Where The Mind is Without Fear

The poem written by Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), originally published in Bengali in 1910 and translated by him in 1912 comprise a part of the collection Gitanjali. This poem is one of my favorite poems that stands relevant even after a century since it was written. This poem illustrates a state that Tagore dreamed of India to be but our country still kept this dream intact without realization.


Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.