This week’s session was lead by Sara Karim

The summary of the discussion is written by Lucia Magathova

The first book our club discussed in June was the compelling The Home and the World (1916) by Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali writer, musician, and artist.

Tagore received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 and shaped the Eastern viewpoint on nationalism and Indian culture. He also spent some time at our university and even though he hadn’t graduated at UCL (not a direct result of a pandemic as it is the case today), his studies didn’t escape our discussions and comments on him and other prominent “episodic” students of London universities.

His novel is often considered to be a part of the Indian literary canon, yet we tried to praise as well as criticise Tagore’s genius. The Home and the World is the novel of the senses, and all of us agreed on his sensory and natural imagery being one of the best features of the novel, together with the novel’s interesting collaboration of the narrators, contentious philosophical discourse, and poetic language (similarities made between Tagore the writer and Tagore the painter).  Adversely to this, worth mentioning was his most influential critic, György Lukács, who considered him tedious and unimaginative and this novel as a mere one-sided propagandistic pamphlet.

The story is set in India and follows the contemporary nationalist movements, the emphasis given to the problems of the colonial powers in the market, the morality behind violence, and the unfathomable question of ‘What does it mean to me to be a part of a nation?’. Tagore’s philosophy encouraged a healthy relationship with one’s nation, neither denying one’s culture nor following it blindly. He believed solely in the power of individual freedom (not national and especially not national in the Western sense) and opposed the pre-Gandhian Swadeshi Movement and even Gandhi himself (who supposedly also studied at UCL).

The three main characters work together to convey the story, each having various confessions throughout the novel.

Nikhil, a peace-loving Indian noble, whose opinions coincide with those of Tagore, wants the best for his family and community (which could be understood as the nation in this context) but refuses to use violence or patriotic incitement in his fight for independence, because “To tyrannize for the country is to tyrannize over the country.”

Sandip, his childhood friend of a lower caste resides for the time in his house and is considered the “Enlightened” leader of the Bande Mataram national movement. The narrative uncovers his great enthusiasm for having power and money, being a rowdy revolutionary, in the spirit of “We shall want all we can get.” Nonetheless, our discussions also took into consideration if his actions, despite being immoral, were in any way justifiable.

Bimala is Nikhil’s wife, who got attracted to Sandip’s charisma and rhetoric (comparisons with the enchanting force of the magic mountain of the same-titled novel of two weeks ago are welcome). Previously considered ugly and ordinary, in Sandip’s eyes, Bimala suddenly became a beautiful muse; a goddess, though ungodly, and a mother, though childless.

“I can see that you are that beautiful spirit of fire, which burns the home to ashes and lights up the larger world with its flame.”

Despite containing local colour the story could be described as rather European in its style and there are various reasons to acknowledge the Romantic influences on it, Bimala’s spirited glorification being only one of them. In our session, it was labelled as the romanticising of the political reality, while the websites on Tagore went straight for the Romantic utopia. If the national theme were not enough, the novel offers a love story, an ode to all things natural, and an ending with a moral. Moreover, my opinion is that Nikhil is the perfect example of a titanic hero: a loner in love, willing to die for what he thinks is right and noble, even if it means standing up to his friend and possibly losing his wife:

“‘I now see that though you two do not rhyme, your rhythm is the same.’

‘Fate seems bent on writing Paradise Lost in blank verse, in my case, and so has no use for a rhyming friend!’”

The historical reading of the text opened up an inquiry into the position of women in early 20th-century India. In the public sphere, Bimala carried no significant role until the arrival of Sandip, while in the private sphere, she and her sister-in-law fought for dominance . Bimala on the basis of being Nikhil’s wife, while Bara Rani relied on being the older one. We briefly compared the character of widows (widowed sisters-in-law) in family hierarchies and found similarities with the West African, Chinese and early Jewish cultures.

While the house Bimala’s family lived in, traditionally divided into the inner and outer apartments, presented a clear division between men and women, Nikhil tried to destroy the physical as well as the psychological boundaries between the two genders. In the house, he advocated the “amphibious” rooms and in his marriage, freedom and openness. This contrasted greatly with the vehement devotion and submission Bimala demonstrated in relation to her husband and country. For that reason, we touched upon the danger of Nikhil’s passion for freedom being imposing, rather than modern, at least from Bimala’s point of view.

The title of the novel wasn’t discussed to a greater extent, yet here are some ways of understanding it:

1.The Home and the World as a novel about the colonisation of the market and country, describing an individual’s difficult relationship between one’s immediate neighbourhood and more widely, the whole world. While some of us saw the character of Nikhil in a positive light and his libertarian stance as progressive, others considered it as negative, since his actions made him an ally of the colonising powers. Power, however, was regarded differently by Sandip, who thought becoming exactly like the “all-powerful” world is the only way to save his home: “The greatest weapon of those who rule the world, Sandip Babu has told us, is the hypnotism of their display. To take the vow of poverty would be for them not merely a penance – it would mean suicide.”

2. The Home and the World as the gender struggle. As mentioned before, the novel handled the subject of the position and responsibility of men and women, which varied, depending on the domestic and cosmopolitan environment they occupied. Additionally, the status of a housewife was re-evaluated throughout the story. “What is a wife? A bubble of a name blown big with your own breath, so carefully guarded night and day, yet ready to burst at any pin-prick from outside.”

3. The Home and the World as a story about violence. In times of revolution, Nikhil’s house served as a safety net against the turmoil on the outside. Bandits getting in and robberies happening challenged the security a home should possess. Especially, since Bimala was the one responsible: “I could not think of my house as separate from my country: I had robbed my house, I had robbed my country. For this sin my house had ceased to be mine, my country also was estranged from me.” More generally, however, Nikhil’s wealthy mansion was much safer in the revolution-driven India than, for example, the property of his servant Panchu, which was in danger.

Though initially very descriptive (which I considered as a plus, but de gustibus non est disputandum), the novel escalates quickly and makes for an enjoyable read. That is why a big ‘thank you’ goes to Sara Karim for recommending it.