Humanistic Trends in Contemporary Indian Philosophy (With Special Reference to Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi)

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Dr Aditi, graduated from Patna Women's College, Patna, Bihar. She has done her post-graduation in Philosophy from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. She was awarded her Ph. D. degree from Magadh University, Gaya (Bihar).

She has also presented many research papers in national and international seminars and conferences.

This work endeavours to present the basic tenets of humanism as outlined in the oriental and occidental philosophy. It also undertakes to state the more important problems of distortions in value and distorted realisation of human achievements over last two centuries. Today we come across a human society and civilisation which has developed a lot and created an independent frame for future course of development. Scientific learnings and technological excellence have enabled the human beings to conquer the forces of nature, to run over the moon and Mars. Yet the barbarism and indiscipline which characterised the primitive societies are common features of today's world. In security of human life, violence and terrorism marring the most fundamental right of life and overwhelming exploitation of everything which is downtrodden in the society are yet the common features. It makes us think that what is wrong with the course of development leading us back to the adoption of the primitive culture. Despite high sounding slogans of socialism, pragmatism and universalism, world is experiencing stratification both horizontally and vertically.

Humanism, in its modern version was popularised after Renaissance in Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This was manifested in the growth of liberalism and rationalism and finally in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These spirits travelled from the West and was assimilated into Indian soil. These ideals met the Indian prosperous. Indian philosophy which offered and added the spiritual dimension to the Western ideas, culminating into the cultural Renaissance in India in the nineteenth century.