Christelijke zending, sociale mobiliteit en geweld. Een klerenconflict in Travancore

Samenvatting

Very often the cultural effects of Christian missions have been evaluated by the numbers of converts & new church buildings. A different type of analysis is offered of the effects of the London Missionary Society on the SE patterns of the principality of Travancore in southern India during the nineteenth century. Beginning in 1806, British missionaries in Travancore met with little success with the Uc Hindu Nayars. Among the untouchable Shanars, however, there were 15,000 converts by 1850, most of whom experienced increased educational & income levels under British protection. In 1858, many of the Shanar women (both Christian & Hindu) began to wear the sirkar (veil) previously forbidden to them by local custom because of their low SS. Soon, riots broke out between the Shanars & the Nayars. The atrocities committed by the Nayars against the Christian Shanar women were used as an excuse for further British penetration of the area. The British tended to view the disturbances as a Christian-Hindu conflict, but the Indians were actually fighting over the improved social mobility of the Shanars, viewed as a threat to the caste system. 16 References. Modified HA.