Writing in 1962, Bengali writer, academic and raconteur Syed Mujtaba Ali recalls a particular memory while he was a student at Visva-Bharati. He had taken a newly acquired autograph book to his Gurudev Rabindranath, asking for a message. Rabindranath had written: ‘May my country realise that its fulfilment lies in truthful harmony with other countries’.

Pursuing truthful harmony in relationships between humans, and between humans and non-humans may well be the most fundamental feature of Tagore’s thought. Today, eight decades after Tagore’s death, India continues to move further and further away from harmony – engendering and reinforcing division and oppression between majority and minority communities on the one hand, and strengthening a voracious capitalism intent on creating exploitative hierarchies between human and non-human subjects on the other.

In this context, the editors of Gitanjali and Beyond are delighted to invite contributions to our next special issue on Sustainability and Secularism. We encourage a wide range of interpretations of these themes in Tagore’s thought, the effect these ideas have had on his work, and its legacy among his followers.

Please submit articles to [email protected] by 28 February 2023.

Guidelines for submissions can be found here: gitanjaliandbeyond.co.uk/submissions