Tagore’s Vision of a Transformed Society
Soma Mondal, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Gobardanga Hindu College
[Abstract: Tagore had an immense love for humanity. Relationship and love were the keywords in his philosophy of life. If Nationalism implies a political organization with its limitations of fixed boundaries, including maps and the constraints of the mind, Tagore envisioned a society and a world free from boundaries and the narrowness of mind. Tagore says that the abstract concept Nation dehumanizes Man, and turns him into a machine, making him forget the higher idles of humanity. Tagore gives more importance to the heart and the relationship between human beings than a heap of things or systems and policies. In Rabindranath’s views the only goal of human life is to offer freedom and be free, that freedom which guides our life. Rabindranath’s lecture, essays and addresses, thus, reveal his vision of the supreme man who will attain spiritual heights, overcoming all the differences. In the present age, when the different races of men have come close together we are confronted with the question, whether the different groups of people should go on fighting with one another or find out some true basis of reconciliation and mutual help. The spiritual and the moral power of man must be continually developedso as to transcend all the barriers and creator transformed society.]
In the introduction to the Political Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore, Kedar Nath Mukherjee wrote, ‘Man occupies the central position in his philosophy. Man to him, is the highest value that gives a finish to the entire evolutionary process’ (v). Indeed, Tagore had an immense love for humanity. Relationship and love were the key words in his philosophy of life. If Nationalism implies a political organization with its limitations of fixed boundaries, including maps and the constraints of the mind, Tagore envisioned a society and a world free from boundaries and the narrowness of the mind. In Nationalism, he reminds us of those days of the past when the neighboring countries did not rise in arms against each other, whether for defensive or offensive purposes. He writes,
I cannot but bring to your mind those days when the whole of Eastern Asia from Burma to
Japan was united with India in the closest tie of friendship, the only natural tie which can
exist between nations. There was a living communication of hearts, a nervous system
evolved through which messages ran between us about the deepest needs of humanity
(Tagore, Nationalism11-12).
That living, spontaneous relation of the human hearts is broken and has given place to selfishness and greed, taking the name of Nationalism. Tagore reminds us of the glorious past so that the past might guide us in making a beautiful present and a shining future. In this paper, I have given an analytical view of some selected lectures, addresses and essays by Rabindranath Tagore, and have tried to trace his arguments on the concept of a transformed society away from Nationalism and all other divisions.
Throughout the history of Nations we have seen that, while on the one hand the idea of
Nationalism has given birth to new nations from the clutches of imperialism, on the other hand it has given rise to hatred and organized selfishness. Thus, to apply Lacan’s theory, the word Nationalism is a slippery signifier. While, on the one hand the concept of Nationalism has given the people of the oppressed colonies an identity, on the other hand it has created heinous divisions and has given rise to violence. In The Wretched of the Earth Fanon writes,
National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people,
commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or new formulas introduced,
decolonization is always a violent phenomenon (27).
Rabindranath wanted decolonization, the freedom of the country from the clutches of imperialism. But he was never in support of violence.
Tagore says that the abstract concept Nation dehumanizes Man, and turns him into a machine, making him forget the higher ideals of humanity. Tagore gives more importance to the heart and the relationship between human beings than a heap of things or systems and policies. Indeed, ‘… there is fusion in him …, it might appear, of this human world and the divine other’ (Trivedi 54). We find a reflection of this fusion in his lectures and addresses which were collected under the titles The Religion of Man and Man . Tagore ‘does not speak, however’, in the words of Professor V. Lesny, ‘as a theological thinker or as a strict philosopher, but as a man recounting his religious experience, compressing the wisdom of a life-time into a few words’ (252).
According to Tagore, the goal of human history is neither the colorless vagueness of cosmopolitanism, nor the fierce self idolatry of nation-worship. The progress, which aims at wholesale production of instruments taking no consideration of the higher self of man, becomes a movement towards death. For Life has its own natural rhythm and harmony, which get disrupted if attempts are made to turn its rhythm into the movement of a machine .Life is essentially qualitative, but a pursuit of quantity creates complexities which breaks the harmony of life. Further, Man has the responsibility to outlive his life in order to live in truth, the truth which will persist through all time. ‘The poet-philosopher relies on the Vedas and the Upanishads in his emphasis on the greatness and the perfectibility of Man’ (Sengupta40). The Vedas and the Upanishads also speak about the essential unity of the world. In Tagore’s opinion, Man misses himself when isolated, he finds his own larger and truer self in his wide human relationship. ‘His multi-cellular body is born and it dies; his multi-personal humanity is immortal’ (Tagore, Religion88). The consciousness of this unity is spiritual, and the effort to be true to it is the religion of man.
Rabindranath finds that men have not yet outgrown their training of racial or national self-sufficiency. The element of suspicion for the ‘other’ is still there. There is still a lurking ferocity among men, ready to come out at the slightest provocation when in contact with people outside their social boundaries. Men have not yet acquired the power to adjust their vision which would enable them to understand the people around them. These men strive their utmost to prove the superiority and originality of their own race, religion and philosophy. They are not ready to acknowledge that, truth is not one, that it manifests itself in different countries and among different people in different garbs. As a result, the people lose sight of the inner harmony in their attempt to put more stress on differences which are external.
Rabindranath tells of a report published in the London Times, which he came to know through the Nation of America. When the British air-force was engaged in destroying a Mahsud village in Afghanistan, one of the bombing planes was damaged and came down. An Afghan girl led the airmen into a neighboring cave and a Malik remained on guard at the entrance of the cave to give them protection. The Malik dissuaded the forty men who rushed forward with brandished knife to attack the airmen. All these time bombs were being dropped from above and people were crowding to take shelter in the cave. In spite of everything that went around, Some Maliks of the neighborhood and a Mollah helped the British airmen and some of the women even offered them food. At last they brought the airmen out to a safe place, disguised as Mahsuds. Rabindranath says that this incident reveals the two aspects of human nature in their extreme forms. The bombing from fighter-planes proves the wonderful development of human power in terms of science and technology. But, the quality of forgiveness and giving protection to the enemy engaged in dealing death reveals the higher aspect of man. Rabindranath says, ‘The natural instinct to kill enemies is the prompting of man’s animal nature; but he transcended it and uttered the strange command: Forgive your enemies’(Tagore, Man207-8).
In Rabindranath’s views the only goal of human life is to offer freedom and be free, that freedom which guides our life. And true freedom is not in isolation, but in the profound union which leads us towards perfection. The knowledge of things gained by overcoming personal idiosyncrasies and prejudices is valuable and acceptable to all men and is called science. In the same way, the self in man that transcends his self-interest finds its infinite truth in union with All. While the functions of the isolated self are in bondage, the functions of universal self are
unfettered. Tagore reminds us of the Upanishad where it is written,
‘The individual souls united with the Supreme Soul enter everywhere.
And this is the freedom of spirit which we must attain’. (Tagore, Man212).
Rabindranath tells of the Brahmin Ramananda, who one day, leaving his disciples, went and embraced the chandal Nabha, the Mohammedan Kabir, the sweeper Ruidas. The society made Ramananda an out-caste, but he only rose to the highest caste, the caste of the universal man. Ramananda transgressed the limits of petty conventions and contempt which cruelly divided human beings in the name social stability. Lord Buddha also preached the message of love and relationship. Tagore says that it was because Buddha realized the divine man in humanity, he could say:
‘Cultivate the spirit of immeasurable love within you even as the love the mother feels for
her own child’ (Tagore, Man214).
It is this message of love which can perhaps bring about a harmonious unity among the people of the world. ‘And harmony was the keynote of his philosophy – harmony between man and man, man and nature, city and village, science and society, and society and State’ (Bhattacharjee210).
Rabinmdranath reminds us of Lao-tze, who in one of his utterances has said: ‘ “Those who have virtue (dharma) attend to their obligations; those who have no virtue attend to their claims”’ (Tagore, Religion149). Our endless claims are satisfied by a progress which is based on external attraction. ‘But civilization, which is an ideal, gives us the abundant power to renounce which is the power that realizes the infinite and inspires creation’ (Tagore, Religion149). We must remember that man’s highest truth is in the union of co-operation and love.
In the words of B.C.Chakravorty, ‘Tagore has shown us the path of unity and international brotherhood by emphasizing that we are essentially One and not many and that our true evolution lies along the path of ever-widening love and fellowship and not ever-increasing power and wealth’ (256). So, Tagore feels humiliated when he finds Japan merely a replica of the West, imitating the West in the pride of Nationalism, forgetting about the ideals of humanity. He is shocked to find Japan imitating the aggressive Nationalism of the West. To cite an example, in 1910 Korea became a colony of Japan. Tagore reminds us:
This bloodshed and misery cannot go on forever, because, as human beings, we can never
find our souls in turmoil and competition (Tagore, Talks42).
He is deeply hurt when he sees Japan, ‘proud with the prosperity of the most newly rich of nations’ (Tagore, Talks50). He wants East to be humble even when it has come into sudden good fortune because ‘the dust-storm of arrogance … obliterates the path of wisdom’ (Tagore, Talk50). Tagore reminds us once again:
Pride generates a blind trust in one’s exclusive might, causing isolation and sowing seeds of
its own destruction. It produces continual friction with its surroundings, gradually wearing
out our armour of protection (Tagore, Talks50-51).
Rabindranath’s lectures, essays and addresses, thus, reveal his vision of the supreme man who will attain spiritual heights, overcoming all the differences. He spreads the message of love and speaks of bridging the gulf of differences which have kept us separated from our neighbors for ages. This will come not of fighting, not of profit-making, but establishing the bonds of the relationship of human hearts. Our guiding light should radiate through the storm-clouds of trouble and illuminate the path of light. He comments:
Men, at their highest, are path-makers, paths not for profit or for power, but paths over
which the hearts of men can go out to their brothers of different lands (Tagore, Talks46).
In the present age, when the different races of men have come close together we are confronted with the question, whether the different groups of people should go on fighting with one another or find out some true basis of reconciliation and mutual help. Rabindranath does not hesitate to say:
… those who are gifted with the moral power of love and vision of spiritual unity, who have
the least feeling of enmity against alien, and the sympathetic insight to place themselves in
the position of others, will be the fittest to take their permanent place in the age that is lying
before us, and those who are constantly developing their instincts for fight and intolerance
of aliens will be eliminated (Tagore, Nationalism109-10).
The real strength and progress of a civilization is this co-operation and love, mutual trust and mutual help. The spiritual and the moral power of man must be continually developed so as to transcend all the barriers and create a transformed society.
Bibliography:
Primary Material:
Tagore, Rabindranath. Nationalism. 1917. New Delhi: Rupa, 2002.
_. The Religion of Man. 1931. In The English Writings of Rabindra Nath Tagore: A Miscellany.
Vol. 3. Ed. Sishir Kumar Das. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1996, 2002ed. 83-189.
_. Talks in China. 1925. New Delhi: Rupa, 2002
Secondary Material
Bhattacharjee, Jyoti Prosad. “Elements of the Social and Economic Philosophy of Rabindranath
Tagore”. In Rabindra Nath Tagore: Homage from Visva – Bharati. Ed. Santosh Chandra Sen
Gupta. Santiniketan: Visva – Bharati, 1962. 201-10
Chakvorty, B. C. Rabindranath Tagore His Mind and Art: Tagore’s Contribution to English
Literature. New Delhi: Young India Pub., 1971.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of The Earth.Trans. Constance Farrington. Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1967, 1969ed.
Lesny, V.Rabindranath Tagore:His Personality and Work. Trans. Guy Mc Keever Philips.
London: Allen and Unwin, 1939.
Mukherjee, Kedarnath. Political Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore. New Delhi: S. Chand,
1982. Ph.D. Thesis, Ranchi University.
Sengupta S. C.. “The Surplus in Man: The Poet’s Philosophy of Man”. In Rabindranath Tagore
and the challenges of Today.Eds.Bhudev Chaudhuri, and K.G.Subramanyam. Shimla:Indian
Institute of Advanced Studies, 1988. 39-54.
Trivedi, Harish.Colonial Transactions:English Literature and India.New York: Manchester UP,
1993,1995.
Soma Mondal
Research Scholar,
University of Calcutta,
9831276367,ksoma_mondal@yahoo.in.