Purushottam Agrawal’s Kabir, Kabir (published by Westland) brims with the essence of a lifelong study on the 15th-century poet-philosopher by Agarwal, a former Professor and Chairperson at Centre of Indian Languages, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. In this book, the author delves into Kabir’s imagination and offers the readers the way Kabir may have wished to be understood: in the context of his own time and its preoccupations.
Agarwal has published works in Hindi such as Akath Kahani Prem ki: Kabir ki Kavita aur Unka Samay (2009), widely acclaimed as a path-breaking study on Kabir; Majbooti ka Naam Mahatma Gandhi (2005), which throws new light on issues of violence and power; Hindi Serai: Astrakhan via Yerevan (2013), a travelogue which traces the history of Indian traders who settled in Astrakhan, Russia, between the 16th and 18th centuries; and his debut novel Nacohus, a Kafkaesque fantasy on the politics of hurt sentiments.
More from the author:
Could you tell us about your engagement with Kabir, the 15th-century poet? What led you to write his book?
I joined Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1977 as a postgraduate student of Hindi literature. In the first semester, I wrote one of my end-term papers on ‘Kabir: the poet of protest’. While writing this paper, I got clarity that Kabir is going to be my research topic. This was not a career-oriented decision or even an academic one. It was an expected point in the journey of a restless soul, which began in my childhood itself and continues till date.
Tell us about the title of the book, separated by a comma and written as Kabir, Kabir.
It is taken from a couplet by the poet, wherein he claims to have achieved such a purity of mind that, not he, but God follows after him. My title is a tribute to his purity and self-confidence and an attempt to remind the readers the true connotation of bhakti, i.e. purity and participation.
Kabir talks about secularism. What are ways to uphold his philosophy in a polarised world along the lines of religion, caste and race?
Kabir does not talk about ‘secularism’ either in the sense of only temporal things being of importance, or in the sense of ‘equal respect for all religions’. Interrogating the very idea of organised religion, Kabir seeks to articulate spirituality beyond it. He gives primacy to individual moral agency over any ascribed social identity. The thing to learn from him is to use our Vivek i.e. discretion and moral agency, while making any choice — personal, social or political.
In the chapter, ‘In Search of Solitude’, you write about Kabir’s reclusiveness towards people and fame. Could you elaborate on his ideas on solitariness and then his engagement with people, in light of his preference of the former?
I have underlined the crucial difference between loneliness and solitude. A lonely person feels slighted and is depressed. Loneliness is an imposition by others, sometimes even by oneself; solitude is a conscious choice.
Moments of solitude are must for retaining our sanity; to assess our words, acts and their impact on others. Insistence on solitude also conveys an individual’s vehement refusal to be merely an anonymous part of collectivity. A wise person insists on having some private space and time to reflect on self and surroundings. Such reflection in many cases leads to the interrogation of social relations and mindset. That is why, authoritarian regimes — left and right, political and corporate — try very hard to orient people to a mindset, which treats insistence on privacy and solitude as a social offence, a moral vice.
Did the philosopher inspired the writer in you at some point? If yes, tell us more about it.
Kabir holds human reason in privilege, but does not reject the intuitive, mystic elements and mythological, and miraculous idioms. His sharp social criticism emanates from intuitive realisation of his Ram permeating the whole universe. His identification with universal consciousness is quite categorical — ‘I am in everything, and everything is within me’.
The originality of Kabir, however lies in his insistence on taking this spiritual realisation to its logical culmination in the realm of human relations: ‘If Ram is everywhere, if he is Jagjivan (life of world) and can be reached by purity of heart and mind; then how come, some people are untouchables for no crime of theirs and some venerable with no achievement to their credit?’ Naturally, he as a philosopher inspired me a lot. In the book, I have reflected a lot on the philosophical implications of his creativity.