<a href="http://nynjbengali.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/tagore.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-369" style="float: left; margin: 3px;" title="Rabindranath Tagore" src="http://nynjbengali.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/tagore.jpg" alt="Rabindranath Tagore" width="176" height="238" /></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This year we are  celebrating the hundred fiftieth birth anniversary of Rabindranath  Tagore. In America several organizations are busy in preparing for the  celebrations around the year. In New York and New Jersey, Cultural  Association of Bengal (CAB) is joining hands with multiple organizations  to hold multiple events in New York, New Jersey and Maryland. Amidst  all this excitement, I was trying to look at this myriad minded genius  from a different perspective - from the perspective of an expatriate  Bengali, more specifically a Bengali American. And when I say Bengali  American, I do not imply any national significance, rather I mean a  Bengali speaking person living in America.  I have been looking into  this subject for more than a year now, and during the course of my so  called research I have been fascinated in knowing a great deal about the  history of expatriate Indians in America and their relationship with  Tagore. </span>

<!--more--><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tagore  had a special relationship with America, where he visited five times  during his lifetime and spent the second highest number of days outside  India after England.  His visits also happened during some crucial  junctures in his life and in the history of the world as well as India.  He had developed some kind of a fondness for America and Americans that  brought him again and again even after being sorely disappointed with  his previous visit. It is true that his later trips to America were  mostly to raise funds for his school (and later his university) in  Shantinekatan, but some of his trips were made when he was very well   informed about the potential outcome of this objective. But in this  article I do not intend to get into the details of his trips or his  relationships with Bengali Americans. Rather, I’ll try to highlight his  feelings for America and that too the positive ones by quoting from some  of his interviews, statements and letters. </span>

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tagore had his first  introduction to America when he was about twelve years old. With the  help of his father Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, he read “The  Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.” Maharshi Debendranath thought this  would be an instructive as well as entertaining book for young  Rabindranath, but soon he discovered that Benjamin Franklin was too  business-like a person. As Tagore later wrote in his autobiography   (Reminiscences), “The narrowness of his calculated morality disgusted  my father.” But the book must have also gave him a glimpse of the   America that fought for her freedom from the British and championed  freedom as a fundamental human right.   During his youth, Tagore also  studied American poets. “I love your Emerson. In his works one finds  much that is of India.” he once told an American journalist. He also  felt that Whitman’s poems were “deeply imbibed with Eastern ideas and  feelings.”</span>

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When he was  forty-four, while playing a major role in the 1905 nationalist agitation  against the partition of Bengal, he chose to send his son Rathindranath  Tagore to America for higher studies instead of sending him to England  as was customary with the rich parents of India in those days.   Rathindranath returned to India in 1909. Later in 1912, he along with  his wife Pratima Devi and his father Rabindranath Tagore came back to  America via England after handing over the English translations of his  Geetanjali poems for publication and for history to happen.  Rabindranath’s initial reaction to America was not pleasant - “Though it  is too early for me to pronounce any opinion on this country, I must  say I do not like it. America, like an unripe fruit, has not got its  proper flavor yet. It has sharp and acid taste.” But later as he moved  westward from New York to Illinois, he wrote, “The country around is  flat and open, which has a great attraction for me, reminding of my our  own scenery.” Although he spent some of his most peaceful time in  Urbana, Illinois, soon the news of his arrival spread and he had to  spend many a hours lecturing at various venues. With his usual sense of  humor, he wrote, “American people have an unhealthy appetite for sugar  candy and for lectures on any subject and from anybody... I am afraid  they have spotted me - I am being stalked.” </span>

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">During his next visit  in 1916, Sir Rabindranath Tagore was well known to the American people  as the first man of the orient to win the Nobel prize for literature.  His poems, plays as well as his biographies were already in circulation.  But during this trip, when the Great War (WW I) was raging in Europe,  Tagore was extremely critical of the western nations as well as of  America. But one of the primary reason of his criticism was because he  felt that it was only in America where his appeal for humanity hold the  best chance of being heard. He said, “This is a beautiful country. I  believe it has a great future. America is unhampered and free to  experiment  for the progress of humanity. Of course, she will make  mistakes, but out of these series of mistakes she will come to some  higher synthesis of truth and be able to hold up the banner of  Civilization. She is the best exponent of Western ideals of humanity.”  He had high hopes for America. In New York he said, “America has the  figure of youth and all that is best in Western civilization will  eventually find lodgment here.”  But his criticisms did not make him  many friends in America, and the press lashed out at him on several  occasions. He knew that he was being too harsh sometimes, and he said,  “I am out of place here, I know, and I maybe judging you harshly. I felt  I must come to bring the message of the East... This is my only  happiness in America - the thought that this country can be the meeting  place of the two (the East and the West).” Overall this trip was very  successful for Tagore and he had high regards for President Woodrow  Wilson. He wanted to dedicate his book “Nationalism” to President  Wilson. However President Wilson's office declined the offer on the  advice of Sir William Wiseman, Britain’s special liaison agent in the  United States, who reported that Tagore had “got tangled up in some way”  with the Indian revolutionaries in America who were conspiring with  Germany  to overthrow British rule in India. </span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Later in 1918,  Rabindranath was falsely implicated in the famous Hindu German  conspiracy trial.  When Tagore came to know about this he was very upset  and immediately sent a telegram to President Wilson protesting the  allegation. Later he wrote Wilson a letter in which he stated, “I have  received great kindness from the hands of your countrymen, and I  entertain great admiration for yourself who is not afraid of incurring  the charge of anachronism for introducing idealism in the domain of  politics, and therefore I owe it to myself and to you and your people to  make this avowal of my faith and to assure your countrymen that their  hospitality was not bestowed upon one who was ready to accept it while  wallowing in the sub-soil sewerage of treason.” President Wilson’s  office never replied to this letter.</span>

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tagore’s next trip to US during 1920-21  was a big disappointment for him.  The Tagore craze was gone, and the  post war America was not the same as in 1916.  Besides, his renunciation  of Knighthood in 1919 was not looked favorably in USA, a strong ally of  the British.  Tagore was advised not to make the trip and was warned  that his financial expectations may not be met this time, but he made  the trip anyway.  He came with high hopes and expected that his message  would be received with the same thirst as before - “I find in America a  wonderful hunger and aspiration. The hunger is genuine and is, I  believe, a reaction to the pursuit of wealth that has characterized your  industrial life.”  But at several occasions he was extremely critical  of the Americans.  The failure to raise enough funds for his university  was also a cause for frustration. Tagore was also suffering from health  problems and depression during this period. Rev. C. F. Andrews writes,  “Gradually, as his health improved, his stay in America became brighter  and he wrote more cheerfully.” Tagore wrote to him from Texas, “Since  coming to Texas, I felt as it were a sudden coming of Spring into my  life through a breach in the ice castle of Winter. It has come to me  like a revelation that all these days my soul had been thirsting for the  draught of sunshine poured from the beaker of infinite space. The sky  has embraced me, and the warmth of its caress thrills me with joy.”</span>

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tagore’s 1929 visit to  America was very brief primarily due to an incident that took place in  the US immigration office in Vancouver in Canada when he was trying to  enter the country. Tagore was kept waiting at the immigration office for  an unconscionable period of time and was handled in a rude and  insulting manner during the interview. Among other things, it appears,  the Nobel Laureate poet was asked if could read and write.  Outraged and  resentful, he cancelled almost all his lecture engagements and left the  country after a brief stay in Los Angeles for twenty days. However he  later calmed down considerably and said, “I cannot believe that their  laws and regulations represent the spirit of the people, a truly great  people... I had been received with kindness in the Eastern States,  overrun with kindness. People have listened to me with respect and  received my message sincerely. That is why it hurt so much this time...”</span>

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tagore last trip to  USA was in 1930 on his way back from Russia. This time the reception was  not that cold as his previous two trips. Although he suffered a minor  heart attack and was in ill health for a prolonged period, he managed to  make some important engagements including a meeting with President  Hoover at the White House. Most of his lectures were very well attended,  but it was the time of the great depression in America, hence his fund  raising was not successful as expected. Rather, he donated the entire  proceedings from the farewell event held at the Broadway Theatre on  December 14, 1930 to the relief fund of the New York City’s unemployed.  The gesture was typical of the person who had tried all his life to call  attention to the needs of the India’s millions and who, in bidding  farewell to America’s millions thought first of helping those during  their time of need. </span>

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rabindranath Tagore has criticized the  American’s like one criticizes his own brother.  But he never lost his  faith in America. He believed that it was America who can uphold the  cause of humanity against the barbarism of western nationalism.  The  ultimate hope and trust he had on America was expressed in his telegram  to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1940 when the fire or World  War II was raging in Europe.</span>

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> “Today we  stand in awe before the fearfully destructive force that so suddenly has  swept the world. Every moment I deplore the smallness of our means and  the feebleness of our voice, for India is so utterly inadequate to stem  the tide of evil that has menaced the permanence of civilization. All  our individual political problems are merged today into one supreme  world of politics which I believe is seeking help in the United States  as the last refuge of spiritual man, and these few lines of mine merely  convey my hope, even if unnecessary, that the United States will not  fail in her mission to stand against the universal disaster that appears  so imminent.” </span>

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In  1941, a few months after Tagore’s death at the age of eighty, the  United States threw its weight into the war which destroyed the Axis  powers.</span>

<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">References:</span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Tagore and America  by J. L. Dees</span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Rabindranath Tagore in America by Stephen N. Hay</span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3. Passage to America  by Sujit Mukherjee</span>
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4. Tagore and USA by Dr. Panchanan Saha </span>

THIS ARTICLE WAS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED IN ANANDASAMBAD, NEW JERSEY