Malayalee Christian Diaspora in New Zealand

Mrs. Elizabeth Minoo Verghese*

“Kia Ora te Whanau!” It is the Māori greeting meaning “Hello family.” From the land of the long white cloud Aotearoa (New Zealand) I offer my global Malayalee Christian diaspora a piece of paradise.

As a community of migrants living outside of the state of Kerala it would be appropriate to label ourselves as the “Malayalee Christian Diaspora.” To better understand my origins and be understood by my fellow brethren globally. I choose to drop the word “Kerala” and instead use “Malayalee” – why?

I am a Malayalee but not a Keralite and how would one understand that? Well! I was born and reared outside of Kerala, to chaste hardcore Malayalee parents from Kerala who followed the great migration pattern of the early to mid-1900’s. The “Kerala Christian Diaspora” began from within-India (internal) to outside-India (external) to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Malaysia and Singapore in 1930s, to the Middle East in the 1950s, and later to North America, Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Migration is in the DNA of the Malayalee Christian, and it started out in AD 52 with reverse migration of St. Thomas the Apostle’s arrival into Malabar to fulfil Jesus’ Great Commission to share the good news, “Gospel”, of salvation (Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15). The Mar Thoma Christian community has its history linked to St. Thomas, the disciple of Jesus Christ; so also does English language, which has a significant link to St. Thomas, by way of the phrase “doubting Thomas,” coined for his lack of faith (more reference to this later).

The Saint Thomas Christians, also called Syrian Christians of India, Mar Thoma Suriyani Nasrani, Malankara Nasrani, or Nasrani Mappila - Nasrani or Nazarene is a Syriac term for Christians who were among the first converts to Christianity in the Near East now referred to as West Asia - and we trace our origins to the Evangelistic activity of St. Thomas, the Apostle. Saint Thomas Christians had been historically a part of the hierarchy of the Church of the East or the East Syriac church and that is how we have Syriac or Syrian chants incorporated into our liturgy. The Original community is now divided into several different groups Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and independent bodies, each with their own liturgies and traditions. They are Malayalees and speak Malayalam. After this brief introduction on New Zealand and Malayalees, let me get to the purpose of this article and deep dive into emigration into New Zealand.

New Zealand is a country of immigrants with early settlers being the Polynesian Explorers who had settled in New Zealand by approximately the thirteenth century. Their arrival gave rise to the Māori culture and the Māori language both unique to New Zealand. Visitors from various nations came in ships with crew of different nationalities some of whom stayed back to live with the Māori. There were people from Australia, Britain, the USA and France, the Philippines, India, and Africa, before James Cook claimed New Zealand for Britain on his arrival in 1769.

The settlement process and struggles carried on as per the then prevalent wheels of motion leading to the ominous “indigenous” and “non- native” struggle followed by the “Treaty of Waitangi” which is much discussed even today. Nancy Swarbrick (2005), in her story “Indians –Early immigration,” states that Indians have come to New Zealand since the late 18th century. At that time British East India Company ships brought supplies to Australian convict settlements, and often stopped in New Zealand to pick up homeward cargoes. Their crews included Lascars (Indian seamen) and Sepoys (Indian soldiers), some of whom deserted the ship in New Zealand.

A Bengali man is said to have jumped ship in 1810 to marry a Māori woman. Fortunately, or unfortunately, at this time there was no Malayalee in his legendary “Thattu kadda” to greet Bengali Babu with a cup of “Chai.” Before the 1880s Indians were not identified in census records, but their presence was noted. One, Edward Peter (also known as ‘Black Peter’), arrived around 1853. Although Gabriel Read (an Australian) is credited with discovering gold at Tuapeka in Otago, it was Edward Peter who told him where it could be found. The earliest instances where the 1881 census recorded six Indian men, three of whom lived in Canterbury and were probably servants of wealthy English settlers who had lived in India. The early immigrants were sojourners more than settlers. Although The Immigration Restriction Act was passed in 1899, the “white supremacy” movement prolonged immigration to New Zealand for Asians and Indians.

As per the 1951 census, there were 2,425 Indians in New Zealand. In 1981, they numbered 11,244. But by 2001, the Indian population had surged to 62,646. Until 1981, steady growth was due to several factors, including a marked post-war diaspora of Indian people, and the arrival of the wives of the first Indian immigrants. During the 1980s, changes in immigration policy, along with political instability in other countries, brought many more Indians to New Zealand.

In and around 1980’s a few qualified Indian Doctors and Lawyers came to New Zealand with families on the Invitation of the Crown while most returned, a few stayed back and there were a couple of Syrian Christian’s among them. mainly doctors who chose to stay on and retire in picturesque regions outside of the metro cities like Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. These professionals were followed by Educationists a few were again Malayalee professors and teachers from Zambia, Nigeria, Ethio- pia who had completed their teaching contracts in these nations and never wanted to go back to India so that their children were given the opportunity to be educated overseas. to get into. The pursuit to survive left families to share the load with both husband and wife pitching in, to keep the home running. The luxury of having “home help” was a far cry. One parent inevitably stayed home to cater to the children’s needs as children below the age of 14 are not allowed to stay home alone. Therefore, job sharing became part and parcel of settling in with parents’ working shifts. Religious activity took a back seat in the process and there being no temples or mosques, the communities had to find ways and means to worship. Of course, the Christians were on a better footing as churches were a plenty and attendance of locals was poor. This gave the Christian community a foot in the door to blend in with the locals and build relationships quicker. Discussing religion was politically incorrect and made it difficult to really find one’s feet and get into a comfort zone.

Parliament passed a new Immigration Act into law in 1987 that ended the preference for migrants from Britain, Europe or Northern America based on their race, and instead classify migrants on their skills, personal qualities, and potential contribution to New Zealand economy and society. The introduction of a points-based system resembling that of Canada came into effect in 1991. The shift towards a skills-based immigration system resulted in a wide variety of ethnicities in New Zealand, since then the trickle changed to a flow and the Malayalee diaspora increased, however the opportunity to identify themselves as a community took a wee while more. Initial settling into the land was a massive effort as acceptance into the society and gaining jobs were a matter of survival because despite the country opening their doors to qualified immigrants getting jobs in the desired fields were a nightmare. Indians still found it hard to be recognized to take up positions for which they qualified for, and the settlement process meant re-establishing their identities. Manning gas stations, doing the graveyard shift at Mc Donald’s, warehousing labor fruit picking and driving taxis and buses were the jobs available to majority of immigrants.

The demography of the church goers has slowly changed with congregations in most churches now being immigrant dominant. The awareness to maintain community links and stay close to our cultural heritage in this far off land with diverse practices and thinking kindled the urge to stick together, even though our numbers may have been few and far between. Each time one heard Hindi in the background a backward glance with a smile was inevitable and that was a cue to strike up an instant friendship and exchange addresses and phone numbers. The late 1990’s and early 2000’s saw a very few Malayalee Christian families reaching out to one another with the sole intention of keeping traditional links alive even though most of us spoke broken Malayalam with a slight anglicized tweak to the accent having come from various metropolitan cities of India and Middle East with a splash of flavors from Malaysia, Indonesia, Africa, and the UK. Some of whom could not even read Malayalam.

The disturbing part was the need for qualified doctors, engineers and IIT/IMM graduates having to requalify for re-establishing their skill levels. This paradox to the entry criteria left many to pursue some form of study and earn entry level jobs, swallowing their pride and framing their degrees! The enterprising Gujaratis ventured into business setting up local corner utility shops (Dairies), catering for the quick buy of forgotten bread and finished milk and a quick cigarette. As most shopping areas and malls were open only between the hours of 8am and 5pm giving the dairy owners a wee bit of chance to sell their wares at a markup between the additional hour they squeezed in during the day from 7:30am - 5:30pm. These dairy owners and their cigarette stocks have been a target to vandalism then and even today, it is a risky venture

As the children of these families built bonds through school and church activities, these families got closer and met more often on weekends at prayer meetings, over BBQ’s experimenting our new learnings from the country of residence and blending the Mallu Meen curry or fried fish with a dosa off the BBQ too. This BBQ culture enticed the Mallu Syrian Christian men to get out of his chauvinistic skin and start displaying their culinary skills. A big relief for the lady of the house! But would the mother like it? Well! until then the parents of the immigrant families were still not purview to these changes in their mamma’s boys. While the cooking skills were being honed in NZ (thanks to paucity of Indian restaurants). There was something divine cooking across the ditch in Australia, to be precise Perth. A benevolent “uncle” (many years our senior hence the title) along with one amongst us was designing His Masters plan.

The late Rt. Rev. Dr. Zacharias Mar Theophilus Suffragan Metropolitan of the Mar Thoma church in 2002 visited Aotearoa along with “Uncle” and celebrated the first Syrian Christian Holy Communion service in Auckland on 14th November 2002, which was well attended by all denominations of the Syrian Malankara churches. - Catholics, Orthodox, Jacobite, Marthomite, Chaldean, Evangelical, etc. In all, we were around 200+ adults and children who attended along with some dedicated Malayalees from other metro cities of NZ including Wellington and Christ church. This historic moment was the start of the Syrian Christian movement in New Zealand. The Mar Thoma worshipping community of Auckland took shape and the 10 Marthomite families continued their worship while Thirumeni’s visit was an inspiration to other Syrian Christian groups to getting their respective churches in the country.

By 2004, we were acknowledged as a congregation meeting at one of the Anglican Church buildings every week following the traditional Mar Thoma Syrian order of service and liturgy. 2005 saw us the worshiping congregation be instated and approved as a parish as St. Thomas Mar Thoma Church, Auckland, as a parish under the New Zealand diocese, shepherded by the then parish priest of Sydney Mar Thoma church, Revd Dr. Varghese Mathai, who today is a Bishop, The Rt. Revd Dr. Mathews Mar Makarios. He visited his flock once in 3 months and conducted Communion services at Auckland, Wellington, and Christ church. Other visiting priests from Melbourne and Singapore also pitched in to spiritually feed the growing community who continued to trickle in and be lured by the land of milk and honey down under, the need of a full-time priest was inevitable and the first resident vicar of the church with his young family assumed office in November 2006. While The wheels of establishing a parish continued to move in the background and was officially incorporated with the Ministry of Economic Development in New Zealand on 7th of September 2005 and later registered with the Charities Commission New Zealand on 30th June 2008. With the arrival of an “Achen,” activities attributed to various functional groups of the mainstream church kicked into gear with responsibilities to reach out to youth, children, women etc. With history of the Mar Thoma Syrian diaspora having taken its first steps in new “God Zone” (New Zealand) the focus was now on the immigrants from “God’s Own Country” (Kerala) whose struggles to establish themselves and rear the kids continued. In the process of finding their feet and merging with the society they have spread themselves thin and dispersed into the background.

In conclusion, I refer to Kevin Kenny's conversation to Owens where he states - Diaspora In its Greek origins simply means to scatter or disperse. I leave you with you this thought and stir up the “doubting Thomas” in each of us.

*Mrs. Elizabeth Minoo

Verghese is based in Auckland, New Zealand. Minoo is an accomplished supply chain professional with extensive international experience. Minoo is also involved in the local community and the Church. She completed her studies at Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand, Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Bombay, Medical biochemistry at Grant Medical College, Bombay, India, Wilson College, Bombay, India.