CASTE PRACTICE IN THE SOUTH INDIAN CHURCHES

CASTE PRACTICE IN THE SOUTH INDIAN CHURCHES

INTRODUCTION
Christians, in the present century, have realized the importance of abolishing caste practice, as it is a great obstacle for extending the kingdom of God than ever before. From the beginning of the Aryan invading, it has been followed in Hinduism, later the converts brought, this practice, into the churches. However, caste practice is not a new phenomena in the early protestant churches. Sadly, even the present Christians are not exceptional to continue with the same practice, though many native and western missionaries have raised their voices against this social evil.
This paper is an attempt to analyse the caste practices of Protestant Churches in South India from eighteenth to twentieth centuries through analysing the primary sources.
DEFINITION
According to J. A. Sharrock, the SPG missionary, Caste is “the bane of Hindu society, and it is retarding the social and political progress of the country.”[1]
Rev. J. Cooling, defines, “Caste or caste system is all those social customs or usages of the Hindus for which they claim religious sanction, and as religion with a Hindu extends to almost synonymous with the whole social system of the Hindus.”[2]
However, it is the Brahmanical idea, in which they have claimed their superiority among all the different communities throughout the centuries, and made the people to be under their slavery.
ORIGIN
According to Rev. J. Colling, “when the immigrants [Aryans] from Central Asia gained possession of the fertile tracts of land in the valleys of the Indus and the Ganges, they developed a social organization with the complete division of labour.”[3] Different people were assigned to do different jobs; the priest, village accountant, schoolmaster, milkman and the potter. In this way, the same job was passed to the next generation, later the birth determined someone’s social position and his occupation in life – in other words, and he is born into a particular caste. Colling describes that it was to the interests of the Priests who had arrogated to themselves the highest rank in the social scale and taught that these divisions of men were ordained by God.[4]
In seventeenth century, Robert De Nobili, the Jesuit priest practiced the caste system in his mission to indianize the gospel. According to his Madura mission, “Brahmin sannyasis were arranged to work among the high castes, and the Pandaraswamis were arranged to work among the Sudras and the depressed classes.” [5] Thus, the caste practice came into Church. Later the Protestant missionaries [ziegenbalg and others] could not stop those practices in the Church. The earlier Tranquebar protestant missionaries first served the communion to the Sudras, then to the other caste Christians. Schultze, the missionary, tried to stop this distinction, but he was opposed by the Sudras. According to C. B. Firth, in 1725, Walther and Pressier brought the same old practice in Tranquebar mission.[6]
In 1833, Bishop Daniel Wilson came to visit South India. He was shocked to see the Sudras and Adi Dravida Christians sit separately in the Church. Seeing that, he issued a strong pastoral letter to stop the caste practice in the Church. The Catechists of Madras, Tanjore and Trichinopoly refused to follow the Bishop’s policy. According to Firth, after 1816, many members of the old congregations joined the Leipzig mission, where the caste system was willingly followed.[7]
The missionaries of Tranquebar and Tanjore, who went to Tinnevelly very early to preach the gospel, injected the caste practice into the Churches. Rev. Paul said, “The northern [Tranquebar] friends have spoiled the Tinnevelly Church with regard to caste. They publicly preached the gospel and privately preached caste.”[8]
The gospel lifted the social condition of the Shannars of Tinnevelly in eighteenth century. Meanwhile, they were not content with the lowly place in the social scale that Hinduism assigned to them, as the Christian education taught the equality of all castes. In 1889, The Harvest Field, the Christian Madras magazine reports that the Shannar Christians are the one who gave life to the caste spirit among the non-Christian Shannars. It said, “Christians are accused of starting the Kshatriya theory of the origin of the Shannar caste and of giving active encouragement in money and arms to the heathen Shannars, when they contended for the right of entry into Hindu temples.”[9]
THE MANIFESTATION OF CASTE IN CHRISTIANITY
In eighteen and nineteen centuries, According to Walker, caste practice kept the Christians separately from his fellow Christians. Inter-marriages took place with the heathen.[10]
The caste practice was a big challenge for the new converts. When someone from a particular caste becomes Christian, and joins the local church of other castes, He and his family completely severed from his own community and relatives.[11]
The Harvest Field 1818 said, “The Christian Church is being pressed on many sides to relax its rules with regard to the renunciation of caste by converts before Baptism.” but still the door of the Church should not open to these outcastes.[12]
In 1900, Rev J. P. Jones made a list of the manifestations of caste practice. Caste divides the congregation; according to Jones, “in a country congregation it is not frequent that representatives of more than one caste are found.”[13] It frequently stops the growth of a congregation by keeping out of it members of other castes. It does not accept the catechists or pastors from a lower social background, which was determined by the Hindu customs. It prevents Christians from inter-dinning or love feast, which was followed in the churches to show the equality of oneness in Christ. Jones adds, “Love feast was tried with disastrous effects.”[14]
CASTE OPPRESSION SOCIETY
In 1893, J.A Sharrock, and few earnest Christians founded the “Caste Oppression Society” in Tuticorin, to put down the great evil of caste in the Church of Christ. At this time, the use of caste-titles was beginning to be universally adopted by all Christians in the South. The object of this society is to do something – to work and not merely talk. Members of this society are asked to pledge themselves; not to use caste-title themselves, to allow free intercourse in their houses to one another, to encourage inter-marriage and inter-dining.[15]
VOICES OF ANTI-CASTE LEADERS
In the very beginning, the missionaries did not understand that caste practice was the chief root of the Hinduism. They thought that it was only a parasitic plant and that it was not part of the Hinduism.[16] However, in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Foreign missionaries and few Indian Christian leaders condemned the caste practice in the Churches. The Harvest Field, Madras (monthly Christian magazine) and the Christian Patriot, Madras (Weekly Newspaper of the Native Christians) also often raised the voice against the same issue.
The editors of the Harvest Field, in 1893, wrote that the founders of the Protestant Churches, Ziegenbalg, Schwartz and others, did not fully understand the religion and customs of the country. It is true that they tolerated the caste practice. But now, the educated section of the Hindu community is looking to the Christian Church as to how it is going to deal with this deal. The Harvest Field challenged the Christian saying, “we would earnestly appeal to all who have influence in the Christian Church to set their practices as a flint against the caste spirit which is so totally opposed to the spirit of Christianity.”[17]
According to Rev. Gnanaprakasham, advocates of caste suppression go to the extent of saying that mass movements are mot to be encouraged, as such tend to perpetuate caste feelings and give no scope for intermarriage. Where is the necessity for intermarriage? People intermarry without becoming Christians. Money, influence, beauty, some other advantage or desirability brings about such social changes.[18]
While speaking against the caste practice, Rev. Gnanaprakasam, in 1918, said “we seem to lose sight of the fact that Christianity is a universal religion.”[19] J. A. Sharrock said, “To use a caste-title is to salute the enemy’s flag, even if it is not surrender the key of the fortress.”[20] He raised a question, why our native pastors instead of condemning caste too often practice it? He says that it will affect their pockets. “Even if they pour out a stream of words on its theoretic evils, they are most careful to use the Hindu appellations when addressing the great ones of their flocks.”[21]
Rev. J.P. Jones, the anti-caste writer told, “whenever I see caste influence and caste observance in the Christian Church I feel with the growing conviction, that I am gazing not upon a ‘remnant’, but upon Hinduism incarnate.”[22] Jones compared caste spirit as anti-Christ in the Church of God, and sadly expressed that even a man who has been born a Christian of the fourth generation is as truly caste-ridden as the latest arrival of Hinduism. Jones recommended the inter-caste marriage as a way of solving this issue.
While taking about the “Spiritual Life in the Indian Church”, in 1902, Rev. T. Walker described caste practice as “the prevalence of unholy systems”, “fruitful source of many evils”, which militates powerfully against the development of the spiritual life.[23]
In 1892, Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah founded the “Christian Brotherhood Association”, to fight against the caste spirit among the students and to inspire spiritual renewal.[24] Azariah was not impressed by the heathen common practice among Christians of heightening, what he referred to us, “the mythology of Nadar greatness.”[25] Therefore, he began his student activist career by taking aim at the sins of his own people rather than at the sins of his British rulers.
CASTE TODAY
Even in this modern century, caste did not leave even in the so-called charismatic churches. When the mainline churches practice the caste directly, the Pentecostal churches practice indirectly. People talk or writes against this social evil, but not practiced in themselves. Today, the trend has come to exist in the churches, saying that if you are not able to abolish the caste practice, it is not a problem as long as you try not to put down other castes. Instead of abolishing, today, the issue is being polished.
LESSONS AND CHALLENGES FOR TODAY
Caste practice is an ongoing challenge in the Indian Churches. It has been a great obstacle for the dalits to come to Christianity in the present decade. For this reason, many dalits in India prefer to join Buddhism. This issue cannot be destroyed only through the surface level of preaching, saying that – all humans are equal. Instead of that, the foundation and origin of the Brahmanical root should be known to all the Christians. The history should re-written to the Christians to reveal the fact.
Inter-marriage is one of the ways to destroy the caste practice in the future generation. But in today’s urban context, people easily get marry, when the beauty, education attracts one another, even though they are from different castes. The question arises here, how far will they able to witness to others as a true Christian? So, the inter-marriage should be encouraged especially in rural areas as it has a strong hold caste practice.
A policy should be made to have the low-caste pastors in the churches. But, the acceptance and co-operation of the congregation to the pastor only brings success to this issue.
Christian magazines can often emphasize the “Brotherhood”, as all human beings are created in the image of God. A formal friendship with other caste person should lead to the fellowship without any feeling in the heart.
Love feast can be arranged in the Churches to show the equality of Christian teaching with other castes. This should be followed sincerely from the heart. The present politicians follow the inter-dining method to attract the people and to get vote.
Bible colleges, seminaries can teach on the same subject, and should influence students to fight against one’s own community issue. A writer will be accepted when he reveals his own people ignorance.
CONCLUSION
As the caste system denies the human dignity and violate against the constitutional rights, it is the responsibility of the Christians to fight against this social evil. It is a challenge for every Christian to prove Jesus Christ in his life through accomplishing at lest one task in his life time against caste practice. A Christian has to show to his own community that he is above all the sin; through having inter-marriage, inter-dining, writings or something else, which related to this issue. There are many practical possibilities can be visually done to abolish the caste practice. Still, the writer strongly feels that people need a change in their attitude and in heart, which can bring the real koinonia (fellowship) among all the communities or castes.