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Rabindranath Tagore's View On Nationalism, By Rabindranath Tagore

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Rabindranath Tagore was born in Calcutta, British Presidency, on May 7th 1861. He was born to a Bengali Brahmin family. Tagore’s family was at the forefront of the Bengal Renaissance. His family members were philosophers, poets, musicians, composers, play writes and novelists. He too wrote his first poem at the age of 8 and became published by the age of 16. He hated formal education and was tutored and physically trained by his brother. He believed that proper teaching doesn’t explain things but rather promotes curiosity among the learner. In 1901, Tagore founded Santiniketan, an experimental school. Tagore was a Noble laureate and won the Noble Prize in Literature for his work, Gitanjali: Song of Offerings in 1913. He was awarded knighthood …show more content…

Popularly, Tagore’s view on nationalism is said to be ambivalent. On one hand, he was against British imperialism and supported Indian nationalists and on the other hand, he was against the Swadeshi Movement. He denounced nationalism as an ideology and stated it to be humanity’s greatest problem. He defined nationalism as an aspect which a whole population assumes when organized for a mechanical purpose. Adding to this, he said that the purpose for this organization is a selfish one and can be a magnified form of personal selfishness.
In his book, Nationalism, Tagore mentions that India never had a true sense of nationalism. Although while growing up he was told that idolatry of the nation was almost better than reverence for God, he has grown out from those ideals. He says that his countrymen will truly gain India by fighting against the education which teaches them that fighting for their country is greater than the ideals of humanity.
Tagore was against the general idea of nations. He said that the wisdom of the nation is not in the faith of humanity but in complete distrust. He believed that the idea of the nation will never be true, good and honest. Rather it will trample over all the ideals and good faith of

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