RABINDRANATH TAGORE : the NOBEL LAUREATE who shaped India’s destiny

We remember our great philosophers, sages and all the great personalities whose sacrifice for nation , teachings and good deeds inspired us and showed mankind the pathway. They were the people who brought light to the world and energized human minds as well as revitalized our nation. Rabindranath Tagore was one such philosopher, poet, novelist , socio-cultural analyst, patriot, educationist and above all a spiritual humanist who rejuvenated India’s  great cultural heritage and made it a gem for the whole world. Born in Calcutta on May 7, 1861, the son of a well-known philosopher and religious reformer Devendranath Tagore, he brought a cultural and spritual renaissance in India.

    Tagore was a great stalwart in the field of Bengali literature. Some prominent examples of his Bengali masterpieces are the Manasi, the Gitanjali (song offerings), the Gora(Fair-Faced), the  Ghare-Baire (The Home and the world), the Galpagauchchha, Sonar tari, Chitra, Kalpana, Naivedya , Chitrangada and the Malini. Tagore was Knighted in 1915 but he returned the title in 1919 in protest of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. He founded ‘Vishwa- Bharati University’ . He became Asia’s first Nobel Laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel prize in Literature. In the Gitanjali Tagore wrote: “

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action-

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

We are in 21^st century where technological and material advancement overtake moral and spiritual advancement at some extent. The declining social values have led to a variety of social evils and moral degeneration as well as social disintegration . Tagore’s  philosophy is full of depth which lays emphasis on maintaining social values, morality and cultural ethos of our country .Today also we have a large amount of literature but there is stark contrast in the quality of books, cinema ,music, the quality of advertisement. It is a complete aberration from the past. All such immoral elements should be properly analysed through censorship board because bad literature and bad means of entertainment always pollute the society. We still have a lot to learn from Tagore.

Tagore in his book ‘Religion of Man’ aptly remarked :The consciousness of our unity is spiritual, and our effort to be true to it, is our religion. It ever waits to be revealed in our history in a more and perfect illumination. He championed the moral law of historical progress. He lamented the growth of scepticism about moral values in the western nations. He called, hence, the First World War as a ‘war of retribution’. Tagore was a true humanist. His humanism, was  nurtured on spiritual foundation.He was prophet of universal man. He accepted the immense worth of the spritual heritage of India. He was opposed to the denationalizing tendencies implicit in the imitation of western countries. India had held aloft the torch of the True, the Good and the eternal spirit and it would be ridiculous to forsake this.The destiny of India lay in the consummation of a social and racial synthesis-samanvaya. He said the essence of civilization is the love of humanity and not the accumulation of material power and desires.

Rabindranath believed in a functional conception of society. He was opposed to meaningless social stratifications which perpetuate social tyranny. He was witnessing the growing confusion in social morals in those days. Due to the impact of western civilization the old values and morals were losing ground. At such an hour of desperation and perturbation, Tagore taught that only by participation in the life of the group, the association and the community could the individual attain his purpose in life. Thus, the social organism would provide the context for the efflorescence of individual life. In place of the atomistic and individualistic approach to society, Tagore taught that the social structure is organic. But the social organism can be a living totality only if the members are bound by the ties of mutual performance of duties and treat all sections equally. Thus he wanted to view individual personality in the background of the cultural configuration and meaningful social reciprocity and functional interdependence of group and associational existence. Thus in man there are two sects of desires. He wrote: “ We have a greater body which is the social body. Society is an organism, of which we as parts have our individual wishes. We want our own pleasure and licence. We want to pay less and gain more than anybody else. This causes scrambling and fights. But there is that other wish in us which does its work in the depths of the social being. It is the wish for the welfare of the society. It transcends the limits of the present and the personal. It is on the side of the infinite.”

Tagore wrote: “India stands before the civilized world as an embodiment of the ideal of unity through diversity. To see the one in the world and within oneself, to instal the one in the midst of the many, to discover It by knowledge, to establish It by action, to realize It in love and to proclaim it in life –this is what India has been doing through the centuries in the face of danger and difficulty, and in times good or bad.When we shall discover in her history that central and eternal and in times good or bad. When we discover in her history that central and eternal note, the gulf separating our past from present will disappear.” Thus he said: The spirit of India has always proclaimed the idea of unity. This idea of unity never rejects anything , any race, or culture. It comprehends all, and it has been the highest aim of our spiritual exertion to be able to penetrate all things with one soul, to comprehends all things as they are, not keep out anything in the whole universe-to comprehend all things with sympathy and love. This is the spirit of India.

  

 The composer of our National Anthem as well as Bangaladesh’s, Tagore preached the doctrine of simplicity in outer world and richness of beauty in inner world. By stressing on social co-operation and harmony  peace, social integration and above all spiritual humanism he provided us a much needed tonic to stimulate our society which is currently in shambles. His philosophy is the key to understand and resolve all the problems and social conflicts in its varied forms.