The Mahatma and Gurudev ( incidentally they gave the titles to each other ) came from different worlds , one was the foremost intellectual of the world and India , and the other the foremost revolutionary , and that coloured their perspective of the world , India and the Swadeshi movement , which both of them contributed immensely . While Gandhiji gave leadership and voice to the movement . Gurudev brought his entire intellectual acumen to formulate the vision of the Swadeshi and Swaraj Movement . It was therefore only right that independent India’s national anthem should come from the pen of Gurudev Rabindra Nath Tagore.
His thoughts on Swadeshi and Swaraj :
Gurudev believed and wrote in his famous essay “ Swadeshi Samaj” that it was important that the country be made truly ours and he believed that it was important that it should be won over not from foreigners but from our own inertia and indifference .
Gurudev wrote that India’s conception of nationalism should be fundamentally different from that of the West and India should not blindly replicate the thoughts of western societies , since the entirety of the idea of nationalism in western terms was not a comfortable fit for Indian society . He always stressed that the path of development for India must be chosen by India alone . Interestingly he took the example of Japan which followed the Western example and therefore lost the inheritance of her own unique culture . Gurudev was of the view that the freedom that the people in India talked about in the west was a false freedom and the freedom in the west was a manufactured one since it did not actually allow freedom of the mind .
He wrote that the root of the improvement of India was the liberation of the villages from the “shackles of helplessness and ignorance “ and he believed that even if one single village be so liberated such would be an example to the rest of India , which would inspire the rest of the country . According to Gurudev , one of the methods to spread awareness and free the helplessness which so pervaded the existence of the villages , which was so famously quoted and replicated through out the country , even tot his day in his essay the “Swadeshi Samaj” was to hold “ Swadeshi melas” , melas or fairs where most of the people of the villages congregate without any doubt and suspicion , since that would keep politics out of the process of emancipation of the villages and the poor villagers would be able to express to their leaders their real needs and wants . As he famously wrote in Swadeshi Samaj :
“ If the leaders of the country abjure empty politics , and make it their business to give new life and objectives to these melas , putting their own heart into the work and bringing together the hearts of Hindus and Muslim , and then confer about the real wants of the people – schools , roads , water reservoirs , grazing commons , and the like – then the country will soon awaken”
He wanted the melas to be also the source of education for the villagers through the process of jatras , kirtans , recitations , bioscope , lantern shows etc., that is make political , social education available to the villagers in a manner which would be accessible to them .”
Gurudev however believed that there should not be wholesale rejection of the west , as the west had much to contribute, but Indians should try to synthesise the good points of the west with the better points of Indian society , without either blindly accepting or rejecting the west and he stressed that to reach true emancipation Indians as a society will have to look into itself for emancipation :
“ When we have made India our own by applying all our powers for the good of the country , the British in India will have to come to terms with us . So long as we are prompted by individual or social folly to act inhumanly towards our own countrymen , so long as our landlords regard their tenants as their personal property , so long as the strong continue to trample on the weak as part of their ancient privilege ,and the higher castes look upon the casteless as worse than beasts – we shall fail to draw out the better qualities in the British and shall ourselves remain ignored and humiliated.
At every turn – in her laws and customs , in her religious and social institutions – India today deceives and insults herself . That is why the meeting of East and West on our soil fails to attain fulfillment. The contact yields nothing but pain . Even if we succeed in pushing out the British by one means or the another , this pain will be there ; it cannot go until an inner harmony between the two is achieved . Then alone will East and West unite in India ; country with country , race with race , knowledge with knowledge , endeavor with endeavor. Then alone will the present chapter of India’s history come to it’s end and a new one start – one of the noblest in the story of Man”
To this Gurudev therefore suggested the means of education , presciently he notes “ Those nation of the world who are now in fighting trim , rely on their strength on the education of the masses of their people . The present age is the age of the trained mind , not of blustering muscle. And everywhere in the East , to say nothing in Japan , educational institutions have been made available for the people at large. So long as our masses remain bound to blind tradition it is hopeless for us to expect to make any move forward”.
Gurudev laid down the objectives of the leadership as “ Our scriptures tell us that the worship of Ganesha ,the Lord of the Masses , must come before all other worship . In the service of our country our first duty must be to work for the welfare of the mass of it’s people—tomake them healthy in body and mind , happy in spirit , to foster their self respect , to bring beauty to their daily work , their daily life ; to show them the way to strive together , in mutual respect for mutual welfare” . In other words to cultivate a sense of community and purpose for the uplift of the masses of India..
Gurudev also clearly believed that there are no easy ways to arrive at his Swadeshi Samaj , and therefore his famous attack on the spinning of the charkha as a solution to India’s problems in his oft quoted essay “The Cult of the Charkha”. He suggested that instead of merely spinning the Charkha the stress should be to organize the people for the purpose of Swaraj . He also spoke out against the boycott of foreign goods stressing saying that the argument for boycott should not be made merely ritualistically but on sound economic arguments , which seemed to be missing at the height of the Charkha spinning movement.
Gurudev’s view of a non antagonistic vision of nationalism and Swaraj
Gurudev realized that the world was moving towards universal brotherhood as distinct from the purely business based commercialized globalization which he warned against . He warned presciently that no country can remain in isolation as he says “ From now onward , any nation which takes an isolated view of its own country will run counter to the spirit of the New Age , and know no peace. From now onward the anxiety that each country has for it’s own safety must embrace the welfare of the world” and he strongly recommended that Swaraj should be found in mutual forgiveness and not be merely an exclusive idea for India against the entire world , once India becomes free.
The lessons from the Gurudev for the future :
It is therefore crucial and important that while formulating the idea of Swadeshi which the Gurudev and Mahatmaji were so attached to , we also explore the nuances which Gurudev asked us to explore so that Swadeshi does not only remain a mere political movement and slogan and becomes something more , that is the true idea of emancipation of the millions of the poor and starving in India , specially those from her villages , who are the very basis of India’s economic structure till the present day.
2 comments:
fascinating post, would love to see more on the subject
Very good post..Sir it would be great if you Can post the link of the essay Swadeshi Samaj(English)?..ThanQ
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