Anonymous asked 8 years ago
Is Rabindranath Tagore’s poem ‘Where the Mind is Without Fear’ a prayer for India alone? how can you tell?
No, the poem isn’t a prayer for India alone. It’s a universal plea that holds good at all times and for all nations of the world.
The poem was primarily meant for India, no doubt. The poet prays for his ‘country’ to raise it to a ‘heaven of freedom’, as it was still under the rule of external forces. Moreover, people were ignorant, shallow-minded, lazy, opportunistic and superstitious. So the poet was sad to think of his countrymen and expressed his concern in this poem in the form of a prayer to the God.
But as a work of art, the poem should be and now is interpreted with a wider approach. The poet has talked about the evils of human society that are prevalent more or less all over the world. So, this should be seen as a prayer for the good of entire humanity.
The poem was only referred to India as at the time in around 1900 (the time it was written by Rabindranath Tagore) our country India was under the rule of British.
No, this is not only for India but also for those countries who are not independent.