{"id":340,"date":"2019-03-25T10:14:05","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T10:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antp04.epgpbooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/?post_type=chapter&p=340"},"modified":"2019-05-09T07:07:11","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T07:07:11","slug":"thinkers-on-indian-civilization-tagore","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/antp04\/chapter\/thinkers-on-indian-civilization-tagore\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinkers On Indian Civilization: Tagore"},"content":{"raw":"
\"epgp<\/a>\r\n<\/span><\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\nRabindranath Tagore<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n \r\n

Rabindranath Tagore <\/strong>(1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore <\/strong>and Sarada Devi <\/strong>(d.1875). Debenranath was leader of the Brahmo Samaj,<\/strong> which was a new religious sect in 19th century Bengal and which attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

He was educated at home; and although at seventeen he was sent to England for formal schooling, he did not finish his studies there. In his mature years, in addition to his many-sided literary activities, he managed the family estates, a project which brought him into close touch with common humanity and increased his interest in social reforms.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

As a patriot, he composed the music and lyrics for India\u2019s national anthem \u201cJana-Gana--Mana\u201d<\/strong> [Thou Art the Ruler of All Minds] <\/strong>and when Bangladesh became independent in 1971 they chose Tagore\u2019s song \u201cAmar Sonar Bangla\u201d<\/strong> [My Golden Bengal] as its national anthem.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

In 1905, Lord Curzon<\/strong> decided to divide Bengal into two parts. Rabindranath Tagore<\/strong> strongly protested against this decision. Tagore wrote a number of national songs and attended protest meetings. He introduced the Rakhibandhan ceremony, symbolizing the underlying unity of undivided Bengal.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n

He also started an experimental school at Shanti niketan<\/strong> where he tried his Upanishadic<\/strong> ideals of education. From time to time he participated in the Indian nationalist movement, though in his own sentimental and visionary way; and Gandhi, the political father of modern India, was his devoted friend. Tagore was knighted by the ruling British Government in 1915, but within a few years he resigned the honour as a protest against British policies in India.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India's<\/strong> spiritual heritage<\/strong>; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nAlthough Tagore wrote successfully in all literary genres, he was first of all a poet. Among his fifty and odd volumes of poetry are:-\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Manasi (1890) [The Ideal One],<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sonar Tari (1894) [The Golden Boat],<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gitanjali (1910) [Song Offerings],<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gitimalya (1914) [Wreath of Songs],<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Balaka (1916) [The Flight of Cranes].<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe English renderings of his poetry, which include :-\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Gardener (1913),<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fruit-Gathering (1916),<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Fugitive (1921),<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nTagore's major plays are:-<\/span>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Raja (1910) [The King of the Dark Chamber],<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Dakghar (1912) [The Post Office],<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Achalayatan (1912) [The Immovable],<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Muktadhara (1922) [The Waterfall],<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Raktakaravi (1926<\/strong>) [Red Oleanders].<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nHe is the author of several volumes of short stories and a number of novels, among them are:-\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gora (1910),<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ghare-Baire (1916) [The Home and the World],<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yogayog (1929) [Crosscurrents].<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

He also wrote musical dramas, dance dramas, essays of all types, travel diaries, and two<\/strong> autobiographies<\/strong>, one in his middle years and the other shortly before his death in 1941. Tagore has artist under his skin he left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote the<\/strong> music himself.<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nGandhiji and Tagore: Views over Civilization<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n \r\n

The differences in opinion and attitude between Tagore and Gandhi are familiar to the students of modern Indian history. Tagore\u2019s famous letter to the Mahatma at the inception of the Non-cooperation Movement, condemning it as asceticism and \u2018orgy of<\/strong> frightfulness\u2019<\/strong> which found \u2018a disinterested<\/strong> delight in any unmeaning devastation<\/strong>,\u2019 \u2018a struggle to alienate our heart and mind from those of the West<\/strong>\u2019, \u2018an attempt at spiritual suicide\u2019 <\/strong>has been quoted often enough as clinching evidence of their very basic disagreement regarding the road to a better future for India.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The poet was also sceptical concerning other features central to Gandhi\u2019s agenda, like the latter\u2019s prescription that everyone should spin as a part of their daily routine. Tagore failed to see what would be gained by people better suited for other work struggling to become clumsy spinners. Besides the two most eminent personalities of mod-ern India projected two very different self-images. There was little obviously in common between the ascetic in loin cloth and the divinely handsome poet in his flowing robes. One\u2019s primary concern was the creation of a moral utopia while the other was a celebrant of life\u2019s many splendours.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

An obvious fact which one must emphasize in exploring these affinities is that their individuality notwithstanding, Tagore and Gandhi were both in many was typical products of nineteenth-century India. Central to the intellectual and moral concerns of that time was the attempt to grapple with the colonial experience. Self-consci-ous emotional and intellectual exercises to work out a modus vivendi in a situation perceived to be humiliating generated other related efforts: evaluating the west, introspection into the strength and weak-nesses of the Indian tradition and its true character and agenda for reconstructing Indian society. The end results were of course not uniform, but there are identifiable regularities in the thought patterns of modern India\u2019s founding fathers. In the spectrum of ideas which constitute the Indian discourse in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, those traceable to Gandhi and Tagore are remarkably simi\u00adlar in many ways. Tagore\u2019s thinking on the themes mentioned above can be located squarely within the tradition of nineteenth-century Bengali thought from Ram Mohan to the poet\u2019s contemporary, Vivekananda. The modern Indian antecedents of Gandhi\u2019s ideas remain unexplored. His discipleship of Gokhale is known, but little has been written on his relationship to the debate between the sudharaks, re-formers and the traditionalists in western India. But even a superficial reading into the relevant literature would show that his concerns were not all that different from other social thinkers of his age. In short, the affinities between Tagore and Gandhi can be traced to a large extent to the shared concerns of the nineteenth-century Indian intelligentsia trying to work out world-views and agenda in the context of their colonial experience.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Tagore, despite his great admiration for many features of western life, was quintessentially in agreement with Gandhi\u2019s judgement. Gandhi had described Indian infatuation with the west as moha, the high road to cultural suicide. The poet compared the western impact with disease. He did add\u00a0byway of apology and explanation: \u2018<\/span>Every-thing is for the good in its own place; but even what is<\/strong> good becomes dangerous rubbish in an inappropriate setting.<\/strong>\u2019 He was, however, far from certain that everything was for the good in western civil-ization. His multi-faceted critique of the west focused on certain basic themes which recur again and again in his writings. Gandhi wrote that money was their God. Tagore states the same idea in a more elaborate language: Every Feature of western civilization is an item commanding very high price. Everything from pleasure to warfare costs a great deal of money. Money has become a great power as a result and the worship of money now surpasses all other forms of worship. Everything is therefore difficult to achieve or attain, everything is shrouded in complexity. This is the greatest weakness of western civilization. He linked this apotheosis of money to another central feature of western civilization which he found even more disturbing. Gandhi had condemned its mindless activism. He saw in its excessive effort a sign of inherent weakness, an unnecessary over-expenditure of energy for which there was always a price to pay. In Europe there were already signs that nature was calling for repayment. The excess of effort in every sphere of life had created patterns of elaboration and ever increasing excitement which rele-gated human beings to a position of insignificance.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n

The cruel pressure of competition reduces the workers to something worse than machinery. The grand show of civilization which we see from outside astounds us. The human sacrifice which goes on day and night under that facade remains hidden. But it is no secret of Providence: social earthquakes bear witness to the consequences from time to time. In Europe, powerful groups crush weak ones, big money starves out small money and at the end swallows it up like a pill.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

This excess of activism<\/strong> generates a poison of discontent. The monstrous factories engulfed in black smoke deprive men of their life-protecting cover of solitude\u2014of space, time and opportunity for restful thought. People become unused to their own company. Hence at every opportunity they try desperately to escape from themselves through drink and reckless quest for pleasure. The affluent hedonists are not much better off. They are fagged out by the endless pursuit of fresh excitement.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

They whirl themselves around like dry leaves in a storm of parties, horse race, hunting and travel. In the midst of such whirlwind, they fail to see clearly either themselves or the world around them; everything appears obscure and indistinct. If the continuous cycle of pleasure stops for a mo-ment, they find even that momentary encounter with self, the experience of unity with a wider world intolerable in the extreme.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

He was unequivocal in his rejection of this material civilization. He did not believe in it, he wrote to Gandhi, just as he did not believe \u2018in the physical body to be the highest truth in man\u2019.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

In his statements on western civilization, Tagore frequently invoked the concept of <\/span>relativism<\/strong> which was a commonplace in the cultural discourses of nineteenth-century Bengal. A common theme in this discussion is that one cannot judge one civilization from the point of view of another because each civilization had its charac-teristic proneness. Tagore, citing <\/span>Guizot<\/strong>, noted the uniqueness of western civilization in its multiplicity of drives and the co-existence of often incompatible institutions and tendencies. Yet, in modern Europe, he identified one dominant concern which transcended all others\u2014 namely, an apotheosis of the nation state. Everything was permitted in its service and nothing was allowed to thwart its per-ceived interests. The end result of such obsessive preoccupation with national self-interest was conflict and eventually self-destruc-tion. If Gandhi condemned the totality of modern civilization as evil, to Tagore its supreme evil consisted in nationalism, which separated man from man and led to destructive conflict. Gandhi, the leader of India\u2019s militant nationalism, provided in his writings indirect support for such views. He saw Europe\u2019s greed for territories as a function of her aggressive nationalism. The nationalism he pres-cribed for India was one which would not ignore the interest of other nations, nor make even one\u2019s own community its primary concern.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n

The 19th century Indian discourse on the West was rarely, if ever, informed only by intellectual curiosity. It was inspired mainly by an urge to assess the comparative merits of Indian civilization, its differences with the dominant culture of the time and its relative superiority or inferiority. A quest for cultural self-assurance <\/strong>was often the unconscious motive. A more conscious purpose was to assess the impact of the west, increasingly seen as a threat to the Indian way of life with unfortunate implications for the country. Closely linked to such a perception was recognition that there were things to learn from the west, and at another, less clearly stated level of understanding, the awareness that the clock of western influence could not be turned back altogether. There were consequent attempts to work out strategies of cultural survival. The agenda for the future \u2014 the programmes for national regeneration focused, inter alia, on the question as to what one could adopt from the West. But nearly all such exercises started with an enquiry into the nature of Indian civilization and implicit or explicit comparisons with the west.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Gandhi\u2019s Hind Swaraj<\/em>, an uncompromising critique of modern western civilization, was based on an equally strong faith in what he believed to be the values of Indian culture. There is no hint here of any need for self-assurance to overcompensate for any perceived inferiority. Some of his data derive no doubt from the Orientalist paradigm of self-sufficient village communities, which he idealized, but in essence he projects an emotional and ideological preference rooted, arguably, in his life experience of a traditional Indian home. I state this as an obiter or a hypothesis the validity of which would not be very difficult to establish. One could show that he shared his pre-ference for the emotional ambience of Indian life conceptualized as a cultural value with much more westernized Indians, like R.C. Dutt for example. While the latter were more welcoming to Europe\u2019s in\u00adfluence, they too found western life\u00a0lacking in terms of the quality of inter-human relationship. Underlying Gandhi\u2019s statements on the superior worth of India\u2019s civilization one can detect his attachment to a pattern of social interaction which did not privilege the individual or emphasize achievement over other objects of human aspiration.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n

The Indian civilization of his imagination was essentially rural in character in contrast to the city-based modern civilization of the West. Its survival over millenia despite numberless assaults was evidence of its viability and moral validity. It was spiritual because the essentially spiritual nature of man was its discovery. Gandhi re-cognized an age-old culture hidden under \u2018an encrustment of crudity\u2019<\/strong> in rural India and that despite what he saw as the apparent brutish-ness of peasant life. The self-governing, self-sufficient and harmoni-ous village communities of yore were the institutional bulwark of this ancient culture. He saw in the caste system a social order which recognized the basic differences in human temperament: untouch-ability<\/strong> was an aberration, a fall from grace. Indian society was essen-tially tolerant perceiving, from the days of the Upanishads<\/strong> onwards, the truth underlying apparently divergent beliefs. It was also a grand synthesis of different cultures, with an infinite capacity for assimilation. Thus in terms of human values it was superior in every way to the competitive, materialistic and violence-prone civilization of modern Europe driven by insatiable desire forever seeking satis-faction of new wants. The British, to bolster up their power, rubbished Indian culture and Indians, infatuated with the West, believed their propaganda. Curing Indians of their moha was one essential element of Gandhi\u2019s agenda for reconstruction.\u201d<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nTagore\u2019s idealization of Indian society<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

Tagore\u2019s idealization implied declaration of faith in its essential superiority was based on an imaginative inter-pretation of what he had seen and experienced. He too repeatedly emphasized its essentially rural character. And what Gandhi had described as the predominantly spiritual proneness of India\u2019s civil\u00adization, the poet pictured in terms of very concrete images. He contrasted Europe\u2019s endless and frantic pursuit of pleasure with the Indians\u2019 very different style of quest for happiness:<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Tagore said-India has diluted the density of her material pleasures by distributing it among<\/strong> friends, relations and neighbors; and she has simplified the com-plexity of action and distributed it among various groups<\/strong>. As a result, there is always the space to cultivate one\u2019s essential humanity in one\u2019s pleasures, one\u2019s activity and one\u2019s meditations. The trader\u2014he too listens attentively to the bards retelling stories from the ancient scriptures and performs his rituals; the craftsman also reads the Ramayana tunefully. To a large extent this expansion of one\u2019s leisure helps preserve the purity of one\u2019s home, one\u2019s mind and the society at large and saves them from the dense vapours of vice. . . . The\u00a0forest fires of evil instinct set alight by mutual competition and the crowding in on one another are kept in check in India.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n

He saw an essential balance, an element of unity between the various aspects of their existence in the life of the peasants in rural Bengal:<\/p>\r\n \r\n

There is no grandeur, no complexity there. One does not need a great deal of philosophy, science or sociology to live one\u2019s life at this far end of the world and satisfy one\u2019s few modest wants. One requires only a few an-cient rules which govern the family, the village and one\u2019s duties as a subject of the king. They blend very easily with people\u2019s lives to become a total vibrant reality.\u2019<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The poet found the illiterate villagers and the insignificant village beautiful because their steady allegiance to a set of feelings, beliefs and attitudes over many generations gave them a sense of dignity and imparted a quality of sweetness to their life. He saw in their faces an impression of compassionate patience, a simple-hearted trustfulness which moved him. He preferred it to the \u2018tremendous din of<\/strong> high civilization\u2019 <\/strong>which reached his ears from London and Paris. Even in the life of urban India of his times he found a quality of contentment and happiness undiminished by the paucity of material goods. He found it more satisfying and worthier in terms of human value than anything he had encountered in Europe. He cited one concrete example in support of his argument. The Indian villager never turned away a guest or supplicant from his door and did not consider any discomfort entailed by his act of hospitality as discomfort. A profound and age-old belief in the sacredness of this duty had become a part of his emotional make-up. Tagore was not unaware of the miseries of rural life and its pervasive sin of pettiness. Many of his short stories, based on his intimate knowledge of rural Bengal, are tales of man\u2019s inhumanity to man. But he still saw the quality of dignified integrity as the central feature of India\u2019s tradi\u00adtional civilization, a quality of wholesomeness he missed in Europe. In his words, the debilitating and denationalizing impact of the West had not yet banished from Indian life \u2018the hard<\/strong> strength of poverty, the stilled emotion of silence, the chilling peace of dedication and the grand dignity of renunciation<\/strong>.\u2019 And if someday a storm raged one would see the blazing eyes of the ascetic burning bright undimi-nished by any external fury.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

He also came very close to Gandhi\u2019s position in his perception of India\u2019s political traditions. While he did not emphasize the notion of self-sufficient village republics he questioned the value of state power and, in fact, of nationhood itself for the life of a people. He shared with other Bengali thinkers of the nineteenth century the notion that society rather than the state was the central focus of Indian life. Like Gandhi, he too was extremely suspicious of centralized state power. Only, he went further to reject the need for nationhood which raised barriers between man and man and led to vicious conflict. The fact\u00a0that the idea was alien to India was for him a plus point. His agenda for national reconstruction, like Gandhi\u2019s, emphasized the rural unit rather than the grand edifice of the state.<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n

Tagore discussed at great length and repeatedly the assimilative power of Indian civilization, the belief first projected by Orient lists<\/strong> that it represented a grand synthesis, a pattern of unity in diversity. It had not rejected any of the numerous cultures which had come to its shores. \u2018The Scythians, the Huns, the<\/strong> Pathans and the Mughals had all merged into one single body\u2019<\/strong>, he declared in one of his most famous poems.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nThe main features of Gandhi\u2019s agenda for national reconstruction are well-known<\/em><\/strong>.\r\n\r\n \r\n

He saw the central problem of Indian life as not something of external origin, but a flaw in the Indian character\u2014a pervasive lack of courage and a consequent tendency to blame others for one\u2019s misfortune.<\/p>\r\n\r\n