Perhaps more interesting: I recently learnt that the East India Company, when it controlled India, severely restricted Christian missionaries operating here, for fear of upsetting local populations. They figured they could teach Christian values via literature instead of religion.
Actually the downfall of the East India Company was the inclusion of Missionaries from about the late 1820s, prior to which they were not the pucca sahibs but actually "went native". While the later code of law was rather Victorian - the EIC did mildly encourage Missionary activity to convert - which incurred a definite level of anger from foot soldiers and the like. Most of it was rumour fed upon a rumour. According to research the people who were killed in 1857 - were largely Christians of any colour. The two star converts (one of them a doctor) in Delhi were butchered because they had converted. On the other hand those Whites who had converted to Islam (and at this point there were quite a few - like the Skinner family in Delhi whose descendants to this days exist in Meerut) and had a curious way of naming children in their family (they were always given two names - one Christian and the other Islamic - a tradition followed to date) were spared. Post grabbing of powers from the EIC - the biggest setback (if you want to look at it that way) was that religious reforms imposed by the state were not the norm anymore. The Brits consciously decided not to interfere in religious matters - save when it suited them. Going back to the article - I think the author completely forgets that Islam is very much a practised faith in the South. Or that identity politics in the South often revolve around regions and languages as opposed to religion. The popular authority on Thirukural http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirukuralis a Christian gentleman by the name of Solomon Pappayya. Or for that matter, Christianity made an appearance in South India before Britain saw it. But this omission of the historical "trade factor" in the South is glaring. The South, while highly agrarian had a different economy from the North to begin with anyway. Temple, port economy, value addition - all of it was different. But that's a whole different rant.
