Inventing Pentecostalism
Pandita Ramabai and the Mukti Revival from a Postcolonial Perspective
Keywords:
Mukti Revival, Pandita Ramabai, Pentecostal History, Postcolonial Studies, Minnie AbramsAbstract
The so-called Mukti Revival at Pandita Ramabai’s mission and orphanage in Kedgaon (India) has recently gained popularity as one of the early birth places of global Pentecostalism. However, as sources imply, at no time has there been a common understanding of what “really” happened at Mukti. In this article I suggest how the emergence of knowledge about an event finally known as Pentecostal awakening led to the= exclusion of other interpretations and narratives of what happened at Mukti. I will examine the role of the two groups of people responsible for the formation of the historical reality of the revival: the authors of the contemporary source material as well as the Pentecostal historians who have finally fixed the story of a Pentecostal Mukti Revival. In conclusion, I will discuss the influence of the colonial context on the making of historical reality as well as the concept of history as a discursive negotiation process.
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