Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was an Indian poet, philosopher, and polymath. Tagore’s rise to prominence came with the publication of his collection of poems titled Gitanjali (Song Offerings) in 1910, which also earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. He was the first non-European laureate to win the award. Over the years, Tagore wrote many novels, short stories, essays, and plays that explored a wide range of themes, such as love, nature, and social issues. He was also a social reformer, advocating for women’s rights, education, and the upliftment of the marginalized sections of society.

Sugata Bose

Sugata Bose is the Gardiner professor of history at Harvard University. He was educated at Presidency College, Calcutta, and the University of Cambridge where he obtained his PhD and was later a fellow of St Catharine’s College. Before taking up the Gardiner Chair at Harvard in 2001, he was professor of history and diplomacy at Tufts University. Bose was a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and gave the G.M. Trevelyan Lecture at the University of Cambridge.

Bose, who is Netaji’s brother Sarat Chandra Bose’s grandson, is the author of many books, including Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital and the much-acclaimed The Nation as Mother and Other Visions of Nationhood and A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire. He has also made documentary films on South Asian history and politics and published recordings of his translations of Tagore.