Christian by Religion, Hindu by Culture: An Ignatian Response to Hindutva from a Dalit Bahujan Lens.

Savio Saldanha SJ

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18089130

Date – 29-12-2025

 

            As I write this article, I am feeling deeply hurt and saddened by the violence against the Christian community in India during the Christmas season. My personal and spiritual philosophy has always been that I am a Christian by religion, Hindu by culture, and opposed to all fundamentalism: this triple self-description grows out of a concrete Maharashtrian childhood, a Dalit‑Bahujan–sensitive reading of Indian history, and a Catholic theological conscience formed in dialogue with the contemporary magisterium and my Jesuit formation with its rich Ignatian spirituality. In writing this essay, I will make use of three primary thought processes: Savarkar’s Hindutva, Tharoor’s “political Hinduism,” and Kancha Ilaiah’s indictment of Brahminism, in order to discern a way of belonging that is faithful to Christ, grateful to Hindu culture, and resistant to militant ideologies in every religion. In retrospect this article can be considered as a continuation of my previous essay on the related topic, ‘At the Crossroads between Ashram and Church: Living Christianity in India’ (5^th December 2025).

         Every Christian festival (Easter and Christmas) bring with them fresh editorials and newspaper/journal articles from leading Christian thinkers and clergy describing how we are Indians. I will not dwell on this topic because my ‘Indian-ness’ is ingrained in my identity as a person. I do not feel the need to prove it to anyone, especially to the progeny of those who have historically supported the colonial powers from being clerks in the Mughal courts to being British spies and confidants. Ironically these are the same who are claiming to be proponents of the Hindutva ideology today! As I stand on this crossroads of conscience, I intend to address this topic with clear mind and speak out about the anguish which is being felt by many individuals of the minority community in India today.

 

My Maharashtrian childhood

            Growing up in coastal Maharashtra, religious difference was not a problem to be solved but a rhythm of everyday life. For me the Ganpati aarti in the neighbour’s house and being an Altar server during Mass in the parish were not rival loyalties; they were two grammars in which the same mystery of God, neighbour and cosmos could be honoured. Among the several Christian inculturation of practices like the aartis and bhajans (devotional songs), the smell of agarbatti (incense-sticks), women wearing traditional sarees and mangalsutra during the wedding ceremony, and a culture that regarded marital fidelity as non‑negotiable, shaped my moral imagination as much as the Catechism.

            This porous world meant that practicing “Christianity” was never a clean break from “Hindu culture” into a sealed Christian ghetto. As Shashi Tharoor notes, Hindu practice in India is often lived as an open, capacious “way of life,” in which multiple paths, rituals and even deities co‑exist without sharp boundaries. That cultural ‘Hindu-ness’ seeped into Christianity through the inculturation methods adopted by the early missionaries with an intention to make Christianity rooted in the Indian soul than a western imposition.

 

Why I remain Christian

            Within this inculturated environment, Christianity became the place where my conscience learned to name grace, sin, cross and resurrection.​ The figure of Jesus — crucified, son of a poor carpenter, worker, forgiving his enemies, refusing violence — offered a concrete face to what Indian philosophy called satya (Truth) and ahimsa (non-violence). The Church’s sacramental life gave language to experiences of forgiveness and vocation that were more than generic “spirituality”.  Indeed, Christianity shaped the ethical and moral concepts into more logical and concrete examples and thus offered a fulfilling way of life. 

            The Catholic Magisterium has explicitly encouraged such inculturation. Vatican II’s Ad Gentes and Gaudium et Spes invite local Churches to assume “the treasures of the nations” as “an offering to God,” not as a threat to the Gospel. Pope John Paul II at Pope Benedict XVI in their teaching on interreligious dialogue affirm that the Spirit is at work in other religiosity, while insisting that Christ remains the definitive revelation. So “Christian by religion, Hindu by culture” is not an inner contradiction but a Catholic way of being Indian: Sacramentally rooted in Christ, historically and culturally rooted in the Ganga‑Godavari civilisational world.

 

Hindu by culture: Phule, Shahu, Ambedkar

            When I say I found satisfaction in certain spiritual and cultural practices of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam, I mean the ones which have been properly discerned for their potential to help me grow holistically as a human being. It is not a blind adherence to their exotic nature. Maharashtrian Hindu culture has never come to me “raw.” It has always reached me already questioned, re‑read and re‑imagined through the perspectives of great social and religious reformers like Phule, Shahu, Ambedkar and Prabodhankar.

 

Phule: re‑reading myth from below

            Mahatma Jyotiba Phule treated Brahminical stories not as innocent spirituality but as political tools.​ He accepted the Aryan‑invasion frame only to invert its moral logic: if Aryan Brahmins came from outside, they were not noble bearers of civilisation but conquerors who subdued indigenous Bahujan peoples and then sanctified domination as “dharma.”​ In Gulamgiri and related writings he re‑reads Bali Raja, Vamana, Ram and other figures from the standpoint of Śūdra‑Atiśūdra peasants, presenting Bali as a just Shudra king whose welfare rule was overthrown by Brahminical treachery.​ This reinterpretation of Ramayana‑type myths does two things.

1. It exposes how “Hindu dharma” and Purāṇic stories have been used to sacralise hierarchy of casteism, making upper‑caste rule look divine and Bahujan resistance look demonic.​
2. It creates a counter‑memory in which village deities like Khandoba or Vithoba are re‑located under Bali Raja’s rule, giving Dalit‑Bahujans a theologically honoured place inside “Hindu” culture rather than outside it.​

            So when I say Maharashtrian Hindu culture, I am not speaking of a soft, Brahminical folklore; rather I am speaking of a culture where stories of Bali, Khandoba and Sant‑traditions (saints) already carry Phule’s suspicion of caste power.

 

Shahu: showing caste as material structure

            Rajarshi Shahu Maharaj translated this cultural critique into a state policy.​ As ruler of Kolhapur he made primary education compulsory and free for all, set up hostels for non‑Brahmin and Dalit students, and founded institutions like the Maratha Students’ Institute.​ In 1902 he introduced 50% reservation in state jobs and education for “backward” and non‑Brahmin castes, directly cutting into Brahmin monopolies.​ By appointing non‑Brahmins as priests and opening Vedic/Sanskrit schools to all castes, Shahu attacked the idea that caste was simply a spiritual order.​

            He showed that “varṇa” (caste-system) translated in practice into control over land, offices, schools and temples, and that only structural interventions (quotas, scholarships, appointments) could break that hold.​ In other words, caste is not just a “state of soul” to be purified by piety; it is an economic and political system that allocates opportunities and honours according to birth. This is the atmosphere in which I grew up: reservations, non‑Brahmin political assertion, and everyday conversations about “Brahmin supremacy” and “Bahujan upliftment” were part of what “Hindu culture” meant in Maharashtra.

 

Ambedkar: breaking with Manusmriti, choosing an Indian alternative

            Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar takes Phule’s and Shahu’s questions right into the heart of Hindu śāstra.​ In his writings on Manusmriti he argues that Manu is not just an old text but a living mindset that has legitimised a rigid, birth‑based hierarchy between Brahmin and Shudra, between men and women.​ He shows how Manusmriti institutionalised unequal punishments, excommunication, and control over education and property, making caste both religiously “sacred” and socially inescapable.​

            Finding Hindu attempts at reform insufficient, Ambedkar finally concluded that the struggle for equality required a religious break. In 1956, leading a mass conversion to Buddhism at Nagpur, he presented Buddhism not as Westernisation but as a return to an indigenous, non‑Brahminical, śramaṇa tradition that rejected authority of the Vedas and of Manu.​ For him, embracing Buddhism was a way to reclaim dignity, fraternity and rational morality without remaining under scriptures that canonised graded inequality.​ So “leaving Hinduism” for many Dalit‑Bahujans was a quest for an Indian, not foreign, path to dignity is exactly in line with Ambedkar’s intention.​

 

Kancha Ilaiah: Hinduism as an internal struggle

            Ilaiah’s basic claim is that what is called “Hinduism” is already a contested terrain.​ On one side stand Brahmin–Bania–neo‑Kshatriya gods, scriptures and rituals, which justify caste hierarchy and keep Dalit‑Bahujans at the bottom.​ On the other side stand Dalit‑Bahujan goddesses, gods, stories and practices, which have their own logic and were never really accepted or respected by upper castes.​ So there is no single “Hindu culture” that naturally belongs to everyone; there are at least two religious-cultural formations living uneasily under that label.

 

Dalit‑Bahujan deities: production, protection, procreation

            In Ilaiah’s reading, Dalit‑Bahujan divinities are rooted in everyday work, survival and community, not in ritual purity or world‑denial.​ Goddesses like Pochamma, Kattamaisamma, Polimeramma, Sammakka–Sarakka, Yellamma, and others are linked to agriculture, water management, protection of village boundaries, and defence against invasions.​ Gods like Potaraju, Beerappa, caste‑specific heroes or ancestors are tied to herding, field protection, or particular crafts and occupations.​ These gods/goddesses:

• Do not demand elaborate yagnas, costly offerings or Sanskrit mantras. Their rituals are simple, local, and usually mediated by the people themselves, not by a separate priestly caste.​
• Do not create enemy images inside the village; their concern is prosperity, health, fertility and basic social peace, not war or conquest.​
• Do not enforce rigid gender roles: Pochamma has no husband; Akkamankali in the Beerappa story is central, competent, and unmarried without stigma; many village goddesses are remembered as wise women, not as submissive wives.​

            Ilaiah summarises this by saying that Dalit‑Bahujan religion centres on production, protection and procreation, whereas Brahminical Hinduism centres on leisure, ritual, and other‑worldly purity.​

 

Brahminical gods and Hindutva: from caste theology to majoritarian state

            Against this, Ilaiah places the pantheon of Brahminical Hinduism.​ Gods like Indra, Brahma, Vishnu, Rama and Krishna are presented as weapon‑wielding rulers whose main role in the narratives is to suppress Dalit‑Bahujan kings, tribes and revolts.​ Goddesses like Saraswati, Lakshmi and Sita are used to naturalise a gender order in which upper‑caste women support Brahmin–Kshatriya dominance and remain dependent, even while symbolising “knowledge” or “wealth”.​ In these stories, karma and varṇa are used to turn historical conquest into divine order.

• Varṇa (“Brahmins from the head, Shudras from the feet”) gives a sacred origin story for unequal social roles.​
• Karma makes present poverty or untouchability appear as the just result of past deeds, not of current exploitation.​

            Ilaiah argues that the same upper‑caste forces now weaponise Hindutva. When Mandal reservations threatened Brahmin–Bania dominance, the Hindutva movement mobilised Rama, Krishna and other symbols to rebuild upper‑caste hegemony under the banner of “Hindu unity”.​ Vaishnavite and Shaivite strands that once had tensions are, in his account, welded into a monolithic Hindutva that is as anti‑Dalit‑Bahujan as it is anti‑minority.​

            So Hindutva is not a neutral “Hindu pride”; it is the latest political form of a long Brahminical habit of using religious ideas to stabilise hierarchy.

 

As a Christian: affirming riches, refusing caste theology

From within this diagnosis, I can make two observations:

1. Honouring genuine spiritual riches

            I have experienced real gifts in Hindu (and Dalit‑Bahujan) religiosity: A sense of the sacredness of nature — earth, water, forest, animals — as “aai/mata/janani” (mother) that deepens my own sense of creation as sacrament.​​ Its rich forms of prayer and songs (aartis, bhajans, village festivals) that draw people into gratitude, solidarity and joy often with minimal economic waste or priestly control.​​ Philosophical insights about the mystery of the Absolute, the complexity of desire, and the relativity of human perspectives (as in Advaita or Jain anekāntavāda) that resonate with Christian apophatic and dialogical traditions.​

            I receive these as “seeds of the Word” without accepting the idea that God willed caste hierarchy or that Dalit‑Bahujans are born to serve.​​

 

2. Rejecting Hindutva as betrayal of Hinduism’s best

Because I distinguish between:

• Hindu spiritual traditions that stress plurality, non‑violence, and dignity (Vivekananda, Gandhi, Bhakti, Dalit‑Bahujan religiosity).​​
• Hindutva as a political ideology that fuses Brahminical caste theology with ethnic nationalism, excludes minorities, and romanticises violence. Savarkar and Golwalkar are explicit about common blood, holy land, and the subordination or assimilation of Muslims and Christians.​

            I can say, in good conscience that I stand with Hindu critics — Ambedkarites, Dalit‑Bahujan theologians — who see Hindutva as a malign distortion of their own faith and culture, not its natural flowering.​​ I will not allow ‘Hinduism’ to be equated with either caste oppression or majoritarian aggression, because there are Hindu and Dalit‑Bahujan resources that openly contest both.​​

            These dual observations help me remain grateful for what Hindu and Dalit‑Bahujan traditions have contributed to my understanding of God, nature and humanity. It also becomes sufficiently clear that neither caste theology nor Hindutva can be baptised as compatible with the Gospel of Christ, with Ambedkarite justice, or with the Indian Constitution.

 

What this means for my “Hindu culture”

            When I call myself culturally Hindu, I am not simply affirming the Sanskritic, upper‑caste “Hinduism” that Savarkar and Hindutva claim as the national norm. I instead claim a Maharashtrian Hindu culture in which Phule has already unmasked Brahminical myth, Shahu has already empowered the ‘low-castes’, and Ambedkar has already staged a public break with Manusmriti in the name of an Indian alternative - Buddhism.​ That culture still loves the spiritual practices, but it carries within it a strong, historically formed allergy to sacralised hierarchy.

            This is why for me, being “Hindu by culture” can sit alongside a Christian faith and an Ambedkarite conscience. The “Hinduness” I carry is already shaped by those three figures’ struggle for the Bahujan, not by the Brahminical or Hindutva story of a ‘harmonious’, caste‑ordered Hindu nation, where one caste shall govern everyone else.

 

Hindutva: a militant political project

            The confusion and hurt I describe, arise because “Hindu” has been politically re‑coded by Hindutva.
Savarkar’s Essentials of Hindutva and Golwalkar’s glosses give the key moves. Savarkar defined a Hindu as one who regards the land from Sindhu to the sea as both fatherland (pitribhū) and holy land (puṇyabhū). This definition explicitly excludes Muslims and Christians because their “holy lands” are Mecca and Jerusalem; they may share territory but not the “race‑culture” that, for him, constitutes the nation. Golwalkar radicalised this ethnicism: he praised Nazi Germany’s “race pride” and argued that in Hindusthan “foreign races” must either merge completely into Hindu culture, or live “wholly subordinated” without rights.

            Shashi Tharoor’s reading underlines how far this is from the porous Hinduism of Vivekananda or Gandhi. Vedantic Hinduism, with its stress on plurality and sarva‑dharma‑sambhāva (there is good in all religions), animated an inclusive nationalism that could fight the British together with Muslims, Sikhs and Christians.

            Hindutva, by contrast, is a twentieth‑century attempt to forge a homogeneous Hindu Rashtra by turning faith into ethnocracy, treating Hindu-ness as a racial‑civilisational essence. Kancha Ilaiah shows how, on the ground, this takes a distinctly North‑Indian, upper‑caste, often Hindi‑speaking form. He describes “militant Hindutva” of the 1980s–90s (Ayodhya, BJP) as an alliance of Vaishnavite and Shaivite forces, using Ram and other avatars to mobilise violence and to re‑tighten Brahminical hegemony over Dalit‑Bahujans.

            For Christians and Muslims, this shift is felt as a de‑Indianisation. Savarkar’s logic relegates us to at best “guests” or at worst “hostiles,” because our Faith or śraddhā connect us also to Rome or Mecca.​ Tharoor notes that Hindutva ideologues routinely speak of Muslims and Christians as invaders or “foreign races,” even when their ancestors are as Indian as any other. So the sense of being made a foreigner “in the land of our ancestors” is not paranoia; it is produced by an explicit ideological project that re‑writes who “belongs” to India.

 

Abrahamic missions, violence and caste

            A Christian critique of Hindutva must be honest about wounds inflicted by Christians and Muslims in India. Tharoor and Ilaiah both acknowledge the long memory of:

• Invasions and iconoclasm by some Muslim rulers, and coercive or opportunistic conversions in certain periods.​
• Colonial missions that sometimes despised Indian cultures, and the complicity of churches in European colonial expansion.​

            At the same time, many “atrocity legends” are exaggerated or fabricated to feed Hindutva narratives. Tharoor notes that stories about forced conversions or temple destruction often ignore complex political motives and long histories of coexistence. Ilaiah shows how Brahminical storytellers weaponise myth (Rama vs Ravana, Vamana vs Bali) to code Dalit‑Bahujans as enemies, and how similar myth‑making now targets Christians and Muslims. Dr. Ram Puniyani through his numerous talks and essays has highlighted the political nature of faith by giving an example of how during one of their campaigns the Marathas (a Hindu power) looted a temple during their battle with the Nizam (a Muslim ruler) and how the Nizam restored the temple again after the battle. Hence, we should remember that religion during medieval times was more of a political tool and not the spiritual path of salvation that we think of it today.

            Fundamentalism is not a Hindu monopoly. Protestant and Catholic groups in parts of the global South have preached exclusivist theologies, demonised other religions, and sometimes supported authoritarian regimes.​ Islamist movements have used jihadist readings of Islam to justify terror and majoritarian repression. Tharoor comments that Hindutva mirrors many features of twentieth‑century Islamist and fascist movements: a golden past, a narrative of humiliation, and a will to power.

            Yet caste complicates this picture. Ilaiah insists that a large proportion of converts to Islam and Christianity in India were Dalit‑Bahujans fleeing caste oppression, not seduced foreigners. Ambedkar’s own conversion to Buddhism is an emblem of this: a search for a non‑Brahminical, non‑caste path to fraternity. So the Hindu nationalist story that “foreign religions” broke India’s unity conveniently forgets the internal violence of caste that drove people to seek homes in other religions.​

 

Fundamentalism as a cross‑religious temptation

            Given this history, it would be hypocritical for a Christian to denounce Hindutva while ignoring Christian and Islamic fundamentalists. A fundamentalist style appears when:

• Scripture is read as a flat, inerrant code, detached from context and tradition.
• Religious identity is fused with state power, and dissenters are branded as traitors.
• Violence (symbolic or physical) is justified “for God,” “for the nation,” or “for the poor,” without discernment of spirits.

            Tharoor shows how Hindutva ideologues seek to “Semitise” Hinduism: to reduce its complex, plural heritage to one book (Gita), one god (often Rama), one language (Hindi), one nation (Hindu Rashtra) under the hegemony of one caste (Brahmins).​ This is precisely the kind of narrowing that Catholic theology has learned to critique in itself after the Second Vatican Council, in favour of a richer, sacramental and dialogical vision.​

            My own alignment with Phule–Ambedkarite critiques gives a further reason not to romanticise “Christian fundamentalism”: any church that seeks to re‑create caste‑like hierarchies or patriarchy in the name of Christ betrays both the Gospel of Christ and the Constitution of India.​

 

Hindutva’s use of cultural distrust

            The genius — and danger — of Hindutva lies in its ability to harvest real grievances into a homogenising project. Tharoor shows how Hindutva leaders narrate every policy favouring minorities as “appeasement,” and every constitutional protection as a betrayal of the Hindu majority.​ Ilaiah notes how Brahminical forces repeatedly co‑opt Dalit‑Bahujan leaders and symbols (e.g., using Ram, Krishna, even Ambedkar’s image) to rebuild caste consent under a Hindu banner.​ This politics feeds on:

• Memories of Muslim rule and Partition.
• Stories of “aggressive proselytism” by Christians and Muslims.

            Rather than heal these wounds, Hindutva hardens them into a permanent friend‑enemy map, in which the Christian, Muslim, Dalit, feminist, secularist or “urban Naxal” becomes a convenient internal enemy.​

 

Catholic inculturation and Indian belonging

            In this context, Catholic inculturation is not a cosmetic “Hinduisation” of the liturgy, but a theological and political statement. Missionaries like Roberto de Nobili in Tamil Nadu and Constanzo Beschi (Veeramamunivar) in South India tried, with mixed success, to express the Gospel through local languages, dress and concepts, even as Rome sometimes mistrusted their experiments.​ In the twentieth century, figures like Henri Le Saux (Abhishiktananda) embodied a contemplative encounter between Advaita and Christian mysticism, living as a Christian sanyasi and inviting the Church to learn from Hindu interiority.​

            The contemporary magisterium has slowly endorsed this path. Nostra Aetate and later documents affirm that the Church “rejects nothing that is true and holy” in other religions, and that dialogue and collaboration are intrinsic to her mission.​ Indian episcopal conferences have encouraged aartis, bhajans, Indian musical forms, and architectural symbols in liturgy, so that the Church appears as truly “Indian,” not a foreign transplant.​

            For a Maharashtrian Christian, this means: Participating in Ganpati or Diwali at a cultural level need not threaten baptismal identity; it can be an act of neighbourly solidarity, provided one avoids syncretisms that confuse Christ with any other avatar.​ Keeping distance from Hindutva rallies or hate campaigns is not “anti‑Hindu”; it is fidelity to both Gospel and to the deepest pluralist instincts of Hindu civilisation itself.

​

Ignatian discernment at the crossroads

            Ignatian spirituality offers tools to navigate precisely this kind of interior and social conflict.

Key movements:

• Consolation: where an experience increases faith, hope, love, and solidarity, even if it is demanding. For me, childhood memories of Ganpati aarti and Mass together are consoling; they expanded, not shrank, my heart.​
• Desolation: where a discourse triggers fear, hatred, or contempt for neighbours as such, even if wrapped in religious or patriotic language. Hindutva slogans that make me feel less Indian because I am a Christian are classic desolation.​ ​

Discernment then asks:

• Where does a given “Hindu” practice or discourse come from? From the Spirit of life, or from the “enemy of human nature”?
• Does it lead toward more inclusive justice—especially for the poor and Dalit‑Bahujans—or toward the hardening of caste and communal boundaries?

Ignatian discernment never stops at interior peace; it asks for concrete choices.

• To remain publicly Christian and culturally Hindu while rejecting Hindutva is itself a mission: to embody an alternative nationalism that is both constitutional and spiritual.​
• To engage Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh and secular friends in honest conversation about mutual wounds, privileges and fears is part of that mission.

 

Conscience at the crossroads: toward peace for a wounded nation

            My conscience stands at a crossroads shaped by at least four roads:

1. The plural, porous, Maharashtrian Hindu–Christian world that formed me.
2. The Dalit‑Bahujan critique of Brahminical Hinduism.
3. The Catholic call to inculturation and dialogue.
4. The hardening of Hindutva into state and street violence.

From these sources, certain convictions emerge.

i. Religion cannot be the foundation of the modern nation‑state.

            Tharoor shows that states that sacralise one religion—Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nazi‑inspired projects — slide toward exclusion, internal violence, and international isolation. Hindutva’s explicit admiration, in Golwalkar, for aspects of Nazi race policy is a theological and constitutional alarm bell, not an academic curiosity.

ii. Hinduism’s own best resources resist Hindutva.

            Vivekananda and Gandhi grounded their Hinduism in sarva‑dharma‑sambhāva, ahimsa and satya, not in purity, race or holy land. ​Any project that demands Muslims or Christians erase their distinctiveness in order to belong betrays this deeper Hindu ethos.​

iii. Christian and Islamic fundamentalism must also be resisted.

            A modern India cannot be built by erasing Hindu symbols; it must grow by purifying our own memories, confessing our own complicities, and standing with all victims of violence regardless of religion.

iv. The Constitution is a providential “antidote” to religious and caste stratification.

            Articles 14–18 on equality, and the freedom of religion provisions, function as a secular “grace” that protects Dalits, minorities and dissenters.​ For an Indian citizen, defending the Constitution is not secularism against religion, but the political form of love of neighbour.

From this discernment, a way of being suggests itself:

• To be Christian by religion: centred on the Eucharist, the poor Christ, and the Magisterium’s call to justice and dialogue.
• To be Hindu by culture: fluent in Marathi symbols, at home in aartis and bhajans, grateful for Advaita and Bhakti insights that have deepened my sense of mystery.
• To not become a fundamentalist myself: refusing any ideology — Hindutva, Christian nationalism, Islamist politics — that turns God into a totem and neighbours into enemies.

            Peace for the nation will not come by denying identities, but by weaving them together in a constitutional and spiritual covenant. Hindutva, like Nazi ideology, promises unity through scapegoats; history shows that such unity devours its own children and leaves only ruins. A different path— a “conscience at crossroads” path — seeks unity through truth‑telling about caste and communal wounds, through constitutional fidelity, and through the everyday holiness of neighbours who still share sweets at Diwali, Eid and Christmas.       

 

Bibliography

Primary political and religious texts

Ambedkar, B. R. (1990). Annihilation of caste (2nd ed.). New Delhi, India: Arnold Publishers.

Ambedkar, B. R. (2014). The Buddha and his Dhamma: A critical edition (A. A. Engineer, Ed.). New Delhi, India: Critical Quest.

Ilaiah Shepherd, K. (2009). Why I am not a Hindu: A Sudra critique of Hindutva philosophy, culture and political economy (2nd ed.). New Delhi, India: Samya.

Savarkar, V. D. (1969). Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? Bombay, India: Veer Savarkar Prakashan.

Tharoor, S. (2018). Why I am a Hindu. New Delhi, India: Aleph Book Company.

Golwalkar, M. S. (1980). Bunch of thoughts (12th ed.). Bangalore, India: Sahitya Sindhu.

Dalit‑Bahujan and Maharashtrian reformers

Ambedkar, B. R. (2014). Writings and speeches (Vols. 1–17). Mumbai, India: Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Source Material Publication Committee, Government of Maharashtra.

Omvedt, G. (1994). Dalits and the democratic revolution: Dr Ambedkar and the Dalit movement in colonial India. New Delhi, India: Sage.

Phule, J. (2002). Slavery (Gulamgiri) (P. Kasbe, Trans.). New Delhi, India: Critical Quest. (Original work published 1873)

Teltumbde, A. (2018). Republic of caste: Thinking equality in the time of neoliberal Hindutva. New Delhi, India: Navayana.

Hindutva, nationalism, and contemporary politics

Bhatt, C. (2001). Hindu nationalism: Origins, ideologies and modern myths. New York, NY: Berg.

Jaffrelot, C. (2007). Hindu nationalism: A reader. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Puniyani, R. (2003). Communal politics: Facts versus myths. New Delhi, India: Sage.

Catholic magisterium and inculturation

Second Vatican Council. (1965). Nostra aetate (Declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions). Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Second Vatican Council. (1965). Ad gentes (Decree on the Church’s missionary activity). Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Second Vatican Council. (1965). Gaudium et spes (Pastoral constitution on the Church in the modern world). Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

John Paul II. (1990). Redemptoris missio (On the permanent validity of the Church’s missionary mandate). Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. (1991). Dialogue and proclamation. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

Inculturation and Hindu–Christian encounter

Abhishiktananda (Le Saux, H.). (1974). Saccidānanda: A Christian approach to Advaitic experience. Delhi, India: ISPCK.

Amaladoss, M. (1990). Making all things new: Dialogue, inculturation, and innovation in Christianity. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Clooney, F. X. (2010). Hindu God, Christian God: How reason helps break down the boundaries between religions. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Maraimalai, A. (2013). Roberto de Nobili and the accommodation method in India. Bangalore, India: NBCLC.

Saldanha, S. (2025). At the Crossroads between Ashram and Church: Living Christianity in India. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17762765

Ignatian spirituality

Ganss, G. E. (Trans.). (1991). The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. St. Louis, MO: Institute of Jesuit Sources.

O’Collins, G., & Farrugia, E. G. (2013). A concise dictionary of theology (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Paulist Press. (Entries on discernment and Ignatian spirituality)

Indian Constitution and secularism

Austin, G. (1999). Working a democratic constitution: The Indian experience. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.

Baxi, U. (2013). The Indian Constitution: A short introduction. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.

Bhargava, R. (Ed.). (1998). Secularism and its critics. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press.