The Home and the World

The Home and the World, novel, first written and published in Bengali in 1916, by Bengali poet and author Rabindranath Tagore. It was first published in English in 1919, and a new translation appeared in 2005.

Played out against the backdrop of the Swadeshi Movement (part of India’s home-rule movement, it involved setting up a self-sufficient state and boycotting British products), The Home and the World charts the relationship between love, nation, and revolution. It tells the story of Nikhil, a wealthy landowner who has progressive ideas about women and nationalism; his wife, Bimala, a local woman from a modest background with traditional beliefs about her place in the world; and Nikhil’s childhood friend Sandip, a radical leader of the Swadeshi Movement. The novel is told in the first person by each of these three people in turn, beginning with Bimala.

The story begins early in Bimala’s marriage to Nikhil. Bimala believes that it her duty to treat her husband with something akin to worship, but Nikhil would prefer their marriage to be a more equal partnership. When Sandip comes to make nationalist speeches and stays with Nikhil and his household, Bimala is hypnotized by Sandip’s charisma and his passionate beliefs. Nikhil and Sandip have many philosophical discussions, in which Nikhil supports Indian self-sufficiency but believes in a measured rationalistic approach, while Sandip is in favor of immediate revolution to achieve independence by any means necessary. Bimala is increasingly drawn to Sandip, who encourages her and pushes against the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Bimala comes to contemplate deserting her husband for Sandip and the revolutionary cause. Nikhil becomes aware of the attraction between his wife and his friend but, being a liberal thinker, he allows Bimala the freedom to decide for herself.

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Eventually, Sandip requires Bimala to steal money from Nikhil and give it to him for the Swadeshi cause. She struggles with the decision but does at length do as Sandip asks. However, after she gives the stolen money to Sandip, she begins to lose her faith in him and her respect for him. She engages in complicated machinations in an attempt to return the amount of money she has stolen to her husband’s safe, during which she comes to feel closer to Nikhil than to Sandip. Though Bimala and Nikhil later plan to escape to Calcutta to avoid the violence in Bengal, the story ends in tragedy.

The novel creates an objective account of differing political ideals and a marriage under threat. The Home and the World (as the title suggests) is a meditation on the invasion of the private sphere by the public and political world; it also discusses the relationship of women to the nation. Tagore was critical of arbitrary nationalistic divides between countries. This belief is illuminated in The Home and the World, where Tagore suggests through Nikhil’s serenity a wiser route toward political freedom and unity.