Christianity in Indian History: Issues of Culture, Power and Knowledge

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Christianity in Indian History: Issues of Culture, Power and Knowledge | Pius Malekandathil, Joy L K Pachuau and Tanika Sarkar

Christianity in Indian History: Issues of Culture, Power and Knowledge

Pius Malekandathil
Joy L K Pachuau
Tanika Sarkar

Primus Books

2016

9789384082666

300 pages

This volume is a collection of wide ranging essays on Indian Christianity and Christian missionaries in India. It attempts to identify and reflect upon Christianity’s regional and temporal variations from early modern times, its links with global Christian institutions and movements, its diverse cultural practices, and its relationship with caste and class. The essays herein underline the existence of many Christianities in Indian history, their mutual linkages, their exchanges and interactions as well as their debates with other Indian religions and communities. They anchor Christian historical experiences within a larger Indian modernity and identify the specificities and influences of Christian identities as well as locate their intermeshing with other Indian identities.

This carefully researched volume will interest not just scholars of Religious Studies and Modernity in the Indian subcontinent, but also all those who are interested in the multi-faceted story of Christianity’s emergence and growth in the same, and its many denominations’ varying interactions with various forms of state politics and policy. Departments of Medieval, Modern, and Religious History, and of Cultural Studies, will also find this volume a pertinent and useful addition to their institutional holdings.

Pius Malekandathil is Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Joy L K Pachuau is Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Tanika Sarkar was Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I. Historiographical Issues And Problems For Indian Christianity

Dalit Christian History As A Field Of Study
John C B Webster

Part II. Narratives Of Conversion, Missionaries And Indian Converts

‘We Are One Caste, One Disease, And One Religion’: Biographies Of Christian Conversion In A South Indian Leprosy Colony
James Staples

Christianity In Mizoram: An Ethnography
Joy L K Pachuau

Change And Continuity: An Analysis Of The Interaction Of Khasi Traditional Religion With Christianity
B L Nongbri

Colonial Registers Of A Vernacular Christianity
Saurabh Dube

‘Assistants’ Or ‘Leaders’?: The Contributions Of Early Native Christian Converts In North-East India
Lalsangkima Pachuau

Sinners And Confessors: Missionary Dialogues In India,Sixteenth Century
Ines G Županov

Part III. Formation Of Identity And Discourses

From ‘Heathen Aboriginals’ To ‘Christian Tribes’: Locating The Oraons In Missionary Writings On Chhotanagpur
Sangeeta Dasgupta

Strategic Interventions For Structural Changes In The Bettiah Christian Community: A Study Of Purposive Action For Community Development
Jose Kalapura

Accommodation, Reconciliation And Rebellion In The History Of Tamil Catholicism
David Mosse

Part IV. Conflicts And Dialogue

The Contemplative Gaze: Bede Griffiths And The Needs Of Post-Independence Indian Christianity
Christopher G Harding

Globalizing Religion, Localizing Christian Mission: Robert Caldwell And Colonial Discourse In Nineteenth-Century South India
Ulrike Schroder

Living Religion In Emotional Turbulence: A Study On The Religious Fluviality Of New Christians of Cochin And The Inquisition, 1546–1565
Pius Malekandathil

Notes On Editors And Contributors

Index

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