Secularism with reference to tagore
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Tagore with Gandhi
Today's buzzwords are ''national security'' and ''national interest.'' Any action is legitimate in the name of the nation, no matter how remote it may be from truth or justice. How many wars have been waged in the name of the nation? How much innocent blood has it claimed? Yet people are worked up into a frenzy when the idea of the nation is invoked the same hollow hysteria that religion aroused in the medieval era and still does among some in the so-called ''third-world'' nations. Nation is the most desirable political institution of our time; a fictive concept, without any scientific grounding, it is still inviolable and enshrined in the modern imagination. Competing visions of the nation are now pushing the world to the brink of destruction. Metropolitan nationalism, with its robust secular ideology, is bent on wiping out the pan-religious nationalism that still enjoys some acceptance in parts of the ''third world,'' considering it an anathema and anachronism. This monocular, exclusivist approach, an attempt by the forces of secularism to appropriate the centre of civilization, has resulted in a cycle of retribution and retaliation, a horrific dance of destruction, opening the doors to a new pandemonium.
Given this present global crisis, in which nations are flying at each other's throat, sometimes unilaterally and in pre-emptive action, ignoring world opinion, perpetuating a logic of mutual malevolence and fear, it may be appropriate to pause for a moment and review in hindsight the anti-nationalitarian ideology of the Bengali poet, and Asia's first Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore's alternative vision of peace, harmony and the spiritual unity of humankind seems more relevant now than ever. What the world needs in the face of present widespread unrest and agitation, is Tagore's healing message of love, simplicity, self-reliance and non-violence or ahimsa.
Today's buzzwords are ''national security'' and ''national interest.'' Any action is legitimate in the name of the nation, no matter how remote it may be from truth or justice. How many wars have been waged in the name of the nation? How much innocent blood has it claimed? Yet people are worked up into a frenzy when the idea of the nation is invoked the same hollow hysteria that religion aroused in the medieval era and still does among some in the so-called ''third-world'' nations. Nation is the most desirable political institution of our time; a fictive concept, without any scientific grounding, it is still inviolable and enshrined in the modern imagination. Competing visions of the nation are now pushing the world to the brink of destruction. Metropolitan nationalism, with its robust secular ideology, is bent on wiping out the pan-religious nationalism that still enjoys some acceptance in parts of the ''third world,'' considering it an anathema and anachronism. This monocular, exclusivist approach, an attempt by the forces of secularism to appropriate the centre of civilization, has resulted in a cycle of retribution and retaliation, a horrific dance of destruction, opening the doors to a new pandemonium.
Given this present global crisis, in which nations are flying at each other's throat, sometimes unilaterally and in pre-emptive action, ignoring world opinion, perpetuating a logic of mutual malevolence and fear, it may be appropriate to pause for a moment and review in hindsight the anti-nationalitarian ideology of the Bengali poet, and Asia's first Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore's alternative vision of peace, harmony and the spiritual unity of humankind seems more relevant now than ever. What the world needs in the face of present widespread unrest and agitation, is Tagore's healing message of love, simplicity, self-reliance and non-violence or ahimsa.
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