000			01731nam a22002297a 4500
005			20250522124725.0
008			250522b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780670093656
028			_a: Raghav Books Pvt. Ltd _b: A-184, A, Nand Gram, Ghaziabad _c: 204 _d: 07/05/2025
082			_a370.05 PIL
100			_aPillai, Manu S.
245			_aGods Guns & Missionaries _b: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity. _c/ Manu S. Pillai.
260			_a, Gurugram _b: Penguin Ramdom House _c, 2024.
300			_axlvii, 564p. _c: 24cm.
365			_b699
520			_aWhen 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.
650			_aGods
650			_aGuns
650			_aMissionaries
700			_aManu S. Pillai
942			_cBOOK
999			_c63078 _d63078