Rosinka Chaudhuri not only revises, resourcefully and elegantly, the cultural and emotional history of modern India: she restores an early radical tradition of thought and feeling, deepening our understanding of the human self under colonialism. - Pankaj Mishra, author

More than two decades of assiduous research has established Rosinka Chaudhuri as the pre-eminent scholar of early nineteenth-century intellectual movements in Bengal. In this book, supported by meticulous archival research, she makes a passionate case for attributing to the Young Bengal radicals the earliest formulation of the idea of “the people of India”, thus recalibrating the history of Indian liberalism. - Partha Chatterjee, author of The Nation and Its Fragments (1993) and The Black Hole of Empire (2012)

Controversial and consequential in almost equal measure, the radicals of Young Bengal have long awaited an attentive and discerning expositor. No one is better positioned for the task than Rosinka Chaudhuri, who provides the detailed and forthright treatment they deserve. Challenging the shibboleths of Imperialists, Nationalists, Leftists, and Postcolonialists alike, Chaudhuri invites us to recognize in Young Bengal the first spark of critical reason and progressive politics in India, and to consider how the flame they kindled continues to fuel politics and public discourse. This detailed and engaging work moves effortlessly among literary, administrative, and scholarly sources and should be required reading for anyone interested in the making of modern India. - Brian A. Hatcher, Packard Professor of Theology, Tufts University

A brilliant re-telling of the story of Indian modernity, Rosinka Chaudhuri's much-needed study of Young Bengal shows how it was radicalism rather than the reform of tradition that