Christians are among the major religious minorities in India today. They may perhaps be treated as a unique religious group on several grounds.
First, like the Muslims, they are widely distributed in the country forming a sizeable proportion of population in many states and union territories.
Secondly, Christianity was introduced by European missionaries from the very early stages. It, therefore, became a powerful vehicle of social and cultural change in the country. It brought in its wake a series of changes popularly expressed by the term ‘Europeanization’.
Thirdly, since the missionaries generally worked among the poor and the most deprived sections of the Indian population, Christianity indirectly contributed towards the alleviation of poverty and the upliftment of the down-trodden masses.
Fourthly, Christian missionaries had a wide sweep and were in a position to reach the most isolated and the backward parts of the country. As a result Christian converts were drawn from diverse ethno-lingual groups. Christianity thus acted as a bridge between diverse elements within India’s tribal and caste-based social order.
Lastly, the European connection was important. It was through this channel that financial resources could flow into India for social work of great local relevance. In fact, the pioneering work that the Christian missions initiated in the field of education, health and social rehabilitation remains a landmark. It has no parallels in history.
Advent of Christianity in India:
Christianity spread in India in several phases. The beginnings are traceable in the establishment of the Syrian Church in Malabar, supposed to have been founded by St. Thomas, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus. The common belief is that he preached in India. The belief, however, remains unsubstantiated. Another development which took place in 345 A.D. was the arrival of a Christian missionary, Bishop of Edessa, also named as Thomas. He came from Iran and started preaching in South India. The Syrian Church was already active in India at the beginning of the sixth century A.D. It formed a branch of the Nestorian Order.
Christian presence in India was also noted by Marco Polo, who visited India in the thirteenth century A.D. Christianity received an added impetus with the arrival of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. Soon the Franciscan missionaries started their work in India with Goa being recognized as Bishopric in 1534. Eight years later St. Francis Xavier reached Goa.
As in the case of the earlier missionaries his work remained confined to the Malabar Coast and the southern districts of what is now known as Tamil Nadu. So far converts to Christianity were Europeanized so much that there was a total break from the Indian cultural tradition. This, however, proved to be a setback. This modus operandi, changed with Robert de Nobili (died 1605) who settled in Madurai and allowed the Christian converts to retain their cultural practices even after conversion. His method of work was so appealing that even the high caste Hindus converted to Christianity.
The French who came by and large the same time as the Portuguese helped propagate Catholic faith. While the Portuguese were having their sway on the west coast, the French founded their early settlements on the East coast, operating mainly in the region lying to the south of Madras (now Chennai) particularly from their enclave in Pondicherry.
The net result was that the efforts of the Portuguese and the French helped in the propagation of Christianity. The Catholic Church could strike its roots in the southern region from coast to coast as the land was dotted with churches, schools and hospitals. The missionaries picked up the local languages and this added to their effectiveness in the missionary work. The Catholic population multiplied with multi-pronged social welfare activity serving mostly the deprived and the down-trodden sections of Indian population.
The first Protestant Mission was established in 1705 by the Danish Lutherans. A Baptist Mission was established at Serampore in 1792. While the East India Company was not directly involved in missionary work, there were Anglican Chaplains who were employed as Company’s functionaries.
They took interest in the promotion of Christianity. By 1813 the Company finally granted permission to Anglican bodies for missionary work. As a result, the first Anglican i Bishopric was established at Madras. The East India Company also I agreed to the foundation of the Episcopal See at Calcutta. Both Catholic and Protestant Missions continued their work during the nineteenth century.
However, the Catholics were largely confined to the southern region of India. The missionary work was also carried out by the American Board of Foreign Missions in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Their efforts were mainly focused on the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh as well as Punjab. Field stations were established at important towns in these provinces during the period 1834-55. The Telugu Mission and Assam Mission, launched in 1840-41, proved to be highly successful (Box 7.2).
The fact that the Roman Catholics constitute a major chunk of j the Indian Christian community is also evident from the number of j Catholic institutions, such as churches, schools, colleges and hospitals. The church plays an important role in the social integration of the community. The distribution of Catholic Church in India, related as it is with the concentration of Catholic population, appears to be an outcome of the long history of diffusion of Christianity.
The emergence of Catholics in the north was rather delayed. The progress of Christianity in the north may be related with the British ascendancy. However, the British were mostly Protestants. Most of the Catholic churches in North India are, therefore, mostly recent, even as recent as independence. The spread of Catholic faith in the northern region, initially subdued, left the Protestants behind. The major concentration, however, remains in the south, west and the northeast. The distribution of the Catholic churches follows the same pattern.
The spread of Christianity owes much to the dedicated social work of missionaries in the area of education and health. The Christian colleges in Indian cities were by far the best institutions of higher learning. The Christian missions established no less than a hundred first-grade colleges, hundreds of high schools and middle schools and thousands of primary and elementary schools in different parts of the country.
Their main focus was on women’s education which was grossly neglected in India. As part of their social work the missionaries also established orphanages, homes for the aged and the handicapped, hospitals, dispensaries and leprosy and tuberculosis sanatoria (Box 7.3).
The 1991 census enumerated 19.64 million Christians in India. The Christian population increased from 10.53 million to 19.64 million in 1991, registering an average annual growth rate of 2.88 per cent. The Christian population reveals a strong tendency of concentration in the southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
This is, however, in conformity to or with the historical processes through which Christianity spread in the country. About 56 per cent of the total Christian population of the country lives in the four southern states alone. Kerala alone has almost one-third of the country’s Christian population, while Tamil Nadu takes care of about one-sixth of the national total.
A second major concentration of the Christians is seen in the northeastern states which together share 22 per cent of the total Christian population of the country (Table 7.7). The Christian population consists of Catholics as well as Protestants.
Subsumed in the Christian population are more than half a million orthodox Syrian Christians and more than a lakh Anglo-Indians consisting of Protestants as well as Catholics. At the 1901 census nearly 3 million Christians were enumerated. Of these 2.5 million were native converts and the remainder Europeans or Eurasians.
A perusal of the district-level data shows pockets of Christian concentration in the southern state of Kerala where as many as seven districts have a Christian proportion ranging between 20 and 50 per cent. The Christian proportion is particularly high in Kottayam (45.83 per cent), Idukki (42.23 per cent) and Ernakulam (73.83 per cent). In all these districts Christians have a sizeable population in both the rural and urban segments of population. Gumla in the Chhotanagpur region of Bihar, North Goa and South Goa districts and Kanyakumari also fall in the same category.
On the periphery of these pockets of high concentration in Kerala and Tamil Nadu the Christian population thins out although their share remains between 10 and 20 per cent. The proportion of Christians in population remains above 50 per cent in as many as 20 districts situated mostly in the northeastern states of Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland. However, while their share in population is high—in some districts above 90 per cent—their numerical strength is evidently low.
In Mizoram, for example, their share in the total population is 83.8 per cent, followed by Nagaland with 80.2 per cent of its population consisting of Christians. The Christian proportion also remains high in Meghalaya and Manipur. Goa has a sizeable Christian population with at least one-third of its population being Christian. Outside these pockets of high concentration one notices small Christian populations in a number of districts in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. Gurdaspur in Punjab is a notable example (Table 7.8; Fig. 7.3 and Fig. 7.4).