Page 169 - DENG103_English - I

English–I Gowher Ahmad Naik, Lovely Professional University

Notes
Unit 18: Where the Mind is Without Fear by Tagore

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction

18.1 Short Question and Answer
18.2 Explanation
18.3 Summary
18.4 Keywords

18.5 Review Questions
18.6 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:
• Know the Tagore’s dream about India

• Explain the poem ‘where the mind is without fear’
• Discuss about Tagore’s nature.

Introduction

Where The Mind is Without Fear
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.
In the poem, ‘Where The Mind Is Without Fear’, Tagore sketches a moving picture of the
nation he would like India to be. Where everyone within the fold of the brotherhood is free
to hold up one’s head high and one’s voice to be heard without having any tension of fear of
oppression or forced compulsion. Where the knowledge is not restricted by narrow ideas and
loyalties. He felt, that the British rule had robbed India of its pride and dignity by reducing
it to a subject nation.

Notes The India of Tagore’s dream is a country where her people hold their heads high
with their pride in knowledge and strength born of that knowledge.

162 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY