No doubt Tagore chose to write in the medium of the Bengali language, but he is not the poet of Bengal alone. He is of India and of the world. His poetry possesses universal qualities and its merit is recognized beyond the frontier of history, geography and linguistics. He is a poet of whole world, and it is because of his international humanism that he has been awarded the Nobel Prize.
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| Indianness in Tagore’s Poetry |
His love for India is evident not only in Gitanjali but also in his other poems. His humanism is evident in many poems in Gitanjali. Two poems - 106 and 107 in Bengali Gitanjali entitled Bharat Tirtha and Apamanita —are the best illustration of his Indianism. “In the former poem Tagore conceives India as the meeting ground of different nations of the world. Just as the place of confluence of different rivers is regarded as sacred, so also India is a holy land, being the meeting - place of different people of the earth. The Aryans and Dravidians, Pathans and Mongols have all joined together on the sea - shore of humanity— that is India. From time immemorial India has cherished the ideal of unity. This unity of civilization will be realized on the sea - shore of humanity that is India. In the last stanza the poet invites the Aryans and the non – Aryans, the Hindus and Muslims, the English and Christians, the Brahmins and the Untouchable to come together and join hands with one another in this holy land of India which is a meeting ground of all nations.”
“In Gitanjali”, says Prof. Iyengar, “the imagery the conceits, the basic experience, the longing, the trial, the promise, the realization all have the quaintly unique Indian flavour and taste.”
His poetical ideals, sentiments, imagery and philosophy all are basically Indian.
“In the poem Apamanita, Tagore has condemned his countrymen for practising untouchability. He says that those who have insulted these poor people and denied them human rights will face God's anger and share shame and humiliation with them. He gives them a stern warning that if they continue to keep themselves aloof from the so - called untouchables, they would have to unite with them in death upon the funeral pyre.”
He wrote hundreds of patriotic poems. His Morning Song of India Jan Gana Man is the greatest testimony of his Indianness. He stood for India's unity in diversity. The following songs of Gitanjali, also reveal his international nationalism and makes him a poet of India as Walt Whitman is the poet of America:
“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.”
In fact the whole of the Naivedya (1901) out of which he included songs even in the Gitanjali (1912) is steeped with the colour of patriotism, nationalism and Indianness. He upholds the ideals of ancient India and advises time and again to shun Westernism. He asks his countrymen to follow the ideals of unity, self - sacrifice and fearlessness. He asks them to give up ignorance, bigotry and superstition. In poem No. 93 of Naivedya as translated by the poet himself he says:
“Be not ashamed, my brother, to stand before the
proud and the powerful with your white robe of simpleness.
Let your crown be of humility, your freedom
the freedom of the soul,
Build God's throne daily upon the ample barrenness
of your poverty, and know that what is huge
is not great and pride is not everlasting.”
There are many poems in Naivedya which are prayers for the awakening of India, for the regeneration of Indian life. Does the poet pray for going back to the ancient past? Certainly not.
He is a modern poet too. He once said that he would be proud to be born in India again and again, in spite of all her poverty and distress:
“Let the promises and hopes, the deeds and words of my
country be true, my God,
Let the lives and heart of the sons and the daughters of
my country be one, my God.”
But Tagore did not club poetry in the narrow chains of nationalism of India or Bengal. He is an international humanist; he believes in the principle of Basudhaiv Kutumbakam: to him the whole world is a family of humans. He is a Hindu, a Christian as well as a Muslim. His poetry is free from religious sectarianism. Yet he draws from the religious secretariats, mountains and clay of India. His images, his aspirations, his ambitions, his dreams, his prayers are definitely like those of an Indian saint, an Indian humanist, and Indian thinker, an Indian sage and mystic.