What freedom from the British meant for Rabindranath Tagore

New Delhi, Aug 06: India is celebrating its 75th anniversary of Independence from British rule this year. There were so many who took part in the freedom struggle from all walks of life.

Rabindranath Tagore was not just a poet but someone ahead of his time. At the time of independence India did not have a national anthem. The song 'Bharoto Bhagyo Bidhata', composed in 1911 by Tagore was renamed as 'Jan Gan Man.' It was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India as the national anthem on January 24 1950.

Tagore who in 1913 became the first Indian to receive a Nobel Prize in literature played an important role in India's freedom struggle. He denounced British imperialism but also did not fully support or agree with Gandhi and his non-cooperation movement.

He viewed the British as a symptom of overall sickness of the social disease of the public. Tagore not only rejected violence by the British but also recounted the knighthood that had been conferred upon him by Lord Hardinge in 1915. This was done in protest against the Amritsar massacre in which the British killed at 1,526 unarmed Indians.

His belief was that the idea of anti-colonialism cannot simply be achieved by rejecting all things British. It should comprise of incorporating the best aspects of western culture into the best Indian culture.

Freedom does not simply mean political freedom from the British. True freedom means the ability to be truthful and honest with oneself otherwise autonomy loses all of its worth, he said.

Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali Rabindranath Ṭhakur (born May 7, 1861, Calcutta [now Kolkata] was Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, essayist, and painter who introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit.

He was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, which was a new religious sect in nineteenth-century Bengal and which attempted a revival of the ultimate monistic basis of Hinduism as laid down in the Upanishads.

Rabindranath Tagore is well- known as a poet and prolific writer with works ranging from poetry to short stories and plays. He was also the first Indian to win a Nobel for literature and on the other, a novelist who wrote and composed an entire genre of songs. His contribution to Literature, music, art and politics is brilliant.

Each time Rabindranath Tagore visited a new nation, the government would pledge thousands of dollars to his Visva Bharti University in honor of his visit to their country
The first Asian to win a Nobel Prize, Tagore composed more than 2,000 songs and penned a large number of poems, stories, dramas, and novels. His works "Gitanjali" and "Jeevan Smriti" are still cherished today.

Rabindranath Tagore wasn't just the first Asian to win a Nobel prize, but also the first Non-European to mark his prominence in literature.

Many people are aware that Tagore wrote 2 national anthems. "Jana Gana Mana" for India and "Amar Sonar Bangla" for Bangladesh. What many people don't know is that he also inspired the Sri Lankan national anthem "Sri Lanka Matha". Some even hold a view that Tagore composed the anthem in its entirety.