Echoes-Of-Tagore-In-Mexico.Pdf

Home , Gabriela Mistral

Otros títulos en la colección Paideia Siglo XXI es una colección Instituto Politécnico Nacional “La Técnica al Servicio de la Patria” que nace en 2012 y se enfoca en Estudios de la juventud y filosofía trabajos interdisciplinarios que esta- de la no violencia Poética educativa blecen un diálogo contemporáneo ISBN 978-607-414-357-7 (impreso) entre Occidente y no Occidente, en ISBN 976-607-414-385-0 (electrónico) especial con Asia, para abarcar la rea- Artes, educación para la paz lidad educativa de nuestro tiempo Gestión educativa y prospectiva en prospectiva y desde la crítica y el humanística humanismo. Paideia Siglo XXI es una Xicoténcatl Martínez Ruiz Xicoténcatl

ISBN 978-607-414-391-1 (impreso) n iniciativa de la Coordinación Editorial ISBN: 978-607-414-431- 4 (electrónico) y atención consciente de la Secretaría Académica del Ins- tituto Politécnico Nacional y cuenta Festines y ayunos. Ensayos en con un comité editorial internacional homenaje a Octavio Paz (1914-2014) de especialistas. La política editorial ISBN 978-607-414-468-0 (impreso) Xicoténcatl Martínez Ruiz se aleja de los criterios comerciales ISBN 978-607-414-479-6 (electrónico) que restringen el acceso al cono- cimiento y promueve los contenidos La educación matemática en el siglo xxi abiertos, de modo que cada libro sea ISBN 978-607-414-495-6 (impreso) accesible e invite al lector a hilvanar críticamente una reflexión con cada Infoesfera obra de este sello. ISBN 978-607-414-506-9 (impreso)

Mutaciones universitarias latinoamericanas. Cambios en las dinámicas educativas, mercados laborales y lógicas económicas ISBN 978-607-414-538-0 (impreso) ISBN 978-607-414-537-3 (electrónico)

Más información de la Coordinación consciente la paz y atención Artes, educación para educativa Poética Editorial y descarga electrónica de los títulos publicados en: www.innovacion.ipn.mx Instituto Politécnico Nacional ISBN 978-607-8085-09-5 Instituto Politécnico Nacional Secretaría Académica Coordinación Editorial ••• “La Técnica al Servicio de la Patria” www.innovacion.ipn.mx 9 786078 085095 COLECCIÓN PAIDEIA SIGLO XXI www.ipn.mx

011_Poetica_Forros.indd 1 20/01/17 2:13 p.m. Poética educativa. Artes, educación para la paz y atención consciente

Xicoténcatl Martínez Ruiz

Primera edición, 2016

Coordinación Editorial de la Secretaría Académica Secretaría Académica, 1er. Piso, Unidad Profesional “Adolfo López Mateos”, Zacatenco, Del. Gustavo A. Madero, C.P. 07738, Ciudad de México

Diseño y formación: Quinta del Agua Ediciones, SA de CV Cuidado de la edición: Diana Gutiérrez

Nota: Este libro ha sido dictaminado por un proceso de evaluación a ciegas y externo al IPN, a cargo de la Universidad Iberoamericana, Campus Cd. de México

ISBN: 978-607-8085-09-5

Impreso en México / Printed in Mexico CAPÍTULO 4

Echoes of Tagore in Mexico1

osé Vasconcelos (1882-1959), Mexican philosopher, writer, and pol- itician, began another kind of rapprochement and comparative study between Mexico and India. Here we present some responses from the MexicanJ community to Tagore´s oeuvre and Nobel Prize, especially by Vasconcelos and Octavio Paz (1914-1998). By surveying Tagore´s reception in Mexico we can see how it is still valid and what made Tagore’s work relevant for our time. Tagore’s Nobel Prize in 1913 was an incentive for many writers and social ideologists to escape from dogmatism. Argentina was the country in Latin America to welcome Tagore which was an incentive for rethinking the cultural and intellectual relationship between Asia and Latin America. The echoes of Tagore’s work are not only present in Vasconcelos’s essays of appreciation, he also put Tagore’s social and cultural ideas into prac- tice. When he was Secretary of Education from 1921 to 1924, Vasconcelos began –in the midst of a country torn down by the revolution– a struggle against educational backwardness and illiteracy, focusing on the diffusion of

1 Una versión previa de este capítulo fue publicada en el proyecto internacional para ce- lebrar los 100 años de la recepción del Premio Nobel otorgado a Tagore en 1913. El proyecto fue convocado por la Universidad de Oxford, RU, el capítulo se tituló “Mexico” representó el impacto de Tagore en México y en algunos de sus escritores, fue evaluado y editado por el Dr. Martin Kämpchen y el Dr. Imre Bangha, OU. El capítulo se publicó en: Bangha, I., Kämpchen, M., y Dasgupta, U. (2014). Rabindranath Tagore: One Hundred years of Global Reception. New Delhi, India: Oriental Blackswan. En este capítulo aparece la versión completa y con el título que originalmente tenía.

[ 55 ] ◆ 56 XICOTÉNCATL MARTÍNEZ RUIZ culture, appreciation of indigenous art, promotion of libraries, and creation of rural schools. Above all, he created a veritable army of literacy teachers whose central concept was to teach and disseminate the books which Vas- concelos considered classics. This collection included books from Plato to Dante, from Tagore to Tolstoy. It was an emblem of the reconstruction of a country through education. Vasconcelos distributed books free of charge; the number of copies is uncertain, but it was probably more than 10,000 and included Tagore’s The Crescent Moon and Nationalism. After Tagore’s visit to Argentina, Vasconcelos always believed that Mexico should invite Tagore. Although Tagore never visited Mexico, this does not belittle the impact of his thought and literature. His educational ideas are more relevant than ever. Tagore’s aesthetics represented an inspiration for the literary profession in Mexico. This was expressed in Vasconcelos’s essay Indology, written in 1926. This is an example of how Tagore’s voice became a guide for the literary profession at that time. Tagore offered inspiration and literary guidance to Mexican writers, poets and philosophers. Moreover, Mexican scholars of the humanities in the first two decades of the twentieth century considered the Bengali poet’s literature as part of a global tradition where the voices of Asia and the Mesoamerican cultures spoke out in harmony. Here we present some responses from the Mexican community to Tagore’s Nobel Prize, especially by Vasconcelos and Octavio Paz (1914-1998). By surveying Tagore’s reception in Mexico we can see how it is still valid and what made Tagore’s work relevant for our time.

Tagore´s aesthetics and its Mexican reception

The Atheneum of Youth founded in 1909 was a Mexican cultural, literary, philosophical and humanistic movement of the first quarter of the twentieth century. Its intellectual activity drew the attention of the country as well as of various similar Latin American literary circles. At the heart of this movement was a discussion not only of European literature and philosophy but also of the Eastern traditions, particularly of Tagore’s literature. The central problem was the access to his works provided by translations circulating in Mexico. This remains a problem even today. This movement began with writers and philosophers such as Antonio Caso, Pedro Henríquez Ureña, ◆ ECHOES OF TAGORE IN MEXICO 57

Alfonso Reyes, Rafael López, José Vasconcelos, and others (Quintanilla, S, Nosotros, la juventud del Ateneo en México). The aesthetics and literature of Tagore were echoed when the positivist vision and the dehumanization of society were criticized. In this movement José Vasconcelos’s vision stands out in its search for literary sources that were not necessarily Greco-Roman. He found this kind of inspiration in the aesthetics and thought of South Asia and Japan. The reception of Tagore’s literary work and Vasconcelos’s drive to move towards a dialogue with Asia caused Alfonso Reyes to call him “Zapotec-Asian”. It means that Vasconcelos was influenced by Prehispanic civilizations of Mexico with special reference to Zapotec culture, located in the Southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, when dealing with his studies on Asian traditions. By the linguistic construction, “Zapotec-Asian”, Alfonso Reyes acknowledged that Vasconcelos himself was a bridge of encounters between Mexico and Asia, something new at that moment of intellectual discussions. Vasconcelos built a unique bridge between ancient Mexican thought and Indian tradition. In 1929, amid a country shaken by post-revolutionary imbalances, his inclina- tion towards India’s aesthetics made Vasconcelos go beyond the dissemination of Tagore’s work in literary circles. He strove to implement Tagore’s and Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas through social strategies and actions. In 1916, Mexico was immersed in an extremely complex and difficult situation. In the international context of the World War I combined with a worldwide moral crisis, the essays of writers and intellectuals like Vasconcelos brought about respect and recognition for India’s literary and philosophical traditions. It was at that moment that the admiration for the Indian poet grew, along with Vascocelos’s re-reading of Indian texts that he shared with various Latin American writers. All this allowed Tagore’s works to become a port of entry for South Asian culture. The dissemination, impact and responses to Tagore’s work increased in national importance when José Vasconcelos returned from exile to Mexico to occupy two strategic posts from 1920 to 1924. He was the Rector of the National University of Mexico and the head of the Ministry of Public Education. It was then that he distributed editions of Tagore’s Nationalism, The Crescent Moon, Personality and Sadhana in Mexico along with works by authors like Tolstoy and Plato. In 2011, Vasconcelos’s classic collection was reprinted in a historical context where reading classics becomes a light again in the chiaroscuro of our days. After Tagore’s visits to Argentina, Vasconcelos always believed that Mexico ◆ 58 XICOTÉNCATL MARTÍNEZ RUIZ should receive Tagore. Indeed, Tagore never visited Mexico, but this does not minimize the impact of his thought and literature.

The emergence of literary interest: Octavio Paz

After Vasconcelos, the impact and response to Tagore’s works broadened and, in the 1960’s, they occupied a literary and poetic position that acted as a bridge between Mexico and India. The main protagonist in constructing this bridge was Octavio Paz. Paz, the Nobel Laureate of literature in 1990, recognized Tagore’s work as a bridge between India’s literary, philosophical, humanistic, and religious traditions and the world. Paz wrote:

“Rabindranath Tagore […] was not a thinker, but a great artist. His work, as well as himself, was a bridge between India and the world. Admired by the greatest in Europe, such as W.B. Yeats and André Gide, in the Hispanic countries he also had numerous and fervent readers. He visited Buenos Aires and was a friend of Victoria Ocampo, to whom he dedicated a book of poems. A great poet, Juan Ramón Jiménez, in collaboration with his wife, Zenobia Camprubí, translated a large part of his work. Those translations influenced many young poets of the time, including Pablo Neruda. In one of his first books, Twenty poems of love and a song of despair, at certain times the echo of Tagore’s voice is audible”. (Paz, Vislumbres de la India, p. 438.)

In 1967, Octavio Paz attended a conference at the University of Delhi, which was dedicated to Tagore’s manuscripts. Paz said at the conference:

Tagore’s interest in the relationship between painting and poetry appeared early on his work. When he first read the Japanese poets, he commented: “They don’t write poem-songs, but poem-paintings” […] Indeed, Tagore did not fall into the temptation of the ideogram or the poem-painting. This differentiates his attempt from Apollinaire’s […]. Tagore wanted to sing with lines and colors. That is why he does not begin with words and letters, but with lines and stains, which are always rhythmical. (Paz, Los manuscritos de Tagore. In Obras Completas de Octavio Paz, p. 378) ◆ ECHOES OF TAGORE IN MEXICO 59

Octavio Paz, along with Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda, recognized Tag- ore’s influence on Latin American literature. Jaime Sabines, another Mexican poet, expressed his appreciation for Tagore, whom he considered not only a literary influence but also a spiritual guide.

Relevance of Tagore’s educational philosophy to contemporary Mexico

Tagore’s philosophy of education stresses the place of poetry, music as op- posed to present-day education. Today, the humanities are allowed to be pushed into the background by various educational reforms. Martha Nuss- baum book Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities refers to Tagore as a defender of the humanities and art to promote a critical, humanistic and creative education. Why do I include these ideas in relation to the educational philosophy of Tagore instead of taking him only as a poet? The purpose is to reconsider the humanistic and artistic sides of education and its impact in the future of our societies. This reconsideration proposes studying other educational ideas and practices, such as that designed by Tagore in the 20th century, to provide another perspective on educational research focused on the impact of arts, the aesthetics, humanities and not just reforms narrowed down on administrative procedures only. Let us consider another parameter of study on what we could today call curricular innovations that were designed and applied by the Bengali poet. In 1917, Tagore asked: “Which innovation do we want in our school curriculum today?” The answer is condensed in these lines, as quoted by Nussbaum:

History has reached a point at which the moral man, the man with in- tegrity, is ever ceding more space, almost without realizing it […] to the commercial man, the man limited to a single end. This process, helped by the marvels of scientific progress, is reaching massive proportions, with an immense power, which causes the moral imbalance of man and dark- ens his most human side under the shadows of a soulless organization. (Nussbaum, 2010, p. 7)

We must reconsider what Nussbaum calls the “humanistic side” of education is and its impact on the future of democracy. This reconsideration ◆ 60 XICOTÉNCATL MARTÍNEZ RUIZ proposes studying other educational models, such as that designed by Tagore.

Present situation

In 1964, the Centro de Estudios de Asia y África (CEAA) was founded as a specialized Centre of Studies at El Colegio de México, a prestigious research centre focused on social sciences, where the study and research of Asian languages is part of the of postgraduate programmes in Asian Studies. Over the 1960`s various projects of UNESCO focused on East-West relationship; one of these was the creation of this centre in Mexico. Since its foundation it nurtured a high interest in philosophy, literature, history, religions, and even more in the study of classic and modern Asian languages. The study of Sanskrit, Hindi and Bengali by Ph.D. students, is the basis of a major project of translation from Asian languages into Spanish. This is the scenario from which some translations of Tagore’s works from Hindi versions into Spanish have been published. A recent example of this is the translation into Spanish of Kabuliwala in 2009. The philosophy of education and the pedagogical methods of Tagore were translated in a concrete way in the curriculum of his school Shantiniketam, in which the arts and the study of literature were an expression of the ways of learning In his book, The character of Logic in India, Bimal Matilal explains that Indian thought reclaims its true philosophical and scientific dimensions and, as Tagore suggests, without muddling human development and the promotion of critical capacities. Matilal does not propose the idea that In- dian philosophical thought is superior to that of the West; this would have been an error of the opposite extreme. Finally, what I want to highlight, as Tagore and Matilal propose, is the need for comparative analysis of different traditions of thought, and, above all, for the openness to a non-European logic capable of providing valid suggestions to the contemporary educative problematic.

References

Bovet, P. (1921, june 11). Ponencia de Tagore el 5 de mayo. L’Educateur. ◆ ECHOES OF TAGORE IN MEXICO 61

Chen-Apuy Espinoza, H. (1984). Nacionalismo y arte en la India. Estudios de Asia y África, 19(2), 268-277. Duque–Saberi, I. A. (2003). La India en México. En Guillermo Bonfil Batalla (ed), Simbiosis de culturas: los inmigrantes y su cultura en México. (pp. 217-243). México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. Fell, C. (1989). José Vasconcelos. Los años del Águila (1920-1925). México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Hernández Luna, J. (ed.). (1962). Conferencias del Ateneo de la Juventud. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Morejón, N., Acevedo, G., and Chaix, J. (2009). Kabuliwala. Estudios de Asia y África, 44(1), 95-103. Nussbaum, M. (2006). Education and Democratic Citizenship: Capabilities and Quality Education. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 7(3), 235-395. Nussbaum, M. (2010). Sin fines de lucro. Por qué la democracia necesita de las humani- dades. Buenos Aires, AR: Katz Editores. Paz, O. (1994). Obras Completas de Octavio Paz, vol. 2. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, México. Paz, O. (1996). Vislumbres de la India. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Paz Rodríguez, J. (2005, june 3). Tagore, un precursor de la nueva educación en la India. Revista Recre@rte. Retrieved on 28 March 2012: http://www.iacat.com/ revista/recrearte/recrearte03/Tagore/tagore.htm. Quintanilla, S. (2008). Nosotros, la juventud del Ateneo en México. México: Tusquets Editores. Taboada, H. G. H. (2007). Oriente y mundo clásico en José Vasconcelos. Cuyo. Anuario de Filosofía Argentina y Americana, 24, 103-119. Tagore, R. (1925, june). El problema de la educación. Bangadarsham Journal. Vasconcelos, J. (1920). Estudios indostánicos. Michigan: University of Michigan Library. Vasconcelos, J. (1967). La raza cósmica: misión de la raza iberoamericana. Madrid: Aguilar. Vasconcelos, J. (1993).Memorias II. El desastre, el proconsulado. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Mutaciones universitarias latinoamericanas. Cambios en las dinámicas educativas, mercados laborales y lógicas económicas ISBN 978-607-414-538-0 (impreso) ISBN 978-607-414-537-3 (electrónico)

011_Poetica_Forros.indd 1 20/01/17 2:13 p.m.