Rabindranath Tagore passed away on August 7 eighty years ago but his message of brotherhood, freedom, justice and progress can still be heard in parts of South Asia.

The history of Tagore’s ideas is the history of evolution of the national culture and consciousness of India; the shaping of which kept Tagore occupied for almost half a century. He rebelled against imperialism and used to describe it as a force that could throttle human progress, self-respect and dignity. He had a great ability to read trends in news from all over the world. He felt that fascism was the most vicious enemy of global humanity, national freedom and native progress. Therefore uniting all progressive forces against it was the greatest service to humanity.

The most aggressive forms of fascism became manifest in 1935. When Mussolini mounted a military attack on Abyssinia, Tagore expressed sympathy with Abyssinians and condemned Italian fascism. When allies of Mussolini and Hitler attacked democratic governments and started killing workers and peasants, Tagore again raised his voice against them. He also wrote a poem on Franco:

“God remains in search of friends/

And expects their affection/

Satan remains in search of slaves/

Expecting their obedience like knaves/

But the oppressor wants freedom/

So as to enslave it within his own kingdom.”

Amongst fascist advances what enraged Tagore the most was the Japanese attack on China. On September 1, 1938, in response to a letter by Japanese fascist poet Yone Noguchi, he wrote:

“But surely judgments are based on principle, and no amount of special pleading can change the fact that in launching a ravening war on Chinese humanity, with all the deadly methods learned from the West, Japan is infringing every moral principle on which civilisation is based.”

Noguchi had written in his letter that the causes of the Japanese attack were unique, not usual. Tagore wrote in response that “pious war-lords, convinced of peculiarly individual justification for their atrocities have never failed to arrange for special alliances with divinity for annihilation and torture on a large scale.

“When you speak, therefore, of ‘the inevitable means, terrible though it is, for establishing a great new world in the Asiatic continent’ – signifying, I suppose, the bombing of Chinese women and children and the desecration of ancient temples and universities as a means of saving China for Asia – you are ascribing to humanity a way of life which is not inevitable even among the animals and would certainly not apply to the East, in spite of her occasional aberrations. You are building your conception of an Asia raised on a tower of skulls. I have, as you rightly point out, believed in the message of Asia, but I never dreamed that this message could be identified with deeds which might rejoice the heart of Tamerlane.”

Tagore felt that fascism ... was the most vicious enemy of global humanity, national freedom and native progress. Uniting all progressive forces against it was therefore the greatest service to humanity.

Noguchi had presented the ‘Asia for Asians’ idea in his letter. Tagore wrote in response, “Your doctrine is an instrument of political blackmail.”

Tagore wrote about Japan’s alliance with Germany and Italy, “I was amused to read the recent statement of a Tokyo politician that the military alliance of Japan with Italy and Germany was made for ‘highly spiritual and moral reasons’ and ‘had no materialistic considerations behind them.’ What is not amusing is that artists and thinkers should echo such remarkable sentiments that translate military swagger into spiritual bravado.

“You speak of the silent sacrifice and suffering of the poor people of Japan and take pride in betraying that this pathetic sacrifice is being exploited for gun running and invasion of a neighbour’s hearth and home, that human wealth of greatness is pillaged for inhuman purposes. Propaganda, I know, has been reduced to a fine art, and it is almost impossible for peoples in non-democratic countries to resist hourly doses of poison, but one had imagined that at least the men of intellect and imagination would themselves retain their gift of independent judgment. Evidently such is not always the case…”

Expressing hope that a day will come when Japanese people will lay the foundation of a new civilisation, Tagore also presented a salute to the Chinese daredevils:

“China is unconquerable, her civilisation, under the dauntless leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, is displaying marvellous resources; the desperate loyalty of her peoples, united as never before, is creating a new age for that land. Caught unprepared by a gigantic machinery of war, hurled upon her peoples, China is holding her own; no temporary defeats can ever crush her fully aroused spirit.”

Tagore wrote in response to Noguchi’s second letter,

“It seems to me that it is futile for either of us to try to convince the other since your faith in the infallible right of Japan to bully other Asiatic nations into line with your government’ policy is not shared by me, and my faith that patriotism which claims the right to bring to the altar of its country the sacrifice of other people’s rights and happiness will endanger rather than strengthen the foundation of any great civilisation…”

The writer is a social scientist and   award-winning translator based in Lahore. He is currently working on a book Sahir Ludhianvi’s Lahore, Lahore’s Sahir Ludhianvi. He can be reached at razanaeem@hotmail.com