A voice from the Indian past guides us in a turbulent present
As promised, here is another piece on things Bengali, this time on one of the most eloquent and profound voices in world literature, Rabindranath Tagore. Any Bengali worth her or his weight in mishti doi will know Rabindranath, so for those who already know him, I hope in the words that follow I can offer something new to learn or something old to rediscover. For those who don’t know Rabindranath — and I have a habit of referring to him by his first name because he sometimes feels like an old friend — I hope I can convince you of the simple truth that life is better with a little Rabindranath in it.
PS — This also turned out to be a little longer than I intended — hoping it’s not TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) but rather PCDT (Perfect with a Cup of Darjeeling Tea).
There have been many great writers in the world, but there has only been one Rabindranath Tagore. He was far more than just a writer — he was a painter, a poet, a playwright, a philosopher, a teacher, and of course, a musician. Not many people can say that their music is so exquisite that it is considered its own genre, but in the world of Bengali culture, Robindro shongit, or Tagore music, is its own thing. When Rabindranath did write, he wrote like no other, always remaining at once accessible and profound, taking us places we never thought we could go. He is the kind of writer that, when the world seems a dark and cold place, his words never fail to bring you light and warmth.
His accomplishments and accolades make for a very long reading list, and here I will mention only a few. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913, the first Indian, in fact the first non-European, to do so. He was awarded an honorary knighthood in 1915, which he accepted, only to renounce it in 1919, in protest against the eternally disgraceful Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in which the British Indian Army opened fire on an unarmed crowd in Amritsar (in Punjab, India), killing approximately 1,000 people and gravely wounding so many more. Two countries have adopted his lyrical compositions for their national anthem — Jana Gana Mana in India and Amar Shonar Bangla in Bangladesh — and the university he founded in Shantiniketan (using the funds from his Nobel Prize), Visva Bharati University, remains one of the most respected institutions of higher learning in India.
It would take a whole book, actually more than one, to discuss the works of Rabindranath and their influence on the literary cultures of Bengal, India, and pretty much the whole world. So for today, I am going to focus instead on only one of his works. Sitting here in the present, in the world of 2016, it has been exactly one hundred years since the publication of The Home and the World. It is considered one of Tagore’s many literary masterpieces, and rightfully so. But more than just offering praise for the novel as the elegant and enlightened work that it is, I would also like to suggest that it retains a relevance that transcends both its time and its place. Born of Bengali history and culture, it is a book that speaks to us, even a century later, in words forever eloquent in any language.
A bit of background
If you look at a map of what might be called the heartland of Bengali culture, you will find that a fine line runs through it that separates the Indian state of West Bengal from the country of Bangladesh. That deceptively simple line is the product of not one, not two, but three separate historical moments of partition — one in 1905 with the partition of Bengal, one in 1947 with the partition of India, and the last in 1971 with the partition of Pakistan. Each of these moments carried with it a maelstrom of violence of such intensity that, if you were asked to find words to describe it, you would either fall into one long silence, or cry out in one long scream. So many lives were lost, and so many others were changed forever. The solemn legacy of that trauma clings to this day like an emotional residue over the entire landscape of Bengal.
The events of The Home and the World center around the partition of Bengal in 1905. This first moment of partition, which the British claimed was implemented out of administrative necessity, on the grounds that Bengal had become ungovernably large, occurred in a moment when stirrings of separate identities were slowly working their way into the nascent nationalist narrative. The Indian National Congress was formed in 1885, intending to be the institutional platform for a cohesive nationalist movement, but already by 1905 it was struggling with how to gather together the many different ways of being Indian and the many different ways of being Nationalist, which in turn created all sorts of stresses and strains for the idea of what it meant to be a Congress.
When the British administration drew the line of partition in Bengal, they did so in such a way as to separate the largely Hindu areas of the western parts of Bengal from the largely Muslim areas of the eastern parts. Many Hindus who were advocates of Indian nationalism quickly moved to protest the partition, organizing boycotts of British goods and giving rise to what became known as the Swadeshi (self-rule) movement in Bengal. While I have no doubt that many of those who participated in the protest movement were honestly and sincerely dedicated to the ideas and ideals of Swadeshi and Indian nationalism, there were also those who opposed partition on grounds of pure self-interest, not wanting to lose the economic, cultural, and political advantages of being part of the dominant group in a unified Bengal. To complicate matters further, many Muslims actually supported partition, thinking it might open new opportunities for them in areas such as educational advancement, political leadership, and economic development.
The result, as you can imagine, was a cultural landscape pulled apart by mistrust, suspicion, anger, and frustration. Muslims in the Hindu-majority areas of the western parts of Bengal found themselves under attack for not supporting the boycotts and for not joining the Swadeshi movement, while Hindus in Muslim-majority areas of the eastern parts of Bengal found themselves caught up in revenge attacks and other forms of retaliatory violence. The British administration, inexplicably caught off guard by the swift and corrosive response to things they themselves put in motion, eventually rescinded the partition in 1911. But by then, considerable damage had already been done, and from that point on, I think it is fair to say that the heartland of Bengal would never be the same again.
The Home and the World
The first thing I will say is this: if you haven’t read The Home and the World you should, and if you have read it, you should read it again. Here I just want to give a hint of the lyrical and conceptual depth of the novel, and afterward, to show why and how it helps us to carry on in a world that right now, on far too many days, seems to give us only too much despair and not enough hope.
One way to understand Tagore’s message in the novel is to start with the title. The English version doesn’t quite capture the nuance of the original Bengali title, which is Ghare-Baire (ঘরে বাইরে), literally meaning “Inside the home and outside” or “At home and outside.” Tagore plays up the themes of inside and outside throughout the novel, building them up layer by layer to reveal how the various partitions we make in our lives end up generating their own destructive and negative consequences.
Tagore was certainly an opponent of the partition of Bengal, but in The Home and the World, he emerges as an opponent of many other partitions as well — between insiders and outsiders, between guests and strangers, between Hindus and Muslims, between men and women, to name just a few. In the novel, one can also see clear glimpses of Tagore’s profound mistrust of nationalism — not just Bengali nationalism or Indian nationalism, but any sort of nationalism — because he felt it was an ideology that required us to think of the world in terms of partitions, of what separates us from others.
Tagore tells the story of The Home and the World through three central characters, each of whom represents a different perspective and each of whom tells their own story in the narrative of the novel.
There is Nikhil, who, like Tagore, is mistrustful of the nationalist campaign and the Swadeshi movement. Nikhil continuously resists demands made on him to join the Swadeshi movement because he feels it creates partitions, especially between Hindus and Muslims, and also creates economic hardships on poor farmers and merchants.
There is Sandip, a friend of Nikhil’s who is also a charismatic nationalist. Tagore paints a very unflattering and manipulative portrait of Sandip, as the sort of nationalist who participates in the Swadeshi agitations and the boycotts against British goods, yet continues to smoke only expensive British cigarettes because he feels as a political leader he is entitled to the best of things. Sandip craves the power and privilege that being a nationalist leader brings, and he will stop at nothing to entrench and enhance that power and privilege.
Then there is Bimala, who is Nikhil’s wife. In the course of the novel, Bimala slowly emerges out of the house — where cultural tradition would expect her to be — and into the outside world. Nikhil supports this transition, as it fits well with his ideas about equality and inclusiveness, but Sandip uses the vulnerable moments of her transition to manipulate her to his advantage. It is her vulnerability and susceptibility and Sandip’s manipulative ways that generate the tragic events of the novel.
One last thing to point out here is who is not in the novel, namely, and perhaps surprisingly, — the British. Rabindranath pretty much left any British presence out of the novel, and this was neither a mistake nor an oversight. Tagore was a fervent believer in the idea that we are the product of the choices that we ourselves make. He was opposed to the partition of Bengal by the British, but he was equally opposed to the way that his fellow Bengalis took advantage of partition for their own personal gains, without regard for the negative consequences their actions inflicted on others. In The Home and the World, three different characters make three different choices, with three very different outcomes. Whatever circumstances we are in, Tagore suggests, even if those circumstances are not of our own doing, we still bear the responsibility for the choices we make.
Rabindranath in the present
A century after it first appeared, Rabindranath’s novel holds up beautifully and offers good guidance and wise counsel to those of us living in an uncertain and anxious present. When you read The Home and the World, you come to feel that the anguish Tagore felt in his time is the same anguish we feel in ours.
Tagore reminds us, for instance, that it is the Nikhils of the world, men and women alike, who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. It is the Nikhils of the world who struggle against the partitions that divide us, partitions of the heart as well as partitions of the mind. It is an endlessly tiring task, but an endlessly necessary one, for without it, the world would fall to pieces in an instant.
The world is also woefully too full of Sandips, those who crave power and attention, those who crave dominance and privilege, those whose manipulations and machinations create a world of endless partitions. The Sandips of the world, unrepentant narcissists with little or no concern for the lives of others or the pain and suffering they leave their wake, can sadly be found everywhere and anywhere. Scan the headlines—you will find them aplenty.
And for every Sandip in the world, there are unfortunately far too many Bimalas — again, male and female alike — who for reasons that frustratingly elude us, become and remain susceptible to the destructively seductive song that the Sandips sing to them.
It has been a week since the attacks at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka. Today, sadly, there is news of another senseless attack in Kishoreganj (Bangladesh), of all things at a gathering for Eid ul-Fitr. It would be easy in these tragic moments to look out our windows and think that the whole world is broken, that the whole world is falling apart right before our eyes. But these are precisely when the words of Tagore return to guide us — and I think this is true for anyone, no matter where you live, what culture you are from, or what language you speak — for he reminds us that the world cannot break if we refuse to be broken, that the world cannot fall apart as long as we keep holding it together.
I’ll let Rabindranath have the last word, as rightfully he should. I’ll sign off with a well-known quote of his, and yes, it’s in English, but in this case, Rabindranath himself is the translator. As I said at the start of this essay, life is better with a little Rabindranath in it, so here’s a little Rabindranath for you, to carry with you wherever you go.
Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless when facing them.
