পারস্য-যাত্রী
২৩ মে ১৯৩২
বোগদাদে ডেনিশ সাংবাদিকের সহিত আলোচনার
রবীন্দ্রনাথের বক্তব্য
Persia has been a great inspiration to me. The whole country under the powerful statesmanship of her great King Reza Shah Pahlavi is marching on ahead very fast. Persia is being unified; her baffling customs and superstitions ruthlessly eliminated; her educational and social foundations are being securely established on a sane healthy nationalism which is in harmony with the modern age. As an Indian it gave me great pleasure to see with my own eyes what a people can achieve under the stress of freedom, how the enthusiasm of nation-building can radically change conditions which are the result of age-long accumulated inertia and dependence on others.
The problem in India is more complicated but what I say to our Government is that they should leave us alone to our destiny and let us solve our own problems in the light of experiment and efforts and necessary suffering. We need the wisdom born of experience and initiative, and must face reality in our own way so that we may exploit the full potentialities of our people.
When others talk of our communal conflicts, linguistic differences and various social disharmonies they conveniently forget that Europe also, even a short time ago, was in no better plight and yet she did not unmanfully accept her limitations as inevitable; she has struggled through her dark periods at immense sufferings and sacrifices which have been worthily rewarded by access to a people’s eternal right to self-rule. Spanish Inquisitions, witch-burning, Catholic and Protestant warfares, anti-scientific campaigns and fanaticism—you can go on adding to such unenviable activities of Europe till you come to the Great War when
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