G. Kanato Chophy: Christianity and Politics in Tribal India: Baptist Missionaries and Naga Nationalism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021; pp. xviii + 460.

Abstract

This book examines the historical place and development of the Naga Baptist community (situated in the north-eastern Indian state of Nagaland) and the relationship it is navigating with external societies, both in other parts of India and globally. It considers the evolving nature of the beliefs of individual Baptists and the consequent impact on the Naga Baptist tradition as a whole. It moves between the historical and ethnographic lenses as the focus shifts from macro to micro. Though the work does discuss the broader socio-political Indian context, this serves more to locate the subject matter within a wider context than to closely examine the influence of the colonial and post-Independence periods on the community. This is in line with Chophy's core argument that the ethnic Naga Baptist culture is a concrete entity that has been influenced rather than shaped by these broader influences. It thus focuses on Naga Baptists residing in Nagaland.

Chophy's work is situated within the fields of South Asian studies, religious studies, history, ethnography, and Christian studies. The synthesis of ethnography and history lends the work intersectionality in both material (ranging from historical records to field notes) and methodological approach. This book is targeted towards an academic audience with specific interests in minority Indian religio-cultural groups. It provides sufficient contextual framing that it would also be of interest to a wider academic audience or to the casual reader with a general understanding of the history of Christianity in India. At the outset (or at least, at page 5) Chophy introduces an important question that a reader may well be asking themselves: “What distinguishes a Naga Baptist?” Throughout the work, this question is addressed from multiple angles.

The book falls into three broad sections. The first (Chapters 1 and 2) situates Naga Baptism within a historical framework, tracing its origins and development through the colonial era and the spread of Christianity in the subcontinent. The section provides an overview of the growth of American Baptism specifically within Naga communities. It describes the disruption in the developing foothold of American missionaries in Assam due to outbreaks of violence and uprising in other regions of India through the mid-nineteenth century.

Importantly, Chophy also frames the political and cultural difficulties of missionary endeavours in a region that serves as a microcosm of the linguistic and social diversities of the entirety of the subcontinent. American Baptists were confronting two vastly different forms of “Hinduism”; the Sanskrit tradition most familiar to Western colonial powers, and the tribal cultures with “varied pantheons and beliefs far removed from Hindu civilisation” (p. 37). It considers particularly closely the geography of the Naga tribal region, straddling the mountainous and remote border between India and Myanmar. Despite the title of the book, and to Chophy's credit, due attention is paid to the complexities of fluid borders and the political trickeries that arise (as in other parts of India) in communities which straddle the neat colonially-imposed boundaries in the region.

The second section (Chapters 3–5) progresses from a macro view of the Naga region and the incursion of American Baptist missionaries to focus more closely on the Naga communities within Nagaland and local interactions with American Baptists. Chophy tracks the evolution of approaches to Baptism in the community, where traditional Baptist faith has recently come into increasing conflict with newer trends. Part of this evolution turned early converts into converters themselves, becoming disseminators of American Baptism in regions inaccessible by Western missionaries. The evangelical tradition adopted by Naga Baptist missionaries, Chophy argues convincingly, was a natural progression among the converted Naga Baptists who “now saw in their eastern Naga brethren a reflection of themselves before their own conversion” (p. 171). Yet despite the increasing breadth of American Baptism in the region, deep-rooted diversity of language and culture remained; Chapter 4 makes brief reference to the role that Baptist missions played in promoting indigenous languages through facilitating numerous translations of the Bible to support their mission.

In the final section of the book (Chapters 6–9), Chophy further focuses his attention on the experience of Naga Baptists within a rapidly changing modern political and cultural climate, particularly within a nation increasingly divided by religious tension between a Hindu majority population and varied religious minority groups. These chapters are structured less clearly than the rest of the book and sometimes meander in focus. They oscillate for the most part between semi-biographical accounts and framing of those accounts within their sociohistorical background. At times, these transitions are slightly jarring. Nevertheless, Chophy succeeds in conveying both the unique narratives of prominent Naga spiritual and political leaders and the broader context that gave rise to those narratives.

Throughout the book, Chophy alternates between historical narrative and analysis of modernity. Though this is a difficult balance to maintain, Chophy successfully transitions between the two by deftly drawing and expanding upon the influence of the first upon the material of the second. The extent to which the Naga Baptist is satisfactorily “distinguished” is debatable. Nevertheless, the community is more than sufficiently framed within its unique socio-historical context, and the challenges it faces in the future — which share a kinship with those faced by other minority ethnoreligious groups in the developing world — are clearly and thoughtfully articulated.