This book re-examines the issue of religious conversion, which has been a site of conflict in India for several centuries. It discusses wide-ranging themes such as conversion, education, and reform in colonial India; the process and practices of conversion in Christian Europe; Gandhi, conversion, and the equality of religions; perspectives from Hindu nationalism, secularism, and religious minorities; religious freedom and the limits of propagating religion; and conversion in constitutional law, commissions, and courts, to chart new directions for research on religion, tradition, and conversion. Tracing developments from the 19th-century colonial era to contemporary times, the book analyses cultural background frameworks and the origins of religious conversion and its conceptualisation in Western Christianity. It further delves into how Indian culture and its traditions have shaped responses to conversion. Part of the Critical Humanities Across Cultures series, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of critical humanities, religion, cultural studies, sociology of religion, comparative religion, philosophy, anthropology, theology, Indology, history, politics, postcolonial studies, critical theory, and South Asian studies.

Many British dignitaries visited Mysore during the period of the Maharajas, from Lord Wellesley, who fought against Tipu Sultan, to Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, who visited Mysore soon after India became independent. There are landmarks built by the Maharajas to commemorate the visits of some of these dignitaries, and also to mark celebrations related to them. Some landmarks relate to the Europeans who were in Mysore during the period of the Wadiyars. Although we may be familiar with these places or structures, we know little about these men and their visits to Mysore. This book is an attempt to highlight their visits, recall their contributions and how the Maharajas of Mysore accorded royal receptions to them. This book is also a record of the British personalities – Commissioners, Viceroys, Princes, and Residents – and throws light on the administration of the Mysore State of over a century and a half, from 1799 to 1957. In all, 15 landmarks of the British era in Mysore have been covered in this book, beginning from the earliest. As far as we know, no attempt has been made to bring these landmarks in one book.

Vols. for 1871-76, 1913-14 include an extra number, The Christmas bookseller, separately paged and not included in the consecutive numbering of the regular series.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.