Cosmopolitanism and Empire
Elleke Boehmer considers the cosmopolitan outlooks, experiences and values of Indian travellers to the west in the late 19th century. In the late 19th c a set of remarkable Indian \u2018arrivants\u2019 \u2013 scholars, poets, religious seekers, and political activists \u2013 began, as novelist Amitav Ghosh describes it, 'travelling in the west'. They included Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu, Mohandas Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. In this paper I examine how their travel to and presence on British shores and involvement with various Britons had a shaping effect on how cosmopolitan life in the imperial capital was conceived, and, therefore, on how intercultural hospitality was expressed \u2013 especially at a time, as we remember, of high imperialism, and of outright racism especially in the imperial frontier.