Iqbal vs. Tagore

Iqbal vs. Tagore? Is it a fair comparison? Tagore's family were rich, cultured, honoured and lived a sophisticated, cosmopolitan life.
Iqbal's grandfather was a Kashmiri Hindu given the choice of death or conversion to Islam after a charge of embezzlement was brought against him. Iqbal's father was a well to do tailor who did his best to enable his son to come up educationally. Thus, whatever his personal qualities, or however pious and upright the conduct of his father, Iqbal was not classed as 'Ashraf'- he was a mere plebeian from the point of view of the Muslim aristocrats of Punjab.
Unlike Faiz, for whom Persian was a family language, Iqbal did not learn elite diction from 'the old women' in his paternal house. Urdu purists claim to detect 'Punjabisms' in his language, while his Persian poetry- through praised by Iran's Supreme Guide- is not idiomatic and hence lacking in lyrical fervor.
Iqbal's English is very good- but it is the language of the academic- and Iqbal's philosophy, such as it is, more concerned with keeping up with current European fads and relating them, by no means critically, to Islamic thinkers- in other words, his work is simply an exercise in chauvinistic special pleading for a sectional interest within the British Empire.
However Iqbal, unlike Tagore, is very much a living force today. His characteristic confusion of ideas, grandiose diction, and sense of inferiority and injured racial pride are the hallmark of Post Colonial discourse. He was a true Prophet in that his works helped create, and now help sustain, a Nation which is nothing but his very own pathology writ large, poised to infect the whole world with its madness.
Tagore, on the other hand, after an early flirtation with the Revolutionaries, warned against chauvinistic nationalism, set his face against militarism, and preached a Humanistic Universalism at precisely the time when that message was most needed. Isaiah Berlin praises Tagore. E.M. Foster prefers Iqbal. India, for Foster, was nothing but muddle, confusion and noise. Iqbal, then, was Indian. Tagore merely High Victorian pi-jaw.

Googling Iqbal vs. Tagore, I found this- on a Pakistani discussion board-

'Now one of our notable research scholars M Ikram Chughtai, Director of the Urdu Science Board, has come up with a clear answer based on some new research. The current issue of the Lahore-based monthly Al-Ma'arif carries his revealing article on Iqbal and Tagore.

Chughtai has presented some interesting details. He tells us that despite being contemporaries and compatriots, the two poets never met each other. They did not even exchange letters. No written proof of a contact between them is traceable. However, it is said that once Tagore, while in Lahore, tried to meet Iqbal. He paid a visit to his Mayo Road residence but Iqbal was absent, gone to Bhopal for his medical treatment. Once back in Lahore, Iqbal perhaps could have written to Tagore and express his regrets. He did not. And there was a reason; Iqbal resented Tagore receiving the Nobel Prize. Chughtai says "Tagore's award had been hovering on Iqbal's mind throughout his life and he, directly or indirectly, could not free himself from this 'award complex'.

Chughtai has also made a detailed mention of the abortive efforts made by Iqbal and his well-wishers to get a Nobel for him. Soon another development was to take place which was to further sadden the Iqbal: King Raza Shah Pahlavi of Iran extended an invitation to Tagore to visit his country. He went there in 1932. As a royal guest, he was given tremendous welcome in many cities of Iran. While in Tehran, he received a similar invitation from the King of Iraq. In Baghdad, Tagore was received by King Faisal himself.

Chughtai assures us that Iqbal was greatly 'shocked' by these invitations and warm welcomes extended to a poet who he considered to be his rival. In one of his recently discovered letters, he wrote to Ghulam Abbas Akram, the then foreign minister of Iran, that Tagore was a non-Muslim and that "Tagore did an injustice to the Indian Muslims. He told the Muslims of Mesopotamia to persuade the Indian Muslims to cooperate with the Hindus for the freedom of India."

Tagore's attitude towards Iqbal was different. It can be felt in his two messages, one sent to Inter-collegiate Muslim Brotherhood of Lahore which celebrated Iqbal Day in January 1937 and the other of condolence on Iqbal's demise in 1938. In these messages the Bengali Nobel Laureate acknowledged Allama's greatness as a poet and universal value of his poetry.

Against this background, it is not surprising that the compilers and editors of the speeches and statements of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah have expurgated the Quaid's statement issued on Tagore's death. The Quaid had paid rich tributes to the Bengali writer, saying "I am certainly grieved to hear the sad news of the death of one of the greatest of India's poets, philosophers and social workers. I had the privilege of knowing him from my younger days and the last time I had the honour of meeting him was in London in 1929. His very frank and illuminating discussions were a great source of encouragement. Above all, he was a true patriot and was always ready to understand and appreciate the opposite point of view. In his convocation address to the Gurmukhi University he made very weighty and frank observations about the slogan 'India is one and indivisible' which should be studied by every Indian. "It is an irreparable loss to India. Poet Tagore will live through his works with us".

Was Firaq bumming Nehru till Gandhi stuck his nose in?

"Firaq Gorakhpuri was said to have been 'advised' by Mahatma Gandhi to put an end to his close friendship with Panditji – after which, it is said, Firaq never wrote another nationalistic ghazal or nazm. Even assuming the tattle about Gandhiji’s interference to be true, it’s possible that the friendship was just that. But then, it doesn’t fit into our profile of Gandhiji: Why would he proscribe a cordial relationship between his lieutenant and a national poet?"
Read more of Varsha Bhosle's (daughter of the great singer Asha) amazing revelations here.

Gandhi was also blamed for preventing Nehru's sister- Vijaylaxmi from marrying a Muslim- what's next? The revelation that his intervention prevented Lady Irwin from eloping with her horse? I begin to see something very sinister behind the Godse conspiracy.

Tamil love is different- mind it!

The funniest thing I've read in a long time can be found here.

The article takes issue with the following statement.
“In Northern Sri Lanka, the secessionist Tamil Tigers are feared and even respected, but seldom loved.” [Economist, London, Oct.7, 2000; pp.19-20]

But, it turns out, what the Economist doesn't realize is that Love is different for Tamils.
The author invokes the authority of Margaret Trawick's 'Notes on Love in a Tamil family' as follows-
for Tamils, anpu (as Tamils know ‘love’ in a broader sense) has the following nine properties.

1. containment (adakkam): Open expression of love is to be restrained, even if it is mother love. Tamils also do not express love among opposite sexes openly.

2. habit (pazhakkam): Attachment, or a sense of oneness with a person or thing or activity, grows slowly, by habituation.

3. harshness and cruelty (kadumai and kodumai): Physical affection for children is expressed not through caresses but roughly, in the form of painful pinches, slaps and tweaks. The movie song, ‘Adikkira kai thaan Anaikkum; Anaikkira kai thaan adikkum’ (Hitting hand will hold, and holding hand will hit) expresses this sentiment beautifully.

4. dirtiness (azhukku): ‘Defiance of rules or purity conveyed a message of union and equality and was a way of teaching children and onlookers where love was’, tells the author. This is exemplified by mother’s care of baby’s bodily excretions and the host’s cleaning of guest’s plate of food (echchil).

5. humility (panivu): Love is implicated in expressions of humility and patience (porumai, the strength to sustain and endure).

6. poverty and simplicity (ezhumai and elimai): Self renunciation of luxury (such as fancy clothes and jewellery) for the cause of a loved one, as expressed in sentiments like, ‘I don’t want new clothes…as long as you are sick’.

7. servitude (adimai): Illustrated as the servant of God, who receives the highest respect among the civilians. Elimination of the boastful ‘I’ (Naan) and substituting with the self deprecating ‘this slave’ (Adiyen), exemplified by Tamil saints of the past.

8. opposition and reversal (ethirttal and puratchi): Characterized by the use of very intimate suffix, -di (for girl) and –da (for boy) among family members and close pals. When these intimate forms of address are used by acquaintances or strangers, they become derogatory.

9. mingling and confusion (kalattal and mayakkam): Love erases distinction completely and mingle everyone, typified by the adage, ‘We are all one’ (Onrae kulam – Oruvane Thevan). In addition, love leads to dizziness, confusion, intoxication and delusion (mayakkam).

All these nine cultural markers of Tamil love are indicated in the love Tamils have shown for Pirabhakaran.

1. containment: One cannot ask a Tamil, like in Gallup-poll, to find out whether he or she loves Pirabhakaran or not. Prudent Tamils will not answer in the affirmative. It is a very private issue, like what the Americans consider the details of their individual paychecks.

2. habit: Remember that in the first 10 years of Tamil militancy (circa 1975-1985), there were many who competed for the leadership role with Pirabhakaran. Some who were even trained in the PLO camps and Israeli camps. They only turned out to be mercenaries (for the arms of Sri Lankan and Indian governments) and later metamorphosed into parliamentary seat-warmers. Tamils came to accept Pirabhakaran, only after he proved his mettle. Cynics may quip that Pirabhakaran physically eliminated his rivals to reach the pinnacle. But Eelam Tamils also came to be convinced that his rivals for leadership had self-destructed themselves by ill-judgments, and also by deviating from the path of ‘Eelam’ for which they had pledged to work. It is not an exaggeration to reiterate that among the 60 plus million Tamils living today, considering the impossibility of the aim of establishing an army, none had followed the Edison formula for success (constituting three simple elements: hard work, common sense and ‘stick-to-it’iveness spirit) diligently like Pirabhakaran for the past 25 years. Pirabhakaran also shares some of Edison’s peculiar background in that he was a ‘semi-literate’ in the fool’s world of literacy, boasting of prefixes ‘Oxford’, ‘Harvard’ and ‘Sorbonne’ linked by a hyphen to the word ‘educated’, or prefixes ‘Sandhurst’ and ‘West Point’ linked by a hyphen to the word ‘trained’.

3. harshness and cruelty: Loving Pirabhakaran was (and is) no bed of roses. The harshness and cruelty were absorbed as part of the package, for the pride his movement has delivered to the Tamils.

4. dirtiness: Of course, that Pirabhakaran was not from the dominant Hindu Vellala caste has been accepted by the Tamils. The ‘dirtiness’ in the Brahminical world view has been completely ignored.

5. humility: The pain of routine ridicule, delivered from the political pulpit and press desks in Colombo, Chennai, Washington DC and London, for loving Pirabhakaran is tolerated by Tamils with humility.

6. poverty and simplicity: With whatever scale one measures the quality of life in Eelam during the past two decades, an apparent economic poverty and simplicity is visible in the places where Pirabhakaran is loved. Still the Eelam Tamils endure this hardship for love of Pirabhakaran and his ideological goal.

7. servitude: His adversaries, like the operatives of the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), may ridicule the decorating terms such as ‘Suriyathevan’ and other word-plays, but Tamils who love Pirabhakaran serve him in various fronts – in his army, and as support cast under much hardship. Servitude is a cultural marker in Tamil love, which cannot be understood by culture-challenged academics, journalists and paid report-writers.

8. opposition and reversal: This cultural marker doesn’t need explanation, since there was opposition to Pirabhakaran for his methods, especially among the older generation. The opposition was mainly due to generational conflict, who were familiar with the Gandhian path of non-violence and couldn’t grasp the post-Gandhian scenario that gun holders dictate terms in global politics.

9. mingling and confusion: This cultural marker for love among Tamils, towards Pirabhakaran, is self-explanatory if one observes the existing pattern in Tamil Nadu.

Difficile est saturam non scribere, I suppose, is the moral we must draw from our erudite author, which is not to say he hasn't brilliantly taxonomized the emotional source springs of Fuhrerprinzip.

Intentionality can't be intensional- discuss.

There is an extended treatment of this here. 

The Will is beyond or before Words, just as the urge to fuck up my computer is prior and posterior to the apprehension of the tools that make it inviting to tinker to that end.
Tool usage can be parsed intensionally- generating an I-language, so to speak- and there are good didactic or organizational reasons for such behavior to evolve- however, Meaning is not in that use if individuals can have self generated intentionality and language is ultimately about individual interchange.

Update- click here for, Google brain-box, Norvig's takedown of Chomsky

Motto of the N.R.I

voh phuul sar chaRhaa jo chaman se nikal gayaa
izzat use milii jo vatan se nikal gayaa

(Mast Kalkattavi)

'That flower adorns Beauty's head which from the garden was plucked
Honored is that native who off slyly from his native land has fucked"

The motto of the N.R.I- all the more hilarious because the cunt is a weed not a flower.

Jamshed Joshi in the Satanic Verses

Joshi is a Brahmin occupational surname derived from the Sanskrit word Jyotish (astrologer). Jamshed, however, is a Persian name- that of a legendary Iranian King (meaning 'shining twin'-i.e. the constellation Gemini and also the twin liturgical fire sticks)-whose Indic equivalent was Yama- Lord of Death- who is paired with his twin sister Yami- who incestuously desires him- a richly Jungian theme in keeping with a key motif in Rushdie's first success- the novel, 'Midnight's Children'.

Jamshed is quite a common name amongst Zoroastrians and, to a lesser extent, Muslims. It has never been used by Hindus- particularly not Brahmins with the surname Joshi. On the other hand, some Parsis do have the surname Joshi and, I suppose, would want to keep a Persian first name so as not to be confused with Hindu Brahmins. 

In the book, Joshi (who teaches martial arts to young inner city ethnic stereotypes) is a Marxist- i.e. the keeper of the keys to an 'Objective' Wisdom- thus, perhaps, the possessor of the cup of Jamshed in which all things are revealed. (Pace Prof. Godbole ('Rushdie at Rugby'- Journal of Indian Literature in English, Jadavpur Uni. Press, 1992)) - while it may well be that, in English Public School Slang, a Jam-shed is a hyperbolic term deriving from the awe and wonderment caused by mental contemplation of a new boy's rectum after his serial stuffing by members of the Lower Sixth whose parents are billed extra for 'reds'- i.e. intercourse with the menstruating School Matron- the good Professor should understand that whereas my own dear alma mater was not 'Public' but 'Approved' (that too by Her Majesty's Inspector of Prisons) I myself can personally testify that the practice died out in England after Jawaharlal Nehru's first day at Harrow (while all India knows of Nehru's habit of sending his laundry to Paris, the fact that he got his Vindaloos delivered from Hyderabad is less well known. Yet, it was the latter extravagance which ended the practice of 'Jam-shedding'. Vide Winston Churchill-'Why Hindus are Horrible' Vol 6)

Jamshed Joshi is known as Jumpy Joshi- a febrile poet faineant spouting Marxist shite while supposedly battling 'racism' coz, tho' the fucker was over forty, like that was still cool then, right?

Anyway, what I was building up to was a De Santillana style shitefest about like fucking asterisms and wobbling equinoctial colure and skhamba/skandha and shite shite shite with a Jungian face.
Can't be bothered.
Rushdie was, is, shite. Jamshed Joshi- that's as hilarious as Bruno thinking O.J is a good African American name for the Botswanan baby he's adopted. But, speaking of Sacha Baron Cohen- isn't every Indglish interview Ali G? all Indglish travel writing Borat? All our political posturing Bruno?
The existence of Indglish, its inevitable apotheosis, invalidates every axiom of Noam Chomsky's- Moses Mendellhson was a catastrophically wrong turn in Jewish History- Ali G's Chomsky interview is pretty lame- but then Baron Cohen is the autistic savant of an art by which he himself remains untaught- Indglish now is the sole language of Being shepherding itself- wooly hindlegs stuffed into Welly tops- and India alone capable of producing a film called 'My good friend Hitler' or treating Mein Kampf as a treatise on Management theory.

Ramdas Menon on Jyoti Basu

I am reproducing this article by Ramdas Menon from and Expressbuzz site which appears to have some malware infection. I will email the author for permission and take this down if requested.

Ramdas Menon

First Published : 28 Jan 2010 11:06:00 PM IST
Last Updated : 28 Jan 2010 12:23:04 AM IST


We who grew up as children in Jyoti’s Bengal, called him Jyoti ‘The Candlelight’ Basu. We do not remember using electric lights during the endless night which lasted 23 years. I say this because I lived there from my birth in 1965 to middle age in 1995, and endured 18 years of his misrule. 

There was not a single day when we could sit or study or sleep in peace. I remember sleepless mornings and nights in the hot summers, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year — he merely sipped his scotch on the rocks in air conditioned comfort when we had 14-hour power cuts. Yes sir, he was a pucca sahib. When he was asked in the late Sixties why West Bengal was not investing more in the power sector, he famously replied “What shall we do with more power, eat it?” The great man thought that the hungry and the dispossessed whom he ruled would eat it. He went on to eat crow, but let’s move on.

Factories were under 24X7 lockouts, and unemployment levels rose faster than the hemlines of Kingfisher’s airhostesses, but guess what — he went on summer trips to the UK every year ‘to attract foreign investment’. The only things that happened with sickening regularity were gheraos, strikes and processions. Gokhale’s “What Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow” became Basu’s “What India does today, Bengal ain’t gonna do in my lifetime”.

The other thing I recall vividly is violence, the blood curdling violence his goons would unleash at the slightest pretext, in the hallowed tradition of Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot. I remember in 1982, 17 Anand Margis (including a nun) were battered to death by his goons in broad daylight. There was blood on the streets. I saw the blood. We also know how his goons cracked Mamata Banerjee’s skull when she led a procession against his misrule. The deputy commissioner of police in the Port area (Mehta) was hacked to death by smugglers led by one Idris Mian in Kidderpore, and they were shielded by Kalimuddin Shams, the deputy speaker. Within a week, Idris was caught, and beaten to death in the Lalbazar police lock-up. Nothing ever happened to Shams. 

Earlier, when he was the leader of the opposition, his goons had gone on a rampage burning trams and buses when fares were raised by two paise. And this was in Calcutta. In the villages, the slightest opposition to the party line meant certain loss of a few body parts if you were lucky, or death if you weren’t. The CPI(M)-RSS clashes in Kannur were closely covered in the Press, and gained national notoriety. No one thought it fit to report on what this wolf in sheep’s clothing had been doing in Bengal all these years. And the best part was that this bhadralok managed to convey a sense of decency when he spoke in his quaint British-accented English about the rights of the working classes, and how his heart bled for them all. 

The Nandigram incidents only highlighted this aspect of his murderous legacy, and poor old Buddhadeb carried the can for the murder and mayhem that followed. He was the man who said ‘Erom to hoye thake’ (these things keep happening) when a woman was gang raped in broad daylight (Bantala incident) by his goons.

With one fell stroke, he took Bengal back by at least a decade in the field of education by banning the study of English in government schools while he himself had had the benefit of an English education — Middle temple, old chap, you know how it is.

He ensured that his industrialist son Chandan’s biscuit factories never had strikes while the rest of Waste Bengal went from disorder to chaos to total pandemonium. He, the self-anointed leader of the homeless, the oppressed, the depressed, the dispossessed, and pretty much everyone else, had nothing to say when his son married a close relative of a London-based capitalist. Grandpa Jyoti did not oppose his grandchildren attending the international school (we can’t mix with the natives, you know, old chap) in Calcutta. He was forced to repeal his anti-English decision because even the party apparatchiks had started to question this — they too began sending their children to ‘Inglis mediaam’ schools. 

When Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee (he was information minister then) stated publicly that the CPI(M) had become a haven of thugs and goons Basu awarded him the Order of the Red Boot, Second Class. It was a much-chastened Buddhadeb who came back in sackcloth and ashes a couple of years later. 

Basu craved power like a drunkard craves booze, or to use a modern day metaphor, like N D Tiwari craved nubile women. Nothing wrong fundamentally, I suppose, to crave something you like, but I say this because of the tendency of today’s leading newspapers to paint Jyoti Basu as a selfless man of the highest probity who was ever ready to give up his chair for the sake of principles, etc.

Despite all his cant about secularism and anti-casteism, our hero had only Bhattacharyas and Mukherjees and Gangulys, not to mention Chatterjees and Boses and Sens and other upper castes in his Cabinet. What do you think is happening in Lalgarh today? He continued the policy of exploitation of the tribals and the lower classes by telling them that it was in their best interests to vote CPI(M) — pass the scotch, old chap, and be snappy about it, will you? 

It was the (Havana) cigar chomping Pramode Dasgupta, organiser par excellence, who almost single-handedly won the 1977 elections. However, for reasons best known to him, Pramode-da decided to stay out of the government and focus on party work, and handed over the reins to the scotch-swilling bhadralok leader of the dispossessed. I keep talking of scotch and cigars because a box of Havanas or a bottle of Black Label cost more than a week’s wages of those whom these selfless souls purported to lead. When Dasgupta died a sudden death, our Jyoti babu had untrammelled power as he ran both the government and the party. Power corrupted, and absolute power corrupted absolutely. 

While the Mulayams and the Lalus rigged the elections on election day, our barrister babu abhorred such crudities. He started the process five years in advance by tampering with the voters’ lists. There wasn’t anyone like T N Seshan in those days, so he could do whatever he liked. Hundreds of thousands of people suddenly found themselves struck off the rolls. The cadre systematically infiltrated every area of the establishment — the teaching fraternity in the primary schools, the colleges, the universities; the lower level judiciary; the panchayats; the lower rung government officers; and yes, the police. The entire government machinery was taken over by the apparatchiks. And so they went from strength to strength while the rest of India watched and congratulated the man who gave a new meaning to the word panchayati raj. And yet, people still say he was a gentleman. By his own admission, “I’m not a gentleman, I’m a communist”. 

The great achievements of the communist rule were during the first phase from 1977 to 1982. That was when Operation Barga was rolled out to implement fundamental land reforms. It enabled the tillers of the land to become the owners, but Basu extracted his pound of flesh by conscripting them for The Cause — Napoleon is always right, you see. And yes, the land reforms were the handiwork of Nanigopal Bhattacharya, if I am able to recollect his name correctly. This single operation enabled the CPI(M) to have a hardcore cadre, and with their help, they systematically let loose a reign of terror.  

Jyoti babu’s greatest contribution however was to keep the communal passions under control — within about 12 hours of Indira Gandhi’s assassination, he had the anti-Sikh sentiments firmly stamped out. As opposed to states like Tamil Nadu, there was no whipping up of casteist sentiments there, which is how middle class south Indians like us managed to get an engineering (or medical) education virtually free, and that too outside our home state.

How, then, did Grandpa Jyoti manage it? Twenty-three years on the trot, and are we to infer that he stayed there because he fed the hungry, clothed the naked, sheltered the homeless and generally spread sweetness and light? He stayed on top because he was more ruthless and cold-blooded than all the Mulayams and the Lalus. Period.

Just like they brought down Stalin’s statue in Russia and Saddam’s in Iraq, the day is not far off when West Bengal casts his entire legacy to where it rightfully belongs — the rubbish heap of history. And the saddest part is that an honest man will be held responsible.

ramdasmenon@yahoo.com