In search of the legacy

In search of the legacy Words by by MrKalyan Kundu Director, The Tagore Centre UK

Awarded the Nobel Prize for his English works in 1913, the name of Rabindranath Tagore remains largely unknown in western civilisation. For those of us brought up in a society that worships poetry in the form of chart-topping lyrics, rather than settling down with a volume of verse, it is not surprising that many of us will know little of the Bengali poet who produced more than a thousand poems in his lifetime.

Before the First World War, Tagore’s poems thrived in popularity and touched the heart of a British readership. His Gitanjali, a slim book of verse which he translated himself, was a best seller and Tagore became a household name in Britain. Today, students and teachers of English literature barely know of Tagore’s existence. However, in the worldwide Bengali diaspora, Rabindranath Tagore is still a breathing presence. Most Bengalis have taken into their hearts his songs.

Rabindrasangeet (Tagore songs in Bengali) is a great legacy of nearly two and half thousand classical Indian, folk and religious songs. Tagore was primarily a Bengali writer and his complete work runs to 28 volumes of poems, short stories, novels, plays and serious essays on philosophical, political, social and contemporary issues. It was through poetry however, that Tagore’s artistic sensibility most expressed itself.

Tagore began writing poetry at the tender age of twelve; by the age of seventeen he had published his first book of verse, it was only three days before his death that he ceased writing. In 1912, Rabindranath Tagore visited England, bringing his own trans-lations of his work. His poetry was steeped in mysticism and the underlying optimism struck a chord with early Georgian readers, drawing the immediate attention of the poetry lovers of England.

Tagore was in the limelight. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature a year later and knighted by the King in 1915. His works were rapidly published in other European languages, but through inadequate translation, gradually lost sharpness. Tagore’s reputation was as a mystical poet and his publisher did not risk publishing his other work for fear of losing his readership. English Literature was moving fast towards modernity and romanticism in style and content and as a result, Tagore’s fame and popularity as a writer declined in England.

However, in Europe, after the First World War, his popularity was unparalleled, particularly in Germany and East European countries. The defeated and frustrated Germany perhaps found a kind of solace and hope in the poetry, although, ironically, Tagore’s books were later banned by the Nazi regime. Apart from his writing and song compositions, Tagore was deeply involved in other faculties. He was a notable pioneer in education in India. The distressing experience of his own desk-bound, dry, routine education, delivered within the four walls of a classroom in his limited schooling days, incited him to found a school in 1901 as a protest. He once wrote: "The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence. But we find that this education of sympathy is not only systematically ignored in schools, but it is severely repressed. From our very childhood, habits are formed and knowledge is imparted in such a manner that our life is weaned away from nature and our mind and the world are set in opposition from the beginning of our days. Thus the greatest of educations for which we came prepared is neglected, and we are made to lose our world to find a bagful of information instead." The school was residential, initially started as a boys’ school and later became co-educational, a bold step at that time. His students in Santiniketan were virtually imbibed with songs - the songs being not of the ordinary hymn type - dry and didactic, but full of lyrical joy. There, the children were regularly involved in school choirs, musicals, plays and dance-dramas to develop their creative skills. Art, music and other4 performing arts all flourished in Santiniketan.

After the First World War while touring countries in Europe, Tagore realized that global peace would only be achieved when the East and the West would meet in a common fellowship and through the free communication of ideas between the two hemispheres. "That artists in all parts of the world have created forms of beauty, scientists discovered secrets of the universe, philosophers solved the problems of existence, saints made the truth of the spiritual world organic in their own lives, not merely for some particular race to which they belonged, but for all mankind," he wrote. With this in mind, he founded in 1921 his own university, Visva-Bharati. The motto was “where the world meets in one nest.’” The meeting-ground of cultures, as he envisaged, should be a learning centre where conflicting interests are minimized and where individuals work together in a common pursuit of truth.

Throughout his life Tagore was a keen defender of human liberty. In this respect he had very close links with some of the best minds of the West at that time, including Albert Einstein. A man of such immense artistic quality was not spared from performing down-to-earth duties like managing the family estates. While managing his estates in Selaida Potisar and Sahazadpur (now in Bangladesh), city-bred Tagore received first hand experience of the real state of poverty, desperation and helplessness that prevailed in the heart of rural Bengal. Tagore initiated numerous projects for rural welfare, some of which were revolutionary at that time. At Potisar he set up an agricultural bank, where he invested his money from the Nobel Prize, allowing farmers to obtain low interest loans. He also sent his son and one of the students of his school to Illinois to train as agricultural scientists. Along with his school in Santiniketan, Tagore started his Institute of Rural Reconstruction - Sriniketan - with the help of Leonard Elmhirst, an English scientist. This was one of the most pioneering schemes of self-help in India. Cottage industry, handicrafts, dairy farming and agriculture using modern techniques were all parts of the curriculum at Sriniketan.

Rabindranath Tagore’s concern for the preservation of nature and the environment, and saving our fragile ecosystem was expressed throughout his writings. To celebrate nature and create ecological awareness he introduced several ceremonies in his school like Briksha Ropana (planting trees) where students planted trees and adopted new ones; Nabanna which welcomed the new rice crop, the harvest cycle with Hala-karshana, a festival celebrating the cultivation of the land. At the age of sixty-nine Tagore’s creativity took a new turn. He started painting without any formal training and subsequently painted nearly two thousand canvases. His paintings were exhibited in Paris, London, Moscow, Berlin and USA. In a special convocation confirming Tagore with an honorary D.Litt by Oxford University held at Santiniketan (this was an exception in the four hundred year history of Oxford, where the university travelled thousands of miles to the recipient, rather than recipient coming to the university) it was addressed: “He has touched nothing that he has not adorned. Here before you is the myriad-minded poet and writer, the musician famous for his art, the philosopher proven in both word and deed, the fervent upholder of learning and sound doctrine, the ardent defender of public liberty, one who by the sanctity of his life and character has won for himself the praise of all mankind."

After his death in 1941 Tagore approached oblivion very fast. The legacy he left behind, a heritage of the world, not simply the heritage of the Bengali people, remains to be re-discovered. To uphold that legacy, the Tagore Centre UK was established in 1985 in London to promote and archive the work of Rabindranath Tagore. The Centre is the most thriving educational association outside of India with a keen mission to promote and foster all areas of Tagore’s continuing heritage, including contemporary Bengali literature, music and other arts. It also provides and facilitates educational workshops and has succeeded in including the works of Tagore in English literature study as part of the National Curriculum for schools in England and Wales. Krishna Dutta, one of the recent biographers of Tagore says: "In the present climate of commercialised art and self-publicity, his thoughts and ideas are becoming increasingly relevant. To restore our artistic integrity, humanity and humility in the era of globally invasive sensationalism we need to return to some of our great artists and thinkers. Rabindranath Tagore was certainly one among them."