This is an example of talent recognises talent. Stop being so toxic

Aka gainful recognition of and traffic in privilege.

Exactly, Sarabhai is the reason India is on the moon. Stop being hyper critical about everything. If you had access to Tagore even you would ask him for a recommendation letter.

People like you have too much time for unnecessary and unproductive opinions. Spend time in better things

Not sure how this is trollish. But that's for the Mod to decide.

Be that as it may, here are a couple of things that I wanted to share.

https://theprint.in/national-interest/rocket-boys-crime-on-history-inventing-muslim-villain-stealing-meghnad-sahas-identity/837504/

https://www.telegraphindia.com/my-kolkata/people/biman-nath-the-author-of-homi-j-bhabha-a-renaissance-man-among-scientists-talks-about-why-rocket-boys-does-not-do-justice-to-the-story-of-homi-bhabha/cid/1858583

https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/2022/feb/24/fact-vs-fiction-2422990.html

Yeah, this ain't trollish. It's calling out savarna privilege. Mod should educate himself and read Marxist critiques of Tagore. He emphasised only romantic and classical aspects of Bengal, overlooking subaltern culture.

I was introduced to criticism of Tagore by a friend who lent me a copy of writings by Hungryalist, it was an eye opener, sometimes it is not possible to know a critique when you live inside the bubble. However, in spite of the valid criticisms (like middle and upper class value propagation, most of the protagonists being upper class males or females, living of Zamindari properties, which incidentally many Islamic fundamentalists in Dhaka raise nowadays to discourage Rabindrasangeet etc.) it would not be proper to wish away the immense contribution that Rabindranath made to the bengali lit. There are other bengali authors who have written about subaltern you can follow them if you wish but why denigrate Tagore and call him a casteist?

He overlooked the subaltern culture? Did you even read his works, or only half-baked critiques of it?

it is not the same to say that dalits should be given equal space and rights (which all the Bengali writers inlcuding Rabindranath clearly articlulated) as to write about the dalit experience (Abhagir swarga by Saratchandra or the lived writings of Byapari)

Can you provide a list of essays or short stories of Tagore where he did an indepth dive into the lives of a primary character who comes from dalit community (outside the chaturvarna), please dont say that there werent dalits in Bengal then (this was debunked by scholars in early 60s)

BTW I again reiterate that Rabindranath is one of the greatest poets in India, I am merely trying to highlight that there were some lacunae in his writings (as is always expected - I cannot ask Nazrul to write a Western cowboy novel)

Read Chandalika. There is more than one way of perceiving Dalit identity and struggles.

'wealthy' code for can pay tuition and other costs

'cultured' code for will not do an Udham

'bro and sis in oxford' code for if you dont give admission has other options, also family is progressive and allows female education

you have to remember the letter was written in 1935

This was Tagore’s way of pushing talented Indians and there was no harm to it at that time. Mod should mark this comment featured. Some ahles will never realise this and make threads like this

Maybe. But was it mostly about pushing talents who are "people like us" and "benign paternalism" for others who "fortunately" came in contact through privileged networks? And how about tracing how the money (and the privileges) came to Tagore?

but wouldnt recommendation letters be given by people in the same network, isnt that the purpose of the recommendation letters (to keep privileges locked in the network)

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