New Delhi: Union Minister of State for Education Subhash Sarkar on August 18 said that Rabindranath Tagore was shunned by his family being dark skinned – a claim that scholars say is untrue. More surprising is the fact that there was little context for the minister’s sudden pronouncement.
The BJP minister’s comments come days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech, referred to freedom fighter Matangini Hazra as belonging to Assam. Hazra is from Bengal.
Sarkar was making a speech at Visva-Bharati, the central university which Tagore had founded at Bengal’s Shantiniketan, when he suddenly brought up Tagore’s skin tone. The university’s vice chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty was present there.
Sarkar spoke on a variety of topics like Afghanistan and the new education policy but ostensibly took a detour from relevant topics.
It’s 2021, but we are still talking SKIN TONES!
Dr. Subhash Sarkar, MoS Education: Tagore’s skin tone was dark, that’s why his mother didn’t cradle him. Yet he conquered the world. pic.twitter.com/YmynsRdkaH
— Sreyashi Dey (@SreyashiDey) August 19, 2021
The Telegraph has reported him as having said, “His mother and many members of his family would not cradle him because he was dark. The same Rabindranath Tagore has won the world for India.”
“The poet’s family…if we look at everyone’s faces, we’ll see that everyone’s complexion was starkly fair. Even Rabindranath Tagore’s complexion was truly fair. Fair complexion is of two kinds, some are bright yellowish and some are slightly red even though fair. Rabindranath Tagore’s complexion was of the second kind,” he also said.
The newspaper reports that Sarkar did not offer information on where he learned this fact from. Nor did he attempt to indicate how Tagore’s dark skin may have potentially hindered his literary output.
Tagore describes many aspects of his childhood in a populated home in his book Jibonsmriti (‘Life’s Memories’). While he does mention that he was largely left alone to roam the house while his mother, Sarada Devi, had her hands full looking after her several children, mention of neglect due to skin tone is absent.
Telegraph also notes that Tagore experts believe that Rabindranath and his artist-writer nephew Abanindranath, often described themselves as ‘dark’ in jest.
The remark was met with surprise and almost universal condemnation. The CPI(M) told the paper that the comment describes “deep-rooted racism” in the mind of the BJP.