Having come back to Berlin in Germany Rabindranath stayed for a few days as a guest in Dr. Mendez's house and started for America from Humburg along with Aryum and Timber.
He reached America on 10th Oct 1930 at New York and went to Boston. He remained there as a guest of Bishop Padok. From there he went to New York via Philadelphia on 3rd nov.
He came to America in 1912-13, 1916-17, 1920-21, 1929, and 1930. the seventeen months spent during these five different stays was the longest aggregate of time that he passed in any country outside India, with sole exception of England. .
Tagore’s final trip to the U.S. in 1930 was, by comparison to the intermediate visits in the 1920s, a definite success. Though he still took every opportunity to scold western militarism and American business practices (while politely requesting American money for his university), Tagore got invites to all the right parties:
Apart from [Tagore's] striking looks and personality, India was in the news because of Gandhi, and Tagore’s [sympathetic] attitude to Soviet Russia had aroused curiosity; probably too, editors realized that this would be Tagore’s last visit. In the sixty-seven days Tagore was in the USA, the New York Times ran twenty-one reports on him, including two interviews and a beautiful photograph of him with Einstein, captioned ‘A mathematician and a mystic meet in Manhattan.’ He was given a private interview with President Hoover, introduced by the British ambassador (a strange contrast with British official behaviour in 1917-1918. When Tagore once more spoke at Carnegie Hall in New York, which held 4000 people, thousands had to be turned away. A dance performance was given at the Broadway Theater by Ruth St. Denis as a benefit for Shantiniketan; Tagore appeared on stage introduced by his admirer Will Durant. There were exhibitions of his paintings in New York and Boston, to which Ananda Coomaraswamy wrote an interesting introduction. (Dutta and Robinson, 298)
On this final visit, Tagore was more careful than earlier about how he posed his critique of western civilization. But he was still ready to dish it:
At a dinner in New York in his honour . . . in the presence of Franklin Roosevelt, the governor of New York, Sinclair Lewis, the latest Nobel laureate in literature . . . and five hundred others, Tagore said: ‘The age belongs to the West and humanity must be grateful to you for your science. But you have exploited those who are helpless and humiliated those who are unfortunate with this gift. A great portion of the world suffers from your civilization.’ At Carnegie Hall a week later, he went even further. As always he expressed admiration for the ideals of liberty and self-expression of the West at the close of the nineteenth century, but he deplored its failure to live up to them in the East, in particular the failure of Americans to recognize the appeal of India to be free. ‘Our appeal does not reach you, because you respond only to the appeal of power.’ Japan appealed to you and you answered because she was able to prove she would make herself as obnoxious as you can.’ This remark ‘elicited considerable laughter and hand-clapping’, according to the New York Times (Dutta and Robinson, 300-301)
Reading this account today provokes several thoughts.
It’s important to keep in mind that Tagore was not a life-long nationalist figure. He was responding to the situation, and making his critique in language which he thought his listeners would understand. If someone with the Tagore’s aristocratic demeanor were around today, he would be talking about very different kinds of issues, and doing it differently. Hopefully, he would be aware that talk of “civilizations” is generally oversimplified and counterproductive. But he made his point: Tagore’s aim was criticize an unjust practice (colonialism) and an international system (the League of Nations) which was thoroughly unsympathetic to the plight of colonized people in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Moreover, he was – in the halls of American power — pointing out how badly the international system was, even on its own terms, utterly failing.
In some respects, it’s surprising how similar America today is to the America of the 1910s and 20s. There is something very typical about the media frenzy that accompanied his first major lecture tour, the dud of his intervening visits, and finally the glamor (with dignity) he managed to get on his last visit there in 1930. He had weathered the initial clamor and the subsequent backlash, and had ended up as a kind of “opinionated celebrity.”
Of course, being a “celebrity” rather than an actual political organizer or a committed philosopher has its limits, and it’s hard to say whether Tagore’s visits to the U.S. had any lasting impact in the American imagination. Certainly, the self-translated Gitanjali has pretty much always been in print, though it has few champions amongst serious literary critics. (These days, Tagore’s novels in Bangla are read much more closely; some, like Gora, have been newly translated.) However, though Tagore’s literary reputation was generally in decline in the west in his later years, it always remained high in India (where Tagore’s “Jana Gana Mana” was adopted as the national anthem), and particularly in Bengal (where ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ remains incredibly popular and influential). But for all the work fundraising, Shantiniketan suffered for a long while, never quite becoming the site of worldly enlightenment Tagore had hoped for (Visva-Bharati University prospers today). Finally, Tagore’s point about the U.S. only recognizing an opposing perspective when backed up by force seems as true today as it was then. At the very least, it seems clear that Tagore knew the American media beast for what it was, and found a way to work with it without compromising himself.
Tagore was the first Indian writer to really succeed on a global stage not as a curiosity or show-piece, but on the strength of his ideas and his writings. He did a lot to overcome western misconceptions about Indians, even if he did (especially early on) play into some western stereotypes of mystic India. He also probably helped fight the dominant racism of the time, partly by example and partly by his specific political ideas and positions.
He reached America on 10th Oct 1930 at New York and went to Boston. He remained there as a guest of Bishop Padok. From there he went to New York via Philadelphia on 3rd nov.He came to America in 1912-13, 1916-17, 1920-21, 1929, and 1930. the seventeen months spent during these five different stays was the longest aggregate of time that he passed in any country outside India, with sole exception of England. .
Tagore’s final trip to the U.S. in 1930 was, by comparison to the intermediate visits in the 1920s, a definite success. Though he still took every opportunity to scold western militarism and American business practices (while politely requesting American money for his university), Tagore got invites to all the right parties:
Apart from [Tagore's] striking looks and personality, India was in the news because of Gandhi, and Tagore’s [sympathetic] attitude to Soviet Russia had aroused curiosity; probably too, editors realized that this would be Tagore’s last visit. In the sixty-seven days Tagore was in the USA, the New York Times ran twenty-one reports on him, including two interviews and a beautiful photograph of him with Einstein, captioned ‘A mathematician and a mystic meet in Manhattan.’ He was given a private interview with President Hoover, introduced by the British ambassador (a strange contrast with British official behaviour in 1917-1918. When Tagore once more spoke at Carnegie Hall in New York, which held 4000 people, thousands had to be turned away. A dance performance was given at the Broadway Theater by Ruth St. Denis as a benefit for Shantiniketan; Tagore appeared on stage introduced by his admirer Will Durant. There were exhibitions of his paintings in New York and Boston, to which Ananda Coomaraswamy wrote an interesting introduction. (Dutta and Robinson, 298)
On this final visit, Tagore was more careful than earlier about how he posed his critique of western civilization. But he was still ready to dish it:
At a dinner in New York in his honour . . . in the presence of Franklin Roosevelt, the governor of New York, Sinclair Lewis, the latest Nobel laureate in literature . . . and five hundred others, Tagore said: ‘The age belongs to the West and humanity must be grateful to you for your science. But you have exploited those who are helpless and humiliated those who are unfortunate with this gift. A great portion of the world suffers from your civilization.’ At Carnegie Hall a week later, he went even further. As always he expressed admiration for the ideals of liberty and self-expression of the West at the close of the nineteenth century, but he deplored its failure to live up to them in the East, in particular the failure of Americans to recognize the appeal of India to be free. ‘Our appeal does not reach you, because you respond only to the appeal of power.’ Japan appealed to you and you answered because she was able to prove she would make herself as obnoxious as you can.’ This remark ‘elicited considerable laughter and hand-clapping’, according to the New York Times (Dutta and Robinson, 300-301)
Reading this account today provokes several thoughts.
It’s important to keep in mind that Tagore was not a life-long nationalist figure. He was responding to the situation, and making his critique in language which he thought his listeners would understand. If someone with the Tagore’s aristocratic demeanor were around today, he would be talking about very different kinds of issues, and doing it differently. Hopefully, he would be aware that talk of “civilizations” is generally oversimplified and counterproductive. But he made his point: Tagore’s aim was criticize an unjust practice (colonialism) and an international system (the League of Nations) which was thoroughly unsympathetic to the plight of colonized people in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Moreover, he was – in the halls of American power — pointing out how badly the international system was, even on its own terms, utterly failing.
In some respects, it’s surprising how similar America today is to the America of the 1910s and 20s. There is something very typical about the media frenzy that accompanied his first major lecture tour, the dud of his intervening visits, and finally the glamor (with dignity) he managed to get on his last visit there in 1930. He had weathered the initial clamor and the subsequent backlash, and had ended up as a kind of “opinionated celebrity.”
Of course, being a “celebrity” rather than an actual political organizer or a committed philosopher has its limits, and it’s hard to say whether Tagore’s visits to the U.S. had any lasting impact in the American imagination. Certainly, the self-translated Gitanjali has pretty much always been in print, though it has few champions amongst serious literary critics. (These days, Tagore’s novels in Bangla are read much more closely; some, like Gora, have been newly translated.) However, though Tagore’s literary reputation was generally in decline in the west in his later years, it always remained high in India (where Tagore’s “Jana Gana Mana” was adopted as the national anthem), and particularly in Bengal (where ‘Rabindra Sangeet’ remains incredibly popular and influential). But for all the work fundraising, Shantiniketan suffered for a long while, never quite becoming the site of worldly enlightenment Tagore had hoped for (Visva-Bharati University prospers today). Finally, Tagore’s point about the U.S. only recognizing an opposing perspective when backed up by force seems as true today as it was then. At the very least, it seems clear that Tagore knew the American media beast for what it was, and found a way to work with it without compromising himself.
