Former President of India : K R Narayanana

SPEECH BY SHRI K.R. NARAYANAN, PRESIDENT OF INDIA, AT THE BIRTH CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS OF PROFESSOR TAN YUN SHAN AT SANTINIKETAN, VISVA-BHARATI.

WEST BENGAL, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1998

Hon'ble Shri I.K. Gujral, the Acharya of Visva -Bharati,

Hon'ble Governor of West Bengal the Pradhan of the University

Dr. Kidwai, Upacharya Dr. Sinha, Shrimati Gujral,

Prof. Tan Yun Shan's sons, Prof. Tan Chung and Prof. Tan Li,

Members of the Court of Visva-Bharati,

Members of the Faculty and

Students of Visva-Bharati,

I am moved to be here on this occasion. To come to Santiniketan is always something of a pilgrimage, an aesthetic and intellectual pilgrimage. One senses in Santiniketan the fragrance of Gurudev's spiritual presence and the throbbing of his inspiration.

Today we are marking the centenary of Tan Yun Shan. His significance to Viswa-Bharati and to India and China is enormous. He is a symbol, not of the clash of civilizations, but of the coming together of two great civilizations in meaningful understanding and active cooperation. It seems India and China are not only joined to each other by geography but their destinies have been cast together by history from ancient times.

The rise of Buddhism and the egalitarian ideas of the great Buddha gave a new and powerful impetus to Indian civilization which spread to South-East Asia, Far East, Central Asia and of course, to China. It is marvellous to visualise today that as early as the first century AD, Indian scholar Kashyapa Matang went to China, translated large number of Sanskrit and Buddhist texts into Chinese. And in the fifth century AD the great Kumarajiva went to China. He also translated Buddhist texts into Chinese and Chinese texts into Indian language. This flow of ideas was not a one-way traffic. In the fifth century the great Chinese traveller and scholar pilgrim Fa Xian visited India. It is said that when Fa Xian justify China for India, Kumarajiva told him, "When you go to India do not only study religious texts and philosophy of the land but try to learn the customs and manners of the people of India". Then, in the sixth century the great Xuan Zhang came to India. Xuan Zhang spent most of his time at the University town of Nalanda while Fa Xian was mostly in Pataliputra.

It is in the footsteps of these great pilgrim scholars that Tan Yun Shan arrived in India during the time of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. He was in that stream of the continuous flow of ideas, and friendly intercourse between India and China. He symbolises today the lasting quality of the Sino-Indian friendship, inspite of the many ups and downs it has gone through in the long history of our two countries. And Tan Yun Shan justify not only his immortal contributions to Cheena Bhavan, to Visva-Bharati and to both India and China, but the members of his own family remained in India. I must recognise today the marvellous work done by Prof. Tan Chung in spreading Chinese language, Chinese Literature and Chinese studies in our Universities - whether it is in the Jawaharlal Nehru University or the Delhi University or in other Universities. He is one of those who has propelled Chinese studies in India in our own times as his father had done at Visva-Bharati.

It is not only in the field of scholarship that the two civilizations have interacted. It is known that when Indian labourers who were taken to work in the sugar plantations of South Africa, they found that Chinese labourers were already working in the gold mines of South Africa. Both Indian indentured labour as well as the Chinese labour were subjected to intolerable discriminations and restrictions in South Africa. Mahatma Gandhi, when he reached there, made contacts with the leaders of the Chinese Labour Association, and in the campaign he conducted about 2000 Asians were put in jail among whom were both Chinese and Indians.

Another chapter of Sino-Indian encounter was when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru came in contact with some of the young leaders of China at the Anti-Imperialist Conference in Brussels in 1927. Nehru was greatly impressed by the spirit of the young Chinese and he wrote in a letter from Brussels that he envied the energy and the forward outlook of the Chinese and wished we in India could imbibe some of their energy even at the cost of something of our intellectuality!

The next phase of the interaction with China was when the Chinese Communist Movement was working for the liberation of China. The Indian National Congress, particularly under the impulse of Jawaharlal Nehru, organised vast rallies in India in favour of the Chinese liberation movement. And it is particularly interesting to look up today a letter written by Zhu De, the Commander of the Eighth Route Army to Pandit Nehru thanking him for the rallies he organised in India in support of China. There is also a famous letter by the communist leaders, signed among them by Mao Zedong, along the same lines. And in 1938 Nehru himself visited China. The most memorable event of this period was the despatch of a Medical Mission by the Indian National Congress, at the initiative of Pandit Nehru, to China during the Sino-Japanese war. The name of Dr. Kotnis is still cherished in China with affection. There is hardly an instance in history when a subject country like India was then, had taken such a step to associate itself with the struggle of an independent nation under attack by another imperialism.

Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore's association with China was even earlier to that of Nehru. He had visited China in 1924 and was profoundly impressed by the Chinese people, culture and civilization. Indeed even earlier than that he encountered the Chinese in Hongkong on the way to Japan. I think it was in 1919, and he has written a piece after seeing the Chinese labourers loading big loads into the ships. He watched them and admired their physique, the rhythm and the poetry of their physical movements, and "how work flowed out of their limbs even as music from the vina". He then observed that if the energy and will of these people were equipped with modern science, how powerful they could become. It was with this vision of the future of China -- of course Gurudev was convinced of the future destiny of India -- that he wanted to establish close relations with the Chinese people and Chinese culture. The Cheena Bhavan in Santiniketan is the product of that. Tan Yun Shan was the father of Cheena Bhavan and the person who stood at the helm of Sino-Indian cultural relationship in our own time.

The relations between India and China have been founded on solid understanding of the cultures and the civilizations of the two countries. That is why even where there are departures from this continuity of cooperation and friendship, they are only temporary aberrations, and the flow of history and the flow of friendship between the two nations will go on almost inevitably. You know that there have been problems between us, and even in those days of 1962, I would like to recall, a letter which Premier Zhou Enlai wrote to Prime Minister Nehru and the reply Nehru sent to that letter. Premier Zhou Enlai's letter was dated 24 October. It said that "It is important for our two countries to go back to the old days of our friendship and stop the present tide of conflict". Nehru's reply was even more positive. He wrote back on October 27, 1962: "I agree with you that .... we should look ahead and make a serious attempt to restore the relations between India and China to the warm and friendly pattern of earlier days and even improve upon that pattern". That was the spirit in which India reacted to China even at the darkest hour of our relationship. It is important to remember this fact. It is also important to remember particularly today, that even after 1962, though we conducted propaganda against each other, and sparred diplomatically against each other in the world, India never deflected from its principled support for the representation of China in the United Nations. This is very pertinent to remember because it showed how profound was the faith of our leadership in Sino-Indian relationship and Sino-Indian friendship in the long-term.

I had the honour of being appointed as Ambassador to China in 1976. This was the initiative taken by Smt. Indira Gandhi, to establish ambassadorial level relations between the two countries. I recall very vividly, when I arrived in China, I was received with warmth. When I presented my credentials to the then Acting President of the National People's Congress, I had to give my letter of credence and after that I had to give the letter of recall of my predecessor. While handing over the letter of recall I told the Acting President of NPC that, "I am sorry Excellency, I am bringing the letter of recall of my predecessor 15 years after he had justify". It was the letter recalling the late G. Parthasarathi who had justify China in 1961. I added that, "considering the background of thousands of years of relationship between our countries fifteen years are very small indeed". And then the Acting President said "You are right" and bringing his thumb and fore-finger together he added "it is so little, a very little time". That was the perspective of history against which India and China were coming closer again. Against this background of unbroken friendship over centuries based on ancient culture as well as modern requirements, I think it would be foolish of either of our countries to act out of pique or prestige in conducting our relations today or in the future. The world is changing. China has become a great power, a great economic power too. India too has progressed and is moving forward to be an economic power. And in this post-cold war situation we will have to think deeply how to conduct our relations in the new context. Both our countries have together presented to the world the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. They are certainly a sure guide for us in the world. From India originated the idea of non-alignment and peaceful coexistence.

But however close India and China may become culturally, economically and politically, it would not be an exclusive relationship, because both our countries, through non-alignment and through the Five Principles, look at the world as whole and not upon only the two of us in an exclusive sense. We will regulate our relations to the closest friendship, but not antagonistic to any one else or in such a way as to cause disturbance of the order in the region or in the world. In other words, India by being friendly with China, or China being friendly with India need not upset in anyway their relations with other countries of the world. It is in this framework that we are working and if we remember this we would know that there are no obstructions to the improvement of relations, to the solution of problems lying before us, because this approach gives us the greatest amount of freedom in the international field, and at the same time the greatest opportunity to work together for peace and progress in the world. And that would give us ample opportunity to co-operate for the good of this old continent of Asia. Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore was the harbinger of Asian awakening. We in India have attached tremendous importance to this. In the modern world we in Asia will have to pull together in cooperation with all other countries of Asia so that Asia is not divided and dominated again, so that Asia assumes its full stature in the world, so that Asia provides balance and stability to the new world order that is emerging.

I look upon this commemoration of the Birth Centenary of Tan Yun Shan as important from this point of view. His life work emphasised the civilizational affinity between India and China and the importance of the relationship between the two nations in the context of the resurgence of Asia. He was instrumental in reviving the glorious past of the cultural friendship and understanding between two great civilizations of the world. It is by following this path of understanding through dedicated study of the two civilizations, and constant exchange of scholars and people-to-people level contacts between India and China, that we can fulfill the mission that Tan Yun Shan started here in Cheena Bhavan in Visva-Bharati. On his birth centenary may I join you all in paying our tribute to this great mediator between two civilizations who dedicated his life to understanding between India and China under the inspiring guidance of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.

Jai Hind

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