Christians and Public Life in Colonial South India, 1869-1937: Contending with Marginality

Chandra Mallampalli has written a masterful book that explores new scholarly territory at the interstices of legal, political, religious and cultural history.  His multi-faceted approach to understanding Indian Christian marginality in Colonial South India yields results that have eluded less comprehensive studies.  Mining primary and secondary literatures from a wide variety of archives and disciplines.  Mallampalli has produced a groundbreaking work that expands our understanding of the origins and perpetuation of Indian Christianity’s marginalisation in South India.  This book tells the story of how Catholic and Protestant Indians have attempted to find their place within the evolving Indian nation.  Ironically.  British rule in India did find their place within the evolving Indian nation.  Ironically.  British rule in India did not privilege Christians, but pushed them to the margins of a predominantly Hindu society.  drawing upon wide-ranging sources, the book first explains how the Indian judiciary’s nation.  It then describes how different varieties and classes of Christians adopted, resisted and reshaped both imperial and nationalist perceptions of their identity.  Within a climate of rising communal tension in India, this study finds immediate relevance.