From 50 Years Ago: For whom was the homage?

What is it that the world found in Rabind-ranath that his centenary was celebrated not only all over India but also all over the world? ...One can understand Bengalis paying their homage… What did the others find in him, the rest of India and the civilised world? …English critics have found in his works the fascination which Yeats or Ezra Pound did when Tagore’s verses first appeared in English. In England, he was a rage for a season or two… Other countries fell under his charm one by one…Tagore’s influence, however, never com-pletely died down…and the centenary suggests a fresh revival of interest and perhaps a more systematic and penetrating study of his works. …[H]e was able to give India that affirmation which the country needed. A positive and confident view of life helped to restore the self-respect which [people] had lost, restored in them faith in Indian thought, discovered for them a spiritualism which was not other-worldly… No poet has ever been honoured and cele-brated as Tagore is being celebrated today; no one also perhaps ever suffered so much stupid adulation from the crowd or attack from igno-rant detractors. The latter had been his fate right from the beginning of his literary career, for he wrote in the language of the people… He was accused of obscurity and lampooned for the liberty he took with his language.