The last two decades of the nineteenth century were for India a great formative period. It was a period of emotional upsurge, intellectual change, social and political transformation and cultural renaissance. Along with the first decade of the nineteenth century, this period constituted not only a break with many a past tradition but also the foundation of many a future development. But no single event epitomised the period so much as the foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 and no development presaged so much as the Partition of Bengal agitation in 1905-6. The first constituted the end of a period of anglicised submission to foreign domination; the latter contained the seal of militant and triumphant nationalism which was to shake the foundations of the largest Empire that the world has known.
It was in this period full of promise that was born in 1882, Subramania Bharati, the celebrated Tamil poet who was to embody in himself and in his works the spirit of the age, its yearning for freedom, its passion of patriotism, its fruitfulness of poetry, its dreams of the future, and its clarion call for action. A prodigy of a poet, he established a reputation for composition of poetry even at the early age of 7 and within a few years his brilliance had earned for him the title of “Bharati”. He had his early education at Tinnevelly but it was in Benaras that he accomplished himself in Hindi and Sanskrit. After a brief interlude as a Tamil Pundit he took to journalism as Asstt. Editor of the “Swadeshmitran”. He had already become fired with the contemporary passion for freedom engendered by the partition of Bengal and attended the Congress Session at Madras in 1904. Returning to Madras he took over the editorship of the Tamil paper “India” and the English weekly “Bala Bharati”. Through his journal and his poetry he had begun to emit the fire of patriotism and as such became a marked man for the Imperialist Security Police. Pondicherry was in those days the Mecca of exiled patriots; to evade security persecution he transferred himself there and re-established his paper "India". It was there that he came in intimate contact with the poet-philosopher-patriot-saint, Shri Aurobindo and V.V.S. Iyer a fellow-sufferer. His poetic Muse received ample inspiration from these contacts and his best known works “Kuyil Pattu” (an Ode to the Nightingale) and “Panchali Sapatam” (the Vow of Draupadi but really the allegory of Bharat Mata) were the reflections of his thoughts and emotions.
His restless passion for his country could not, however, be contained within the limits of Pondicherry and after ten years of self-imposed exile he returned to Madras in 1918. only to be arrested and then released for want of evidence. He spent the next two years at his wife’s place and during that period met Gandhiji in 1919. In Dec. 1920 he again returned to his old love the “Swadeshmitran”. He collected a circle of devotees and admirers round him and among them he held his poetic court, the majesty of which was sustained not by royal splendour but by the divine flow of poetry. The circumstances of his death at the early age of 39, on 11th September, 1921 were tragic; it was the result of an accident in July when an elephant of the Triplicane Temple seized him with its trunk and dashed him on the ground.
They say “Those whom gods love most die young”. Gods had every reason to love Bharati. He had raised the level of Tamil literature from depths to lofty heights, he had given dignity and beauty to the language of the common man; he had endowed simplicity with grace, imagery with charm, imagination with romance, life with lyricism and political thought with poetry. He had given reality to dreams, turned the shadows of mind’s yearning into substance and set the course of Tamil literature on to a new era of fruitfulness and richness. His poetry was saturated with the freshness of spontaneity and charming power of lyricism. His works show the unmistakable influence of such gifted composers of Tamil as Gopalkrishna, Arunagirinathar and Jethi Hamalingam and of such absorbing works as the Gita and the prabandams of Nammalwar and Andal. Kalidasa appears to have brought him the gift of his own charms; Shelley endowed him with his exuberance and Keats with his passion. The Poet- Laureate of India Rabindra Nath Tagore fired him with the music of his works and the nobility of his patriotism.
With a life so full of the beautiful and the tragic, his mind and emotions affected by the events of his period, and his poetry influenced by such masters, it is not surprising that Bharati’s genius should have found its expression through diverse works of excellence and beauty. Whether he breathes the spirit of freedom or whether he pulsates with the fervour of patriotism, whether he is uplifted on the wings of devotion or whether he carries us aloft with him on social and ethical questions; and whether he portrays feelings and emotions through the medium of lyrics, he holds his own place among the great poets of India. In the words of Sarojini Naidu “Poet Bharati has fulfilled the true measure of a poet. He has created beauty not only through the medium of glowing and lovely words but has kindled the souls of men and women by the million to a more passionate love of Freedom and-a rich dedication to the source of the country”.
The poetic compositions of Bharati can thus be divided into four parts, patriotic songs on Bharat Tamilnad Freedom Movement, National Leaders and Freedom Movement in other countries, devotional songs, miscellaneous poems including songs on ethics and society; and the three major poems “Kannan Pattu”, “Panchali Sapatam”', and “Kuyil Pattu”. In these works Bharati has brought to bear on his art not only a rich variety of feeling and emotion but also inimitable music, inspiring melodies, and lofty sentiments full of freshness, optimism, faith and reverence. His devotional songs are pitched in a universal key; though Shakti the Giver of strength and power was the central figure in his pantheon, he had a prominent place for Shiva or Vishnu, Ram or Krishna, Jesus or Allah. Even in the field of didactic poetry and works devoted to social evils like untouchability, the backwardness of women and the eradication of poverty, he shows the same breadth of vision, the same faith in the future and the same perception and understanding which he portrays in his patriotic poems. His work “Kuyil Pattu” centres round the life and accomplishments of Lord Krishna; he reveals his idol in different facets, the divine, the spiritual, the innocent child, supreme lover and beloved, the teacher and the taught. This work reaches heights which only a true and perfect combination of love, devotion and faith can. His “Panchali Sapatam” deals with a chapter in the story of Mahabharata where Draupadi was disgraced in open court and finally vowed revenge; the beauty of this work shows how Bharati with equal success changes from high emotionalism to tragedy and pathos and creates out of them not only a fine piece of art but also excellent allegory representing oppressed Bharat Mata under foreign domination. His song ‘Kuyil Pattu’ reputed to be the most interesting and enjoyable of all Bharati’s works can broadly be likened to, say, Keats’ Ode to the Nightingale or Shelley’s Skylark; the contradictory features of life, disappointment, joy and sorrow, and harmony and discord are interwoven into a pleasing whole. It is a picture of life itself with its many contrasts and contradictions though it is a work of rich fancy and absorbing fantasy.
Source : Information Folder issued by Indian Posts & Telegraph Department, Government of India