Nationalism

“And yet I will persist in believing that there is such a thing as the harmony of completeness in humanity . . .” A compendium of lectures delivered by Tagore during the First World War and the Swadeshi movement in India, Nationalism emphasizes Tagore’s political and philosophical views on human understanding and its weakness for power and material hoardings. Packed with erudition and analysis, it expounds the idea of a moral and spiritual growth for human welfare. The lectures—written in a lucid, metaphoric, poetic prose—are loaded with a piercing vision of the future and are a critique on his views on spirituality and humanity. Tagore was a farsighted visionary, whose forebodings on the lack of human values and the political role of the nation and the state in the East and the West are well articulated in these lectures. Tagore discusses the revival of the East and the challenge it poses to the Western reign, calling for a future based on tolerance, a future where tradition and modernity are balanced. Tagore’s Nationalism holds much relevance in today’s environment of violence and intolerance.