Nation and humanity
Weigh Tagore’s critique of the Nation as a machine of power against his call for social cooperation and reform.
An original introduction. This guide accompanies the work; it is neither the complete text nor a translation.
Situating the text
The lectures were given during tours of Japan and the United States in 1916 and 1917, while the First World War was being fought, and were published in 1917 with the poem The Sunset of the Century. Their critique provoked hostile reactions in parts of the Japanese and American press and among Indian nationalists. Three lectures criticize the Nation, understood as the political and commercial organization of a whole people for power and efficiency. Addressing the West, Japan and India in turn, Tagore argues that this machine sacrifices moral and social life, and that India’s deepest problems, including caste, are social rather than merely political.
Following the arguments
Nation and society : Tagore separates living social cooperation from the Nation as an organized apparatus of power that turns persons into instruments. Warning against imitation : He urges Japan and India not to copy Western nationalism, admiring Western science while rejecting the West’s cult of power and conquest. Social reform : For India he argues that caste and exclusion would survive a mere change of rulers, so freedom must begin with social reform.
Continuing the reading
Read the lecture on India alongside his later exchanges with Gandhi, and note how his universalism still names concrete injustices. The lectures were given during tours of Japan and the United States in 1916 and 1917, while the First World War was being fought, and were published in 1917 with the poem The Sunset of the Century. Their critique provoked hostile reactions in parts of the Japanese and American press and among Indian nationalists.
Rejecting nationalism did not mean rejecting one’s people: Tagore grounds freedom in social justice and cooperation.
Your turn to think.
- What exactly does Tagore mean by the Nation, and how does it differ from a people?
- Which of his warnings about organized power still apply to present-day states?
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