Imagining the Nation: Rabindranath Tagore and His Quest for Creating a Past

The spread of Western education in Bengal in the wake of British conquest of the province made the province’s literati painfully aware of the contempt with which the new rulers treated them. British portrayal of India as a subjugated country passing from its Muslim conquerors to the British hurt their pride. Their ancient religion came under attack from Christian missionaries for its bigotries and social superstitions. This produced a strong reaction among its leading intellects such as Raja Rammohun Roy, Debendranath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, who tried to resuscitate the glory of ancient Indian civilisation by blending them with European ideas of Enlightenment and rationality. Rabindranath Tagore gave a fillip to it by arguing that Indian civilisation did not deserve to be judged by Western yardsticks as it had fixed its ideals in the assimilation of all conflicting influences from outside. India might have been invaded from the outside, but thereafter the invaders always merged with the local people and became India’s own. Therein lay the greatness of Indian civilisation.