“Gods, Guns, and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity” by Manu S Pillai

From the Codice Casanatense (Goa ca 1540)

In the early 19th century, Reverend Andrew Fuller, a leading evangelical, dismissed the possibility of any anti-colonial unity in India, claiming that “Hindoos resemble an immense number of particles of sand, which are incapable of forming a solid mass. There is no bond of union among them, nor any principle capable of effecting it.” Yet, over the next century, Fuller’s glib remark would be upended by the very forces he had underestimated. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a rising wave of Hindu nationalism had begun to consolidate those so-called “particles of sand” into a powerful, collective identity.

In Gods, Guns, and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity, Manu S Pillai unpacks this transformation with sharp insight combined with masterful storytelling. Hinduism, he acknowledges, is as much an ever-expanding array of narratives as it is a religion — a vibrant and dynamic marketplace of ideas where myths, rituals, philosophies, and histories are peddled, borrowed, and adapted to ever-changing demands; a “macro-reality of organically united micro-realities” as he puts it. Exploring the pressures of Mughal decline, missionary intervention, and colonial rule in the 400 years before Indian independence, Pillai examines how a tradition defined by its fluidity and flexibility began to crystallize into its modern form, often in response to external challenges.

What makes Gods, Guns, and Missionaries truly remarkable is its ability to speak to both sides of India’s modern ideological divide.

Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity, Manu S Pillai (India Allen Lane, November 2024; Allen lane UK, January 2025)
Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity, Manu S Pillai (India Allen Lane, November 2024; Allen Lane UK, January 2025)

Pillai begins not with the British Raj but with earlier encounters, particularly the Portuguese missionaries in Goa, setting the stage for Europe’s attempts to define and reshape Indian religion. In these interactions, two opposing narratives emerged. Figures like the Jesuit priest Rodolfo Acquaviva, who traveled to Akbar’s court from Portuguese Goa, caricatured Hinduism as a backward and superstitious “cult of devil-worshippers.” Other “friendly white men”, like William Jones, the godfather of Orientalism in India, and HT Colebrooke, sought to defend Hinduism by romanticizing its philosophical depth. Colebrooke, for example, argued that despite its “seeming polytheism”, Hinduism’s “real doctrine” was monotheistic. Both, Pillai argues, ignored Hinduism’s true essence: the constant negotiation and coexistence of ideas, practices, and beliefs that defied easy categorization. The result was a reductive binary, where Hinduism was either spiritual or regressive—a duality fixed “by white disputants”.

In their bid to simplify what they did not understand, they reimagined Hinduism into a reductive but coherent, singular entity—a mirror of the Abrahamic book-based religions they had come to understand. This imposition led to what Pillai describes as the “Protestantization of Hinduism”. And much like Protestant reforms in Europe, colonial scrutiny encouraged Hindu elites to recast their faith as a textual, defensible construct, purged of its ritualistic and superstitious “contaminations”. Pillai observes that “it was like playing ball on a Christian field; Christianity laid the ground on which Hindus constructed their defence.”

At the center of it all were two kinds of texts that came to symbolize Hinduism’s vast and often contradictory universe: the Upanishads and the Puranas. The Upanishads, philosophical treatises exploring the nature of existence, consciousness and ultimate reality, were often upheld as the pinnacle of Hindu thought—a “higher Hinduism” of sorts, for it contained verses that were amenable to those of monotheistic persuasions. The Puranas, on the other hand, were evolving compendiums of myths, legends, and devotional practices that had absorbed countless regional deities and local traditions, forming the bedrock of Hinduism’s everyday devotional life—what ended up being dismissed as “lower Hinduism”.

This dichotomy between the “higher” and “lower” forms of Hinduism wasn’t just a colonial imposition; it was embraced and perpetuated by those who Pillai calls the “Native Luthers”. Reformers like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Dayananda Saraswati sought to distill Hinduism into a coherent framework that could withstand colonial critiques. For Roy, this meant championing the Upanishads as containing the “true” faith while critiquing the Puranic traditions for their elaborate rituals and idol worship, which he considered distortions. Saraswati, too, rejected the Puranas entirely, calling for a return to the older Vedas, which he saw as embodying the purest form of Hindu thought.

In this reconfiguration, Hinduism internalized foreign distinctions of what was “good” (religious ideas, say, in the Upanishads) and what was “bad” (religious practices compiled in the Puranas). The issue isn’t that the content within either is not Hindu—it undoubtedly is. The problem lies in the value judgment imposed by the colonial and reformist gaze that deemed one was “purer” than the other. A malleable and vibrant theology was effectively reshaped to fit a Western Abrahamic framework, privileging textual purity and philosophical abstraction over embodied practice and lived reality. As Pillai states:

 

White men berated Hindus and advertised their faith as purer; [Hindu elites like] Roy modified this to sell Hindus not Christianity but a deep-cleansed, scripturalist Hinduism that could withstand Western censure.

Hinduism’s flexibility—its ability to absorb local traditions and reimagine itself—proved to be both its strength and its limitation.

These dilemmas, faced by Hindu thinkers under colonial rule, led to the reinvention of Hinduism not as a passive acceptance of Western frameworks but as an active, strategic response. Pillai treads a fine line here, demonstrating that while Hinduism is not a Western “invention”, its modern configuration was deeply shaped by colonial and missionary pressures.

And yet, Hinduism’s flexibility—its ability to absorb local traditions and reimagine itself—proved to be both its strength and its limitation. This elasticity not only carved out a space for Hinduism in a colonial-run society, but also created boundaries, defining itself against perceived “others”, whether Muslim, Christian, or colonial—theologies it could not assimilate into its Puranic framework as it had with other Subcontinental traditions like Jainism and Buddhism. Pillai avoids the trap of painting colonialism as wholly destructive or generative, offering a nuanced view instead: colonialism as a force that both imposed and inspired, fractured and fused—and in turn led to a “fresh reincarnation” of the theology.

For all its historical depth, the book leaves post-Independence developments—particularly the rise of Hindutva—largely unexplored. While this is a deliberate choice that keeps the focus firmly on the colonial period, it leaves readers curious about how these historical trajectories connect to the post-Independence rise of Hindutva. Nevertheless, by tracing Hinduism’s evolution under colonial and missionary scrutiny, Pillai provides valuable tools to understand the narratives underpinning contemporary Indian politics.

Similarly, the sheer breadth of Pillai’s narrative occasionally risks overwhelming the reader, as he moves between centuries and characters with dizzying speed. Nevertheless, Pillai’s ability to combine meticulous scholarship—supported by a plethora of citations and notes—with accessible prose is a rare gift.

What makes Gods, Guns, and Missionaries truly remarkable, however, is its ability to speak to both sides of India’s modern ideological divide. For those who see Hinduism as a civilizational force, superior to its rivals, Pillai’s meticulous reconstruction of its adaptability offers plenty of ammunition. At the same time, the book appeals to postcolonial constructivists, who argue that identities are always created, negotiated, and adapted to historical pressures. Pillai deftly balances these perspectives, celebrating Hinduism’s resilience without losing sight of its fluid and contingent nature. And in an age of deepening division and intense polarization, that achievement is commendable.


Nishad Sanzagiri is a London-based consultant and writer. He writes weekly on Infinity Inklings, and his work has been featured in The Times of India, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Guardian and more.