1 23
Journal of Indian Council of
Philosophical Research
ISSN 0970-7794
J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res.
DOI 10.1007/s40961-015-0035-5
Bindu Puri: The Tagore–Gandhi Debate on
Matters of Truth and Untruth
1 23
Bindu Puri: The Tagore
–
Gandhi Debate on Matters
of Truth and Untruth
Springer, 2015, ISBN 978-81-322-2115-9, pp. 181+XXXV,
Price: EUR 83.29, USD 99.00; DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-2116-6
Kumkum Bhattacharya1
#ICPR 2015
A philosopher by training and profession, Bindu Puri, faculty member, Philosophy, Delhi University, presents a rather novel discourse on Tagore and Gandhi in the context of their correspondence and debate which were in the forms of letters and articles over a period of 26 years. Puri has chosen to focus on the understanding of truth by both Tagore and Gandhi as she considers this understanding directly belonging to the realm of philosophy and concerned with fundamental philosophical issues. One of the expected outcomes of this discourse could provide the sources from which Tagore and Gandhi individually derived and built their own ideas and notions of truth and another outcome could be to situate each other’s ideas in the context of their times,
situations and works. The prime of their lives saw them engaged with events, issues and ideas that were epochal in nature. Were their ideas of truth similar or as different as they were on a number of issues? What were the sources of their ideas of truth? Were there many‘truths’ or a single truth? How did their ideas of truth shape their lives and
principles? These are some of the questions derived from Puri’s text. The book provides
insights into why at all these two engaged in such a dialogue and that too in the public sphere. Tagore and Gandhi held each other in deep respect and reverence on the personal level built on loyalty and trust in each other’s integrity and this was nuanced
by defence of each other against criticism by others. And yet, they did not mince words in their interactions with each other often published for the world to read and interpret and debate over.
The chapters in the book are as follows:‘The Tagore-Gandhi Debate: an Account of
the Central Issues’;‘OfMantras and Unquestioned Creeds: Reconstructing Gandhi’s
Moral Insights’;‘Gandhi’s Truth: Debate, Criticism and the Possibilities in Closure in J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res.
DOI 10.1007/s40961-015-0035-5
* Kumkum Bhattacharya [email protected]
1
Department of Social Work, Visva-Bharati University, Sriniketan 731236 District Birbhum, West Bengal, India
Moral Arguments’; ‘Tagore: On the Possibilities of Untruth and Moral Tyranny’; ‘UnderstandingSwaraj: Tagore and Gandhi’; and‘Conclusion’. Each chapter has been
systematically and logically subdivided under several sections/themes related to the focus area of each main chapter. Chapter 2 deals extensively with the tenets ofYoga Sutraand Sankhya systems that the informed reader may choose to skip (see Puri2015: 37) while the uninformed reader would find little beyond the polemics. Chapter 3, a very important chapter, critiques Bilgrami’s conclusion (2011) about Gandhi as having
a‘relativist’understanding of truth (ibid: 68). Puri has roundly questioned Bilgrami’s
position and established her stance in clear terms using her analysis of the Tagore–
Gandhi debate. She has maintained objectivity in her multi-level analysis and has raised important issues for further discussion. It is interesting that in another text on Tagore–
Gandhi, Bilgrami’s work (2003 cited in Chakravarty2011) has been used to explain
Tagore’s position,‘Tagore found his natural home in the dissenting alternative tradition,
which, as the philosopher Akeel Bilgrami has been arguing since 2003, refused to see nature and the world as emptied of values….For Tagore it was a truth that was
self-evident– a matter of perceiving values in the world and in nature …a first person
perspective in which value is understood as being in the world. This is a position with which, I am sure, Gandhi could not have agreed more’(ibid: 34). Chapter 5 examines
Tagore and Gandhi’s understanding of swaraj and that both were engaged in searching
for the meaning of swaraj above all else. In search for meaning beyond the etymolog-ical associations of swaraj, Puri discusses the importance of Gandhi’sHind Swarajin
the context of which she may find the following interesting and as appealing to contemporary readers, ‘What is the philosophical ground within which [Hind
Swaraj] is rooted. The ground can be characterized as a moment in transition…[between] two modes of thought present simultaneously… a-modern…
not anti-modern or non-modern…it lies outside the modern realm…conceptualized
without a necessary and inevitable referent to the modern…the other mode is modern…
Hind Swarajbe read as a text written at a moment in history where both a-modern and modern existed as large facts…’(Suhrud2011: 603–610). Significantly, Puri has made
no reference to Tagore’sSwadeshi Samajfor any kind of comparison/discussion with
Hind Swaraj. Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj and Tagore’s Swadeshi Samaj are remarkable
from two points of view—their congruence of affirming faith in the regenerative and
positive aspects of rural life and on the other, their complete contrast as to the means by which the ends of‘village republic’are to be achieved.1
The foreword of this book has been written by Professor Sabyasachi Bhattacharya whose seminal book,The Mahatma and the Poet(1997) sets the tone for the genesis of the book under review, a fact gratefully acknowledged by Puri. The idea for a philosophical interpretation of the discourse between Tagore and Gandhi is probably prescience in the light of Bhattacharya’s statement—‘The most remarkable thing about
the intellectual exchange between Gandhi and Tagore is the high philosophical plane to which they elevated a political debate and the extent unto which each of them…was
willing to learn from the other’(1997: 21); and this volume sets out to chart a hitherto
novel area of research. Bhattacharya in his foreword emphasizes the importance of the interjections of a professional philosopher into the Tagore–Gandhi exchange; he sees
this work as a valuable addition to scholarship in general and in particular in nuancing
1
See Mohapatra (2011: 102) for more details.
the ideas of the two giants. He praises Puri for bringing to light the influence of Patanjali’sYoga Sutra on Gandhi2, for critiquing Akeel Bilgrami’s interpretation of
the cognitive status of Gandhi’s notion of truth and even more remarkably for a
philosopher Puri’s use of Tagore’s creative writings, his plays and novels as means of
understanding Tagore’s philosophical stance. The connection between Tagore’s creative
writings and philosophical stance has been clearly demonstrated in the ways Tagore perceived and expressed the notion of‘moral tyranny’as depicted in his play, Rakta
Karabi(Bhattacharya2015: vii).
Bhattacharya (ibid: x), however, expresses caution when he says‘we need to look at
many of their [Tagore and Gandhi’s] statements about Truth contextually so as not to
miss the family resemblance between them’; the strongest resemblance being that both
used metaphor in their civilizational discourse. A too literal interpretation of Gandhi’s
(and Tagore’s) is to do an injustice. Metaphor is a significant trope in the writings of
Tagore and to a certain extent of Gandhi on truth. The family resemblance in their ideas of truth is apparent in that both saw truth as ineffable; Gandhi strived to give a tangible shape to truth through practice in daily life while for Tagore, there was a distinction between the‘knowable’and the‘unknowable’. The family resemblance in their ideas
of truth may appear to cease if we consider the difference in emphasis that Tagore and Gandhi put on attributes of truth, Tagore’s emphasis on aesthetics and surplus as a
function of truth and Gandhi’s on ethics as practice of truth (ibid: viii, xiii).3This points
to some fundamental differences between the two.
In making an overview of Tagore’s creative writings, especially his plays as referred
earlier, we are made deeply aware of an ethical strain guiding the complete man’s
response to the world. Bhattacharya has further pointed out the historical and social context of the development and change of ideas, notions and‘philosophies’of both
Gandhi and Tagore (ibid: xi). Puri has divided the correspondence between Tagore and Gandhi along the historical time line delineated by Bhattacharya (1997); however, for an analysis of ideas, it would have been more apt to consider the correspondence against the context of the historical/political/social nature of the event(s) that triggered the correspondence than the mere timeline. Also, Puri does not indicate that she has considered in her analysis the changes and shifts in Tagore’s ideas and arguments of his
discourse (or for that matter, Gandhi’s).4
Puri’s preface is very well articulated and raises those questions clustering round the
making of India that have always and will continue to have abiding interest. The questions raised have the promise of stimulating more scholarship and diverse dis-course. The book argues that its core idea stems from the difference between Tagore and Gandhi in their responses to tradition and modernity and this difference could possibly lead to a philosophical analysis. Puri demonstrates her awareness of the academic value of the range of the discourse between the two but in keeping with her professional enquiry, restricts her discussion to‘philosophical’polemics so that the
contrast (according to her) between the two is significantly highlighted. It is however
2
Prior to Puri (2015: 36) Gandhi’s adherence to Patanjali’sYoga Sutraand its influence on the itemization of the virtues has been mentioned by Pruthi and Chaturvedi (2009: 31).
3If‘surplus’and‘creativity’were the telos for Tagore, it was‘ethics’for Gandhi (reviewer). 4
Satyen Ray (1992: 67–71), in the span of Tagore’s creative life one could delineate four distinct phases that testify the different thoughts and ideas to which he was responding and resolving through his creations. The book has not taken this as one of its parameters, rather Tagore’s creative oeuvre is seen as an unbroken entity. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res.
not clear why she considers the contrasts on certain issues (be they philosophical) qualify as being‘fundamental’(Puri2015: xvii).
This book is an exercise in‘compare and contrast’—comparisons on similarities and
contrasted on their differences. One of the assumptions of such a task is that the two entities have to be comparable with sufficient evidences of differences between them. However, one of the requirements for such an exercise of‘comparison and contrast’to
be successful is for the author to use the same lens when examining their ideas; another requirement could possibly be to look at the ways in which Tagore and Gandhi thought about each other. A discussion could have been included on trying to understand why Patanjali’sYoga Sutrathat had immense influence on Gandhi, did not or could not have
appealed to Tagore given the template of his emphasis on unfettering the mind through the exercise of the intellect rather than through the disciplining of the body as stressed inYoga Sutra. To spell it out a little further, it is important to ask if Gandhi’s meaning of
vratas,niyamas,yamas,tapasand mantras would find any resonance in Tagore. The book has some lacunae in these and other aspects as the major argument is founded on the apparent differences between Tagore and Gandhi while ignoring the themes on which both found common cause and the strong impetus to come together as one voice on various occasions as has been shown by a number of scholars across disciplines.5
Tagore and Gandhi did not respond to each other as one philosopher to another; rather their interchange was tempered by their shared understanding of each other’s
dharma and its compulsions. When Gandhi said,‘when there is war, the poet lays down
the lyre’; Tagore responded by expressing his inability to suspend his poetic life, to
depart from the‘poet’s religion…to destroy theswadharmaof all creative minds that is
self-defeating as a means, however noble the ends.…We have an accord between the
two on the ends, but a difference in the means’(cited in Bhattacharya1997: 23). On
another occasion, Tagore had remarked,‘Poems I can spin, songs I can spin, but what a
mess I would make, Gandhiji of your precious cotton’.6In a letter to Subhas Bose,
Tagore wrote,‘Mahatma Gandhi has succeeded within a brief period in leading the
entire Indian mind from one epoch into another. He has achieved what none else could so far: he has moved the mind not simply of a handful of politicians but that of the wide commonality of Indians.…the new strength that he has brought back to the deadened
mind of the people. None of us could instil this vitality in the whole of the country’.7In
Mahatma Gandhi (1932) a series of addresses on the occasions of Gandhi’s birth
anniversaries observed and celebrated in the asrama, we see the reflection of Tagore’s
respect and reverence for Gandhi. The volume starts with extracts from the only English poem Tagore wrote,‘The Child’, followed by his deep respect for the‘Man
of Truth’who demonstrated that the truth of immortality even if there is death in the ‘non-violent battle of righteousness’(p. 25). On a lighter vein,‘Gandhi had the rare gift
of being able to temper his discipline (both of the self and others) with a strong sense of compassion, personal humility as well as a self-deprecating sense of humour’
5‘
In the ultimate analysis it appears that Tagore and Gandhi spoke in two different registers…pursuing two different vocations.…both were complementary–agreeing upon the fundamentals of a highly pluralistic culture and a tolerant Indian society,dharmaas a personal and ethical principle of conduct…to work out a discursive interface of culture and politics that mark the self-reflexive process of India awakening to itself…’(Mohapatra2011: 111; see also footnote 9).
6
Cited in Parekh (2010: 42) quoted from Elmhirst (2008).
7
Cited in Sarkar (2013: 199).
(Hardiman2003: 31) that must have appealed to Tagore’s sensibilities. We see many
similarities in the ways both approached history,‘Gandhi had a strong sense of history’
(ibid: 36). Both Tagore and Gandhi recognized that‘there are many competing histories
and possibilities and that the subject of the discipline can also be those which lie outside the history of the nation state’(ibid: 36, 37; see also Tagore2010and Gandhi1938).
Puri has tellingly used Iris Murdoch’s works to help us understand Gandhi’s
morality and the compulsions of a‘good human life involved the self in a quest for
knowledge or Truth’(Puri2015: 47).8She has drawn many parallels between Gandhi’s
and Iris Murdoch’s ideas—this certainly is contemporaneous with Gandhi’s concern
about the moral life as lived. However, making a connection betweenYoga Sutra(2nd or 3rd CE) and Iris Murdoch (1970) requires a major intellectual leap in time; Murdoch, who is expected to have intellectually encountered Gandhi, obviously does not mention him in her writings (or Puri would have referred to it) as one who could have filled, according to her the‘void in present-day moral philosophy’(see Puri: 43).
Gandhi’s affinity forYoga Sutracan be appreciated from the point of view of the
religious strains to which Gandhi was traditionally exposed from his childhood9as well as his habit of culling from various faiths through his reading and experimentation. It is not difficult to understand the appeal of Patanjali to a ritualistic Gandhi (Erikson1970: 157). But the thesis of near domination of theYoga Sutraon Gandhi’s thoughts has not
been convincing—it does not explain his modernism and the willingness to learn from
many sources—in the spirit ofbahudha. On the other hand, it is conjectured, Tagore
would not have much to comment if asked to considerYoga Sutra—the material and
physical aspects of this school would not have appealed to him. Thus, using this text as a foundation for considering a possible comparison and contrast exercise does not hold out. Tagore and Gandhi’s convergences and differences could be better understood
when seen through the prisms of‘manyness’(anekantavad) (ibid: 157), of the idea of
one’s dharma and of course the spiritual sustenance both drew from theUpanisads.
Looking at some of Gandhi’s central ideas of truth, Puri justifies her interpretation of
the concepts and principles as possessing complexity and multiplicity, especially so when the same were translated into acts of volition and almost given the status of religion. For example, there is evidence to suggest that Gandhi’s ideas of‘celibacy’(to
mention one such idea), a derivative of his practice of truth, were influenced by the works of Paul Bureau (1920), William Loftus Hare and William R. Thurstone.10
It is in the light of the above the question may well be asked,‘What comes first–the
text or the context?’It is important to keep going back to the text in order not to miss
out on the author (Dev2015: 13). It is in this context that Puri has not faulted—she has
used multiple texts in constructing Gandhi-Tagore’s ideas for the reader; there is,
however, a certain overemphasis on projecting Gandhi as a philosopher rather than a highly reflective individual given to philosophizing as evidenced from the texts that he has left behind. It is difficult to see Gandhi even as a political philosopher (Hardiman
2003: 7), though he gave the world a new way of ‘doing’ politics. Philosophy for
8
Bringing Murdoch into the discussion is an unexplained move—the appropriateness of Murdoch’s thesis in discussing Gandhi is justified but why the choice was made has not been academically argued by Puri.
9See Stevens (2006), Jung’s concept of‘collective unconscious’could provide us a way to understand how
archetypes akin to Plato’s ideas contributed to the germination of the idea of‘cardinal virtues’that Gandhi believed were universal in nature, pp. 46–53.
10
Cited in Alter (2000: 8). J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res.
Gandhi was more for testing his notions on himself—his autobiography bears out this
in ample measure. If he was a philosopher he was a‘doing philosopher’rather than a
systemic one. Tagore, on the other hand developed a very special point of view that allowed him abstraction of ideas and notions that were accepted, if not as full-fledged philosophical systems or schools, but certainly as the philosophy of universal humanism.
‘What is Truth?…Gandhiji always held that Truth is God. Truth has two sides–as
the Upanishads say....Gandhiji concentrated more on what is near while Tagore dwelt more on the distant’ (Malik 1961:11–12). From another point of view Tagore and
Gandhi have been depicted,‘…the cherisher of beauty vs. the ascetic; the artist vs. the
utilitarian; the thinker vs. the man of action; the individualist vs. the populist; the modernist vs. the reactionary; the believer in science vs. the scientist’(Larson 2011:
98).11When Tagore was only 17 years of age, he engaged with Bankimchandra over the issue of‘truth’spread across a series of articles. Tagore appears to be unflinchingly
idealist when he challenged Bankim’s justification of Sri Krishna’s utterances in the
Mahabharata(Bhattacharya2011: 155–223). We see a shift in Tagore’s idealism to a
more pragmatic approach to public issues. Many years later, in an autograph book where Gandhi had written that a promise once made is to be defended even if at the cost of one’s life, Tagore had written below that such a promise is to be flung away.12Tagore
had become more of a realist as he grew older and we see this aspect reflected in his correspondence with Gandhi either on truth, nation, superstition, etc.
Reflective individuals participating in the concerns of the times they live in are engaged in philosophical questions—some do so unconsciously while a few do so with
all their intellectual rigour and reason. Gandhi and Tagore belong to the latter category, though neither has taken his ideas to the levels of doctrine or credo. There may not be such a direct connection between philosophical engagement and being considered a philosopher in the professional sense of the term. Most of Tagore’s cornucopia of ideas
on truth is gauged from his vast bodies of writings, essays and creative works. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan says,‘[Tagore’s] philosophy is the ancient wisdom of India
restated to meet the needs of modern times’.13Gandhi’s philosophically reflective ideas,
apart from his writings (vast) are corroborated by rather public displays of action. The former was a writer per se while the latter was one by default, i.e. his written works were the expression of his evolving ideas in the service of particular actions.‘Gandhi
never sought to provide a grand political theory e.g., an ideological system. He worked out his theory–his truth–as praxis and understood that it had to evolve constantly in
relation to his and other people’s experience. He followed the dialogic method …
knowledge is seen to arise from discussion rather than from a unified philosophical system/treatise…from which the internal contradictions have been removed.…Any
true understanding is dialogic in nature’(Hardiman2003: 7). Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
has said, ‘Gandhi [did not] set before himself the task of [creating] systems of
philosophy…as Descartes, Spinoza, Hegel etc.…Gandhi is not an academic
philoso-pher. [However when] Gandhi asks such questions‘What is Ahimsa? What is truth?
What is God? [they are reminiscent of the questions] asked by Socrates, ‘What is
11
Larson probably refers to Gandhi’sMy Experiments with Truthwhen he calls Gandhi a scientist!
12
Sen (1983).
13
Cited in Lal (1973, p. 49).
justice? What is virtue? etc. [Gandhi] was concerned with fundamental human situa-tions’(1997: 20).
Gandhi’s method of engaging with knowledge suggests that he thought it is essential
to have some sounding boards to test out his ideas and develop them further. What better sounding board could have Gandhi found other than in the Tagore–Gandhi
correspondence over a remarkable 26 years?‘Gandhi was bored by those who always
agreed with him’ (Rao 1978: 149); in this too, Tagore stands in good stead. C.F.
Andrews, like some others, also contributed to Gandhi’s dialogic method. It was in
Gandhi’s nature to challenge a position, be it philosophical, political or social, taking
those items that appealed to his sensibilities and concerns of the moment and giving them the Gandhi torque. Tagore, on the other hand, could ignore more completely that which had no appeal for him, choosing to live his life according to the philosophic principles ‘influenced by Upanisads and the Vedanta as well as the influences of
Vaisnavism and the teachers of the Bhakti-marga’ (Lal1973: 48). There is another
dimension to be considered, the ways in which the two public figures lived out their lives; Tagore did not think it necessary to lay bare himself in public though expressing clearly in no ambiguous terms what his opinions and ideas were while Gandhi in his praxis of truth felt that his everyday life should be like an open book. He was a public figure and he believed that his life was open to meticulous recording and inspection both of which he dutifully performed and invited the public gaze. The Tagore–Gandhi
correspondence can be seen from this dialogic perspective.
The book under review raises the different aspects of insights/understanding that could be gained from perusing this correspondence/dialogue. The author delineates two primary reasons for this exercise: (a) to understand Gandhi as a philosopher and (b) how the debate between the two contributed to the creation of India. The author has presumably chosen the position that Tagore was accepted as a philosopher while Gandhi grew into one over the years through his experiments with truth. In order to derive Gandhi’s philosophical thinking into system(s), the author essays to provide us
the systems of knowledge from which Gandhi derived his‘philosophy’and how his
philosophy was inextricably woven with the shaping of India not only as an idea but as a nation. The author chooses to take a serious note of the fundamental philosophical differences between Tagore and Gandhi while not denying the areas of agreement between them. In this, she treads a somewhat singular path when seen against the many scholars who have justifiably elected, to focus on the enduring aspects of the interre-lationships between these two otherwise differing personalities.14 Tagore was philo-sophical but he did not see himself a philosopher, and as Patrick Hogan says,‘a great
deal of Tagore’s intellectual effort was aimed at dislodging fixed opinions because he
probably felt an intuitive distaste for unreflective conformity to doctrine’(2003: 9).15
Puri has forayed into the discourse of the subtext of the texts created by Tagore and Gandhi rather extensively, and it is probably her training in the skills of philosophical enquiry that lead her to the questions she raises. She has tried to bring in the angles of the specific schools of thought that directly impacted Gandhi and the portions he appropriated for himself for his praxis; in the case of Tagore, the same analytical rigour
14
Tapan Raychaudhuri, 1999; K. Sengupta, 2005; Amartya Sen, 2005 cited in Puri (2015); Jawaharlal Nehru as cited in Ahluwalia and Ahluwalia (1981, p. 13).
15
Cited in Dasgupta et al. (2013, p. 11). J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res.
has not been exhibited. The book being about arguably the two of the greatest personalities of the twentieth century will attract attention of cross-section of readers and, in this work, they will confront another angle of interpretation. The omission of many works from the references leave one unsatisfied; there is no mention of the singular work of Erik Erikson’s understanding of Gandhi’s truth that is the only
psychoanalytic study on Gandhi and the construction of his self orswa.16
References
Ahluwalia, B. K., & Ahluwalia, S. (1981).Tagore and Gandhi (the Tagore Gandhi controversy). New Delhi: Pankaj Publications.
Alter, J. S. (2000).Gandhi’s body: sex, diet and the politics of nationalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Bhattacharya, A. (2011).Prabandha panchasat: prasanga Rabindranath. Kolkata: Ananda.
Bhattacharya, S. (1997).The mahatma and the poet: letters and debates between Gandhi and Tagore 1915–
1941. New Delhi: National Book Trust.
Bhattacharya, S. (2015).‘Foreword’. Bindu Puri.The Tagore-Gandhi debate on matters of truth and untruth. New Delhi: Springer India.
Chakravarty, B. (2011). Swadeshi samaj: Rabindranath and the nation. In S. Ganguli & A. Sen (Eds.), Rabindranath and the nation: essays in politics, society and culture. Kolkata: Punascha and Visva-Bharati.
Dasgupta, S., Chakravarti, S., & Mathews, M. (2013).Radical Rabindranath: nation, family and gender in Tagore’s fiction and films. New Delhi: Orient Black Swan.
Dev, A. (2015). Apropos. In T. Mukhopadhyay & A. Sen (Eds.),Rabindranath and his circle. Santiniketan: Rabindra Bhavana.
Elmhirst, L. K. (2008).The poet and plowman. Kolkata: Visva-Bharati.
Erikson, E. H. (1970).Gandhi’s truth: on the origins of militant nonviolence. London: Faber and Faber. Gandhi, M.K. (1938). Speech at Talimi Sangh.Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG), 73.
Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press.
Hardiman, D. (2003).Gandhi in his times and ours. New Delhi: Permanent Black. Kakar, S. (2013).Young Tagore: the making of a genius. New Delhi: Penguin.
Lal, B. K. (1973).Contemporary Indian philosophy. Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass Publishers Private Limited. Larson, G.J., cited in Pratapaditya Pal (Ed.) (2011).Something old, something new:Rabindranath Tagore
150th birth anniversary volume. New Delhi: Marg.
Malik, G. (1961).Gandhi and Tagore. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press.
Mohapatra, A. K. (2011). Tagore and Gandhi: limits of nationalism and culture-politics interface. In S. Ganguli & A. Sen (Eds.),Rabindranath and the nation: essays in politics, society and culture. Kolkata: Punascha and Visva-Bharati.
Parekh, S. (2010).Gandhi vs Tagore. Kolkata: Visva-Bharati.
Pruthi, R. K., & Chaturvedi, A. (2009).Political philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. New Delhi: Commonwealth Publishers.
Puri, B. (2015).The Tagore-Gandhi debate on matters of truth and untruth. New Delhi: Springer India. Ray, S. (1992).Rabindranather Chintajagat: Darshanchinta. Kolkata: Granthalaya.
Rao, R., cited in Hugh Grey (1978).“Gora”, Gandhi’s atheist follower. In P. Robb and D. Taylor (Eds.)Rule, protest,identity:aspects of modern South Asia.London: Curzon Press.
Sarkar, S. K. (2013).Collected papers on Rabindranath Tagore. Kolkata: Dey’s Publishing. Sen, A. (1983).Ananda sarba kaje. Kolkata: Tagore Research Institute.
Stevens, A. (2006).Jung: a very short introduction. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Suhrud, T.,‘Hind Swaraj: A Note’cited in Shailesh Parekh (2011). Swadeshi Samaj and Hind Swaraj’. In S. Ganguli and A. Sen (Eds.)Rabindranath and the nation:essays in politics,society and culture. Kolkata: Punascha and Visva-Bharati.
Tagore, R. (2010). The message of India’s history. InIntroduction to Tagore. Kolkata: Visva-Bharati.
16
A recent work on Tagore by the renowned psychoanalyst, Kakar (2013) provides an interesting insight into the construction of Tagore’s creativity.
