Rabindranath Tagore’s Concepts of State, Nation and Nationalism

The present work analyses Rabindranath Tagore’s concepts of State, Nation and Nationalism. The study highlights most precisely the various influences on Tagore which shaped his outlook and philosophy. An elaborate analysis has been made to extricate Tagore’s concepts of State and society and his preference to society over state which makes him out an individualist and not an anarchist. So far the forms of government are concerned the poet criticised in unequivocal terms authoritarianism and totalitarianism especially Nazim and Fascism for its ruinous creed. However, he commended the Soviet regime under the dictatorship of the proletariat which led the country to the path of progress and prosperity. Of all the other forms of government Tagore preferred democracy yet he wanted that it should be run by the elites. He exposed the evils of the British rule in India. Tagore’s concepts of nation and nationalism assert that he was a great critique of nationalism. He was a champion of the people and not of the nation. So he wanted to guard against the fetish of the nation and nationalism. Nationalism, in his opinion, is the organised gregariousness and mechanical gluttony and he clamoured for the release of cosmopolitan humanism. In his concepts of war and imperialism, Tagore condemned the barbaric manifestations of imperialistic arrogance and racial chauvinism. He was against Machiavellian statecraft in all its forms. War, according to Tagore, is due to aggressive nationalism, arms race, glorification of power and such other national vanity. He criticised the first and the second world wars. The suggestions and the prescriptions of the poet for tackling social and political problems still hold good. This book will be of immense value to the students and scholars of political science as of philosophy. Any future research on Tagore’s political ideals will be incomplete without the help of this pioneering work.