Religions, Women and Discourse of Modernity in Colonial South India

Title

Religions, Women and Discourse of Modernity in Colonial South India

Creator

Doss M.C.

Description

Colonial education and missionary discourse of modernity intensified struggles for continuity and change among the followers of Hinduism and Christianity in nineteenth century India. While missionary modernity was characterised by an emphasis on sociocultural changes among the marginalized women through Christian norms of decency, orthodox Hindus used traditional cultural practices to confront missionary modernization endeavours. This article posits that the discourse of missionary modernity needs to be understood through the principles of Western secular modernity that impelled missionaries to employ decent clothing as a symbol of Christian femininity. It argues that missionary modernity not only emboldened the marginalized women to challenge their ascribed sociocultural standing but also solidified communitarian consciousness among the followers of Hinduism and Christianity substantially. Even though Travancore state defended the entrenched customary practices, including womens attire patterns, with all its potency through authoritative proclamations, it could not dissuade missionaries from converting the marginalized women to missionary modernity. 2022 by the author.

Source

Religions, Vol-13, No. 12

Date

2022-01-01

Publisher

MDPI

Subject

Christianity; colonialism; gender; Hinduism; missionary modernity; Nadars; Nairs; tradition

Coverage

Doss M.C., School of Social Sciences, Christ University, Bengaluru, 560029, India

Rights

All Open Access; Gold Open Access

Relation

ISSN: 20771444

Format

Online

Language

English

Type

Article

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13121225

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85144404453&doi=10.3390%2frel13121225&partnerID=40&md5=13fc8bad2c940fd5f62be49324cdd7ef