Tagore Creates Nation through Purusha and Prakriti Synthesis

Abstract

The present paper is an essay in miniature proposing to illuminate on the debate about the cultural identity of India, the place of religion, caste, class and gender in it, initiated by Rabindranath Tagore in his novel ‘Gora’ (1909) at the beginning of the twentieth century. Situated within the larger conflict between modernisation and the Hindu tradition – inevitable in a British-occupied India further complicated the question of freedom, gender’s role in nation-building and selfhood. The author here goes on to explode the fallacy of the supposedly inclusive western ideals which alienate a few from the millions of Indians as also the negative social consequences of accepting uncritically a monolithic Hindu tradition. Thus Gora as a novel attacks the absurdity of looking at cultural options with characters possessing contesting ideologies and aims not at individual, static utterances, but at dialogic negotiations in understanding the creation of a new revived nation free of confronting socio-political ideologies and the role of gender in it. That the main protagonist Gora recognizes the intellectual woman and thinking human being in Sucharita is indicative of accepting prakriti– the feminine principle of creation as well. Thus prakriti, the feminine principle of creation in Sucharita affects Gora’s ideology of defensive orthodoxy, subtly and indirectly, propelling him towards sympathy and understanding of Bharatvarsha, the gendered way.