Deepra Dandekar - Baba Padmanji: Vernacular Christianity in Colonial India (Pathfinders)

Baba Padmanji

This book is a critical biography of Baba Padmanji (18311906), a firebrand native Christian missionary, ideologue, and litterateur from 19th-century Bombay Presidency. Though Padmanji was well known and a very influential figure among Christian converts, his contributions have received inadequate attention from the perspective of social reforman intellectual domain dominated by offshoots of the Brahmo Samaj movement, like the Prarthana Samaj in Bombay.

This book constitutes an in-depth analysis of Padmanjis relationships with questions of reform, education, modernity, feminism, and religion, which had wide-ranging repercussions on the intellectual horizon of 19th-century India. It presents Padmanjis integrated writing persona and identity as a revolutionary pathfinder of his times who amalgamated and blended vernacular ideas of Christianity, together with early feminism, modernity, and incipient nationalism.

Drawing on a variety of primary and secondary sources, this unique book will be of great interest for area studies scholars (especially Maharashtra) and to researchers of modern India, engaged with the history of colonialism and missions, religion, global Christianity, South Asian intellectual history, and literature.

Deepra Dandekar is a historian of gender and religion, having written her PhD on childbirth rituals in Maharashtra, published in 2017. Writing on religious minorities, migration, and the intellectual history of 19th- and 20th-century India, she retains special interest in the history of Christianity and the importance of narratives for history writing. Her previous book, The Subhedars Son: A Narrative of Brahmin-Christian Conversion from Nineteenth-century Maharashtra , was published in 2019, and she presently works as a researcher at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Germany, on an independent research grant on Muslims in modern Maharashtra.

PATHFINDERS
Series Editor: Dilip M. Menon
Professor of History and Mellon Chair in Indian Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

This series explores the intellectual history of South Asia through the lives and ideas of significant individuals within a historical context. These pathfinders are seen to represent a break with existing traditions, canons and inherited histories. In fact, even the idea of South Asia with its constituent regions and linguistic and religious divisions may be thrown into crisis as we explore the idea of territory as generated by thought. It is not cartographic limits that determine thinking but the imagining of elective affinities across space, time and borders. These thinkers are necessarily cosmopolitan and engage with a miscegenation of ideas that recasts existing notions of schools of thinking, of the archive for a history of ideas and indeed of the very notion of national and regional limits to intellectual activity. The books in this series try to think beyond the limited frameworks of colonialism and nationalism for the modern period and more generally of histories of societies that are told through the prism of the state, its institutions and ideologies. These slim volumes written by leading scholars are intended for the intelligent layperson and expert alike, and written in an accessible, lively and authoritative prose. Through telling the lives of celebrated names and lesser-known ones in context, this series expands the repertoire of ideas and individuals that have shaped the history and culture of South Asia.

Also in the Series
RAJA SERFOJI II: SCIENCE, MEDICINE AND ENLIGHTENMENT IN TANJORE
Savithri Preetha Nair

VIDYASAGAR: THE LIFE AND AFTER-LIFE OF AN EMINENT INDIAN
Brian A. Hatcher

SHYAMJI KRISHNAVARMA: SANSKRIT, SOCIOLOGY AND ANTI-IMPERIALISM
Harald Fischer-Tin

BABA PADMANJI: VERNACULAR CHRISTIANITY IN COLONIAL INDIA
Deepra Dandekar

BABA PADMANJI

Vernacular Christianity in Colonial India

Deepra Dandekar

First published 2021

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

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2021 Deepra Dandekar

The right of Deepra Dandekar to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Dandekar, Deepra, author.

Title: Baba Padmanji : vernacular Christianity in colonial India / Deepra Dandekar.

Description: New York : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Summary: "This book is a critical biography of Baba Padmanji (1831-1906), a firebrand native Christian missionary, ideologue, and litterateur from 19th-century Bombay Presidency. Though Padmanji was well-known, and a very influential figure among Christian converts, his contributions have received inadequate attention from the perspective of 'social reform' - an intellectual domain dominated by offshoots of the Brahmo Samaj movement, like the Prarthana Samaj in Bombay. This book constitutes an in-depth analysis of Padmanji's relationships with questions of reform, education, modernity, feminism, and religion, that had wide-ranging repercussions on the intellectual horizon of 19th-century India. It presents Padmanji's integrated writing persona and identity as a revolutionary pathfinder of his times who amalgamated and blended vernacular ideas of Christianity together with early feminism, modernity, and incipient nationalism. Drawing on a variety of primary and secondary sources, this unique book will be of great interest for area studies scholars (especially Maharashtra), and to researchers of modern India, engaged with the history of colonialism and missions, religion, global Christianity, South Asian intellectual history, and literature"-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020039846 (print) | LCCN 2020039847 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367479671 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003049760 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Padmanji, Baba, 1831-1906. | Christian converts from Hinduism--India--Biography. | Authors, Marathi--19th century--Biography. | Christianity--India.

Classification: LCC BV3269.P24 D36 2021 (print) | LCC BV3269.P24 (ebook) | DDC 284/.2092 [B]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039846

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039847

ISBN: 978-0-367-47967-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-50390-1 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-04976-0 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon

by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Contents

Names of most of Padmanjis oft-referred books are abbreviated and I have provided a list of these abbreviations in the reference section. Further abbreviations used in the text include CMS (Church Mission Society), LMS (London Missionary Society), and SPG (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel). I have also retained the old names of cities mentioned in Padmanjis writings and other colonial-era publications, namely Bombay and Poona instead of Mumbai and Pune. All translated passages in this book, unless otherwise mentioned, are mine, and I do not use diacritical marks for vernacular words. Also, the spellings of vernacular words deviate from academic spellings, making them more recognisable in terms of their current-day English usage. For example, instead of using Caritra for biography, I use Charitra .