Rabindranath on Human Solidarity |
IV But what is human solidarity? Does Rabindranath treat solidarity as an ontological fact which we overlook under the spell of power and ignorance? Or, does he mean that solidarity is not a fact but a goal to be achieved? Unfortunately the response pattern of Rabindranath is not always uniform. Rather he makes noises of both sorts. Sometimes he goes on to talk in a grand metaphysical style. He talks about our essential humanity 'which reasonates', in the words of Rorty, 'to the presence of this same thing in other human beings,'11 But sometimes, he stands back from this metaphysical accent on essential unity to the recognition of pluralities and of the need for communion between them. When Rabindranath is under metaphysical trance, he talks about a core self that lies within each of us. Recognition of human solidarity is then recognition of one another's common humanity. We may quote some of his observations from The Religion of Man12 as evidence: 'Our religions present for us dreams of the ideal unity which is man himself as he manifests the infinite. We suffer from the sense of sin, which is the sense of discord, when any disruptive passion tears gaps in our vision of the one in man, creating isolation in our self from the universal humanity'. (p.77) Or : 'It is for men to produce the music of the spirit... (p, 80) It follows from the foregoing observations of Rabindranath that what prevents human solidarity is the barrier of separateness between human solidarity is the barrier of separateness between individuals. And what stimulates this barrier is our inability to recognise the 'core self’ or 'supreme man' -- the bond of unity running through the individuals. This also proves that human solidarity is an ontological fact. But the idea of a 'core self or 'supreme man', however forceful, has not perhaps much grip on us in our lived situation. This insistence on abstract unity outweighs pluralities of human beings bound by history and institutions, differences of individuals' attitudes, beliefs and patterns of behaviour in different socio-cultural conditions as we encounter them in our lived world. The metaphysical stance ignores that our affiliation with others is not recognition of one another's common humanity, but has phenomenologically a more local flavour. It may be pointed out that Rabindranath was also aware off it when he referred to his servant Momin Mia with whom he did not feel at first any bond of affinity. But as soon as he learned that the only daughter of the servant had died, the intense distress of the servant at once drew the poet closer to him. He realized him as the father of a daughter; and this prompted his feeling of affiliation with the servant: 'In that day that unfortunate villager came nearer to me only through his utter distress and intense suffering. Momin Mia became real to me through my imagination."13 Obviously Rabindranath emphasises that what prompts this fellowship is not only meta-narrative of the core self, but simply the banal recognition: Momin Mia is, like him, father of a small child. This is also the point of Rorty when he writes: 'Consider, first, those Danes and those Italians. Did they say, about their Jewish neighbours, that they deserved to be saved because they were fellow human beings? Perhaps sometimes they did, but surely they would usually, if queried, have used more parochial terms to explain why they were taking risks to protect a given Jew — for example, that this particular Jew was... a fellow member of the same union or profession, ... or a fellow parent of small children. ... Consider, as a final example, the attitude of contemporary American liberals to the unending hopelessness and misery of the lives of the young blacks in American cities. Do we say that these people must be helped because they are our fellow human beings? We may, but it is much more presuasive ... to describe them as our fellow American — to insist that it is outrageous that an American should live without hope. The point of these examples is that our sense of solidarity is strongest when those with whom solidarity is expressed arc thought of as "one of us", where "us" means something smaller and more local than human race.'14 The main objective of all such quibbles is to underline that human solidarity may of course be taken as a metaphysical problem. But it will be more presuasive and perhaps rewarding too to take human solidarity as a social problem that takes off from recognition of differences of tribe, race, custom, culture and the like and then starts the ongoing process of discovering the other as one of us. And this means taking human solidiarity not as an ontological reality but as a goal to be achieved. Many remarks of Rabindranath point to this direction, and I prefer to read him in that way. Thus he observes; 'Actually speaking, cultures arc different. What is needed is eagerness of" heart to achieve communion between the different cultures. Anything that prevents that is barbarism.'15 The question is, how this communion or fellowship between people of different cultures is to be achieved. Rabindranath's response to it is clear when we remember his narrative of his bereaved servant. He appeals to our imaginative ability that can activate our identification with the details of pain, suffering and humiliation of other. He insists on our increased sensitivity to the details of unfamiliar people, and thereby to see them not as 'they' but as our fellow sufferers. In other words, what is needed, according to him, is imaginative involvement in or sensitivity to pain and humiliation of other — pain and humiliation which we endure irrespective of difference of culture and strata. This will enable us to see or feel others as 'one of us'. And this is the point that Rabindranath wants to emphasise by referring to the episode of his servant.
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