01184nam a22001457a 4500 533334 533334 260514b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d Reviewed by Adit Shankar 60503 Defied distortions Biblio: A Review of Books 30(7-8), Jul-Sep, 2025: p.17-18 Gode, Gune and missionaries: The making of the modern Hindu identity by Manu S. Pillai allen lane/Penguin Random house India, 2024, 664pp. Rs. 554 (HB) ISBNK 9780670093656. Today we see religion and identity being completely conterminous. But Pillai suggests this wasn’t always the ease; practices that we consider HINDU have excised and evolved in the subcontinent over centuries. When and how does ‘Hindu’ become a market of selfhood. Pillai finds answerer in the subcontinent’s prolonged encounter with colonialism and Christianity, which is the subject of the book. Stable, monotheistic ideas of religion floundered in the bewildering chasos of the subcontinent gods, rituals, and beliefs, prompting Europeans to seeks order and definition within this chaos. Reproduce Biblio: A Review of Books BOOK REVIEW AR 0 0 ddc 0 0 408504 IIPA IIPA 2026-05-14 30(7-8), Jul-Sep, 2025: p.17-18 AR138846 2026-05-14 AR