Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo

"Where the mind is without fear" (Bengali: চিত্ত যেথা ভয়শূন্য, romanized: Chitto Jetha Bhoyshunno) is a poem written by 1913 Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore before India's independence.

It is an expression of the poet's reflective spirit and contains a simple prayer for his country, the India of pre-independence times.

Original Bengali script - By Rabindranath Thakur or Tagore Tagore's own translation, in the 1912 English edition of Gitanjali:[1] Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action— Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

[2][3] In 1917, Tagore read out the English version (then titled 'Indian Prayer') at the Indian National Congress session in Calcutta.

Line 6 in the English version omits a reference to manliness (পৌরুষ), and the stern ending of the original, where the Father is being enjoined to "strike the sleeping nation without mercy" has been softened.

Where the mind is without fear; head held high, Knowledge is unfettered and stone walls nigh In their confined cloisters bound, night and day, Have split not this world in little bits of disarray. Where, from the fonts of hearts unconstrained, Gush forth words; endeavors flow unrestrained ’Cross many a land and manifold paths to race, A myriad, many thousand aspirations to grace. Where stifling sands of trifle, worthless custom Have not engulfed the paths of streams of reason, Smashed not manhood in a hundred pieces; lead Where you each day every joy, thought ’n deed. With pitiless blow of thine own hand subjugate Into that heaven, my Father, let my country awake Rabindranath Tagore (Translated by Niladri Roy)
A literally true translation that preserves the rhyme of the original verse, without sacrificing meaning or mood. (By permission from the translator).