I am not saying that everyone should have a perfect knowledge of the circumstance of Rabindranath's winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. But there is something seriously wrong, ludicrous, and almost immoral in attributing our ignorance on a certain subject to a well-kept 'secret' undivulged by some crafty conspiracy.
The reasons why I made an extensive research on the subject in the mid-1980s are a combination of facts, all of which are understandable matter of facts, far from conspitorial. I was a scholar of Comparative Literature, Translation Studies being a speciality among my scholarly interests, and it was Tagore's 150th birth anniversary. I was preparing a paper to be presented at an International Translation Studies Conference.
Below is an excerpt of my article (published in a book that is available in Dhaka) that came out in the Dawn in Pakistan:
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/books/archive/020407/books1.htm
Rabindranath was not a Hindu, and his Brahmo Samaj identity may not be a big deal to us now, but it certainly was to his contemporary Bengali Hindu community. There was no Hindu terrorism then as we know it today, and even if there was a precursor, the terrorists would not have considered Rabindranath a Hindu.
There were other European political considerations for Tagore's Nobel Prize (most Nobel Prizes in literature have a political angle), but, as interesting as they were, they fell outside my immediate focus on Tagore's translation of his own poetry.
It should suffice as a reminder that the Great War (World War I) was brewing in Europe, and Tagore's identification as a British subject played a bigger role in the politics department than whether he was an Indian, let alone a Bengali. In fact, I complain in my article, book after book publihed by Macmillan after the Prize never mentioned that the poems of Tagore were translations from the Bengali original.
However, it is true that the subject is vast, as I found out when I delved into it. Please buy the book edited by the DU English professors, and read my article. Even what is published in the book is only 3-5th of my full article.
I am happy to report that my scholarly findings on Tagore's own translation are being valued by translation studies scholars and I have been quoted by Soma Deva Mandal in a journal, Anukriti, a few years ago.
Farida Majid
To: mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com
From: doulah@doulah.com
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:14:22 +0000
Subject: [mukto-mona] Why the facts about Tagore's winning of Nobel Prize are kept secret?
Rabindranath Tagore was the greatest of all great Bengali writers. But it is sad to note that the learned Bengali readers and writers kept many facts about Tagore's winning of Nobel Prize in 1913 are kept secret. Some such facts are given below:
A. Rabindranath Tagore was more than many Nobel Laureates. But his winning of the Nobel Prize was a political consolation for the Hindu terrorist movements launched in Bengal in the early days of the20th century.
B. Rabindranth Tagore was not the recommendation of the Nobel Committee. The Nobel Committee named somebody else. The name of Rabindranath Tagore was not even in the short list of the Nobel Committee.
C. Rabindranth Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize neither as a Bengalee nor as an Indian. He was awarded the prize as an "Anglo-Indian"
D. Rabindranth Tagore never made any so-called prize receiving speech.
E. Rabindranth Tagore only sent a two line accepting message.
F. The prize was accepted by the British Ambassador and it was delivered to the poet in Calcutta.
G. It appears from the information, now available, that Rabindranath Tagore was awarded Nobel Prize in consideration of his successful attempt to intermingle the Christian-Indian philosophy.
I shall very much welcome exact and objective reply from the esteemed readers of this Group.
A.B.M. Shamsud Doulah
G.P.O. Box 351
Dhaka-1000
Email: shamsuddoulah@
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