Solidarity of Asia

THUS wrote the Statesman of Calcutta in a leading article:– “Rabindranath Tagore has lately given expression to a growing sense of solidarity in Asia, and as might be expected, he puts before Asiatics a very lofty ideal, expressing his own firm conviction that Asia’s mission to the West is a humanising and pacific one. If only there were enough Tagores, there is no doubt that the conflict between West and East could be resolved without resort to arms. And if Britain and India can win through to an amicable end of the present difficult phase their common history, and India can develop with British help an industrialism of her own, then, a British Commonwealth of Nations which included an Indian Dominion would be in an effective position to mediate in a struggle which might otherwise rage from the Pacific across the world, drawing all the resources of Europe into a whirlpool of destruction. The more reason, therefore, for Englishmen and Indians on all occasions to think twice before they pander to the forces of hatred.” The poet is by no means the first Indian who has given expression to the “growing sense of solidarity in Asia”. Nor is he by any means the first to put before Asiatics the lofty ideal of being a humanising and pacific force in the world conflicts of the future. Indeed, it is the literal truth to say that a time when the poet himself was supplying the arsenal of nationalism with some of its most powerful weapons, there were men in his own Province who raised their less powerful voice on behalf of this essentially pacific mission of Asia and particularly of India.