Introduction: The Celebrated Rammohun Roy

Abstract

On April 8, 1831, a turbaned Bengali brahman disembarked at Liverpool, limping because of a mishap in Cape Town. His party included an adopted son, several servants, and cows to provide milk during the voyage. Accompanying him as well was a friend, the sailor-turned-journalist James Sutherland, who sent back to Calcutta reports of their arrival.¹ Indians had been turning up in Britain for some time, owing to a growing empire in the subcontinent. Lascars employed on ships, servants and slaves returning with their masters, merchants setting up shop in Britain, learned men hoping for academic work, envoys and supplicants seeking redress of grievances—numerous Muslims, Parsis, Hindus, and others had found their way to Britain in the two centuries before 1831. Thanks to the pioneering investigations of Rozina Visram and the exhaustive scholarship of Michael Fisher, we know much about these early visitors and immigrants.² What set our Bengali apart, however, was his transnational celebrity, which led to a reception in Britain unlike that accorded previous Indians.