Cultural Encounters in India: The Local Co-Workers of the Tranquebar Mission, 18th to 19th Centuries

This is the English translation of an award-winning German book that relates the history of social and religious encounter in the late eighteenth century South India through fascinating biographical accounts of daily lives of Indian workers who worked in the first organised Protestant mission enterprise in India, the Tranquebar Mission (1706-1845). The mission was originally initiated by the Danish king but later sustained by religious authorities and mission organisations in Germany and Britain. It challenges the argument that Christianity in colonial India was imposed upon the people. Questioning the exclusive focus on European mission societies, it showcases the contributions of local converts and mission co-workers in eighteenth-century South India, providing a penetrating account of some Tamil leaders. It throws light on conflicting cultural influences on local societies in South India, placing them in wider contexts under the rising control and increasing rule of the British East India Company.