ABSTRACT
Effectively appreciating the encounters between Hindus and Catholics requires that one locate Hinduism not only as an invention from the nineteenth century, but as the ideology of, and actively sustained by, the Indian state. Toward this end, the chapter plots how Catholicism has been integral to the processes by which Hinduism and Indian nationalism were constituted from as early as the sixteenth century; the manner in which Hinduism grew under Indian nationalism, both in its secular and Hindu nationalist variations; and, finally, the ways in which Indian Catholic elites, whether in the clergy or the laity, by collaborating with the Indian nationalist project, have established a self-defeating relationship with it. To talk about Hindu–Catholic encounters, this chapter argues, is to necessarily talk about the relationship between Catholics and the Indian state, and to recognize Hindus as the subjects of this political formation.
