NEW GLOBAL INDIAN

Tagore’s Best Cargo

Written by Dr Pinaki Bhaduri Thursday, 20 October 2011 02:55

Tagore’s Best Cargo: At the end of the day

It was surprising that at the end of the day, Rabindranath Tagore declared his educational experiment to be his priority in spite of his worldwide name and fame as a man of literature.

He was Asia's first Nobel laureate and he stormed the world of literature. But in 1940, when he was only a year away from death, he became mostly anxious about the future of his dream project — the Viswabharati. He appealed to Gandhiji to take charge of the 'best cargo of (his) life'. Gandhiji handed over the letter to Abdul Kalam Azad for necessary action. Consequently in 1951, Viswabharati was given the status of a Central University.

It may be recalled that at that moment Tagore and Gandhi were not particularly in the best of relations following the Congress presidential election at Tripuri in 1939 where Subhas Chandra Bose defeated Gandhi-backed candidate P Tandon. Ultimately Subhas had to relinquish office. Tagore tried to patch up but to no avail.

Despite this adverse situation, Tagore had no option but to appeal for Gandhiji's intervention to save his educational/social/cultural institution.

Earlier, Tagore attempted otherwise. He felicitated Subhas at Viswabharati in January 1939. There he asked Subhas for his favour to ameliorate the condition of Viswabharati. But Subhas was not in a position to provide such promise due to his political pre-occupation which finally led him out of the country.

These two episodes reflect Tagor's genuine concern for the educational odyssey which he had began in 1901. He only looked forward to provide his countrymen an atmosphere which is free of ignorance and vibrant with hope and happiness.

How it all began

Tagore had been to various schools in his boyhood days. He liked none of those. Everywhere the students were subjected to humiliation, so much so that he himself used to act as a violent teacher while treating the railings of the verandah of his residence as his students. He poured all his impatience, anger and partiality in the canning of his railing-students. Had those being alive, Tagore commented, they would have succumbed to those brutal punishments. The teacher-Tagore was equal to any narrow-minded teacher of the day. He remembered his school days when he was in China in later years:

"When I was young I gave up learning and ran away from my lessons... I fled the classes which gave me instruction but did not inspire."

He found the fellow students in the school to be of coarse and crude nature. The teachers were no good either. If by any chance, he had a friendly sympathetic teacher, he gratefully remembered him all through his life. Such was one Mr Peneranda, a Xavierian teacher who once lovingly asked the unmindful boy: "Tagore, are you not keeping well?" Tagore remembered him in his Jibansmriti with adoration long after.

He also wrote some stories where he deliberately made the caricature of the teachers whom he did not like. It might be a point of research to find out whether the seed of an ideal school started germinating within him from then only.

Apart from schools, there were various coaching arrangements for Tagore at home. There at times, he used to feel at ease. Sitanath Dutt had Sunday class of science with practical demonstration. The boy looked forward to those Sundays with eagerness. This drove him towards making up of scientific outlook to everything. Conversely, one of his teachers while teaching anatomy brought a human vocal chord and demonstrated the voice mechanism. The boy was shocked since he thought talks were generated from the total man. This dissection may pinpoint the locale, but it cannot overshadow the role of the man himself. Here the boy at one stroke became the philosopher-thinker.

Tagore's intention

Tagore wanted to enthuse the children with joy of life, flow of happiness, growth of independent rational inquisitiveness. While preparing the examination questions, he never asked for anything which could be memorized and vomited on the answer scripts. For example, he quoted the lines of Madhusudhan's epic poem and asked the students to visualize and depict the Ram-Sita cottage. This required imagination and intelligence.

The educators were of opinion that the best means of educating a child is by concentration of mind, while Tagore thought just the opposite. He explained:

....Mother nature knows that the best way is by dispersion of mind... It is the utter want of purpose in child-life which is important... The child, because it has no conscious object of life beyond living, can see all things around it, can hear every sound.... I have a deep-rooted conviction that only through freedom can man attain the fullness of growth.

He also said in a letter:

...flavour or sweetness may not be required to do a work, but work is not the ultimate end or aim... it is the joy that fulfills any work. The mind must not be dried up...

Tagore believed that students would learn about the tree by climbing on it and playing with it. They should sit in the open under the shades of trees. They will learn some portion of their syllabus while walking with the teachers. They will spend the evening knowing the stars, singing songs, listening to stories of epics and history. Tagore might have lifted this idea from his boyhood while travelling in the Himalayas when his father gave him the lessons of the sky. He used to sing there at his father's wish. Not that all students will be a singer but their inheritance of joy will increase substantially, he opined.

Tagore believed that mother tongue is the best means for teaching but he did not rule out English. He wrote the famous Sahaj Path for children's Bengali beginning. At the same time he wrote three English language teaching books too.

Tagore introduced a novel thing at Santiniketan which is called sense training. After only looking at things or a while, the students were asked to guess the numbers, the weight, the length etc of objects. All such imaginative games would magnify the sensitivity of the participants. He never hesitated to forward the difficult tasks to perform for his children. He allowed them to read through books without consulting to learn the difficult words. He knew that by straightway going through the book will be enough to give them an insight into the language.

Tagore, as a teacher, tried to get the correct answer from the students by trial and error. He never used to provide the answers.

This and all these made his training infested with joy.

But this does not mean Tagore did not meet with any opposition to his teaching methods and strangely those were not so much from the British rulers but from his own countrymen. There were a remarkable number of people who doubted the efficacy of his system. Those included Jadunath Sarkar who vehemently opposed the poet's policy, so was Nirode Chowdhuri and sometimes even Jagadish Bose, the poet's fast friend. The poet lamented that he sacrificed his money, time and energy but those went unappreciated. People tried to stall the endeavour by asking the friends, acquaintances not to send students to Santiniketan.

Tagore vowed for education at the highest level, but students wanted to pass examination and go for job security. Tagore then turned his attention to rural people with his 'Siksha Satra'. He hoped that importance of employment may not be that high to villagers and hence they will 'learn' more freely. But there also people were not interested outside utility though Tagore tried to infuse the longing for fulfillments of life. There was a blending of cultural and vocational aspects of life and livelihood in Siksha Satra with creativity as well.

After this it was the turn of the girls on whom Tagore banked. But the girls too were getting interested in profession only.

Tagore also provided opportunity for people who could not come down to his school. Anybody anywhere could sit for Viswabharati courses. This was the precursor of today's distant education, which only a poet could conceive.

The world outside

Tagore was gradually accepted as an educator worldwide. He was invited by Canada National Council of Education as a teacher in 1929. There he lectured on "The philosophy of Leisure' and condemned the rapidity in the society. "We may forget that slow production of leisure is of immerse value to man ...time is money, but leisure is wealth."

Mr Findlay, the famous English teacher dedicated his "Foundation of Education' to Tagore. Even Russian society invited him in 1930 as one people's teacher.

There had been a series of institutions in the line of Tagore's thought. Some of those can be mentioned here. They are Paul Gehib's School of Mankind in Germany, Soewardi's Taman Siscoa (Garden of learning) in Indonesia, Elmhirst's Dartington Hall in England, Wilmot Pereira's school Sri Palee in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). These schools are still in vogue.

Many foreigners too came to Santiniketan either to stay and or teach/work on their own. Some of them are Elmhirst, Andrews, Pearson, Stella Kramerish, Thompson, Sylvan Levi, Formici, Tucci, Wintermitz, Lesni, Geddes et all. Tagore brought Takagaki from Japan to train the students in Judhutsu, a form of martial art.

Tagore also tried to elevate his University to a world university because he believed only educational cooperation can forestall the divisive trends in the world. Men like Roman Rolland happily endorsed it.

With the educational pattern in Santiniketan, Tagore also established Sriniketan to uplift the social and educational backwardness of the villages. What he said was meaningful.....

.....The poverty problem is not so important. It is the problem of unhappiness that is the great problem.. our object is to flood the chocked bed of village life with streams of happiness.

Tagore was determined to spread sweetness and light.

All said and done

Though 'all' could not be said in one instalment, we can still find out to the high points of Tagore's thoughts on education. The life despite its ills, appeared to be joyous to Tagore. He desired to make the teaching and learning an enjoyable process. He laid out his seat of attainment in the lap of nature, far from the madding crowd.

In its wide open space, in the company of loving nature, in the daily chores, in the cultivation of tender habits, in the novelty of the syllabus one could feel the ideal, happiness and emotion all around.

Students passed out from Santiniketan became eminent both nationally and internationally in later stages of life. Promotho Nath Bisi, Syed Muztaba Ali, Satyajit Ray, Dinkar Kaushik, Benodbehari Mukherji were only to name some of them.

Benodbehari came to Santiniketan with eyesight on one of his eyes losing gradually. He had a flair for painting. Tagore confined him to painting only with aids for English speaking. Benodbehari lost his vision completely but went on to be a great artist even in his blindness.

It is true Tagore tried to lift us out of the necessity to the call of the essential. He was not totally successful.

We, in turn, became absolute failures.

Post-script

1. Excerpts from Tagore-Gandhi correspondence

... Accept this institution under your protection giving it an assurance of permanence if you consider it to be national asset. Viswabharati is like a vessel which is carrying the cargo of my life's best treasure and I hope it may claim special care from my countrymen for its preservation...

(2nd Feb, 1940, handed over to Gandhi)

The touching note you put in my hands has gone straight into my heart.... Viswabharati is a national institution. It is... also international. You may depend upon... all I can in the common endeavour to assure its permanence.

(MK Gandhi, 19/2/1940, on way to Calcutta)

 

2. Excerpts from The Philosophy of Leisure

...the cultivation of leisure has been a vital necessity... the human world... has its prairie land of fertile leisure and forest land of self-assertive life... leisure can give balance to reckless rush of ambition.

 

3. Excerpts from Tagore's Nobel prize acceptance speech:

...the prize which you have awarded to me was not wasted upon myself... I have dedicated to our Eastern children and students. I have used this money.. for.. the university which I started lately.... This could be a place where Western students might come and meet their Eastern brothers...

I invite you to come to us and join hands... not to leave this... merely to us.

25/05/1921, Stockholm