Awakened India

Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo

Chitto jetha bhayshunyo (Where the mind is without fear) is among one of the most quoted poems in India and Bangladesh.

Written by Rabindranath Tagore before India's independence, it represents Tagore's dream of how the new, awakened India should be. The original Bengali song was translated by the poet himself and was included in the Nobel prize winning Gitanjali in 1912.

The English version is:

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.

The original Bengali version is:

চিত্ত যেথা ভযশূন্য উচ্চ যেথা শির, জ্ঞান যেথা মুক্ত, যেথা গৃহের প্রাচীর
আপন প্রাংগণতলে দিবস-শর্বরী বসুধারে রাখে নাই খংড ক্ষুদ্র করি,

যেথা বাক্য হৃদযের উতসমুখ হতে উচ্ছসিযা উঠে, যেথা নির্বারিত স্রোতে,
দেশে দেশে দিশে দিশে কর্মধারা ধায অজস্র সহস্রবিধ চরিতার্থতায,

যেথা তুচ্ছ আচারের মরু-বালু-রাশি বিচারের স্রোতপথ ফেলে নাই গ্রাসি-
পৌরুষেরে করেনি শতধা, নিত্য যেথা তুমি সর্ব কর্ম-চিংতা-আনংদের নেতা,

নিজ হস্তে নির্দয় আঘাত করি পিতঃ, ভারতেরে সেই স্বর্গে করো জাগৃত ||

The last two lines of original Bengali version are harsher. They state:

"Lord Father, strike {the sleeping} Bharat (India) without mercy,

so that it may awaken into such a heaven.

While Tagore was not a politician, his poem has continued to inspire Indians to create a free-thinking, united and dynamic nation. The poem is also very popular among the liberal in Bangladesh.

Tagore died on August 7, 1941, six years before an independent India came into existence.