The most important fact of the present age is that all the different races of men have come close together. They wish to gain autonomy as far as possible. If this persists indefinitely and armaments go on exaggerating themselves to unimaginable absurdities, and machines and store-houses envelop this fair earth with their dirt and smoke and ugliness, then it will end in a conflagration of suicide. Four years after Tagore's death, Japan suffered the worst of its disasters in recorded history. They wanted larger representation in the Council House, and more freedom in the Municipal government. Nationalism is a great menace. They had no sympathy with the special problems of India. Europe has lost faith in humanity, and has become distrustful and sickly. We have to remember that in Europe, where peoples had their racial unity from the beginning, and where natural resources were insufficient for the inhabitants, the civilization has naturally taken the character of political and commercial aggressiveness. ©, The fall of Titans - Taking lessons from history, Natural History and Control of Tuberculosis. Politics in the West have dominated Western ideals, and we in India are trying to imitate you. You say this is human nature - and India also thought she knew human nature when she strongly barricaded her race distinctions by the fixed barriers of social gradations. The mistake that we make is in thinking that man's channel of greatness is only one - the one which has made itself painfully evident for the time being by its depth of insolence. But your history has been disinterested and that is why you have been able to help Japan in her lessons in Western civilization and that is why China can look upon you with her best confidence in this her darkest period of danger. All our products that insolently ignore the laws of perfection and are unashamed in their display of ungainliness bear the perpetual weight of God's displeasure. And this is your solution of the problem of race-conflict. But from the earliest beginnings of history, India has had her own problem constantly before her - it is the race problem. The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence. And this is the source of her anti-Asiatic agitations for depriving the aliens of their right to earn their honest living on these shores. This has produced something like a United States of a social federation, whose common name is Hinduism. This is a condition not only prevailing in India, but among all nations. If we cherish the desire of paying our all for buying a political nationality it will be as absurd as if Switzerland had staked her existence in her ambition to build up a navy powerful enough to compete with that of England. I speak bitterly of Western civilization when I am conscious that it is betraying its trust and thwarting its own purpose. But has this lust for wealth and power no bounds beyond which is death's dominion? We must show those who are over us that we have the strength of moral power in ourselves, the power to suffer for truth. And can we ever hope that these moral barriers against our race amalgamation will not stand in the way of our political unity? If he is lured by them he is lost. But in the West it is guided by the impulse of competition whose end is the gain of wealth for individuals. How to do it in the teeth of the drainage of our life-blood by the economic dragons is the task set before the thinkers of all oriental nations who have faith in the human soul. For on the one hand they had no internal complications, and on the other they had to deal with neighbours who were strong and rapacious. Be it said to the credit of India that this diversity was not her own creation; she has had to accept it as a fact from the beginning of her history. Englishmen can never truly understand India because their minds are not disinterested with regard to that country. We should actively try to adapt the world powers to guide our history to its own perfect end. But man has also his higher instincts of sympathy and mutual help. Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. And I do not welcome it in our Indian life even though it be sent by the lord of the Immortals. But this you must also concede, that the West, being more favourably situated as to homogeneity of races, has never given her attention to this problem, and whenever confronted with it she has tried to make it easy by ignoring it altogether. Explore the best Rabindranath Tagore quotes on education on Rabindranath Tagore jayanti. Then again we must give full recognition to this fact that our social restrictions are still tyrannical, so much so as to make men cowards. But in this present age of transition, when a new era of civilization is sending its trumpet call to all peoples of the world across an unlimited future, this very freedom of detachment will enable you to accept its invitation and to achieve the goal for which Europe began her journey but lost herself midway. What would we do if, for any reason, England was driven away? Once again I draw your attention to the difficulties India has had to encounter and her struggle to overcome them. When I myself am free I can use the automobile for the purpose of my freedom. This is the reason why we think that our one task is to build a political miracle of freedom upon the quicksand of social slavery. Beauty and her twin brother Truth require leisure, and self-control for their growth. I have no hesitation in saying that those who are gifted with the moral power of love and vision of spiritual unity, who have the least feeling of enmity against aliens, and the sympathetic insight to place themselves in the position of others will be the fittest to take their permanent place in the age that is lying before us, and those who are constantly developing their instinct of fight and intolerance of aliens will be eliminated. In India there is no common birthright. It makes the hand bleed that uses it. But this strenuous effort after strength and efficiency drains man's energy from his higher nature where he is self-sacrificing and creative. European powers had justified their selfish policies in Asia and Africa in the name of their national interest, while Japan had begun to justify its expansionist desires as well as the brutal suppression of its own people in the name of its own national interest. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation. Absolutely no spam allowed. The tie has been as loose as possible, yet as close as the circumstances permitted. Not merely your freedom from habits of mind in the individuals but also the freedom of your history from all unclean entanglements fits you in your career of holding the banner of civilization of the future. Anyone who does not participate in actively showering praises on the nation is labeled as an anti-nationalist. Therefore in her caste regulations India recognized differences, but not the mutability which is the law of life. The party, however, lost power because the people soon came to realize how futile was the half policy adopted by them. The publishers permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms. This is expressed in the strongest possible words when he says that "In the so-called free countries majority of the people are led by a powerful minority to an unknown goal". This organization incessantly keeps up the insistence of the population on becoming strong and efficient. The general opinion of the majority of the present day nationalists in India is that we have come to a final completeness in our social and spiritual ideals, the task of the constructive work of society having been done several thousand years before we were born, and that now we are free to employ all our activities in the political direction. There is only one history - the history of man. Today, we find two contradictory trends at work. This is a strictly moderated site. It is the extinguishing of the flame because day is come. Every difficulty slurred over will be a ghost to disturb your repose later on. Have we an instance in the whole world where a people who are not allowed to mingle their blood shed their blood for one another except by coercion or for mercenary purposes? It has not got the depth to be able to hold anything permanently. The same inertia which leads us to our idolatry of dead forms in social institutions will create in our politics prison houses with immovable walls. If the nation to which that person belongs poses a threat to our national interest, we will go to any length to punish him. Therefore for all our miseries and shortcomings we hold responsible the historical surprises that burst upon us from outside. It is carrying its own damnation because it is trampling into distortion the humanity upon which it stands. An automobile does not create freedom of movement, because it is a mere machine. She accepted nature where it produces diversity, but ignored it where it uses that diversity for its world-game of infinite permutations and combinations. And inasmuch as we have been ruled and dominated by a nation that is strictly political in its attitude, we have tried to develop within ourselves, despite our inheritance from the past, a belief in our eventual political destiny. So we find that from the beginning of history men had to choose between fighting with one another and combining, between serving their own interest or the common interest of all. You have constantly felt and complained of its disadvantages when you compared your nomadic restlessness with the settled traditions of Europe - the Europe which can show her picture of greatness to the best advantage because she can fix it against the back- ground of the Past.
Julius Chambers Nccu, What Is A Knapsack Used For, Kelly's Heroes Cast Still Alive, Associated Materials Window Warranty Claim, Best Greige Paint Colors: Sherwin Williams, Morehouse College Notable Alumni, Why Don't We Ages 2020, College Of Applied Sciences Sohar, Morehouse College Notable Alumni, Most Popular Music Genre In The World 2018,
