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Occ a s i o n a l Publication 23

IICAcharya J.C. and Gurudev : The Tale of a Great Friendship

by Dr. Sibaji Raha

In d i a In t e r n a t i o n a l Ce n t r e 40, Ma x Mu e l l e r Ma r g , Ne w De l h i -110 003 Te l .: 24619431 Fa x : 24627751

Occ a s i o n a l Publication 23 IIC Acharya J.C.Bose and Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore: The Tale of a Great Friendship The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author and not of the International Centre. The Occasional Publication series is published for the India International Centre by Cmde. (Retd.) R. Datta. Designed and produced by FACET Design. Tel.: 91-11-24616720, 24624336. Acharya J.C.Bose and Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore: The Tale of a Great Friendship*

It is a tremendous honour for me to speak about two great personalities: Rabindranath Tagore and J.C.Bose. The 150th birth anniversary of J.C.Bose just preceded the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. This is quite natural, since they were just two and a half years apart in age. That this talk is being delivered on 23 November is actually somewhat significant for 73 years ago, J.C.Bose breathed his last on this day in 1937. In a bizarre coincidence, 23 November is also very significant in the life of Rabindranath Tagore. In 1902, Tagore lost his wife on 23 November and five years later, in 1907, his youngest son Shomindranath, whom Rabindranath considered to be the most talented individual he had ever seen, also died of cholera on 23 November. In fact, these coincidences led Rabindranath to even turn to occult practices for a number of years.

Interestingly, this was also a period when the friendship of Rabindranath and was at its highest. We will come to that period in some detail later but before that, I must answer an oft-asked question: what is the utility of celebrating somebody’s centenary or 150th birth anniversary with such pomp and ceremony? What does one hope to gain by celebrating these events? My answer is

* Lecture delivered at the IIC, on November 23, 2010 by Dr. Sibaji Raha

1 that whenever times change, values change. A crisis of civilization occurs whenever a new order emerges, and the old ideals need to be re-examined and remembered so that we find some anchor in the continuity of human civilization. Thus, when we started thinking about celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of Sir J.C.Bose, the greatest motivation was the realization that the crisis of civilization that faces us today is probably very different from any previous crisis faced by human civilization. The slogan that we live by in this century is ‘Knowledge is Power’. And, especially for people who deal in intellectual pursuits, this apparently is a great message for what could be purer than that? Yet, as we understand the ramifications of intellectual property rights, patent fights and all that, we are also gradually beginning to realize that this is not an unmixed blessing. Moreover, what we see around us now is an almost complete reversal of the old values: knowledge for the sake of knowledge seems to be a totally forgotten idea. Today, any knowledge that does not lead to an immediate capacity for generating wealth is dismissively termed unusable, unimportant and irrelevant. And this, in my opinion, is the true crisis that faces us today. I am relieved to know that there are several others as disturbed at this development, and they agree with me that this is a kind of crisis never before faced by human civilization. I recall a letter that J.C.Bose wrote to Rabindranath in 1901, when A crisis of he was on a tour of England to demonstrate signalling. Bose civilization was approached by several industrialists who told him, ‘Please do occurs whenever not reveal all your secrets, all the details of your experimentation. There is money in it and you can’t imagine how much. So we will take a new order out a patent, we will only take half the profit, but that will also give emerges, and the you tremendous amount of money with which you can further your old ideals need to research and take it ahead’. And J.C.Bose, in a very passionate letter, wrote to Rabindranath, ‘I am really shocked at the greed for money in be re-examined western society. If I ever fall into this trap, I will simply not be able to and remembered do even a part of what I intend to do. I do not have time to even say so that we find what I want to say; so I turned them away’. some anchor in This is the philosophy that Bose upheld throughout his life. the continuity When J.C.Bose founded the , he delivered an inaugural of human address which he titled ‘The Voice of Life’. If you have not read it yet, civilization I strongly recommend that you visit the Bose Institute website, and

2 look at this marvellous piece of writing. In it, he categorically says So this that no patent will ever be taken out of the work done at Bose philosophy Institute (a promise not particularly realistic today). I must admit that the fruits that even in Bose Institute, there are a number of works that have been patented now and to remove any doubt, J.C.Bose was not of knowledge inherently opposed to the philosophy of patenting. At the behest should be free for of , and thanks to the indirect influence of Swami the entire human Vivekananda, he did take out one patent which was the first US civilization and patent granted to any Asian. However, he also let it lapse at the for the world to first opportunity: there was never any money made out of it. enjoy without So this philosophy that the fruits of knowledge should be free for hindrance, was the entire human civilization and for the world to enjoy without hindrance, was the philosophy with which he founded Bose the philosophy Institute. We believe that this message needs to be highlighted, with which he and brought before the present and future generations of young founded Bose people so that they can also discover the romance of science for the Institute sake of science. This is why when we organized several national and international seminars to celebrate J.C.Bose’s 150th birth anniversary, one crucial ingredient was an outreach programme, where we presented Bose’s life, his works and philosophy primarily to the students of the schools of West , but also at several other places. When we were organizing these, our seniors were indulgent. They said, ‘Go ahead, try to organize them but do not expect much out of them. Today’s generation is not interested in listening to such old tales any more’.

Allow me to relate a small episode here. At one such outreach programme organized in , a collaboration between Visva Bharati and Bose Institute; there were about 300 schoolchildren from various villages, some of them quite far away from Shantiniketan. As patron of that programme, I just welcomed them and then came and sat among the students, listening to the various speakers. They were erudite speakers, yet at times I felt that perhaps they were not spectacular enough or sensational enough to hold the attention of these young students. As the day came close to dusk, the teachers, who had escorted the students, were understandably in a hurry to take them back and deliver them to their parents and be free of their responsibility. So, around

3 5 pm, one of the teachers started gathering her students around so that they could leave. The penultimate speaker was still speaking and at least 2-3 students turned to this teacher and said, ‘Ma’am, may we finish listening to this?’. And with that, I felt that all was not lost. We should not lose hope in our future generations. If they are not coming to science and the pursuit of knowledge, the fault largely lies with us for not sufficiently enthusing them. If we provide examples of what can be achieved, I think there is no real reason to despair yet. And what can be better examples to present to the students than J.C.Bose and Rabindranath Tagore?

Rabindranath Tagore, as you all know, founded Shantiniketan, which later evolved into Visva Bharati but that was primarily an administrative transition. The philosophy of Shantiniketan was maintained intact in Visva Bharati. One of the early students of Shantiniketan, was Pramathanath Bishi, an acclaimed novelist, who later became one of the best known critics of Tagore’s literature. Bishi said that Rabindranath had once told him, ‘Do not try to become a pundit, become a scholar.’ That was the philosophy of Shantiniketan. When J.C.Bose founded the Bose Institute, he said that he was not merely dedicating a laboratory but a temple. When we want to understand the relation between Rabindranath and Bose, it is very important to understand the role of these institutions and their philosophical similarity. Some of you may ask, why should we even want to understand or spend We should any time discussing the interaction between Rabindranath and Bose? not lose hope Let me remind you that Rabindranath himself said, ‘When we were in our future trying to find the actual course of our lives, we interacted and gave generations. each other support. So our letters also not only give a record of our personal interactions but if we could put all these letters together that If they are not will give a very good example, a very good depiction of the Bengali coming to society of that time and the history of the entire evolution.’ science and Unfortunately, our sources of information are very limited. Most of our the pursuit of knowledge about their interaction comes from their letters, many of knowledge, the which have still not been recovered. Of Rabindranath’s letters, I would fault largely say about 80 per cent exist. Of Bose’s letters, only a fraction, no more than 20 per cent or 25 per cent, have been discovered. Prof. Menon lies with us for referred to the fact that J.C.Bose’s original equipment is in Bose not sufficiently Institute. Unfortunately, the ones we have are working replicas. The enthusing them original ones are locked in his home, the so-called Acharya Bhavan, to

4 which the public or even researchers and scientists from the Bose Institute do not have access. However, since it shows the Bengal Renaissance in a new light, the interaction between Rabindranath and Jagadish Chandra must be explored, despite the limited resources. My attempt today is to discover whether we can sew together a story on the basis of whatever documents we have.

As mentioned before, J.C.Bose was born in 1858, just a year after the so-called Sepoy Mutiny, while Rabindranath was born in 1861, another interesting year. Several other famous personalities were also born in the same year: Acharya P.C.Ray; Sir Nil Ratan Sarkar and , the first woman medical graduate. Of these, Nil Ratan Sarkar was related to J.C.Bose by marriage and they were close family friends as well. P.C.Ray and J.C.Bose were close colleagues as both taught at Presidency College. In fact, the first demonstration of wireless transmission of signals that J.C.Bose conducted at Presidency College was done from P.C.Ray’s room to the office of the Principal of Presidency College. When P.C.Ray went to as a Gilchrist scholar in 1882, it was J.C.Bose who received him in England. During the year 1888-89, P.C.Ray was biding his time in Calcutta for a teaching job at Presidency College to materialize; Jagadish Chandra and provided a hospitable roof over his head. Surprisingly, despite their (P.C.Ray or Nil Ratan Sircar) close relationship with J.C.Bose, there is no evidence that they really shared much personal empathy or great affection among themselves. On the other hand, Rabindranath was, by all accounts, a very private person. In one of the recent biographies of Rabindranath, by Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson, it is stated that the only friend he ever had and the only person who ever knew him as a person, as a friend, was J.C.Bose. So what was the connection between these two? How did they become such close friends?

Ever since I joined Bose Institute twenty years ago, I have tried to find out if there is any indication of what drew together these two people from apparently different walks of life. And it was only a few years ago that I got some inkling of what may have drawn them together. There is an article by Syed Mujtaba Ali, another early student of Shantiniketan and one of the most original writers of , although not read so widely. Syed Mujtaba Ali wrote an article called ‘Dwanda Puran’ where he describes Mahatma Gandhi’s visit to Shantiniketan on 29 May 1925. As you all know, that was the time of the non-cooperation movement.

5 Gandhi sought Rabindranath’s support for non-cooperation, but Rabindranath was rather reticent about giving it. He had certain reservations about the way the non- cooperation movement was evolving. Gandhi’s visit to Shantiniketan was primarily to persuade Rabindranath, by appealing to him to withdraw his objection or at least not be vocal about it. And Syed Mujtaba Ali gave a beautiful description of this visit, of which I will give a brief gist. Rabindranath had asked the manager of the guest house, a certain Mr. Ganguly, to make arrangements for Gandhi’s stay. Mr. Ganguly searched high and low, found whatever he could and made up three rooms in the first floor of the guest house. The day before Gandhi’s visit, Gurudev himself wanted to see these arrangements. He came in, looked around and said that it was very good for a hotel but it wouldn’t do! And, he sat down on that scorchingly hot day, directed things to be brought from here and there and arranged the rooms himself. In Syed Mujtaba Ali’s words, ‘No lover ever took more trouble trying to set up a bed for his love….’ Everything was simple but of ethereal beauty. The next day Gandhi came, Rabindranath personally took him to the room designed for him. In Syed Mujtaba Ali’s description, Gandhi looked around but apparently did not see anything: that beauty did not appeal to him at all. In a few minutes, he just walked out of the room, went to the rooftop and said, ‘I will stay here.’ And, Syed Mujtaba Ali, as reported by Mr. Ganguly, says that if Gandhi had appreciated even a bit of this beauty, history might have been very different. Rabindranath would have thought, ‘This person also appreciates beauty; so he and I belong to the same family’. Then, perhaps, there could have been some kind of agreement between the two. Whether there would have been agreement or not is something different but I think that is where I found the answer why J.C.Bose and Rabindranath became such friends. Gandhi sought Their innate sense of aesthetics was the bond between Tagore and Rabindranath’s Bose. They were born within a couple of years of each other and lived in within a few kilometres of each other. Both belonged to the support for non- Samaj, but still they did not know each other. Rabindranath cooperation, but first met J.C.Bose after his triumphant tour of England in 1896-97, Rabindranath when he demonstrated wireless transmission of signals in the . When J.C.Bose returned home, there was a large crowd at was rather station to give him a hero’s welcome. Rabindranath certainly reticent about wasn’t there; he went to J.C.Bose’s house a couple of days later; giving it J.C.Bose was not home, so Tagore just left a single magnolia as a

6 symbol of his appreciation and love. I think that beautiful gesture must Tagore once have appealed enormously to J.C.Bose. And soon, J.C.Bose started wrote to him, visiting Rabindranath, who was then spending most of his time in Selidah, a village on the banks of Padma, now in . J.C.Bose ‘Even though often came there as a weekend visitor: he would reach on Saturday you have chosen morning, and return to Kolkata on Sunday night to be able to teach science to be at Presidency College on Monday morning. One of the conditions that your vehicle of Bose made was that on every trip, Rabindranath must read out to him a new short story. And to satisfy Jagadish Chandra’s demand, expression, if Rabindranath wrote at least 8-10 short stories. Pramathanath Bishi, you had stuck wrote a book titled Selidahe Rabindranath (Rabindranath at Selidah) to literature where he quoted quite extensively from Rathindranath’s Pitrasmriti Saraswati would (My father’s Memory), where the author described J.C.Bose’s visits to Selidah. (Rathindranath was Rabindranath’s eldest son.) have been equally happy’ After having satisfied J.C.Bose’s demand for a new story on every visit, they would have dinner and then this was followed by a musical session of Tagore’s songs, on the rooftop of the boat on the vast expanse of the Padma and Tagore would sing song after song after song. Amala Das, Deshbandhu ’s sister, an excellent singer, would also join in. Whenever she was around, Rabindranath used to teach her his songs as soon as he composed them, because Rabindranath was also famous for forgetting the tunes of his own songs very rapidly. Thus the moment he wrote a song and set it to music, he would look for somebody to teach it to so that it remained alive. In fact, there have been occasions when he couldn’t find anybody right on hand who could retain the tune; he ended up setting three or four different tunes to the same song. Music was thus another connection between J.C.Bose and Rabindranath. Pramathanath Bishi once said that Rabindranath often lamented that while Goethe had Schiller, he never had any such companion. Jagadish Chandra was certainly no Schiller, even though he wrote several pieces in Bengali, but very few of them were actually literary works, as we understand the term ‘literary’. He tried to write his scientific discoveries primarily in Bengali so that they would be understood by a large section of the people. And, all said and done, his proficiency in writing Bengali was no mean feat. Tagore once wrote to him, ‘Even though you have chosen science to be your vehicle of expression, if you had stuck to literature Saraswati would have been equally happy.’ That was probably a bit of an exaggeration and indulgence,

7 but J.C.Bose’s language and articulation, his humour and power of expression, were undoubtedly excellent. What Bose did was to spur Rabindranath on; before J.C.Bose’s interaction, Rabindranath had written few short stories. It was under J.C.Bose’s demand and pressure that Tagore took to writing short stories with a vengeance.

There was another facet to Jagadish Chandra’s influence on Rabindranath’s literature. He tried very hard to get Rabindranath’s short stories translated into English, and even enlisted the help of Sister Nivedita to do so on certain occasions. When Bose went to England, he tried very hard to find publishers who would publish Rabindranath’s short stories.

On the other hand, after his initial triumph of having created a millimetre wave and having shown transmission without wires in 1896-97, when J.C.Bose started looking at the response of the living and non-living objects using his detector, he started getting into spheres that the physiologists thought were not the domain of a trained . This is again something noteworthy. When J.C.Bose demonstrated his remarkable discovery of millimetre waves, his acceptance in the western world was immediate and automatic. There are two reasons that I see for this. Firstly, that such waves should exist was more or less anticipated for thirty or forty years. With ’s relations dating back to 1864, and with the Hertzian waves already having been discovered, several renowned scientists were working in this area trying to shorten the wavelength of the Hertzian waves. That J.C.Bose managed to do this was a testimony to his remarkable scientific and technical intuition. He really knew the kind of design to employ, the kind of materials to use for polarizing the beams and all that. I do not want to get into the details here, but the point to note is that such a discovery was anticipated and that it was a discovery generated initially in the West. And J.C.Bose, according to them, was a product of the West: he had been trained at Cambridge. Thus, there was not much hesitation on the part of the West to accept J.C.Bose’s discovery and hail him as a bright light of the world of science.

In 1901, when Bose started talking about things the West had not anticipated, or had not the means to establish by their own methods, his entire credibility was called into question. There were statements such as, after all he is a product of the East where rather than objective science, speculation and imagery has a greater role to play. And J.C.Bose’s credibility, his scientific training, everything came to

8 be questioned. His articles, which had already been accepted for publication by the Royal Society, were withdrawn or withheld. J.C.Bose had gone to England in 1901 on deputation for two years; he needed a few more years in the West to establish and demonstrate all his experiments there. Thanks to the machinations of a powerful section of Englishmen, his leave was denied. That was the time when Rabindranath came forth. Jagadish Chandra was pouring out his difficulties in letters to Rabindranath and Rabindranath replied, ‘Why do you even have to come back at the instruction of the government? Stay there, we will find the means of sponsoring your stay.’ In one very sensitive letter, Rabindranath wrote, ‘If we cannot set you free then we, as a nation, have failed.’ Lady Abala (Bose’s wife) later wrote that this promise of being set free from government shackles, from the control of powers that be was actually the motivation for J.C.Bose to start thinking about establishing the so-called temple of science, the Bose Institute. In Bengali, it is still called Bose Bigyan Mandir. So their mutual support cemented the bond of friendship between the two. In fact, Rabindranath went to the Maharaja of Tripura and raised a substantial amount of money as donation from him to support Bose’s stay in England.

Jagadish Chandra and Abala Bose came back to India in October 1902 and within a month, Rabindranath’s wife Mrinalini died, as I mentioned earlier, on 23 November. For two to three days after her death, Rabindranath did not move out of the house in Jorasanko. When he first left the house, he came and stayed with Jagadish Chandra and Abala for a couple of days. For an extremely private person like Rabindranath, there could be no greater proof of the intimacy that existed between Rabindranath and the Bose family. In 1901, Rabindranath had already wound up his household in Selidah and come to Shantiniketan to establish what was called a Brahma Vidyalay which later became Visva Bharati, which now became Rabindranath’s primary focus. He never neglected his writings. Although he expressed himself as an artist at a much later age, even reasonably old age, but he had already begun drawing sketches. Many of the drawings that were exhibited later were actually drawn quite early in his life and the only person he admitted that fact to was J.C.Bose. In one of his letters, Tagore mentioned that he had been drawing sketches and painting, not for the Paris salons or any other venue but for his own personal amusement.

In 1901, Tagore came to Shantiniketan and with his father’s blessings, set up the so-called school Shantiniketan. On many occasions he wrote that this was where his true worship was, this was his primary . J.C.Bose was in England at

9 the time of the foundation of Tagore’s school. By the time the Boses returned to India, Rabindranath was in Kolkata, nursing his ailing wife. After Mrinalini’s death, J.C.Bose made his first trip to Shantiniketan in December of 1902 and from then till 1910, whether he was in Kolkata or somewhere else in India or in England or even in US, every single letter that he wrote to Rabindranath had some reference to Shantiniketan. He kept saying, ‘Do keep me informed how your school is progressing and remember that I am deeply interested and committed to the ideals of your school. What you are doing there is unmatched and please keep up the good work’. He was very involved in designing a mechanical training workshop for hands-on training at the school. He drew up the budget, gave instructions about what kind of equipment to get and what use they should be put to.

Prof. Menon mentioned in the introduction that Jagadish Chandra Bose was an artist in craft and technical aspects. Bose wanted to bring that culture into Shantiniketan and as Rabindranath was also very interested in that, he sent money to Jagadish Chandra while he was in England to get all the necessary equipment for the proposed workshop. That it did not materialize was primarily because they did not find a qualified instructor at that time. However, there was a complete understanding and admiration on the part of Jagadish Chandra about ideas that Rabindranath was trying to establish in Shantiniketan.

J.C.Bose had a nephew by the name of Aurobindo Mohan Bose, who Jagadish Chandra was the youngest son of Anandomohan Bose—the first Indian Wrangler sent Aurobindo of Cambridge and who married J.C.Bose’s sister. Anandomohan Mohan Bose to Bose died prematurely when Aurobindo was still a young boy and Shantiniketan Jagadish Chandra and Abala ‘adopted’ him. They acted as his parents and became responsible for his entire well-being and his education. as a student, a Jagadish Chandra sent Aurobindo Mohan Bose to Shantiniketan as a clear indication student, a clear indication of his admiration for the ideals with which of his admiration Rabindranath was trying to run Shantiniketan. In letter after letter, for the ideals Jagadish Chandra wrote that he was overwhelmed and flattered to with which see in what high esteem Aurobindo held Rabindranath. ‘Whatever you are teaching him should sustain him through his entire life.’ There is Rabindranath one little-known fact, although I am sure most in this audience already was trying to run know, that Jagadish Chandra and Abala had a daughter who died in Shantiniketan infancy. Lady Abala’s motherly affections were showered on Aurobindo

10 and, quite understandably, Aurobindo’s well-being became one of her Just like major concerns. In her letters to Rabindranath she would ask details Rabindranath’s about Aurobindo that sometimes bordered on an obsessive protection. creations often In one letter to Rabindranath, Jagadish Chandra said that there was an order that if there was a cut on Khokha’s leg (Khokha being Aurobindo), did not have he should not be allowed to go to school. This anxiety was quite any focus until understandable for when affection had been starved, where there had you got to the been no outlet, once it found a release, it could become obsessive. depth of it, Visva I dwell on this because in 1910 there was a short letter written by Abala Bharati (and Bose that extracted a reaction from Rabindranath that I simply cannot Shantiniketan) comprehend. The sentence that offended Rabindranath was Abala saying, ‘It is quite obvious that you do not want us in Bolpur because was the product you did not ask us to come this year.’ Rabindranath’s reaction to this of a spontaneous was that he had been expecting that she would be saying something creation to him about Aurobindo for quite some time. ‘Shantiniketan is the place of my worship and I have been feeling that your attitude towards Shantiniketan is no longer as favourable as it used to be. I do not want anybody to come here to just satisfy their idle curiosity and go away. So we can meet elsewhere but no, not in Shantiniketan….’ And then he goes on about how Shantiniketan is his primary focus, how this is where his entire life’s philosophy is embodied and so on. What surprised me is that a sensitive person like Rabindranath must have understood Lady Abala’s affection and her protectiveness of Aurobindo. At the same time, in the same letter to which he reacted so violently, Lady Abala also wrote something else. At that time the first Brahmo girls’ school was started in Kolkata and the syllabi and other details were being worked out. Lady Abala wrote to Rabindranath saying, ‘Please write to me in detail of the system that you pursue in Shantiniketan because that is what I want to also start at our school.’ So it is unimaginable that Rabindranath would have reacted so strongly. This was a puzzle that needed to be sorted out. Once again Pramathanath Bishi provides a clue in one of his writings; he said that the trouble with Visva Bharati had always been that it was not an organization created with a well-defined plan. Not by an executor or implementer of projects, Visva Bharati was created randomly. Just like Rabindranath’s creations often did not have any focus until you got to the depth of it, Visva Bharati (and Shantiniketan) was the product of a spontaneous creation. Also, there were severe financial problems

11 and Rabindranath, not being a really meticulous planner, was facing difficulties in running the institution. At the same time, since his philosophy was not to impart standard education that would be encashable or one that people could utilize to get ahead in life in the material sense, he must have questioned himself. So it is my belief that Tagore was trying to answer this self-contradiction, this confusion in his own mind in that letter to Lady Abala. In the nature of self-vindication, he was trying to justify the philosophy of Shantiniketan and Visva Bharati to himself and to the world.

Rabindranath’s patience and tolerance is well-known. After his beloved son died on 23 November 1907, he was returning to Shantiniketan after cremating him. He later wrote, ‘I looked out of the window of the train and it was a full moon, did not see any void anywhere. So, my small loss is irrelevant in the context of the entire universe….’ This tolerance, this philosophy notwithstanding, his outbursts on several occasions are well known. One is the letter to Lady Abala, the other is his response to the congratulatory addresses offered on his being awarded the Nobel Prize. His rejection of the congratulatory addresses shocked almost everybody. So much so, that he had to actually go around begging forgiveness from all his well- wishers saying, ‘I am sorry, I overdid it’. Not in exactly those words but you get the spirit. The upshot of this letter to Lady Abala was that the interactions between Jagadish Chandra and Rabindranath stopped for about two years.

Almost two years later Rabindranath himself had to write to Jagadish Chandra and say, enough is enough; let us put all those misunderstandings behind us. And then that relationship persisted. Some biographers feel that though they started interacting again, it was not with the same warmth. I do not know whether this is true or not but that was also to be expected. Before this break, both Jagadish Chandra and Rabindranath were trying to mark their places in the international scene. Before the Nobel Prize, Tagore’s international reputation was not really that strong. In fact, even in the other Indian languages, his fame was rather limited. As for J.C.Bose, his earlier reputation, earned in the late 1890s was dented because he was already branded as a charlatan in the western press. By 1910-11, he had regained much of that reputation. By now, both become independently well-known and famous and the mutual support that they gave each other during their years of struggle was no longer necessary. There was not so much exuberance and spontaneity in their exchanges but it was now better founded and deeper.

12 One of the examples is again in the writings of Rathindranath Tagore, Although when he talked about the interactions between Rabindranath and Mahatma Gandhi Jagadish Chandra in the late 1920s or early 1930s. Jagadish Chandra had played an was in during the summer and Rabindranath would visit him on regular occasions. Rathindranath writes that there wasn’t enormous role much discussion about poetry, drama or literature. Jagadish Chandra in raising money was trying to explore the division between life and death and how for the creation a philosopher, or a poet, looks at it. So there was that depth in their of Bose Institute, relationship and the warmth was at a different level. he was not To conclude, I want to say something about the foundation of the present at the Bose Institute and Visva Bharati. Bose Institute was founded in 1917 on 30 November, J.C.Bose’s birthday, and Rabindranath wrote a song inauguration of ‘Matri Mandir Punya Angana…’ on the occasion, which became the Bose Institute anthem of the Institute and sung first on that inauguration ceremony. What is surprising is that this inauguration programme was originally planned for 30 November 1916, to be held at a time when Rabindranath was not going to be present in India. But for various reasons, primarily because the construction of the building of Bose Institute was not complete, it was postponed by another year. Records reveal that Rabindranath left Kolkata to go to Shantiniketan on 29 November. People said that the remnants of that break still lingered ,and he left Kolkata so as not to have to meet Lady Abala on the occasion. That was the popular belief which, like many, I had also contributed to until a couple of years ago when Shri Gopal Krishna Gandhi asked me whether Mahatma Gandhi was present at the inauguration of Bose Institute, since he, Mahatma Gandhi, was in Kolkata that day in 1917. Although Mahatma Gandhi had played an enormous role in raising money for the creation of Bose Institute, he was not present at the inauguration of Bose Institute. In fact, none of the other nationalist leaders, some of whom were in Kolkata on that day, showed up. It is certainly true that Rabindranath and the entire , I don’t know about Mahatma and others, had been invited. Rabindranath humorously wrote about his grand-nephew Dinendranath Thakur, who was the keeper of all his songs, not getting the invitation letter although all other members of the family had. Rabindranath jokingly wrote that Dinu’s insecurity was heightened by this. However, none of them showed up. As given to trying to create a picture out of limited facts, we came up with a kind of speculation: Shantiniketan at that time was already in the list of the suspicious institutions of

13 the intelligence branch. Mahatma Gandhi’s reputation in that direction needs no explanation. But Jagadish Chandra also knew that if he wanted to establish an institution of modern science, he could not do so without government support. So there was probably no need on the part of Bose Institute to draw attention to its connection with these nationalist figures from the very beginning. And if that was the reason why these personalities stayed away, it must have been done with the conscious agreement of all these people. In all their writings, neither Rabindranath nor Mahatma Gandhi ever wrote anything against the Bose Institute or tried to highlight why they did not attend that programme. On the other hand, when Shantiniketan became Visva Bharati in 1921, Rabindranath invited Jagadish Chandra to be the Vice-President. Jagadish Chandra agreed, although there is no evidence of his ever taking any active interest in the organization or administration of Visva Bharati. The only exception is one occasion a few years before he died, when he wrote one short letter to Rabindranath saying, ‘I am enclosing 500 Rupees. If you use it for some programme of Visva Bharati, I shall be happy’. Rabindranath’s reference in the context of Bose Institute was also somewhat symbolic. In the minutes of the first meeting of the Governing Body of Bose Institute, there was a decision that Babu Rabindranath Tagore would be invited to be a member of the Governing Body. Whether he was invited and if he had been invited, what was his response was something we have no knowledge of, but it is true that he never formally became a member of the Governing Body of Bose Institute. After Jagadish Chandra died, Rabindranath was the first speaker of the J.C.Bose Memorial Lecture series. Till the day he died, J.C.Bose’s routine was that before going to bed, he would listen to a record of one of Tagore’s poems recited by himself, ‘A century from now, who are you reading my poems out of curiosity?’ So this relationship continued till the day Jagadish Chandra died. It has greatly enriched Bengali, rather Indian, scientific and cultural ambience, probably to an extent that we have not yet been able to evaluate or estimate. On this occasion, it is my privilege and good fortune to pay homage to these two great personalities with the hope that perhaps we should try to recreate some of that enthusiasm in our lives and be enriched by it.

Dr. Sibaji Raha is director, Bose Institute, Kolkata

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