Paper short abstract:

The paper examines four narratives on conversion - narratives of Hindu nationalists, Christian missionaries, Adivasi converts, and (Hindu) Adivasis. These narratives show how different actors assign different meanings, often contradictory to each other, to the complex and controversial issue of conversion.

Paper long abstract:

This paper engages with the issue of free will/force and spiritual belief/inducement, through examining whether Adivasis convert out of "genuine spiritual belief and free will", or are induced to convert via material means. These issues signify not only the mismatch between the Hindu nationalists' and Christian missionaries' understandings of conversion, but also point out how these groups have relied on the Constitution to justify and resist conversion. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among the Bhil tribes of Southern Rajasthan in the last decade, I examine multiple narratives on religious conversion. Specifically, I examine narratives of Hindu nationalists, Christian missionaries, Adivasi converts, and (Hindu) Adivasis. These four narratives show how different actors assign different meanings, often contradictory to each other, to the complex and controversial issue of conversion. These four narratives, the paper suggests, should not be read as exclusive and separable from each other. They should rather be understood as four "partially overlapping spheres of meaning - discrete points of entry into the much broader discursive" issue of conversion in India.