Iqbal and Tagore

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| gentry. It was here that the Muslims challenged the Hindus. When a Muslim wrestler challenged his Hindu rival in the akhara, there was the same kind of excitement and upsurge of emotions we witness on the occasion of Indo-Pak cricket matches. The success of the Muslim wrestlers, which often happened, sent a wave of jubilation among the Muslims. At least in the field of wrestling, the Indian Muslims enjoyed a sense of superiority. It was in such an atmosphere that Rabindra Nath Tagore and Iqbal emerged as two glittering stars on the poetic horizon of India. The people on both sides found so easy to convert the poetic horizon as an akhara and treat their poets as their hero-wrestlers. And the two poets were no more mere poets. Tagore, the poet, had grown in to a guru-dev, and Iqbal had achieved the status of Hakimul Ummat. Gama Pehalwan was the distinguished contemporary of Iqbal and Tagore. In an international wrestling bout, Gama defeated his rival, Zabisco, and won the title of Rustam-i-Zaman. It sent a great wave of jubilation among Indian Muslims. The Hindus received the news with a bit of coldness. But soon they were duly compensated. Tagore won the Nobel Prize. Now it was their turn to be jubilant. Now they had their own Rustam-i-Zaman, and in a better way. The Indian Muslims felt frustrated. Their hero-wrestler had lagged behind. Ikram Chaghtai has devoted a whole chapter of his book wherein he has discussed the situation. The chapter has been captioned Award Complex. From this discussion, we know that it is not in our time alone that the writers in Pakistan suffer from this complex. The malady can be traced back to the times of Iqbal and Tagore. Chaghtai tells us on the authority of Sir Abdul Qadir that Iqbal's friends "persuaded him to follow Tagore for getting the Award, but it was not easy to convince him." But it is also true, as Chaghtai tells
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