Encounter and Interventions: Christian Missionaries in Colonial North-East India

ISBN-13: 9781032545868 / Angielski

Sajal Nag; M. Satish Kumar

Opis

The advent of colonialism and its associated developments has been characterized as one of the most defining moments in the history of South Asia. The arrival of Christian missionaries has not only been coeval to colonial rule, but also associated with development in the region. Their encounter, critique, endeavour and intervention have been very critical in shaping South Asian society and culture, even where they did not succeed in converting people. Yet, there is precious little space spared for studying the role and impact of missionary enterprises than the space allotted to colonialism. Isolated individual efforts have focused on Bengal, Madras, Punjab and much remains to be addressed in the context of the unique region of the North East India. In North East India, for example, by the time the British left, a majority of the tribals had adopted Christianity. It was a socio-cultural revolution. Yet, this aspect has remained outside the scope of history books. Whatever reading material is available is pro-Christian, mainly because they are either sponsored by the church authorities or written by ecclesiastical scholars. Very little secular research was conducted for hundred years of missionary endeavour in the region. The interpretations, which have emerged out of the little material available, are largely simplistic and devoid of nuances.This book is an effort to decenter such explanations by providing an informed historical and cultural appreciation of the role and contribution of missionary endeavors in British India.Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)

Spis treści

Preface

Introduction

Sajal Nag

1. Christianity and Cultural Changes among the Lotha Nagas

Adani Ngullie

2. Christian Missionaries in the Plains of Barak Valley

Amol Sinha

3. Missionaries as Stimulus: Interrogating Political Mobilization in Colonial North-East India

Binayak Dutta

4. The Coming of the Grace of the Christ: The Christian Baptist Missionaries and the Construction of Hindu Identity in Assam: c. 1840-1900

Bipul Chaudhury

5. Colonialism and Christian Missions in North-East India

David Reid Syiemlieh

6. Reading the Open Book: Missionary Print as Hermeneutical and Material Texts

David Vumlallian Zou

7. Christian Missionaries among the Karbis

Donald Teron

8. Nationalist Discourse, Christianity and Tribal Religion: The Tani Tribes of Arunachal Pradesh

Jagdish Lal Dawar

9. Straying beyond Conquest and Emancipation: Exploring the Fault Lines of Missionary Education in North-East India

Hoineilhing Sitlhou

10. Health, a Gift of God at Sanatorium and Missionary Activities in Madras Presidency

B. Eswara Rao

11. Coloniser or Anthropologist?: Locating the Identity of the Christian Missionary vis-à-vis the Tea Garden ‘Coolie’ in Colonial Assam

Anisha Bordoloi

12. Romance of the Wild, the Natural, and the Savage: Glimpses of Evangelism in North-East India, 1836-1900

M. Satish Kumar

13. Welsh Missionaries and the Transformation of Mizo Women

 Lalhmingliani Ralte

14. Society, Culture and Conversion: The Jesuit Madurai Mission in Tamil Nadu, 1650-1700 CE

Jangkhomang Guite

15. Introduction of New Literature under the Aegis of Christian Missions in Mizoram

J.V. Hluna

16. Evangelization among the Bodos

Luke Daimary

17. Cultural Hegemony, First World War and the German Salvatorians in North-East India (1890-1915 ce)

Meeta Deka

18. Christianity vs Indigeneity: Colonial State, Mission and Laipianism in Chin Hills

Pum Khan Pau

19. American Baptists in Colonial Assam: The Tale of Oscar Levi Swanson

Nabanipa Bhattacharjee

20. Early Response to Christianity in Mizoram

Rohmingmawii

21. Tribulations of the Catholic Mission in Mizoram, 1925-1946

Sangkima

22. Colonial State, Christian Missionaries and the Politics of Persuasion in Early Nineteenth-Century Bengal

Santanu Sarkar

23. Sociocultural Re-Invention: A Study of Christianity in Arunachal Pradesh

Sarah Hilaly

24. An Analysis of the American Baptist Missionary Sources for the Construction of Gender History in North-East India

Shiela Bora

25. Naga Conversions to Christianity in Manipur in the Twentieth Century

Th. R. Tiba

26. Gendered Mission: The Zenana Work of the American Baptist Mission in Assam (1836-1950)

Tejimala Gurung

Contributors

O autorze

Sajal Nag is currently a Senior Professor and Head, Department of History and Dean, School of Social Sciences, Assam University, Silchar. He is the author of The Beleaguered Nation: Making and Unmaking of the Assamese Nationality (2016); and Contesting Marginality: Ethnicity, Insurgency and Sub Nationalism in North East India (2002); among others.

M. Satish Kumar is in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Paleoecology, in Queens University, Belfast Northern Ireland. His publications include Colonial and Postcolonial Geographies of India (co-edited with Saraswati Raju and Stuart Corbridge).