Reclaiming the Legacy of Ellen Gottschalk Roy: Cosmopolitan Feminism and Radical Humanism in India: 2026

This work rethinks Ellen Gottschalk Roy's intellectual and political contributions as a cosmopolitan, transnational, feminist thinker and a key architect of Radical Humanism. She played a crucial role in institutionalizing the movement through organizational work, publishing, and practice. She was an anti-fascist activist, thinker, and philosopher positioned at the intersection of transnational histories of twentieth-century political thought. Conventionally, she has been represented as M. N. Roy's partner. Ellen Gottschalk Roy's life was shaped by fascism, war, exile, and anti-colonial struggles. Her contributions challenge boundaries between East and West and nationalism and cosmopolitanism. This work explores her key concepts, such as Radical Democracy, creative rationalism, people's government, and transnational citizenship. It argues that her work expresses a distinct vision of a free, equal, and just world. Her cosmopolitan feminism linked women's emancipation to broader struggles for freedom. This work reinterprets Ellen's experiences of migration, displacement, and activism as a form of transversal active citizenship while applying the lens of contemporary feminist citizenship theories described by Ruth Lister and Nira Yuval-Davis. It also maintains that dominant frameworks of decolonization and multicultural historiography challenge Eurocentric narratives. However, these frameworks highlight male-centric nationalist histories and marginalize transnational and cosmopolitan women thinkers, including Ellen Roy. Although Ellen Gottschalk Roy was a co-creator of the movement, history has diminished her contributions. Reclaiming her intellectual legacy necessitates rethinking the frameworks that shape humanism, feminism, citizenship, and decolonization. In an increasingly polarized contemporary world, her contributions provide valuable insights, reinterpreting democracy and freedom beyond rigid ideological and national boundaries.