Between World-Imagining and World-Making: Politics of Fin-de-Siècle Universalism and Transimperial Indo-U.S. Brotherhood

Universalism has driven many imaginations of the world. From civilizational discourse to cosmopolitan ethics, universalism as an idea and ideal have mobilized various political units, social activism, and religious movements. This article introduces a hitherto neglected expression of religious universalism in the fin-de-siècle—Indo-U.S. brotherhood. Unlike other colonial Indian and U.S.-American connections, this alliance was designed to be ephemeral and rooted in the transimperial moment of rising U.S. power, rather than in anti-imperialism. The article traces the emergence, dispersion, and afterlives of transimperial Indo-U.S. brotherhood to reveal the politics of universalism, which involved processes of marginalization and unfolded around the intersection of gender, race, and religion. The article reorients us to move beyond the important discussion of “multiple universals” and to place ephemerality and exclusion at the center of our historical investigation of how universalism has shaped diverse world-imagination and world-making.