Tagore has been evaluated a great deal, more specifically in the West, as a mystic and romantic poet. But at the same time he is a great humanist too. He is a poet of Man, and his work is a poem of humanity. He has sympathy for the suffering human, for the poor and the down - trodden, for the under - dog and the exploited. His humanism is a part and parcel of his socialism, not of the Communist type, but of the humanistic mien, without violence and without the talk of revolution. The West's lust for power, materialistic gain had certainly disappointed him. The Asian countries had one thing of his dreams. That was a humanistic approach. Dignity for man, proper human values, social justice and above all, mutual respect for each other are the signs of a new social order or Tagore's dream which he wanted to see in the growing Asian countries.
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| Rabindranath Tagore’s Humanism |
Praising the new social order in the Soviet Union, Tagore said during his visit to the Soviet Union in 1930:
“The new awakening of building up men at equal footing will certainly attract you. All these years civilisation has been witnessing a vast majority of people being exploited to build up one section of fortunate people at the cost of a vast majority who are treated as underdogs. It seemed as if these (exploited) people had no ambition or time to progress. They were left only with the desideratum of wealth of society. They had to toil the most but they got the least. Insults, dishonour were there only to add to their injury. They die of starvation without notice. They get shabby treatment from their employers. They are deprived of all opportunities of life. They are the lamp - stands on whose heads the lamp burns. Everybody gets lights from their head but they get only the darkness around them.”
Through his literary works, Tagore strived for the renewal of human personality and society. As mentioned by Dr. Vivek Bhattacharya, “Tagore always sang to the glory of Man. Man was the hero of all his songs.” In Orchestra (Oikatan), the poet mingles his voice with the farmer, the worker and the common man. In another piece Salvation (Mukti), he prefers a seat with the ordinary man in spiritual salvation. He loved the “world picture filled with honey of human love and the universe with all her natural flora and fauna.” Through poems such as Salvation, Mukti, Sanchayreeta, he wanted to “light millions of candles with fire of love throughout the universal family of Man.” In another welcome song to the unity of Man, i.e., in Udbodhan, Tagore sings:
“Today at the sacred moment of the new dawn of humanity
the new sun on the whole horizon greets the new Man.”
Tagore has expressed his deep love of Man, Nature and their affectionate touch and has even lamented how he would miss them after his departure from this world. He writes:
"I have loved the world
and have wrapped it within my heart in numberless folds,
The light and shadow of night and morn
Here flooded my consciousness,
Till my life and my world have become one.
I have loved the light of the world.
Therefore, I love this life
Yet I know,
I shall have to take leave of it one day.
My voice will no more blossom in this air.
Nor my eyes bathe in this light.
My heart will not rush forth to greet the early dawn,
Nor will the starry night whisper her secrets
Into my ears.”
Tagore's deep love for all men made him occasionally revolt against social injustice and political exploitation. This gets reflected in many of his poems, short - stories, novels and dramas. In one of his masterpieces in original “Gitanjali” (unfortunately this piece has been left out in English version of Gitanjali), “Tagore gives a clarion call to the people to be ready for the reaction of the down - trodden, depressed and the exploited.”
In “Atonement” which is a long poem in the original Gitanjali but not included in the English version, he says, “those whom you have insulted and those whom you have oppressed will certainly not pardon you. Those whose plight you have ignored, whose personality you have thwarted, whose human dignity you have usurped and whose humour you have denied will soon come in power because in the righteous judgement of the divinity controlling this universe, this unfortunate lot will also one day come to power. When they regain their dignity and prestige, they would like to crush and hit back those who stood in the way of their progress and prosper for centuries.”
In Durbhaga Desh, Tagore purports to say:
“You have to pay for the wide gap that you have created. This has to be made up by those who have been responsible for creating them.”
In another memorable piece, Bharat Tirtha, Tagore describes India as the holy pilgrimage. He gives a clarion call to the people of the worked to come to the blessed soil and join in tune with the harmonious symphony, the spirit of which is unity in diversity.
As a humanist, Tagore is a great lover of freedom and fearlessness. In his poem Suprabhat, his optimism and love for freedom are very well reflected:
“Whose voice do I hear at the dawn
No fear, no fear, no fear,
Those who sacrifice their lives selflessly
will perish never, never, O dear.”
He further says:
“Through the troubled history of man
comes sweeping a blind fury of destruction
and the towers of civilisation topple
down to dust.
In the chaos of moral nihilism
are trampled underfoot by marauders
the best treasures of Man heroically won
by the martyrs for ages.
Come, young nations,
proclaim the fight for freedom,
raise up the banner of invincible faith.
Build bridges with your life across the
gaping earth blasted by hatred,
and march forward.”
In Durbhaga Desh (originally in Gitanjali 1910), Tagore warns:
“Those whom you have deprived of their human rights
Those whom you made stand before you,
Yet accorded no seat yonder
Will drag
you down,
And will force you to stoop so low.”
In Gitimalya (1914) and Gitali (1914) also we have references to the suffering of those who are ostracised; Parishesh (1933), Patraput ( 1938 ), Senjuti (1938), Prantik (1938) and Ashwan (1938) are also full of references to the plight of the struggling humanity and his sympathy for the ‘insulted humanity’. At several occasions the poet also denounces the Hindu caste system, superstition and differences of colour and creed. Not to say of his poems, in his prose works too, Tagore comes out as a humanist. In his Religion of Man, he vindicates his philosophy of naranarayana God - Man very explicitly, and quoting Rajjab, the Saint poet of medieval India Tagore says:
“God - man (naranarayana) is thy definition; it is not a delusion but truth. In thee the infinite seeks the finite, the perfect knowledge seeks love and when the form and the formless (the individual and the universal) are united, love is fulfilled in devotion.”
For freedom, which is the first and foremost condition for an honourable human existence, he calls upon the people of the young nation of the world to wage a fight in Ashwan (1938):
“Do not submit yourself to carry the burden of insult
upon your head,
Kicked by terror,
And dig not a trench with falsehood and cunning
To build a shelter for your dishonoured manhood,
Offer not the weak as sacrifice to the strong
To save yourself.”
Though occasionally, he could become a poet of the people. His national anthem, his concern for the underdog and his desire to sing of the miseries of the common people never died. He says,
“The ploughman and his team
The weaver at the beam,
Or the fisherman playing his net,
Each has a life
With a dream and strife
To which no entry could I get,
And yet they form
The bulk and the norm
And lend to the earth a varied tone.
They spin, they toil.
They till the soil
And build paradise of an arid zone.” — Oikatan
In Oikatan he puts forward the view that he alone can be a poet of the people who will be “their kin, thro’ thick and thin, a friend in need to stand by their side.” For only such a poet would ever stand by them “in weal and woe, among friend and foe”. Yet he probably could not completely identify himself with the common people.
“My art, confess.
Could not gain access
To every heart with graceful ease.” —Oikatan
Despite such humble confession he attains complete identification with humanity at large in poems such as Sonar Tari (The Golden Boat) published in 1894. In this volume of poems there are some poems such as Daridra (The Poor), Mukti (Salvation), Gati (Movement) and Viswa - Nritya (The Dance of the Universe) where he becomes a great humanist and his soul begins to cry and he says:
“My heart down weep
To mingle with the heart of Humanity's deep.”
Thus in numerous poems he cries for bread, for life, for light and freedom, for strength and health and joy and open - hearted courage amidst the misery and distress of the common people. He even gives a clarion call to the Brahmins, the law makers, and asks them to give the ignorant people of their country their due place. They must leave their pseudo - superstitions, their vain egoistic glory and superiority complex otherwise their future was doomed to destruction. He wants justice in their everyday treatment in society, justice in political emancipation, justice in getting the light of knowledge. “In Ebar Phirao Moray Tagore warns the exploited humanity to raise its voice of protest against all oppressions.” (Vivek Bhattacharya, p. 123) In his poem Apaman (insult), published in the Gitanjali, Tagore addresses his countrymen to tell:
“Oh my country unfortunate.
Those whom you have trampled down by your insult
You will have to stoop down to their level.”
Humanist becomes a dominant undercurrent of the post Gitanjali period of Tagore's poetry. The above discussion would remain incomplete without the support of Tagorian scholars. Ernest Rhys says:
“The union of nations, the destroying of caste, religious pride, race - hatred, and race prejudice in a word, the Making of Man; there lies his human aim. It is, he says, the one problem of the present age, and we must be prepared to go through the martyrdom of sufferings and humiliations till the victory of God in man is achieved.”
In the concluding lines of his book, Rhy says:
“His temperament, his love of Nature, and the life of meditation that the Indian sun favours, might have led him to retire from the struggle for the new order. A sharper force drove him to look to the ailment of his time, and he became, instead of its ascetic, or its hermit in the wilderness, its healer, its discerner, and its lyric poet in one.”
Prof. V. Lesny says:
“Tagore, who is unshakable in his faith in man, wishes to oppose the world - wide opinion that man is essentially sinful and must be saved by God's grace, and to emphasize that there is a divinity in man and that this is man's glory.”
At another place Prof. Lesny says:
“He is not interested in heaven or celestial deities. It is in this world that man's progress towards perfection must take place, and therefore life in this world is the object of his preoccupations.”