Between 1915 and 1941 Tagore (1861-1941) and Gandhi (1869-1948) differed and argued about many
things of personal national and international significance---satyagraha non-cooperation the
boycott and burning of foreign cloth the efficacy of fasting as a means of resistance and
Gandhi's mantra connecting swaraj and charkha. The author tracks the development of this
dialogue and argues that the debate was about more fundamental issues such as the nature of
truth and swaraj freedom and the possibilities of untruth that Tagore saw in Gandhi's movements
for truth and freedom. Puri shows that the differences between the two men's perspectives came
from differently negotiated relationships to (and understandings of) tradition and modernity.
Tagore was part of the Bengal renaissance and powerfully influenced by the idea that the
Enlightenment consisted in the freedom of the individual to reason for herself. Gandhi on the
other hand remained close to the Indian philosophical tradition which linked individual
freedom to moral progress. Puri points out that Tagore cannot however be unreflectively
assimilated to the Enlightenment project of Western modernity for he came fairly close to
Gandhi in rejecting the anthropocentricism of modernity and shared Gandhi's belief in an
enchanted cosmos. The only single-authored volume on the Tagore-Gandhi debate this book is a
welcome addition to the existing literature.
