Nationalism and unified bharatvarsha

Rabindranath tagore was a great detractor of the ideology of

nationalism. In a set of essays, originally delivered as lectures and
later published in 1917 entitled Nationalism , tagore developed a
scathing critique of nationalism as an ideology. For tagore, the idea of
nation is a menace. It is a machine created by human intellect, the
maintenance of which drains man’s self-sacrificing and creative
energy.
Tagore’s novel Gora , written more than a hundred years ago, at a
very crucial period of time in Indian history contextualizes and
challenges the construction of India as a nation on the basis of an
authoritative national identity based on “pre-given or constituted
historical origin or event”.
The eponymous protagonist Gora forges an identity in line with the
neo-Hindu conservatism which, according to him, represents the
quintessential Indian nationalism. He develops himself as a staunch
believer and practitioner of orthodox Hinduism with all its extreme
ritualistic and caste based form. Tagore seems to interrogate the
extreme forms of nationalism through the paradoxical character of
Gora who proclaims: “I think of Bharatvarsha, like the ship’s captain
who constantly bears in mind the port at the other end of the sea,
whether he is fasting or reveling, at work or at rest... It is my
Bharatvarsha in all its glory, replete with wealth, knowledge, spiritual
faith.” Gora manifests his patriotic zeal through his adherence to
Hindu conservatism which put him in a paradoxical situation because
of the circumstances of his birth and his biological identity which is
withheld from him.
The novel is a journey for Gora from ignorance to knowledge. He
begins his journey with his ‘pedagogic’ conception of Indian nation
equating nationality with religion. But his rendezvous to the real
Bharatvarsha, the rural India and the disclosure of the secret of his
biological identity make him understand the ‘performative’ aspect of
the nation which is the actual temporal aspect. While in the city of
Kolkata, Gora maintains the Hindu idea of purity in touch and food.
However, Gora’s attempt to perceive his Bharatvarsha as whole
through the prism of orthodox Hinduism is completely shattered when
he sees that the dharma that is supposed to give “everyone strength,
energy and well being in the form of service, love, compassion and
self sacrifice, was nowhere in evidence”. He observed that the
religious practices “only drew boundaries, divided people and
tormented them”. Gora was able to appreciate and acknowledge the
religious bounds among the Muslim villagers while the Hindus were
divided along caste lines.
Even after attaining the practical knowledge of the crippling impact of
religious orthodoxy on the lives of common people, Gora is not able
to reconcile this fact with his presumed notion of the wholeness of the
Hindu community and the image of his Bharatvarsha. And the final
moment of anagnorisis comes with the disclosure of the fact that Gora
was an orphan foundling adopted by Anandmoyi and Krishnadayal
during the 1857 Mutiny and that his parents were Irish. It immediately
frees Gora from the ‘pedagogic’ illusion of Bharatvarsha he had for so
long. This knowledge not only leads him to contemplate on promoting
the welfare of the people of Bharatvarsha but also the people in the
world outside. He resolves to be an internationalist.
Shedding the baggage of his orthodox religious identity that limited
his mingling with all and sundry, Gora now feels a sense of
achievement by becoming a true Indian: “Today I have become an
Indian- Bhratvarshia. In me there is no hostility towards any
community, Hindu, Muslim or Christian. Today, I belong to every
community of this Bharatvarsha, I accept everybody’s food as mine.”
Hence, Gora resolves to be the devotee of the “deity of Bharatvarsha”,
“who is not merely a deity for Hindus”, but “belongs to
everyone...whose temple doors are never closed to any community or
any individual...” In the Epilogue of the novel Gora announces his
adoptive mother, Anandomoyi, as a personification of the image of
his Bharatvarsha who, as a mother figure, embraces everybody, all
and sundry, with her love and affection. Hence, tagore envisages a
multicultural image of India through his novel Gora.