Introduction

While Gandhi was the leader of nationalism and Nehru, the nurturer, Tagore was the unacknowledged force behind them.
The nationalism that Tagore and Gandhi followed did not give privilege to any
religion. It was inclusive and objective. I think Tagore and Gandhi had the privilege
to examine moral power without political accountability.
Rabindranath Tagore took the idea of nationalism to a broader plane and advocated listening and
learning from other cultures which won him the admiration of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal
Nehru.

Evocative lines

Tagore is also mentioned several times in Nehrus first book, Glimpses of World History, which consisted of
letters written to his daughter Indira from jail. The letter which completed this course of parental instruction
invoked the stirring lines from Gitanjali which begin Where the mind is without fear and the head is held
high and end into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

The future Prime Minister of free India had first met Asias first Nobel laureate in the early 1920s, when he
accompanied Gandhi to Santiniketan following a Congress meeting in Calcutta. The trip is recalled in Nehrus
autobiography, the first foonote of which incidentally mentions the striking coincidence that Tagore was born
on the same day in the same month of the same year as his own father, Motilal. Later trips to the poets
home are also lovingly recalled, with Nehru speaking of how he spent his time in Santiniketan talking to the
sage and his circle. In 1934, he took his wife Kamala there for the first time. Their only child, Indira
Priyadarshini, was appearing for her matriculation, and they were worried about her future education. Nehru
believed that the atmosphere of the regular universities was official, oppressive and authoritarian. He
hoped that for his daughter Santiniketan offered an escape from this dead hand.

First meeting

Indira first saw Tagore in September 1932, when the two of them were among the crowd of patriots
attending on Gandhi while he was fasting in a prison in Poona. Hearing of the meeting, Nehru wrote to his
daughter from his own prison cell in distant Dehradun: You have met, probably for the first time, another
great son of India, Rabindranath Tagore. He is very different from Bapu, but he is a great writer and artist
and it is a privilege to meet him. In later letters to Indira, Nehru frequently quoted or invoked the poet. In
June 1934, he sent her the prospectus for Tagores university, remarking: Do not be prejudiced against
S[anti] N[iketan]. It has its faults but it has its good points too and I think the latter far outweigh the
former. The next month Indira became a student of Visva-Bharati. She stayed there until March 1936,
when she had to be withdrawn to attend to her ailing mother, then undergoing treatment in Europe. It was
the only Indian university she attended.

In his years as Prime Minister, Nehru followed Tagore in seeking a synthesis of tradition and modernity, in
taking from the West what his country needed while upholding and even avowing the civilisational antiquity
of India. Nehrus pan-Asianism, and his determination to stay non aligned in the Cold War, also bear the
mark of Tagores thought. Meanwhile, his respect for the diversity of cultures and religious traditions within
India also owes a great deal to Tagores example. Like the poet, the politician saw his country as a mix and
a melange, which had no single essence. After a long trip through Indias north-eastern borderlands in 1952,
he wrote to the Chief Ministers of States that the region deserves our special attention, not only [of] the
Governments, but of the people of India. Our contacts with them will do us good and will do them good too.
They add to the strength, variety and cultural richness of India. As one travels there, a new and vaster
richness of India comes before the eyes and the narrowness of outlook which sometimes obsesses us,
begins to fade away. He went on: Rabindranath Tagore wrote in one of his famous poems about India: No
one knows at whose call so many streams of men flowed in restless tides from places unknown and were
lost in one sea: here Aryan and non-Aryan, Dravidian, Chinese, the banks of Saka and the Hunas and
Pathan and Mogul, have become combined in one body.
Like Gandhi, Nehrus own outlook on the world was fundamentally shaped by speaking to and reading
Tagore. It was through Tagores provocation that these two men developed a theory of nationalism that was
inclusive, not exclusive; a nationalism that sought not just political freedom for the Nation but equal rights
for all its citizens. Where other nationalisms insisted on a homogeneity of attitudes and worldviews, the idea
of India respected and even celebrated the linguistic, cultural and religious diversity of its peoples. And it
was inclusive outside its borders, prepared to overlook the horrors of colonialism once colonialism had
formally ended, to forge new and equitable relations with all the countries and peoples of the world.

He was always a poet foremost, but due to the situation he was born into, his role in
India's independence movement was to inspire faith in the dream that was unfulfilled.
Without faith there was no future to be created. Tagore said, "It is the dreamer who
builds up civilization; it is he who can realize the spiritual unity reigning supreme over all
differences of race." Instilling national pride, he believed that India must earn her
freedom.

He was insistent that the Englishman in India was an external fact and that the country
was the most true and complete fact: "Try to build up your country by your own strength
because realization becomes complete through creation." Hence, Tagore advocated
that we can only realize our own self in the country if we seek to create the country we
wish to live in by our thought, our activity and our service. The homeland is the creation
of the mind and that is why the soul realizes itself (finds itself) in its own experience in
the motherland. Tagore asked his people, in "Swadeshi Samaj", to win back the
country, not from the British, but from apathy and indifference. He believed the country
would attain a form of salvation only when all of its parts pulsated with passion for the
recovery of the motherland. Hence, Tagore's method for liberation was an internal,
intellectual movement: "Unreasoning faith, blind habits of mind, adherence to customs
that had no merit save their age, the repression of intellect and heart in the unproductive
channel of inaction - all of this is the antithesis of the forces that reveal people in all their
full glory and dignity. This is the root cause of degeneration." His goal was not economic
restructuring, but emotional liberation from the British, leading to economic and political
reform.

Tagore was not a supporter of the non-cooperation movement as he felt the end result
of disassociation from the British would be futile, since the future would only lead back
to assimilation. Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore differed in this way in their
thinking on how to free India. Tagore and Gandhi, however, had a fond affinity for one
another. Gandhi termed Tagore as his "Gurudev". Jawaharlal Nehru stated, "No two
persons could possibly differ so much as Gandhi and Tagore." Yet this is a perfect
example of the Hindu philosophy of acceptance in the pursuit of knowledge and the
richness of India's age-long cultural genius. Gandhi consulted Tagore regarding
methods of liberating India, stating that knowing his best friend was spiritually with him
sustained him in the midst of the storms he entered.

Tagore began to resurrect his people by the introduction of schools. He taught subjects
promoting that man can extend his own horizon and achieve a second birth through
creativity and art. He opened his first school in Santiniketan. He began the regeneration
by directing his efforts primarily at education with the foremost hope of promoting
literacy and then health via enforcement of social conduct. Tagore was born into the
priestly class, placing him in the highest class in Indian culture. However, he believed
that India, by creating smaller and smaller spheres was destroying the vitality of her
people. He refused to reap any benefit from the caste system and lived among the
poorest of people. He recognized that when the British government created separate
electorates for the castes among Hindus, its intention was to separate the Hindu
community. Gandhi and Tagore, both of the same mind, protested to this differentiation,
leading to Gandhi announcing a fast until death on September 0, 1932, which did not
end in tragedy. This consciousness of the abject condition and miserable helplessness
of the poor, unlucky people was the basis of his political philosophy in the years that
followed.

Rabindranath Tagore was probably most famously known as the author of India's
national anthem, J"ana Gana Mana." T he national anthem was first sung on
December 27, 1911 at the Indian National Congress in Calcutta in glory of the
motherland. It is also a song of reverence to the Lord of the Universe, the
Dispenser of Human Destiny, Arjuna, who drives India's history through the
ages along the rugged road with the rise and fall of nations.
Conclusion

Tagores powerful condemnation of State as a soulless machine and the patriotism that
grounds itself on My country right or wrong to the negation of moral ideals, has stirred the
conscience of the world, horrified at its own terrible doings in the Great War. His call to regulate
life on the principle of humanity has been taken up by Romain Rolland and other Western
thinkers. But the subject nations of the East have not found much consolation in that doctrine,
since obviously it is only the imperialist nations that could take the initiative and illustrate the
new direction. Japan, ever fearful that the fate of the other Oriental nations may yet
befall her, andChina struggling fitfully for nationhood, have derided it as the philosophy of
defeatism. India with her longing for freedom, still feeble and ineffective, has not been able to
accept this dispensation. Religion is not for empty bellies, said the divine
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. In similar-wise humanitarian ardour is not for slaves, nor
internationalism for those who are no nation. The higher should be a synthesis or federation of
nationalities and if race and colour barriers are in process of time dissolved, there may be a
growth into World State through absorption and assimilation.

But have not the Imperialist Powers made a hopeful response to this ideal of human
federation? I think they have. The League of Nations is the embodiment, in however feeble aid
tentative a form, of this higher spirit of international co-operation. The oldest of the races, India,
through the intuition of her imaginative genius, Tagore, invoked the idea, and the youngest of the
nations, America, through her President Woodrow Wilson,organised it into institutional shape
and potency. What a miracle of ideal co-operation! More than any other poet of the world,
Tagore shines forth as the laureate of humanity.

It does not mean that he is not a patriot, or that he is one of those artistic or scientific
exquisites who profess to be above patriotism chiefly for pleasing the Government, or that he
condemns nationalism and the state as evils per se to be destroyed, root and branch. The noble
heart that flung his knighthood in contempt back into the hands that gave it to him because they
had become blood-stained at Jallianwallah Bagh, the generous soul that more recently emerged
from its ecstatic retirement to bemoan the Chittagong happenings and the recent Hijli shootings,
cannot for a moment be thought to be a less ardent patriot than Das, Nehru, or Ansari. What he
condemns is the claim (alas! widely conceded) of the State to be an end in itself and a law unto
itself, in brutal disregard of ethical standards, reducing itself to a non-moral animal impulse. Just
as the family has in course of evolution been subordinated to society, and is no longer an interest
overriding all other considerations, so must the State be subordinated to humanity. A nation
should be just one member in the larger society of the family of nations and the Fatherhood of
God must be implemented by the brotherhood of Man. And just as a family must be healthy and
efficient in order to subserve successfully social ends, so must each nation be strong and efficient
in order to fulfil its humanitarian functions properly. The State should be content to occupy the
position of a means to world ends, instead of continuing to be a lawless exhibition of greed and
force.

Is Gandhian Nationalism any different from this in essence and spirit? It seems to me that
the Tagorean mirror contains a faithful reflection of the Gandhian universe, or, to put it
differently, in its insistence on Truth and Non-violent, and the subordination of political ends and
methods to moral laws, Gandhism may almost be said to be an organised form of Tagorism.
India must be free, not that she may thereupon roam about like a beast of prey, but that she may
the better subserve human brotherhood and culture. And she must achieve her freedom by means
of Truth and Non-violence, historically speaking novelties never before tried; by invoking and
never by inflicting suffering; by converting the enemy and getting him to be your friend instead
of exterminating him; and melting his heart in the fire of worlds pity and righteousness. And it
follows as day the night that freedom thus won is bound to be used for spreading a regime of
light and love, and not for perpetuating dark deeds of exploitation. Nor is it only blood that may
not be shed. Un-compensated sweat too may not be, and the capitalism that has thriven on the ill-
paid sweat of the labouring masses must melt into co-operative effort. In fact even tears are
forbidden; for you must undergo your sufferings with a quiet, bravely and cheerfully, like
martyrs; then only will its transfigurative efforts be forthcoming.

I wonder if Soviet Russia is not in many of its aspects a true answer to Gandhian prayers,
the organised and institutionalised form of his social and moral ideals. It is ready to disarm
completely; clan is its regulative category, not country; it has abolished the exploitation of the
masses; it is a knight-errant ready to march against the many-headed Hydra of imperialism; it is
no respecter of race and colour; its patriotism is subordinate to the world-proletariat; and it is
universalistic in idea and intention. Only it is not prepared to lose its life by
meekly practising non-violence against its enemies, a human weakness which may be forgiven.

But Gandhi is for the ascetic life, the life of minimum needs and requirements, since
these could be more easily shared equally by all than the life rich in manifold pleasure and
satisfactions. The perfect life is the ideal of Tagore, the primitive of Mahatma Gandhi.
Community in fasting is more easily secured than community in feasting, and how could a man
of heart feast in the midst of so much starvation? Such cultural and aesthetic (in the best sense of
the term) life as the world has enjoyed so far has, it must be confessed, rested on the exploitation
of the many by the few. Artistic and philosophic Greece rested on slavery, and indeed held that
without slavery the best life would not be possible. Religious and philosophic India
turned exploitation into its chief Dharma, and fashioned castes as well as outcastes for this
purpose. European civilisation has divided society into capital and labour, into classes and
masses. Every man of God, unless he be worshipping the Devil under that respectable
pseudonym, must revolt against this iniquitous negation of human brotherhood. Gandhis revolt,
in despair at making all equally rich, would like them to be equally poor in material goods and
exalted in spirit. He would have no machinery, no large industry, no palaces, but just neat little
cottages and the restless charkha. Tagoresintuition is the truer and it may yet
be realised consistently with the demands of our conscience. Though as history has gone so far
the ideal of the full life has not been consistent with the moral ideal of equalitarean co-operation,
the great Russian experiment has shown that material prosperity and human equality could go
together and that asceticism is not the indispensable basis of socialism. Its new social and
economic order, itsmarvellous powers in education and the broadcasting of the amenities
of civilisation, and its five-year plan, demonstrate the possibility of the communitys
achievement of the perfect life, where light, love and joy will in widest commonalty be spread.
Meanwhile until this divine consummation is reached by the world, Mahatma Gandhi as the
great man of action, the reviver and inspirer of our jaded national will, and the organiser of mass
action on a scale almost miraculous, will rightly hold the primacy in our affections as well as
admiration. He is will; he is action; he is life; and these are more than idea and imagination.
 I have had the honour of knowing Rabindranath Tagore in person, and can never forget
the impression he made during his visit to Mysore in 1918. After completing his tour in South
India he told me that nothing healthy could grow under the shadow of our temples. He revealed
to us the beauty that Kalidasa and other ancient poets found in the forest where the hermits had
their dwellings (tapovanas). South Indian music was an intellectual exercise, barren of heart and
soul. The music of Bengal penetrates the heart and quickens the soul. I can confirm the truth of
this contrast by personal experience of both. If Bengal has a soul, fiery, reckless, and generous to
a fault, part of the explanation may be found in its stirring, emotional music.
And Tagores creation of the Visva Bharati! What perfect insight does it not show into the nature
of university education, which should be research and creation and the development of
personality, and not, as the Government Universities are, distributing channels for the scanty,
muddy, slow, belated flow of western knowledge and discoveries.

Tagores name will live as long as humanity lasts. To have been the glory of India is
indeed a great triumph; but he is more, he is one of the lights of the world.
References

Dutta, Krishna, and Andrew Robinson. Rabindranath Tagore: An Anthology. New York: St. Martins, 1997.

RAMACHANDRA GUHA (2008), What Nehru owed to Tagore, The Hindu

C. R. REDDY, TAGORE, GANDHI AND NATIONALISM

Visy Valsan (2009), Gandhi, Nehru admired universalist in Tagore,
dnaindia

'Tagore's nationalism inclusive',

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http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-11-19/bangalore/28111145_1_gandhi-and-tagore-
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