Towards Freedom

Rabindranath Tagore's Ghare Baire was first serialised in 1914 and published as a novel in 1916. The events in the novel deal with the period 1905-7, a period of tremendous political unrest in Bengal. The public upheaval takes place alongside another revolution – that of women's emancipation and a new gender equation. Ghare Bhaire (The Home and the World) is the first fictional exploration of the tangled web of crucial issues related to the two spheres, the home and the world, in early twentieth century Bengal. Towards Freedom is a collection of critical essays on the issues raised by Tagore's novel in a contemporary world where differences of religion, region, class, caste, gender, etc., constantly demand to be addressed. It focuses upon the crafting of the novel out of complex historical contexts of caste, class and gender politics. By examining the play of ideologies in this novel, the anthology aims to help students recognise the importance of locating imaginative literature within its histories. Given that most of these structured hierarchies of oppression function powerfully in our lives even today, Towards Freedom stresses the continuing relevance of engaging with the issues raised by a novel which looks at the private and the political as intertwined.