ABSTRACT
A debate parallel to ours had been taking place over these years in India on the reasons for Tribals and Untouchables to change religion and on missionary attitudes to conversion. Although the missionary often proposed conversion for one reason and the Untouchables accepted it for quite another, some missionaries have recently come to accept ‘conversion’ as a ‘social protest’, or to justify it on the grounds of sociological analysis (Pushparajan 1983 a; 1983b; cf. Rajamani and Lawrence 1983: 53–60). With greater emphasis on power relations than on conversion as an individual experience, we are led to confront those cultural explanations of ‘Untouchability’ which underline a holistic view of Indian society, according to which Untouchables ‘participate willingly in what may be called their own oppression’ (Moffatt 1979: 303).
