In Search of Identity: Debates on Religious Conversion in India

Why is religious conversion so controversial in India? Does religious conversion initiate significant social transformation or is it part of a wider transformation already occurring? At a time when conversion is the focus of national debate in India, this timely and important volume examines the major arguments on conversion between Hindus and Christians, and also among Christian theologians since Independence. The book reveals and interprets the arguments for and against conversion and seeks to understand them within a historical and contemporary perspective. The visit of Pope John Paul II to India in 1999 and the call for a debate on conversion from the highest levels in the Indian government intensified and redrew the major arguments on conversion which have always had a tendency to be divisive. Sebastian Kim provides the context to his discussion of conversion in post-Independence India by first examining the debates that took place in nineteenth century Bengal involving Ram Mohan Roy, and the pandits, through to the debate between Mahatma Gandhi and Indian Christian leaders. The book then traces the debates on conversion in the Constituent Assembly around the Niyogi report and concerning the freedom of religion acts. It concludes with an examination of the more contemporary Sangh Parivar campaign for Hindutva and Christian campaigns for evangelization. Scholars and lay readers will find this book immensely relevant and engaging as it discusses a discordant subject dispassionately and sensitively. It will be of particular use to policy-makers, journalists, academicians, and indispensable to researchers and students of sociology, religion, theolglogy, history, politics, and law.