Mou Banerjee’s The Disinherited: The Politics of Christian Conversion in Colonial India seeks to outline selective portions of Bengali history to drive home a larger point about the religious marginalisation that led to ‘the formation of a majoritarian Indian identity which was excised of any true liberalism when it comes to matters of faith and religious identity.’ According to this historian, in 1813, the British Crown had adopted a policy of officially permitting missionaries to evangelise among the empire’s subjects, a departure from a previous policy of religious non-interference that set off seismic reverberations felt to this day. Insisting that the number of conversions were small, almost negligible during the 19th century, Banerjee insinuates that the conversion panic was unfounded as it was a perceived threat rather than a real one.
Admitting that conversion-related activities had been going on in South India for a longer period of time and on a larger scale which is beyond the purview of the book, Banerjee nevertheless makes a case for how the conversion related controversies that played out in Bengal went on to shape national identity and politics in its entirety. Such a case cannot hold water simply because Hinduism has always defied scholarly attempts to define it on account of infinite individual and regional distinctions and quirks that cannot be encapsulated within the confines of a book (especially one limited to a portion of Bengali history), no matter how scholarly. Further, leaving out key aspects of Hindu identity related history such as the repercussions of the Bhakti movement, a non-violent reformation and revolution to win back converts from Buddhism and Jainism, using the soft power of music, dance, poetry, literature, and yoga, originating in Tamil Nadu and spreading all the way to North India shaping the outlook of the likes of Guru Nanak, Kabir and Mahatma Gandhi, which continues to make Hinduism an attractive prospect for those fed up with the gross politics and commercialisation of faith, is problematic especially when sweeping statements of condemnation are made against a largely tolerant religion with admittedly problematic extremists who have to be stopped.
Spread out over six chapters, Banerjee discusses the role played by Rammohan Roy in modern apologetics, high-caste conversions in Bengal, and the legal ramifications such as disinheritance, which stripped converts of their patrimony (like in the great Tagore Will Case), players like Munshi Mehrullah, and the legacy of Brahmabandhab Upadhyay, who was a Brahmin and became a high-profile convert and publicly re-converted and took to wearing the sacred thread again. In Banerjee’s opinion, Brahmabandhan remained a staunch Christian in private (despite the jury not concurring on that one) and in all likelihood only maintained a certain façade to lend credibility to his stout freedom-fighter stance. She also dwells at length on the brutal violence meted out to lower-caste converts in Baropakhya at the hands of the British landowner and his Hindu heavies, aided and abetted every step of the way by minions of the law.
Having cherry-picked her way across Bengal’s chequered history, pointedly leaving out the portions of recorded history that chronicle the large-scale persecution of Hindus and Muslims, thanks to excessive missionary zeal, Banerjee concludes with the tragic murder of Graham Staines and his sons, aged 10 and six, in the family’s car when it was surrounded by members of Bajrang Dal and set on fire, bemoaning the rise of Hindu majoritarianism and the failure of Indian liberal secularism. As evidenced by Rammohan himself, any attack or perceived attack on Hinduism by its erudite tends to attract instant and widespread notice.
Having cherry-picked her way across Bengal’s chequered history, pointedly leaving out the portions of recorded history that chronicle the large-scale persecution of Hindus and Muslims, thanks to excessive missionary zeal, Banerjee concludes with the tragic murder of Graham Staines and his sons, aged 10 and six, in the family’s car when it was surrounded by members of Bajrang Dal and set on fire, bemoaning the rise of Hindu majoritarianism and the failure of Indian liberal secularism. As evidenced by Rammohan himself, any attack or perceived attack on Hinduism by its erudite tends to attract instant and widespread notice.
The Godhra riots mentioned by Banerjee definitely deserve to be condemned, but the element of bias is revealed when the burning of the Hindu pilgrims travelling by Sabarmati Express, which triggered the entire unholy mess, is left unmentioned and the perpetrators spared censure for their unconscionable act. This is the problem with agenda-driven narratives, even when bolstered by the heavy duty efforts of historians, which see folks sympathise with the minorities in developing nations while turning a blind eye to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza or the clownish antics of a Neo-Nazi-funded Head of State in Ukraine. A historical account that is shoehorned to fit present-day ideological politics is just that, making it unworthy of applause.