Rabindranath Tagore – The Poet Misunderstood

For a long time the evaluation of Tagore was centred on the question,
whether and to which extent his work and ideas can be called
progressive. This was, and sometimes is, the imperative of the left in
particular. With a zeal to appropriate the greatest Indian literary
figure of our time, Tagore’s appreciation of the Soviet Union was
cited in abundance, it was claimed that in his later works he showed
an increased awareness of the social problems and the downtrodden
masses, and as the last and most important evidence, his lines from
the poem Oikatan were presented:

My verse, I know,
Has travelled diverse ways, but not everywhere.
And I strain to hear, that poet’s voice,
Who shares the peasant’s life,
And has earned true kinship,
Who touches the earth…

Yes, the notion of progress is a linear one, it is a sequence of
getting ever better, and Tagore was ever better in this sense. On the
other hand, we have the perception of his western admirers, who, - in
an utter confusion of the years between the two world wars – believed
to have found the mystic voice of deliverance in the works of this
divine, sage-look poet Gurudev. In 1912, we saw such an extatic phase
in Britain, in the early twenties in Germany. It did not last long.
Thanks god, or whatever, that it didn’t.

And then, we have the perception of the Nobel committee, which said in
its laudatory remarks:

He has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a
part of the literature of the West.

Was it the reason to decorate him with Nobel prize? A sheer
misunderstanding? In any case, looking at the list of Nobel Laureates
in literature till 1913, one can safely say that Rabindranath was the
first stalwart, with the exception of Kippling perhaps, whose works
are still admired in his language, as well as, in translation.

Universal is the word, that comes to mind, when one thinks about
Tagore. And yet, Universalism is a concept, which is deeply rooted in
western historicism, based on Enlightenment. Was Tagore’s Universalism
embedded in Enlightenment? Among his western admirers, Edward Thompson
made perhaps the most serious effort to make a critical appraisal of
the poet’s work. And Tagore thoroughly disapproved his interpretation.
Without going into the merits of Thompson’s work, let us have a look
at Tagore’s arguments. In a private letter to William Rothenstein, he
wrote about Thompson:

…being a Christian Missionary, his training makes him incapable of
understanding some of the ideas that run all through my writings –
like that of Jeevan-Devata, the limited aspect of divinity which has
its unique place in the individual life, in contrast to that which
belongs to the universe. The God of Christianity has his special
recognition as the God of humanity – in Hinduism in our everyday
meditation we try to realize his cosmic manifestation and thus free
our soul from its bondage of the limitedness of the immediate…

There is a sense of disappointment in Tagore’s words. Does it not make
clear that he is not of the opinion that never the twain shall meet.
But he puts his fingers on difference, and even celebrates it perhaps.
And this was in 1926. Tagore had already made a long political
journey, which was amply reflected in his literary works. Perhaps the
earliest important political statement was made in a sonnet written on
the last day of the 19th century. It begins with the lines:

The last sun of the century sets amidst the blood-red clouds of the
West and the whirlwind of hatred.
The naked passion of self-love of Nations, in its drunken delirium of
greed, is dancing to the clash of steel and the howling verses of
vengeance.
…
The morning waits behind the patient dark of the East,
Meek and silent
…
Keep watch, India.
Bring your offerings of worship for that sacred sunrise.
…
Let your crown be of humility, your freedom the freedom of the soul.
…

Then came 1905 – for the first, and the last time in his life Tagore
took to the streets to join the movement against the partition of
Bengal, there was even a short phase of flirtation with extremist and
revivalist trends, but things changed after the religious riots broke
out. Sumit Sarkar writes, “,,,the riots led Rabindranath the pose the
most general problem before India in a new way. The ideal is no longer
a return to the glorious Hindu past, to the self sustaining samaj
unifying diversities by giving each community its particular niche in
the functional specialisation of the caste system. What is demanded
now is a wholesale breaking down of walls, a decisive rejection of
sectarian barriers and the building of a Mahajati in India on the
basis of a broad humanism.” (The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, p.p. 85)

The Political found its expression in his immortal novel Gora, in the
tireless wandering of the protagonist devoted to the Discovery of
India, acknowledging and yet negating himself, till the crisis unfolds
in the last pages in the true form of an anticlimax. Who am I? Gora
doesn’t know, and he is relieved!

Rabindranath has found his question in Gora, all he needs is the
answer. And for that, he has to come clear with his God. He does it in
the poems of Geetimalya, Geetanjali and Geetali. In between he has to
receive Nobel prize, start his ambitious project Viswa Bharati, care
for national and international recognition and utterly distaste it.

- Ujjwal Bhattacharya