Why is Rabindranath Tagore not just a great poet, but a great patriot as well?

Rabindranath Tagore was a scholar, freedom fighter, writer and painter, but above all, he was a patriot. He wrote poems, songs, and stories about different aspects of India’s culture and society.

Tagore had a profound influence on Bengali literature and music and he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his collection of poems titled ‘Gitanjali’. He wrote both in Bengali and English, and his works proved to be path breaking and revolutionary.

 The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre filled him with such anguish that he returned the knighthood that the British Government had bestowed upon him. Two of his poems have become the national anthems of two countries- India and Bangladesh-while many others are so charged with emotion and patriotism, that they inspire millions to this very day.