WEBVTT - Tagore, Erstwhile Knight 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:03.760 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:13.880 Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.759 I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm very happy to be joined 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:21.520 by my new co host today. Yep, I'm Deblina chokoate 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.400 boardy I will be joining Sarah and talking about history 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.600 stuff with you. Yeah. Deblina is the homepage editor here 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.400 at how Stuff Works. Um so she basically programs the 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:34.960 whole homepage every day. So if you've ever visited the site, 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:38.479 you have seen Debilina's handiwork. Yes, and I hope you've 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.280 clicked on lots of things quick, lots of length. That's 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.559 what we all want you to do. But um, Debilina, 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.440 why don't you give us a little background on this 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:52.000 topic and explain why you picked it today? Sure? Well, 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:56.959 today's topic is a little bit maybe appropriately maybe inappropriately 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:02.440 personal to myself. My parents are India, they're Bengali, and 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.440 our topic today is Rabindranath Tagore, who is a well 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.919 known Bengali figure, probably best known for being the first 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.839 Asian Nobel laureate. And it's the hundred and fiftieth anniversary 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:15.440 of his birth. So it's been in the news a 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:17.520 lot lately. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.280 to celebrate his birth this year, UM, including the kol 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.640 Kappa Film Festival, has showed movies that are based on 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:29.399 his works. Um. People are performing his plays, school children 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.640 are performing his songs and his dance dramas, and so 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.000 it's a big to do. There's even a traveling train, 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.200 which seems like probably the best part of the celebration 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.479 in my opinion. The traveling train is indeed awesome. It 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:46.759 is visiting cities throughout India until next May, and each 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.200 car features kind of a different aspect, and it's featuring 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.400 mostly arts type of stuff. Like the other celebrations are 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:57.480 like a museum on the move, essentially exactly great. Um, 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.960 but a lot of people don't really appreci she how 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.360 just how much of an accomplished artist this guy was. 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:06.720 How much of an accomplished poet he was? He was 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:10.680 a singer, a philosopher, he was interested in politics, he 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:15.959 was an educator, a reformer. Um, he wasn't a politician exactly, 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.040 but I mean his influence there is pretty great too. 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.600 He he just touched on so many different things. It's 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:25.040 kind of, I don't know, it's kind of inspiring when 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.680 you start looking at his life and also sort of 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.280 makes you feel like got up to that, what have 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:34.320 I done? Right? So his work in the political arena 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.200 and his reformation efforts that you mentioned last, those are 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:39.519 probably the things that are lesser known about him. Most 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.200 people know about his arts, his involvement in the arts 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.880 scene in India, all his contributions there's far songs, plays, dramas, 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:49.960 everything goes. But I think that people don't know what 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.680 he contributed as far as politics well, and he's not 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.040 that well known in the West at all. So I mean, 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.120 we have a lot to explore, even the things he's 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.840 famous for in India definitely. And one of the things 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:02.240 that he is famous for that will take a look 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:04.600 at today he was knighted by the British government and 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.120 some accused him of being a pro British elitist and 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.880 there's some controversy around that Nighting to try to talk 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.080 about a little later we will, um, But really what 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:16.800 we're gonna look at is just was he a nationalist 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.400 or not? Um? Was this just a different approach to 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:23.679 nationalism for him? His involvement in politics and um look 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.880 at his renunciation of the of the knighthood and what 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.320 surrounded that. So before we get into that, let's look 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.839 at his beginnings. He was born May six, eighteen sixty one, 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:37.880 in Calcutta into a well to do, well educated, very artistic, 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:40.960 progressive family. Yeah, he was really exposed to a lot 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.600 as a kid too. I mean, his family would have 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.680 been reading Sanskrit and ancient Hindu text and Persian literature 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.920 and known Islamic tradition. So imagine it this real melting 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.320 pot in his home of learning and um, just a 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:59.160 lot of intelligent discussion, I imagine, definitely. I think it 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.880 was unique to any culture at the time. And let's 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:05.560 talk about that time a little bit. It was during 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.240 British rule in India when he was born, and his family, 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.839 the two Gores, they were very active in the Bengal Renaissance, 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.160 which was basically a movement that began in the mid 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:19.640 eighteen sixties to protect national culture. It was really to preserve, um, 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.080 the local culture, the arts, all the things that his 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.880 family wanted to celebrate, the traditional heritage, and it was 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:32.360 a response to Anglicization. So they would throw festivals every 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:36.120 year that featured Angian songs and poems and dances, and 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.200 you mentioned wrestling matches when we were talking about this earlier. 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:41.560 I thought that was kind of a surprise thrown in there, 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.240 but hey, it's a part of culture, right that the 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.560 arts with a little wrestling boards of aspect of culture 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:52.120 like sports. So in addition to being involved in this 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:56.600 yearly cultural event to Gore's father, Deb's enough to Gore, 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.480 he was very involved in something called the Brahma Somage. 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:03.120 The Aramis Homage was basically a movement within Hinduism, which 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.600 is established around or so, and it was an attempt 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.800 to reform Hinduism. What I mean by that is that 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.480 it incorporated some aspects of Christianity. It denounced things like 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:18.799 polytheism and idol worship, and it also denounced the cast system. 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.359 So through this they were trying to um enact some 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.240 sort of social reform. But it never really became that 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:29.440 widely popular. Um. Yeah, I mean, even though I guess 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.520 it's still technically around today, it didn't really grow much 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.200 past the twentieth century or the early twentieth century. Yeah, 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.159 it's definitely recognized as a movement within Hinduism, um, but 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.520 I don't think it reached maybe the heights that to 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.960 Gore's father wanted it to the Brahmismdge movement. It did 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.559 loose steam the twentieth century. But the important thing about 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.279 that is that we can see into Gore's life is 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.279 that it was combining these Eastern and Western ideals that 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:57.960 will see kind of throughout his development and in his 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:01.359 work and his philosophy. So that's the beginnings of that, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:03.920 I guess. Yeah. But I mean, if we're talking about 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:08.679 his childhood intellectual life aside um, he was kind of lonely. 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.279 He wasn't that close to his parents. This is according 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.360 to his own memoirs. M His dad was gone a lot, 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.520 traveling on business and um. Some people have suggested that 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.360 he just didn't really get much attention and love growing 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.400 up and sort of felt neglected in that respect. Yeah, 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.599 he did. He does give us accounts of traveling with 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.479 his father and his adolescence, but from what we can tell, 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:37.440 he wasn't really that close to anyone. Roby as he 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:42.120 was sometimes called, wasn't really close to his folks. But 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:43.680 that might have been a good thing because he was 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:45.520 given a lot of freedom. Because of that, he was 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:48.080 given a lot of space to develop creatively and to 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.360 write and that's exactly what he did. Yeah, So he 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:55.039 started writing at a very young age and kept on 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.880 doing it over six decades. He ended up writing about 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:03.880 two thousand, five hundred songs and twenty eight volumes of poetry, drama, opera, 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:08.400 short stories, novels, essays and diaries, plus a bunch of letters. 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:10.280 So this is what we meant at the beginning when 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.200 we're saying this can make you feel a little inadequate. 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.480 He lived a very long time, but he was writing 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:22.680 for his entire life pretty much NonStop, definitely. In eighteen 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:25.440 seventy seven, he actually went to England to study for 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.400 about a year at the University College of London, and 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:30.200 while he was there he wrote some more too. He 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.600 wrote some plays and he was introduced to the western 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.960 style of music there, but it didn't really last. He 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.720 ended up coming back after a year, and um, the 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:41.600 only thing that I could find on that is that 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.320 he thought it was too cold. Legitimate complaints. It's legit. 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.200 I mean, I've lived in cold places. It's tough. But 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:54.640 that was definitely an influence in his life though, I think. Yeah, Um, 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:57.440 so you know, he came back to India after just 0:07:57.520 --> 0:07:59.920 about a year of studies, but he kept on writing, 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.600 and he published his first book of poetry when he 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:06.480 was only about seventeen, and then throughout the eighteen eighties 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:10.480 he kept on putting out books, all leading up to Manasci, 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.400 which was published in eighteen nine. And that's sort of 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.440 one of his first works that is fairly well known, 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.240 right yep. A lot of his well known poems and 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.560 some of his well known political satire and commentary is 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.640 in that book. Uh. And that satire did take kind 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.560 of a critical tone toward towards his fellow Bengalis, and 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.840 so we see kind of his starting of his evolution 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.040 of his political views social views there. Yeah, because that 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.120 tone starts to change too in the eighteen nineties because 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:44.240 of his traveling and a few events that happened. Yep, 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.400 as we mentioned earlier to Gore's family was pretty wealthy, 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:49.440 so they had both a home in the city and 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.000 they had some estates in East Bengal, which we know 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:58.240 today is Bangladesh. So he went for a while in 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:02.160 the eighteen nineties to manage his is father's estates there 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.040 and he stayed there for about a decade. But this 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:09.040 area was pretty rural, pretty poverty stricken, and he was 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.120 in close contact with the villagers while he was there, 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.600 so it really gave him a new outlook, so to speak. 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:16.200 He gained a lot of sympathy for the plight of 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:20.840 the locals there, I think, and this began to inform 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.360 his writing a lot, Yeah, and change his style a 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.240 little too even. Yeah, well, he started writing in a 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:27.559 little bit of a new style at that time. He 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.520 started experimenting a little bit more with free verse as 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.840 opposed to earlier when he was I think when he 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:38.680 was younger, he was mostly writing in traditional classical Indian forms. Um. 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.559 Again part of this whole Bengal Renaissance thing, the idea 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.400 of preserving culture. But as he got more into the 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.640 eighteen nineties, started being a little more flexible with his form. 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:49.920 So that was one thing. But then also his subject 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.280 matter I think started to explore more of what he 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.120 had seen, um some of more of the issues that 0:09:55.160 --> 0:09:59.080 he had seen in rural Bengal. And so this informed 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.480 his work, uh, And I mean it wasn't just limited 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:05.360 to his own experiences too. He started to be influenced 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.640 by some world events that were going on, namely the 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.319 Boer War in eighteen ninety nine and just a little 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.080 I've tried to do a real podcast on the Bower 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.360 War before and it didn't really work out. But to 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:20.920 give you a basic rundown of it, it was a 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:25.720 conflict between the two independent Dutch speaking Bauer republics of 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:30.240 South Africa in the British Empire, and it was very bloody. 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.680 At the end, the Boer Republics agreed to come under 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.880 the sovereignty of the British Crown. So to Gore was 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.960 already starting to get kind of interested in politics and 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.480 political writing when this was going on, but the Boer 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:46.240 War really it got him more interested in it. It 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:51.960 it made him look more into world politics, world events. Yeah, 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:54.320 so let's talk about two Gore's politics a little bit, 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.040 just to give people an idea of what was going 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:58.400 on in his mind and what point of view he 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.840 was coming from. A lot people, as we said before, 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:05.280 especially anti colonial nationalists, they accused to Gore of being 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.320 pro British and against the nationalist movement, and this wasn't 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.160 kind of had some truth to it, maybe, but wasn't 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:16.440 exactly true. To Gore was against colonialism, to put that 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.600 out there. He wanted India to be an independent nation. 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:24.280 But he didn't think that the confrontation and non cooperation 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:29.240 UM tactics that were used by some of his contemporaries 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:33.240 Gandhi obviously a very famous one, Mahandas Gandhi, who was 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:37.000 actually his friend. UM So they differed in this way. 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.880 He was one who did use these tactics and and 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.760 they disagreed on this, but they were still very good friends. 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.160 He was actually the first to call Gandhi Mahatma, which 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.520 means great soul, which I just learned that in this podcast. 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.120 So it wasn't it fun fact. But he certainly wasn't 0:11:56.440 --> 0:12:00.839 pro British. He wanted India to be its own country exactly. 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.800 He just didn't think that a change, a straight change 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.560 in political regime is all that they needed. His answer 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:13.520 to the problem of India was education. He proposed that 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:18.119 only through education could the their nation really affect true change. 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.840 And actually, as an example of this, um I found 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.120 a statement that he made in nineteen o nine which 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.720 was actually a letter to an American lawyer who had 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.360 written him talking about the problem of India and what 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.040 was going on with colonialism. And it was from a 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:36.200 lawyer named Myron H. Phelps and to Gore put it 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.000 this way. To him, he said, for us, there can 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:41.920 be no question of blind revolution, but of steady and 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.719 purposeful education. He said, that's basically what it would take 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.440 to snap his people out of the quote trance that 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.920 cold blooded repression had put them under. Yeah, so, I 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:55.960 mean some people see this as just a different approach 0:12:56.040 --> 0:13:01.920 to nationalism. It's it's not revolution, it's revolution through education. Yeah. 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.600 He wanted his country not just to be independent, but 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.559 to be independent and truly truly be independent in every 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.760 aspect um, you know, not just be free from an 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.640 oppressive government, but to be able to stand alone as 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.079 a nation. And he thought education was the only way 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.640 that they would be able to do that. So, yeah, 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:22.360 you're right, some people do just think that this is 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.800 a different approach to nationalism um that he was taking. 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.400 So a good thing to do, though, if you're interested 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.920 in education is to start your own school, why not, 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.080 which is exactly what he did, and he did just that. 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:38.480 He founded an experimental school at Shanta Nikitan. It's a 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.640 small town in west Bengal which means a bode of peace. 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:44.760 And this wasn't his first experience with this town. His 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:49.520 dad I had founded a oshroom there, So he founded 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:53.120 a school there too, And his whole idea behind the 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:55.760 school was pretty much goes along with his philosophy that 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:57.680 he's had all along. You know. He felt that the 0:13:57.720 --> 0:13:59.600 East and West needed each other, and so he wanted 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.480 to encore break both types of thought into this school 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:05.200 that he had. So what he did is he got 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.920 both Indiana and Western scholars to teach there. And um, 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.560 it was a different kind of environment than outdoor classes. 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.080 They had outdoor classes. That's pretty neat like the sound 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:17.679 of that. Um, But just because he's running this school, 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.040 sounds like that would kind of keep you preoccupied. I 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:24.520 don't think he's not writing. He's still writing prolifically. Um. 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:28.320 And unfortunately going through a few personal tragedies in the 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:33.520 early nineteen hundreds. His wife died in nineteen o two. Incidentally, 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.160 they had gotten married when she was only ten years 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:40.240 old and he was twenty two. Um. And then after 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.160 his wife died, he also lost his father and two 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:47.040 of his children, all in this really short period of time. Yes, 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.720 And it was the sadness resulting from these events that 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:56.680 inspired several poems song poems as they're sometimes called, which 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:00.160 he translated into English and published as a collect and 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:04.520 called Keith and Joy in nine twelve. And some have 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.000 said that the fact that he did translate themselves is 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.880 not necessarily a good thing. Yeah. I mean they still 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:17.160 sold well apparently between March and November nineteen thirteen, ten reprints. Um. 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.480 But yeah, his his translations came under a lot of 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:24.520 scrutiny later. If if you've ever come across him in 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.480 a literature class or something, and you're outside of India, 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.040 it might be some sort of comparison to W. B. Yates. 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.160 And they were friends, if you could call it that, 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:36.600 for about thirty seven years. They had a really long 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:41.480 relationship with each other, and Yates is largely credited to 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.320 exposing him to the West, you know, introducing him to 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:49.240 the West and helping make him famous there. But they 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:54.040 had kind of a tumultuous friendship to say the least. Yep, 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:58.360 they actually met through William Rothenstein. He was an artist 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.560 who hosted to Gore and One in in around nineteen 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:03.960 twelve nineteen thirteen, so around the time that he was 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:09.040 publishing this translation and When to Go arrived. He gave 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:14.760 Rothenstein an English translation of these poems and Rothenstein then 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.520 sent them to Yates and some other some other people 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:22.440 about town. Yates apparently loved them. He was really really 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:26.000 into them. He apparently said, quote, I have carried the 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:29.680 translations of these manuscripts about with me for days, reading 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:33.000 it in railway trains or on top of omnibuses or 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:35.920 in restaurants, and I've often had to close it less 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:40.600 some strangers see how much it moved me. Um, But 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:42.400 I don't know. Maybe we should talk about yates His 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:45.200 later opinion in a minute, because this is the this 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:48.280 is to Gore's rising star at this point, this is 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.960 his fame starting to spread throughout the West as well 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.560 as the East. So people finally got to know him 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:56.640 through this. They finally got to know him through this 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.800 English translation and through people kind of spreading the word 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:03.760 abou out him, and it led and will not people 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:05.840 spreadying the word, but just his talent, I guess, led 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:09.360 to him winning the Noble Prize for Literature in thirteen. 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:11.919 As we mentioned, he was the first Asian to receive 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.000 such an honor, and after that his fame kind of 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:19.960 grew exponentially, fame outside of India, that is, he was 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.240 knighted by King George the Fifth of Britain in nineteen fifteen, 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.560 and he started traveling abroad a lot more. He wasn't 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:27.880 in India as much as he used to be. He 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:32.200 was doing lectures and readings. He went to Europe, North America, 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:36.560 South America, Asia, East Asia, um, all over the place. 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:39.320 So yeah, he was one of the most famous Indians 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.120 in the world at this point, perhaps the most famous. 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.639 But then, unfortunately, something really bad happened. On April thirteenth, 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:50.359 nineteen nineteen, in a Star which is located in the 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.119 state of Punjab in India. British soldiers fired on an 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.040 unarmed gathering of men, women and children who had come 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.680 into the city to partake in a traditional Sikh festival. 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:03.800 There was a peaceful nationalist demonstration going on that day, 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.719 but many of the people who who were around, who 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:08.879 were involved in the shooting, they weren't even really a 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.080 part of the demonstration exactly. They were completely kind of 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:14.480 innocent of whatever was going on. So a lot of 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.640 lives were lost, and we don't know exactly how many. 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.520 A lot of sources you look at, and I think 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.160 the official number reported by the British Raj was three 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.720 seventy nine, but some people say that it could have 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:30.240 been as many as a thousand or more. Well, and 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:32.720 then the accounts of it in the British press were 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.840 especially disturbing. You know, they were treating it as though 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:39.400 it had been a riot and the people who were 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:43.959 killed had gotten themselves into trouble essentially, and people just 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:48.800 had a very unfortunate reaction to to the whole thing 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:50.720 that went down. Yeah, it was weird. It was a 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.960 big cover up um for obvious reasons. They didn't want 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:56.679 people to know that this had gone down the way 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:59.639 it had, because there was basically no reason for these 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:01.800 people being killed, so they had to spin it. They 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:05.639 had to spin it and uh. But then there were murmurings, 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.040 of course, of what had really happened throughout India and 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:10.440 to Gore caught wind of this, and he was pretty 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:13.520 disgusted by the entire situation and it kind of changed 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:16.280 his outlook and it definitely changed the way he felt 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:19.320 about being a British night. So he wrote a letter 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.560 to Lord Chelmsford, who was the Viceroy of India at 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:26.160 the time, and renounced his knighthood. And if you read 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.840 his letter, it's interesting because it is so formal, so polite, 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:33.800 it's very written in very precise English, but I don't know. 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.919 He's clearly very deeply disturbed by what's happened and can't 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:42.320 reconcile being a night with supporting this definitely. Um, we 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:44.720 have a little excerpt from the letter just to give 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.680 you an idea of how incensed he was via the situation. 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.439 He says, the very least I can do for my 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:55.960 country to take all consequences upon myself in giving voice 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:59.160 to the protest of millions of my countrymen surprised into 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.879 dumb anguish of terror. The time has come when badges 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:06.720 of honor make our shame glaring in their incongruous context 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.639 of humiliation. And I, for my part, wish to stand 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:12.640 shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of those 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.040 of my countrymen who, for their so called insignificance, are 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:20.160 liable to suffer a degradation not fit for human beings. Yeah. 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:24.360 So this was the end of this quote, total cooperation 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:30.440 with the British, and it changed people's opinions of him too. Um, 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.119 he wasn't the same guy anymore. And I mean we 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.639 can talk about that, maybe first in a literary sense, 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:41.680 with Yates, because people have suggested that this is part 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.720 of the reason why Yates's opinion of Tore soured. According 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:49.520 to Anna Jaelna car Too, Core's resigning his knighthood just 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:53.919 didn't match up correctly with the idea Yates had of 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:58.879 him as this serene mystic from the east who certainly 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:02.520 wouldn't get involved in politics, certainly wouldn't do anything as 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:07.480 bold as renounced his knighthood. Um, it just didn't match 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:09.640 up with the Yates is to Gore. And of course, 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:11.960 I mean we can assume there's some other reasons in here. 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:14.879 Yates really didn't like to Gore as translations. As we 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:21.200 mentioned earlier, Um, he was probably bound to be disappointed 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:25.840 in this creation he had imagined for himself because to 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.879 Gore did write so much more than just romantic poetry. 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:33.400 He wrote essays and plays and prose. But I mean 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:36.600 we have to assume it it did play a role. Yeah, 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:38.719 I mean I think it did. But I think at 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:40.600 the same time there had to be more to it. 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:42.560 I mean, they knew each other, so he must have 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:44.359 known that there was more to Gore than just this 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:48.680 romantic literature and poetry that he wrote. Um, he did 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:51.159 a lot of political writing, a lot of speaking. He 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:54.359 was kind of a voice for for the way he 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:57.640 had he had publicly promoted him though yep, I guess, 0:21:57.640 --> 0:22:00.840 so that's true. But I guess was bound to happen, 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.560 since to Gore wrote other things anyway, so there was 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:05.560 bound to be some kind of falling out between them 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:10.159 at some point. But it changed. It changed what Yates 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:13.080 thought of to Gore, at least in the you know, outwardly, 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:17.199 and it changed I think what to Gore thought of 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.000 his own views a little bit too. Definitely, he didn't 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:23.480 really he didn't really change his views about the East 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:25.840 and West needing each other. He still thought that. He 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.240 still thought, you know, he wanted to see um kind 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:33.679 of a universal land where people all cultures would come 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:36.000 together and there weren't all these barriers between them. But 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:39.200 at the same time he I think he was very 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.680 conflicted about the situation that happened, especially because he had 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:45.480 English friends and so it made the situation kind of 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.440 difficult for them, and he tried to express these feelings 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:51.679