A Poet’s Pursuit for Peace

Over the past few decades, especially post-1962, India’s relations with China have lost a lot of warmth. From the time of Adrish Bardhan, the first known Bengali–Indian traveller to China, and Hue-en-Sung, the first known Chinese traveller to India, way back between 629–645 CE, Indo-Chinese relations had many aspects besides trade, and there was a strong socio-cultural bond between these two ancient civilisations. Kabiguru Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian Nobel laureate, was instrumental in furthering this bond. During his first visit to China on April 12, 1924, a 101 years ago, he spoke at length about the message of love bridging the chasm of passions which existed for ages, establishing bonds of spiritual relationship between India and China.

To quote Tagore:

“The time is at hand when we shall once again be proud to belong to a continent which produces the light that radiates through the storm-clouds of trouble and illuminates the path of life. Your [read: Chinese] influence suggests the very return of spring: as sudden and marvellous. Our youth, newly emancipated, like the tender buds on the stem, need but the embrace of the Southern breeze and the kiss of the morning dew to set them a-flower; and you have supplied it. Your poems have coloured our warp of thinking and feeling, have revealed new possibilities in our otherwise rigid and lurid language.”

How true! Even today, those of us who were born and lived in Kolkata in the sixties, seventies, and eighties (it is not kall-kata or koll-katta, for god’s sake!) know about the existence of Chinatown in the south-eastern part of the city, where sizeable numbers of the Chinese population used to live. The best shoemakers and the best dentists in Kolkata were the Chinese. There were three Chinese schools in Chinatown for Chinese students, where the language was taught along with other subjects. Two Chinese dailies (one was closed in the late ’70s) were also published from Chinatown in Kolkata. However, that is history—or is in the process of becoming history, sooner rather than later.

Mr. Kshitimohan Sen and the famous painter Nandalal Bose accompanied Kabiguru on his first visit to China, along with a group of people, on the invitation of the Beijing Lecture Association. Sinologist Tan Yun-Shan, the great Chinese scholar and founder of Santiniketan’s Cheena Bhawan—the oldest centre of Chinese studies in South Asia—very strongly propagated Indo-China cultural friendship. Prof. Lokesh Chandra, the great Indian scholar and expert on Buddhism, including the Mandarin language, as well as Indian art and the Vedas, who has several hundreds of books and articles published to his credit, strongly advocates keeping the socio-cultural relations and aspirations of both these civilisations alive.

Prof. Tan Yun-Shan, who was a friend of Mao Zedong and breathed his last in 1983 at Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India, strongly believed that the 1962 Chinese aggression was a huge mistake on the part of China. He was extremely fond of Tagore and said, “Whenever I saw him, I always felt a kind of divine light, mingled with love, mercy, bliss, and joy, pouring out from him upon me. Gurudev’s (a title coined by Mahatma Gandhi) love for China, its people, and its culture was indeed very great and profound. I can quite safely say without any exaggeration that he loved China as much as he loved his own country.”

While there cannot be any compromise on the recent Chinese aggression to capture our land or to meddle in our immediate neighbourhood to expand their hegemony—which should and will always be dealt with strong diplomatic, and if need be, military action—efforts should also be made to maintain a courteous socio-cultural relationship and people-to-people connection between the citizens of both these great old civilisations. In fact, that may pave the way and restrain the current greedy political regime of China (the communist regime is just about 100 years old there!) from continuing any kind of nefarious activities.

A century has passed since Kabiguru’s first trip to China. He was there as a messenger of peace and a prophet for the future. Though there have been profound changes and intense tensions between India and China, with allegations and counter-allegations, currently there is a thaw—courtesy the endeavours of our Prime Minister Modi and his constant efforts at all levels, including his personal good rapport with the current Chinese premier, to improve relations. It is imperative that the people of both countries, belonging to these two great civilisations, understand and respect each other. Attempts should continue to consider the literary, artistic, political, and spiritual exchanges that existed for so long—and were at their peak in the 1920s—as a basis for building a prosperous tomorrow with peace at the helm.

The writer is a senior Air Force Officer with long experience in Govt of Delhi as the State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (Jan 2021-Jan 2024), OSD to LG Delhi (2007-2013), Addl DG Prasar Bharati and several other key positions in the Govt of India. Views expressed are personal