In Our Time - Tagore

Episode Date: May 7, 2015

Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. He has been called one of the outstanding thinkers of the 20th century and the greatest poet India has ever produced. His Nobel followed publication of Gitanjali, his English version of some of his Bengali poems. WB Yeats and Ezra Pound were great supporters. Tagore was born in Calcutta in 1861 and educated partly in Britain; King George V knighted him, but Tagore renounced this in 1919 following the Amritsar Massacre. A key figure in Indian nationalism, Tagore became a friend of Gandhi, offering criticism as well as support. A polymath and progressive, Tagore painted, wrote plays, novels, short stories and many songs. The national anthems of India and Bangladesh are based on his poems. WithChandrika Kaul Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St AndrewsBashabi Fraser Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier UniversityAndJohn Stevens Leverhulme Postdoctoral Fellow at SOAS, University of LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson.

Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time, for more details about In Our Time, and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello. It claimed that Rabindranath Tagal was at one time one of the most famous poets in the world. Born in Calcutta in 1861, he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for literature. W.B. Yeats and Ezra Pound were great supporters. A commanding figure in the Indian Renaissance of the 19th century, century, Tagore also played a major part in India's independence movement. The first Prime Minister of India, Nairu, said he had two gurus.

Gandhi was one, the other was Tagore. He wrote novels and plays, he painted, composed thousands of songs, and two of his many poems became the national anthems for India and Bangladesh. With me to discuss Tagore are Chandrika Kohl, lecturer in modern history at the University of St. Andrews, John Stevens, Levyhune Postdoctoral Fellow at Soas, University of London, and Bashi Bha Bhraser, Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at Edinburgh Nafia University. Chandr Gakol, I mentioned the Indian Renaissance.

Why was Bengal particularly vibrant about the time of Tagore's birth in the 1860s? Well, the Bengal Renaissance as it is referred to, is really a 19th century phenomenon, which is conventionally attributed to have started with Ram Mohan Roy, who died in 1833. And yes, it is, the Tagore family played a big part, and it's sort of taken to end with the death of Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore, in 1941. Bengal played a leading part in it because one of the, well, there were three aspects to the Renaissance and Reformation. There was social and religious reform, a literary and scientific renaissance, as well as a political

reform and revolutionary strand, which really comes in at the last quarter of the 19th century. Now, the social and religious reform really starts in the early part of the 19th century, not in the 1860s. And the impetus for this comes from the British, who from the late 18th century begin a process of codifying and translating ancient Indian texts like the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and in order to try and understand India, but also to codify Hindu law and so on. So it was part of the British cultural project of understanding and gathering of information and knowledge. But as a consequence of this, they also establish schools and universities like Fort William College, you know, the Asiatic Society, for instance, Ceyrampur College, Hindu College in the early 19th century. And the products of these universities and colleges, people like Ram Mohan Roy and others, begin to assimilate a western. cultural, literary, philosophical traditions, the Western Enlightenment traditions,

as well as the teachings of Christ and Christianity, as along with an approach to reviving and reforming essentially Hindu religion and faith. So that's a really important part of the Renaissance, reform of Hindu, primarily Hindu religion. There is also a literary, a dramatic, a cultural dimension to this renaissance in which the Tagos play a very big role, which involves, for instance, the revival of Bengali as a literary language. There's also an element in which Hindu religion by the end of the 19th century becomes part of what is treated as what is glorious about India's past. And people like Vivekhanan, Rambchrishner, Paramhans and other spiritualists take this message of not just a revival of Hindu faith,

but actually proclaiming it to be one of the great religions of the East. What was the relationship between the East India Company and the Tagore's? You speak of them as a great family, which are a very large family. They had great wealth, they inherited great wealth, great landownings all over the place. But what's the relationship between them and the East India Company, which in the middle of the century had been taken over by the British and nationalised, as it were? But what was the relationship? It was a very close and interesting one, actually.

because the Tagore family itself was established in Bengal around the time that the East India company itself was established, which is going back to the 17th century. But over the course of the 18th century, great-grandfather of Abindunar Tegro had really made his fortune working for the company as a revenue collector. And Tegu's paternal grandfather, in the first half of the 19th century,

consolidated on these revenues and invested in mining, in indigo and sugar plantations, and became an entrepreneur, or an extremely wealthy man who was referred to as the prince. He was at ease in Anglo-Indian society in the sort of cultural metropolis that, the Anglo-Indian metropolis that Calcutta was. Remember, it was the capital of the sort of East India company, but also the British till 1912.

He was at ease with sort of Anglo-Indian society. He twice went to Britain. He dined with Queen Victoria. He was fated by the Lord Mayor of London. So he was an assimilated. Indian who benefited from the commercial and economic opportunities thrown up by the East India Company. In fact, he is reputed to have formed the first company, the first sort of British Anglo-Indian company, Tagore, Carr and Sons in Calcutta.

John Stevens, one of the key developments associated with the Tagos is Brahmo Samaj. What was that and why did it matter? Well, the Brahmo Samaj was one of the most powerful and important. social and religious reform organisations to come out of the Bengal Renaissance. It was founded in the 1820s by the Great Renaissance Luminary Ramahun Rai. And Ramahun argued that Hinduism had initially been a monotheistic faith and that it should be interpreted rationally. Initially, the Brahmos Samarge really functioned as a small place of worship.

But Dabendranat Tegor, Rabindranat Tegar's father, took over the Brahmsamaj in the 1840s, and he really revitalised the movement and turned it into a very powerful force in Bengal, in terms of the spread of education, in terms of reforms to do with improving the condition of women in Bengal, and also in terms of promulgating a form of Hinduism, which was a reformist, which was universalist and which was monotheistic and rational. The Bramo Samarge split into many different factions in the course of the 19th century, but in general, I think it's fair to say

that the Bramo's tried to tread a middle ground between those people in Bengal who wholeheartedly embrace the West, in some cases became very westernized, in some cases became Christian, and those who very rigorously defended what they saw to be the traditions of India and Bengal. And the Brahmos really took a middle path where they were open to Western influence and to Western knowledge, but they believed that Indian progress should depend on reforming Indian traditions. We mentioned the wealth of Tagos family, and he was the 14th child.

What was his childhood like? Well, yes, he came from a very large family. He lived in a very culturally stimulating environment. The family lived in a large house in North Calcutta. There were many, amongst his siblings, there were many great writers and artists and poets. So it was a very stimulating environment. The family were very well connected. But one does get the sense from his writings about his.

early life, that there was also an element of loneliness to it. He was largely raised by servants. It doesn't seem that he was particularly close to his parents. And also, he never got on very well at school. So he ended up being tutored at home. So although he was growing up in a very stimulating environment, you do get a sense that he was perhaps rather isolated within that environment. Did he coin the term serbocracy, the servants who ruled everything? Was that his term? Yes, yes. Yes, it was.

Well, the brother-of-at-home, but it was quite a home because these numerous children run their own newspaper, didn't they, which is or Gazette, whatever you couldn't want to call, to which his first writings appear there. Yes, there were all kinds of activities going on. They were extremely productive and had all sorts

of enterprises. Maschie Bafraser, what was to all writing as a young man in India? Who were his influences when he's getting started? It's very interesting. At the beginning, you can see he was extremely influenced by the version of a poet's.

And he was so influenced that he went on to write Banu Shinger Pada Boli, which is a bit like Macpherson's Osian, only under a pseudonym. And he said he had discovered this medieval poet

and he was using not Bengali but Brojiboli which is between Hindi and Bengali a dialect and it was accepted as that and people even said how wonderful it was. One of his friends said that and then he owned up and said it was his

so that's the difference between McPherson and to go but after he came to England he lived with... Why did his parents send him to England That's a very good point. He's quite young, isn't he? He's quite young, yes.

He came with his brothers, Shatindranath, and stayed with him and his nephew and niece. But at one point he was with the Scott family and the three girls played the piano and played Irish melodies. And two of them were even Burns songs, which he adapted later on. So when he came back from England, so 1877, 77, 78 was. Banu Shinar Pada Bully, and 1881, you find him doing Balmiki Prativa, which is a libretto. The earlier one was also an operatic. But why did he come to England? Why did they send him to England?

He came to study law, and he didn't progress much with it. He did attend literature classes, but he went back. it was a bit like what you mentioned Chandrika about his schooling. He wasn't made for structured studies which were compartmentalized. He liked interdisciplinary studies. But I think going back to the period when he was writing as a young child, John mentioned the various magazines in the family. There was Bharati, which was edited by his brothers.

He read at the Hindumela in Valmiki Pratiba. He acted himself, which was played out in Jurasia Kudh, the Tago family seat in the courtyard. He actually played Valmiki, so he took part in his own writing. And he wrote several collections of poetry at this time. And one of his famous ones is the Golden Boat. Yes, could you tell us about that?

Because it became widely celebrated. That was in 1892, wasn't it? That's right. Yes. Yes. Well, the Golden Boat has several poems and songs. And there's a poem called The Golden Boat. There is the poem called the Golden Boat. I was wondering, would you like to listen to it in Bengali? Just a little bit.

Sonat Thari, the Golden Boat. Gagunee, garudje meg, ghanobarusha. Kulé, aka-bosha, nahi-borsha. Rashi-rashi-rash, Bhara, Dhan-kata, Holosara, Bara-Nuddi-Kharodhara,

Kharo-pourosha, Kattit-kati-de-dha, ill-barosha. The meaning... Would you give us a translation? Just the gist of it. The... There are clouds

that are thundering. The rain is a heavy downpour. I sit alone on the bank of the river. I have a certain sense of hopelessness. I've finished reaping the harvest of Paddy. There's loads of it now beside me. The river is in full spate. But while we were harvesting, the rain came.

And in this poem, somebody comes in another boat. and he feels he has seen this person. Who is he? He asks him, can you take my paddy? And he does. He fills the boat. And then he says, can you take me? He says, no, there is no room.

And the boat goes away, and he's alone. Chandrika, thank you very much for that. Chandrika, after he came back from London, he's about 90 or 20, he comes back to India and his father puts him in charge of vast estates which are impoverished and says go and look after those.

Now, what happened? Well, it's exactly the point I was trying to make when you were reading so beautifully because that romantic rural iddle that is at the heart of some of that poetry that we just heard

was vastly, it was greatly influenced by Tegor being thrown at some level against us will from the security of his urban in Calcutta existence to managing his father's estates in rural Bengal. And it was the first time that he came to meet villagers, the common sharecroppers. He was instructed to collect rent and report on that once a month to his father back home in Calcutta.

But he spent most of his time, you know, traveling by the houseboat that the family owned, moving down the Padma River, visiting various households and householders. and this greatly influenced not just his attitude towards rural reconstruction and social reform, particularly amongst the peasantry, but also his poetry, his creative spirit was in a way reborn in this new invigorating, if isolated environment where he was sort of communing with nature, very different from the urban metropolis of Calcutta. Reading the poems for this program,

found the rural poems, particular stories. They were shorter. They were, they were fact-filled in a way. Very moving and direct, much more so than the great philosophical, universal sweeps. Maybe that's, I'm not used to that enough, but he seems to have got an awful lot of crude, let's be a lot of material from there, which is way outside his grown-up experience. You're absolutely right. I think that side of it is also what is then reflected later in some of the collection of poems that is included in Getangeli. Because Gethangeli, contrary to some common myth, is not one set of poems. It's a collection of poems taken from about 10-year period that he was writing, during which he was greatly influenced by this rural romanticism. But can I just quickly

add that Tagore was not unaware of the poverty, the difficulties, the sheer hardships of rural society. It wasn't as if he was completely swayed, you know, in his creative, you know, with a creative emotionalism that completely ignored the harsher realities of rural existence. In fact, it was the very first time that he was exposed to it. And a lot of his short stories in particular at this period reflect this reality in a very graphic and poignant way. John Stevens, he was kept apart from politics for a while. But then he got stuck in in 2005 with the partition of Bengal. Can you tell us about that?

Yes. Well, Bengal was partitioned in 1905, although this partition was eventually annulled in 2011. And the British claimed in their arguments for their reasons for partitioning Bengal was that Bengal was a very large province, it was very hard to administer, and it would be easier to govern if it was split into two. But in fact, it is generally known and accepted now that part of the reason that the British wanted to divide Bengal was to weaken the growing nationalism there.

And so you can see this partition as part of the British policy of divide and rule, and it was really at this time that the idea of a Muslim East Bengal and a Hindu-West Bengal, the seeds of that idea were sown. Now, a movement emerged very quickly in opposition to this partition, and this was called the Shodeshi movement, which was an economic form of resistance. It varied, but it certainly involved the boycotting of British goods, the promotion of indigenous produce.

And Tagore was part of this, right? And Tagore became part of this, yes. He was very much in favour of the boycott of British goods, although he wasn't in favour of the destruction of British factories. He wrote songs and poems in favour of Shadeshi. led a big Chaudesi procession through Korkata. Was this rather difficult for him? Because at that time he's still very pro-British, very pro-and-the-hold of his life.

He wanted East and West to intermingle and join together. Was this a – it seems like a slight sidestep for him, doesn't it? Well, but Tagore wasn't pro-British in the sense that he wanted British rule to continue indefinitely in India. But he was certainly very open to British culture. But with the Shodashi movement, in the end, he did turn against the movement. And this was because in 1907 there were some very serious riots, communal riots. And part of the reason for this, part of the problem with Shodashi was that Shodashi goods, these indigenous goods, were more expensive than the British goods.

And the largely Muslim peasantry often couldn't afford these Shodeshi. goods but were forced into buying them this created tension. There were these very serious riots. Tegor was appalled by the violence, and it was at this point that he really moved away from the Shadeshi movement and from politics in general. Yes, and we can go back to the poetry now, Bashi Bafrasa. In 1910, he published poems in Bengali, which Chandrick has referred to. Gittanjali, our song offerings, and two years later, he

travelled to London with a broader collection under the same name. We know a little about the poems from what Chandrika said. Do you want to say a little more about them and then what happened to them when he got to London in 1912? Yes, as Chandrika mentioned, the poems that we see translated by Togh, and I should add, slightly edited by Yates as Roddenstein says, were actually 103 poems altogether, of which only 53 were from the Bengali 1910, Gitanjali. The rest were from various other books like Kea, the Ferry, and Nobiddu offering.

He came with this manuscript to Britain. He had delayed his journey because he hadn't been well, and that's why he had retreated to his estate and where he was translating into prose translations from his various notebooks. When he came to England, he did tell Rothenstein about them and Rothenstein had early expressed an interest in reading his writing in English. Interestingly, there's a story that he had given them to his son,

Rothindranath, who had left them in Victoria's Station and some kind soul had found them. So it might have been lost altogether and it would have been a different story. Tegu himself says he gave them to Rotherinstein with some reluctance. He was always a bit hesitant about his own English translations. And he met, he was introduced to Yates in June 19, in 12. And in July, he read to a huge gathering. of 70 people. Yates read three of Tago's poet points. And that seems to change the game.

Yes, and then he, India Society went on to publish the book, and Sturgemoor, who was a fellow of the Royal Society, actually nominated Tegu for the Nobel Prize. And then Chandrika, he's put up for the Nobel Prize in 1913, and he wins it, the first non-Westner to win that prize for literature, which is a great and great achievement. It is an achievement, but no one was more surprised than Tegroar. He received the news.

He travelled from Britain. He went to America, where he read, you know, where he, on the wave of this crest of public adulation, inspired by Gates, carried him to America, and he was much fated in the various talks he gave there. And on the way back, when they reached India in November, that's when he first heard about it. He was surprised because to him it just represented a very small part of his,

what he considered to be his, over. But also, I think a lot of other people were very surprised. I mean, there were other strong contenders. In the notes of one of you say, there was, it did only represent a very small portion of his work, but in the Nobel Library, there was a lot of his other

work. So those who judged the prize would have had been a chance to read more than that book of songs. Well, they might have been, but one of the problems was of translation. You know, as a lot of historians have pointed out, even Tagore himself, wasn't really often translating, but trans-creating.

You know, he was always, and at some level, you know, he was trying to simplify, and he admitted that in the 1920s and 30s, this kind of approach actually didn't help in appreciation of his work in order to, you know, in order to get an international audience. But I think one of the things about the Nobel Prize was that, you know, there were other contenders like Thomas Hardy and others who were, you know, I think the leading horses in the race. And it's quite interesting to try and understand why Tigour got this. I mean, he had some Swedish. followers, in the sense some poets in Sweden who took more Serra-Mu's sort of recommendation up. But I think it was also because you have to remember the context of Europe at this time, the lead up to the First World War, the growing militarism, you know, the war clouds on the horizon. And what Tagore's poems at one level

represented to, if you like, a common, interested audience was this breath of fresh air, this hope of communion with nature, this romantic idyll of peace. And coming from Tagore this sort of long, with a long beard and piercing eyes, who seem to represent everything that the Oriental sage

of Kipling's time would have represented. I think there was an element of that in this process. Do you want to make a comment, Boscham? Yeah, I was just going to say that the Nobel Library had glimpses of Bengal, then had

the songs of love in life from Tagore and Kea and Nobred in Bengali and there was essays Tegna who actually read Bengali so I think they had a chance to need to go

So it isn't a surprise that politics plays a part in prizes I mean they pay politics with a small P and a big P or both at the same time always plays a part or mostly plays a part in the giving of prizes maybe it was about time for him to arise.

As you said, let's have someone like that from the East who's giving us something we don't have here. And I think that's a very good explanation. So that's partly politics. But this stuff was good, so what's the problem? No, I'm not saying there was one. I was just trying to explain why it's a difficult question to answer because, as you said, it's a bit of a lottery.

I was also trying to explain what happens afterwards in the 1920s and 30s when even Tagore admits very mediocre translations of his own work hit the market in the West and there is a bit of a backlash. I mean, he's criticised amongst the very ones who were sort of supporting him and I know that I'm talking post-fact... You're getting ahead.

A cat's getting head of the horse, I'm afraid, at the moment. So we just move to that. Just a little later. I want to take John Stevens here and the knighthood in 1915. That again, by George of Fipp, that again must have been a surprise. prize for him in a big acknowledgement.

Well, certainly, and it seems that he received that largely in recognition of the Nobel Prize. I mean, he did have strong connections with British in India, had good relations with some British officials in India. But yes, it certainly would have come to as a surprise of it. But more dramatic is the fact that he renounced it four years later. Certainly.

And can you briefly tell us the event? I know it's an enormous event in Indian history and a defining event. really in Indian history. So tell us about that, that's why I renounced it. Yes. So the reason that Tugall renounced his knighthood was because of the Amritsar massacre,

which took place in April 1919. Very briefly, there were a large group of protesters. They were protesting against the arrests of a number of Congress leaders and also against some very unpopular legislation which had effectively made these. arrests possible. They had gathered in Amritsar and Brigadier General Dyer was there with his troops in the area. He became very worried by this protest. He saw it as evidence of a coming full insurrection in the area, which it wasn't. This was an unarmed protest.

A men, women and children. Yes. And in the end, Dyer ordered his troops to open fire. on the unarmed crowd, which they did. Reports state that they carried on firing for as long as 10 minutes. They were shooting people who were running away. It was really awful. And the casualties were. The casualties were contested, perhaps 400 dead, 2,000 injured, but there were different figures. The British tried to suppress news of this massacre getting out, but it did get out. In the end, Dyer was in fact forced to retire in Britain. He was severely criticised. Tegor got to hear of it in May and his immediate response was to write to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford and to renounce his knighthood.

And that letter, renouncing his knighthood, is now a very celebrated document of Indian resistance. And the sense of it is that Tegor is basically saying that he doesn't want to be receiving any special honours when his countrymen are being treated as insignificant. Bashabha Fraser, he used his, come and move forward from that, because I thought, thank you very much, that explained the whole thing. Tagore used this Nobel Prize money to help fund education,

and that became worn of the driving forces in his life for the rest of his life. Where did he focus his energies in education? It's such a wide field. That's a very good question, a very big one. He had founded his school at Shantanikaten in 1901, and then his university in 1921 and the sister rural reconstruction centre the sister institution in Sri Gildicatin in 1922

and his resources were very limited by that time. So the Nobel Prize was a good opportunity. He was the poet in the world whom everybody knew and he was invited right across the world to lecture. So he utilised that the money he gathered from the lectures. So what sort of education establishes did he set up?

There were three aspects to it, I would say. Togo went back to the ancient Indian concept of the Tappovan, the forest hermitage, where the student and teacher

live close to nature. Classes are held without walls impeding. He actually said that we shouldn't, we need opening in walls rather than walls. And what's the other? The other is Bishabharati, which is the university, the second level where it was interdisciplinary, but culture and arts would be part of a liberal education. He did bring in the sciences, but he also brought the East and West together.

And that was his second idea of the university being a platform for intellectual and cultural exchange program. but he also felt that university shouldn't be separate from the surrounding areas. And he worked very hard at Srinigatan through his rural reconstruction centre to replenish the villages around, which were Hindu Muslim and Samthal, and to dispel the sense of apathy and to help them in self-awareness and self-reliance. Chandrka, we told the way, When Gandhi returned to India, India from South Africa, he sought out Tagore. How did the two men get on?

Well, they were good friends. They admired and respected each other's views. But there came a time when they agreed to disagree too. And I think that really boils down to both a difference in ideology but also a difference in political practice, how you go about trying to reform Indian society as well as achieve, I suppose, political freedom, which Tagore felt was Gandhi's main aim. For Tagore, social progress and social reconstruction took primacy over political independence.

He felt that if India didn't get her own house in order, then the grant of political independence in itself wouldn't solve the problems besetting the country. So I think there was a difference in emphasis. But also, let me give you a quick example of how this translated into critique. Tagore, when Gandhi launched the non-cooperation movement in 1920, 22, Tagoa was wandering around Europe trying to raise funds for Shantini Kathan

and advocating cooperation with Western universities, intellectuals, and in some Western thought. At the very time that Gandhi was talking about non-cooperation, not just with British, but Tago felt with everything modern and Western. And so there was an ideological difference there, but also in terms of actual practice. Tegor, for instance, was opposed to Gandhi's emphasis, on burning of foreign cloth, on boycott of schools,

because he felt these were nihilist, essentially nihilist. You cannot ask the poor to burn the only cloths they have without supplying them with cheaper alternatives. Similarly, you cannot, and you shouldn't ask students to leave universities and schools without giving them an alternative, a viable alternative. Given his emphasis on education, he felt very strongly about this. And what brought this sort of crisis, if you like, to your head

was the fact that both of them went public with their views. Tegore wrote in the Modern Review, Gandhi wrote in his newspapers. He was a well-known publicist in young India, in particular, in English. So this reached a much wider audience than just Indians. Gandhi brushed off most of Tegor's criticism, included amongst which was his opposition to a very narrow sectarian nationalism that he felt was gaining ground in 1920s, India. He was always, also very opposed to the strand of anti, the communal strand that begins to creep into India, the Hindu Muslim crisis, as he saw, which actually had reared its head in the Swadeshi movement in the partition of Bengal as well. And that was one of the reasons that he had actually

taken a step back. So that part of his critique of Gandhi's, if you like, rhetoric is also strong. Can I just finish with one quick point? The other side of it was Gandhi's almost sort of aversion, if you like, to Western technology and by implication science and progress. This is something that Tagore felt very strongly about, and in the 1930s when the Bihar earthquake found Gandhi talking about that as a divine visitation because of the sins of untouchability,

Tagore's anger knew no bounds, and it reached the public sphere because they made it public. But essentially, they were foreign independence. Yeah, but it's very strange. They seem to disagree on everything that mattered, and yet they were very fond of praising each other. I don't mean that in any citizens.

They recognise the value of each other, and so we're moving on from that. Now, John, what impact, briefly, was Tagore's creative works having by the 1930s, particular on the subcontinent? Impact in terms of Bengali writing and literature. Well, he was obviously an extremely well-known figure by that point. When he won the Nobel Prize, he was really transformed into a global star,

and his works were translated all across the world. And in terms of his impact in Bengal and on Bengali literature and on other writers, that's very hard to summarise because it was so great. And even by that point was enormous and has only grown over time. And I think that was partly because... The terms in every house, quoted on every... every occasion. Precisely.

And people learning things by hearts, learning songs by hearts. Over 2,000 songs, we're talking. Yes. Yes. And now his works are very, very widely read, very well known. Translated into many of the Indian languages.

Yes. And another thing about Tegu's output is there was so much of it and in so many different genres. He wrote novels and poems and plays, short stories, songs, dance dramas. You can go on and on.

And within those genres, there's a lot of variation as well. So it came to the point where really if you were writing anything in Bengali, you were immediately compared usually unfavourably to Tagore. Chandigur, just come back to you for one second. To summarise that he was thought Tagore to be ahead of his time, he said 20 years ahead of his time. Is this because he was anti-the-spinning wheel of Gandhi

and believed in the technology that was going through the West? Well, certainly he was very exposed to it, you know, given that his whole family was such an assimilated family, traveled abroad. He visited five different continents in 30 different countries, I was reading somewhere. He was exposed to the benefits of Western technology, scientific progress. He embraced this. So let me give you a quick example, the birth of broadcasting in India. Gandhi and others actually shun broadcasting.

Tagore embraced it, used the mic to broadcast not just as political and social message, but often reading his own poetry too. He wrote a poem, Akash Vani, particularly to celebrate the opening, for instance, of the medium wave transmitter in Calcutta. So he was really immersed in this Western technological progress, and he firmly believed that to shun this would isolate India, and that would not help in its eventual progress,

even when it gained independence. But there is a time in the lives of many poets, including Shakespeare for a century or two, when their reputation dips and Tagore's reputation dipped can you give us some idea of how deep the dip was and whether you think he's still in the dip or it's coming up again?

There was a group of poets who felt that they couldn't be heard in Bengal because of Tagore and they came in with they were very influenced by Anglo-American modernism. They were called the Kallululgosti, the Kallululad group of poets and they had their own

magazines, literature journals. And it's interesting that on the one hand you have Adhina Kata, which is modernism, and on the other hand, you have Rabindri Kota, which is Tagorean. So... But he actually put himself in his play, didn't he? In one of his poems, he said, Tagos passed it now. And he's writing that poem. Absolutely. And I think Tagore was very disturbed by this.

And in 1920s, he put this lid on the debate with Sheshid Kobita, Farewell My Friend, which is actually a novel, but it ends with a beautiful poem, which is actually a modernist poem and an answer to everybody who had gone against him. And yet in it, Tago appears as a character, ten interpolated pages that appear in the third edition of the book. And there, Tago, is, there is a whole, whole assembly where Tagore is being judged by poets by Amitre.

And they say the age, era of Tagore is over. But then Amitre himself starts quoting Tagore. So that sort of brings to go back. We're not quite clear. Maybe there's no clear answer to my rather too obvious question. But can you have a go at it? His reputation did dip for a while, didn't it? In the 40s, particularly 50s.

Am I wrong here? No, no, no, absolutely not. in the 1920s and 13th, and something that Tagore himself regretted and picked up on. And this goes back to what I said. It's about the lack of access to his poetry in Bengali, though there was a spate of translations. The quality of those translations were often suspect.

So his reputation suffered a dip. But can I just quickly point out a couple of other things? One was his critique of nationalism, which he makes during the First World War. And he goes around Japan, China, and the United States talking about this. And this creates a certain political backlash that has implicated. for his reputation as a poet, inevitably. The two cannot be dealings. He talks about the crisis of civilization in the 1920s and 30s. But the other positive, and I think aside of Tagore's

reputation in the 30s, is the fact that he reinvents himself now as a painter, as an artist. And it is his paintings that in the 1930s are widely exhibited in Paris, in Berlin, in London, in Moscow, and receives very flattering praise. So he's a polymath who doesn't. He's a polymath who doesn't, quite go away, though the attention shifts, if you like, to some extent, from him as a poet. Briefly. The dip in Togo's reputation is because of the politics of the time as well. And the nationalist movement was picking up. But also, I think he was also quite disillusioned by the fact that India still wasn't free

and that the world was dragged into Second World War. And after independence, India was partitioned. So TIGO was proved right once again that divisive politics don't go anywhere. So with the nation building that emerged in the world, in both India or rebuilding in Europe, Tegro was no longer a priority till the centenary of Togore and the 150th anniversary of Togore

when there were further resurgences. But isn't it ironic then that Bangladesh? Excuse me, can I just ask John Sivan one final question? What do you think is the strongest, part of his legacy is now. The strongest part of his legacy, well, in West Bengal and Bangladesh, his legacy is visible everywhere because he's so deeply imbricated into Benghore. I'm sorry about that. I should have asked that question. We're beyond time. It's entirely

my mismanagement. Thank you very much at Chandigakal, Pasha, Frasor, John Stephen. Next week we'll talk about the Lancashire cotton famine, which came back as a result of the American Civil War. Thank you for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now. with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. Anyway, I thought it was very good. We got a lot in. Yes, you're very clear.

It's very clear. I think people who didn't know will learn a lot. People who do know will be reassured that there's still a great deal to talk about. I don't know what you thought. What do you think, John? Yes, I mean, we did cover a lot. It would have been nice to have gone a bit more into his critiques of nationalism and to his real universalist philosophy. Because I think that's so important.

That's his legacy. That's what I was going to say. Yes, I thought you might be. Yes. I couldn't agree with you more on that. The whole idea of unity in diversity, which is so important in India, that's a saying that of Tagorean idea. That's the saying of Tagos that has been adopted by the government of India, unity and diversity. But also I think what people don't often realize is that the two kinds of nationalism that he's talking about, the nationalism with the nation with the small end, which is society and the capital N, which is actually state-operated coercive forces.

That's exactly. I was trying to hint at that, the narrow sectarian nationalism, that he critiques so vehemently in his book in the First World War. And that's something that he critiques across the board. It isn't just India. It's about Japanese militarism. It's about what's happening in Western Europe with the war. I mean, you know, I think it was the nation in New York says that Gandhi was lecturing about this in, in America, 1916 and 17. And the nation said that we are being treated to, not Gandhi, sorry, Tagore. And the nation said, we are being treated to Tagore's scoldings at $700 a scold. That's right. You know, that he was coming and lecturing to them when they were dying, you know, on the battlefields of Europe. And this really added to this

backlash, if you like, against a go in general, I believe. He got himself in trouble in America. There wasn't time to go into it. He wrongly thought to have been implicated in a plot of plotting with the Germans against America. But it all got...

It was something about young Indian revolutionaries out to plot and kill him and who got into an argument and forgot that they had to kill him. I mean, it's all very silly. But I do think... But it wasn't silly this... Critique of nationalism wasn't. No, no. You tell me that, I'm wrong here,

but the idea that the Americans thought that he somehow was implicated with the German cause in 1917 lessened his reputation in America considerably. Is that right? It was right because the British Foreign Secretary in America actually told the American government that he was dangerous and he was actually colluding with the Germans because he had been very popular in Germany earlier.

And also there was this fear when he went to Japan in 1916 that he went there again to solicit Japanese assistance. Why did he travel so compulsively? I should have asked that, Ray. Yes, I wanted to, I think he didn't just see India needed to, India needed independence. He felt, as you said, Chandrika, that India needed to communicate with the world. No, you did say, I think.

It's a program still going on, so you're probably all right. Communicate with the West. But also he was quite unique in India that he wanted to also communicate with the East, with Japan and China. Most people were looking to the West only. He was internationalist, as he said. He was in truly. He absolutely believed that the way forward for the world was for different cultures

to interact with each other. That's what he believed. He never brought into the idea that India should be transformed. formed in the image of Britain, although he was very welcoming to British culture. He never brought in the idea that India should isolate itself from other parts of the world. He really felt that if there was to be any progress, then cultures needed to interact with each other. So I think that his very wide international travels were really him putting that philosophy into practice. Yes, Simon Tillotson, our producer.

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