REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

440
Remembrance in Time
September 1926. 8 Thanks to good Czech and German translations of his poetry, he was
popular among Czech as well as German speaking readers in Czechoslovakia. 9 The
Munich Agreement of 1938 was a dreadful experience for him. On October 15, 1938,
Tagore wrote a letter from India to his friend, the Prague indologist Vincenc Lesný
(1882–1953):
“I feel so keenly about the suffering of your people as if I was one of them.
For what has happened in your country is not a mere local misfortune which
may at the best claim our sympathy, it is a tragic revelation that the destiny
of all those principles of humanity for which the people of the West turned
martyrs for three centuries rests in the hands of cowardly guardians who are
selling it to save their own skins. […] I feel so humiliated and so helpless
when I contemplate all this, humiliated to see all the values, which have
given whatever worth modern civilisation has, betrayed one by one, and
helpless that we are powerless to prevent it. Our country is itself a victim of
these wrongs. My words have no power to stay the onslaught of these
maniacs, not even the power to arrest the desertion of those who erstwhile
pretended to be the saviours of humanity. I can only remind those who are
not yet wholly demented that when men turn beasts they sooner or later tear
each other.” 10
Not only Tagore, but also a prominent Indian politician knew Czechoslovakia from his
own experience: Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), the future first Prime Minister of
independent India. In his autobiography, Nehru too gave an insight of his personal
feelings after the Munich conference: “Munich was a shock hard to bear […]”, and he
went on:
“The challenge of fascism and Nazism was in essence the challenge of
imperialism. They were twin brothers, with this variation, that imperialism
functioned abroad in colonies and dependencies, while fascism and Nazism
functioned in the same way in the home country also. If freedom was to be
established in the world not only fascism and Nazism had to go but
imperialism had to be completely liquidated.” 11
Nehru knew what he was writing about. In the summer of 1938, he had been on a trip to
Europe, where his daughter Indira – the later Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (1917–
1984) – was then studying at Oxford University. In the summer and autumn of 1938,
8 Cf. Rabinadrát Tagore v Evropě, in: Národní listy, 22/06/1926.
9 Cf. Karel Hujer: U básníka Rabindranatha Tagore, in: Národní politika, 28/05/1935.
10 To Vincenc Lesny, in: Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore. Edited by Krishna Dutta and
Andrew Robinson, Cambridge–New York–Oakleigh 1997, p. 501.
11 Jawaharlal Nehru: An Autobiography. With Musings on recent events in India. New Edition
containing an additional chapter: Five Years Later, London 1945, p. 599 and 601.