Course: M.A (English)
Topic:
Rabindranath Tagore’s literary contribution during the Pre-Independence Era
Semester:
01
Roll
No. : 12
Paper No:
04
Paper
Name: Indian Writing in English
Submitted
to: Dr.Dilip Barad,
Smt.
S.B.Gardi
Department
of English,
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University
Rabindranath
Tagore’s literary contribution during the Pre-Independence Era.
Rabindranath Tagore was born on 25th
Baisakh 1268, according to the Bengali calendar, corresponding to May 7, 1861
of the English calendar. He was the last child of his parents. The youngest
child, however, died in early infancy and in effect Rabindranath became the
youngest child and also the youngest son of the family. He was a born Tagore and
in a family in which he could experience the national life at its fullest and
freest. He was born into the great rambling mansion at JORASANKO, in the heart
of Kolkata’s teeming life. His first experience of school distressed him, he
escaped the daily routine of Indian school and his education was desultory. (Divya's
assignment, 2015)
At the age of sixteen he released his first substantial poems under the
pseudonym Bhanusimha (‘Sun Lion’) which were seized upon by literary authorities
as long classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first stories and dramas,
published under his real name. As a humanist, Universalist, Internationalist
and ardent anti-nationalist; he denounced the British Raj and advocated
independence from Britain. His autobiography rejoices in the mighty hills,
which casts spell on his soul beyond another. (wikipedia, 2016) No poet has felt so
deeply and constantly the fascination of great spaces of Earth and Sky, the
boundless risen and white lights of evening and expansion of moonlight.
Mountains touched his imagination comparatively little. He would not be
Rabindranath if he had not laid them under contribution of furnish pictures. (Divya's
assignment, 2015)
Tagore modernised Bengali art by
spanning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His works
such as- novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas and essays spoke of the political
as well as personal topics. Gitanjali (song- offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced)
and the Ghare Baire (the Home and the World) are his best known works.
His compositions were chosen by two nations as National Anthems: India’s
Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh’s Amar Sonar Bangla. (wikipedia,
2016)
Much of Tagore’s writings dealt with the
problem of National belongings. Tagore was one of the finest minds of his time
in India who was clearly able to diagnose the exploitative and brutal nature of
British rule in India. His sensitive mind was clearly able to decipher the ills
that plagued the Indian society of his time and he wrote extensively on this
social malaise and the ways it could be removed. Tagore had multi-pronged
approach: on one hand he was convinced that unless the sickness which Indian
society was suffering could be overcome mere freedom is meaningless. Constructive
social work was the crying need of the hour and reformation in the education
would be of great use for society and nation building. Another hand Tagore
became very actively focused on the beginning of the national freedom movement
after the establishment of the Indian National Congress in 1885. He wrote in
his book Nationalism (probably his most important work on political thinking):
“...it (the Congress) had no real programme. Tagore wanted the struggle against
British rule to be germinated from the grassroots of society rather than being
confined to an elite section who were not always selfless and had their
interests to safeguard. Tagore rejected violence by the Britishers as well as
he renounced the Knighthood that had been given him to by Lord Hardinge in 1915
in protest of the violent Amritsar massacre in which the British killed at
least 1526 unarmed Indian citizens. One of the important ideas that Tagore
contributed is that “freedom” does not simply mean political freedom from the
British, True freedom means the ability to be truthful and honest with oneself
otherwise autonomy loses all it’s worth. His philosophies and writings
contributed a great deal to the Independence movement by shaping the ideas and
thinking of many other important figures such as the famous Indian nationalist
Mohandas Gandhi. (wikipedia, 2016)
As a Nationalist and a patriot poet,
Rabindranath Tagore influenced the masses as well as the leaders of the
nationalist movement. His literary works generated a spirit of freedom for
liberating India from colonization. He was on a poetic mission to save the then
nation from slavery. (wikipedia, 2016) According to Tagore, freedom from all
the oppressions of the world would everyone to live a life full of contentment.
This freedom leads to a total whole that is infinite, which is the
consolidation of the best in the finites. This perfect freedom is the key that
leads Man from the state of finiteness to identity with the infinite. In
Gitanjali Tagore says;
Obstinate are the trammels, but
my heart aches when I try to break them.
Freedom is all I want, but to hope for
it I feel ashamed.
I am certain
that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have
not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills away my room
The shroud
that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love.
My debts are large, my failures great, my
shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear
lest my prayer be granted. (Mukherjee)
Shantiniketan is a small town near Bolpur
in the district of Birbhum of West Bengal. In earlier days Shantiniketan was
known as “Bhuban Danga”, which was the den of a local dacoit named “Bhuban
Dakat”. “Danga” means a vast unfertile plane land. The land was owned by Tagore
family. Rabindranath Tagore’s father, Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, renamed it
as “Shantiniketan”
which means ‘abode’ (niketan) of ‘peace’ (shanti). Here Tagore started an open
air school for children named as “Path Bhavan”. Tagore’s ideas was that of
learning in a natural environment, in the open, under the trees, would be
closer to nature. After Tagore received the Nobel Prize in 1913 for Literature
(for the book Gitanjali), the school was expanded into a University named as “Vishwa
Bharati”. Vishwa Bharati’s symbolic meaning as described by Tagore is
“where the world makes a home in a nest”. Amongst many of his composed patriotic
songs is “Jodi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ase Tobe Ekla Cholo Re”(If no one
responds to your call, then go your own way alone”), commonly known as Ekla Cholo Re, written in
1905. The song exhorts the listeners to continue his or her journey, despite
abandonment or lack of support from others. The song was mainly quoted for
political or social change movements. Mahatma Gandhi was also deeply influenced
by this song. “Where the Mind is Without Fear” was written by Tagore during
the time when India was under the British Rule and people were eagerly waiting
to get their freedom from the British Rule. This poem had given a lot of
strength to the people who were struggling for India’s Independence. It is a
prayer to the Almighty for hassles free Nation free from any kind of
manipulative or corrupted powers, this poem was included in the volumes of
‘Naibedya’. He wrote a book named “Nationalism in India”1917; it is
the compilation of three lectures delivered by him. The three lectures
published in this book are: Nationalism in Japan, Nationalism in the West and
Nationalism in India. Tagore dwells on the interdependencies of cultures as
opposed to the narrower definitions of nations and nationalities to exhort his
audience to elevate their thinking to include nobler thoughts of compassion and
mutual help. Tagore was predictably hostile to communal sectarianism (such as
Hindu orthodoxy that was antagonistic to Islamic, Christian or Sikh perspective).
Isaiah Berlin summarizes in his own words about the complex position of Tagore
in Indian Nationalism: ‘Tagore stood
fast on the narrow causeway, and did not betray his vision of the difficult
truth. He condemned romantic over attachment to the past, what he called tying
India to the past, like a “sacrificial goat tethered to a post”, and he accused
man who displayed it-they seemed to him reactionary-of not knowing what true
political freedom was, pointing out it is from English thinkers and English
books that the very notion of political liberty was derived. But against
cosmopolitanism he maintained that the English stood on their feet, and so must
Indians. In 1971 he once more denounced the danger of ‘leaving everything to
the unalterable will of master, be he Brahmin or Englishman’. Tagore was
strongly involved in protest against the Raj on a number of occasions, most
notably in the movement to resist the 1905 British proposal to split in two
province of Bengal.
In his old age, Tagore still
rose long before dawn to witness the birth of each new day, and he still wrote
fluently in his own hand. He liked to make extensive corrections; he also liked
his manuscripts to be elegant; he began turning his erasures into decorations,
forming intricate patterns and pictures of serpents and birds of his own
imagination. Tagore was eighty years old when he died in 1941. He died in the
midst of a world war which seemed the negation of all he had loved. If he
looked forward to India’s Independence it was not because he wanted to see a
new nation but because he believed that only in freedom Indians could be true
to their inheritance. (wikipedia, 2016)
Divya's assignment. (2015, 10 19). Retrieved from
http://divyachoudhary19.blogspot.in/2015/10/tagores-contribution-in-indian-writing.html
Mukherjee, R. (n.d.). Rabindranath
Tagore's Gitanjali:a source of experiencing peace and harmony. Retrieved
from http://www.abhinavjournal.com/images/Arts_&_Education/Apr12/1.pdf
wikipedia. (2016, 10 14). Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore
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