Subhas Chandra wrote in his autobiography; "describing in detail when he came to Sriniketan, Calcutta, to inaugurate Shilpa Bhavan on 8th Dec 1938" ;
" Today I remember an incident 24 years back when I was student. One day we, 15/20 students, came to Rabindranath for seeking his advice . I think all of you remember the state of Bengal and that of India, 24 years back. The youths of India were attracted by different forces created from different directions. The ideals of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda were attracting them in one direction and the freedom struggle led by the revolutionaries of India was acting in another direction. At that time, we did not have any idea about the topics he might mention to us." He said, on that day, about his ideas of reconstruction of villages and its necessity in our country. He took long time but there was no excitement in his speech. At first we could not follow his advice why he was talking about a dull programme of reconstruction of villages. To speak frankly, we did not get any inspiration from him on that day.... After 1921 when Mahatma Gandhi took the leadership of freedom movement of India, the term "reconstruction of village was heard in the mouths of males and females of India and some works had also been started in that direction as per the instruction of Mahatma Gandhi. But the thing is that we have heard these words from our Poet in 1914 and he is the pioneer of such ideas in India."
In 1916 when Subhas chandra was a student of Presidency College the " Oten-incident made Rabindranath acquainted with the name of Subhas Chandra. He wrote an essay " Indian students and Western Teachers" to rouse the sympathy of the general people against the punishment given to Subhas chandra and the other students by Lord Carmichael and the then English teachers. The copies of the translation in English of the essay written by Rabindranath , published in Modern Review, were sent to several persons.Though he could not save the students from their punishment but it had expressed his own sympathetic feeling to Subhas Chandra and other students.
When Rabindranath was in Cambridge in his tour programme, Subhas Chandra was reading Tripos in Cambridge, After resigning from the civil service he wrote to Charu Chandra Gangopadhyay, " I could not fix up my mind , what I should do now. Either to go to Ramkrishna Mission, or to Bolpur, Santiniketan."
In the mean time he met Rabindranath in the same ship in which he was going to India.Here, also,
Rabindranath said to him about the constructive work of reconstruction of villages of India. Subhas Chandra wrote, " we had also the opportunity of discussing about the policy of non-cooperation movement accepted by the Congress . He was not, in principle, against this policy.His earnest desire is to do more and more constructive work so that we can for an independent state within another state. What he said at that time has got similarity with that Sinn Fein movemen (Sinn Féin- English pronunciation: /ˌʃɪnˈfɛɪn/, shin-FAYN, Irish: [ʃɪnʲ fʲeːnʲ]) is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970 after a split within the party. Sinn Féin is led by Gerry Adams. Sinn Féin is the only party in Ireland which has elected representatives in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.[6] The party has historically been associated with the Provisional IRAt of Ireland. ) " Subhas Chandra said that he too possessed the same opinion.
On 21 June 1920, hen Rabindranath was in Cambridge, Subhas Chandra was a student and on 22April 1921, after resigning from ICS , he wrote to Charuchandra Gangopadhyay , ' Still I cannot decide what to do, either to go to Ramkrishna Mission or to Bolpore " . Probably he was remembering the idea of reconstrution of villages of Rabindranath.
While moving in the ship he met again with Rabindranath who also spoke him
about the reconstruction of villages.
But after coming to India Subhas Chandra joined the non-cooperation movement under the leadership of Chittaranjan Das and the difference of opinion with Rabindranath was gradually enlarged.
