The cult of Nationalism--Rabindranath -Oregan (contd-6)

Rabindranath discussed thoroughly the history of India during pre-British era and concluded that different nation with different culture and religion invaded India but that did not alter the style of life of the general people in India. But the British appeared in In India in a different way -- this time we had to deal, not with kings, not with human races, but with a nation -- we, who are no nation ourselves.
The term "Nation" has been discussed by various persons even in this country earlier. Rabindranath defined 'Nation' as --" A nation, in the sense of the political and economic union of a people, is that aspect which a whole population assumes when organised for a mechanical purpose." Scientific knowledge and flawless management or  organisation can be gradually accumulated to form an enormous strength with which it can grasp the property and wealth of other countries or territories. He said, " The nation , with all its paraphernalia of power and prosperity, its flags and pious hymns, its blasphemous prayers in the churches, and the literary mock thunders of its patriotic bragging, cannot hide the fact that the nation is the greatest evil for the nation , that for all its precautions are against it., and any new birth of its fellow in the world is always followed in its  mind dread of a new peril."
Rabindranath thought,
" Man's world is a moral world, not because we blindly agree to believe it, but because it is so in truth which would be dangerous for us to ignore." He concluded that the world war is the consequence of disobeying the law of humanity. " In this war the death-throes of the nation have commenced. Suddenly,k all its mechanism going mad it has began the dance of the Furies, shuttering its own limbs, scattering them into the dust. It is the fifth act of the tragedy of the unreal."
As in the case of his lecture in Japan, this lecture also faced criticism from different corners at that time and recently.The famous historian E.P.Thompson in an Introduction of a recently pulished [1991] book "Nationalism" wrote;
" Yet it must be confessed that the lectures succeeded better as prophesy than diagonosis. Tagore enforces his message by assertion and by colorful metaphors rather than by analysis. His conclusions are assumed to be true in proportion to the vehemence with they are asserted."
It is to be noted in his manuscript hedeuced his conclusion by way of analysis and by the way he produced in the popular lecture.