India S Problem Krishna Or Christ

India’s Problem: Krishna or Christ is a missionary work by John Paul Jones, the American Protestant missionary and writer who worked in India during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The book addresses what late Victorian and Edwardian American Protestant missionaries understood as the central religious question facing the Indian subcontinent during the period of British colonial rule.

The Krishna-or-Christ formulation reflects the missionary perspective of the period. American and British Protestant missions in India had been working since the early nineteenth century to convert Indians to Christianity, with notable schools, hospitals, and church-building programs across the various Indian regions. The missionary literature of the period framed the situation as a choice between the established Hindu religious tradition and the Christian alternative the missions were offering.

The book reflects the assumptions and arguments of late nineteenth and early twentieth century American Protestant missionary culture about Hindu religious tradition. The treatment is dated in various ways and reflects the colonial-era missionary framework that subsequent post-colonial scholarship has major criticized. The book is of historical interest as a primary document of the missionary perspective of the period.