Gandhiwere two leading Indianthinkers in the twentieth century,many commentators havetried to compare their ideas.On learning of Rabindranath’sdeath, Jawaharlal Nehru, thenincarcerated in a British jail inIndia, wrote in his prison diaryfor August 7, 1941:“Gandhi and Tagore. Two typesentirely different from each other,and yet both of them typical ofIndia, both in the long line ofIndia’s great men ... It is not somuch because of any single virtuebut because of the tout ensemble,that I felt that among the world’sgreat men today Gandhi andTagore were supreme as humanbeings. What good fortune for meto have come into close contactwith them.”Romain Rolland (1866-1944)was fascinated by the contrastbetween them, and whenhe completed his book onGandhi, he wrote to an Indianacademic, in March 1923: “I havefinished my Gandhi, in whichI pay tribute to your two greatriver-like souls, overflowingwith divine spirit, Tagoreand Gandhi.” The followingmonth, he recorded in his diaryan account of some of thedifferences between Gandhiand Tagore written by ReverendC.F. Andrews (1871-1940), theEnglish clergyman and publicactivist who was a close friendof both men (and whoseimportant role in Gandhi’s lifein South Africa as well as Indiais well portrayed in RichardAttenborough’s film Gandhi[1982]). Andrews described toRolland a discussion betweenTagore and Gandhi, at whichhe was present, on subjects thatdivided them:“The first subject of discussionwas idols; Gandhi defended them,believing the masses incapable ofraising themselves immediately toabstract ideas. Tagore cannot bearto see the people eternally treatedas a child. Gandhi quoted the greatthings achieved in Europe by theflag as an idol; Tagore found iteasy to object, but Gandhi held hisground, contrasting European flagsbearing eagles, etc., with his own,on which he has put a spinningwheel. The second point ofdiscussion was nationalism, whichGandhi defended. He said that onemust go through nationalism toreach internationalism, in the sameway that one must go through warto reach peace.”INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 66 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 67

Tagore with Gandhi and Kasturba at Shyamali, Santiniketan, 1940 (left)and with Romain Rolland (above).Tagore greatly admired Gandhibut he had many disagreementswith him on a variety ofsubjects, including nationalism,patriotism, the importance ofcultural exchange, the role ofrationality and of science, andthe nature of economic andsocial development. Thesedifferences, I shall argue, havea clear and consistent pattern,with Tagore pressing for moreroom for reasoning, and for aless traditionalist view, a greaterinterest in the rest of the world,and more respect for scienceand for objectivity generally.Rabindranath knew that hecould not have given Indiathe political leadership thatGandhi provided, and hewas never stingy in his praisefor what Gandhi did for thenation (it was, in fact, Tagorewho popularized the term“Mahatma” – great soul – as adescription of Gandhi). And yeteach remained deeply criticalof many things that the otherstood for. That Mahatma Gandhihas received comparably moreattention outside India andalso within much of India itselfmakes it important to understand“Tagore’s side” of the Gandhi-Tagore debates.In his prison diary, Nehruwrote: “Perhaps it is as well that[Tagore] died now and did notsee the many horrors that arelikely to descend in increasingmeasure on the world and onIndia. He had seen enoughand he was infinitely sad andunhappy.” Towards the endof his life, Tagore was indeedbecoming discouraged aboutthe state of India, especially asits normal burden of problems,such as hunger and poverty,was being supplemented bypolitically organized incitementto “communal” violence betweenHindus and Muslims. Thisconflict would lead in 1947,six years after Tagore’s death,to the widespread killing thattook place during partition; butthere was much more alreadyduring his declining days. InDecember 1939, he wrote to hisfriend Leonard Elmhirst (1893-1974), the English philanthropistand social reformer who hadworked closely with him onrural reconstruction in India(and who had gone on tofound the Dartington Hall Trustin England and a progressiveschool at Dartington thatexplicitly invoked Rabindranath’seducational ideals):“It does not need a defeatist to feeldeeply anxious about the future ofmillions who, with all their innateculture and their peaceful traditionsare being simultaneously subjectedto hunger, disease, exploitationforeign and indigenous, andthe seething discontent ofcommunalism.”How would Tagore have viewedthe India of today? Would hesee progress there, or wastedopportunity, perhaps even abetrayal of its promise andconviction? And, on a widersubject, how would he react tothe spread of cultural separatismin the contemporary world?(Excerpted from Tagore and His India).◆The author is Lamont University Professorat Harvard. He won the Nobel Prize inEconomics in 1998 and was Master ofTrinity College, Cambridge 1998-2004.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 68 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 69

Touched by TagoreMARTIN KÄMPCHENCreative writers like Tagore do not merely produce works ofart, but they also create a new art of living which translates,as closely as possible, the essence of their creative impulsesinto a social context.There are two scenes fromthe early days of mysojourn in India whichhave left a deep impression onme. The first is when I was ona visit to a village in District24-Parganas in South Bengal. Ayoung farmer whom we met onhis field, which was green withyoung paddy, wanted to greet uswith warmth. He spontaneouslyburst into a Tagore song whilehe was standing on his field.His voice was untrained but softand full of emotions, which wasin stark contrast to his roughworkman’s hands and bruisedbare feet.The second scene took placeat the Ramakrishna MissionAshram of Narendrapur, southof Kolkata. One evening Ientered the hostel room of twocollege students whom I hadbefriended. I found them in themiddle of a recitation of a longpoem by Tagore. There theysat, side by side, and in onevoice they declaimed loudlyin the sing-song melody thatis so well-known and adoptedfor recitation in Bengal. Theireyes were moist with tears, sodeeply were they involved in theemotions of the poem.I realised that for this unletteredfarmer, as also for these twostudents, singing Tagore’s songsand reciting his words was morethan a pastime, more than athing of pleasure, even morethan an educational effort. ThePoet to them became the GreatConsoler. “Behold the horriblefears that seize us when webehold the empty spaces of thenight sky, when we imagine thevast expanse of time which isalready spent and that which isin front of us, full with unknownchallenges and tribulations.”They can only be subdued bythe inspired words of a poet likeRabindranath Tagore. Religioustexts sanctified by tradition mayhave a deeply consoling effectas we sense the experience ofcenturies solidified in them. Yet,the words of an inspired man ofour own time radiates so muchmore of human warmth and isso much more relevant to us,because they echo those oldtraditions in the language and inthe experience that we are bornin and that we intimately share.Creative writers like Tagore donot merely produce works ofart, but they also create a newart of living which translates, asclosely as possible, the essenceof their creative impulses intoa social context. RabindranathTagore’s urge to move out ofthe big city of Kolkata to starta brahmacharya ashrama,his vision of an authenticeducation which unfolds thechild’s potentialities, his serviceto village people, and his lifeof aesthetic simplicity combineinto such a new art of living.It interprets old traditions ofliving, yet it does so in anindividualized and personalmanner.Thus, as I read Rabindranath,I was infused with a feelingof moving within a tradition,of being one element of aLarger Whole. And yet, in spiteof such abstractions, Tagoreradiates the warmth of a poetand story-teller who, withinsuch a larger whole, is boundto be specific and personal. Astory or a poem cannot simplyspell out ideas or a philosophy.They must strive to evokethe Whole by describing thedetail. It is like the sun beingmirrored in a drop of rain.Writers who are capable ofgiving their readers a sense ofthe Whole through their storiesand poems, they alone can beGreat Consolers. Such writersrecreate the Whole in the contextof their language, theirhistorical time and their specificgeography, their culturaland social system. Thus, theBengali readers of todaywho are born into the samecontext as Rabindranath, havethe extraordinary privilege ofrealizing the Larger Whole withinthe concepts and the vocabularyknown to them.This is a privilege which is rare,probably unique, in the modernworld. Where in America orEurope do we have anotherwriter who has opened the skyto the Larger Whole within hisor her cultural context? Havethe French existentialist writersdone so? Or the playwrightsof the Theatre of the Absurd?Has Marquez or Ezra Pound(1885-1972) or Virginia Woolf(1882-1941) or James Joyce(1882-1941)? I do not think so.When I survey the Europeanwriters who have meantsomething to me since my timeas a student, I can only thinkof Franz Kafka (1883-1924)who within his melancholyPrague Jewish culture, hascreated a universe and drawnall his readers into it magically.Yet, his stories and novelslack the capacity to console.They tear us away from thecomplacency of a bourgeoislife, away from a life whichhas become commonplace,conventional, uncreative. ButKafka stops there. We are awed,as I mentioned, by the horriblespaces of time and geographysuddenly thrown open. Nowwe stare into these spaces –unconsoled. desolate. Tagoregoes beyond Kafka.Recently, I met a Muslim Biharistudent in Darjeeling, a brightINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 70 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 71

and fervently dedicated lad.He had joined a Jesuit schoolat Darjeeling in Class Two andwas now completing his Collegegraduation in the same Jesuitinstitution. Meritorious as hewas, he had become a StudentPrefect while still in College.He supervised younger studentsand was allowed to eat withhis teachers, which he clearlyconsidered a great honour. Hisclear-cut, natural speech, hissimple pride bereft of arrogance,his fine features which wereneither harsh nor soft, impressedme. Here was a young man of,say, twenty-five years of agewho had been chiselled by themorally upright, intellectualJesuit knife. I asked him, what hewanted to do in the future, andhis reply was no surprise to me.He said: “I will be a teacher, Sir!I want to serve this institution. Ilove it very much.” With as muchenvy as dismay, I realized thatthis young man had probablynever been seized by doubt onthe merits of his education andcharacter formation; he hadnever gone through the agoniesof self-doubt.My envy was caused by therealization that my own life hasnot been as straight and simple.In fact, forever under various,often conflicting, influences, Ihave to struggle continuously tofind my direction, agonizing andpraying over the question whatthe wisest and most practicaldecision would be. At the bestof times, I felt elated realisingthat my decision, executed withcourage, took me further in mydevelopment as a human beingand a writer. At bad times, Icould hardly contain my despairat the mistakes and ill judgmentsI committed. My dismay lookingat this young mission schoolproduct, was caused by therealization how much he reallymissed out on the fullness of life.Elation and despair, doubt andcrisis belong to a fully lived life,and even being loved can neverbe worthily enjoyed without aself-purifying struggle.What do I mean by theseremarks in the contextof Rabindranath Tagore’suniversality? The Bengal Poethas not written his poems andsongs without the experiences ofalienation and anxiety, withoutthe fear and trembling he toofelt when faced by the mysteriesof life. Though he lived amonghis people with whom heshared a common language andculture, he was not confinedto them, not like this youngman in Darjeeling who wasrestricted to one single mindset.Rather, Rabindranath struggledthrough existential ups anddowns, through ananda (joy)and duhkha (sorrow), and evenhis light-hearted, full-throated,melodiously happy verses areimpregnated by them. Here I seehis universality. Earlier, I spokeof his mirroring the Whole inthe detail of a song or a poem,through which the Poet achievedspiritual transcendence. I nowtry to describe Tagore’s culturaluniversality which goes beyondthe vocabulary and the conceptsof one culture and thus openshis work to the understandingby other cultures. Alienationand hurt, strangely, speak moredirectly to humans than theproducts of a culturally secureand harmonious life.Reading Rabindranath Tagorein Germany brings us to yetanother dimension of thepoet’s work. First, we facelanguage as an obstacle. Bengaliis not considered a worldlanguage – but Rabindranathis a World Poet. This statementencapsulates all problems intheir entirety. Outside Bengal,Rabindranath’s language is nolonger simply a vehicle whichcarries cultural content and iscapable of evoking a culturaluniversality beyond language.Goethe (1749-1832), Germany’sclassical and most universal poetand thinker, has been intelligiblytranslated into other Europeanlanguages and been able toinfluence the people speakingthem. Shakespeare (1564-1616)and Dante, Victor Hugo (1802-1885) and Ezra Pound havebecome beacon-lights of theirrespective countries, radiatingbeyond their culture into allcorners of the occident. Theirinfluence depends on goodtranslations into other Europeanlanguages. We have a “cultureof translation” in Europe andAmerica; so we can demand thatwriters of national importanceshould get noticed internationallyINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 72 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 73

Mit freundl. Genehmg: National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhithrough translations. There is a‘family feeling’ at work when aFrenchman appreciates a Spanishpoet, or a German picks up anItalian novelist’s book.Such a family feeling is stillabsent in India. She still lacksthe culture of translation. Despitethe efforts of several literaryagencies, the literatures of thevarious regional languages donot yet travel widely beyondtheir language boundaries,at least not as much as theyshould. One, there is no moneyfor translating from one Indianlanguage into another, andtwo, India so far has too fewprofessionals who are sufficientlyskilled to execute such a difficulttask. Hence, each regionalliterature plods on with ratherscant influence from the rest ofthe country.Translating from Bengali to,say, German involves a stillgreater effort. Rabindranathmust cross over, not merelyfrom one language to anotherwithin the Indo-Germaniclanguage group, but the poet’sthoughts and feelings must movefrom one culture to another,from one religion to another,from one emotional and socialorganisation to an entirelydifferent one. When I translatea Tagore poem into German, Ineed to break up the Bengalisentence structure, and thethought process moulded bythat sentence structure, into itselements and then “reassemble”them by integrating them intoLeft: “Study in Face” by Tagorethe German sentence structureand thought process. Needless tosay, this is a daunting task whenit comes to such a volatile, fluid,evanescent, ethereal “creature” asa poem. Is it not bound to fail? Isit at all worth trying?Before me, many others havetried their hand at translationwith the same questions inmind. Let us not forget thatRabindranath Tagore shot intointernational prominence witha slim book of English prosepoems, Gitanjali, which are thePoet’s own translations fromthe Bengali original. Today we,including myself, prefer to rundown the English Gitanjali assentimental. Clearly, it cannotstand up to the spiritual andlyrical lucidity of the original. Allthe same, the English Gitanjalihas introduced into the Europeanconsciousness a hithertounknown experience, namelythe direct, unabashed expressionof religious sentiments. Wein Europe find it increasinglydifficult to speak about religiousfeelings normally, withoutcamouflage. We feel uneasy andvulnerable, as if baring our soulis like stripping our clothes. Thisis a trend which has becomeeven stronger since the time ofGitanjali. The words “God” and“Lord” cannot be uttered withoutan undertone of fashionabledoubt. So Europeans increasinglyturn to Oriental religions toexpress their simple spiritualemotions. In this context, Tagorehas been a powerful vehicle ofliberating religious sentimentsin Germany. For that, thetranslations which were donefrom the English renderings arequite sufficient. After all, in thiscontext these Gitanjali poemswere less seen as literature thanas vehicles of religious emotions.Tagore poems serve this purposeeven today in Germany. It isastonishing how often a fewlines from a Tagore poemcrop up in a lecture or essayor any passage of devotionalliterature. Along with figureslike Khalil Gibran (1883-1931),Mahatma Gandhi, the Buddha,Rabindranath Tagore suppliesthe storehouse of memorable,sententious thought-lines whichare meant to prove to Europeanreaders that oriental wisdomteachers have a message whichcan be understood by allpeoples.Yet, there is more to RabindranathTagore than the pure religiousemotions enshrined in theGitanjali poems. Isn’t Tagorea figure of world literature andshould he not be seen againstsuch a canvas. I have tried toproject him as a figure whostands side by side with thenational literary personagesof other countries. I see himas one of the last universalistsamong them. Let there be moreand more translations from theBengali into European languageswhich prove this point. Thesetranslations will console andenrapture many readers asdeeply as the original consolesand enraptures Bengali readers.◆The author is a noted German writer andtranslator of Tagore’s works.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 74 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 75

Tagore’s Swadeshi SamajDebates on NationalismBIKASH CHAKRAVARTYThe author of India’s national anthem was outspoken in hisviews on nationalism. Nationalism and nation-states seemedto him a great menace, a ‘geographical monster’.It is now well known thatafter his initial involvementin the Swadeshi movementcentering round the partition ofBengal in 1905, Rabindranathgradually moved away fromthe mainstream of nationalistpolitics around 1907. However,the fallacious notion thatdisillusionment with thecontemporary political situationled the poet to seek escapeand retreat at Santiniketan from1907 onwards falls in the faceof facts. Never before had thepoet written so much on publicissues – issues concerning theviolent passion of patriotism,the illegitimacy of nationalism,disengagement of the politicalfrom the social and the moral,and the celebration of truth andatmashakti (literally meaning,‘the power within oneself’) – ashe did in this period.This period includes the incisivelectures the poet delivered inJapan and America in 1916-17on the cult of nationalism,later collected in a book calledNationalism (1917:97), inwhich he questioned all formsof western nationalism; fornationalism and nation-statesseemed to him a great menace,a ‘geographical monster’. Theauthor of India’s national anthemwas now outspoken in his views.He did not want his country tobe caught in a situation wherethe idea of nation-state wouldsupersede that of Indian societyand civilization. He said: “Ourreal problem in India is notpolitical. It is social. This is acondition not only prevailing inIndia, but among all nations. Ido not believe in an exclusivepolitical interest” (Nationalism inIndia, 1916).The genesis of these ideas goback to 1901 when Tagore wrotetwo consecutive articles (bothpublished in Bangadarshan) onthe idea of nation: “Nation ki”Tagore and Priyanath Sen(Rabindra-Rachanabali 3:515-19), or ‘What is nationalism?’,drawing largely on the Frenchthinker, Ernest Renan (1823-1892), and the second on theIndian Society, “BharatbarshiyaSamaj”. Tagore concludes in theformer that language, materialinterests, religious unity orgeographical boundary – noneof these have been an essentialcondition for the making of thewestern nation. For Tagore,nation is a mental construct.In the other, he differentiatesbetween the idea of nation inthe West and the idea of societyin Indian history. To quote him:“What we have to understandis that society or communityreigns supreme in India. In othercountries, nations have protectedthemselves from variousrevolutions for survival. In ourcountry society has survivedcountless convulsions from timeimmemorial” (Tr; Rabindra-Rachanabali 3:522)Three years later Tagoredeveloped these ideas morefully in a seminal paper called“Swadeshi Samaj” (1904), or the‘Self-sufficient Society’. Here, webegin to recognize that Tagoreraises very important issues – atonce social, political and moral.Tagore says that in the historyof the western civilization, lifeof the people has always beencontrolled by the state power, asin ancient Greece and Rome andalso in the modern Europeansocieties. But in the Orient, inChina and India, for example,society and not state, has beenthe determining agency.Secondly, Tagore emphaticallyasserts that the locus of Indiancivilization must be soughtin her villages. The village inancient India was not merelya place where people lived.It was also the centre of thebasic values of Indian culture.It achieved almost a totalself-reliance in all its basicneeds – health, food, education,recreation and creativity. Thevillage in India could thusfunction independently, withoutany help from the state. This isthe village we have lost.Thirdly, Tagore argues that thegenius of the Indian civilizationembedded in the community lifeof the village lies in ‘its abilityto harmonize the disparate’. Heexplained it in great detail in‘Bharatbarshe ltihaser Dhara’,INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 76 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 77

or ‘The Course of History inIndia’ (Prabasi, 1319 B.S.,Baishakh: 423-451), and in otheressays, where he insisted thatIndian history, had achievedan ideal synthesis of diverseelements at all levels of humanexperience (‘it is a perpetualprocess of reconciliation ofcontradictions’, he said). Thus,his idea of nation-buildingmust be understood in terms ofinclusion, and not in terms ofexclusion.Implicit in these issues is Tagore’sfirm belief that the village is thecentre of Indian culture – whichwe have lost in the courseof time, and which needs tobe retrieved and resurrected.And that alone could bringus independence. Followingthe idea of Mahatma Gandhi(1869-1948), he says this shouldbe done through an absolutecommitment to the cultivationof love and neighbourliness,restraint and sacrifice, self-helpand hard labour – that isthrough the full organizationof atmashakti. However, eventhough Tagore does not endorsethe role of modern technologyin reconstructing the village,he does accept the logic ofliberal-democratic organizationas is evident from a detailedconstitution he drafted for‘Swadeshi Samaj’ and fromhis appeal to the people toelect a leader for the proposedorganization.It is worth noting at thispoint that Tagore’s “SwadeshiSamaj” (1904), in some of itsbasic postulates, anticipatesGandhi’s ‘Swaraj’ conceivedin Hind Swaraj written in1909. In his emphasis on thevalues of poverty, suffering,restraint and sacrifice and hisidealization of the rural life,Tagore at this period comesquite close to Mahatma’s ideaof nation-building. For bothof them, ‘Swaraj’ in the finalanalysis ceases to be a politicalprogramme. It was an alternativeway of living. But we shouldalso note a difference. Tagoredid not believe in ‘enlightenedanarchy’ as Gandhi did (ThePenguin Gandhi Reader,New Delhi, 1993:79). That iswhy Tagore does not rejectthe concept of that state in“Swadeshi Samaj”; he onlyrefuses to recognize it as thedetermining agency in the life ofcommunity. To put it differently,for Tagore, the state and thecommunity are not competingcategories; they are, in the bestof times, complementary.The divergence betweenthe views of the Poet andthe Mahatma widens in thedecades after the First WorldWar. Tagore’s first clear noteof dissent from Gandhi’sconcept of ‘Swaraj’ was struckin a long rejoinder from thePoet to the Mahatma. At onestage, Tagore says: “Buildingof Swaraj involves an elaboratetheoretical frame work, itsprocess is intricate and lengthy.It needs emotion and aspirationbut it also needs empiricalresearch and rational thinkingin equal measure. In buildingthe nation, we require theeconomists to apply their minds,engineers to use their skill andthe educationists and politicalscientists to play their respectiveroles” (Translated). The argumentis frankly statist, its logic issuingstraight from the epistemologyof the European Enlightenmentbecause Tagore never deniedthe importance of the state, nordid he discard the legacy ofthe European Enlightenment.During the Gitanjali phase (1904onwards), Tagore seems to havecome quite close to erasingthe gap between the naturalorder and the moral order – apostulate Gandhi believed in allhis life. However, in the 20s andthe 30s, Tagore seems to haverevised his earlier Spinozisticposition in favour of Kantiancritique of practical reason,separate the moral order fromthe natural order.Tagore with Rashbehari Bose in Japan, 1929What, finally, then is Tagore’sidea of Swaraj? In the postwardecades, the poet wasincreasingly moving towards aconcept of internationalism asthe basis of a true nation. Hesaid in a letter to C.F. Andrews(1871-1940) in May, 1921: “I feelthat the true India is an ideaand not a mere geographicalfact… the idea of India is againstthe intense consciousness ofthe separateness of ones’s ownpeople from others, and whichinevitably leads to ceaselessconflicts. Therefore my oneprayer is: let India stand forthe co-operation of all peoplesof the world. The spirit ofrejection finds its support in theconsciousness of separateness,the spirit of acceptance in theconsciousness of unity”.I submit that Tagore’s ideaof Swaraj finally rests in avision of a liberal-democraticrepresentationalorganizationhaving a minimal contact withthe state power – which willnot resist the tenets of scientificrationality and the use ofadmissible technology. Thisorganization, however, mustdevote itself to the strenuoustask of reconstructing the villageas the centre of Indian culture.As he has been repeatedlysaying, we must win our Swaraj‘not from some foreigner, butfrom our own inertia, ourown indifference’. This Swaraj(or ‘self-governance’) – call itSwadeshi Samaj (‘Self-governedsociety’) – will function byinclusion in the sense that itmust be open to the world. Didnot Gandhi talk about moreor less the same kind of vision(except of course the questionof the state and the intrusionof technology) in a letter toJawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964)in 1945? The letter read: “Youwill not be able to understandme if you think that I am talkingabout the villages of today.My ideal village still existsonly in my imagination … Inthis village of my dreams thevillager will not be dull – he willbe all awareness … Men andwomen will live in freedom,prepared to face the wholeworld” (Raghaban lyer, ed., TheMoral and Political Writings ofMahatma Gandhi, New Delhi,1986: vol. I: 286).◆The author is a renowned Tagore scholarhaving edited and published several workson the poet. He has also taught Englishliterature at Visva Bharati.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 78 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 79

Rabindranath’sRole inWomen’s EmancipationKATHLEEN M. O’CONNELLRabindranath’s role in the liberation of Bengali women wasa seminal one. Initially, he exposed the plight of women andargued for their autonomy through his letters, short stories,and essays. Through his novels, he was able to construct newand vital female role models to inspire a new generation ofBengali women. Later, by his act of admitting females intohis Santiniketan school, he became an innovative pioneerin coeducation.The Jorasanko Tagorefamily played a seminalrole in almost all theinnovative socio-culturalchanges that occurred in19 th century Bengal, andfemale emancipation was noexception. Dwarkanath Tagore(1794-1846), the grandfather ofRabindranath, was advocatingwomen’s education and socialreform regarding women asearly as 1842, following histrip to Europe. Rabindranath’sfather, Debendranath (1817-1905), though conservativeby nature, supported theBethune school for women’seducation, and permitted theparticipation of his daughtersand other female members ofthe family in various forms ofeducation and social work.This essay displays Tagore’s paintingsMost notable was the liberatingrole of Rabindranath’s brother,Satyendranath (1842-1923),whose wife Gnanadanandini(1851-1941) became a rolemodel for modern femalebehavior. Not only didGnanadanandini redesignBengali female dress to make itmore appropriate for travellingbeyond the antahpur (innercourtyard) she contributedarticles on female educationaland social reform to severaljournals and travelled toEngland with her three childrenwithout the accompaniment ofher husband. Rabindranath thusgrew up in a household wherethe norms concerning womenwere changing rather rapidly.Rabindranath made his firsttrip to England in 1878, at theage of 17, and some of hisINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 81

earliest statements regardingthe need for Bengali women’sindependence come in a seriesof letters written to his family.After attending a party whereBritish men and women mixedfreely, Tagore wrote a lettercontrasting the free mixing thatoccurred between men andwomen in England and theisolation of Bengali women,who were confined to purdahand separated from the outsideworld. Wrote Rabindranath:It is only natural that men andwomen should seek amusementtogether. Women are a part of thehuman race and God has createdthem as part of society. To considerthe enjoyment of free mixingbetween people to be a cardinalsin, to be unsociable and to turnit into a sensational matter is notonly abnormal, it is unsocial, andtherefore in a sense uncivilized.Men are engrossed in all mannerof amusement in the outsideworld, while women are like theirprivately owned tamed animals,chained docilely to the walls of theinnermost chambers of the houses.(Rabindranath Tagore, Letters froma Sojourner in Europe, ed. SupriyaRoy, Visva-Bharati, 2008: 88).In response to criticism ofthis letter, which had beenpublished in Bharati, thenedited by his older brotherDwijendranath (1840-1926), hewrote:The Editor has said that keepingwomen in purdah is not anoutcome of the selfishness ofmen, it is but a natural outcomeof the demands that the duties ofhouseholding place on one. Thisis a very old excuse providedby those against liberation ofwomen; but I feel that it need notbe pointed out that to considerthe practice normal to enter intopurdah, surrounded by walls forthe rest of one’s lifetime, severingall contacts with the rest of theworld, is in itself very abnormal(ibid, p.100).Following his return to India,Tagore was put in chargeof the family estates in EastBengal. There, for the first time,Rabindranath had an extendedexposure to rural society andto the sufferings of rural peoplein general and rural women inparticular. This was the periodwhen many of his short storieswere written and we find himportraying the plight of orphansand widows such as Ratan inthe ‘Postmaster’ and Kusum in‘Ghater Katha’ (‘The Tale ofthe Ghat’) or the abuses of thedowry system and child-wivesas illustrated by the abuse ofNirupama in ‘Dena Paona’(‘Profit and Loss’), as well as therepression of female learningportrayed through the characterof Uma in Khata (‘ExerciseBook’). Rabindranath’s mostradical short story ‘Strirpatra’(‘A Wife’s Letter’) came later.Here the transformation of itsmain female character Mrinal– an upper caste woman – isportrayed, from submissivewife to autonomous individual.Mrinal chooses to live apartfrom the joint family as aresult of the oppressivenessto a female relative that shewitnessed within the family.It should be noted thatRabindranath also encouragedfemale writers, and as a resultof his encouragement, thefeminist writings of Sarat KumariChaudhurani (1861-1920) werepublished in such journals asSadhana and Bharati.When Rabindranath started hisschool in Santinketan in 1901,he had wanted to include girlsas well, but it did not provepractical until 1909, when afurther blow to the traditionalimage of the Brahmacharyashramoccurred with the admission ofwomen. 1 The first six girls – who1 Both P.K. Mukhopadhyay and HimangshuMukherjee put the opening of the girl’s schoolin 1908, but Amita Sen, who lived in the ashramduring this period, gives it as 1909.had close associations with theashram – were boarded in oneof the cottages, where they werelooked after by Ajit Chakravarti’smother and Mohit Chandra Sen’swife Susheela. What made theexperiment so radical was thatthe girls were not put in separateclasses but rather joined the boysin classes, sports and mandirservices. Further impetus for thewomen’s program came whenRathindranath was married tothe talented Pratima Devi (1863-1969) in 1910, and she begantaking a prominent role in theashram activities, particularly indrama and the arts.Rabindranath continued hisexploration of the femalepsyche in his writings. Thepublication of his novelGora was significant for itsdelineation of young femalecharacters and the manner inwhich they interacted withthe society around them. Suchcharacters as Lolita, Sucharitaand Anandamayee are shownin the process of shapingnew identities and personalautonomy as they developedalternate ways of interactionwith men and society. Thedevelopment of such vitalcharacters signalled theINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 82 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 83

potential for a new identity thatRabindrana th upheld for thefemale students at Santiniketan.The novel’s charac terstranscended the stereotypesof their sex, caste and race topartici pate in a broader socialvision, becoming role modelsfor a new generation of Bengaliwomen.In his educational essays also,Rabindranath began addressingthe issue of women’s education.His essay Strishiksha (‘FemaleEducation’), which was initiallypublished in the journal SabujPatra and later translated as‘The Education of Women’in August 1915, states in nouncertain terms that thereshould be equality in education:Whatever is worth knowing, isknowledge. It should be knownequally by men and women – notfor the sake of practical utility,but for the sake of knowing…thedesire to know is the law of humannature. (Shiksha, 1351, B.S. ed,vol I, 181).This was not to say, however,that there should be nodistinction in education:Knowledge has two departments:one, pure knowledge; the other,utilitarian knowledge. In the fieldof pure knowledge, there is nodistinction between men andwomen; distinction exists in thesphere of practical utility. Womenshould acquire pure knowledgefor becoming a mature being, andutilitarian knowledge for becomingtrue women (ibid, p.183).As Santiniketan expanded toinclude women as students andvillage welfare as an objective,curriculum innovations wererequired. These often tookplace through extra-curricularactivities such as the 1910drama Lakshmir Puja, whichwas staged and performed byfemale students. Tagore broughtin dance teachers from Benaresto train the girls and when theyleft, he personally taught them.With the foundation of Visva-Bharati, a residence known as‘Nari-Bhavan’ began attractingfemale students from India andabroad. The girls participatedin all the academic departmentswith virtually the same coursesas the male students. Inaddition, they also receivedspecial classes in cookingand kitchen work from anAmerican nurse, GretchenGreen, who was attached toSriniketan. Along with thegeneral social and culturalactivities of the institution, thegirls organized their own clubs,societies and organizations.Rabindranath believed in aholistic education, and the girlswere encouraged to participatein physical education as well.They engaged in games, sports,hikes and excursion, and eventhe athletics of self-defensesuch as lathi play and ju-jitsu.In Sriniketan, Dhirananda Roy(1902-1971), a former student,organized the Brati-Balakas/Brati-Balikas (literally boys and girlswho have taken a vow), a grouppatterned after the boy scouts/girl guides and the American 4-Hmovement. Their co-educationalwork helped the village childrendevelop various practical skillsand overcome caste prejudicesthrough group participation.We can, therefore, concludethat Rabindranath’s role in theliberation of Bengali womenwas a seminal one. Initially, heexposed the plight of womenand argued for their autonomythrough his letters, short stories,and essays. Through his novels,he was able to construct newand vital female role modelsto inspire a new generation ofBengali women. Later, by hisact of admitting females into hisSantiniketan school, he becamean innovative pioneer incoeducation. Not satisfied withimitating existing educationalmodels, Tagore set out to createan alternative model of learningthat was based on the educationof the whole personality,whether male or female. It ishard to overestimate the socialchange that resulted throughRabindranath’s writings and hisencouragement of women’sparticipation in academicevents, sports, dance andcreative expression.◆The author conducts courses on SouthAsia at New College, University of Toronto,Canada. Her research interests includeRabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray; andBengali cultural and literary history.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 84 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 85

Tagore andRural ReconstructionUMA DASGUPTA“If we could free even one village from the shacklesof helplessness and ignorance, an ideal for the wholeof India would be established… Let a few villages berebuilt in this way, and I shall say they are my India.”– TagoreNot many would imagine or know that the poet RabindranathTagore worked for rural reconstruction in the surroundingvillages of his Santiniketan school and Visva-Bharatiuniversity in rural southern Bengal. He founded the Santiniketanschool in 1901 and Visva-Bharati in 1921. Along with Visva-Bharati,an institute of rural reconstruction was established in 1922and named Sriniketan. The work of rural reconstruction was apioneering endeavour to redeem the neglected village. The urgeTagore with Leonard Elmhirstcame to Tagore when he firstwent to live in his family’sagricultural estates in EastBengal, as estate manager inthe 1890s. This was his firstexposure to the rural world.He was then thirty, already apoet of fame, and had till thenlived only in Calcutta. As estatemanager he stayed in Silaidah inNadia district, on the banks ofthe mighty river Padma, and hiswork as zamindar is on recordin the District Gazetteers of theperiod. This rural experiencewas seminal to turning the poetinto a humanist and a man ofaction. He wrote:I endeavoured all the time I was inthe country to get to know it downto the smallest detail. The needs ofmy work took me on long distancesfrom village to village, from SilaidahOld Sriniketan farmto Patisar, by rivers, large and small,and across beels (meaning ‘bayou’,or ‘marshy water-ways’) and inthis way I saw all sides of villagelife. I was filled with eagernessto understand the villagers dailyroutine and the varied pageant oftheir lives… Gradually the sorrowand poverty of the villagers becameclear to me, and I began to growrestless to do something about it.It seemed to me a very shamefulthing that I should spend my daysas a landlord, concerned only withmoney-making and engrossedwith my own profit and loss(Tagore, ‘The History and Idealsof Sriniketan’, The Modern Review,Calcutta, November 1941:.433).As a pragmatist he knew therewas not a lot he could dowith his meagre resources asan individual considering theenormity of the need. But hewas determined to at least makea beginning with the work.He had two stated objectives,to educate the villager inself-reliance and to bringback to the villages ‘life in itscompleteness’ with ‘music andreadings from the epics as inthe ‘past’. He declared he wouldbe content if that could be donerealistically only in ‘one or twovillages’. He wrote:If we could free even one villagefrom the shackles of helplessnessand ignorance, an ideal forthe whole of India would beestablished…Let a few villages berebuilt in this way, and I shall saythey are my India. That is the wayto discover the true India.– (Tagore, ‘City and Village’, inTowards Universal Man, Reprint,Bombay: Asia Publishing House,1967, p.322).Community life in the Indianvillages was seen to breakINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 86 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 87

for the first time with theemergence of the professionalclasses among the EnglisheducatedIndian elite. Thecity began to attract Indiansaway from the villages. Lettingthe government take overguardianship of the people, thisprofessional class relinquishedtheir own traditional dutiesto society. The result was awidening gap between cityand village. Tagore soughtto bridge the gap throughthe Sriniketan experiment ofcombining science and tradition.He knew that a civilizationthat comprises of only villagelife could not be sustained.‘Rustic’ was a synonym for the‘mind’s narrowness’, he wrote.In modern times the city hadbecome the repository of newknowledge. It was essential,therefore, for the village tocooperate with the city inaccessing this new knowledge.One such vital area of expertisewas in agriculture. His study of‘other agricultural countries’ hadshown Tagore that land in thosecountries was made to yieldtwice or thrice the harvest bythe use of science. In Sriniketan,as in his family’s agriculturalestates earlier, he endeavouredto introduce the latesttechniques of Western scienceto improve cultivation andagricultural production. In 1906he sent his son Rathindranathand son-in-law NagendranathGanguli (1889-1954) and afriend’s son, Santosh ChandraMajumdar (1886-1926), to theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana,USA, to study agriculture anddairy farming so that theycould bring back scientificmethods of agriculture to theIndian village. They returnedwith their degrees in 1909-10and dedicated themselves tothe Sriniketan scheme of ruralreconstruction. Tagore wrote:If we can possess the science thatgives power to this age, we may yetwin, we may yet live.The Sriniketan scheme wasto organise the villages sothat they could supply alltheir needs on a cooperativebasis. Tagore believed thatthe villagers, when trained inself-reliance, could establishand maintain their own schoolsand granaries, banks andcooperative stores. He hopedthat those ties of cooperationwould bring unity to the peopleand free them from dependenceon the city and the government.He insisted that Indians mustunite themselves to providenation-building services. Thiswas one of the pillars on whichhis dissent with the NationalistMovement over swadeshiand swaraj was founded. Hechose the path of ‘constructiveswadeshi’ as something moreurgent than swaraj.That was the change he soughtto bring to the Indian village.By change he meant, firstof all, a change of attitude.In reconstructing societyurban Indians had to givethe village its due respectby recognising the skills thatthey could contribute. Thisthinking was reflected in thenew and alternative educationof Visva-Bharati University bycombining the knowledge givenin the class-room with hands-onactivity and experience fromoutside the class-room. Tagorehoped this would serve atleast as an ideal for the wholecountry.If we take the goal of selfrelianceas a basic premisein Tagore’s scheme of ruralreconstruction, it wouldbe easier to distinguish theSriniketan endeavour fromthe nationalist and economicthinking of its day. Tagore’sresponse was to work directlywith the peasants even ifthat meant working on alimited scale with only one orAn open air class at Sriniketantwo villages. He was criticalof the fact that the IndianNational Congress had no such‘constructive’ programme evenwith being concerned over thepeasant question. Tagore arguedthat the national congress onlyclamours for political grievancesand for jobs for Indians in thegovernment. As early as 1910he wrote of his disillusionmentwith the nationalists to his sonRathindranath who was thenbeing groomed for the villagework:A deep despair now pervades rurallife all over our country, so muchso that high-sounding phrases likehome rule, autonomy etc appearto me almost ridiculous and I feelashamed even to utter them.– (Tagore to Rathindranath, 7 April1910, Bengali Letters, File: TagoreRathindranath, Rabindra BhavanaArchives, Visva-Bharati University.Trs. Uma Das Gupta).By 1910, when he wrote thatletter, he came to the conclusionthat working for a ‘national’programme was useless solong as the Indian elite weredivided, so long as there wasa conflict of vested interestsamong them. His remedy wasto personally identify youngeducated volunteers who wouldwillingly dedicate themselvesto living and working in thevillages without publicity orloud announcements. Theirjob would be to enlist thecooperation of the villagers tostart the work of constructingroads, schools, water reservoirs,sanitation, to improveagricultural production, also tocreate new folk music, all thisto bring about a ‘new objective’to village life. He had enlistedhis son and son-in-law asvolunteers for the future.In 1912 he bought twentybighas of land along with ahouse which stood on that plotof land just two miles west ofSantiniketan in the village calledSurul. This place was namedSriniketan and its work wascarried out through the Instituteof Rural Reconstruction from1922. In the course of the nexttwo decades the Institute’s workwas extended to twenty-twovillages, starting from just ‘oneor two’ that we have mentionedabove.◆The author is an eminent Tagore andLibrary & Information Sciences specialistand editor of many volumes on Tagore. Shehas also worked as the Special Officer atRabindra Bhavana, Visva-Bharati.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 88 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 89

TAGORE AND HIS TIMES:THE IDEA OF ASIASUGATA BOSEThe idea of Asia and the spirit of Asian universalism werein important ways products of cosmopolitan thought zonescreated by passages across the Indian Ocean. RabindranathTagore’s direct encounter with the power and scale of art inJapan, Burma and China led him to urge Indian artists tolook east in order to pioneer a fresh departure.Ahistorical transformationis under way in the earlytwenty-first century asAsia recovers the global positionit had lost in the late eighteenthcentury. Yet the idea of Asia anda spirit of Asian universalismwere alive and articulatedduring the period of Europeanimperial domination. One ofthe most creative exponents ofan Asia-sense was RabindranathTagore (1861-1941) who wonthe Nobel Prize for Literature in1913. Tagore traveled to Japan,China, Southeast Asia, Iranand Iraq in the early twentiethcentury forging powerfulconnections across Asia.In my book A HundredHorizons: The Indian Ocean inthe Age of Global Empire (2006;Cambridge) I had claimedthat ‘Tagore was an eloquentproponent of a universalistaspiration, albeit a universalismwith a difference’. This specificclaim was part of a largercontention that modern historycould be interpreted – notwholly or in full measure,but very substantially – asan interplay of multiple andcompeting universalisms. Thecolonized did not simply erectdefensive walls around theirnotions of cultural difference.They were keen to be playersin broad arenas of cosmopolitanthought zones and wishedto contribute to the shapingof a global future. Theircosmopolitanism flowed notfrom the stratosphere of abstractreason, but from the fertileground of local knowledge andlearning in the vernacular.The Swadeshi cultural milieuof early twentieth-centuryIndia (‘Swadeshi’ standing fora political movement to attain‘Self-sufficiency’), despiteits interest in rejuvenatingindigenous traditions, was notwholly inward-looking; itsprotagonists were curious aboutTagore traveled to Japan (above), Persia(right above) and China (right) in the earlytwentieth century.innovations in different parts ofthe globe and felt comfortablewithin ever-widening concentriccircles of Bengali patriotism,Indian nationalism, and Asianuniversalism. Aspiring toreconcile a sense of nationalitywith a common humanity,they were not prepared to letcolonial borders constrict theirimaginations. The spirit of Asianuniversalism was brought toIndia by two turn-of-the-centuryideologues – Okakura Kakuzo(1862-1913) and Sister Nivedita(1867-1911).Okakura had been deeplyinfluenced in his early yearsby the Harvard scholar ofJapanese art, Ernest FranciscoFenollosa (1853-1908) – theCatalan American professorof philosophy and politicaleconomy at Tokyo ImperialUniversity, whose collectionof Japanese and Chinesepaintings he later catalogedfor the Boston Museum ofFine Arts. Okakura’s blend ofJapanese nationalism and Asianuniversalism was appealing asa potential model for Indianintellectuals and artists ofthe Swadeshi era. Okakurafirst came to India in 1902on the eve of the publicationof his book, The Ideals ofthe East, for which SisterNivedita, the Irish-born discipleof the Hindu sage SwamiVivekananda (1863-1902), wrotean introduction. Once SisterNivedita introduced Okakura tothe Tagore clan, a formidablecultural bridge was establishedbetween East and South Asia,and Japanese artists TaikanYokoyama (1868-1958) andShunso Hishida (1874-1911)soon followed Okakura’strail to Calcutta. By observingTaikan, Abanindranath Tagore(1871-1951) – the principal artistof the Bengal school – learnedthe Japanese wash technique,of which his famous paintingBharatmata (Mother India,1905) is a prominent example.Another of his paintings – Sageriding through mountains ona white horse is in the sametechnique.The Japanese brush-and-inkstyle was more deeply imbibedby Abanindranath’s brother,and nephew of Rabindranath-Gaganendranath Tagore(1867-1938). In Nandalal Bose’sINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 90 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 91

Bharatmata (Mother India), 1905 byAbanindranath Tagore.(1883-1966) early masterpieceSati (1907), a quintessentiallyIndian theme of selflesswomanhood emerged in thecolors and contours of theJapanese wash.Rabindranath Tagore’s directencounter with the power andscale of art in Japan during his1916 visit to that country ledhim to urge Indian artists to lookeast in order to pioneer a freshdeparture from the Swadeshicorpus of ideals. He crossedthe Pacific to the United Statesof America and delivered hiscritical lectures on nationalism.The poet’s entourage on histravels typically included asmall but formidable team ofintellectuals and artists. MukulDey (1895-1989) was theartist who had accompaniedRabindranath to Japan in1916; it would be the linguistSuniti Kumar Chattopadhyay(1890-1977) and painterSurendranath Kar’s (1892-1970)turn on a voyage to SoutheastAsia in 1927.On the 1924 journey to Burma,China and Japan, Tagore’s twocompanions from Santiniketanwere Nandalal Bose, thepainter, and Kshitimohan Sen(1880-1960), an erudite scholarof Sanskrit and comparativereligion. On this trip Tagorepreached the virtues of closeinteraction among Asiancultures. Stung by the passageof the Immigration Act of1924 (sometimes referred toas the Orientals ExclusionAct) in the United States,some of Tagore’s admirerseven established an AsiaticAssociation in Shanghai to fostersolidarity among all Asians.In Japan, Nandalal Bose hadthe privilege of being hostedby Tagore’s friend, the artistwho had visited India, Taikan,and he was introduced tomasterpieces of Japanese art.Developments in East Asiaduring the late 1930s had bythis time brought a measure ofdisillusionment with the ideaof Asia. Japan’s invasion ofChina in 1937 had shown Asiato be as prone to nationalistwars as Europe. In its October1937 issue the Modern Reviewcarried a long essay by SubhasChandra Bose titled ‘Japan’sSati, 1907 by Nandalal Bose. (Courtesy: National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi)Role in the Far East’. In someways it offered a remarkablydispassionate, realist analysisof power relations in East Asia.Towards the end of the article,however, Bose did not hesitateto reveal where his sympathieslay. Japan, he conceded had“done great things for herselfand for Asia”. He recalled howJapan had been a beacon ofinspiration for all of Asia at thedawn of the twentieth century.He welcomed Japan’s stanceagainst the Western imperialpowers. But, he asked, couldnot Japan’s aims be achieved“without Imperialism, withoutdismembering the ChineseRepublic, without humiliatinganother proud, cultured andancient race?” “No,” he replied,“with all our admiration forJapan, where such admirationis due, our whole heart goesout to China in her hour oftrial.” He then went on to drawsome ethical lessons for Indiafrom the conflict in East Asia.“Standing at the thresholdof a new era,” he wrote, “letIndia resolve to aspire afternational self-fulfillment inevery direction – but not at theexpense of other nations andnot through the bloody pathof self-aggrandisement andimperialism.”In the end Japanese artenabled the spirit of an Asianuniversalism to survive theera of Japanese nationalisticimperialism. After Indianindependence was achievedin 1947, Nandalal Bose beganto quietly and confidentlycelebrate the Indian countrysidein his art creatively drawing onthe Japanese sumie style.The idea of Asia and the spiritof Asian universalism were inimportant ways products ofcosmopolitan thought zonescreated by passages across theIndian Ocean. In this sense,the continent and the oceanwere not necessarily in anadversarial relationship butprovided different contours ofinter-regional arenas animatedby flows of ideas and culture.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 92 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 93

Benoy Kumar Sarkar, writingin the Modern Review in the1910s, stressed both sea-lanesand land-routes in creatingwhat he called an‘Asia-sense’.By the 1920s most contributorsto the same journal weremore enamored of the oceanicconnections that spread Indiancultural influences to SoutheastAsia. I have sought to make adistinction between two strandsof cultural imperialism and amore generous universalism thatshaped early twentieth-centurydiscourses on this subject.During the modern age it hasbeen a constant struggle not toallow universalist aspirationsof the colonized degenerateinto universalist boasts andcosmopolitanism be replacedby bigotry. The tussle goes onin new post-colonial settings.The outcome is yet uncertain,but the ethical choice before usseems clear enough.◆The author is Gardiner Professor of Historyat Harvard University, USA. The grandson ofSarat Chandra Bose, he has authored severalbooks on the economic, social and politicalhistory of modern South Asia.Tagore with the students at Karuizawa, JapanINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 94 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 95

Tagore:The Golden Bridgebetween Great Civilizationsof India and ChinaTAN CHUNGTagore acted as the golden bridge between two ancientcivilizations. He was in favour of a seamless worldwhere all barriers, including the political and thegeographic, must be obliterated to create a unitedmankind. He showed how following in the footsteps ofBuddhism, barriers could become pathways leading tolong-lasting friendship and mutual appreciation.“Geographical boundaries havelost their significance in themodern world. People of theworld have come closer. Wemust realize this and understandthat this closeness must befounded on love… the Eastand West must join hands inthe pursuit of truth.” The man,Rabindranath Tagore, whomade this observation, had hisintellectual realm encompassingSanskrit civilization, Englishculture, and Bengali folklore inaddition to family affinities withIslamic traditions and Persianliterature. He had also a Chinadimension in his universaloutlook as he said in Beijingin 1924: “I have been readingLeft: Tagore with Tan Yun Shan and familytranslations from some of yourbooks of poetry and I havebeen fascinated by something inthe quality of your literature…I have not seen anything likeit in any other literature that Iknow of.”Inspired by the Vedic mantra“yatra visvam bhavatiekanidam” (where the wholeworld meets in one nest),Tagore named the institutionhe founded at Santiniketan in1921 “Visva-Bharati”. This ideal,Tagore shared, in a letter, withthe Chinese writer, Xu Dishan(Su Ti-shan), who visitedSantiniketan in December 1920:“Let the illusion of geographicalbarriers disappear from at leastone place in India – let ourSantiniketan be that place.”INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 96 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 97

Chinese bird-chirping was heardfrom Tagore’s “world-in-onenest”ashram in 1921 whenProfessor Sylvain Levi arrivedfrom Paris and started teachingChinese to Prabodh ChandraBagchi who rose to becomemodern India’s first Sinologist.That was the time when Tagorewrote in Sikshar Milan or Unionof Cultures: “When the LordBuddha realized humanity ina grand synthesis of unity, hismessage went forth to China asa draught from the fountain ofimmortality.”Tagore traced the footstepsof Buddha’s messengers toChina in 1924 and proclaimedthere: “Let what seems to bea barrier become a path andlet us unite, not in spite of ourdifferences, but through them…Let all human races keep theirown personalities, and yet cometogether, not in a uniformitythat is dead, but in a unity thatis living.”Tagore longed for the creationof a department of Chinesestudies at Santiniketan, andextracted in his China visit(1924) promises of help thatdid not materialize. In 1928,a young Chinese scholar,Tan Yun-shan (my father),arrived in Visva-Bharati tostart Chinese language coursesand have lengthy discussionswith Kshitimohan Sen, one ofthe dons of Santiniketan whowas in Tagore’s China trip.Tan Yun-shan began to shuttlebetween China and Santiniketanin subsequent years, formedthe Sino-Indian Cultural Societyin Nanjing in 1933, enlistedsupport from influentialChinese leaders, like Dai Jitao(Tai Chi-t’ao), and eventuallyhelped Tagore build Cheena-Bhavana in 1937. Attractingimportant Chinese academia tointeract with Indian scholars,Cheena-Bhavana became thefirst foreign bird-nest at Visva-Bharati, and has remained,to this day, the symbol ofSino-Indian friendship andunderstanding.Tagore converted the Chineseinitiator, host, manager, guideand interpreter of his China trip,poet Xu Zhimo (Tsemou-Hsu),into the Bengalee “Susima”. XuZhimo, in turn, intimately calledTagore “Rubidadda”. TheseSino-Indian pals bade goodbyenot on the Chinese shorethat Tagore left behind, butonly after Tagore sailed backfrom his tour to Japan. When“Susima” asked “Rubidadda”at parting whether anythinghad been left behind, Tagorereplied with a touch of sadness:“Yes, my heart.” Eventually,Tagore went back to Chinain 1929 incognito to be theprivate guest of “Susima” andhis wife at Shanghai for acouple of days each way whenhe set out for Japan and theU.S.A. in mid-March as well asin his homeward journey inmid-June.Tagore also spent one of hismost enjoyable birthdays inBeijing in 1924, getting fromthe renowned Chinese politicalthinker and scholar, LiangQichao (Liang Chi Chao), theChinese name “Chu Chen-Tan/Zhu Zhendan” whichcleverly wrought the imageof “thunder of Oriental dawn”by synthesizing “Tianzhu/Heavenly India” (ancientChinese praise for India) and“Cinastan” (ancient Indianpraise for China). Liang wrotethe “Introduction” to Tagore’sTalks in China. That memorywas so indelible in Tagore thatmade him dictate, when hishand was too weak to hold thepen, his “Once I went to theland of China” poem on his lastbirthday:“A Chinese name I took,dressed in ChineseClothes.This I knew in my mindWherever I find my friend thereI am bornAnew.”When Tagore asked for theChinese name on Chinese soil,he told Liang: “I don’t know why,as soon as I arrived in China, Ifelt as though I was returning tomy native place. Maybe I wasan Indian monk in a previousCheena-Bhavana at Santiniketanlife, who stayed on a particularmountain, in a particular caveenjoying freedom.”Tagore inaugurated Cheena-Bhavana on the Bengali NewYear Day (14 April) in 1937, inthese words: “This is, indeed,a great day for me, a day longlooked for, when I should beable to redeem, on behalf ofour people, an ancient pledgeimplicit in our past, the pledgeto maintain the intercourse ofculture and friendship betweenour people and the people ofChina…”For many years Tagore wasvoted by Chinese publicINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 98 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 99

opinion as among 60 “mostinfluential foreigners” in shapingthe life of modern China, alongwith Marx, Engels, Nehru, etc.The Chinese remember Tagorefondly because his beingan Asian winning the NobelPrize of Western monopolywoke up the self-pride ofAsian peoples, becausehis advocacy of embracingWestern modernization whileconsciously developingEastern traditions of millennialsedimentation of sagacityand enlightenment, and alsobecause of his firm objectionto Japan’s aping the West. TheChinese have always likedTagore’s writings and songsfor the richness of love, hope,harmony, and humanness. A“Tagore fever” was created inChina in the 1920s, especiallyin the wake of his 1924visit. We see another rage of“Tagore fever” surging in Chinawith the universal celebrationof the 150 th birth anniversaryof Tagore.Tagore’s commentary inSikshar Milan likening modernWestern civilizations to “alocomotive… rushing on withits train, the driver left behindwringing his hands in despair”is highly relevant today aftereight decades. In the name of“development”, countries of theentire world are vying with oneanother in converting the fleshand soul of Mother Earth intothe so-called “wealth”, creatingBuddha – a sculpture by Ramkinkar Baej at Santiniketanan increasingly sick, immoraland uncouth humanity living inan increasingly rebellious andhostile environment. We seeTagore-like prophets runningbehind this mad train wringingtheir hands in despair. Wemust stop this mad train andput the driver of mankindto his seat. The best way ofcelebrating Tagore’s 150 th birthanniversary is to call upon thegreat civilizations like India andChina to lead the world out ofthis impasse.◆The author served at the University ofDelhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University.He was also a Professor-Consultant atthe Indira Gandhi National Centre forthe Arts in New Delhi. He was awarded‘Padma-Bhushan’ for his contribution toSino-Indian relations.Tagore’s Visit and its Impact onChina’s Literary WorldYIN XINAN“If all the land were turned to paper and all the seas turnedto ink, and all the forests into pens to write with, they wouldstill not suffice to describe the greatness of the guru.”– KabirRabindranath Tagore, who‘brought out the essenceof Eastern spirituality inhis poetry like no other poet’is revered as the greatest guruof modern India. Gurudev,as he is fondly referred toby his countrymen, had athorough knowledge and deepappreciation of the Chineseculture. On the one hand, heloved the Chinese culture somuch so that he always tookadvantage of his profoundknowledge of the Tang poetryand Tao Te Ching (Dao DeJing), compiled by Lao Tze (LaoZi, 6th century B.C.) one of themost famous sages of ancientChina, and quoted from themprofusely during his talks andspeeches. Tagore often showedhis regard for the glorioushistory and cultural traditionsof China, and was deeplysympathetic towards the countrywhich was being trampled uponby the colonialists at the time.On the other hand, he greatlyinfluenced the contemporaryliterature of China throughhis powerful writings. Bothhis literary works and socialactivities had a strong impact onthe Chinese literati and socialactivists of the time. Tagorewas viewed in those days as abridge of friendship betweenthe two countries.When Tagore won the NobelPrize in 1913, as the first Nobellaureate in Literature from Asia,his reputation spread across theHimalayas in a very short spanof time. Because of the longcultural relationship that existedbetween the two countries, theliterati in China were extremelyhappy to witness the greatachievements made by him. Asmore and more of his articlesbegan to appear in Chinesepublications, Tagore becamevery popular as a literary iconeven among the ordinaryChinese readers which, inturn, led to an upsurge in thedemand for his works. Thus,the conducive atmospherethat existed in China in theearly 1920’s paved the way forTagore’s visit to the country.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 100 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 101

In 1923, cultural celebrities,Mr. Hu Shi (1891-1962) andMr. Xu Zhimo (1897-1931), hadjointly founded a communitycalled “Xin Yue She” or the“Crescent Society”, namedafter Tagore’s famous work,The Crescent Moon. Most ofthe members of the “Xin Yue”community had travelled toEurope and America for higherstudies, and as a result, hada longing for democracy andfreedom which matched withTagore’s views on these subjects.Though Tagore had visitedseveral countries in Asia andEurope, and also the UnitedStates, he had never been toChina and was keen on visitingthe country. In 1923, twocultural celebrities of the time,Mr. Liang Qichao (1873-1929)and Mr. Hu Shi, invited Tagoreto deliver a speech at thePeking University.On March 21, 1924, Tagorebegan his journey from Kolkata(then, Calcutta) by sea. On April24, Tagore and his entouragearrived in Shanghai to a warmwelcome from the Institute ofLiterary Research and otherorganisations and individuals.The celebrities who werepresent to receive him includedTagore sailing for China, 1924famous writers, like Mr. ZhengZhenduo (1898-1958) andMr. Xu Zhimo. Tagore stayedin China for almost 50 daysand visited several importantplaces, like Beijing, Shanghai,Hangzhou, Nanjing, Jinan,Taiyuan and Wuhan. Besidesenjoying the scenic beauty ofChina, Tagore also gave someimportant speeches and hadseveral meaningful literaryexchanges in many cities. Thefriendship between the poetand his Chinese counterparts,and also his followers and fans,strengthened in a matter of fewdays, and it had a profoundinfluence on the culturalrelationship between the twocountries in the early twentiethcentury. An important culturallandmark was thus establishedin the mutual relationshipbetween the two countries.The speeches Tagore haddelivered in different partsof China were compiled andpublished in a book titled, Talksin China (1924). His speecheswere full of wisdom, zeal andenthusiasm. One of the keythrusts of his speeches was anappeal to commemorate thetraditional friendship betweenthe two countries and to rebuildand strengthen the good culturalbond that existed in the past.In his speeches, Tagore alsourged the people of the twocountries to undertake theduty of developing the orientalcivilisation and to fight thematerialistic influences of theWestern world. He believedTagore with friends in a boatthat if only China and Indiacooperated with each other, theoriental civilisation could bedeveloped further, which wouldthen be beneficial to the wholeworld.Many historians believe thathe was successful in achievingthe goal of his visit, i.e.,to ensure that the peopleof China and India wouldrebuild and strengthen theirtraditional friendship. He wasvery optimistic of the futurecooperation between the twocountries.A vast majority of the Chineseintellectuals welcomed Tagore’svisit to China and appreciatedhis speeches made duringthe visit. Cultural celebrities,Mr. Liang Qichao, Mr. LiangSuming (1893-1988), Mr. GuHongming (1857-1928) andMr. Hu Shi, among others,appreciated Tagore’s visit andhis speeches as they shared hisviews. Some others, however,welcomed Tagore’s ideas onlyfrom the literary perspective.It is also a fact that Tagore’sspeeches had elicited adifferent kind of reaction insome quarters in China at thetime. Some intellectuals, likeMr. Chen Duxiu (1879-1942),Mr. Qu Qiubai (1899-1935),Mr. Yan Bing (1896-1981),Mr. Yun Daiying (1895-1931)and Mr. Shen Zemin, who weredeeply influenced by Marxism,held a critical view of himwhich was later proved to bea kind of misunderstanding.However, the style of his poemsundoubtedly became immenselypopular and cast a great impacton the Chinese youth of thetime. No wonder, he was oftenreferred to as the “Guiding Lightof the East” by many of them.The year 1924 is history now.Both the countries havewitnessed the dawn of a newcentury. The seed sown byTagore in China has nowgrown into a giant tree. Aswe celebrate his one hundredand fiftieth birth anniversary,let’s hope that the friendshipbetween the peoples of thesetwo great ancient civilizationswill grow from strength tostrength.◆The author is Professor at the Faculty ofLiterature and Media, Sichuan University,Chengdu, China.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 102 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 103

Man at the Centre of UniverseTagore’s Ideas on Complete EducationUDAYA NARAYANA SINGHA set of four words here – aspiration, power, freedom andmoral communion, define how Tagore would like to placeman at the centre of his universe as he spelt out his ideason education.A painting by Rabindranath TagoreWhile talking about his childhood and educationRabindranath Tagore (1929) had once written: “I wasbrought up in an atmosphere of aspiration, aspirationfor the expansion of the human spirit. We in our home soughtfreedom of power in our language, freedom of imagination inour literature, freedom of soul in our religious creeds and thatof mind in our social environment. Such an opportunity hasgiven me confidence in the power of education which is one withlife and only which can give us real freedom, the highest that isINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 104 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 105

Tagore with the students of the Santiniketan schoolOpen air ambience of Santiniketan schoolclaimed for man, his freedomof moral communion in thehuman world....” (From ‘Idealsof Education’, Visva-BharatiQuarterly, April-July 73-74). Thefour highlighted words here– namely, aspiration, power,freedom and moral communion,define how Tagore would liketo place man at the centre ofhis universe as he spelt out hisideas on education.By the early 20 th century,by when western educationhad permeated into our livesin India, nobody seemed tohave thought about CompleteEducation which would providea learning opportunity wherethere is a communion betweenman and nature, betweenteacher and the taught, betweenliberal arts and the performingand fine arts, and where Manis at the centre of universe.That knowledge or skill alonewill not lead us anywhere ashuman beings, and that weneed something more thanthese came out beautifully ina statement of Einstein whenhe said: “Knowledge and skillsalone cannot lead humanityto a happy and dignified life.Humanity has every reason toplace the proclaimers of highmoral standards and valuesabove the discoverers of objectivetruth. What humanity owes topersonalities like Buddha, Moses,and Jesus ranks for me higherthan all the achievements ofthe inquiring and constructivemind.”To this list of ‘Great Minds’that Einstein (1879-1955) hadmentioned, I would like toadd Tagore – not just for hispoems, plays, stories, novels,songs, and paintings, but alsofor his philosophy and ideason nation-building – and histhoughts on ‘What makes mancomplete?’, and ‘How CreativeJoy’ as in Music, Painting,Sculpting or Writing go hand inhand with Applied Sciences?’While commenting on Tagore’sideas on education, O’Connell,K.M. (2003; ‘RabindranathTagore on Education’) argued:“Rather than studying nationalcultures for the wars won andcultural dominance imposed,he advocated a teaching systemthat analysed history andculture for the progress thathad been made in breakingdown social and religiousbarriers. Such an approachemphasized the innovations thathad been made in integratingindividuals of diversebackgrounds into a largerframework, and in devisingthe economic policies whichemphasized social justice andnarrowed the gap between richand poor.”While looking back at hisexperiment at Santiniketanwhen he was 80, Tagore toldus how he found a place for‘science’ in the scheme of thingshere (in ‘Atmacarita’): ‘OnceI had taken a vow to imparteducation, the creative field ofwhich was the poetic universeof the Supreme Creator, and soI had invoked the cooperationof the land, the water and thesky of this place. I wishedto place the penance forKnowledge on the pedestal ofJoy. I tried to inspire the youngstudents in the festive garden ofnature by singing the welcomesongs for each season…Here,right at the beginning wecreated a space for the mysteryof the origin of universe. Iwanted to create a space forthe intellectual in the totaland vibrant scheme of mine,which was why Science had aspecial position of privilege inour work-place. The Vedas tellus – ‘yasmadrite na siddhatiyajno, vipashcitashcana sadhiinam yogaminvati’ –‘One without whom even themost knowledgeable onescannot attain the fruit of theyajnas – One that is attainableonly with intellect and not bychants nor by magical rituals!’That was why I have tried touse both joy and intellect inthe creative construction ofthis place.’ (Translation bythis author).Notice that contrary to ourbelief, there is no talk of‘divinity’ or ‘supernatural’ here,which is very interesting. Tagorehere talks about bringing in acommunion between the forcesof ‘intellect’ – the sciences, andthe power of ‘joy’ – the arts. Allthrough, his argument is thatboth need to be ‘located’ withinthe space in which they needINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 106 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 107

to be reared and cultivated,and must address the issuesthat are the concern of manand the nature around him.That is why they must have thecooperation of the land, thewater and the sky of the spacearound, and be linked to thechange of seasons.That education did not mean‘rote’ learning, memorizationand reproduction is clear fromhis opening paragraphs of thebook titled Visva-Bharati: ‘Theeducation that encouragesrepetition is not the educationof the mind, because thatcan be taken care of evenmechanically!’ (Translation bythis author). Truly, mechanicalreproduction cannot be the aimof an educated aggregate as theideal education requires us todiscover or uncover the truth,and express that according toone’s own abilities. He talksabout constraints here as aparticular nation may havevarious constraints withinwhich one would be able toexpress a scientific truth or anobservation. Tagore is confidentthat India has always beenA ceremonial procession at Santiniketan. Indira Gandhi is seen (fourth from right) as a student of Visva-Bharati during 1934-35Mit freundl. Genehmg: Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust, New DelhiStudents of Patha-Bhavana with a visiting scholarat the forefront of crackingdifficult knowledge puzzles, andthinking about solutions to thecrisis of the world.But then, Tagore also lamentsthat when India had crackeddifficult problems of knowledge,it had a mental unity, butthat now it’s ‘mind’ has gotdivided in terms of caste, class,language and religion. Hewarns that disruption of one’sintellectual organ or snappingoff one’s sense-organs vis-à-visthe rest of the body can renderone useless or motionless,whereas it is a known factthat only when we join allten fingers that our hands canform a cup – either to offer‘anjali’ or to accept anythingthat is offered as a gift. It isnot surprising that he wouldinvite the best of European andAsian scholars in his universitywhile gathering some toweringpersonalities in his time asfaculty members under eachdiscipline. This facilitationof making them interact, hethought, would automaticallylead to new ideas and newknowledge.He, therefore, says that weneed to develop a systemthat draws from civilizationalhistories of ‘Vaidika’ (‘Vedic’),‘Pauranika’, ‘Bauddha’(‘Buddhist’), ‘Jaina’, ‘Muslim’(‘Islamic’) traditions ofeducation, and discover ourown pathways to prepare thenew generations and helpemerge men and women withappropriate leadership qualities.He says – if you do not knowyourself in detail and in aninvolved manner, you cannotbuild an ‘India’ by aping andcopying others. You can do soonly by learning to convergevarious traditions, or else – wecould at best build a secondratesystem that depends on‘transfer’ of knowledge andtechnology.Tagore had argued that inthe West, each country andits culture as well as societyhad found its own goals andobjectives based on whichthey had decided what kind ofeducation system was needed.But in our country, ratherthan the life or ‘jiivana’, itis the livelihood or ‘jiivikaa’that assumed the prime placein education planning. Whilelivelihood or employmentrelated to what we lacked andwhat we needed (‘abhaava’and ‘prayojana’) , the aim oflife is much higher – it seeks toachieve a fullness, a completion– a kind of semantic that ismuch higher than mundaneaspects of employability,which would be achieved anyway as we go along the truepath of education. To thatextent, we must differentiatebetween the “higher” aim,i.e. liberty, freedom, civility– and “lower”, or “incidental”aim – employability, skill andtechnical capability (Visva-Bharati, 1919). In Tagore’sscheme of things, therefore, itwas always the case that manand emancipation of the humanbeing occupied his centralconcern.◆The author holds the Tagore Studies Chairand is the Director of Rabindra Bhavanaat Visva-Bharati. An eminent poet andplayright, he was the Director of the CentralInstitute of Indian Languages at Mysore.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 108 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 109

Tagore andTechnical EducationB.N. PATNAIKThere is no place for competition in education.Education must lead to an understanding of theunderlying harmony in the universe; thus it woulddiscourage a perspective that sees things in conflict – forexample, humans in conflict with nature, or in conflictwith another species.Tagore did not seeeducation as merely ameans to a career anda comfortable livelihood; hesaw it as a means to the fullunfolding of the potential –intellectual, emotional, andspiritual, and physical – ofan individual. There is, then,no place for competition ineducation. Education mustlead to an understanding ofthe underlying harmony inthe universe; thus it woulddiscourage a perspective thatsees things in conflict – forexample, humans in conflictwith nature, or in conflict withanother species. The great poetand thinker was intensely awareof the destructive potential ofknowledge, not grounded onsuch an integrative perspective.Education must not onlysharpen the aesthetic sensibilityof a person, and sensitizehim to the expressed and thehidden beauty of things, itmust also develop in him astrong sense of relatedness toothers, and of empathy for thedeprived, the disadvantaged,and the voiceless. It must notlead to dissociation betweenthe learner and the tradition ofknowledge and value system towhich he belongs. At the sametime it must equip him with acritical intelligence to evaluatethat tradition. Tagore believedthat learning is possible underconditions of joy; therefore theclassroom must not be a prisoncell, and a foreign languagecould hardly be the mediumof education. He believed thata good educational systemmust benefit all sections ofthe society; the farmer and thepotter must gain from it (in,for instance, the form of usefultechnology), as those aspiring tobe bureaucrats and doctors. Asfor exploration of knowledge,education must not ignore thelocal and the indigenous.One might suggest thatthese are too idealistic to besuccessfully translated intoreality. One might argue, forexample, that it is neitherpossible nor desirable to rejectcompetition and conflict,because these contribute tothe growth of knowledge. Thisof course is more evident incertain knowledge domains,for instance, the sciences,than in others, like the arts.But this argument loses forcein the personal context ofan individual practitioner ofscience. In any case, there canhardly be a justification fornot trying to implement ideals.Looking at this from a differentperspective, Tagore’s thoughtscan be viewed as constitutinga benchmark for education,and at the same time, a kindof measure for evaluatingeducation.What would be a Tagoreanview of technical education atthe higher level, with specificreference to our country? Hisideas on education need to betranslated into a set of goalsfor being directly relevant tothis domain. First, technicaleducation should significantlyincrease the students’ awarenessof the social, economic,Photographs in this essay show students’ acquiring skills in the early years of Sriniketanhistorical, and the larger culturalcontext in which technologydevelopment takes place, andscientific pursuits are carriedout – no pursuit of knowledge,whether purely aesthetic orscientific, takes place in avacuum. Secondly, a student ofscience and technology shouldbe broadly aware that thereexist other ways of cognizingthe world than the scientific;for instance, the imaginative,as manifest in works of art,and further that these modesof cognition are not inferiorto the scientific one. Thirdly,he must know that there aredomains of knowledge, suchINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 110 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 111

as ethics, which lie outside thescope of science, but for thatreason are not dispensable.Ethical sense is invaluable notjust for living a good life, butfor survival too. Fourthly, astudent of technology mustbe enabled to appreciate thatthe most valuable technologyis that which brings relief tothe labourer, and the farmer,and which helps the physicallychallenged in differentways to negotiate with theworld with relative ease.Development of text-to-speechand speech-to-text systems inthe local languages is a case inpoint.A conservative objection tosuch broad based technicaleducation has been that itwould reduce the quantumof technical knowledge tobe imparted to the students,and would thereby dilute thequality of technical education.This view is based on thewrong premise that technicaleducation serves a society bestwhen it delivers competenttechnical manpower. On thecontrary, from its educationalsystem, that does not excludetechnical education, a societyexpects knowledgeable,competent, balanced, sensitiveand empathetic personswho can provide it creative,constructive leadership. Yetanother conservative viewis that there is no need forhumanities and human sciencesINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 112 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 113

in the curriculum becauseone can acquire sufficientknowledge about society andculture from life itself. Butthe fact is that one does notacquire such knowledge directlyfrom experience; one needsconstructed knowledge tointerpret experience and renderit intelligible and learnable.Then again some maintain thatone does not learn values in auniversity classroom. Whereasthere is some truth in it, it mustbe recognized that university(and university-like institutions),whether general or technical,is the best place to criticallyinterrogate knowledge, beliefsand values, whether traditionalor modern, and develop aproper perspective on the same.However, some technicaleducation planners today areinclined to support broad basedtechnical education. But at thesame time there is a negativeattitude to arts and humansciences. So “broad-based” inmost cases has come to meaninclusion in the curriculumof courses such as Englishlanguage and communicationskills, industrial economics,organizational behaviour, andbusiness management. Theseare supposed to enable thestudent to negotiate with themarket effectively. Such acurriculum is broad based onlyin name; it actually defeatsthe purpose of broad basededucation – it is orientedtowards career and success, notthe development of a wellroundedpersonality. In fact, theultimate goal of broad-basededucation is to inculcate inthe student, recognition ofthe existence of and a healthyconcern for the other, respect forhim, and his beliefs and views,which may be diametricallyopposite to his own.It is extremely importantthat proper structures, atthe formal and non-formallevels both, are created forthe implementation of theTagorean ideas. In the presentsystem of higher education, theundergraduate level is wherebroad-based education canbe most meaningful. Aboutten to twelve percent of thecourses an undergraduate hasto do must be in humanitiesand social sciences, and thesemust be spread over the entireduration of the undergraduateprogramme, not concentrated inthe first two or three semesters.Courses on literature, linguistics,communication (knowledgeand skill oriented both) history,philosophy, art and psychology,sociology, economics, amongother human sciences, andtraditional Indian knowledgesystems, must be available forthe student to make his choice.He must be discouraged fromchoosing courses from just twoor three disciplines.At the level of technologydevelopment, application ofTagore’s ideas would meandeveloping, in our context,people-oriented technologiesfor maximal utilization of waterresource, harnessing naturalenergy resources to meet powerrequirements, road building,communication, disposal ofgarbage including electronicwaste, among others, and alsodeveloping innovative methodsand techniques of teachinglearning,including languagelearning, etc.But curriculum alone cannotserve the goals of broadbased education. Non-formalstructures need to be createdso that free and responsiblediscussion and debate arepossible on questions ofsignificance concerningvarious societal issues, notexcluding those of technologicalknowledge creation anddissemination.The main difficulty for theimplementation of such aTagorean model of technicaleducation is a certainsocietal mindset, formed bythe enormous success oftechnology, its ever increasingmarketability, and to a certaindegree at least to the specializednature of its discourse,which gives its practitioners“knowledge-power”. Such amindset tends to view otherkinds of knowledge as mereintellectual self-indulgence andluxury, therefore, dispensable.This needs to be corrected andtechnology pedagogists have animportant role here. One hopesthat they will not fail the societyin this respect.◆The author taught English and Linguistics atthe Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur,and has been a fellow of the Central Instituteof Indian Languages, Mysore.Gavandes Kollektion im Rabindra-BhavanaINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 114 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 115

Equal Music:Influence of Tagore on other PaintersINA PURIIn the words of the Poet, ‘What is rhythm? It is the movementgenerated and regulated by harmonious restriction. This isthe creative force in the hand of the artist. So long as wordsremain in uncadenced prose form, they do not give anylasting feeling of reality.Self-portrait by TagoreDistanced by time,geographical locale,personal histories, itcame as a surprise when thepainter in Manjit Bawa (1941-2008) spoke ever so often,of the deep spiritual kinshiphe shared with RabindranathTagore, a man he regardedas one of the most influentialforces in modern years. Wewere working in Dalhousieon Manjit’s memoirs and as hepainted, he spoke of his firstacquaintance with Tagore andhis art. For an artist it was butnatural that the young manshould get to learn about thegreat poet, musician, playwright,litterateur, philosopher, savantthrough his art. Manjit was amere adolescent then, growingup in an era brimming overwith optimism, when hediscovered quite by chance,the paintings of Tagore, at histeacher, Abani Sen’s (1905-1972)class. The surreal landscapesand intensely sensitive portraitsof women were to leave alasting impression on his mindthat time would only strengthen.He found himself deeply drawnto the brooding faces of womenespecially, their eyes darkenedwith inner turmoil and pain. Ashe read his poems and plays,and listened to his songs, hisreverence for Tagore deepened.As always, his life followed it’susual routine in Delhi, school,art classes, working on studiesfor his assignments, yet, in hissecret life, he could hear thesong of the bard encouraginghim to break away from themundane and follow his heart’schosen path. ‘Eklaa cholo rey...jodee tor daak shuney keyu naaaashey’ (‘Move ahead alone…even if no one comes listeningto your call!’) became Manjit’santhem, words he replayed inhis mind when he was facedwith hardship and strife.As one of midnight’s children,growing in the immediatedecade post-Swaraj (with thetrauma of partition), Manjit’sINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 116 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 117

Paintings by Tagore (above & right)childhood years were a collageof different experiences thatshaped his adult character.Their’s was a large familybut one that shared a warmand close bonding despitethe occasional financialupheaval. His older brotherwas instrumental in gettinghim started on art and to makesure he remained interestedset him interesting assignmentsthat included travel to placesof historic and archaeologicalsignificance. As Manjit cycledto destinations through thehinterland of the country, heoften read Tagore’s writings,during breaks. The cadmiumyellow mustard fields and fieryorange blossoms of ‘polash’would make their way to hiscanvas but so would be the beatand rhythm of tribals he wouldencounter en route. Long afterhis passing, I discovered hiscompanion of those journeys,in a torn and tattered volumewritten by RabindranathTagore called ‘What is Art?’(Kessinger Publications, 2005edn). Revisiting the pages, Ithought this must have been afavourite read, for the leaves ofthe pages were now frayed andbrittle. Holding it in my hand,I heard Manjit’s voice again ashe drew parallels between thetwo lives and journeys. Whilein distant Birbhum, in anotherage, Tagore paid his tribute tothe wandering minstrels, the‘baul’ through his work, so didManjit celebrate the Sufi saintsand poets. For both, it was themetaphysical aspect of the faiththat mattered, not any religiousconnotation. Interestingly,Sikhism was Manjit’s family’sreligion, Bramhoism, Tagore’sINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 118 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 119

and both eschewed ritualismand religious excesses.Iconographically, too, despitethe fact that Manjit was atrained artist and serigrapher,with years spent learning thetechnique in Delhi and London,there was a connectedness inthe trajectories that is hard todismiss. Like Tagore, Manjit’spainterly domain encompassedthe abstract and stylisedfigurative oeuvre that tooklittle from Western practises,choosing to espouse all thatwas Indian, in terms of colourpalette, imagery, and thoughtprocesses.The celebration ofpan-Indic mythology, ethos,music, poetry, spiritual thinkingis common to both and wefind in their paintings, somesimilar compositions that aresimilar only in their spiritualkinship. Some lives are livedand enriched by internalisingpain and here again wasanother sphere where the twojourneys coalesced. In bothlives were moments of immensepain and emotional turmoil,yet, both dealt with their darkdespair creatively, there wasseldom recrimination, on thecontrary, there was a lookingforward that was a statementof their intensely positiveattitude towards life, no matterhow hard the blow life hadWorks of Manjit Bawa (below & right)dealt them, be it the death ofa beloved child or separationfrom a loved one. Calm andfortitude marked their approachtowards life, showing a restraintthat was remarkable given thetragedies they had to encounteron more occasions than one.Deliberately opting to live inisolated places, Santiniketanin the case of Tagore andDalhousie in the instance ofManjit, their art reflected theirinner mindscapes that seldomused imagery from the worldaround, no matter how beautifulthat outer world was. Whiletheir techniques differed in somany senses, stylistically andtechnically as did their colourpalettes, both were bondedspiritually, no matter howasymmetrical one was andsymmetrical the other.About Bawa’s art, J Swaminathan(1928-1994) wrote, “There is acertain bonelessness, a pneumaticquality to Manjit’s figure whichechoes the tantric frescoes ofHimalayan Buddhism. Only theshadow of time intervenes: weare transported into a seeminglypastoral landscape, where thesublime and the risque, thelyrical and the grotesque setup a strange tableau... Whatis representational in Picassobecomes enigmatic, whatis demonstrative in Souzabecomes epileptic and what ispetrified in Tyeb becomes liquidand sparkling in Manjit.”In the words of the Poet,‘What is rhythm? It is themovement generated andregulated by harmoniousrestriction. This is the creativeforce in the hand of the artist.So long as words remain inuncadenced prose form, theydo not give any lasting feelingof reality. The moment theyare taken and put into rhythmthey vibrate with radiance. Itis the same with the rose. Inthe pulp of its petals you mayfind everything that went tomake the rose, but the rosewhich is maya (or illusion), animage, is lost; its finality whichhas the touch of the infinite isgone. The rose appears to meto be still, but because of itsmetre of composition it has alyric of movement within thatstillness, which is the same asthe dynamic quality of a picturethat has a perfect harmony.It produces a music in ourconsciousness by giving it aswing of motion synchronouswith its own.’(From Rabindranath Tagore, What is Art?).◆The author is a well-known art critic andcurator of many major international andnational exhibitions.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 120 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 121

Tagore:From the 21st Century Perspectiveconcrete effects of which tilltoday alter more than ever ourdaily lives.Rabindranath Tagore almost wasa voice in the desert, despitehis travels and his encounterswith many a great man inthe Occident and the wholeworld, where he was seen,often wrongly, as a typicalrepresentative of the Orient; justas back home in India, wherehe called for the necessity ofchange and evolution in hisown cultural, religious andpolitical context.After his meteoric rise followingthe Nobel Prize in 1913, hePunascha: Tagore’s house in Santiniketannearly sank into oblivion. Asimilar misfortune occurredwith Johann Sebastian Bach(1685-1750), to name only oneamong many, and he neededto be rediscovered. This seemsquite incomprehensible but atthe same time – is perfectlypossible, because this is whatoften happens to those who arevery original and innovative andwhose ideas are so fundamentalthat the mentalities of a giventime cannot receive themwithout a deep questioning ofits own values. As a reformerhe was hitting hard on ourchains and urging for changesinconceivable at that time.ILKE ANGELA MARÉCHALInhabitant of his time, advocating Unity and Universality,underlining the part of the Unconscious as well as theSubconscious, Tagore did not need to follow the phases andvagaries of the construction of the new science in orderto herald great truth by which the basic values of his owntradition had nourished him all along.At the turning point ofthe year two thousand,we entered into a newcentury. But essentially, aswe turned a page toward anew millennium that, in manyrespects, imposed on us radicalchanges in our ways of living;and more so: a revolution, inan unconscious manner, ofperceiving the world, of feelinglife and of how to envision ourfutures. And this prompted usto proceed, without noticingit, to change our mentalities, ifnot our consciousness. Seen inretrospect, Rabindranath Tagore,with the immense stature of hispoetry, literature and creativity,proved to be deeply rooted –even if it was in an unconsciousmanner, in his “Zeitgeist”, theacting principal of a time, whichgave birth to real upheaval, theINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 122 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 123

What were these mainupheavals of the time of Tagorethat made our world viewsstart to move? And whereis the concurrence with thecontribution of Tagore, thevalidity of which still surfacesmore and more? We can neitherbe exhaustive nor definitivehere but would like to providea glimpse of what could bea possible answer to thesequestions, attempted mainly inthe spirit of the joy of discovery.If the war of 1914-1918 is called“First World War”, it is becausenever before was there a warwhich had such a dimension.The ruptures and changes itprovoked on a sociologicaland anthropological levelwere unprecedented. On thenegative side, it certainly wasamong the forerunners of whattoday, a hundred years later,Tagore with Sigmund Freudwe call globalization, which isa different kind of ‘onslaught’.Like a volcano it has also ledto destruction on the surfaceof some deeply underlyingupheavals and ruptures. Atthe same time, irreparabledisruption took place in theprofoundness of all sections ofscience, soft or hard science,with philosophy being a vitallyaffected part. Let us namesome actors who brought ingreat changes earlier by wayof explanation: Darwin (1809-1882), Einstein (1879-1955),Marx (1818-1883), Freud (1856-1939), and the revolution theybrought about in each of theirfields turned everything upsidedown about a century ago.Then, the big voice of thundercame through the advent ofQuantum Physics. What beganthen was a series of questioningagainst what was believed to beknown. One could even see itas erasure of our normal day today logic, the logic of Aristotle,which is “the logic of Identity”!By then we already knew thatwhen the sun is rising in theeast and setting in the west, itdoes not mean it turns aroundus. From then on, everything,in fact all matters were no moretaken as what they appearedto be but it was believed thatthings had a double “identity”,‘particle’ as well as ‘wave’. The‘singular’ disappeared, and‘plural’ became the master.Here we could see a revolutionin our human knowledge. Ourperception of reality made aquantum jump. It obliged us torethink our manner of thinkingand acting, in short, to reviewour ‘Ethics’, and even more so– to finally invent an Ethic thatwas valid for all of us.It is here that RabindranathTagore plays his part. His partwas that of a forerunner, a roletoo rarely recognized. Amidsthis exchanges with the grandspirits of his time, certainly,there was that with Einstein,so we can see Tagore beingsomeone, like Dante (1265-1321) in his time, who wasperfectly informed about theadvance of science in his days.However, Einstein fought all hislife against Quantum Physicsbecause he could not admitthe dictate of the philosophicalimplications – thus the concretederiving from there – ofits findings. Tagore, on thecontrary, does not seem tomention anywhere about theshock of an encounter with thephilosophy of Quantum Physics.Nevertheless, if we go back tothe small list above, imaginingit to have been conceived byour “grand homme”, we willhave no problem whatsoeverto recognise him in eachpostulate’s new concept (e.g.the organic vision).Inhabitant of his time,advocating Unity andUniversality, underlining thepart of the Unconscious as wellas the Subconscious, Tagore didnot need to follow the phasesand vagaries of the constructionof the new science in order toherald great truth by which thebasic values of his own traditionhad nourished him all along:“We have in front of us the problemof one country; the Earth, wheredifferent races, like individuals,would have the faculty to freelybloom and at the same time showsolidarity to the federation. Whatmatters is to create a unity morepowerful, with broader views anddeeper feelings. …The scienceof meteorology knows the truthwhen it acknowledges that theINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 124 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 125

atmosphere of the earth is one andthe same, although it influencesthe different parties of the universein different manners. Likewisewe must know that man’s soulis One, coming to life throughdifferences necessary for the fertilityof its fundamental unity. Thistruth, as soon as we understandit disinterestedly, will help us torespect all the real differencesbetween men, while stayingconscious of our personality,while being aware of the fact thatperfection of unity does not consistin conformity but in harmony”.– (italics by the author). (TagoreEducateur: Appel en faveur d’uneUniversité Internationale, mai1921, p143/4; éditions Delachaux& Niestle S.A., Neuchâtel et Paris,1922).There would be so manysubjects, battles and keywordsassociated with Tagore forwhich to find in Our “Zeitgeist”parallels, evolutions, resonances– just as if times finally havecome where our mentalitieshave acquired the necessaryenlargement in order to, in thefuture, taking care seriouslyof the problematics andpossibilities of which Tagore,his ideas and acts, already hadmade us see the importanceas well as the inescapablesolutions.May these few notions whichfollow as examples openslightly a door which others willthen open widely. In TowardsUniversal Man (Gallimard,Paris, 1964 ; Visva Bharati,Santiniketan, 1961) manytimes we find elaborated this“Unity in diversity, the One inthe number” of which Tagorethinks it could be what India,as an example, has to offer tothe world. Nowadays Europegets down to it and maybetomorrow the whole world will.Our master, in the worst case,could be the “climate change”,if our wisdoms will not havebent our egoisms beforehand.Let’s listen again to Tagore:“… We must know: every nationis part of humanity and everybodyhas to answer this question: whatdo you have to offer to man, whichnew ways of happiness have youdiscovered? As soon as a nationloses the vital force necessary forthis discovery – it becomes a deadweight – a paralysed member of thebody of Universal Man. Simply toexist is not a glory.“It’s a law of life to destroy thatwhich is dead …it does not allowimmobility … This makes me saythat the main truth of our time arethese currents of a new life whichdrive us to act. …But at the bottomof the soul there is a tendencyto want to embellish humanitywith one’s own individuality asornament.“When man ceases to act out ofhis own will and is driven onlyby habit, he becomes a sort ofparasite, for he loses his means toaccomplish the task assigned tohim, which is to say ‘make possiblethat which seems impossible’ andfollow the road of progress, man’strue destiny.“Those who could not reach interiorindependence in themselves arebound to lose it also in the exteriorworld. They are not aware of man’strue function, namely to transformthe impossible into possiblethrough one’s own capacity to workmiracles and not to limit oneselfto that which was, but to progresstowards that which has to be.”These few citations simply aremeant to say: Let us go andlook for that what the visionaryin Tagore has to say to us today.His book “Sâdhanâ” (1913)is certainly to be kept amongour Bibles, just as the notionsthat follow are to be used asstepping stones:The Individual (and with it theindividuation dear to Carl GustavJung, 1875-1961), Spontaneity,Creativity, Independence,Cooperation, Power of Invention,Faculty of the Spirit of Universality,Evolution (even in religion), – allthese living and current concepts ofour era of “Yes we can” have beenmarvellously highlighted already byTagore.Stephane Hessel (1917-), whoparticipated in writing theUniversal Declaration ofHuman Rights in 1948, wouldlike to see the “Declarationof Independence” of Nationsbe complemented by a“Declaration of Interdependence”.Tagore, at his time, already wasits advocate. It is for us still tomake it come true.On the road which is ours, wefortunately are with companionsand are helped by the light offorerunners.◆The author is a poet, essayist, translatorand interpreter. She manages aninnovative publishing enterprise calledAnima Viva Lingua.‘Blessed am I that I am born to this land’:A Biographical Sketch of TagorePURBA BANERJEERabindranath Tagore’s life spanned over eight decades.Tagore started his carrier as a poet and turned out to be apowerful literati, educator, painter, social reformer and aphilosopher of his times.Rabindranath Tagore once expressed, “I am a shy individual broughtup in retirement from my young days. And yet my fate takes everyopportunity to drag me into a crowded publicity. I often wish that Ihad belonged to that noiseless age when artists took their delight in theirwork and forgot to publish their names. I feel painfully stupid when I amhandled by the multitude who by celebrating some particular period ofmy life indulge in their avidness of some sort of a crowd ritual which ismostly made of unreality.”Rabindranath Tagore’s eventful life was as diverse and fascinating as hisrich creative variety. Not only was he a poet, novelist, playwright, songwriter and painter, Tagore himself a famous school drop-out, went on tobecome an outstanding educator of his time. As part of his anti-colonialeducational experiments Rabindranath set up two unique schools, PathaBhavana and Siksha Satra and also an international university, Visva-Bharati at Santiniketan. This write-up seeks to offer a brief chronology ofTagore’s life.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 126 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 127

Sarada Devi1861: Rabindranath Tagorethe fourteenth child of hisparents Maharshi DebendranathTagore and Sarada Devi born atJorasanko, Calcutta on the 7 th ofMay.1863: Tagore’s father boughtseven acres of barren landfrom the zamindars of Raipur,Birbhum, West Bengal whichlater came to be known asSantiniketan.1873: Traveled to the WesternHimalayas with his father. Ontheir way to the DalhousieHills, Rabindranath stayed atSantiniketan for the first timewith the Maharshi. This iswhere he wrote his first dramaPrithvirajer Parajay (The Defeatof Prithviraj). Unfortunately nocopy of this work exists.1874: First publication ofhis poem Abhilasha inTattwabodhini Patrika.1875: Death of his mother.Recited his own patriotic poemMaharshi Debendranath Tagore‘Hindumelar Upohar’ (The giftof the Hindumela) at the HinduMela, which is considered to behis first public appearance.1878: Stayed with his elderbrother Satyendranath Tagorein Ahmedabad just before hisdeparture for his studies at theUniversity College of London asa student of Law.1879: First visit to London.1880: Returned to India withoutcompleting his formal course ofstudy. His first book SandhyaSangit (Evening Songs) waspublished.1881: Wrote his first musicaldrama Valmiki Pratibha.1883: Married to Mrinalini Devi.1884: Sister-in-law KadambariDevi committed suicide.1886: Birth of first child,Madhurilata.1890: Assigned the job ofmanaging the Tagore Estate atSilaidah (now in Bangladesh).1891: Birth of second daughterRenuka.1892: Advocated educationin mother tongue, rather thanin English. He criticized theprevalent system of Englisheducation in India in his essaySikhshar Herfer (Vagaries ofEducation).1894: Birth of youngestdaughter Mira. Elected Vice-President of Academy ofBengali Letters and became theeditor of Sadhana, the newfamily journal of the Tagorefamily.1895: He started a Swadeshistore in Calcutta for thepromotion of indigenous goodsand business among the youthof Bengal, and a jute-pressingfactory in Kushtia, the districtTagore with Mrinalini DeviTagore with daughter Madhurilata andson Rathindranathtown adjacent to their estate inEast Bengal.1896: Birth of youngest sonSamindranath.1898: Sedition Bill passed;arrest of Bal GangadharTilak; Tagore read his paperPadma boat at Silaidah (now in Bangladesh)Kantharodh (The Throttled) at apublic meeting in Calcutta.1899: Moved to Santiniketanwith his wife and children.1901: Revived Bankim ChandraChattopadhyay’s monthlyjournal, Bangadarshan.Established a schoolfor children called thebrahmacharyashrama on themodel of ancient Indian forestschool at Santiniketan withapproval of his father. Wrote thepoems of Naivedya.1902: Mrinalini Devi, his wife,died.1903: His second daughter,Renuka, expired.1903-1904: He started takingserious interest in the politicalproblems of the countryand wrote his seminal essay‘Swadeshi Samaj’ (Our State andSociety, 1904).1888: Birth of elder sonRathindranath.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 128 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 129

Mira: Tagore’s youngest daughter1905: His father, DebendranathTagore, died at the age of 88.Launch of the Swadeshi Andolan(Independence movement)protest against Lord Curzon’sproposal to partition Bengal.Tagore advocated the policy ofconstructive non-cooperationagainst the British Raj.Tagore at his house Punascha1907: Youngest son,Samindranath, died. Tagore,disillusioned over the politicalexploitation of the Hindu-Muslimconflict, withdrew himself fromthe swadeshi andolan.1908: Presided over the BengalProvincial Congress sessionin Pabna, East Bengal anddelivered his speech in Bengali,breaking away from thetradition of delivering speechesin English at these sessions.1910: Bengali Gitanjalipublished.1912: Met British painterWilliam Rothenstein in England.Rothenstein was instrumentalin arranging for the publicationof the English Gitanjali, withan introduction by W.B. Yeats,by the India Society of London.Visited USA for the first time.1913: Gitanjali, CrescentMoon, The Gardener andChitra published by Macmillan,London. Tagore was awardedthe Nobel Prize for Literature asthe first Asian recipient of theaward.1915: Received Knighthood. Hemet Gandhi for the first time atSantiniketan. Stayed in the Surulvillage near Santiniketan, andwrote his novel Ghare Baire(Home and the World).The Nobel MedallionYoungest son Samindranath1916: Traveled to the USA viaChina and Japan giving lectureson Nationalism.1918: Foundation stone ofVisva-Bharati, an internationaluniversity was laid.1919: Renounced hisKnighthood in protest of theJalianwalla Bagh Massacre,where an unarmed gatheringwas brutally shot by the BritishBrigadier-General, ReginaldDyer, killing nearly 1000 peopleand injuring more than 1500.1920: Left for England on alecture tour to raise funds forVisva-Bharati. During this triphe traveled to France, Hollandand America.1921: Visited England, France,Switzerland, Germany, Sweden,Austria and Czechoslovakia.1922: On February 6, theInstitute of Rural Reconstructionwas established in Sriniketanwith the participation fromRathindranath Tagore, LeonardElmhirst and William Pearson.1924: Visited China and Japan.Almost immediately afterreturning from this trip he sailedfor South America, particularlyfor Peru. However he fell ill andwas confined to Buenos Airesas the guest of Victoria Ocampowhere he engaged himself inthe art of doodling connectingthe accidental erasures in hiswritings which finally gave birthto his paintings.1924-1925: Began a politicaldebate with Gandhiji on theCharkha campaign whichinvited tremendous criticismGandhi – a sculptureby Ramkinkar Baej at Santiniketan.INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 130 INDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 131

from people like PrafullaChandra Ray and others forhis non-participation in it. Hereplied with an essay titled‘Swaraj Sadhan’ (AttainingSwaraj) where he arguedthe futility of the practice ofCharkha as a means to attainSwaraj.1925: Mahatma Gandhi visitedSantiniketan. Tagore turneddown his request to join hispolitical campaign.1926: Traveled to Italy as theguest of Mussolini, thoughhis choice was misguided byothers. Mussolini told him, “Iam an Italian admirer of yours,who has read every one ofyour books translated intothe Italian language”. He alsotraveled to Switzerland (wherehe met Romain Rolland),Austria, England, Norway,Sweden, Denmark, Germany(where he met Albert Einstein),Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria,Greece and Egypt.1927: Staged Natir Puja inCalcutta where he acted the roleof the Buddhist monk. Wentfor a trip to South East Asia,including, Myanmar, Singapore,Java, Bali, Malaya, and Siam.1928: Took up painting.1930: Made his eleventh foreigntour. Delivered the HibbertLectures in Oxford (publishedas the book Religion of Man).His solo exhibition of paintingwas held in France followed byother exhibitions in England,Germany, Switzerland, and USA.Tagore on his last birthday. Kshitimohan Sen reading Tagore’s essay: Crisis in CivilizationINDIA PERSPECTIVES VOL 24 NO. 2/2010 1321931: Letters from Russiapublished.1932: He led the massiveprotest meeting against theHijli Detention Camp shootingincident and condemned “theconcerted homicidal attack,under cover of darkness,on defenseless prisonersundergoing the system ofbarbaric incarceration anda nerve-racking strain of anindefinitely suspended fear”.Tagore had his last overseasvisits to Persia and Iraq.1937: Hall of Chinese Studies,or the Cheena Bhavana, wasinaugurated in Santiniketan.Tagore fell seriously ill.1938: Exhibition of his paintingsheld in London.1940: Oxford Universityconfered Doctorate on Tagorethrough a special convocationat Santiniketan. Tagore wrotea letter to Mahatma Gandhirequesting him to take charge ofVisva Bharati.1941: His final lecture, Crisis inCivilisation, written during theheydays of the Second WorldWar, was read on his eightiethbirthday at Santiniketan. He wastaken to Calcutta being seriouslyill on the 25th July fromSantiniketan. Tagore breathedhis last on the 7 th of August atthe age of eighty.◆The author has assisted in the setting upof the Maharshi Debendranath TagoreMemorial Museum at Santiniketan and ispresently engaged in research at RabindraBhawan.‘The Night has ended’: Illustrated poem with translation, Baghdad, 1932