‘Dr Majumdar’s edition of the letters between Rabindranath Tagore and James Cousins illuminates a little-known friendship of the great Bengali writer and thinker with the Irish writer, teacher and Theosophist who made India his sec- ond home. Majumdar’s meticulous annotation of the correspondence and his wide-reaching introduction to the book make this an important contribution to the study of Tagore and the connections between Indian and Irish culture.’ Nicholas Grene, Emeritus Professor of English Literature, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland ‘Sirshendu Majumdar has brought to light a correspondence by two minds who fostered art, literature, and education in a time of upheaval and transnational change. Dr. Majumdar’s insights and impeccable scholarship reveals a friend- ship that was both more intimate and earnest than many literary friendships, including that of W.B. Yeats and Tagore. These letters are remarkable for their honesty, humor, and professional hopes—they veer in tone from reverential to professional to jocular. Majumdar’s expert overview helpfully puts their words in their cultural and historical contexts. By editing the letters of these two remark- able friends, educators, and cultural leaders, Majumdar has done a great service to students and scholars of Indian and Irish revivalism, as well as postcolonial studies. In reading these exchanges, we witness a rare exception to colonialist dynamics: Tagore’s and Cousins’s shared, and enviable, vision for a universal humanism.’ Joseph Lennon, Associate Dean, International and Interdisciplinary Initiatives; Emily C. Riley Director of Irish Studies; Professor, Department of English, Villanova University, USA, and author of Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History ‘As James Cousins wrote to Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Poets get put to queer jobs’. A quarter century of correspondence between these poets, carefully edited and contextualised by Sirshendu Majumdar, demonstrates a close ideological affin- ity between Irish cultural nationalism and Indian cultural self-assertion. Both poets proposed an alternative modernity, challenging the modes of metropoli- tan modernity in Britain and Europe, because each worked in the context of decolonisation. Practical educators and organisers of education, their shared pedagogical ideals and project — a humanist and counter-imperialist universal- ism — integrated arts and crafts, music and dance, poetry and philosophy into a holistic approach to the revival of the nation and world reform.’ Seán Golden, Former Professor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain RABINDRANATH TAGORE AND JAMES HENRY COUSINS This book presents a set of original letters exchanged between Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the eminent Irish poet and theosophist, James Henry Cousins. Through these letters, the volume explores their shared ideas of culture, art, aesthetics, and education in India; aspects of Irish Orientalism; Irish literary revival; theosophy, eastern knowledge, and spiritualism; cross-cultural dialogue and friendship; Renaissance in India; anti-imperialism; nationalism; internationalism; and cosmopolitanism. The book reveals a hitherto unexplored facet concerning two leading thinkers in the history of ideas in a transnational context. With its lucid style, extensive annotations and a comprehensive Introduction, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of Indian literature, Bengali literature, comparative literature, South Asian studies, Tagore studies, modern Indian history, philosophy, cultural studies, education, political studies, postcolonial studies, India studies, Irish history, and Irish literature. It will also interest general readers and the Bengali diaspora. Sirshendu Majumdar is Associate Professor of English, Bolpur College, West Bengal, India. He is the author of Yeats and Tagore: A Comparative Study of Cross- Cultural Poetry, Nationalist Politics, Hyphenated Margins and the Ascendancy of the Mind (2013) and co-editor of Rabindranath Tagore: Humanity and Cultural Affinity (2016). His areas of interest are Irish studies, WB Yeats, Rabindranath Tagore, modern European literature, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Bengal, print culture and translation. He was a Trinity Long Room Hub Visiting Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, 2018–2019. RABINDRANATH TAGORE AND JAMES HENRY COUSINS A Conversation in Letters, 1915–1940 Edited with an Introduction, Notes, and Appendices by Sirshendu Majumdar First published 2022 By Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Sirshendu Majumdar; individual contributions, the authors The right of Sirshendu Majumdar to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual contributions, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to contact owners of copyright regarding the text and visual material reproduced in this book and permissions have been sought. Perceived omissions if brought to notice will be rectified in future printing. The author and publisher welcome correspondence if inadvertently any source remains unacknowledged. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-67650-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-71114-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-14935-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003149354 Typeset in Bembo By Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India In memory of Bikash Chakravarty CONTENTS List of figures x Preface xii Acknowledgements xiv Chronology 1 Introduction 10 The Letters 67 Works Consulted 123 Appendix 129 Index 156 FIGURES 1a/b Facsimile of Rabindranath Tagore’s first letter to James Cousins, dated 14 November 1915. Source: Rabindra- Bhavana Archive, Visva-Bharati, West Bengal, India. Reproduced with permission 69 2 Rabindranath Tagore in America, 13 March 1921. Note: Tagore gave lectures on nationalism in America in 1916– 1917. This image of him in America is from a later period. Source: Rabindra-Bhavana Archive, Visva-Bharati, West Bengal, India. Reproduced with permission 72 3 Rabindranath Tagore looking out of a train window in Japan in 1916. Source: Rabindra-Bhavana Archive, Visva- Bharati, West Bengal, India. Reproduced with permission 79 4 Rabindranath Tagore outside Okakura’s villa residence in Japan, 1916; photograph by K Maekawa. Note: This image is of the time when Tagore gave lectures on nationalism in Japan in 1916. Source: Rabindra-Bhavana Archive, Visva- Bharati, West Bengal, India. Reproduced with permission 87 5 Foundation of Visva-Bharati Parisad-Sabha at Amrakunja, 23 December 1921. Note: L-R, Sitting: Acharya, Brojendranath Seal, Sylvain Levi, Rabindranath Tagore, Nilratan Sarkar, CF Andrews, Vidhusekhar Sastri, Mahasthavir Dharmadhar, Tapan Mohan Chatterjee L-R, Standing: Surendranath Kar, Nepal Chandra Roy, Rathindranath Tagore. Source: Rabindra-Bhavana Archive, Visva-Bharati, West Bengal, India. Reproduced with permission 95 Figures xi 6 Rabindranath Tagore taking class in Santiniketan. Source: Rabindra-Bhavana Archive, Visva-Bharati, West Bengal, India. Reproduced with permission 102 7 Rabindranath Tagore with students of Santiniketan who performed Sapmochan in Ceylon in May 1934. Note: It is presumably the same troupe that performed the dance- drama Sapmochan in Madras in October 1934. Source: Rabindra-Bhavana Archive, Visva-Bharati, West Bengal, India. Reproduced with permission 104 8 James Henry Cousins in the 1940s. Source: James H. Cousins, Collected Poems, 1894–1940 (Madras: Kalakshetra, 1940) 120 9a/b Facsimile of James Cousins’s last letter to Rabindranath Tagore, dated 1 December 1940. Source: Rabindra- Bhavana Archive, Visva-Bharati, West Bengal, India. Reproduced with permission 122 PREFACE Rabindranath Tagore (Thākur, in Bengali; 1861–1941) was a poet, dramatist, novelist, short story writer, music composer and writer of songs, essayist, painter, founder of a school and a university, educationist, and thinker. He is the first non- Western recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1913) and is modern India’s cultural icon. During his long eighty years of life, he produced an astounding amount of writing and more than two thousand five hundred drawings and paintings; he also wrote thousands of letters to his relatives and associates, and also to friends, Indian as well as western. James Henry Cousins (1873–1956) was an Irish poet, dramatist, journalist, and teacher, and, later on, an art critic; he was also a theosophist. He made a significant contribution to the early phase of the Irish Revival. He migrated to India along with his wife, Margaret Cousins, in 1915, to serve as the literary