Climbing High Mountains E-Book

• Herausgeber: weltweit. Neuer Verlag der Leipziger Mission
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Leipziger Beiträge zur Interkulturellen Theologie
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 262

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

In October 1896, a squadron of "Deutsche Schutztruppe" forces erected a camp on Mount Meru, near to the mission station that King Matunda was having built. A night battle between local people and the German forces resulted in the deaths of at least three civilians who worked for the mission station (Karava, Mrio, Kalami) and two Eastern European Leipzig Mission missionaries, Ewald Ovir and Karl Segebrock. The deaths of Ovir and Segebrock were then used as an excuse by the "Deutsche Schutztruppe" to brutally attack the Wameru and Ilarusa people. 2021 Leipzig Mission commemorated the 125th year of the so called "Akeri killings" with an international online symposium. This publication documents the presentations.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Ravinder Salooja

Introduction

Gladson Jathanna

Colonization, conversion, and co-option: Postcolonial Reflections

Konstantin Gerber

Mission - white, western, colonial? Mission in the contemporary theological discourse in Germany

Jürgen Günther

Karl von Schwartz and the beginnings of Leipzig Mission in the German colony Deutsch-Ostafrika

Moritz Fischer

Inevitably drawn into the machinery of war?

An entanglement-analytical perspective on Leipzig missionaries, caught between their African addressees and the German colonial military“

Emmanuel Majola

Geographical and Chronological Perspectives of Leipzig Missionaries’ Activities, Around Meru land 125 years ago

Joseph W. Parsalaw

The Akeri Killings in 1896

Moni Parisius

125 years of contested memory. A Discourse Analysis of the Reception of the Killing of two Leipzig Missionaries from a Postcolonial Perspective

Kristina Ecis

Rediscovery and reevaluation of mission understanding of the Courland Lutheran Consistory and missionary martyr Karl Segebrock

Karolin Wetjen

Symposium Climbing High Mountains: What we have learned – A commentary

Ravinder Salooja

Mission Justifying Colonial Violence

List of Authors

Conference Schedule

E-Mail by Mari-Ann Oviir in the name of the family to Leipzig Mission

PREFACE

On their expedition to establish a new mission station near Mount Meru, at least five employees of the Leipzig mission died violently in Akeri on the night of October 19th to 20th, 1896, due to an attack by local people. 125 years after this momentous event in the history of the Leipzig Mission, an international online symposium took place in October 2021 as part of the annual theme 'Credible? Mission postcolonial' to take a new look at the events of that time and at the same time to make a contribution to coming to terms with the involvement of mission work with the actions of the German colonial power.

In Akeri, the graves of the two missionaries Ewald Ovir and Karl Segebrock are still cared for today by the local Meru Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, and their memory is honored. However, nothing reminds us that non-white employees of the two missionaries, three of whom we know by name, namely Karava, Kalami and Mrio, fell victim to the night attack. Two more, whose names we don’t know, were captured. There is also no memorial for the more than 600 people who fell victim to the subsequent 'punitive expedition' of the German colonial power.

At the memorial service in Akeri Church on October 13, 2021, I was able to remember the suffering of all these victims and say a prayer for them. At the celebrations of '100 years of the Leipzig Mission on Kilimanjaro' in 1993, the then bishop of the Meru diocese, Paulo Akyoo, asked mission director Joachim Schlegel for forgiveness for the deaths of the two missionaries and presented a carved Makonde cross as a sign of reconciliation, which has been hanging in the chapel of the mission house ever since. This was an important step in the ongoing partnership between our Lutheran churches in Tanzania and Germany to assure the fundamental act of reconciliation through Jesus Christ on the cross.

During his visit to Tanzania on November 1, 2023, Federal President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in his speech at the Maji Maji Museum in Songea: “I bow to the victims of German colonial rule. And as German Federal President, I would like to ask for forgiveness for what Germans did to their ancestors here. I ask for your forgiveness, and I would like to assure you that we Germans will work with you to find answers to the open questions that are troubling you. (…) Germany is ready to come to terms with the past together. Nobody should forget what happened back then. And my great hope is that the joint coming to terms with the past will also include young people in particular: schoolchildren, students, and scientists.”

On behalf of the Leipzig Mission, I would like to thank everyone who took part in the ‘Climbing High Mountains’ symposium in 2021, gave lectures and then made their lectures or essays available to us for this publication! I am particularly pleased that the contributions of Prof. Dr. Joseph W. Parsalaw (Rector of Tumaini University in Makumira) and Pastor Emmanuel Majola (ELCT Meru Diocese), two explicitly Tanzanian voices, express that coming to terms with our past can only happen together.

Our former Mission Director, Ravinder Salooja, deserves great thanks for organizing the symposium and carefully editing this volume.

Daniel Keiling,

Tanzania Secretary, Leipzig Mission

INTRODUCTION

Ravinder Salooja

Symposium “Climbing High Mountains” 29./30.10.2021

Heading a historic mission organization, you tend to think — at least, I was tempted to think — that one’s own history would somehow not be too bad. That there was a good intention behind the activities past and present, and that in all the possible problematic contexts, there was some good that had been done. Preparing for the 2018 Arusha World Mission conference, I dived into the history of the Leipzig Mission, because Arusha and Kilimanjaro, the sites of the 2018 conference, is where the Leipzig Mission began to work in 1893! On that way, I encountered two publications that shook my assumptions about the colonial past of Leipzig Mission: one was Joseph Parsalaw “The Founding of Arusha Town” (2000), and Jürgen Günther “Karl v. Schwartz und die Mission der Leipziger Mission in Ostafrika” (1992). I am thankful that both authors participated in the symposium.

The last blow to my self-assured positioning on the role of mission in colonial times was R.S. Sugirtharajah’s “A Postcolonial Exploration of Collusion and Construction in Biblical Interpretation” (2003). Sugirtharajah shows that reading Mt. 28 as “The Great Commission to the Heathens” was a construction of 18th-century Baptist Missionary William Carey, i.e., a construction of a colonial reading of the Bible, which since then inspired the European mission movement.

From these three publications, I learned, that firstly, the whole Protestant Mission movement from the 19th century was closely interwoven with the colonial expansion of Europe in the 18th and 19th century onwards; secondly, the Leipzig Mission had a choice to become a colonial mission or not, even if (and that should not be forgotten) she was working within the colonial framework from the beginning; and thirdly, there is a lot to discover, if one critically examines the Leipzig Mission’s history.

As a preparatory session to the symposium, Jürgen Günther in Leipzig Mission’s monthly history-lab talked about the key role of Leipzig Missions Director Karl v. Schwartz in taking up the second mission field in colonial “Deutsch-Ostafrika”. Though not part of the symposium itself, his paper is part of this documentation.

In October 2021, Leipzig Mission was to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the deaths of at least five civilians from Leipzig Mission on the slopes of Mount Meru October 20, 1896, as they are: Karava, Kalami and Mrio together with two other Chagga persons who were captured, and the two missionaries Ewald Ovir (from Estonia) and Karl Segebrock (from Latvia). Setting out within our tri-annual motto “credible? Mission postcolonial” a symposium deemed us to be the appropriate format for doing so, after having had a prayer in Akeri itself on October 13, 2021. Therefore, we set out to plan it – and we encountered a massive field of learning.

The first thing we learned was how to talk about the 1896 event. Was it a murder? A tragic death? A collateral damage, as one might term it in today’s military terms? And did the event occur as part of an attack? Or was it a proper night battle, or even part of a serial of fights (Müller and Faßmann, 1897: 19) against the European invaders, starting months before and continuing at least until 1900? And how to deal with the martyr narrative that became visible in the 1936 Leipzig Mission publication “Die Blutzeugen am Meru” (Martyrs at Mount Meru) (Müller, 1936). Moni Parisius followed the narration in the Leipzig Mission’s publication and presented his findings during the symposium.

Planning the symposium, we noticed another point to learn, which is also present in the martyr narrative mentioned: Whose names were remembered and traded, and whose names were not? Ewald Ovir and Karl Segebrock, the two missionaries, were named right from the beginning. But what about the Chagga people, who died with them? What do we know about them? Who were they? We were able to retrieve the names of Karava (Müller and Faßmann, 1897: 14; Schwartz, 1897: 96; Müller, 1936: 17/20), Kalami (Schwartz, 1897: 96), and Mrio (Müller, 1936: 20). The other two are still unnamed in our memory1. Is it not that if you don’t remember the name, then the person himself or herself tends to more easily slip out of mind? And would that do justice to them? Additionally, there is another dimension to this: how are they remembered? As plainly five Chagga people? Or, though with a different vocation, but still like the missionaries as employees of Leipzig Mission? There is no end to the learning road!

The third aspect we learned about is the question of covering up or revealing. When we issued the call for papers 2021, we thought we were well prepared. In our first description, we wrote as follows: “On the invitation of King Matunda Leipzig Mission set out to build a mission station on the slopes of Mt. Meru.” The final version of the call then came as such: “… near the mission station that King Matunda was having built ...”. It was with the critical help of the missiologist Taylor Denyer that we understood even our first careful description to rather hide than reveal the agencies behind the event: yes, it was the Leipzig Mission that moved into the area, and yes, it was us that brought in resources to build the station. But it was King Matunda who allowed the station to be erected. Accordingly, only the phrase “the mission station that King Matunda was having built” pays due respect to his agency, the agency of the people under the grip of the upcoming colonial reign.

This is, of course, not just a question of hiding or revealing, but indicates that the actions of the Leipzig Mission took place in a very complex situation. Moritz Fischer, in his paper, highlighted this complexity while discussing whether missionaries were squeezed between their supposed African addressees and the German colonial military. Joseph Parsalaw’s contribution concentrated on the Akeri killings of 1896 itself, a term widely used now but introduced by him (Parsalaw, 1999; cf. Parsalaw, 2000). Emmanuel Majola prepared the ground by describing several perspectives on the Leipzig Missionaries’ activities around Meru land. From all these contributions, we learned how the Leipzig Mission’s activities in the northern part of today’s Tanzania were closely entangled with the colonial-dominated context.

Two contributions will open this documentation: Konstantin Gerber sketches how “mission” is publicly perceived in the contemporary theological discourse in Germany, and Gladson Jathanna reflects on colonization, conversion, and co-option. His contribution as a South Asian theologian touches on an interesting dimension of the Leipzig Mission’s history at Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Meru: from 1893 onwards, not only five European missionaries came to Northern Tanganyika, developing the mission’s enterprise. But also a group of Indian Christians from Tamil Nadu, hired by Leipzig Mission from her first mission field, worked under a four-year contract at Mt. Kilimanjaro. These Indians at Moshi mission station were witnesses to when the news of the Akeri event of October 20, 1896 reached the Leipzig Mission headquarter in Machame (Faßmann and Lány, 1897: 51).

Last but not least, there is the Baltic dimension. Kristina Ecis reflects on the rediscovery and reevaluation of mission understanding in the Courland Lutheran Consistory and missionary Karl Segebrock. Her presentation widened our horizons to a very specific dimension: of course, Latvia and Estonia are the two states where Ewald Ovir and Karl Segebrock stem from. But apart from that, there is a special colonial aspect involved. The German journalist and author Mark Terkessidis, in his book “Wessen Erinnerung zählt?” (“Whose memory matters?“) (2019) points towards the German colonialism prior to the official German “saltwater” colonialism: from the 13th century onwards, the State of the Teutonic Order expanded up to today’s Latvia and Estonia, and in the 18th century, the German state Prussia expanded towards the East with a Germanization policy. When Dresden/ Leipzig Mission was founded in 1836 as the first Lutheran mission society, she immediately received support from mission circles in Lutheran church territories all over Europe: from all the German states, from Scandinavia, and last but not least from the Baltic States. Partly, this support must have come from German-descending Lutherans, i.e., German Lutherans who migrated during the colonial expansion into these countries. Kristina Ecis indicates friction between the majority of Latvian Lutherans and the minority of German Lutherans in Latvia, who nevertheless made up the majority among the Lutheran pastors in Latvia by the end of the 19th century.

We can not conclude this introduction by spreading out the colonial landscape of the Leipzig Mission, from which we want to obtain our insights into Leipzig’s colonial entanglement from a postcolonial perspective, without mentioning the effects of the Akeri killings of 1896. When the Leipzig missionaries were commissioned in the Nikolaikirche Leipzig at Pentecost 1893, Karl, Karl v. Schwartz uttered the motto: “Serve the Kingdom of God, not the German Kingdom, not the German Empire!” This motto could have been understood as an attempt to differentiate between mission and colonialism and to warn the Leipzig missionaries against getting entangled in colonialism. But taking the effects of 1896 into account, one clearly understands, that such a differentiation, such a warning of do-not-get-involved, was rather a naive attempt, if not just a protective claim. As a reaction to the Akeri events, the “Deutsche Schutztruppe” brutally beat and knocked down the involved Wameru and Ilarusa people, killing 600 Arusha men (Handmann, 1897: 57), driving away women and children, confiscating cattle, destroying banana groves2, and handing over the land to settlers from Southern Africa (Mesaki, 2013). Also to mention, it took until 1900 before the battles at Mt. Meru as well as in the Kilimanjaro area ended with the help of erecting a military station at Arusha (Müller, 1936: 21; Mesaki, 2013; cf. Parsalaw, 2000).

During listening, reflection and discussion, one is very deep into a session. Accordingly, it was an asset to have Karolin Wetjen performing a listener’s position, and returning to us at the end her impressions. Her commentary concludes the contribution part of the symposium documentation. All participants and presenters receive our sincere thanks for attending the 125th anniversary symposium.

As one of the effects of the symposium, in a 2022 conference on colonial violence, I presented my research how the Leipzig Missionary Society justified the 1896 retaliation war of the Deutsche Schutztruppe in her public discourses. I am thankful to the Leipzig Mission for allowing me to include that paper in the symposium documentary.

The electronic letter the Leipzig Mission received from the Oviir family from Estonia is a sign that the past is present. The letter has been added to the Appendix of this documentary.

References

Faßmann, Robert and Lány, Martin von (1897) ‘Nachrichten von der Station Moschi’, EvangelischLutherisches Missionsblatt für die Evangelisch-Lutherische Mission zu Leipzig, no. 3, 48-54

Günther, Jürgen (1992) Karl von Schwartz und die Mission der Leipziger Mission in Ostafrika während der deutschen Kolonialzeit: Ein Braunschweiger Beitrag zur Weltmission, Wissenschaftliche Hausarbeit zur Zweiten Theologischen Prüfung, Ev.-luth. Landeskirche in Braunschweig

Mesaki, Simeon (2013) ‘Recapping the Meru Land Case, Tanzania’, Global Journal of Human Social Sciences. Economics, vol. 13, no. 1, 15-23

Handmann, Richard (1897) ‘Missionschronik’, Evangelisch-Lutherisches Missionsblatt für die Evangelisch-Lutherische Mission zu Leipzig, 56-57

Müller, Emil (1936) Aus der Tiefe in die Höh‘: 20. Oktober 1896 - 1936. Segebrock und Ovir, unsere Blutzeugen am Meru, Leipzig, Verlag der Ev.-Luth. Mission

Müller, Emil and Fassmann, Robert (1897) ‘Die Bluttaufe unserer Mission am Meru: Nach Briefen von Miss. Müller und Faßmann (mit Bild.)’, Evangelisch-Lutherisches Missionsblatt für die Evangelisch-Lutherische Mission zu Leipzig, no. 1, 12-19

Parsalaw, Jospeh Wilson (1999 [Univ. Diss, Erlangen, Nürnberg 1997]) A history of the Lutheran church diocese in the Arusha region from 1904 to 1958, Erlangen, Verlag für Mission und Ökumene

Parsalaw, Jospeh Wilson (2000) ‘The Founding of Arusha Town’, in van der Heyden, U. and Stoecker, H. (eds) Mission und Gewalt: Der Umgang christlicher Missionen mit Gewalt und die Ausbreitung des Christentums in Afrika und Asien in der Zeit von 1792 bis 1918/19, Stuttgart, Steiner, 489-493

Schwartz, Karl von (1897) Karl Segebrock und Ewald Ovir: Zwei früh vollendete Missionare der Evangelisch-lutherischen Mission zu Leipzig, Leipzig, Verlag der Ev.-Luth. Mission

Sugirtharajah, R. S. (2003) ‘A Postcolonial Exploration of Collusion and Construction in Biblical Interpretation’, in Sugirtharajah, R. S. (ed) Postcolonial reconfigurations: An alternative way of reading the Bible and doing theology, London, SCM Press, 13-36

Terkessidis, Mark (2019) Wessen Erinnerung zählt?: Koloniale Vergangenheit und Rassismus heute. Hoffmann und Campe

CONTRIBUTIONS

1 Müller and Faßmann (1897: 18) recount: „Von den Arbeitern wurden 3 ermordet, 2 gefangen fortgeführt, und 3 Arbeiter einschl. Rajabu und ein Junge aus Moschi entkamen. Noch am 28. d. Ms. langte einer, Uledi, mit 2 leichten Stichwunden und ganz entkräftet infolge der Hunger- und Wandertage durch die Steppe in Madschame an. […] Auf der Unglücksstätte grub man eilends ein Grab, legte beide Leichname zusammen hinein und betete ein Vaterunser. Zu den Häupten des Hügels wurde ein Kreuz angebracht samt einem aufgefundenen Bilde des Hauptes Christi. Karawa sollte von dem Häuptling Matunda beerdigt werden.“

2„Der Krieg, der wegen der in jenem Jahr besonders heftigen kleinen Regenzeit den Namen ‚Regenkrieg‘ erhielt, endete mit der Niederlage der Aruscha- und Meruleute und ihrer Bestrafung durch Wegnahme von etwas 6000 Stück Rindvieh und ungezählten Ziegen und Schafen, die nun den Grundstock der neuen Viehzucht am Kilimandjaro bildeten.“ (Müller, 1936: 21).

Gladson Jathanna

Colonization, conversion, and co-option: Postcolonial reflections

Introduction

The discourse and practice of conversion are the central focus and feature not only of Christian mission but also of Christian mission narratives. In any postcolonial world, the context of conversion is always defined and demonstrated by the colonial experiences of the colonized subjects. Therefore, conversion of non-Western people to Christianity in a colonial context is often perceived as either a colonial conquest of the docile colonized or a Christian/ Western co-option of the repelling non-West. Though such perception lies in its cautious focus on power, it remains ironically blind to the power of conversion as a site of resistance and non-conformism. Drawing on an example from a 19th-century mission narrative in India, this article argues that while conversion undeniably entails co-opting power, it also serves as a space of creative resistance by the postcolonial subjects, particularly the subalterns. Therefore, the essay compels us to perceive conversion, particularly in a postcolonial context, beyond the rhetoric of colonial conquest and Christian co-option.

A brief discussion of some of the concepts and ideas reflected in the title of the article would be useful before engaging with the aforementioned historical text.

Conversion, Colonization, and Co-option

Though this essay is a historical study, I use the contemporary and commonly circulated knowledge about colonialism and conversion as the base of my historical study. “Is Conversion a Colonization of Consciousness?” is the title of a 26-page article published in 2013 by Nathaniel Roberts, an anthropologist who works at the Max Plank Institute in Göttingen, Germany (Roberts, 2013). This study was later enlarged as a monograph with the title To Be Cared For: The Power of Conversion and Foreignness of Belonging in an Indian Slum (Roberts, 2016). This is a compelling study based on empirical research on Christian conversion in Indian slums, especially in Chennai and Mumbai. Roberts places his research in the context of growing hatred against Christians in India. The movement against Christian conversion in contemporary India uses the rhetoric of conversion as colonization of consciousness to inflict hatred against Christians. He brings in conversion stories of people living in utter poverty, yet living a ‘faithful’ Christian life. As the author says:

Most of the slum dwellers I knew lived with a persistent sense of existential uncertainty that is difficult to convey to readers who have not spent significant time among the very poor – will we have food tomorrow? will that ulcer on my child’s leg heal? will municipal water tankers fail again to deliver drinking water? how will I repay this loan? why am I treated as an inferior being? Also difficult to convey is the kind of courage required of a potential convert who relinquishes all the rituals, objects, and gods they have hitherto invested so much in, in order to place themselves entirely at the mercy of an unknown Savior (2013: 284).

Roberts documents the stories of dalit communities, their resistance, and the hope for liberation that they embodied in their converted Christian selves. As one of his respondents, who makes a living by selling scrap metal by the roadside, says:

You drive a motorcycle, right? Well, it’s like when you’re weaving through traffic, and you see a gap between two cars. Everything is happening very fast, and the gap is closing. You don’t know if you can make it, but you can’t just stop and think, ‘will I be able to make it or not?’ No! You just go straight through. If you falter, you will never make it through. That is what living with Christ is like – all the time! (2013: 282).

In contemporary India, which is ruled by a fascist government formed by extreme nationalist political parties and religious right institutions, such strong assertions of converted people are labeled colonization of consciousness, and they are blamed for being co-opted by the Christianization project of the West. Roberts shows with documentary evidence that the converts, especially in the slums of India, do not buy such labeling but rather resist it. They see conversion space as a space of redemption and resistance that they find in living with Christ every day. Such retelling and reclaiming of conversion narratives are crucial for contexts like India, where fascist forces are trying to dismantle and erase the long-celebrated diversity of the land. Therefore, I want to locate my historical study of conversion within the grave contextual inevitability of retelling and reclaiming conversion stories beyond the rhetoric of colonization and co-option.

Postcolonialism, Postcolonial Fascism or Fascist Postcolonialism

Postcolonialism as a methodological tool in studies on cultural encounters, history, literature and even theology has proven to be a powerful key in understanding the decolonized people, societies and cultures that develop a postcolonial identity that is based on cultural interactions between different identities (religious, cultural, national, and ethnic, as well as gender, caste, and class-based). However, we need to consciously and deliberately differentiate postcolonialism from its links to fascism. In the context of contemporary India, sadly, postcolonial rhetoric has become a powerful tool of the fascist forces. This has been so for at least two decades now.

In March 1998, the control of India’s parliament fell for the first time into the hands of a coalition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The BJP is the electoral wing of some fascist organizations espousing the Hindu-majoritarian ideology known as ‘Hindutva’, which seeks to establish Hinduism as India’s national religion and defines Islam and Christianity as intrinsically foreign (Basu et al., 1993; Hansen, 1999; Van der Veer, 1994). Prior to 1998, these organizations were best known for organizing violent attacks on Muslims and on symbols of Islam; though Christians had also been attacked, such attacks were fewer. But in the years preceding the March 1998 election, commentators began to notice a shift in the fascists’ attention towards a more pronounced anti-Christian rhetoric. Some have speculated that due to the electoral necessities of parliamentary politics, in which power depended on a fragile alliance with non-Hindutva parties, anti-Muslim activities became a liability in many, if not all, parts of India, because Muslims represent a significant percentage of the voting public in key constituencies. Indian Christians, on the other hand, are so few as to be electorally insignificant (Sarkar, 1999). But whatever the reason for the anti-Christian rhetorical shift, it was accompanied by a sharp rise in attacks on Christians, including the gruesome burning alive of the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons on January 22, 1999. Since 2014, the fascist forces have taken over India under the leadership of Narendra Modi, who is often compared to Adolf Hitler by intellectuals and political thinkers in India (see, for example, Bakrabail, 2013; Similarities Between Hitler’s Third Reich and Modi’s India Growing Everyday: Avay Shukla, 20 July 2021).

This fascist regime believes in the postcolonial rhetoric of conversion as colonization of mind and consciousness. Through its fascist projects and propaganda such as the anti-conversion bill, the ghar-vapasi (home-return/re-conversion to Hinduism) movement, and the Citizens Amendment Act, along with uncountable and unrelenting visibly violent attacks on the minorities such as Muslims and Christians, the current government in India is claiming to ‘decolonize’ the consciousness of those who are converted from Hinduism to other religions. There are academicians and intellectuals who teach at the prestigious universities who not only subscribe to this myth but also inflict it on the minds of the multitude in India. This is indeed dangerous, not only for Christians and Muslims but also for the diversified future of the land. Therefore, we need to consciously differentiate between postcolonialism as an academic discourse and postcolonial fascism as a politically tooled hyper-nationalistic movement.

Contouring a Conversion Narrative

Against the backdrop of the above discussion, I would like to go back to the pages of Christian history, particularly mission narratives, to demonstrate that conversion to Christianity was not always a colonization of the mind/ consciousness. I argue that while conversion undeniably entails co-opting power, it also serves as a space of creative resistance for postcolonial subjects, particularly the subalterns. Therefore, I am compelled to perceive conversion, particularly in a postcolonial context, beyond the rhetoric of colonial conquest and co-option. For my argument in this article, I take only one example, with the contention that this example can best serve as an epitome of multiple similar experiences of the subalterns in the context of various mission agencies.

My example comes from the Hermannsburg Mission, which was the area of my doctoral research. It is the narrative of a woman named Kanakamma and the historiography that is constructed around her conversion. Using the archival documents about her (there are no reports by her, unfortunately), but not limiting myself to them, I use the conversion experience of a gendered subaltern as text or a mere ‘extra-archival’ text for my further arguments.

In the year 1896, some six years prior to the founding of the Women’s Mission wing of Hermannsburg Mission in India, the mission superintendent Johann Wörrlein reports about a young woman named Kanakamma (Wörrlein, 1896). Kanakamma encounters the mission for the first time in the mission school in Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh of South India. She was not the only girl in that school. Yet she alone finds a place in the mission documents — of course, not without any reason. Kanakamma was a ‘special’ pupil, as Wörrlein phrased it. What makes Kanakamma special? To a certain extent, it was her caste. She was the only Brahmin student in a group of thirteen girls at the school. The missionaries might have thought that she would be an ‘agent’ of the mission for the native Brahmin sisters, whereas there were already some Biblewomen at work who were Dalits, formerly called ‘untouchables’, and who had no access to the Brahmin household. But caste was not the only thing that made her special. It was also her mind. She was studious in her studies, often engaging in difficult questions related to faith, religion, customs and social structures. And moreover, what makes Kanakamma a subject of official documents of the mission is her attraction towards the Christian beliefs. However, the missionary was also concerned about this intelligent girl because of her “unstable emotions” (Wörrlein, 1896). He writes, “In spite of her interests in studies and in matters of faith, Kanakamma is not steady in her emotions. She is much attached to her mother and her younger brother” (Wörrlein, 1896). Johann Wörrlein writes in his report that his wife, Elisabeth Wörrlein, takes a special care of this girl, and he also adds, “we hope in faith that this poor young girl be a fruitful agent of our mission in this heathen land” (Wörrlein, 1896). Since Kanakamma was very attached to her mother and younger brother, who lived in Tirupati, the mission decided to transfer her from the mission school in Tirupati to the mission boarding school in Gudur, some hundred Kilometers away from Tirupati. Hoping that it might do well for the prospect of their daughter (though it was very uncommon at the time), the parents of Kanakamma agreed to this transfer. In the reports of the following years, Kanakamma does not find any important place except some passing references.

In the year 1903, once again we read about Kanakamma with much emphasis and prominence, this time in the reports of the Women’s Mission. Now we read, surprisingly, that Kanakamma has become a Biblewoman! The report of Elisabeth Wörrlein and her husband Johann Wörrlein gives a very brief account of this ‘appointment.’ Surprisingly enough, there are no accounts of her conversion. They write, “as hoped in faith, Kanakamma showed all the signs of a good Christian messenger to her heathen sisters. She works now in Gudur as a Biblewoman with Rahel” (Bericht über die Hermannsburger Frauenmission in Indien (hereinafter BHFM), 1904: 6).

In the next report, Kanakamma again finds a place. She continues to be a subject of debate for the missionaries. But in this report, mainly because of her ‘unstable emotions.’ Both the missionary woman Elisabeth Wörrlein and the native Biblewoman Rahel were worried about Kanakamma since “though she seems to be firm in her decision towards the word of God, at times she shows that her heart was not set on divine things but on the vanities of the world” (BHFM, 1905: 8). What did they see in her “vanities of the world”? It might be her ‘depressed emotions’ that she had for her mother, younger brother and perhaps her entire family and village that she had to sacrifice for the sake of mission and her new faith! But the reports affirm that it was not just that that concerned the missionaries. It was also her critical repudiation of mission-mannerisms, and social structures. Kanakamma, unlike some other Biblewomen, was not always an obedient worker. She spoke out about what she found problematic within her defined roles. To give one such example, in the same report, Elisabeth Wörrlein writes that Kanakamma raises questions about the mission school system. Her reply is ‘quoted’ rightly or not, “children do not need to be instructed with such care and given up to such hardship, for God gives to everyone as much understanding as he requires; what then is the use of your school?”(BHFM, 1905: 8). A strong voice of resistance against the imperial education system of the Europeans could not go unheard in this narrative. We need to underline that Kanakamma was not against children getting educated, but she was against the physical and emotional hardship that was experienced by the native children in the schools of the European missionaries. Here Kanakamma resists being co-opted by the colonial education model. The Christian conversion space did not colonize the awakened consciousness of Kanakamma. However, Kanakamma was not only resisting colonial rigidity but was also equally critical of the oppressive social structures in India. That is evident, though not explicitly, in the next report.