1. Brief History of Christianity in Kerala
Christianity in India, over the many centuries of its presence, has a deep connection with the Indian culture and is no means a mere survivor of European colonialism and foreign missions (Shah and Carpenter 2018). To quote Robert Frykenberg (2008, p. viii), ‘nowhere in the world today are existing non-Western forms of Christianity older or more complex than in India’. Perhaps the first to respond to Christian missions was Kerala (Raghaviah 2017),1 which carries a long tradition of Christianity (including both the ‘Greater and Lesser traditions’), as shown by the presence of several generations of dedicated men and women who undertook the responsibility of spreading the word of God among the people. This resulted in the establishment of a number of Churches and the organization of mission movements in this region (Philip 2000, p. 300). The evangelical activities of Christian missions began with the age of discovery, and India’s connection with Christianity is claimed to be from A.D. 52, when St. Thomas, one of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ, landed on the West coast of South India. The Portuguese came to the Malabar Coast on 24 December 1500, following the footsteps of Vasco Da Gama, who was the first to reach Calicut in A.D. 1498. As a result, the Jesuit missions began to operate in India on the coastal region, particularly among the fishing Parava population. In the 17th century, Robert de Nobili, after being inspired by St. Thomas, followed a policy of accommodation which allowed a large number of people from various backgrounds (in terms of religion and sect) to be a part of the Christian community (Thonippara 2000, p. 60; Hedlund 2016). The active missionary movements of the 19th and 20th centuries were largely a Protestant evangelical phenomenon. The missionary movement from the West was an historical reality in countries like India (Nesamony 2016), and Protestant missions like the London Missionary Society (L.M.S.), the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.), and the Basel Mission Society (B.M.S.) triggered several social reform movements, especially amongst Dalits, Adivasis, and Bahujan communities in Kerala. While L.M.S. focused its works in Southern Travancore (parts of which fall in the present-day Tamil Nadu), and C.M.S. worked in Central Travancore, and the Basel Mission organized its activities in the Malabar and the Nilgiris (Copley [1997] 2000, pp. 33–37). However, the Asian roots of the Church lay deeper than the traditions, and the Malabar Christians formed themselves into a distinct religious group (Padhmanabhamenon 1983, pp. 444–45)2.
Scholars have largely worked on conversion movements in South India (see map, Figure 1) among the outcastes like the Pulayas, Parayas, Nadars, Madharis, and Goundars from an empirical and anthropological perspectives (Cederlöf 1997; Viswanath 2014; Basu 2011; Mohan 2015; Bugge 1994; Kumaradoss 2007; Kent 2004; Harding 2008; Kooiman 1989; Bayly 1989; Gladstone 1984; Hardgrave 1969). Questions regarding motives behind conversion and social issues relating to it have been discussed analytically as separate case studies. ‘Mass conversion’ in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to either Islam or Christianity has been interpreted mostly in the light of politicisation and mobilisation of the ‘untouchable’ castes whose conscious effort was to either raise their social and economic status or escape from the clutches of the Hindu landlords (Cederlöf 1997). Scholars like Duncan Forrester (1977), however, had been passionate about the low castes and suggested that conversion was out of ‘a genuine search for spiritual movement’. However, most interpretations point towards economic and materialistic gains that encouraged people to change their religious affiliation (Copley [1997] 2000; Mosse 2012). Along with themes like these, historians have also studied the contributions of Church Missions like the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany, the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), the Baptists, and the Presbyterians in great detail, which prepared grounds for the Christian conversion movement in the regions. All mission denominations had a more or less similar ideology of functioning, i.e., touring, preaching, and evangelization. Along with this, welfare activities in terms of providing education and medical facilities were corollary to the basic aim of the Christian missionaries in securing a good number of converts. However, developing a sense of self-reliance and self-resourcefulness among the converts by promoting vocational training and establishing a prototype of ‘industries’ are the exceptional features that made the Basel Mission Society stand out from the rest of its contemporaries.
Previous writings oriented the mission activities mainly in understanding the class relation and its mechanism in the society and in showing how missionaries came as apologists to the outcastes and tribes to protest against upper-caste Hindu oppression (Kooiman 1989).3 However, not all identified missionary assistance as acts of benevolence. Historians like K.M. Panikkar (1953) and J.A. Hobson (1902) projected the Christian missionaries as agents of ‘an aggressive cultural imperialism’ and that their contributions were meant to affect the mental health and spirituality of the ‘colonised’.4 According to them, Protestant missionary evangelism and European imperial expansion were complementary aspects which ultimately led to a communal divide between the Christian converts and the non-converts, similar to that of the Hindus and Muslims (Bayly 1989). In contrast to these arguments, Brian Stanley (1990) and Andrew Porter (2004) vouched that the relation between the Church and the State was characteristically ‘temporary, grudging, and self-interested’. For them, evangelism and imperial expansion were not two sides of the same coin.
This paper seeks to examine how the Basel Mission worked in conformity with its primary belief of active piety (praxis pietatis) over doctrine with principles of self-resourcefulness (known for its ‘industries’, workshops, printing, and publishing) and individual preaching and evangelisation among the Thiyyas and the Badagas of Malabar and Nilgiris respectively. Moreover, the Christian conversion in Kerala will be theoretically analysed on the basis of social-psychological and social-historical models5 by portraying the agrarian scenario of the regions and the ethnographic overview of the ethnic communities, understanding their positions and roles as individuals in the society, and then contextualise the situation in which the Basel missionaries operated to find out whether the converts witnessed ‘self-transformation’ or were ‘passive recipients’ of Christianity. It will also uncover whether the conversion experiences in the regions fit to the Seven Stage Model of Lewis R Rambo.6 In order to identify these traits, I have relied primarily on the Basel Mission Reports. However, being aware of the nuances of prejudice and interpretative conflicts of the incidents from these mission narratives, I have referred to a number of anthropological and historical works in South India to balance the analytical overview and present an impartial account of my case studies. Finally, this research will draw a tangent on how mission, theology, and history interacted in the conversion experiences among the ‘untouchable’ and the ‘tribal’ communities in the regions.
2. The Agrarian World of Malabar and the Nilgiris
Geographically, South India is divided into two areas—the coastal belt and the interior plateau region. Except for the two coastal areas and the delta of rivers, most parts of South India have poor soil and scanty rainfall, creating inhospitable conditions for agriculture (Alexander 1980).
Malabar (Logan 1906)7 (see map, Figure 2), which extends from north to south along the southern part of the western coast, formed a part of the Ryotwari settlement. In principle, the Ryotwari system was a contract between the cultivator, the ryot, and the state in paying land tax. This system, although it strengthened peasants’ rights, had serious distortions when implemented by the British. Interestingly, agrarian land relations and occupations were closely linked with the existing hierarchical caste structure, determining the access to a particular profession, which was ‘typically’ an Indian framework of working and ‘mode of production’ (Raghaviah 2017; Cederlöf 1997). Along with this, caste divisions were carried to root levels manifesting as ‘unapproachability’ and ‘polluting distances’, which adversely affected social communications. For example, a Pulaya, an outcaste, had to keep a distance of 16 feet from a Thiyya, who also belonged to the outcaste group but had a comparatively better social position. Similarly, the latter had to keep the same distance from a Nair, and this went on in a ‘bottom-up’ order. (Raghaviah 2017; Menon 1933; Pillai 1970).8
The Nilgiris or the Blue Hills is the north eastern Hill district of Tamil Nadu and is bounded by the States of Karnataka in the North; Kerala in the West and two districts of Tamil Nadu—Coimbatore in the South and Erode in the East (see map, Figure 3)9. This district is basically a horticulture district, and its entire economy depends upon the success and failure of horticulture crops like potato, cabbage, carrot, spices, and fruits. However, the main cultivation is plantation crops like tea and coffee (Chand et al. 2009). Both adivasis (tribals) and non-adivasis depended on agriculture as their source of livelihood along with primary occupations like collecting forest produce, pastoralists, and artisans (Menon et al. 2008, p. 22). Shifting cultivation was primarily practiced by the inhabitants, but changes in agrarian patterns started with the advent of the Europeans, who introduced terracing the slopes and preparing the lands, cattle-drawn ploughs, irrigation systems, commercial and economic plants, etc. Plantation labour, especially in the estate sector, consisted of various adivasis like the Kanikkar and Muthuvar of Thiruvithamkur, Badagas and Thodar of Nilgiri and the Naicker, Paniyar and Kurumbar of Wayanad. The Nilgiri district comprises the Upper and the Lower Nilgiris. In the Upper Nilgiris, tea was cultivated mostly by the Badaga community over almost four decades, while in the Lower Nilgiris, in the Gudalur region, the populace is mainly comprised of the tribal people along with the Sri Lankan Repatriates (Sarkar and Rasaily 2019, pp. 1–3, 28–29; Cederlöf 2002).
3. Ethnographic and Demographic Profile of Thiyyas and Badagas
The Thiyyas formed the largest caste group in Malabar and were subjected to the rules of ‘pollution’ during the 19th and 20th centuries. They worked in palm groves, quarrying sectors, and as agricultural labourers and military servicemen (Logan 1906, p. 191). During British rule, ritual caste hierarchy put the highest ranking Nambuthiri Brahmins at the top, followed by the Nair caste. The middle tier consisted of the Muslims and the Thiyyas who were considered to be of ‘polluting caste’; while the bottom was comprised of ‘other polluting’ castes such as the Cherumas, the Pulayas, and the local tribes (Miller 1954).10 This social structure corresponded to hierarchical access to economic resources and power, although regional variations existed within the Malabar region (Sam 2014, p. 33). The Thiyyas occupied the highest rank among the ‘polluting castes’ and exerted administrative control over others, either as landlords or as intermediaries in areas where a Nair tharavadu was dominant (Menon 1994, pp. 41–61; Miller 1954). Nevertheless, the Thiyyas experienced considerable disadvantages through restrictions of untouchability and unapproachability (Abraham 2010). One of them was differential access to the temple (kshetrams) and the shrines (kavus). While the Nairs and the Nambuthiris could worship at the kshetrams, the Thiyyas were allowed at the kavus only. So, during the temple festivals, the Thiyyas were expected to perform other ancillary services. However, in the kavu system of worship, the Thiyyas occupied a much higher status (Menon 1994, pp. 41–61).11 The Thiyyas continued to follow a variety of agrarian occupations during the colonial period, although they were most famously associated with the profession of toddy tapping, which was assumed to be their hereditary occupation in colonial ethnographies (Kodoth 2001). With the British colonisation of Malabar, a number of Thiyyas were middle-level agricultural tenants (Dhanagare 1977), and with the British introducing customary land rights to fit a legal framework of private ownership in India, many of these Thiyya tenants, as a consequence, were reduced to a level of poor peasants and agricultural wage labourers (Prakash Karat 1973).
On the other hand, the Blue Hills were the homeland of five distinct indigenous tribes such as the Badagas, the Todas, the Kotas, the Kurumbas and the Irulas (Cornish 1874, p. 327).12 The Badagas were and continue to be the most numerous in the region. The majority of them were cultivators of the soil, while some were collectors of honey and wax. It is held by some that, several centuries ago, they came from the northern part of Mysore as refugees to the Nilgiris (Hockings 1989, p. 220).13 However, another school strongly critiqued this theory of immigration and stated that Mysore and the Nilgiris formed a common land mass. In 1807, the Badagas were reported to be a band of ‘rude tribe’, who lived in villages called hatties (Buchanan 1807, p. 246; Ouchterlony 1848). Among the Badagas, six distinct sub-sects were found—namely, Wodea, Adhikai, Kanakka, Haruva, Badaga, and Tohrea; and all of them were Shaivites. Barring the converts, all were vegetarians and were generally deemed to be conservative in nature (Stokes 1883, p. 288). Like the Hindus, the Badagas believed in polytheism (Hockings 1989, p. 221).
4. Narrating the Christian Conversion Driven by the Basel Mission in South India
The Basel German Evangelical Missionary Society (Nath n.d.; Stenzl 2010)14, (in short, the Basel Mission), a Protestant missionary organization, was established at Basel (Raghaviah 2017),15 Switzerland, as a child of 18th-century pietism. Pietism was originally a charismatic revolution against the rigid Lutheran church practices and gave birth to the German Christian society for promoting ‘Christian truth’.16 In India, the Mission started working in the western coast from 1834 onwards with some unique features. Inspired by the Pietist and Calvinist theologies (Prout 1947)17, this missionary organization combined its religious activities with industrial activities to such an extent that the latter was seen as essentially religious in nature (Raghaviah 2017). The Basel Mission inspector Blumhardt laid the foundation of this mission in India (Nath n.d.)18. The Basel Mission had two objectives in view: preaching the Gospel among the hill tribes and setting up a sanatorium for the missionaries. In India, it was known for its workshops and ‘industries’ (Stenzl 2010).19 Operating in the Malabar and the Nilgiris (regions known for their caste rigidities and exclusions to distorted levels), the Basel Mission, utilising the industrial sphere, challenged the gruesome caste system and its allied rituals. Along with conversion, the Basel Mission ended up in contributing some of the most progressive features which were not present otherwise in India. They started the first modern industries in Malabar, and this beginning led to efforts in spreading basic education and starting orphanages and hospitals, which enabled the converts to develop a better philosophy of life (Raghaviah 2017).20 Therefore, the object of industrial pursuits was to strengthen the mission cause on the one hand, and benefit the country by creating a class of Christian artisans, mechanics, and tradesmen who could live an honest life and find new sources of revenue on the other (Philip 2000, pp. 215–16).
4.1. Christianity among the Thiyyas of Malabar
Christianity in Malabar is almost as old as the Christian era. Roman Catholicism had gained a foothold in Malabar at a much later date, while the Protestant faith was the last to arrive. It was not until 1839 that the Basel Mission established their first outpost in this district. At first, the missionaries’ main intention was to train fellow missionaries of other societies which had already started evangelistic work in foreign lands (Kumar 2006, pp. 52–83). The mission stations in Malabar were Cannanore (1841), Tellicherry (1839), Chombala (1849), and Calicut (1842).21 Dr. H. Gundert and Rev. Samuel Hebich, the two pioneer missionaries, inaugurated the mission activities in the region. Despite serious oppositions, the open-air sermons22 delivered by Samuel Hebich at crowded fairs or festivals, and also the courage with which he triumphantly carried the Gospel, made him an almost ‘mythical celebrity’ in Malabar).23
The Malabar church had a remarkable feature of active participation of members in both pastoral and missionary efforts. However, only fifty could be baptised, many newcomers would continue in their former profession and were able to secure an independent living; while most of the inhabitants realised about the futile nature of observing rituals and austerity.24 There had been a movement among the Thiyyas, but their primary motive was not religious. The Thiyyas’ main concern was their social standing, as they asked questions like, ‘what shall we do in order to rise in the social scale?’ instead of ‘what shall we do in order to be saved?’25
The influence of Christianity in the region was clear not only from a good number of converts (102 in 1904), but also by violent opposition from the educated classes to propagate a reformed and purified Hinduism, led by the Brahma and the Upasana Samajes, and by the press. Annie Besant, being influenced by Hindu philosophy, bolstered these efforts by delivering addresses in the principal towns of Malabar and won the hearts of many Malayalis and Thiyyas. However, interest for spiritual things among the Thiyya women was very rare.26 For example,
at Calicut, “many of my girls” the Bible-woman Thamar remarked, “are convinced that going to the temple is useless.” Being asked why they yet go, they replied, “if we ceased going to the temple you would no longer be allowed to visit us!”
27
The largest station of Malabar was Calicut, with 2058 church members, and most of them were engaged in the Tile Factory and Weaving Establishment. More than 100 candidates were ready for baptism, but due to force or intrigue, many lost courage and did not follow through. Efforts to evangelise this part met with resistance from the Muslims, while the educated Hindus reluctantly allowed the missionaries to carry on with their work.28 In some cases, prize money was announced to restrict religious conversion, and an opposer, in an instance, offered as much as Rs. 1000 as a reward for bringing a convert back, dead or alive. However, this attempt did not meet with any success29 and created a stir among the prospective converts.
Moreover, the missionaries realised that despite conversion, caste Hindus continued to consider the Thiyyas as a ‘polluting group’ and showed discrimination towards the Christian converts. This social exclusion led to fear among the Thiyyas, whose reasons for embracing Christianity were dubious. The Thiyyas at Tellicherry built a big Shiva temple and collected large sums of money to make it as grand as possible. This act attempted to revive the Hindu religious affiliation of the Thiyyas in the face of Christianity and stop people from alternating their religious faith.30
4.2. Christianity among the Badagas of Nilgiris
The people of the hills had been predominantly Hindus in the past, and their connections with Hinduism dated back to around the 12th century. It was probably this faith that made them seek shelter in the hills during the alleged Muslim invasion in the Mysore region (Congreve 1847). Thus, the Nilgiris had remained a Hindu-dominated settlement with bleak chances of other religions showing their presence. However, British rule and subsequent European colonisation introduced and established Christianity through their organised missions, churches, Christian colonies, dispensaries, schools, and other institutions. A considerable number of the locals accepted Christian faith to such an extent that by 1900, the ratio of the Christian population was higher in the Nilgiris than any other district in the Madras Presidency (Ilangovan et al. 1999). However, the rate of conversion witnessed fluctuations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, when occasional instances of conversion in phases happened, which will be discussed shortly.
G.J. Casamajor, a retired judge of the high court, invited the Basel Mission to the region and spent much of his time and energy for the cause of evangelistic and educational work among the Badagas of the Kaity valley (Ilangovan et al. 1999). He also translated the Gospel into Canarese, the language which the Badagas could understand with little difficulty (Hockings 1980, p. 184). On the Nilgiris, the Basel Mission had three stations—Kaity (1846), Kotagiri (1867), and Ootacamund (1903)—and from the very outset laid stress on itinerancy which had been invariably recognized as one of the chief duties of the European as well as Indian evangelists. A missionary and a catechist were set apart for the purpose of itinerancy to the Badagas.31 The other common method of preaching was open-air preaching. Magic lanterns, a kind of a slide projector, were also used to play upon the curiosity of the Badagas.32 By adopting traditional Badaga tunes and singing Christian hymns in Badaga dialect, the Missionaries were able to attract the attention of a large number and disseminated the tenets of Christianity. The Missionaries made it a point to preach at the Hindu festival gatherings in the Coimbatore district to which the Badagas and other hill tribes flocked (Hockings 1980, p. 189). The other means of evangelisation was through establishment of schools and performing other philanthropic activities. The Bible women also participated in social and educational activities of the Mission and went on door-to-door campaigns.33
After a brief progress on the Hills, the Basel Mission experienced a bleak period of over a decade when the missionaries, although able to penetrate the hearts of the Badagas, did not succeed in getting even a single convert to Christianity. The Badagas had, on the other hand, successfully thwarted all the attempts of the Missionaries to draw them towards the Mission.34
Nevertheless, the missionaries converted a hermit of a low country as early as in 1850 itself at Kaity. However, such conversion was not regarded by the missionaries as ‘victory’, since they had looked upon the Badagas as a special field of labour. It took nearly twelve years to receive the first Badaga convert. However, not all the Badagas remained adamant. There were a few hopeful cases that preceded the first fruit. The Badagas looked at the missionary activities with suspicion. The Badaga parents refused to send their children to the mission schools35. After 13 years of labour, a few Badagas were baptised (Francis 1908, p. 125). Christianity produced contradictory but long-lasting effects in the midst of the local communities of Badagas. Mr. Risch of the Kaity station reported an incident of a departing little boy who lamented to his mother: ‘I now go to Jesus and joyfully look forward to be with Him, if you wish to see me again you must become His disciple’.36
Education was popularised among the Badagas, and in 1874, the Mission started a school in Kaity valley for the benefit of the Badaga children (Francis 1908, p. 127).37 The approaches and partially successful attempts of the Christian Mission in converting the Badagas remarkably went into the ecclesiastical channels in the Hills.38 More or less, the Badaga Christians emerged as a separate entity and a powerful social group which was recognised by rest of the people in the region.
These positive responses from the Badagas had problems too. Anything ‘unnatural’ in the Hills was attributed to the spread of Christianity for which both the missionaries and the Christian converts were looked at with suspicion and anger. The outbreak of epidemics (cholera in 1854, smallpox in 1855, and plague in 1877) was blamed on Christian sorcery,39 for which the angry Badagas burnt down the Mission’s house at Kaity.
In spite of the Badaga hostility, in the wake of the Indian Mutiny, a Badaga, Halaiya by name, embraced Christianity in 1858. He was the first Badaga to do so. As a matter of assistance, during natural calamities and epidemics, some of the Badagas were helped with both money and goods in kind (Hockings 1980, p. 189).40 The Badagas, who had criticised the Gospel for quite a long, but changed their attitude over time, and many of them became disciples of Christ as well. The missionaries were almost on terms of friendship with most of them. Mr. Wieland mentioned how well some Badagas were acquainted with the Bible.41
5. Theology of ‘Praxis Piety’ as a Social Change in Kerala
Christian missionaries were pioneers in different fields pertaining to the development of modernity in south India, and posing challenges to traditional cultures and societal frameworks. Starting from the first printing press in the 16th century to establishing schools (notably for girls also) for the wide extension of literacy and vocational training, serving medical aid, etc., the major undertakings were carried out by the missionaries (Kent 2004, p. 141). However, missionary undertakings differed by region as well as theologically and ideologically, depending on the nature of that particular organisation.
By the beginning of the 19th century, two missionary societies namely, the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and the London Missionary Society (LMS) were already functioning in Kerala. Both these societies had their headquarters in London. The LMS started its activities in Southern Travancore in 1806, while the CMS started operations in Central Travancore in 1820 (Agur 1903). The missionary enterprise of these two missionary organizations involved establishment of schools and college, printing presses, and seminaries for training of priests and church workers. They also enjoyed some amount of patronage from the government. Therefore, many of the converts could enter into government service at various levels. However, the missional focus of Basel Mission was different from that of the LMS and the CMS. The Mission had both educational an industrial orientation, and many of the missionaries belonged to the class of craftsmen. At the Home Board level, officials were also businessmen and theologians. Therefore, from the very beginning, the Basel Mission began to experiment with crafts, both traditional and modern, because the issue of joblessness cropped among the indigenous Christian converts. The end result was that the Basel Mission established modern tile factories and weaving factories of that time (Raghaviah 1990).
The factories (see Table 1) were modern factories compared to those that existed in Europe during that period. The weaving industry of the Basel Mission produced various types of new products like damask linen counterpanes, towels, trousers, coats, shirts, and jersey and hosiery products. Most of these products were utilised for export purposes. One of the missionaries thought that pottery, a traditional craft in India, might be another promising field for a workshop, and in 1865, he started producing tiles in the ‘Basel Mission Tile Works’, a very modest workshop with just two workers. The workshop was soon expanded to become a factory that employed 6- workers by 1871 and 131 in 1880. Two years later, the workshops and factories were merged with the Mission Trading Company. Additional tile works were set up, and these factories became the largest of all. The tile industry produced various types of ceramic products like roofing tiles, flooring tiles, salt glazed pipes, ornamental pottery, ceiling tiles, and ventilator tiles (Fischer 1985, pp. 200–15).
The ultimate result of all these activities (see, Table 2) was the emergence of a new group of people, including Christian converts as well as non-converts who had come to close proximity with the Basel Mission. These included non-Christian workers in tile and weaving factories, school teachers, and workers in hospitals. These people resided on the fringes of the Malabar society but strongly demonstrated an alternate value base and a corresponding life style (Bourdieu 1979).42 The total employment in the Weaving Establishment with a tailoring department at Cannanore and its branches at Chombala and Tellicherry was eight hundred and fifty-two. The Weaving Establishment at Calicut also gave employment to around seven hundred and sixty-four Christian men and women. The Tile works at Puthiyara employed 85 Christian men, 60 Christian women, six inquirers, 95 Hindus, and four Muslims.43 The reasons that led to the establishment of workshops included the problem of school leavers, an attempt to bring at least the younger converts away from their current environment, and, in the longer term, the improvement of the prospects of converts from lower castes. Saving money for the mission was also an important consideration. Another reason was that many of the early converts were palm-wine tappers who produced and sold alcohol. These activities did not seem to be suitable as a trade for a Christian (Stenzl 2010).
One of the best means to prepare hearts for the Gospel message were the schools. For here, the missionaries not only could sow the seed into fresh good human soil, but through the children, they often came in contact with the parents. The number of Basel Mission Primary schools for non-Christians in Malabar was 23 (including two for girls) and in Nilgiris was 29; lower secondary and high schools: six and three in Malabar respectively.
Dr. Gundert, a brilliant scholar of the Tubingen University, gave his life to the literary and educational work of the mission. He was the author of the first Standard Dictionary and Grammar in Malayalam apart from the many text books in history, geography, and other subjects for the mission. He had contributed greatly to cultural efflorescence (Thomssen 1905, p. 15). In 1890, Malabar got its own Theological Seminary at Nettur. Since then, the workers for Canara, S. Mahratta, Coorg, and the Nilgiris have been trained at the Mangalore Seminary and workers for Malabar have received training at the Nettur Seminary.44 In addition to the educational institutions, the mission also maintained two orphanages and four hospitals for the benefit of the society.
Rev. J. Josenhans, principal of the college for missionaries at Basel and General Secretary of the Mission, had put forward certain regulations which guided the missionaries. They even compiled those to a short compendium of church rules. In 1851, there were four congregations with a membership of about fifty in Malabar.45 By 1913, it had grown to eight stations and about 40 outstations, with a membership of nearly seven thousand and six hundred. This progress was not, however, confined to numerical strength. During these six decades, the church had been gradually advancing towards the attainment of both self-support and self-government.46 To enable each church to look after its own spiritual want, he also created church funds, which he endowed with fields and coconut gardens, formerly belonging to the Mission, and imposed church taxes and encouraged charity.47 However, for the Badagas, material considerations had played a greater part in effecting conversions. They went ‘to the Mission house more often for temporal than spiritual aid’.48 Had the Mission advanced loans or monetary help to all such Badagas who came to the Mission, the number of converts would have considerably increased. However, the missionaries did not take advantage of such instances for engineering mass conversion, rather, steadily aimed at preparing the Badaga Christians to be self-reliant and independent of the missionaries in things pertaining to their livelihood. This attitude of the missionaries grew not due to sympathy ‘but by principle’.49 The mercantile establishment in Calicut formed a separate branch, carried on from funds altogether distinct from the Mission funds. ‘Money-making’ had never been the chief purpose of those establishments; one of the main motives was the training of natives for honest trade.50 The object of the Basel Mission mercantile and industrial establishments was to assist the Christians whom the Mission had employed, to acquire after some time own houses and compounds. For this purpose, ‘Saving and Loan Funds’ had been founded in connection with the workshops. The beneficial effects of these institutions on the temporal condition of the Christians and their moral and religious life could not be underrated.51 Therefore, trade and industry in the Basel Mission developed not from an economic strategy, but in response to the needs to solve the local problems.
The Basel Mission which came to Malabar and the Nilgiris with the avowed aim of Christianisation, however, could not achieve the degree of success it wanted, but its labours produced far-reaching results in other walks of life. The impact of their work, in areas of education, social protection, preservation and protection of native art forms, and creative output and public health, was of greater magnitude. The Basel missionaries and their culture created an alternative and competitive network of social relations and attempted to change the traditional culture of the region.
Caste is one of the oldest institutions in India. It is believed that one is born into a caste and dies as the member of the same caste. Therefore, mobility in caste, unlike class, is not a feasible option in a traditional caste society. Even culture, in terms of dress, food habits, personal names, etc., is determined by the respective caste to which one belongs (Dirks 2001; Ghurye 1950; Béteille 1965; Srinivas 1962; Olcott 1944). In this context, the Basel Mission attempted to demolish the notion of caste among the converts. The missionaries could secure converts from high, middle, and lower castes and simultaneously embraced the notion of ‘purity and pollution’ attached to the lower caste (Dumont 1980). An individual, after conversion to Christianity, used to lose his job, for which the Basel Mission started with social engineering among the converts who left their traditional occupations and learnt new activities. New lines of employment included working in the weaving and tile factories, which involved association with machines. Other opportunities included work at schools and hospitals. So, these vocational professions had no room for caste differentiation (Raghaviah 2017). The main aim of these establishments was to teach the converts an honest labour and trade, to provide them the possibility to earn a livelihood without asking for alms, and thus have a sedentary life. The different managers of these establishments exercised particular supervision over the moral conduct of their employees and tried to advance them in religion as well. They acted as assistants to the pastoral work.52
In Kerala, there was no concept of specific working hours, and it stretched to an extent of personal deprivation. Before starting factories, the Basel Mission had tried to introduce modern crafts like watch making and repairing which would develop a sense of time in people. However, due to lack of local demand, this endeavour did not meet with much success. The factories established by the Mission did instilled a sense of discipline with respect to time. Every activity in the factories followed a specific schedule, and the workers had to adapt themselves to the new system of ‘work-related sense of self’ (Raghaviah 2017)53. This changed the attitude towards work and shows how the concept of ‘praxis piety’ determined each undertaking of the Basel Mission.
In the field of science, the Basel Missionaries encountered a different atmosphere in India. Starting from identifying good clay and diagnosing diseases to using horoscopes, all were deemed as ‘scientific activities.’ It was George Plebst, who was the first to establish a tile factory at Mangalore and was supposed to have used the expertise of a local potter in identifying the suitable clay for making tiles which was then tested in laboratories of Switzerland, only to find that those clay samples were feldspar materials. This meant that, in the later stages, clay was scientifically tested for its durability and strength. Traditional potters also came to know of these qualities of feldspar a little differently, although they failed to classify it (Raghaviah 2017).54 Still, this transition of scientific knowledge was an important contribution of the Basel missionaries.
During the work of Basel Mission, the indigenous population also received instructions from the Roman Catholics thrice a day and had to undergo all kinds of spiritual exercises before baptism. This generosity attracted masses, but it did last for long. After being baptised, the new converts were not kept under supervision, and had to find a livelihood of their own. If they failed to do so, the converted Christians were turned into beggars. On Christmas, around four hundred and thirty beggars came to Mr. Ritter’s bungalow and about three hundred of them were Roman Catholics. In the Report of the Fourth Decennial Indian Missionary Conference held in Madras 1902.
there are three great evils which exist more or less in the churches of certain (if not all) districts of India and Ceylon which are great hindrances to the spread of Christ’s Kingdom, viz: caste, debt, and intemperance. These must be purged away before the churches can fulfil their high vocation.
However, these criticisms could not be applied for the Basel Mission in its entirety. Caste spirit had never found a home in Basel Mission churches, and in reality, there was no caste problem in the Mission.55
The convert or candidate for baptism was the one taking the initiative. Crucially, the mission demanded that converts remove all visible signs of caste and cease to observe caste rules. This requirement too was seen as a test of applicants’ sincerity and as a condition for the mission’s support. The converts were also expected to disassociate themselves from non-Christians. Therefore, conversion clearly involved much more complex reasons and consequences than the conventional representation of the convert as a hapless victim of social and economic exclusion. Marginalisation and exclusion of converts did happen, but it was in a sense of a mutual exclusion for which, conversion was not just a personal, spiritual, or emotional experience and transformation. Whether it was seen as an act of contestation, emancipation, or a search for social mobility, it had wider repercussions. For the converts, conversion meant both the ‘deracination from a familiar world to which they had once belonged’ and integration into a new community with its own stringent rules. The new allegiance and the severing of ties with family and community changed both the converts and the community they left (Oddie 1977). The mission’s strategies of forming communities that were as far as possible detached from previous lifestyles and religious observances, and also independent from the society surrounding them, were not just responses to but triggered by local resistance. Similar to the aspirations of pietist communities in Württemberg, the Basel Mission attempted to build ‘purely’ Christian communities, an ideal that was central to their mission. Such communities were thought to be essential to ensure that conversions were durable and self-sufficient. The endogamous Christian communities, where many worked for the mission in similar jobs, formed a somewhat recognisable pattern in their host society, and all these changes were outcomes of the ‘praxis practice’ model (Kaufmann 1981).
6. Conclusions
The intermingling of theology, mission, and history has been a dominant feature in the history of Christian conversion movement. In a general sense, the history of theology refers to the ‘discourse on God’ which loops in ‘systematic theology’ that formulates rational and coherent accounts of the doctrines of Christian faith and builds on biblical disciplines and church history. History of Christian missions, on the other hand, traces the expansion of Christianity to the colonial world and assesses its position as a major religious force worldwide, championing Christianity over ‘infidelity’. It does not overlook the specific methods undertaken by missionaries. Finally, the history of Christianity refers to the Christian religion, Christendom. Each church denomination is founded on the basis of these principles which play a sine qua non role in promoting different approaches in propagating Christianity (Frykenberg 2003; Young 2009; Robinson and Clarke 2003). Most of the 19th century Protestant missions were organised under the aegis of religious revivalism, and the Evangelical movement which started with a moral focus ended with a focus on performing social responsibility in the respective regions (Chaudhuri 2012, p. 89).56 In due course, the missionary objectives and approaches changed in accordance to the aspirations of the converts (Clarke 2003, p. 339).
In this study, both the Thiyyas and the Badagas responded to the Basel missionaries as active participants due to sufferings related to their low social standing, economic backwardness, and agelong sub-ordination and deprivation under the upper caste Hindus, and later by the European colonisers. For them, changing the religious affiliation was a mode of protest against oppressive dominant group, and without their willingness, conversion would not had taken place (Mosse 2010; Robinson 1998; Caplan 1987). It is undeniable that material benefits were the driving force behind conversion, yet a change in the ‘real-self’ resulted in adaptation of new lifestyle and culture, from religion to vocational training, that was introduced by the Basel missionaries, which ultimately led to an ‘enculturation’ in the region (Michael 2015, pp. 5–6). Therefore, conversion for these groups was a combination of both socio-psychological and socio-historical process. Although the story of Christian conversion had been a constant process of ‘push and pull’ which had its expression in both religious and cultural migration, there were ‘mass movements’ among the outcastes and the adivasis (tribal). However, it will be quite an exaggeration to state that the converts received welcoming responses from both their society and the Europeans and received equal treatment from the upper-caste Christians and ‘born Christians’57 because being a Christian or a Hindu was not just a matter of personal identity but had social and institutional implications as well (Amaladoss 2011, pp. 135–54). Conversion altered the demographic equation in a society and also challenged the religious doctrines and practices of the upper caste community (Viswanathan 1998). So, for the converts, it was an intolerable predicament of entering into a ‘social and cultural no-man’s land’ (Copley [1997] 2000, p. 187). Moreover, conversion involved ‘civil death’ by severing connections with the relatives who chose to remain non-converts. Therefore, religious conversion could be interpreted in a complex ‘index of material and social conflict’ (Viswanathan 1998, p. 76). Also, starting from a historical context, then moving through critical circumstances, and finally ending up in witnessing both positive and negative consequences, the conversion experiences among the Thiyyas and the Badagas fit well into the Seven-Stage Model.
Unlike the Roman Catholics, who from the beginning regarded the caste structure as the basis of the society, had no intention in detaching the converts from the social context, and worked among the high castes making their mission work easier (Forrester 1980; Bugge 1994), the Protestant missionaries with a strong Pietistic background (Frykenberg 2008) arrived in South India for ‘missionizing (of) the “heathens” seriously by teaching and educating the local people from various caste communities’ (Jeremiah 2020, p. 24). The Basel Mission operated in Kerala with both theological and missiological ideologies within the broader framework of active piety which aimed at providing livelihood (an attempt for which they had been labelled as a ‘towel mission’), and making the converts independent. This motive manifested with the establishment of industrial ‘prototype’. Because individual preaching was a part of the ‘systematic theology’, the Basel missionaries gave much importance to it, for which they had to be adept in local languages. Considering the social position and plight of the lower castes, the Mission aimed in training indigenous workers by establishing colleges and seminaries and setting up factories for heuristic purposes, which ultimately evolved and developed into a full-fledged business sector over time, providing a livelihood for a number of people. In the caste society where subordination depended on hierarchy, the Basel missionaries provided these outcastes with an opportunity to experience an alternative sphere of modernity and equality in the world of Christ, which was central to the theme of ‘praxis piety’ (Bugge 1994, p. 93; Menon 2002). Some might argue that this attempt to homogenise the indigenous people in terms of religion and culture, ultimately destroyed the traditional legacy, history of the people, and affected the social equation, which led to local resistances from the non-converts (Etherington 1976). Nevertheless, the pros and cons of religious conversion is an unending debatable issue. But, because the concept of ‘national park’ for retaining the indigeneity of the people, as suggested by Verrier Elwin (1958, 1964), is a bit anachronistic; therefore, for the advancement of the marginalised section per se, introduction of ‘modern’ amenities was necessary to cope with the trends of ‘mainstream civilisation’. Therefore, the core theory of ‘practice praxis’ and the notion of progress and development had a larger impact on both the individual and the society which ultimately led Kerala to emerge as a ‘model state’ in India (Mohan 2015; Desai 2005).
Enlarge this image.Figure 1. Map of India. The south Indian states are Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. (https://visimaps.blogspot.com/2016/04/south-india-map.html, accessed on 13 February 2021).
Enlarge this image.Figure 2. Source: Created by referring to the Gazetteer and other records. Geographical extent of the Malabar District, Kerala with its revenue divisional head-quarters and Taluks. Cirakkal, Kottayam, Wayanad, Kurumbranad, Calicut, Ernad, Ponnani, Walluvanad, and Palghat together form the Malabar. (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Malabar_District_Map.jpg, accessed on 20 January 2021).
Enlarge this image.Figure 3. Source: Geographical position of the Nilgiris bounded by the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala (https://badaga.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/nilgiris.jpg, accessed on 13 February 2021).
| Type of Industry | Number of Units (Including All the Mission Stations) |
|---|---|
| Tile factory | 10 |
| Weaving establishment | 8 |
| Total | 18 |
Source: (Annual Sixty-Fifth Report of the Basel German Evangelical Mission in South West India for the Year 1904; Annual Report of the Basel Mission for the Year 1906; Annual Seventy-First Report of the Basel German Evangelical Mission in South West India for the Year 1910).
| Type of Technology | Impact | Utility |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction of fly shuttle | Increases productivity of weaver from 50 to 200 percent depending on the width of cloth | Adopted |
| Use of frame looms | Weaving cloth of greater weft in comparison with pit loom | Adopted |
| Introduction of Jacquard looms | Weaving a variety of designs | Adopted |
| Use of chemical dyes | Yarn can be dyed to a wide variety of colour combinations | Adopted |
| Development of ‘Khakhi’ dye from the bark of a tree | This colour came to be adopted in uniform for army | New units did not make any inventions in dyeing |
| Establishment of a dye house | Specialization, vertical integration of weaving | In Kannur region specialized units for dyeing did come up |
| Introduction of machine power for handloom industry for spool winding, dyeing, etc | Improvement in the productivity of handloom | Only one or two large units used machine power |
| Introduction of power loom | Large scale manufacture of standard designs | One or two large units introduced power loom |
Source: (Raghaviah 2017).
Funding
This research received no external funding.
Acknowledgment
I am indebted to Raj Sekhar Basu for introducing me to this genre in history writing, and his constant encouragement made me write this article for the journal. Also, my heartfelt gratitude to Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi and the reviewers whose comments have not only helped to improve my article, but also came as a learning experience to me.
Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflict of interest.
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Tiasa Basu Roy
Department of History, Visva-Bharati University, Bolpur 731235, India
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