The British promoted Tagore ( through Yeats ) to divert attention from the revolutionary direction Sharad Chandra Chattopadhyaya was taking literature ( see his ' Pather Dabi ', which was banned by the British, and the price of one copy of which was said to have become the price of one Mauser pistol ) towards nonsensical spiritualism and mysticism, which can only be called escapism in a country with such tremendous poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, etc.
Tagore served the British loyally in the field of literature ( for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize ), just as Gandhi served the British loyally in politics, by diverting the revolutionary freedom struggle against the British led by by Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen ( Masterda ), Chandsrashekhar Azad, Ashfaqulla, Khudiram Bose, Rajguru, Ramprasad Bismil, etc towards the harmless nonsensical channel called satyagrah
