Infinite Gifts

On the 7th August, 1941 the Bengali poet, thinker and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore died. His work was praised for its depth and compassion. His life, and his legacy was celebrated all over the world, but he was revered with particular devotion in his native birthplace, and this has consolidated over the decades. His writing and philosophy remain a formative influence in India and in modern day Bangladesh and he is still regarded as an integral part of contemporary Bengali identity.

Tagore became a prominent literary voice during the “Bengal Renaissance”. This was a unique period of Indian history when radically new ideas and artistic innovations developed. India was continually shaped and reshaped by multiple imperial conquests and occupations.

The British arrival moulded India in a truly distinctive way, but it was a double edged sword. The Raj helped to improve prosperity, educational prospects and health outcomes but with significant costs to the liberty and freedom of ordinary Indians. It was an imperial realm, the “jewel” of the British crown, but administered under martial rule.

India’s progression and dynamism as an emerging and thriving nation rested on this paradox. However unlike other imperial forces, the British were comparatively benign. The Mughal emperors, in comparison, were intolerant of the native religion and suppressed Indian identity. Islam was a violent imposition, and anyone who dared to resist was murdered.

In stark contrast, when the British colonised India many of the administrators acquired an affinity for Indian culture and history. One was an esteemed and respected judge based in Calcutta, Sir William Jones. Jones was overwhelmed by the extent of India’s rich classical past. Its wealth and sophistication rivalled Ancient Greece and Rome. He devoted his life to the preservation of India’s antiquity, mastering Sanskrit, translating ancient Indian texts and using this knowledge to uncover India’s hidden history.

Jones enthused about his new passion, declaring that the Sanskrit language was “more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either…the warriors of the Mahabharata appear greater in my eyes, than Ajax and Achilles appeared when I first read the Iliad”. However while the histories of Ancient Greece and Rome were detailed in written sources, India’s past left no trace.

It was a painstaking challenge to reconstruct the history purely from the remnants of archaeology. In 1794, the governor-general, Warren Hastings, became the patron of the Asiatic Society, and Jones was its original founder. The society recruited a collective of volunteers, mostly British civil and military officers who searched vast areas of the Indian countryside for historical artefacts.

The Bengal Renaissance coincided with this new effort to reclaim Indian identity and culture. The first notable figure was the Brahmin sage Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Roy’s gifts as an intellectual and persuasive polemicist were recognised by the East India Company who employed him as a translator. Roy understood that conciliation was the best tactic. He was useful to the British as he was an effective mediator and could even quell any nascent rebellion.

Roy was also an eminent scholar, a fluent linguist and expert theologian. He was also a practicing Hindu and was resistant to Christian conversion. In fact, he felt deeply affronted by the very suggestion. He criticised the British missionaries who “travel to a distant country for the purpose of overturning the opinions of its inhabitants and introducing their own”. In spite of this, he acquired an insight into the benevolent intentions of Christianity.

Roy attempted to reconcile and adapt to the religion, culture and sensibilities of the British. He acknowledged that the education system that was established under British rule was fairer and more equitable than the system that preceded it. Under the previous regime, education was restricted to higher caste Indians, as learning was conducted in temples or mosques where the so-called “untouchables” were forbidden to enter. The British built schools on public land, allowing every Indian child the chance to be educated.

Roy went on cultural exchanges, visiting officials in Britain and he soon became an instrumental figure. He managed to convince his fellow co-religionists that the practice of widow burning was heretical, quoting a verse from the 7th century Sanskrit poet Bana. Bana called these unnecessarily cruel and pointless deaths as a “mere freak of madness, a path of ignorance”. Roy’s pioneering work endeared him to the British, and to the Indians. However as Indian confidence grew, his collaboration with the imperialists was perceived with suspicion.

He died in 1833, but for decades afterwards his work was dissected and analysed, and his reputation was mixed. Many other Indian thinkers attacked him, and sought to eradicate him from Indian history. However Tagore soon became his greatest champion, and defended his allegiance with the British.

He admired his work in Indian education and corrected his critics. He stated that “Roy had the full inheritance of Indian wisdom. He was never a school boy of the West, and therefore had the dignity to be a friend of the West”. Tagore, as a fellow Brahmin and Hindu followed his example, and continued in the proud tradition of learning and seeking wisdom.

Tagore’s most revered collection is “Gitanjali”, which was published in 1910. Three years later an English translation was published, entitled “Song Offerings”. These are powerful, lyrical meditations on the conflict between the spiritual and material, and the attempts to find a semblance of harmony with both. A truly harmonious existence is never truly realised, and it is intensely onerous for the narrator to find any degree of equanimity.

The narrator is engaged in a perpetual search for transcendence, but is continually thwarted by worldly concerns. Enlightenment is clearly a luxury and indulgence in a state of material penury. However, attaining wisdom is an example of true courage in a world inhabited by those who are fixated by superficial, earthly concepts like money, status and possessions. Very few individuals are brave enough to divest themselves of these elements to seek substance and meaning. Even now, his message of universal love continues to resonate, not just in the East, but all over the world.