Ratul Dutta
UG3
001600401060
Abstract: Written at a time of acute political crisis Raktakarabi uses one of the mythology to recreate the idea of nation as well imbibe in it’s audience the structure of colonization that remained blurred to them for a long time. It mocks and critics at the same time how different indigenous institutions were duplicating the characteristics of their colonial masters. The paper tries to explore how the dynamic nature prevalent in the process of colonization and decolonization had been there since time immemorial thus aided intellects of all time to turn towards their mythology so that a greater number subaltern subjects can be reached.
The play Raktakarabi (Red Oleander) was written by Rabindranath Tagore between 1923 and 1924 and it got published as a text in 1926. As the dates of publication of the text suggest the play was written at a time of acute political turmoil in the history of India. At this point it becomes important to formulate the idea of ‘Post colonialism’. As the term suggests Post colonialism is not ‘simply a temporal divide signifying “after colonialism” rather a more holistic approach would be considering the term as an ideal of reverting back at the ‘legacies of colonialism’. Thus postcolonialism does not remain static between one particular strand of time and geographical location. Rather postcolonialism has been there from the beginning, it is contemporary of all time.
One of the important aspects of postcolonialism is the act of writing ‘history’ as it becomes very important to create the idea of the nation concerned. Dipesh Chakravarty in his essay and ‘Poscoloniality the artifice of History: Who Speaks for “Indian” pasts?’ points out how the academic discourse of history grew with “Europe” at its centre
“History as a discourse produced at the institutional site of the university –is concerned,” Europe” remains the sovereign theoretical subject of all histories….There is a peculiar way in which all these other histories tend to become variations on a master narrative that could be called “the history of Europe”
Thus it became very important for the subaltern subjects to write their own history as a first step towards creating their identity. It was not only out of ignorance but negligence that a major portion of their histories remained unrecorded in the European records rather it was deliberate on the part of the colonizers to appropriate the history of the colonized subjects according to their own needs. Thus Europe took it upon themselves the responsibility of rewriting the history of the ‘non western others’.
This act of writing history was done in various ways like retelling personal and family histories as it was done by Tagore in ‘Ghore Baire’, By Saratchandra in ‘Srikanta’ or by Bankim in ‘Devi Choudhurani’. Similarly communal histories were also retold like Bankimchandra’s ‘Anandamath’ and many more. But these methods of retelling personal and communal histories had certain drawbacks as they could not cater to the people of all social strata. It was important that the postcolonial subjects become aware of their positions and conditions in their nation that had been colonized by the Western powers. One way that this could be achieved was by retelling myths. Myths were orally passed on and as a result they were familiar to most of the colonized subjects and moreover they used to take immense pride in their culturally rich tradition. As it had been mentioned earlier the interplay between colonization and decolonization has been a dynamic one it was easier to incorporate history into the stories of pasts.
‘Raktakarabi’ tries to achieve this in two ways- one is by telling the condition of colonized India under the rule of European power using the structure of the famous epic Ramayana with which his subjects were well aware of and choosing the medium of narrative as that of a play so that it becomes easier to cater to the audience.
In one of the rendition of the play that took place in 1924 Tagore in his speech makes it clear that the play draws analogy with the mythology of Ramayana but at the same time he warns his audience that a detailed analysis of the play might devoid it of it’s flavor.
In a reply to the western critics response to the play Tagore said,
“ Therefore, it should cause no surprise to anybody if a poet, belonging to continent swallowed by menacing shadow of Europe, gives a prominent place among the dramatis personae of his play to an apparition which now so powerfully occupies the imagination of a vast world consisting of non-Western races.”
While mentioning that the play draws analogy with Ramayana Tagore had been cautious enough to mention that the play is not inspired by Ramayana rather by the pathos of the subaltern subjects. He had voiced his anticipation that certain similarities might invite agitation from his audience who might mistake his critic of the colonial structure with his disrespect towards cultural values of nation. In Tagore’s own words the play ‘deals with the frightful dilemma of the modern man in the grip of an acquisitive society.’
The play has been set in a town called ‘Yakshapuri’ where the inhabitants are involved in the extraction of gold from the core of earth. Central to the town is the palace where the anonymous king lives who collects all the extracted gold and piles them up inside his palace. The very mention of the “yakshapuri’ and ‘gold’ is bound to draw our mind to the Hindu deity of wealth ‘Yaksha’ and the idea of a palace where gold gets piled up draws analogy with ‘swarnalanka’ – the city of gold which is the aboard of the demon king Ravana. In his speech Tagore quite sarcastically comments that due to the sake maintaining a realistic setting he could not adorn the king with ten heads and multiple forelimbs like Ravana. The king has abducted a young girl namely Nandini from her natural setting and brought her to the life less kingdom of his. Nandini embodies the trace of life and innocence that the inhabitants of Yakshapuri seem to have lost long back. The figure of Nandini reminds us of Sita who was born from the soil thus bore a close contact to the nature and her abduction by Ravana is quite similar to the abduction of Nandini by the king but Tagore asserts that Nandini ‘the heroine of the play, has definite features of an individual person.’
Raktakarabi critics the growing capitalism and the birth of the institution of ‘organisation’ which is utilitarian-where individuality is curbed down.
‘Christian Europe no longer depends upon Christ for her peace, but upon the leaue of Nations, because her peace is not disturbed by forceful individuals so much as by organized powers.’
The personal man is dominated by the ‘organised man’. Tagore critics the urge of west to colonise, to analyse ‘a vast world consisting of non western races’ but without sympathy to understand. West ‘with numberless arms to coerce and acquire, but no serenity of soul to realize and enjoy’ becomes the point where the play Raktakarabi gets pivoted.
The play critics different institutions or aspects of colonization by presenting them to the audience through their indigenous counterparts. Through the character of the professor he points at the western education that was entering the country along with the colonizers and how the unfiltered consumption of western knowledge was devouring them of their individuality and identity. The figure of ‘Goshain’ (priest) quite aptly hints towards the Christian missionaries who were appointed to salvage the wretched soul of the subalterns from their sufferings by preaching a new religion. Nandini stands in polar oppositions to all these as an embodiment of free will, happiness and beauty. Colonialism as a crisis can not be restricted to a certain period and so is postcolonialism as a discourse that stands in opposition to it. The idea resonates again when Tagore says that there is nothing called modern crisis rather crisis is of all time. Raktakarabi through it’s setting in the town of Yakshapuri presents before us the cyclic existentialist trap created by growing capitalism where the colonized subjects are trapped along with their colonizers and points out how the dynamics of relationship between the colonizers and the colonized is spread through different levels of the society. The play is highly critical of the fact that the colonized subjects have knowingly and unknowingly internalized the values of their colonial masters. The network or trap that is present on the stage throughout the play ‘stands not as a wall baring all communication but isolation, self protection, imprisonment, partial communication, invisible authority and so on.
Histories can be recorded and written in a number of ways. It can be done by analyzing the records available but in this method what gets missed out are the personal histories that are unique to individuals and thus many stories remain unheard and untold. Thus to create a holistic history these records need to be collected. Myths can form important part of these records. Unlike myths these personal histories can also be used to build the idea of nation and individual identity.
Bibliography
1. Raktakarabi. Tagore Rabindranath, Kolkata: Biswabharati.2001
2. Poscoloniality the artifice of History: Who Speaks for “Indian” pasts?. Chakravarty Dipesh, University of California Press.2011
3. Introduction to Postcolonialism. Ganguly Avishek
4. Red Oleanders: Author’s Interpretation. The Visva-bharati Quarterl, Oct.1925
History, Literature, Criticism 