Rabindranath Tagore's Axiology of Politics

This book revisits Rabindranath Tagore’s opinion and standpoints on constituent elements of politics from the stance of this marker––axiology, so that many well-known aspects of his thought may be seen in a different light. Among the Indian luminaries of the first half of the twentieth century, who were well-known both in the East and the West, Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was arguably the most ‘gifted’ personality. Besides being the first non-European recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913) and the ‘ambassador’ of Indian culture to the West, he also wrote voluminous essays and letters on socio-political issues––engaged himself in various protests against the raj, as a pacifist in international arena and also as a polemical writer. Tagore is often described as the ‘conscience’ of the Indian nation.

This book includes a long Tagore-Einstein conversation and a longish dialogue with H G Wells and his creative writings––poems, fictions, plays, and ‘personal’ letters––along with his direct political discourses to understand his Political Thought in a more comprehensive way.