Hyder Ali#Hyder
A figure from the books
#Hyder
Hyder Ali · c. 1720 – 1782
In the books · 1 chapter
Who this is
Religious and social reform, journalism, scholarship — founder of the Brahmo Sabha, leader of the campaign that outlawed widow-burning.
“The man who ended widow-burning was not a conqueror or a saint but a Bengali scholar who read seven languages, learned two of them purely to win arguments, and was, for most of his life, the most hated man in respectable Calcutta.”
The big idea, in the book's words:
“India could argue its way into the modern world on its own terms — beating orthodox pandits with the śāstras, missionaries with the Bible, and the Company with English law, all in the opponent's own language.”
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