"Where the Mind Is Without Fear" is Rabindranath's 72nd poem. Naivedya, Rabindranath's poetic work, was published in Bengali in the year 1308. The author dedicated this collection of one hundred poems to his illustrious 83-year-old father, Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, with the appropriate title "Naivedya." When Rabindranath read these poems aloud from a manuscript to his father, he was so ecstatic that he gave him a purse to cover the costs of this volume's publication.

The postman himself translated the poem into English. It came with the English version (No. 35), along with fifteen other poems from "Naivedya," the English translation of Gitanjali, which was first published on November 1, 1912, by the India Society of London in a 750-copy limited edition. A well-liked English Gitanjali edition was first published by Macmillan & Co. in March of the following year. This was done before the Nobel Prize was given out.

The title of the original Bengali poem is "Prarthana" (A Prayer). The song is No. 72 of Naivedya, which translates to "Offering." The English translation of the poem lacks a title. No. 1 is the verse. 35 in the Gitanjali in English. The main line of the sonnet has been utilized as its title. It is an extremely straightforward approach to choosing a title. This first line anyway strikes the feature of the sonnet. The poem was written in 1901, during the British rule of India. The poet begs God to grant his country true freedom in the poem. This freedom includes the freedom of the mind, courage in the pursuit of knowledge and truth, and the fearless exercise of reason, in addition to the absence of any social, political, or economic bonds. The poet fervently begs the Father of all people to carry his nation to that place in heaven where true freedom and perfection reside.

The theme of the poem, "Where the Mind Is Free," is true freedom. The poet asserts that true freedom is an inner possession of man that can only be realized with God's assistance. It refers to the people's moral and spiritual uplift under divine guidance. India's people should be encouraged to follow the path of knowledge and truth through freedom, which should give them courage. It ought to free her from narrow preconceptions and superstitions and inspire her people to be sincere in their words and deeds.

With God's help and guidance, we Indian men and women must exert the greatest mental and spiritual effort to achieve true freedom. True patriotism is more than narrow nationalism or "self-love of nations"; it is true freedom.

Summary of "Where the Mind is Without Fear"

The poet is unhappy with his country's current situation. He asks God to rudely shock his motherland and transform it into an ideal location. The Indian men and women will achieve true freedom with God's assistance. Indians must act in a dignified and fearless manner in order to achieve this. Indians must be free of all Darrow practices and outdated customs in order to pursue knowledge and truth. To achieve human unity, narrow divisions must not stand in the way. In an ever-expanding field of thought and action, Indians must be honest and diligent in their pursuit of perfection. Based on clear evidence, they must be sincere in word and deed. The poet asks God to grant our motherland true freedom of mind and spirit—not just freedom from foreign rule—in his or her country.

'Where the Mind is Without Fear' analysis

Rabindranath was a genuine nationalist: He never held narrow nationalist views. His creed was never "My country, right or wrong." To him love of God and the love of individuals are correlative and these two legitimize and satisfy one another. Patriotism and religion complement one another.

Hymns to the Divine are also prayers for the people in Naivedya's poems. The idea that the poet held in high regard for his own nation and for which he prayed to God for assistance was also his ideal for every other nation in the world. Rabindranath transcended the narrow patriotism that is aggressive and disregards the welfare of others. He expresses opposition to what he terms "patriotism," which equates self-love for nations with a disregard for human life's higher values.

The sonnet "Where the Psyche is Unafraid" is the English rendition of a well-known Bengali sonnet made by Rabindranath Tagore, and first distributed in quite a while Bengali poetical work, Naivedya (1901). It was later included in the Gitanjali, a collection of songs that were published in English in 1912-1913 and is ranked No. 35.

It is one of Tagore's most well-known and beloved lyrics and demonstrates his firm belief in God's goodness. It depicts the poet's idealized vision of a free and idealized India and is overflowing with patriotic sentiments. The poet's vision of the ideal future for his motherland is quite inspiring in this poem. He imagines a free India where people will live morally upright lives.

It inspires a desire for the development of the moral and spiritual values for which India had served as a beacon of light to the rest of the world and satisfies and appeals to the intellect. All that suggests Tagore's affection for India and her culture seems to have been deeply felt by the poet. He imagines a nation where casteism, conservatism, racialism, and other forms of narrow-mindedness, as well as fear, will not exist. Everyone will have the same right to learn in a free India. People will continue to live as one community and remain completely united. All old and dormant convictions, blind traditions, and odd notions will be annulled and clear explanations will rule. People will always take the right path, and there will be an atmosphere of intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. They will rise and awaken in this "heaven of freedom," inspired by God.

The poet means spiritual freedom from fear, superstitions, narrow thinking, and evil desires and motives when he refers to the "heaven of freedom." This sort of otherworldly opportunity the artist conceives for his country.

As a poem about freedom, the poem is rather unusual. The poet preaches the gospel of a new patriotism that is free of fear and narrow prejudices, based on truth and reason, and carried out under God's spiritual guidance in this poem.

An excellent illustration of Tagore's spiritual humanism is the song. It is extremely patriotic and expresses his love for freedom. A single sentence makes up the entire poem. The final line of the poem, in which the poet begs God to grant his country true freedom, provides the key to this sentence. The meaning of this freedom is explained throughout the remainder of the poem. It is called the "heaven of freedom" by the poet.