Conversion in India should not be narrowed down to an individual moment of divine grace or a Gandhian change of heart. It is closely linked with the social aspirations of groups that suffer from discrimination and oppression. Since religion is supposed to cover all aspects of life, the author argues that for untouchable caste communities a change of religion may serve as an idiom of social mobility, in some respects closely resembling the more general?process?of?Sanskritization.

From the beginning of the nineteenth century the Christian missionaries' preachings attracted a large...