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

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