Victory to Him, whose voice thunders forth Truth. Whose right arm smites the unrighteous, Whose guidance leads mortals across death! (chanted by the devotees to Bhairava [1])… The issue of Sustainability and Secularism was scheduled to be published in the summer of 2023 as we felt it was a crucial subject in today’s world which faces the devastating impact of the climate crisis and the rise of religious intolerance across the world.
In the meantime, we have had two guest edited editions entitled, Organiverse (creative) and Precarious Lives: Uncertain Futures (academic) – which were both peer-reviewed and submitted as finished editions which reflected the ethos of Gitanjali and Beyond. These became issues 7 and 8, respectively, as we waited for the double-blind peer reviews of the academic articles that needed to be submitted for our Sustainability and Secularism issue.
However, our peer reviewers have been under tremendous pressure from the uncertainty they have been facing in their teaching positions, thanks to a crushing juggernaut of a corporate-like system which seems to be seeping into universities, devaluing good teachers and researchers as institutions seem to be keen on working with part time and 0-hour contract teachers, for whom their colleagues in permanent and full time positions have been taking industrial action to ensure the dignity of job security for their colleagues in precarious positions. We have finally received all the double peer reviews for the academic section of the journal (for which we are truly grateful) and are now happy to see Sustainability and Secularism published in the Autumn of 2023 as Issue 9, keeping to our schedule of the annual publication of Gitanjali and Beyond within the stipulated year of 2023.
Sustainability and Secularism is a rich issue of around 400 pages with thoughtful academic and creative contributions from academics, writers, artists and critics, and we feel that it is a very timely intervention as the planetary degradation continues at a relentless pace and manmade conflicts cause displacement and humanitarian crises on an unprecedented scale. Today the tragedy of the Ukrainian War continues with no end in sight.
Sudan remains entrenched in a war between ruthless warring generals and the terrible attacks and counterattacks enmeshing Israel and Palestine in an apparently unstoppable chain of violence, mean that casualties will continue to rise on both sides, most of whom will be civilians – women, children, the elderly and the incapacitated. And in Tagore’s beloved post-independent India, more than eight decades after his death, the unmitigated tragedy of ethnic violence decimating social harmony in the North East, leaves a country aghast at the lack of political will to initiate a dialogue for peace to return to a people who deserve to live and prosper, assured of mutual respect with the return of human decency and dignity in their community…
1 Rabindranath Tagore, The Waterfall, in The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore Vol. 2, ed. by Sisir Kumar Das (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2012), pp. 163 – 208 (p. 207).2
Issue 9 – Autumn 2023
Title Page, Editorial Board, Advisory Board
Contents
Foreword (page 1)
Bashabi Fraser, Editor-in-Chief Gitanjali and Beyond
Introduction (page 4)
Section I: Academic (page 7 – 100)
1. Talat Ahmed – Samaj and Swaraj: the relevance of Gandhi and Tagore for the twenty-first century (page 8)
2. Madhurima Neogi – “from the healthful dust of the earth…:” An Ecocritical Study of Tagorean Education System (page 28)
3. Manosh Chowdhury – “Aamra Dujona Swargo-Khelona Goribo Naa Dharonite…”: Modern Self, Conjugality and Bhakti in Tagore Songs (page 44)
4. Sonja Stojadinovic – The Avatar: realistic science fiction between Mercantilism and Marxism (page 54)
5. Varadesh Hiregange – Tagore and Gandhi: two philosophies of education and ‘ecosophaesthetics’ (page 64)
6. Parantap Chakraborty – Rabindranath, Islam and the Ashram: Tagore’s quest for an inclusive India (page 77)
7. Shakti Mukherji – Rabindranath Tagore: A visionary of future ‘Sustainable Development’ (page 88)
Section II: Creative 101 – 315
Poetry: 101 – 222
8. Mario Relich – Badge of Identity, Miniature Globe: A Cold War Story (page 102)
9. Brian D’Arcy – Tsunami (2004), Remembrance Day Haiku (page 109)
10. Stewart Conn – Offshore (page 112)
11. Sheila Templeton – Broken (page 115)
12. A. C. Clarke – At the retreat centre, Consider the wild iris, Let’s hear it for windfarms (page 118)
13. Simon Fletcher – Tagore (page 122)
15. Vahid Davar – Ode to the F-14, Pastoral 5 (Prayer), Something the Colour of Pines on Fire (page 128)
16. Lakshmisree Banerjee – Hopes of Tomorrow, Nature Rhythm, Rethinking India (On 75 Years of Independence) (page 136)
17. Elspeth Brown – Flow country, Frog Against the World, Pond (page 142)
18. Gili Haimovich – In the Old City, Dust, New Delhi, New Year, The Land, Failed Secular (page 146)
19. Karla Brundage – e-co-dependent, Malignant, Beauty, Tumors, Benign (page 153)
20. Donald Adamson – Forebodings (page 160)
21. Catherine Nicolson – Pole Position (page 162)
22. Eveline Pye – Waste, Small Tortoiseshell, Technical Solution, Thresholds (page 164)
23. John Eliot – Conversation with the Reverend, Hello Father (page 169)
24. Santosh K Dary – Under the Open Sky (page 172)
25. Kathryn Waddell Takara – Double Swing Secret, On the Deck, Screaming Trees (page 175)
26. Jane Prior – Faces, Interactions, Anchored, Keenly comes the traveller (page 183)
27. Ross Donlon – Living Music (page 188)
28. Gillian Mellor – Once, forest existed just as forests (page 191)
29. Stuart Paterson – Katie’s Wood, Harelaw (page 194)
30. Preeti Kailey – A Song of Dust, Waters of life (page 197)
31. Sue Whitmore – Dragon, God’s old ear, When the waters rose (page 200)
32. Donna Campbell – Plumbing the Truth (page 205)
33. Em Strang – Crocus, The Calling of St. Matthew (page 208)
34. Chrys Salt – Missing you already.., Mountain Voices (page 212)
35. Lakshmi Arya Thathachar – Translation (page 216)
36. Debjani Chatterjee – Weather, Weather Tongue-twister (page 220)
Stories: 223 – 248
37. Meenakshi Bharat – Mushi (page 224)
38. Brian D’Arcy – Last Night (page 235)
39. Debjani Chatterjee – Mosquito (page 238)
Essays: 223 – 248
40. Malashri Lal – Desire in Ageing: A Literary Perspective (page 250)
41. Eveline Pye – Climate Change Poetry: Is It Effective? (page 259)
42. James Mackenzie – Invasion (page 269)
43. Richard C. Bower – An Indian Expedition 274)
Translation: 279 – 305
44. Chaitali Sengupta – Translated Poems from Rabindranath Tagore (On a Cloudy Day/ Meghla Dine, Seventeen Years/Sotero Bochor, Sorrow Ingrate/Kritoghno Shok) (page 280)
45. Sitesh Alok – The Noseless (page 285)
46. Saptaparna Roy – Tagore’s ‘Kabyar Tatparya’ (1894) Revisited (page 297)
Art: 306 – 315
47. Elizabeth Radice – The Eye in the Storm, The Lion and the Lamb, Dot To Dot, It Is Finished! (page 307)
Section III: Book Reviews 316 – 366
48. Maura McRobbie – Murder at the Mela by Leela Soma (page 317)
49. Mario Relich – Declarations of Love by Jim Aitken (page 320)
50. Somdatta Mandal – Tagore’s University: A History of Visva-Bharati 1921-1961 by Swati Ganguly (page 324)
51. Shreya Ganguly – Ambedkar: A Life by Shashi Tharoor (page 331)
52. Shyamasri Maji – The Last Days of Rabindranath Tagore in Memoirs Translated and Edited by Somdatta Mandal (page 338)
53. Mario Relich – The Queen’s Lender – A Novel Set in History by Jean Findlay (page 347)
54. Tania Chakravertty – It Begins at Home and Other Short Stories by Sanjukta Dasgupta (page 350)
55. Mridula Sharma – Murder at the Mela by Leela Soma (page 355)
56. Tania Chakravertty – Unbound: New and Selected Poems (1996 – 2021) by Sanjukta Dasgupta Edited and Introduced by Jaydeep Sarangi and Sanghita Sanyal (page 358)
57. Bashabi Fraser – Language, Limits and Beyond: Early Wittgenstein and Rabindranath Tagore by Priyambada Sarkar (page 363)
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