Tagore and the Fight for Peace

Nandita Chaturvedi

We live in a world that is undergoing rapid changes and shifting in a profound way. There is a deep political and social crisis in the West, and particularly in America. The world order, as it has existed, can no longer be determined by the West. On the other hand Asia is rising, China has lifted millions out of deep poverty, and India is poised to do the same. This is an opening up of world democracy, as millions of people in the darker world are freed from the clutches of poverty and degradation. Yet, our times are steeped in violence and tragedy. As today we celebrate Rabindranath Tagore and his vision for Pan Asia, we keep the children of Palestine, who are children of Asia, at the front of our minds. This is a time when we must educate ourselves as Indians, we must not let history pass us by without making our contribution to it.

Today, there is a deep political and social crisis in the West, and particularly in America. Student protests that have deepened the crisis in American Universities. These protests are the latest iteration of a deeper rot in the American education system and show that the American university is no longer a place of knowledge and learning, but has become a place where propaganda to justify the American world order is produced. The people of that nation no longer believe in the legitimacy of their institutions. The American people are perhaps more anti-war today than they were during the war in Vietnam. The student protests at the time of the Vietnam war were sparked because of the draft. This time around, the students do not gain anything personally from their protest, but are driven by deeper moral and humanistic considerations. They do not want any longer to be complicit in a system that can oversee the humanitarian crisis in Palestine without conscience. Outrage at Israel and American and European for the war on Gaza has split certain sections of the West away from their alliance. All of this points to the fact that the world order, as it has existed, can no longer be determined by the West.

We are living in a time when the threat of nuclear war, the most horrific of human inventions, looms larger than ever before. The threat of war looms over West Asia and escalation seems imminent in Eastern Europe. It is in this context that we must remember that India and China together constitute ⅓ of the world’s population, and if united in vision and ideas, can form a formidable force for world peace.

As Indians we inherit a beautiful and glorious history of fighting for peace. Perhaps this history is exemplified by none better than Gurudev Rabindrath Tagore. In April of 1924, one hundred years ago, Tagore landed in China. He was received as a hero, as a messenger from the deep and ancient past of Asia but also as a prophet for what could be a glorious future. Today we celebrate Tagore’s visit to China when we, as Asians, do not know each other. There are many hurdles that stand in the way of us coming together as brothers. Many ask, why do an event on peace with China in this climate? However, we agree with Martin Luther King Jr who said, “Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.”

This is a time that is calling out to us to follow the path laid out by Rabindranath Tagore. We may be few in number, but the fact that a few of us believe in a peaceful future is very significant. Tagore always considered himself a poet, whose mission was to “to attract the voice which is yet inaudible in the air; to inspire faith in the dream which is unfulfilled ; to bring the earliest tidings of the unborn flower to a sceptic world.” He too visited China in a time when the brother nations of India and China had been separated for many centuries because of colonialism. The opium grown through slavery on our land had been used by the British to subjugate the Chinese people. Tagore would say in China, “So many are there to-day who do not believe. They do not know that faith in a great future itself creates that future; that without faith you cannot recognise your opportunities. Prudent men and unbelievers have created dissensions, but it is the eternal child, the dreamer, the man of simple faith, who has built up great civilisations. This creative genius, as you will see in your own past history, had faith which acknowledged no limits. The modern sceptic, who is ever critical, can produce nothing whatever, — he can only destroy.”

And so, we must come together in a spirit of hope and unlimited faith. We do not celebrate Tagore with weak sentimentalism for a dead past, but we study his ideas and life so we can act in the world with certainty and strength. We study him for the children of our nation, in whom he saw the greatest potential. Through Tagore we learn that when you study and know another people, in this case the people of China, you learn to know yourself better. You see what is universal in human beings, and in yourself.

If we come together in Asia, we can share our experiences, and draw on our rich histories, both modern and ancient, to fight the struggles we all face in our own societies, poverty, illiteracy and disease. Indeed, in this time, we in India must seek to learn from the Chinese experience of poverty elimination, as they have accepted our gifts of ideas in the past.

Tagore also believed that this unity could be achieved only through the ordinary men and women of our civilization. One can see this in his critique of Japanese aggression on China. Tagore sharply criticized the Japanese idea of Asian Unity based on abstract notions of ‘Asian values’ that could co-exist with domination and war. His exchange with Japanese poet Yone Noguchi shows the debate, with Tagore condemning the idea that war and imperialism could lead to peace and unity. For Tagore, the idea of Pan Asia was based in a broader unity, fundamentally based in ordinary people, in the workers and peasants who toiled all over the ancient civilizations. As Chinese poet Bing Xin said of Geetanjali, “The reason why these poems strike especially a responsive chord in the hearts of the Chinese people is first and foremost Tagore's fervent love of his country and people, which is well expressed in No. 11 of Gitanjali.
Here, Tagore uses the style of a hymn to point out the importance of living and working together with the workers and peasants. He condemns those who only wish to put on white robes and worship God with flowers in the lonely dark temples but refuse to toil together with the poorest and lowliest masses of the people in the dusty places.”

Tagore is beloved in China. He is taught in schools and his poems are known among ordinary people. He is the second most translated foreign author in China after Shakespeare. Speaking to Chinese people, one gets the sense that they consider him to be one of their own. In this way, Tagore is truly Asian, and belongs to us all. In fact, Tagore should really be considered a world historic thinker. This event is the second in our series this year to mark Rabindranath Tagore’s historic visit to China. I want to share with you that an extensive exhibition was put up at the Indian Institute of World Culture two weeks ago and will be up again starting Tuesday for a few days. There will be events following this one in Delhi and in Kolkata. Significantly, the centenary of Tagore’s visit is being marked in several events across China, including in Beijing University, Shenzhen University, Tsinghua University and Shanghai.

I will leave you with one more quotation from Tagore’s talks in China. He says, “When you have succeeded in recalling all the things achieved in spite of insuperable difficulties, I hope that some great dreamer will spring from among you and preach a message of love and, there with overcoming all differences bridge the chasm of passions which has been widening for ages. Age after age, in Asia great dreamers have made the world sweet with 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.” This is the spirit that we wish to remember and revive today.

Nandita Chaturvedi is contributor and editor of this journal.

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