The Basel Mission between Switzerland, Germany and South India

This book traces the intricate entanglements between the Swiss-German world and South India through the history of the Basel Mission Society. Founded in 1815, the Mission drew its support from present-day Switzerland and the southern German region of Baden-Württemberg. In South India, particularly in Kerala and Karnataka, these missionaries combined theological ideals with technical expertise, fostering schools, industries, and congregations that linked Europe and India in unprecedented ways.

The Basel Mission in India brings together, for the first time, a group of international scholars to provide a comprehensive, interdisciplinary account of the Mission’s activities in India since 1834. The chapters range from studies of pietism and industrial enterprise such as tile-making to examinations of caste, gender, education, and material culture, drawing on new archival and museum sources—including collections at the Museum der Kulturen Basel. By reassessing the Basel Mission’s theological, social, and economic legacy, this volume advances debates on colonialism, global Christianity, and transnational exchange. It offers fresh perspectives on how faith, labour, industry, and material culture intersected to shape an entangled world across Switzerland, Germany, and South India.

Mukesh Kumar is an SNSF Senior Fellow and Lecturer in the Department of Indian Studies, University of Zurich. He holds a PhD from the University of Technology Sydney and has previously been recipients of prestigious fellowships at ETH Zurich and Heidelberg University. His recent book, Between Muslim Pīr and Hindu Saint (Cambridge University Press, 2024), examines shared religious cultures in North India.

Amal Shahid is a Swiss National Science Foundation Senior Researcher at the Institute of Political Studies, University of Lausanne. She completed a PhD in International History from the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, which won the Pierre du Bois Prize 2023. Her research interests are history of imperialism and colonialism, global history, labour, and political economy.

Ella Daisy Müller is a doctoral student and research assistant at ETH Zurich, working on the Basel Mission’s engagement with natural history and sciences in South India and West Africa. She studied History, Sociology and Digital Humanities at the Universities of Constance, Bologna, Zurich and Basel and holds a teaching diploma for upper secondary teaching. Her research interests lie in the histories of mission, science and labour as well as transimperial histories.