Rabindranath Tagore wore Raktokarobi in 1923 in Shillong. The Official Secrets Act. that barred government officials from giving out information to people, was passed in India in 1923, and still exists in Bangladesh as a colonial inheritance. Why invoke the name of Tagore in this context? Is the year 1923 a mere coincidence?

It might be, also might not. But it is not surprising that nothing passed unnoticed before the eyes of the great seer during his lime.

There was an Official Secrets Act in lokkhopuiee, rhe miningdependent capitalist state in his play Raktoka obi (Red Oleanders).

When Na idinee, the protagonist. asked people about the whereabou s of Ranian, her fiancee, they denied of any knowledge of him. Each evaded answering, and requ /steel herto ask someone else he i lamed. The worshippers, the win : bearers, the decorators. the artill try carriers, all closely linked to rhe king and the bureaucracy, told hi t that it was someone else who coi Id give her the information abou Ranjan.

One said that what entered their ears should not come out of their mouths so that they could stay alive. Another said that they knew the beginning but not the end. And the end is known to most readers of Tagore, the state-sponsored murder of the rebellious young man, Ranjan.

Without at all offending Tagore, but making him more relevant and contextual to the present time, we can easily substitute various government offices and ministries for worshippers, wine bearers, decorators. and artillery carriers in this beautiful play. Yes, there existed an official secrecy act in lakkhopuri, even if not a legislation with such an exact title as this; a culture of secrecy was entrenched in that oppressive state. In Tagore's play, not only was Nandinee unaware of the consequences befalling her flatted, even the king, Raja, was in the dark.

Raja was surprised to see the body of the always vibrant hero now still and calm in the embrace of cold death which had been brought about by the torturing machine of the state. He admitted they had deliberately cheated him. They often do, yes.

So. in this state of lakkhopuri, not only Nandinee and others like her, but the king, too, had no right to receive necessary information. The wire net behind which the king

always lived has two imports: one, it denotes the barrier of power, information, and all else between the ruler and the ruled, and two, the prison for a seemingly all-powerful king. The culture of secrecy and the art of hiding vital information taught to the bureaucracy is only one aspect of this great play, but quite an important one, especially when put in the present time and context.

Was 1923 a mere coincidence, or did Rabindranath have an inkling of the culture of secrecy and obscuring of the truth for safeguarding the interests of the oppressive ruling classes of the state? Let's quote from the poet himself about this play (Red Oleanders: Author's interpretation published in the Visva Bharati Quarterly. October 1925):

"Once our people had either an Akbaror an Aurangzeb to deal with; now we have an organised avarice -- frightfully simple in its purpose, mechanically complicated in its process. Its messengers who come to us - be they Lord Birkenhead or Lord Curzon — are never for us our fellow beings in flesh and blood, as were Julius Caesar and Anthony who could easily And their immortal places in Shakespeare's drama. They are abstractions at once far and near and therefore awful; they are obscure to us in the dark secrecy of their political laboratory, and yet grimly concrete in their grasp upon our vitals."

A lot of changes notwithstanding, the curtain of secrecy that fell in 1923 in India is still in place in Bangladesh.

Namgir Khan is Program Officer. Other Vision Communication, a media organisation.