Rabindranath Tagore [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION In the hundred years that have passed since Rabindranath Tagore was born, the face of India has undergone such radical changes as no optimist hving in 1861 could have envisaged. But even more remarkable are the changes that have taken place in the mind and spirit of modern India of which the transformation in outward appearance is but a partial reflection. It is as though a tired and over-timid pony which needed a lash to move at all has turned into a spirited charger that has to be tightly reined in to hold it back from running too fast. In 1861 when Tagore was born India lay prostrate at the feet of the British. The foreign traders had been firmly entrenched as rulers and the British Queen had been proclaimed the Empress of India. It seemed to be taken for granted that this bright jewel would continue to shed lustre on the imperial crown for ever. That the rulers should think so is imderstandable. What is of significance is the remarkable fact that many Indians shared this faith and welcomed it. The eighteenth century in India had been the dark age of misrule and internal wars, a jungle in which the beasts of prey, native and foreign, roamed and ravaged at will, so that when in the end some kind of law and order was established over the whole realm, the people in general were primarily conscious, not of the subtle tragedy that India had lost her freedom but of the simple and concrete fact that they could at last breathe in peace. After the menace of the jungle the peace of the desert seemed a blessing. The great mutiny of 1857 had been ruthlessly quelled and the ancient ruling classes had been either wiped out or lay cringing in the dust. A new class, a mixed middle class, with new interests and new education was on the rise, sedulously fostered under the patronage of the new regime. It is unfair to dub this rising class as