Syrian Christian churches in India

Abstract

This chapter does not review the contemporary challenges facing only the ‘Orthodox’ churches in India, since this kind of distinction would be quite meaningless in a country where out of 1.2 billion people Christians number only between 24 and 25 million, where caste distinctions cross religious distinctions and where the title ‘Orthodox’ is included in the name of three churches of different origins. According to data from 2001, Christians constitute around 2.3 per cent of the country’s population and this percentage may well have declined in the 2011 census. 1However, the fact that an important segment of the country’s Christian population consists of former dalits casts some doubt on the reliability of the census data. The appellation dalit denotes a member of the community outside the traditional fourfold Hindu varna (caste) system, considered previously as ‘untouchable’ for caste Hindus. The dalits receive several benefi ts under India’s affi rmative action programmes but only as long as they remain Hindu in their religion (or convert to Buddhism), 2 such legislation inducing many who have converted to other faiths to conceal their new religion. This, together with the effect of secularisation, as a result of which baptised Christians may register in the census as non-Christians, results in the fact that the baptismal records of the churches show a much larger number of Christians than the census. Because of the way the affi rmative action is structured in India, benefi ting only eligible Hindus, the real number of Christians is grossly understated and could be in the range of 55-60 million instead of just under 25 million, with the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu registering a very high growth. The increase comes mostly from the newly converted dalits , most of whom remain closet Christians. There has been a demand that dalits regardless of faith, including Christians and Muslims, be given affi rmative action benefi ts but, in the medium term, no such legislation can be expected. For different reasons the traditional churches also back closet conversions, partly to avoid publicity and partly to keep their wealthy fl ock within the fold. Part of the reason why some rich Christians are deserting their traditional churches could be to regroup under new denominations which are dalit -free, at a time when the bulk of the priesthood is being recruited from lower castes and when convents are increasingly fi lled with those from poorer, especially dalit , backgrounds.