Contemporarising Tagore and the World

Tagore was indeed a biswa-kabi, or poet of the world. In the first half of the twentieth century, few had travelled as much as him, visiting more than thirty countries on five continents Shying away from being a ‘patriot’ and ‘seeking compatriots around the world', Rabindranath laid faith in humans, no matter of what nation, race or caste, in overcoming limitations and perils of all kinds. It is this faith that made him cross boundaries, both intellectual and territorial. Tagore knew that ‘poverty lay in the separation, and wealth in the union’. It is this ‘original truth’ that he attempted to express in every form known to him, from poetry to painting, from education to aesthetics, from music to modes of thoughts. Deliberations on issues of life and living, including what is now referred to as social sciences, came naturally to him, testified by his essays on society, religion, philosophy, politics, education, rural development, literature, aesthetics and history. If Tagore’s innumerable poems, over 2,200 songs and over 2,500 drawings and paintings provide solace to the mind, then the breadth of his writings on issues of state, society and disempowered persons play a role in challenging and transforming the mind. This volume is an outcome of the 150th Birth Anniversary celebrations of Tagore. It emerged from discussions at the conference, Contemporarising Tagore and the World, held in Dhaka in Spring of 2011, where scholars from ten different countries presented thirty-two papers. At the centre of this volume is the question of how global and contemporary Rabindranath’s work truly is. This is explored through eight different themes, including: Tagore’s Humanism, Nationalism, Internationalism and Cosmopolitanism, Engendering Tagore, Education and Society, Sociology of Creativity, Alternative Development Strategies and Crisis in Modern Civilisation. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the universal and enduring appeal of Tagore’s essays.