Christian Conversion in India: Political Exploitation or Personal Transformation? (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Missionary Position: Christianity and Politics of Religious Conversion in India
The purpose of this article is to critically examine the politics of religious conversion in India. Since Christianity is the main religion espousing and conducting conversion in ever-larger numbers in India, my focus, in the following pages, is to interrogate the debate surrounding this particular undertaking and the attendant conflict dynamics. This study is organized according to the following framework. First, it situates religious conversion in the context of radical Hindu nationalism. Second, it explores the issue of religious conversion in the theories of identity and globalization. Third, it probes the specifics of Christian conversion in India and investigates the issue within the framework of identity politics and secularism. Fourth, it examines the response and reaction of the radical Hindu nationalists towards religious conversion in general and Christian conversion in particular from the perspective of ethno-religious nationalism. Fifth and finally, it evaluates the dimensions of conflict between Christians and Hindus and how they are played out in the shared social arena. In conclusion, this article stresses that religious conversion in India is a form of a socioeconomic emancipatory undertaking. Those who feel stifled by the discriminatory caste order prevalent within Hinduism and live a marginal existence embrace this new identity. In the same breath it argues that Christianity in general, and Christian missionaries in particular, have courted criticism, opposition, and violence from radical Hindus, informed citizenry, and the institution of the state, as they are considered an “external other”—accused of undermining the complex sociopolitical order in the country.
This chapter raises key questions concerning religion, individualisation, and religious individualisation/institutionalisation. It does so by exploring the interplay of conversion, translation, and life-stories. Such interplay was embedded within processes of evangelical entanglements between Euro-American missionaries and central-Indian peoples in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Specifically, I focus on autobiographies and biographies of converts to Christianity in the Chhattisgarh region of central India, especially accounts written in the first half of the twentieth century. Here, the ordinary nature and the very details of these texts – mediated by procedures of vernacular translation – not only reveal the writings as key registers of evangelical entanglements. They further foreground critical queries that turn on religion and politics, individual and subject, individualisation and personhood, institutionalisation and akrasia.
Gandhi, Conversion, and the Equality of Religions: More Experiments with Truth
Numen, 2014
Even though Gandhi is often cited in the debate on religious conversion in India, his viewpoints have not been systematically analyzed. One reason is that his writings present a confounding blend of concepts derived from different traditions. The article argues that this fact provides a unique entry point into Gandhi’s thought. By looking for systematic patterns in his distortive use of English-language terms and ideas, the background ideas that have structured his reasoning can be traced. The conceptual distortions in Gandhi’s writings are shaped by these ideas, which reflect typical Indian attitudes and modes of thought on the question of religion and conversion. Analyzing his writings in this way not only allows for an explanation of his views on religion and his antagonism to conversion, but also clarifies the widespread unease towards Christian proselytism in contemporary India.
Conversion from British Hinduism to Christianity: an anthropological study
Mental Health, Religion & Culture
This paper examines conversion from "Hinduism" to Christianity in India and in the UK. To date work in this area has focused upon Hindu-Christian conversion among Hindus in India largely focusing upon Dalits. It explores the experience of Hindu Christian conversion through five case studies and focuses upon antecedents and consequences of conversion. It stresses the central role of profound religious experiences in those converting and the resultant disharmony among families and the wider Hindu community. While structural factors may be important for some of these individuals, all have undergone a form of metaphysical and intellectual conversion. The conversion narratives cited suggest that conversion experiences are beneficial psychologically in terms of providing a new sense of meaning, facilitating coping and increasing contentment.