Tagore’s Poetry: Ballad of Humanism

Bharati Mukherjee

HISTORY occasionally witnesses the birth of some sparkling personalities that burn ablaze all ugliness, all pettiness, all inhumanvulgarities and thereby lead civilization to reach a dizzy height. Suchpersonalities cannot be confined within the narrow geographical boundaries where they first touched the terrestrial earth. By dint of theirvision, mission and action they expose themselves as Universal Man
holding high up the banner of human values—truth, love, beauty, forbearance, harmony and eternal search for the ultimate destination fromhere to eternity. In such a galaxy of the prophets of humanism,
Rabindranath Tagore, the minstrel of Mother India, occupies a frontalposition.
Tagore is a myriad dimensional personality. He is a great poet andlyricist as well as a prose writer, a dramatist, a painter, a performer, asocial reformer, an educationist and what not. But the undertone of all
his creations and activities is love for Man. He is a passionate Indian,but his nationalism transcendents into universalism, where one may findout a unique blending of the best of the East and that of the West. This
paper is an humble attempt to get a glimpse of Tagore’s philosophy ofhumanism. If the epithet ‘poetic’ refers to a synthesis of truth, beauty,
harmony and music, perhaps all his literary creations can claim the epithet. In the present paper, however, for obvious reason, only his poems
and lyrics will be cited for discussion.
On May 7, 1861, Rabindranath was born in an aristocratic, affluent
and cultured family of Tagores at Jorasanko in Kolkata. This was thetime when India, particularly Bengal was passing through a total cultural revolution known as the Renaissance. It opened the doors which had
been closed for centuries. It was to search and cultivate new ideas, newthoughts and new approaches touching almost every aspect that makes
human life beautiful and worth living.
Jorasanko Thakurbari (Tagore’s House) was the hub of such cultural
rejuvenation that fostered the basic values of rationalism, nationalismand humanism. Rabindranath from his very childhood because of both132

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heredity and environment imbibed these values and inculcated themthrough his lifelong creations.
Under the influence of his ascetic father Maharshi Debendranth,Rabindranath grew up in an atmosphere which was charged with theteachings of Vedanta and Upanisads. In his later years he was deeply
impressed with the teachings of Vaisnavism, and also that of the saintsof Mediavel Bhakti cult of India like Kabir, Rabidas, Dadu, Nanak andothers. Sufi saints also enchanted him. As such the very fragrance ofthese philosophies that uphold the hankering for love, beauty, truth,peace, harmony as the process in the incessant search of the ultimate,forms the quintessence of Tagore’s philosophy of humanism.
Tagore started writing at the age of thirteen and the next sixty sevenyears were marked by ceaseless and torrential flow of creativity in manifold forms. At the beginning of his literary career Tagore is a romantic
and to some extent a mystic poet. He is a worshipper of beauty. So anything that is beautiful in nature, the young poet feels vibration of hisown self in it. His heart dances like a peacock with the changing seasons, his eyes wake up from dreams with the flowing of the cascade,when spring comes gladdening the earth after sluggish winter, the poetreels in joy. He is so happy in the midst of nature’s beauty that he writes:
This world is beautiful,I have taken up into my heart
The sweetened dust of the earth.
This is the message of successful life.

The poet at this stage is a frenzied lover. Initially his love is more orless earthly. In his series of lyrics entitled Prema (Love) and in innumerable poems his passionate love and hankering for his beloved have been
beautifully painted. Only two examples are cited:
We two will float in the full-tide of love. So be free from all bindings.
The period of separation has been spent with pangs only with a daydream.
At last, all roads are in union in your two eyes.

But soon such passionate material love transcends ethereal. It is not tobe understood as an euphoria, neither it carries any biological connotation. The poet himself defines love in his own way.

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O what is this !
Mysterious and uncapturable Bliss
That I have known and yet seems to beSimple as breathe and easy as a smile
And older than the earth.

Now the poet’s love is qualitatively different; it is more sublime. It is
the stage where the poet is in search of a true relationship between thefinite and the Infinite. In his desire to touch the Desired, he feels thepangs of separation. It is to note that at this stage the desirous and theDesired are conceived as two separate entities. So the poet murmurs:
I, the Man, am wandering alone in theBig universe, amidst vast endless sky
Through Eternal time.
Thou the father of the world
Sitting all alone speechless and confined within
Thy Divine abode of majestic glory
and endless mysteryIn the second stage, this feeling of separateness pains the poet and thepoet passes through obsession that only endless sufferings could lead tosalvation. In Sandhyasangeet he writes:
Sufferings, come to me, come to me
This heart is entirely lonely

So he clamours:
O Lord! Give me more pain
And make me more conscious
Break the door, overcome all obstacles
And save me, O my Lord!

Gradually the poet realizes that only by submerging the identity of theself into collectivity he can come nearer to his Desired. He is convincedthat there is an organic relationship between finite and Infinite. Complete self-annihilation, self-effacement and negation of self-consciousness can lead to a complete union between the two. Love is the stringthat bonds. At this stage were composed unparalled poems and lyrics ofGitanjali, Gitimalya, Gitali, Utsarga, Naivedya and similar other series

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135of poems.
The changed Tagore promises:
I’ll not deceive you by my beauty,
But only through love.
I’m not to open the door by hand
But only by singing.

This brings complete dependence where he murmurs:Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure.
This frail vessel thou emptiest, again and again
And fillest it ever with fresh life.

Then comes total surrender with a craze for reaching the goal of salvation where says the poet:
I shall have to give you my all
I know—
All my treasures
All my thoughts

Similarly the poet prays:
Let me lie down upon the ground
Beneath your footstool in perfect gladness
Let my garment be red with the commonDust you touched with your feet.

But the coveted salvation is not the renunciation of the world. His
freedom is to be traced in earthly bondage with delight. In Naivedya, hewrites:
Deliverance is not for me in renunciation
I feel the embrace of freedom in a
Thousand bonds of delight.

This freedom leads to a total whole that is Infinite, which is the consolidation of the best in the finites. So this Infinite is Satyam (Truth),Shivam (Goodness), Sundaram (Beauty) and therefore Anandaswarupam (Happiness). A conglomeration of all such qualities brings perfect

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harmony, and this is Absolute. This perfect freedom is the key that leads
Man from the state of finiteness to identify with the Infinite. He says:
Within the finites, you the Infinite
play your own tune.
Your expression in me therefore
is so sweet.

This eternal searching for this perfect freedom is an essential componentof humanity. This dimension adds a special aroma to Tagore’s philosophy of harmony and humanism.
At this stage there is a significant and qualitative change in his poetic
exuberance. Now the poet identifies himself as one among his fellows.
Severing his romanticism and mysticism the poet now embraces tangibleness of real life and real world. So he writes!
Come my friend, who can free me from bonds of toil.
………………………………………
Come from among the crowd,
You, to whom I fully belong,
Who can call me by my own true name.

The poet aspires complete assimilation with masses as he writes:
Let my name be known
That I am a man of yours.

Manasi, Sonar Tori, Chitra—all these poem-series are the product ofthis spirit. He explains his mood:
How my heart opens today!
Here the world comes and embraces.

Now for the first time the poet realizes that he has some commitment
to his fellow beings. He gives the clarion call:O poet! Come up—if you have life
Come along with it and offer
That to day.

The poet now can feel the pulse of the down-trodden people and finds

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out his Jeevan Devta (Director of life) in them. In his Chandalika dance
drama (story of the daughter of an untouchable), in his poem Dhulamandir (The Temple of Dust), in Shuchi (Pure) and in similar otherpieces the poet offers ovation to the toiling and marginalized people. Sosays he:
Whom are you worshipping quietly?
Open your eyes and seeYour god is not there.
He is where the farmer is tilling the earth.
He is where stones are being hewn
To make a path.
………………………………
Where will you get freedom?
The lord himself is boundWith all that he has created.

The poet condemns the social system and warns for its hateful attitude to the marginalized section:
By preventing the touch of Man
You have hated the God of man’s heart
For anguished rage of the Creator, on the door of famine
You shall have to take food and drink sharing with others………………………………
Whom you have pushed downward, will bind you down
Whom you have left behind, will draw you back.

The poet conveys his thanks to his Lord that his lot lies with the humble who suffer and bear the burden of power and hide their faces and stifle their sobs in the dark.
Poet’s identification with common people and his sympathy for the
oppressed and enslaved makes him concerned for the other half of thehuman society—the women. In his heart of hearts the poet strongly
believes that without fullest development of women’s personality andpotentiality, full fledged advancement of the society is not possible.
Hence harmony becomes missing in social system. In his Chitrangada(dance drama) and Raktakarabi (drama) the power, spirit and assertiveness of eternal womanhood have been beautifully illustrated. In hispoem Sabala, the woman questions:

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Why deprive me, my Fate,Of woman’s right
Boldly to conquer the best of life’s prizes?

Thus as a stalwart of Bengal Renaissance, Tagore gives highest place
to Man even higher than the God. To him Man is the creator of the Creator. So says he:Being coloured with my awarenessThe emerald becomes green,
The ruby becomes red.
I opened my eyes to the sky
Lighted up East and WestI looked at the rose and said ‘beautiful’
It becomes beautiful.

What can be a better tribute to Man! What can be a more glorificationof humanity!
As a protagonist of human freedom all through he is a seeker of peacebecause he believes that violence slays human soul. Whenever andwherever there is any episode of tyranny, oppression, show of bruteforce and exploitation of human values, he lifts up his pen as a sword
and protests vehemently. Contemporary inhuman brutality of two world
wars, arrogance and exploitative countenance of uneven capitalist development, aggression by the Nazis and the Fascists, molestation of democracy in Spain, attack on Manchuria by Japan—all perturbed the calmand serene spirit of the composer of Gitanjali. In utter disgrace he sighs:
The poisonous breath of the serpents
Is spreading all around.

Despite his very delicate poetic approach it is widely known that
Tagore became extremely vocal against stampede of humanism in thetwo wars and signed the Charter of World Peace along with Einstein andRomain Rolland and similar other stalwarts.
He was also opposed to all types of machine-made civilization which
destroys the natural surroundings for human being and which is thebedrock of exploitative capitalism. In the face of utter crisis of civilization his dramatic creations like Mukta-Dhara (Free Flow) and Raktakarabi (Red Oleanders) express his utter frustration when he writes:TAGORE’S POETRY: BALLAD OF HUMANISM

139

The world today is wild with the delirium of hatred,
The conflicts are cruel and unceasing in anguish
Crooked are its paths, tangled its bonds of greed.

Protesting against British brutality at Jalianwala Bagh he denounced
Knighthood. His protest against imperialism is not confined within theboundaries of his motherland. Addressing colonially oppressed Africa,
he pronounces in utter pain:
The savage greed of the civilized stripped
naked its unashamed inhumanity.
You wept and your cry was smothered,Your forest trails become muddy with tears and blood.

In utter wrath he questions his Lord:
Those who are poisoning your air
and putting off your light
Have you pardoned them and loved?

Finally in search of peace he takes refuge to Lord Buddha and says:
Let thy great awakening under the bodhi tree be fulfilled………………………………
Let through innumerable voices,
the gospel of immeasurable love announce thy call.

This protesting spirit against oppression and injustice that humiliate
humanity have added an excellent dimension to Tagore’s humanism.
Rabindranath, no doubt, is a poet, a philosopher. But his innate love
for Man impels him to be an Indian also. He is proud of being so:
Blessed am I that I am bornto this land and that I had the luck to love her.

Despite his romantic view towards nature and a mystic-transcendental
approach towards life, his sensitive nationalist soul bleeds profusely by
the pinch of hatred, humiliation and exploitation by the colonizers.
Hence comes out an incessant flow of poems and lyrics from his untiring pen. As a socially responsible member of the milieu Tagore associat-

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ed himself with the active politics of Bengal and supported constructive
Swadeshi movement of Gandhiji. Without going into details of thispoint this much I want to mention that to him life in the East is flowing
like a feeble rivulet,… It has grace, softness and forbearance. To feel the‘life-process’ that is continuing in India what are necessary are tolerance, reassertion, rehabilitation, reorganization and revivification ofIndia’s own cultural heritage and traditional ethos which will lead India
to be a land—
Where the mind is without fear
And the head is held highAnd where knowledge is free.
Where the world has not been broken up intofragments by narrow domestic walls.

But such passionate Indianism could not confine Tagore into the limited purview of narrow nationalism. He was an Indian by birth but aworld citizen by his perception. His goal is to channellise the streams ofnationalism to the direction of supranationalism or universalism by freeing human soul from all bondage and pettiness and thereby transcending
itself into a search for universal love and brotherhood. India’s motto,Tagore reminds us, is Unity in Diversity. So India in Tagore’s vision is
the pilgrimage of world humanity as it is the great synthesizer and unifier in the midst of manifold differences through centuries. To him India
is a place where:
The Aryans, the non-Aryans, the Dravida and ChinaSakas, Hunas, Pathans and Mughals
All are merged in one body.
The West has now opened the door and bringing gifts;
All are to deliver and accept and mingle
And no one is to recede.

This is how Tagore’s passionate search to rediscover his country
through her own heritage yet identifying her with the underlying unity
with humanity as a whole besmears Tagore’s philosophy of humanismwith the tranquil touch of internationalism.
When the present world is under constant threat of fragmentalism in
the face of narrow sectarianism, regionalism, communalism and linguistic snobbery, where peace is dwindled up under the paw of greedy consumerism arising out of negative dimension of globalization, whereTAGORE’S POETRY: BALLAD OF HUMANISM

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harmony is under the constant threat of unplanned aggressive technology, Tagore’s poetry with its beauty and lustre consoles us and gives themantra:
You demean yourself
If you dither.
Let not imaginary troubles
Dishearten you.

In the long uphill journey in human life if no one shows the light evenon a stormy night of thunder and lightening, Tagore is our pathfinder.
His poetry with its message of world peace, harmony and humanism isan eternal light-house to mankind.
Select Bibliography
1. Dutta, Krishna and Robinson, Andrews, Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man, London, Bloomsbury, 1995.
2. Ghosh, Sisir Kumar, Rabindranath Tagore, New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, 1990.
3. Mohit Ray, Tagore’s poems, Part I, Atlantic, 2007.
4. Muley, D.S., Rabindranath’s Poetry, Jabalpur, Universal Press, 1964.
5. Pandya, Ketki N, Tagore’s Chitra and Aurobindo’s Savitri: A Comparative study,
New Delhi, Atlantic, 2004.
6. Radhakrishnan, S, Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore, Baroda, Good Companions, 1961.
7. Sastri, K.S. Ramaswami, Sir Rabindranath Tagore: His life, personality andgenius, Delhi, Akashdeep, 1988.
8. Tinker, Hugh, The Ordeal of Love: C.F. Andrews and India, New Delhi, 1979.