Even as his 150th birth anniversary draws near, Rabindranath Tagore remains quite under-explored. Nirad C. Chaudhuri predicted that the difficulty in translating Tagore's work would ascertain that in future his work will lie 'like a buried city in the past'. The difficulty of translating him in any of the European or modern Indian languages and his position as a cult figure in India contributed to this gap between adulation and understanding. Recent revival of interest in the West in Tagore's work only partly redresses this imbalance. For, much of Tagore's central claim to greatness lies in his social thought.
Tagore's views on many aspects of politics, society and culture in India are eminently relevant even today. These are the civil social sphere, nation and nationalism, intercommunity relations, gender, industry, ecology etc. Amartya Mukhopadhyay probes deep into Tagore's entire oeuvre to bring out critically important ideas and their underpinnings in colonial politics. The author also argues that many of Tagore's views are easily translatable into modern social theoretic concepts through textual strategies and translations of hitherto neglected works. The book shows how the poet is sometimes blinkered by the prism of colonialism, but generally transcends it, to echo or anticipate the voices of greatest social theorists on the most existential issues of our times.
This well-researched book brings forth Tagore's views on a wide range of aspects of Indian life: civil-social sphere, nation and nationalism, intercommunity relations, gender, industry, and ecology. The relevance of Tagore's work cuts across disciplines and the power of his ideas transcends time.
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