Ethics Of Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore was a poet, philosopher, educator, patriot, humanist, and internationalist who was a spokesman for India's soul.  If Vivekananda was the philosophical herald of India to America, Tagore was the emotional and poetic vehicle of India's mission to the outside world.

 

•    He has revealed the moral and spiritual message of the East to a sceptical and materialist world. 

 

•    His lyrics have a universal and irresistible appeal. As a result, he is regarded as a global singer. 

 

•    Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature for a collection of his poetry, Gitanjali, in 1913, making him the first non-European to do so. 

 

•    He was a major figure in introducing the best of Indian culture to the West, and he is widely regarded as modern India's most outstanding creative artist.

 

•    Because he was a prophet of love, fellowship, and cooperation, Tagore was a humanist. 

 

•    He sings about the all-pervasiveness of divine love in the Gitanjali and invites his brothers to share in that ocean of love. It is only through love that one can realise God, and all sin, evil, and vice are the result of a failure to recognise the mystery of divine love.

 

•    Tagore was a firm believer in the importance of harmony in one's personality. In his philosophy, ethical behaviour springs from a sense of divine harmony and love, not from a sense of caste duty. He also advocated for the coexistence of man and nature. 

 

•    Because nature is a manifestation of God, it is the harmony with nature, not the conquest of nature that will lead to God's realisation.

 

•    Tagore was a firm believer in the synthesis of cultures, which is the blending of ideas from various cultures to create an ideal of a universal man. Tagore attempted — or was interested in attempting — a "synthesis" of various religions, as his outlook was consistently non-sectarian, and his writings reflect the influence of various aspects of Indian cultural history as well as the rest of the world.

 

•    Tagore was thus a symbol of harmony, love, and synthesis. Truth, he believes, is found in the harmony of facts. The love of humanity, not the accumulation of material power, is the essence of every civilization. 

 

•    He was influenced by the West in his early years because of its humanism, rationalism, and liberating power of science, but his faith in the West was shaken by the brutal advances of Western imperialism.

 

•    Man, according to Tagore, is a social, sensitive, and imaginative being, rather than a mechanical identity or a political animal. Politics is a highly specialised and professionalised branch of society. He was well aware of the flaws in Indian society. 

•    Tagore was not a believer in political agitation alone. He was adamant that Indians must first get their own house in order before they can make demands on their foreign masters. 

 

•    A country and a people who are committing some of the most heinous forms of social tyranny at home would have no moral obligation to protest imperial arrogance. Tagore was a societarian in the sense that he considered society to be more important than the state. As a result, instead of criticising the government, he emphasised the importance of making constructive social efforts, which can only be accomplished if a person wishes for the common good and demonstrates social altruism.

 

•    Tagore was a firm believer in a functional view of society. He was against arbitrary social stratifications that result in inequalities and discrimination. He was also hostile to the time's parasitic economic class. Even though he came from a landlord family, he was disillusioned with their ethics because their goal was to amass wealth rather than to provide social service and justice.

 

•    Tagore was a righteous prophet. In “The Call of Truth” he wrote, “Man does not have to beg for his rights, he must create them for himself”. Tagore emphasised the importance of developing strength to realise one's rights as an individual and as a group. 

 

•    Tagore was always adamant that India's exploited and destitute humanity cultivate moral force for their regeneration and refuse to submit to imperialism's might.

 

•    He urged the people to reject victimology in favour of self-help and education, and he viewed the British administration as a "political symptom of our social disease." Even for the poorest of the poor, he maintained, "There can be no question of blind revolution"; instead, a "steady and purposeful education" was preferable.

 

•    He sees freedom in a spiritual light. The process of self-realization illuminates the soul, which is the essence of freedom. Because those who rule and those who are ruled cannot realise dignity and human worth, political freedom is a precondition for spiritual freedom.

 

•    Tagore has long been a critic of England's impersonal rule in India, where there was no accommodative communication and no social, sympathetic relationship between the rulers and the ruled. He was adamant that civilizations that were callous in their hearts and enslaved the weaker population had to pay the price of extinction. 

 

•    Civilization is governed by a moral law. The soul characters of historical longevity are love and justice.

 

•    Tagore was a strong supporter of India's and Asia's political liberties. He eloquently argued for India's self-government. Only self-government has the potential to cure the country's political ills.

 

•    Tagore advocated for a moral approach to politics, which he formulated and promoted. As he stated, nations can only be strong if the values of justice, purity, and freedom are faithfully practised. As a result, he refused to consider politics to be an immoral domain.

 

•    He was a patriot, and his stirring words rang with strength during the days of agitation against the partition of Bengal, he was later venerated as a national poet. Tagore pleaded for the recognition of India's fundamental claims to humanity and the immediate grant of independence to India during the civil disobedience movement in 1932. 

 

•    He believed in cooperation between India and the United Kingdom, but only if it was founded on friendship and trust.

 

•    Tagore was a critic of nationalism, despite his belief in political freedom. Tagore had a deep and passionate love for India, but his sensitive nature prevented him from participating in revolutionary or anarchist activities. 

 

•    Tagore was a firm believer in man's spiritual fellowship. As a result, he refuses to follow the dictates of nation-states. National pride is a product of a limited imagination and a lack of spiritual sensitivity. As a result, he was a champion of the people rather than the country.

 

•    Nations' closed walls must be demolished, and the foundations for racial synthesis and cultural cooperation must be laid. All elements that serve to divide people must be replaced with a spirit of interdependence and brotherhood. To practise the virtues of amity, national friendship, and genuine mingling of peoples and cultures, one must overcome suspicion, fear, distrust, lustfulness, and national egoism.

 

•    Tagore despised rote learning in the classroom: In "The Parrot's Training," a bird is imprisoned and force-fed textbook pages until it dies. "Make Santiniketan the connecting thread between India and the rest of the world, and a world centre for the study of humanity somewhere beyond the bounds of nation and geography," Tagore hoped. 

 

•    The school, which he named Visva-Bharati, was founded on December 24, 1918, and opened three years later on December 24, 1919.

 

•    Tagore reaffirmed India's gospel of fellowship, friendship, and humanity as a poet and prophet. As a result, he believed that social cooperation, international reciprocity, and spiritual idealism should replace the creeds of organisation, efficiency, exploitation, and aggression.

 

•    Tagore was an internationalist who championed the binding of the people and unity at a time when the world was engaged in a never-ending struggle for the assertion of national rights.

 

•    Tagore advocated for cultural synthesis and international unity, and he condemned the aggressive nationalism of his time. He did, however, become one of India's intellectual leaders. 

 

•    Social and political activists found inspiration in his songs and messages. As a result, despite not being involved in the political struggle for independence, Tagore was revered as a seer of Indian liberty. He was regarded as an outstanding national figure of India in the West.