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SUMMARY:Global Christianity and the transformation of Dalits in Colonial a
 nd Postcolonial Kerala - Dr P. Sanal Mohan (Smuts Visiting Fellow and Maha
 tma Gandhi University\, Kottayam)
DTSTART:20180516T163000Z
DTEND:20180516T173000Z
UID:TALK103813@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Barbara Roe
DESCRIPTION:Missionary Christianity was very important in the production o
 f colonial knowledge on caste communities in India.  Often the information
  and knowledge generated by the missionaries\, entered into official docum
 ents in the 19th century and subsequently in India as acceptable knowledge
  on native societies. Drawing on the examples from colonial Kerala I wish 
 to show the processes by which substantial body of knowledge was created o
 n Kerala society.  Particular emphasis is laid on the knowledge produced o
 n Dalit communities that were enslaved historically. Protestant missionari
 es of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and the London Missionary Societ
 y  (LMS) had interacted very closely with the enslaved masses and observed
  them closely recording very significantly the details of their everyday l
 ife.  Such intimate narratives are not available in the native official so
 urces in the pre-colonial times or in the writings of the colonial officia
 ls.  Only the oral tradition of the slave communities provides a valuable 
 source of information on their social and emotional world.     The propose
 d talk would analyze the knowledge that missionaries have generated on Dal
 it communities in the 19th and 20th centuries and how the interface with t
 he latter transformed them.  Along side this I wish to explore intricacies
  of the transformation of the mental world of Dalit communities as they ac
 cepted Christianity.  This particular aspect of the inner transformation o
 f Dalits would question the arguments of dominant historiographies and soc
 ial science interpretations on Dalits and Christianity.     
LOCATION:The Beves Room\, King's College\, Cambridge
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