POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE POET'S STANCE REGARDING THE PATRIOT

POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE POET'S STANCE REGARDING THE PATRIOT

When Rabindranath Tagore called Subhas Chandra Bose 'Deshnayak', he had meant that Bose was the undisputed leader of the Bengal Presidency in especial. The Poet categorically mentioned towards the end of his speech that he considered Gandhiji as the leader of the entire nation of Bharatvarsha. Yet, there is this popular misconception that Tagore had bypassed the Mahatma and called Bose the numero uno in leadership of the motherland in its entirety. We must be reasonable when we interpret the writings of these seminal greats.

Another misconception is about Tagore having hailed Bose as an Avatar, that is, a divine incarnation. But this, too, is entirely unfounded. Being a Brahmo, Tagore did not subscribe to the concept of Avatarvaad and has argued this point of the implausibility of the special incarnation of the infinite God in a human form in his writings. When Tagore mentioned Sri Krishna and his promise unto humanity of his descent in human form whenever there was a terrible spiritual imbalance of forces and had further stated that in Subhas Chandra India had found the fulfilment of such a prophecy in the then contemporary times, he was merely making a poetic allusion, a symbolic reference to the epic prophecy and its redeeming connotation rather than actually implying that Subhas Chandra Bose was the Avatar of the Age. I reiterate that Tagore did not subscribe to the spiritual principle of the Avatar. However, there are researchers who keep on making silly deductions from Tagore's words and make it out to seem as if Netaji was God incarnate like Sri Krishna or Sri Ramakrishna supposedly was. This is utterly fallacious logic and an out of the context interpretation of the Poet's words to suit one's fanciful imagination. Hardly does it befit the conscientious researcher to resort to such flawed reasoning by way of establishing his imaginary ideas that bear no resemblance to reality. Netaji does not require such artificial epithets from shallow thinkers to stand illumined as a lustrous leader of the Age.

Written by Sugata Bose