We worship Tagore, don’t understand him

In spite of the furious protests and lamentations of art lovers, intellectuals and politicians, a set of 12 paintings by Rabindranath Tagore gifted by him to Leonard Elmhirst was auctioned by Sotheby’s in London this week.

Having just launched our year-long celebration of the poet’s 150th birth anniversary, we are screaming ourselves hoarse to claim the paintings as ‘national art treasures’ and bring them back to India. Presumably to lock them up forever within the dark, bottomless, red-taped padded cell of the inscrutable sarkari system.

The irony is that even after a century of worshipping Tagore we have failed to understand what he stood for. That we are trying to bind within crass national boundaries the art of one who belonged to the whole world, one who longed for a haven of freedom “where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls”.

Tagore very staunchly believed in a world of knowledge and ideas where national boundaries were irrelevant. He believed in opening doors and windows to other cultures, in promoting the free exchange of thought. He would probably have been aghast at the idea of dragging back his art from foreign shores and locking it up at home, much like illiberal parents drag back and lock up their adult children who appear to have too liberal a life elsewhere. They don’t do it out of love — since they often kill their offspring to make a point — but out of an entirely misplaced sense of ownership. I am afraid our attempt (which failed, thankfully) to claim Tagore’s art and lock it away in the deep dungeon of national art treasures is not far from that.

It’s a bit of a curse, this sarkari stamp of ‘art treasure’. It trusses up dead artists in reams of red tape, reducing not just the visibility, mobility, and commercial value of their art, but also their worth in general as the poor national treasure sinks helplessly into oblivion.

Our sarkar has steadily become grotesquely incompetent in handling matters of art and ideas, as they clasp the life-breath out of their treasures, rocking drunkenly between defunct rules, illogical customs, corrupt officials, negligent babus, ignorant power-brokers and the lowest bidders for every venture.

No, I am not being mean. Tell me, how many of you have actually seen Tagore’s paintings outside of a book or a poster? Visva Bharati, the ‘World University’ that Tagore founded in Santiniketan, has about 1,500 of his paintings and sketches, Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata has hundreds, and the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi has a substantial number. We could have popularised his art if we wanted to.

And why are we so stunned that a set of 12 paintings by India’s best-known and most versatile intellectual with an unparalleled influence on Indian culture, who still largely represents Indian literature to the world, sold for about Rs11 crore (£1.6 million) 70 years after his death? A couple of days earlier, just one painting by SH Raza sold for almost Rs16.5 crore (£2.4 million) at Christie’s.

Besides, Tagore’s works are not looked after well even in Santiniketan. The museum at Rabindra Bhavan has been a mess for ages. Visva Bharati has twisted itself into knots over the years and is far from the open, liberal, humanistic centre for learning that Tagore set up. Tagore’s manuscripts and personal artefacts are often stolen and lost. His paintings were so badly damaged that last year INTACH had to restore many of them.

And we have also lost his Nobel medal. The prize was stolen from Rabindra Bhavan in 2004, and the case closed in 2007. When we can’t protect even a small, hard, metal object, what right do we have to claim his fragile art that is far safer in private collections?