Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 14:43:37 -0500
From: "Khorshed A. Mohammad" <khorshed@cae.ca>
Subject: RE: Eid, Jibrail and Jibanananda Das: He called me BHAI!

Dear Mr. Farooq,

Thanks for the well written article on Nazrul, Rabindranath and  Jeebanananda. The aspect of Jeebanananda Dash which you have described in your article with such passion is in fact quite unknown to most of us. But a serious student of literature is aware of the fact that Jeebanananda Dash was a direct disciple of Nazrul in his formative period. He was so influenced by Nazrul that it was hard to distinguish 'jhara paalak', his first book, from any of Nazrul's work, both in terms of form and content. But over the years he has gradually drifted quite far away from Nazrul, especially in terms of form and language, but nevertheless retained most of his secular spirit of communal harmony, equally manifested in his later day poems and the fictional works published posthumously.

On another note, although you are right in saying that the culture, heritage and even the vocabulary of Bengali Muslim community didn't get enough space in Rabindranath's creative work, it becomes a gross  misrepresentation of the philosopher, poet when you mention that 'there was no explicit recognition of Hindu-Muslim problem' in his writings. If you care to explore his vast body of critical essays you will notice that he has written extensively on this issue all his life, in fact, he has one well analysed article to his credit precisely under the title 'Hindu Musalman samasya' compiled in his collection of essays called 'kalantar'.

This aspect of Rabindranth's socio-political thinking was also elaborated in more details in a book called 'Rabindranath-er raashhtrachinta' written by popular Bangladeshi writer Humayun Azad. It is worth mentioning here that he has always spoken in favour of the Muslim community and admonished the Hindu majority for hesitating to embrace their neighbour with open arms. He is the one who composed the famous song 'Banglar maati Banglar jal' during Bangabhanga aandolan and proposed the Raakhibandhan ritual to foster better ties and harmony between the two communities. But at one stage he decided to withdraw himself from the movement as a protest against the Hindu chauvinism.

He expressed similar dissatisfaction by disowning the very poem 'Shibajee utsab', mentioned in your article, originally composed on the occasion of Hindu mela which, to his utter dismay, turned out to be a communal affair. If you read his famous novel 'ghare baaire', or better yet watch the film version by Satyajit Ray, you will find that he, through his protagonist Nikhilesh, dared to oppose the so called swadeshee andolan precisely because it hurt the interest of the poor Muslim trader class. And it is well documented in his biographies how as a young jamidar he flouted the age old tradition of separate seating arrangements for his Muslim subjects and refused to take his seat until they were allowed to share the same 'aasan' of their Hindu counterpart.

Few years back I read in an article by Bashir Al Helal, an eminent author of Bangladesh, published in 'sundaram' magazine, that Rabindranath even gave his tacit consent for the partition of India considering the prospect of the upliftment of the downtrodden Muslim community through self-rule. The sole purpose of mentioning all these is to establish the fact that although Rabindranath failed to represent the Muslim community adequately in his creative works he was nevertheless very much aware of the Hindu Muslim problem and worked hard both in writing and in practice towards a lasting solution of this acute social malaise of the sub-continent.

I hope this will help remove some of your misconceptions about Rabindranath's standpoint on the communal problem of undivided India.

Thanks for your time and patience.

Sincerely,

Alam Khorshed
Purbapashchim Binimay
First On-line Bangla baighar
http://PURBAPASHCHIM.tripod.com