PERIPHERALIZATION OF THE NATIVE- REFLECTION ON THAKUR’S ANTITHETICAL BINARIES

Abstract

Poet Rabindranath Thakur (1861-1941) of Bangla Literature is uniquely great for his ability to provide artistic excellence into his literature. On many occasions in his literary works, he is apparently seen as upholding indigenous ideas of India, humanity, anti-colonialism, opposition to child marriage etc. But immediately afterwards when minutely observed, binaries are formed when either his literary works themselves or his practical life provides more powerful ideas of him that contradict and cancel out each of Thakur’s prior standpoints or ideas. Thus the formed binaries are resolved and Thakur emerges as a poetic figure to peripheralize his natives. This paper has the aim to explore how in his literature Thakur’s antithetical binaries of contradictory ideas themselves merge into homogenous ideas of advocating indiscriminate assuming of Western ideas, negligence towards the cause of tortured humanity in the hand of colonialism, colonialism itself and indifference to the custom of child-marriage, and contribute to the peripheralization of the natives.