Tagore family


Tagore Family Tree
Gobindapur
Panchanan · Sukdeb
Jairam
Pathuriaghata
Darpanarayan
Gopimohan
Harakumar · Chandrakumar · Prasanna Kumar
Gnanendramohan
Jatindramohan · Shourindramohan
Shoutindramohan
Jorasanko
Nilmoni
Ramlochan · Rammani · Ramballav
Dwarkanath · Ramanath
Debendranath · Girindranath · Nagendranath
Debendranath’s family
Generation 1
Dwijendranath · Satyendranath
Hemendranath · Birendranath
Jyotirindranath · Somendranath
Rabindranath · Soudamini
Sukumari · Saratkumari
Swarnakumari · Barnakumari
Generation 2
Dwijendranath's children
Dwipendranath · Arunendranath
Nitindranath · Sudhindranath
Kritendranath
Satyendranath's children
Surendranath · Indira · Kabindranath
Hemendranath's Children
Hitendranath · Kshitindranath
Ritendranath · Pratibha
Pragna ·Abhi · Manisha
Shovana · Sushama
Sunrita · Sudakshina
Purnima Devi
Birendranath's son
Balendranath
Rabindranath's children
Rathindranath · Shamindranath
Madhurilata · Renuka
Meera
Girindranath’s family
Generation 1
Ganendranath · Gunendranath
Generation 2
Gunendranath's children
Gaganendranath · Samarendranath
Abanindranath · Sunayani
Binayani

The Tagore family, with over three hundred years of history, has been one of the leading families of Calcutta, India, and is regarded as a key influence during the Bengal Renaissance. The family has produced several persons who have contributed substantially in the fields of business, social and religious reformation, literature, art and music.

Family history

The original surname of the Tagores were Kushari. They were Rarhi Brahmins and originally belonged to a village named Kush in the district named Burdwan in West Bengal. Rabindranath's biographer, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyaya, wrote in his book named Rabindrajibani O Rabindra Sahitya Prabeshika that: "The Kusharis were the descendants of Deen Kushari, the son of Bhatta Narayana; Deen was granted a village named Kush by Maharaja Kshitisura, he became its chief and came to be known as Kushari.

Background of Tagore

Tagores are Bengali Brahmins and settled in the region situated on the right bank of the River Hooghly in the 18th century.
Europeans started coming to Bengal in the 16th century, resulting in the founding of Ugulim by the Portuguese in 1579. The Battle of Plassey in 1757 resulted in the deposition of the last independent Nawab of Bengal. After the Battle of Buxar, the East India Company was given the right to collect revenues from Bengal. By 1793, the British East India Company had abolished the Nizamat and had taken control of the former Mughal province of Bengal.
The Bengal renaissance of the 19th century was a remarkable period of societal transformation in which a whole range of creative activities – literary, cultural, social and economic – flourished. The Bengal Renaissance was the culmination of the process of emergence of the cultural characteristics of the Bengali people that had started in the age of Hussein Shah. This spread over, covering around three centuries, and had a tremendous impact on Bengali society. Incidentally, that coincided with the rise of the Tagore family. The Tagore family attained prominence during this period through its unusual social positioning between Indian and European influences.
To quote Chitra Deb, "Though the cultural role of the Thakurs has received the greatest attention by far, their importance on final assessment is a composite one: commercial and political as well as literary and musical. They played a collective role in every patriotic movement of their times: Nabagopal Mitra's Hindu Mela, the Congress and the National Conference, the Rakhi Festival of 1905, and the Nationalist Movement generally. The story of the Thakurs is inseparable from the story of Calcutta, Bengal, and India."

The Pathuriaghata family

was well known for his wealth and in 1812, made what may be the largest ever gift of gold to the Kali temple at Kalighat. He was one of the founders of Hindu College, the institution that initiated western education in the country. He was fluent in English, and familiar with French, Portuguese, Sanskrit, Persian, and Urdu, apart from Bengali.
Prasanna Kumar Tagore,, son of Gopimohan Tagore, was one of the leaders of the Landholders' Society and later the president of the British Indian Association, the earliest organisations of Indians in the country. He had started as government lawyer but later turned his attention to family matters. Apart from being a director of Hindu College, he was involved with the activities of several institutions. Tagore Law Lectures are still organised by Calcutta University on the basis of donations he made. He was the founder of the first local theatre – the Hindu theatre. He was the first Indian to be appointed to the Viceregal Legislative Council.
Gnanendramohan Tagore, son of Prasannakumar Tagore, converted to Christianity and married Kamalmani, daughter of Krishna Mohan Banerjee. He was disowned by his father and disinherited, so he went to England and read for the bar from Lincoln's Inn, and became the first Indian to be qualified as a barrister. For some time afterward, he taught Hindu Law and Bengali at the University of London.
Maharaja Sir Jatindramohan Tagore, GCIE, KCSI, son of Harakumar Tagore, inherited the wealth of the Pathuriaghata branch. He contributed substantially to the development of theatre in Kolkata and was himself a keen actor. He inspired Michael Madhusudan Dutta to write Tilottamasambhab Kabya and published it at his own expense. In 1865, he established the Banganatyalaya at Pathuriaghata. He was a keen patron of music as well and actively supported musicians, one of whom, Kshetra Mohan Goswami, introduced the concept of orchestra into Indian music for the first time in this country. He was president of the British Indian Association and was the first Indian to be member of the Royal Photographic Society.
Ramanath Tagore and Jatindramohan were major patrons of European art. Their palatial home, the Tagore Castle at Pathuriaghta had a major collection of European paintings. Subsequently, members of the family took to painting in oils themselves. Shoutindramohan Tagore was one of the first Indians to have studied at the Royal Academy.
Sir Sourindramohan Tagore, son of Harakumar Tagore, better known as Raja Sir Sourindro Mohun Tagore or simply S. M. Tagore, was a great musicologist who was awarded a Doctor of Music degree by the University of Pennsylvania in 1875 and a D. Litt by Oxford University in 1896. He was proficient in both Indian and Western music. He founded the Banga Sangeet Vidyalaya in 1871 and the Bengal Academy of Music in 1881. He was honoured by the Shah of Iran with the 'Nabab Shahzada' title. The British government made him 'Knight Bachelor of the United Kingdom'. He was also a playwright and Justice of the Peace. He was also a leading philanthropist of his time.
Actress Sharmila Tagore, the widow of Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi Nawab of Pataudi, and mother of actor Saif Ali Khan and actress Soha Ali Khan and jeweller Saba Ali Khan, is believed to have stems from this branch. Her career in film was most active in the 1960s. In 1969, she married Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, a well-known cricketer and royal personage who was the captain of the Indian cricket team. She converted to Islam to marry Pataudi as Ayesha Sultana, but is usually known by her maiden name. Her late younger sister Oindrilla played Mini in director Tapan Sinha's 1957 film, Kabuliwala.
Sir Prodyot Coomar Tagore, son of Jatindramohun Tagore, was a leading philanthropist, art collector, and photographer. He was the first Indian member of the Royal Photographic Society.

The Jorasanko family

The business base

“The fame of the Jorasanko Tagores stems from the time of Dwarakanath Tagore.” Dwarkanath was the son of Nilmoni Tagore’s second son Rammani Tagore but was adopted by the childless first son RamlochanTagore. He inherited the Jorasanko property and Ramlochan’s vast wealth. Dwarakanath was involved in multifarious activities ranging from being an agent of Mackintosh & Co. to being a serestadar, collector and diwan in the 24 Parganas collectorate. However, it was his business prowess that brought him both wealth and fame. In partnership with William Carr, he established Carr, Tagore and Company, the first equal partnership between European and Indian businessmen and the initiator of the managing agency system in India.

Spiritual pursuits

After Dwarkanath Tagore, the leadership of the family passed on to Debendranath Tagore and Girindranath Tagore, the two sons of Dwarkanath Tagore. Debendranath Tagore founded the Brahmo religion and also started its journal Tattwabodhini Patrika. His children continued in the Brahmo Samaj. Girindranath Tagore also joined the Brahmo Samaj but his children, Ganendra and Gunendra, did not. Gunendra's sons, Gaganendra, Samarendra, and Abanindra branched out but retained cordial relationship with the Jorasanko family.
Debendranath Tagore took over the reins of the Brahmo Samaj in 1843 and not only resurrected it but also enriched it in many ways. It became the inspiration for the Bengal Renaissance. It was he who gave the Brahmo movement the trappings of a separate faith and introduced its own unique rituals. The Brahmo Samaj cast a very wide-ranging influence on its parent Hindu society, much wider than its limited membership would ostensibly permit.

Creative outpourings

Several of Debendranath Tagore's children were brilliant. Dwijendranath Tagore was a great scholar, poet, and music composer. He wrote extensively in the newspapers and magazines of the day on literature, philosophy, and religion. He was editor of "Bharati" and Tattwabodhini Patrika. A pioneer in Bengali shorthand, he was one of the organisers of the Hindu Mela.
Satyendranath Tagore,, was the first Indian to join the Indian Civil Service.in 1864. Earlier, he and his brother Ganendranath were among the first students to pass the Entrance Examination of Calcutta University in 1857. Even while serving in an administrative job, he was a prolific writer, poet, and song composer. Many of his nationalist songs are still sung. He was editor of "Tattwabodhini Patrika" and took an active interest in the Hindu Mela. He encouraged his wife, Jnanadanandini Devi, to adopt western ideas and for that purpose took her to a governor's party and also to England, something unthinkable in those days.
Debendranath's third son Hemendranath was a strict disciplinarian who was entrusted with the responsibility of looking after the education of his younger brothers as well as administrating the large family estates. Like most of Debendranath's children, he had varied interests in different fields. On one hand, he composed a number of "Bromhosangeets" and on the other, wrote articles on physical science which he planned to compile and edit into a textbook for school students. If his untimely death had not prevented him from completing the project, this would certainly have been the first science textbook to be written in Bengali. He was known for his physical strength and wrestling skills. Exceptionally for the times, he insisted on formal education for his daughters. He not only put them through school but trained them in music, arts and European languages such as French and German. It was another mark of his forward thinking that he actively sought out eligible grooms from different provinces of India for his daughters and married them off in places as far away as Uttar Pradesh and Assam.
Jyotirindranath Tagore was a scholar, artist, music composer and theatre personality. He knew several languages – Bengali, Sanskrit, English, Marathi and Persian. In 1924, he translated Gita Rahasya of Bal Gangadhar Tilak into Bengali. He also translated several other books. He wrote several plays, and directed and acted in them. He composed songs that are still available in CDs. Around 2,000 of his paintings are in possession of Rabindra Bharati. A selection of his paintings were published in London in 1914, at the instance of Rothenstein.
Rabindranath Tagore, was his penultimate son. He was the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize, and was exceptionally talented and the most famous in the family. Rabindranath is best remembered in history for writing what became the national anthems of the nations of India and Bangladesh and for coining the title Mahatma for Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi. The youngest son of Debendranath Thakur was Budhendranath, who died at a very young age.
Amongst his daughters Swarnakumari Devi was a gifted writer, editor, song-composer and social worker. She was editor of Bharati, a remarkable accomplishment in an age when very few girls went to school. She also edited a children's magazine Balak and developed Sakhi Samiti as a means for improving the lives of women. She was the author of several books. Her husband Janakinath Ghosal was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress, so she participated in nationalist activities with him.

The artists

After Rabindranath, the most notable in the Jorasanko family were Gaganendranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, and Sunayani, who made immense contributions to Indian art. Even earlier, Abanindranath Tagore's grandfather, Girindranath, and father, Gunendranath, and subsequently Abanindranath Tagore's cousin, Hitendranath Tagore and his nephew Jaminiprakash Ganguli, were all gifted and prolific painters, specialising in a genre of dusky landscapes and romantic studies of peasant life.
Gaganendranath was a pioneer in many ways – in adopting Indian styles of painting after training in western art, and then absorbing Japanese styles. However, it was his brother Abanindranath who inaugurated what became known as the "Bengal school" or "Neo-Oriental school". Its influence spread across the country while it incorporated various strains of South Asian influence.
All these artist Tagore families belong to West Bengal, India.

The younger generation

The younger generation also contributed substantially. Dwijendranath's second son Sudhindranath was a renowned author. His son Soumyendranath was well known as a leftist politician. Soumyendranath was anti-Nazi and was briefly arrested in 1933 in connection with a plot to assassinate Hitler Satyendranath's son Surendranath also had political links. Satyendranath's daughter Indira distinguished herself in literature, music and in the women's movement. She married Pramatha Chowdhury, a distinguished scholar and writer. Rabindranath Tagore’s son, Rathindranath was a multi-talented person. Besides being an agriculturist educated in the USA, a talented architect, designer, master-carpenter, painter and writer, was also the first 'upacharya' of Visva-Bharati University. Rathindranath Tagore’s wife, Pratima Devi, was an artist associated with Shilpa Sadan, Visva Bharati and also associated with dances and dance drama. The list does not end here. All of them had enormous talent and were brought up in an ideal environment of literary debates and discussions, musical compositions, painting, and theatrical performances.
Sharmila Tagore, a well-known Mumbai actress who is connected with Rabindranath Tagore, in an interview stated that her mother's mother, Latika Tagore was the granddaughter of Rabindranath Tagore's brother, Dwijendranath. Pranati Tagore is a renowned and eminent elocutionist, news reader and Bengali actor. She is married to Sunando Tagore, the great-grandson to Satyendranath Tagore.Pragnasundari Debi, granddaughter of Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, married the most famous Assam author Sahityarathi Laxminath Bezbarua. She was a literary phenomenon in her own right, her cookbook Aamish O Niramish Ahar was a standard given to every Bengali bride with her trousseau, and earning her the appellation "India's Mrs Beeton". Nandita, daughter of Mira Devi, the youngest daughter of Rabindranath Tagore, married Krishna Kripalani, a freedom fighter, author and parliamentarian. His biography of Rabindranath, is amongst the best ever written.

The family environment

The environment at Jorasanko was filled with literature, music, painting, and theatre. They had their own education system. In the earlier days, the women did not go to school but they were all educated at home. Swarnakumari Debi has recalled how in her early days the governess would write something on a slate which the girls then had to copy. When Debedranath discovered this, he at once stopped such a mindless and mechanical method and brought in a better teacher, Ajodhyanath Pakrashi – a male outsider in the women's quarters... Some of the sons like Ganendra, Gunendra and Jyoitrindra set up their own private theatre. To start with men played in the role of women, but over a period of time even the women joined. The environment in the family played a major role in the development of its members. Even Rabindranath Tagore who went to win the Nobel Prize in literature had very little formal education.
Being somewhat conservative, Debendranath Tagore had put in many restrictions about members of the family participating in certain types of activities outside the house. Therefore, they brought the outside world into their house and the entire family, including the women, participated. Two small examples will illustrate the environment:
Although the Jorasanko branch of the family had close links with Shilaidaha, in Kushtia District, now in Bangladesh and Santiniketan, where Rabindranath developed Visva Bharati, their roots were in the Jorasanko house. It was popular as Jorasanko Thakur Bari of the Tagores and now houses the Rabindra Bharati University.

Family tree