Musings on the Life & Times of Chinnasamy Subramania Bharathi Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan 10

Musings on the Life & Times of Chinnasamy Subramania Bharathi
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
10

Having taken the plunge, let me jump into Tagore Mania and you cannot detect a ‘proud tamilian’ talking. There is no intellectual dissertation here, to back it. There is undeniable anguish expressed by tamils in general, including your truly, that Bharathiyar has not gained the traction his works deserved or deserves. Barring a quote here on Independence Day from the ramparts of Red Fort by a Prime Minister or address of President of India, on the eve of Republic Day or a quote in Budget speeches by Union Finance Ministers of India, Bharathi is not a ‘celebrity’ in the ‘Tagore league’ as my father V Narasimhan, as a former colleague of his in Swadesamithran always bemoaned . What of Tagore then?

In January,2020 Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked Rabindranath Tagore in Kolkata to make a point that several important aspects of India’s history were overlooked by historians, who wrote about it without delving deep into the subject, both during the British rule and after Independence. To borrow from Sanghamitra Mazumdar (borrow is passé for these Musings, you see, but with the promised attribution) who expanded on this theme.It fits in beautifully with my own Subramania Bharathi’s or selflessly, our own Bharathi’s India. ‘It is not a myth but rubbish to suggest or claim that India as a nation was conceived and forged only after the British took over us, bit by bit, starting with Fort Williams in Calcutta and and as if Bharat was not there in the times of Adi Sankara and Ramanuja, Chaitanya, Ballabacharya and Surdas and the thousands more, we have disdainfully abandoned, to our eternal misery’ said historian R C Majumdar once.

Speaking after dedicating to the nation four refurbished heritage buildings of the city — the Old Currency Building, the Belvedere House, the Metcalfe House and the Victoria Memorial Hall — Narendra Modi recalled Tagore’s words from a 1903 essay in which he said “India’s history is not that what students study for examinations”.

Some people came from outside, killed their own relatives, brothers for the sake of throne, is not our history. This was said by Gurudev himself. He had said in this history, it is not mentioned what the people of the country were doing. Didn’t they have any existence?” Modi said.

Modi was referring to Rabindranath Tagore’s essay,Bharatbasher Ithihas ( History of India), which he wrote in 1903. “The history of India that we read and write in examinations after memorising it is only a nightmare. Some people came from somewhere, unleashed bloodbath, fights started between fathers and sons, between brothers… If one group somehow left, another came — Pathan, Mughal, Portugese, French, British, all of them together made this nightmare even more complicated over time,” Tagore wrote in his opening lines for the essay.

You cannot see the real India if you see it with this blood-stained vision, he continued. “Where were the Indians (then)? This history doesn’t answer that. As if there were no Indians (then), there only existed those who executed the deadly violence.” Even in those days of horror, normal life must have gone on, Tagore wondered.

On a stormy day, the storm itself is not the only event of the day… For human beings, the events of births and deaths, joy and sadness taking place on that day are more important. But a foreigner sees only the storm, because he is outside the houses, not inside.
“That’s why, in the history written by foreigners, we only see stories of that dust and storm, not of the homes. When we read that history, it seems there was no India then, the Mughals and Pathans, raising their flags, just marched around from north to south and west to east,” Tagore wrote.

But there did exist an India, Tagore added. “…otherwise, who gave birth to Kabir, Nanak, Chaitanya, Tukaram amid all this turmoil?
“It wasn’t like there were only Delhi and Agra then. There were Kashi and Nabadweep (birthplace of 15th century Vaishnava saint Chaitanya Mahaprabhu) too. The life stream flowing around that time in the real India, the waves of efforts that were rising, the social changes that were happening, we don’t find any description of that in history.”

Tagore asserted that Indians are not “branches and shrubs” but “our hundreds and thousands of roots through centuries have occupied prime position in India. But the kind of history we are made to read makes our children forget all this. It seems, we don’t exist in India, only the visitors do,” he wrote.

Prime Minister alluded to Tagore’s not so disseminated essay on the idea of a nation.On reading this essay and Tagore’s further essays, as Bharatbarsher Itihas is not his only work where Tagore has criticised Indian history written by foreigners, one is stunned by the meeting of minds of Subramania Bharathi and Rabindranath Tagore, not divergence.

In his essay, Aitihasik Chitra ( Historical Picture) No published in a magazine by the same name, he wrote in 1898: “One can become a pundit and score high marks in examinations by memorising history created by others, but the efforts to collect and create own history not only result in expertise but also open the blocked streams of our thoughts. In that enthusiasm and effort lies our health, our life.”

In Bhanusingha Thakurer Jibani (1884) Tagore talked about the absence of Indian history as he rued the fact that there was nothing much to read about “ancient Vaishnav poet Bhanusingha Thakur”.

“ We don’t get to learn anything in the absence of history, and it’s proven by the fact that we don’t know anything about ancient Vaishnav poet Bhanusingha Thakur. This is unfortunate.”
The Nobel laureate’s 1877 essay Jhansi Rani (Queen of Jhansi) makes a special mention in the end that he knew “only this much” about Laxmibai from the British history, and added, “It’s our desire to publish in future the history that we have collected about the queen.”

In Bharatbarsher Itihas, Tagore also wrote that India’s written history has clouded its idea of ‘swadesh’ or native land. “Countries that are lucky, find their eternal homeland in their history. People are introduced to their country from childhood through this history. But it’s exactly the opposite in India’s case. It’s the country’s history that has kept the idea of ‘swadesh’ under a cloud.”

In his essay, Tagore also took a critical view of the educated Indians who “question” the idea of India as they ask “who do you call nation, where is it, where was it?”. Tagore said, “You don’t get an answer to these questions. The matter is so micro, but so massive, that it can’t be understood through logic.”

But if someone asked what is the main significance of India, Tagore said, there is an answer. “India’s history will corroborate that answer. India has always made only one effort, to forge unity in diversity, to direct different paths to one destination…”

The essay also talked about India’s inclusivity and its responsibility to maintain that.
“India has always laid the foundation for an inclusive civilisation… She has never driven away any outsider, never ostracised anyone calling the person non-Aryan, hasn’t made fun of anyone incompatible. India has taken in all, accepted all.”

Tagore, however, cautioned: “Despite taking in so much, one needs to establish own system and own discipline, for the sake of self-defence. When there is a battle of survival, the country cannot unleash them all on each other like animals. They have to be bound by a basic idea. The instrument can be from anywhere, but the discipline has to be India’s, that basic idea will be of India.”

Coming back to the education system, Tagore listed adversities. “Whatever we learn is adverse, the way we learn in adverse, the educator is adverse too. If we have learnt anything despite this, and put this learning to any use, it’s our credit.”However, he added, Indians need to take responsibility for education if they want to rid themselves of foreign education.

“The way India has for ages built our inner nature, if we try to distort that, willingly or at somebody else’s behest, we will fail in the world and be embarrassed.” Tagore concluded his essay with a note of hope.

“From our vast educated lot, there will definitely rise a few who will hate the business of education and accept teaching a hereditary vow. They will sacrifice luxury and go to every corner of the country to open schools of modern education… Education will attain independence and dignity in those schools. Despite the footprints of British royal merchants and their education, I firmly believe Bengal will give birth to some of such ‘gurus’.”

True, one is musing on Bharathi. Not Tagore. But one has risked comparing the greats and while Bharathi discourse is the main course, Tagore is too great to occupy the sidelines. At least a couple of chapters may need to be devoted to him. To lay out the broad canvass to see the ‘greatness’ in both Bharathi and Tagore, as national visionaries and not parochial chauvinists, some may try to own them up as. The entire India that is Bharat was their Karma Bhoomi. Just as we Tamilians continuously carp that Bharathi though in the league of a Shelley ( Shelleydasan Chinnaswamy called himself, mind you) never got even a millionth of his recognition, even the Bengalis have constantly groused that ‘were Tagore born in the West, he may have surpassed the greatness of a Goethe’ . Where is the compete then?

To strike an autobiographical note , which one consciously avoids, as first person singular does not belong to the likes of me; While studying in Gopalapuram Boys’ High School, Chennai, ( a stone’s throw away even today from my beloved home) in eighth standard, there was a prestigious All India competition on ‘ National Poets of India’ held for school and college students.

I was gung-ho to take part with my favourite poet Bharathi. My father dusted up his thoughts and cupboards and helped me pen a piece of 4/5 minutes long, with excerpts from Panchali Sabatham strewn across. It sounded ‘cool’ as is the current lingo. I memorised it like my life depended on it. I put in the 10,000 hours akin to a Gladwellian Outliers’ practice.I felt awesome. Going into the competition, I felt truly awesome.

( Author is practising advocate in the Madras High Court)