Where the mind is without fear

Where the mind is without fear

Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time - Ninety Two

Palash Biswas



Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been
broken up into fragments
by narrow domestic walls; ...
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit; ...
Into that heaven of freedom,
my Father, let my country awake.

- Rabindranath Tagore


Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut?
Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones.
He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941)
Once as famous as Einstein, with whom he publicly discussed the meaning of life, this Nobel Prize–winning poet, dramatist, novelist, and thinker led a literary renaissance in his native Bengal and presented a modern version of the wisdom of India to the West. Tagore was a shrewd idealist who felt that East and West had much to teach each other on the road to a better world for all; openly admiring elements of British culture, he could still denounce imperialism in ringing words. (Book: Tagore: An Anthology; ed. by Krishna Dutta; St. Martin’s, 1997)
—Jon Spayde

The final wars between people of India and the oligarchs backed by Indian politicians have started. First stop is West Bengal. The communists caught red handed backing oligarchs are finally exposed.The anti land-acquisition agitation erupted in West Bengal today as police fired rubber bullets to quell protestors at the Tatas'' car project site in Singur and firebrand Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee vowing to oppose the Left Front Government's bid to use farmland for industry and Special Economic Zones.
Sources say that this is not the start. India will be the first democracy to get rid of oligarchs that control India. They can buy the world out. They can keep all political parties in their monthly payroll. But they cannot contain Indian freedom loving people. India is not China or Western nations where oligarchs prosper one way or the other.
Arson, baton-charge, teargas and bleeding women: that was Monday's Singur, the volatile West Bengal region on boil over farmland acquisition for a Tata Motors project.A proposed visit by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee stood cancelled after Section 144 was re-imposed for 10 days from Sunday midnight in Singur, located 40 km from Kolkata in Hooghly district, prohibiting gathering of more than four people after it was lifted on Jan 28. However, Singur, located 40 km from Kolkata in Hooghly district, witnessed clashes that left at least six Trinamool activists and five policemen injured. A police vehicle was torched.Banerjee cancelled her visit as she was not fit enough to combat with cops in her trademark militant way after her release from hospital following a 25-day-long fast. However, the party went ahead with its protest demonstrations in Singur for the second successive day.Trinamool supporters and farmers of the Singur Krishijami Raksha Committee (Save Singur Farmland Committee), including women and children, blocked the railway track at Kamarkundu and fought a pitched battle with police.The Kamarkundu railway station and its adjoining areas turned into a virtual combat zone as the protesters defied police action and took them head on.They tried to uproot the poles erected for the proposed Tata car plant site.

On the other hand,the central government is keen to bring water resources under its ambit to resolve the growing inter-state water-sharing disputes faster and more effectively even as a tribunal here Monday gave its verdict in over 0a century old row over the Cauvery water.
Angry over a tribunal's verdict on the state's share of Cauvery river waters, thousands of farmers in Karnataka Monday blocked highways, burned tyres and stopped trains in a show of protest.
Farmers came out on the streets in Mandya, Mysore, Hassan and Chamarajangar districts that are in the Cauvery river basin area.Karnataka director-general of police (DGP) K.R. Srinivasan told IANS on phone that the overall situation was under control. Farmers blocked roads and stopped vehicular movement by burning tyres on the state highways between Bangalore-Mysore, Bangalore-Hassan and Bangalore-Tumkur.

According to Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz, consultative committees and parliament standing committees have suggested that the central government should have a say in settling the water disputes between the states.'I personally feel that the central government should have a say in this. Currently the states are not bound to oblige the centre as water is in the concurrent list of subjects in the constitution,' Soz told the 7th Editors' Conference on Social Sector issues here Monday.Soz's remarks came in the backdrop of the Cauvery Water Tribunal's award giving 419 thousand million cubic (TMC) feet water to Tamil Nadu and 270 TMC for Karnataka - a ruling that has angered the latter.The two state have been engaged in a prolonged and messy wrangle over the sharing of the Cauvery river water, which flows from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu. In 1991, Karnataka had witnessed widespread violence after the tribunal in an interim award instructed the state to release 205 TMC ft of water to Tamil Nadu.


Mamata Bannerjee of India is one of the very few politicians in the world who has the courage to stand up against the Indian oligarchs for the People of India. She is the new norm of politics in the world. Bush, Putin and Hu Jintao is watching the people of West Bengal and Trinamool Congress Chief Mamata Bannerjee. India is the first country that will uproot oligarchs once for all that keep politicians like servants in their home. Mamata run for the people of the world. Show Bush, Putin and Hu Jintao that days of oligarchs are coming to an end. It is time for people of the world to win.Appreciating the villagers of Singur and Nandigram for launching the agitation against farmland acquisition, she said "You have become the talking point for people all over India and even abroad. "People in other places are talking how brave the people of Singur and Nandigram are in resisting the government move to forcibly acquire farmland with all their might and five people in Nandigram have sacrificed their lives for that cause."

Banerjee accused the Left Front Government of playing with fire on the land acquisition issue and warned it would "pay the consequence" for playing with fire and taking the people for granted. Last year, she had undertaken an indefinite hunger strike against the Tatas'' car project in Singur and called off the fast only after a request from Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.
Upon his visit in then Soviet Union (possibly during 1930s), Tagore wrote a book entitled “A Letter from Russia” (“Rashiar chitee”); where he, on one hand, appreciated communism for having ensured free education, free treatment, wage proportional to labor, etc., for its citizen; and on the other hand, criticized communism (thank God! Our S. Hashem was not born!) for having restricted liberty of its population and press. The consequence? Guess what……?

The book was banned both in British India on the allegation: Tagore praised communism; and in Soviet Union on the allegation: Tagore denigrated communism.

Tagore was pained deeply to speak about the Indian peasants, the untouchable tillers who work as lighthouses to enlihten the human civilisation.

Tagore wrote Chandalika to expose the Manusmriti Based Hindu Society. further he wrote on ACHALAYATAN , status quo in Cast Hindu brahmin dominated society and argued that the Chariot would go on only if the command, Rather Rashee is taken by the Shudras, the underclasses.

Contrarily what we see in tagore`s bengal? Do we understand well the Bangla Nationality depicted by bankim and Tagore? Is it the nationality to outcast underclasses, SC, St, BC, OBC, Muslims and minorities and non Bengali population from the geopolitics of bengal?

How do they deny the role played by Jamiat E Ulema E Hind in the struggle of freedom and brand it communal as it is leading the peasants , Hindus as well as Muslims- united front against indiscriminate land aquisition by Capitalist, Nazi, Imperialist, Corporate, Promoter Left Front?

Mahashweta di has warned in her column in Bangla Statesman that the Hindu and Muslim, SC, ST OBC BC peasants must be aware of the tradition of DIVIDE and RULE by ruling classes. She has called for the ouster of the corrupt communists from the power.

Are they communist at all? They want to invoke great famines of Bengal. Seasonal migration by workers often leaves their children vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition.In Maharashtra, districts like Nandurbar have reported the highest number of child malnutrition deaths. A major reason for this is the poor crops and lack of work opportunities, which force local adivasis to migrate for upto six months to harvest sugarcane in Gujarat. The worst case on the anganwadi records in Nandurbar's Benti village is a three-year-old child, Deepak, who weighs less than 8.5 kg.

They never spoke on Manusmirti as they wanted to susten Brahmincal Hindutva dominance. All General secretaries happen to be Kulin brahmins and CMs and cabinet ministers once again Brahmin.

Bengal Government is busy to save Bookfair. Is it serious about the Nationalism coined by tagore?

Is any national identity is possible destroying Rural India, making SEZ , promoting captive farming and undermining Indigineus Production System?

These are relevent questions as either the farmers commit suicide or they Resist. They resist to save the Green, the Nature , The Earth and ultimately the Man as they feed the mankind with their blood for time infinite. Making killingfields in rural India, surrendering to US and Corporate interests would divide us once again.

And it is globalisation which makes Indian people scapegoats for companies like Union carbide and Cola companies. Despite all these hazards, Buddhadev is trying to make a Hiroshima, a nagasaki and a Bhopal for his empire. Hence he is so loyal to Salims, the butcher from Indonesia. Indian ruling classes are overjoyed as the next decade could usher in a new era dominated by brands from emerging markets like India and China, challenging the stronghold of companies from the US and the European Union for the top slot among global brands."We anticipate that over the next ten years both non-traditional brands and brands from the developing world will be fighting for position within the top 20," Brand Finance, an independent brand consultancy said in its latest report.The London-based consultancy - Brand Finance in its annual report on the world's most valuable brands for 2006, gives the global league table - BF250, which is dominated by 112 US brands, 92 European brands with Coca-Cola in the number one position and the remaining 45 brands coming from across the globe with a small number from emerging markets."In future years we expect to see an increasing number of brands from Brazil, Russia, India and China and also from other emerging markets," Brand Finance added.

Singur and nandigram

Prohibitory orders have been reimposed at Singur, the site of the Tata Motors small car factory, in view of Trinamool leader Mamata Banerjee's visit to the area. The Trinamool leader is back to protests after her marathon 25-day hunger strike against land acquisition by the Tata small car factory. On Sunday, fiery Mamata sounded a warning to the CPI(M) on the land acquisition issue by holding a large rally in Nandigram to protest the creation of a Special Economic Zone for Indonesia's Salim group.
And while Mamata attacked the government's policies in Nandigram, violence broke out in Singur when Trinamool workers tried to uproot the fencing going on at the site of the Tata factory.Police had to lathi charge and use tear gas to disperse the crowd. Two Trinamool leaders, who allegedly led a group of protesters, were also arrested.

Marking a high-pitched return to the centrestage of anti-farmland acquisition stir after a long lay-off, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee today said she would not allow the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government to acquire agricultural land for industries or SEZs till she is alive.

"Till the last drop of my blood and till I am alive I would not allow the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Government to forcibly acquire farmland to set up Industries or SEZs," Banerjee, she told a rally here, her first in a month since she fell ill due during her 25-day hunger strike on the issue of Tatas'' car project in Singur.

"I salute the people of Nandigram for putting up a stiff resistance to the government's move to acquire land for setting up a SEZ by the Salim group of Indonesia. Those who died while resisting the move have become martyrs, " she told the huge rally organised by the Krishi Raksha (Farmers Protection) committee.

"Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee does not understand that land is mother and mother is land for farmers. He (Buddha) only understands money though he claims he is marxist," she said.

The TC chief asked the people the continue the agitation against the government's move to acquire farmland for industry.

Condemn Police Violence, Arrests in Singur

February 4, 2007

WE CONDEMN THE ARREST OF ANURADHA TALWAR AND OTHER WOMEN ACTIVISTS IN
SINGUR

WARN THE LEFT FRONT GOVERNMENT TO STOP THE WORK BY TATAS AND INITIATE
DIALOGUE WITH GRAM SABHAS OR FACE AN INTENSIFIED STRUGGLE

Who says Singur is peaceful? Can anyone prove that the farmers there
have given their consent to transfer all of 997 acres of land to Tatas?
Is there any evidence to show that the agitators in Singur are violent
outsiders while the State is only committed to the welfare of local
people and to protect their human and constitutional rights? Can the media
report flashing the news of Tata Motors having started the work of the
new factory at Singur be taken as the final statement on the situation
in Singur?

The news from the battle-ground brings out the fact that Singur is
still simmering. It is reported from Singur itself that more than thousand
protestors with the women at the forefront began a peaceful protest
against fencing of the land which they have not agreed to be
acquisitioned. While the people were unarmed and based on their own land, the armed
policemen in large number took to tear gas bursting and lathi-charge to
prevent them thus resorting to violence.

A team of seven women was standing peacefully like the other farmers.
All around, they saw large numbers of protesting farmers. Suddenly the
local police came violently on the women's team. The seven who were
attacked were Swapna Tripathi, Aushto Maity, Jaba Murmu, Jamila Khatoon,
Jyotika Pal, Namita Gaine, Anuradha Talwar.

The police fired several rounds of tear gas shells. Anuradha also saw
one house being burnt in the Poorva Pada of Beraberi. One man broke his
leg, they saw him limping and crying in pain. They were verbally abused
by the police who even threatened to rape them.

The police tried to drag them out of the area. When they refused they
were pulled and pushed and thrown into the vans from where they were
taken to the Chinchura police station. The seven got several cuts and
injuries in this scuffle of being pushed into the van and pulled out. They
are still in police custody not knowing whether they are under arrest.


We condemn the arrest of seven women along with Anuradha Talwar, an
activist of Pashchim Banga Khet Mazdoor Samiti, a member organisation of
National Trade Union Initiative and National Alliance of People's
Movements. It is obvious that the State Government is not able to manage the
dissent and has become desperate trying to use illegal ways of imposing
the Corporate takeover. That they were not just mishandled but also
beaten up while some other leaders including Becharam Manna of Bhoomi
Raksha Committee also faced the lathis. The arrested women are taken to
Chinchura Police Station but again without any arrest memo and violating
the court orders in D.K. Basu vs. Govt. of West Bengal, 1996.
The incidence, once again, is a clear indication of the continued
repression of the local people's movement by the State Govt. that has
falsely been accusing others who are questioning the forcible acquisition of
people's resources, of violence and conspiracy against the State. It is
obvious that the left front Govt. which is hiding its deal with Tata
Motors has also been circulating false reports, claiming no opposition
from the land owners and share-croppers, trying to convince the world
that it is the outside activists, especially the Naxalites who are the
bone of conflict. When the CPM activists are protesting against forcible
eviction of Adivasis due to Polavaram Dam in Andhra Pradesh, and are
also beaten up at the hands of the Congress regime there, it certainly
doesn't behave as the party and the Govt., that they follow a similar
line of action in the name of development, in their own state. The
message of Singur, we remind the left front, is reaching out to the nook and
corner of the state and the country, discrediting them as pro-corporate
against the electorate.

We warn the Government of serious consequences unless the following
actions are taken immediately.

1) All the work by the Tatas or the W.B. Govt., including building of a
fence wall, is stopped with immediate effect.
2) Return back the land that is forcibly acquired without the consent
of the owners and bargadars, or remove fencing and declare status quo
till the conflict is resolved.
3) Release the arrested unconditionally and charge-sheet the police
officials who have used illegal and unjustifiable means, to suppress the
peaceful agitators.
4) Withdraw the police force from Singur Region and
5) Begin a decisive dialogue with the local people, the Gram sabhas,
Bhoomi Raksha Committee, and others concerned.

We appeal to the people's organizations and concerned citizens to
condemn today's incidence, raise the above demands and express solidarity
with people of Singur struggling to save their livelihood and the country
herself, from the onslaught of capitalist power.


Medha Patkar Aruna Roy Kavita Srivastav
(NBA) (MKSS) (PUCL and Right to Food Campaign)
National Alliance of People's Movements

Once again Tagore
I am not a fan of Dr Amartya Sen. Neither I respect him as a Nobel Laureate. His studies on Bengal Fmine and sparing British imperialism shocks me. He is the man who defend american Imperialism and the ruling classes in the sub continent as the role is played by Nobel Laureate Md Yunus in Bangladesh. But I appreciate his study on Tagore. Here I quote at length the relevent parts fromTagore and His India by Amartya Sen:

`Rabindranath did come from a Hindu family—one of the landed gentry who owned estates mostly in what is now Bangladesh. But whatever wisdom there might be in Akhmatova's invoking of Hinduism and the Ganges, it did not prevent the largely Muslim citizens of Bangladesh from having a deep sense of identity with Tagore and his ideas. Nor did it stop the newly independent Bangladesh from choosing one of Tagore's songs ("Amar Sonar Bangla," which means "my golden Bengal") as its national anthem. This must be very confusing to those who see the contemporary world as a "clash of civilizations"—with "the Muslim civilization," "the Hindu civilization," and "the Western civilization," each forcefully confronting the others.

They would also be confused by Rabindranath Tagore's own description of his Bengali family as the product of "a confluence of three cultures, Hindu, Mohammedan and British."...

Gandhi and Tagore severely clashed over their totally different attitudes toward science. In January 1934, Bihar was struck by a devastating earthquake, which killed thousands of people. Gandhi, who was then deeply involved in the fight against untouchability (the barbaric system inherited from India's divisive past, in which "lowly people" were kept at a physical distance), extracted a positive lesson from the tragic event. "A man like me," Gandhi argued, "cannot but believe this earthquake is a divine chastisement sent by God for our sins" — in particular the sins of untouchability. "For me there is a vital connection between the Bihar calamity and the untouchability campaign."

Tagore, who equally abhorred untouchability and had joined Gandhi in the movements against it, protested against this interpretation of an event that had caused suffering and death to so many innocent people, including children and babies. He also hated the epistemology implicit in seeing an earthquake as caused by ethical failure. "It is," he wrote, "all the more unfortunate because this kind of unscientific view of [natural] phenomena is too readily accepted by a large section of our countrymen."

The two remained deeply divided over their attitudes toward science. However, while Tagore believed that modern science was essential to the understanding of physical phenomena, his views on epistemology were interestingly heterodox. He did not take the simple "realist" position often associated with modern science. The report of his conversation with Einstein, published in The New York Times in 1930, shows how insistent Tagore was on interpreting truth through observation and reflective concepts. To assert that something is true or untrue in the absence of anyone to observe or perceive its truth, or to form a conception of what it is, appeared to Tagore to be deeply questionable. When Einstein remarked, "If there were no human beings any more, the Apollo Belvedere no longer would be beautiful?" Tagore simply replied, "No." Going further—and into much more interesting territory—Einstein said, "I agree with regard to this conception of beauty, but not with regard to truth." Tagore's response was: "Why not? Truth is realized through men."19


Albert Einstein and Tagore, in New York, 1930.
Photo: Martin Vos/Rabindra Bhavan, Shantiniketan

Tagore's epistemology, which he never pursued systematically, would seem to be searching for a line of reasoning that would later be elegantly developed by Hilary Putnam, who has argued: "Truth depends on conceptual schemes and it is nonetheless 'real truth.'"20 Tagore himself said little to explain his convictions, but it is important to take account of his heterodoxy, not only because his speculations were invariably interesting, but also because they illustrate how his support for any position, including his strong interest in science, was accompanied by critical scrutiny.


Nationalism and Colonialism
Tagore was predictably hostile to communal sectarianism (such as a Hindu orthodoxy that was antagonistic to Islamic, Christian, or Sikh perspectives). But even nationalism seemed to him to be suspect. Isaiah Berlin summarizes well Tagore's complex position on Indian nationalism:

Tagore stood fast on the narrow causeway, and did not betray his vision of the difficult truth. He condemned romantic overattachment to the past, what he called the tying of India to the past "like a sacrificial goat tethered to a post," and he accused men who displayed it - they seemed to him reactionary - of not knowing what true political freedom was, pointing out that it is from English thinkers and English books that the very notion of political liberty was derived. But against cosmopolitanism he maintained that the English stood on their own feet, and so must Indians. In 1917 he once more denounced the danger of ‘leaving everything to the unalterable will of the Master,' be he brahmin or Englishman.21
The duality Berlin points to is well reflected also in Tagore's attitude toward cultural diversity. He wanted Indians to learn what is going on elsewhere, how others lived, what they valued, and so on, while remaining interested and involved in their own culture and heritage. Indeed, in his educational writings the need for synthesis is strongly stressed. It can also be found in his advice to Indian students abroad. In 1907 he wrote to his son-in-law Nagendranath Gangulee, who had gone to America to study agriculture:

To get on familiar terms with the local people is a part of your education. To know only agriculture is not enough; you must know America too. Of course if, in the process of knowing America, one begins to lose one's identity and falls into the trap of becoming an Americanised person contemptuous of everything Indian, it is preferable to stay in a locked room.
Tagore was strongly involved in protest against the Raj on a number of occasions, most notably in the movement to resist the 1905 British proposal to split in two the province of Bengal, a plan that was eventually withdrawn following popular resistance. He was forthright in denouncing the brutality of British rule in India, never more so than after the Amritsar massacre of April 13, 1919, when 379 unarmed people at a peaceful meeting were gunned down by the army, and two thousand more were wounded. Between April 23 and 26, Rabindranath wrote five agitated letters to C.F. Andrews, who himself was extremely disturbed, especially after he was told by a British civil servant in India that thanks to this show of strength, the "moral prestige" of the Raj had "never been higher."

A month after the massacre, Tagore wrote to the Viceroy of India, asking to be relieved of the knighthood he had accepted four years earlier:

The disproportionate severity of the punishments inflicted upon the unfortunate people and the methods of carrying them out, we are convinced, are without parallel in the history of civilized governments, barring some conspicuous exceptions, recent and remote. Considering that such treatment has been meted out to a population, disarmed and resourceless, by a power which has the most terribly efficient organisation for destruction of human lives, we must strongly assert that it can claim no political expediency, far less moral justification.... The universal agony of indignation roused in the hearts of our people has been ignored by our rulers - possibly congratulating themselves for imparting what they imagine as salutary lessons…. I for my part want to stand, shorn of all special distinctions, by the side of those of my countrymen who for their so-called insignificance are liable to suffer a degradation not fit for human beings.
Both Gandhi and Nehru expressed their appreciation of the important part Tagore took in the national struggle. It is fitting that after independence, India chose a song of Tagore ("Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka," which can be roughly translated as "the leader of people's minds") as its national anthem. Since Bangladesh would later choose another song of Tagore ("Amar Sonar Bangla") as its national anthem, he may be the only one ever to have authored the national anthems of two different countries.

Tagore's criticism of the British administration of India was consistently strong and grew more intense over the years. This point is often missed, since he made a special effort to dissociate his criticism of the Raj from any denigration of British—or Western—people and culture. Mahatma Gandhi's well-known quip in reply to a question, asked in England, on what he thought of Western civilization ("It would be a good idea") could not have come from Tagore's lips. He would understand the provocations to which Gandhi was responding - involving cultural conceit as well as imperial tyranny. D.H. Lawrence supplied a fine example of the former: "I become more and more surprised to see how far higher, in reality, our European civilization stands than the East, Indian and Persian, ever dreamed of…. This fraud of looking up to them—this wretched worship-of-Tagore attitude is disgusting." But, unlike Gandhi, Tagore could not, even in jest, be dismissive of Western civilization.

Critique of Patriotism
Rabindranath rebelled against the strongly nationalist form that the independence movement often took, and this made him refrain from taking a particularly active part in contemporary politics. He wanted to assert India's right to be independent without denying the importance of what India could learn—freely and profitably—from abroad. He was afraid that a rejection of the West in favor of an indigenous Indian tradition was not only limiting in itself; it could easily turn into hostility to other influences from abroad, including Christianity, which came to parts of India by the fourth century; Judaism, which came through Jewish immigration shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, as did Zoroastrianism through Parsi immigration later on (mainly in the eighth century), and, of course—and most importantly—Islam, which has had a very strong presence in India since the tenth century.

Tagore's criticism of patriotism is a persistent theme in his writings. As early as 1908, he put his position succinctly in a letter replying to the criticism of Abala Bose, the wife of a great Indian scientist, Jagadish Chandra Bose: "Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live." His novel Ghare Baire (The Home and the World) has much to say about this theme. In the novel, Nikhil, who is keen on social reform, including women's liberation, but cool toward nationalism, gradually loses the esteem of his spirited wife, Bimala, because of his failure to be enthusiastic about anti-British agitations, which she sees as a lack of patriotic commitment. Bimala becomes fascinated with Nikhil's nationalist friend Sandip, who speaks brilliantly and acts with patriotic militancy, and she falls in love with him. Nikhil refuses to change his views: "I am willing to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it."22...

Tagore would also oppose the cultural nationalism that has recently been gaining some ground in India, along with an exaggerated fear of the influence of the West. He was uncompromising in his belief that human beings could absorb quite different cultures in constructive ways:

Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin. I am proud of my humanity when I can acknowledge the poets and artists of other countries as my own. Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that all the great glories of man are mine. Therefore it hurts me deeply when the cry of rejection rings loud against the West in my country with the clamour that Western education can only injure us.
In this context, it is important to emphasize that Rabindranath was not short of pride in India's own heritage, and often spoke about it. He lectured at Oxford, with evident satisfaction, on the importance of India's religious ideas—quoting both from ancient texts and from popular poetry (such as the verses of the sixteenth-century Muslim poet Kabir). In 1940, when he was given an honorary doctorate by Oxford University, in a ceremony arranged at his own educational establishment in Santiniketan ("In Gangem Defluit Isis," Oxford helpfully explained), to the predictable "volley of Latin" Tagore responded "by a volley of Sanskrit," as Marjorie Sykes, a Quaker friend of Rabindranath, reports. Her cheerful summary of the match, "India held its own," was not out of line with Tagore's pride in Indian culture. His welcoming attitude to Western civilization was reinforced by this confidence: he did not see India's culture as fragile and in need of "protection" from Western influence.’





'Farmers in hundreds have resorted to rasta roko (road blockade) between Mandya-Mysore, Mysore-Chamrajanagar and Bangalore-Hassan and stopped movement of buses, trucks and private vehicles. We have deployed enough forces, including platoons of the Rapid Action Force (RAF), to deal with the situation,' Srinivasan said.

According to South Western Railway sources, the shuttle services between Bangalore-Mysore were affected due to stoppage of trains at Mandya, Maddur and other smaller stations by restive farmers and agricultural labourers for whom the river Cauvery is a lifeline.