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Spiritual India - Religion - Christianity

by Manu Bahuguna

It is hard to believe that the Se Cathedral in Goa was constructed a century before the Taj Mahal was even thought of. Even harder to believe is the fact that one of the oldest Christian communities in the world lives in India! They consider themselves the followers of St. Thomas, a disciple of Jesus Christ, who landed on the shores of Kerala, and founded the first church in 52 AD. The community uses syriac language in its liturgy and has had ecclesiastical contacts with the Orthodox Syrian Church since the 4th century AD.

The first president of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, commented in 1952 on the occasion of St. Thomas’s day – “Remember, St. Thomas came to India when many countries of Europe had not yet become Christian. So those Indians who trace their Christianity to him, have a longer history and a higher ancestry than that of Christians of many European countries. And that it is really a matter of pride to us that it so happened.”

The next influx of Christianity took another 1000 years to happen when the Portuguese colonised Goa in the sixteenth century. There were occasions when the Portuguese viceroy of Goa reported to the King, that the number of monks and clergy exceeded that of the inhabitants, and that there were more churches in Goa than what the local populace could possibly occupy.

The Dutch, the French, and finally the British followed the Portuguese. The British had to go around the peninsula all the way to Calcutta to start the total colonisation of the country. The missionaries followed the seafaring men and the next few centuries saw the spread of Christianity, as the East India Company moved from Calcutta to Delhi. British missionaries followed the company and the army to the new cantonments and hill stations.

Today, Christians are a part of the greater Indian community, comprising 2.3% of the Indian population. They are perhaps more religious in their beliefs and following of the faith, than the Christian community in the west. At the same time they are distinctly Indian in their customs and social practices. The Christian community is spread thinly across the country with a handful of concentrated pockets in the North Eastern states, Goa, Kerala, and Pondicherry. All the major metros have a sizeable population of Christians as well.

In some remote parts of the country like the Nicobars, one finds that the locals, despite having adopted Christianity as their religion almost a century ago, continue to follow some of the ancient practices of their forefathers. Even today, one finds voodoo dolls in abundance in the Nancowry islands, where the people are essentially Christians.

Today, Christmas and Valentine’s Day are not Christian festivals any more. In the big cities people celebrate these across religions and Valentine’s Day is a hot favourite with the Indian youth.