Book excerpt: This book focuses on Rabindranath Tagore as a social and political thinker revolving around Tagore’s ideas on the seeds of civil society, nation, identities, and communities in the Indic tradition. The author deconstructs Tagore’s concepts against the appropriate resurgent and triumphalist Western concepts in the updated Western social thought and theories. The book examines Tagore’s understanding of the nature of the civil social sphere in India and analyzes the relevance of his civil social concepts against the backdrop of colonialism in India. It also discusses his views on nation and nationalism in India and his insights into the problems and prospects of intercommunity, particularly Hindu-Muslim relations in India. Applying current social science and Western literature in an unprecedented manner to interpret Tagore, this book will be of great interest to scholars, teachers, and students of politics, nationalism, postcolonialism, history, comparative literature, sociology, religious studies, and South Asian studies.