¹ Bleses, Fr C., ‘The Aborigines of Bihar and Orissa’, Our Field, vol. 12:1, 1936, p. 1Google Scholar.

² The term Kol/Cole was used to collectively depict the different communities of Chhotanagpur: Oraon, Munda, Kharia, and Ho.

³ Subsequent uses of the word ‘tribe’ will not be shown within inverted commas.

⁴ Across periods of time, and between personalities and institutions, there were differences in approach. The Roman Catholic Mission, under the Belgian Jesuits, was a strongly centralized institution with its headquarters at Rome. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (hereafter S.P.G.), the Anglican Protestant mission that came under the Church of England, although an entirely self-governing institution, advised the administrative machinery of the colonial state particularly on matters of education and occasionally received support, for example, towards the payment of salaries to bishops. The German (later Gossner) Evangelical Lutheran Mission (hereafter G.E.L. Mission), although of Protestant affiliation and therefore closer to the S.P.G., was under the German missionaries until 1914, and continued to maintain its links with Germany even after it had formally declared its independence from German control. The concerns of the missions varied. The S.P.G. in Chhotanagpur was involved primarily with education and Bible Schools; the Roman Catholics and the G.E.L. Mission focused more on issues of land and rent. But rather than tracing differences between missions and missionaries, this article seeks to unpack the specificities of missionary representation.

⁵ Inden, R., Imagining India, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1990Google Scholar; Cohn, B. S., An Anthropologist among the Historians and Other Essays, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1987Google Scholar; and Dirks, N., Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2001Google Scholar.

⁶ The relationship between knowledge and power was put forward in the context of early modern Europe by Michel Foucault in the 1960s. Edward Said's Orientalism draws upon this argument (see Said, E., Orientalism, Vintage Books, New York, 1978Google Scholar), and has, in turn, greatly influenced post-colonial historiography.

⁷ Irschick, E. F., Dialogue and History, Constructing South India 1795–1895, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1994Google Scholar; Bayly, C. A., Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1996Google Scholar; Bayly, S., ‘Caste and Race in the Colonial Ethnography of India’, in Robb, P. (ed.), The Concept of Race in South Asia, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1995Google Scholar; Trautmann, T. R., Aryans and British India, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peabody, N., ‘Cents, Sense, Census: Human Inventories in Late Precolonial and Early Colonial India’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 43:4, 2001, pp. 819–50Google ScholarPubMed; Wagoner, P. B., ‘Precolonial Intellectuals and the Production of Colonial Knowledge’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 45:4, 2003, pp. 783–814CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Guha, S., Beyond Caste. Identity and Power in South Asia, Past and Present, Brill, Leiden and Boston, 2013Google Scholar.

⁸ Sarkar, S. and Sarkar, T. (eds), Caste in Modern India, Volume I, Permanent Black, Ranikhet, 2014, p. ixGoogle Scholar.

⁹ Devalle, Susan B. C., Discourses of Ethnicity: Culture and Protest in Jharkhand, Sage, Delhi, 1992Google Scholar; Bates, C., ‘Race, Caste and Tribe in Central India: The Early Origins of Anthropometry’, in Robb (ed.), The Concept of Race in South AsiaGoogle Scholar; Padel, F., The Sacrifice of Human Being: British Rule and the Konds of Orissa, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1995Google Scholar; Skaria, A., ‘Shades of Wildness: Tribe, Caste and Gender in Western India’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 56:3, 1997, pp. 726–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Guha, S., Environment and Ethnicity, 1200–1901, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999Google Scholar; and Damodaran, V., ‘Colonial Constructions of the “Tribe” in India: The Case of Chotanagpur’, Indian Historical Review, vol. 33:1, 2006, pp. 44–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ See, for example, Harding, C., Religious Transformation in South Asia: The Meanings of Conversion in Colonial Punjab, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006, p. 2Google Scholar.

¹¹ Forrester, D., Caste and Christianity: Attitudes and Policies on Caste of Anglo-Saxon Protestant Missions in India, Curzon Press, London, 1980Google Scholar; Harding, Religious Transformation in South Asia.

¹² Webster, J. C. B., A History of the Dalit Christians in India, Mellen Research University Press, San Francisco, 1992Google Scholar.

¹³ Forrester, Caste and Christianity; Webster, A History of the Dalit Christians in India; and Harding, Religious Transformation in South Asia.

¹⁴ Padel, The Sacrifice of Human Being; Damodaran, ‘Colonial Constructions of the “Tribe” in India’; Carrin, M. and Tambs-Lyche, H., An Encounter of Peripheries: Santals, Missionaries, and Their Changing Worlds, Manohar, New Delhi, 2008Google Scholar.

¹⁵ ‘Christian missions’, as Andrew Porter has pointed out, ‘have long been associated both with the growth of empire and with colonial rule.’ See Porter, A. (ed.), The Imperial Horizons of British Protestant Missions, 1880–1914, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Cambridge, 2003Google Scholar, p. 1. Cox discusses the ‘uneasy and unpredictable relationship between the British Empire and British religion since 1700’ and divides the existing historiography into three strands: imperialist historians see the missionaries as marginal figures in the imperial exercise; anti-imperialists see them as instruments of imperial rule, or colonial agents of imperial rule in disguise; ecclesiastical historians assume the centrality of missions as a subject of inquiry worthy in itself. Cox argues that we must move beyond these barriers that indeed have been breaking down in the last 20 years. See Cox, J., The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700, Routledge, New York and Abingdon, 2008, pp. 3–7Google Scholar.

¹⁶ In 1981, Judith Shapiro argued that ‘In recent years, a number of anthropologists have come to recognize that missionaries, who play a central role in many of the social systems that anthropologists study, have yet to receive the ethnographic and theoretical attention they deserve.’ See Shapiro, J., ‘Ideologies of Catholic Missionary Practice in a Postcolonial Era’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 23:1, 1981, p. 130CrossRefGoogle Scholar. One of the earliest works in this genre was Clifford, J., Person and Myth: Maurice Leenhardt in the Melanesian World, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1982Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Michaud, J., ‘Incidental’ Ethnographers: French Catholic Missions on the Tonkin–Yunnan Frontier, 1880–1930, Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden and Boston, 2007, p. 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ Harries, P., ‘Anthropology’, in Etherington, N. (ed.), Missions and Empire (The Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 258Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Maxwell, D., ‘The Soul of the Luba: W.F.P. Burton, Missionary Ethnography and Belgian Colonial Science’, History and Anthropology, vol. 19:1, 2008, pp. 325–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ For example, in the ‘Annual Return’ that the S.P.G. sought from the different mission stations, amid a variety of questions around the celebration of the Divine Service and Holy Communion, the extent of contributions and collections raised, the details of professional income and property, the functioning of Schools etc., there is a single question concerning the people, the objects of missionary propaganda: ‘Give the numbers, distinguishing the nations or races (emphasis mine), of a. The whole population of your mission b. Church members—i.e. those of any age who are Baptized, and do not profess to dissent from the Prayer Book c. The actual Congregation present at each of your Churches or Stations at any one service d. Communicants e. Persons confirmed last year f. Unbaptized Adults and Children under Christian instruction?’ And to this is a one-line dutiful response from the Diocese of Chhota Nagpur for the year 1890: ‘The population consists of many different races, but the Mundas and Uraons are the two with whom we are at present chiefly concerned.’ See ‘Annual Return, Diocese of Chhota Nagpur, Year Ending 30 September 1890’, Missionary Reports, e Series, Vol. 45a, 1902, Rhodes House Library, Oxford (hereafter R.H.L.).

²¹ Michaud, ‘Incidental’ Ethnographers.

²² Rev. E. H. Whitley gave an account of his ‘District work’: ‘like Moses’, he was asked to settle disputes among the brethren, to protect them from the exactions of landlords, to advise them in difficulties. ‘It is very dispiriting to feel at the close of each day that one has been worsted in a struggle to cope with routine work, and as for new ventures they must be altogether laid aside.’ See ‘Report’ by Rev. E. H. Whitley, Ranchi, Diocese of Chota Nagpur, for the quarter ending 31 December 1902, Missionary Reports, e Series, Vol. 57a, 1902, R.H.L.

²³ Apart from preparing the obvious bibles and catechisms for the use of their priests and converts, and church histories and memoirs for the propaganda of missionary enterprise, the missionaries left behind very detailed accounts: letters and annual reports sent to the headquarters, tour diaries and personal notes kept in mission stations, and articles published in missionary periodicals, newspapers, and occasionally in academic journals.

²⁴ G. Griffiths, ‘“Trained to tell the truth”: Missionaries, Converts and Narration’, in Etherington (ed.), Missions and Empire, p. 153.

²⁵ In missionary accounts, one finds discussions about the relationship of missionaries with imperial and colonial politics; there are references to shortfalls of salaries, allowances, grants, and pensions, and the need for manpower and resources; statistics are provided of the baptized and converted; there is evidence of missionary concerns in the fields of education, medicine and land systems.

²⁶ Letter from H. W. Tucker, Secretary, S.P.G., to Rev. E. H. Whitley, July 1897: ‘You will have observed that we run the story of one Mission through consecular numbers of the Gospel Missionary . . . Could you write the story of Chhota Nagpur for me to use in 1898? six months of it? Any suggestions of Photographs will be welcome. I ought to have the whole MS early in November. Please say, “Yes”’, Chota Nagpur Letters Received, Vol. I, R.H.L.

²⁷ Letter from H. W. Tucker, Secretary, S.P.G., ‘The Children's Corner’, S.P.G., Chota Nagpur Letters Received, Vol. I, R.H.L.

²⁸ Letter from Rev. E. H. Whitley to Tucker, Secretary, S.P.G., dated 5 November 1893, Chota Nagpur Letters Received, Vol. I, R.H.L.

²⁹ Cave-Browne of the S.P.G. Mission commented on Pastor Batsch, and on Herzog, a carpenter by profession, and missionaries of the Gossner Mission, who had served in Chhotanagpur for over two decades: ‘They are taunted as being unlearned men . . . as lacking a high order of literary knowledge: yet had their self-devotion and zeal been so blessed of God as to more than supply any such deficiencies of education . . . But they never failed to acknowledge their own defects of education. Indeed, they became more and more conscious of them as their native church grew around them. Frequently did they apply to the Berlin Committee, especially when, in 1865, they saw the walls of their training school approach completion, and begged that their hands might be strengthened by the accession of men better taught, and more capable of teaching, who should be able, under their superintendence, to train Native Pastors, and to take a more active part in the general educational work of the Mission.’ Cave-Browne, J., The Chota Nagpore Mission; Its History and Present Position, Thomas S. Smith, Calcutta, 1870, p. 38Google Scholar.

³⁰ To quote Dalton, ‘I had spent the greater portion of a long service in Assam and Chutia Nagpur, the most interesting fields of ethnological research in all Bengal; and though without any pretension to scientific knowledge of the subject, without practice as an author, or experience as a compiler, I have probably had more opportunities of observing races and tribes, especially those usually called Aborigines, than have been conceded to any other officer now in the service.’ Dalton, E. T., Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, Illustrated by Lithographic Portraits Copied from Photographs, Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, 1872, p. iiGoogle Scholar.

³¹ Risley, H. H., The Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Volumes I and II, Bengal Secretariat Press, Calcutta, 1891Google Scholar.

³² Porter argues: ‘It is difficult not to be struck by the insignificance of Empire in many evangelical minds, whose thinking was dominated by the concept of an all-embracing, superintending Providence unfolding a Divine plan for the world.’ See Porter, A., Religion Versus Empire? British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700–1914, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2004, p. 58Google Scholar.

³³ J. and Comaroff, J., Ethnography and the Historical Imagination, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1992Google Scholar.

³⁴ See, for example, Bolt, C., Victorian Attitudes to Race, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London and University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1971Google Scholar; Stocking, G., Victorian Anthropology, Free Press, New York, 1987Google Scholar; and A. C. Ross, ‘Christian Missions and the Mid-Nineteenth Century Change in Attitudes to Race’, in Porter (ed.), The Imperial Horizons of British Protestant Missions, 1880–1914.

³⁵ Schroeder, U., ‘No Religion, but Ritual? Robert Caldwell and the Tinnevelly Shanars’, in Bergunder, M., Frese, H., and Schroeder, U. (eds), Ritual, Caste and Religion in Colonial South India, Neue Hallesche Berichte 8, Verlag der Franckeschen Stiftungen, Halle (Salle), 2010, p. 139Google Scholar.

³⁶ In his ‘Memoir of John Gossner’, Herman Dalton wrote that the widow of a physician, Helfer, a man of considerable scientific attainments, who had settled and died in Mergui, offered her estate on favourable terms as a good station for a Mission. Gossner, in 1844, had asked his missionaries to go to Calcutta, and thence to Mergui. The Sikh war had, however, just broken out, which made the frontier unsafe and a mission station impossible. See Dalton, H., ‘Memoir of John Gossner’, Mission Field, vol. XX, 1 June 1875, p. 187Google Scholar.

³⁷ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 2.

³⁸ Dalton, ‘Memoir of John Gossner’, p. 187.

³⁹ Anonymous, ‘The Kols; The Insurrection of 1832 and the Land Tenure Act of 1869’, Calcutta Review, vol. XLIX (XCVII), 1869, p. 157Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 309.

⁴¹ See Dalton, E. T. (1866). ‘The Kols of Chota Nagpore’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. XXXV (II), 1866, Supplementary Number, pp. 153–200Google Scholar.

⁴² Schatz, Missionaire, ‘Correspondenz von Calcutta, den 7 Februar 1845 [Missionary Schatz, Correspondence from Calcutta, 7 February 1845]’, Die Biene auf dem Missionsfelde, vol. 6, June 1845, p. 46Google Scholar.

⁴³ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 2.

⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 1.

⁴⁵ It was created following the split within the Lutheran Church as a result of the differences between the missionaries who had initially arrived in Chhotanagpur and those who had arrived later. The former appealed to the Bishop for a formal takeover. See Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, pp. 38–73.

⁴⁶ ‘Report’, by George H. Lusty, Missionary at Ranchi, Diocese of Chota Nagpur, India, Missionary Reports, e Series, Vol. 46a, 1891, R.H.L.

⁴⁷ A. Marlier, S.J. (not dated), ‘Jesuit Missionary in India: Father Constant Lievens’, Unpublished typescript, Jesuit Mission Archive, Ranchi (hereafter J.M.A.), p. 18.

⁴⁸ ‘Among the Kols in Chota Nagpur’, by Rev. E. H. Whitley, Missionary in Chota Nagpur, India, Missionary Reports, e Series, Vol. 49b, 1894, R.H.L.

⁴⁹ Anonymous, ‘Ein freundlicher Correspondent aus Calcutta schreibt vom 2 Juni, 1845 [A friendly correspondent writes from Calcutta on 2 June, 1845]’, Die Biene auf dem Missionsfelde, vol. 6, June 1845, p. 77Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Ibid., p. 46.

⁵¹ Schatz, Missionaire, ‘Correspondenz von Bethesda, den 29 Marz 1848 [Missionary Schatz, Correspondence from Bethesda, 29 March 1848]’, Die Biene auf dem Missionsfelde, vol. 8, August 1848, p. 63Google Scholar.

⁵² Ibid.

⁵³ Anonymous, ‘Chota Nagpore Mission’, Mission Field, vol. XVI, 1 September 1871, p. 264Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Anonymous, ‘Chota Nagpore’, Mission Field, vol. XXI, 1 June 1886, p. 177Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Anonymous, ‘Chota Nagpore, History of the Mission’, Mission Field, vol. XXV, 1 May 1890, pp. 172–73Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Anonymous, ‘Chota Nagpore Mission’, Mission Field, vol. XVI, 1 September 1871, p. 264Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Anonymous, ‘The Children's Corner. Devil Worship in Chota Nagpore’, Mission Field, vol. XXVI, 1 May 1891, p. 192Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ ‘Report’ by G. S. Lusty, Missionary at Ranchi, for the quarter ending June 1903, Missionary Reports, e Series, Vol. 58a, 1903, R.H.L.

⁵⁹ Letelher, Fr A., ‘Retreats in the Mission’, Our Field, vol. 6:7, 1925, pp. 2–3Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ With humour, Synge recorded the Dublin Missionary Dr Kennedy's surprise when, on a medical visit, he needed to sterilize an instrument. He asked ‘the woman of the house’ to boil some water—‘a slow process in an earthenware pot over a fire of sticks’. After a while, he put in his finger to see how the boiling was progressing, ‘and found a sweet potato put in to cook by the thrifty housewife.’ See E. F. Synge, ‘The End of an Age’, Part 1, in ‘Bishop Kennedy, Memoir by E.F. Synge’, Unpublished, R.H.L. (undated).

⁶¹ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 2.

⁶² Fr Horny, ‘The Field’, Chota Nagpur Mission Letter, vol. 2:6, June 1932, p. 100.

⁶³ Thomas, N., ‘Colonial Conversions: Difference, Hierarchy and History in Early Twentieth-Century Evangelical Propaganda’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 34:2, 1992, pp. 366–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁴ J. and Comaroff, J., Of Revelation and Revolution, Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa, Vol. I, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991, p. 75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁵ Ibid.

⁶⁶ ‘Report’ by Millicent K. Moody, Missionary at Kamdara, Ranchi District, for the period June 1931–February 1932, dated 17 December 1931, Missionary Reports, e Series, Vol. 86b, 1931, R.H.L.

⁶⁷ Anonymous, ‘Ein freundlicher Correspondent aus Calcutta schreibt vom 2 Juni’, p. 77.

⁶⁸ Marlier, ‘Jesuit Missionary in India: Father Constant Lievens’, p. 21.

⁶⁹ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 2.

⁷⁰ For the Orientalists, the essence of Indian civilization was celebrated in its ancient ‘Aryan’ past and captured through textual studies of its language, laws, and institutions. Those lying outside the orbit of this ‘civilization’ were necessarily the savage and the barbaric. Sanskrit was the root of the language family of Indian vernaculars. The other languages in unwritten form were spoken in the mountainous and sparsely inhabited regions of the country. Aryans were heroes of a great adventure of migration and conquest, and the Aryans and non-Aryans were drawn into an epic battle. For selected readings on Orientalism, see Majeed, J., Ungoverned Imaginings: James Mill's ‘History of British India’ and Orientalism, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993Google Scholar; Kejriwal, O. P., The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India's Past, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1998Google Scholar; Rocher, R., ‘British Orientalism in the Eighteenth Century’, in Breckenridge, C. A. and Van der Veer, P. (eds), Orientalism and the Post-colonial Predicament, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1993Google Scholar; Marshall, P. J., The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993Google Scholar; Schwab, R., The Oriental Renaissance: Europe's Rediscovery of India and the East, 1680–1880, Columbia University Press, New York, 1984Google Scholar; and Trautmann, Aryans and British India.

⁷¹ Hodgson, B. H., ‘The Aborigines of Central India’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 17:2, 1848, pp. 550–58Google Scholar.

⁷² ‘Through the Uraon speech’, Hodgson traced ‘without difficulty’ the ‘further connection of the language of the Koles with that of the “hill men” of the Rajmahal and Bhaugalpur ranges’. See ibid., pp. 550–51.

⁷³ In a table of comparative vocabulary of Aboriginal languages of Central India, Hodgson compares Sinbhum Kol, Santal, Bhumij, Uraon, Mundala, Rajmahali, and Gondi. Ibid., pp. 550–52.

⁷⁴ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 2.

⁷⁵ Anonymous, ‘Promotion of Religion at Home by Foreign Mission’, The Mission Field, vol. XXV, 1 March 1890, p. 83Google Scholar.

⁷⁶ Anonymous, ‘The Kols’, p. 123.

⁷⁷ ‘Here and There: A Contrast Drawn’ by Rev. E. H. Whitley, Missionary in Chota Nagpur, Diocese of Chota Nagpur, India, Missionary Reports, e series, Vol. 49b, 1894, R.H.L.

⁷⁸ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, pp. 26–27.

⁷⁹ Logsdail, A., ‘A Monthly Record of the Proceedings of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Westminster, dated 23.7.1857’, The Mission Field, vol. XLIX, 1 July 1914, p. 207Google Scholar. Describing these agriculturists, Rev. P. T. Martin of the S.P.G. wrote: ‘Our people outside Ranchi are small farmers almost to a man and the vast majority of them are “small holders”. All contribute their own quota of labour. None are “gentlemen” farmers. With a succession of good harvests our countryfolk could doubtless do more . . . many are very deeply in debt.’ See Letter, from Rev. P. T. Martin, Treasurer, Diocese of Chota Nagpur, 9 August 1921, Chota Nagpur Letters Received, R.H.L.

⁸⁰ ‘Report’ by George H. Lusty, Missionary at Ranchi for the quarter ending June 1903, Missionary Reports, e Series, Vol. 46a, 1903, R.H.L.

⁸¹ Anonymous, ‘Ranchi District, 1900’, Chhotanagpur Diocesan Paper, 1901–1910, p. 5.

⁸² W. O’Connor, Missionary at Ranchi, Diocese of Ranchi, 30 September 1895, Missionary Reports, e Series, Vol. 49b, 1895, R.H.L.

⁸³ Anonymous, ‘Ein freundlicher Correspondent aus Calcutta schreibt vom 2 Juni’, p. 77.

⁸⁴ Missionaire Schatz, ‘Correspondenz (Verspattet), Bethesda, den 26 Mai 1848 [Missionary Schatz, Correspondence (delayed), Bethesda, 26 May 1848]’, Die Biene auf dem Missionsfelde, vol. 2, February 1849, p. 16.

⁸⁵ Ibid.

⁸⁶ Rev. Chatterton, E., The Story of Fifty Years’ Mission Work in Chhota Nagpur, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, 1901, p. 12Google Scholar.

⁸⁷ Ibid., p. 148.

⁸⁸ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 5.

⁸⁹ Ibid.

⁹⁰ To quote Gossner, ‘One should not be content for long with interpreters who often say something different from what they ought. Here no diligence may be spared.’ ‘A Constitution drawn up by Gossner for the Kols Mission, August 8th, 1848’, Appendix 2 in Holsten, W., Johannes Evangelista Gossner, Glaube and Gemeinde, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Goettingen, 1949, p. 389Google Scholar.

⁹¹ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 12.

⁹² F. Batsch, ‘Ranchi (Bethesda genannt), den November 11, 1846 [Ranchi (named Bethesda), 11 November 1846]’, Die Biene auf dem Missionsfelde, vol. 3, March 1847, p. 23.

⁹³ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 12.

⁹⁴ As Rev. E. H. Whitley wrote to Tucker, Secretary, S.P.G.: ‘I am glad to be able to forward to you the Examiner's Certificate of my having passed the second examination required by the Society. I wrote to you last after the first examination just a year ago.’ Letter from Rev. E. H. Whitley, to Tucker, Secretary, S.P.G.,Ranchi, dated 31 July 1893, Chota Nagpur Letters Received, Vol. I, R.H.L.

⁹⁵ Fr A. Lievens, ‘Mandar’, Our Field, vol. 7:7, 1927, p. 85.

⁹⁶ For Rev. Batsch's contribution, see Rev. Batsch, F., ‘Language of Dravidian Aborigines. Notes on the Oraon Language’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. XXXV (II), 1866Google Scholar, Supplementary Number, Appendix E, p. 251.

⁹⁷ Some of these tracts, usually printed at the Gossner Church Chhapakhana (printing-press), and available at the Arciv der Gossner Missions [Archive of the Gossner Mission], Berlin, are as follows: A. Diller, ‘Shaitan Ke Bandhanon Me [In the Shackles of the Devil]’, Govindpur, undated; A. Nottrott, ‘Paulus Pahana Topano—Yeeshu Khrista Ke Ek Achche Yoddhe Ka Jeevan Charitra [Paulus Pahana Topano—A Good Soldier of Jesus Christ]’, 1914; A. Diller and H. Schmidt, ‘Jahan Se Wah Jeeviton Aur Mritakon Ka Vichar Karane Ko Phir Aawega [From Where He Will Return to the Judge the Living and the Dead]’, Govindpur, (undated); Anonymous, ‘Pabitra Baptisma ka Bhedh [The Meaning of Holy Baptism]’, Burju (undated); and A. Diller and S. Schmidt, ‘Ham Yeeshu Se Bhent Karana Chahhate Hain [I Would Like to Meet Christ]’, Govindpur (undated).

⁹⁸ Wagner, A Character Sketch of Ferdinand Hahn of the G.E.L. Mission, A.L.E.M. Press, Guntur, 1913, p. 7.

⁹⁹ Letter dated 31 July 1893, Rev. E. H. Whitley to Tucker, Secretary, S.P.G., Chota Nagpur Letters Received, Vol. I, R.H.L.

¹⁰⁰ Ibid.

¹⁰¹ It was eventually printed by the government on the recommendation of the commissioner of Chhotanagpur, Mr Grimley. Letter dated 28 June 1896, Letter from Rev. E. H. Whitley to Tucker, Secretary, S.P.G., 28 June 1896, Chota Nagpur Letters Received, Vol. I, R.H.L.

¹⁰² Whitley, E. H., Notes on the Ganwari Dialect of Lohardaga, Chhota Nagpur, Bengal Secretariat Press, Calcutta, 1896Google Scholar. Introduction.

¹⁰³ Wagner, A Character Sketch of Rev. Ferdinand Hahn, pp. 6–7.

¹⁰⁴ Batsch, ‘Language of Dravidian Aborigines. Notes on the Oraon Language’, pp. 251–65.

¹⁰⁵ Campbell, J., ‘The Ethnology of India’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. XXXV (II), 1866Google Scholar, Supplementary Number, p. 152.

¹⁰⁶ Ibid., p. 1.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid., p. 25.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid., pp. 25–28.

¹⁰⁹ As he traced the migration of the Oraons from the South, across Gujerat and into Chhotanagpur, Dalton wrote: ‘I find in the language now spoken by the Oraons, words of Sanskrit origin not in common use . . . indicative of their having occupied some country in common with people speaking a Sanskrit or Prakrit dialect.’ See Dalton, ‘The Kols of Chota Nagpore’, p. 170.

¹¹⁰ Rev. Nottrott, A., Grammar of the Kol Language (translated into English by Rev. Paul Wagner), G.E.L. Mission Press, Ranchi, 1905, p. 1Google Scholar.

¹¹¹ Grignard, A. (ed.), Hahn's Oraon Folk-Lore in the Original, Superintendent Government Printing Office, Patna, 1931. Foreword, p. iGoogle Scholar.

¹¹² Fabian, J., Language and Colonial Power: The Appropriation of Swahili in the Former Belgian Congo 1880–1938, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986, p. 76Google Scholar.

¹¹³ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 3.

¹¹⁴ P. Hurad, ‘A Short Account of the Work of the Gossner Society in Chota Nagpur’, Paper read at the Diamond Jubilee of the Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church, Ranchi, November 1920, pp. 70–71, in Nachrichten und Verhandlungen Bter. D. Missionsfeldes (1919–21), L.F.D. Nr. 32, Akten Nr. 1115, Archive of the Gossner Mission, Berlin.

¹¹⁵ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, pp. 4–5.

¹¹⁶ Ibid.

¹¹⁷ Wagner, Character Sketch of Rev. Ferdinand Hahn, pp. 3–5.

¹¹⁸ Whitley, E. H., Indian Uplands: Some Stories of the Church in Chota Nagpur, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, Westminster, 1938, p. 1Google Scholar.

¹¹⁹ Ibid., pp. 26–27.

¹²⁰ Ibid., Foreword.

¹²¹ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 4.

¹²² Ibid.

¹²³ Pagden, A., The Fall of Natural Man: The American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1982Google Scholar.

¹²⁴ Guha, S., ‘Lower Strata, Older Races, and Aboriginal Peoples: Racial Anthropology and Mythical History Past and Present’, The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 57:2, 1998, pp. 423–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹²⁵ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 4.

¹²⁶ Porter, Religion versus Empire? p. 314.

¹²⁷ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. v.

¹²⁸ Dalton, ‘The Kols of Chota Nagpore’; and Capt. G. C. Depree, Geographical and Statistical Report of Chota Nagpore of Topographical Survey, Surveyor-General's Office, 1866, Unpublished.

¹²⁹ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 3.

¹³⁰ Ibid., p. vii.

¹³¹ Wagner, Character Sketch of Rev. Ferdinand Hahn, p. 3.

¹³² Ibid.

¹³³ Cave-Browne, The Chota Nagpore Mission, p. 4.

¹³⁴ Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, p. 2.

¹³⁵ Beverley, H., Report on the Census of Bengal, Bengal Secretariat Press, Calcutta, 1872, p. 130Google Scholar.

¹³⁶ Ibid., p. 195.

¹³⁷ Viswanathan, G., Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1998, Preface, p. xiGoogle Scholar.

¹³⁸ Kartik Oraon vs David Munzni and Anr. on 14 November 1963: www.indiankanoon.org/doc/204475, [Accessed 23 February 2012].

¹³⁹ Anonymous, ‘A Visit to the Uraons of the Patna Mission, News of the Diocese’, Chota Nagpur Mission Letter, vol. 1:5, May 1930, p. 78.

¹⁴⁰ Ibid.

¹⁴¹ Organizations had been formed in Ranchi, Lohardaga, and Kuru; their aim initially was to convert the non-Christians. Preachers were trained in institutions to propagate the ‘Hindu Revelation’ among the ‘aborigines’ of Chhotanagpur; to teach the truths of Hinduism and explain the excellence of Hindu religion; to make true believers and awaken a sense of brotherhood; to diffuse knowledge by opening Hindu schools; and to rescue helpless widows and orphans in order to ‘save them from apostasy’. See Anonymous, ‘Hindu Competition in our Mission Field’, Our Field, vol. 3:7, July 1927, pp. 83–85Google Scholar.

¹⁴² Ibid.

¹⁴³ Anonymous, ‘The Kols’, p. 156.

¹⁴⁴ Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee, Report of the Christian Missionary Activities Enquiry Committee, Madhya Pradesh, 1956, Vol. I, Government Regional Press, Indore, 1957, p. 3Google Scholar. This report was prepared under the Chairmanship of Dr M. Bhawani Shankar Niyogi.

¹⁴⁵ Viswanathan, Outside the Fold, p. xii.

¹⁴⁶ Kartik Oraon (1924–1981), an adivasi intellectual and prominent political figure who received his Bachelor's degree from the Bihar College of Engineering and did his higher studies in England, represented the Lohardaga constituency several times, and eventually became minister for aviation and communication. For a brief biography of Kartik Oraon, see Ghosh, A., The World of the Oraon: Their Symbols in Time and Space, Manohar, New Delhi, 2006Google Scholar, Appendix 5, pp. 307–11.

¹⁴⁷ Kartik Oraon vs David Munzni and Anr. On 14 November 1963.

¹⁴⁸ Kartik Oraon had polled 41,804 votes, while David Munzni had polled 58,173 votes.

¹⁴⁹ Kartik Oraon vs David Munzni and Anr. On 14 November 1963.

¹⁵⁰ According to Article 342(1) of the Constitution of India, the president has been authorized to specify by public notification with respect to any State or Union Territory, or where it is a State, after consultation with the governor thereof, the tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within tribes or tribal communities which shall for the purposes of the Constitution be deemed to be Scheduled Tribes in relation to that State or Union Territory, as the case may be. See Kartik Oraon vs David Munzni and Anr. On 14 November 1963.

¹⁵¹ The Report of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the year 1961–62, dealing with concessions allowed to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in matters of employment under the Government of India, stated that in the case of Scheduled Tribes, religion was immaterial, and a member of a Scheduled Tribe continued to be one even though he may change his religion. To quote from the report, ‘Tribal religion varies as much as tribal social custom or tribal law. Some of the tribals are Buddhists and have been so for centuries. Some have become Christians in comparatively recent times, others worship Hindu Gods and follow a simplified form of the Hindu religion. Yet again, others still follow the faith of their ancestors . . .’ See Kartik Oraon vs David Munzni and Anr. On 14 November 1963.

¹⁵² In the Lok Sabha debate in 1961 with regard to adivasis and conversion, the then deputy minister of Home Affairs, Margaret Alva, stated: ‘where one talks of Adivasis, one has to bear in mind that religion is not a factor to be taken into consideration . . . I want to reiterate . . . in the case of a Scheduled Caste person being converted, he loses his caste, but in the case of the Adivasi, he remains an Adivasi, whether he is a Buddhist, or whether he becomes a Christian or a Muslim, he remains an Adivasi. Therefore, religion does not matter in the case of an Adivasi.’ See Kartik Oraon vs David Munzni and Anr. On 14 November 1963.

¹⁵³ ‘Tribe’ has been defined in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume 22, 1961 edition, at page 465, by W. H. R. Rivers as ‘a social group of a simple kind, the members of which speak a common dialect, have a single government, and act together for such common purposes as “warfare”. Other typical characteristics include a common name, a contiguous territory, a relatively uniform culture or way of life and a tradition of common descent. Tribes are usually composed of a number of local communities, e.g., bands, villages or neighbourhoods, and are often aggregated in clusters of a higher order called nations. The term is seldom applied to societies that have achieved a strictly territorial organization in large states but is usually confined to groups whose unity is based primarily upon a sense of extended ties. It is no longer used for kin groups in the strict sense, such as clans.’ See Kartik Oraon vs David Munzni and Anr. On 14 November 1963.

¹⁵⁴ See Kartik Oraon vs David Munzni and Anr. On 14 November 1963.

¹⁵⁵ Ibid.

¹⁵⁶ Ibid.

¹⁵⁷ ‘An extract from a letter of David Munzni about the Kartik-case’, Letter from David Munzni dated 12 March 1968, to Dr P. Ekka, J.M.A.

¹⁵⁸ ‘A note on the Appeal Case before the Supreme Court by David Munzni’, J.M.A.

¹⁵⁹ ‘Long Live Tribal Unity’, a rejoinder to ‘Task before Tribal India’ by Sri Kartik Oraon, M.P., dated Ranchi 13 February 1970, J.M.A.

¹⁶⁰ Letter dated 20 September 1967, from P. Kerketta, S.J., Archbishop of Ranchi, President RCNI, to the Members of the Regional Conference of North India (Ref: RCNI/3/67), J.M.A.

¹⁶¹ ‘Some particulars about Shri Kartik Oraon’, J.M.A.

¹⁶² ‘A note on the Appeal Case before the Supreme Court by David Munzni’. The Jan Sangh, the predecessor of the Bharatiya Janata Party, was founded in 1951with Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee as its president. Mookerjee, who had resigned from the cabinet of the then prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, in 1950, made an appeal to all those connected with the Arya Samaj and the Rashtriya Sevak Sangh, a Hindu right-wing organization, for a nationalist and democratic alternative to the Nehruvian Congress.

¹⁶³ Letter dated 20 September 1967, from P. Kerketta, S.J., Archbishop of Ranchi, President RCNI, to the Members of the Regional Conference of North India.

¹⁶⁴ Ibid.

¹⁶⁵ ‘A copy of a letter drafted by Fr. P. Ekka, S.J.’ To the Hon’ble Minister, Revenue Department, Government of Bihar, Patna, from Shri Paul Hansda, Minister of Tribal Welfare, Government of Bihar, Patna, Undated, J.M.A.

¹⁶⁶ This is the belief that the moral quality of one's actions influences one's rebirth.

¹⁶⁷ ‘A copy of a letter drafted by Fr. P. Ekka, S.J.’