The 1916 'Shakespeare Hut' for the troops - Dr. Ailsa Grant Ferguson
What ho! For Shakespeare when we get back to Blighty!
The outbreak of the Great War halted all progress toward the development of a National Theatre and in August 1914 the National Theatre Committee suspended operations. It was not until 1916 that they thought of the vacant site they owned and the possibility of turning it to patriotic account by lending it to the YMCA for the erection of a Shakespeare Hut for the entertainment and social service of the troops.On 8th April Rabindranath read the essay, " The meeting of the East and West" in the "Shakespeare Hut" , the Hostel of Indian students situated at Keppel Street. The meeting was presided by Nevinson. "The Morning Post" reported on 9th April, about this lecture quoting the visit of the war field in France;
" ...The awful calm of desolation brought before his mind the vision of a huge demon. Something of the same kind of image was produced in his mind when he realised the touch of the west on Eastern life.The west came not with the imagination and sympathy that creates and unites, but with shock of passion and the power of wealth...The East was waiting to be understood by the Western races . The western mind had not evolved an enthusiasm of chivalrous ideal that could bring this age to its fulfillment. The time had come when Europe must know that the forcible parasitism she had been practising on two great continents must cause atrophy to herself. Modern politicians used the word "mandate' instead of the honest word "possession ".
An English lady came to Rabindranath to lodge her protest against the above statement. But as she could not meet him due to his absence, she lodged a written protest. In reply to her protest Rabindranath informed her on 12th April, "the assumption of the indignation expressed against the British in the statement inherits the unconscious accumulation of the seeds of narrow-nationalism. He bears the same sympathy to all the helpless nations of East and West who are being exploited, oppressed and defamed by another country. The injustice done to the helpless American Nigroes, Koreans sacrificed by the Japanese imperialism, and the helpless people of his own country are the causes of woe of his mind." In other words, " though I sometimes congratulate my for my own freedom from race-consciousness, very likely a sufficient amount of it is lingering in my subconscious mind making itself evident to outsiders in my writings through special empsis of pride at some great thoughts or good deeds of India , or or special emphasis of indignation at any unjust suffering or humiliation she is made to undergo, I hope, that I can claim forgiveness for this weakness considering that I never try to condone any wrongs done by my countrymen against others belonging to different communities from ours."
In this context, it can be remembered the essay " Bideshiya atithi ebang Deshiya aatithya " written by Rabindranath the agitation launched by the orthodox Hindus after the cremation of India Lover Karl Hammer Gren in Nimtola Ghat.
Henry Nevinson wrote an essay on this in "The Nation" on 9th April.
Rabindranath read the essay "The Village Mystics" in Shakespeare Hut, presided by Sir Francis Edward Younghusband, 1863-1942.
