The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore
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The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore (Ashgate World Philosophies Series) (Ashgate World Philosophies Series) by Kalyan Sen Gupta (z-lib.org)
Society, Marriage and Education
19 In ‘Samasya’ or ‘Problem’, 5 he recognizes that it is very difficult to solve the Hindu–Muslim problem because both the communities remain firm within the boundaries of their respective religions. It is religion which divides their human worlds and isolates them from one another. Certainly, there must be some difference between self and others. But when this difference exceeds certain limits, it does great harm. In this connection, Tagore holds that the Hindu–Muslim condition is analogous to that of a primitive Bushman tribe. People belonging to the Bushman tribe instantly kill others not belonging to their tribe. This shows that they are confined to extreme barbarism, since they do not realize that one’s expansion lies in union and not in enmity with others. Similarly, Rabindranath holds, the Hindus and the Muslims keep themselves separate from one another, and it is religion that has enabled this. Little matters to them that is not visibly connected with their own religion. It is this religion by which they shield themselves from all others in the world. And this sense of difference due to religion has built up such a strong wall between them that they forget that human expansion consists in a harmonious bond with others, that the identity of man is above creed and religion. Instead, religion has become the arbiter of their relationship to one another. Let the other remain permanently the other – this is what the Hindus wish. They have moved further away from people of a different religion, rather than moving closer to them. The Muslims, while they strongly identify as ‘others’ those who do not belong to their religion, nonetheless wish to convert them to this religion. In other words, the practices of the Hindus are to make their religion an inaccessible fort to protect its sanctity, while the Muslims have used religion as an weapon to attack others, and extend their religious territory. Hence the Hindus and the Muslims are under the spell of two kinds of religious mentality, two kinds of insanity. As it stands, they form the two major religious communities in India with no communion between them. The Hindus refuse to accept the legitimacy of Islam and look down upon the Muslims as yavanas (foreigners, untouchables). The Muslims, on the other hand, also strongly maintain their religious distance from the Hindus, but aim at cultural hegemony; the Hindus are kafirs to them. So any attempt to bring about a mutual approach of the two communities presents a serious problem. Pernicious communalism is bound to prosper when the people do not listen to the true voice of religion which gets hidden behind blind rituals, false stigmas and narrow sectarianism. In a letter to Kalidas Nag, an eminent historian of Bengal, Tagore further brings to light the differences in the religious attitudes of the Hindus and the Muslims which have created an impassable gap between them. 6 He holds that the Muslims are so firmly committed to their own religion that they do not hesitate to destroy other religions or forcibly convert non-Muslims to their religion. For this reason, there is no way to be united with them without adopting their religion; ‘Muslim Christian’ is a contradiction in 20 The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore terms. The Hindus are equally surrounded by their religious faith. But they are less aggressive and exercise only non-cooperation with non-Hindus. They are not inclined to intrude into other religions, but they will not allow any alien religion in their own arena. Hindu religion has in effect been reduced to a network of established customs and practices. In this context, Rabindranath narrates his experience when he found that, in his estates office, Muslims were not allowed to sit on the same mattress as Hindus. This brought home to him how Hindus regarded people of other faiths as outsiders, as profane. Prohibition and refusal constituted the driving force of Hindu religion, at the cost of warm human relationships and harmony. Tagore also attends to the social conditions that encourage the Hindu–Muslim divide, stressing that Hindu–Muslim confrontation should not be viewed only as religious in character. If we want fully to understand this confrontation, we should also look into the social roots of Hindu–Muslim relations. In ‘Samasya’, 7 he observes that the two communities are separated not only by their religion, but also by their internal social conventions. The Hindus remain faithful to a system of untouchability and prohibition in their social practices. This has resulted in a split in Hindu society arising from the many internal divisions and caste-barriers which are detrimental to unity. But there is no such pathological discrimination among Muslims, which has made them socially stronger, more cohesive, than the Hindus. While the Muslim community reverberates with internal strength, the Hindu community is sick and weak due to internal discrimination. This is the historical reason why many lower-caste Hindus found in Islam a liberating force and embraced it. ‘Deprived of Sanskritization,’ in the words of Engineer, ‘they welcomed Islamization.’ 8 It is not certain whether this conversion improved their social position, but it did give them a sense of pride when they found that they could freely enter mosques and pray standing in the same line with upper-class Muslims. They found that they had regained a human dignity so long denied to them by the upper-class Hindus. When Rabindranath draws our attention to this, an important insight is provided. Anti-secularism is sustained not only by religion, but also by dogmatic social ideologies which make one hostile to alternative ideologies and induce one to dominate others both within and outside one’s community. It is this lust for social and economic domination which has blighted relations between upper-class and lower-class Hindus and between Hindus and Muslims. This was in a sense also recognized by Lord Wavell. As the eminent historian, Sarvepalli Gopal, records: As late as 1946 the Viceroy Lord Wavell, who could sometimes in private slip into honesty, acknowledged this. ‘Though I agree as to the contrast between the Muslim and Hindu outlook on life and that the masses can be worked on mainly by the appeal to religion, I think that the root of the political conflict … lies in the fear of economic domination, rather than difference of religion. It has been found Download 467.3 Kb. 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