The pensive Gandhi, who was on the day of Independence, far away at Noakhali dousing the flames of communal enmity that had torn the nation apart. The Gandhi who had been used by the Congress for negotiating with the British Crown, whose spirituality had been used by them to reach to the masses, whose advice they would seek when they had a divide among themselves and which they would accept or reject as per their convenience, who was the bridge between communities, between the haves and have nots, who was the embodiment of what sacrifice could mean and who unabashedly declared and demonstrated to the world, how one could be open to criticism including from oneself and overcome ones own weaknesses to have the spirit master the matter – and that man who was left behind by his comrades in arms, after they had achieved what they wanted – power.
The other image is that of the great mind and heart which beat for the entire humanity and whose poem we sing when the National Flag is unfurled, with such great fervor.
He also did not live to see the Tricolour being hoisted in an independent India. But, his definition for independence was altogether different that he may not have accepted it as a real independence.
In an open letter to Gandhi in the early 20s under the title, ‘The Call of Truth’, he had this to say:
“Allien government in India is a veritable chameleon. Today it comes in the guise of the Englishman; tomorrow perhaps as some other foreigner; the next day, without abating a jot of its virulence, it may take the shape of our own countrymen.”
As we look back, his prophesy has come true. New feudal minded authorities have taken charge of running the country. The consent of the people is obtained only to dictate. Even freedom has to be ‘observed’ rather than being ‘enjoyed’ or ‘celebrated’.
It is made to appear that hoisting the National Flag is a duty rather than a matter of pride. Generations to come may be told that it was a particular party or a person who made the National Flag into a people’s flag. It may also be quite forgotten or even suppressed that it was the Hon’ble Supreme Court which in its land mark verdict on 23rd January 2004 in the case of Naveen Jindal (CASE NO.:Appeal (civil) 2920 of 1996) held that individuals had the right to fly the National Flag. Until then, the right was reserved by the Government.
This right is to be exercised, not imposed. For, once freedom is imposed, it loses its value. Gurudev himself so poignantly depicts it in one of his poems in ‘Fruit Gathering’:
“No: it is not yours to open buds into blossoms.
Shake the bud, strike it; it is beyond your power to make it blossom.
Your touch soils it, you tear its petals to pieces and strew them in the dust.
But no colours appear, and no perfume.
Ah! it is not for you to open the bud into a blossom.
He who can open the bud does it so simply.
He gives it a glance, and the life-sap stirs through its veins.
At his breath the flower spreads its wings and flutters in the wind.
Colours flush out like heart-longings, the perfume betrays a sweet secret.
He who can open the bud does it so simply.”
It is on the point of the limitations of the Nationalism and the concept of Patriotism that Tagore and Gandhi differed.
“I am willing to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than country. To worship my country as a god is to bring curse upon it,” Tagore had written in his 1916 novel, The Home and the World.
Even earlier to that in 1908, in a letter to his friend, A M Bose, Tagore is quoted to have written, “Patriotism can’t be our final spiritual shelter. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live.” (Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore, published by Cambridge University Press in 1997)
What he had really meant can be seen in his open letter ‘The Call of Truth’:
“But if we can gain within us the truth called our country, all outward maya will vanish of itself…..the true nature of man is his inner nature, with its inherent powers. Therefore, that only can be a man’s true country, which he can help to create by his wisdom and will, his love and his actions.”
Every moment when I see the National Flag or hear the National Anthem, I pray, ‘Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake’.
