The Indian Renaissance

Now the door has opened none shall be turned away from the shore of this vast sea of humanity that is India, wrote Tagore, the poet and cultural nationalist, whose poem was to be echoed in Indias national anthem.We have discovered by now that the stereotype of the Unchanging East obscures more than it explains. Yet, equally unhelpful in the Asian context is the Victorian concept of Progress or in our own day Development (they are much the same) envisaging an onward evolution towards an advanced material culture. This error was perceived long ago by an Indian thinker when he wrote.