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Rosinka Chaudhuri, "India's First Radicals: Young Bengal and the British Empire" (India Viking, 2025)
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Nicholas Gordon
Hello, I'm Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review Books podcast, done in partnership with the New Books Network. In this podcast we interview fiction and nonfiction authors working in around and about the Asia Pacific region. In 1831, the India Gazette wrote about a group of radical young thinkers that it credited for an upheaval in social and religious politics in Calcutta. These were the young Bengal, the proteges of Henry Derosio of Hindu College. These thinkers, according to Rasinka Chowdhury, were India's first radicals trying to reshape India's politics as it came under the sway of the East India Company and later the British Empire. Today, Rusinka joins the show to talk about her book, India's First Young Bengal and The British Empire and where this group sits in the long history of Indian nationalist, anti colonial and anti anti imperial thought. I'm joined again by Pratana Prakash. Pratana, would you like to introduce yourself?
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Prathana Prakash
Yeah. I'm a journalist and I've been writing about business and culture over the last couple of years. I grew up in the south Indian city of Chennai and I am now based in London.
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Nicholas Gordon
Rasinka is director and professor of Cultural Studies at the center for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. Her books include Gentlemen Poets in Colonial Bengal, Emergent Nationalism and the Oriental Project, Freedom and Beef, Colonial Calcutta, Culture and Literary History, Poetry and the Making of a Modern Cultural Sphere. She's edited many books, among which are Derosio, Poet of India, the Definitive Edition History of Indian Poetry, English and more recently George Orwell's Burmese Days for Oxford's World's classics. So Rysinka, thank you so much for joining us on the show today to talk about India's first radicals. You know, set the scene for us. What was India like when these thinkers emerged, you know, who was quote unquote, in control at the time.
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Rosinka Chowdhury
Thank you very much for having me, Nicholas. It's good to be here to talk about my book. You asked me what India was like at the time that this group emerged. The book, as you know, focuses on the year, on a single year, 1843, because there were a number of dramatic developments, episodes that unfolded in the British Empire, especially specifically in Calcutta. But I say empire because one of the chapters deals with an episode in Dehradun in the hills. But primarily the focus is Calcutta. The focus is this group of young men. At this time, they would have been in their 30s who were the first to put in place what I, you know, in the book call a grammar of a way to be a modern Indian. They were a difficult group to write about for a number of reasons which we can go into later. But you ask me about the time. So these young men who were students of charismatic young Anglo Portuguese teacher of English literature, primarily at the first educational institute of its kind actually anywhere in the world, the Hindu College in 1816. These were young men who studied with this young Anglo Portuguese teacher called Henry Louis, Vivian Derosio, who was also the first Indian poet to write English poetry. His name is a very well known one. His students, he was barely a few years older than his students. So where the students were 16 or 17, he was a few years older than them. And he died very young at the age of 22 in 1831. So at the time of his death. These were young men who had just left the Hindu college and were beginning to make their way in their professional lives, in their careers. And the book looks at 1843 because that is a time when they have swung into action to implement change in many directions, civil and political and social. Adamantly not religious change. They wanted to have nothing to do with religion. So, yeah, they are located in the capital of the British Empire in India, Calcutta. They are in Calcutta at a time when large portions of the Indian subcontinent are not under British sway. The British are in fact at this time fighting to establish their control over territories. This is the time when the Marathas are dominant. The Sikhs are very powerful in the Punjab. There are groups all over India under kings, kingdoms we should call them really. There are outside of the East India Company's control. But the East India Company is expanding. It has one of the largest standing armies in the world. It is the largest sort of corporation in the world. That is, that is also at the same time, you know, actively establishing an empire. So it is in this rather nebulous liminal zone before the British are certainly the British are ascendant, but they're still not incarnated in the manner in which they would then become incarnate during the years of the Raj, after the Crown rule is established, after the sepoy mutiny in 1858. So it's an interesting period. It's an interesting period of collaboration, collaboration with merchants, traders, with what was called the East Indian community, that is the mixed race community. So it is a bunch of people. But I'm focusing on the Indians who led various movements for change at this time in this country, in, in the capital of the British Empire in India at the time.
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Nicholas Gordon
So you, you call this group, or at least the title of your book calls this kind of India's first Radicals. You know, where do you kind of situate these thinkers kind of in the development of, you know, Indian political thought, particularly revolving, you know, relations with, with the British, revolving kind of how society is constructed, kind of. Where are you kind of put, put these thinkers in the story of Indian political development?
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Rosinka Chowdhury
So I had a member of an audience at, at a, at a, at a book event on that, that was focusing on this book. Ask me why I call them India's first radicals, because surely there have been radicals in India since the time of the Buddha. The Buddha himself could be thought of as, as one of India's first radicals, certainly in the, in the fifth. And yes, of course there have been many, many radical thinkers in India So that is not the claim I'm making that they, that there were no radical thinkers before them. The reason I call them India's first radicals is because here I'm talking about the word radical as it's understood in its modern sense. It was while researching this book that I realized, much to my surprise, actually when I looked it up, that the word radical is used, has been used in the English language in the sense in which we understand it today. That is someone taking an extreme position in relation to politics or society only since the beginning of the 19th century. So that is very recent for a word. I mean, the word itself existed, it means root, as you know, and it was in use. But to designate someone as a political radical, I mean that in that sense of the usage didn't exist in the English language itself before the start of the 19th century century. Shelley Godwin before him and Shelley, certainly these were the thinkers termed radical in their time in Britain itself, in England itself. So the sense in which we understand radical today when we speak of political radicals, that is the sense in which I'm, I, I have used it in the title India's First Radicals. And the reason for doing that, of course, is self evident in, in the book, which is that as I just mentioned already, which is that this is the first group to think radically outside of the domain of religion. So any other radical thinker that you can mention to me in India would have been spiritual or religious in nature. These are the first people to have wanted to have nothing to do with religion while at the same time advocating social and political change for their country. So these are radicals in the new sense in which the word itself was understood in the 19th century. These are people who are graduating in 1831. The, the book focuses on 1843, when they're, when they're young men of action. These are years in which the term radical is completely reconfigured in the English language. And it's in this new sense in which I'm using it for them, which is, which is why I'm calling them India's first radicals.
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Prathana Prakash
Rosenka when we think about Bengal, just in the mid 19th century, we saw many influential figures emerge and the whole Bengal Renaissance as well. Raja Ram Mohan Roy was one of those people. He championed religious social reform. And he was very much in the fray just a few years before Young Bengal formed into a group. And you also mentioned that Henry Derosio was quite an influential part of what Young Bengal ultimately kind of followed. What did having modern, sometimes radical ideas look like in India at that point in time. And just from my perspective, I'm also curious to know how this attracted so many young people more than anything.
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Rosinka Chowdhury
Thank you for that question. So you're right, of course, in that Ramon Roy is. And as you know, I'm sure he still appears in the history textbooks of Indian school children as the father of modern India. So Ramon Roy certainly preceded them. He was older than them. But again, as you know, he is, of course, primarily someone who based his entire drive for reform in the religious sphere. So he founded the Brahmo Shamaj, originally the Brahma Sabha, in 1828, and he pushed for a new version of what he called monotheistic Hinduism, which he based. And he was very emphatic about this because he translated many of the Upanishads himself in order to show the truth of what he was saying. He based his entire movement for reform on the ancient Indian spiritual texts, the Upanishads, to show that India had originally been monotheistic in its beliefs and that this. This later manifestation of polytheism was a corruption brought about by time and corrupt practices. So his whole mission was reformist in the sense in which almost that Martin Luther's campaign was reformist within the church. So that was a very different impetus from the ideas that drove this group. In fact, as I mentioned in the book, he was actually quite angry with this group of young people. And he's quoted by Lance Carpenter in the book as having said he didn't like this group because he didn't like atheists. I mean, really, he didn't want. This was something that a lot of people believed at the time and later about the group, that they. That they were atheists, that they had no God, which is not true, which, again, I've refuted through material evidence in the book. But in any case, it was a canard. It was something that in fact also got their teacher Derosio dismissed from his post at the Hindu college because he was accused of spreading atheism among young students. And he himself refuted it in his own resignation letter to H.H. wilson. But it was untrue. It was an untrue charge. But. But it is true, as I've been saying repeatedly, that they did not want to have anything to do with religion. This was very odd for the early 19th century, the time to which they belonged. The 19th century is a time dominated by religion. Religion permeates every aspect of life. Debates over religion dominate the public sphere. What is true religion? What isn't, how one lead, how does one lead an ethical and spiritual life? All of these were concerns germane to the 19th century. You really didn't have a discourse outside of it until much later in the 19th century, certainly the first half. So the movement in this group, which is almost a romantic movement if you come to think of it, romantic in the sense in which the Romantic poets were romantic, was a move away from the guiding presence of religion to humanism to the guiding presence of man with a capital M as a universal subject. They were, as I've said in the book, huge admirers of Burns. They quoted his lines and man to man the world o' er shall brothers be. And that this was one of their favorite lines and it circulated amongst them greatly. So this was a shift. This was a shift away from Ramohan towards a new, modern way of understanding how to be in the world. And this group led many different movements, if I can call them that, without actually institutionally having established anything, apart from the fact that they, of course. And again, this is not acknowledged in our history books, but they in fact put in place the first Indian political party. They. They formed the Bengal British India Society in 1843, April of 1843. And that was in fact the first Indian political party conceived along the same lines as the Indian National Congress later on in 1885. So this is the first Indian political party, but they have not been credited with any of all of this. Which goes to what interests me about the group, the fact that in fact historians have not found a way to bring them into history because of the various impulses that governed history writing or that have governed history writing to date. So this is. This interested me. Why have historians. This is the first book on the group. Why in. Did. Did we have to wait till 2025 for the first book to be written about this group when almost every sort of history book about Bengal in this period, and there aren't that many of them, this period actually is not. It is under researched in. In. In relation to the 19th century, but this is the first half of the 19th century and comparatively fewer works exist on this part of the. Of. On this half of the century. And that is because neither nationalist historians nor Marxist historians could find a place for a group as embarrassing as this one in, In. In their history books. So I found that. I found that hugely sort of entertaining and, and important the fact that they were impossible to write about. So I said, let's try and do what hasn't been done before. Let's see if we can show why they were important. And what exactly they achieved.
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Prathana Prakash
Yeah. And before we jump back to the history bit of this, Rosinka, I want to jump in to ask you something that's more relevant to your background. Now, you've studied literature for a long time. I wonder what it is about young Bengal that caught your eye and that specifically made you or prompted you to want to write a book about them. Because it is, of course, a historical undertaking before anything else.
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Rosinka Chowdhury
I know this is my first book of what I call pure history. I was very uncomfortable writing it because I work at the intersection of literature and history. Every other book that I have written to date, every book, every article, has actually been an attempt at least to read history and literature side by side. So to not have poetry, which is specifically my field, which is why I edited the Cambridge History of Indian Poetry in English, to, to not have. Have any relation to the literary in, you know, at the center of my investigations was not something I was comfortable with to start, you know, at the start, but something, you know, drove me on. I thought it was a story worth telling. I. I thought I had the materials to do it again. Very few people do. That's one of the reasons why also that this group hasn't been written about because the materials are available only at the British Library in London. And that's very hard for an Indian researcher sitting here to actually manage to find the source materials is not easy. So that's one of the reasons why actually much of the archives Bible material used in the book hasn't been accessed before, simply because it's so difficult for an Indian researcher to find the funding to just go and work at the British Library. So I did the work over 10 years, and I did it piecemeal, whatever occasion I could. I was there for other fellowships, other appointments. I was Mellon professor of the Global south at Oxford for a year. So whenever I came, could be there, I used the time to. To access the archive at the British Library. And that's how, piece by piece, I was able to garner the material to put the book together. So that's, that's, that's one of the reasons that it took a long time, but also one of the reasons why the work hasn't been done till now, certainly. So sorry to go back to you. What was your question? Did you have.
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Prathana Prakash
Did you think you answered my. Yeah, you answered my question.
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Prathana Prakash
For a limited time, but in all your research during this period, especially as you tried to find more resources on young Bengal, I'm curious to know if the sort of congregation that it was was that common in the rest of the world. Where did this group draw its inspiration from when it came together? Was it kind of first of its kind, or did they have other groups to mimic from in other parts of.
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Rosinka Chowdhury
The world as well? This is very interesting again, because they were in fact one of the first groups in the world to think of themselves in this way. I've quoted if you look at the book, I've quoted from Benedict Anderson, who has remarked on the particular valence of youth in forming the first nationalist movements in many countries. And as you know, Benedict Anderson's area of study was Southeast Asia. So he has spoken about young Malaysia and young, you know, groups that use the word young in Southeast Asia. But he's talking about the early 1900s. So a whole century later now, this group came to be called Young Bengal, in fact, only in the 1800s, 40s, from the mid-1840s onward. And the press did that in imitation of the News of the World at the time, which was centered on Young Italy. And as you know, from Young Italy and then we had Young Ireland, Young England and the Young Turks, last of all. But Young Bengal is being called Young Bengal for their activities between 1831 and 1843. And there is no. No other equivalent group really anywhere else in the world, unless we think in some sense, but in completely different ways, of the American revolutionaries in North America. But of course, theirs was their thinking, which was similar to Young Bengals, resulted in the. In the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the United States of America in the late 18th century. So that took a political turn that this group, in fact, was unable to and recognized that it would be unable to accomplish what the Americans accomplished. There is a reference to. There are several references. Sorry, not just one reference, several references to what is happening not just in North America, but before that, in Latin America. Bolivar and the foundation of the Latin American republics had already excited Ramon Roy. We know that already. But this group also were energized by these movements that were radical republican movements, in a sense, inspired by the French Revolution, as this group was as well. So they are working, working together at a time when it's very early. I really can't think of any similar groups anywhere else in the world. Again, as I said, in different contexts, maybe. Yes, if you look at North America and, you know, Franklin and Jefferson and Adams and all of that there, if you look at the English Romantic poets, if you think of that group of friends, and they were a group of friends, certainly Byron, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, again. But they were, of course, radical in their political ideas. Byron even fighting in the Greek War of Independence or wars of Independence, but primarily, again, literary figures. So, yes, there's some tenuous connection to the thinking of these earlier groups, but in the manner in which they undertook their work and they came together, they are certainly in the context of India. They're sui generis. They are the first of their kind.
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Prathana Prakash
Yeah, let's speak about one other piece of foreign influence. Now, the British Raj only really formalized in 1858, but, you know, they were present through education, through business. They were very much part of India at that point. But I'm curious to know what the intermingling was like between members of Young Bengal and the British and specifically, did they sort of collaborate with one another? Was there more of a friction or a resistance or just something in between both these extremes?
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Rosinka Chowdhury
So you're right, of course, the Raj, the Crown rule is 1858, but the East India Company is in Bengal after the Battle of Plessy is won by Clyde from 1757 onward. So by this time, as one of the group remarks, Dukkhi Naranjan Mukherjee remarks in a fiery speech he made on the corruption in the police and the judiciary for which he got into a lot of trouble. Basically, he points out that you have been in this country now for 80 years and what have you done? What, what form of good governance have you put in place to show for your presence here in India? So they are very, very harsh critics, not of the British, but of the East India Company. This is East India Company rule. And what they've realized now, which is a shift from the time of Ramon Roy, and again, it's a shift that I remark on in the book, book. What they've realized now is that if they are able to harness the power of the people now, the people of Britain, if they are vocal enough, if they take their concerns to the press in such a way that the people of Britain become aware of the iniquities of the corruption of the state of affairs under the East India Company, then the British people might elect a government or might pressure British Parliament to then change the laws, which, or even perhaps change the rulers. So, you know, the East India Company might give way to something better. This is something they're realizing for the first time at this point in 1843. And this is what they're trying to push for. They want British public opinion to be generated by Indians themselves. This they are very clear about that we need to do the work and then we need to make sure that the British public is aware of what's happening here. And then maybe the British public will pressure British Parliament for change. So this is the effort. And in this effort there is, of course, intermingling. This is a very, very intermingling. This is a time of collaboration and a time of friction. So the collaboration is with, as I said, you know, owners of British agency houses, merchants. So all of. So again now to go back to British history a little bit, the Charter act is passed by the British Parliament is what puts in place the policies by which the East India Company rules. So this Charter act has already, you know, implemented some changes. In 1813, it is revised every 20 years. So in 1813, for instance, they first allowed Missionaries, you know, to do their work. Till before that, missionaries were not allowed, which is why the Baptist missionaries, for instance, were not allowed within the. Within the precincts of Calcutta. They set up camp in Serampur, which is. Which is a small town outside of Calcutta. So apart from the Anglican Church, none of the other churches were. The missionaries were not allowed to preach. So 1813 changed that. But now in 1833, the Charter act comes up for renewal again. And by this time, these people are young men. And what is happening in Britain, of course, at this time is that there is a concerted movement for change. As you know, the Reform act in Britain itself is passed in 1832. This allows for a partial, you know, partial increase, a very partial increase in who would be able to vote in the adult franchise. The Reform Bill actually turns out to be very disappointing. But this is the time when a lot of. Of. There is a lot of movement and activity around the question of reform, around the question of good governance, around the question of the duties of government towards the people at large. Not just landowners, not just the wealthy, not just the elite. So all of this is happening at this time. One of their favorite books, as I've said, or Young Bengals, for which they paid five times the going rate, was Tom Paine's Rights of Man. Tom Paine's Rights of Man was brought by an American bookseller to Calcutta on a ship and sold at this exorbitant rate and sold out, in fact, because they were interested in this sort of radical literature. So the collaboration, as I said, was with merchants, with free traders, with associations. These people are forming groups in the north of England, the Manchester School. That is where George Thompson then comes to them from. He comes from these groups of free traders that have come together in Britain itself to argue for a change to the charter act of 1833. So, yes, there's intermingling and collaboration, but also a lot of friction, because, of course, the British were the most racist of all the colonizers who had ever come to India before that. I'm not even. I mean, if you go back to the Portuguese, who were the first Europeans to come to India in the 1600s, the Portuguese were followed by the Dutch, the Danes, the French. None of these. None of these European powers were as racist as the British. This is something that, you know, needs to be emphasized. So the British actually put in place laws against intermingling, laws against the mixed races that were deeply discriminatory, which is why the East Indian community sent its first petition to Parliament to the British Parliament in 1831, at the time when Derozio was still alive. So there is collaboration with the mixed race. Yes, and with the British themselves, the merchants and traders. But the friction was, of course, with authorities who were part of the East India Company and with racist British judges, British employers who were in the country at the time and who were behaving in an unsupportable way towards Indians.
- [36:53]
Prathana Prakash
Let's really quickly speak about some of the journals that members of Young Bengal spearheaded. So there's Gyanan Vision, I think I'm pronouncing that correctly, but please correct me if I'm wrong. And then there's Bengal Spectator as well. What was the impact of some of these journals? And if I'm not wrong, they were initially Bengali and then it was bilingual after a point, because they also wanted the British to be part of the readership. So what was the impact of these journals? And also how else did the members of this group help shape thinking just in the Bengali society?
- [37:33]
Rosinka Chowdhury
So you're right. Bengal as elsewhere in the world in the 19th century, journals and newspapers are all important. Newsprint is functioning in a sense, like the social media of today. It is full of, you know, untruths as well. This is. This is the interesting thing, full of. Full of scandal, rumor, gossip, you know, the. Almost like the tabloid press. It is also, of course, conveying news from various parts of the world, which is authenticated and coming from foreign news agencies and being reprinted in the Indian local newspapers. But the two that you mention, Gyan Unveshan, which in Bengali is pronounced Gyan on Mission, and the Bengal Spectator, are the two very, very important newspapers founded by this group. And they are. The Gyananishan is Bengali to start with, and then becomes bilingual, as you mentioned. And the Bengal Spectator starts up as a bilingual, with Bengali printed on one side of the page and English on the other side of the page, as I've argued in the bottom. This is what enables in fact, modern Bengali prose to come into existence in the form in which it still exists today. So these journals, these newspapers, are extremely important for the dissemination of their thinking, of their arguments. This is where they're arguing for widow remarri marriage, for instance, in 1832, long before. So Vidya Sagar is asking for the widow remarriage law to be passed, and that's eventually passed only in 1856. But long before that, when he's a young man of 21, he is actually reading the Bengal Spectator. And that is where he's able to Follow arguments on behalf of widow remarriage, on behalf of education for girls, on behalf of political reform. So there's no way in which to under. Emphasize the importance of journals and newspapers at this time. And they did much of their work through these two. Plus Krishnamohan Mandapadhya had his own again with the help of his friends. The same friends. Same group of friends had published the Enquirer right long before this, in 1831. Actually from 1831 onwards. So there was the Inquirer as well. There are a number of these journals and newspapers at this time through which they're making their views known and through which they're propagating their ideas for reform. How else you're saying in Bengal? Well, speeches. Speeches are hugely important. All of this group make speeches, excellent speeches as well. They were. They were very, very good writers of English prose and obviously spoke faultlessly in. In English as well. Ramgopal Ghosh, one of the friends, you know, who is one of the protagonists of this book, was. Was as. As was the custom at that time. He. He was known as the Demosthenes of. Of. Of. Of. Of Bengal Dokkhiranjan Mukopadha, whose speech, in fact I have reprinted not in its entirety, but whatever is. Is available for reprinting, which is the first part of it from, you know, from. From the Bengal Spectator. It's reprinted in the book itself. You. If you read that speech, you will see the manner in which they. They excoriated the ma. The. The. The governing of the East India Company. The governance of the East India Company. Company. The description. The vivid description of a young English magistrate barely out of school, sitting with his legs on the table, picking his teeth with his dog by his side. Maybe freshly come from playing cricket somewhere, not following a word of what is being said in the local languages in his court, depending on the translators and the middleman for the eventual passing of judgment and asking how can this be called justice? Why should the courts be run in this manner? The prose is. I mean, it almost brings Charles Dickens to mind. So this was. Of course, I've retrieved it from the original speech published in the newspaper at the time. But this would have been a speech and speeches were very important. The book begins with a speech given by one of these students against the colonization of India, what was called the colonization of India at the time by which was meant settlement, European settlement in India. It begins with a speech, it ends with a speech, and there are speeches in between. So apart from journals and newspapers, these speeches are another way in which to excite public opinion. And they're also all important at this time.
- [42:58]
Nicholas Gordon
So, Rusinka, I want to close things off by kind of returning to kind of the young Bengal's legacy. And you note kind of in the book that a lot of these guys get a pretty bad rap as time goes on, particularly I think, as they do, you know, they do emulate some things from the west, which is not seen as very popular in India. So I guess kind of like, like, how did the legacy of, and, and the way the young Bengal were seen, how did that change over time? You know, like, did, did that, did those views stay negative? Are there thinkers in India that, that really did try to harken back to young Bengals time, but kind of like, how does the legacy of these thinkers change over time?
- [43:49]
Rosinka Chowdhury
So you're absolutely right. They, they, they have, have not received their due in the years that followed towards the beginning, in the 19th century itself, there were various defenses published. So you have pamphlets called Young Bengal Vindicated. You have in defense of young Bengal, a number of essays, number of references in books where they're praised for their truthfulness, for their courage, for their motives and for their reformist impulses. So there is high praise for them to start with. But as the nationalist movement, if I may call it that, because these people are before what is properly called nationalism. These are not nationalists in that sense of the term. They are internationalists, really. They don't subscribe to an idea of the, the nation as it defined, the nationalists, but they are constantly referring to their country and to the good and referring to the, and speaking about doing their work for the good of their country. So this is a period, I have argued, that predates terms like nationalism, liberalism, not that they're any less important. Their legacy is from the late 19th century onwards. One that is, you know, that attracts scandal, disrepute, as, as you rightly say, they, they're not popular, they're very embarrassing. What does, what do the nationalist historians do with a group that spoke in English, wrote in English, quoted Shakespeare? That's not nationalist enough for the 19th century? No, because by the late 19th century, you're reinventing yourself as an Indian nationalist. And to be an Indian nationalist, you need to speak the Indian languages and identify. These were also people who identified with being Indian. But now being Indian meant something else in the late 19th century. So the nationalist historians find it difficult to deal with them. The Marxist historians don't know what to do with them because these are from what they perceived of as elite groups. So Once again, if you look at the records and as I have done in the book, and if you look at where, who they were exactly, and what their circumstances were, these are certainly not all from elite, from the elite strata. One or two of them are wealthy, but most of them are actually scholarship students and very poor in their personal circumstances. So they are able to make it in life only thanks to the education policies of the time and for availing of, of scholarships and proving themselves through merit. So they're not the elite, but the Marxist historians have perceived them as the elite. So again, they have no room for figures like these as a result of which, in fact, your question how did it change? The short answer is it didn't. This is the first attempt I'm making to actually change perception, to, to change the thinking, to think about this group differently. No one has actually made a case for them. As the late 19th century progressed into the 20th century, fewer and fewer historians wanted anything to do with them. So why? Some influential Marxist historians like Shushobun Shorkar and Shumit Shorkad did write about them. They quickly backtracked and said, no, no, no, they weren't inclusive enough. They didn't include the Muslims. There was not enough, you know, representation from the lower classes. So, yeah, so they just didn't fit into the agenda of historians who wrote about this period in the British Empire. And so that legacy, in fact, has not been interpreted any differently till now, till this book.
- [48:22]
Nicholas Gordon
So I think that's a great place to end our conversation with Rosinka Chowdhury, author of India's First Radicals, Young Bengal and the British Empire. Rosinka, I actually have two final questions for you, which are where can people find your work? And what's next for you? What do you think the next project might be?
- [48:42]
Rosinka Chowdhury
Right, so the book is published by Penguin Random House in India. It is available, unfortunately at the moment only in India. So you will not be able to buy it if you're looking for it, you know, for instance, in Amazon UK or Amazon in the US side. But I am talking to publishers and I hope that. So it is under peer review at the moment, but hopefully it will soon be out in the rest of the world as well. So that's a staggered publication, but hopefully it will reach other parts soon enough. So as to where's the book? The book is available only in India in bookstores and on online sort of bookselling Portland. But that might change soon. And what was the other the last question you had? Oh, where am I going from here? Oh, I'm returning to my original disciplinary vocation. I want to return to the question of literature, to the question of the literary. And I'm thinking now of a new project where I want to ask. Ask the question. In fact, I sort of have a title for the book already which might change, but I thought I might call it Inventing Literature because the manner in which we understand literature with a capital L today is a very recent phenomenon. It came into existence only around the middle of the 19th century, everywhere in the world, not just in the colonized country, in Britain, in France. Rola Barth, in writing degree zero, says literature with a capital L comes into existence in France in 1850. Now, if that is his date, then it is the same date for Bengal. So certainly there's a case to be made that the study of literature as a discipline has some relation to the colonies, certainly, because as you know, the, the, you know, the tripos in Oxford and Cambridge taught only the classical languages, not English. English departments opened up in the rest of the world very late. I mean, in the western part of the world, in the Anglophone countries, very, very late. It began here much before that, because you needed to teach Indians English literature. So it began here, although the first English departments are in Scotland and in University College London. So, yes, I thought that might be an interesting project to think about, especially because we seem to now belong to a moment when literature as we knew it is ending. Or is it? So that's a question I want to explore in my next book.
- [51:37]
Nicholas Gordon
So you can follow me, Nicholas Gordon on Twitter Ick R I Gordon. That's N I C K R I G O R D O n. You can go to asiaviewbooks.com to find other reviews, essays, interviews and excerpts. Follow them on Twitter ookreviewsasia. And you and you can find countless other authors at the New Books Network and newbooksnetwork.com Pratna Quickly, where can people find you?
- [51:57]
Prathana Prakash
I am Parthena Prakash on LinkedIn.
- [52:01]
Nicholas Gordon
You can find us on all our favorite podcast apps, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Rate us, recommend us, share us with your friends. Support interviewing those writing in around and about Asia. Next week, join us for an interview with Aaron o', Halloran, author of east of Egypt, India and the World between the Wars. But before then, Rusinka, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
- [52:22]
Rosinka Chowdhury
Thank you. Thank you, Nicholas. Thank you, Prathana. Thank you for your questions and your interest in the work.