The Subhedar's Son: A Narrative of Brahmin-Christian Conversion from Nineteenth-Century Maharashtra

The 19th century was a pioneering age for vernacular texts in India. Vernacular writings became popular for making the 'first' interventions of their kind, written by Indians for Indians, and establishing new genres such as the biographical novel. The Subhedar's Son, an award-winning Marathi novel, was written in 1895 and published by the Bombay Tract and Book Society, and comprised overlapping personal and political trajectories. The author, Rev. Dinkar Shankar Sawarkar, inscribed multiple viewpoints into his narrative, including that of his own father, Rev. Shankar Nana (1819-1884), a Brahmin who was one of the early converts of the Church Missionary Society in Western India and served the CMS and the Anglican Church in various capacities for many years. Apart from Shankar Nana's conversion-story, Sawarkar provides readers with a blueprint of what a Brahminical journey towards Christian conversion encompassed, while describing his personal background of having lived a Christian life as a product of both Brahminism and Christianity. Attempting to deconstruct Brahmanism through Christianity he claimed Brahmin roots as a Christian with an aim of combatting the stigma of conversion. Contextualized within the early history of Maharashtra's missions and the specificities of individual conversions, the novel allows modern researchers to appreciate the particularity of regional and vernacular Indian Christianity. This culturally-specific Christianity spurred the production of Christian vernacular print culture, associating 'being Marathi' with broader and more universal frameworks of Christianity. But this new genre also produced nativist forms of Christian devotion and piety. Deepra Dandekar introduces this annotated translation of The Subhedar's Son, with an examination of the Church Missionary Society's socio- political context; a biography of Shankar Nana gleaned from archival sources; a brief summary of Sawarkar's biography; and an analysis of the multiple political opinions framing the book.

About the Author :
Deepra Dandekar, Researcher, Max Planck Institute of Human Development, Berlin Deepra Dandekar completed her training in history, anthropology and archaeology at Delhi University (St. Stephen's College) and Deccan College, Pune. Subsequently, she trained as an internee at various Non-Governmental Organizations in Pune on research projects concerning gender, religion and health. She has researched and published on women's health rituals, and the religious expression of political minorities in Maharashtra at the South Asia Institute and the Cluster for Excellence, University of Heidelberg. She is currently working on the research project on migration and exclusion at the Max Planck Institute of Human Development, Berlin.

Review :
"This rare account of Christian conversion uses family history as the basis for wide-ranging exploration of the social hazards and the emancipatory possibilities of vernacular Christianity, and the place of the upper-caste convert in it. Dandekar has provided readers with a multi-layered, multi-voiced text which addresses social histories of reform and modernizing self-realization, the ethicality of 'faith, ' and the politics of translation between Hindu bhakti and nonconformist Christianity that enabled acts of conversion to preserve the tissue of caste and community. This is an important and enduring contribution to religious studies, autobiography, and social history, and a literary tour de force!"--Anupama Rao, author of The Caste Question: Dalits and the Politics of Modern India "The Subhedar's Son is the life story of a Brahmin convert to Christianity. Written in Marathi some hundred years ago, it nevertheless resonates in this moment as a powerful record of the fragmentation of identity around caste, gender, and religion. In Deepra Dandekar's hands this English translation speaks to the present complexities of Indian social life. Dandekar surrounds Sawarkar's text with essays conveying deep and often personal insights about context, narrative structure, cultural history, and the contemporary politics of religion. Enfolding literary studies, ethnography, history, religious studies, and memoir, Dandekar's work is a shining example of how translation ought to be done."--Christian Lee Novetzke, author of The Quotidian Revolution "This new translation offers a window into the fascinating world of a 19th-century Maharashtrian convert, as he tries to integrate regional political history with his own social and spiritual struggles in the form of a Marathi novel. Even more powerful is Dandekar's keen analysis and boldly intimate reflections on the complex interplay of alienation and relative privilege in the lives of Brahmin converts to Christianity and their descendants."--Jon Keune, Assistant Professor of South Asian Religions, Michigan State University