This article traces concepts of emotions and modernity among Urdu speakers in North India between the 1870s and the 1920s. The first section focuses on feelings towards modernity, both with regard to the present and expectations towards the future and looks at the way emotions –shame, pride, hope, and despair, among others– were integrated into the semantic net of “modernity”. The second section develops a history of emotion concepts and shows how strong passions, seen as beyond the control of the will, gained an increasing importance. The conclusion offers suggestions on the possible theoretical and methodological implications arising from bringing together emotions and the conceptual history.