Lecture by Sonali Dhanpal
Chaired by Lucia Allais

Throughout much of the colonial period in the Indian sub-continent, the perceived instability of Indian Christian identity was seen by the colonial legal regime as complex to define both politically and legally. Debates concerning Christians during high colonialism were dominated by the image of a beleaguered convert who had left Hinduism to be denied the right to inherit property and other familial rights. This talk focuses on one such case in the princely state of Mysore, where the judgment would deny the converts familial rights and provoke broader debates about the ideological priorities of princely and colonial India in protecting personal law.

The unique overlap of princely and British territories within Mysore’s administrative capital, Bangalore, provides a backdrop for these debates in the late 19th century and the jurisdictional limits that would come to govern the rights of converts in the city thereafter. By focusing on the missionaries’ production of official knowledge about conversion and the Indian Christian community while representing converts in court, Dhanpal uncovers how the judgment was not about religion but about caste. When the Christian identity became attached to the Dalit identity, she argues that it brought to the fore British, princely, and wider upper caste impulses to protect “Hindu” institutions against conversion unanimously.

Fall Thursday Lecture Series events are open to Columbia-affiliated faculty, students, and invited guests. All others interested in attending, please email the SOF/Heyman at [email protected].

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