ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 introduces Hindi Christian literature as a vehicle to study the politics of language and religion in contemporary India. It presents a framework to study Hindi Christian literature, defines the scope of the book, and clarifies its focus on Protestant Christianity, as distinct from Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Pentecostal traditions in India. The chapter presents a first-ever map of Hindi Christian sources, traces their development from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, and explains the method of selecting sources. It describes the functional term ‘Hindi Christian’ and locates Hindi Christian literature in its milieu. To do this, this chapter examines the relation of Hindi Christian literature to bhakti traditions in the Hindi belt and Indian Christian sources in English.
