A Passage to the God of Small Things

Colonialism, political power, and pluralism in India.

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When the theme of this issue was first proposed, I was visiting my ancestral home in Chennai, India. Keeping with my penchant for reading in place, I had just finished Manu S. Pillai’s incisive volume on the emergence of modern Hindu identity, Gods, Guns and Missionaries (Penguin/Allen Lane, 2025). In addition to answering with clarity and erudition some of the questions my teenage self asked in profounder moments, Pillai’s analysis resoundingly illustrates the fact that anti-humanism is not only (or even primarily) a Western phenomenon. Modern Hindu identity, which has strains of anti-humanism, arose as a counter-reaction to the ideologies of both Catholic and Protestant colonial Christianity in India, and the imperial Islam that preceded it. That the world’s most populous country, home to its oldest religion, is not exempt from anti-humanist trends—observed, for instance, in an exclusionary Hindu nationalism that has garnered political power in recent decades—suggests that one reductionistic ideology can beget another. Seeing the historical nuances of colonial Christianity in interaction with the older religion of Hinduism can help us disentangle our own culture’s current reductionistic tendencies. I wanted to ask Pillai, a practicing Hindu, certain pressing questions that developed in my mind after I had finished his book, so we had the chance to connect and correspond via email. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Book cover of Gods, Guns and Missionaries by Manu S. Pillai featuring an illustration of a multi-armed Hindu deity against a pale background, with the title and author’s name in bold text.

Penguin/Allen Lane, 2025

Daniel Bezalel Richardsen:Your book has an intriguing thesis that modern Hindu identity was forged in its encounter with colonization—first with Islamic power but especially emerging as a counter-reaction to the challenges posed by European Catholic power (the Portuguese) and European Protestant power (the British). You write that Hinduism “stayed an amorphous system, until colonialism and evangelical perils inspired some Hindus to espouse a firmer outline.” Could you unpack that?

Manu S. Pillai: Hinduism, as we know it, didn’t emerge in the same shape as Western religions of the book. By way of analogy, instead of a single fount birthing many streams—as, say, Christianity branching into various sects from one common source—with Hinduism we see the reverse: various sects coalescing over time into a conglomerate. Think of the religion more as a network of connected traditions, a mosaic that is whole in itself, yes, but in which each chip also has a distinct outline. This is why when colonial-era Christian missionaries often insisted that there was only one (Christian) way to God, their Hindu interlocutors would argue that God had devised multiple paths; that Christianity was a legitimate path—a chip in that mosaic—but could not claim to be the only true path. This emphasis on plurality stemmed from Hinduism’s own inner diversity: What was true for one Hindu of one region, linguistic background, and caste might not be true for another of a different caste, location, or language group. This does not mean these were entirely disparate traditions—there were threads holding them together, albeit loosely. What happens, historically speaking, is that these threads begin to get firmer and more clearly articulated when Hindu traditions encounter religions of a different order. With the advent of Islam—and Islamic power—we see a growing awareness among Hindu thinkers of something fundamentally different between their traditions and this monotheistic religion of the book. Under European colonial rule, the process picks up even more (aided by technology, greater communication, political centralisation, etc.), so that Hindus increasingly begin to imagine themselves as one bloc, at least when facing other religious groups. In everyday life there remains even now great diversity of religious practice among Hindus, and the process has by no means been uncontested. But the encounter with rival faiths that asserted the one way, as opposed to many ways, and whose backers also acquired power, caused Hindus to fortify their own identity in the modern period.

Daniel: It seems that the dynamic of political power is very important to why Hinduism evolves. As you note in the book, both Christianity and Islam arrived in southern India during the earliest decades of their respective religions, and they seemed to have lodged imperceptibly yet firmly in an “enculturated” mode, adapting and taking on features of the local context. However, it was these same faiths buttressed by political power in later centuries that caused a seismic shift within Indian society and transformed its religious self-regard.

Manu: Precisely. Take the British, for example. In the early stages of their rule in the subcontinent, not only were they tolerant of Hinduism but they went out of their way to support it. British troops marched in temple processions; civil servants enacted the Hindu rituals that local maharajahs used to perform; they made donations to major temples, patronized Brahmins, and in general attempted not to disturb the social fabric. Hindus, meanwhile, reciprocated: We find Brahmin priests blessing the East India Company flag and legitimizing British power, scholars composing Sanskrit eulogies to white governors general, and so on. However, as the Company consolidated its power, you find a steady withdrawal on its part from Hindu society. It no longer felt insecure and instead of conforming to Indian culture began to envision transforming the country along its own ideas. Slowly, then, a growing crop of officials began to support evangelical activities, distancing themselves from Hindu culture. The result? Hindus began to grow more assertive and protective of their “Hindu-ness,” blending it with a nascent nationalism. Ironically, in doing so, Hindus appropriated many Christian and Western frames of thinking, because never before had their identity been articulated as a single, all-encompassing “ism”; they had not felt the need so far. So, if missionaries showcased the Bible, they began to promote the Gita as the Hindu Bible; where evangelicals sent out men to convert Hindus, Hindu organizations emerged seeking to reconvert the converts. Slowly we witness the creation of the conditions that birth Hindu nationalism. A lot of this had to do with power; for Hindu nationalists, especially, cultural identity is always in peril if not backed with the strength to preserve itself in a world of evangelizing faiths. Hinduism as a loose, flexible, welcoming confederation of traditions sounds romantic, but to survive, Hindu nationalists believe it also needs the capacity to bite.

Daniel: It is important to consider what was already happening in Europe in the sixteenth century, which you do by noting that the effects of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation also played out in colonial realities. These events and the responses to them increased the pressure in each respective group to prove their bona fides. European Christianity in India thus became less tolerant of other faiths and even other kinds of Christians.

Manu: This is very clear with Portuguese power in Goa. At first, the Portuguese didn’t interfere in local religious life to any meaningful degree. But at home, with the Catholic Church being accused of idolatry and corruption during the Reformation, pressure began to mount. There emerged a desire to demonstrate strong Christian credentials. And converting—often by force—the “pagans” in their Indian territories seemed an attractive way to prove an uncompromising Christian character. So, by the middle of the sixteenth century, you see the Portuguese destroy temples, ban Hindu traditions, and push not just a Christianization but also a Europeanization of identity on local people. This is why they also persecuted Nasrani Christians in Kerala, who were Christian but not Catholic, and whose Christianity was quite Indianized with Hindu influences. Even the kind of literature published about India in Europe in this period—suggesting that Hindus were a species of women burners who fed their children to crocodiles, had sex with idols, and worshipped monsters—had little to do with India and more to do with European anxieties. This continued into the nineteenth century as the growing support for evangelical activities in India followed from the flowering of evangelical Christianity back in Britain. Officers reared in that climate came to the country determined to “civilize” and Christianize the “native.” So, yes, events in India were rarely divorced from dynamics unfolding in the colonizers’ homelands.

Hindus appropriated many Christian and Western frames of thinking, because never before had their identity been articulated as a single, all-encompassing “ism”; they had not felt the need so far.

Daniel: You use the analogy of Hindus seeing themselves through the mirror that was held up to them by European missionaries and political leaders and having to answer the fundamental questions of their faith and identity. In the process of remaking their identity, something unprecedented happened: Hinduism took on “a new, defensive avatar.” Through a Protestant prism that viewed a pristine, primordial Christian faith set against a series of accretions, many Hindus, too, adopted the same framework in viewing their own faith.

Manu: One prime example of this process is the celebrated Raja Rammohun Roy of the early nineteenth century. He lived in a world where the British were now in power and missionary presence was growing; and with Western education in the ascendant, there was a degree of embarrassment among Hindus themselves about aspects of their religion. Roy agreed with missionaries when they criticized animal sacrifice, romantic stories about Hindu gods (where the gods have carnal instincts), and popular worship in temples. He urged Hindus to reform themselves. But this very language of reform was largely a Protestant one. Roy thus wanted Hindus to go back to ancient scripture and give up subsequent “accretions” to the faith—so more books, fewer festivals. He wanted a pure, deeply cleansed, monotheistic Hinduism that mimicked Protestant Christianity. What is interesting is that Roy seized the missionary critique of Hinduism and used it to convince Hindus that their religion was in trouble. But where the missionary urged conversion as the next step, Roy urged instead reformation. It is no surprise, then, that in a lot of celebratory writing he is called the Martin Luther of India and Hinduism. And as I put it in the book, this approach to Hinduism saw lots of self-conscious reformers discard aspects of Hinduism that invited Western criticism and attack, while placing more attractive aspects (its philosophical traditions and monotheistic readings) into a Christian-inspired bottle. It was an act of reinvention to meet certain political, historical, and cultural contingencies.

Daniel: The political consequence of these historical encounters illustrates that an ideology of an imagined pure past can beget another; that is, because of its encounter with colonial Christianity, Hinduism has adopted a more “exclusionary creed” in its modern iteration. We seem to often collectively go awry by pursuing an ahistorical authenticity, leading to a posture readier to confront than compromise. The tension between pluralism and disunion, as you put it, is an issue not just in India but in the West too. What possibilities are there for a pluralism that safeguards an adequate unity in a polity and a culture?

Manu: I am reminded of some Hindus who met the French traveller Françoise Bernier in the seventeenth century. He saw them perform certain rituals standing in water and argued that these ceremonies would be impossible to do in cold Europe; they’d freeze to death. That is, what the Hindus believed to be a God-given mandate could not be universally applied and was hence deficient—God would never propose something that wasn’t universal. But the Hindus were not convinced. They had never, Bernier was told, claimed their religion to be of universal appeal; God “intended it only for us” just as he intended for Europeans to believe in Christianity. It was his insistence that the two could not coexist that they found baffling. In a polarized world where everyone is convinced that they alone have the answers, I think that is perhaps something we can draw from—the idea of live and let live. And we can add to this some basic humility that while we may have some answers, perhaps others, even if we don’t fully understand them, have something to say and offer as well—something from which we, too, might learn and benefit.

Daniel: It seems that for societies with a Western heritage, influenced by a Christianity (or Islam for that matter) that started from “a single source” before branching out—as you’ve observed—it’s harder to be sanguine about difference and find common ground in a shared humanity. Instead, it looks easier to perceive decline, bemoan disarray, and propose an ideological, authoritarian solution that’s geared to forcefully homogenize others. Are there grounds for hope? Given the historical evidence you’ve examined, what resources would you say are available for and within Western societies and Christianity to recover a better sense of the human that can embrace complexity?

Manu: I think an exploration of Christian and Islamic history will actually demonstrate much diversity within these traditions as well. While religions of the book are considerably more organized in comparison to faiths like Hinduism, and do stem from a single source, they also incarnated themselves in new ways as they spread. That is, they adapted to local cultures constantly, keeping enough of their “core” character while absorbing varied influences to win over diverse peoples. Within India alone, Islam in Kerala has distinct features compared to Islam in Kashmir, which in turn is visibly different from Muslim culture in the Gangetic heartland, even though all look to the Quran. What, then, separates this type of diversity from Hinduism’s diversity? The difference, I suspect, lies in the evangelizing tendency: Whether it was Hindus in India or “pagans” in ancient Rome, they believed in room for the many, without the need to convert people to any one path. Religions of the book, however, have a motivation to convert and fundamentally do not accept the possibility of more than one valid religion or god(s) in the world. So, while Hindus were willing to accept Christ as divine (only insisting that God sent him to address people other than them), Christian missionaries in India never accepted, say, Krishna or Rama as legitimate forms of the Almighty. Nevertheless, these are theological quarrels. On the ground, at least in India, in interacting with one another, all religions shared common space. Hindus venerated Muslim divines; Muslim holy men took an interest in Hindu philosophy; and Christians, like the Nasrani in Kerala, participated in Hindu rituals. I think perhaps the answer to your question lies a little bit in looking at religious history on the ground and not just the formal picture of religion held in holy texts and in priestly or clerical prescriptions. By doing this, we’ll see that human experience has been full of contradictions—and that our ancestors were wholly capable of getting along despite these contradictions. Contradiction, in that sense, is not a bad word or a problem to be surmounted. It just is what it is.

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Date:
- March 12, 2026
Theme:
- The Anti-Human
Topics:

Daniel Bezalel Richardsen

Daniel Bezalel Richardsen is a contributing editor of Comment.
BIO
Manu S. Pillai

Manu S. Pillai is an Indian historian and the author of five books, most recently "Gods, Guns & Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity" (2024).
BIO

A Passage to the God of Small Things

A Passage to the God of Small Things

Daniel Bezalel Richardsen

Manu S. Pillai

A Passage to the God of Small Things

Colonialism, political power, and pluralism in India.

W

Hindus appropriated many Christian and Western frames of thinking, because never before had their identity been articulated as a single, all-encompassing “ism”; they had not felt the need so far.

Daniel Bezalel Richardsen

Manu S. Pillai

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Daniel Bezalel Richardsen

Manu S. Pillai

A Passage to the God of Small Things

Colonialism, political power, and pluralism in India.

W

Hindus appropriated many Christian and Western frames of thinking, because never before had their identity been articulated as a single, all-encompassing “ism”; they had not felt the need so far.

Daniel Bezalel Richardsen

Manu S. Pillai

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