01731nam a22002297a 4500 20250522124725.0 250522b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d 9780670093656 : Raghav Books Pvt. Ltd : A-184, A, Nand Gram, Ghaziabad : 204 : 07/05/2025 370.05 PIL Pillai, Manu S. Gods Guns & Missionaries : The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity. / Manu S. Pillai. , Gurugram : Penguin Ramdom House , 2024. xlvii, 564p. : 24cm. 699 When European missionaries first arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan mess: the worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned women alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles. But soon it became clear that Hindu ‘idolatry’ was far more complex than white men’s stereotypes allowed, and Hindus had little desire to convert. But then, European power began to grow in India, and under colonial rule, missionaries assumed a forbidding appearance. During the British Raj, Western frames of thinking gained ascendancy and Hindus felt pressed to reimagine their religion. This was both to fortify it against Christian attacks and to resist foreign rule. It is this encounter which has, in good measure, inspired modern Hinduism’s present shape. Indeed, Hindus subverted some of the missionaries’ own tools and strategies in the process, triggering the birth of Hindu nationalism, now so dominant in the country. Gods Guns Missionaries Manu S. Pillai BOOK 63078 63078 0 0 ddc 0 0 SNUL SNUL 2025-05-22 Raghav Books Pvt. Ptd. 699.00 0 370.05 PIL 30882 2025-05-22 00:00:00 2025-05-22 BOOK