The Disinherited

The Politics of Christian Conversion in Colonial India

Mou Banerjee

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Hardback

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English

Harvard Uni.Press Academi
26 May 2025

History; Asian history; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; Christianity; Christian mission & evangelism

An illuminating history of religious and political controversy in nineteenth-century Bengal, where Protestant missionary activity spurred a Christian conversion ""panic"" that indelibly shaped the trajectory of Hindu and Muslim politics.

In 1813, the British Crown adopted a policy officially permitting Protestant missionaries to evangelize among the empire's Indian subjects. The ramifications proved enormous and long-lasting. While the number of conversions was small-Christian converts never represented more than 1.5 percent of India's population during the nineteenth century-Bengal's majority faith communities responded in ways that sharply politicized religious identity, leading to the permanent ejection of religious minorities from Indian ideals of nationhood.

Mou Banerjee details what happened as Hindus and Muslims grew increasingly suspicious of converts, missionaries, and evangelically minded British authorities. Fearing that converts would subvert resistance to British imperialism, Hindu and Muslim critics used their influence to define the new Christians as a threatening ""other"" outside the bounds of authentic Indian selfhood. The meaning of conversion was passionately debated in the burgeoning sphere of print media, and individual converts were accused of betrayal and ostracized by their neighbors. Yet, Banerjee argues, the effects of the panic extended far beyond the lives of those who suffered directly. As Christian converts were erased from the Indian political community, that community itself was reconfigured as one consecrated in faith. While India's emerging nationalist narratives would have been impossible in the absence of secular Enlightenment thought, the evolution of cohesive communal identity was also deeply entwined with suspicion toward religious minorities.

Recovering the perspectives of Indian Christian converts as well as their detractors, The Disinherited is an eloquent account of religious marginalization that helps to explain the shape of Indian nationalist politics in today's era of Hindu majoritarianism.

By: Mou Banerjee
Imprint: Harvard Uni.Press Academi
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 23mm
Weight: 685g
ISBN: 9780674268036
ISBN 10: 0674268032
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 26 May 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Mou Banerjee is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Reviews for The Disinherited: The Politics of Christian Conversion in Colonial India

A brilliant, socially textured, rich, and empirically grounded account of Christian conversions in colonial Bengal. Beautifully written and convincingly argued, this book addresses one of the most emotive and politically charged issues in contemporary India. -- Seema Alavi, author of Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Empire Bridging the gulf in the history of ideas between elite and subaltern, Hindu and Muslim, town and country, west and east Bengal, The Disinherited offers new insights into contestations over personal faith and their impact on converts to Christianity. It is a brilliant and elegantly written contribution to the study of religious conversion in colonial India. -- Sugata Bose, author of Asia after Europe In this theoretically astute and richly documented book, Mou Banerjee sheds new light on the legal, familial, and political displacement of Indian Christian converts. Her account reveals nationalism’s deep history of disinheriting its Christian other, caught in the crossfire of missionary polemics and Hindu and Muslim counter-movements. -- Chandra Mallampalli, author of South Asia’s Christians: Between Hindu and Muslim A poignant and powerful book, capturing the profound loneliness of Bengali converts to Christianity in colonial India. By showing how conversion panics hardened Hindu and Muslim identities during the late colonial period, Mou Banerjee gives us an important prequel to interreligious conflict in India today. -- Mitra Sharafi, author of Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia In this innovative and original account, Mou Banerjee shows how the authenticity of Indian Christian conversions became a contested subject for Hindus, Muslims, British officials, and Christians themselves. Deftly tracing an intellectual history of religious thought, she reveals how these debates informed the emergence of a putatively secular liberalism in India. In the guise of religious freedom, the right to practice religion freely was disrupted in deeply intrusive ways. -- Durba Ghosh, author of Gentlemanly Terrorists: Political Violence and the Colonial State in India, 1919-1947