Apparently Tagore is Back in Vogue in China

It seems that old Rabindranath Tagore is back for one of his periodic returns to fashionability in China as the political and intellectual winds shift yet again. See here and here two articles on Tagore’s return to popularity by Chitralekha Basu in the China Daily (and if they say it’s OK to like him then it must be official!). Apparently there are over 50 students doing Phds on Tagore related subjects.

Personally I don’t envy the poor professor who has to read all those 50 papers. Tagore’s contacts, visits and reception in Republican China is interesting in terms of what it says about the various factions in China at the time. However, personally I can’t be doing with the poetry myself (probably nothing personal, just doesn’t do it for me). My own theory, for what it’s worth, about the return of Tagore is that he was a great example of someone who could be whatever you wanted to anyone whenever required. Hardly a coherent body of thought to my ears and fits beautifully with the official return of an anyway you like it version of Confucianism currently being touted by the Party. Of course inevitably Tagore’s utterances are being used selectively – not so much on his pro-Japan phase for instance.

Darlings of Bloomsbury becoming darlings of the CPC! – may you live in interesting times as they supposedly say.