The Birth of Indian Liberalism
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Letters to an Indian Raja (1891) was the first work of political theory to be published in modern India. It advised Maharajas to introduce liberal values and constitutional government in the self-governing Native States. Such reform would, it argued, make Indians freer and happier than they were in British India, and thus allow Maharajas to credibly challenge colonial rule. The rediscovery of this long-lost text overturns the long-held belief that Indian liberals merely borrowed their ideas from Britain and were eager to collaborate with the British. On the contrary, it reveals that they sought to make the Native States less vulnerable to both domineering Britons and despotic Maharajas—and that they were the first to discern how difficult it is to uphold liberal values in multicultural societies.
Rahul Sagar is Global Network Associate Professor at NYU Abu Dhabi. His most recent books include The Progressive Maharaja: Sir Madhava Rao’s Hints on the Art and Science of Government (Oxford University Press, 2022) and To Raise A Fallen People: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Indian Views on International Politics (Columbia University Press, 2022). He received his BA from Oxford and his PhD from Harvard and has previously served on the faculty at Princeton and NUS.