Why Tagore rejected narrow Nationalism

Ranjan Kumar Padmapati

(The author can be reached at e-mail: rkpadmapati@yahoo.co.in and phone: 09435300035)

India has been experiencing a shift from the past and entering into troubled waters. Polarization of societies is taking place on the principle of “Hindi – Hindutva – Hindustan” slogan. Rabindranath Tagore had cautioned the people against intense nationalism or militant nationalism, referring to Japan and western countries. Now these tendencies are on the rise in India, based on religion, caste or provincialism. This sentiment has given birth to regimentation of thoughts and militant organizations. Initially during the period 1900 to 1907, Tagore took part in Swadeshi movement, but later distanced himself after the emergence of violent revolutionary groups. It is instructive to look back at Tagore’s observations on such ideas in his essays. In his opinion, our country is divided by physical, social, linguistic, religious and other considerations, yet coming closer in cooperation. Pride of nationalism engenders unhealthy competitions. In fact, Tagore rejected all forms of nationalism.

The sentiment of Indian nationalism arose out of British colonial rule, in the struggle to make India free politically and economically. The British gave us a common rule, a common boundary, a common political identity. Prior to British rule, there was no concept of an Indian nation as people perceive today. Worldwide, there were various kingdoms and their people. The concept of nationalism is an alien idea brought to India from the west by imperial powers. According to Tagore, there is no equivalent word for ‘nation’ in Indian languages. Present Indian nationalism has been an inclusive one, not exclusive. There are Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism and Christianity along with many other sects of the aborigine peoples. There are Aryans, Dravidians and the like. According to scholars, Christianity and Islam had come to India much before the invaders entered. There was trade and commerce between the Arabs and the people of this land along the western coast of Arabian Sea. The Arabs even married into local people and settled in India, thus a new community was born and localized, and similarly so with Europeans. Indian tradition teaches of assimilation and fusion.

According to Tagore, there will be unity of body and mind only when all the limbs of the body work in perfect unison. He wanted a similar composite Indian mind derived from the teachings of the Vedas, Puranas, Upanishads, Buddhism, Jainism and Islam. Tagore believes that nationalism smoothens the power of humanity. To Tagore, the Indian freedom movement was not only for Indians alone, but for all humanity. In fact, the Congress supported anti-imperialism movement all over the world much before independence. Tagore’s concern for India or the world was against the intense consciousness of different groups of people in narrower sense which may lead to exclusive nationalism on the basis of language, caste, race, identity or religion. This proved to be true as intense religious nationalism gave birth to the Hindu Maha Sabha and the Muslim League. In one of his essays, Tagore wrote that India is not merely a geographical entity alone but a concept. He mentioned that because the ‘range of lives’ is narrow and the Indian mind is ‘beset with provincialism, these are barriers to achieve humanity. He therefore called for emotional integration.

Rabindranath Tagore was a poet philosopher. He sought the fundamental unity of all religious groups. He said: “The great Ganga must not hesitate to declare her essential similarity to the Nile of Egypt or the Yangtse-Kiang of China” — her heritage teaches people of adjustment and tolerance, unity in diversity. Tagore remarked that “cooperation has come through saints like Nanak, Kavir, Chaitanya and others, preaching one God to all races of India”. He included in one of his essays a Baul Geet of Bengal tradition, the English translation of which reads: “Temples and mosques obstruct my path”. For love of humanity “Heaven longs to become Earth and Gods to become Man”. Sufism reverberates in one of his poems: “Go not to the temple”. Tagore wanted such education and continuity that will blend Vedic, Puranic, Buddhist, Jain and Islamic minds. All of them stood for non-violence. He wanted to impart that type of education free from religious dogmas.

India has been struck by many changes now, one being religious nationalism, even at institutions of higher education. Education has been polluted with political and religious chauvinism instead of universalism. School books are littered with distorted facts of history seeking to instill religious motives. Political leaders even comment that Hindu god Lord Ganesha is an example of earliest form of plastic surgery in the world! Tagore was of scientific bent of mind, above superstitious values. On the Bihar earthquake in 1934, Gandhi had written: “Visitations like droughts, floods, earthquakes and the like, though they seem to have physical origin, are for me somehow connected with man’s morale”. Thus Gandhi connected the earthquake with the sin of untouchability, which Tagore contradicted. Of late, Hindu religious groups assigned beef eating and missionaries to be the causes of the Nepal earthquake. Tagore valued western scientific temperament, praised the advancement of other countries like Germany and Japan, and wanted India to progress in the same direction. He was, after all, born in the cultural setting of the confluence of three —Upanishadic thought, Hafiz and European culture. These made him a broad-hearted person. He looked at the Europeans not with the anti-imperialist lens, for that would have led to a mind that blocks out discovery of Christ’s kindness.

It is increasingly felt that higher order nationalism in India is being swept away by narrow nationalism, resulting in fragmentation of society into Hindu and Muslim nationalism, once patronized by the British to divide and rule. Tagore wrote: “Let the lives and hearts of sons and daughters of my country be one, my God”. Tagore dreamt of an India where every citizen will enjoy equal rights, will be fearless, live with dignity, be fully educated, truthful to the country, where wisdom does not flow to “dreary desert”. When there is Intense nationalism, the State takes full control of people and individual freedom is lost, which is happening in India. There are cases of lynching, morale policing, people cannot decide what to eat and dress, what colour to choose, where fundamental rights are denied. Here are the words of caution raised by Tagore long before when he dreamt of “where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls”. The famous Taj Mahal where Islamic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Indian Hindu architectural styles all fused into one to install a marvel of the world. M. Gousset, the French savant wrote “the soul of Iran incarnate in the body of India”. Ours is a diverse country with 5 major religions, 23 major languages and more than 350 dialects, and over 85 political parties. Ours is a nationalism which is an inclusive one.