SUBRAMANIA BHARATI
The twentieth century poet
R. SUNDARESAN
Mahakavi Subramania Bharati–yes, he was supreme
among poets, for he was a poet of fervent patriotism. He was a poet who painted
a strikingly realistic picture of the half-clad, pale-eyed, famished people of
A Mahakavi is born once in centuries with the
divine mission of bringing about a new order in the society. His blazing words
of anger, his words of soothing coolness, his words of pity, his words of
sagacity are his weapons with which he tames the wicked, melts the stony hearts
of the merciless, consoled the hapless, judged by the comprehensive connotation
of the epithet “Mahakavi” Subramania Bharati truly belongs to the galaxy of the
universal, everlasting poets.
Bharati was not a poet who only sang of the
mountain, the rivers and the birds. He was a self-appointed spokesman of his
brethren. It is his identification with the downtrodden and the lowly that
distinguishes him as a poet of the masses. And so we celebrate his centenary,
we take the opportunity of focussing attention on the relevance of his message
to our time. If there was a strain of sadness, a melancholy note in his
utterance, it was because, the tragedy of life had left a profound impact on
him. But he was not despondent, he was not pessimistic. He had the fiery spirit
of a reformist who shook even the most lethargic and the indifferent by his
inspiring counsels. Who, but the greatest of poets, could have the daring to
crush the whole world, if food is denied to an individual? But his poetry could
not naturally fight it out, and so he sobbed helplessly, lamenting over the
plight of the underprivileged. Hunger is the most potent killer, the greatest disease, and so long as there are
exploiters and exploited, there
will be some who starve and some who overeat and throw the remnants of
food-stuffs into the dustbin for beggars, dogs and crows to taste. Realising the value of this
great truth Bharati advocates that an emotionally integrated
In his poem “Vande Mataram” Bharati says:
“Let us bow to Mother Bharat.
We are all her children
Even the lowliest are entitled to live
joyously with the rest
of the countrymen…….There are a thousand
castes.
Let us not allow foreigners to intrude into
our affairs.
Being children of the same mother, we may
quarrel,
But we are all brothers.
United we stand, divided we fall.
We shall equally share
Whatever we have.”
Bharati thus strove his poems to pave the way
for the emergence of a united
Bharati had been a socialist long before the
concept of socialism took roots in
“Let us roam on the silvery, snowy mountains,
let us sail our ship on all the seas.”
Denouncing the savage attitude of the staunch
traditionalists who discriminate man from man on the basis of his birth, circumstance
and upbringing, Bharati roars angrily:
“It is nectar-sweet
When the daughter of Tamil (Avvaiyar) says
That there were no more but two castes;
Those that help the distressed
Being steadfast to the principles of justice
and truth
Are great,
And all others are ignoble.”
Bharati is firm in his mind that there are
but only two castes: those who become great by their noble thoughts and
deeds and those who become small by their wicked thoughts and mischievous
schemes.
Bharati considers freedom as a prerequisite
for a well-ordered, peaceful life. A man may be extremely rich, learned, but
bow can he be happy without freedom? The poet says:
“We
fostered this tree of freedom with tears,
Not with water,
We fed this beautiful lamp
With the ghee of thoughts
And how can we allow it to extinguish?
How can we lose this jewel
which we have got
after waiting for a thousand years?
If rain fails
will there be life on earth?
If freedom is denied to us
what shall we do?”
The poet bursts out in excitement.
“A nation without freedom cannot have a soul.
How can knowledge and industry thrive in such
a nation?
How can poetry or the arts or sculpture
Hourish there?”
Bharati asks.
Bharati’s generosity and compassion to his
fellow-men indicate his unusual large-heartedness characteristic of poets of
cosmic vision. He would never hesitate helping others despite inconvenience to
himself. He was utterly unselfish. Once he overheard a mango-seller complaining
of poor business. Taking pity on her he bought the entire stock of mangoes she
had with her. On another occasion Bharati bought a whole basket of greens from
a vegetable vendor who felt greatly relieved of her load in a single bargain.
It is said that the rickshaw-pullers of
Bharati’s poetic canvas was a wide one and
his universal mind ponders over the multifarious problems of mankind. His
advice to the youth, the uneducated, the educated and the women to shed their
foibles, to understand the spirit of the time and to march ahead unitedly
reveal his concern for the welfare of all sections of the people. Like Swami
Vivekananda he pins his hopes on the youth who will ultimately be responsible
for the re-emergence of
Gandhiji dreamed of an
However much Bharati tries to cut himself off
from the present situation only to forget its heart-rending maladies he cannot
but think of the sad circumstances of the nation again and again. A fine poem
analyses threadbare the characteristics of the typical Indian who is subject to
age-old superstitions.
“My mind splits
when I think of these unstable people,
they die of fears,
there’s not a thing these people are not afraid of,
they say there are cunning ghosts,
here, in this tree, there in that tree,
and in that tank,
they say ghosts swing in that corner,
they feel very melancholic
brooding and brooding over the fact that they are scared.”
“They have no soup to drink,
they don’t know the reason why it is not available,
‘famine, famine’, they always cry pathetically
and die scared and squirming;
alas! there’s no way to rid them of their misery.”
Bharati spurned the women who snugly bid
themselves in a cosy corner in their houses. Subdued by the haughty look of her
husband and his shouts and abusive words she is just carrying out the orders of
his master who is her husband. Bharati wanted to infuse a new spirit and vigour
in the women of
“Let us dance making ourselves merry
in praising womanhood!
in woman is the sacred combination
of the mother’s and spouse’s name;
let us dance in calmness
praising the divine love of women,
praying that love should live long;
let us clap and praise the sensuous love,
It is because of woman that sorrow is wiped out.
Let us, her brave sons, hail her as mother;
It is mother’s milk that energises us,
it is wife’s wise words that safeguard our honour,
it is woman who obliterates all evils,
let us rejoice in praise of womanhood!”
If man’s valour
could safeguard woman’s values of life
then there can be no disgrace for us!
let us ever keep unharmed
the happiness born of love
as the eyelids guard the eyes;
we have drunk the intoxicant energy of woman;
let us clap and let the sound of the claps
reach all directions.”
Each line of Bharati is food for thought. Very few poets have given
such a vivid picture of the modern woman who will be able to rise to the
innumerable challenges of a future world of revolutionary conceptions.
Bharati’s patriotism naturally drew him to the national leaders and he
was as ardently devoted to them as he was to Motherland. He considered Gandhiji
as an incarnation of God for he was the ideal man he conceived. Bharati speaks
of him most panegyrically:
“May you great one,
let you prosper!
you who have come to give a new louse of life
to the land which is poverty-stricken,
to the land which has strayed away from the right path
having been denied freedom
and fallen from its glorious height,
you want to see it freed
from the shackles of slavery,
and you have devised a scheme
to raise it in the esteem of the world
by giving it wealth, knowledge, wisdom and high status
you have attained fang!
you are the first citizen of the world!”
Bharati was a lover of the symphony and
rhythm of languages. He was an admirer of the hoary traditions of
Bharatavarsha. Bharati devises plans to propagate the greatness of Tamil.
“Let us plan a scheme
to spread the honeyed sweetness
of the sounds of Tamil....
Let you hear one word of mine,
if we want to be prosperous
let the sound of Tamil thrive
all over the streets;
let the works of the learned men of other countries
be translated into Tamil,
let immortal works
be written in Tamil,
there is nothing useful in exchanging
ancient stories among ourselves,
let foreigners respectfully acknowledge
our learning supreme.”
This is not parochialism. The feeling that one’s mother-tongue is unrivalled for its beauty and vigour is the bedrock of the spirit of nationalism.
Bharati was devoted to gods and goddesses.
His devotion transcended the symbolic rituals which are but an external showy
manifestation. He literally drank of the bliss arising out of an inward
communion with God. He burst out in soulful rapture. His sheer helplessness in
finding a solution for the ills of mankind and the poignancy of his own
sufferings excited him to cry out to God whom he imagined was near enough to
listen to his pleas. His songs on Sakti have a special charm and are loaded
with the truest devotion. He had a fascination for Mahakali whom he described
all the prime moving force of all the universes. “All this world is pervaded by
Siva and Sakti. Siva and Sakti are indivisible. There can be no activity on
earth without them. Our grief will vanish if we ponder over this truth. In the
realisation of this truth is the greatest wisdom.” He has also written poems
on goddesses like ‘Gomati’ which is another name for Siva’s consort Parvathi,
‘Muthumari’ who is believed by the devout as the curer of pox, Saraswathi, the
Goddess of Learning, and so on but it is to Krishna he resorts again and again.
His devotional songs on
“Juggling and juggling
various scenes.
A toy named Moon
a radiance pervades in it and drips;
herds of clouds,
the multi-hued toys,
rain;
above all the sun,
no words to describe the radiance of its face.
In the sky are the stars,
they occupy the whole space
shining like little beads.
Bharati’s ‘Kuyil Pattu’, one of his most
prized works, is another long poem of nine parts having three characters. The
Kuyil or the nightingale celebrated for its sweet voice attracts the poet one
day when he moves about in his garden. Its repeated melodic tones are
suggestive of some great truths of life.
The poet asks the Kuyil the reason for its sad, sweet tone, and it
replies that it will love or die and tells him to meet her on another day. When
he sees her in the garden again, she courts with a monkey whom he tries to kill
but both disappear. The next day the Kuyil makes love with a bull and the poet
wants to revenge on it but in vain. Yet another day the Kuyil narrates her
former life to the poet. To his astonishment the poet finds that he was her
lover when she was the daughter of a chieftain of a mountain. Now the poet’s
spell of imagination ends. The “Kuyil Pattu” is one the most philosophical
poems which abound in time-tested truths.
Bharati has created an epic “Panchali
Sapatham” which centres round the legendary battle between Pandavas and Kurus.
It is praised as a grand work with all the essential qualities of an epic.
Bharati was born of humble parents with no
material resources or resourcefulness. His father Chinnaswami Iyer who was a
lover of Tamil enjoyed the affection and esteem of the Maharaja of Ettayapuram,
a small principality in Tirunelveli District of Tamil nadu. He himself had
something of the vague dreams and fantasies of his son, and it is no
exaggeration to say that Bharati inherited his traits and intellectual vigour.
Chinnaswami Iyer’s ambition was to make Tirunelveli a textile centre and he
even successfully established a textile mill.
Bharati was born to Chinnaswami Iyer in 1882.
The precocity of Bharati was evident even in his boybood days. While he was
about eleven years old he composed a poem in Tamil and recited it before an
assembly of scholars at the Ettayapuram palace. The Maharaja was immensely pleased
with his poetic gift and conferred on him the tide of “Bharati” and that title
made him known to the world.
Bharati was married at
a very young age as was the custom those days. After the death of his father he
had to continue his studies with the help and sympathy of his relatives. He
went to Benares, studied at the
He also edited “India”
and “Bala Bharatam” which were established to propagate the sacred ideals of
nationalism. He came to