The Bengali Renaissance was a cultural, social, intellectual and artistic movement in Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent during the period of the British Indian Empire, from the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century dominated by Bengalis.

Historian Nitish Sengupta describes the Bengal Renaissance as taking place from Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833) through Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941). According to historian Sumit Sarkar, nineteenth-century Bengali religious and social reformers, scholars, literary giants, journalists, patriotic orators and scientists were revered and regarded with nostalgia in the early and mid-twentieth century. In the early 1970s, however, a more critical view emerged. “Few serious scholars could deny that nineteenth-century Bengal had fallen considerably short of the alleged Italian prototype”, wrote Sarkar. Although in 1990 the “average educated Bengali” still admired the Bengali Renaissance, “most intellectuals who would like to consider themselves radical and sophisticated”, no longer glorified the period.