Tagore's enduring call for peace through education and humanity

Rabindranath Tagore's timeless vision of peace resonates powerfully amid today's global turmoil.

- RANU BHATTACHARYYA

Hingsay unmatto prithw, nityo nitthur dwando; Ghor kutilo pantho taar, lobho-jotil bandho.

The world today is wild with the delirium of hatred, The conflicts are cruel and unceasing in anguish, Crooked are its paths, tangled its bonds of greed.

Written in 1927, these words of Rabindranath Tagore echo in the headlines of today. Close to a century later, turbulence continues to surge through the globe, leaving destruction and distress in its wake. Even as leaders propose solutions and seek resolution, peace remains an elusive chimera.

Tagore's lifetime was marked with unprecedented global violence. He witnessed the horrific impact of two World Wars and lived through the Partition of Bengal in 1905, an event marked by violent sectarian riots. Tagore attributed this ongoing violence to three intersecting forces: the aggressive materialism of modern society; belligerent nationalism; and institutionalized religion.

Tagore believed that the absence of war did not necessarily mean the prevalence of peace; rather, war was the logical consequence of unmediated materialism, of science divorced from spirituality. In an article published in The New York Times in 1916, he wrote, "The war, to my mind, is the outcome of overgrown materialism, of an ideal based on self-interest and not based on harmony. There are differences between capital and labour because both are working in the interest of their own selves-peace is but temporary, and other clashes are bound to come."