... of religious controversy between contending Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian organizations; and the shuddhi ritual of conversion or purification. This chapter argues that understandings of the so-called proselytizing activities of the Arya Samaj have been circumscribed by the framing...

...Chapter 5 describes the contested practices and politics of shuddhi through the first decade of the twentieth century. Scholars have emphasized how shuddhi served the interests of caste Hindu elites in the politics of representation. The chapter complicates...

... and politics. In conventional accounts, the emergence of Tolerance during the 1920s is described as a victory of Indian secularism over the intolerant practice of shuddhi “proselytizing,” pursued by reformist Hindus of the Arya Samaj, that was threatening harmonious Hindu-Muslim relations...

..., this chapter maps how the conceptual terms of the Lekh Ram–Mirza Ghulam Ahmad debate, prefigured much of Hindu-Muslim antagonism to come. Shraddhanand's large-scale efforts to convert Muslims to Hinduism, a continuation of Lekh Ram's early shuddhi efforts, and the print war with blasphemous...

..., the Arya Samaj’s Shuddhi movement and Ambedkar’s anti-caste movement. It examines the divergences between Gandhi’s strategy and the other two approaches and in doing so highlights the limitations as well as merits of Gandhi’s approach. The first section explains the difference between...

...Chapter 6 turns to the national debates over the expanded Shuddhi Movement of the 1920s, when Tolerance was formulated as a secularist ideal. The chapter highlights the continued use of shuddhi by Untouchables in U.P. in service of political goals that were not subordinate...