Abstract
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Christianity, in its Syrian version, has had a long history in India. It well predates Vasco da Gama, though the editors of the book under review may be placing too much reliance on pious legend when they claim (p. x) that ‘Indian Christianity is older than Christianity in the West’. In fact, the bulk of the Christian population in India owes its affiliation to Christianity ultimately through proselytisation by Christian missionaries from Europe, both Catholic and Protestant. Often enough, the history of Christianity in India has been seen as a continuing and expanding process of conversion through preaching and good work by the Christian missions.
Yet, given the persistence of local continuities in conversion narratives, we need to look at conversions as a dual process, marked by a creative interaction between the Christian missionaries and the converted peoples. It is this shift in perspective that is most persuasively suggested by a new group of researchers like Eugene Irschik (Politics and Conflict in South India, Berkeley, 1969), who argue that the meaning of conversion was not unilaterally defined by the Christian missionaries, but was shaped by their communications with the converted populace. In emphasising the subjectivity of the converted for understanding the meaning and perceptions of conversions, Irschik prompts us to look for multiplicities, contestations and resistance in the history of conversion in India.
Firmly located within such ‘revisionist’ historiography, the book draws out from a wide variety of regions and periods the local dimensions of Indian Christianity. The contributors to the volume discover a wide variety of beliefs and rituals that has historically marked the Indian Christian communities in India. The essay by James Staples looks at the religious practices of a largely Christian leper colony in Guntur district (Andhra Pradesh), noticing a shift away from institution-based rehabilitation to community-based initiatives (‘We are One Caste, One Disease, and One Religion’: Biographies of Christian Conversion in a South Indian Leprosy Colony, pp. 25–45). Joy Pachuau takes us to Mizoram and reveals the role of local identities and collective experiences in shaping the ritual practices of the Christian communities there (‘Christianity in Mizoram: An Ethnography’, pp. 46–57). Similarly, B.L. Nongbri argues that the Khasi community did not see conversion as a break with their entrenched cultural beliefs; instead Christianity was incorporated within the local idioms of religious practice and beliefs (pp. 58–75). Owing to considerations of space, we skip several other essays in the collection that focus on different regions, and make a similar argument for the persistence of ‘vernacular Christianity’ in India.
While the main thrust of the volume lies in unravelling the varieties of such ‘vernacular Christianity’, we do get a couple of essays here, the one by Jose Kalapura, in particular, where evidence is offered of the existence, in some regions and among several communities, as well, of a mission-based identity. It is indeed a plausible argument that the missions and the Church could have provided to the Christian converts a sense of sectarian identity, but it is still unlikely that such community consciousness would have been forged in entire isolation from local values and belief systems (Jose Kalapura, ‘Strategic Interventions for Structural Changes in the Bettiah Christian Community: A Study of Purposive Action for Community Development’, pp. 159–184).
All stories of conversions have an emotional dimension, which is obviously so difficult to grapple for historians. An effort in this direction is made by Pius Malekandathil in his piece on the historical experiences of New Christians in Cochin in the sixteenth century. One of the interesting findings of his essay is that the New Christians ‘lived’ their Christianity by combining traditional Judaic ritual practices with Catholic religiosity (Pius Malekandathil, ‘Living Religion in Emotional Turbulence: A Study on the Religious Fluviality of New Christians of Cochin and the Inquisition, 1546–1565’, pp. 236–268).
This is an interesting collection of essays on Indian Christianity and Christian communities. Focusing on local varieties of Christian practices, the authors ask us to move away from the missionaries and colonial state, and instead focus on the converted lower caste communities to understand the history of Christianity in India. Though this yet remains part of the story, it is still an important part, and it is good to see scholarly attention being directed to it.