Rabindranath Tagore: a biography

Urna Dasgupta, Rabindranath Tagore: a biography, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004, 104 pp., ISBN: 978-0195669800.

Rabindranath Tagore's life and work excited the interest in people all over the world and a huge amount of literature has been created by scholars in different languages. An important addition to this collection is the book written by Uma Dasgupta, who has researched extensively on Tagore and Vishwa Bharati. In Rabindranath Tagore: a biography Urna Dasgupta has dealt with two important aspects of Tagore as an educator and a rural reformer (which Dasgupta considered to be lesser researched areas). She uses in this work her extensive research on the history of Vishwa Bharati. Since Tagore was primarily a man of words she also analyses those concerns which featured in his writings and actions, i.e. racial humiliation, search for self esteem, India's history, nationalism and internationalism, education, religion, Religion of Man, Humanism and Jiban Devata or Lord of Life.

In the ten chapters of the book the author has skillfully brought out nuances in the various aspects of the versatile genius' life. At the end, as Appendix, she has added twelve letters written by the Poet which have not yet published. This is an extremely valuable addition to the already existing huge archive of Tagore's correspondence.

In the first chapter, "Poet and his times", she traces how he inherited a revolutionary legacy - intellectual, spiritual and national - from his family. The Tagore family household at Jorasanko set up by his grandfather "Prince" Dwarakanath Tagore was a world in itself, containing values of the past and present in a creative way. Though Dwarakanath' s sojourn across the Kalapani upset many established social norms it was his son Debendranath who created a far greater upheaval by adopting Brahmoism. On an intellectual level Rabindranath was inspired by the strong advocacy for Bengali language by his elder brothers at a time when it was unfashionable to patronize it. In nationalism Rabindranath first found his niche as an active participant when he put his intellectual capabilities to write inspiring songs and essays in support of the Swadeshi movement (1905) before which he had dabbled in the neo-Hindu revival in the 1880s and 1890s. Disillusionment at the outbreak of violence led to Tagore's...