Eco-Ethical Philosophy: Understanding Rabindranath Tagore's Alternative Approach and Care Paradigm in his Symbiotic Ecologism

This article aims to explore the ecological insights of Indian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. His philosophical reasoning is invoked here to assess individual sanity and dilemmas concerning ecological well-being. Imbued with the spiritual consciousness of Upanishadic philosophy, Tagore provides a distinctive, holistic approach to the ecological debate that I identify as symbiotic ecologism. He draws extensively from the Tapovan (forest) idea in ancient Indian philosophy, where life was lived holistically amidst the vibrancy of Nature. He believes in a perfect symbiosis of all existence in the universe. His eco-ethical philosophy is not based on antagonistic dualism but on the fundamental principles of love, care, cooperation, kinship, reverence, humility and gratitude. My work is based on the textual analysis of selected pieces from Tagore’s work that I found relevant to this eco-ethical study. Notably, his childhood memoir My Reminiscences (1912), selected songs from Geetabitan (1932), letters in Glimpses of Bengal (1895), essays "Shakuntala" (1902), "Palliprakriti" (1928), "Aranyadevata" (1939), and the short stories "Subha" (1893), and "Balai" (1928) are explored in this work. This article aims to review Rabindranath Tagore's ecological vision. My argument is based on current dominant theoretical debates and Tagore's thoughts on the environment; it aims to highlight the points of conjunction and divergence between Tagore's vision and the dominant paradigm in ecological discourse. Tagore's insightful engagement with Nature and its significance for life sustenance on Earth is explored in this paper through an eco-ethical approach to the care paradigm.