Tagore’s Ideas of Patriotism with Reference to Gora (original) (raw)
Related papers
IJFMR, 2023
Rabindranath Tagore, the multifaceted Indian poet, philosopher and artist, critically investigated the origin and evolution of [Western] nationalism and surmised the dangers of its adoption in the Indian anti-colonial struggle. Thus, he developed a unique perspective on nationalism that challenged the prevalent nationalist ideas of the prominent political thinkers and provided with a nuanced understanding of the intricacies of India's struggle for Independence and the subsequent nation-building processes. His concept of nationalism immediately became a matter of great controversy and many people even started regarding him as 'anti-nationalist.' This paper aims to investigate and tackle the controversy regarding the relevance of Tagore's nationalism both in the colonial period and the post-colonial period. It will try to emphasize how his concept of nationalism contrasts with that of Mahatma Gandhi regarding its role as an anticolonial force, and also with that of Benedict Anderson regarding its importance in shaping national and cultural identities, and international relations in the post-colonial era. By focusing on his essay on 'Nationalism' and his three renowned political novels, such as, Gora, The Home and the World, and Four Chapters, the paper intends to analyze the value of Tagore's ideas in the context of the anti-colonial struggles and their validity in the context of the contemporary socio-political and cultural movements, and give an insight of his philosophical conception on the discourse of nationalism.
Nationalism, Patriotism, Cosmopolitanism Tagore’s Ambiguities and Paradoxes (Part II)
The Daily Star, 2020
Like nationalism, Tagore's perspectives on patriotism are also characterised by certain paradoxes and ambiguities; he was a fervid patriot, yet he openly denounced and deplored the sentiment of patriotism. We know that Tagore wrote many songs celebrating his native land and paying homage to its beauty and fecundity, of which, as mentioned earlier, two have become the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
Tagore : Seductions and Perils of Nationalism
2010
Nationalism, implicated as it is in the modern imagination, is a deeply contested idea. So is nation – also referred to as an “imagined community” – which evolved as a sociopolitical institution, fairly recently, and which is characterised by either a unifying cultural signifier or an overarching ideology. Empirical studies reveal that the idea of nationalism often originates with the elite or with an aspiring middle-class, the rest of the society are appropriated into it. Tagore dismissed such nationalism as “the organised self-interest of a people,” which is “least human and least spiritual.” He saw it as a constant threat to humanity. This paper argues that Tagore’s diatribe against nationalism is a recurrent motif in all his writings and lectures. For him the nation is distinctively and exclusively Western. He developed an alternative conception of modernity which would take into account inclusive and synergic interaction between cultures that can take the world towards harmony ...
INTERROGATING NATIONALISM: LOCATING INDIA IN TAGORE'S NATIONALISM
The debate on constituting India as a nation has been a deeply contentious issue in the decades both preceding and following Indian independence in 1947. Tagore, a multifaceted genius and a versatile figure, is one of the most reverential names in the literary-cultural world in India as well as abroad. Tagore was a great visionary. He observed and critiqued the idea of nation at a time when most of the Indian people were steeped deeply in the intoxicated wave of patriotism. His foresightedness was greatly misunderstood and critiqued by then nationalists. This paper revisits Rabindranath's essay Nationalism to analyze how the writer's views contribute to the creation of a nation in Indian context and offers an alternative framework to the idea of a nation. The paper further attempts to locate Tagore's idea of nation in the present context and concludes by establishing the fact that Rabindranath Tagore's vision has become more appropriate and relevant than ever in today's violent world of intolerance, vengeance and fanaticism.
TAGORE ON NATIONALISM AND INDIAN SOCIETY
The question of Rabindranath Tagore on nationalism has been a much debated among the scholars. The various opinions about Tagore's 'anti-nationalism', 'internationalism', 'ambivalent nationalism' could be understood through a closer observation of Tagore's understanding of the history of Indian society and civilization at large, as also his holistic approach to humanity. Though Tagore condemned nationalism, he wanted for the Indian independence through some of his politically motivated songs. Although he supported Indian nationalists but he publicly criticized European nationalism and imperialism. Tagore firmly emphasized on racial and religious unity of India. He urged that all Indians have to unite above their race, class and religion. They should give up their differences, and stand above the dusty politics, of caste and ethnicity in order to bring the development of India. Tagore argued that India's immediate problems were social and cultural and not political. India must continuously struggle to resolve her burden of heterogeneity, by evolving out of these contradictions, which would be a great synthesis of all.
Promotion of Nationalism through Caste: A Study of Rabindra Nath Tagore’s Gora
The Outlook: Journal of English Studies, 2021
The original idea of caste system was engineering the society on the basis of labor division by providing every sector of society a distinct and important role to make the Hindu society an integrated whole making every group in the society depending on every other or the society was engineered to be completely inter-dependent, but the problem is that it has been misused as a means of social exploitation, oppression that has led the society towards mutual hatred and disintegration. The main objective of this research article is to find out how Gora, the protagonist of Rabindra Nath Tagore’s novel Gora, has used the idea of caste division as a means to promote nationalism among the people. Theoretical insights of liberal nationalism are used to analyze the primary text with the help of theoretical insights of Edward Soja’s ‘Thirdspace’. The article examines and analyzes how one can help strengthen social integration by respecting the others and offering the people justice even though ...
Man’s history is being shaped according to the difficulties it encounters. These have offered us problems and claimed their solutions from us, the penalty of non-fulfillment being death or degradation. Rabindranath Tagore’s politics exhibited a marked ambivalence- on the one hand, he turned down the notions of Imperialism, as set by the centre (Europe) and on the other, he also shunned the Swadeshi Movement. Tagore viewed the British control as a political symptom of our social disease, urging Indians to accept that there can be no question of blind revolution, but of steady and purposeful education. Rabindranath Tagore saw World History as the steady unfolding of an idea. The dissertation paper aims to show what is Nationalism, in a way explaining Tagore’s take on Nationalism in his poetry. Nationalism, according to Tagore, is not a “spontaneous self expression of man as social being”, where human relationships are naturally regulated, “so that men can develop ideals of life in co-operation with one another”, but rather a political and commercial union of a group of people, in which they congregate to maximize their profit, progress and power; it is “the organized self-interest of a people, where it is least human and least spiritual.” Tagore deemed Nationalism a recurrent threat to humanity because, with the prosperity for the material and the rational, it trampled over the human spirit and emotion; it upsets man’s moral balance, obscuring his human side under the shadow of soul-less organization. The definition of Nationalism, as given by Rabindranath Tagore, calls for a re-working on the definition itself, as it makes a sharp contrast with the idea of Nationalism, as it rose in the nineteenth century India. The paper also focuses to show this marked contrast; and in showing this, I would mainly concentrate on the nationalist poems of Tagore, such as The Last Sun of the century; Africa and Bharat-tirtha.
Tagore's anti-absolutist and anti-statist stand is predicated primarily on his vision of global peace and concord-a world of different peoples and cultures united by amity and humanity. While this grand vision of a brave new world is laudable, it is, nevertheless, constructed on misunderstanding and misreading of history and of the role of the nation state in the West since its rise sometime during the late medieval and early modern times. Tagore views state as an artificial mechanism, indeed a machine that thrives on coercion, conflict, and terror by subverting people's freedom and culture. This paper seeks to argue that the state also played historically a significant role in enhancing and enriching culture and civilization. His view of an ideal human society is sublime, but by the same token, somewhat ahistorical and anti-modern.,