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Latha Reddy  We have gathered to celebrate the centenary of Rabindranath Tagore’s visit to China in 1924. I truly believe this was a turning point in our shared relations. The visit by a foremost poet-philosopher of that era to China was a pathbreaking event. “The world has for long been in its grip”, he said, “the exclusive winter that keeps the human races within closed doors but the doors are going to open; spring has come!”
I think that's a very hopeful note from the great Rabindranath Tagore. He used the Upanishads and the immortal teachings of the Buddha and his own poetic talents to argue for a United Pan-Asia with fraternal bonds among the great Asian cultures. It was a plea for Universal love and his friendship with figures, such as Bingxin, Xu Beihong, Xu Zhimo, Liang Qichao in China was the confluence of literature and culture in both China and India. I understand this series of events is being organized by the Intercivilizational Dialogue Project, the association of peoples of Asia which stands for Asian unity and peace and the Gandhi Global Family, a group dedicated to spreading the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi. For me the idea of being associated with an event for Gandhi is a matter of great reverence. I had the privilege when I was Consul General in South Africa of cherishing that heritage because many people forget that he lived for 23 years in South Africa and I was associated with a lot of events dedicated to preserving his memory. This photo exhibition which we've just gone around is rightly entitled the ‘Spirit of Asia and our Human Future’. I think that's a very inspiring title and we should take a moment to think about it. It is my honor to speak on this occasion alongside my distinguished colleague and fellow Diplomat Kong Xianhua, the Consul General of the People's Republic of China in Mumbai. This historic visit of Tagore’s to China, including his interaction with Tan Yun Shan who later came to Shantiniketan and started the China Bhavan. He was a follower of Gandhi Ji as well and he contributed to India's own Freedom struggle. Lin Huiyin and Xu Zhimo were the young hosts of Tagore who were his interpreters in 1924. We've also heard of their illustrious background. Similarly Nandalal Bose went with Tagore and it had a profound influence on him as we could see from his paintings. Nandita Chaturvedi, one of our organizers, said “we wanted to mark this historic trip that Tagore did in 1924 and use this occasion to talk about Tagore’s vision for peace in Asia. Tagore remains the second most translated author in China.” We've already heard how popular he is in China, how well he is remembered, but the fact that he is the second most translated author after Shakespeare came as quite a surprise even to me. His influence on modern Chinese literature was great. We live in a changing world where Asian countries are rising. We must also learn to remember our historic civilizational and cultural links. Our vision of Pan Asia should be our guiding light and should inspire us to build a peaceful and United Asia. Let us rise above our political and territorial differences and forge a new friendship based on mutual trust and understanding that is the best way forward for us to honor the memory of Gurudev and his historic visit to China. I thank you for your attention and I hope I have done justice to the visit of the great poet to China, a great country. Latha Reddy is former Ambassador and Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs, India.
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Manoranjan Mohanty  A Theoretical Note All cultures are intercultural. They have evolved through a process of interaction among people of different regions, especially neighbouring regions, exchanging ideas and practices over time. Sometimes this interaction might appear to be one-way traffic but, when viewed over a long time-span, the interaction may actually turn out to be two-way. This two-way process may not always be a benign exchange. It may have moments of triumph for one side or the other, or of the attempted imposition of a value system by a victor facing resistance by a victim. But seen through the historical process, the totality of the experience presents the many dimensions of the interaction: as struggle, as mutual complementarity, or as charm. Ultimately the interaction constitutes a process of mutual learning. The history of civilisations is thus a dynamic process of intercultural evolution. When a nation, a state or a people of a geographical region is seen for the uniqueness of its culture, ignoring its intercultural formation, a major dimension of history is missed. Herein lies the distinction between the ‘geo-political’ paradigm that governs much of state policy and international relations in the modern era, and the ‘geo-civilisational’ paradigm that Tan Chung advocates and which is his main contribution to the study of history and culture. In this theoretical note, written incidentally not by a historian or a cultural studies expert but by someone interested in the methodological questions involved in the study of ‘terms of discourse, we will first stress the significance of Tan Chung’s enterprise and then discuss the meaning of the terms ‘interculturalism’ and ‘geo-civilisational paradigm’. This is then illustrated by reference to Tan Chung’s studies of India–China interactions extending over two thousand years, interactions which he characterised, at various points, with the descriptors, Sino-Indic civilisation, Himalayan twins, Chindian civilisation, Himalayasphere and, finally, China: A 5000-Year Odyssey. The Tan Chung ‘perspective’ is thus considered as a contribution to the emergence of an alternative historiography. A significant perspective Based on a lifetime of intensive research on India and China, Tan Chung has developed a ‘geo-civilisational’ approach to analyse historical processes. In India and China: Twenty Centuries of Civilisational Interaction and Vibrations (Tan and Geng 2005, hereafter referred to as Twenty Centuries), Tan Chung and Geng Yincheng present a perspective of what can be called ‘creative interculturalism’—a process of cultural interaction that enriches the creative potentiality of all the participating units. This perspective not only explains the nature of the India–China interaction over the two millennia period but is a general theory that can apply to the understanding of the civilisational history of humankind on a global scale. That is where the importance of this perspective and of Tan Chung’s contribution is located. The significance of Tan’s perspective lies in the fact that intellectual history in the modern world is premised on theories of cultural conflict based on a gradation of cultures and civilisations. European colonialism put European culture on a high pedestal and, using its economic and military power, promoted a knowledge system that propounded the superiority of western civilisation. In the course of the anti-colonial struggle, many philosophers and thinkers of Asia questioned this assertion. In India, M. K. Gandhi presented a thorough critique of western civilisation in his Hind Swaraj in 1909. Rabindranath Tagore had a different response. Tagore upheld the strength of Eastern values and thought, and evolved a universalist paradigm for the liberation of humankind. In doing this, Tagore deeply reflected upon the cultural and civilisational legacies of Asia, particularly of India and China. To institutionalise that reflection he set up the Cheena Bhavana for the study of Chinese culture in Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, and invited Tan Yunshan to lead it. Tan Chung pursued the Tagore quest further, carried forward his father’s mission and delved deep into researching the historical interaction between India and China. He led many intellectual initiatives in India and China in course of his distinguished career of teaching, research and institution-building at the University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and many other research centres. His findings from this lifelong investigation was that India and China have engaged in a mutually enriching cultural interaction very different from the conqueror-conquered relationship that produced the perceived “superiority of colonial culture”. This intercultural perspective challenges much of the colonial era literature and its subsequent versions. The theories of culture that informed the policies of the colonial regimes also influenced foreign and security policies during the cold war. Max Weber’s theory of the differentiation of cultural systems that favoured the growth of capitalism and those that inhibited it has been a dominating framework guiding the understanding of the modern era. Weber’s works, The Religion of China and The Religion of India, showed how these two cultural systems possessed values and behavioural features which were in sharp contrast with those of the protestant societies of Europe. Therefore, according to the Weberian framework, not only capitalist industrialisation but also liberal democracy were unlikely to succeed in China or India, or for that matter in Eastern societies in general. Much of this has been disproved in practice in recent decades as both capitalism and democracy in their local variants have continued to grow in these and other non-western societies. As against the Weberian theory of culture, Tan Chung’s notion of interculturalism sees the plural and dynamic character of all cultures. One does not have to strain and reinterpret Confucianism to demonstrate that it is compatible with the capitalist entrepreneurial development under way in contemporary China (Tu 1996). One does not have to trace the origin of capitalism to the evolution of the Vaisya caste and the Bania community in India. An alternative perspective on how civilisations evolve would enable one to capture such trends in societies resulting from interaction among groups engaged in different trades in production processes within a region or across regions within a country. Interculturalism can avoid the pitfalls of cultural determinism. Critique of Sino-centrism During the cold war, a formulation that drove the imagination of western, particularly American, academics as well as policy-makers was ‘sino-centrism’, a term which was coined by the eminent American historian John King Fairbank (Fairbank 1968). China was believed to see itself as the ‘middle kingdom’— the literal English translation of the Chinese term for China, Zhongguo—considering itself as the centre of the world, and implying that it had a sense of superiority vis-à-vis the rest of the world. The Opium War was waged by the British to destroy that sense of superiority and defeat Chinese resistance to Britain’s opium trade and to establish British control over much of the Chinese economy. The Chinese Revolution, according to Fairbank, was mainly a nationalist movement to regain lost honour. Tan Chung had presented a detailed critique of this whole argument on ‘sino-centrism’ in a two part article in China Report as early as 1973 (Tan 1973). Going into the genesis of the terms Zhongguo, Tianxia and Tianzu and the terms used for foreigners (yi) he rebutted point-by-point the alleged ‘hierarchical and non-egalitarian’ sino-centric view of the external world which, as he put it, had ‘justified imperialist aggression on China and cold war politics’ (ibid.: 51). Thanks to the intellectual monopoly that the West enjoys, the ‘sino-centrism’ argument persists in the western, and latterly the global, mind. Now that China has risen to the status of a world power, this notion is used by many to show that the Chinese rulers as well as the people had always had a ‘middle kingdom complex’. That notion provides the theoretical backdrop to the notion of a ‘Çhina threat’ which many security analysts propound. Even Xi Jinping’s call to realise the ‘Chinese Dream of Rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ has been put in the framework of ‘sino-centrism’ by western analysts (Economist 2013). Xi Jinping’s active global policy after the Nineteenth Party Congress of 2017, especially the Belt and Road Initiative have been interpreted by many commentators as a reassertion of the ‘Middle Kingdom complex’, but is also subject of much debate. ( Acharya 2019). Tan Chung and many others have provided much historical evidence to substantiate the point that the concept of the ‘middle kingdom’ referred to the central kingdom which consolidated power by defeating the surrounding kingdoms and thus leading to the creation of a unified state of China in the third century BC (Tan 1973; 2009; 2018). If interculturalism challenged the theoretical propositions governing colonial and cold war discourses and policies, it is in fundamental opposition to ‘the clash of civilisations’ thesis of Samuel Huntington which has guided the thinking of western leaders during the era of globalisation and the post-9/11 mindset that governs US policy (Huntington 1993). According to him the world had seen conflicts between princes, nation-states and ideologies in the past; in the future it is likely to see the clash of civilisations – civilisation defined as the ‘highest cultural grouping among people’. Huntington talks about the civilisational faultlines that have become manifest between Western and Islamic civilisations, and ‘the Çonfucian-Islamic connection that has emerged to challenge Western interests, values and power’ (ibid.: 10). Suffice it to say here that Huntington’s thesis that Western civilisation was bound to come into confrontation with the Islamic-Confucian civilisations betrays an extremely narrow concept of civilisation with boundaries which according to him seem impregnable. The Huntington thesis has several assumptions about history which can be questioned. Politically, it may have turned out to be a self-fulfilling policy mis-guiding the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and their global counterterrorism operations, but already that phase of history seems to be waning. The emergence of many regional formations such as BRICS as catalysts of global transformation defies the çivilisational fault lines that Huntington talked about. The decline of Western domination of the world is a historical trend not anticipated by Huntington who had theorised on the bounty of the fall of the Soviet Union and the tide of global expansion of the market economy. As against the Huntington thesis, Tan Chung presents a view of interculturalism that is based on the connected histories of peoples and regions of the world (Tan 2009). This history highlights the interaction among human groups across the globe, and the movement of ideas and theories, values and technologies, and natural products and arts. Thus Tan Chung’s notion of interculturalism is a theoretical tool that challenges the cultural theories of the colonial and the cold war eras and joins the present battle for a cultural understanding of the future of humanity in the twenty-first century. With the upsurge of cultural identities all over the world as people seek political power to govern themselves and protect their language, culture and dignity and interact with one another as equals, it is very important to comprehend the notion of interculturalism and the politics underlying the cultural discourses of the past and the present. The concepts of interculturalism and Geo-civilisation Interculturalism (without a hyphen between ‘inter’ and ‘culturalism’) emphasises the fact that the interaction between cultures has produced a new level of synthesis between cultures. A simple definition of culture is that it is a pattern of beliefs, values and behaviour of a body of people. A civilisation, simply understood, is a cultural milieu of a large number of people that extends over a long span of time and a relatively wider space. A civilisation is also about beliefs, values and behaviour, but those which acquire a long presence in history and take form in music, art, literature, architecture and rituals embodying worldviews. A civilisation has in it knowledge systems that inform humans about relationships with nature and among humans. We shall use these working definitions to proceed with our analysis knowing fully well that definitions of such concepts are always problematic. As against the prevalent modes of thinking along cross-cultural and multi-cultural lines, the perspective on interculturalism that emerges from Tan Chung’s studies of the history of interaction between India and China is that of a relationship of mutual exchange where the partners respect each other and do not claim superiority—where they allow critical understanding of each other’s traditions and thereby the ability to constantly enrich the learning process. Our discussion on Tan’s study of India–China interaction will shortly illustrate this. We have used the term ‘creative’ before ‘interculturalism’ to further stress two essential features of this perspective. One is to combine interconnection with the autonomy of each entity, and the other is the inherent dynamic or transformational characteristic of each phenomenon, including culture (Mohanty 1998). Ji Xianlin’s statement that neither India nor China would have been what they are today without the other, or Tan Chung’s ‘Chindian’ historical paradigm illustrate interconnection as well as specificity, and their evolution and change. This perspective is based on the assumption that humans are creative beings and that each and every human social group and region possesses creative potential. The history of civilisation, both past and future, is thus perceived from the angle of the realisation of the creative potential of humans and societies on planet Earth by constantly overcoming various constraints encountered in the process. In this way, the term ‘creative interculturalism’ captures the essence of Tan Chung’s geo-civilisational paradigm. Interculturalism can be best appreciated if the meaning of the geo-civilisational paradigm is understood. Perceiving the evolution of human civilisation in terms of civilisational interaction among people of different regions gives cultural exchange a certain meaning which is different from the geo-political paradigm. According to Tan Chung, the geo-political paradigm is based on the competitive pursuit of power among nation-states, regions and groups, whereas the geo-civilisational paradigm inspires humans to seek the fulfilment of the aspiration for the happiness and enlightenment of all. The following quotation from Tan Chung puts his perspective succinctly: “I think the trouble we are facing (in the contemporary world full of crises) is symptomatic of the malaise of the prevalent geopolitical paradigm, five manifestations of which are as follows: (a) people are obsessed with money, materialism and consumerism, indulging in profit-grabbing and hedonistic consumption; (b) countries are egocentric without genuinely noble altruistic motivations; (c) powerful countries monopolise the limited resources and opportunities available in the world, making it difficult for the weaker countries to develop, exacerbating the scramble for power and creating endless tension and conflict; (d) development means only horizontal expansion of spatiality: hence countries feeling threatened when emerging powers rise, and international harmony becomes a non-starter; and (e) humans ruthlessly exploit Mother Earth leading to environmental deterioration and climate change and to handing over toxic assets and heritage to posterity (Tan 2009: 187).” The above statement presents Tan Chung’s sharp critique of the dominant development model that the West has promoted during the capitalist epoch and that the current regimes of India and China are pursuing under the drive for economic reforms and a high growth strategy in the current phase of globalisation. In other words, a civilisational critique of the current development strategy emerges from Tan Chung’s study of the history of India and China. He presents an alternative perspective that he calls ‘geo-civilisational’. Let us quote again: “In the new geocivilisational paradigm countries should cherish the ideal of universal harmony such as shijie datong (grand harmony in the world) aspired to by the Chinese civilisation, and vasudhaiva kutumbakan (world as one family) aspired to by the Indian civilisation. In such a paradigm, people can expand their spiritual spatiality which is not a horizontal development, and does not clash with the spiritual spatiality of other nations and countries. In such a paradigm, people of all countries, rich or poor will live much more happily with moderate wealth through utilitarian consumption and promotion of spiritual enlightenment. In such a paradigm, empathy and selfless altruism prevail, totally eliminating the clash of civilisations (which should read un-civilisations). In such a paradigm, humans love Mother Earth and hand down a green universe to future generations (Tan 2009: 188).” Thus the crucial element in the meaning of interculturalism is a process of mutual exchange of ideas and practices with respect for each other. (Note again that we have dropped the hyphen in interculturalism, just as in internationalism). This is the characteristic pattern of the twenty centuries of India–China interactions that Tan Chung has analysed. More importantly, interculturalism is an element of the civilisational perspective on human history. The human habitat is important in Tan Chung’s ‘geo-civilisational’ paradigm but, as he puts it, it is not a horizontal spatiality that is a spread in one direction backed by military power. It is a spatiality that is multidirectional, with each one influencing the other and all gaining spiritually or culturally across regions. That is why, from Tan Chung’s perspective, countries like India and China should regard themselves as civilisation-states rather than nation-states. That is the message from the two millenium long historical interaction between India and China. China-India: Himalayan Twins, Chindian Civilisation, Himalayasphere Tan Chung’s writings on the historical interactions between India and China carried two enterprises rolled into one: one as a unique successor to the Tagore legacy, and as a cultural historian of the first order. The first put him in a responsible role of an intellectual who commanded respect, affection and enjoyed credibility both in India and China to play the role of a bridge-maker between the two countries. This role acquired special significance in the wake of the tense relations between the two countries through which he and his family lived in the 1960s. He not only sailed through those difficult years but assumed a key role in the 1980s and thereafter to create institutional frameworks for reviving the twenty centuries old relations. It should be remembered that Tan Chung, soon after his birth in Malaya, was brought to Cheena Bhavana, Santiniketan, where his father Tan Yunshan had already started the China Studies programme under Tagore’s encouragement. (Tagore fondly gave him the name Ashok which only the Santiniketan families continued to use.) Tan Chung undertook the task of thoroughly documenting and analysing Tagore’s China visits and the work of his father (Tan 1996; 2010) The professional historian in Tan Chung had to reckon with the hostile academic environment of the Cold War period. His work on the Opium War, which proposed a very new hypothesis combining the political economy of the opium trade with the cultural dimension of the Western challenge, opened a new debate (Tan 1978). His critique of John K. Fairbank’s much used notion of Sino-centrism was a landmark contribution. Thereafter, he undertook a systematic documentation and analysis of historical contacts between India and China leading to the publication (with Geng Yinzeng) of the Twenty Centuries in 2005, and several publications thereafter. In celebrating the centenary of Tagore’s Nobel Prize and on many other occasions he articulated the Tagore perspective which he clearly shared. (Tan 2010) In these writings his formulations on interculturalism and the geo-civilisational paradigm crystalised. The two roles merged into one because Tagore’s framework for looking at India and China set for him the foundational premises on which Tan built his very modern geo-civilisational paradigm to challenge the geo-political paradigm. Liang Qichao’s welcome speech and Tagore’s response in the Emperor’s Tea Room in Beijing in April 1924 put the perspective in unambiguously intercultural terms: “We are brothers. India is our elder brother and we are the younger. This is not only an expression of courtesy. We have got ample proof of that statement in history…. India did not covet anything of China. They gave us sadhana of freedom and maitri. Along with that message came the wealth of their literature, art and education. We had inspiration from them in the field of music, painting, architecture, sculpture, drama, poetry, etc. They brought with them great gifts of astronomy, of medicine, of social and educational institutions. They were never stingy with their gifts and all their gifts were accompanied by deep love and friendship (Sen 1994: 77-78).” Indeed there are marks of abundant generosity in Liang Qichao’s acknowledgement of China’s cultural debt to India during the first 800 years of the first millenium. But as the research of Ji Xianlian and Tan Chung and their colleagues has shown, it was a two-way process. Tagore’s response set the parameters for the geo-civilisational paradigm: “After long, long years in the dawn of the future age, we have met again…. If India gets back her lost brother then India too will be blessed…. China is not merely a geographical country. China means a culture and a civilisation. It represents a fulfilment and progress of many social and human ideals…. Europeans believe only in so-called progress, which is nothing but cruel and scientific exploitation. These power-intoxicated people wish to keep India and China ever fettered to the wheels of that inhuman chariot. If we do not consent then they abuse the oriental peoples in all possible filthy language. They are great in wealth and power; that cannibal-might is barren; it cannot create anything; it is only destructive…. China and India seek culture, seek religion. The central mantra of India is ‘Do not covet’. Your old teachers also repeated the same thing. So here we are one. Today, India is poor and powerless. The message of India has no meaning in the market of the world. China’s message is also equally ignored, because China also cannot kill efficiently. Today’s civilisation means efficiency in killing. We are not civilised because we have not developed the science of killing…. We must unite among ourselves because our isolated messages of peace and wellbeing are united, they may get a little more strength. We do not wish to destroy anybody by our union. We want creation, the wellbeing of all humanity and anand for all. Let all humanity be fulfilled… (Sen 1994: 80-81).” Even while talking about how Europe had produced narrow nationalism and jingoism and used science in the service of narrow interests, Tagore acknowledged at the same time the contribution of Europe to world civilisation. This is where the universalist in Tagore is evident, and Tan Chung carries that forward: “China and India both need Europe and all humanity needs Europe wherein she is great. We are terribly pained when we see that Europe does not recognise the dignity of her own spiritual greatness. China and India do not ignore the great ideals of Europe; but in Europe the idealists today are ostracized and ignored (Sen 1994: 82).” This is the template Tan Chung inherits from Tagore as the base on which he builds his geo-civilisational paradigm to locate the India-China brotherhood. REFERENCES CITED Acharya, Alka, ‘Deconstructing Xi Jinping’s Global Perspective’ in Manoranjan Mohanty (ed.) China’s Turning Point. New Delhi: Pentagon. The Economist. 2013. ‘Chasing the Chinese Dream.’ 4 May. Fairbank, John King (ed.). 1968. The Chinese World Order. Harvard, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Huntington, Samuel P. 1993. ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No 3), 22-49. -----. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster. Mohanty, Manoranjan. 1997. ‘Swaraj and Jiefang: Freedom Discourse in India and China’, in Neera Chandhoke (ed.), Understanding the Post-colonial World. New Delhi: Sterling, 104-16.. -----. 1998. ‘Social Movements in Creative Society’, in Manoranjan Mohanty et al. (eds), People’s Rights: Social Movements and the State in the Third World. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 63-81. Sen, Kshitimohan.1994.”Meeting of Brothers with Gurudev in China” originally published in 1947 reproduced in Tan Chung (ed). 1994. India and China, special Issue of Indian Horizons ( New Delhi: Indian Council for Cultural Relations) Tan Chung. 1973 ‘On Sino-Centrism: A Critique’ (2 parts), China Report, Vol. 9, No. 1, 30-51; and Vol. 9, No. 2, 30-51. ----. 1978. China and the Brave New World: A Study of the Origins of the Opium War. New Delhi: Allied Publishers. ----- (ed.). 1994. India and China, Special Issue of Indian Horizons. New Delhi: Indian Council for Cultural Relations.. ----- (ed.). 1998. Across the Himalayan Gap: An Indian Quest for Understanding China. New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House for IGNCA. ----- (ed.). 1999. In the Footsteps of Xuanzang: Tan Yun-shan and India. New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House for IGNCA. -----. 2008. Rise of the Asian Giants: Dragon-Elephant Tango, edited by Patricia Uberoi. Delhi: Anthem Press. -----. 2009. ‘Historical Chindian Paradigm’, China Report, Vol. 45, No. 3, 187-212. ----- (co-ed.). 2010. Tagore and China. Beijing: Central Compilation and Translation Press. -----. 2012. ‘Himalayasphere is the cradle of Chinese and Indian Civilization Spheres’, Lecture at Fifth All India Conference of China Studies at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan on 15 December 2012. [Text circulated as Chapter One of the forthcoming book.] -------. (2018) China: A 5000 Year Odyssey, New Delhi: Sage Publications Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng. 2005. India and China: Twenty Centuries of Civilizational Interaction and Vibrations. New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilisations. Tan Chung and Hara Prasad Ray.1994. ‘Trans-Himalayan Habitat’, in Tan Chung (ed.), India and China (1994), pp. 291-312 Manoranjan Mohanty is a Distinguished Professor at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi. An earlier version of this article appeared as Creative Interculturalism: Tan Chung's Geo-civilisational Paradigm in: Sabaree Mitra, Patricia Uberoi and Manoranjan Mohanty (eds.).2013. ( New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House for Institute of Chinese Studies) Archishman Raju  This April is the 100th anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore’s historic trip to China. This trip is an occasion to remember Tagore’s ideas, in particular that of Pan-Asianism or the coming together of Asian nations in peace and mutual understanding. In this essay, I would like to put Tagore’s ideas alongside those of W.E.B Du Bois, one of the founders of Pan-Africanism.
To bring together Tagore and Du Bois is to bring together a poet and a social scientist, Asia and Africa and, in that process, seek out an imagination for a human future. Du Bois is one of the foremost social scientists of the twentieth century who studied the material and ideological foundations of white supremacy and western imperialism. Further, Du Bois had a close interest in the Indian Freedom Struggle as well as the Chinese Revolution. He corresponded with Gandhi, had a close friendship with Lala Lajpat Rai and other Indian revolutionaries. His ideas are essential for an understanding of the modern world. The contemporary context in which we are discussing ideas of Pan-Asia and Pan-Africa is the present world crisis. The collapse of the Soviet Union was declared as The End of History in Western scholarship, which saw liberal democratic capitalism as the culmination of experiments with social organization and all other efforts as failed. Subsequently, a very unequal world was built up and old hierarchies were reinstated. The subsequent financial crisis, the rise of China, as well as the strong disaffection of the working class in the west has demolished this thesis and made it clear that history has not ended with the Western bourgeoisie. The transformation of the world requires a great ideological effort and democratic struggle. Many people think that Asia will be the center of this effort and the Western world is recoiling against the rise of India and China. Unfortunately, Western elites seem to have reached the megalomaniacal conclusion that if the world is not in their image, it does not deserve to exist. They have literally become anti-human. On the other side, the majority of humanity is searching for a human future. Tagore and Du Bois are two essential thinkers in that quest. As Tagore said, “You may rely on this prosperity and power of today, but there is tomorrow…I defy today and refuse to let it dominate my purposes. I rely on tomorrow with peace and faith”. Tagore’s Trip to China and the idea of Pan-Asia To give some historical background, Tagore’s trip to China came at a period when Chinese society itself was going through a period of intense ideological struggle. The May 4th movement in 1919 had been an expression of the discontent of a section of young Chinese intellectuals with the weak Chinese government. Chen Duxiu, in particular, spoke of the need to welcome “Mr. Science” and “Mr. Democracy” to replace traditional Confucian values. Chen Duxiu opposed Tagore’s visit to China arguing that it would strengthen the traditionalists. On the other hand, intellectuals like Liang Qichao and Xu Zhimo strongly welcomed Tagore’s visit. On the whole, Tagore’s visit to China was very successful and was subsequently remembered as such, particularly in China but also in India. In academic discourse, however, a revisionist history that declared the visit to be a failure was published by an obscure American scholar by the name of Stephen Hay in 1970 which has unfortunately affected subsequent discourse despite being challenged several times by scholars from India and China. Nevertheless, what concerns us here are the ideas that Tagore put forth in Talks in China that directly address the question of tradition and modernity as well as the question of peace and unity in Asia. First, Tagore emphasized that ideas were revolutionary. He argued that mechanical organization would stifle the spirit of human beings. He said “All great human movements in the world are related to some great idea.” Therefore, Tagore argued against simply associating modernity with material progress. As he said “The impertinence of material things is extremely old. The revelation of spirit in man is truly modern: I am on its side, for I am modern.” and further “I have my right as a revolutionary to carry the flag of freedom of spirit into the shrine of your idols,---material power and accumulation.” He then spoke of the “great mystic poets who flourished in India from the 13th to the 16th and 17th century.” and said “I was amazed to discover how modern they were…All true things are ever modern and can never become obsolete”. Having seen the first world war and speaking in the age of colonialism, Tagore thus developed a trenchant critique of European modernity. He observed that it had emphasized material accumulation at a great cost. Thus Tagore challenged the idea that merely because he did not discard his past heritage, he was conservative and defended himself as a revolutionary. Second, Tagore emphasized the idea of Pan-Asia. He said “Age after age, in Asia great dreamers have made the world sweet with the showers of their love. Asia is again waiting for such dreamers to come and carry on the work, not of fighting, not of profit-making, but of establishing bonds of spiritual relationship.” Tagore insisted that Asia must truly know each other, not as tourists but by forming deep bonds. “In Asia we must unite” he said. Tagore urged against imitating the West and instead asked for Asians to find their true inheritance. He critically examined the concept of civilization and its association with progress. Instead, Tagore argued that civilization is that which binds human beings together. Pan-Asia is an idea that is associated with the early part of the 20th century and Japanese thinkers like Okakura Tenshin. As Tagore made clear later in his letters with Yone Noguchi in 1938, he was against a Pan-Asianism based on Japanese domination. More importantly, Tagore was against the unity of Asia determined by Asian elites. Instead, he emphasized that he saw the true foundation of civilization in ordinary people and thus the unity of Asia must be based in a deeper relationship, a hard-fought unity which would permeate among the masses of the oppressed. As he said “man cannot reach the shrine if he does not make the pilgrimage” Du Bois and Tagore It is here that the ideas of W.E.B Du Bois join with that of Tagore’s. In his novel, Dark Princess, Du Bois had a memorable scene where the protagonist Matthew Towns, a black man from America, attends a meeting of representatives from Asia who discuss the unfairness of European domination. The Japanese explains to Matthew that they agree that “white hegemony of the world is nonsense; that the darker peoples are the best--the natural aristocracy”. In response Matthew questions whether, if the Asian aristocracy replaced White domination, it would mean much unless they question the ideals of civilization itself, particularly the idea of the majority of mankind serving the minority. What if, Matthew asks, “ability and talent and art is not entirely or even mainly among the reigning aristocrats of Asia and Europe, but buried among millions of men down in the great sodden masses of all men and even in Black Africa?”. The culmination of the novel in the marriage of an Indian princess to Matthew Towns in his novel was metaphorical for the coming together of Pan Asia and Pan Africa in a socialistic future. At the end of the second world war, Du Bois wrote “The World and Africa”, which starts with “The Collapse of Europe”. He argued that the “collapse of Europe is to us the more astounding because of the boundless faith which we have had in European civilization”. Du Bois’ analysis resonates with Tagore’s last address “Crisis in Civilization” where he describes his loss of faith in Western Civilization. Du Bois argued that to understand the calamity, one has to properly understand the role of Africa in world history. “One of the chief causes which thus distorted the development of Europe”, he said, “was the African slave trade”...The result of the African slave trade and slavery on the European mind and culture was to degrade the position of labor and the respect for humanity as such.” This explained the development of Western Civilization whose steps towards science, art and philosophy were marred by the paradoxical need to defend slavery and colonialism. Therefore, for Du Bois, the decadence and paradoxes of modern Europe were to be explained historically by understanding the affect of the slave trade and colonialism on it. As he said “modern life thus was built around colonial ownership and exploitation”. Du Bois argued that “the fire and freedom of black Africa, with the uncurbed might of her consort Asia, are indispensable to the fertilizing of the universal soil of mankind, which Europe alone never would nor could give this aching earth.” Du Bois developed this idea further in his unpublished manuscript, Russia and America. He spoke of needing to develop a new ideal different from the ideals of the West. This ideal would, he said, “must be Marxian in its division of income according to need; but it may be distinctly Asiatic”. “It would take a new way of thinking on Asiatic lines to work this out”, he wrote and “It might through the philosophy of Gandhi and Tagore, of Japan and China, really create a vast democracy into which the ruling dictatorship of the proletariat would fuse and deliquesce". It must be emphasized here that Du Bois felt that the philosophy of Gandhi and Tagore would contribute to the development of communism of a new type. Du Bois was well aware of Tagore’s work and had met Tagore during one of his visits to America. The precise date of this meeting is not clear. It is sometimes dated to 1930, but based on Du Bois’ own description, it may have been earlier in 1916. In any case, what is clear is that Du Bois had studied Tagore and admired his ideas. Tagore had sent a message for the magazine that Du Bois edited, The Crisis, in 1929, “We must show, each in our own civilization, that which is universal in the heart of the unique”. Du Bois explained to his readers that Tagore “has risen and is rising to something quite above the artificial limitations of race, color and nation.” In the Golden Book of Tagore, a homage to Tagore prepared for his 70th birthday, Du Bois wrote a piece on India and Africa. “The thing that India and Africa must learn today is that their interests have more in common than the interests of either have with the ideals of modern Europe”. Writing words that Tagore himself might have written he said “the machine stands and is a marvellous tool but a horrible master”. Finally he gave a plea that “the dark millions of Africa and India can go forward to set new standards of freedom, equality and brotherhood for a world which is in desperate need of these spiritual things” and ended by saying that “It seems to me that no one has had a finer vision of such a future than Rabindranath Tagore.” 30 years later, in a celebration of Tagore’s centenary, a “peace festival” was organized by the World Peace Council. Du Bois, fittingly joined the committee for this celebration. Conclusion We live in an age which still inherits the assumption of Western superiority. Hence, Western thinkers are deemed to have universal relevance whereas all others are specific to their context. In examining the ideas of W.E.B Du Bois and Rabindranath Tagore together, I have assumed them both to be thinkers who are important for humanity as a whole. I have emphasized their critical examination of modernity, and their hope in the coming together of Asia and Africa to set new standards for civilization. The intellectual fashions in the Western world for quite a while have moved towards post-modernity. However, an inherent assumption in a lot of post-modern literature is that if the European elite failed to create human standards for our world, it means that humanity as a whole has failed. None of the foundational post-modern thinkers ever made a profound critique of white supremacy or colonialism. This has left a paucity of ideas in an age where war and poverty continue to ravage us and Western standards for civilization have miserably failed. The challenges that we are faced today require an effort that must involve large sections of humanity. For both Du Bois and Tagore, it is the darker peoples who, given the opportunity, would produce the ideals that our age needs. A deep study of these two thinkers will reward us with a vision for our Afro-Asiatic future of democracy and peace; a tomorrow that they believed in. Archishman Raju is a contributor and editor of this journal. Remarks at the opening of exhibition, “Rabindranath Tagore: The Spirit of Asia and Our Human Future”5/24/2024 Kong Xianhua  Dear friends, Good afternoon and Namaste!
It is my great pleasure to be here to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s historic visit to China. Just now, together with Amb Reddy, I read carefully the old photos of his visit to China and the letters between him and his Chinese friends. In between the shades and the lines, it occurs to me there is a strong empathy between China and India. This empathy is so deeply rooted and commonly shared that it could draw all of us together again after a whole century. One hundred years ago, China and India were in the bloody fight against foreign invasion and colonialism. We gave to each other strong support during this arduous struggle for national liberation and independence. Tagore Ji actively supported Chinese people when we needed a friend indeed the most. He wrote letters to the Japanese, fiercely criticizing Japan's invasion of China. He said “China is unconquerable, her civilization has endless potential, and her people, with their unconditional loyalty to the country and unprecedented unity, are creating a new century for that country.” Another great Indian friend, Dr. Kotnis, even came to China and fought side by side with his Chinese comrades until sacrificing his life. Here are the words of Tagore that touch me the most,“I always feel that India has been one of China’s extremely close relatives, and China and India have been enjoying time-honored and affectionate brotherhood.” 100 years have passed and the world has changed a lot. Today, facing the profound changes unseen in a century, China and India are having the privilege of maintaining healthy economic development and social stability. We should be proud of that. We should also have fully justified reasons to believe Tagore Ji, Dr. Kotnis, Mr. Tan Yunsan and their friends in both China and India would be consoled if they could see what we are seeing today. My dear friends, may I ask such a question? When situations were harsh, we were so empathetic towards each other. Now, when things are getting better, is that empathy still alive? I believe the answer is YES. In 2023, my colleagues worked around the clock and issued nearly 50,000 visas for people from our consular district. At the same time, bilateral trade between China and India has reached a record high of $136 billion and is continuing to grow. More important than that, China and India, with a combined population of one third of the world total, have no reason not to go side by side on the way to achieve the great rejuvenation of each of our great nations and build a community with a shared future for mankind. As President Xi Jinping put it, “the Chinese Dream and the Indian Dream are closely linked and mutually compatible”. There is a famous old Chinese saying,“大道不孤”， " We are not alone on the Great Way". There is also a famous old Indian saying "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam", “the world is a family”. As the two largest developing countries, we should hold in our heart, dearly and deeply, the empathy that bound our ancestors so close. Ladies, gentlemen and dear friends, For thousands of years, China and India have engaged in continuous and reciprocal exchange of culture and commerce. We fought together and worked together. We jointly upheld the Panchsheel, which is now a commonly accepted international norm. I am not saying that between us, there is only friendly cooperation without difficulties. But I firmly believe that China-India relations should not and will not remain at a low ebb for long. I would like to quote my favorite line of Rabindranath Tagore, "If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars". Now, it is our time, and the responsibility is on our shoulder. I hope and I also believe our two peoples, especially the young generation, will carry forward the great spirit of Tagore Ji, Dr. Kotnis and Mr. Tan Yunshan. Kong Xianhua is the Consul General of the Chinese Consulate in Mumbai. by Wen Ying  Portrait of Tagore by Xu Beihong “Wherever we find friend there begins a new life,” so observed Rabindranath Tagore. As a young teen, I lived in China’s countryside, where life was uneventful. Desperate to search for some meaning, I found a friend in Tagore and, through his eyes, I was able to see my monotonous life in a new light.
Tagore’s works dedicated to the beauty of Bengali mountains and rivers opened my eyes to what my village had to offer. In the morning, I would wake with the expectation that the day would come to me “like a new gilt-edged letter”. I enjoyed how “the world awakens and the night takes flight”. In the long, dull days, I would sometimes sit under the lengthening shadow of a big tree, a palm-sized yellowing anthology on my chest. The afternoon sunlight “dancing on the ripples” was just like “restless tiny shuttles weaving golden tapestry”. When my eyelids grew heavier, I felt I was in the embrace of “The Banyan Tree”, melted into the light, turned into a zephyr, swept gently against the tree leaves, and swooped to the river bank to launch my “Paper Boat”. Life, as I found out later, is no small stream, but a broad and torrential river. You come across rocks, rapids, whirlpools, and even small waterfalls. At every sharp turn, I would look to Tagore for guidance. Uplifting was his call for “light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light”. Inspiring was his dreamy portrayal of a world where butterflies “spread their sails on the sea of light” and lilies and jasmines “surge up on the crest of the waves of light”. Nourishing was his tenderness as he remembered his mother through “the tune of some song that she used to hum while rocking my cradle”. And to a young girl, the lost time reading his wise words is never lost and some magic plans are being made in the hidden—“I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed, and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers”. Tagore, besides his love of nature and life itself, also had a big heart for the well-being of humankind. He ardently pleaded to his motherland to cease living a puppet’s life, and break free from the fetters of colonial rule. He condemned the dumping of opium and militarist aggression in China. He donated to China’s struggle for independence. In 1924—100 years ago from now—he first set foot on my country, where the Nobel laureate observed that India and China never thought of each other as “rivals on the battlefield”, “but as noble friends, glorying in their exchange of gifts”. The philosopher had this crucial message for his Chinese audience: Be proud of our shared Oriental cultural heritage, especially its focus on a spiritually fulfilled life, and be wary of giving that up for bits and pieces of the Occidental culture. During that trip, Tagore earned himself a Chinese name, proposed by his Chinese host and leading intellect Liang Qichao. It was Zhu Zhendan. “Zhu” was the name for “India” in Chinese; “zhendan” was a transliteration of “China” in ancient India. I had the honour of once visiting the bard of Bengal’s ancestral home in Kolkata. In his final months, Tagore remembered fondly his trips to China: Once I went to the land of China, Those whom I had not met Put the mark of friendship on my forehead, Calling me their own. But it was really Tagore who had put a mark of friendship on the forehead of generations of Chinese and Indians to come. Wen Ying is a Beijing-based commentator. |
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