Feminism and The Eumenides

One of the presenters made a connection between Bimala and the song of the Sirens, stating that the Sirens’ song drew her in but meant nothing, and another presenter discussed the presence of feminism in Tagore’s text. These brought to mind Aeschylus’Oresteia, specifically The Eumenides, which is traditionally seen as the story of the birth of democracy. I studied this work in a class with Thora Brylowe, who taught the epic through a feminist lens, asking, “What does this myth mean for the future treatment of women?”

In Aeschylus’ account, Athena is the perfect woman/goddess, having the means to settle arguments with wisdom and knowledge. Thus, when the Sirens go after Orestes for revenge because he killed his mother (who murdered his father—their family history is obviously a bit complicated), Athena is chosen as the judge.

However, Athena is only given this high esteem as a female figure because of her masculinity (or, you could say, her lack of femininity); Zeus, her father, swallowed her mother once he found out she was pregnant. He did this because he had heard a prophecy that his progeny would be more powerful that he, which he feared. This did not kill the child Metis carried; she was instead born from Zeus’ head. Athena’s lack of a mother-connection (supposedly she had no belly button because she was not born from her mother) and the fact that she was born from a god’s (read: a masculine figure’s) head rather than a woman’s womb makes her superior to all other women and goddesses. The moral of this bit? Masculinity is valued and represents culture, whereas femininity is degraded because it represents nature/the natural.

Somehow, that is not all. The Sirens, a group of women, are seen as a nuisance, twisted, and disgusting, even though their only reason for existing is to avenge the wrongful deaths of mothers and other female family. Why are they represented in this way? Obviously since women are devalued, the Sirens are depicted as being insane for taking up such a venture. In the end, Athena takes the side of Orestes, banishing the Sirens to the Underworld by pretending (and/or condescendingly tricking the Sirens into thinking) they will have a meaningful purpose and will be a valuable asset. This is not the case, which shows Athena’s devaluation of the feminine as well. The fact that this is supposedly a story of the birth of democracy also shows how modern cultural organization is tied to the hierarchy of the masculine over the feminine. If we are to relate Bimala’s story to the Sirens’ song and The Home and the World to feminism, it is definitely worth taking a look at what else The Eumenides could mean in relation to Tagore’s story.

Red Footprints

A few days ago I was on the phone catching up with a close friend from home (in Erie), Asha. She was telling me a story about a painting she had been working on for weeks. She said that she had set it in the living room on top of a shoebox to dry. Her parents, Philo and Thomas, who were both born and raised in India before moving to the United States to have a family, came home later that day. Philo went straight upstairs while Thomas went to the kitchen. While walking into the living room he accidently stepped on Asha’s painting, tracking bright red footprints through the cream colored rug. He proceeded to sit down on the couch and watch some television. When Philo came downstairs and saw the paint that was soaking into her rug, she panicked and called for Asha. Asha came down to see the mess in the house as well as her ruined painting and became infuriated. Yelling at her dad, however, was not an option. She calmly asked him for an explanation to which he responded, “I didn’t do that. I have no idea how that happened.” Asha explained that she wouldn’t be upset, but that she just wanted him to admit to what he did. He refused. Moments later, Asha and Philo and filled buckets of warm water and soap and proceeded to scrub the stains from the carpet on their hands and knees. As they were doing such, Thomas sat a few feet away on the couch, almost motionless, watching them and the television.

Beyond feeling immediately enraged for Ash, I instantly thought of The Home and the World. Her personal story ties into many of the themes presented in this novel, beginning with the idea of gender roles that exist in the culture. Philo and Thomas, like Bimala and Nikhil, had an arranged marriage. Asha always explained the context of their relationship to us saying, “My parents love one another, but they are not in love.” At the beginning of the book, this is how I saw Bimala and Nikhil’s marriage. I’m honestly not sure how I felt about it towards the end, but it was quite evident when Sandip came into the picture that their marriage was lacking fire and passion. The thing that it did have was respect. Philo possess a lot of traits that Bimala had at the beginning of the story. She is incredibly focused on her duties as a wife. Without saying a word to her husband, she simply grabbed a rag and cleaned up his mess. She has dinner on the table for him every evening at 715pm (and yes, she is that timely). She does not have a job, and she is essentially bound to the house. Any money that comes in is controlled by Thomas, and so she has no voice. These are things Bimala, to some degree, imposes on herself.

This makes me think about the power dynamic that exists both in the book and between Asha’s parents. Even though Philo essentially has no command, no say, and no money, I would not claim that she has no power. As the rock of the family, she holds way more power than she will ever recognize herself. In the novel, we see this ‘beneath-the-surface’ power begin to show itself in Bimala. As her experiences with the Swadeshi movement increase, she begins to recognize her power as an individual woman. But it doesn’t seem to be a power that is fully functional even by the end of the novel. The story, at first glance, seems framed in a way that gives Bimala a certain hold over the two main men characters, but I’m not sure that she ever truly has it. Towards the end, Tagore writes, “Sandip is just a force of destruction. His immense attraction gets hold of one before fear can come to the rescue, and then, in the twinkling of an eye, one is drawn away, irresistibly, from all light, all good, all freedom of the sky, all air that can be breathed—from lifelong accumulations, from everyday cares—right to the bottom of dissolution” (178). She seems sort of helpless and hopeless; there is fragility to her femininity and a sort of self-restriction that she never actually overcomes. It also seems to say that this dominance cannot exist without desolation and therefore it’s best to stick with the traditional roles. It makes me question how much she actually grew and evolved as a character from the beginning to the end of the novel.

 

Comparing Indian Independence Movements to American Independence Movements

Because the Indian movements against British rule at the beginning of the twentieth century – particularly the Swadeshi Movement and Mahatma Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement mentioned in our book “The Home and the World” by Rabindranath Tagore – in many ways reminded me of the American Revolution and the movements that led to its occurrence and similarly its success, I wanted to examine these two Indian movements and see just how their aims and major events were similar and different than the American movements that led to our nation’s independence.

The Swadeshi Movement occurred from 1905-11 and is often considered to be the most successful pre-Gandhi Indian movement against British rule. The Swadeshi Movement aimed to boycott British products in hopes of helping the Indian economy boom to show that India could indeed one day become its own independent country. I couldn’t find anything that distinctly said the Swadeshi Movement was inspired by America, but it sounds an awful lot like the pre-Revolutionary War boycotts of British tea and other products that truly got the attention of the British rule.

The Non-Cooperation Movement, which was led by Gandhi in the late 1910s and early ‘20s, essentially went much further than the Swadeshi Movement. It created an entire shutdown of the Indian government, with people peacefully refusing to work at factories, schools, businesses, et cetera until the British took notice and India gained independence. Because of Gandhi’s insistence that the movement remained peaceful, it went further than anything that happened in pre-Revolutionary War America; however, eventually violence began when some protestors killed police officers in the Chauri Chaura incident, which ended the Non-Cooperation Movement, led to Gandhi being put in jail and created a period of uncertainty until India finally gained its independence in 1947.

Although the two situations are obviously different for numerous reasons, it’s still interesting to compare the early twentieth century Indian movement that eventually led to independence after years of mostly peaceful protests and sometimes violent encounters with the American Revolution and its movements that quickly and directly led to a violent war of independence that killed many more people than died in India. Even though both events occurred so long ago, they still remain relevant and worth looking at because of how they set the tone for the way Indian and American cultures would act going into the future. To this day, Americans are still known for living fast-paced lives with a constant need for instant gratification and flashiness; meanwhile, Indians are often seen as peaceful people with patience that remained focused on practicing the rituals of Hinduism and Buddhism while accepting their pre-determined roles of where they will fit in the grand scheme of life. While these stereotypes don’t apply for all, they do hold some truth and continue to guide the culture of how life exists today in India and the United States of America.

Swadeshi Movement

Morgan Rothacker

The Swadeshi Movement

            The Swadeshi Movement in India began in December 1905 in response to the Government’s decision to partition Bengal. It was created in attempt to rally with the anti-partition movement which was ultimately unsuccessful. The government claimed that they partitioned Bengal since it had a population of seventy-eight million people, about a quarter of the population of British India, and had become to big to be controlled. The partition began a transformation of the Indian National Congress from a “middle-class pressure group into a nationwide mass movement.”

Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa had formed a single province in British India since 1765, but by 1900 it was becoming too big to control. The British viceroy Lord Curzon chose to combine Assam with fifteen districts of the poor and isolated east Bengal and form a new province with a population of thirty one million, the majority of them Muslim. The districts were essentially divided on the basis of language and religion. Bengal proper was to have seventeen million Bengalis and thirty-seven million Hindi and Oriya speakers. The western half was to be a Hindu majority area with forty-two million out of a total fifty-four million, and the eastern half was to be a Muslim majority area with eighteen million out of a total thirty-one million.

Went Bengal’s Hindus claimed that the Bengali nation was being split up in two, making them a minority in the province that included Bihar and Orissa. They believed that the partition was an attempt to smother nationalism in Bengal where it was beginning to flourish. They began to rebel against the partition, holding mas meetings, executing rural unrest, and creating a Swadeshi, or native, movement that would boycott the import of British goods. Ultimately the partition was carried out, forcing the opposition to go underground and become a terrorist movement.

But the Swadeshi movement was more than just a boycott. It called for national education and independence. The National Council of Education established a national college and technical institution in Calcutta, and fifty-one national schools in Bengal. The goal of these schools was to go beyond the typical forms education to teach trades along with academics. The schools were strongly encouraged by the Calcutta Congress in 1906 which believed that “the time had arrived for organizing a national system of education.”

The Swadeshi, or self sufficient, movement continued up until around 1911 and was considered one of the most successful pre-Gandhian movements. Lead by individuals such as nationalist Aurobindo Ghosh, “Father of the Indian Unrest” Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, and Lala Lajpat Rai, the movement fought against the injustices thrust upon them by the Indian government and this made a major difference in the years to come.

 

 

 

 

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/285248/India/47041/Indian-nationalism-and-the-British-response-1885-1920#ref486314

 

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/285248/India/47041/Indian-nationalism-and-the-British-response-1885-1920#ref486339

 

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/179408/education/47706/South-Asia#ref303427

 

http://www.historydiscussion.net/history-of-india/swadeshi-movement-in-india-indian-history/656

 

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/60754/partition-of-Bengal

 

 

The Bengali Renaissance

The sociopolitical situation of West Bengal in Rabindranath Tagore’s novel The Home and the World (and the novel itself) are largely the product of the Bengali Renaissance, a period of “intellectual awakening” (1) and reform in the Bengal region (what is now West Bengal and Bangladesh). In the early 19^th century, when India was under British rule based in the Bengali city of Kolkata (Calcutta), Indian intellectuals began to question some of the issues and beliefs of Indian society. This re-evaluation of Indian society emerged in large part because of the influx of Western European knowledge (history, philosophy, religion, science, literature, etc.) into the Indian intellectual field. One of the initial and most influential aspects of the Bengali Renaissance was the dual religious-social reform. The majority of Bengalis practiced Hinduism, and therefore were subjugated to the harsh, inflexible caste system which inhibited a large percentage of the population from improving themselves socially and economically, and also promoted divisions in Indian society that hindered national/political unity. According to Raja Rammohan Roy, one of the initial reformers in the Bengali Renaissance, believed that “without knowledge of the fundamentals of modern sciences Indians cannot participate in the social transition from the medieval to the modern. To achieve modernization, therefore, grounding in Western systems of thought was absolutely essential. To Victor Jacquemont he confessed that India requires many more years of English domination so that she might not have many things to lose while she is reclaiming her political independence” (1). In other words, the Bengal region, and India as a whole, depended on the rule of the British in order for Western modes of thought to be accepted by Bengali society, and therefore give it the tools it needs to gain independent rule.

 

The British would also prove essential in the transformation of India from “medieval to modern” through its implementation of an industrialized economy that would later prove necessary for India to be a modern economic power, despite the exploitation by the British at the time. It was the economic development and the subsequent emergence of a bourgeois revolution and Indian middle class that made the rise of Indian nationalism possible.

 

Initially, despite the significant influence of the Bengali Renaissance and Indian nationalism, these movements did not enjoy widespread support, especially among much of the Hindu population who stayed loyal to the caste system and the emerging middle class who did not yet realize the importance of the revolutionary efforts of reformers.

 

The Tagore family proved to be an essential proponent of this new mode of thinking. Debendranath Tagore, the father of Rabindranath, was one of the founders of the religion Brahmosim, which rejected all forms of social divisions based on religion, class, race, etc., and therefore advocated the reform of the Hindu social caste system. Rabindranath Tagore was also an influential player in the Bengali Renaissance. Tagore struggled with the idea of holding onto Bengal’s cultural identity while simultaneously incorporating Western knowledge and ideas of reason and free-thinking that he believed would transform India into a modern power. Throughout his lifetime, he harbored both pro and anti-British imperialist feelings that reflect this struggle. It was this tension between culture and modernity that I saw as a major driving force in the struggles between Bimala, Sandip, and Nikhil; consequently, their relationship could be seen as an allegory for this national struggle.

 

 

1.)   http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/savifadok/151/1/Samanta_BengalRenaissance.pdf

2.)   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_Renaissance

3.)   https://ia600204.us.archive.org/10/items/notesonthebengal035527mbp/notesonthebengal035527mbp.pdf

Rape in India

While reading The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore and this week’s blog post
I became very interested in the current status of women in India a The first time my attention was shifted to the struggles that women face in India was when the news of the poor girl who was gang raped on a bus in New Delhi and later died became a big story in the United States. This terrible incident almost sounds too terrible to be true, but rapes and gang rapes seem to be a frighteningly common occurrence throughout India.  The incident just gives a peak into the rape-culture that has developed in India where a lawyer for the accused rapist claimed in a media interview that the victims were responsible for the rape because the should not have been using public transportations  and as an unmarried couple should not have been out late at night. Furthermore he claimed that he has not ever seen a case with a rape of a “respected lady”, delegitimizing every rape victim in India.  The case ended with one juvenile sentenced to 3 years in a reform prison, the maximum penalty for a minor and all four adult convicted rapists currently are appealing a death penalty ruling. The sixth man accused committed suicide before the trial began.

            Unfortunately rape is not an uncommon occurrence in India and it is one that often goes unpunished. Of the 600 rapes that occurred in Delhi in 2012 year only one ended in a conviction as of December 30^th 2012. There is a culture in India that blames the victims for rape and makes it seem as if the rapist had no control over their actions. In a rape case in Mumbai, 5 men repeatedly raped a woman. They stalked her and called in their friends saying “the prey is here” , treating this woman like an animal. When the mother of one of the rapist was interviewed for a New York Time,(link below) article  she said “Obviously, the fault is the girl’s. . .  “Why did she have to go to that jungle? It’s her fault, too. Also, she was wearing skimpy clothes.” Another rape victim in India recently committed suicide after being harassed at a police station while trying to report her rape. She was humiliated by the police, made to explain the incident in graphic detail and the encouraged to marry her rapist, which is a common occurrence in India. Rape is even used as a punishment. In West Bengal A woman was repeatedly raped by over 10 men on the order of a village council because she wanted to marry a man from a different village. The culture in India is clearly unsafe for women feeds into more and more violence against them.

Here are the articles I read and got my information from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/29/world/asia/condition-worsens-for-victim-of-gang-rape-in-india.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/world/asia/woman-is-gang-raped-on-order-of-village-council-in-india.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/world/asia/rape-incites-women-to-fight-culture-in-india.html??version=meter+at+7&region=FixedCenter&pgtype=Article&priority=true&module=RegiWall-Regi&action=click

http://www.bbc.com/news/26887723

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/05/world/asia/three-sentenced-to-death-in-india-for-gang-rape.html

Patrilocal Family and the Filial Relationship

The concept of a “joint family” and its place in the traditional culture of India is evident throughout the entirety of the book, connecting individuals to the three main protagonists that, perhaps in a Western novel, would otherwise be irrelevant. This concept of a joint family, and the struggle to maintain it and please each of its members, parallels the struggle of traditionalism versus modernism that is seen within the lives of Home and the World’s main characters.
Two main types of joint families exist within India: the patrilocal joint family and the matrilocal joint family. While the matrilocal joint family is found among the Nayars of Kerala, the patrilocal joint family is predominantly found among the rest of the Hindu community. Bimala would be considered part of a patrilocal family, as she lives with her husband Nikhil’s family. The main reason for the overwhelming popularity of the patrilocal joint family over the matrilocal joint family is the idea that sons, once married, are supposed to be the figurehead of their families, carrying on the family gene pool and family name. In the novel, Nikhil’s grandmother, the mistress of his home, considers him “the apple of her eye, the jewel of her bosom,” (19). Typically, women in idea accept this patrilocal family as their traditional way of life and willingly leave their own families as a sign of respect and devotion to their husbands and new families, as we see Bimala excessively devote herself to Nikhil, her “prince,” at the beginning of the novel. For example, when Nikhil’s grandmother passes away and Nikhil asks for her to come and live with him in Calcutta, Bimala explains that “I could not bring myself to do that. Was not this our House, which she had kept under her sheltering care through all her trials and troubles? Would not a curse come upon me if I deserted it and went off to town?” (25).
Some of the numerous characteristics of the patrilocal joint family system include: a large size, common residence, common kitchen, joint property, common worship, blood relationship, principle of seniority, joint responsibility, and mutual rights and obligations. I final characteristic of this type of joint family that I found incredibly interesting is the idea of a filial relationship. The filial relationship is defined as the relationship between the father and the son in a patrilocal household. This relationship is of utmost importance and placed significantly higher above the relationship between husband and wife, called the conjugal relationship. Initially, one might believe that this would lead to intense arguments and perhaps a higher divorce rate in patrilocal society compared to other types of joint or nuclear family systems, since the wife lives in a household where her relationship with her husband is secondary to her relationship with his family. However, evidence shows that marriages within patrilocal families in India show lower divorce rates, especially compared to divorce rates in nuclear households of the West, which exceed 50% in certain places.
In the context of Home and the World, perhaps a reason that Bimala and Nikhil’s relationship in the beginning of the novel appears so strong, modern, and equal is because Nikhil’s father is not and thus, the filial relationship is discontinued. This allows Nikhil more time to focus on his conjugal relationship with Bimala and overstep some of the boundaries that would otherwise be considered nontraditional if his parents were alive. We are given a glimpse of what life would be like for Bimala in an entirely traditional patrilocal household through her sister-in-law, the Bari Rani, who has seniority in the home and consistently makes Bimala feel small and shut out, often commenting on her more modern clothing choices in a way that seeks to passive aggressively poke fun.

http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/family/characteristics-of-joint-family-system-in-india-1051-words/4796/
http://www.importantindia.com/10057/different-types-of-families-in-india/
http://indianhomemaker.wordpress.com/the-blogscars/nominations-joint-families-and-indian-daughters-in-law/

Queen Bimala and The Game

It’s been said that “In the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team. They are the ball.”

Between Nikhil’s insistence that Bimala venture outside of her sheltered life and think of herself as more of his equal, and Sandip’s worship of Bimala as a potentially game-changing revolutionary force, I was initially impressed by what seemed a display of progressive values for gender equality.

I don’t know it Tagore meant for the reader to take Bimala’s side, but I certainly did when she wavered towards Sandip’s line-in-the-sand Swadeshi Nationalism. Sandip’s charisma left Nikhil’s practicality in the dust, and like Bimala I was swept off my feet by what I thought were genuinely good intentions. Nikhil preached equality and reasonable language, and in hindsight that should have been the flag of his trustworthiness, but Sandip’s passionate worship and inflation of Bimala to Queen Bee were too tempting. As Nikhil’s sister continued to get away with causing trouble for the servants and Bimala, while siphoning gifts and money from him, I lost respect for Nikhil and rooted for Bimala to move further into Sandip’s camp.

Excited to see what type of leadership Queen Bee might find herself in, I was crushed to see her grand involvement reduced to stealing money from her husband. As she deduces, she was being played by Sandip this whole time; and while she’s come to wield some power, she’s not herself a player. That’s when I remembered the saying about the game of patriarchy, as it became clear that Bimala was a ball to be played between Nikhil and Sandip. She’s included in their initial debate almost as a way to settle a stalemate, and ever since then she was used to undermine Nikhil to Sandip’s advantage. Bimala’s decision to give Sandip the stolen money, and Amulya the jewel box, are both instances where Nikhil’s property is given to the “other team” and illustrates how – even though Bimala has authority in the game being played – she’s not a team.

With the weeks we’ve had, I certainly could have read The Home and the World a second time, but I haven’t gotten the chance yet. I look forward to a re-read though, since I can go in with different ideas about Nikhil and Sandip. Respect for Nikhil’s reserved reason, and suspicion for Sandip’s inflated passions.

Gandhi, Indian Nationalism, and Tagore’s Influences

When it comes to Indian nationalism and protest during British controlled India, Mahatma Gandhi will always be first come to mind.  Gandhi was born on October 2^nd 1869 in a town called Porbandar, part of the British Indian Empire.  At age 13, he was married to a 14-year-old girl named Kasturbai Makhanji, in an arranged marriage, as custom with his religion.  It was a prospective plan at the time for Gandhi to one day succeed his dad as the chief minister of the Porbander state.  To help him accomplish this, his family thought it would be good for him to become a barrister.

Gandhi then travelled to London for higher education.  He attended University College London to study law and was trained to be a barrister at the Inner Temple.  He returned to India years later after learning his mother had died and his family hid the news from him.  There he attempted to start a small law practice, which failed due to his shyness in court.

Gandhi moved to South Africa to work at the Muslim Indian Traders based in Petoria as a legal representative at the age of 24.  Here he faced discrimination and hardships felt by the colored community and different religions interacting.  Here he started with his political activism.  This is said to be a time of awakening in Gandhi’s life that shaped his place in society and future endeavors back in India.

Gandhi returned to India in 1915 after having matured and changed in South Africa.  He now had the skills and reputation of a theorist, leading Indian nationalist, and organizer.  He became familiar with many current Indian issues and joined the Indian National Congress.  Five years later he took leadership of Congress and immediately began demanding more freedom from Britain.  In 1930, the National Congress officially declared its independence form Britain, but they did recognize it.  Throughout the 30s more negotiations infused, and the war with Germany created more dissolution.  In 1942 Gandhi demanded independence, to which Britain put him and thousands of others in jail for.  During this time, other groups did cooperate with the British and the Muslin League was eventually granted its separate state, Pakistan.  In 1947 India and Pakistan were partisans and each given their land and independence, although Gandhi did not agree with the terms.

During his time of bringing the Indian people together and spreading Indian nationalism through the country, he especially promoted nonviolence and truthfulness.  He wanted to gain independence for his people, properly and without any harm to others.  Gandhi’s legacy is known to all today, and he was a modest hero for the Indian people.  It is believed to some people that Gandhi was somewhat of an influence to Sandip in Tagore’s novel.  I do not think this is so, although there seem to be some similarities between the two, Sandip is willing to use violence, or anything for that matter, to achieve his goals.  Gandhi was completely against violence in any way, when it comes to that manor Nikhil reminds me more of him than Sandip.  Tangore was also said to have been a big fan of Gandhi, and he would not even attempt to represent him within his characters.

Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore was and always will be one of India’s most cherished souls. I remember singing Jana Gana Mana, the Indian Anthem before the start of school everyday until the age of seven. Tagore’s words resound with a sense of nationalism that is created by the geography of the country itself and not by any means of religious or cultural unity. I would like to use his national anthem as an example of the type of nationalism Tagore is a proponent of, and how his very beliefs reflect in the name of the movement: Swadesi. Swades, is another name for India, and loosely is translated to the country of my soul.

Thou art the ruler of the minds of all people,
Dispenser of India’s destiny.
Thy name rouses the hearts of Punjab, Sindhu, Gujarat and Maratha,
Of the Dravida, Utkala and Bengal;
It echoes in the hills of the Vindhyas and Himalayas,
mingles in the music of Yamuna and Ganga and is
chanted by the waves of the Indian Ocean.
They pray for thy blessings and sing thy praise.
The saving of all people waits in thy hand,
Thou dispenser of India’s destiny.
Victory, victory, victory to thee. (Wikipedia translation of Jana Gana Mana)

The anthem reflects the melting pot that is India that is paralleled in the geographical structure of the land. This duality is exploited by Tagore to represent the duality or even the multiplicity of the cultural and religions structures of India. Therefore, unity cannot come from being Hindu or Muslim, unity comes from being a part of what is known as the “Bharat Mahan,” the greater country. “Thy name rouses the hearts o Punjab, Sindhu, Gujarat and Maratha” “Dravida, Utkala, and Bengal,” here Tagore evokes the various potent clans of India that are have been sectioned off as the states or territories. Thy very name, is equivalently rousing to all of these different peoples of India. The name echoes within the geographical boundaries of natural India NOT the political ones. Here, Tagore is being precise and ambiguous simultaneously. The precision comes from the exact geographical natural divides that are characteristic of India: the Vindhya and Himalayan Mountain Ranges, and the waves of the Indian Ocean. By putting three divisions, he has accurately parceled India into the diamond peninsula that it is and doesn’t ever refer to the political post-colonial boundaries drawn. By doing this, Tagore ensures that the nationalism he is inciting from the hearts of the people of India is dependent and derived from being one with the “mitti” of India.

There is a phrase in my country that you must be one with the soil or “mitti” of your country and mitti here is an ancient sanskrit word that refers to the very fine clay like topsoil unique to the Indian peninsula. In the same vein, the “dispenser of India’s destiny” is the patriotism of India. The “Thou” in Tagore’s poem is never specified. What makes the anthem unique is this unknown symbol that is both the guide of the minds of the people and the “dispenser” of destiny (I’ve replaced ruler with guides because the Wikipedia translation is not exact and the latter word is more appropriate). It is NOT India as a country, but rather the emotion of the anthem  itself which is nationalism. Tagore’s poetry is remarkable for being poignant, idealistic, and for trying to describe the complexities of the human soul and life. Tagore would not condone polarizing a nation with religion or culture even if it meant that it would spur a nation into action. His anthem is an astute symbol of the type of nationalism that enables the multicultural and ethnically diverse India to exit on a day by day basis: above all we are not Hindu or Muslim, Dravidian or Punjabi, we are simply Indian and that is the greatest unification force for the people of India.