Race Problem, 'True Unity' To 'Eternal Justice' — What Rabindranath Tagore Said In 1917 About Nationalism In India

New Delhi: Rabindranath Tagore was a genius polymath who has inspired generations with his writings, music and art. This basis has come through our saints, like Nanak, Kabir, Chaitanya and others, preaching one God to all races of India.” ‘Solving The World Problem’ “What India has been, the whole world is now. The problem is whether the different groups of peoples shall go on fighting with one another or find out some true basis of reconciliation and mutual help; whether it will be interminable competition or cooperation.” ‘We Have To Prove Our Humanity’ “…those who are gifted with the moral power of love and vision of spiritual unity, who have the least feeling of enmity against aliens, and the sympathetic insight to place themselves in the position of others will be the fittest to take their permanent place in the age that is lying before us, and those who are constantly developing their instinct of fight and intolerance of aliens will be eliminated. Be it said to the credit of India that this diversity was not her own creation; she has had to accept it as a fact from the beginning of her history…India tolerated difference of races from the first, and that spirit of toleration has acted all through her history.” ‘United States Of A Social Federation, Whose Common Name Is Hinduism’ “India has all along been trying experiments in evolving a social unity within which all the different peoples could be held together, yet fully enjoying the freedom of maintaining their own differences. This has produced something like a United States of a social federation, whose common name is Hinduism.” What India ‘Failed To Realize’ “India had felt that diversity of races there must be and should be whatever may be its drawback, and you can never coerce nature into your narrow limits of convenience without paying one day very dearly for it.