This book examines the interplay between Christianity and caste, especially for Dalit women

Christianity’s advent in India is a hotly debated topic. But the widely held – and disputed – belief is that it started with the arrival of St Thomas the Apostle on Kerala’s Malabar coast in 52 CE. The popular claim is that the apostle converted the Namboodiri Brahmins of Kerala, giving rise to the present-day Nasranis or Syrian Christians. This was followed by the arrival of Pantaenus, a missionary from Alexandria, in 189 CE, and later, a group of Christians, led by Thomas Cana, from the Middle East in 345 CE.

The Christian missions took off only with the arrival of the Portuguese missionary St Francis Xavier in 1542 and the Italian Jesuit Robert de Nobili in 1605 in Goa, followed by the German Pietists (Lutheran missionaries) Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau in 1706 in Tranquebar.

The Tranquebar missions were responsible for instating the printing press and the first ever print of the Tamil Bible – evidence of which one can still see at the Ziegenbalg House in Tranquebar. At the turn of the eighteenth century, the establishment of British rule in the presidencies of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, and the subsequent amendment of the East India Company’s charter in 1813, gave way to the great expansion of the Protestant missions.

Another revision of the charter in 1833 allowed for a full entry of missionaries, including those from the United States and Europe. This led to the Basel Mission in South Kanara, Gossner’s Evangelical Lutheran Mission in Bihar, the Leipzig Lutheran Mission in Tamil Nadu, the Marathi Mission in Ahmednagar and the Madura Mission in South India. Other American missions include those of the Presbyterians in Punjab, the American Baptists in Nellore and Assam, and the American Lutherans in the Northern Circars.

The second half of the 19th century, post the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, saw new missions and societies from the United States, Ireland and Canada. This in turn led to conversions within the Indian educated classes, including those who followed Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Islam. Cyril Bruce Firth, in his comprehensive account of Indian Christian history, says that “whether by open conversion or secret discipleship, it did seem as if Christianity were making headway among people who counted.”

This trend was, however, cut short by the growth of Hindu reform movements such as the Brahmo Samaj, the Prarthana Samaj, the Ramakrishna Mission and the Arya Samaj. According to Firth, this meant that, for the educated classes who became dissatisfied with orthodox Hinduism, there was now an “abundant choice of alternatives”, as opposed to Christianity.

Dalits weren’t as fortunate – neither to become dissatisfied with Hinduism (they weren’t allowed to profess its mainstream versions anyway) nor to have abundant choices during that period. Thus began an unexpected, unprecedented surge of lower-caste conversions in different parts of India. Various Adivasi groups and Shudra castes also participated in these conversions.

Jarrell Waskom Pickett, in his book, Christian Mass Movements in India, details that between 1875 and 1879, nearly 9000 persons became Christians in the Travancore district, and by 1900, the number rose to 63,152. This group included the Sambavars (a sub-sect of the Paraiyars) but was dominated by the Nadars, a Shudra caste. Likewise, in Punjab, by 1868, there were more than 10,000 baptised Christians, which included the Chuhras (also known as the Balmikis), the Oraons and the Mundas.

Today, there are approximately 27.8 million followers of Christianity, which corresponds to 2.8% of India’s population. Most of them reside in the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, the Northeast, Odisha, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Significant percentages also reside in Goa, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Puducherry. Like the rest of the world, Christians in India belong to multiple denominations, not all of which are doctrinally different, but most of which are shaped by caste.

The largest of the denominations is the Catholic Church, followed by the Assemblies of God, a relatively new charismatic tradition. The Church of South India – the church I was born into – and the Lutheran Church – the one I married into – are two of the other largest denominations in India. Apart from these, there are a number of charismatic and Pentecostal traditions. There is also a small percentage of Christians who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as the Mormon church.

Depending upon the region, conversion histories, and inter-state migratory patterns, each denomination and subdenomination, as well as individual pastorates and parishes, have their own caste constitutions. Owing to its incredible complexity, there is no one source that has attempted to map out the entire landscape of Christian denominations along caste. In general, it suffices to say that a large percentage of the Indian Christian population, thanks to mass conversions of the late 19th century, is made up of Dalit and Adivasi communities. And privileged castes such as the Syrian Christians of Kerala, the Nadars and Vellalars of Tamil Nadu, the Bammons and Chardos of the Konkan coast, and several other privileged minorities like them continue to hold immense power within and outside their churches.

Of particular interest to me, owing to my own caste and religious location, are the conversion histories of the Paraiyars (and other Dalits), and the role they play – or fail to – in contemporary faith narratives. My motivation is not simply to justify our conversions but to become unapologetic in the face of baseless criticisms stemming from both caste Hindu and anti-caste locations. It is to reclaim the Dalit Christian identity that is consistently being denied to the likes of me, in the name of many things but mostly, the “lack of lived experience” and “the absence of radical potential”. It is to resurrect a liberative strand of faith that has the potential to offer a more empowered strategy towards fullness.

Sunday schools taught me about Christian missionaries, emphasising the many sacrifices and tribulations they encountered during their missions to India. Regular school taught me about Hindu reformers and freedom fighters. But neither of them bothered with the many Dalit communities that sought conversion as a way out of caste.

Thanks to a shortage of political education and the incessant name-calling that followed us everywhere, I too believed that it was the Christian missionaries who took pity on my ancestors and “saved” them from their misery. That my people were passive actors who gave up their indigenous faith traditions (different from mainstream Hindu practices) for the sake of “rice bags”. Not until I read Rupa Viswanath’s seminal work, The Pariah Problem, and associated literature, did it become clear to me that Dalits had played a far more active role in their deliverance.

Several records indicate that, prior to the mass conversions of the 1870s, Protestant missionaries were only interested in converting the upper castes. By converting the intellectual elite, they believed the trend would trickle down and lower castes would follow. Towards this, Viswanath reports, large sums of money were spent on educating upper-caste boys, who ended up ‘highly educated and English-speaking’ but not as Christian converts. This is not unlike the upper castes who graduate out of convents and Christian colleges in present-day India.

For instance, Shashi Tharoor, known for his work Why I Am a Hindu, graduated with an arts degree from St Stephen’s College in New Delhi. St Stephen’s was founded in 1881 by the Cambridge Mission, an Anglican missionary initiative. Viswanath reports that a common response at that time from upper-caste Hindus to the missionaries was, “What you’re saying is good and all, sir, but becoming a Christian means spoiling caste.” The upper castes did not give two hoots for a saviour who died on the cross. Heck, they did not even need a saviour. What did they need saving from anyway?

Excerpted with permission from Dalit Women and the Fullness of Life, Christina Dhanuja, Penguin Random House India.