Tagore’s Last Message (1941)

The failure of humanity in the West to preserve the worth of their civilization and the dignity of man which they had taken centuries to build up weighs like a nightmare on my mind. It seems clear to me that this failure is due to men’s repudiation of moral values in the guidance of their national affairs and to their belief that everything is determined by a mere physical chain of events which could be manipulated by man’s cunning or might. The consequences of this belief are proving terrible to man.

The first experiment in this diabolical faith was launched in Manchuria. What it has demonstrated is this – that though the poor and innocent people of China have suffered, those that were responsible for this suffering and for like suffering elsewhere, have all been drawn into this vortex. Those who built their power on moral cynicism are themselves proving its victims. The nemesis is daily proving more ruthless.

We are in the habit calling Genghis Khan’s hordes barbarians but not even the terrible Mongols were guilty of such gross betrayal of humanity as the so-called civilised nations of to-day are perpetrating before our very eyes. But in the very act of this condemnation one is arrested by one’s sympathy for their sufferings. For their own peoples are paying the prices of these wrongs.

In the midst of this insane orgy of violence and destruction I shall continue to hold fast to my faith in the final recovery of man’s lost heritage of moral worth.