Where mind is filled with fear and head hangs low
It has been 115 years since the man who wrote the national anthem of India also wrote – "Where the mind is without fear". The original poem written in Bengali was then translated by the poet himself in 1912 and included in Gitanjali. Why I rake up this poem on the eve of India’s Independence Day is because Rabindranath Tagore wrote it in vain. One hundred and fifteen long years, 68 of them as a free and independent country, yet none of the hopes, that the poet so cogently and emotionally spelled out, materialised. Let’s take the lines one at a time...
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Fear lurks across the country... not just fear of lawlessness, not just the fear of being attacked by goons, not just the fear of being a lone woman out at night but the fear of standing out, of wearing different clothes, of having different views or eating different things. There is fear that is seeping in, slowly poisoning the very structure of what India was meant to be. It is the fear that comes when not falling in line with the majoritarian view. Indian society is progressively becoming rigid, in not accepting difference. Under the circumstances, I for one, cannot hold my head high. (Then off with it would be the most popular reaction to what I write.)
Where knowledge is free
It is not free... despite the right to education, and I am not talking about the cost of education, because there is a difference between education and knowledge. I mean the respect for knowledge that is dwindling because what matters now is more the degree than the knowledge acquired. Ironically, information has become the key to success but the gap between knowledge and information is also ever-widening. Added to that is the constant effort to restrict free flow of knowledge especially when it does not meet the acceptable criteria of self-appointed moral guardians of India. Look around and you will see them coming out of the woodwork emboldened by the narrow-mindedness of society.
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Not only does the world continue to be broken into fragments by narrow domestic walls, the malaise has spread within India. Each bigoted group wants its own walls to come up - to keep the others out. Backed by short-sighted political motivation every grouping in the country is out to negate the principles of not just unity but also the enshrined dogma of equality of caste, creed, sex or belief. Yet everybody wants reservation because that is how you get to milk the milch cow - the easy way.
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Words need no longer come from the depth of truth; all that matters is a viable marketing strategy to propagate one's ideas. Anything can be said with apparent conviction with no checks on the veracity of what is being uttered. If you say it enough number of times it must be true. And if what is being said is what you want to believe then it becomes easier to suspend truth. If the champion of your cause says it then that’s enough because if he said it then it must be true.
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Who cares about perfection... it is no longer quality that needs be achieved, plain old quantity works better. With a population set to cross the one-and-half-billion mark, there are always enough gullible consumers to carry on any business. Also poorer the quality, lesser the price and more the profit; but I think the poet did not mean his words in commercial terms. What he meant was that as individuals one should strive towards perfection – but then for that there has to be an ingrained awareness of right and wrong, of good and bad. Who the hell cares about right and wrong? Particularly if there is no chance of getting caught out in the act... all one cares for is: What do I get out of it? Where is my profit?
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Reason has lost its way, it has been replaced by hate and self-aggrandisement. Reason and reasonableness are no longer qualities that one looks up to. The current favourites are cleverness and guile. Your success in society and social standing depends on how crafty you have been and that is what the others around you will look up to. If you can best the system, all the better - you are a hero because the system and established rules are the villains in the plot. Also having a firm enough view and the ability of forcefully imposing this on any and every weaker person around is guaranteed to win respect and accolades... so where is the clear stream of reason in all of this?
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
The last four lines I have clubbed together because none of those lines make sense. What desert sand and dead habit? Why does the mind need go forward? It is quite well of where it currently is. Heaven of freedom already exists – a couple of steps from anarchy it is almost a utopian existence for someone with muscle and cunning and no principles to hold one back. The poet’s hopes have not materialised... who cares about what some emotional, weak-minded, pacifist, liberal poet wrote more than a hundred years ago? This is now and this is our times - to make this country what we will. Everyone finally gets what they deserve... Tagore lived and died under the yoke of foreign rule. What does he know about what to do with freedom? This is our India and we will build it or destroy it according to our choice... because finally, we will get what we deserve.