ABSTRACT
In the history of the Indian nationalist movement, Gandhi appears as a major player, while Rabindranath Tagore receives hardly a mention. Individual swaraj demands the freedom of the individual to determine his own future, as Gandhi talks of swaraj as the 'consciousness in the average villager that he is the maker of his own destiny.' Tagore would be the last person to disagree with Gandhi's insistence upon individual freedom, and in a work such as The Religion of Man he speaks of the human struggle for perfection as a struggle to win freedom from all that is limiting in life. Tagore was actively involved in the swadeshi movement in Bengal, and for a time served as president of the provincial Congress. Tagore never really doubted Gandhi's ideals, and always he recognized Gandhi's 'emphasis on the truth and purity of the means as but another aspect of his deep and insistent humanity.'.
