This thesis elucidates processes of identity construction that have taken place amongst Bhil Christians in Udaipur district, Rajasthan, in the context of the endemic anti- Christian violence that has been carried out by Hindu nationalist organisations and adherents in this area since the late 1990s. My work explores how Bhil Christians engage with this, and seeks to make both an empirical and analytical contribution to existing analyses of anti-Christian violence by shifting the focus away from the construction of majoritarian Hindu identities in India's tribal belt, and placing it instead on the minority Christian community. Utilising a tripartite typology of violence (direct, structural and cultural) as its starting point, this thesis addresses questions of how Bhil Christians construct and perform their identity in this context, and how they understand and negotiate their relationships with both non-Christian communities and the state in their localities. This aims to situate Christians as agents in the construction of their own identities, rather than simply having 'otherness' imposed on them as a result of Hindu nationalist mobilization and rhetoric. This study shows that Bhil Christians are involved in a dualistic process of strategically emphasizing both difference and similarity between Christians and Hindus, while making recourse to an overarching adivasi identity that, in various ways, serves to challenge and often undermine the damaging constructions of Christianity that are propagated by the Sangh Parivar. At the same time, they foreground a Christian identity that is decisively shaped by notions of agency, moral uplift, and assertion; these are ideas that are informed by longer histories of adivasi self- and community making, but have acquired important new meaning and relevance in the context of anti-Christian violence.

This doctoral thesis explores the entanglement of religion and identity politics in the Indo-Burma borderlands and the indigenisation of Christianity there through grassroots processes of cultural revivalism. The ethnographic focus is on the Sumi Naga from the state of Nagaland in Northeast India. While the Sumi started converting to Baptist Christianity at the beginning of the twentieth century, conversion rates accelerated especially in the 1950s and again in the 1970s when two evangelical revivals swept across the lands of the Sumi and resulted in their conversion en masse. Significantly, these Great Revivals coincided in time with the most turbulent political history of this borderland region, as the Sumi, alongside all other Naga, were waging an armed struggle against the Indian nation-state for their right to self-determination and independence. While this struggle is now largely being fought with political rather than military means, it remains ideologically motivated by Naga perceptions of their distinct ethnic identity, history and culture compared to the rest of India. Baptist Christianity has played a central role in shaping and sustaining these perceptions. Over the past several decades following the Second Great Revival in the 1970s there has been a movement from within Sumi society to reconstruct and redefine their identity by drawing heavily on both their contemporary religion (Baptist Christianity) and their 'good' pre-Christian culture, which had been demonised and rejected in the course of earlier conversions. Discourses have been circulating in public space on the urgent need to reconceptualise collective Sumi identity by reviving, or preserving, those aspects of pre-Christian Sumi culture that are perceived as 'good' and constitutive of Sumi-ness but are currently 'under threat' of being gradually lost to modernity and foreign influences. These discourses are directly linked to processes of cultural revivalism across Nagaland, which have been motivated by a sense of the perceived loss of 'good' cultural heritage and cultural roots. This thesis is an ethnographic study of these processes of identity (re)construction within a Sumi Naga community. It sets out to examine the ways in which Baptist Christianity is central to everyday life in a Sumi village and how it plays an important role in forging group cohesion and solidarity through ritual practice and various forms of fellowship. The thesis then proceeds to study the phenomenon of cultural revivalism in both its discursive and practical manifestations. The thesis argues that the cultural revival has not reduced the centrality of Baptist Christianity to Sumi self-ascriptions and perceptions of identity, but is rather thought to have enriched it and given it a stronger cultural foundation. Hence, a Sumi Naga Christianity is being created which is perceived as unique, indigenous and distinct in its own right. The thesis attempts to explore the essence of this vernacular Christianity against the backdrop of its specific historical, economic, political and spiritual context and the all-encompassing Naga struggle against the Indian nation-state. In pursuing these issues, the thesis locates itself within debates on the intersection between religion and identity politics, which prevail in many contemporary contributions to the anthropology of Christianity.