Rabindranath Tagore Quotes

“Tagore criticized the ideas behind the form of political action Bengal began to witness: secret societies, acquisition of bombs and other weapons, induction of very young activists, and political assassination. This path of action created some iconic figures of revolutionary militancy against foreign rule. Tagore did not question their heroism but he questioned the political efficacy of their action. Anguished to see the death of heroic freedom fighters he urged, We must not forget ourselves in our excitement, it needs to be explained to those who are excited that … whatever the strength of the urge [to resist foreign rule], in action we have to take to the broad highway because a shortcut through a narrow lane will lead us nowhere. Just because we are in our mind impatient, the World does not curtail the length of the road nor does Time curtail itself. There was no shortcut of the kind militants imagined. Tagore went on, in his own metaphorical language, to point to the limitations of the militants’ violence. Anger against repression by government had sparked off violent action. ‘But a spark and a flame are two different things. The spark does not dispel the dark in our home’, a flame that lasts is needed. ‘The flame needs a lamp. And thus long preparation is required to prepare the lamp and its wick and its fuel.’13 Thus patient preparation in politics was required, not unthinking haste in the path of violence.”
― Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation

“today we are all lamenting that the British have secretly encouraged the Muslims against the Hindus. Even if it were true, why should we blame the British?’ After centuries of living together the Hindus are unable to accept the Muslims socially, they cannot eat together, they cannot even sit on the same carpet—that was the crucial weakness in Bengal’s society and that was naturally exploited by the British.”
― Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation

“The cure for all the illness of life is stored in the inner depth of life itself, the access to which is possible when one is alone.”
― Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation

“The chief weakness of the people of Bengal is self-pride, which is why they are unhappy if they do not hear all the time words of praise … This vanity, hunger for flattery, obscures their vision and they do not perceive others clearly. We deprive ourselves on account of this blindness.”
― Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation

“The greater impediment was the inadequate development of a consciousness of unity in a country which was divided by barriers between religious communities, castes, language communities, between people with different social norms and practices. Joint resistance to British rule might be for the time being a unifying factor, but ‘the moment the British would leave India the bond of unity thus constructed would snap’.”
― Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation

“When suddenly the English-educated urbanite goes to the peasant one says ‘we are brothers’ the peasant does not understand what it means. Those whom we usually call ‘that damn peasant’, those people whose everyday life is of no concern to us, those people who are no more to us than some statistics in government reports, those whom we do not stand by in their life of misery—those are the people we suddenly call upon as our brothers who must buy [Khadi] cloth at a higher price and face baton charge by the Gurkha [policemen] when we want to fight the government, and that kind of call fails to convince anyone.”
― Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation