Paper 201: Indian English Literature – Pre-Independence

  

Assignment

 

Paper 201: Indian English Literature – Pre-Independence

Smt.S.B.Gardi Department of English, M.K.Bhavanagar University.

Vachchhalata Joshi

Vachchhalatajoshi.14@gmail.com

Roll no – 20  

Words: 3068

Paragraphs: 24

Topic: Rabindranath Tagore’s The Home and the World, Themes, and Women in the novel

 

 

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

_Tagore

 

The Home and the World, by Rabindranath Tagore, takes place in Bengal, India, during the Swadeshi independence movement in the early 1900s. The story alternates between the viewpoints of three different characters, Bimala, Nikhil, and Sandip. Most of the story takes place in Nikhil’s estate, where the married Bimala and Nikhil live with Nikhil’s sister, Bara Rani.

 

 

The story begins with Bimala describing her relationship with Nikhil. She practically worships Nikhil, but she despises her sister-in-law, who often teases and insults her. Nikhil turns a blind eye to his sister’s treatment of Bimala. Rather, Nikhil wishes Bimala would see herself and him as equals and leave the home together occasionally. Nikhil is loosely involved in the Swadeshi movement, often funding various projects to help the local economy. In addition, he funds Sandip Babu, an Indian nationalist speaker whom Bimala suspects of taking advantage of her husband. 

 

Bimala and Nikhil see Sandip speak, and she is deeply moved by his charisma. Sandip stays with Bimala and Nikhil, and during dinner, he and Nikhil argue about the extent to which nationalism will help India. Bimala, in an unusual display of autonomy, sides with Sandip and disagrees with her husband, believing that movements must sometimes be informed by passions rather than temperance. Sandip compliments Bimala throughout the night and believes that she is the embodiment of India. After another argument with a similar outcome, Nikhil feels that he is becoming inadequate for his wife. Nikhil’s former school master and friend, Chandranath, arrives and encourages Nikhil to send Sandip away, but Sandip decides that Nikhil’s estate is the perfect place to do his business. Furthermore, he wants Bimala to be his Shakti, a woman to represent the Indian people.

Sandip considers how he will continue to manipulate and use Bimala, and he regularly meets with her in the sitting room to ask her advice. One day, he is stopped by a guard from entering the sitting room. The guard had been ordered by Rani to keep Sandip from entering. Sandip punches the guard to get through, and Bimala insists that the guard be fired, but Nikhil just assigns him to another part of the estate. Later, Sandip walks in on Bimala reading a book about sexuality, which greatly embarrasses her. He pretends not to notice, but when Nikhil comes into the room, Sandip says that Nikhil needs to read it and further attempts to make Nikhil uncomfortable by suggesting Bimala read it, although this does not upset Nikhil.

Bimala becomes more and more attracted to Sandip. She resolves to give herself over to him, but when they are together, her maid comes into the room, demanding pay and vowing to quit. Rani’s servant had insulted Bimala’s maid. Bimala confronts Rani and is reprimanded, which enrages Bimala beyond words. She goes back to her room where she sees keepsakes that remind her of Nikhil and falls, sobbing. Meanwhile, Sandip is concerned that he is becoming too soft, and he commits to the idea of sexually taking Bimala to assert his dominance.

As the Swadeshi movement gains momentum, the importation of European-made goods comes to be looked down on by the public. Nikhil sees that Bimala is slipping away, and for both their sakes, he believes he needs to free her from himself. He remembers when Panchu, a poor man, came to his house to repay coconuts that he had stolen from the estate years before. While Nikhil’s reaction was to change the system that made Panchu poor in the first place, Bimala’s concern was with their own security and wealth. This memory serves to show how different Bimala and Nikhil are ideological.

Nationalist students who have returned for the summer and joined Sandip’s cause argue with Nikhil about the foreign goods being sold in his market, but he refuses to place sanctions against his vendors. Meanwhile, Panchu’s wife dies of a disease, and he must purify himself with the Brahmins but does not have the money to do so. He leaves to wander the lands while Chandranath looks after his children. Panchu returns, and Chandranath offers him a loan, but eventually, Panchu is evicted and made to burn his possessions for selling found foreign-made goods for extra money. Nikhil offers to buy up some land and let Panchu stay there, but Panchu is concerned there will be more demonstrations against him.

Bimala confronts her husband about the European goods he allows to be sold in his market and asks him to establish an embargo, but Nikhil remains steadfast. Sandip begins supporting domestic terrorism, advising Amulya, one of his comrades, to sink the boat of a merchant who is importing foreign goods. He also asks Bimala to secure money for their cause: fifty thousand rupees. He suggests stealing it from her husband’s treasury. Even though he does not need this much, he believes this will give Bimala a sense of purpose, and costs are mounting: he must pay bribe money to the police, and he is further working to suppress the Muslim population. Bimala comes back to him to tell him that she cannot get that much money, and he lowers the sum to five thousand rupees.

Bimala knows that her husband keeps money that is to be donated in Rani’s name in a safe in his room. Bimala steals the key and takes packages of gold worth six thousand rupees to deliver to Sandip. Amulya is there, and she feels disgusted at herself and Sandip. Sandip goes to embrace her, but she pushes him into a table, briefly knocking him out. Sandip regains his senses and gathers the money, and Bimala is no longer seduced by him.

 

In the meantime, news stories are being published against Nikhil. Further, an unknown aunt of Panchu’s comes to claim any inheritance that was rightfully his. This is a sham, but no one is willing to speak on Panchu’s behalf. Chandranath eventually convinces the supposed aunt to leave, but there is still no guarantee that others will not come after Panchu.

Feeling extreme guilt, Bimala attempts to replace the money that she stole. She employs Amulya to sell her jewels and advises him against following Sandip. However, Sandip intercepts Amulya and takes the jewels back, delivering them to Bimala spitefully. Amulya offers Bimala six thousand rupees, as he stole it from a treasury earlier, but he will not tell her how he got it. She insists that he return the money. While he says this is impossible, he promises to make everything right for her and leaves. Sandip attempts again to win Bimala over with words, but she is beyond his control. Nikhil comes to tell him that he must leave, as Nikhil has decided he will be taking Bimala to Calcutta the next day. It is no longer safe for them, as there have been reports of Muslim uprisings.

Bimala makes cakes and feeds the house with them, and Nikhil packs with his sister. An inspector comes with Amulya, who has tried to deposit money back into the treasury. Amulya explains that Bimala’s wish has been fulfilled. Nikhil is afraid to ask about the robbery, as he does not wish to know Bimala’s connection to it. Later, at dinner, Nikhil and Rani ask Bimala if she has seen the safe key. She casually admits that she took the money, and little more is said about the matter. They are preparing to leave, but Chandranath comes to report that a neighbor’s house is under attack by Muslims, who are raping the women. Nikhil goes to help, while Rani and Bimala anxiously await his return. He returns carried in a palanquin with a potentially fatal shot to the head, and Bimala learns that Amulya has been shot in the heart and is dead.

Themes:

Moderation versus Extremism

Throughout the novel, characters like Chandranath and Nikhil almost religiously ascribe to moderation in all facets of life, whereas characters like Bimala and Sandip take more extreme approaches. For instance, early in the story, Bimala wants to burn her foreign dresses in solidarity with the Swadeshi movement. Nikhil suggests that she should simply store them away and focus on building up something rather than destruction, but Bimala responds that the excitement of destruction will help them build. This exchange seems to sum up the main conflict in the story: Nikhil attempts to make change through slow progress and moderation, whereas Sandip’s philosophy is to take through bloodshed what he believes to be rightfully his. This is also seen when Sandip talks about poetry versus prose. He says that Nikhil is interested in poetry, which deals in the world of abstractions and ideals. Poetry can also be interpreted in various ways. On the other hand, Sandip talks about prose as weapons that will help them attain their goal. There is no room for relativity or other opinions in Sandip’s approach.

 

While Sandip is the villain of the story, Nikhil’s commitment to what he sees as truth beyond Sandip’s fanaticism is still problematic. As Nikhil refuses to boycott European goods in his markets, he is suspected of siding with the enemy. At the end of the story, it is not entirely clear if he has been killed, but it is implied that he has been severely wounded. This occurs when Nikhil attempts to stop the abuse of women. His efforts to help were certainly valiant, but it was his moral commitment to a kind of moderation that ultimately ended in his (potential) demise. It may be that Tagore is warning us about the evils of extremism through the character of Sandip but also suggesting that too relative and moderate a stance can also be problematic, as it becomes unclear what one’s values truly are.

Tradition versus Progressivism

The Home and the World also explores the theme of tradition versus progressivism. This story takes place in the early 1900s during the height of British colonialism, when India was just beginning to reclaim its independence from the British. In the story, Nikhil’s approach to resistance anticipates Gandhi’s Satyagraha movement, which was a form of civil disobedience while building up Indian infrastructure. This is seen in Nikhil’s own investment of money into Indian banks or when Bimala offers to burn her British clothes early in the story, when she is still aligned with her husband’s ways of thinking. Burning clothes was also a form of emerging nonviolent protest at the time. We might say that this less passionate approach, driven by symbols, politics and economy, aligns with a postcolonial way of thinking.

Sandip, on the other hand, advocates for passionate bloodshed, and suggests that the history of the world is written in conquest after conquest. This is a more colonial mindset. The ways that Nikhil and Sandip approach resistance also show juxtaposition of thought that represents the new ways against the old ways of fighting.

The Roles of Women in Society

 

“Men can only think. Women have a way of understanding without thinking. Woman was created out of God's own fancy. Man, He had to hammer into shape.”

Throughout the novel, there are various statements about women and the roles they occupy, many of them conflicting and potentially troubling. Early in the text, Bimala becomes a kind of “everywoman” as Sandip calls her the Shakti of the country—that is, someone who represents femininity in India altogether. Bimala’s feelings toward Sandip become complicated, and even as she grows to detest him, his charismatic nature often forces her to doubt herself. Women’s roles are frequently framed in terms of the idea of subservience: while Bimala’s husband wants her to be his equal, she feels she must worship him regardless of his “modern” views. It is additionally through subservience that she eventually reconciles with her sister-in-law, and she regularly bows to her husband and other men, taking the dust from their feet. It is unclear to what extent the novel—and Tagore—condone such a view of women’s roles.

Important to note is that many of the statements made in the text are from men’s point of view. In fact, it is Sandip, whose own opinions about women are notably misogynistic, who names Bimala the Shakti. He makes numerous troubling statements about women related to their impulsiveness and the idea that for a woman to truly be fulfilled, she must be giving to the men around her: “for men to accept is truly to give: for women to give is truly to gain.” In light of Sandip’s bigoted words, it seems Bimala represents his ideal of what a woman should be rather than an attempt to represent womanhood in general. 

In the final chapter, Rani suggests that living life again as a woman would be a curse: “I would not live my life again—not as a woman!” Here and elsewhere, this book suggests that the lives of women at this point in Indian history were difficult, not least due to the many social pressures they were obliged to observe. In this context, it becomes incumbent upon the reader to determine whether the statements in the novel about the nature of women reflect the character’s particular views or the broader culture’s values—or both.

The Blurred lines of “The Home and the World”

“Woman knows man well enough where he is weak, but she is quite unable to fathom him where he is strong. The fact is that man is as much a mystery to woman as woman is to man. If that were not so, the separation of the sexes would only have been a waste of Nature's energy.”

It should be of no surprise to anyone, that the socio-cultural barriers that keep women away from the labour force are numerous. The disparity in the education of women, the harassment that working women face, and the constant bias against working women are all contributing factors. What this shows us is that there exists a threshold between the home and the world, a dividing line, that many women are either not allowed or are too afraid to cross for a number of reasons. 

The question of this dividing line between the home and the world, the one that pushes to keep women either in or out, is certainly not a new notion. As far back as the 1900s, the participation of women in larger national and international events have been brought up every now and then, one such example being Rabindranath Tagore’s novel, Ghare Baire

Amongst Tagore’s vast oeuvre, Ghare Baire or The Home and the World, as it was titled in English, has one of his most nuanced female protagonists– Bimala. Bimala, despite her strong personality and spirited nature, is destined to live in the shadows of the menfolk around her, especially her husband, Nikhilesh. Despite Nikhilesh’s insistence that she find her own passion outside of him, it is only after the arrival of her husband’s friend Sandip, that she is able to find an identity for herself, different to that of a duty-bound wife. This is nothing short of scandalous, not just because Bimala is a married woman who finds herself completely taken in by a man who is not her husband, but also because she now desires for elements that constitute the world, alongside her home. 

Bimala’s story is perhaps as nuanced as those of many Indian women today – women who are bright and intelligent enough to make a change in the world outside but are confined to their homes due to the socio-cultural expectations placed on them. Yet, Tagore’s careful and deliberate compassion in the way he writes the character of Bimala pushes even the most moralistic reader to feel a twinge of empathy for this woman.

Amongst Tagore’s vast oeuvre, Ghare Baire or The Home and the World, as it was titled in English, has one of his most nuanced female protagonists– Bimala. Bimala, despite her strong personality and spirited nature, is destined to live in the shadows of the menfolk around her, especially her husband, Nikhilesh. Despite Nikhilesh’s insistence that she find her own passion outside of him, it is only after the arrival of her husband’s friend Sandip, that she is able to find an identity for herself, different to that of a duty-bound wife. This is nothing short of scandalous, not just because Bimala is a married woman who finds herself completely taken in by a man who is not her husband, but also because she now desires for elements that constitute the world, alongside her home. 

Bimala’s story is perhaps as nuanced as those of many Indian women today – women who are bright and intelligent enough to make a change in the world outside but are confined to their homes due to the socio-cultural expectations placed on them. Yet, Tagore’s careful and deliberate compassion in the way he writes the character of Bimala pushes even the most moralistic reader to feel a twinge of empathy for this woman.

 Works Cited

Anand, Shweta. “The Blurred Lines of 'The Home and the World' • Reading Room Co.” Reading Room Co. •, 8 November 2020, https://readingroomco.com/2020/11/08/the-blurred-lines-of-the-home-and-the-world/. Accessed 4 November 2022.

Tagore, Rabindranath. “The Home and the World Chapter Summaries.” eNotes.com, 3 July 2022, https://www.enotes.com/topics/home-world/chapter-summaries. Accessed 4 November 2022.

Tagore, Rabindranath. “The Home and the World Themes.” eNotes.com, 19 January 2013, https://www.enotes.com/topics/home-world/themes. Accessed 4 November 2022.