Rabinardranath Tagore, Punishment
Sowing of the dream crop sowny by fardouse lomat jahan rumpa
Introduction
In the 19th century, the British Queen Victoria ruled the Empire on which “the sun never set.” England held and governed colonies as near as Ireland and as far as Australia, Nigeria and India. Twentieth century World Literature is fraught with global culture coming to terms with the “postcolonial condition” as one by one, Ireland, India, and other colonies demand their independence from English domination. At the same time, Western-style education and art have a huge impact on the literature and art we see from these former colonies as they struggle to affirm their cultural identity and come to terms with modern government and technology.
Written in the Bengali language, Tagore’s short stories are the first of their type of fiction written in any Indian language (by “Indian” I mean the Southeast Asian subcontinent). Tagore was a huge influence on Western 20th century writers, (among others William Butler Yeats) and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Uniquely situated to become the Father of 20th century Indian literature, Tagore was raised in a prominent Hindu family in Calcutta, but educated in the Western tradition, as India was still a British colony until 1947. His Western education offered him forms, literary and philosophical, through which he attempted to represent and preserve what he found unique and precious in the colonial Indian culture.
Tagore objected to colonialism, but also was wary of narrow or reactionary brands of nationalism that did little more than replace the oppressive colonial regime with an equally oppressive nativist one. He supported Gandhi’s efforts to free India from English rule, but advocated for a more globally minded “transnational” order of government. He deplored abuses of human rights around the globe, particularly the plight of women in his fiction.
It is clear that “Punishment” is a contemporary piece to Hedda Gabler. Like Ibsen, but in a vastly different cultural context, Tagore offers us a strikingly brave heroine who recognizes the invisible threads of power that limit her choices. This fiction is depressingly realistic. Economic deprivation is a huge, vile force in this story. Equally powerful are family roles, gender roles, the rigid caste system that keeps the Rui family at the mercy of their landlord. As you read, look for how power operates in this text, and who wields it. We look for power, because in a text written by a colonial writer, power is usually at stake in some way or another.
Punishment
When the two brothers, Dukhiram Rui and Chidam Rui set out in the morning with axes in their hands to work as day labourers, their two wives were hurling insults and abuses at each other. But like other natural noises, the neighbours had become used to this shouting. As soon as they heard them, they would say to one another, “There they go again.” There was nothing unexpected about their qua