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Tagore and Nationalism pp 31–52Cite as

1910 and the Evolution of Rabindranath Tagore’s Vernacular Nationalism

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Abstract

Tagore has been accused of capitulating to Western liberal-humanist ideologies, and/or to excessively romanticized Germanic concepts of the ‘volk’: from the political perspective, other critics have faulted his understanding of nationalism by arguing that Tagore misconceived the cultural dimensions of the nation-state. These reproaches are very different from Edward Said’s acknowledgement of what might be termed ‘nationalisms’ when he distinguishes between ‘coercive’ nationalism and nationalist opposition to imperialism. Tagore can certainly be called an anti-statist but not an anti-nationalist if one appreciates his dialectical perception of ‘nation’ as the intersection of ‘swadesh’ and ‘samaj’. This chapter describes this alternative nationalism as Tagore’s ‘vernacular’ nationalism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of English, Women’s Studies Research Centre, University of Calcutta, Flat 3, Manuja Towers, 32 Hazar Road, Kolkata, 700029, India

    Krishna Sen

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  1. Krishna Sen
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Correspondence to Krishna Sen .

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  1. Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India

    K. L. Tuteja

  2. Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India

    Kaustav Chakraborty

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Sen, K. (2017). 1910 and the Evolution of Rabindranath Tagore’s Vernacular Nationalism. In: Tuteja, K., Chakraborty, K. (eds) Tagore and Nationalism. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3696-2_3

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