ABSTRACT

The Khasi conversion to Christianity in the second half of the nineteenth century was a Welsh missionary project. This chapter investigates that conversion of the Khasis to Christianity in nineteenth-century colonial India. It illustrates how Edward Said's Orientalism can be adopted to approach and explores the mechanics of conversion among the Khasis by according them an inferior status, thus ascribing them with the identities of 'pagans', 'heathens' and 'animists'. The chapter argues that conversion was made possible by the denigration of Khasi religion, culture and tradition through factors such as education, medicine and a natural calamity like the Earthquake of 1897 that shook the Khasi Hills causing widespread havoc and destruction. It argues that the conversion was made possible by the depiction of the Khasis and their religion as inferior, primitive and backward, a false religion that worshipped demons. The curative qualities of Western medicine was seen through as the healing power of the Christian religion through its saviour, Jesus Christ.