Tagore's Thought on Rural Reconstruction (As Reflected in the Modern Review, Prabasi and Visvabharati Patrika)

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While supervising the family zamindari in Silaidah, Sajadpur and Patisar, in Pabna district, Rabindranath came in touch with the rural Bengal and observed the misery, illiteracy, superstition and backwardness of the villagers with deep love and compassion. Well ahead of the year 1900, Rabindranath'’s writings on rural Bengal had come to be published in scattered manner. In 1893, he wrote: ‘I feel very sorry for those poor ryots of my country ; they are helpless as a new born child sent by God. They rely on the mercy of God for food. It is very cruel dispensation of God. But in the year 1904, the Poet, in his article Swadeshi Samaj’, traced the reasons behind India's backwardness and alongside he gave us an outline of his thoughts on village reconstruction. According to him, dissociation of relationship from the wider society, sense of non-existence of the large section of people and alienation from the local society had turned the rural society into a diseased entity. In his version: "We died of indifference, we died of infirmity ; we've lost the easy and intense attraction towards life, we do not feel even the nearest person as one of our relatives... These are the reasons for our sorrow, death, ignorance and poverty. These are the causes of illiteracy, outbreak of diseases, cheerlessness and financial hardship which alienated us from the civilization. The village society which had once been central to Indian society gradually deviated from it in course of time."

According to the Poet, in India, real cause of weakness that crippled our spirit of freedom arises from the impregnable social walls between the different castes. These check the natural flow of fellow feeling among the people who live in our country. Love and mutual respect have been ignored for the sake of retaining an artificial order. This only serves to promote a sense of degeneration and of defeat. The people of India in this way have built their own cage; but by trying to secure their freedom they only succeed in keeping themselves eternally captive. (LK. Elmbirst, Rabindranath Tagore, Pioneer in Education, John Murray, London, 1961). So in the year 1908, the Poet suggested that the villages should form into a knot. He desired that the reconstruction of villages should be seen as an endeavor of social and cultural reconstruction.

Rabindranath’s concept of village reconstruction is associated with three important ideas i.e. self-power’, ‘co-operation’ and ‘commencement of development’. In fact, the village reconstruction is not possible without any of these three ideas, Of them, ‘self- power’ occupies a significant part among these three ideas. It is the main impelling force for all round development of the three consecutive stages of human existence, i.e. individual society and state.

Although in his article Swadeshi Samaj, Rabindranath stressed the need of applying his thoughts in the villages of both the parts of Bengal, such boundaries get blurred in his concept of village development in the later period. He broadly conceptualized the series of work that should be taken up in the villages. The entire range of work from road construction to medical services, from redressal mechanism of village disputes to agricultural development, was considered in his thoughts. In order to build up the village life in all respects, he wanted to harness the benefits of science to the development of inherent potentiality of men and women. The ambit, pattern, range and procedural aspects of village reconstruction which he had started in Sriniketan, aimed at solving all problems in the society. The systems of work, process, pattern, range etc., are still relevant to village reconstruction in the post-independence period. Though Rabindranath gave much emphasis on self-power, he had the belief that there is a goodwill everywhere in the society. In order to implement the goodwill in society, there is need for a true leader. According to the Poet, such leadership was formally provided by the local leader, but after their disappearance, new leaders would emerge. The leaders would appoint organizers for different types of functions. The fund and labor for the village Reconstruction work would come from the contribution of the rural people.

Going details into the causes of misery of the rural people, Rabindranath felt the need of building up ideal villages by developing the self-power of the people.

**Contents and Sample Pages**