Archive for Book Review
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.
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@ Journal of Royal Anthropological Society, Vol.26, No.2, June, 2020, pp.450-451
Sarbeswar Sahoo
The Practice of Sociology 