RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Taj Hashmi
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Subject: Re: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:37:10 -0400
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The Tagore Mania: Identity Crisis and Anti-Bangladesh Syndrome
Simon Fraser University, Canada
Published on May 11, 2006
I simply pity these people along with those who regard Rabindranath Tagore as the best poet, lyricist, short-story writer, novelist, essayist, Nobel Laureate, Zamindar, master, human being and what not! Those among these fanatically blind Rabindra-Bhaktas, who do not believe in God, consider him as one and all his writings as the substitute for the Bible, Quran and the Vedas. They are no better than the most fanatic mullahs, Hindu revivalists and the Neo-Cons in and around Washington D.C. All of them are dangerous to human dignity, peace and civilization. Their role vis-à-vis a sovereign Bangladesh, which has NO reason to be merged with West Bengal or India to become their slave (again?), is simply vicious, heinous and all Bangladeshis should be aware of it.
India has already captured our market. Do these India-Bhakta Tagorites want physical merger with India? I would not be surprised if this is in their hidden or not-so-hidden transcript!
I do not dispute the fact that Tagore was a good poet, much better than most of his contemporaries in undivided Bengal. But please give me a break; one who died in 1941 at 80 should be still regarded as the most relevant poet, essayist, novelist and lyricist! While English-speaking people have profound regard for Shakespeare and Byron, Keats and Shelley, Whitman and Tennyson, Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell they do not stick to these luminaries’ ideas considering them indispensable unlike what these Rabindra-Bhakta buffoons do with their ONLY idol. While Frank Sinatra and Pat Boone, Dean Martin and Dionne Warwick, the Beatles and ABBA (and even Michael Jackson) had their hey days, now Western music lovers have other icons and favourite singers.
Tomorrow’s generations will have their own favourite writers and singers, poets and philosophers. And this is called progress. The way Rabindra-Bhaktas glorify Tagore songs and whatever came out of his mouth or pen during the last two centuries establishes nothing but their cultural bankruptcy and inferiority complex.
In hindsight, I blame Ayub Khan, his Information Minister Khwaja Shahabuddin and his clownish Governor Monem Khan for this ongoing Rabindra-Mania in Bangladesh since 1967. Since the Pakistani ruling elite tried to impose a ban on Tagore song (which was a foolish, undemocratic move) during the ascendancy of Bengali Nationalism in East Pakistan one year after the introduction of the famous Six-point Programme of the Awami League and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (which was not meant for secession but greater autonomy for East Pakistan), it simply backfired and Tagore became the symbol of Bengali Nationalism. It was nothing but a negative support for Tagore to defy and eventually overthrow the Ayub regime for the restive Bengali nationalists. Consequently those who could hardly understand anything about Tagore song, started patronizing and singing his lyrics. Chhayanat and similar music schools proliferated afterwards. And the rest is history.
Even the radical maverick, brave and honest Professor Ahmed Sharif (my guru for various reasons, especially his integrity, courage and scholarship) would privately tell us: “Ei Rabi Thakurer ‘tumi’ ta ke re bapu, eta to bujhlam na.” He was also critical of Tagore’s opposition to the Dhaka University proposal and his feudal, anti-people, pro-British stand most of the time up to his seventies.
Those who deny Tagore’s anti-Muslim, anti-East Bengali, anti-peasant, anti-communist and out and out pro-Zamindar, pro-Bhadralok (Hindu professional classes) and pro-Mahajan (moneylender) stand, at least up to the 1930s (in his seventies), are in a state of denial or totally ignorant of the facts. Why did the Hindu Zamindar-Bhadralok-Mahajan triumvirate oppose the Partition of Bengal? Was not the main reason for their concerted opposition to a separate province of Eastern Bengal & Assam due to their apprehension of losing out their Zamindari estates in East Bengal, legal profession and jobs eventually to the majority Muslim community? Those Bangladeshis who deny these facts are either die hard fanatics or supporters of United Bengal (as former slaves often suffer from the a perpetual sense of devotion or Bhakti for their former masters – I am NOT making this up, one may check with the vast literature on social-psychology, cultural anthropology and history, especially writings by Ranajit Guha and other “Subaltern” historians).
In view of the above, Tagore’s opposition to the Partition of Bengal (1905-11) and the Dhaka University proposal (1914-20) had nothing so “patriotic” about it. He was not at all different from fellow Hindu Zamindar – Bhadralok who preferred to live in the urban comfort of Calcutta to the rural discomfort of East Bengal but by exploiting East Bengali peasants and working classes as landlords, lawyers and moneylenders. They also opposed the Partition and any move to establish a university in Dhaka, which they rightly envisaged, would eventually strip of their undue privileges and advantages as the hegemons of East Bengali masses. Calcutta based Hindu lawyers did not want another High Court in Dhaka, let alone another university to produce East Bengali Muslim graduates to compete in the shrinking job market, legal profession and in the arena of politics. One Fazlul Huq and one Suhrawardy were too much for them to swallow in the 1930s and 1940s.
In hindsight we realize that had there been no Partition of Bengal in 1905 and eventually in 1947 (the second one mainly due to Hindu Bhadralok opposition to united Bengal as Hindus would be perpetually a minority there against the Muslims) there would not have been any Bangladesh in 1971 or later. So, those who regard Tagore as the “dreamer” of Bangladesh a la Iqbal as the “dreamer of Pakistan”, are simply misinforming themselves and others by romanticizing history with no regard to facts and figures.
History tells us without any ambiguity that the anti-Partition Swadeshi Movement (1905-11) in Bengal was out and out a Hindu movement (only a handful of Muslim initially supported it while a fraction of them continued their support till the annulment of the Partition in 1911). Muslim elites and even peasants and working classes took a leading role against the Swadeshi Movement and villages in Mymensingh and Comilla witnessed bloody Hindu-Muslim rioting during the Swadeshi days over the Partition. In Jamalpur and elsewhere in greater Mymensingh, Hindu terrorist Swadeshi volunteers, who took oath at the alter of goddess Kali and sang Bankim’s anti-Muslim Bande Mataram, attacked Muslim supporters of the Partition with Ma Kalir Boma (Mother Kali’s Bomb).
Sumit Sarkar has beautifully narrated these events in his History of the Swadeshi Movement. One should read Nirad Chaudhuri’s Autobiography of an Unknown Indian and Abul Mansur Ahmed’s Amar Dekha Rajnitir Panchash Bachhar to find out the truth about the communal nature of the Swadeshi Movement. And Kabi Guru Rabindranath was among the ardent supporters of the Swadeshi Movement. He wrote “Amar Sonar Bangla, Ami Tomay Bhalobashi” to inspire the supporters of the Swadeshi Movement. He wrote “Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jaya Hey” in 1911.
While some historians think he wrote this song in praise of King-Emperor George V out of gratitude as he declared the annulment of the Partition in 1911 at the Delhi Durbar, others allude it to Tagore’s love for the Indian “Jana Gana” as the “Bharata Bhagya Bidhata”. There is historical evidence (I read the newspapers on microfilm) Tagore wrote the song eulogizing George V as the “Bharata Bhagya Bidhata” (determinant of the fate of India).
Now, those who think Tagore was not an anti-Muslim communal person by citing examples from his short stories and fictions where he portrayed some Muslims as noble characters should re-read the following Tagore poems: Nava Barsha, Shivaji Utshab, Ma Bhoi and Brahman. What type of “non-communal” Maha Rishi (Great Saint) could glorify Hindu and Brahmin supremacy and the inhuman and barbaric Sati (Suttee) or burning of Hindu widows alive on their husband’s funeral pyre? His Shivaji Utshab was horridly a glorification of Hindutva as this poem not only eulogized Shivaji the Maratha nationalist against Mughal paramountcy (I have no problem with that) but it also contemplates the vision of “one religion in one country”. Was it very dissimilar from Hitler’s one race in one country or the fascist Shiv Sena’s and RSS’s advocacy for unadulterated Hindu supremacy in India?
We have Tagore apologists everywhere, in every forum, print and electronic media both in South Asia and beyond. One of them (Mesbahuddin Jowher) in a recent posting to the Mukto-Mona on May 8, 2006 wrote an apologia for Tagore in Bengali, “Was Tagore a Communalist?” According to him, Tagore only toyed with Hindutva and anti-Muslim expressions up to the early 20th century and afterwards he was a changed man. This is not at all true. In early 20th century Tagore was in his forties and fifties. He opposed the Dhaka University proposal during1914 and 1920 (joined a rally at Garer Math in Calcutta and put his signature to the campaign) when he was 53-59 year-old. We should not thrust any greatness on someone who in his forties and fifties continued to use very objectionable, racist and hateful expressions like javana, mlechha, nerey to denote Muslims a la Bankim style. Tagore was sort of a civil person vis-à-vis his public stand towards Hindu-Muislim problem in his seventies. By then it was too late, too little to glorify him as a saint and what not!
He was not that different so far as anti-Muslim public assertions are concerned from Bankim and Sarat Chatterjee. While Bankim considered Indian Muslims “unclean skin head foreigners” (mlechha javana nerey), Sarat Chatterjee publicly demanded the expulsion of Indian Muslims for the sake of a better India (in 1926 at a public meeting organized by the Hindu Mahasabha – see Joya Chatterjee’s Hindu Communalism and the Partition of Bengal), Tagore was sometimes more subtle in venting out his anti-Muslim sentiment.
Those Tagore apologists who defend his opposition to the Dhaka University proposal as a device to “save Calcutta University” (what a rubbish of an argument!) totally ignore the fact that Tagore in his Nobel Acceptance Lecture in 1913 (or 1914?) announced that he was going to establish a university at Bolpur (Shanti Niketan University) with the award money. Would not another university not far from Calcutta be detrimental to Calcutta University? Why could not he establish a university in East Bengal for the children of his exploited tenants? Why did not he establish anything worth mentioning other than the Patishar Bank (very similar to Grameen Bank but interest free for his tenants in Naogaon district in North Bengal not long before his death) for the poor in East Bengal? No Rabindra-Bhakta has any satisfactory answers to these questions.
In sum, let Tagore be in peace. Let people sing and listen to Tagore song, read his poems and other writings and let scholars and laymen write volumes after volumes in evaluating his literary genius. I have no problem with that. We cannot accept any assertion portraying Tagore as the most humane, non-communal, benevolent Zamindar (an oxymoronic expression like a “kind butcher” or “Hitler, the great lover of the Jews”), a “dreamer of Bangladesh”, a promoter of education (yes, almost exclusively for Hindu Bengalis) and an anti-imperialist etc.
I am very puzzled at Bengali communists’ (mostly the hitherto Muscovites also known as the “Harmonium Party”) adoration of Tagore, who in his fore-word to Pramatha Chaudhury’s book, Ryoter Katha (Calcutta 1928) compared communism with fascism and condemned those who wanted to abolish the Zaminadari and Mahajani ( usurious money-lending) systems. He sarcastically described the communists as “lalmukho” (red-faced) Russian agents and jeered at their programme: “Ei dharoni nir-jamidar nir-mahajan hoilei jeno shanty ashibe” [paraphrased] or “as if this world will be a blissful place without the Zamindar and Mahajan around.” Tagore was 67-year-old when he defended the extortionist Zamindari and Mahajani systems. And our Rabindra-Bhakta friends still consider him a great humanist friend of the poor and oppressed and “dreamer of Bangladesh”!
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Ehsan Ahrari
Tazooooooooooo:
I did not see your essay until I saw the most vicious attack by this person. I hope he does not consider himself your friend, for friends like him don’t need enemies.
Bravo to you for writing an excellent piece. You had educated me of the topic during our frequently conversations about pre-partitioned India, but I never read this essay. This man who wastes his and other’s time in his venomous, but still feeble, endeavor to demolish your first rate scholarship should have told us why he did not like your essay.
I have always said this, and I will say it again for the edification of your fellow countrymen/women: you are a first rate scholar when it comes to the history and politics of BD. In addition, unbeknownst to most of them, you are also a BD patriot. Despite the intensity of feelings toward persons of your ethnic background, you have remained very loyal to your BD acquired identity.
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Taj Hashmi
Subject: RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Ehsan Ahrari
Regardless, Tazoooooooooo, such a diatribe to condemn your scholarship is TOTALLY inexcusable, especially from a purported friend.
I like your “go to hell” attitude toward persons of such dispositions.
Cheers,
Ehsan
Farida Majid
I have done a big article on Tagore -- minutely researched, observed and analyzed -- on his English translations of his own work. Parts of it had been presented at several International conferences on Translation Studies at prestigious venues. Other translation scholars have quoted from my article recently. The article has not been published as a whole, but a portion of it appears in a book published in Dhaka by IPL. A part of it was even printed in the literary section of Pakistani paper, Dawn. I'll see if I can dig that out to share with you.
This might please Taj -- the army of Tagore-worshipping scholars were outraged with the conclusions of my article and yet could not raise a tiny finger-point to a flaw in my scholarship.
Nonetheless, I think it is mean to put Tagore's towering genius as a butt of ridicule. Tagore mania, for all its faults, is an inextricable part of my cultural nourishment, especially his music. As a scholar I criticize the man, and more seriously, allege him of intellectual dishonesty. This bit drives the Tagore-lovers nuts!
Let me go search for that Dawn article!
farida apa
Subject: RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Ali Shaheen
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Ehsan Ahrari
Farida:
Do send me your entire essay, not the shortened version. I wish to understand why Bengalis adore that Muslim-hating man, and why BD decided to adopt his song/poem as its national anthem and not anything written by Nazrul Islam, Tazoooooooo’s cousin, since his full name is Tazul Islam H!!! I would love for anyone to provide me just one (yes, just one) title of a book or send me a definitive essay on Nazrul. I wonder why you Bengalis are so quiet about Nazrul. I am sure Tazooooooooo will educate me.
Taj Hashmi
Subject: RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Ehsan Ahrari
The silence from your “highly capable” Khomeini friend is deafening.
Farida: Don’t think that I have forgotten my request for your essay. I would like to read your arguments. Tazooooooooo has been consistently prescient in his argument about that distant Islamophobe.
Taj Hashmi
Subject: RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Ahmed, Mosleh-Uddin (Mosleh)
Dear Friends,
I do not understand why this discussion on Tagore suddenly became so hot. I am not a big fan of Tagore. In fact my personal view is he is possibly over-rated (among Bengalis). That does not mean I do not appreciate his contributions to the arts, literature and culture of Bengalis as well as the whole of South Asian subcontinent. Most Bengalis are proud of his many accomplishments including being the first non-European Nobel laureate in the world.
From what I see from Hashmi’s article and the follow up discussion, he makes two major points:
a) People over-glorifies Tagore
b) Tagore acted against the Muslim interest in Bengal
Even if these points are valid (I personally believe they are valid to some degree), Hashmi makes his points with a language and style more suitable for a political speech rather than a scholarly discourse. And it seems he could, with his eloquence, sway a couple of well informed people who are unfamiliar with Tagore’s work.
I believe, Tagore’s achievements far outweigh his one time political activism that went against the Bengali Muslim interest. I don't think it will be fair to characterize Shakespeare as anti Semitic just because of “Merchant of Venice”, or anti-Muslim just because of “Othello the Moor”. We cannot take away Newton’s laws of motion or the theory of gravity because of his rather crude lifelong antagonism to Leibnitz.
I find bringing Hitler in this discussion and alluding to any commonality with Tagore’s activities quite offensive. Bringing up Kazi Nazrul Islam, in my view, opens up a rather unpleasant dimension which goes counter to the sophisticated view of the Bengali identity.
I suspect Shah Jahan’s outburst may have been triggered by a less than polished approach used in the article to characterize Tagore. Then again, Shah Jahan’s characterization of this work as “trash” is not much polished either. And comparing Shah Jahan with Khomeini is not very civil (although sometimes okay among friends in small circles).
In my view phrases like “Muslim basher” and “successful hypocrite” are not appropriate characterizations of Tagore. I am afraid this article will hardly receive any attention from a serious audience. Tagore’s reputation and stature will remain undiminished. On the other hand, our own reputation may suffer a little.
Regards,
Mosleh-Uddin Ahmed
New Jersey, USA
Ali Shaheen
Ali Shaheen
Taj Hashmi
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 15:52:11 -0700
To: pfc...@googlegroups.com; pfc-f...@googlegroups.com; pfc...@googlegroups.com
From: mon...@asbbs.org
Subject: RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
CC: farida...@hotmail.com; dark...@yahoo.com; bark...@yahoo.com; cola...@yahoo.com; kalac...@msn.com
You have been writing a lot on Tagore these days. I could not care less about your personal opinion on Tagore; however, I'm curious to know the references to your assertion that Tagore opposed the creation of Dhaka University. After winning the Noble Prize in 1913, Tagore did not visit Dhaka until 1926. The Students Union of S.M. Hall gave him a hero's welcome at that time. There are many references to his Dhaka visit, but I found the description by Hayat Mamud quite interesting and have attached a page and a half of that book for interested readers. The description of Kabi Guru's Dhaka visit by Hayat Mamud went on after page 50 but for the sake of brevity I stopped there.
Enlighten us with the facts about Tagore's opposition to the establishment of Dhaka University.
Wali
Ali Shaheen
Taj Hashmi
Date: Fri, 5 Apr 2013 16:28:33 -0400
Subject: Re: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Ali Shaheen
Dear Hashmi,
If you read my earlier message carefully, you should have noticed I had wanted to know facts about your essays on Tagore. Did he really oppose the establishment of Dhaka University? If he did, what were his reasons? Where are some published documents about these two questions? You failed to provide any such reference; instead, what you wrote reads like your own opinion. I am extremely disappointed about the way you are depicting Tagore. Tagore was, and will remain to be an Institution not only for his literary works but also for his contributions to poverty alleviation and for his entrepreneurial role in devising the collateral-free, five-member model of microcredit. In an earlier message posted to this forum, I had quoted part of his will. In that will, Tagore had donated all proceeds of his estate to the welfare of his subjects and had asked his son Rathindranath (Rathi) to execute the will accordingly. This is a well documented fact and I'm sure you know this. You claim to have an elephant's memory and you had mentioned earlier you had read my message that included this information. Yet you depict Tagore as a typical landlord and in doing so, you resort to using language unbecoming of a scholar who have attained some reputation in some other field. There are historians in this group including Matin who has attained the maximum - Ph.D. from Berkely. I do not know his specialization, but I suspect, as part of natural curiosity, he will know something about the landlords of undivided India. I am asking Matin, other historians in this group, or anyone to tell me if there was another landlord in undivided India who had willed their estate to the welfare of their subjects. One other fact you may not be aware of. After founding Kaligram Krishi Bank in Patishar, the third and less known estate of the Tagore family, Kabi guru had sent his son Rathi to the University of Illinois to study Agriculture, not to England to study Law. Rathi earned a Bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois, and went back to India and gradually took charge of the estate. Rathi managed Kaligram Krishi Bank consisting of two wings, one for commercial loan and the other for collateral-free group-based microcredit. Interest rates on these two types of loans were 6 per cent and three and a quarter percent respectively. That was during the period 1912-1950. During my visit to Rabindra Bhavana (Visva Bharati- Santiniketan) in 2005, I have collected rare documents on these matters, and I disseminate these facts here so that readers of this forum may appreciate what kind of landlords the Tagores were.
Just out of curiosity, I recently Googled your "publications". Lo and behold, there is my friend of 49 years Dr. Taj Hashmi with a special blend of language tearing apart any and all people who think Tagore had something to contribute! Did you really have to do this? You have attained some notoriety on the "literature review" on such things as security, political Islam, the Hadith, etc. I have learned a thing or two from your writings, and the discussions that followed on these subjects. So, my friend, please stay with your specialization. Do you want to know how much Tagore wrote in 67 years of his life (his first poem was published when he was 13)? Do you know that only about 55% of what Tagore wrote has been published? I'm not sure you know these facts, but I'm sure, you don't have enough earth days left to switch your field of research. Nor does it appear that you have the appetite to depict the whole truth about whatever you know on this Institution. So my friend, please be content with your field of specialization.
My last word, I truly enjoy your company - there is never a dull moment when you are around.
Best,
Wali
Ahmad, Ahrar
Dear Hashmi bhai:
I was hesitant to join this discussion because of the intensity of feelings involved, and because I do not want to appear as a Tagore apologist. BUT, since I have known you for as long as I have, I will venture to make some comments. For the sake of transparency I should point out that I am myself a Tagore-bhakta, though I am fully aware that criticisms of him are both legitimate and welcome. Hashmi bhai, I look up to you in much affection and respect. Nothing I say should be construed to undermine that sentiment.
Your anti-Tagore diatribe rests on three inter-related arguments – 1) that he had opposed the partition of Bengal in 1905; 2) that he had written the poem Shivaji Utsab (Ehsan bhai, it means celebration) with one line about “dharma-rajya” (which is actually repeated twice); and 3) that he had opposed the formation of the University of Dhaka.
Hashmi bhai, there were various reasons to oppose the partition of Bengal, most notably that this was part of the “divide and conquer” policy to facilitate British domination. The English were baiting the Muslims, and played their cards with great cunning and foresight. To say that Tagore was a communalist because of his opposition to an imperial ploy is perhaps a bit unfair, and to infer further that Tagore was demonstrating his opposition to the creation of Bangladesh later, is disingenuous (at best).
Second, the poem Shivaji utsab is clumsy, eminently regrettable, and has provided “gotcha” fodder for many. But, it is important to remember that Shivaji had become a nationalist icon by the early years of the 20th century, and these utsabs (initiated by Tilak) had been organized in various parts of India as part of that awakening. WE do not like Shivaji because he fought against Muslim rule (but do remember that he was fighting not against the ecumenical Akbar, the prudent Jahangir or the distracted Shahjahan, but against the zealous and militant Aurangzeb), but for the Marathas he was a hero. Weaving Shivaji into the narrative was part of the nationalist project. It should also be pointed out that Shivaji’s own relationship with his Muslim subjects was quite proper and fair. But, should this one poem about an admittedly controversial figure be the final measure of a man who has written 26 hefty volumes where we do not see this sentiment reflected anywhere else? This poem was written for a particular time, in a specific context. Moreover, the phrase “dharma-rajya” does not necessarily mean Hindutva (the word “dharma” is ambiguous and nuanced, like the word “karma”), and is consistent with the Tagore refrain about different people who came here and became “one”. Should you also not indicate his translations of Kabir, his admiration for Hafez, his encouragement both to Nazrul and to Begum Sufia Kamal (I had myself translated the poem he wrote to her to show his support), his embrace of much Sufi doctrine, his leadership in the Brahmo Samaj explicitly against Hindu orthodoxy, his tying of the rakhi thread (signifying brotherhood) on Muslim wrists, his Oxford lectures on The Religion of Man, and so on, to suggest his more inclusive approach to “others”?
Finally, it is true that he had initially opposed the formation of the University of Dhaka. The reasons, as you yourself suggested, were probably quite practical. It would detract from the importance of the University of Calcutta, and would also compete with his own Santiniketan (the infusion of Nobel money in 1913 allowed it to become a University in 1921). It is necessary to point out that even till 1947 fully two-thirds of the students of Dhaka University, and nine-tenths of its faculty were Hindu. If we accept the argument that opposition to the University was driven by communal considerations, one must ask, what sense would be there to oppose something that would eventually benefit mostly Hindus? Tagore’s opposition to the University was probably short-sighted, but not sinister.
There is one last point I have to make. Hashmi bhai, this posing of a contrast between a Hindu Tagore and a Muslim Nazrul is unnecessary and provocative. I claim both as part of my legacy. Politicians may manipulate this divide, but why should enlightened and sophisticated scholars like you?
Be-adabi maaf korben,
Ahrar
From:
pfc...@googlegroups.com [mailto:pfc...@googlegroups.com]
On Behalf Of Taj Hashmi
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2013 9:42 AM
To: PFC
Cc: pfc-f...@googlegroups.com; farida majid; Shah Jahan
PFC; Barkat Khuda; Col Aziz; kalac...@msn.com; Ali Shaheen
Subject: Re: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Dear Wali:
Thanks for your response. Before I respond to this legitimate query as to why I did not cite the reference to my assertion about Tagore's opposition to the creation of Dhaka University, I paste below a line from your first response, "I could not care less about your personal opinion on Tagore; however, I'm curious to know the references to your assertion that Tagore opposed the creation of Dhaka University", which believe me I somehow manage to miss. It was a silly oversight. So sorry for this.
I wrote the article in absolute haste (took less than an hour to write it) in response to a posting in Muktomona in 2006, which the editor of the Blog published as a separate article. I got both kind and hostile (and very kind and very hostile responses from readers). The problem with the reference (rather references) to Tagore's opposition to the idea of establishing a university at Dhaka is that I read the documents (newspaper reports) in 1981 on microfilm, while I was doing my Ph.D. Since my thesis was on "Peasants and Politics in East bengal, 1920-1947", I had to read ALL the issues of several newspapers that came out from Calcutta during my period of study. However, at times, I just had a cursory look at newspapers beyond my period of study to get some idea about important events like the Partition of Bengal (1905-1911) and the anti-Partition Swadeshi Movement, or to know about certain other events and personalities, such as Ramkrishna Paramhansa, Swami Vivekananda, Gama Palwan and Khudi Ram.
I clearly remember reading the news item about a rally at Garer Math (Calcutta) where several leading Calcutta-based Hindu zamindars and bhadralok, including Tagore, Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee (VC, Calcutta University) and if my memory is not faltering, famous historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (who later became the VC of Dhaka University) attended the rally. The newspaper also revealed that Hindu elites were doing a signature campaign (where luminaries like Tagore had put their signature) against the proposed university at Dhaka. I also read in the Statesman and the Englishman (and possibly also in the Amrita Bazar Patrika) about Tagore's singing a song in praise of Emperor George V congratulating him for declaring the Annulment of the Partition of Bengal at the Delhi Durbar in late 1911. The song was "Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak Jai hey ... Bharat Bhagya Bidhata..." He sang the song at a special session of the All-India National Congress. There was no ambiguity in the news report whatsoever about who Tagore mentioned as "Bharat Bhagya Bidhata". I remember the Englishman referred to Tagore not as Poet or Nobel Laureate but as "Babu Rabindranath Tagore". I am cocksure about what I read about Tagore's opposition to the Dhaka University proposal and the famous song, which is now the national anthem of India. I also remember reading Tagore's rebuttal (some 15 years later) and his claim that he had turned down the British Government's proposal to write an eulogy for Emperor George V; and that he had written the song in praise of God (who was the Bhagya Bidhata of India). One wonders why he took 15 years to rebut the already known story about his "Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak". A renowned Bengali language professor also corroborated the stories that Tagore opposed the creation of Dhaka University and wrote the song as an eulogy of the British Emperor, but I don't want to cite a dead person's name in support of my assertions, which may still be verified through old newspapers. Unfortunately, I did not copy the news items on an index card as in 1981 I did not realize that one day this well-known facts about Tagore would be disputed.
I am glad that you raised this question:
"I am asking Matin, other historians in this group, or anyone to tell me if there was another landlord in undivided India who had willed their estate to the welfare of their subjects." I can mention several landlords who donated their estates to the welfare of ordinary people. I just cite two names, not from a distant land but from Dhaka (Please hold your chair handles firmly -- I don't want you to fall off the chair! Ha Ha Ha!). What Nawab (a hereditary title bestowed by the British for their loyalty) Khwaja Ahsanullah and Nawab Khwaja Salimullah of Dhaka did for Dhaka, NOBODY ELSE has yet done for the people of Dhaka and Bangladesh. NOBODY!
Can you imagine Dhaka city without Motijheel, Dilkusha, Gulistan, Baitul mukarram, GPO, Purana Paltan, Curzon Hall, Old and New High Court, Engineers Institute, Engineering University, Dhaka University (all the buildings and open space), Dhaka Medical College, Azim Pur, New Market, Azimpur Graveyard, BDR Headquareters, Dhaka Central Jail, Race Course Maidan, Ramna Park, Kakrail, Shah Bagh, Pari Pagh, Arts College, Dhaka Club, PG Hospital, Diabetic Hospital and all the roads and avenues that connect all these places? These areas belonged to Nawab Salimullah and he DONATED these lands to the city of Dhaka after the Partition of Bengal. Do you see any patriotism here? I am sure, you do.
However, it is very tragic that Ahasanullah Engineering College, built on land given by the Nawab, now bears a different name, BUET. It's like nationalizing Harvard University or some other private university, even by erasing the names of their founders. This amounts to barbaric denial or collective ungratefulness. Ahsanullah introduced running water and electricity to Dhaka (yes, with his own money), and Salimullah was so enthusiastic about the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam that he donated such lucrative estates to make its capital viable, and the Partition a "settled fact", as promised by the British.
Now it is my turn to ask you some questions: a) Why did not you write anything about Tagore's active opposition to the Partition of Bengal? b) Are you condoning his writing a communal Hindutwa poem like "Shivaji Utsab"?
Finally, I am proud of whatever I have written so far -- I value my academic writings, but I love each word of my popular writings, which I write out of sheer love for the common people, not to build my career. I don't care how critics react to my writings, NOT at all.
Take care!
Hashmi
Matin Ahmed
Dear Hashmi and Wali,
In spite of my best endeavors I could no longer stay out of this discussion. At the onset, however, I must thank Wali for the kind words you said about me which invariably gashed me up. When my daughter and her boyfriend showed up with some feed I said I would take the afternoon off and take them for a treat. Mohua was so surprised she asked if I was okay. I told her that Wali had posted an email saying I knew something or other about history. They both laughed and immediately started looking in the cell phone for a restaurant.
Wali, other than the emails, we also talk often on the phone. You never told me about the administrative responsibility at the university over above the teaching and managing the association of behavioral scientists, publishing the magazine of the group, organizing symposiums and worldwide seminars. This is by no means a meager task and yet you are so modest about the whole thing. Our friends at the 1966 Group recognized your abilities. It needs no repetition here.
Ahrar’s excellent posting made my task easier. What remains for me is adding a little salt and pepper because, as always, Ahrar is a master tactician who can be extremely sugar coated, as if a distant nephew of Otto Von Bismarck in his articulation of the truth. I agree with the three points he identified as the core of Hashmi’s eloquence. To the first, I will add that the study of the Partition of Bengal in 1905 simply in terms of magnanimity toward Eastern Bengal by the British Raj, conceding the possibility of major benefits for East Bengal, would be total misreading of history. The Partition was indeed a classic example of Divide and Rule by the Colonial Government.
The second issue, so-called glorification of Shivaji by Tagore repeated by Hashmi many times in the past represents a characteristic duplicity by an honest intellectual for the fact that Rabindranath Tagore also wrote Shah Jahan, one of his best creations. I can not but quote just two lines taking the risk of cliché:
A kotha janitey tumi Bharateshwar Shah Jahan Kaal sruthey bashey jaay jibon, joubon dhonoman
Shudhu tobo ontor behona chironthon hoey thak Shamrater a chilo shadhona….(don’t know how to translate, sorry).
You want me to recite the rest of it Hashmi? At the age of almost 65, I am ready any time. How can you not talk about this one while you devote 100 percent of your energy on a third grade poem like Shivaji? How can a man who penned this poem be a Muslim hater? Beats me. (What do I know?
As for the opposition to the University of Dhaka, you still did not give any citation or reference and pointed only to the newspapers stories. I read a whole lot of newspapers published from Calcutta during this period as well as before and after for my thesis which revolved around the economic plight and stratification of farming groups such as the landless farming labor, landless peasants, middle and rich peasants; system of collection of rents and abwabs vis-a-vis the relations with the absentee Calcutta based landlords and their surrogates. There was little or no reference to politics. I did not see news items showing Tagore attending or delivering lectures in movements against the establishment of DU. Then again, I was not looking for such news and I could be wrong. Reasons given by Ahrar for Tagore’s perceived support seems tenable except that I hold a slightly different view on the apprehension of Calcutta University losing its ground. My understanding is that Tagore was opposed to a system of structured education at the highest levels and his two universities – Shanti Nikethan and Bishwa Bharati were modeled to a completely different philosophy and system of education. That could be an ideological reason for opposing DU, but again, this is only a likely conjecture on my part.
As for charities a writer should look in to the size and significance of the gift compared to the assets the family holds and the motive behind the gifts. As I understand the Salimullah family had vast holdings in East Bengal and their donations were also considerable. In reality donations were made for reputation and social status more than any other motive. The Nawab family made donations and Tagore made donations as well. One is laudatory but the other one is not? I am confused (as always). What is your point? Tagore made the charities when he least cared for reputation or social status because he was dead. I do not know of any Bengal landlord or any landlord elsewhere who donated almost the entire estate to his subjects. There may be some somewhere.
Hashmi who are the fundamentalist, fanatical Rabindra bakhtas totally intolerant of any criticism of Tagore? Me, Wali, Shah Jahan, Ahrar? Shah Jahan said he has no stomach for idol worshipping and Ahrar is so apprehensive of any misunderstanding that he spread 2.5 gallons of butter on his posting for smooth sailing. Wali, so far, wrote to you for more references, clarifications, understanding and requested you to be fair in what you write. I said many times that Tagore is human with all the limitations of a mortal. He has never been a perfect human being (only Mahbub Khan is and he stores tons of ghee for his difficulties). Whether I adore or worship Tagore or his writings will be a topic for discussion another day because this monologue is way too long already.
I haven’t read your masterpiece in the Facebook and I don’t intend to do so until after April 17 (I will sleep through the day and night on the 16th). Since almost 65% of my annual income is earned in these 3 moths I don’t have the luxury of getting anymore distraction this tax season. I hope to respond to any unjustified contentions.
So far, from the postings from Dr. Mosleh Uddin, Wali and Ahrar I gather that you are the one who is being a fundamentalist while conferring this title to others and at the prodding of some you are being boorish to your life long friends. I simply don’t understand why this is a life and breath (death?) issue for you to win. I think Wali knows a lot more about Tagore than any us. He follows Tagore’s life and activities with passion. Yet I feel that no one among us have enough knowledge and understanding of this genius to call ourselves an authority whose contributions belong to all mankind and not just to the Bangalees. We should not be the ‘weed’ telling the pond to write down a drop of dew that the weed had just donated to the pond where it lives. “likhay rekho ek bindu dilem shishir” remember that?
It will be very unfortunate if you have started a web campaign to malign Tagore without really knowing much about the works of this man because Tagore is not very well known outside of Bengal as the translations lose the quintessential appeal of his writings. This one-man jihad is not fair and it is unfortunate. I will hold my devilish tongue from uttering a word on the unholy dare to fight the friends and bring in Nazrul into this fray so we chose from among our idols one being Hindu and the other being a Muslim (though only in name). And I think I am the devil???
Please think about it.
Good night (really good morning).
Matin
I really, really apologize for the uncomfortable length of this posting.
From: pfc...@googlegroups.com [mailto:pfc...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Taj Hashmi
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2013 8:42
AM
To: PFC
Cc: pfc-f...@googlegroups.com;
farida majid; Shah Jahan PFC; Barkat Khuda; Col Aziz; kalac...@msn.com; Ali
Shaheen
Subject: Re: My Piece on Tagore:
Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Dear Wali:
Thanks for your response. Before I respond to this legitimate query as to why I did not cite the reference to my assertion about Tagore's opposition to the creation of Dhaka University, I paste below a line from your first response, "I could not care less about your personal opinion on Tagore; however, I'm curious to know the references to your assertion that Tagore opposed the creation of Dhaka University", which believe me I somehow manage to miss. It was a silly oversight. So sorry for this.
I wrote the article in absolute haste (took less than an hour to write it) in response to a posting in Muktomona in 2006, which the editor of the Blog published as a separate article. I got both kind and hostile (and very kind and very hostile responses from readers). The problem with the reference (rather references) to Tagore's opposition to the idea of establishing a university at Dhaka is that I read the documents (newspaper reports) in 1981 on microfilm, while I was doing my Ph.D. Since my thesis was on "Peasants and Politics in East bengal, 1920-1947", I had to read ALL the issues of several newspapers that came out from Calcutta during my period of study. However, at times, I just had a cursory look at newspapers beyond my period of study to get some idea about important events like the Partition of Bengal (1905-1911) and the anti-Partition Swadeshi Movement, or to know about certain other events and personalities, such as Ramkrishna Paramhansa, Swami Vivekananda, Gama Palwan and Khudi Ram.
I clearly remember reading the news item about a rally at Garer Math (Calcutta) where several leading Calcutta-based Hindu zamindars and bhadralok, including Tagore, Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee (VC, Calcutta University) and if my memory is not faltering, famous historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (who later became the VC of Dhaka University) attended the rally. The newspaper also revealed that Hindu elites were doing a signature campaign (where luminaries like Tagore had put their signature) against the proposed university at Dhaka. I also read in the Statesman and the Englishman (and possibly also in the Amrita Bazar Patrika) about Tagore's singing a song in praise of Emperor George V congratulating him for declaring the Annulment of the Partition of Bengal at the Delhi Durbar in late 1911. The song was "Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak Jai hey ... Bharat Bhagya Bidhata..." He sang the song at a special session of the All-India National Congress. There was no ambiguity in the news report whatsoever about who Tagore mentioned as "Bharat Bhagya Bidhata". I remember the Englishman referred to Tagore not as Poet or Nobel Laureate but as "Babu Rabindranath Tagore". I am cocksure about what I read about Tagore's opposition to the Dhaka University proposal and the famous song, which is now the national anthem of India. I also remember reading Tagore's rebuttal (some 15 years later) and his claim that he had turned down the British Government's proposal to write an eulogy for Emperor George V; and that he had written the song in praise of God (who was the Bhagya Bidhata of India). One wonders why he took 15 years to rebut the already known story about his "Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak". A renowned Bengali language professor also corroborated the stories that Tagore opposed the creation of Dhaka University and wrote the song as an eulogy of the British Emperor, but I don't want to cite a dead person's name in support of my assertions, which may still be verified through old newspapers. Unfortunately, I did not copy the news items on an index card as in 1981 I did not realize that one day this well-known facts about Tagore would be disputed.
I am glad that you raised this question:
"I am asking Matin, other historians in this group, or anyone to tell me if there was another landlord in undivided India who had willed their estate to the welfare of their subjects." I can mention several landlords who donated their estates to the welfare of ordinary people. I just cite two names, not from a distant land but from Dhaka (Please hold your chair handles firmly -- I don't want you to fall off the chair! Ha Ha Ha!). What Nawab (a hereditary title bestowed by the British for their loyalty) Khwaja Ahsanullah and Nawab Khwaja Salimullah of Dhaka did for Dhaka, NOBODY ELSE has yet done for the people of Dhaka and Bangladesh. NOBODY!
Can you imagine Dhaka city without Motijheel, Dilkusha, Gulistan, Baitul mukarram, GPO, Purana Paltan, Curzon Hall, Old and New High Court, Engineers Institute, Engineering University, Dhaka University (all the buildings and open space), Dhaka Medical College, Azim Pur, New Market, Azimpur Graveyard, BDR Headquareters, Dhaka Central Jail, Race Course Maidan, Ramna Park, Kakrail, Shah Bagh, Pari Pagh, Arts College, Dhaka Club, PG Hospital, Diabetic Hospital and all the roads and avenues that connect all these places? These areas belonged to Nawab Salimullah and he DONATED these lands to the city of Dhaka after the Partition of Bengal. Do you see any patriotism here? I am sure, you do.
However, it is very tragic that Ahasanullah Engineering College, built on land given by the Nawab, now bears a different name, BUET. It's like nationalizing Harvard University or some other private university, even by erasing the names of their founders. This amounts to barbaric denial or collective ungratefulness. Ahsanullah introduced running water and electricity to Dhaka (yes, with his own money), and Salimullah was so enthusiastic about the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam that he donated such lucrative estates to make its capital viable, and the Partition a "settled fact", as promised by the British.
Now it is my turn to ask you some questions: a) Why did not you write anything about Tagore's active opposition to the Partition of Bengal? b) Are you condoning his writing a communal Hindutwa poem like "Shivaji Utsab"?
Finally, I am proud of whatever I have written so far -- I value my academic writings, but I love each word of my popular writings, which I write out of sheer love for the common people, not to build my career. I don't care how critics react to my writings, NOT at all.
Take care!
Hashmi
On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 9:27 PM, Wali I. Mondal <mon...@asbbs.org> wrote:
Dear Hashmi,
If you read my earlier message carefully, you should have noticed I had wanted
to know facts about your essays
on Tagore. Did he really oppose the establishment of Dhaka University?
If he did, what were his reasons? Where are some published documents about
these two questions? You failed to provide any such reference; instead, what
you wrote reads like your own opinion. I am extremely disappointed about the
way you are depicting Tagore. Tagore was, and will remain to be an Institution
not only for his literary works but also for his contributions to poverty
alleviation and for his entrepreneurial role in devising the collateral-free,
five-member model of microcredit. In an earlier message posted to this forum, I
had quoted part of his will. In that will, Tagore had donated all proceeds of
his estate to the welfare of his subjects and had asked his son Rathindranath
(Rathi) to execute the will accordingly. This is a well documented fact and I'm
sure you know this. You claim to have an elephant's memory and you had
mentioned earlier you had read my message that included this information. Yet
you depict Tagore as a typical landlord and in doing so, you resort to using
language unbecoming of a scholar who have attained some reputation in some
other field. There are historians in this group including Matin who has
attained the maximum - Ph.D. from Berkely. I do not know his specialization,
but I suspect, as part of natural curiosity, he will know something about the
landlords of undivided India.
I am asking Matin, other historians in this group, or anyone to tell me if
there was another landlord in undivided India who had willed their estate
to the welfare of their subjects. One other fact you may not be aware of. After
founding Kaligram Krishi Bank in Patishar, the third and less known estate of
the Tagore family, Kabi guru had sent his son Rathi to the University of Illinois
to study Agriculture, not to England
to study Law. Rathi earned a Bachelor's degree from the University
of Illinois, and went back to India and
gradually took charge of the estate. Rathi managed Kaligram Krishi Bank
consisting of two wings, one for commercial loan and the other for
collateral-free group-based microcredit. Interest rates on these two types of
loans were 6 per cent and three and a quarter percent respectively. That was
during the period 1912-1950. During my visit to Rabindra Bhavana (Visva
Bharati- Santiniketan) in 2005, I have collected rare documents on these
matters, and I disseminate these facts here so that readers of this forum may
appreciate what kind of landlords the Tagores were.
Just out of curiosity, I recently Googled your "publications". Lo and
behold, there is my friend of 49 years Dr. Taj Hashmi with a special blend of
language tearing apart any and all people who think Tagore had something to
contribute! Did you really have to do this? You have attained some notoriety on
the "literature review" on such things as security, political Islam,
the Hadith, etc. I have learned a thing or two from your writings, and the
discussions that followed on these subjects. So, my friend, please stay with
your specialization. Do you want to know how much Tagore wrote in 67 years of
his life (his first poem was published when he was 13)? Do you know that only
about 55% of what Tagore wrote has been published? I'm not sure you know these
facts, but I'm sure, you don't have enough earth days left to switch your field
of research. Nor does it appear that you have the appetite to depict the whole
truth about whatever you know on this Institution. So my friend, please
be content with your field of specialization.
My last word, I truly enjoy your company - there is never a dull moment when
you are around.
Best,
Wali
At 07:57 PM 4/4/2013, Taj Hashmi wrote:
Abul Azad
From: Matin Ahmed <matin...@sbcglobal.net>
To: pfc...@googlegroups.com
Cc: pfc-f...@googlegroups.com; 'farida majid' <farida...@hotmail.com>; 'Shah Jahan PFC' <dark...@yahoo.com>; 'Barkat Khuda' <bark...@yahoo.com>; 'Col Aziz' <cola...@yahoo.com>; kalac...@msn.com; 'Ali Shaheen' <alishah...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, April 8, 2013 4:30 AM
Subject: RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Sent: Sunday, April 07, 2013 8:42 AM
To: PFC
Cc: pfc-f...@googlegroups.com ; farida majid; Shah Jahan PFC; Barkat Khuda; Col Aziz; kalac...@msn.com; Ali Shaheen
Subject: Re: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Dear Wali:
Thanks for your response. Before I respond to this legitimate query as to why I did not cite the reference to my assertion about Tagore's opposition to the creation of Dhaka University, I paste below a line from your first response, "I could not care less about your personal opinion on Tagore; however, I'm curious to know the references to your assertion that Tagore opposed the creation of Dhaka University", which believe me I somehow manage to miss. It was a silly oversight. So sorry for this.
I wrote the article in absolute haste (took less than an hour to write it) in response to a posting in Muktomona in 2006, which the editor of the Blog published as a separate article. I got both kind and hostile (and very kind and very hostile responses from readers). The problem with the reference (rather references) to Tagore's opposition to the idea of establishing a university at Dhaka is that I read the documents (newspaper reports) in 1981 on microfilm, while I was doing my Ph.D. Since my thesis was on "Peasants and Politics in East bengal, 1920-1947", I had to read ALL the issues of several newspapers that came out from Calcutta during my period of study. However, at times, I just had a cursory look at newspapers beyond my period of study to get some idea about important events like the Partition of Bengal (1905-1911) and the anti-Partition Swadeshi Movement, or to know about certain other events and personalities, such as Ramkrishna Paramhansa, Swami Vivekananda, Gama Palwan and Khudi Ram.
I clearly remember reading the news item about a rally at Garer Math (Calcutta) where several leading Calcutta-based Hindu zamindars and bhadralok, including Tagore, Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee (VC, Calcutta University) and if my memory is not faltering, famous historian Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (who later became the VC of Dhaka University) attended the rally. The newspaper also revealed that Hindu elites were doing a signature campaign (where luminaries like Tagore had put their signature) against the proposed university at Dhaka . I also read in the Statesman and the Englishman (and possibly also in the Amrita Bazar Patrika) about Tagore's singing a song in praise of Emperor George V congratulating him for declaring the Annulment of the Partition of Bengal at the Delhi Durbar in late 1911. The song was "Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak Jai hey ... Bharat Bhagya Bidhata..." He sang the song at a special session of the All-India National Congress. There was no ambiguity in the news report whatsoever about who Tagore mentioned as "Bharat Bhagya Bidhata". I remember the Englishman referred to Tagore not as Poet or Nobel Laureate but as "Babu Rabindranath Tagore". I am cocksure about what I read about Tagore's opposition to the Dhaka University proposal and the famous song, which is now the national anthem of India . I also remember reading Tagore's rebuttal (some 15 years later) and his claim that he had turned down the British Government's proposal to write an eulogy for Emperor George V; and that he had written the song in praise of God (who was the Bhagya Bidhata of India). One wonders why he took 15 years to rebut the already known story about his "Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak". A renowned Bengali language professor also corroborated the stories that Tagore opposed the creation of Dhaka University and wrote the song as an eulogy of the British Emperor, but I don't want to cite a dead person's name in support of my assertions, which may still be verified through old newspapers. Unfortunately, I did not copy the news items on an index card as in 1981 I did not realize that one day this well-known facts about Tagore would be disputed.
I am glad that you raised this question:
If you read my earlier message carefully, you should have noticed I had wanted to know facts about your essays on Tagore. Did he really oppose the establishment of Dhaka University ? If he did, what were his reasons? Where are some published documents about these two questions? You failed to provide any such reference; instead, what you wrote reads like your own opinion. I am extremely disappointed about the way you are depicting Tagore. Tagore was, and will remain to be an Institution not only for his literary works but also for his contributions to poverty alleviation and for his entrepreneurial role in devising the collateral-free, five-member model of microcredit. In an earlier message posted to this forum, I had quoted part of his will. In that will, Tagore had donated all proceeds of his estate to the welfare of his subjects and had asked his son Rathindranath (Rathi) to execute the will accordingly. This is a well documented fact and I'm sure you know this. You claim to have an elephant's memory and you had mentioned earlier you had read my message that included this information. Yet you depict Tagore as a typical landlord and in doing so, you resort to using language unbecoming of a scholar who have attained some reputation in some other field. There are historians in this group including Matin who has attained the maximum - Ph.D. from Berkely. I do not know his specialization, but I suspect, as part of natural curiosity, he will know something about the landlords of undivided India . I am asking Matin, other historians in this group, or anyone to tell me if there was another landlord in undivided India who had willed their estate to the welfare of their subjects. One other fact you may not be aware of. After founding Kaligram Krishi Bank in Patishar, the third and less known estate of the Tagore family, Kabi guru had sent his son Rathi to the University of Illinois to study Agriculture, not to England to study Law. Rathi earned a Bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois , and went back to India and gradually took charge of the estate. Rathi managed Kaligram Krishi Bank consisting of two wings, one for commercial loan and the other for collateral-free group-based microcredit. Interest rates on these two types of loans were 6 per cent and three and a quarter percent respectively. That was during the period 1912-1950. During my visit to Rabindra Bhavana (Visva Bharati- Santiniketan) in 2005, I have collected rare documents on these matters, and I disseminate these facts here so that readers of this forum may appreciate what kind of landlords the Tagores were.
Just out of curiosity, I recently Googled your "publications". Lo and behold, there is my friend of 49 years Dr. Taj Hashmi with a special blend of language tearing apart any and all people who think Tagore had something to contribute! Did you really have to do this? You have attained some notoriety on the "literature review" on such things as security, political Islam, the Hadith, etc. I have learned a thing or two from your writings, and the discussions that followed on these subjects. So, my friend, please stay with your specialization. Do you want to know how much Tagore wrote in 67 years of his life (his first poem was published when he was 13)? Do you know that only about 55% of what Tagore wrote has been published? I'm not sure you know these facts, but I'm sure, you don't have enough earth days left to switch your field of research. Nor does it appear that you have the appetite to depict the whole truth about whatever you know on this Institution. So my friend, please be content with your field of specialization.
My last word, I truly enjoy your company - there is never a dull moment when you are around.
Best,
Wali
At 07:57 PM 4/4/2013, Taj Hashmi wrote:
As we know, the annulment of the Partition of Bengal in 1912 dismayed East Bengali Muslims, as with the revocation of the "settled fact" (this is how Viceroy Lord Curzon depicted the Partition Decision) Dhaka lost its short-lived (1905-11) importance of being a provincial capital. The separate High Court and Secretariat for Eastern Bengal and Assam were also closed down. Many other offices got closed, and East Bengalis lost jobs and opportunities. The British Government tried to appease East Bengal Muslims. East Bengali Hindus in general opposed the Partition as they were apprehensive of Muslim domination in the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam .
I am not willing to accept that Tagore did not know the implications of the Partition of Bengal and the foundation of a university at Dhaka . Finally, he did not write the communally motivated poem "Shivaji Utshab" without having any soft corner for unadulterated Hindu Raj (Ek Dharma Ek Desh) in India .
I don't think Tagore attending a convocation at Dhaka University in 1926 changed anything. By the way, contrary to the Hindu apprehension, up to 1947, almost all the teachers and most students of Dhaka University were Hindus. Kazi Motahar Hussain, Srajul Haque (Arabic), Abdur Razzaq and M.N. Huda were the prominent ones among the handful of Muslim teachers before 1947.
Take care!
Hashmi
To: pfc...@googlegroups.com; pfc-f...@googlegroups.com; pfc...@googlegroups.com
From: mon...@asbbs.org
Subject: RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
CC: farida...@hotmail.com; dark...@yahoo.com; bark...@yahoo.com; cola...@yahoo.com; kalac...@msn.com
You have been writing a lot on Tagore these days. I could not care less about your personal opinion on Tagore; however, I'm curious to know the references to your assertion that Tagore opposed the creation of Dhaka University . After winning the Noble Prize in 1913, Tagore did not visit Dhaka until 1926. The Students Union of S.M. Hall gave him a hero's welcome at that time. There are many references to his Dhaka visit, but I found the description by Hayat Mamud quite interesting and have attached a page and a half of that book for interested readers. The description of Kabi Guru's Dhaka visit by Hayat Mamud went on after page 50 but for the sake of brevity I stopped there.
Enlighten us with the facts about Tagore's opposition to the establishment of Dhaka University .
Wali
Simon Fraser University , Canada
Published on May 11, 2006
India has already captured our market. Do these India-Bhakta Tagorites want physical merger with India ? I would not be surprised if this is in their hidden or not-so-hidden transcript!
I do not dispute the fact that Tagore was a good poet, much better than most of his contemporaries in undivided Bengal . But please give me a break; one who died in 1941 at 80 should be still regarded as the most relevant poet, essayist, novelist and lyricist! While English-speaking people have profound regard for Shakespeare and Byron, Keats and Shelley, Whitman and Tennyson, Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell they do not stick to these luminaries’ ideas considering them indispensable unlike what these Rabindra-Bhakta buffoons do with their ONLY idol. While Frank Sinatra and Pat Boone, Dean Martin and Dionne Warwick, the Beatles and ABBA (and even Michael Jackson) had their hey days, now Western music lovers have other icons and favourite singers.
Tomorrow’s generations will have their own favourite writers and singers, poets and philosophers. And this is called progress. The way Rabindra-Bhaktas glorify Tagore songs and whatever came out of his mouth or pen during the last two centuries establishes nothing but their cultural bankruptcy and inferiority complex.
In hindsight, I blame Ayub Khan, his Information Minister Khwaja Shahabuddin and his clownish Governor Monem Khan for this ongoing Rabindra-Mania in Bangladesh since 1967. Since the Pakistani ruling elite tried to impose a ban on Tagore song (which was a foolish, undemocratic move) during the ascendancy of Bengali Nationalism in East Pakistan one year after the introduction of the famous Six-point Programme of the Awami League and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (which was not meant for secession but greater autonomy for East Pakistan), it simply backfired and Tagore became the symbol of Bengali Nationalism. It was nothing but a negative support for Tagore to defy and eventually overthrow the Ayub regime for the restive Bengali nationalists. Consequently those who could hardly understand anything about Tagore song, started patronizing and singing his lyrics. Chhayanat and similar music schools proliferated afterwards. And the rest is history.
Even the radical maverick, brave and honest Professor Ahmed Sharif (my guru for various reasons, especially his integrity, courage and scholarship) would privately tell us: “Ei Rabi Thakurer ‘tumi’ ta ke re bapu, eta to bujhlam na.” He was also critical of Tagore’s opposition to the Dhaka University proposal and his feudal, anti-people, pro-British stand most of the time up to his seventies.
In view of the above, Tagore’s opposition to the Partition of Bengal (1905-11) and the Dhaka University proposal (1914-20) had nothing so “patriotic” about it. He was not at all different from fellow Hindu Zamindar – Bhadralok who preferred to live in the urban comfort of Calcutta to the rural discomfort of East Bengal but by exploiting East Bengali peasants and working classes as landlords, lawyers and moneylenders. They also opposed the Partition and any move to establish a university in Dhaka , which they rightly envisaged, would eventually strip of their undue privileges and advantages as the hegemons of East Bengali masses. Calcutta based Hindu lawyers did not want another High Court in Dhaka, let alone another university to produce East Bengali Muslim graduates to compete in the shrinking job market, legal profession and in the arena of politics. One Fazlul Huq and one Suhrawardy were too much for them to swallow in the 1930s and 1940s.
In hindsight we realize that had there been no Partition of Bengal in 1905 and eventually in 1947 (the second one mainly due to Hindu Bhadralok opposition to united Bengal as Hindus would be perpetually a minority there against the Muslims) there would not have been any Bangladesh in 1971 or later. So, those who regard Tagore as the “dreamer” of Bangladesh a la Iqbal as the “dreamer of Pakistan”, are simply misinforming themselves and others by romanticizing history with no regard to facts and figures.
History tells us without any ambiguity that the anti-Partition Swadeshi Movement (1905-11) in Bengal was out and out a Hindu movement (only a handful of Muslim initially supported it while a fraction of them continued their support till the annulment of the Partition in 1911). Muslim elites and even peasants and working classes took a leading role against the Swadeshi Movement and villages in Mymensingh and Comilla witnessed bloody Hindu-Muslim rioting during the Swadeshi days over the Partition. In Jamalpur and elsewhere in greater Mymensingh, Hindu terrorist Swadeshi volunteers, who took oath at the alter of goddess Kali and sang Bankim’s anti-Muslim Bande Mataram, attacked Muslim supporters of the Partition with Ma Kalir Boma (Mother Kali’s Bomb).
Sumit Sarkar has beautifully narrated these events in his History of the Swadeshi Movement. One should read Nirad Chaudhuri’s Autobiography of an Unknown Indian and Abul Mansur Ahmed’s Amar Dekha Rajnitir Panchash Bachhar to find out the truth about the communal nature of the Swadeshi Movement. And Kabi Guru Rabindranath was among the ardent supporters of the Swadeshi Movement. He wrote “Amar Sonar Bangla, Ami Tomay Bhalobashi” to inspire the supporters of the Swadeshi Movement. He wrote “Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jaya Hey” in 1911.
While some historians think he wrote this song in praise of King-Emperor George V out of gratitude as he declared the annulment of the Partition in 1911 at the Delhi Durbar, others allude it to Tagore’s love for the Indian “Jana Gana” as the “Bharata Bhagya Bidhata”. There is historical evidence (I read the newspapers on microfilm) Tagore wrote the song eulogizing George V as the “Bharata Bhagya Bidhata” (determinant of the fate of India ).
Now, those who think Tagore was not an anti-Muslim communal person by citing examples from his short stories and fictions where he portrayed some Muslims as noble characters should re-read the following Tagore poems: Nava Barsha, Shivaji Utshab, Ma Bhoi and Brahman. What type of “non-communal” Maha Rishi (Great Saint) could glorify Hindu and Brahmin supremacy and the inhuman and barbaric Sati (Suttee) or burning of Hindu widows alive on their husband’s funeral pyre? His Shivaji Utshab was horridly a glorification of Hindutva as this poem not only eulogized Shivaji the Maratha nationalist against Mughal paramountcy (I have no problem with that) but it also contemplates the vision of “one religion in one country”. Was it very dissimilar from Hitler’s one race in one country or the fascist Shiv Sena’s and RSS’s advocacy for unadulterated Hindu supremacy in India ?
We have Tagore apologists everywhere, in every forum, print and electronic media both in South Asia and beyond. One of them (Mesbahuddin Jowher) in a recent posting to the Mukto-Mona on May 8, 2006 wrote an apologia for Tagore in Bengali, “Was Tagore a Communalist?” According to him, Tagore only toyed with Hindutva and anti-Muslim expressions up to the early 20th century and afterwards he was a changed man. This is not at all true. In early 20th century Tagore was in his forties and fifties. He opposed the Dhaka University proposal during1914 and 1920 (joined a rally at Garer Math in Calcutta and put his signature to the campaign) when he was 53-59 year-old. We should not thrust any greatness on someone who in his forties and fifties continued to use very objectionable, racist and hateful expressions like javana, mlechha, nerey to denote Muslims a la Bankim style. Tagore was sort of a civil person vis-à-vis his public stand towards Hindu-Muislim problem in his seventies. By then it was too late, too little to glorify him as a saint and what not!
He was not that different so far as anti-Muslim public assertions are concerned from Bankim and Sarat Chatterjee. While Bankim considered Indian Muslims “unclean skin head foreigners” (mlechha javana nerey), Sarat Chatterjee publicly demanded the expulsion of Indian Muslims for the sake of a better India (in 1926 at a public meeting organized by the Hindu Mahasabha – see Joya Chatterjee’s Hindu Communalism and the Partition of Bengal), Tagore was sometimes more subtle in venting out his anti-Muslim sentiment.
Taj Hashmi
Subject: Re: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Ali Shaheen
SYED TAREQ AHMED
Laila ko Maznu ka aakh se dekha karo ! With due apology like as Ahrar and maakhan lagakar as like Matin (not Brando ), this is like churning out at times garbage and consuming it whilst saying, ' I am luving it, its the best Sandesh ever '. Besides Allah or God ( best discarded since it has a feminine extension much to your chagrin I believe ) such love/commitment should not flow for mortals like Shakespeare, Tagore, Nazrul and the likes since it casts a shadow over akida/takwa. I am sure all these hyper Fans, do not pick up the pen and shoot nor do they bang the Keyboard like a dog in heat, our dear Tazooooooo included. Yet I have doubts about his BP hitting the cieling but spare us please, don't let the shit hit the fan. This is an academic exercise, a quest for knowledge and our meager effort to keep Alzheimer away considering our age and social status. In your words, it ain't a big Deal.
If you say that the Urdu speaking Nawabs of Nawab Bari did their thing for propagating their fame then this generosity or magnanimity should have occurred elsewhere, yet no one even whispers when Tagore spend all his wealth plus Nobel prize money many miles westwards of his domain, which happens to be Muslim area ( Tazooo's too ). Yet Sen who is a Hindu does just the opposite and perhaps rightly in glorifying Secularist principles ( also Gregorian ). Without ruffling feathers or helping to blow the lid off some, here's WHY I think our love for Tagore overflows the brim.
Resting in the shadows of the great Arnold Toynbee, our Bengals is smack center of the Gangetic Belt which as he states is the flower of extensive mixed bred populace, but our mothers are by design and stark truth indigenous Hindus. He is so true, nobody in his right mind ever came here to trade, spread Islam, rape loot pillage along with their families. Those who decided to stay back, took women from here to form the nucleus of families where the mother reigned supreme, and hence the forbearance of Hindu culture is ingrained in our genes. It exasperates me often to see and even experience that any thing that has to do with " Ful, Chandan, Fire, Phalus or Drum Beat " brings shivers of pristine orgasmic pleasure to all or most Bengalees irrespective of their social status & station in life and let ourselves drift with the current of flowing river created by Tagore and his likes.
That is enough for today.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________, Syed Tareq Ahmed Forum Apartment A-1,42/F Indira Road, Dhaka 1215, Bangladesh.Cell;01199842325 Res;880 02 8130659."Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can alone cause it to reveal its treasures and benefit mankind therefrom" Baha'ullah.
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2013 17:17:13 -0400
Subject: Re: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Sajjad Hussain
| the debate on the subject does not seem to abate. the latest salvo is from tareque. it appears that hashmi has given up in disgust! i remember we had the same debate a year or two back with the same set of arguments going back and forth. hashmi fared quite well as the lone ranger in the face of the frontal attacks by wali and the ever so gentle and respectful ahrar. wali , however, did not answer shaheen's query about the age of tagore's wife when they got married. shaheen i will venture to answer that. in those days 11 was not really considered a very young age to be married. when a girl attained puberty, ritumati, she was considered ready to walk into matrimony. there were however a couple of new arguments/comments. the historian turned accountant came up with the brash comment that the philanthropy of the dhaka nawabs were for their thirst for
name & fame and that of tagore were pure magnanimity. who can argue with this kind of impeccable logic! this is the the kind of closed mind that dogs us and makes hashmi wonder "bangalio ko kya ho gaya"! for good or worse tagore and nazrul are part of our heritage and i am proud of them both. i do not care if one is a muslim and the other is a hindu/brahma. i have read both of them a little and have enjoyed immensely. for god's sake i even have a full set of rabindra rachanabali! they are not for the book case only, i can assure you. but i refuse to worship him. does anyone remember mozammel, our classmate in history department? he had picture of the gurudev in his jinnah hall room like the ones of griha devata in indian movies and serials. hence he got the monicker "gurudev"! like any other mortal tagore and in fact nazrul too, had their blind spots. i do not believe there was ever any competition/rivalry between the two. in fact tagore
has publicly wished nazrul well and has even written a poem for him. i think it is pointless to argue over the issue. it is a non starter and in fact puerile. i think both the poor guys must be turning in their graves ( how is that possible? one was burnt!). leave the two in peace and let us get on with more interesting issues that takes our fancy. sajjad H --- On Mon, 4/8/13, SYED TAREQ AHMED <tare...@outlook.com> wrote: |
Huda, Safiul
In my humble opinion, Tagore is Tagore. Perhaps [at least in the opinion of this Bangalee] the best poet the world, or God, has ever produced. But he was still human and prone to human emotions, errors and passions – would he be such a towering poet otherwise? Liking/loving him does not preclude one from liking/loving many other poets. One of our professors, when asked, “What do you think of Islamic Economics?” replied “Is there any Islamic Pheesics?” [that’s how he pronounced it.]. Well, the same can be said of poetry, as far as this semi-illiterate in poetry can see – poetry is poetry, it is not a religion, it has no religion.
Taj Hashmi |
Taj Hashmi
To: pfc-f...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Ali Shaheen
Ali Shaheen
Ali Shaheen
Huda, Safiul
“Pearls of wisdom”! “Love”!!
Be still, my heart!!!
Ali Shaheen
Huda, Safiul
SORRY. Can’t respond. Have swooned for joy.
Ali Shaheen
Ahmad, Ahrar
Really Hashmi bhai? Shivaji utsab is “out and out an anti-Muslim and pro-Hindutva poem (period)”? Even though the word Muslim or Islam, or the Prophet’s name, or ANY aspect of the religion’s faith or practice is NEVER mentioned, not even ONCE !!! Nor is the word Hindu mentioned ONCE !!! The word Mughal, and the phrase ek-dharma-rajya is mentioned twice (even though, this is an abstraction and, to Tagore, symbolic of the “one-ness” of India). It is a shabby and forced poem, written within a particular nationalist mood prevailing at the time, but to you, this is what defines Tagore (and the poem that, thanks to you, Shaheen is keen to read). Instead of anything else in 26 volumes of his writings, THIS is what you have chosen to privilege in order to derive a provocative position. And, this seems fair to you? (Isn’t this like saying that D.H. Lawrence’s worth as a creative writer must be measured only on the basis of several pages in LCL?)
And, do you really mean to argue that context does not matter? And, trying to explain this poem’s context is tantamount to excusing Pakistani cruelties in Bangladesh? To you these things are comparable? Seriously, Hashmi bhai?
The argument of Tagore’s opposition to DU is based on one meeting he had attended at Gar-er maat, and a memorandum he may have signed. Was this opposition reiterated in any poem, essay, letter, speech, diary entry, or even a private conversation? Educate me, Hashmi bhai. He not only visited DU in the 1920s, he proudly accepted the Honorary Doctorate that DU conferred on him in 1936.
BUT, I give up Hashmi bhai, YOU WIN !!! Anyone who makes an inflammatory charge has, ipso facto, won, because the others are forced into a defensive posture. However, I am absolutely mystified as to why winning this debate is so important to you. I had initially thought that you are simply amusing yourself, and being a gadfly in bursting some bubbles. But the vehemence of your charges, the personal nature of some of your responses, and the righteous flourish with which you demolish the “straw man” that you had constructed (has anyone actually suggested that Tagore is God, or a Prophet, or the Sul-hi-kul?), has flabbergasted me.
Instead of subjecting Tagore to a class analysis, or complaining about his writing style (sugary?) or some of his ideas (squishy?), or his music (repetitive?), or his notions of education or rural development (unrealistic?), or his personality (vain?), or his relationship with women (promiscuous?). or his eagerness about foreigners (desperate to please?), or his nationalist position (ambiguous?), or so many other ways to criticize Tagore, you have chosen to communalize him. You have every right to do so, and I will defend your right. But are you being a responsible historian (which you are), or a “gotcha” journalist with an axe to grind (which I cannot imagine you to be)?
Finally, even though people make fun of my “sharafati”, I am being more direct than I usually am, and for that I apologize.
Respectfully,
Ahrar
Taj Hashmi
From: Ahrar...@bhsu.edu
To: pfc-f...@googlegroups.com; pfc...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Matin Ahmed
Dear Hashmi,
I read Ahrar’s posting earlier and I read your response below. While eating dinner I read your posting in the Facebook. Curiosity killed the accountant.
For approximately 3.5 seconds I felt proud of you as you described all your appreciation for this ‘great poet.’ You called a Fascist, Maudadi, anti-Muslim, Anti-Islam, Hitler-equivalent poet GIFTED! I looked outside to see if the night suddenly became a day or the sun had actually started moving around the earth. I did not throw up yet but I don’t know about the rest of the night.
Every single email I posted in the past I insisted that this man should be treated as a poet only and I said every time please do not judge him by the standards of perfection. He is human no more no less. A number of emails were posted today expressing similar sentiments. It is a total untruth to claim that that was your view as well. Dr. Hashmi you conveyed loud and clear your mission to destroy this evil whom you despised and you also those who, in your words, the so-called Rabindra-bhaktas. Your party people were always at hand to clap. You also succeeded in misleading others who claim not to know anything about Tagore but nevertheless join in the chorus to denigrate an undeserving person who has been lifted to the levels of greatness by some people without a God to worship but this damn fool Hindu poet.
The story of our friend Muzammel Hussain Manju does not end there as has been told. I will go no further today but if the discussion continues in that unsavory direction then the truth must be divulged as to what had happened to Manju, Ashabur Rahman Babu, Matin Ahmed, Waliul Islam Mondal and many others at Dhaka University for their political views as well as Tagoreophobia. Let me just say this for now that worshipping Tagore, if anyone did so, was certainly a better choice than worshipping Pakistani dictator Ayub Khan.
I have a little plaque of Tagore’s face with the lice infested beard and all in my office and a poster of the first stanza from Gitanjoli in my bedroom which as you all know is a song of prayer. After the fate of Manju, who BTW was also a very close friend of mine, I should quickly dump those in the garbage before somebody beats me up. I realized one thing today that if anybody after reading the translation of just the Gitanjoli and nothing else thinks that Tagore has been accorded too high a position of dignity among the poets I am just wasting my time arguing with this individual. Oddly, a lot of people think that Gitanjoli is not necessarily Tagore’s best work.
My love for Tagore’s writings comes from the songs and poems of prayer. I have not come across very many prayers or devotional songs in any religion or writings of anyone for such total submission to the creator. However, I would not say that such works do not exist. The other day there was a posting, mun tu shudam, tu mun shudi….My grandfather used to hum these lines when I was a little boy. I memorized those lines from him. One day he explained to me what those lines meant. I did not understand much. This one is still with me even today. Tagore’s works is a treasure trove of such jewels. I do not need to talk about his love poems, essays, dramas and a whole world of creations. The irony is that people who know the least assume the task of hurling indignity to this genius.
A person gave a lecture for the euphoria for ‘just a poet’ and not to worship ‘even a prophet’ because a prophet is not God. Such reproach makes me wonder if there is any intellect left under any skulls of the morbid Tagore worshippers or all of that turned into jello from too much devotion to a mortal. The merciless criticism of Rabindra Bakthas started in Dr. Hashmi’s Facebook masterpiece. The new judge in the PFC declared that we (RBs), (may be I) need to learn how to tolerate criticism without a critique of the critic. Okay, but that’s not all. I am the one who attacked Dr. Hashmi personally when he actually called us fundamentalists. My dear Ahrar, I should not probably open my dumb mouth anymore
because it carries the potential menace of ‘personal attack’ no matter what I say and I will not be surprised if there is a fatwa on your pen too very soon.
And the Last word. So, Hashmi, you love all your friends and you NEVER, never, ever undermined them!!! I am still waiting for an apology. You have any clue what I am talking about with your elephantine memory?
If I do not pick up the hammer and nails right after the Tax-time I will write a rebuttal to your posting in the Facebook.
I did try at least in last 3 weeks or so to be friend with you again. My door in California will still be open for you if you come and knock and I hope that if I do the same at your door at Peay you will open your door and give me some food. I am always hungry.
Take care, my friend.
Matin
Md. Ghulam Murtaza
To: pfc-f...@googlegroups.com; pfc...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Taj Hashmi
From: gmurta...@hotmail.com
To: pfc-f...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: My Piece on Tagore: Someone has posted it to Facebook (Matin and Mondal will cut me to pieces)!
Ali Shaheen
Matin Ahmed
No one has an obligation to share another person’s enthusiasm for anything. I simply wanted to underscore any hasty judgment. I apologize if I have hurt any feelings inadvertently. I am done with Tagore for now.
Matin
Noushir Hasan
Noushir
Matin Ahmed
Dear Noushir,
Glad you liked the discussions.
Thank you.
Matin
Matin Ahmed
Dear Murtaza,
You can comment on anything you like. The arguments will automatically expand. We are a bit cautious about lengthy emails because readers get bored and ignore the postings since everyone is busy. But you are always at liberty to join in any time.
Matin