Where The Mind Is Without Fear- Rabindranath Tagore

Where The Mind Is Without Fear- Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

With the extent of endeavor the British government made in making sure that the Indian population was servile to their rule, Rabindranath Tagore in his prayer, ‘Where The Mind Is Without Fear’, asks for his country to be bold and united as it was before colonization.

This prayer or poem asks for many things which were lost to India after colonization such as valor, pride and knowledge. The poet felt the need to mention this because of the condition that the country was in with the amount of misuse that it has gone through. He calls upon God to rouse his countrymen and let them see themselves as individuals capable of learning from the past. This can be related to the poem ‘Coromondel Fishers’ by Sarojini Naidu in which she talks about the pride of being fishermen in India. In the line, "...the kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam's glee;" Naidu writes about bracing the sea and the high waves. she tells the fishermen not to be afraid because they are the "the kings of the sea." Similarly, the citizens of India have all and nothing to be afraid of. They should replenish the pride that had existed within themselves and fight for their country. For the country's sake, the citizens of India should " row to the edge of the verge..." till they have gotten what they are fighting for. 

Tagore’s poem makes interesting observations about the present condition of India, without really mentioning it, by using subtle opposites when it asks for a mind without fear which in reality is filled fear, ‘depths of truth’ implying there are more lies than truth, where " the clear stream of reason" has "lost its way". And this poem becomes even more noteworthy because the poet himself is an educated intellectual Indian who has achieved fame both in and outside India, so the poem brings out the stark disparity through this relation alone. 

The poem wants to break the binaries that Said wrote about in 'Orientalism' where the West and the East exist in binaries of forward/backward. The poet looks to a future where the mind is led forward by knowledge and bravery which is unlike the situation under British rule. And he wants this future at all levels of religion, politics, morality and intellect. 

Trepidation of the British never allowed the natives to speak their mind or do what they feel is good for their own country.Tagore prays for a country that is free from these restraints and hopes that he sees a country that is free from these restraints and hopes that he sees a country that has freedom from tyranny, freedom of thought and expression, where everyone of all communities are united and capable of living together in harmony and not let mere walls divide them intellectually. Tagore hopes that with this new found understanding, they can achieve "that heaven of freedom". 

The poem, is therefore, an intellectual and critical look at India and its condition under foreign rule. Tagore hopes that with political freedom comes an awakening of the mind of the Indians to a more liberal and just future.