Abstract
This chapter is an attempt to critically analyse Tagore’s engagement with nationalism, cosmopolitanism and gender in the novel Ghare Baire by bringing Tagore and Levinas into a conversation. Levinas’ ethics, his articulation of ‘the other’ and its inclusion have resonances and differences with Tagore’s articulations of nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Tagore’s cosmopolitanism in the novel Ghare Baire is as problematic as the nationalism he critiques. While Tagore’s Ghare Baire provides little possibility of a cosmopolitanism based on Levinas’ ethics and articulation of the ‘other’, his novel Chaar Adhyaya is more progressive in its vision of humanitarian principles and critique of violence.
I am deeply indebted to Prof. Dr. Kanchana Mahadevan for her help and insights throughout this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
For Tagore, national lines were imaginary, and humanity had to align their imagination by being more inclusive, reaching out towards the horizon of other minds so that the fellowship of humans extends beyond borders. He calls for a negotiation of communities that can flourish and find fulfilment, yet rise above exclusivity and provincialism to forge an international community. A fundamental change involves a spiritual awakening that brings creativity and sympathy of the world and the self that makes an individual human and humane (Tagore 2011a, p. 180).
- 2.
It can be read as Nikhil’s experiment with truth, where he believes that though he loves her whole heartedly, Bimala must appraise his love on her own and reciprocate voluntarily; thus he must allow her free choice.
- 3.
Beyond the emotional and political tensions within the Bimala, Sandip and Nikhilesh relationship, the story is set in the backdrop of Bengal peasantry. The peasant concerns appear half way through the novel, Nikhilesh’s immediate response to Panchu’s problems is philanthropy, but under the guidance of the Chandranath Babu, he is able to see that charity alone will not help remove class inequalities (Banerjee 2015, pp. 137–146), what is needed is an eradication of class and caste system, feeling of suspicion for the other and eradication of ignorance through education. These he would identify as the root cause of the problem of poverty and slavery. Unlike a cultural protectionist, he believes in breaking barriers that separate cultures to produce a universal morality. It involves collecting and strengthening those who are weak, scattered, humiliated and oppressed. They must be given the opportunity to grow, develop their own resources on their own soil in their own language and not remain perpetually indebted culturally or economically to outside benefactor. This ‘nationalist’ aspiration is not an end in itself but a prelude to a cosmopolitan project of cultural emancipation and conversation (Rao 2010, pp. 125–126).
- 4.
Simone de Beauvoir explains the psychological archetype and the philosophical principle of the eternal feminine (De Beauvoir 2011, pp. 275–276) that idealizes a concept of woman as frivolous, infantile, irresponsible (3) or modest, graceful, pure, delicate, civil chaste, polite; values that reinforce paternalism that ‘…that calls for women to stay at home… defines her sentiment, interiority and immanence…’ (276).
- 5.
He acknowledges that this is not because Bimala cannot introspect, but because their natures are very different (Tagore 2011d, p. 237).
- 6.
According to Levinas, self or subjectivity means that which is being held hostage by the other, thus the possibility of ethics. Thus, the subject is born, in this forced commitment to the other to whom it has been held hostage; the meaning of the self is found in contrast to the other to whom it is forced to respond. In one’s encounter with the other, self sacrifices itself in its commitment to the other; this, according to Levinas, is ethics (Levinas 1991, p. 127).
- 7.
According to Levinas, in speaking to the other, one enters into a relationship with the other, the speaking does not limit the self, because one always remains at a distance from what is said; hence, real conversation with the other can never be planned as one can never be sure of what will be said; reinterpretation and spontaneity at both ends ensure autonomy of the self as well as the other. The other is not an object to be interpreted, nor is the self committed to lifeless signs that need to be assigned meanings. Levinas does not deny that a certain system and logic to communication, what he intends to explain is that prior to these systems there is an existing individual and his ethical choice to welcome the stranger and to share his world while speaking to him (Levinas 1961, pp. 72–77).
- 8.
The following critique of Tagore is an application of Levinas’ critique of Hegel and philosophical systems that absolutize the self and the other. The individual is understood in the context of system and is brought to the senses and the mind as an object. All lived experiences of sensing, thinking and existing are discounted as subjective, and freedom is understood as sacrificing the inner arbitrary inner self to fit into a spiritually or rationally grounded system. People and events are judged by what is visible, and they assume the status of history and culture. Such systematic totalizing of thought, history and culture Levinas understands as biased, partial and violent in nature (208–209).
- 9.
Tagore, an avid advocate of intercivilizational alliance, while he opposed the British oppression of India, he was critical of the wholesale rejection of the West. He believed in strengthening and synthesizing diverse identities within India before it faces world culture. In negotiating with the West, the voice of the East should not be timid, and thus he emphasized on the revival of Indian culture. His commitment to revival of Bengali and other Indian languages for education in vernacular languages in his lecture Swadeshi Samaj can be read as an attempt towards the same.
- 10.
Derrida explains aporias as ‘The formulation of the paradox and impossible…calls upon a figure that resembles a structure of temporality… an instantaneous disassociation from the present, a différence with being in itself with the present…’ (Derrida 1993, p. 17). ‘ …the plural logic of the aporia…appears to be paradoxical…the partitioning…does not oppose figures to each other, but instead installs the haunting of the one in the other’ (21). Derrida has deconstructed the concepts of terrorism, hospitality, cosmopolitanism, forgiveness, friendship, justice, responsibility, democracy, sovereignty and cosmopolitanism and explained them as aporetic concepts.
- 11.
For Derrida, constitutional patriotism would also be kind of formalizing of freedom from coercion (the idea that constitutes the core of nation state as a political unit) as it leads to the ‘…pervertibility of democracry…’ (Derrida 2005, p. 34) that implies a violent imposition of political language (34).
- 12.
It is also an impossible ideal that can only be understood only in a paradoxical way (Derrida 2001, pp. 20–22). The paradox lies in the enforcement of the universal cosmopolitan laws (such as moral and spiritual laws) through the executive sovereign that undercuts the very state it is enforcing, while it enforces it (Derrida 2005, pp. 148–151). Thus, he rejects any form of cosmopolitanism that is understood as the possession or presence of a certain concept (of humanism, friendship and communicative rationalizing). According to Derrida, this will be a paradox, as there can be only approximation of concepts that will move beyond citizenship to a cosmopolitan self that emphasizes on right to justice (Borradori 2003, pp. 137–139).
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Rathi, B.M. (2017). Tagore’s Ghare Baire (Home and the World) and Chaar Adhyaya (Four Chapters): Rethinking Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism and Gender. In: Tuteja, K., Chakraborty, K. (eds) Tagore and Nationalism. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3696-2_13
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