If Tagore were alive today, he’d be called ‘anti-national’

Without a doubt, nationalism perpetuates an insular view of the world. And demands from the citizen an acceptance of the phrase ‘national interest’ – the constituents of which are, more often than not, a moving target. This notion of nationalism sets itself up as superior in the international arena. Unsurprisingly then, freedom and nationalism are increasingly understood as limitations placed on one another: curtail freedoms to safeguard national interest versus forsake national interest to protect individual freedoms. It is a conflict that arises primarily because of how constricted our definition of these terms has come to be. In times like these, I turn to Rabindranath Tagore, the one person who never seemed to struggle with such expressions.

It’s hard to adequately describe Tagore because of his multifarious and polymathic contributions. And harder still to box in his social, cultural and political outlook. In him, we can find a rationalist, a dreamer, a philosopher, a mystic, a deeply local person and a true citizen of the planet all bundled together. He was an artist who revelled in intellectual and emotional fluidity. In this essay, I will focus on two events in his life. The first is the creation of the song Jana Gana Mana, and the second his long-drawn debate with Gandhi on freedom, self-reliance and nationalism.

Jana Gana Mana is, without a doubt, one of Tagore’s greatest compositions – one that was from its birth in 1911 a ‘protest song’ against the colonialists. Having been asked to write a piece in honour of King George V, an angry Tagore composed this grand poem as a celebration of India and in praise of the eternal charioteer who guides its people. Without getting embroiled in the unnecessary discussion about whether the word ‘adhinayaka’ in it was a reference to George or not, let me just quote the great man himself.

I hailed the Decider of the fate of our country in my song Jana Gana Mana – the one who has always been there as a companion in the path of life that is full of ups and downs, the one who knows what the hearts of the people of our country want, the one who has for eons been the navigator of human fate. The fact that such a person can never be a “George V” or a “George VI” or for that matter any emperor, even my friend understood. It goes without saying that, no matter how devoted to the British Raj, he had no dearth of common sense.

This song was written at a certain moment in history and refers to a specific land and its people. But its soul lies in its universality. Jana Gana Mana is not a haughty chest-thumping song about India and Indians. It is a reflective composition that calls for pause, thought, action and imagination. Beyond its geographical specificities, the land that he describes could be any country that struggles against oppression. Today, it could be Gaza and its people.

The portion of Jana Gana Mana that all of us know by heart is only the first verse of the song; in this verse, Tagore describes the political length and breadth of the land. Then, Tagore proceeds to describe the people who live within that extent. He says this is a land of Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Muslims and Christians, and credits the dispenser of India’s destiny for having brought all these people together.

Considering that conversations about the national anthem followed in the shadow of the Partition, we should have retained this second verse in our anthem. It would have helped instil in every child secularism as a cultural impulse, and possibly doused the communal hate and toxicity that surrounds us today. A lost opportunity indeed. Tagore’s description encapsulates our linguistic, cultural and social catholicity. He articulated Indian secularism and foretold the essence of our Constitution decades before we gave ourselves the document. The song goes on to describe the emotional state of Indians – the rugged paths taken by the people, the dangers and fears that seem to engulf them. Through all these tribulations, the benevolent guide and the tender mother are always by their side. Importantly, the song does not end in despair. Tagore proclaims that the sun will rise from behind the eastern hills and this land will awaken. He invokes through this image the idea of a strong resistance movement to come, of freedom to come, and of a sovereign India with sovereignty lying within each citizen. Much like Gandhi, Tagore wanted transformation of the Manas of not just the Jana, the collective, but also of every individual, the Gana. We, the People of India.

A decade after penning Jana Gana Mana, Tagore engaged in a vigorous debate with Gandhi on freedom, dissent, expression, rights and collective action. Gandhi’s charkha had become the centrepiece of his non-cooperation movement. For him, it embodied discipline, self-sacrifice, rejection of the oppressor, a mode for social equalisation, celebration of human labour and freedom. Tagore was not impressed. To him, this was an exercise in forced homogeneity. True resistance meant every individual had the freedom to protest in whatever manner they thought fit. Society needs to create an environment that nurtures the blossoming of each person’s mind and heart. It cannot enforce rituals that contain people, especially the young. Tagore saw Gandhi’s demand – that anyone who is a nationalist must spin – as a burden. Merely following a person’s fancy without applying one’s own mind was not a thoughtful act, but the blind following of a leader. It did not matter to Tagore that the leader in this case was Gandhi. He still called it a ‘cult’.

The ‘congregated menace of negation shouts’, Tagore believed, was a negation of reality and life itself. In abstracting everything into the singular action of spinning, he argued that Gandhi had ignored the physical. The spiritual had to be in harmony with the physical, not replace it. While he strongly advocated resistance against the British, denying people the right to wear the clothes they wanted, even if they came from England, was a form of violence, he felt. It infringed upon individual freedom and dignity. Gandhi made many valid counterarguments, but found it difficult to shake off these sharp points.

To Tagore, freedom was an act of creativity stemming from the abandon that lies within every individual. To be able to create without any hindrance was freedom – and this was what Tagore wanted for every Indian. This freedom is not unhinged; it is cased in dignity, respect, justice and equality. Art then is not merely self-expression but also the explosion of a humane potential. The moment Tagore placed human beings at the epicentre of freedom, nationalism became a canvas that was much larger than any singular political identity.

He had no truck with the ugly Western construct of nationalism as aligned to a nation-state. Tagore’s nationalism sought love and understanding, not just among Indians but between all human beings, such that borders become immaterial and nationalities dissolved. Compassion was at the very core of Tagore’s nationalism. Having sung so many of Tagore’s songs that celebrate Nature’s every dance, I believe his fraternity was not limited to human beings. This is fraternity in its truest sense.

It is indeed ironic that today, in the state Tagore was born and lived in, Bengalis from the other side of the border are being called termites, and Muslims are being othered. If Tagore had been alive today, he would have stood tall and rendered Jana Gana Mana and Amar Shonar Bangla as songs that belong to humankind, and not as the national anthems of India and Bangladesh respectively.

TM Krishna is the author of ‘We, the People of India: Decoding a Nation's Symbols’, Westland Books (2026).

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