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Journal of Human Values

DOI: 10.1177/0971685801007001052001; 7; 43Journal of Human ValuesAnanta Kumar Giri

Gandhi, Tagore and a New Ethics of Argumentation

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Gandhi, Tagore and a New Ethics ofArgumentation

ANANTA KUMAR GIRI

Ananta Kumar Giri is Faculty Member, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai.

Discourse, dialogue and deliberation are important frames for thinking about and creating an ideal inter-subjective condition and a dignifiedsociety at present. This article presents the contours of such a new ethics

of argumentation by carrying out a detailed discussion of the relationship between Gandhi and Tagore, andthe way they argued with each other. Their arguments and counter-arguments were not for the sake ofwin-ning any egotistic victory butfor exploring truth. It also connects this new ethics ofargumentation in dia-logue with the agenda of moral argumentation offered by JurgenHabermas, the heart-touchingsocial theor-ist ofour time.

The Mahatma has won the heart of India

with his love .... He has given us a vision of

the Shakti of truth.... But the golden rod,which can awaken our country in Truth and

Love is not a thing which can be manufac-tured by the nearest goldsmith. To thewielder of that rod our profound salutation!But if having seen Truth, our belief in it isnot confirmed, what is the good of it all?Our mind must acknowledge the Truth ofthe intellect, just as our heart does the Truthof love.

Rabindranath Tagorel

Of what should the Poet be jealous in me?... Well, I have never succeeded in writing a

single rhyme in my life. The Poet lives in a

magnificent world of his own creation-his

world of ideas. I am a slave of somebodyelses creation-the spinning wheel. The Poetmakes his gopis dance to the tune of hisflute. I wander after my beloved Sita, theCharkha and seek to deliver her from the

ten-headed monster from Japan, Manches-

ter, Paris, etc. The Poet is an inventor-he

creates, destroys and recreates. I am an ex-

plorer and having discovered a thing I must

cling to it.... Thus, there is no competition

between us. But I may say in all humilitythat we complement each others activity.If the Poet spun half an hour daily his poetrywould gain in richness. For it would then

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represent the poor mans wants and woes in

. a more forcible manner than now.

M.K. Gandhiz

Introduction and Invitation

To love is not to suppress ones dissent for the

sake of outward peace but to explore truth inthe wonderland of the world holding eachothers hand. Truth lies at the midpoint of life,at the midpoint of a conversation. The EternalFriend of the Bhagvad Gita, a text that inspiredGandhi and many others during Indias strug-

gle for freedom, tellsus

in the Viswarupa Dar-shana Yoga that god, our eternal friend, hashis habitation at the midpoint ofbada and pra-bada-argument and counter-argument. Whenwe read the argument and counter-argumentof Gandhi and Tagore, we slowly but surelyrealize that their argument was not for the

sake of winning any egotistic victory but for ex-

ploring truth. They argued with each other withlove and their argumentation combined cog-nition, empathy and agape,3 thus laying theseeds of a new ethics of argumentation. Both

Tagore and Gandhi were deeply concernedabout the present and future of India, and theyargued with each other with passion for thesake of clarifying an appropriate agenda of ac-tion and mode of being for Indias swaraj andfor a better world.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) andMohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)are known to us as Gurudev and Mahatma re-

spectively. We owe to both Tagore and Gandhithese evbcative and soul-touching names, nameswhich continue to inspire us to strive for great-ness in our lives and be worthy of the aspir-ations of the poet of Gitanjali who had oncewritten to Gandhi a poem offered to god:

Give me the supreme courage of love, this is

my prayer, the courage to speak, to do.

Give me the supreme faith of love, this is myGive me the supreme faith of love, this is myprayer, the faith of the life in death, of the

victory in defeats, of the power hidden inthe frailness of beauty, of the dignity of painthat accepts hurt, but disdains to return it.4

It is Tagore who had given the name Ma-hatma to Gandhi way back in 1915, and Gan-

dhi addressed Tagore not only as the Gurudevof Shantiniketan but also the Great Sentinel

of India and the world.

In the second decade of this century two In-

dians who had obtained international famewere Tagore and Gandhi. Tagore had receivedthe Nobel Prize in literature in 1913 and Gan-

dhis satyagraha in SouthAfrica had stirred the

imagination of people in India and the widerworld. Gandhi and Tagore knew each other

through their common friend C.FAndrewsbefore they met at Shantiniketan in 1915. Infact:

At the end of 1913,Andrews and Pearson[another devoted British follower of Tagore]resolved to visit Gandhi and to advance his

cause in SouthAfrica. On the eve of their

journey to Durban from Calcutta, they saw

Tagore to seek his blessings and two daysbefore their departure a meeting was heldat the Town Hall of Calcutta on 5 December1913 to consider the position of Indians inSouthAfrica. Tagore was one of the organ-

izers, and the letter requesting the Sheriffspermission to hold their meeting bore his

signature.5

But before coming to know about each other

through C.EAndrews, they were not total

strangers to each other either.As SabyasachiBhattacharya tells us in his recent work, TheMahatma and the Poet:



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It is on record that in 1901 at the Calcutta

session of the Indian National Congress,M.K. Gandhi moved a resolution as a peti-tioner on behalf of the hundred thousand

British Indians in SouthAfrica. On that oc-

casion, he met Rabindranaths elder brother

Jyotirindranath and, shortly after that, atranslation of one of .Gandhis articles on

the Indian settlers in SouthAfrica was pub-lished in the journal Bharathi, with which

the Tagores were associated.6

Though there is no evidence of personal en-counter between the two at this stage, there is

an affinity of spirit evident in what Tagorewrote of the Indian struggle for freedom as

early as 1908:

Let us not depart from the path of Truth

(Satya), that which is right.... It is regretta-ble that the terrors and upheavals of Europeare the only models before us. But the Chris-

tian saints who, by the strength of their faith,withstood the oppression of the Roman

Emperor triumphed in their death over the

Emperor....[DJharma can help us surpassoppression.7 ,

As we know, Gandhi came to Shantiniketan

in March 1915 to meet with Tagore and stayedthere for a month. Before his arrival he had

sent the inmates of his Phoenix ashram in

SouthAfrica to stay at Tagores ashram. Be-

fore the arrival of the Phoenix boys and finallyGandhis,Andrews had written about Gandhi

to Tagore: Mr Gandhi is not really fighting for

this privilege or that; he is fighting for the rightto be called not slaves. I cannot yet say I love

him. But I reverence [sic] and worship him asthe most heroic man I have known

Of these early encounters, we have twomemorable renderings. The first is provided

by Hugh Tinker, the biographer of Deenaban-dhu C.F.Andrews-the great soul who was a

friend of both Gandhi and Tagore and an in-

defatigable crusader for the realization of hu-man dignity. Gandhi had sent the inmates of hisashram to Shantiniketan and had decided to

make it his home before he built his own nest

in India because he saw that something was

underway in the remote corner of Bengal whichshared some trait with his own endeavour and

philosophy.9 But when Gandhis Phoenix boysarrived in Shantiniketan it seems they did notmake a not entirelywelcome impact upon the

dreamy, hedonistic ashram, asAndrews bio-grapher Hugh Tinker tells us.l Gandhis Phoe-nix boys did not agree with the ways ofTagoresashram where the predominantly Bengali stu-dents had accepted traditional caste practicesin the kitchen and dining hall and had expectedto have the menial work done by servants.&dquo;

These changes were reported to Tagore inhis Himalayan retreat; he observed of the

newcomers, Theyhave

disciplinewhere

they should have ideals. Then Tagore readin the Modem Review that under the Phoe-

nix influence the ashram students were giv-ing up sugar and ghee in order to contributeto a war-relief fund. He [Tagore] was not

pleased: Fasting is doing evil in order to do

good. But doing hard work will be a real testof their sincerity.12

For Tinker,Although Tagore

and Gandhi had

not yet come together, there was a sign thatthe Poet would not always find Gandhian ideas

acceptable .13Early in March 1915, Gandhi came to Shanti-

niketan for his first meetingwith Tagore.About

this Gandhi, biographer Shankar Bose wrote:

Gandhi, the lone, ascetic man of action, went

to Shantiniketan to meet Tagore, the poet-



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philosopher who looked stately in his flow-

ing beard and gown. This meeting betweenthe two men, both so firmly rooted in Indian

culture, was a picture in contrast and theydiscussed many matters including Gandhisfavourite subject of dietics. Gandhi main-tained that for making puris good grainswere converted into poison by frying thesame in ghee or oil. Tagore, the lover of artand life, said that he had been eating purisall his life and they did him no harm.4

But the puri is not the only thing on whose

significance Gandhi and Tagore discussed anddiffered in their relationship of 26 years from1915 to 1941. Gandhi and Tagore argued on

many other things of personal, national andinternational significance. They had differ-ence of views on responding to the Jalianwala-

bag massacre, the non-cooperation movement,nationalism and internationalism, the signifi-cance of the charkha for the attainment of

swaraj, and on science and faith. But their dif-

ferences did not come in the

way

of their

deeplove, care and reverence for each other. In

fact, it is their love and care for each other that

probably enabled them to disagree with eachother with frankness. Tagore was deeply con-cerned about Gandhis health and well-beingand used to sendAndrews from time to time

to come to take personal care of him. Tagorerushed to Poona to be with Gandhi in Septem-ber 1932 as the latter had undertaken the

historic fast unto death against the British

communal award, which granted separate elect-orates to the untouchables. Though Tagorespared no word in making his critique of Gan-dhi clear, Tagore took exception to the vilifica-tion of Gandhi. In a statement on 6 February1934, Tagore tells us:

For some time past, I have been noting a

spirit of hostility amongst a certain section

of my countrymen against the latest activ-ities of Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatmaji is theone person who has done most to raise the

people up from the slough of despondencyand self-debasement to which they hadfallen through the centuries of servitude. To

malign a life so truly dedicated as his be-cause of occasional differences of opinionseems to be carrying the public ingratitudeto the point of meanness. 15

On his part, Gandhi was also deeply respectfulof Tagore and was concerned about his health

and well-being. While Gandhis followers weresometimes impatientwith Tagores criticism ofthe non-cooperation movement and the spin-ning wheel, Gandhi advised them to listen withcritical self-introspection to the warnings ofthe Great Sentinel, Gandhis celebrated namefor Tagore during these debates of the twenties.

Gandhi and Tagore:Converging and Diverging.

Pathways

After their 1915 meeting at Shantiniketan,Gandhi and Tagore met again in December1917 at Calcutta when Gandhi had gone to at-

tend a session of the Indian National Con-

gress. There he also watched Post Office, a playof Tagore where he himself was an actor. On12April 1919 Tagore had written to Gandhi,offering an early critique of Gandhis method

of passive resistance, a critique that was to bemore pointed in days and years to come. Inthis letter Tagore had written to Gandhi: Powerin all its forms is irrational....Passive resist-

ance is a force which is not necessarily moralin itself; it can be used against truth as well asfor it.16 Just a day after this epochal letter, thebrutality of the British empire was demon-strated in a naked manner in the Jalianwalabag



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massacre. This shocked both Tagore and Gan-dhi. Tagore renounced his knighthood. Gan-dhi hailed this as an inspiring act of identifica-

tion of the poet with the struggling masses.But after the massacre, Gandhi told the Hunter

Commission that the Congress evidence onthe massacre would not be produced unlessdetained Punjabi politicians were released.

Tagore, however, was not convinced that Gan-dhi was right in boycotting the commission.17Gandhi invited Tagore to open the annual

Gujarati Literary Conference and Tagore visitedAhmedabad in this connection in the first

week ofApril 1920, and spent a night withGandhi and his inmates at SabarmatiAshram.

In the following year, Tagore expressed strongreservation about Gandhis non-cooperationmovement. In fact, this was expressed in

Tagores letter to C.E Andrews and publishedin Calcuttas Modem Review of May 1921. For

Tagore, the idea of non-cooperation is polit-ical asceticism.18 On the issue of children leav-

ing school in the non-cooperation movement,

Tagore expressed his reservation too: Ourstudents are bringing their offering of sacrificeto what? Not to a fuller education but to non-

education. In his article, The PoetsAnxiety,published in YoungIndia of 1 June 1921, Gandhitried to allay Tagores fear that non-cooper-ation is not a doctrine of separation: On the

contrary, non-cooperation is intended to pavethe way to real, honourable and voluntary co-

operation based on mutual respect and trust.9

This dialogue between Gandhi and Tagorecontinued when Tagore was outside the coun-

try.After his return Gandhi met him in his

ancestral home at Jorasanko in Calcutta in

September 1921. Gandhi and Tagore held dis-cussions behind closed doors during which

onlyAndrews was present. During this meet-

ing Tagore is reported to have said to Gandhi:Poems I can spin, Gandhiji! songs and plays I

can spin, but of your precious cotton what amess I would make.2 During this period Gan-dhi and Tagore were debating with each otheron the non-cooperation movement and a littleabout the significance of the charkha in Indiaseconomic regeneration and in the freedom

struggle. The debate on the charkha was to takefull swing only after Gandhis release from jail.

About this, Bhattacharya tells us:

In the period between the arrest of MahatmaGandhi in March 1922 and his release in

February 1924, the Tagore-Gandhi debate

was, so to speak, suspended as Tagore didnot pursue his line of criticism when Gandhi

was incarcerated. Immediately on Gandhisrelease, Tagore sent him a cable: we re-

joice. He sent C.EAndrews to meet Gan-dhi at Sasson Hospital in Pune where hewas

recuperating. Gandhi visited Shantiniketanin 1925.About this time, Tagore took up thethreads of his earlier debate in a series of

articles in Modern Review while Gandhi re-

sponded through essays in Young India.21

As we proceed further in recording the cross-

cutting pathways in the lives of Gandhi and

Tagore, we may note that Gandhis fasts and

satyagraha had created many ripples in Shanti-niketan. The late G. Ramachandran, the greatGandhian worker and founder of GandhigramRural Institute, once chaired a debate on the

comparative relevance of Gandhi and Tagore

in which students of Shantiniketan had takenpart. In this public debate students had over-

whelmingly voted for Gandhi, and Tagore was

very pleased with this. For him, this was an evi-dence offreedom of thought in Shantiniketan,which he valued highly and had patiently cul-tivated. But Tagore biographers Dutta andRobinson provide us many instances where

Tagores reception of Gandhi might not have



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been always a cordial one. Before we closelyread the following account given to us by these

two biographers, it must be taken note of that

these two writers seem to take a pleasure in

putting Gandhi and Tagore in antagonisticterms. Note their following comments:

AlthoughTagore had deep reservation aboutmodern civilization, machines and cities at

bottom he accepted them. FundamentallyTagore was humble, willing to learn as wellas to teach until the day he died; whereas

Gandhi, for all his self-analysis, thought he

knew better than anyone else in all matters

of importance.22

But when we read Gandhi and hold his hands

in his pilgrimage of life we find such an accus-

ation untrue. If Tagore was learning and

teaching until the day he died so was Gandhi.The day on which a mad mans bullet took

away this great servant of humanity from our

midst, Gandhi was learning Bengali alphabets.

Now, let us come to the incident which Duttaand Robinson provide in their biography of

Tagore. This involves Elmhirst, anAmerican

faculty member in Shantiniketan who was in

charge of Tagores Centre for Rural Develop-ment, Sriniketan. On l3,April 1922, the third

anniversary of Jalianwalabag massacre, Elm-hirst had planned a picnic for the inmates ofShantiniketanAshram. But the captain of the

Ashram told him that they could not have a

picnic as some of the boys had gone on fast tocommemorate the victims of Jalianwalabag.Elmhirst wrote about this to his girlfriendDorothy Straight in the US on the same day:

No village fires were lit today, no shopswere open, Gandhis festival was observed

and, if ever a man who was condemned

by his legacy, it is Gandhi. Here are we a

supposedly International Institution cele-

brating hatred, commemorating a thing thatdivides and appeals to basic passions. But Isaid nothing, I knew it would be of no use.

So I left Goura and went across to the Poets

bungalow and found him withAndrews andMorris.... He insisted on my sharing tea andthen I told him how sorry I was about the

fasting business. He [Tagore] burst out in

indignation, saying how ashamed he wasthat his own students and staff should muti-

late his way and then, turning toAndrews,he said point blank, AndAndrews, it is youwho are responsible.23

The above narration of Elmhirst suggeststhat Tagore was not always at ease with Gan-dhis non-cooperation movement and his

strategy of fasting. We shall encounter thesedifferences more markedly when we come todiscuss at length Gandhi and Tagores debateson these issues. But Elmhirsts portrayal ofShantiniketan as an international institution

and his implicit understanding that as an inter-national institution it should distance itself

from the supposed hatred of Gandhis non-

cooperation movement, as we shall see, is intune with Tagores criticism of the supposedchauvinistic foundation of Gandhis non-co-

operation movement.And Tagores supposedreprimand ofAndrews, as depicted in theabove passage, for bringing the dangerousideas of Gandhi to Shantiniketan, if it can be

accepted at face value, again point to the un-ease within Tagore for Gandhis method and

struggle. But the veracity of this may requirefurther probing as Elmhirst andAndrews werenot the best of friends and they were stung byjealousy.24 But the very fact that one could jus-tify the holding of a picnic on a day of national

mourning such as the anniversary of the Jalian-

walabag massacre provides us a glimpse of the



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mind of some of the international followers

of Tagore.To come back to our narrative of the inter-

twined pathways of Gandhi and Tagore, Gan-dhi had come again to Shantiniketan after10 years in 1925. Gandhi was then touringBengal from end to end in support of hischarkha movement.About this Tagore biog-rapher G.D. Khanolkar tells us in his The Luteand the Plough:

On 29 May [1925] Gandhi came to Shanti-niketan and had two days talks with Tagore,

which ended leaving both men exactly wheretheywere, neither feeling able to modify hisstand by a jolt. Dwijendranath [Tagores elder

brother] was in full sympathy with Gandhiji,in whose activities he saw the countrys bright-est hope. He sharply reprimanded Tagorefor his resistance to Gandhiji. But Tagorelistened in meek silence, checking the replywhich he knew would cause offence and irri-

tation.25

Gandhis visit to Tagore in Shantiniketan wasfollowed by Tagores visit to Gandhi at theSabaramatiAshram in 1931.

Tagore was then in Gujarat to collect fundsfor Shantiniketan. Gandhi told the poet, then

seventy, that as he could sing and dance hewas still young. Exactly a year later Gandhi,then in prison, was allowed by the jail au-thorities to

signan

appeal, alongwith Romain

Rolland andAlbert Einstein, for a book of

appreciation to be presented on Tagoresseventy-first birthday. 26

Next year on 29 September 1932 Gandhiundertook a fast unto death in opposition toPrime Minister McDonalds communal award

for the untouchables. In the early hours of that

day Gandhi wrote to Tagore, seeking his ad-vice and support:

This is early morning, 3 oclock ofTuesday. Ienter the fiery gates at noon. Ifyou can blessthe effort I want it. You have been a candid

friend often speaking your thoughts aloud.

Though it can now only be during my fasts, Iwill yet pride your criticism if your heartcondemns my action. I am not too proud tomake an open confession of blunder...if I

find myself in error.

In facton

many occasions Gandhi soughtTagores advice before launching a new courseof action. For instance, he had written to

Tagore a few hours before the resumption ofCivil Disobedience in January 1932: I try tosteal a wink of sleep and I think of you. I want

you to give your best to the sacrificial fire thatis being lighted.And on the occasion of thehistoric fast at Poona, both Gandhis and

Tagores hearts were together.As Gandhi wrote

to Tagore at 3A.M.on

20 September 1932,Tagores telegram to Gandhi of the previousday was already on its wings:

It is worth sacrificing precious life for thesake of Indias unity and her social integrity.Though we cannot anticipate what effect it

may have upon our rulers, who may not

understand its importance for our people,we feel certain that the supreme appeal ofsuch self

offeringto the conscience of our

own countrymen will not be in vain. I fer-

vently hope that we will not callously allowsuch national tragedy to reach its extreme

length. Our sorrowing hearts will follow yoursublime penance with reverence and love.27

But after sending the telegram, Tagorecould not rest content.As Gandhis fast began



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as planned, many of the inmates of Shanti-niketan fasted likewise. Khanolkar tells us

about this incident:

From Shantiniketan and Sriniketan, even

from the villages round about, people as-sembled in the Prayer Hall, where Tagoreexplained the importance of Gandhis sacri-

fice, and prayed that the almighty would

give him strength for the ordeal and bringhim safely through. On 22 September 1932,he composed a thoughtful message to his

countrymen, beggingthem not to lose a mo-

ment before rooting out untouchability in

every shape and form. On reading this mes-

sage, Gandhiji wired him to come imme-

diatley, if his health permitted. No soonerwas the call received, than Tagore, without a

thought for his own health or convenience,set out in answer. On the morning of 26th

[26 September 1932] an anxious poet reached

Kalyan station, where a special car had beensent to bring him straight to Poona.28

That day was a day of silence for Gandhi, buton seeing Tagore, he instantaneously said thathe was very happy and both embraced eachother passionately. Gandhi broke his fast witha glass ofjuice offered byTagore, and on Gan-dhis request Tagore sang him his followingdear lines from the Gitanjali:

When the heart is hard and

parchedup,

come upon me with a shower of mercy.When grace is lost from life,come with a burst of song.When tumultuous work raises its din

on all sides shutting me out from beyond,come to me, my lord of silence, with thypeace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched,shut up in a corner, break open the door,

my king, and come with the ceremony of a

king.

After reaching Shantiniketan from his meet-

ing with Gandhi, Tagore called together theworkers of Vishwabharathi and constituted a

special committee for the eradication of un-

touchability and casteism. All untouchable

boys in Shantiniketan and Sriniketan were

given full freedom to live and dine with others,and they were excused all tuition fees.29 But

Tagore was very much concerned again to getGandhis letter of 10 November 1932 in which

he had sought his wholehearted co-operationfor his forthcoming fast. Gandhi had arguedthat while his last Poona fast might have a pol-itical tinge about it, his proposed fast for thesake of entry of untouchables to the Guruva-

yuur temple in Kerala was meant to awakenthe conscience of the country for overthrow-

ing the monster of untouchability. But Tagorewrote to Gandhi on 15 November 1932: What

I fear is that following so close upon the tre-

mendous impact made on our consciousnessby the recent fast, a repetition of it may psy-chologically be too much for us properly toevaluate and effectively utilise for the uplift of

humanity.30But as Gandhi resolved to begin this fast on

9 May 1933, Tagore wrote to Gandhi:

You must not blame me if I cannot feel a

complete agreement with you at the im-mense

responsibilityyou incur

bythe

stepyou have taken. From the beginning of cre-ation there continue things that are ugly andwrong... the negative factors of existence-and the ideals which are positive and eter-nal ever wait to be represented by messen-gers of truth who never have the right toleave the field of work in despair or disgustbecause of the impurities and imperfectionsand their surroundings.31



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In the same letter Tagore urged Gandhi to

ponder upon the following:

The logical consequences of your example,if followed, will be an elimination of all

noble souls from the world, leaving the mor-

ally feeble and down-trodden multitude tosink into the fathomless depth of ignoranceand inequity.... The suffering that has beencaused to me by the vow you have taken has

compelled me to write to you thus ... for Icannot bear the sight of a sublimely noblecareer journeying towards a finality which,to my mind, lacks a perfectly satisfying justi-fication.3z

However, in this criticism of Gandhis fast layTagores protective love for Gandhi. Therewas probably an implicit concern that the fast

weapon might be misused by people as a pres-sure tactic. In this context, C.EAndrews also

sought to draw Gandhis attention to the same

challenge:

[The fast weapon] if is not uniquely used fora God-given opportunity will certainly beused by fanatics to force an issue which maybe reactionary instead of progressive....But you have evidently come to the point of

forcing the issue-morally forcing it, and Ihave to think this out in terms of Christ. I

think He did force the issue when He set his

pace steadfastly to go to Jerusalem.33

To come back to the paths in the lives of

Tagore and Gandhi, Sabyasachi Bhattacharyatells us, Between Tagores visit to Gandhi

Ashram on 18 January 1930 and by the end of

1933, there is virtually no issue dividing thetwO.34 But the devastating earthquake thatstruck Bihar on 15 January 1934 created new

ripples in the dialogue between Gandhi and

Tagore. Gandhi was then on a tour of southIndia in his fight against untouchability and he

urged his countrymen to regard [the] earth-

quake as the nemesis for the sin of untouchabil-

ity. In the statement that he issued in Harijanon 2 February 1934, Gandhi had said: I sharethe belief with the whole world, civilized and

uncivilized, that calamities such as the Bihar

one come to mankind as a chastisement for

their sins. I regard untouchability as such a

grave sin as to warrant divine chastisement.

While Tagore was in total agreement with

Gandhi on the evil of untouchability, he ex-

pressed surprise that Gandhi should have lenthis authority to this kind of unscientific viewof things. But before releasing his statementto the press, Tagore wrote to Gandhi seekinghis clarification whether Gandhi had indeed

said what was reported. Gandhi confirmed hisstand and then Tagore released a press state-

ment disagreeing with the element of unrea-son and irrationality in Gandhis statement.Gandhis following rejoinder to Tagore was

published in Harijan in February 1934:

The Bard of Shantiniketan is Gurudev for

me as he is for the inmates of that greatinstitution. But Gurudev and I early dis-covered certain differences, and it cannot

suffer by Gurudevs latest utterance on mylinking the Bihar calamity with the sin of

untouchability. He had a perfect right toutter his protest when he believed I was in

error. My profound regard for him wouldmake me listen to him more readily than to

any other critic.... To me [the] earthquakewas no caprice of God nor a result of a meet-

ing of mere blind forces. We do not know allthe laws of God nor their working.35

In this dialogue, what comes out is that Gan-dhi was not discounting the significance of the



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52

laws of nature. But he was drawing our atten-tion to the inscrutability of these laws. It is not

helpful to understand this debate between Gan-dhi and Tagore as just a debate between sci-ence and laws of kanna. Gandhi said, We do

not know the law or the laws fully, and what

appears to us as catastrophes are so only be-cause we do not know the universal laws suffi-

ciently.136 Recent developments in the systemtheoretic view of the universe tell us of the

interconnectedness of the world where one

thing happening in one part of the world af-

fects the other. For example, scientists nowtell us how the change ofwings on the part of a

butterfly in Mexico can create hurricane inTexas.37 Given these new developments in sci-

ence, it is probably helpful to take this Tagore-Gandhi debate on science and karmic laws to a

new frontier of probing and reflection. This

probing is facilitated by whatAmartya Senwrites about Tagores approach to science:

While Tagore believed that modern sciencewas essential to understanding physical phe-nomena, his views on epistemology were in-

herently heterodox.... To assert that some-

thing is true or untrue in the absence of

anyone to observe or perceive its truth, or toform a conception ofwhat it is, appeared to

Tagore to be deeply questionable...his stronginterest in science was accompanied by cri-tical scrutiny.38

As we move further, at this point, it must benoted that not only were Tagore and Gandhiunited in their fight against untouchability,they were also united in their fight againstcommunalism. Tagore was deeply pained bythe communal riots between Hindus and Mus-

lims. But while Tagore, after a point, thoughtthat the communal problem was intractable,Gandhi never gave up hope on this. Being

extremely bitter about communal riots, Tagorewent so far as to say that straightforward

atheism was preferable to this terrible thing,delusion of religiosity ... the satanic bestialitywhich wears the garb of religion.3~ This was

scarcely the kind of language Gandhi wouldhave employed, but they were both strivingfor a common cause. 40

A year after their debate on the Bihar earth-

quake, Tagore wrote a touching letter to Gan-dhi sharing with him his immense financial

difficulty in running Shantiniketan. In this let-

ter, Tagore poured out his heart to Gandhi:

Over thirty years I have practically given myall to this mission of my life and so long as Iwas comparatively young and active I facedall my difficulties unaided.And now, how-

ever, when I am 75 I feel the burden of my

responsibility growing too heavy for me,constant begging excursions with absurdlymeagre results added to the strain of my

daily anxieties and have brought my phys-ical constitution nearly to an extreme vergeof exhaustion. Now I know of no one else

but yourself whose words may help mycountrymen to realise that it is worth their

while to maintain this institution. 41

Gandhi was deeply touched by this letter andhe immediately wrote to Gurudev: Your touch-

ing letter was received only on the llth instantwhen I was in the midst of

meetings. You maydepend upon my straining every nerve to findthe required money. It is unthinkable that youshould have to undertake another begging mis-sion at your age.42After this exchange of let-ters, Gandhi and Tagore met in Delhi in March1936. In fact, Tagore had come to stage the

play Chitrangada at the Regal Theatre. Gan-dhi went along with Kasturba to meet Tagoreand told him: ant your age it is not good to



12/22

53

travel around like this. The next day Gandhisent a draft of Rs 60,000 to Tagore presentedby some anonymous donors.

The next five years of interaction between

Tagore and Gandhi mainly revolved aroundthe fate of Shantiniketan with the singular ex-

ception of the case of Netaji Subash ChandraBose about whom Tagore had written to Gan-dhi that he should be given a fair treatment.On 10 February 1937 Tagore nominated Gan-dhi as a Life Trustee of Shantiniketan. But Gan-

dhi wrote to Tagore that he was unable to ac-

cept this invitation because of his amazinglimitations. Gandhi wrote to Tagore that beinga trustee implies capacity for financing the

institution, and what I heard two days ago has

deepened my reluctance ... I understand thatin spite ofyour promise to me in Delhi you areabout to go toAhmedabad on a begging ex-

pedition. I was grieved and I would ask you onbended knees to forego the expedition.43 Tagorewrote to Gandhi at the earliest just a weeklater: You have grievously misjudged me on

mere suspicion which is so unlike your greatand gracious ways.... I feel ashamed to assertthat it was never my intention financially to ex-

ploit you or your name.44

In the same letter, Tagore took exception toGandhis use of the term begging expedition,though it was a term that both Gandhi and

Tagore had jointly used in Delhi. But what

Tagore wrote is significant, which provides usa glimpse into minds of these two persons:

Allow me to be frank in return and to tell

you that possibly your own temperamentprevents you to understand the dignity ofthe mission which I am glad to call my own-a mission that is not merely concerned with

the economic problem of India or her sect-arian religions, but which comprehends theculture of the human mind in its broadest

sense. It is a part of a poets religion to en-tertain in his life a solemn faith in his own

function, to realise that he is specially calledto collaborate with his creator in adding tothe joy of existence.45

Gandhi and Tagore met for the last timethat year (1940) in February at Shantiniketan,and during the time of Gandhis departureTagore handed a letter of his to Gandhi withthis appeal:

And, now before you take your leave from

Shantiniketan, I make my fervent appeal toyou, accept this institution under your pro-tection. Vishwabharati is like a vessel which

is carrying the cargo of my lifes best treas-ure and I hope it may claim special carefrom my countrymen for its reservation.

Gandhi read Gurudevs letter in the train and

wrote him from the train itself:

The touching note that you put into myhands as we parted has gone straight into

my heart. You may depend upon my doingall I can in the common endeavour to assure

its permanence. I look to you to keep yourpromise to sleep religiously for about anhour daily during the day. Though I have

always regarded Shantiniketan as my sec-ond home, this visit brought me nearer to itthan ever before.

Mutual Criticism,Mutual Understanding and

Articulating a Larger Mission

The above has provided us a brief sketch ofthe cross-cutting paths of Gandhi and Tagore.Now let us try to understand the way Gandhi

and Tagore tried to understand each other,



13/22

54

clarified their differences to each other and in

the process presented a larger mission for In-dia and the world. Their debate raised funda-

mental philosophical issues as well as immedi-ate questions relating to the Indian freedom

struggle such as non-cooperation and the sig-nificance of the charkha.

Tagore was a critic of Gandhis non-cooper-ation movement and the central importanceaccorded to the charkha in Indias freedom

struggle and social reconstruction. Before wediscuss at length Gandhi and Tagores differ-ence of perspective on this issue, we shall dowell to remember that Tagore was assertinghis difference from his experiential perspec-tive of participating in the Swadeshi move-ment and his long-standing attempts in rural

reconstruction, first in his estate and then at

his centre of rural development, Sriniketan.While sharing with Gandhi his apprehensionsabout the significance of the boycott of for-

eign goods and burning of foreign clothes,Tagore brought up his experience of the Swa-

deshi movement. For Tagore, during the Swa-deshi movement, it is the rich mill-owners of

Bombay who benefited most from the boycottofforeign goods rather than the common peo-ple of India.

On Cooperation and

Non-cooperation:Tagore and Gandhi

In his letter to C.FAndrews published inModern Review of May 1921, Tagore presentedhis reservation about Gandhis non-cooper-ation movement. For Tagore the movement of

non-cooperation was based on a negative ideal,and akin to the Buddhist ideal of negationrather than the affirmative and life-invirogatingagenda of Brahmavidya. The idea of non-

cooperation is political asceticism that has at

its back a fierce joy of annihilation.46 Tagoretook exception to students leaving their schools

duringthe

non-cooperationmovement since

to him they did not have any other alternative.For Tagore, cooperation was the foundationof life and let India stand for the cooperationof all peoples of the world. 47 Writes Tagore:

I believe in the true meeting of the East andthe West. Love is the ultimate truth of soul.

We should do all we can not to outrage that

truth. The idea of non-cooperation unneces-

sarily hurts that truth. It is not our heart firebut the fire that burns out our hearth and

home.48

He also said, Our present struggle to alienateour heart and mind from those of the West is

an attempt at spiritual suicide. 49Gandhi thought through Tagores criticism

in two essays in Young India of 1 June 1921.50He respected Tagores anxiety that Indiashould deliver no false or feeble message to

the world. Then Gandhi wrote: In all humil-

ity, I shall endeavour to answer the poetsdoubts. I may fail to convince him or the reader

who may have been touched by his eloquence,but I would like to assure him that non-cooper-ation in conception is not any of the things hefears. Non-cooperation was not intended toerect a Chinese wall between India and the

West. For Gandhi:

On the contrary, non-cooperation is intend-ed to have the way to real, honourable and

voluntary cooperation based on mutual re-

spect and trust. The present struggle is beingwaged against compulsory cooperation. Non-

cooperation is a protest against the armed

imposition of modern methods of exploita-tion, masquerading uiider the name of civil-isation. Non-cooperation is a protest against



14/22

55

an unwitting and unwilling participationin evil.

Furthermore:

The nations non-cooperation is an invita-tion to the Government to co-operate with

it on its own terms as is every nations rightand every Governments duty. Non-cooper-ation is intended to give the very meaning of

patriotism that the poet is yearning after.An India prostrate at the feet of Europecan give no hope to humanity.An India

awakened and free has a message of peaceand good will to a groaning world.

On Tagores objection to the spirit of nega-tion and rejection in the non-cooperationmovement, Gandhi submitted to Tagore: Re-

jection is as much an ideal as the acceptance ofa thing. It is necessary to reject untruth as it is

to accept truth. For Gandhi central to Brah-

mavidya is not this-neti.

On the Charkha

In his dialogue with Gandhi on the issue of the

charkha in his celebrated essay, The Call of

Truth, published in Modem Review in 1921,

Tagore said:

In this morning of the worlds awakening, if

only our own national striving, there is no

response to its universal aspiration, that willbetoken the poverty of our spirit. I do not

say for [a] moment that we should belittlethe work immediately to hand. But when the

bird is roused by the dawn, all its awakeningis not absorbed in its search for food. Its

wings respond unweariedly to the call of the

sky, its throat pours forth for songs, for joyof the new light

Through this Tagore urged both the, non-

cooperation and the khadi movement to have

larger missions for themselves. Tagore felt:

We must have a clear idea of the vast thingthat the welfare of our country means. To

confine our idea of it to the outsiders, ormake it too narrow, diminishes our own

power of achievement. To give the Charkhathe first place in our striving for the coun-

trys welfare is only a way to make our in-sulted intelligence recoil in despairing in-action

Gandhi submitted for our consideration in his

equally inimitable style in his article, TheGreat Sentinel, published in Young India, 13October 1921:

True to his poetical instinct the Poet lives forthe morrow and would have us do likewise.

He presents to our admiring gaze the beau-tiful picture of the birds early in the morn-

ing singing hymns of praise as they soar intothe sky. These birds had their days food andsoared with rested wings inwhose veins newblood has flown during the previous night.But I have had the pain of watching birdswho for want of strength could not be coaxedeven into a flutter of their wings. The hu-man bird under Indian sky gets up weakerthan when he pretended to retire.53

For Gandhi, the charkha could help these mil-lions earn from the sweat of their brow and

lead a life of dignity.In his Call of Truth and The Cult of the

Charkha Tagore raised some further ques-tions vis-~-vis Gandhis key emphasis on thecharkha in Indias freedom struggle. Tagoreasks keeping Gandhi in mind: Why shouldnot our guru of today, who would lead us on



15/22

56

the paths ofKarma not say, &dquo;Let all the forcesof the land be brought .into action, for thenalone shall the

countryawake.&dquo; But his call

came to one narrow field alone. To one and

all he simply says spin and weave, spin andweave. 54

Tagore argued that overemphasis on the

spinning wheel can lead to a mindless uniform-

ity. He said, If man be stunted by big ma-chines then the danger of his being stunted bysmall machines must not be lost sight of ....Mind is no less valuable than cotton thread.55

Tagorefelt that in

placingthe charkha at the

centre of the economic reconstruction of In-

dia, Gandhi mixed economics with morality.Furthermore, the clothes that were being burnt

could have been given to the poor. Gandhi

thought along with Tagore on these issues inhis two essays The Great Sentinel and The

Poet and the Charkha. In The Great Senti-

nel, Gandhi welcomed Tagores criticism: Itis a welcome and wholesome reminder to all

workers that we must not be impatient, wemust not impose authority no matter how great.The poet deserves the thanks of his country-men for standing for truth. Then Gandhiwent on to submit the following for Tagoresconsideration. He urged Tagore to go deeperand see for himself whether the charkha has

been accepted from blind faith or from rea-soned necessity.56 Gandhi further wrote: I

have again and again appealed to reason, andlet me assure him [Tagore] that if happily the

country has come to believe in spinning wheelas the giver of plenty, it has done so after labor-ious thinking, after great hesitation.57 Gandhisaid:

Hunger is the argument that is driving Indiato the spinning wheel. The call of the spin-ning wheel is the noblest of all. Because it is

the call of love and love is Swaraj. The

spinning wheel will curb the mind whenthe time spent on necessary physical labourcan be said to do so. We must think of mil-

lions who are today less than animals, whoare almost in a dying state.58

He said:A plea for spinning wheel is a pleafor recognising the dignity of labourThen Gandhi urged Tagore to spin the

wheel every day as a mark of his identificationwith the poorest of the poor and with the

struggle for freedom, saying, I do indeed askthe Poet and the sage to

spinthe wheel as a

sacrament. When there is war, the poet laysdown the lyre, the lawyer his law reports, the

schoolboy his books. On Tagores objection tothe boycott and burning of foreign cloth, Gan-dhi countered:

It is sinful to eatAmerican wheat and let my

neighbour the grain dealer starve for wantof custom. Similarly it is sinful for me towear the latest finery of Regent Street, whenI know that if I had but worn the thingswoven by the neighboring spinners and

weavers, that would have clothed me and

fed and clothed them. On the knowledge of

my sin bursting upon me, I must consign the

foreign garments to flames and thus purifymyself, and therefore rest content with the

rough khadi made by my neighbours.6o

In the same essay Gandhi clarified further

his ideas on non-cooperation. To Tagores callfor international cooperation and his critiqueof the isolationist dangers of the non-cooper-ation movement, Gandhi replied:

Before I think of sharing with the world, Imust possess. Our Non-cooperation is nei-ther with the English nor with the West. Our

Non-cooperation is with the system the



16/22

57

English have established .... Our Non-cooper-ation is a retirement within ourselves. In-

dian nationalism isnot

exclusive,nor

ag-gressive, nor destructive .... The mice which

helplessly find themselves between the catsteeth acquire no merit from their enforcedsacrifice.b

More about the

Tagore-Gandhi Dialogue

In his dialogue on charkha with Gandhi, Tagore

raised the important question that not only dobig machines dominate us, small machinesalso can too.All machines, big or small, create

repetitiveness and human beings must culti-vate their minds to be free from it.As Suresh

Sharma comments:

Small machines could stunt man as much

as big machines.... In India, that has in-

variably taken the form of Man being re-duced to labour in the likeness of a ma-

chine. Gandhis valorization of manual

labour infuriated Tagore.Against Gandhisinvocation of the dignity of manual labour,

Tagore posited, what he felt to be the cry of

humanity in all civilizations and in all ages,

against the indignity of repetitive mechan-ical labour.~2

But Gandhi was not against the improvisationof

techniquesof

labour;he was

againstsuch

tools that would displace human beings againsttheir will. While agreeing with Tagore that ei-ther the small or big machine can lead to repe-tition and annihilation of human creativity,Gandhi at the same time, posited the reachand salience of access to resources and power

a machine encodes.63 For instance, an &dquo;im-

proved plough&dquo; would be good for mankind.But if such a plough were to make it possible

for &dquo;one man&dquo; to plough &dquo;all the land of India&dquo;,it would have to be resisted as a danger to

human life and FreedomIn his reflection on the Tagore-Gandhi dia-

logue on this issue,Amartya Sen takes the pos-ition that Gandhi missed Tagores main criti-cism of the charkha that it not only made littleeconomic sense ... it was not the way to make

people reflect on anything.65 For Tagore, asSen interprets: It was in education...ratherthan on, say, &dquo;spinning as a sacrifice&dquo; ... thatthe future of India would depend.66 But wasGandhi unaware of the need

for education?Gandhi was keen to have a programme of

education that integrated hand and head.Gandhi himself had initiated the programmeof basic education that enabled people to do

things with their hands and not helplessly de-

pend upon state and market for employment.67Education had a place in both the visions andschemes of Tagore and Gandhi, but their con-

ception of it was different.Apart from the dif-ferential

emphasison the manual and the cere-

bral, Tagores scheme of education was moreaesthetic while Gandhis was more ethical. In

Tagores educational path cultivation of one-self as a work of art had a prime place while inGandhis cultivation of ones ethical responsi-bility to the other did. Despite this difference,Sen may need to rethink his contrast between

Tagore and Gandhi in terms of one advocatingthe charkha and the other education.

Cooperationand

non-cooperation,nation-

alism and internationalism were other key issuesthat Gandhi and Tagore argued with each other.Here again Sen considers Tagore more inter-national than Gandhi, saying:

Mahatma Gandhis well-known quip in re-

ply to a question, asked in England, on whathe thought ofWestern civilization (itwouldbe a good idea) could not have come from



17/22

58

Tagores lips. He would understand the pro-vocations to which Gandhi was respond-

ing... involvingcultural conceit as well as im-

perial tyranny.... But, unlike Gandhi, Tagorecould not, even in jest, be dismissive ofWestern civilization.68

While Sens comments put Tagore and Gan-dhi in perspective on this issue, it still requiresfurther probing into their difference as well as

complementarity on the issue of swaraj andnationalism. The issue of swaraj forTagore meant

merely political independenceand attainment

of sovereignal power at the level of nationand nation state.69 For Gandhi it was not re-

duced to political independence; it empha-sized attainment of self-rule and self-govern-ance and realization of autonomy.7 But Gandhi

sought to overcome the duality between self-

rule, self-realization and ones participation in

politics. While for Gandhi, politics was crucialfor self-realization, Tagore was part of the

longIndian tradition that looked at

politicsas extraneous and even detrimental to self-

development and self-realization .71 Thus, the

differences between them on swaraj were not

only semantic, they were part of their largerdifferences on the link between politics andself-realization.72 For Tagore politics was notessential to swaraj and self-realization, but it

was to Gandhi. In fact, Gandhi sought to link

politics to what lies beyond politics.3 While

taking partin

politicsGandhi was not

gov-erned by a will to power, to reign and to domin-

ate ; he had a self-critical and self-restrainingattitude to power and engagement with polit-ics. In this context,Ashis Nandys comments

help us to understand Tagore and Gandhi:

Tagore refused to grant primacy to politicseven while sometimes participating in politics.Here lay his basic difference with Gandhi,

to whom politics was a means of testing theethics appropriate to our times andwas there-fore crucial to ones moral life. Everyonedid not have to be an active politician, but

everyone, Gandhi felt, had to work within aframework in which politics had a specialplace. What linked the two was however their

continuing attempts to reaffirm a moral uni-verse within which ones politics and social

ideology could be located. 74

Nandy also urges us to realize that there wasa complementarity between Tagore and Gan-

dhion

the issue of nationalism.

Both recognized the need for a national

ideology of India as a means of cultural sur-vival and both recognized that, for the same

reason, India would either have to make a

break with the post-medieval modern con-

cept of nationalism or give the concept anew content.As a result, for Tagore, nation-alism itself became gradually illegitimate;for Gandhi, nationalism began to include a

critique of nationalism. For both, over time,the Indian freedom movement ceased to be

an expression of only nationalist consolida-tion ; it came to acquire a new stature as a

symbol of the universal struggle for politicaljustice and cultural dignity.75

Understanding this complementarity be-tween Tagore and Gandhi also requires us tohave another look at Tagores novel Home andthe World, which for some critics is a

critiqueof Gandhian politics of nationalism. We mayrecall here the character of the nationalist

leader Sandip in the novel whose emptinessand violence of nationalist politics Tagore criti-cizes. For George Luckas, Sandip is a carica-ture of Gandhi. 76 However,

Gandhi was hardly a part of the Indian

political scene when Sandip was created in



18/22

59

1915-16. Tagore had observed from a dis-tance Gandhis South.African Satyagraha,and the two had met in March 1915; this

limited experience made him an admirer ofGandhi. His reservations about importantaspects of Gandhis politics and counter-

modernism came later. Sandip is, if any-thing, anti-Gandhi and critique of him is an

oblique defence of Gandhian politics beforesuch a politics has taken shape, besides beinga bitter criticism of sectarian Hindu nation-

alism, which at the time was a powerfulcomponent of Indian anti-imperialism.&dquo;

In what way do we make sense of the dia-

logue between Tagore and Gandhi? In orderto understand this, we have to realize that itwas not a debate, nor was it a parade of argu-ment and counter-argument. Itwas a.dialoguewhere there was not only a repetition and re-iteration of ones starting point but an effortto understand the other point of view andovercome ones initial presuppositions. Thereoccurs a process of slow transformation in this

dialogue. Though at the surface level, it seems,both clung to each others position, there didtake place a transformation of their initial

positions. Gandhi agreed with Tagore that the

spinning wheel alone could not solve the prob-lem, and on the need for a national servant to

build up a programme of anti-malaria cam-

paign, improved sanitation, settlement of vil-

lage disputes, conservation and breeding of

cattles and hundreds of other beneficial activ-ities.78 Tagores views on and approach to theissue of untouchability did undergo a changein the midst of his relationship with Gandhi.But on one point the Gandhi-Tagore dia-

logue remained on a horizontal plane. Thatwas on the question of Tagore spinning as amark of his identification with the poorestof the poor. Thomas Pantham has recently

challenged us that in order to understandGandhi and his contemporaries, we must bringa perspective of the other-the otherness ofthe poor and the otherness of self-realization.

While Gandhi and Tagore came closer and infact helped each other realize that self-realiza-tion requires responsibility to the other, onthe issue of the otherness of poverty and the

need to overcome this distance through changein ones life-style, Tagore and Gandhi couldnot come closer. It is probably keeping this inmind that Sabyasachi Bhattacharya argues:

Where the two differed was when Gandhi

goes on to say that when there is war, the

poet lays down the lyre. Tagores plea toGandhi was that at no time should the poet

lay down lyre, the scholar his books for thesake of Swaraj; its foundation is in the mind,which with its diverse powers and its confi-

dence in these powers, goes on all the time

creating Swaraj for itself.9

But despite this Gandhi had deep respectfor Tagore and he strove to include his criti-cism and view in shaping the mind of the na-tion. In this context, scholars such asAkber

S.Ahmed certainly have much to explain them-selves as well as to us when they state thatGandhis debate with Tagore was an instanceof his intolerance towards his opponents and

their systematic marginalization.~ When wetake part in this epochal debate, what stands

foremost in Gandhis response is the quietpassion to engage with what he perceived asthe critical edge in Tagores arguments.81 Whilefollowers of Gandhi thought that in offeringhis critique of Gandhis action Tagore was en-

croaching on a sphere beyond his properlimits,82 Gandhi did not share this impatienceand enthusiasm of his followers; he rather wel-

comed Tagores interventions as a battle for



19/22

60

the mind of the nation, not merely as a seriesof political exercises and stratagems.83 More-

over, their mutual criticism of each other em-

bodied a self-criticism.As Sharma helps usunderstand:

Perhaps what is striking and ofenduring sig-nificance is that their critique of colonial

subjugation was at each step also a self-

critique.... Their insistence that critical

gaze must always turn inward was anchoredin a cognitive universe wherein there couldnever be the moment of final battle so dear

to the modern revolutionary imagination.84

Towards a New Ethics of

Argumentation

Discourse, dialogue and deliberation are im-

portant frames for thinking about and creat-

ing an ideal inter-subjective condition and

dignified society at present.Arguing with par-

ticipantsin

dialogueboth at the

inter-subject-ive level and at a wider societal level is a val-ued activity in this mode of idealization. Inrecent years Jurgen Habermas has providedan engaging outline of such a scheme of ideal-ization where participants argue with eachother and through such argumentation areable to clarify their positions and also gain acritical insight into their own lives as well as tothe unjust foundations of their society.85 But inthe Habermasian scheme of argumentation,what he calls discourse ethics, rational delib-eration and the act of argumentation them-selves are the supreme ideals and privilegedactivities. Though Habermas talks about theneed for combining an ethics of justice withan ethics of love in the practice of argumen-tation where both flow from the highest stageof morality itself,86 and in his recent worktalks about the work of co-operative search

for truth in discourse these ideals at presentare not embodied in the practice of argumen-tation itself so much so that participants of the

Habermasian discourse can be moved only bythe force of better arguments.88Argumenta-tion in Habermasian discourse ethics remains

performative.89 We must appeal to the intui-tive preunderstanding which every subjectcompetent in speech and action brings into a

process of argumentation.9 But what if the

partner in dialogue evades communication?For Habermas, those who refuse to take partin discourse fall into self-contradiction. 91

Thus, the hope that participants of discoursewould not like to fall into the ditch of self-contradiction is the only guarantee for an af-firmative response and continuance of com-

munication for Habermas. But this hope canbe realized and supplemented by the embodi-ment of love and care in the practice of argu-mentation and work of discourse.

To be fair to Habermas, he does talk aboutthe need for agape and love in the work of

discourse,but it remains

onlyat the formal

level and is not yet substantively embodiedand realized.9z But in the dialogue betweenGandhi and Tagore we see a concrete embodi-ment of love and care, an embodiment that

enriches the very process and substance of ar-

gumentation. Moreover, here arguments donot remain at a disembodied level, they flowinto and are replenished from wider cross-

cutting pathways of lives. Tagore and Gandhidid not just argue with each other over the

pages of either Modern Review or Young India,they met with each other and took part in eachothers lives in an involved manner. When

Gandhi undertook a fast unto death, Tagorecame to be with him, and when Tagore reachedthe edge of his life, Gandhi visited him and as-sured his anxious heart that he would do his

best to nurture his dream institution, Shanti-niketan.



20/22

61

In his reflection on Habermass practicaldiscourse and Gandhis satyagraha, ThomasPantham writes:

Tolerance, civility, non-violence and the lov-

ing care of others including ones opponentshave a greater and longer or more enduringrole in the Gandhian satyagraha than in theHabermasian discourse. Self-suffering, more-

over, is required of the satyagrahis but notof the participants in the Habermasian dis-course.93

In his recent reflections, Habermas speaks ofthe need to be sincere on the parts of the par-

ticipants of discourse,94 but sincerity presup-poses a bracketing or overcoming of selfish-ness and ill-will.95As Bhikhu Parekh, buildingon the life and insights of Gandhi, tells us:

Selfishness, hatred and ill-will [lead] to emo-tional and moral rigidity and [block] the pro-cesses of sympathetic understanding and

critical self-reflection indispensable for allrational discussion.... When the heart [re-jects] someone, that is when he [does] notcome within ones range of sympathy andform part of ones emotional and moral uni-

verse, reason [tends] to reject him too and

[does] not take due account of his feelingsand interests. Sympathy, love or good-will[are] a necessary precondition of rational-

ity, and only universal love [guarantees] total

objectivity.96The dialogue between Gandhi and Tagore

embodied love. Moreover, in the dialogue inwhich Tagore and Gandhi took part, they not

only spoke to each other, they listened to eachother: their argumentation was characterized

by an ethics of listening. Therefore, before con-

tradicting Gandhis statement on the Bihar

earthquake, Tagore wanted to make sure thathe had heard him right; he wanted to carefullylisten to his views before submitting his rebut-

tal. But in the Habermasian discourse and ar-

gumentation, it is speaking that is privilegedand there is very little attention paid to theneed for listening and cultivating the art of lis-

tening. Habermasian discourse fails to realizewhat Paulo Friere identifies as the key chal-

lenge before any agenda of deliberative polit-ics and ethics: It is in knowing how to listenwell that I better prepare myself vis-h-vis theideas being discussed as a subject capable of

presence, of listening &dquo;connectedly&dquo; and with-out prejudice to what the other is saying.97 Butin his stress on performative competenceHabermas consistently privileges speakingover hearing or listening.98

Co-operative search for truth is an import-ant concern in the dialogue between Gandhiand Tagore, and also in the Habermasian

agenda of discourse ethics. In the Habermasiandiscourse truth emerges out of deliberation

and argumentation; it is part of argumenta-tion and is devoid of a transcendental anchor-

age with a power to call participants to submitthemselves to preferred and idealized modesof being, becoming, inter-subjectivity and so-

ciality. Habermas translates what he con-siders to be a dualism between immanent dis-

course (inner) and transcendent otherness

(outer) into an immanent transcendence withindiscourse itself .99 For

Habermas,since the in-

herent telos of human speech is oriented to

reaching an understanding with another about

something in the world, all forms of meaning-ful transcendence must occur on this side of

the &dquo;rational collective will-formation&dquo;.looBut

truth in the Tagore-Gandhi dialogue has ademand quality to it;101 it has a dimension oftranscendence that is not reduced to and



21/22

62

confined within discourse. The incompletegrasp of the truth by any tradition or personteaches Gandhi about human fallibility and

the need for humility.101 Moreover, realiza-tion of truth in Gandhi and Tagore is part of

ones participation in spiritual sadhana. In

embodying love and care, an ethics of listeningand quest for truth, where truth emerges at

the midpoint of rational argumentation andtranscendental call, and from ones participa-tion in spiritual sadhana the Gandhi-Tagoredialogue carried out more than half a century

ago carried the seeds of a new ethics of argu-

mentation, an ethics that can help transformour vision and practice of deliberation and ar-

gumentation at the contemporary juncture.

NOTESAND REFERENCES

1. Rabindranath Tagore, The Call of Truth, quoted in

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, The Mahatma and the Poet

(New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1997), p. 79 of 68-87.

2. M.K. Gandhi, The Poet and the Charkha, YoungIndia, 5 November 1925.

3. Jurgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Com-

municativeAction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990),182.

4. Bhattacharya, The Mahatma and the Poet (n. 1

above), 51.5. Ibid., 4.

6. Ibid., 3.

7. Ibid.

8. Krishna Dutta andAndrew Robinson, Rabindranath

Tagore: The Myriad-minded Man (London: Blooms-

berry, 1995), 86.9. Bhattacharya, The Mahatma and the Poet (n. 1above),

3.

10. Hugh Tinker, The Ordeal ofLove: C.F.Andrews andIndia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979), 99.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Shankar Bose, Mahatma Gandhi (Delhi, 1991), 153.15. Bhattacharya, The Mahatma and the Poet (n. 1

above), 157.

16. Ibid., 49.

17. Tinker, The Ordeal of Love (n. 10 above), 175.18. Bhattacharya, The Mahatma and the Poet. (n.1 above),

57.

19. Ibid., 65.

20. Dutta and Robinson, Rabindranath Tagore (n. 8 above).21. Bhattacharya, The Mahatma and the Poet (n.1 above),

9.

22. Dutta and Robinson, Rabindranath Tagore (n. 8 above),235.

23. Ibid., 343.

24. Ibid.

25. G.D. Khanolkar, The Lute and the Plough:A Life ofRabindranath Tagore (Bombay:The Book Centre, 1963),295.

26. Bose, Mahatma Gandhi (n. 14 above), 159.27. Bhattacharya, The Mahatma and the Poet (n. 1

above).28. Khanolkar, The Lute and the Plough (n. 25 above),

236.

29. Ibid., 328.

30. Bhattacharya, The Mahatma and the Poet (n. 1

above), 137.31. Ibid., 142-43.

32. Ibid.

33. Tinker, The Ordeal of Love (n. 10 above), 262.34.

Bhattacharya,The Mahatma and the Poet

(n.1 above),16.35. Ibid., 159.

36. Ibid., 60.

37. Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life:A New Synthesis ofMind and Matter (London: Harper Collins, 1997).

38.Amartya Sen, Tagore and His India, New York Re-view of Books, 26 June 1997, 59.

39. Bhattacharya, The Mahatma and the Poet (n. 1above),16.

40. Ibid.



22/22

63

41. Ibid., 162.42. Ibid.

43. Ibid., 165.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid., 166.46. Ibid., 57.

47. Ibid., 61.

48. Ibid., 59.

49. Ibid., 61.

50. Ibid., 63.51. Ibid., 86.

52. Ibid., 118.

53. Ibid., 91.

54. Ibid., 81.

55. Ibid., 82.

56. Ibid., 88.57. Ibid.

58. Ibid., 89.59. Ibid.

60. Ibid., 90.

61. Ibid., 99.62. Suresh Sharma, Swaraj and the Quest for Freedom:

Rabindranath Tagores Critique of Gandhis Non-

cooperation, Studies in Humanities and Societal Sci-

ence, 1995, 2 (1), p. 115 of 111-22.63. Ibid., 121.

64. Ibid.

65. Sen, Tagore and His India (n. 38 above), 58.66. Ibid., 62.67. Bharat Jhunjhunwala, Welfare State and Globaliza-

tion :A Critique of Amartya Sen (Jaipur: Rawat Publi-

cations, 2000), 42.68. Ibid., 60.

69. Sharma, Swaraj and the Quest for Freedom (n. 62

above).70. Ronald J. Terchek, Gandhi: Struggling forAutonomy

(New Delhi: Vistaar Publications, 2000).71.Anthony J. Parel, Gandhi and His Contemporaries.

Keynote address to seminar on Gandhi and His Con-

temporaries, Indian Institute ofAdvance Studies,Shimla,April 1999, 14.72. Sharma, Swaraj and the Quest for Freedom (n. 62

above).73. Parel, Gandhi and His Contemporaries (n. 71

above), 17.74.Ashis Nandy, The Illegitimacy of Nationalism: Rabindra-

nath Tagore and the Politics of Self (Delhi: Oxford

University Press, 1994), 81.75. Ibid., 3.

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid., 19.

78. Bhattacharya, The Mahatma and the Poet (n.1 above).79. Ibid., 23.

80.Akbar S.

Ahmed, Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Iden-tity: The Search forSaladin (London: Routledge, 1997).


above), 116.82. Bhattacharya, The Mahatma and the Poet (n. 1 above),

22.

83. Ibid.


above), 121.85. Jurgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Com-

municativeAction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990).86. Ibid., 182.

87. Jurgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contri-butions towards a Discourse Theory of Law andDemoc-

racy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996).88. Thomas Pantham. Habermas Practical Discourse

and Gandhis Satyagraha, in Thomas Pantham andBhikhu Parekh, eds, Political Discourse: Explorationsin Indian and Western Political Thought (New Delhi:

Sage Publications, 1987), 308.89. Martin J. Matustik, Post-national Identity: Critical

Theory and Existential Philosophy in Habermas, Kierke-

gaard, andHavel (New York: Guilford Press, 1997), 29.90. Ibid.

91. Ibid.92. Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative

Action (n. 85 above), 182.93. Pantham, Habermas Practical Discourse and Gan-

dhis Satyagraha (n. 88 above), 309.94. Habermas, Between Facts andNorm (n. 87 above), 4.95. Fred R. Dallmayr, Satyagraha: Gandhis Truth Re-

visited. Paper presented at the International Con-

gress of Vedanta, University of Madras, 1996, 11.96. Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhis Political Philosophy:A Crit-

ical Examination (London: Macmillan, 1979), 144.97. Paulo Friere, Pedagogy ofFreedom: Ethics, Democ-

racy and Civic Courage (Lanham,MD:

Rowman&

Littlefield Publishers, 1998), 107.98. Fred R. Dallmayr, Life-world, Modernity and Critique

(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 24; also, Richard

Burghart, The Conditions of Listening (Delhi: Oxford

University Press, 1996).99. Matustik, Post-national Identity (n. 89 above), 16.100. Ibid., 17.101. Dallmayr, Satyagraha: Gandhis Truth Revisited

(n. 95 above), 12.102. Terchek, Gandhi (n. 70 above), 36.

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