Two names are considered very significant when it comes to what is understood as Bengali culture. One is Fakir Lalon Shah, the folk philosopher, singer-composer and lyricist rolled into one. The other is Rabindranath Tagore, not just the Nobel Prize-winning poet, philosopher and musician who is the source of pride for all Bengalis, but to many the creator of the modern Bengal literary soul.
They came from two very different worlds in many senses. Lalon was a member of the Baul sect, the non-literate folk entity of rural Bengal, whose economic and social marginalisation was obvious. It was a culture of the rural poor and left-outs, who mixed various folk ideas with sometimes vague or esoteric notions of mysticism, philosophy and humanism, too, in the broadest sense as understood by rural folks.
Rabindranath Tagore, on the other hand, was the ultimate sophisticate from the colonial local upper class who was not only the epitome of liberal urban culture of the era but was the landlord of the very area from which Lalon emerged. He and his family were even the patrons of the “akhra”, a centre to which Lalon belonged, giving donations as expected by the local Sire.
Yet as evidence and records show, it’s the philosophy and ideas of the Bauls/Lalon which Tagore accepted with a deep sense of affinity, recognising his affinity to them even in his 1930 Hibbert Lecture at Oxford University, where he presented his vision of the “Religion of Man”.
They were universal, thus from a different socio-economic world, but came together to share their notions of love, humanity and spirituality as one. The fact that they did was itself a display of socio-historical connectivity as well.
The long Family Connection
Lalon and the Tagore family were not strangers to each other. The family estate was located in the very area where the hub of the Baul culture was. So unlike other members of the elite class, though there was a profound class difference, there existed a great sense of familiarity as well. Over time, the Tagore also learnt to respect this folk sect whose influence kept growing with every passing day.
As Bengal changed and history took on new shapes, much of it clasped in conflict and violence, the Baul’s simple and to some simplistic message began to offer some exotic sanctuary, still holding on to any traditional culture’s message of “ love and humanity. “ It didn’t need elaboration and analysis, and even today, most are admirers, not analysts, of Bauls because it offers a sanctuary of sorts of syncretism, mixes and inclusion beyond both ideology and theology. This was more so to the enlightened Tagore family in general and Rabindranath in particular, as they were, over time, involved at various levels with the cultural construction and social events of that time.
An Early Mystic Experience?
An event that occurred when Tagore was just on the threshold of adulthood points to a deeper connection between the two, though at the two poles of society. Tagore is supposed to have had a ‘mystic’ experience during which he is reported to have seen the “beauty and unity of the world”, which lasted for several days (Kcarpenter, 2022). No matter what, Tagore was a very sensitive being who was from a very early age prone to mystic ideas and experiences. So, it is no surprise that Tagore and the Bauls would meet as fellow travellers on slightly different paths, but to the same destination of finding “truth and beauty” in the world that would “unite all humanity”.
It is not a chance encounter that brought the two persons or representatives of two cultures together. While there is no evidence that they met, the family connection and awareness of Bauls and Lalon were very much there.
There were several connections with the family. This was inevitable because Lalon was a resident of the area in which the Tagores were zamindars or landlords. Lalon was basically from the tenant class, while Tagore was from the landlord class. However, that did not prevent the Tagores from appreciating the appeal of the Bauls, the significance of their songs and ideas and the potential they had in their thoughts which could be shared across many diversities and classes.
Connecting Two Worlds
Satyendranath, Jyotindranath, and Surendranath of the Tagore family all knew Lalon, and Jyoti was the only person who in 1889 drew a portrait of him. It means the wandering minstrel was eminent enough to draw the landlord’s family’s attention. He had access to their home, and most were admirers of Lalon. So, Rabindranath was not discovering him; he was more like following the steps of his family in admiring Fakir Lalon Shah.
The first person to possibly write on Lalon in the public space was his older sister, Sarala Debi, who later founded the All-Indian Women’s Organisation. She collected songs of Gagan Harkara, a fellow Baul of sorts, along with Lalon’s and published them in the Tagore family magazine “Bharti” in 1895-6. Another family member, Indira Debi, also wrote on them.
So, we note that while Kangal Harinath, Okkhoy Kumar Moitra, Mir Musharraf Hossain, Jaladhar Sen and others wrote about Lalon and Gogon Harkara –another legendary folk singer- for a wider audience, members of the Tagore family were also part of it. They had begun to explore the rustic and mystic music and lyrics of such people who actually lived in their ancestral estate. Finally, when Rabindranath Tagore became the landlord, this relationship bloomed.
The Admiring Poet-Landlord: Tagore and Lalon
While Tagore knew of Lalon, the revered late leader of the Baul community in his area, he seems to have been shocked into admiration when he heard their songs attentively after a while. He says, “One day I chanced to hear a song from a beggar belonging to the Baul sect of Bengal…What struck me in this simple song was a religious expression that was neither grossly concrete, full of crude details, nor metaphysical in its rarefied transcendentalism. At the same time, it was alive with an emotional sincerity; it spoke of an intense yearning of the heart for the divine, which is in man and not in the temple or scriptures, in images or symbols… I sought to understand them through their songs, which is their only form of worship” (Music, Joy, and Divine Delight: The Bauls of Bangladesh and India).
On another occasion, he wrote, “ That this unknown Is the profound reality, though difficult of comprehension, is equally admitted by the English poet as by the nameless village singer of Bengal, in whose music vibrate the wing-beats of the unknown bird, only Shelley’s utterance is for the cultured few, while the Baul song is for the tillers of the soil, for the simple folk of our village households, who are never bored by the mystic transcendentalism” (Mukharji, 2012).
“Edward Dimock Jr. in his The Place of the Hidden Moon (1966) writes: “Rabindranath Tagore put the Bauls on a higher-than-respectable level by his praise of the beauty of their songs and spirit, and by his frank and proud acknowledgement of his poetic debt to them” (Baul, 2011).
It was not just their songs that moved, but their ideas and philosophical discourses as well. He was unlike many urbanites, not condescending to these “peasant mystics”. He even had discussions with them on the issue. After one such session organised by Kalimohon Ghosh, he said that they were not educated, but they were wise. They could discuss complex problems so simply. He got so much pleasure discussing such matters with them that those held with each academic and university teacher pale in comparison.
The Tagore family members also collected manuscripts, and it began before Rabindranath. What he did was to make an organised search and collection for preservation and bring national and international attention to them. Tagore first mentioned Lalon in the “Probashi” magazine, August-September 1896. A more comprehensive collection was published in 1922.
By this time, Lalon was well known in Bengal, but when 1930 Rabibdranath Tagore discussed the ideas of the Baul sect and Lalon in 1930 (Hillbert Lecture) he basically introduced him to the cognoscenti of the wider world. Lalon had crossed the borders of Nadiya and Kushtia, even Bengal and was ready to meet the world.
Many have mentioned the role of Rabindranath Tagore in making Lalon known to the world and that is true, but he was not alone in doing this. The entire Tagore clan was part of this venture and nurtured and sustained the interest in Lalon and helped him to become the familiar and respected name in many parts of the world that he is now.
Tagore’s Idea of “Religion”
This included the Vedas, modern scientific ideas, including Darwinism and the doctrines of the Brahmo Samaj of Bengal too. It was the theistic cult which grew in 19th-century colonial Bengal among elites to which the Tagore family belonged. However, Lalon was very much present in his mind. Also, both believed in the search for the Divine within the self, but Tagore was willing to explore the external world as well, unlike the Bauls. Both had a deep sense of ‘love” as a ‘quintessential” part of this search and considered the search for “humanity” a path to spiritual liberation. Even in his Hibbert Lectures at Oxford University in 1930, he talked about a universalist spiritual vision that he eventually published as The Religion of Man. There, he talked about the divinity within each person, the unity of all people, and a religion based on personal experience instead of rituals or dogma.
The 19th-Century Bengal of Socio-Political Conflict
Bengal and India were undergoing political conflicts externally based on faith community identities, which masked various class conflicts, though most saw it as religion-based politics. And so did Tagore. In many ways, this influenced Tagore and others who read the conflict, not its causes. However, that it was a contributory factor is undeniable, and Tagore certainly didn’t endorse the conflict. It was something the Bauls had done many decades back at the societal level, and even within individual religions, too, they borrowed from.
Tagore was drawn to Baul thought, or by extension, various folk sects’ religious notions regarding their denial of religious dogmatism, strict sectarian identity divisions, the belief in the dominance of a particular faith identity over others, including their own human identity, which caused so much conflict.
Tagore and the Bauls both believed that society’s idea of God should not be limited by rites and theologies that are particularly not universal, and there should be an end to “race egotism” and “race isolation”. The way toward this goal is through the power of creative, spiritual love.
The Bauls were produced by their own historical experience of caste, class and sectarian oppression, so they rejected these markers. Tagore, over time, also developed similar notions about not just rural-urban class and caste and religious differences, but saw it as a global phenomenon, which is why his “Religion of Man” was not aimed just at a Bengali or Indian audience but at a wider one, including the West.
Interestingly, Tagore, like the Bauls, never discarded their entire traditions even if parts of them they disagreed with. Thus, while Lalon and the Bauls never rejected the long syncretistic route, including both Vishnavism and Tantricism and borrowed some Sufi notions too, Tagore too would endorse the “stages of man” concept as described by the Vedas.
These four stages are brahmacharya (education and discipline), garhasthya (worldly work), vanaprasthya (retreat), and pravrajya (the awaiting of freedom with death). Tagore saw them as the “path to the entry of the soul into infinity, making up a great societal and cosmic wholeness that frees all humans from their consciousness of separateness” (Adikka, 2024).
Different but Together
Dr Moumita Banarjee sums up the ideas of Tagore and Lalon this way. “ Tagore’s philosophy emphasises the harmony between the individual soul and the universal spirit, advocating for self-realisation through love, nature, and artistic expression. His work reflects a vision of interconnectedness and the unity of all existence.”
Lalon Fakir’s metaphysical perspective is characterised by mystical and experiential spirituality. Lalon emphasised the concept of “Moner Manush” (the man of the heart), representing the divine presence within each person.
The paths that both followed were similar and different in several ways. Their history and functional world were not the same either. However, it does show that just as the Bauls had in most ways rejected the conventional narrow sectarian path, so had Tagore. He had moved on to a broader world beyond Indian Hinduism or even the reformed Brahmo Samaj. He sought to see the world as one, perhaps through a still vague but aspired to a new “Religion of Man.”
The Connections
Tagore did not dismiss them as the ideas of a folk or semi-vagabond non-literate community at all, and given that his bent was leaning towards them, the chemistry was natural. He appreciated their capacity to discuss and argue on such issues much better than most academics, as he is reported to have said.
This motivated him to explore spirituality, including Baul thoughts more deeply, which ultimately became a part of his wider intellectual domain, particularly religion.
Held Together by A Common Bond
Tagore did not hold back his admiration for Lalon and the Bauls. In the Hilbert Lectures, he said, “That is why, brother, I became a madcap baul, no master I obey, nor injunctions, canons or custom. Now, no man-made distinctions have any hold on me, and I revel only in the gladness of my own welling love. In love, there is no separation, but commingling always. So, I rejoice in song and dance with each and all” (Ghosh, 2017).
It was not just the challenge to all forms of hierarchies, including caste and class as made by the Baul, but the bigger issue of Universality that affected Tagore most. He could let go of the identity markers that held the elite colonial middle class together and search for a wider entity to belong to. It was always within him, but Lalon’s songs and ideas made that urge stronger.
Author
Afsan Chowdhury