Friday, December 16, 2011

Rabindranath and 1st World War

After visiting for 2 to 3 days in Allahabad, Rabindranath started for Bolpur on 20th December,1914 (5th Paush) and reached Santiniketan on 21st December (6th Paush) to celebrate 24th anniversary of Paush Utsab. He wrote a poem on that day, " Arochai je, Aro chai go.." In explaining the meaning of  the song, Rabindranath remembered 1st World War (1914-1918) that took place in Europe. But the idealistic poet Rabindranath  did not forget to see the progress of the Human society even in this inhuman war and said;
"Once you think and feel that the moment we are enjoying our festival, the people beyond the ocean are involved in terrible battle Could the morning sun light see the terror of the destruction. Standing on this horror the man is describing its glory - at the call of the history the people have come out of their abodes. Who is right and who is wrong - who is responsible and who is not are out of their agenda. But at the call of the history -- the Germany have come, the English have come, the French, the Beljium,  the Austrian and the Russian have come.The God of Time is accepting its homage through the traces of history. This battle is celebrating its festival. of war.
The command of the King of the History is - " it can't be that a nation could make its nationalism  narrow by continuously accumulating own interest. The human being was so long sacrificing human body to the deity of  the  interest of its own country. The order of the day is to demolish the pagoda of the evil spirit of narrow nationalism. The God of the eternity ordered today that the sacrifice of the human body will no longer continue and the duty of every body is to destroy the temple of the self-centered nationalism and make it flat. Henceforth there will be no sacrifice of human body. As soon as this instruction was issued cannon ball was hurled on the walls of the narrow nationalism. The thunder of the cannon has blown the song of victory of the humanity."
Rabindranath might have visualised the victory of democracy against the fascism.