How did missionaries in colonial India communicate with the people they were trying to convert?

Ask a Historian

The full show transcript is available on our website. https://history.wisc.edu/ask-a-historian/

How did evangelical missionaries in India communicate with the people they were trying to convert? Professor Mitra Sharafi talks with Professor Mou Banerjee about the history of evangelical missionaries in colonial India, where the colonial and evangelical enterprises never fully overlapped as they did elsewhere in the world. Mou emphasizes that the history of Christian conversion in India has not been one of force. Rather, people converted for complex political, spiritual, and personal reasons.

Mou and Mitra also talk about the longer history of Christianity in India. Contrary to narratives that cast Christianity and Christians as alien to the Indian nation, the history of Christianity in India is nearly as old as Christianity itself. Across centuries, there has been a long history of peaceful side-by-side coexistence and fascination with the ethical precepts of Christianity.

Episode Links:

Mou Banerjee is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. https://history.wisc.edu/people/banerjee-mou/

Mitra Sharafi is Professor of Law & Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she is also affiliated with the Department of History and the Center for South Asia. https://secure.law.wisc.edu/profiles/[email protected]

Our music is “Pamgaea” by Kevin MacLeod. Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea CC BY 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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