Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T22:31:32.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hindu-Christian Conflict in India: Globalization, Conversion, and the Coterminal Castes and Tribes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2013

Chad M. Bauman
Get access

Abstract

While Hindu-Muslim violence in India has received a great deal of scholarly attention, Hindu-Christian violence has not. This article seeks to contribute to the analysis of Hindu-Christian violence, and to elucidate the curious alliance, in that violence, of largely upper-caste, anti-minority Hindu nationalists with lower-status groups, by analyzing both with reference to the varied processes of globalization. The article begins with a short review of the history of anti-Christian rhetoric in India, and then discusses and critiques a number of inadequately unicausal explanations of communal violence before arguing, with reference to the work of Mark Taylor, that only theories linking local and even individual social behaviors to larger, global processes like globalization can adequately honor the truly “webby” nature of the social world.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 633 - 653
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Aaron, Sushil. 2002. Christianity and Political Conflict in India: The Case of Gujarat. Colombo: Regional Centre for Strategic Studies.Google Scholar
Aaron, Sushil. 2007. “Contrarian Lives: Christians and Contemporary Protest in Jharkhand.” Asia Research Centre Working Paper 18:1–36.Google Scholar
Aaron, Sushil. 2009. “Emulating Azariah: Evangelicals and Social Change in the Dangs.” In Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Asia, ed. Lumsdaine, David H., 87–130. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ahmad, Aijaz. 2007. On Communalism and Globalization: Offensives of the Far Right, 2nd ed.Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective.Google Scholar
Ali, Muhammad Mohar. 1965. The Bengali Reaction to Christian Missionary Activities 1833–1957. Chittagong: Mehrub Publications.Google Scholar
Anand, S. 2008. “Next Stop Orissa.” Tehelka Online, January 19. http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=Ne190108next_stop.asp (accessed March 16, 2012).Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. 2006. Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Bauman, Chad. 2008a. Christian Identity and Dalit Religion in Hindu India, 1868–1947. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans.Google Scholar
Bauman, Chad. 2008b. “Postcolonial Anxiety and Anti-Conversion Sentiment in the Report of the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee.” International Journal of Hindu Studies 12(2):181–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauman, Chad. 2010. “Identity, Conversion and Violence: Dalits, Adivasis and the 2007–08 Riots in Orissa.” In Margins of Faith: Dalit and Tribal Christianity in India, eds. Robinson, Rowena and Kujur, Joseph M., 263–90. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauman, Chad, and Leech, Tamara. 2012. “Political Competition, Relative Deprivation, and Perceived Threat: A Research Note on Anti-Christian Violence in India.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 35(12):2195–2216. doi:10.1080/01419870.2011.631558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayly, Susan. 1989. Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society 1700–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beyer, Peter. 1994. Religion and Globalisation. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Brass, Paul R. 2003. The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Copland, Ian. 2006. “Christianity as an Arm of Empire: The Ambiguous Case of India under the Company, c. 1813–1858.” Historical Journal 49(4):1025–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43(6):1241–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engineer, Asghar Ali. 1984. “The Causes of Communal Riots in the Post-Partition Period in India.” In Communal Riots in Post-Independence India, ed. Engineer, Asghar A., 33–41. Bombay: Sangam Books.Google Scholar
Freitag, Sandria B. 1989. Collective Action and Community: Public Arenas and the Emergence of Communalism in North India. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Jonathan. 1994. Cultural Identity and Global Process. London: Sage Publications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frykenberg, Robert Eric. 2003. “Introduction: Dealing with Contested Definitions and Controversial Perspectives.” In Christians and Missionaries in India: Cross-Cultural Communication since 1500, ed. Frykenberg, Robert E., 1–32. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans.Google Scholar
Frykenberg, Robert Eric. 2008. Christianity in India: From Beginnings to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonsalves, Francis. 1999. “Grisly Christmas for Christians in Gujarat.” Communalism Combat, January:11–14.Google Scholar
Hardiman, David. 2002. “Christianity and the Adivasis of Gujarat.” In Development and Deprivation in Gujarat: In Honour of Jan Breman, eds. Shah, Ghanshyam, Rutten, Mario, and Streefkerk, Hein, 175–95. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Harper, Susan Billington. 2000. In the Shadow of the Mahatma: Bishop V. S. Azariah and the Travails of Christianity in British India. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans.Google Scholar
The Hindu Online. 2007. “Communal Trouble Brewing up in Kandhamal Dist.” September 22. http://www.thehindu.com/2007/09/22/stories/2007092252750300.htm (accessed March 16, 2012).Google Scholar
Horowitz, Donald. 2001. The Deadly Ethnic Riot. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inden, Ronald. 1990. Imagining India. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Jaffrelot, Christopher, ed. 2007. Hindu Nationalism: A Reader. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joshi, Sanjay. 2001. Fractured Modernity: Making of a Middle Class in Colonial North India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Joshi, Satyakam. 1999. “Tribals, Missionaries, and Sadhus: Understanding Violence in the Dangs.” Economic and Political Weekly, September:2667–75.Google Scholar
Kakar, Sudhir. 1990. “Some Unconscious Aspects of Ethnic Violence in India.” In Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia, ed. Das, Veena, 134–45. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kakar, Sudhir. 1996. The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kidambi, Prashant. 2007. The Making of an Indian Metropolis: Colonial Governance and Public Culture in Bombay, 1890–1920. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Kim, Sebastian C. H. 2003. In Search of Identity: Debates on Religious Conversion in India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lobo, Lancy. 2002. Globalisation, Hindu Nationalism and Christians in India. New Delhi: Rawat Publications.Google Scholar
Mukerji, Upendra Nath. 1909. A Dying Race. Calcutta: Mukerjee & Bose. See http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015012964774;view=1up;seq=7 (accessed May 15, 2013).Google Scholar
Mustafa, Faizan, and Sharma, Anurag. 2003. Conversion: Constitutional and Legal Implications. New Delhi: Kanishka Publishers.Google Scholar
Pandey, Gyanendra. 1990. “The Colonial Construction of ‘Communalism’: British Writings on Banaras in the Nineteenth Century.” In Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia, ed. Das, Veena, 94–134. Delhi: Oxford.Google Scholar
Pandey, Gyanendra. 2006. Routine Violence: Nations, Fragments, Histories. Delhi: Permanent Black.Google Scholar
Pathak, Suman Lata. 1987. “Religious Conversion and Social Change.” In Reform, Protest and Social Transformation, ed. Sharma, Satish K., 213–25. New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House.Google Scholar
Pati, Biswamoy. 2008. “Re-convert or Die.” Tehelka Online. http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=Ne190108re_convert.asp (accessed March 16, 2012).Google Scholar
Pearson, M. N. [1987] 2006. The Portuguese in India. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pfeffer, Georg. 2010. “A Comparative Account of the Socio-Cultural Context of Christians in the Punjab and Christians in Western (Predominantly Tribal) Orissa.” Paper presented at the European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Bonn, Germany, July 26–29.Google Scholar
Samantaray, Maitreya Buddha. 2008. “Ethnic Violence and Communal Polarisation in Orissa's Kandhamal District.” Daily Star Online, January 12. http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=18808 (accessed June 26, 2008).Google Scholar
Sarkar, Sumit. 1999. “Conversion and Politics of Hindu Right.” Economic and Political Weekly, June 26:1691–1700.Google Scholar
Sarkar, Tanika. 2001. Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion, and Cultural Nationalism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Savarkar, V. D. [1923] 1989. Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? New Delhi: Bharatiya Sahitya Sadan.Google Scholar
Schermerhorn, Richard A. 1978. Ethnic Plurality in India. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Subramanian, Ajantha. 2009. Shorelines: Space and Rights in South India. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Mark C. 2009. “Refiguring Religion.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 77(1):105–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Veer, Peter. 1999. “The Foreign Hand: Orientalist Discourse in Sociology and Communalism.” In Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament, eds. Breckenridge, Carol and van der Veer, Peter, 23–44. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Vandevelde, Iris. 2011. “Reconversion to Hinduism: A Hindu Nationalist Reaction against Conversion to Christianity and Islam.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 34(1):31–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viswanathan, Gauri. 2007. “Literacy and Conversion in the Discourse of Hindu Nationalism.” In The Crisis of Secularism in India, eds. Needham, Anuradha D. and Rajan, Rajeswari S., 333–55. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Kim. 2010. The Great Fear of 1857: Rumours, Conspiracies and the Making of the Indian Uprising. Oxford: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Zamindar, Vazira Fazil-Yacoobali. 2007. The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Zavos, John. 2001. “Conversion and the Assertive Margins.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 24(2):73–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar