RABINDRANATH TAGORE ,PALESTINE ÀND THE JEWISH PEOPLE
As #Gaza continues to be pounded and pulverized with unimaginable human cost, we may escape from ' here ' and 'now' to look back on the #Arab - #Jewish conflict through the eyes of Rabindranath Tagore ,the foremost poet and public intellectual of the time.Theodore Zeldin in his Hidden Pleasures of Life speaks of Tagore's amazing capacity to make friends across the globe and his remarkable ability to nurture such relationships and contacts .Tagore was a great admirer of the Jewish genius which came to full flowering in the early decades of twentieth century .He was greatly influenced by Bergeson the philosopher of creative evolution and was deeply interested in the revolution in Physics, brought about mainly by Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Tagore had also many Jewish friends who kept him informed about the entrenched anti semitism in #Europe and the problems the Jewish settlers faced in Mandate #Palestine .Tagore's love of the Jewish people had deeper roots .He belonged to a Hindu reformist sect that was fervently monotheistic and shared with the Jews a cosmopolitan culture,love of learning and creative pursuits. Rammohun Roy ,the founder of new Hindu monotheism and Tagore's "role model", was the first Hindu to learn Hebrew as he wanted to study the Old Testament in the original .One of his nephews ,Soyumendranath Tagore ,a Marxist, would later visit Israel in 1965 and write an unprejudiced book defending Israel's right to exist and the necessity to form full diplomatic ties with the beleaguered Jewish nation .He rightly saw #Israel could offer us more in the form of science ,agricultural technology and the art of living than any country in the Middle East .
Tagore was familiar with the Zionist movement that sought to unite the Jews facing discrimination in most of the European countries and even envisaged a Jewish state in the country of their origin. #Zionism was a progressive movement which enjoyed the sympathy and support of most of the leading Jewish scientists and intellectuals including #Einstein. Tagore was not against Jewish immigration but Jewish statehood .Speaking to a Zionist interviewer in 1930 in New York he remarked ," What we poets have dreamt ,the Jews can create in Palestine if they free themselves of the western concept of nationalism." Tagore favored Jewish migration as it would bring Arabs in closer contact with the West and wake them up from their torpor .It will also make technology transfer easier benefiting both the Arabs.The growing cooperation between Jewish settlers and Arabs will form the " basis of a new Palestinian civilization " .A few Zionists such as Schomith Flaum visited Santiniketan and became his admirers . Tagore heard about the success story of the Jewish settlers who had turned the arid desert lands green .He invited Jewish farmers to settle in Santiniketan and introduce scientific farming among local farmers. In 1936 Olsvanger a Jewish emissary visited India and found most Indian leaders had little understanding of Jews and hostile to their cause .The Indian National Congress was sympathetic to Arabs even when they had resorted to terrorism and acts of violence against the Jewish settlers .Tagore wrote to Olsvanger, " What interests me perhaps more than the work done by the Jewish settlers is the agricultural development of the country,the reclamation of marshy and sandy stretches, the application of the modern scientific method in dealing with the problems of soil and cultivation. As you know.. our agricultural problems have become quite formidable, and they can be tacked only by an advanced technique and organization. " However, the Palestinian Jews were rather disappointed by his objections to a Jewish state and did not respond to his invitation to form a Jewish community at Santineketan .
Sclhlomith Flaum was a young Palestinian Jewish woman of Lithuanian origin who stayed at Santineketan and continued to correspond with Tagore .Her letter written on May 30 gives us glimpse of the growing conflict in Mandate Palestine. Her family had been savagely attacked by Arabs and she herself suffered injuries .She wrote with much self confidence and perhaps, a little arrogance " The Arabs wish that the Jewish immigration should stop in Palestine because they fear our superiority and progress in work We make out of desert a blooming and prosperous country in every way of which they themselves gain most ,as they do nothing ,just sit. .and smoke leisurely and peacefully their pipes " .In retrospect her criticism of the Arab way of life seems unjust .Arabs had a right to their leisurely pace of life in their own land which came under threat as Jews brought with them an invasive modernity based on capitalism and new technology.Tagore on his part failed to understand that Jewish settlers could not hope to protect themselves from the Arab wrath except through the instrumentality of the state .Arabs ,as #Muslims ,were unwilling to cede even an inch to the settlers .They out of hand rejected the recommendations of Peel Commission which proposed a Jewish homeland that constituted just 10% of the Mandate Palestine. Arabs - that is to say Arab males - of all descriptions still decline to accept Israel which is proudly in existence for 75 years. The Two State Solution is an insincere ruse - a step towards the total destruction of Israel. While other Arab states out of fear have de facto accepted Israel , #Hamas has not .It still dreams of unfurling the flag of Islam on all the four corners of Israel.So ,the 'poet's dream' will wither and violence will go on until either of the belligerent parties is totally defeated .It is tragic but almost inevitable.
