Repainting Religious Landscape: Economics of Conversion and Making of Rice Christians in Colonial South India (1781–1880)

Abstract

Religious accessions and conversions have been spawning a great deal of scholarly attention from various academic disciplines. Conversion to Christianity is defined within the social, cultural, political and philosophical contexts, and suggests that it is a consequence of persuasion, cognitive act, commitment of a free will or a change from one view to another. But the main difficulty with such arguments is that they often tend to ignore the distinct historical experiences of the converts, because the explanations offered for the relatively increased number of Christians among the economically-challenged communities during the study period largely centred around factors which were 'outside' the missionary politics. The converts' poor and denigrated economic conditions due to natural calamities and other reasons seemed to be chiefly responsible for the origin of the much-celebrated and much-maligned 'rice Christians' in the southern part of the subcontinent. From a pecuniary standpoint, the economics of conversion became a much-preferred option among the Protestant converts rather than their religiosity per se or the content of their religious belief. Therefore, the ways in which the idea of rice Christians emerged, studied and interpreted are worth a critical enquiry. This article argues that missionary Christianity as developed in colonial south India among both the affluent as well as the disadvantaged sections of the society had also created a parallel, monolithic and unclassified rice Christian class within the broader Christian discourse both in theory and practice and that they are distinctly different in terms of their socio-cultural and political as well as economic conditions elsewhere in the country.

Famine, Caste Differences and Missionary Christianity in Colonial India: Burning Hunger

“…As the relief works of the missionaries improved the image of Christianity, many Dalits expressed their willingness to embrace Christianity. There is a powerful story of Telugu awakening here in the Andhra region (Clough, 1882), but as in earlier times (Doss, 2014), the Dalits’ desire to be free from burning hunger cannot be separated from these spiritual dimensions. In the context of Rayalaseema, particularly during the famine of 1876–78, the motives of conversion were clearly complex and beyond the argument of food or hunger.…”