Thursday, September 13, 2012

Rabindranath Tagore in China (Sanghai) - contd-2

Rabindranath returned to Sanghai on 17th April. Some  Japanese residing  in Sanghai gave a reception to Rabindranath at a Japanese school in North Szechwan Road. The reply made by Rabindranath was taken down by Elmhistand printed with the title " Talks in China [1924]. He quoted from memory the incident of his visit to Japan in 1916;
" I had some glimpses of also of political Japan that was intent upon profit making and augmenting political power -- rigid, exclusive, suspicious, lacking in humanity." For this Japan was not solely responsible. --" Power is rampant in the human world to-day, the power of money, of machine guns and of bomb-dropping aeroplanes , and the primitive in us stands once more, in awe of that which is neither spiritual nor moral."  
Many in the audience could not appreciate the censor of the mechanical strength of the West.The Peking Leader criticized the statement of Rabindranath Tagore.
Biographer of Rabindranath wrote;
" Rabindranath was greeted on another day by a Jewish-Sangha in the house of Mr. Kdoorie. This incident was reported in Viswabharati Bulletin  of Viswabharati Quarterly, Oct 1924 titled "Address to Rabindranath on behalf of the Jewish Community in China". Kadoorie himself was a poet. In welcoming Rabindramnath he said, "A few years back, he wrote a Kabya-Grantha titled  The Wedding of Death, the critics after reading the book said that Rabindranath's ideas had been reflected in the book. 'This immediately aroused my great interest. Thanks to Dr. Tagore, an inspired vision of a new world was put before my eyes.'. " He contributed Rs. 12,000/- only to Viswabharati for fighting out scarcity of water.