Gods, Guns and Missionaries | Manu S. Pillai | Book Recommendation | BookTube | Non-Fiction

Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity by Manu S. Pillai published by Penguin books. Pillai handle this subject sensitively with nuanced way. It’s 600 pages book but don’t be bother about the size of the book, almost half of the pages goes to notes section, may be necessary compulsion for this subject.
As Pillai wrote, Vedic culture, with its fire altars and sacrifices, promoted by Indo-Aryans, met competition from cults that venerated gods in images; this encounter caused Hindu practice to emerge by the end of the first millennium CE as a grand system of temple worship. Buddhism and Jainism sponged away patronage, and though they faded, these too marked the landscape with hybridity. Then came Islam from overseas: It could neither be defied, given its proximity to power, nor absorbed into one of India’s capacious traditions-here a more uncertain adaptation appeared. Finally came the trauma of colonialism, backed by withering evangelical Christian attacks-the theme of this book-birthing yet another face for Hinduism.
Tremendous research goes into this book. As Author wrote, the orthodox tradition of Brahmin elites envisioned a world of four caste groups, functioning in carefully policed harmony. At the top sat, of course, Brahmins themselves, guarding the gates of divine access. Then came Kshatriyas, or a ruling class, whose duty was to protect Brahmins and the world they had designed. The Vaishyas were the productive classes, followed by a fourth set in the Sudras, or a general mass, to serve everybody else. In actual fact, though, this division never existed in such perfection in most of India. It was an aspiration-the portrayal of an ideal Brahmin world-rather than reality as it existed. Hinduism, as it would emerge, was not so much what Brahmins wanted; instead, it is the story of their negations with a bewildering variety of counter-thoughts and alternate visions. Change is coded into its DNA. Writing about colonial history Pillai started with the arrival of the Portuguese in India in the late fifteenth century and further wrote British people’s effort to understand the land; they would not only fall back on half-boiled theories but also infuse these with power and certainty. Indeed, by the 1860’s, it would be entirely normal for British judges in India, citing white scholars of Hinduism aling with Protestant-style Hindu reformers, to declare centuries old sects as ‘contrary to the ancient and thus real Hindu religion.’ Men would remark coolly that ‘books which were written after the Vedas lacked merit; that no living sect at present was genuinely Hindu. This is not to say that Hindus passively absorbed these Europeans notions. But, even in battling colonialism and its ideological filters shaped by Christianity, Western contests, the Enlightenment and plain misreading – certain European filters were, nonetheless, co-opted. It was in these circumstances that Hinduism’s current avatar emerged- with one foot in tradition, the other in European sensibilities and confusion. Past is much complicated than the popular narrative. Colonial pressure along with the rise of nationalism led to a tendency towards regimentation and this led to a homogenisation, which is alien to Hinduism. Author wrote in detail about aggressive neo-Hinduism of Tilak and Savarkar, influenced by Brahminical and Vedic core and also from early 20th century Italy and Germany. Also Kings like Madho Singh, Sarfoji of Tanjore, social reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Dayanand Sarswati, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule and Savitribai Phule.
After reading this book I felt this is incomplete may be because of the sheer scope of this subject and coverage of colonial era history regarding this theme. I hope we will get to read more on the same subject from the author in his future books. Enjoy this remarkable and insightful book.
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