ABSTRACT
Literature on conversion in the Indian context has been the focus of scholarly attention for a number of decades. If the etymological meaning of conversion, from the Latin convertere, meaning “to turn around” or “turn completely” has meant either a renewal of one’s own faith or belief or a journey toward a different religious world-view, the terms of scholarly discussion and debate have greatly expanded, multiplied and contested the meanings of conversion (Heredia 2007: 8). Thus the “making and unmaking of religious forms” as well as identities, and the social, political, and historical transformations that acts of conversion generate has driven much scholarly research on the subject (Dube and Dube 2003: 230). My concern in this chapter is to examine the exceptional genealogies of
(anti) conversion. At stake in uncovering a genealogy, Foucault pointed out, is an exposure of relations of power (1980: 87). Thus genealogy enables us “to establish a historical knowledge of struggles and to make use of this knowledge tactically today” (Foucault 1980: 83). In this spirit, I ask what are the many genealogies of (anti) conversion? How do they reveal conversion’s history as an exception? Historical genealogies reveal how anti-conversion discourses emerged as a
key site for the organization of Hindu reformist and nationalist movements. Politico-legal genealogies reveal how early anti-conversion laws can be traced to tribal struggle for land. Thus, beginning with a genealogy of academic scholarship on conversion, I argue for locating conversion within religiocultural, political, and juridical struggles for sovereignty. Reading conversion in this manner disturbs the separation between Indian secular nationalism and Hindu nationalism; it also reveals how complicities between these two forms of nationalisms continue in postcolonial enactments of anti-conversion laws. Tracing these complicities through the historical context of anti-conversion campaigns, constitutional debates, and precolonial as well as postcolonial enactments of religious freedom, I argue for a reading of (anti) conversion through the theoretical concept of sovereignty – elaborated on by Carl Schmitt and extended as a biopolitical activity of sovereign power by Georgio Agamben. Bringing the concept of sovereignty to bear on the literature and politics of (anti) conversion in the Indian context provides a link, I argue,
between the passing of early anti-conversion laws – literally concerned with the sovereignty of princely states – and post-independence anti-conversion laws. It also reveals the exceptional genealogy of conversion in a normative understanding of India as a Hindu nation. Thus, attention to sovereignty also necessitates an attention to the construction of norms. Foucault suggests that “the procedures of normalization come to be ever more constantly engaged in the colonisation of those of law” (1980: 107). So, it is crucial to explore how a normative understanding of India as a Hindu nation emerged, and how conversion played a significant role in this emergence. Norms regarding conversion are also assumed, debated, and shifted in
academic research on conversion. I begin with an exploration of these debates. If earlier academic research placed an emphasis on conversion as a response to socioeconomic circumstances, more recent analyses of conversion map how and why they occurred with reference to the rise of Hindu nationalism and the perceived threat to Indian secularism. I will examine how these shifts in conversion research have addressed a normative understanding of India’s religious identity.
