The Forgotten Origins of Indian Liberalism

Podcast: Grand Tamasha · Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Opublikowano: 2026-07-01

Most conventional accounts of the origins of liberalism in India typically begin and end with the British. Indian thinkers are often depicted as encountering liberal ideas through colonial institutions, adapting them to local conditions, and eventually turning them against the British Raj. But a new book by Rahul Sagar, The Birth of Indian Liberalism: Mama Parmanand’s Letters to an Indian Raja, uncovers an older tradition of Indian liberal thought through a remarkable work first published in 1891 and then largely forgotten for more than a century. In a series of incisive letters addressed to the nativ...