Yet it was inevitable that the breach between the two men would widen. As far back as in 1920 Tagore had deplored that the overflowing wealth of Gandhi's love and faith should be made to serve political ends, as it had since Tilak's death. Of course Gandhi had not entered the political arena with a light heart. But when Tilak died, India was left without a political leader, and some one had to take his place.
As Gandhi says:[97]
If I seem to take part in politics, it is only because politics to-day encircle us like the coils of a snake from which one cannot get out no matter how one tries. I wish to wrestle with the snake.... I am trying to introduce religion into politics.
But this Tagore deplores. Writing September 7, 1920, he says, "We need all the moral force which Mahatma Gandhi represents, and which he alone in the world can represent." That such a precious treasure should be cast out on the frail bark of politics and subjected to the incessant lashing of the waves of conflicting and irritated passions is a serious misfortune for India, whose mission, says Tagore, "is to awaken the dead to life by soul-fire." The wasting of spiritual resources in problems which, when considered in the light of abstract moral truth, are unworthy, is to be regretted. "It is criminal to transform moral force into force."
This is what Tagore felt at the spectacular launching of the non-coöperation campaign and at the unrest stirred up in the name of the Khilafat cause and the massacres of the Punjab. He feared the results of the campaign on an easily excitable mob subject to attacks of hysterical fury. He would have liked to turn people's minds away from vengeance and dreams of impossible redress; he would have had them forget the irreparable and devote all efforts to constructing and fashioning a new soul for India. And although he admired Gandhi's doctrines and the ardent fire of his spirit of self-sacrifice, he hated the element of negation contained in non-coöperation. Tagore instinctively recoiled from everything that stood for "No."
And this conviction leads him to compare the positive ideal of Brahmanism, which demands that the joys of life be welcomed but purified, to the negative ideal of Buddhism, which demands their suppression.[98] To this Gandhi replies that the art of eliminating is as vital as that of accepting.[99] Human progress consists in a combination of the two. The final word in the Upanishads is a negation. The definition of Brahman by the authors of the Upanishads is neti, not this! India had lost the power of saying "No." Gandhi has given it back to her. Weeding is as essential as sowing.
But Tagore, apparently, does not believe in weeding. In his poetic contemplation of life he is satisfied with things as they are, and he finds his delight in admiring their harmony. He explains his point of view in lines of great beauty, but detached from real life. His words are like the dance of Nataraja, a play of illusions. Tagore says he tries to tune his spirit up to the great exaltation that is sweeping over the country. But he cannot do so, for in his heart, despite himself, is a spirit of resistance. "In the darkness of my despair," he says, "I see a smile and hear a voice that says, 'Your place is with the children, playing on the beaches of the world, and there I am with you.'" Tagore plays with harmonies, invents new rhythms, "strung out through the hours, like children dancing in the sun and laughing as they disappear." All creation is happy, with Tagore; flowers and leaves are merely rhythms that never cease. God Himself is the supreme juggler, who plays with Time, tossing stars and planets out upon the torrent of appearances, and dropping paper boats filled with dreams into the river of the ages. "When I beg Him to let me be His disciple and to let me place some of the toys of my invention into one of his merry barks. He smiles, and I follow Him, clutching the hem of his gown." Here Tagore feels he is in his place. "But where am I, in a great crowd, squeezed in at all sides? And who can understand the noise I hear? If I hear a song, my sitar can catch the melody, and I can join the chorus, for I am a singer. But in the mad clamor of the crowd, my voice is lost, and I become dizzy." Tagore has tried, in the clamor of non-coöperation, to find a melody, but to no avail. And he says to himself: "If you can't march in step with your compatriots in the greatest crisis of their history, beware of saying they are in the wrong, and you in the right! But give up your place in the ranks, go back to your poet's corner, and be prepared to meet with ridicule and public disgrace."[100]
So would a Goethe speak, an Indian Goethe, Bacchus. And it would seem as if Tagore's mind is made up from now on. The poet bids action farewell, since this action implies a negation, and he withdraws back into the spell of creative enchantment he weaves around himself. But Tagore does not only withdraw. As he says, Fate had decided that he should steer his bark against the current. At the time he was not only the "poet" but the spiritual ambassador of Asia to Europe; he had just returned from Europe, where he had asked people to coöperate in creating a world university at Santiniketan. What an irony of destiny that he should be preaching cooperation between Occident and Orient at one end of the world, when at that very moment non-coöperation was being preached at the other end![101]
Non-coöperation wounded him doubly, therefore, in his work as well as in his conception of life. "I believe," he says, "in the real union of Orient and Occident."
Non-coöperation clashed with his way of thinking, for his mentality, his rich intelligence, had been nourished on all the cultures of the world. "All humanity's greatest is mine," he says. "The infinite personality of man (as the Upanishads say) can only come from the magnificent harmony of all human races. My prayer is that India may represent the coöperation of all the peoples of the world. For India, unity is truth, and division evil. Unity is that which embraces and understands everything; consequently, it cannot be attained through negation. The present attempt to separate our spirit from that of the Occident is an attempt at spiritual suicide.... The present age has been dominated by the Occident, because the Occident had a mission to fulfill. We of the Orient should learn from the Occident. It is regrettable, of course, that we had lost the power of appreciating our own culture, and therefore did not know how to assign Western culture to its right place. But to say that it is wrong to coöperate with the West is to encourage the worst form of provincialism and can produce nothing but intellectual indigence. The problem is a world problem. No nation can find its own salvation by breaking away from others. We must all be saved or we must all perish together."[102]