Rabindranath Tagore Was the First Musician to Win the Nobel Prize for Literature

(You can read the article also here.)

Bob Dylan - Rabindranath Tagore

The decision by the Swedish Academy to award Bob Dylan the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition" was lauded by many and lamented by a few. But there was universal acknowledgment that the Academy had broken new ground by awarding the Nobel “for the first time” to a singer-songwriter since the French poet and essayist Sully Prudhomme first won it in 1901.

Mainstream media announced the news with its usual insouciant hyperbole. “It is the first time the honor has gone to a musician,” declared the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times wrote: “Dylan became the first musician to be awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.” According to the Washington Post, “Dylan … is a groundbreaking choice by the Nobel committee to select the first literature laureate whose career has primarily been as a musician.”

That Bob Dylan is being lauded as the first musician to win the Nobel Prize for Literature would have amused Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali polymath who won the Nobel Prize for Literature over a century ago in 1913.

Tagore’s literary output fills 26 volumes but to the 200 million Bengali-speaking people in Bangladesh and India’s West Bengal, as well as to the diaspora, his timeless appeal stems more from his 2000+ songs, of which he was both the lyricist and the composer, than from his poems, short stories, novels, dramas and essays. At the time of his award, his songs numbered about a thousand.

So what explains this ignorance or indifference?

The main reason, of course, was that Tagore wrote in Bengali, not as popular or powerful as English, the lingua franca of discourse across cultures and national boundaries. But as the late great Bengali sitarist Ravi Shankar wrote, “Had Rabindranath Tagore been born in the West he would now be as revered as Shakespeare and Goethe.”

To which we may add, “and Dylan.”

But there is probably another reason that also contributed to Western media’s ignorance about Tagore: Cultural (some may call it civilizational) snobbery.

It is the assumption that any new idea in science, art, technology, medicine, literature and yes, music, begins in the West and flows down to the East. The East may have a monopoly on the ‘exotic’, (after all, the Beatles did visit India for inspiration, didn’t they?) but when it comes to what truly matters, there’s no contest: West wins hands down.

How many Americans, for instance, can name one or two leading writers, poets, playwright or musicians from, say, the subcontinent? I once asked my students here in San Jose, California, and was rewarded with blank faces and some snickers.

Yet ask any adult Bangladeshi or Indian or Pakistani about leading American writers (past or present) or singers and they will rattle off names like Twain, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Dylan, Beyonce and Taylor Swift.

There is no justification for this cultural imperialism, (dare I call it hubris?) particularly when information about any culture or society is only a click away. The only requirement is curiosity and respect for the ‘other.’

Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize, according to the Academy, "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West." 

What the Academy was referring to was the collection of Tagore’s poems knows as “Gitanjali” or “Song-Offerings.” It was published in English translation in London in March of 1913, and by the time the award was announced that year, had been reprinted ten times. The reference to “a part of the literature of the West” turned out to be wishful thinking at best!

The Bengali-speaking Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics and a passionate Tagore fan, has tried in recent years to revive interest in Tagore in the West but found himself preaching mostly to the choir. “For many years,” he wrote, “Tagore was the rage in many European countries. His public appearances were always packed with people wanting to hear him. But then the Tagore tide ebbed, and by the 1930s the huge excitement was all over.”

And that’s where Tagore remains, forgotten in the West except to a few connoisseurs.

That’s a pity, for with a little bit of patience and an open mind, Americans can also acquire a taste for Tagore, particularly for his songs. Just type “Tagore Songs” or “Rabindra Sangeet” (music of Rabindranath) on YouTube and you will get thousands of hits of songs sung by leading exponents of this distinctive genre (including some by Tagore himself) that continue to captivate Bengali-speaking people around the world, seventy-five years after his death.

Bob Dylan richly deserved his prize. I confess to a soft spot for this poet/singer because he sang several of his classics in the “Concert for Bangladesh,” (“Blowin' in the Wind,” “A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall,” “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” “Just Like a Woman” and “Mr. Tambourine Man”), organized by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar at the Madison Square Garden in New York on August 1, 1971, during the height of Bangladesh’s War of Independence. 

It is not far-fetched to hope that Dylan’s award will spur interest in the first singer-songwriter who won the Nobel Prize for Literature one hundred and three years before the American genius did. The Government of Bangladesh can also help by instituting a Tagore Award, to be given out every four years to anyone making a breakthrough in Interdisciplinary Research, be it in the Sciences or in the Arts, in honor of one of the most prolific and protean geniuses the world has ever seen.

Edward Kennedy's Quest for Justice

The date is etched in my memory. February 14, 1972: First day of spring in the newly independent nation of Bangladesh.

Ted Kennedy arrived at the Dhaka University campus with his wife Joan Bennett and Robert Kennedy, Jr., escorted by popular student leader Abdur Rab. I was a student at the University then. 8,000 of us had crammed into the courtyard, lecture hall balconies and roofs, wildly applauding the 39-year-old US Senator who was among the first to draw world attention to the genocide unleashed by the military government of Pakistan on unarmed Bangladeshis.

“Even though the United States government does not recognize you,” Kennedy said that morning, “the people of the world do recognize you.” (The United States recognized Bangladesh on April 4, 1972. Bangladesh became an independent nation on December 16, 1971).

“Joi Kennedy,” we roared, a play on the “Joi Bangla” slogan that carried our country to independence. (Joi is Bengali for victory).

The Pakistan army had launched its attack on the night of March 25, 1971. 10,000 Bangladeshis were massacred in the first three days alone. Over a period of nine months, as many as 3 million were killed and 10 million had to flee to India for safety. Kennedy witnessed firsthand their plight when he toured parts of India and spoke of “one of the most appalling tides of human misery in modern times.”

On that spring day, our hearts filled with gratitude for the man who had denounced the Nixon-Kissinger policy of “tilting” toward Pakistan. Kennedy compared our struggle for independence with the American Revolution, drawing tumultuous applause.

Bangladesh had found a friend in need who would remain a friend indeed for as long as the new nation existed. And so it had been.

That is why, when Edward Moore Kennedy passed away on August 25 at the age of 77 after a year-long battle with cancer, Bangladeshis took it personally. Many of us had made the West our home now but who could forget his fight on our behalf during those fateful days of 1971?

I replayed the scene of his visit to Dhaka University over and over again in my mind, reliving those magical moments when anything seemed possible and freedom resonated in every fiber of our being. A human wave brought me close enough to shake Kennedy’s hands; the next minute another wave carried me back to the periphery. When Rab, the student leader, finally managed to establish some order in the crowd, Kennedy planted a banyan sapling at the spot where another banyan tree was uprooted by the Pakistan army.

It was under that ancient and historic tree that students had first planted the seeds of Bangladesh’s independence movement. Kennedy’s sapling was a reminder to tyrants everywhere that while you could uproot a tree, you could never uproot the sapling of freedom that sprouted in every human heart.

In subsequent years, Kennedy experienced both triumphs and tragedies. We learned of his undisciplined personal life, his reckless pursuit of pleasure. But in a second act of self-renewal that is unique in American history, Kennedy conquered his personal demons to become, in President Barack Obama’s words, “not only one of the greatest senators of our time, but one of the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy … For nearly five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts. His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives - in seniors who know new dignity; in families that know new opportunity; in children who know education’s promise; and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just, including me.”

Kennedy was most animated by the quest for justice. Although he was the prince fated never to be king, his achievements far exceeded those of many presidents. He had no taste for abstract ideas. He excelled in the particular, in the painstaking and prosaic legal processes that resulted in laws that brought meaning to millions of lives. He inspired us by proving that we could overcome our failings, however deep and many, if we dedicated ourselves to causes larger than ourselves.

Once asked what he considered was his most valuable trait, Kennedy replied, “persistence.” His persistence was the product of his convictions – justice, equality, opportunity for the marginalized and the forgotten - on which he staked his political fortune. “I have believed,” he once said, “that America must sail toward the shores of liberty and justice for all. There is no end to that journey, only the next great voyage. We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we make.”

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, when hate and prejudice against Islam and Muslims gripped America, Senators Kennedy and Richard Lugar sponsored a "Cultural Bridge to the Islamic World” program. Addressing visiting Muslim students in June, 2004, Kennedy said, "After a year here, each of you are now unofficial American ambassadors to your home countries. I am sure you don't agree with everything the United States says and does, but I hope that you'll be able to explain our country and our values to your friends and family. Each time you do, you'll be sending forth a new ripple of hope.”

On September 27, 2002, a year before the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Kennedy gave a prescient speech in which he voiced his opposition to the war. “War with Iraq before a genuine attempt at inspection and disarmament, or without genuine international support - could swell the ranks of Al Qaeda sympathizers and trigger an escalation in terrorist acts.”

In another speech on January 9, 2007, he called the Iraq War “George Bush’s Vietnam.” The Iraq war, he said, “is the overarching issue of our time, and American lives, American values and American honor are all at stake … Congress can demand a justification from the President for such action before it appropriates the funds to carry it out … This bill will give all Americans – from Maine to Florida to California to Alaska and Hawaii – an opportunity to hold the President accountable for his actions.”

Another person who worked hard to focus world attention on the genocide in Bangladesh was former Beatle George Harrison. Along with Ravi Shankar and other musicians, he organized the Concert for Bangladesh in Madison Square Garden in New York City on August 1, 1971. Harrison’s signature song was “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

Musicians and politicians, of course, use different media to express themselves, each effective in its own way, but there was no gentle weeping for Kennedy when it came to opposing injustice and atrocities. Rather, he thundered. No equivocation or considerations of political expediency. Simply state the truth as you see it and reveal the crimes, wherever the chips may fall.

As I was reminiscing about the events of 1971-72, I tried to articulate anew my thoughts and feelings on that spring morning in Dhaka almost four decades ago when Kennedy came to our campus. Then I read these memorable words of Kennedy himself, delivered at the 1980 Democratic convention in Madison Square Garden, and knew that I had found what I was looking for: “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

Thanks to Ted Kennedy and those like him, our hope endures and our dream of a just world moves toward reality step by step, moment by moment.