GORA A NOVEL ABOUT LOSS AND RECOVERY OF THE SELF.

Tagore’s novel Gora represents his most ambitious effort at projecting his image of India and has been
rightly acclaimed as the “greatest novel ever written in India” where he holds up the problems of
colonisation which brought about a major identity crisis. The encounter with the west, its knowledge
and culture gave rise to a class of Europhone intellectuals in the colonies who underwent a loss of self
and a crisis of identity. This crisis, as a by-product of the “East-west encounter, was taken up by the
author as one of the central themes in “Gora”.

Gora, an orphan, born of Irish parents during the turbulent days of the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857 is brought
up by the childless Bengali Brahmin couple- Krishnadayal and Anandamoyi. Growing up in a Hindu
family, Gora turns out to be a fanatic Hindu and a staunch proponent of Swadesh and Hinduism. The
novel records the protagonist’s intense search for the real India and a search for the “self”.

Gora, the eponymous protagonist, develops himself as a staunch believer and practitioner of orthodox
Hinduism with all its extreme ritualistic and caste based form.He becomes most punctilious about
rituals- bathing regularly in the Ganges, performing ceremonial worships in the morning and evening
and taking particular care about what he touches and eats . He even stops drinking at his mother’s room
because she keeps as maid, Lachhmia, a woman from the lower section of the society and a non-
Brahmin, the touch of whom is a threat to Gora’s orthodox Hinduism. In dress, Gora becomes an
incarnate image of revolt against modernity. It is interesting , however ,to note that it is only when he
feels bad about the humiliation of his own land and of his religion by the British, Gora clutches ever
more strongly to the traditional rituals and moorings of Hinduism.For Gora Hinduism and Bharatvarsha
becomes inextricably one. He feels that foreign and native criticism ofn Hinduism can best be rebutted
by holding firmly to our own customs and beliefs. He strongly opines “…. We must not feel apologetic
about the country of our birth-whether it be about tradition, faith or its scriptures-neither to others nor
even to ourselves. We must save our country and ourselves from insult by manfully bearing the burden
of our motherland with all our strength and all our pride.”

Gora’s identity as a Hindu Brahmin and a true Indian ,is made ambiguous by his /irish parentage.
Although Gora does not know about his true descend till at the end of the novel, the readers are made
aware of it towards the beginning of the novel-when Krishnadayal and Anandamoyi engaged in a
conversation says ,”….that midnight when all around us there was bloodshed….the Irish lady shelter in
our home ….that very night she died on giving birth to a son….”. That Gora’s birth is a guarded secret
is put in deliberate contrast to the circle that Gora moved and behaved in of pure and pious Hindu. The
reader’s perception of Gora’s words and actions are constantly coloured by his secret knowledge.
Tagore deliberately creats such a complex situation to problematize the notion of identity and the self.
All of Gora’s aggression and resistance originates from his sense of belonging to a Hindu and
Brahmanic lineage and by disclosing his true identity at the beginning to the readers, Tagore is
highlighting the superficiality involved in the Identity which human derive by virtue of their birth,
religion and nationality.

The character of Haran babu may also be said to represent the culturally modified colonized . He is the
advocator of the British colonizers’ ideals and motives. He is the burning example of the loss of self
that occurs under colonization as a result of the colonization of mind. Haran babu reminds one of a
representative of the class ,which according to Macaulay “may be the interpreters between us and the
millions whom we govern ; a class of persons , Indian in blood and colour , but English in taste ,in
opinion and in intellect.” Tagore highlights this deep rooted malice in the colonial society through such
characters who were actually nothing more than puppets in the hands of the British. Gora’s rejection of
the Brahmo Samaj as a tiny westernized elitecut off from the mass is thus a resistance against this deep
rooted spite.

However,at the end of the novel when Gora comes to know about his Irish decent , in his newly
experienced identity Gora experiences a rebirth and his lifelong dilemma about finding his
“Bharatvarsha” is solved as he returns to Anandamoyi with the ecstatic exclamation of his epiphanic
vision “you are my Bharatvarsha”. Gora’s dilemma and his torn selves comes into forefront ,and in this
journey he loses his self only to recover the inner truth and reality of his true self.