Continuity and Rupture among the Bhil Pentecostals
The paper asks: why are increasing number of Bhils converting to Pentecostal Christianity? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among the Bhils of south Rajasthan, the paper makes three inter-related arguments: first, the failure of the postcolonial state to provide basic social welfare services, especially health care and education, to the Bhils has brought them closer to the Pentecostal projects of healing, conversion and development; second, to understand how Christianity is growing among the Bhils, it is vital to understand how the Pentecostal missionaries have adapted to the local socio-cultural context and followed localized strategies to preach the gospel; and finally, to explain the growth of Pentecostalism among the Bhils, it is important to understand the complex relationship between state and religion, specifically Christianity, in the postcolonial context. Broadly, the paper demonstrates how this complex relationship between state and religion has given rise to a community of Crypto Christians which defies the notion of “making a break with the past” (Meyer, 1998), “rupture” (Daswani, 2013) or “discontinuity” (Robbins, 2003; 2004; Engelke, 2004) that Pentecostal conversion essentially advocates.
____________
@Sahoo, S. (2023) “Conversion and (Dis)Continuity among the Bhil Pentecostals of Rajasthan, India,” in M. Wilkinson and J. Haustein (eds.) The Pentecostal World, London: Routledge, pp.223-236. https://www.routledge.com/The-Pentecostal-World/Wilkinson-Haustein/p/book/9780367621803
REVIEW: Godroads (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
Reviewed by: Lancy Lobo, Centre for Culture and Development, Vadodara, Gujarat, India
Taking the simile of ‘road to God’, well known in India as Panth or Marg, which could be rough, smooth, bent, high and low, and endless pilgrim’s way, this volume brings together well researched essays on the subject of conversion in India. The essays are an outcome of the research project, ‘Modalities of Conversion in India’ and were presented first at the European Conference of South Asian studies, held at the University Warsaw, Poland in the year 2016.
Apart from the introduction written by the editors, this volume includes 10 essays with a Foreword by P. Vitebsky and an Afterword by A. Vilaca. Of these 10 essays, 3 are by anthropologists, 1 sociologist, 3 anthropologists cum theologians and 3 faculties of theology and religious studies. Seven essays are concerned with Christianity, one to Hinduism, one to tribal religion and one on a study of Islamic reformism. The seven essays on Christianity deal with classical Protestant denominations and missions, and none to Catholic Christianity which is numerically preponderant in India.
In the words of the editors in Introduction, the chapters ‘highlight two dimensions of conversion to modernities. While one aspect of modernity refers to missionary education, modern medicine, advanced agricultural technologies and the prospect of material progress and social mobility, the other dimension is represented through enlightenment value systems, such as increasing rationalization and individualisation, the quest for equal rights and human dignity, freedom from oppression and humiliation and the establishment of law, order and social Justice’ (p. 13). One cannot classify the 10 essays by one dimension or the other as the two dimensions are not mutually exclusive.
Though the volume is on conversion, there appears much debate and discussion on the use of this term in the case studies presented. Is conversion a onetime event or rupture with former religion? Is conversion a resilient, slow winding road? Does conversion entail syncretism in varying degrees? Is it the outcome of protest? Is conversion a search for new identity? Is it a sure route to modernity? Is it to access material and healing benefits? Can intra-religious reform or refinement be considered conversion? Why do some convert, de-convert and some reconvert or go back to their original religion? Why some choose to continue in the new religion despite the state depriving them of reservation or affirmative action? This volume draws attention to the conversion process and themes such as: conversion as protest; conversion to modernities; and conversion as continuity, change, process and event.
However, having alerted the reader that most studies on conversion have been on Christianity, conversion and missionaries have been synonymous with Christianity as if other religions do not engage in conversions. In this volume too, most of the essays are focused on Christianity. These essays give the impression as if there is no or little conversion in other religions. When one talks about modalities of conversion, one could also speak of employing violent and non-violent means. For instance, the way in which Buddhism spread over large parts of the world.
Much as I enjoyed reading these erudite essays which deal mostly with historic past, what relevance do they have for contemporary India? The Indian state has stopped allowing foreign Christian missionaries since 1960s and has sent them back or not renewed their visas. The evangelical Christian missionaries come on short term under the guise of tourist visa and which too is under the scanner. The state has also used reservation as a deterrent for scheduled castes from converting. It has given reservation to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist Dalits but not to Muslim and Christian Dalits. Conversions to Christianity have come to a halt in the 1950s among Dalits and tribals thereafter.
This volume raises interesting questions for future research on the nature of conversions in a majoritarian Hindu nationalist state. Mocherla, Sahoo, Berger and Kannan’s essays are significant. Berger’s thick ethnography does not once use the term Sanskritisation among Gadaba and Olek. Kannan deals with sacred art and Hindu nationalism. Sahoo deals with reservation and religious freedom. Mocherla discusses the shift from communist ideology to Christianity.
Sanskritisation was a slow and spontaneous process of lower castes emulating the Sanskritic Hinduism of the upper castes. David Pocock has illustrated how the process of ‘inclusion and exclusion’ has been going on through a variety of means in India. Today a number of Sanskritic Hindu sects are actively looking for adherents among tribals, which I know in the case of Gujarat.
Since the Arya Samaj which began Shuddi, its modern forms like ghar wapsi (home coming) a euphemistic term for reconversion has come into vogue. However, Hindutvisation is qualitatively a different process as compared to Sanskritisation. Hindutvisation by the many Hindu nationalist affiliates of Sangh Parivar, especially VHP, and Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad, are engaged in proselytization of tribals and ghar wapsi of Christian/Muslim converts. This volume rightly raises the question if the term conversion is appropriate to capture the phenomena in religious landscape of India. We have hardly any studies on contemporary conversion movements in Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism except neo-Buddhism. So also the new variant of Christian Pentecostalism consumed by people irrespective of caste, sect, tribe, and Dalit in India as adherents though not formally baptised. If in the past conversions to Christianity were seen from the prism of protest, modernity, continuity, change, process and event, there is an open field for social scientists to study the nature of Godroads in contemporary India with reference to Hinduism and Hindu nationalism.
This volume also limits its quest largely to socio-historic research with little attention except Oddie to theological and spiritual transformations that accompany conversion. Only Oddie has dealt with this. While there are some who leave or revert to their former religion, why do those many continue in very adverse socio-economic conditions in the new religion? Is there a reality called Godexperience or spiritual experience which grips them? This dimension is missing making conversion a socio-cultural and historic reality.
Another theme that is missing in this volume is individual conversion. Of course there is a case of Zahur-Al-Haqq, a Muslim convert to evangelical Christianity by Arun Jones. This volume studies by and large group conversions thereby making conversions appear solely as a socio-political phenomenon.
This volume has exposed highly researched material on varied dimensions of conversions questioning if the term conversion itself is enough to explain the phenomena of change in religion or change within a religion. All the essays, with the Introduction, Foreword and Afterword, should interest historians, anthropologists, sociologists, theologians and especially those who wish to study religious change, and wish to engage in God-talk.
____________________
@ Lobo, L. (2021) Sociological Bulletin, 70(2): 276-278; https://doi.org/10.1177/0038022920970290
BOOK REVIEW: Religion and Secularities: Reconfiguring Islam in Contemporary India (Orient Blackswan)
Reviewed by: Sarbeswar Sahoo, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
In Indian sociology, while a lot of research has been done on issues of caste, tribe, ethnicity and gender, very little attention has been paid to the sociology and anthropology of religion, especially Islam and Christianity. One of the reasons for this could be religion’s uneasy relationship with the postcolonial Indian nationstate. Particularly, in the post-partition context, religion was viewed with suspicion— as a major factor of communal violence. Although the postcolonial Indian state did not refute the role of religion in public sphere, it adopted a secular model of nation-building that aimed to maintain equidistance from all religions. Following this, Indian sociology was preoccupied with questions of secular modernity rather than religion (Sahoo, 2019). However, recently some Indian sociologists have focused their attention on religion and the role it plays in public life. Sitharaman and Chakrabarti belong to this small group of sociologists who have contributed significantly in understanding the complex and dynamic relationship between religion and secularism in India. In their new edited volume Religion and Secularities, which grew out of a seminar at IIT Kanpur, Sitharaman and Chakrabarti examine the multiple facets of Islam in the diverse sociohistorical context of India.
The volume has a long and comprehensive introduction and seven chapters by a group of young researchers working on the sociology of religion. The introduction by Sitharaman and Chakrabarti sets the tone for the book, posing some vital questions related to the anthropology of Islam in India. Specifically, the introduction engages with four important and interrelated themes such as debates on ‘Indian Islam’, the trope of syncretism, ethnography of the secular and Islamic public sphere in India. The essays in this volume are broadly organised around these themes. Under the first theme, the editors ask: ‘What is the uniqueness of Indian Islam?’ Discussing the works of Imtiaz Ahmad, Veena Das, Francis Robinson and others, the editors show how Indian sociologists and anthropologists have majorly ‘focused on the questions of kinship, family and caste within Muslim communities’ (p. 4). By highlighting some of these aspects, the above scholars have shown how Islam has intermingled with the local cultural and religious traditions, giving rise to syncretic practices. In this context, Sitharaman and Chakrabarti argue that while syncretism constitutes a vital aspect, it has limitations and there are several other ways of looking at Indian Islam. In the second theme, Sitharaman and Chakrabarti examine the limits to syncretism. Particularly, they question the liberal secular understanding that considers syncretism as liberating and as a solution to communalism and religious intolerance. For them, the liberal model lacks reference to processes or temporal manifestation and views syncretism only as a static condition (p. 8). In this section, the editors ask: ‘Does syncretism truly offer inclusive possibilities for a merging of religious differences, or is it a code word for the incorporation and assimilation of “minority” cultures into the culture of the dominant group?’ (p. 9–10). Addressing this, Aditya Kapoor in Chapter 1 discusses the ‘fluidity of social boundaries and identities’ (p. 32) and shows how Muslims negotiate their ‘Muslim’ and ‘Bengali’ identities in their everyday lives and how it is not about dominance of one identity over the other, but a strategic interplay of multiple identities. Moreover, Kapoor importantly illustrates that ‘construction of religion as faith or as an ideology is a contextually embedded process with shifting boundaries’ (p. 33).
Under the third theme, the book discusses the categories of the religious and the secular and their relationship with the modern nation state. While much of the literature has posited the sacred and the secular as two separate and opposite realms, the essays in this section reveal how both are ‘closely intertwined in paradigmatic ways in modern nation states’ (p. 12). By taking law as an example of the modern state’s governance mechanism, the essays demonstrate the blurred boundaries between the sacred and the secular. While Aleena Sebastian’s chapter discusses the interface of law and socio-cultural pluralities through a contextspecific historical analysis of matrilineal practices among Mappila Muslims of Malabar, Suchandra Ghosh and Anindita Chakrabarti’s essay questions the incompatibility between the secular state law and the non-state religious laws through an ethnographic study of the dispute resolution processes among Muslim litigants in Kanpur. Moreover, Sudha Sitharaman also examines the relationship between religion, secularity and law and asks: Is secularism the best mechanism to govern religious diversity and reduce communal violence in India? Contrary to the liberals (as well as right-wingers) who upheld secularism as progressive, Sitharaman, through the case of the Bababudhan dargah controversy, shows that instead of reducing, ‘modern secular governance’ in India has in fact ‘contributed to the exacerbation of religious tensions, hardening inter-faith boundaries and polarizing religious differences’ (p. 87).
The rest three chapters of the book engage with the final theme, public sphere and civil society. By critically engaging with the Habermasian idea of ‘public sphere’ and Casanova’s idea of ‘public religions’ the authors examine the possibilities of an Islamic ‘counterpublic’ that transcends the rational (secular) deliberations. Notably, as T. Hashim in his chapter shows, multiple religious groups engaged with each other not only to establish an Islamic public sphere in Malabar but also to decide on the nature of ‘true Islam’. What is unique in this is that these groups were ‘influenced by their understandings of their text and everyday religious practices’ as well as ‘socio-political conditions’ (p. 133). Similarly, Shahul Ameen K. T. shows how the Solidarity Youth Movement in Kerala has introduced an ethico-religious dimension to debates on public sphere and civil society. In the final chapter, R. Santhosh asks: Is Islam incompatible with secularism? Addressing this, Santhosh discusses the role of a Muslim reformist organization in the palliative care movement in Kerala and shows how the Islamic and secular ethos can coexist. Particularly, he discusses how the volunteers of the palliative care movement present their activism as Islamic dawa and at the same time are highly conscious of their secular ethos in the public domain.
The book makes several important contributions. First, in contrast to several studies, which call for consolidating secularism to strengthen democracy, this book shows how secularism can also polarise identities and exacerbate religious intolerance. Secondly, contrary to the literature that posits the religious and the secular as conflicting domains, this book provides a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between the religious and the political and shows how the boundaries between the two could often be blurred. Finally, by discussing the various aspects of the everyday lived realities of Muslim communities in different socio-structural contexts, the book provides a holistic perspective on the anthropology of Islam in India. Two minor shortcomings of the book are: one the thematic distribution of the chapters is uneven, and two, I would have liked the inclusion of some chapters that discuss the questions of caste, kinship and family relations among Muslims in contemporary India. Despite these minor shortcomings, the volume is filled with new theoretical insights and makes a substantial contribution to the sociology and anthropology of religion in India.
Reference
Sahoo, S. (2019) Caste, conversion and care: Towards an anthropology of Christianity of India. Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, 32(Article 3), 9–19.
________________
@ Sahoo, S. (2021) S. “Review of Sitharaman & A. Chakrabarti (eds.) Religion and Secularities: Reconfiguring Islam in Contemporary India,” Sociological Bulletin, 72(3): 433-436.
BOOK REVIEW: Pentecostalism and Politics of Conversion in India
Reviewed by: Allan Varghese, Asbury Theological Seminary
In Pentecostalism and Politics of Conversion in India, Sarbeswar Sahoo, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT), presents the complexity of understanding conversion in India. From the context of the tribal communities of Rajasthan, Sahoo attempts to provide a “holistic interpretation” of conversion to Pentecostalism in light of the recent anti-Christian violence in India, highlighting the “competing projects of conversion of both Christian missionaries and Hindu nationalists” (pg. 7).
In the introductory chapter, Sahoo opens up the discourse by presenting the Christian and Hindu claims for and against the tribal conversion to the Pentecostal expression of Christianity.
In chapter two, Sahoo unpacks the rise of Pentecostalism in India and namely in the state of Rajasthan. Sahoo highlights the Native Missionary Movement (NMM) and the Calvary Covenant Fellowship Mission (CCFM) for successfully propagating Pentecostal mission works among the tribal communities. Sahoo notes that the “divine healings, emphasis on Spirit worship, strict rules, and belief system and ‘holistic development’ through active social ministries have…helped spread Pentecostalism among tribals” (pg. 35). Sahoo also presents the new converts’ financial and social trepidation, who are at risk of losing their communal identity due to their new Pentecostal religious identity.
In chapter three, Sahoo takes the analysis a step further by presenting four narratives of contemporary religious conversion from Rajasthan to demonstrate the complex nature of conversion at the grassroots level. First, the Hindu nationalist narrative, which advocates against conversion rigorously and accuses the missionaries of gaining converts through allurements. Second, Sahoo presents the local Christian missionary narrative that rejects the Hindu nationalist accusations and sees missionary work as within the bounds of Indian constitutional rights of propagating religion. Third, the convert’s narrative demonstrates that the conversion happens due to “tension-producing situational factors” (pg. 77), highlighting the instances where the village gods were not powerful to bring healing and peace, but the missionaries prayed, and healing occurred. Fourth, the Hindu Adivasi narrative, which acknowledges the rationale for conversions as healing from disease and material benefits, but also sees conversion as angering the Hindu gods and ultimately undermining the sense of tribal solidarity. Through these four narratives, Sahoo establishes the sociological complexity of understanding conversion.
In chapter four, Sahoo focuses on women’s conversion experiences in the tribal villages of south Rajasthan. After a brief history of women and Pentecostalism worldwide, Sahoo narrates various Adivasi women’s conversion experiences at length, demonstrating the “experientialist” (pg. 99) aspects of Pentecostalism that enabled the women to experience the transcendent, which led them to experience freedom and equality in churches.
Finally, in chapter five, while highlighting the nature of Hindutva politics that has been driving the anti-conversion violence in India, Sahoo also draws attention to “competing projects of conversion’” (pg. 127) among both Christian missionaries and Hindu nationalists. Like Christian missionaries, Hindu nationalist groups have also established development projects to curb Christian conversion and to reconvert the Christians back to Hinduism. Sahoo also provides apolitical analysis on such competing projects of conversion that often puts the Christians in a disadvantageous position compared to their Hindu counterparts.
In general, Sarbeswar Sahoo’s book is a much-needed addition to the subject of conversion from a more sociological and ethnographic perspective. It portrays the Indian grassroots reality where the competing local understandings of conversion are held in tension. One of the main objectives that Sahoo’s study brought forth is to go “beyond the ‘materialist incentive discourse’” (pg. 159) as a motivation for conversion. Sahoo shows that the process of conversion is complex, where material allure is just one piece of the puzzle. Another strength of Sahoo’s work is in highlighting the development projects of Hindu nationalist organizations to compete with the Christian social service activities to provide empowerment and even conduct “reconversion” (gharwapsi) rituals if any converts wish to go back to Hinduism.
Although Pentecostalism and Politics of Conversion in India is a well-researched, easy-to-read work, some may sense that Sahoo’s analysis is more sympathetic towards the Pentecostals than the Hindu nationalist side. However, Sahoo, who is not a Christian (which he mentions in the book), provides ample ethnographic data to balance that deficit if anyone perceives it as biased. Nonetheless, religious scholars and students interested in Christian mission, Pentecostalism, and religion & politics will find the book an intellectual asset.
________________________
@ Varghese, A. (2021) The Journal of Asian American Theological Forum, 8(1): 13-14; https://aatfweb.org/2021/05/14/pentecostalism-and-politics-of-conversion-in-india/
Collaboration, Co-Optation or Navigation? The Role of Civil Society in Disaster Governance in India
Existing research on civil society organizations (CSOs) facing restricted civic space largely focuses on the crackdown on freedoms and CSOs’ strategies to handle these restrictions, often emphasizing impact on their more confrontational public roles. However, many CSOs shape their roles through collaborative relations with government. Drawing on interviews with state agencies and CSOs, this article analyes state–CSO collaboration in the restricted civic space context of disaster risk reduction in India. Findings are that the shaping of CSOs’ roles through collaboration under conditions of restricted civic space is only partly defined by the across-the-board restrictive policies that have been the focus of much existing research on restricted civic space and its implications for CSOs. Interplay at the level of individual state agencies and CSOs, based on mutual perceptions, diverse organization level considerations and actions, and evolving relations, shape who collaborates with whom and to what effect. This article thus stresses interplay and agency, moving away from simple understandings of co-optation, and calling for a more differentiated approach to the study of state–civil society collaboration under conditions of restricted civic space, with close attention to navigation.
_______________________
@ R. Syal & M. van Wessel and S. Sahoo (2021) “Collaboration, Co-optation or Navigation? The Role of Civil Society in Disaster Governance in India,” VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Non-Profit Organizations, 32(4): 795-808 (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11266-021-00344-8).
“The Holy Spirit in the Household”: Pentecostalism and Gendered Transformation in India
Studies have shown that women outnumber men in Christianity (Woodhead, 2003: 73) and participate more actively in Pentecostal churches worldwide (Hefner, 2013: 11; Robbins, 2004: 132;). Bernice Martin (2003: 56) has reported that women constitute around two-third of all adult evangelicals in the world. In the Indian context, Bauman (2015: 82) points out that ‘while Pentecostal women in India may less frequently than elsewhere occupy positions of formal authority, they remain quite visible’. According to Bauman, in ‘most Pentecostal churches, [women] comprise a clear majority of congregants (often as much as 70 per cent) and they often participate openly and enthusiastically in worship’. Given this, the question is: why do a large number of tribal women convert to Pentecostalism and what motivates them to ‘make a break’ (Meyer, 1998) with their traditional belief system? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the paper argues that the Pentecostal churches have made special efforts to address the everyday problems of tribal women, which has brought them closer to the church. Specifically, the paper will discuss: (1) women’s conversion experience; (2) their experience of miracle healings; (3) male-female interaction within family and in church; and (4) changes in socio-economic well-being. Interviews with tribal women testify that they have experienced great transformations in their lives during the post-conversion period.
@ Sahoo, S. (2021) “The Holy Spirit in the Household”: Pentecostalism and Gendered Transformation in India, Paper Presented at the International Conference on Indian Christianity and its Transformative Potentials: A Multidisciplinary Exploration, University of Madras, Chennai, 6-7 December.
Representation by Development Organizations: Evidence From India and Implications for Inclusive Development
This article focuses on development organizations’ construction of representative roles in their work at the environment–development interface and on implications of these constructions for inclusiveness. While much of the past literature on representation has dealt with electoral representation, this article highlights the importance of nonelectoral representation. It follows a constructivist approach and is based on 36 in-depth interviews with the staff of different types of India-based development organizations working on disaster risk management. The article shows how development organizations in India contribute to inclusive development by representing groups that are vulnerable to disaster risk in diverse ways. Showing this diversity and how it is mediated by organizations, the article makes clear that representation is much more complex than literature commonly suggests. This complexity enables organizations to engage with specific dimensions of inclusive development. The article also illustrates how representation by development organizations happens through opportunities found and created through the intertwining of capacity development, service delivery, and advocacy. At the same time, the mediated nature of representation, and its embeddedness in a wide set of relations, makes representation by development organizations indirect and questionable in ways beyond the commonly understood dominance of powerful nongovernmental organizations.
Keywords civil society, development organizations, disaster risk management, inclusive development, India, representation
____________
Source: S. Katyaini, M. van Wessel and S. Sahoo (2021) “Representation by Development Organizations: Evidence from India and Implications for Inclusive Development”, Journal of Environment and Development, Vol.30, No.1, pp.98-123 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1070496520983599)
Book Review: Pentecostalism and Politics of Conversion in India
Reviewed By: Allan Varghese, Asbury Theological Seminary
In Pentecostalism and Politics of Conversion in India, Sarbeswar Sahoo, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT), presents the complexity of understanding conversion in India. From the context of the tribal communities of Rajasthan, Sahoo attempts to provide a “holistic interpretation” of conversion to Pentecostalism in light of the recent anti-Christian violence in India, highlighting the “competing projects of conversion of both Christian missionaries and Hindu nationalists” (pg. 7).
In the introductory chapter, Sahoo opens up the discourse by presenting the Christian and Hindu claims for and against the tribal conversion to the Pentecostal expression of Christianity.
In chapter two, Sahoo unpacks the rise of Pentecostalism in India and namely in the state of Rajasthan. Sahoo highlights the Native Missionary Movement (NMM) and the Calvary Covenant Fellowship Mission (CCFM) for successfully propagating Pentecostal mission works among the tribal communities. Sahoo notes that the “divine healings, emphasis on Spirit worship, strict rules, and belief system and ‘holistic development’ through active social ministries have…helped spread Pentecostalism among tribals” (pg. 35). Sahoo also presents the new converts’ financial and social trepidation, who are at risk of losing their communal identity due to their new Pentecostal religious identity.
In chapter three, Sahoo takes the analysis a step further by presenting four narratives of contemporary religious conversion from Rajasthan to demonstrate the complex nature of conversion at the grassroots level. First, the Hindu nationalist narrative, which advocates against conversion rigorously and accuses the missionaries of gaining converts through allurements. Second, Sahoo presents the local Christian missionary narrative that rejects the Hindu nationalist accusations and sees missionary work as within the bounds of Indian constitutional rights of propagating religion. Third, the convert’s narrative demonstrates that the conversion happens due to “tension-producing situational factors” (pg. 77), highlighting the instances where the village gods were not powerful to bring healing and peace, but the missionaries prayed, and healing occurred. Fourth, the Hindu Adivasi narrative, which acknowledges the rationale for conversions as healing from disease and material benefits, but also sees conversion as angering the Hindu gods and ultimately undermining the sense of tribal solidarity. Through these four narratives, Sahoo establishes the sociological complexity of understanding conversion.
In chapter four, Sahoo focuses on women’s conversion experiences in the tribal villages of south Rajasthan. After a brief history of women and Pentecostalism worldwide, Sahoo narrates various Adivasi women’s conversion experiences at length, demonstrating the “experientialist” (pg. 99) aspects of Pentecostalism that enabled the women to experience the transcendent, which led them to experience freedom and equality in churches.
Finally, in chapter five, while highlighting the nature of Hindutva politics that has been driving the anti-conversion violence in India, Sahoo also draws attention to “competing projects of conversion’” (pg. 127) among both Christian missionaries and Hindu nationalists. Like Christian missionaries, Hindu nationalist groups have also established development projects to curb Christian conversion and to reconvert the Christians back to Hinduism. Sahoo also provides apolitical analysis on such competing projects of conversion that often puts the Christians in a disadvantageous position compared to their Hindu counterparts.
In general, Sarbeswar Sahoo’s book is a much-needed addition to the subject of conversion from a more sociological and ethnographic perspective. It portrays the Indian grassroots reality where the competing local understandings of conversion are held in tension. One of the main objectives that Sahoo’s study brought forth is to go “beyond the ‘materialist incentive discourse’” (pg. 159) as a motivation for conversion. Sahoo shows that the process of conversion is complex, where material allure is just one piece of the puzzle. Another strength of Sahoo’s work is in highlighting the development projects of Hindu nationalist organizations to compete with the Christian social service activities to provide empowerment and even conduct “reconversion” (gharwapsi) rituals if any converts wish to go back to Hinduism.
Although Pentecostalism and Politics of Conversion in Indiais a well-researched, easy-to-read work, some may sense that Sahoo’s analysis is more sympathetic towards the Pentecostals than the Hindu nationalist side. However, Sahoo, who is not a Christian (which he mentions in the book), provides ample ethnographic data to balance that deficit if anyone perceives it as biased. Nonetheless, religious scholars and students interested in Christian mission, Pentecostalism, and religion & politics will find the book an intellectual asset.
Allan Varghese
Asbury Theological Seminary
_________________
Source: Allan Varghese, Asbury Theological Seminary (2021) The Journal of Asian American Theological Forum, Vol.8, No.1, May 14, pp.13-14 (https://aatfweb.org/2021/05/14/pentecostalism-and-politics-of-conversion-in-india/; accessed 30th June 2021).
Complementarities in CSO Collaborations: How Working with Diversity Produces Advantages
By: Margit van Wessel • Farhat Naz • Sarbeswar Sahoo
A commonly explored theme in international civil society organisation (CSO) collaborations is the dominance of Northern CSOs and how this impinges on Southern CSOs’ autonomy, but there is little work on the relative importance of different collaborations for Southern CSOs. This study examined complementarity as a new approach to understanding CSO collaboration. Seeking Southern perspectives, we examined the case of CSOs working on disaster risk reduction in India and developed a typology of complementarities in this domain. The article considers the implications for understanding complemen- tarity in broader CSO collaborations. We find that con- structing collaborations through the lens of complementarity may facilitate capitalising on diversity among CSOs and help build collaborations that consider the domestic orientation of many Southern CSOs and reshape the roles of Northern CSOs as complementary rather than leading.
Keywords Collaboration Complementarity Civil society organisations Disaster risk reduction Southern leadership
_______________
Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11266-020-00227-4
BOOK REVIEW: Pentecostalism and politics of conversion in India
Reviewed by: Bernardo Brown (International Christian University, Tokyo)
This ethnography examines the phenomenon of conversion to Pentecostalism amongst a tribal community in the district of Udaipur in Rajasthan. Sarbeswar Sahoo arrived at this theme after conducting his doctoral fieldwork with a local NGO aligned with the Hindu nationalist ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). While in the field, he observed that the development agenda of this and other NGOs operating in the region was specifically directed against the work of Muslim groups and Christian missionaries. This anti‐Christian agenda – together with the rising levels of violence against Christian minorities developing since the 1990s – was what prompted Sahoo to turn his research attention to the dynamics of conversion amongst the Bhils of south Rajasthan.
I begin by highlighting this background because it is not possible to interpret the meaning of conversion in Udaipur without a deep understanding of contemporary Indian politics. Although the rise of Hindutva ideology has broad implications that negatively impact ethnic and religious minorities at a national level, in this sophisticated monograph, Sahoo reveals how the actions of relatively small‐scale, localized right‐wing organizations not only play a key role in the rise of anti‐Christian violence, but are also intimately related to the aspirations, zeal, and success of Pentecostal missionaries. Sahoo also argues that what has fuelled an intensification of violence is not the ideological antagonism between Hindu nationalists and Christian missionaries, but their competitive quest for converts amongst Adivasi communities. The key to the rising tensions therefore might be found in how organizations on both sides exchange accusations and develop tactics aimed at neutralizing the gains of the other. However, the tribal communities that they target are not passive pawns in this quest for converts. They actively search for ways to benefit – sometimes alternatively – from the opportunities for education, employment, and development that missionaries and nationalist NGOs offer.
Since independence, Christian missionaries have strongly denounced the hierarchical inequalities of the caste system. However, rather than working towards its elimination, many missionary organizations have incorporated its social structure into their evangelizing strategies. Hindu nationalists have criticized this, accusing missionaries of taking advantage of those at the bottom of Indian society for their own gain. Sahoo’s ethnography provides unique access to the tensions that the politics of conversion – both to Christianity and to Hindutva ideology – generate in villages across south Rajasthan. His interlocutors are constantly wary of to whom they might be talking and what they might be revealing. Some fear losing their jobs in the government if they divulge their Christian identity; others want to hide it from official records to keep qualifying for government reservations. This ‘crypto‐Christianity’ is thus becoming a difficult phenomenon to measure.
The book’s second and third chapters develop Sahoo’s ethnography through examining how Pentecostals in south Rajasthan have not attempted to convert caste Hindus but have instead turned their attention to communities that have been historically marginalized and discriminated against. Their focus on Dalits and Adivasi communities acted as a wake‐up call for organizations that embrace Hindutva ideology, which soon started reclaiming sectors of society that they had never considered as Hindu in the past. This strategic expansion of the limits for inclusion – which are being constantly redefined by supporters of Hindutva – constitutes a significant change for India’s political and religious landscape.
Sahoo effectively engages with scholars who have explored the consequences of this new dynamic (Roberts, Viswanathan, Appadurai), providing a well‐grounded conceptual background to frame his own research. His discussion of the concepts of rupture, continuity, and sincerity is helpful in contextualizing his argument; so is his analysis of the work of some key authors in the anthropology of Christianity (Robbins, Mosse, Keane), but he does not engage in theoretical challenges to their work. Given his deep knowledge of the situation in south Rajasthan and his engagement with this literature, the book could have offered a nuanced perspective on ongoing conceptual debates on Christianity and conversion in South Asia.
Yet this ethnography offers a convincing narrative of how tensions derived from the intense competition between Hindu nationalists and Christian missionaries have grown to produce profound antagonisms and multiple episodes of violence. Some of the most interesting passages of the book are found in chapter 3, where Sahoo takes on the issue of unethical conversions, fleshing out alternative definitions of allurement, freedom, and spiritual belief, revealing the complexities that alternative narratives of conversion generate. The main strengths of this volume derive from its capacity to situate the problem of conversion in the context of contemporary Indian politics and from its sophisticated ethnographic fieldwork in the region.
___________________________
@ Journal of Royal Anthropological Society, Vol.26, No.2, June, 2020, pp.450-451
Sarbeswar Sahoo
