Rabindranath Tagore

Subject: History

Section: Persoanlity

Context: Rabindranath Tagore celebrates 161st birth anniversary

Rabindranath Tagore:

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, novelist, and painter, who was born in Calcutta on May 7, 1861 and was highly influential in introducing Indian culture to the west.
He was also referred to as ‘Gurudev’, ‘Kabiguru’, and ‘Biswakabi’.
He was the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for his work on Gitanjali in 1913.
In 1915, Tagore was awarded knighthood by the British King George V. However, in 1919, following the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre he renounced his Knighthood.
Rabindranath Tagore was a good friend of Mahatma Gandhi and is said to have givenhim the title of Mahatma.
He not only gave the national anthems for two countries, India and Bangladesh, but also inspired a Ceylonese student of his, to pen and composes the national anthem of Sri Lanka.
Tagore believed in open-air education and had reservations about any teaching done within four walls. This was due to his belief that walls represent the conditioning of the mind.
Tagore did not have a good opinion about the Western method of education introduced by the British in India; on this subject, Tagore and Gandhiji’s opinion matched.
So, in 1921, he founded the Vishwabharati University at Santiniketan. He believed it stifled creativity. He conceived of an educational system where the students’ curiosity was kindled and learning became more natural.
He had spoken at the World Parliament for Religions in the years 1929 and 1937.