Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation by Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, New Delhi, Penguin/Viking, 2011, pp. 306 + viii. Rs. 499

This is an excellent study of Tagore, focusing on his intellectual pilgrimage. Everyone should read the outstanding novel Gora and the short collection of verses Gitangali, and then also a biography to understand the life of this great man.

Tagore was raised in the Brahma (or Brahmo) Samaj, famous for its embrace of reform and esteem for Jesus. By the end of the nineteenth century the Samaj ended up in three factions, none of which prospered. This telling paragraph about Tagore and the Brahma Samaj is the reason for adding this book to this blog.

Virtually from the 1890s to the 1930s we see Tagore carrying on a campaign for the scientific attitude in India and against ingorant obscurantism and slavish faith in the infallibility of the shastras among the educated. Sometimes such pronouncements have been seen as Brahma Samaj propaganda against Hinduism. That is an error. There is evidence that Tagore, as he grew to maturity, ceased to be a devout member of the Adi Brahma Samaj, although in his early life, motivated by his father, he played a prominent role in the organization and its propaganda. In 1910 Tagore lectured at the Sadharan Brahma Samaj on ‘The Significance of the Brahma Samaj’. His argument, upholding Rammohan’s Brahmaism, did not go down too well, specially because Tagore’s message was that Brahma Samaj must break out of Brahma sectarianism. In 1930 he wrote frankly to his niece: the Adi Brahma Samaj was dead and ‘I don’t feel enthused to carry the corpse–we should respect the past, but we should not pretend that it is not the past’. Tagore’s was not a Brahma Samajist agenda against orthodox Hinduism, the agenda was to promote a scientific attitude in his country. (pg. 199)

The sectarianism of the Brahma Samaj is bitingly protrayed in Gora, and contributed to the demise of the movement.

This is just one brief snapshot from a remarkable life.