Poem Summary: Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

Poem by Rabindranath Tagore:

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.

Short Summary:

This poem is written by Rabindranath Tagore during pre-independence days, when India was a colony of the British. The underlying theme of the poem is absolute freedom; the poet wants the citizens of his country to be living in a free state. According to the poem, we see that the poet is expressing his views there should be a country, like where people live without any sort of fear and with pure dignity…they should not be felt suppressed by any authority. The idea of democracy seems well receptive here.

Next, the education should be accessible to all irrespective to their caste, creed, religions and so on. Broadly, there should be no social layers that should stop people from taking education. One education for all, without discrimination.

The next appeal is that the people of the country should be living united, not to be bogged down by the social barriers like casteism, regionalism or religion etc. In the next lines, the poet says that people must remain free from superstitions and must try to achieve perfection in their skill sets. In the end, the poet requests God that let his country get awakened in all those conditions which he mentioned earlier.