Gora by Rabindranath Tagore, trans. Radha Chakravarthy, Gurgaon: Penguin Books India, 2009, pp. 517 + xxv.

reviewed by H. L. Richard

Gora is short for Gourmohan, the central figure in this striking novel by Rabindranath Tagore. Gora is a powerful leader in Hindu society who represents what is today called “Hindu nationalism” or Hindutva or Hindu fundamentalism. As the novel is set in the 1880’s, it is only a nascent form of this ideology whose emotional and intellectual appeal is impressively presented in many of the dialogs in this novel.

Yet Tagore is powerfully opposing the Hindutva position. “Gora” in fact means white man, and the reader is early let in on the secret that Gourmohan is not a pure Brahmin, but rather an unclean European who was adopted as an orphaned infant. Gora’s mother is treated as unclean by Hindu society as she violates all caste taboos so as to live consistently with the violations involved in loving her adopted son. Gora’s Brahmin father stays away from him, and Gora himself only learns the truth in the next- to-last of seventy-six brief chapters.

Tagore is promoting a romantic humanistic ideology in this novel, but does so by contrasting the nascent Hindutva ideology with the Brahmo Samaj of Keshab Chandra Sen. The Brahmo Samaj was the great reform movement of 19th-century India, and under Sen it became remarkably Christ-centered. (Keshab is mentioned a few times in the novel, but is a true historic figure. He joined the Brahmo Samaj as a young man and later split the Samaj due to his Christ-centeredness and some personality issues.)

The hero of the novel is a Brahmo Samaji, Poresh Babu. Nothing is said about what made this man the compassionate, wise, spiritually-minded man that he is, but nothing needs to be said; he clearly learned it from the Keshab Brahmo Samaj, and so from Christ, interpreted according to insights from Hindu spirituality. Poresh Babu’s rejection by society suggests that he is something of a Christ-figure in the novel, but it is better to view him as a picture of a contextual disciple of Christ.

This novel is all about community, and community is the essential fact to grasp in Hindu contexts. Thus this is a brilliant introduction to contextualization in the Hindu world. The importance of community for contextualization, despite being often overlooked, is easily defined, but in Tagore’s novel it is deeply felt rather than merely defined.

The Brahmo Samaj, with an impressive ideology and a heroic figure in Poresh Babu (not to mention Keshab), is yet completely marginalized in Hindu society by its insistence on communal separation from the Hindu body. At a number of points Christianity makes a marginal appearance in the novel as a still worse example of the disease of Pharisaical separation that mars the Brahmo Samaj. Of course one could argue that Tagore is not being fair to Christianity, but he is fair indeed to Hindu perceptions of Christianity.

One will not find in this novel solutions to the many problems and tensions involved in contextual discipleship to Jesus within Hindu families and communities. But the problems of non-contextual Christianity are clearly displayed for all who wish to learn why the gospel has made so little impact on the Hindu world. Today Hindu society is being impacted by modernization and urbanization, yet this new translation of a novel from the 1920’s was made just because the issues Tagore saw then are still such vital issues in India today. Community remains at the center of Hindu lives and Hindu contexts. Feel it for yourself in this novel, and then see how it rings true as you get heart to heart with Hindu friends.

1. H.L. Richard is an independent researcher focused on the Hindu-Christian encounter. He has published numerous books and articles including studies of key figures like Narayan Vaman Tilak (Following Jesus in the Hindu Context, Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1998) and Kalagara Subba Rao (Exploring the Depths of the Mystery of Christ, Bangalore: Centre for Contemporary Christianity, 2005).