ABSTRACT

This chapter demonstrates that the problems of "modernity", "reason" and "historical progress" were problems with which figures in nineteenth-century Bengal also engaged and struggled, albeit in a different way and in a different context. It also focuses on just one figure, the Bengali Brahmo religious and social reformer Keshab Chandra Sen, and explores the ways in which he conceptualised "world history" and the epistemological framework upon which it was based. Rabindranath Tagore's ideas concerning viswa sahitya were related closely to his views on world history, and these views drew substantially on ideas expressed by Keshab. Rational, ethical, religious and political intervention in the name of "progress" was one important way in which British imperialism was justified, at least in the first half of the nineteenth century. Keshab was publicly critical of many aspects of British rule in India, but he framed his criticisms within a broader view of the history of British imperialism which was largely positive.