Rabindranath Tagore on Economy,Politics and Society: Contemporary Discourses

Rabindranath Tagore on Economy,Politics and Society: Contemporary Discourses
....Edited by Prof.Sebak Jana (Vidyasagar University)
Published by Dey Book Concern,kolkata,2017,Rs.600/-,HB,pp388+xxxii
The book contains 15 articles ,namely


1.Tagore's ideas on India's Rural Reconstruction:Some reflections.....Sib Ranjan Misra
2.Cooperatives as a tool for development,Rabindranath Tagore and Organisation of cooperatives in early 20th century Bengal....Dikshit Sinha
3.Rabindranath Tagore :AXiology and Nationalism...Sibaji Pratim Basu
4.Tagore and the future of an illusion.....ANUP DHAR AND ANJAN CHAKRABORTY
5.Swaraj,charkha and the dream of economic paradise:Debate between Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi..... .Joyjit Ghosh
6.Reflections of a creative genius:Rabindranath on hindu muslim relations in India..... Abdus Samad Gayen
7.Tagore's views on dharna artha kaarya:The concept if activating socioeconomic reforms for just living.....Udayan Narayana Singh
8.Towards an interpretation of social and political visions of Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo.....Sanchita Karmakar and Asim K.Karmakar
9.Tagore,The Educator.....Pabitra Sarkar
10.Discipline at Santiniketan Brahmacharyaashram:Rabindranath Tagore,Education and Colonial Bengali Society...Gautam Chando Roy
11.Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore..An Activist.....Debesh Bhowmik
12.Rabindranath Tagore's Thoughts on education.....Keya Banerjee
13.Tagore's Love and concern for environment.....Sebak Kumar Jana
14.Human Development ,Library and Rabindranath Tagore......Subodh Gopal Nandy
15.Tagore's Humanistic Approach to religion....Jashobanta Roy

NOBEL LAUREATE RABINDRANATH TAGORE IS AN ACTIVIST

Dr.Debesh Bhowmik (Retired Principal)

(Associated with International Institute for Development Studies,Kolkata)

Key Words-Rural development,rural industialisation,environment,cooperative movement,

JEL-B00,L60,Q10,Q50

I.Introduction

Rabindranath Tagore got Nobel Prize in literature in 1913.All know that he was a great poet. But all should know that the poet was an activist. In every sense he was an activist not only in literature but also in rural reconstruction or in integrated rural development through various activities like setting up of cooperative bank,rural industries,rural health and education,grain banks,mechanization in agriculture,expansion in marketing and cooperatives, creating clean environment,reducing poverty and hunger so forth and so on. In this context ,Tagore said himself that people’s poverty cannot be ameliorated by writing poems but it needs practical works. We must come on to do it physically and unitedly.

In this paper, we endeavour to study the Tagore’s activities in various dimensions of mode of thinking as well as implementations in social, political and economical spheres where Tagore worked ethically, morally, patiently, socially and economically to attain above mentioned goals.

II.Economic thought of Tagore

The economic thought of Rabindranath was originated from his ethics of life through humanitarism as was envisaged from colonial rule. His economic thoughts were influenced from the ideas of Raja Rammohan Ray,Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay,Prem Chand Lal,Dada Bhai Naoroji,Gobinda Ranade,Ramesh Chandra Dutta,Horace Plunkett ,Gavrilo Kojick, Dr.H.G. Timbers,Daniel Hamilton,and Leonard K.Elmhirst.Although he was mostly indebted to his ancestors. As a poet , his thought spread over nature along with man and his value of labour , social depression, illiteracy and superstition which he observed from the society harms human development. His literary appeal to people to integrate national and western thoughts helped national movement as well as openness.

In 1920,about Rammohan Ray,he wrote, “Rammohan Roy was the first great Indian in our age who had profound faith and large vision to feel in his heart the unity of soul between the East and the West. I follow him, though he is practically neglected by his countrymen.”

In literary works, he thought in this way,

“farmers are cultivating in the fields

Weavers are weaving cloths, fishermen through nets

………………..

The man who are neighbours of peasants’ life

Acquired close relationship by dint of words and activities.

He who lives in earth nearby

I am eager to listen to the words of that poet.”

In the “Sonar Tori”, he described the economic condition of the peasants ,helmsman, temple, housewife, vividly which is as follows;

“In the golden fields farmers are cutting

Ripe paddy

Small boats are sailing

Helmsman are singing in boat

bells are ringing in far temple

Housewives going to river brinks

Housemen walking on rural paths

Coming towards village hats.”

How Rabindranath thinks for peasants was described by Dr.Karunamay Mukhopadhyay-the Head of Economics Department as,

“No single aspect of the peasant’s life the poet would ignore; his budget, his happiness, health, education,  culture, mode of living, his attitude, even his sense of beauty and joy,-the joy of creation, as the poet would call it.”(Mukherjee,1962)

He was an admirer of “Drain theory “ of Naroji, and Ramesh Dutta’s “Economic History of India”. He was also loved the rural development and urbanization theory of Ranade because Rabindranath thought complete economic development of rural India where he read “Bangadesher Krishak” of Bankim Chandra.

Rabindranath believed that the poverty of the rural peasants can be eliminated by dint of increasing income and equal redistribution of income.  He read the book “Reconstruction and Education in Rural India” of Premchand Lal and commented as follows;

“Most of us who try to deal the poverty problem think of nothing but a greater intensive effort of production, forgetting that this only means a greater exhaustion of materials as well as of humanity. This only means giving exaggerated opportunity for profit to a few, at the cost of the many. It is food which nourishes, not money .It is fullness of life which makes one happy, not fullness of purse. Multiplying materials intensifies the inequality between those who have and those who have not, and this deals a fatal wound to the social system, through which the whole body is eventually bled to death.”

III. Activity in Agricultural economics

Rabindranath always felt that Indian economy is based on rural economics. Development of rural economics implies the development of India.He believed that colonial rule destroyed the rural economy through exploitation. He was observed the deprivation ,exploitation by landlord, superstition, illiteracy and debt trap of poor peasants of India as well as of Bengal. He wanted to reform tenancy system of peasants,to feed the farmers from debt trap, to turn them into self reliance especially in education, health, crop cultivation and culture. He said , “We have to take village law and order in our hands. We have to teach, to preserve, to save the sons of the peasants, and will make the development of the agriculture by ourselves. “In the tenancy system, Rabindranath thought in other ways. He believed that if the peasants are allowed to transfer the ownership of lands which would ultimately move to the money lenders via loans and thus their sorrows will not end. On the other hand, he wanted the farmers to be self reliance. Therefore, he said that the actual ownership of land is of farmers not landlords. Without implementing cooperative farming in cultivation, the agricultural development is not possible. Primitive method of cultivation should be abandoned replacing new technology in agriculture. As a landlord , he said, “I feel pity to see the poor tenants who are helpless and innocent as children of god. They have no alternative if I do not give them anything by myself.”(Tagore,1975).He did not accept socialist system of land ownership and distribution of wealth ,yet as an activist he was forced to say, “When I am unable to understand to anybody that our self relied sector is agriculture. So in rural areas, some work programme should be started immediately and now,I put my pen into the ear and I must to say that I myself enter into this exercise  now”. (Tagore,1947)

His drives are as follows.

1] In 1905,he set up “Patisar Agricultural Bank” to relief the farmers from the aggravation from money lenders. At 12% interest rate lending facilities were given from which many farmers were freed from debt from money lenders ,some of which stop their businesses. Later he deposited his Nobel Prize money. It lasts 22 years. Rabindranath himself collected money from the performance of dance drama, songs, in every corner of India for saving this bank. Ultimately, it turns into Viswa-Bharati Central Cooperative Bank in 1927 with the initiative of Rabindranath Tagore.

2] Rabindranath Tagore felt that without technological improvement Indian agriculture would not be improved. He thought that in order to resuscitate rural life, agriculture,which is the basic economic resources of the people must be improved.He ,therefore,desired that Santosh and he must go abroad to get technical training in agriculture and animal husbandry so that after our return we could help him. Rathindranath  used tractor at Patisar.He sent his son with Santosh Majumder and Nagendranath  Ganguli to America ( Illionis University) to learn agricultural degree. In 1909 Rabindranath with his son Rathindranath set up agricultural farm near Silaidaha in a vested land where he used modern equipments like tractor, thresher, seed, etc .Even they set up an agricultural laboratory where soil tests were done. There they tried to use crop rotation system of farming in the cash crops .And they tried to prepare manure by earthing hilsa with calcium carbonate . There the farmers tried to learn ploughing of cash crops like tamato, patato, sugarcane, Maize etc. They used 80 bighas of land for using new technology and farming in Silaidaha. Even before establishing agricultural farm ,Rabindranath himself experimented ploughing of Madras rice, American maize during 1899.He wrote to Jagadish Bose, “The prospect of my farming is well. I brought seeds of American maize whose saplings are growing speedily.I cropped Madras seeds of rice that will not frustrate me”.Once D.L.Roy came there and advised Rabindranath to cultivate patato. He sent the seeds of potatoes to Rabindranath and the poet usually planted them. Although the Silaidaha farm faced a huge loss in patato but they did not let loose of farming it. Even the poet encouraged the farmers to cultivate grape,date-palm,cabbage,and banana etc . Rathindranath (1908),wrote, “ Please encourage them to grow in their homestead land, on the boundaries of the fields and wherever possible pineapples, banana, date palm other fruit trees. Good and strong fibers can be obtained from the leaves of pineapple. The fruit is also easily marketable. Tapioca can be grown as hedges and tenants should be taught how to extract food materials from its roots. It would be profitable if they could be inducted to cultivate potatoes. Try again to sow the seeds of the American maize which have been kept in the office”.

3] In 1922,Rabindranath set up Sriniketan where he established “Surul farm” which is christened as Department of Agriculture,Santiniketan,later on.In Surul farm, livestock farming was introduced. Agricultural research was done here, he himself experimented to produce Chinese nuts, rice and chilly. Leonard K.Elmhurst-who was an agricultural economist and was the President of International Conference of Agricultural Economics and British Society of Agricultural Economics and British Royal Society of Forestry and was the founder of Indian Society of Agricultural Economics-advised Rabindranath to improve the fertility of the soil by using manures like potassium, nitrogen, iron, calcium, sulphur, phosphorous, and magnesium etc.Premchand Lal wrote, “Special emphasis is laid upon the selection of seeds, rotation of crops, green manuring, preservation of manure –,and the use of improved implements which are quite within the reach of the peasants.”(Lal,1932). He visited “Krishi Bhawan” of Russia where farmers are trained in farming with technical training how to increase agricultural productivity through modern technology and he was influenced by those Krishi Bhawans which were set up consisting of some villages throughout the country. He implemented those training processes in Sriniketan where variety of cash crops like tamato,patatoe,sugarcane,bit,carrot,cotton plant, pulses, cauliflower, sayabin,maize,pine apple,banana,guava,papaw, were cultivated and even some spices were produced experimentally. In 1922 ,jute,and millet were cultivated in the farm of Sriniketan. Through crop rotation ,protection of soil erosion and dryness of the soil were maintained.

4]  In 1928, Fishery education and training was introduced in Ballavpur and Sukhsayar where a south Indian expert started with bee keeping to bring out honey.In 1933,dairy farm and goatery which were preceded by poultry ,started in 1924 in Sriniketan. All these novelty of actions in agricultural development spread over the nearest villages and even in Birbhum and other districts.

5] To aim at expansion of agricultural marketing of agri-outputs, he introduced village fairs. In 1905 at Shilaidaha, the name of fair was “Katyani Mela” where songs of baul, kirtan,tarja, panchali were arranged along with selling of agri-products and handicrafts. In 1907,he also introduced “Rajrajeswari Mela” where Jagadindranath Roy of Maharaja of Natore and Achariya Jagdish Chandra Basu were present.

6]Rabindranath had strong vision in the sense that he introduced the “Grain Bank” to meet up emergency food crisis in times famine and other natural disasters so that poor farmers can take grains in terms of loan by which they can maintain livelihood and concentrate in other activities in agriculture. Now ,it is transformed into FCI by which public distribution system is maintained.

7] He was the pioneer of thinking and implementing to keep rural statistics that can cover population,education,health,gender dimensions,shelter,agricultural statistics including production of various crops and agri-business etc, during various time periods.(Tagore,1962).On the recommendation of Tagore,Bhupesh Ray-the officer of Shilaidaha started to collect data on socio-economic surveys with help of  the youths. This activities of Tagore was taken from Russian agricultural statistics collection methods.Kalimohan Ghosh had collected agricultural statistics at Shantiniketan by that method.He published book on statistics of Ballavpur in 1926 and book on statistics of Roypur in 1933.(Chatterjee,1934). “The survey of two villages has been completed by Babu Kalimohan Ghosh,superintendent of the Institute  and the information has been published in the two booklets. They are full of interesting information and well worth a perusal.”-said  Sukumar Chattopadhyay. Later on ,national level surveys were conducted in 1934 and 1939 respectively by Dr.Hasim Amir Ali  on “Three villages economic studies on rice” and by Dr.Sudhir Chandra Sen on “Economics of paddy cultivation,irrigation problems of West Bengal, rural marketing in Bolpur Bazar” which were assets of statistics on rural economy of Shantiniketan that helped in future studies on pre-colonial agriculture.

8] Rabindranath synthesized literary  appeal and culture with rural agriculture through natural expression that can affect villagers and farmers intensively so that cultivation along with their live style might be synchronished towards national interest. In 1928 ,15 July Rabindranath introduced “Hallakarshan” ceremony where he himself involved in ploughing  which was accompanied with hymns, recitation, dance and songs. Elmhurst, Pandit Bidhusekhar Shastri, Nandala Basu were present there and helped Rabindranath in every sphere.About Hallakarshan ,he wrote, “How valuable is the agricultural education was known from Ramayan by the Aryans. Sita was glorified by the line of  Hallakarshan and Ram turns the plots of Ahalyabhumi   into cultivable. Once upon a time, this Hallakarshan joined north and south by breaking the father of forest.”

9] In 1923, a Primary School for Girls was established in Sriniketan to enhance their status in the society through education. By 1939, there were night classes for children and adults unable to attend schools. There was a mobile library-the first of its kind in Bengal [still in operation in many districts of Bengal (especially Birbhum) and different states as well]. An early form of distance education was initiated through Lok-Siksha Samsad (Peoples Education Council, 1937), a society which organized study at homes and examinations for persons who could not attend school. A special education section was added later to handle some other educational areas. The Lok-Siksha-Samsad was included under this section; so was training centre for primary school teachers, called Siksha Charcha Bhavan. In training primary teachers, the centre supplemented the government curriculum with music, agriculture, sanitation, scouting and craft-training to create a more holistic approach.

10] The Village Boys and Girls Scout (Brati Balak Organization) was initiated by the poet in 1922. The basic objectives of the programme were to develop the Second Line of Leadership among the children of the villages. The broad objectives of the programme were: (a) to develop the spirit of community services; (b) to undertake physical exercise; (c) to develop active leadership; (d) to develop an awareness of natural equilibrium and environment education.

IV. Activity in Industrialisation

Economic thoughts of Rabindranath on industrial development lie not only on rural industrial expansion but also on the development of large scale industries. First of all, he tried to start rural industries like handicrafts for which he established “Shilpa Bhawan” in 1922 where printing of cloths, book binding, batik, lac works were started with the guidance of Pratima Devi . Rathindranath added tannery in to it. In 1928, pottery,weaving,and crafts were introduced in it.In 1951,ViswaBharati renamed it into “Shilpasadan” .Rabindranath Tagore wanted to expand rural cottage industries so that rural wealth may increase but he liked to create manufacturing industries when he said, “To save the nation is to open industries but it is not started because of the interest of national and foreign monopolists and money lenders. They own our industries……”.  Even he was opposed on monopoly expansion in India. But he was not on the same opinion on Gandhian thought of industries with the Charka. For this ,he had to confront with several criticism from important personalities in India. On the other hand, he was interested to produce consumption goods for poor with the help of improved and modern technology. He sent Manindra Chandra Sen to Japan to learn use of modern technology for weaving.10 power looms and some preparatory machines were purchased from Japan from which production of clothes had been started in 1936.In 1937,11 handlooms,5 Swidil weaver machines,and 10 handlooms ran at Shriniketan where several trained youths worked there and it was spread over 36 villages.The weavers collected cottons from Shriniketan .They weaved with certain designs and qualities and marketed throughout India. For expansion of tanning, Pratima Devi brought some designs of technology from Italy. In Shriniketan,shoes,bag,suitcase,book binding were produced in the tannery industry including leather handicraft which includes leather moneybag, handbags of women, belts which had a great market outside India.

******IX. Conclusion 

Rabindranath is not only a poet of Nobel Laureate but also he was a philosopher and economic thinker in real sense because all of his economic thoughts were implemented in Shantiniketan, Shriniketan, Shilaidaha and other nearest villages .He wished that his villages would be self-reliance in every respect from which efforts for freedom could be raised from the exploited farmers against the colonial emperor during the course of national freedom movement in India. His integrated rural development approach is a continuous process of conflict between rich and poor, continuous integration between east and west, old and new, culture and education, and education and livelihood as well as continuous conflict between self reliance and independent. His views pertaining to eco-ethical human living and sustainable rural development scattered in various works throughout his life and we made an attempt to assemble them to bring out his economic vision.

 

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