ABSTRACT
During the early twentieth century, the changing face of electoral politics presented Indian Catholics with new opportunities for political advancement and compromise. In 1917, the Catholic Bishops of South India passed a series of resolutions prohibiting “inter-confessional” alliances in the realm of social and political action.1 The bishops’ resolutions and the mass meetings of the laity held in protest against them (see Chapter 3) gave voice to two competing impulses within the Indian Catholic psyche: (1) the desire to employ new forms of political representation to secure “Catholic interests”; and (2) the need to preserve Catholic identity – both cultural and doctrinal aspects – in the process. Indian Catholic public discourse sustained the tension between these two principles well into the 1930’s and arguably to the present day.2
