The Melody of Universalism: Political Thought in Rabindra Sangeet

Rabindra Sangeet: A Literature Review

Tagore’s songs, known as Rabindra Sangeet comprises of approximately two thousand compositions. The songs are a mixture of Hindustanee and Carnatic styles of classical music blended with folk tunes of Bengal. Tagore drew influences from Western music as well. Gitobitan remains famous for its distinct style, the innovation of new tals, songs for every season of Bengal and for every occasion of Bengali life (Dasgupta and Guha 2013; Ghosh 2006; Guhathakurta 1950). The Nobel laureate himself predicted on multiple occasions that the people of Bengal would immortalise him mostly through his songs. His conviction was not misplaced. Tagore lives on in his songs, which are ‘sung, hummed, or played in every possible situation’ (Alam and Chakravarty 2011: 311).

Much of the discourse around Tagore’s songs have been concerned with maintaining the purity of Rabindra Sangeet and anxiety around its variations, including the teaching of Rabindra Sangeet (Guhathakurta 1950). Dasthakur (2015: 203) explores the interaction of Rabindra Sangeet with the ideologically informed sphere of the construction of Bengaliness in late nineteenth century and after. The process of musical modernisation, he argues, which was already underway in this period received a sturdy push from Rabindra Sangeet. This new style of music offered a creative direction to the self-fashioning of the Bengali population. Yet, although Bengali society took recourse to Rabindra Sangeet in a quest for its identity, its declining currency has caused a significant stir. Sankha Ghosh, for instance, cautions the readers before delving into the euphoric Bengali middle-class discourse of the growing decline in the popularity of Rabindra Sangeet. ‘There will always remain a difference in expansion between Rabindra Sangeet on the one hand and Ramprasadi, Baul music, Padavali songs and Palligeeti on the other’ (See Chakravarti 2007: 222). The possibility of the realisation of Yeats’s overwhelming prediction that within a few generations’ time, Tagore’s songs would reach even the beggar on the street, was virtually negligible (Dasthakur 2010). Even Ghosh would have perhaps been less optimistic about the popular appeal of the local folk musical genres, which are becoming obsolete today in the face of the onslaught of the global culture industry. ²

Nevertheless, Tagore’s music has succeeded in constructing a space of an alternate modernity which has a conspicuous affinity with his non-modern ideas of education. Rabindra Sangeet holds an element of critique of and protest against the cultural logic of capitalism, despite its unavoidable participation in the market dynamics today. As a result, it still remains close to the heart of those are still on the lookout for a cultural space outside the Hollywood-spawned manufacture of music. Yet, in spite of Tagore’s and subsequently Visva-Bharati’s best attempts to prevent his music from going haywire, the tradition of anxiety has always continued (Dasthakur 2010).

With the analysis of the musical contributions of Tagore being confined to its aesthetic and cultural value, the political vision ingrained in the songs has been largely left underexplored. Tagore’s pioneering commitment was towards universalism, as opposed to parochial nationalism. This universalism, accruing to the wider Indian context, is also manifested in his speculations on Hindu–Muslim relations, contextualised in the peculiarities of contemporary Bengali society. Tagore’s thoughts around universalism, a critique of nationalism and views on Hindu–Muslim relations should not be seen as compartmentalised sections. Instead, they have always been complimentary to and overlapping with each other. The ideal of universal fraternity and cooperation, which is a central characteristic of Tagore’s political thought, pervades his songs. Divided thematically into sections, the article explores Tagore’s songs, which reflect his ideas of nationalism and universalism, songs composed in the backdrop of the Swadeshi movement urging for Hindu–Muslim unity and fraternity, songs reflecting the composite culture of India and songs which epitomise his ideals of freedom of the soul as opposed to mechanised political freedom.

Nationalism and Universalism

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya (2020) argues that Tagore’s thoughts on nationalism from the 1890s to 1941 evolved and changed considerably. Elsewhere, Bhattacharya (1997) observed that despite Tagore’s contribution to the construction of Indian national culture, he remained a trenchant critic of nationalism. This ambivalent response of Tagore towards nationalism as an ideology was apparent in the complicated set of responses he received from both Indians and non-Indians (Tuteja and Chakraborty 2017). To the British, he was a quintessential representative of the mysterious Orient. Yet, the British intelligentsia was profoundly uneasy with his exotic persona. At home, Tagore gave the concept of ‘syncretic’ civilisation as a basis of nationalist civilisational unity. In such a discourse, samaj (society) had a central position, unlike the European model of state-centric civilisation. It was in this concept of samaj that Tagore found the basis of his disagreement with European nationalism.

India was society-oriented. The state always had a meagre role to play. Prior to the arrival of the British, the samaj was responsible for all beneficial works necessary for the population. As a result, even if the kings waged war or indulged in extravagances, disregarding his princely duties, the samaj did not suffer. The samaj performed its daily functions, independently of the state. Successive change of rulers also did not have a corresponding effect on the societal life of the people. However, with the advent of the British rule, from joldan to bidyadan, people became dependent on the British. This subservience of the samaj to the state had a crippling effect on Indian life.

There was more to add to the adverse effects of a state-centric Western civilisation. The West sought to forge a homogeneity by ignoring differences. On the contrary, Indian civilisation did not negate differences, but recognised and accommodated them. India’s ideal, Tagore wrote, was ‘neither the colourless vagueness of cosmopolitanism, nor the fierce self-idolatry of nation-worship’ (Tagore 1996: 419). Instead, Indian civilisation rested on the principle of social cohesion and unity through an accommodative gesture which respected mutual communitarian differences. As Partha Chatterjee (2011: 274) observed, to Tagore, it was the samaj which was of foremost importance and not the nation. He desired the ‘social harmony of the community’ and not a forced ‘political unity of the state’.

Tagore’s primary objection to nationalism then, argues Quayum (2016), was in its nature and purpose as an institution. The nation became ‘a social construction, a mechanical organisation, modelled with certain utilitarian objectives in mind, [which] made it unpalatable to Tagore’. Tagore championed creation over construction, imagination over reason and the natural over the artificial and the ‘man-made’ (Quayum 2016: 25). Nations, in the Western concept were not the product of existing sociological conditions like race, language or religion. They had been, as Benedict Anderson (1983) puts it, ‘imagined into existence’. The historical experiences of nationalism in Western Europe, Russia and the USA had provided a set of models of nationalism from which the political elites of Asia and Africa chose one which they found appropriate. Chatterjee (1993) objects to such universalisation of the concept of nationalism, arguing that anti-colonial nationalism dichotomised its domains into the material and the spiritual. The material was the outer domain of economy and statecraft where the Western dominance went unchallenged. But the spiritual or the inner domain bore marks of cultural identity. It was a place where Eastern civilisational values were preserved, away from the intervention of the colonial state. In Chatterjee’s words, if the nation was an imagined community, then it was in this inner spiritual domain where it came into being. Even then, the Western values inherent in nationalism dominated the Indian psyche, particularly of the elites, majority of whom brought to India the education they had received in the West. According to Ashis Nandy (1988), the ideology of colonialism dominated both the colonisers and the colonised. As a result, a colonial political economy has dominated the functioning of a post-colonial state. Nationalism has continued to romanticise the idea of a nation-state as public imaginational projects without acknowledging the coercive elements and violence which was inherent in them (Shakya 2017).

In Tagore’s words, life at the local levels remained unperturbed by disturbances at the level of the state. Each village had its own mechanism, social relations and community institutions. Each of these were devised by and unique to a particular village and could not be imported to another village. Then, by reconciling Anderson’s and Chatterjee’s definitions of nationalism, it can be inferred that samaj or the village was the imagined community, which the Western concept of nation by definition embodied. As a result, it was difficult for a political body as large as a nation to become a community. The nation as a community could not be forged by the cumulative aggregate of villages, each of which was distinct. Any attempt at nation-building, in the Western sense would need to destroy the differences to construct a fake homogeneity. As Shiv Vishvanathan (2003) has argued, the creation of a nation has always been fraught with the marginalisation of dissenting groups and voices, inflicting on them, pain and suffering. Tagore objected to this idea of a nation as a genre of systematic violence and oppression. Nationalism, a derivative discourse, emerging as a result of colonial rule thus would be unsuitable for India (Chatterjee 2011).

The nineteenth century nationalism that emerged in India was a multidimensional heterogeneous movement, which had multiple symbolisms and embodiments (Kaviraj 1992). The evolving Bengali nationalism essentially drew upon the ideals of a revivalist Hindu culture. The need arose to ‘transcribe the macho martial Hindu masculinity into the terms of all-renouncing tendency of the sannyasi (religious mendicant) in order to valorise the spiritual principle of the rising nationalist consciousness’. The masculine spirituality of the Hindu race would distinguish itself from the barbarism of the Muslim, along with the successful incorporation of the overt masculine tendencies of the colonising West (Roy 2010). In myriad ways, the ‘new masculinity aimed to subvert the colonial projection of a superior Western masculinity’ and subsequent feminisation of the colonised (Roy 2010: 389). The ‘figure of the devoted nationalist sannyasi whose spiritualism was directed towards the moral and political purposes of the emerging nation found its embodiments in political figures like Aurobindo and other Swadeshi activists who devoted their lives for the cause of liberating the Mother Country’ (Roy 2010: 389). This style of a militant religion-based nationalist discourse was best reflected in Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s celebrated novel where a militant group of ascetics takes an active interest in the political future of a subjugated race. Ananda Math introduces the readers to Mahendra, the leader of the rebels who visits three consecutive chambers. In each of the chambers is present one goddess, symbolic of the nation’s past, present and future. Jagaddhatri represents the glorious past, Kali personifies the impoverished present and Durga symbolises the ferocious and victorious future.

On the other hand, Tagore’s Gora and Ghare Baire reflect his lofty ideals of spiritual nationalism juxtaposed against Ananda Math’s fiery brand of religious nationalism. Dipesh Chakrabarty (1999) analyses the difference made by Tagore between territorial aspect of a country (mrinmaya) and its ideational aspect (chinmaya). A nationalism built upon the Western concept, sacrifices the latter at the altar of the former, begetting tragic repercussions, as seen in Ghare Baire. For Tagore, who continually grappled with the definitions of patriotism and nationalism, the former was a critique of the latter. Patriotism, to Tagore, denoted the refusal of manipulation and violence and a concomitant rejection of the nation-state as the organising principle of Indian civilisation. Much to his agony, the nineteenth century nationalism was toeing the Western lines. Enmeshed in its ideology, was a violence which had never been endemic to India’s social fabric. Tagore champions the cause of non-violence in the protagonist Nikhilesh and is critical of the incandescent brand of nationalism in Sandip. Sandip is attracted by Chattopadhyay’s Ananda Math, the slogan of Vande Mataram and the icons of the nationalist movement. Aikant (2010) argues that the ‘singular refrain’ of Vande Mataram stalls any kind of dialogue. Sandip asserts that ‘true patriotism will never be roused in our countrymen unless they can visualise the motherland. We must make a goddess of her (Tagore 2005: 330). This was in tune with Mahendra’s visualisation of the nation as Jagaddhatri, Kali and Durga (Chattopadhyay 1937). Tagore was strongly reacting against this ritualisation and idolisation of the country. Ananda Math had a tangible materialistic dimension. The idea of the motherland was distinctly visible through the portrayal of the figurines of the Mother Goddess. On the contrary, in Tagore’s Gora, the idea of Bharatvarsha transcended the notion of being a merely geographic entity. Gora epitomises the idealised imaginary nation. This nation, is less material and more spiritual, which was the defining characteristic of the East. Tagore’s universalism prominently emerges through Gora’s realisation of his Irish birth.

This ideal of Bharatvarsha embodies Tagore’s concept of the nation. The novel opens and proceeds with Gora’s pride in his Hindu religious and cultural identity. No failure ever punctuates his observation of rituals. Towards the end of the novel, Gora reconciles with his Irish birth and orphanhood during the Indian Mutiny when he learns that his Hindu father and mother are his foster parents. It is not the rigid Hindu identity of Gora that secures his identity as a Bharatiya. Instead, the recognition of equality among individuals and the idea of universal brotherhood transforms Gora from a staunch caste-Hindu to a true Bharatiya.

This abstract notion of Bharatvarsha, which Gora symbolises, as he unites in himself the diversity inherent in India, resonates in Tagore’s song,

Hethay arjo, hetha anarjo hethay draabir chin—

Sak-hun-dal pathan-mogol ek dehe holo lin…

Eso bramhon suchi kori mon dharo hat sabakar.

Eso hey patito, hok aponito, sab apomanbhar.

Mar obhisheke eso eso twara, mongalghat hoy ni je bhora

Sabar-paroshe-pobitro-kara tirthonire—

Ei bharoter mahamanober saagorotire. ³

As Tagore reminds us, throughout the ages, the Sakas, Huns, Pathans, Mughals and the British have come to India and have contributed to its composite culture. The ideal of unity, ingrained in this song, not only provides for a horizontal synthesis of the various rulers who were welcomed in India. It also desires a vertical unity between the lower castes and the upper castes. The Brahmins are required to keep their prejudices at bay and be united with the rest of humanity. While in a broader sense, this humanity would mean the rest of mankind, in a narrower sense particular to the Bengali social structure, perhaps it indicated a social system free from the exploitation of the lower castes by the upper echelons of the caste system. In this regard, it is worth noting that a criticism levelled against Tagore was his endorsement of the caste system in Nationalism (Tagore 1917). Tagore considered the caste system as ‘a social unity within which all the different peoples could be held together, while fully enjoying the freedom of maintaining their difference’ (Tagore 1985: 69). An analysis of this song however, problematises this criticism. Tagore’s endorsement of the caste system did not necessarily mean his approval of caste prejudices. Instead, the desire to abolish Brahminical prejudices testify Tagore’s acknowledgement of the existence of inequalities and his appeal towards their annihilation, envisaging his vision of unity.

While dealing with such macro concepts of universalism, Tagore was also alert to the political developments in Bengal where communal problems were suddenly stalled by the news of the Bengal partition forging a temporary unity between the Hindus and the Muslims. Tagore was aware of the precarious and transitory nature of such political collaboration. Much of Tagore’s thought centred around the possibilities and limitations of the Hindu–Muslim question in the Swadeshi movement, launched to compel the government to annul the partition.

The Partition of Bengal and Tagore’s Vision of Fraternity

The anti-colonial movement was then waging in full force. It was punctuated by the colonial government’s decision to partition Bengal in 1905. The partition of Bengal pained the hearts of the Hindu, why did Bangabichhed not affect the Muslims—was Tagore’s primary question. When the Swadeshi Movement was launched, the Hindu volunteers of Swadeshi wanted to enlist the support of the Muslims. Not only did the Muslims not respond to the call, but some lower-caste Hindu and few Muslim peasants were buying foreign salt, even though it could be fetched at only a higher price, only to show their defiance to the Swadeshi movement.

Tagore was dismayed. He found the answer to this puzzle in the barriers which the two communities had historically created. The Hindus and Muslims had remained side by side without any meaningful constructive exchanges. Since ancient times, the differences that existed in India were never subdued, but accommodated all and came out in a new form. The essence of synthesis was the basis of living. The attitude of realising the ‘One in Many’ made Indian society indifferent to political statecraft. However, to avoid problems, India made the mistake of setting up boundaries to delimit mutual mutability of life. It thus gave the negative benefit of order but not the affirmative effects of movement.

The sense of separation was extreme among the Bengali Hindus and the Bengali Muslims. Bengali Muslims were not allowed to sit on the same mattress with the Bengali Hindus; after the Muslims left, the water in the hookah was also changed. Tagore was aware of such internal differences. At the height of the Swadeshi movement, he even found a Hindu Bengali Swadeshi volunteer asking a Muslim Swadeshi volunteer to get down from the veranda of a house without the slightest hesitation so that he could drink an unpolluted glass of water (Tagore 2016).

Songs written at this time urged for Hindu–Muslim unity and reflected a profound faith in spiritual nationalism. On the eve of the partition of Bengal, Tagore initiated Rakhi Bandhan to promote a sense of fraternity among the Hindus and the Muslims. Banglar mati, Banglar jol was Tagore’s lasting vision to bring about unity.

At a time when the partition of Bengal was hovering round the corner, Tagore stood for universal brotherhood. The song depicts his prayers for every Bengali home irrespective of religious affiliations.

The point of anxiety in Tagore was that the Muslims could be set against the Hindus, who put them was not the important question (Sarkar 2010). Soon, the forged unity between the Hindus and the Muslims disappeared and hostilities resurfaced. A visionary genius, Tagore realised the futility of political unity, unless unity was achieved at the human level. Superficial and superfluous unity would create problems in the long run and required immediate redressal. Tagore found the essence of unity in the emancipatory folk-songs of rural Bengal. Tagore’s discovery of the poor peasant in Selaidaha was in tandem with his serious engagement with baul, bhatiali and other rural Bengal musical genres. This provided a bridge with the popular–rural that accounted for an expansion of the identity of the Bengali as well as Tagore’s own attention to rural poverty (Sarkar 2010). In 1905, Tagore composed Ebar tor mora gange ban esheche (with a bhaitiali influence); the lyrics, once again propagating his political ideal of universal fraternity and unity.

The literal meaning of the song asks the boatmen to unfasten the lanyard and hold the ropes tightly. On a symbolic level, it should be interpreted in the context in which the song was written. Aimed to ignite unity among his countrymen, Tagore urges individuals to come forward leaving aside petty individual differences.

But the differences could hardly be resolved. At a rally, Tagore found that the Muslim leaders were being convinced that how convenient it would be if the Hindus and Muslims lived together. Tagore could not refrain from retorting. The word convenient was extremely objectionable to him. If two brothers lived together, it was quite logical that material affairs would run smoothly. But that should not be the only reason for the two brothers to live together (Tagore 2016). Essential was the need for filial love and cooperation among communities. Je tore pagol bole (One who calls you mad) reflects Tagore’s faith in the power of love which in due course is destined to gain leverage over ego and selfishness. The song was composed to support the anti-partition movement.

Tagore believed in the Supreme God, the Brahman, all-pervading, omnipotent and omnipresent. The attempts to divide God are, at best, human distortions and futile. God is to be worshipped not only in the temples or cathedrals but also through tilling the land and breaking the stones (Varma 2014: 78). Nothing is greater than the person; he is Supreme, he is the ultimate goal (Das 2008: 132). For Tagore, the main end of religion was the unity of mankind which would come through spiritualism alone (Sharma and Sharma 2001: 208).

From 1921 onwards, the subterranean politics of communalism appeared. Tagore reflexively discerned these fractures of community and caste and critiqued his own political position within it. In the Indian political context, the early Tagore’s (1877 to 1917) stance on the Swadeshi and anti—Partition movements was in sync with the contemporary political climate. His subsequent withdrawal as the muse of the nation was, therefore, both bewildering and unpleasant to a nationalised community (Tuteja and Chakraborty 2017). Tagore was growing increasingly anxious and apprehensive about the escalating extremism in the Swadeshi Movement. Sumit Sarkar (2010) argues that the Hindu–Muslim divide which prominently surfaced with the Bengal Swadeshi had a profound impact on the development of his thought. In support of constructive Swadeshi, Tagore propagated the reconstruction of villages and their economic empowerment, cooperative methods in handicrafts, self-reliance, local initiatives, local leadership and local self-government. National consciousness would then spread among the masses and be liberated from the exclusivity of the elite. But gradually the Swadeshi movement took recourse to violence, veering away from a constructive programme of action. Tagore distanced himself. His songs reflect this transformation in his attitude towards the national movement.

Reba Som (2010) argues that Tagore’s patriotic songs in the early years were inspired predominantly by his involvement in the Swadeshi movement of Bengal. His later songs in the genre of patriotism were primarily of inspiration and courage. They were ‘singularly free of jingoism’ and were conspicuously devoid of ‘Hindu chauvinism and exclusivity’. The songs were ‘soul-strengthening resolutions’ (Som 2010: 48). As stated earlier, Tagore was convinced that the ‘unity of the Hindu and Muslim communities could not be ensured by political pacts alone. Instead, he felt that the inclusive wisdom of the bauls, whose songs were sung by Hindus and Muslims alike, held the key to peace’ (Som 2010: 48). Tagore’s musical tunes also reflected a distinct break from the past. His martial genre was taken from the West with its accentuated notes. This was opposed to the semitones that accounted for the evocativeness of the raga-based approach (Som 200). Blended in his musical compositions were the Scottish and Irish musical tunes with the traditional Indian music traditions from rural Bengal like the baul, bhatiyali and sari-gan, alongside elements from the various musical compositions, from the far-flung areas of India. The fusion of the tunes of the East and West significantly revealed his commitment to universalism. India’s composite culture epitomised this universalism.

The Composite Culture of India

Tagore noted that the term Hindu does not denote a particular religious sect or credo. Islam or Christianity can be a religion but not a Hindu. Hinduism does not have a single prophet. Hindus were internally much divided and as a comprehensive religion, Hinduism transcended a clear—cut definition. Hinduism at best was a Jati or a race. No particular religious credo could be a perennial marker of a jati. (Mukhopadhyay 2010: 178). A Hindu was an ethno-social culmination of the history of Bharatvarsha (Gayen 2011: 103). As a commentator of Hindu–Muslim relations of his times, none could parallel Tagore in the way in which he defined and delineated the place of the Hindus, Muslims and other communities in India. Tagore objected to any the claims that the Muslims were outsiders and misfits in India. Aiming at a civilisational reconstruction of India, Tagore explored the contributions of all non—Hindu communities of India including the British, to the development of the complex mosaic of the Indic civilisation (Mukhopadhyay 2010: 175).

India could not be a land of the Hindus. As a community, the Hindus could not unite even when they stood on the brink of a full-scale war. Instead, one ruler joined hands with outsiders to have a share in the spoils of its enemies. On the eve of the invasion of Muhammad Ghur, the Hindu kings were busy with their internal rivalries. Through such loopholes, the Muslims entered Bharatvarsha. They accepted this land as their own and contributed to art, architecture and culture. With the advent of the Muslims, maritime trade increased relations with the outside world. However, Islam was at best an oriental religion (Mukhopadhyay 2010). Islam entered India but closed her doors to the world. In this sense, the coming of the British was a welcome event. The opening the floodgates of European modernity, advances in all fields of knowledge were a positive development in the history of the evolution of mankind (Mukhopadhyay 2010). The advent of the British brought forth these ideas to the shores of India. In 1910, Tagore writes,

Eso hey arjo, eso anarjo, hindu–musalman.

Eso eso aj tumi ingraj, eso eso khristan ¹¹

Transformation of socio-religious beliefs was an indicator of a new modernity, without which Tagore’s idea of Brhattara Bharatvarsha could not be complete. The place of the British remains secure as the importer of this modernity, which became a catalyst in India’s transition of ‘being’ to ‘becoming’ (Mukhopadhyay 2010: 197). This idea of Brhattara Bharat embodies Tagore’s notion of solidarity and unity among his countrymen.

Tagore acknowledged the need for the arrival of the British as the harbingers of modernity, which was the essence of European culture and civilisation. He had much respect for the literature, civilisation and culture of the West and was deeply influenced by them. Disenchantment set in when he saw the European nations ravaging each other with their imperialist ambitions and dogmatism. To Kipling’s refrain, ‘East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet’ (Pioneer 1882), Tagore replied,

Man is man, machine is machine

And never the twain shall meet (quoted in Das 1996).

Tagore’s opposition to the West was their fetishisation of capital, imperialism, capitalism and materialism which led to East–West conflict (Das 1996a). He was disillusioned by the constant warfare between European nations in their thirst to be a colonial superpower. The 1901 collection of poems, Naibedya (Offerings) expressed Tagore’s frustration with the West, which had shed its pretences of civilisation to embrace exploitative imperialism.

Tagore condemned the imperialist practices of the European powers in their violence, dogmatism and maltreatment of the people of the places they colonised. As opposed to such imperialist ambitions, Tagore envisioned a spiritual and composite India, prominent in India’s national anthem.

As Pylee (1965) observes, the national anthem reflects Tagore’s vision of a mystical and ideational concept of Bharatvarsha or his Brhattara Bharat. None shall be turned away from the shores of this vast sea of humanity that is India.

Thus emerges the fusion of the East and the West, disseminating the message of love and unity, cutting across religious and communitarian differences. In this unity, lay the gateway to freedom. In Tagore’s vision, freedom entailed the liberation from fear, prejudice, hatred and ill-feeling that cripples the goodness, inherent in mankind.

Freedom and Unity

An ardent supporter of humanism, Tagore found self-centric emotions detrimental to the benefit of humanity. For Tagore, a political organisation likened to a machine engaged voraciously in the pursuit of power. Material interests could not achieve the well-being of the people. In 1886, Tagore’s Ekbar tora ma boliya dak (Call me thy mother once) was composed for a prayer meeting that was called to unite the three segments of the Brahmo Samaj.

A spirit of divine love prevails in unity. According to Tagore, the selfishness of groups and clans, insult to humanity in the name of caste system, injustice of an unequal distribution of wealth and orthodoxy ultimately leads to the loss of individual’s moral and social character. Infighting harbingers melancholy. Forgetting all differences then is the prelude towards ensuring the pathway to happiness. This unity engenders the freedom of the mind from the tyranny of greed and avarice which mechanises individuals and harbingers divisiveness. Tagore’s ideal of unity and its concomitant strength is realised when individuals are fearless. The morning sky (in the song) emerges as a metaphor. Its vastness is illuminated with the crimson rays of the rising sun. Tagore desired this enlightened vastness to pervade the human mind. The song concurs with and strikes the keynote of Tagore’s poem in Offerings, summing up his ideas on freedom, ‘Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high’ (Tagore 1901).

Freedom to Tagore was the freedom of the mind from chains of bondage. Enslavement arose from men’s cupidity, a vice which the Western nations were exhibiting in abundance as they ransacked the colonised world. Tagore was alarmed. His songs aimed at spiritual unity with the reawakening and purification of the soul.

Tagore’s songs were melodies of emancipation. In them, there was no place for bigotry. Written in 1893, Aanondodhwoni jagao gogone resonates Tagore’s message to the youth to free themselves from the chains of prejudice.

Tagore always wished his songs to be a wake-up call for the youth. The songs advised the countrymen to renounce fear and indolence. The urge to purge the human mind of idleness, fear and prejudices resounds in majority of the compositions of Tagore.

Tagore’s India nurtured the singular dream of liberation from the British rule. No doubt, this freedom was necessary. Tagore himself had been involved in the national movement in myriad ways. A significant number of his songs were even dedicated to the nationalist leaders of the Indian freedom movement. ²⁶ Still, Tagore was apprehensive. A political freedom from foreign rule was likely to result in the replacement of the existing state system by a new state system. He observed, ‘We will never gain freedom from the gift of charity…. Freedom belongs to our inner selves’ (Tagore 1960: 69). Tagore’s songs thus aimed to reunite his people, insisted on self-reliance and ‘rekindle their lives to throw off the internal as well as external shackles constraining them’ (Alam and Chakravarty 2011: 315). Much of his apprehensions came true. The post-colonial Indian state largely remodelled itself on a colonial legacy and battled with the inconsistencies and problems of the superimposition of a Western concept unsuitable to India’s needs. And this was primarily what Tagore had wished to avoid. Amidst the soaring tide of a borrowed nationalism, the roaring sounds of violence and Hindu–Muslim rivalry in India, Tagore’s songs had endeavoured to pour in the virtues of spiritual nationalism, foster unity and fraternity, and spread the gospel of universalism. In this, lay the crux of his political idealism.

Conclusion

This article has shown that Tagore’s political vision of universalism can be distinctly discerned from his songs. Tagore despised the style of Western nationalism which placed one’s own country at the fore with absolute disregard for all the others. Tagore earnestly wished for a world characterised by cooperation, where every country would come and offer what it can, and to that community of nations, spiritualism would be India’s gift to the world (Varma 2014). This spiritualism was not a faith in organised religion but a mystical and ideational aspect, which in essence, constituted the salvation of the inner soul. For Tagore, the wisdom of the heart was invaluable. Goodness resided in truth, in the spiritual content of things. The soul, while realising itself, identified itself with the world. Neither the pride of intellect nor mysticism without intellectual strength can work in such construction. But religion itself would be unable to prepare the soul for this realm unless it was transformed into a lofty universal vision of life. And this led to an awareness of the infinite which operated within the finite, of the universal which had its existence within the individual’s inner self (Tagore 1961). In ‘The Religion of Man’, Tagore quoted a baul song sung widely by both Hindu and Muslim mystics in Bengal (Das 1996: 129).

Organised religion destroyed the humanity of the individual by invalidating the inner being (Quayum 2017: 7). It obstructed ‘the free flow of inner life of the people and waylays and exploit[ed] it for the augmentation of its own power’ (quoted in Das 1996). In a letter to friend and historian Kalidas Nag, Tagore observed that all peaceful contributions had taken place before the Hindu era. With its notions of purity and pollution, the episodes of Hindu rulers embraced an unprecedented degeneration. The customs and rituals of Hindu society prevented advancement and mobility. While religion formed the key to salvation, religious system bred slavery (Tagore 2016: 67). This religion was more spiritual and less institutional. It emphasised the purity of soul against the outwards manifestations of discriminatory rituals.

Such abstract ideals, devoid of tangible manifestations, were too abstract for the youth who perhaps became the principal audience of Tagore’s works. The revolutionary youth was then nearly proselytised by the raging ideals of religious nationalism. Ideologically, they recognised the foremost need to counter the colonial attempts at emasculation. The freedom movement accepted Tagore’s Bharatvarsha only in a lukewarm manner. At a time when the nation was personified into deities with an express religious symbolism, Tagore’s spiritualism often failed to gain ground. In myriad ways, he became an enigma in contemporary society. He was accused of ‘being anti-Western by some, of being a colonial agent by others, seen as too much of a patriot by the foreigner and as not patriotic enough by the Indian’. ²⁷

‘Be resolute and stand up’, was Tagore’s message to his compatriots. ²⁸ Rabindra Sangeet’s potential lay in the ability to rekindle the soul and unshackle the mind. Tagore’ patriotism was never parochial. Indoctrinated in the ideals of the Upanishads, he was a champion of a fraternity, irrespective of caste, creed, religion and nationality. The world community which he envisioned was the site where every country would contribute its best for the benefit of all. In such a fraternity, spiritualism would be India’s gift to the world (Tagore 2004). A profound faith in humans, regardless of nationality, race or caste, in overcoming limitations and perils of all kinds dominated his thought (See the Introduction in Ahmed et al. 2013). For Tagore, every individual was an expression of God and ‘therefore had to be loved and respected, for the sake of loving God’ (Quayum 2017). Rabindra Sangeet reflects this idealism championing peace, cooperation, unity in diversity ²⁹ and universal fraternity.