A Rationalist Perspective on the Tagore Debate

By Aparthib Zaman

Mr. Abdullah's article can be viewed at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/5865

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/6026

A series of debate on Tagore was spurred by the NFB article of Mr. Abdullah on May 10 that was cross posted in Mukto-Mona. I would like to throw in my own angle on the debate from a rationalist perspective on the points raised by Mr. Abdullah and his critics as well. First I would like to clarify a point made by Mr. Abdullah in his NFB article of May 20 also cross posted on Mukto-Mona (The coin has two sides: two hands make clapping!) on Satyen Bose and Einstein, where he suggested Bose might have been as deserving a Nobel recipient as Einstein for Bose Einstein statistics. The fact is Einstein did not receive nobel prize for Bose-Einstein statistics. He received it for his work on Photoelectric effect on which Bose had no contribution. So the issue of Einstein vs Bose for Nobel prize is irrelevant. Bose got his due recognition both by the fact that his name comes first in Bose- Einstein (B-E) statistics and more importantly in the fact that particles obeying B-E statistics are labelled as BOSONS.

In the pure sciences, the guidelines for the award are more or less objective whereas in the arts and humanities Nobel award (or for that matter any award) is inherently a subjective affair. It is a futile endeavor to argue that "Y" also was qualified to receive Nobel prize, after "X" was awarded, since the argument could be reversed had "Y" been awarded Nobel Prize instead. In the sciences this is not much of a problem since it is easier to recognize and decide if the criteria is met by multiple recipients, because of the objectivity of science, and thus to reward all of them. For example the Nobel award to Salam, Weinberg and Glashow in physics in 1983 is a case in point.

Anyway I see no utility in questioning the eligibility of Nobel award (be it Tagore or any other poet/litterateur) when the whole issue is subjective. One can certainly engage in literary criticism. But it is inappropriate to speak about Tagore "supporters" or opponents. That applies to political leaders, not artists. Art is a matter of individual taste. There can be fans or detractors of Tagore of various levels ranging from a blind fanatic, who adores each and every work, to a blind critic who does not like any work of Tagore (I would be surprised if any one did) and of course all shades in between. It is ridiculous to link artistic judgement of Tagore with a certain political or ideological affiliation and political ideology. Tagore fans should not be lumped as anti-Islam pro-Hindu, nor should Tagore detractors be lumped as Islamic bigots. In fact many of the leftist secularists in both Bangladesh and West Bengal are no fan of Tagore due to Tagore's feudalistic connections through inheritance and the non-revolutionary (or anti-revolutionary to some) nature of Tagore's work, i.e absence of any talk of bloody revolution or class struggle in his work. But again that is mixing art with ideology. Critcism of Tagore should be clearly separated into political criticism (on political/ideological grounds) and literary criticism. Political criticisms are irrelevant in a literary context and vice versa.

Tagore never advocated that his song be chosen as the national anthem of Bangladesh, so a criticism of that choice should be in the context of a discussion of Bangladesh politics, not in a literary discussion or appraisal of Tagore. Whether the choice of Tagore's song is appropriate as a national anthem depends on what criteria is universally set for national anthems and see if that criteria is satisfied. If multiple songs satisfy the criteria then selecting a particular one becomes a subjective issue much as the subjectivity in an award as I mentioned earlier. If the criteria is fixed so that no song written by a poet who inherits feudal properties can be a national anthem, then Tagore's song is ruled out. If the criterion decides that no song written by a poet who composed songs devoted to Goddess Kali can be a national anthem then Nazrul will be ruled out. By fine tuning all sorts of criteria, song by any poet could be ruled out or in. There is no 100% taintfree human, beyond criticism, poets and artists included. I am not sure what should be the appropriate criteria for choosing national anthem. I will not go into that either.

Rabindranath as viewed through the eye of an ideologue may not satisfy the secular left or the religious right, but as an artist he has certainly a lot to offer to anyone who appreciates aesthetics. But that is not to say that they have to idolize and make a fetish out of Tagore. Nor should a fan dismiss any Literary Crittic of Tagore as a religious bigot (which is what is done, rarely is a critic dismissed as a secular leftist). A person may be neither leftist nor a religious bigot (e.g a rationalist) and still may criticize Tagore purely on literary or other criteria.

It is not appropriate to bring in the personal background of Tagore in an assessment of Tagore's literary genius or oeuvre. Although there is nothing wrong in evaluating Tagore the MAN, his personal ideologies, thoughts and actions, every genius is subject to critical appraisal both as an artist and as a human. Nothing wrong with that as long as that is not turned into a politically motivated discussion to further an agenda. that would be a unabashed exploitation of a dead artist. I think Mr. Abdulllah mixed up literary criticism with political criticism too much in the same article, so much so that it masked whatever valid literary component it contained and instead accentuated its political part and generated a controversy solely on that front. Tagore fans, chose to ignore the literary part and looked at the political part and responded emotionally, as did Mr. Abdullah as well to his critics' emotional response. There can be no room for emotionalism in a purely pedagogic debate on art or literary criticism. Emotionalism is more appropriate to political debate where each may have vested interest in supporting or opposing an ideology or party.

Anyway I don't see anything wrong with questioning the purely subjective issue of the "greatness" of Tagore or any artist. Everybody is entitled to their own subjective assessment of artistic talent. The market usually decides what is great(est). Public tastes are moldable. It is hard to come up with a universally acceptable objective criteria to judge artistic greatness. Volume, popularity, consensus of the critics are usually the common criteria. But the criteria for an individual's liking or disliking of an art(ist) is purely subjective unique to that individual. But whatever the subjective criteria is , it is certain that not ALL work of a given artist will be equally appealing to anyone. Specially with large volume of work, there is bound to be some that will be considered trash to that subjective criteria (But may be sublime to another subjective criteria). The beauty of art is in the eye of the beholder, as goes the refrain. By the same token, under any subjective criteria, it is quite possible, that a specific piece of work by artist "A" can appeal more than a specific piece of work by artist "B", although overall "A" may appeal more than "B" For example one may find certain poems of Jibonanda Das or Jatindra Mohan Bagchi more appealing aesthetically than certain poems of Tagore, although overall he/she may place Tagore above all others. These individual variations should be expected in any discriminating connoisseur of art. Of course with some objective criteria, like volume, number of copies sold, critics verdict etc one can decide the greatest, but such criteria should have no meaning to an individual. An individual's liking or dislike should be intrinsic, not influenced by polls, numbers and statistics or any other extrinsic factors. I have tried to elaborate the issues of the subjectivity of art in an obscure article titled "Arts, Standard & Subjectivity & Life" in an e-forum some time ago, which I am referring the readers to : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eshomabesh/message/3381 . Now if Mr. Abdullah's critique of Tagore was separated into one based on objective criterion and another based on his personal taste and liking (As separate articles) , one could debate on the objective part. Subjective part cannot be debated, much like one's favourite color cannot be an issue of debate. If I said, I think red is better than blue, that would hardly be a legitimate issue for debate. But if I said there are more people who prefer red over blue that can be debated, specially if statistical surveys point to the contrary. So the greatness of Tagore can also be judged on two levels. On some objective criteria, he certainly was. If greatness is assesed retroactvely by the award of Nobel prize, sure he was. If assessed by the number of works, then also he was. But all these are post hoc criteria, volume and popularity is assumed to result from greatness. That leaves the question begging as to what is greatness ? Can we define "greatness" simply by reading the work of an artist? We have a circularity here. Greatness is defined as that which leads to volume and popularity, whereas popularity and volume is viewed as resulting from greatness. There has to be some APRIORI intrinsic criteria of greatness. There ISN'T ANY! Art is inherently intuitive, subjective. Of course to an individual, although the appeal is subjective, there can be deeper objective factors deciding his/her tastes, like certain imageries and metaphors to describe nature, emotions, certain choice of expressions, certain notes or chords (in songs), etc. But these are not possible to quantify and written down as criteria of greatness for ALL to agree on. Such subjective criteria is appropriate for deciding greatness at an individual level.

Now let me digress into some criticism of Tagore, or rather the views of many of fanatic Tagore lovers. Who are the fantic lovers? A fanatic lover can be defined as one who puts excessive weight on external objective criteria (popularity, volume, peer influence by other fans), rather than on his own subjective individual criteria. This is what is known as the "meme" factor by Sociobiologist Dawkins (Elaborately discussed in Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine"). This meme effect can get so powerful that one loses the discriminating ability of a true art connoisseur and blindly loves ANY work of the artist (Tagore in this case) and cannot discriminate between individual peaces of work according to any subjective criteria, nor do thay care to. Tagore becomes a cult, a fad, fashion, a symbol of prestige. They even begin to discover some hidden philosophy in Tagore's work and also start believing that only they are privy to such esoteric hidden meanings, not others, at least not those who are not as fanatic lovers as they are. Even worse, he/she extrapolates the poetic greatness of Tagore into greatness in philosophy/ mysticism, psychology etc. This is not unlike the fans of religious scriptures who discover some deep esoteric meanings in some verses that can only be understood by the initiated. The fact is that they cannot articulate what that deep philosophy is in an unambiguous and incontrovertible way. Modern Philsophy has debunked classical mystical philosophy as pure subjective musings devoid of no objective truth value. Most philosophical statements of classical philosophers can be tied to either the natural or social sciences that describe reality objectively. Classical philosophy is irrelevant in view of the New paradigms of natural sciences:

"Philosophy today finds itself in a desperate predicament. Deprived by the sciences of the capacity to deal with issues of substantive knowledge, fragmented and divided against itself - philosophy might not continue much longer as anything other than an academic discipline." - From "The Ends Of Philosophy" - Harry Redner (1986)

Mysticism has given way to neuro-theology, social sciences are giving way to sociobiology, what biologist Wilson calls consilience. Mystical talks of classical,philosophers are vague, though pretentious sounding. Tagore as a philosopher is no exception. It is no wonder Bertrand Russell wrote after hearing Tagore's lecture on 'The realisation of Brahma': Here I am back from Tagore's lecture, after walking most of the way home. It was unmitigated rubbish- cut-and- dried conventional stuff about the river becoming one with the Ocean and man becoming one with Brahma. The man is sincere and in earnest but merely rattling old dry bones. I spoke to him before the lecture afterwards I avoided him.'

Russell had more such strong and strenuous comments on Tagore and as quoted recently in the work of Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson (Tagore, The Myriad Minded Man: 'I regret I can not agree with Tagore. His talk about the infinite is vague nonsense. The sort of language that is admired by many Indians unfortunately does not, in fact, mean any thing at all.'

It is ridiculous to insist on deep hidden philosophy when there may be none. Moreover no one except the poet himself can know what philosophy, if at all had the poet had in mind behind a specific poem. Of course some poems and stories do have facts of life, that we all do realize, may be not fully aware of all the time, but those are not necessarily profound, but trivial facts in elementary psychology or The beauty of art is in evoking a sense of beauty, awe about nature and appreciating the finer sides of human emotions as portrayed through the stories and poems. Trying to find more is going overboard.

Tagore was an intuitionist and a sensitive observer of nature. Mystical feelings and inquisitions cannot be put in dicta. Tagore certainly had metaphysical feelings, an awe for the beauty and mystery of nature, like all great minds do., as Einstein did. But instead of channeling this mystical awe into a quest of objective reality like Einstein, Tagore chose to express it in poetic imagery and embellishing it with the ornaments of language. Einstein went beyond that mystical awe and tried to extract an objective reality and put it in an objective language. Thus came the notion of curvature of space time which an astute mind of any lingustic background can understand mastering the universal language of topology and calculus of manifold. Tagore's ornamental language of expressing his metaphysical intuition in Bengali, not to mention the aesthetic way of portraying human emotions and the splendors of nature, is not expressible with the same beauty in any translation.

But when he tried to put his metaphysical intuitions (Like living the life of an infinite and not bound by the finite etc) in words and tries a put a truth value to it certainly that would appear to Russell as devoid of any substance. The above words of Tagore are just poetic expressions of his subjective feelings, not of any objective reality. As Wittgenstein has said "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent". It is for this reason of non-objectivity that non-scientifc metaphysics was debunked by Heidegger, Hume, Wittgenstein as pure play of words, without substance or analyticity. So it is not just Tagore, but any attempt of philosophizing about metaphysics in the form of dicta would be rejected by modern philosophers . Tagore's poetry are a superb example of beauty flowing in words.

Aparthib.

===================================================

Published at : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/6073

====================================================