What prompted the embassy to take up the celebration? What is so special about Tagore's Nobel?
The Embassy of Sweden is delighted to celebrate the centenary of Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel Prize in Literature. The 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature remains an exceptional milestone in the history of Indo-Swedish relations. Given at a time when the exposure to India was restricted but to a handful of Swedes, the award stands testimony to the vision of the Swedish Academy to reward the works of India's poet par excellence.
As an ambassador, one of my tasks is to try and bring Sweden closer to India and India closer to Sweden. The government can do a lot in this regard: we can for example facilitate trade, student exchange, and political visits in both directions. We can also try and bring about a deeper understanding of each other's countries, of each other. This is perhaps the most difficult and it is in this regard that the arts and humanities can do so much.
Tagore is a household name in India, more so in Bengal. What's the scene in Sweden?
His books were translated into Swedish and for several decades thereafter Tagore was a famous name in Sweden, a country he visited twice, in 1921 and 1926. Interestingly enough, the first book which was translated into Swedish was The Gardener (love poems) and the Crescent Moon (prose poems) and not Gitanjali.
In recent years a renewed interest towards Rabindranath Tagore and his literary work has grown in Sweden, fuelled by new congenial translations of his poetry and songs from Bengali into English and Swedish.
Tagore's Nobel medal was stolen from Visva-Bharati in Santiniketan about a decade ago. The Nobel Academy has since given V-B a duplicate. Was it the only such instance?
There are other copies of Nobel in the Nobel museum in Sweden. However, the case with a replacement by the Nobel Foundation replacing the original medal with a new copy is the only one I know of. Providing a copy to Santiniketan was important
What are your thoughts on Tagore's relevance in this day and age?
Rabindranath Tagore was a man clearly ahead of his time. His works which were written almost a century ago have relevance and resonate in today's world as well. Perhaps the central issues that moved Tagore most are the importance of open-minded reasoning and the celebration of human freedom as he effectively embraced humanism and universalism as opposed to patriotism and regionalism.
How are relations between India and Sweden? How significant a role has the Nobel Academy played in fostering closer ties?
Sweden and India are very different countries in nearly all aspects, size, history, culture, economic development etc. At the same time, we have had close and deep relations for a very long time, dating back hundreds of years, to a time when Swedish traders started appearing in Asia.
From early independence in the late 1940s and the 1950s a deep friendship developed between our countries, built on shared values of non-alliance in military and strategic alliances of the time, on the importance of the United Nations, on the importance of economic development, decolonization etc. From the 1950's onwards we have also cooperated in a lively and fruitful development cooperation programme.
Much of the direct contacts between our countries are in the private arena, in people-to-people relations. Trade in goods and services build relations and so do investment. An estimated 600,000 Indians have employment in India as direct and indirect effect of Swedish industry's establishment here.
The Nobel Prize, and the legacy of Alfred Nobel, is of course one of the most well-known 'trademarks' of Sweden. I am convinced that it helps contributing to knowledge about Sweden around the world, a Sweden characterized by modernity, openness, knowledge and innovation.
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