Unforgetting Chaitanya
Vaishnavism and Cultures of Devotion in Colonial Bengal
Varuni Bhatia
Reviews and Awards
"Unforgetting Chaitanya is a worthwhile reading for anyone interested in religion and the colonial encounter, rich in information and insight and gracefully written."--Aleksander Uskokov, Reading Religion
"What Bhatia has done for Chaitanya in Bengal should be applied elsewhere by other scholars to observe the ways figures of India's past become antennae for colonial era re-imaginings of India, present and future. Bhatia's careful work, so well documented and conceived, forms an admirable book that is both essential for the knowledge and ideas it conveys, and important for the model it provides for other scholars."--Christian Lee Novetzke, author of The Quotidian Revolutions: Vernacularization, Religion, and the Premodern Public Sphere in India
"Brilliantly marshaling religious, historical, literary, and journalistic sources, Varuni Bhatia presents a compelling assessment of Vaishnavism's place in the making of a modern Bengali Hindu identity. Keenly sensitive to the nuances of caste and linguistic distinctions, she reveals a little-known side of middle-class Bengal."--Partha Chatterjee, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University
"Taking up the life histories and literary output of two late-colonial intellectuals, Varunia Bhatia foregrounds the sense of loss and longed-for recovery around a figure central to Bengali cultural understanding. Unforgetting Chaitanya is an engaging exploration of memory, affect, and argument in the work of regional and national self-fashioning."--Brian Hatcher, Professor and Packard Chair of Theology, Tufts University