Girish Karnad said a few years back that Tagore was but a second-rate playwright, and there was much furore over it. This was but a second degree derivative of life that he subjected to his scrutiny thus, having in no way decried the primary play of life as insignificant.
Intellectual and artistic appreciation of the fundamental drama of life serves as the model for such judgement on the merit of literary dramas and Karnad's assessment of Tagore as playwright must have been made on a similar basis. His reasoned refusal to place Tagore on the same pedestal as Kalidasa in so far as dramatic merit is concerned must be accepted as an important contemporary dramatist's critical appreciation of a predecessor. The reasons cited are powerful even if, arguably, flawed in the eyes of the devout Tagore followers.
Anyhow, it is refreshing to see someone daring the greats of the past and attempting to place their seminal contributions in their proper perspective. Such rethinking on the literary giants of the past keeps the discourse alive and effectively encourages the study of the masters. In this regard at least we must thank the outspoken critic that Girish Karnad is for bringing the limelight back on Indian drama, especially, its two exponents, mismatched in merit, may be, distant as they are in terms of time and circumstance. Kalidasa remains for Karnad the undisputed numero uno in this regard with Tagore an inconspicuous successor and, so, not quite worthy of being bracketed together.
Karnad's principle criticism of Tagore's dramatic art is its lack of vigorous dramatic movement, its overly aristocratic bearing with little real feel for the poor other than a distant condescension which is to the modern mind anathema. As such, he argues that Tagore has never had much of an influence on his successors in this genre of the literary art form. Playwrights like Tendulkar, Badal Sarkar and others have distanced themselves from Tagore as they have gone about evolving the contemporary dramatic art form. Such isolation of Tagore and his lack of influence in shaping the course of modern Indian drama proves the mediocrity of Tagore's plays for sure, Karnad argues. He adds that Tagore's plays were staged during the poet's lifetime within the confines of Jorasanko and Shantiniketan and were witnessed only by his close friends and followers. That they did not get prominence beyond such affable limits is a pointer to their obvious second-rate status. Karnad does mention repeatedly that Tagore was a poet par excellence but failed to carry his versatility to the dramatic domain.
Although, Karnad pleads guilty to the charge of being innocent of the Bengali language in which the Tagore dramas are set, he argues that such linguistic ignorance did not much handicap his appreciation of the essential features of the dramatic art and that he was in no way better disposed of when it came to his appreciation of playwrights across the world in foreign tongues entirely unintelligible to him. Here, as there, he has had to resort to effective translations to enter the spirit of the plays and he could easily trace the fundamental features of the plays to be able to classify them and comment in consequence.
Girish Karnad has served in the sphere of the Indian drama for decades, having won laurels at home and abroad for his own creations of acclaimed brilliance. His criticism is certainly welcome as it will help break the inertia of intelligence surrounding the seminal sage of Shantiniketan and make for a rational reviewing of his considerable contributions to world literature without being blinded by reverential adulation that makes a mockery of the fine art of appreciation.
Written by Sugata Bose
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