The Crisis of Civilization

Rabindranath Tagore ( 1861 – 1941 )

 

Santiniketan, April 1941

 

As Independent India turns 60 on August 15, we present a collection of inspiring words by our visionary leaders, extracted from the book, Great Speeches of Modern India, with the kind permission of the publishers, Random House India. Before we read the immortal words of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore at the height of the Second World War, it’s over to journalist and historian Rudrangshu Mukherjee, who edited the book Tagore had been unwell for some time. He was making preparations to leave Santiniketan for Calcutta, and was perhaps aware that he would not return to his beloved university. On Bengali New Year’s Day, he spoke in Viswa Bharati of his anguish at the killing and destruction he saw around him. This speech, given at the height of the Second World War, turned out to be not only the last speech he made in Shantiniketan but also his last public pronouncement. For these reasons it is a profoundly moving and powerful speech – the final testament of a man disillusioned by history but clinging to his faith in man.

 

The Crisis of Civilization

 

Today I complete eighty years of my life. As I look back on the vast stretch of years that lie behind me and see in clear perspective the history of my early development, I am struck by the change that has taken place both in my own attitude and in the psychology of my countrymen –a change that carries within it a cause of profound tragedy. Our direct contact with the larger world of men was linked up with the contemporary history of the English people whom we came to know in those earlier days. It was mainly through their mighty literature that we formed our ideas with regard to these newcomers to our Indian shores. In those days the type of learning that was served out to us was neither plentiful nor diverse, nor was the spirit of scientific enquiry very much in evidence. Thus their scope being strictly limited, the educated of those days had recourse to English language and literature. Their days and nights were eloquent with the stately declamations of Burke, with Macaulay’s long-rolling sentences; discussions centred upon Shakespeare’s drama and Byron’s poetry and above all upon the large-hearted liberalism of the nineteenth-century English politics. At the time though tentative attempts were being made to gain our national independence, at heart we had not lost faith in the generosity of the English race. This belief was so firmly rooted in the sentiments of our leaders as to lead them to hope that the victor would of his own grace pave the path of freedom for the vanquished. This belief was based upon the fact that England at the time provided a shelter to all those who had to flee from persecution in their own country.

 

Political martyrs who had suffered for the honor of their people were accorded unreserved welcome at the hands of the English. I was impressed by this evidence of liberal humanity in the character of the English and thus I was led to set them on the pedestal of my highest respect. This generosity in their national character had not yet been vitiated by imperialist pride. About this time, as a boy in England, I had the opportunity of listening to the speeches of John Bright, both in and outside Parliament. The large-hearted, radical liberalism of those speeches, overflowing all narrow national bounds, had made so deep an impression on my mind that something of it lingers even today, even in these days of graceless disillusionment. Certainly that spirit of abject dependence upon the charity of our rulers was no matter for pride. What was remarkable, however, was the wholehearted way in which we gave our recognition to human greatness even when it revealed itself in the foreigner. The best and noblest gifts of humanity cannot be the monopoly of a particular race or country; its scope may not be limited nor may it be regarded as the miser’s hoard buried underground. That is why English literature which nourished our minds in the past does even now convey its deep resonance to the recesses of our heart. It is difficult to find a suitable Bengali equivalent for the English word ‘civilization’. That phase of civilization with which we were familiar in this country has been called by Manu ‘Sadachar’(literally, proper conduct), that is, the conduct prescribed by the tradition of the race.

 

Narrow in themselves these time-honored social conventions originated and held well in a circumscribed geographical area, in that strip of land, Brahmavarta by name, bound on etherised by the rivers Sarasvati and Drisadvati. That is how a pharisaic formalism gradually got the upper hand of free thought and the ideal of ‘proper conduct’ which Manu found established in Brahmavarta steadily degenerated into socialized tyranny. During my boyhood days the attitude towards the cultured and educated section of Bengal, nurtured on English learning, was charged with a feeling of revolt against these rigid regulations of society.

 

A perusal of what Rajnarain Bose has written describing the ways of the educated gentry of those days will amply bear out what I have said just now. In place of these set codes of conduct we accepted the ideal of ‘civilization’ as represented by the English term. In our own family this change of spirit was welcomed for the sake of its sheer rational and moral force and its influence was felt in every sphere of our life. Born in that atmosphere, which was moreover coloured by our intuitive bias for literature, I naturally set the English on the throne of my heart. Thus passed the first chapters of my life. Then came the parting of ways accompanied with a painful feeling of disillusion when I began increasingly to discover how easily those who accepted the highest truths of civilization disowned them with impunity whenever questions of national self-interest were involved. There came a time when perforce I had to snatch myself away from the mere appreciation of literature. As I emerged into the stark light of bare facts, the sight of the dire poverty of the Indian masses rent my heart. Rudely shaken out of my dreams, I began to realize that perhaps in no other modern state was there such hopeless dearth of the most elementary needs of existence. And yet it was this country whose resources had fed for so long the wealth and magnificence of the British people. While I was lost in the contemplation of the great world of civilization, I could never have remotely imagined that the great ideals of humanity would end in such ruthless travesty.

 

But today a glaring example of it scares me in the face in the utter and contemptuous indifference of a so-called civilized race to the wellbeing of crores of Indian people. That mastery over the machine, by which the British have consolidated their sovereignty over their vast Empire, has been kept a sealed book, to which due access has been denied to this helpless country. And all the time before our very eyes Japan has been transforming herself into a mighty and prosperous nation. I have seen with my own eyes the admirable use to which Japan has put in hear own country the fruits of this progress. I have also been privileged to witness, while in Moscow, the unsparing energy with which Russia has tried to fight disease and illiteracy, and has succeeded in steadily liquidating ignorance and poverty, wiping off the humiliation from the face of a vast continent. Her civilization is free from all invidious distinction between one class and another, between one sect and another. The rapid and astounding progress achieved by her made me happy and jealous at the same time. One aspect of the Soviet administration which particularly pleased me was that it provided no scope for unseemly conflict of religious differences, nor set one community against another by unbalanced distribution of political favors. That I consider a truly civilized administration which impartially serves the common interests of the people.