Consider the theories proposed in Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel." Europeans had the purported advantage of advanced agriculture and manufacturing resources that allowed them to adopt specialization of labor at an earlier time than Asian cultures. When Europeans began to colonize Asian and African lands, they found themselves among peoples who had not yet mastered the same manufacturing and farming techniques and assumed that those peoples were not advanced, leading to a rejection of...
Consider the theories proposed in Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel." Europeans had the purported advantage of advanced agriculture and manufacturing resources that allowed them to adopt specialization of labor at an earlier time than Asian cultures. When Europeans began to colonize Asian and African lands, they found themselves among peoples who had not yet mastered the same manufacturing and farming techniques and assumed that those peoples were not advanced, leading to a rejection of all but the commercial benefits of their respective cultures. As Europeans ventured eastward through Asia and into India in the "Great Game" period of European history (during which France, Russia, and England jostled for the best trade routes through Asia and into the Indian subcontinent), they often encountered hostile tribal cultures and societies that had no similar colonial aspirations. Europeans rejected the religious practices of those cultures as inimical to European values.
Add to this the collective European experience in the Crusades and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy over much of Europe. The Roman papacy was as much of a political entity as it was a religious entity through much of the period of European colonization of Asia and Africa. Europe fought the Crusades to wrest the Holy Land from "infidels." The Vatican rewarded European nobles with "indulgences" for their efforts in preserving the Church's power. In this context, European colonizers had no incentive to reject their own church and to adopt foreign religious practices and traditions.
Saying the Europeans were perpetual foreigners is something of a misnomer. They were always foreigners as they colonized lands that had strong Hindu traditions, but they attempted to transform those lands into extensions of their own European cultures. If that Europeanization had been successful, they would not have been foreigners in those lands, but would instead have been settlers that extended the influence of European powers.
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