EVENTS

According to records available with the Shanghai Municipal Archives Bureau, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore visited China in April and May 1924 and later in March and June 1929 and stopped at Shanghai during each of these trips. Tagore had a lifelong friendship with the Shanghai-based poet Xu Zhimo, and through that he developed a very unique bond with Shanghai. I discovered this when I was posted in Shanghai from 2008 to 2012. With the help of Shanghai-based poet Mr. Zhao Lihong, the President of the Shanghai Writers Association, I was able to bring together many scholars, artists, poets and writers who helped the Consulate General of India to conduct research on Tagore’s visits to Shanghai and East China including to Nanjing and Hangzhou. On the basis of this research Mr. Xing Jianrong put together a book which was published on the occasion of Tagore’s 150th Birth Anniversary. The book Rabindranath Tagore in Shanghai was a joint publication of Shanghai Municipal Archives Bureau and the Consulate General of India in Shanghai. Later the photographs and material collected for the book were also put together in the form of an exhibition which travelled to some major cities of India. This seminar explores the historic journey of Tagore to Shanghai.

About the Speaker

Riva Ganguly Das joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1986. She is a Post Graduate in Political Science from Delhi University. As a career Diplomat, Ambassador Das has served at various positions in several countries. As Joint Secretary in the Public Diplomacy division and as Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, she has developed a great deal of experience in Soft Power Diplomacy. Ambassador Das also has extensive experience of multilateral Diplomacy and has participated in many environmental negotiations, particularly climate change. As Alternate Permanent Representative of India to the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) at The Hague, she has worked on non-proliferation and disarmament issues. Currently, she is in the Governing Council of Asian Confluence, a think tank based in Shillong, Meghalaya. She is also a Distinguished Fellow at Council for Strategic and Defense Research (CSDR). Ambassador Das has recently been elected to the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council.

About the Chair

Sabaree Mitra is a Professor of Chinese in Jawaharlal Nehru University and an Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi. Her teaching and research have spanned the fields of contemporary Chinese literature and criticism, Chinese cultural history, gender issues, India-China cultural relations and regional interaction. Her latest publication is, an edited volume titled China’s May Fourth Movement: New Narratives and Perspectives, published by Routledge in 2023. She has recently taken over as Editor of the ICS quarterly journal, China Report, now in its 60th year of publication.

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