Despite the prosaic title, missionaries and a Hindu state embracing the kingdom of Travancore from 1858 to 1930, Koji Kawashima explores colonial experience. While a Travancore case study, this book may have the same meaning for the colonial experience of South India.
Its central theme relates to how missionaries encouraged traditional and static society from the prism of the unfolding colonial reality that unfolded in South Asia. Although he would like us to believe that the influence of missionaries contributed to social modernization, I believe that modernization was only superficial depth and did not change deeply rooted social attitudes. Since someone remained in the area in question, I would say that caste relations, etc., are still deeply rooted in social attitudes, and real modernization took place in social attitudes. The social expansion of the so-called lower castes preceded the more blatant practices of castiism, or the like. However, this does not mean that this de facto apartheid system has become extinct. Rather, such tendencies remain inactive in the psyche of the so-called upper castes. It would be more expedient to compare him with the dormant beast.
While the missionaries provided opportunities for those who did not have them before, this does not mean that they are “modernized” society. When the impetus for social change is not fundamental, it cannot be said that it has any long-term impact. At best, it can be described as having a significant impact. Rather, what happens in such circumstances is that the change of historical forces, such as the arrival of independence and the end of British rule in 1947, leads to a weakening of social impulses that appear far from attractive forms and with greater ferocity. We can see this today across India in terms of inter-caste and intercommunal violence.
The author also seems to have suggested that the Kingdom of Travancore was an independent entity. In fact, he was semi-independent and under British guardianship. It was not an independent history agent. At best, the kingdom of Travancore could be subordinated to a larger British colonial enterprise in South Asia at that time. Nor can we accept that the influence of the missionaries was not part of this colonial enterprise. Actually it was in tandem with him. It was a subsidiary of the British Raja. It cannot be denied that the missionaries would not have received the opportunities they had done if alien alien despotism from the point of view of the “British Raj” did not rule the region.
What is striking in this book is that it focuses on Hindu-Christian relations based on the paradigm of the so-called Hindu state compared to the dialectic in independent India, where emphasis has shifted significantly to Hindu-Muslim relations in the context of independence and the section . Another thing is that the “outsider” in this context is also an “insider”, in contrast to the terms of Hindu-Christian alchemy, which is clearly an external overlay on native politics.
We just need to think about the exact meaning of independence and colonialism in the context of an interdependent and globalized world. Therefore, although the terms of reference may differ slightly from the essential position of social conflict and religion as an agency or intermediate in this conflict, it remains relevant for the present. Moreover, the biggest bonus is that Kawashima is neither Indian nor British, and before that there was no historical baggage. to this question.
