Hindi Christian Literature in Contemporary India PDF
Preview Hindi Christian Literature in Contemporary India
This pioneering book opens up for us the great but largely unnoticed world of Christian writing in the Hindi language, India’s majority language. Meticulous in its detailed attention to hitherto unnoticed literature, Hindi Christian Literature in Contemporary India maps subtly the interplay of language, politics, and culture today, while yet mindful of the long history of interactions between Hindus and Christians, India and the West. In this way, Peter-Dass uncovers for us a vital and enduring form of Christianity in India that will surprise those who know only Indian Christian theology in English, while shedding light too on Hindi culture more widely, and even Hinduism in the 21st century. Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Parkman Professor of Divinity, Professor of Comparative Theology, Harvard University, USA This ground-breaking and wide-ranging scholarly work on Hindi Christian literature provides a greatly overdue and much needed investigation into the articulation of Christian faith in North India, where over half a billion people speak Hindi. In a study that will have significant implications for the study of religion in general, Rakesh Peter-Dass deftly probes the complicated interconnections between language, social context, history and audience to provide an account of regional Christianity that is both innovative and persuasive. Arun W. Jones, Dan and Lillian Hankey Associate Professor of World Evangelism, Emory University, USA In the context of Hindu nationalists’ longstanding proclivity to conflate Hindi, Hindu, and Hindustan (or India), and in an environment where the “Indianness” of Christianity is regularly contested, Christians’ linguistic choices are always political. With lively and accessible prose that moves compellingly from one intriguing topic to another, Peter-Dass explores the political influences on and ramifications of literature produced intentionally and self-consciously in Hindi by India’s Christians. Both a survey of this understudied genre and a critical analysis of its most salient obsessions, the volume introduces readers to authors like John Henry Anand, Benjamin Khan, Din Dayal, and Richard Howell, who, because of the inaccessibility of Hindi to many western (and even other Indian) scholars, have not received the attention they deserve. Pleasurably disorienting in its multilingual presentation, Hindi Christian Literature in Contemporary India offers a novel and important way of thinking about the relationship of Christianity and Indian culture. Chad M. Bauman, Professor of Religion and Chair, Butler University, USA Hindi Christian Literature in Contemporary India This is the first academic study of Christian literature in Hindi and its role in the politics of language and religion in contemporary India. In public portrayals, Hindi has been the language of Hindus and Urdu the language of Muslims, but Christians have usually been associated with the English of the foreign ‘West.’ However, this book shows how Christian writers in India have adopted Hindi in order to promote a form of Christianity that can be seen as Indian, desī, and rooted in the religio-linguistic world of the Hindi belt. Using different studies, the book demonstrates how Hindi Christian writing strategically presents Christianity as linguistically Hindi, culturally Indian, and theologically informed by other faiths. These works are written to sway public perceptions by promoting particular forms of citizenship in the context of fostering the use of Hindi. Examining the content and context of Christian attention to Hindi, it is shown to have been deployed as a political and cultural tool by Christians in India. This book gives an important insight into the link between language and religion in India. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of religion in India, world Christianity, religion, politics, and language, interreligious dialogue, religious studies and South Asian studies. Rakesh Peter-Dass is Assistant Professor of Religion at Hope College, USA. His research and teaching focus on the intersections of religion with business, language, law, and politics. 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Palma The Cultural Fusion of Sufi Islam Alternative Paths to Mystical Faith Sarwar Alam Hindi Christian Literature in Contemporary India Rakesh Peter-Dass For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ religion/series/SE0669 Hindi Christian Literature in Contemporary India Rakesh Peter-Dass First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Rakesh Peter-Dass The right of Rakesh Peter-Dass to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-32223-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-33063-7 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC For Sharon Contents Acknowledgments x 1 Politics of religion 1 2 The making of a genre 47 3 Linguistic choices 79 4 Shaping identity 105 5 Christians in India 147 6 Message matters 190 Index 221
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