What is a nation?

A nation, in the sense of the political and economic union of a people, is that aspect which a
whole population assumes when organized for a mechanical purpose. He defined a nation
as “the aspect of a whole people as an organized power” and asserted that this organization
thrives on efficiency, which drains man’s energy from realizing his higher moral purpose.

He asserted that “India has never had a real sense of nationalism” and that true India will be
found only when Indians “fight against the education that teaches them that a country is
greater than the ideals of humanity.”

Society and Nation-

Tagore makes a distinction between Society & Nation. Tagore deemed nationalism a
menace. He emphatically proclaimed that:

“I am not against one nation in particular but against the general idea of all nations.”

At the time when it was the need of the hour to exhort the masses to join the freedom
struggle, Tagore did not resort to an exclusionary view of nationalism that often borders on
nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy. He defined a nation as an
organization that thrives on efficiency.

But a society that revolves around economic efficiency and rewards it, exults his stature and
gives him a false sense of moral superiority and devoid of a cultivated spirituality, he
becomes dangerous to society.

Society as such has no secondary purpose. It is an end in itself. It is a spontaneous self-

expression of man as a social being. It is a natural regulation of human relationships, so that
men can develop ideals of life in co-operation with one another. It does have a political side,
but this is only for the purpose of self-preservation. When politics with the help of science
and invention becomes linked to the generation of wealth it bursts out of its boundaries and
consumes neighboring societies corrupting them with competitiveness, greed for material
superiority and jealousy. Politics feeds on this greed and fear of man, occupying more and
more space in society, and at last becoming its ruling force. When this happens, human
relationships born out of mutual respect, dependence and cooperation with a surrendering
of self, are weakened and break down. E.g. man-woman relationships.

Tagore justifies the hopelessness of anarchists, who dislike the imposition of power, in any
form whatever, upon the individual. The only reason for the way anarchists think is that
power has become too abstract—it is a scientific product made in the political laboratory of
the Nation, through the dissolution of personal humanity. Tagore says “When this
organization of politics and commerce, whose other name is the Nation, becomes all-
powerful at the cost of the harmony of the higher social life, then it is an evil day for
humanity”.

India's problem-

According to Tagore, people from different parts of the world face different types of
difficulties and these issues and how they were solved is what shapes the history of that
civilization. Although, when a civilization fails to solve these, it deteriorates and dies.

As for India, from the beginning of history, this issue has been the race problem. Race was
originally defined by physical characteristics, lineage, morphology, but later cultural and
other ethnic characteristics began being included in race.

Tagore describes how the other people in the world had to overcome obstacles from the
neighbors but India’s difficulties were internal which has made our history- a history of
continual social adjustment. India has tried and struggled to solve the problem of race but it
never succeeded. Instead, she made several mistakes like forming rigid boundaries,
maintaining inequalities by encouraging feelings of superiority and inferiority and not
showing a sense of Unity and sympathy for everyone.

At the same time he asserted that the spirit of toleration has been alive all throughout
history and the caste system can be viewed in one way as India’s attempt to solve the race
problem. However, it has been unsuccessful as it recognized human barriers as physical
barriers and ignored mutability. It ensured peace and order at the expense of expansion and
movement. Hence he called for the removal of the caste system and other traditions that
make India feel incompetent.

2
He argued that any real solution to the race problem cannot find its basis in commercial or
political unity, but it must be found in spiritual unity. Unless the social problem is solved
first, he believed that our politics will reflect the same barriers and crush every rational
difference.

thoughts on British/west

Tagore praises the idea of India with its divine simplicity and spiritual aspirations which
remained undisturbed by the conspiracies of power until She came under British rule and
the influence of western civilization. The thing this nation of the west brought in its wake
was machinery and industrialization. Tagore draws a distinction between other foreign
governments and what he calls government by the Nation which came with the British.

In earlier times there had been instances of tyranny, injustice and extortion which caused
sufferings and unrest. We found protection under law which taught us a valuable lesson
that discipline of law is necessary for the stability of civilization and for continuity of
progress. Law is therefore a boon not a curse, reminding us that there is a universal
standard of justice to which all men, irrespective of their caste and color, have their equal
claim. The British government could establish order in this vast land inhabited by peoples of
different races and customs by this system of law. But this has been due to the spirit of the
West, not the Nation of the West. This difference between spirit of the West and Nation of
the West is important to Tagore.

Even so, Tagore argued against the replication of Western commercial aggressiveness in
India by calling out the dissonance between economic efficiency and humanity. He said that
“by their crushing weight, their enormous cost and their deadening effect upon the living
humanity they will seriously impede our freedom in the larger life of a higher civilization.”
He emphatically put across that their lack of beauty displays God’s displeasure. Commerce
puts power over perfection and that is against nature.

He argued that throughout history only those have attained civilization who have evolved
from the feelings of competition to feelings of cooperation, moral power of love and
spiritual unity and only those will continue to prosper in the future as well. He believed that
the grasp of colonization robbed India and other colonies of realizing their own futures —
futures that are the natural outcomes of their history. Tagore argued that they must keep

3
fighting for it because Western civilization is built upon its own strengths and merely
borrowing it will not do India any good.

Freedom and Nationalism-

We are talking not just of the British Government, but of government by the Nation. The
West and the East are necessary and complementary to each other because our different
outlooks upon life give us different aspects of the truth but we need a whole unified idea of
the truth. The history of India does not belong to one particular race. India is a product
created and enriched by the contributions of various races of the world. The English have
also brought the ideas of their life to be part in the creation of the destiny of India. We in
India should seek to accept in our life what is permanent in Western civilization. Only then
shall we be in the position to bring about an understanding of these two great worlds and
will be able to end the one-sided dominance which is so intolerable to us. Instead This
Nation cleverly kept us in deprivation of proper education that The Nation of the West has
taken away our freedom. Government by the Nation is tight regulating our steps with a
closed-up system, within which we have very little liberty to make our own adjustments.
Before coming under the rule of this Nation the elasticity of change was great enough to
encourage men of power and spirit to feel that they had their destinies in their own hands
and were free to carve out their own unique solutions to all problems.

He warns the West: Don’t be under any illusion that you are free. You too are experiencing
this continual and stupendous dead pressure of the inhuman machine which is the Nation
upon the living human underneath. The entire modern world is groaning. “Not merely the
subject races, but you who live under the delusion that you are free, are every day
sacrificing your freedom and humanity to this figure of nationalism, living in the dense
poisonous atmosphere of world-wide suspicion and greed and panic”.

Mechanization –

A major problem is mechanization. Success is the object and justification of a machine,

while goodness only is the end and purpose of humans. Humans are governed by
impersonal forces that do not see us as humans but as only statistics. Whenever the moral
nature of man tries to assert itself, the whole force of the human machine bears down upon
it, pulling it back, and in the process the moral purpose behind their actions is distorted. The

4
man machine makes rigid rules and regulations, and if it sees us disobeying these rules
punishments are assigned out, without any concern for the enormous miseries and pain
suffered across a large bleeding tract of the human heart.

This condition affects not just our own country, but it affects the future of all humanity. We
have now come to a stage when the moral man within us is giving way to the political and
the commercial man, the man of the limited vision and purpose. This process, aided by the
wonderful progress in science, has reached epic proportions and power, upsetting man’s
moral balance, obscuring his human side under the shadow of soul-less organization. He
says it is like the difference between the hand-loom and the power-loom. With the
handloom the magic of man’s living fingers finds its expression, and its hum harmonizes
with the music of life. But the power-loom is endless lifeless and accurate and monotonous
in its production. This is true of the history of entire Mankind not just that of India.

Humanity-

The important aspect of Tagore's humanism is that he considers humanism is greater than
community. Tagore emphasizes that “there is only one history- the history of man. All
national histories are merely chapters…” Tagore observed that European nationalism was
deceptive and against the true nature of freedom. It was a product of modern science and
industrial revolution in Europe. It was mechanical coming together of people solely for
commercial and economic purposes.

Such ideas go against the greater interest of humanity. Thus, Western nationalism breads
and intense and unending lust for power and money; it lacks ethics, social and moral values,
making their nationalism ignoble and aggressive. Nationalism according to Tagore, is not a
“spontaneous self-expression of man as a social being” where human relationships are
naturally regulated “so that man develop ideals of life in cooperation with one another but
rather a political and commercial union of a group of people, in which they congregate to
maximize their profit, progress and power. Tagore called into question this aspect of
nationalism, which stifled the innate qualities of human beings and overemphasized the
capitalistic aspect.

5
Conclusion-

Tagore believed that India never had a real sense of nationalism. He never particularly
opposed nationalism but he agreed that he doesn’t really approve of the complete idea of a
nation. He also thought nation and society as two completely distinct terms. He defined a
nation as an organization that thrives on efficiency. He also mentioned several times that
India's major issue is its race problem. Even though Tagore didn’t really hate the British laws
and rules, he still argued against the replication of Western commercial aggressiveness in
India by calling out the dissonance between economic efficiency and humanity. He said that
European nationalism was against the true nature of freedom. It was a product of industrial
revolution in Europe. Moreover, Tagore believed in the idea of humanity above nationalism.