Dear Moderators,
I would appreciate it very much if you kindly publish the attached article
of Sibnarayan Ray on Tagore. Sibanayaran Ray's death is a big loss to
the cause of humanism in India. Sibnayaran was not only a greatest
humainist of Indian subcontinent but also a great scholar on Tagore. In
my opinion this attached article on Tagore is very valuable to all of us
in order to understand Tagore, a creative genius of all times. He wrote in
the article "It would be a grievous error to seek to present him (TAGORE)
as a one-dimensional intellectual to try to simplify and systematize what
refuses to be simplified and systematized. In trying to understand his
view on any issue, one has to take into account his different insights as
expressed in his various works and activities".
Sibnarayan Ray on Tagore
Sibnarayan Ray in his essay 'Tagore, Gandhi and Manabendra Roy' says of
these writers and thinkers: "They help us to see ourselves and others not
as objects but as subjects; they deepen our understanding and extend our
range of choice; they can be sources of inspiration and guidance in our
anguished search for a morally desirable society." This completely
describes some of the value of art for atheists and how it can bring
change. Can art and atheism help us to deal with the suffering that is
part of human experience?
Here Tagore is describing a man's love. Tagore describes how 'The fire of
creation in his yearning'
"He longs to sweep his beloved
Away on the surging stream of his heart
Away from the motionless mounts of heaven
Into the light of this many-coloured, shadow
dappled mortal world ."
These are two things to hold in our mind for art for atheists and reform:
the fire of creativity and the complete attempt at truth in the real
world – the dappled mortal world.
Regards
Asim K. Duttaroy
=================================
Professor Asim K. Duttaroy
Faculty of Medicine
University of Oslo
POB 1046 Blindern
N-0316 Oslo
Norway
Tel: +47 22 85 15 47
Fax: +47 22 85 13 41
Mob: +47 934 04 187
Email: a.k.duttaroy@medisin.uio.no
Website:University www.nutrition.uio.no/english/res/research/dutta_roy.html
Personal website: www.asimduttaroy.com
Visiting address:
Domus Medica,
Sognsvannsveien 9
2nd floor, Room 2199
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CHAPTER V
PLURALISM AND CULTURAL CONFLICT:
RABINDRANATH TAGORE'S VIEW
SIBNARAYAN RAY
The issue of pluralism and cultural conflict occupied Rabindranath Tagore throughout his life. Several factors have to be kept in mind in trying to follow his view on this issue. I shall mention only two of the most vital. In the first place, he was a multi-faceted personality: not merely a thinker or philosopher, but also a creative artist, a man of action, and a man engaged in a diversity of pursuits. In each of them he reached new heights and opened new possibilities. Unlike professional philosophers he did not seek to construct a system. Instead, he brought to bear upon each issue a multiplicity of insights. It would be a grievous error to seek to present him as a one-dimensional intellectual to try to simplify and systematize what refuses to be simplified and systematized. In trying to understand his view on any issue, one has to take into account his different insights as expressed in his various works and activities.
Secondly, Tagore not only had a long life, but to the very end he also kept renewing himself through daring new experiments and explorations. This is most dramatically evident in his drawings and paintings which belong to the last phase of his life and which present a dark and disturbing Dionysian personality in sharp contrast to the Apollonian figure of sweetness and light with which people had been familiar for several decades. But the transformations, albeit somewhat less dramatic, may also be seen in his other activities and expressions. One has, for example, only to compare the poetry of Manasi (1890) and Chitra (1896) with that of Gitanjali (1910), then Balaka (1916), then Mohua (1929) and Sesh Lekha (1941) to realise how the world within him changed, time and again, without losing any of its richness of texture and significance. Again, the reverential attitude and idealized view which Tagore had towards Hindu India's traditional Brahmanical culture and social organization when he founded the brahmacharyasram at Santiniketan in 1901 changed almost radically by the time the foundation stone of Visvabharati was laid in 1918. The experiment in Sriniketan showed further shifts in his outlook and priorities. I refrain from citing examples from other areas, but the main point to keep in mind is that Tagore's views kept changing and developing, that his mind was open to new experience and ideas and did not confine itself to a narrow set of conclusions, and that, although he was basically an idealist, he was also very much alive to the actualities of life and responded to them with a liveliness that did not weaken with age.
Having said this, I must immediately admit that for all his multiplicity and transformation there would appear to have formed quite early in his life some central core which gave all a substantial measure of togetherness and a certain conscious direction. This central core is best indicated by the expression, `Unity in Diversity', which he often used in his essays and addresses. Throughout his life he consistently opposed uniformity and contrasted it to the ideal of unity. But true unity, Tagore believed, gave full recognition to diversity and sought harmony which, instead of reducing diversity, enriched each one of the discrete units. A deeply religious person, he had an unshakable faith in the existence of a supreme being who was both immanent and transcendent, but he did not subscribe to the notion propounded by Sankara that the world is maya or illusion, that the Absolute is the only reality, that atman, in the last analysis, is identical with brahman.
I have already cautioned that to look for a coherent system in his works would be worse than useless. There were shifts and variations, ambiguities and contradictions, but I incline to think that basically he believed that God, Nature and Man needed one another, that the endless variety of forms in nature was essential to the Supreme Being's self-realization, that between the Supreme Being and each individual self there existed an intimate relationship of playfulness which was inexhaustible and which gave meaning to both. God, Nature and Man formed a cosmic unity in which each retained its distinct identity.
I am quite aware that this is a very bald way of presenting a profound intuition which Tagore expressed in a thousand beautiful metaphors and analogies in his poems, songs, plays and expository prose. I am not a religious person and, therefore, I recognize myself as an outsider when I refer to Tagore's God. However, I feel at the same time certain that Tagore's core idea of unity in diversity has great relevance to the issue under discussion. Even to a non-religious humanist like myself that idea seems to be quite sound and has strong intellectual, aesthetic and moral appeal. The intrinsic worth of that idea may be considered, even if it is taken out of its religious or metaphysical context. I shall briefly indicate the relevance of this idea at two clearly secular levels and then close with a pointer to the tragic sense which a secular humanist shares with a religious humanist like Tagore.
The first of these secular levels concerns the relation of the individual to any reified collectivity. To Tagore every individual is unique and irreplaceable, and freedom is essential to every individual's survival and development. Creativity, inquiry, conscience ? all are rooted in the individual's freedom. The individual grows not by submerging individuality, but by relating freely to other individuals, to history and nature while retaining its distinct identity. Tagore was thus basically a libertarian. He was opposed to every form of authoritarianism or tyranny ? domestic, institutional, social, cultural, political and economic. No walls are to be raised to circumscribe the self, whether by others or by itself. It is through harmony with one's milieus ? social, cultural and physical ? that the individual frees itself from its initial narrowness and discovers the macrocosmic universe within its microcosmic self. The purpose of education is to cultivate this harmony by responding to the plenitude of forms in nature and their rhythm, by voluntarily engaging in a variety of cooperative activities with other individuals ? through love, creativity and knowledge. Humanity will continue to grow and discover its inner wealth not by putting everyone into a common mould which seeks efficiency at the cost of freedom and creativity, but by appreciating the variousness of individuals and the universe and by pursuing the ideal of harmony.
This ideal of harmony, of achieving unity in diversity, was, for Tagore, no abstract notion, but was rooted in his personal experience and intuition. Nevertheless, he could not but recognize the existing gulf between the ideal and the actual. This is less evident in his songs, poems or expository prose than in his stories, novels or plays. It is not always noted by Tagore's interpreters that in the majority of his works which deal with persons and events, those individuals who are enlightened or who possess strong consciences or fine sensibilities sooner or later find themselves in conflict situations which defeat their pursuit of harmony. Any number of examples can be cited, but a few should suffice. In Sacrifice, the King, moved by compassion, decides to abolish animal sacrifice to the dark goddess, and finds his wife, brother, the priest and the people turning against him. Joy Sinha, the young man of conscience, chooses to sacrifice his own life to achieve what seems to be but a fragile and temporary peace. The idealist Nikhilesh in The Home and the World is alienated both from his home and his people by his intellectual and moral integrity. Mrinal in "Strir Patra" had to choose voluntary exile from her family and community because she could no longer bear their mean, insensitive, custom-bound, oppressive way of life. I am not sure that Tagore knew any more than I do how to resolve such a conflict situation and achieve genuine unity or reconciliation. So, while pursuit of harmony remained the ideal (with Tagore, the ideal was grounded in the cosmic order), in actual life it was discord which often proved to be stronger and prevailed. Exploration of the psychological and institutional sources of discord was central to his major works of fiction.
At the second secular level, it is not the relation between a plurality of individuals or between the individual and institutions, but between various cultures and collectivities which Tagore sought to understand, and to the regulation of which he offered guidelines. On the one hand, he perceived and appreciated the distinctive achievements of various cultures; on the other, he stressed the common nature and pursuit of the human species, the inalienable humanity of humankind. Time and again he warned against cultural chauvinism which pitted one culture against another, and he wrote and spoke in favor of a universal culture to which the cultures of various peoples would contribute their finest achievements and from which they in their turn would draw nourishment. He was passionately opposed to nationalism, chauvinism, xenophobia, cultural aggressiveness and every form of imperialism or dominance of one people by another. The culture of a people is formed by history, geography, ethnic factors, language, religious beliefs and forms of social organization. It is not static, but capable of growth.
We have now reached a period of history where it is possible to evolve a universal culture without destroying or weakening the various indigenous cultures of the world. However, as in the case of individuals, here, too, the gulf between the ideal and actual proves to be very great. At one time Tagore had believed that India might provide the model where a diversity of peoples and cultures would be reconciled, and that they would evolve a unity where plurality would not be a source of conflict. But he lived to see the growing division in India between the Hindus and the Muslims, and among the Hindus between the traditional upper castes and the lower castes. He had at one time greatly admired the aesthetic refinement and the tradition of chivalry in Japan. And then Japan completely disillusioned him by launching a war of aggression against defenseless China. The removal of illiteracy in the Soviet Union had elated him, but its bombing of Finland exposed to him its aggressive and ruthless nature. He had publicly opposed Gandhi's non-cooperation, because he wanted reconciliation between the East and the West and believed that Europe, with it modern knowledge and democratic institutions, had much to offer. But in the end he saw the West bent on destroying itself and with it the fabric of modern civilization. The contrast between the spirit of hope in his lectures on The Religion of Man (1931) and the sense of dark despair in Crisis in Civilization (1941) is a revelation of the great tragedy of our time. "I had at one time believed," he wrote two months before his death, "that the springs of civilization would issue out of the heart of Europe. Today, when I am about to quit the world, that faith has gone bankrupt."
Nonetheless, being more than an idealist or an artist, Tagore did try during the last twenty years of his life to create an institution which would embody some of his basic ideas. Visvabharati was to be a place where, in a rural setting, many cultures will meet, enrich each other, and help in the evolution of a universal culture appropriate to our age. He invited scholars, artists, scientists, philosophers from different parts of India and abroad to meet young minds who also came from distant places with a genuine keenness to learn. At the same time, he wanted the university to relate intimately to the rural community, and established Sriniketan as complement to Santiniketan. He sought to remove the old walls of distrust, ignorance and pride which separate the people of one nation from another, community from community, caste from outcast, city from village. Visvabharati was a unique educational experiment befitting a man of Tagore's genius and supernumerary energy, vision, and creativity.
However, Tagore's brave efforts to create an institutional model which would approximate his ideal and inspire others to make similar experiments met with serious problems and obstacles even while he was still there to guide his associates and followers. The interwar decades in India saw the high tide of nationalism, and his vision of universalism and cultural unity between East and West provoked strong and widespread opposition from his own countrymen. In fact, the last twenty years of his life were also the loneliest; and his anguish and sense of alienation cried out from many of his paintings and a good part of his prose and poetry of this final period. The 30s were a dark decade when the world was moving inexorably `towards the most devastating war in history'. It was hardly a time when people were in a mood to listen to the voice of reason or any message of reconciliation and peace.
Moreover, Tagore did not succeed in achieving harmony between Visvabharati and Sriniketan. The deeply rooted hierarchical and elitistic tradition of India's brahmanical culture stood in the way of the university people appreciating the vital importance of education for rural development. Despite Tagore's strenuous efforts, Santiniketan never accepted Sriniketan on equal terms. Besides, scholars who came from abroad, attracted by Tagore's ideas and personality, found it difficult to win friendly acceptance from their local colleagues, and most of them left after a little while. Weakened by age and illness, harried by lack of adequate financial resources for running the institutions, unable to find colleagues and followers who genuinely shared his ideals and visions, struggling against powerful currents of contemporary history, both Indian and international, Tagore witnessed the beginnings of decay set in at Visvabharati before his death in 1941. In the last more than half century, the situation has gone from bad to worse. His ideals today are hardly more than a memory. The institutions remain, but with neither vision nor dynamism of spirit.
And here lies the heart of the great tragedy which is as much Tagore's as it is ours. Pluralism is a fact of life, and so is cultural conflict. It is also certain that the road to survival and growth stretches along tolerance of differences, reconciliation, harmonization of different cultures and pursuit of unity in diversity. But there are dark forces and urges in the human psyche which are destructive in nature ? the Instinct of Thanatos or Death. Unless effective ways are found to regulate and subordinate them to the instinct of Eros or Life, the ideals of humanism, whether religious or secular, have hardly a chance to materialize. The problem is both psychological and institutional, or situational. What Freud called "deafness of mind" has to be cured, and the aggressive tendencies in man have to be successfully controlled by cultivation of the spirit of reason. On the other hand, our civilization has to be radically reconstructed so that it incorporates everyone in its benefits, and its fruits are not unjustly distributed.
This involves a two-fold revolution ? one within the human psyche, the other in the structure of societies and civilizations. It seems to me that while humanists have rightly focussed their attention on the ideals which humanity must adopt and pursue to survive and grow, neither Tagore nor any other humanist could formulate and substantiate effective methods which would bring about this twofold revolution. On the one hand, the lust for power and possession and the aggressive tendency inherent in that lust and, on the other, the iniquitous structure of our civilization, which deprives the majority of the people and ensures the control and enjoyment of the benefits of power and possession by a few, are the principal sources of conflict. Our tragedy is that despite the lifelong efforts of extraordinary persons like Tagore, these sources continue to dominate the contemporary human condition. I see it as a supreme irony of history that what is called "globalization" today, made feasible by modern technology, is only leading towards imposition of one dominant culture, namely the American, on the rest of the world by a process of cultural cannibalism, instead of promoting the principle of unity in diversity.
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