A review by maketeaa
Nationalism by Rabindra Rachanavali, Rabindranath Tagore

reflective slow-paced

5.0

What is the Nation?
It is the aspect of a whole people as an organised power.... (it) incessantly keeps up the insistence of the population on becoming strong and efficient.

i have a lot of conflicting thoughts about robi thakur's views on nationalism, particularly in how he applies them to the fight for indian liberation and the swadeshi movement. but i cannot deny that his general philosophy on the idea of nationalism itself digs into the heart of the truth. tagore posits that a nation is not natural in existence -- it is an organisation based on politics, on logic, on science, whose machinery functions for the singular goal of obtaining power. he explores this through the nationalistic identities of japan, the west, and india. japan, in the context of the time, was breaking out into an era of modernism, which tagore appreciates, but also calls into question to what extent is this modernism sacrificing historical eastern spirituality in order to emulate a western nationalistic model. tagore's core argument is mostly based on this: that western nationalism as a model, while attractive in the power it has built for itself, is devoid of humanity, and for nations to aspire to such nationalism would be to submit to a slow and inevitable suicide for the sake of a cheap exchange. for eastern nations, such as japan, where spirituality and humanity forms the basis of historical culture, this is an even greater loss. he extends this idea, finally, to india, and explores the impact of british colonialism. he states that instead of rejecting western influence all together in order to develop an aggressively independent indian nationalistic identity, it should be recognised that the west as a group of people should be appreciated for the diversity they are able to bring, and to distinguish this from the west as a nation, the intrinsic greed of which led to the suffering under imperial rule. tagore, overall, advocates for a world where people adhere to morality rather than power, and believes that independence of communities comes from embracing ones own history, while having the openness to learn from others.