CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA

Marry Christmas Readers...🎄🎅

This is Sandeep Panchal... On the occasion of Christmas, I am going to start a new blog about the Christianity of India. After doing the research from various books and encyclopedia, I have tried to write my blog in simple language that readers can understand easily.

INTRODUCTION

Christians constitute the second largest religious minority in India next to Islam. The 21 million Christians in India account for 2 percent of the total population. With 16.5 million adherents to the faith, Roman Catholics form the largest single Christian group in India. There are approximately 4.5 adherents to the Protestant faith (Europa 1740). The heaviest concentration of Christians is in the state of Kerala, which is one of the oldest Christian communities in the world.

A BRIEF HISTORY

Due to the lack of documentary evidence, the origin of Christianity in India has been the subject of controversy among historians. According to tradition and legend, Apostle Thomas went west to India and started the church in A.D. 52.  Following established trade routes, he converted many to Christianity, including members of the royal family. Following his example, many other foreign missionaries made numerous converts to Christianity.

In the 16th century, Jesuit Saint Francis Xavier expanded the Christian community westward evangelizing to those from the lower caste and outcastes. The ideals of humility and the rejection of worldly possession associated with Christianity appealed to the early Christians. Christianity was thought of as “the religion of the poor”(see Spice trade in India).

Beginning in the eighteenth century, Protestant missionaries began to work throughout India that lead to the growth of Christian communities. “These new Christians were almost exclusively recruited from the poorest and most degraded sections of society”.

FIRST CHRISTIANS OF INDIA

The Syrian Malabar Nasrani people represent an ethnic community in Kerala, South India. Their tradition goes back to the beginnings of first century Christian thought and the seven churches established by St. Thomas the Apostle among the natives and the Jewish diaspora in Kerala. They follow a unique Hebrew-Syriac Christian tradition which includes several Jewish elements along with some Hindu customs. Their have a Syriac-Keralite heritage, their culture South Indian, their faith, St. Thomas Christian, and their language, Malayalam. According to the Acts of Thomas, Thomas's first converts in India had been Malabari Jews, who had settled in Kerala since the time of King Solomon of Israel.

Saint Thomas Christians

Historians generally agree that St. Thomas, a Jew himself by birth, visited India in search of Jews settled here.

Although the Christian ideals had been foreign, many Hindus embraced the ideologies of baptism because of its similarities to bathing in the Ganges, first mentioned in the Rig Veda, the Mahabharat, and the Devi Bhagvata. After evangelizing in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the Apostle appears to have been martyred at St.Thomas Mount in Chennai and buried on the site of San Thome Cathedral. Members of the Syro-Malabar Church, an eastern rite of the Catholic Church, adopted the Syriac liturgy dating from an unknown period before the fourth Century. In the fourth century, at the instance of Bishop of Edessa of the Kerala Church, removed Apostle’s relics to Edessa, later moving them to Italy. The Christian community founded by St Thomas has since developed into a number of churches during the Portuguese persecution, including Syriac-rite churches in communion with the Roman Catholic, Antiochian Orthodox churches, and "Nestorian" churches.

The arrival of St Thomas, and the subsequent establishment of the seven and a half churches, has been viewed with skepticism by Western historians. The theory has never been discounted, and the Keralites historically attribute an apostolic origin to their church.

MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN CONFLICT

Muslims in India who convert to Christianity have been known to be subjected to harassment, intimidation, and attacks. In Kashmir, a Christian convert named Bashir Tantray had been killed, allegedly by militant Islamists in 2006.

A Christian priest, K.K. Alavi, a convert from Islam, recently raised the ire of his former Muslim community and has received many death threats. An Islamic terrorist group named "The National Development Front" actively campaigned against him.

TRADE AND CHRISTIANITY

Trade and maritime routes

The insatiable interest in India began with business conducted by the East India Trading Company. Dealing with more than mere trading concerns, the trading company became a ruling power in India.  From 1770-1818, “through wars and annexations almost three fourth of India was to come under the control of the Company”. Interestingly, many of the Christians of St. Thomas harvested pepper.  “Pepper growing was almost their sole monopoly”. The members of the church grew most of the pepper that was exported to Portugal.

DIFFICULTIES OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSION IN INDIA

One of the gravest problems facing Christianity in India is the problem of adaptation.  Despite Hindu willingness to adapt Christianity into their religious system, Christians have encountered difficulties with Indians unwilling to compromise their own beliefs. Many Indians refused to believe in the absolutism of Christian theology. The doctrine of Christianity that was most problematic was the proclamation of Christianity as the only true religion, viewing it as a manifestation of the hated colonialism. The assimilation of Christianity into the Indian population required an incorporation of Christianity within the regimes of Indian culture. For this same reason, “Indian Christians have Indianized their churches and tried to end their dependence on foreign missions”. An example of the challenges in India manifests with the treatment of traditional clothing.  

In a culture where clothing represents social status, one of the most evident forms of discrimination forbade the people of the lower caste to cover the upper part of the body. A bare breast was seen as a sign of respect to those considered to be higher status. In reaction to the custom, the missionary ladies implemented a jacket (ravakkay) to cover up the upper portion of the body. However, it did not meet the standards of the Christian Indians.  Sparking waves of violence between the castes, in 1814, a proclamation was given permitting Christian Indian women to cover their bosom, but not in a manner identical to the women of the higher caste.  In addition, the proclamation stated, women of the lower caste were not permitted “to act towards persons of higher caste contrary to the usages of their own caste before they [became] Christians”.

IMPORTANT FIGURES OF CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA

Raja Ram Mohan Roy
(22 May 1772 - 27 Sept. 1833)

Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833), the “father of modern India,” was an important Hindu leader who assimilated Christian ideals and ethics to reform the social abuses of India.  He “renounced idolatry at the age of sixteen” and “devoted himself to the study of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek”. He did not accept the divinity of Christ, but was “strongly attracted to the personality of Christ and to his moral teachings.”  He improved the moral and social conditions of India.  He started the Brahmo Samaj (City of God) by conducting weekly meeting to incorporate Christian ethics with the best of Hinduism. What they saw as the best parts of Christianity were worshipping God by love and good deeds, and abstinence from idolatry.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

Parumala Church, Kerala

Despite the waves of missionaries to India under colonial rule, the number of Christians in India remains small, especially in comparison to the total Indian population of 846,302,688 (Europa 1726).  In 1947 and 1970, the creation of the Church of South India and Church of North India decreased the affiliations among Protestant churches.  However, representations of small fundamentalist sects still exist throughout India creating a kaleidoscopic conglomeration of peoples, languages, cultures, perspectives, theologies and practices. Christians and churches relate to surrounding society in vastly differing ways, from being a dominant force in Kerala, a significant influence in other southern and northeastern states, to a desperately weak minority in the main body of India (Europa 1740).

CONCLUSION

I tried to write various points about Christianity in India topic in brief. I hope this proves useful for you and children.