17. Situating Kerala Christians in the Indian context Dr. T. K. Oommen

Dr. T.K. Oommen*

The popular perception prevailing in India is that Christianity is a Western colonial import. But this is historically incorrect. Pre-colonial Christianity existed in three geographical regions – the Co-optic Christians of Egypt, the Orthodox Christians of Ethiopia and the Syrian Christians of Kerala. Church historians have not yet made the final conclusion with regard to the historicity of Christianity in India. There are two views on the matter. One view is that Christianity came to India as early as the first century AD and that St. Thomas, one of the twelve Apostles, visited India and preached here. The second view attributes the arrival of Christianity in India to early merchants and missionaries of the East Syrian or Persian Church.

There are at least five strands of opinion with regard to the tradition of St. Thomas in India: (a) the general tradition which holds the belief that St. Thomas preached and suffered martyrdom in India; (b) the view that St. Thomas may have come to north India (now Pakistan) but not to South India; (c) the position which denies that St. Thomas went to north-India but asserts that he came to South India; (d) the opinion that the apostle visited both the north and the south, and (e) the view that St. Thomas did not came to India at all.

However, after an elaborate examination of all available evidence and a careful study of the various strands of opinion, Mundadan concludes “St. Thomas the Apostle preached, died and was buried in South India (see, Mundadan, History of Christianity, P.64). We may distinguish between the ‘cognitive value’ of an event and its ‘fact value’. Invoking W.I. Thomas, the American sociologist, one may say that if persons define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences. Thus, the perception and strong belief among a section of Christians in Kerala (referred to as Syrian Christians) that St. Thomas came to Kerala and converted its ancestors is of critical psychological and sociological significance. Psychologically, such a perception is important in that it helps to attach the Syrian Christians to a long tradition, which in turn invests them with dignity and pride. Sociologically, the belief that they were Christians before colonialism invests them with tremendous existential consequence.

In the perception of the average Indian, Christianity is an offshoot of British colonialism, invariably converts from lower castes and class. The perception that Christianity came to India through the agency of colonialism and they are of low caste background and of lower-class origin results in several stereotypes about Christians –‘antinational’ , ‘rice-Christians’, etc. Even if the visit of St. Thomas to Kerala is contested there is historical evidence of Christian settlements in Kerala as early as third century, much before Western colonialism. The distinctive marks of Syrian Christians are the following. First, they were/are a small community. Second, they claimed to be the descendants of those converted by St. Thomas. Third, they were geographically concentrated in present day Kerala. (Before the linguistic re-organisation of India in the mid-1950s two principalities – Travancore and Cochin – and British Malabar constitutes today’s Malayalam-speaking Kerala). Fourth, a substantial proportion of Syrian Christians were converts from ritually clean castes and the local landed aristocracy.

The history of Christianity in India from the first century AD up to the 16th century is virtually the history of the Syrian Christians of Kerala. The uniqueness of Kerala Christians constitutes precisely in their cultural adaptation to the local situation. The Syrian Christians did develop rituals and a lifestyle distinct to them and yet drew profusely from the local cultural reservoir of Kerala. In matters of Christian doctrine and belief they were dependent on the East Syrian or Persian Church. Thus, they lived in two worlds simultaneously, “the socio-cultural world of Kerala and the ecclesiastical world of Persia”, to quote Mundadan.

Demographically, the Syrian Christians were drawn from two sources: the descendants of those who were believed to be converts by St. Thomas usually of high caste origin, referred to as the Northists, and the small band of migrant merchants and traders from Syria, who settled down in Kerala, who were referred to as the Southists. These groups maintained their socio-cultural boundaries through the practice of endogamy. The Northists did intermarry with persons from upper caste background, particularly Nairs, the dominant caste of Kerala, but they did not proselytise. This was in tune with the Hindu ethos –gradual assimilation, not sudden proselytization, which in turn made peaceful co-existence of religious communities possible.

Given the fact that Syrian Christians of Kerala were a small community, did not proselytize and were ecclesiastical descendants of the Persian Church, they did not establish any theological institutions. But even a small community may venture to establish its own theological institutions if they experience oppression, objectively and subjectively. Further, the community should envision a specific lifestyle and identity for itself. In the case of Syrian Christians, prior to the introduction of Western Christianity, these conditions did not apply. In fact, Syrian Christians did practice Hindu customs and being converts from upper castes could co-exist with dignity along with Hindus. A telling example of the cultural adaptation of Syrian Christians is the bride wearing a ‘thali’ at the time of marriage, an utterly Hindu custom but Christianising the thali by embossing a cross on it.

The first large-scale demographic increase of Indian Christians occurred in the 16th century under Portuguese auspices whose main theatre of activity was Goa. The second Portuguese Governor of Goa, Alfonso de Albuquerque, encouraged marriage between Portuguese men who would settle in India and Indian women who would accept Christianity. However, the fact that the bulk of the converts were from lower castes, and products of mixed marriages who were stigmatised, not only alienated upper castes from the Portuguese but also resulted in an erosion of the status of Indian Christians in the eyes of fellow Indians. To complicate matters Portuguese political and ecclesiastical authorities insisted on Latinisation of Indian Christians. Latinisation had two aspects: first, to bring the Indian Christians under the jurisdiction that is, ecclesiastical and political control of the Portuguese; second, to insist on Indian Christians following Latin customs and rites and accepting Latin sacraments. That is, Indian Christians would follow Latin and Western customs and lifestyle.

The prescription of isomorphism between Christian belief and specific form of western lifestyle created predictable tension between the Portuguese and traditional Syrian Christian community. In fact, the Synod of Diamper of 1599 convened by the Portuguese condemned and proscribed a number of native customs and practices followed by Syrian Christians. On the other hand, a large number of Latin Rite Christian communities sprang up all along the coast, from Gujarat to Kerala, as a result of the Portuguese missionary activity in India.

By the early 18th century, the Protestant mission of the Dutch, British and the Danes started functioning in India. Some of the features of the Protestant missionary work may be noted here: First, there was hardly any formal cooperation between the Church and the State. The 1853 proclamation of the British Queen is symptomatic of this: “Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging with gratitude the solace of religion, we disclaim alike the Right and the Desire to impose our convictions on any of our subjects” (Quoted in C.B. Firth, An introduction to Indian Church History, p. 189). The British colonial state thus professed neutrality towards the different religions practised in India.

This, however, do not mean that conversion to Christianity did not take place under protestant auspices. There were two types of conversions. First, throughout the middle years of the 19th century, educated men from upper castes converted to Christianity on the basis of personal convictions (see, Firth, for details). Second, from the third decade of 19th century, mass conversion movements among the Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes and the Backward Classes began to reach their peak. Although the major centres of these movements were Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and the tribal belt of Chotanagpur, Kerala was not exempt from this. It is necessary to advert briefly to India’s caste system with special reference to Kerala. According to the Hindu Doctrine of Creation there are five varnas – Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras and Untouchables, the panchmas, those of the fifth varna. Brahmins were to look after the spiritual needs of society as well as be the producers and disseminators of knowledge. The Kshatriyas were the accredited administrators. The Vaishyas were assigned the task of producing and distributing wealth. These three varnas constituted the upper castes. The Shudras were expected to serve the other three varnas. The panchmas (the fifth varna) were reckoned as outside the varna scheme and treated as “untouchables” and were indispensable to the society to perform all the “polluting occupations” and the manual work in society. They are societal insiders but ritual outsiders.

India’s caste system was the most elaborate and unalterable division of labour known in pre-industrial world. But local variations did exist. The Brahmins and Kshatriyas are numerically small in Kerala and there are no Vaishyas. The Nairs, although are Shudras, because of three factors – land ownership, numerical superiority and hypergamous marriage relationships with Brahmins and Kshatriyas –were a dominant caste. Syrian Christians too were /are landowners, and traders, numerically substantial and converts from ritually clean castes, mainly Nairs, enjoyed social status equivalent to that of Nairs and often reckoned as a dominant caste along with Nairs. But the largescale conversions initiated by the early 18th century by the protestant missions of the Dutch, the British and the Danes were from the ritually impure lower castes.

The protestant missions focused on institution building, particularly for education and health. They also pioneered activities relating to social reforms and development among Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. These factors brought about a status difference between Hindu Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the converts to Christianity from these groups. In turn this also meant a difference between the old Christians and the new converts. The addition of the neo-Christian to those denominations brought down their social status in society.

The only denomination which did not involve themselves in mission work was the Orthodox/Jacobite Syrian Christians. In a socio-economic survey conducted by the Kerala government in 1960s it was revealed that their socioeconomic condition was second only to that of Brahmins. All other Christian groups experienced downward mobility, which might have been caused by their mission activities resulting in new converts adding to their denominations from Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). But the practices of untouchability and endogamy among the Syrian Christians and the new converts from low caste groups still prevail among the Christians of Kerala.

nisers were co-religionists. Two steps were needed in this context. The first step was to reclaim Christ from the West. Indian nationalists facilitated this task. Thus, Rammohan Roy restated the fact that Jesus was an Asiatic. Keshub Chandra Sen developed the concept of ‘Oriental Christ’. These ideas were readily endorsed by Syrian Christians of Kerala, a pre-colonial Christian community. The second inevitable step in developing an authentic Indian Christianity was to establish a sense of pride in Indian Christians about the traditions and cultures of India. The most intense advocacy for this came from K.T. Paul. He wrote in Christian Nationalism, (London, 1921) that:

“Of all the ancient cultures of the world one which has maintained its progress unbroken for thirty centuries is that of India… the Christian nationalist, then, is enthusiastic in his patriotism. He studies many nations at close quarters, notes many admirable features in their life and thought, but when all is reckoned up he remains envious, and profusely thankful that he was born in India, and has an essential share in her peculiar genius.”

The fact that the Syrian Christians of Kerala is one of the three pre-colonial Christian communities in the world makes their differentia specifica obvious. The Hindutva argument that Indian Christians are cultural outsiders to India is rendered hollow and puerile. Further, the Syrian Christians are present in every nook and corner of the globe renders them a global community without diluting their allegiance to India.

*T. K. Oommen is currently a Professor Emeritus at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, where he taught for 26 years, retiring in 2002. He was a President of the International Sociological Association, as well as the Indian Sociological Society. Professor Oommen was a Visiting Professor/Research Fellow at University of California, Australian National University, Institute of Advanced Studies at Budapest and Uppsala. He has authored and edited 33 books. Professor Oommen was conferred the Padma Bhushan in 2008 in recognition of his contribution to higher education.

Indic Digital Archive Foundation: A Dream Come True!

Dr. Cherian Samuel

On October 30, 2022, the Indic Digital Archive Foundation (IDAF, https://indicarchive.org/) was launched in Bengaluru, India, as a non-profit organisation for the digital archival, preservation, and open access of Indic language cultural artifacts like books, publications, and documents. The Foundation's flagship project is Granthappura (https://gpura.org/), a digital archive of cultural artifacts related to Kerala and Malayalam, a collection of 2000+ digitized books and publications spanning 120,000+ pages (https://gpura.org/collections). The collection includes some of the earliest printed documents related to Kerala: first printed book in Malayalam; first Malayalam book printed in India; first Malayalam dictionary; old Malayalam periodicals; first Malayalam book with colour images.

The Foundation marks the realization of the dream and vision of Shiju Alex, the principal archivist and a director of the Foundation. Since 2009, Shiju—living and working in Bengaluru as a Technical Writer for a company—has led an extraordinary voluntary effort for the digital archiving of Kerala-related documents (https://shijualex.in/about/). In December 2021, Shiju announced the winding down of the digital archiving initiative, given its sustainability and scaling challenges as a personal project. However, financial and non-financial support emerged subsequently to restart the Project on an institutional basis, with expanded scope and scale, leading to the establishment of IDAF.

From the Kerala Christian history perspective, digital archiving of the records and documents related to the Church Missionary Society and the London Missionary Society—which led evangelical missions to India during the British colonial rule—provide useful insights into the activities of the missions, including discussions with the Church of England (https://shijualex.in/missionary-documents-with-references-tokerala/). Likewise, the 2013-18 Gundert Legacy Project led to the Herman Gundert digital archive collection, housed at the Tuebingen University library, Germany, thanks to the efforts of volunteers and financial support from the University. Hermann Gundert (1814-1893), the German scholar of Indian languages, had taken his collection of manuscripts and rare books to Germany in 1870, after living in Kerala for 20 years as a Basel Mission missionary. Gundert has made outstanding contributions as an Indologist, compiling a Malayalam grammar book (1859), a Malayalam-English dictionary (1872), as well as contributing to Bible translations in Malayalam.

The digital archiving initiative is relevant and significant for the Kerala Christian Diaspora, from a heritage and tradition standpoint. The growth and progress of the Kerala Christian Diaspora has been amazing and providential—inside as well as outside India—with Kerala as the largest remittance receiving state in India currently. As the Kerala Christian Diaspora gets integrated into the global melting pot, digital archiving will remain vital for preserving and understanding their genesis and history. Digital archiving should also be treated as a priority, given the adverse effects of Kerala’s climate conditions on the lifespan of public domain documents.

Shiju Alex, the principal archivist and a director of the Foundation Digital Archive Foundation (IDAF), https://indicarchive.org/). Since 2009, Shiju is living and working in Bengaluru as a Technical Writer for a company.