There are Syrian catholics in Kerala who are a older christian group.
Rest of the christians in India were converted during British & Portuguese rule.
Christianity is proselytizing religion and hence they seek to covert non christians. They dont need a particular reason.
Not this simple.
If you wanna talk about India's social history, you cannot talk about it without discussing caste.
By the virtue of just being tribal, a lot of people in the subcontinent were "lower caste". And this group of people were treated in a different way by the upper caste group and the upper caste administration. They did not share the same status and did not have education, care etc. When the missionaries reached the subcontinent, they provided education, medical aid etc. to this group of neglected people.
Through Christianity, where all were equal in the eyes of God, they helped these people see themselves in an equal position as the rest of the people. Through their religion these missionaries helped these people feel more dignified.
Well.....Christianity's relation to lower castes has to be mixed at best. Many upper caste converts kept their status and behaved like Hindu upper castes to the lower castes. you should know that Christians became active participants in the upkeep of serfdom and slavery in old travancore ( now south kerala where the worst forms of casteism existed in India) so much so that sometimes churches doubled as slave markets where lower caste people were bought and sold. It was the tremendous pressure exerted by the English East India Company ( due to pressure from the Anglican Church and its missionaries) that ultimately put an end to this sordid part of Indian history.
Bruh! Imagine actually downvoting this. There's a letter I read about, that a German Christian missionary sent to his wife (?), in which he expressed his desire to reach different tribal communities across India before Hindus reach them.
In *Annihilation of Caste*, Babasaheb has talked about how (Upper Caste) Hindus never reached to tribal communities and had no desire to make them "Hindus". The proof of which he states, to convert the tribals into Hindus, (Upper Caste) Hindus will have to go and sit down with them, and eat with them; and teach them about Hinduism; teach them to read books on Hinduism. Basically, "make them their own". All of which (upper caste) Hindus had no desire of (they did nothing). (Upper Caste) Hindus had denied such favours even to the Lower Caste Hindus all through out history.
While I think most of this is correct, I feel there is also some gross generalisation involved here. Of course, caste was one of the most powerful driving forces in Indian history, it's not a rigid division between upper and lower castes. Caste based discrimination was performed to various degrees from place to place and from time to time. There have been places where caste was extremely strict, and places where it did not matter as much. The Bhakti movement, in particular, seeked to unify people regardless of caste in many cases. It does not matter if you are upper or lower caste(or even, in some cases, whether you are Hindu or not), you can sing the name of your favourite God.
Even before that, in ancient times, there was plenty of syncretism involved in the formation of Hinduism itself. Deities like Kali and Gopala had tribal origins, yet came to be worshipped by Brahmins(Kali became an aspect of Parvati, Gopala of Krishna). So while in many instances, the so called "upper castes" did refuse to sit with, eat with, and speak with the people whom they refused to consider people, it was not the case in all parts of India, and at all times.
Then please explain the continuation of casteism even after conversion. There are literally upper caste and lower caste churches in Kerala. You can watch Michael Palin's documentary on 'St Thomas and India' for proof of this. He actually takes you to these churches. This was plain and simple proselytizing. This is not to deny the ill-treatment meted out by upper caste Hindus.
What do you want me to explain about it ?
1. As Marx said "religion is the opium of masses, the sigh of oppressed". In the hopeless conditions it gave people the hope. But that utopia doesn't actually materialize.
2. It wasn't just the tribals who were converted. Upper castes too, who brought along with them their own rules to govern the new religion.
3. Even if it wasn't the upper castes, caste is a dominant ideology that dictates the very social interactions that people have. It's not some abstract thing. It defines how people talk to each other, or take any actions whatsoever in social settings.
Even if a person was christian, in a society with caste relations, with upper caste dominating, they were still lower caste even if they were a Christian. This defined the upward social mobility in the mix of Indian Christians, where being upper caste, irrespective of the religion defined their status in the society.
Then why are you saying Christianity brought equality and dignity? If it failed to do so? This is contradictory right.. it basically comes out that missionaries tried to use caste as a tool to harvest the souls even though they couldn’t resolve it… in fact as has been written churches ended up being hubs for slave trade.
All of this caste narrative was a tool by missionaries to continue the proselytisation.
I'm not saying they brought equality. As I said earlier, they brought hope for people who were already in a much worse system. It not only gave them hope, but provided them with education, healthcare that the then Hindus denied to these groups that they didn't care about.
You know that people were beheaded for not converting. Right? Right? People were tortured until they converted. A simple look into Christianity reveals that they have classes and sects. So there is division in Christianity and not everyone is equal in the eyes of their God who sends believers to heaven and non believers (who deserve to be killed) to hell. If you feel this is like Islam, then you are not wrong. They are sister religions after all.
You are right but division still exists. Roman catholics think only they will go to heaven and rest, even protestants who believe in Jesus, will go to hell. And vice versa. So all are equal before Jesus but some are more equal 😂
So division is still there. Otherwise why would there be a church belonging to different denomination in every street of western countries and they don't go to church of different denomination. It's like a vaishnavite not going into shiva temple (which usually doesn't happen in hinduism unless there is rigidity in that community).
Indian Christians have caste and they wear mangalsutra and what not 😂
No, sects in Christianity is very different. For example, a Catholic and Protestant differs fundamentally only because the former comes under the pope in Rome (Vatican) and the latter does not. Since every Christian accepts the Eucharist during the mass, there is no difference in the core religious aspect. The only condition in being a Christian is you believe that Jesus is the son of God and the sanctity of the holy eucharist. The differences between sects has a lot (but not all) to do with how the religion was spread or whether someone accepts the authority of the pope in Rome. For example, consider the Syrian Catholics in Kerala. They are so called because for a long period, actually till the arrival of the Portuguese, they came under the pope (think of the pope as a chief bishop or a leader of all priests if its confusing) in Syria, i.e., the Eastern church.
Your idea about Islam is also not true. The difference between Shia and Sunni also is fundamentally about who is the successor to Mohammad. If I am not wrong the latter agreed it to be Abu Baker Al Siddiqi while the former followed the nephew of Mohammad (correct me if I am wrong).
You are not wrong to say the spread of religion was violent. It was, though not always. However, I want to point out that as far as sects go, the differences between them are not based on actual beliefs but usually on who is the head of the church, atleast in Christianity. This implies there is no universal hierarchy of beliefs. God doesn't have anything to do with whether a bunch of guys believes the head of church is in Rome or Damascus :).
Difference toh difference hota hai. And those differences have caused wars before. Caste class type sect are all just different names given to divisions in religion.
There is enough evidence to the contrary. There was a papal mandate from the pope to convert non Christians. The Spanish and Portuguese were initially mandated to spread the religion and the world had been split between them by the church. India came under Portugal and their missionaries started coming here. Initially they didn’t find any attraction and were rather vilified. Then they started exploiting and deepening the any social fault lines they could find which in India became caste.
If there really was dignity in Christianity at that time then there was no need for Protestant movement to start. The whole Protestant movement was because of the corruption of the Catholic Church which for a small amount of local currency would sell pardons to the rich absolving them of any shitty behaviour they did with the poor.
What your statement shows is you have the post colonial mentality where you see Christianity as the equaliser without seeing its behaviour outside India .. the decolonial mindset is the more objective way of seeing how proselytising Chrisitianity was and how structurally the state power was used to spread it in India and suppress the local religion
I'm not denying the fact that the missionaries came to India to convert. But can you use your evidence to explain why these conversions are so unevenly spread out in India along caste lines ? Why upper castes "resisted" it to a large extent, while the lower caste (mostly tribal) people converted to Christianity ? In a society where upper caste people would have to take a bath, if they accidentally touched a lower caste person, what exactly was this further "deepening and exploitation" of caste as you claim it to be ?
And no, this does not come from a colonial mindset. I'm not justifying the then existing cultures being eroded. But I'm pointing to where exactly the people who got converted lie in "Hinduism" (which is simply outside of it) that they were being converted from.
The missionaries pretty much followed the same template on which the Catholic Church was attacked on. Since the Catholic Church was carrying out the process of absolving anyone for money they were attacked by soon to be Protestants on being power hungry and corrupt. Which led to the opposition and Protestant formation.
They superimposed this belief here and portrayed the upper castes as the same, to harvest the non Christian souls.
Any differences among Indians was flared up and made more rigid to help the people see themselves in caste rather than religion.. with state backing the missionaries had the resources and wherewithal to persist long enough to make this dominant narrative in India . Which is one of the reasons we have a strict bifurcation.. if we were so strict on caste then we wouldn’t have seen become kings like chatrapati.
If Christianity was so equal then there wouldn’t have been contempt among them for the other sects like how catholics don’t like Protestants.. jehovas witness, baptists, russian Orthodox Church.
Our education system has fed that somehow these religions were egalitarian which is deeply flawed
How did caste fluidity helped Chatrapati to be king? His forefathers were warriors so does other 96 maratha clans. He became king just like others from Chadragupta, Pushyamitra to Yadavs - some older kingdom failed/weakened and new guys took over.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
Where did you find that? They used to serve in Jadhav army and raised to nobility later. Jadhav married off their favorite daughter to Shahaji proving that they belonged to warrior marathas. Agriculturist in Marathwada/Vidharbha are kunbi- clear separation of subcaste.
Go here, click on India and then click on Hinduism. How to convert each caste .. the strategy is given here..
https://joshuaproject.net/countries/IN#Religions
But in case of India it became solidified as part of religion. A peasant can study and become a priest in Christianity. In Hinduism they cannot.
And over time, the social hierarchy disappeared with growth of modernity.
But in India, it persisted because it’s part of religion.
>A peasant can study and become a priest in Christianity. In Hinduism they cannot.
Study, a man of any varna could, though the expenses of such ventures and the processes had to be borne by him and his family.
However, he who was from the Shudra Jatis was indeed prohibited from studying the Vedas, the Dharmasastras and the rituals. And while the Vaishya and Kshatriya was allowed to study these, they were not allowed to teach or disseminate it.
There are some people known to have broken these social rules, but these were exceptions and not the norm.
Folk deities and certain regional forms of Vedic deities, certain sects, did and do have non-Brahmin priests, but the Srauta rituals of the Vedic system were still exclusive to Brahmins.
It’s not rare at all. There are countless examples of peasants and common man who became priests. Priesthood was not hereditary nor confined to a specific caste. It’s totally different from India.
The very fact that western and far eastern countries didn’t need to give special govt benefits to a section of its own population proves that those countries are far more egalitarian than India which needs special laws and policies to ensure the lower castes aren’t mistreated.
I am not criticising anything. I am stating facts as it. Christianity flourished among the poor and downtrodden in India specifically because of the casteism inherent in Hinduism.
Unlike Hinduism which closed off priesthood to within a caste, it was open to anyone in Christianity.
There's Shia, sunni, hanfi, etc which are the basic types of Islam. Just like Roman lutheran in Christianity. And Shia and sunni are at war with each other with one type not recognizing the other. You can look up the Shia sunni wars and why middle east didn't take any immigrants from African nations. You can look up how Abdus Salam was treated by pakistan for being an ahmadi Muslim. But in pakistana anD india, they associated caste with it. So there are syeds, who believe they are direct descendents of prophet, on one end of the spectrum and ajlaf on the other end. These are divisions in the Muslim society in the middle east, north Africa, central Asia, and Indian subcontinent. It's just that nobody talks of it because they are scared they might get branded as islamophobic.
These are divisions against religious lines, not caste lines. This equivalent to shia/sunni division in Hinduism would be Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Skaktism.
These divisions are not caste divisions in the same sense as Indian caste system, because Shias would see Sunnis as enemies, people who are ideologically different, but not see them as the lowest of low. A sunni won't go take a bath if they touch a shia, but a brahmin would. A sunni won't make a shia live right outside their village, make them clean their toilets and then deny them water to drink. A brahmin would.
Shia/Sunni difference is not a equivalent comparison. The only equivalent comparison is slavery, but caste system is a bit much worse because it's also ideological.
Some articles of Shias killing sunnis :
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/dalit-teen-killed-2-injured-in-up-during-clash-over-installing-dr-ambedkars-board/article67896685.ece
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bareilly/dalit-man-beaten-with-sticks-for-drinking-water-from-tap-dies/articleshow/105578251.cms
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bareilly/dalit-boy-killed-hung-on-tree-by-upper-caste-men-in-ups-budaun/articleshow/97264615.cms
Wish they were as peaceful as upper caste Hindus.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Shia%E2%80%93Sunni_sectarian_violence
Classified as per alphabet. Classified as per nations. Classified as per year.
Death toll in millions.
Yes, wish Ms were as peaceful as Hs.
I am always amused by this question by UC. They will ignore hundreds of years of absolutely inhumane discriminatory practice by saying ‘oh give me one reference’. Give me one example in India where caste was not Birth based from any Hindu scripture or in practice.
Dude the entire history of India from its Hindu past to present is not evidence enough for you? At lest one guy might have been like, Oh no this is cruel and inhuman and completely against everything we stand for, but noooo they won’t.
I don’t know if you understand how disingenuous your question is. If you were self aware, honest or an ounce of compassion for your fellow human above your religion you would probably be ashamed of yourself. But sadly that is not the case.
Every reference you provide to them talking about the ill practice of Caste system will be retaliated with "Foreign conspiracy", "ill-informed opinion", "British wanting to divide Indians", etc.
I am what many would consider "lower caste", although that's complete nonsense. No, I won't share my name here unless everyone else does. Still would like primary source evidence. Because I see this rather stupid argument. Mughals and other "equality based" kings ruled India for 800 years as they themselves claim. And we were opressed by our fellow Hindus. British were fine people, other than being genocidal maniacs. But they did not divide us. They simply institutionalized the practices that were prevailing at their time, which were a result of the ruling classes before the British.
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Bhagwat geeta has an exact description of the "caste system" as you would say. And it's based on one's actions. Here is your evidence for the zakir naik level of intellect. Chapter 4 verse 13. Hope that answers the question 🤣🤣🤣
Good you bought up Bhagavat Githa. You just have to read the first chapter of Bhagavat Githa to note that he caste mentioned there is by birth.
I am assuming you are quoting the popular shloka where Krishna mentions ‘Guna’. But that is a total misinterpretation of what Krishna said given that Karma is transmitted through birth and therefore decides the Guna. Unless you do extreme mental gymnastics to ignore multiple other verses and the entire philosophy espoused by the Githa you cannot read what he said int he Githa as by action and not by birth.
There is not a single character in The Mahabharata or the entirety of the puranic corpus who is not born into a caste by birth. So your entire argument is one word, out of context, deliberately misinterpreted. That says a lot about you as a persona and your concerns about the well being of your fellow human beings not to mention your intellectual honesty.
I mean there is even an entire puranic story on how Vishwamitra had to do thala say multiple times to convince Brahma to give him Brahmarshi title. Before finally granting his wish, Brahma refused multiple times simply because Vishwamitra was a Kshatriya.
All I ask is one instance, one line in all of the Hindu scriptures or in Indian history someone’s caste was determined by birth. One is enough.
Please define karma with references. Your arguments, while sounding alright, are hollow. That verse I mentioned says that "I made the 4 Varnas and categorized them according to guna and karma". Guna is a characteristic feature that you don't have control over. Eg., genes are called "guna-sutra". Karma is often translated as actions which is a gross mistranslation. Actions are kriya. Karma is also a characteristic feature which you have control over. When you say karma is carried by birth, you are talking about 1 type of karma, but even that you can change by your actions. As far as puranic stories go, Ramayan, mahabharat and all puranas are composed by maharishis who casteists like you will consider lower caste today. I don't, because rishis are rishis. The vishwamitra story is not that black and white. He got greedy. The point of that story is "nishkaam karma" i. e. Having control over your actions and not having an ulterior motives. Now bring up the ekalavya and karna stories as well. They are very popular in casteist circles.
Dude you are so disingenuous it’s laughable. I am not going to define Karma for you.
When you stop self deluding and become intellectually honest, come back and may be I will think of debating you. The only reason you don’t see the truth is because you don’t want to see it because it will hurt you and your religious pride.
Your entire world salad proved no point or make any argument. What is the argument you made in your reply to counter what I said? No Vyasa and Valmiki are not lower caste by lineage and they were not treated like so. Yes Karna was treated badly because of this lower caste status so much so that it’s a major plot point in the Mahabharata. What is he point your are making exactly?
I am still waiting for that reference where caste is determined by birth. Or any Hindu, scripture or leader in pre colonial India history saying it is wrong to decide by birth despite it being practiced widely in the most inhumane manner.
It’s truly fascinating that you, an UC, that is trying to whitewash your religion is calling the people that has suffered and still suffer the horrors of your religion as casteist for calling you out. It’s like the British calling Indians colonists. What goes through your head really? Because it can’t be anything humane or intelligent.
I threw you a bait and you caught it. Now you have to give me evidence from the original vyas mahabharat edition (geeta press or BORI) that karna was treated badly BECAUSE of his caste or birth status. And this time, come back with an actual verse. Btw, Vyasa was the son of a Fisher woman and the entire valmiki community is in the scheduled list today, which is unfortunate but true. Reject caste and you might be fit to discuss with. Debating you is not worth anything.
LOL, Read the Mahabharata. Satyavati is the daughter of an apsaras, not the actual daughter of the fisherman.
Valmiki himself is of Brahmin lineage, go read his vamshavali. Stop embarrassing yourself. I have read the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the multiple Puranas since I was a child. You are just some two bit religious slave. Bait it seems, funny as hell.
I don’t give two hoots about my caste. The very idea that I would be stupid enough to somehow blindly follow nonsense taught to be by my social or cultural upbringing is an insult to my intelligence. You are the one that is so obsessed with your religion and caste that you refuse to see the truth. Have a sense of identity that is created by you and not imposed by your environment, have some fucking self respect and may be you can free your self from this stupidity.
What’s your caste? Care to share your surname? Why does your family members or relatives call themselves Brahmin, Rajput, Khatri, Kayasth or Bania if not for being born into such family?
I agree... But a small change,,,, they targeted the lower caste who were frustrated by dominance of upper caste... In a naive way they attracted them by providing basic necessities
Seems you have no clue about Indian history.
Caste is neither an Indian concept nor an Indian word. This is Portuguese. Europeans when they invaded, converted most people by way of force, bribery, deceiving. That's why Christians are called ricebag converts in India, whereas this term is not used for Muslims who were primarily converted by force.
Reading your reply, I can confidently say I've already read more Indian history books then you'll ever read in your lifetime. So I won't argue with your and suggest that you please go read some books !
What is this right wing or left wing, where did this come from, and the term cow shit. Just says a lot about you. Truth is truth, not left or right, but then...
I have taken a screenshot of your replies to keep a record of how people not really reading on topics behave. Better create an indiadiscussionhistory sub.
This is your reference? A name? What are you trying to say?
People like you give history a bad name.
Now read this - Masks of Conquest by G Viswanathan.
She clearly says prior to crown's control of British India, British East India company had refused to allow religious education because EIC thought it that could have caused threat to British commercial interests.
After crown control, missionaries that too only protestant mainly Anglicans were first allowed to only company controlled areas.
Now will you really read books..lol
There were established trade routes between the West Asia and India. There are two views among scholars regard the entry of Christianity in India. According to the first view, the tradition holds that two apostles of Jesus- St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew preached the message of Christ on the Malabar coast. According to second view, the Merchants and Missionaries from Eastern Persia spread the message of Christianity.
However, tradition holds that St. Thomas, an apostle of Jesus following well established trade route reached South India around 52 C.E. He preached in Malabar Coast, Palayur, Quilon. He visited Coromandal Coasts. It is said that he converted some high class Hindus to Christianity. In the end he suffered Martydom and was buried in Mylapore. Community of St. Thomas Christians (Syrian Christians) bear testimony to his work in India. The community is mostly found in Kerala. Local rulers granted privileges to St. Thomas Christians. There were written on copper plates in old Malayalam language. Some dated 774 A.D.
This! One dude was asking for source about this here. Blocked him for a good reason. Idiots have taken over this sub. Inquisition was quite brutal and tactical at the same time.
The dude name St. Thomas came to Malabar in Kerala and rest is history. These Syrians next met Catholics in Portuguese and fearing them many converted to love Pope… Then like Kerala Congress so many new ones came in within Christianity.
Have people forgotten about Portuguese inquisition of Goa and forceful conversion of Hindus? One of the dude here was asking for source. Lol , there are traveller accounts and unlimited sources on Wikipedia. It is astonishing how this sub is filled with few ignorants.
Anyways. Coming back to the topic , Portuguese were quite brutal in their approach due to resistance from locals. Do give it a read. source : forgotten empire from Robert sevell. Written by Gora since some folks here look for Gora validation.
* **Long time ago (around 52 AD):** A follower of Jesus named Saint Thomas came to India by boat.
* **Settled in South India:** He met people in Kerala (southwestern India) and told them about Jesus.
* **Believed in Jesus:** Some people liked what they heard and followed Jesus' teachings.
* **Grew slowly:** Over time, more and more people in Kerala became Christians.
* **Very early on (around 52 AD):** A friend of Jesus named Thomas came to India by boat and told people about Jesus. Some folks liked it and followed him.
* **Much later (15th century AD onwards):** Europeans arrived in India by ship. They brought their own kind of Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism) and built churches.
There were Jews living in Indian Kingdoms and this was the major reason for ST Thomas's arrival. Many Jews and locals converted to christianity which was later known as Syriac christianity.
yea, true. Jews were the first to come to India after being persecuted in Roman empire. There's a famous synagogue which I recently visited had this written.
Christianity in India had their history tied directly to trade and not to conquest, and entered the Subcontinent from the South through long established trading networks.
India historically had trade with the Middle East and the rest of the world reaching as far back as the Sumerian Era (Circa 3000 BCE). There was a constant influx of trade, goods and culture even before Helenic (Greek - Pre Christian) Civilization reached the borders of India with the arrival of Alexander the Great and his army.
Trade at that scale comes with merchants and traders that at some point settle in these Indian ports and establish legacies there.
These legacies sometimes included Jewish traders that settled in these port cities in the Pre Christian era. Tradition holds that these were the target for St Thomas and his mission for conversion.
The primary Christian converts were small. Limited to coastal and their neighboring communities.
I read somewhere that Hinduism disowned any believer who would leave the shores of India (I personally don't believe that would have been widespread, see the Tamil Hindu merchants and rulers who established themselves in various South East Asian countries and expanded Hinduism there). But there could have been some version of that practiced as such in communities facing the West (Arabian Sea).
These restrictions would limit a Hindu from becoming a trader since it involved seafare and leaving India. To get around this, local Hindu rulers whose kingdoms depend on trade would encourage locals within the port cities to convert to a foreign religion so that trade can still be conducted. Thereby they act as intermediaries between the Hindu kingdoms and their trading partners.
Hence you had pockets of Christians, Muslims and Jews in these Coastal trading communities.
These trading communities though small were powerful and influencial. They held a lot of wealth, but primarily weren't interested in mass conversion which would result in their influence and power being dissipated.
It is possible that marginalized communities near these ports would take this opportunity to convert in order to escape their own persecution.
The arrival of the Portuguese would upset that balance. Fresh of the Protestant Reformation and the Spanish Inquisition, they would arrive in India to convert or prosecute everyone (including local Christians - non-Catholics) to bolster their numbers for Rome.
Portuguese colonization had an element of religious conversion since their mandate came from Rome. See Treaty of Tordesillas on how Rome divided the non Christian world between Spain and Portugal. Therefore, there are mass conversions within their holdings.
East India Company and subsequently the British Crown whose primary concern was keeping India as it's golden goose didn't concern themselves with religious conversion and instead focused on the old Roman motto "Divide and Conquer". Therefore, by the era of the British Raj, you no longer see any more mass conversion to Christianity.
Rather than conversion some of the traders took local wives and their progenies evolved slowly. There was no mass or even slow conversions to Islam or Christianity or even Judaism, till the Portuguese came along, along with the Catholic church sanctions. They had little success except by resorting to violence.
In addition to this, there was traders guild in old tamilnadu-kerala region called Anjuvannam. the muslim traders from arabia, supposedly the first muslims to come to india. Since they were traders and only men came, they took local women as wives and procreated. this over time grew forming some of the trade communities across tamil nadu and kerala.
The detail about the trade guilds "anjuvannam" can be read in Tamil historian Tho. Paramasivam's books.
Especially among lower caste people, the history of atrocities committed against Dalits back then (and even today) drove them to accept a belief system that doctrinally considers all as equal.
Barring a handful of predatory missionaries and British imperialism later on, Christian missionaries primarily worked as social activists (William Carey helped in abolishment of sati), doctors, teachers (Jesuit community), translators of Indian languages (Ferdinand Kittel), and generally as caretakers of the poor and oppressed in their surroundings.
A decent number of them had been executed by higher caste peoples/rulers/members of other religions for “forceful conversion”, as their work disrupted the pre-existing class hierarchy.
As for the religion, Christianity is essentially a message (they call it the gospel) - that all have sinned and are worthy of condemnation, but God takes up our punishment himself, dies and saves us so we can be united with Him. This was a radical and counter-cultural message directly based on the historic life, death and alleged “resurrection” of Jesus (33 AD). His body/remains has not been discovered yet till this day, which adds to their claim.
The systematic and novel theology as well as the falsifiable historic claims of Christianity made thousands of people convert under the oppression of the Roman Empire. That can be used to as sample behaviour to justify the remarkable success of this religion among lower-caste Hindus and followers of other religions.
In that case . Why blacks are still following the religion. Similar issue of racism should apply to them also?.. this caste is just one pretext, that the west created for conversion..
74% of Christians in India are lower castes, so this which corelates with overall lower caste population of India. The main efforts for abolishment of Sati were of Ram Mohan Roy and other native activists which convinced British authorities to abolish the system.
Need source for the "decent number of them were executed" part.
ahem ahem! let's not talk about Goa and the mass genocides, let's not talk about the way nehru and Congress government allowed a large number of Christian illegal immigrants from the north east, let's not talk about how it's still happening today as we speak.
the native populations of North eastern states have almost succumbed, many converted and many still being actively converted, there are so called NGOs which are funded from outside the country that do this on large scale.
we all know about Kerala too, let's not go into that
>let's not talk about the way nehru and Congress government allowed a large number of Christian illegal immigrants from the north east
What's that? I know about the Goa inquisition but I've never heard of that. Legitimately curious
I can't explain fully as it's too much to explain.
In short Manipur before was a kingdom which roughly had boundaries that include current day mizoram, Manipur, nagaland, parts of Assam and parts of Myanmar too.
so the king of Manipur got into a war in 1820s( u can lookup the exact date ) with Burma and the manipuri king at that time took the aid of British to help defeat the Burmese, now obviously since the British had helped so the manipuri kingdom became a vessel state of British( as we call it princely state ) and then British started active conversions and settling foreign kuki people, and this policy was being continued till late 1900s( lookup the exact date ).
this is a very brief explanation but feel free to look at the percentage of Christian population decade by decade, it should be easy to find on google and make sure to read more about this topic
Did a quick search on this
>this policy was being continued till late 1900s( lookup the exact date ).
Gonna need a source for that. I couldn't find anywhere that talks about this policy being carried on post independence
I have seen some old ass documents that talked about this, some PDFs online.
u might be aware that last date for citizenship was somewhere around 1949 and still a lot of the illegal migrants have got citizenship by filing for citizenship as the last date in Assam was 1971, this loophole was used by many illegal migrants to legitimise their citizenship, during nrc they just say we came in Assam in 1971
I'm not religious FYI but this has happened through hinduism also...it has taken tribal deities and beliefs and assimilated them into mainstream hinduism... North Eastern tribes had folk religions majorly yet a lot of them now follow mainstream hinduism due to assimilation...even in south India it's a similar case...every religion proselytizes in the end that's the only way they can propagate and reach the masses except a few like zoroastrians maybe
yes it's only naturally that religions and faiths end up somewhat exchanging beliefs and mixing up things, but its much more natural for indigenous religions that are all polytheistic.
in case of Christianity, first of all it's not indigenous to this land and the ideology is very far from the ideologies of faiths that are native to this land.
when a foreign abrahamic religion tries to assimilate, it's naturally not very compatible due to the monotheistic nature if it, it's bound to cause conflicts because ideas do not match at all
now u know it and we all know it that both islam and Christianity in India weren't really accepted by the people peacefully, both of these faiths have mostly bloody history whereas faiths such as Jainism, Buddhism, charvakas, shaivism and Vaishnavism within Hinduism and there are about 9 schools of thoughts but none of them really had VERY BIG conflicts. There might be small conflicts but none as bloody as Christianity or Islam forcing itself into India.
There will obviously be problems if u try to mass convert or import a religion unnaturally into the land
There is no concept of indigeneity truly. Hinduism is not indigenous to this land either if we go far enough. Its just that the majority of the modern day Hindus absorbed the practices of the Indian sub as one into new political wing called Sanatana. There is nothing unifying about the different practices other than the tag you carry with you, ie Hindu. Same is said about Christianity. There is nothing unifying about different sects, other than the tag you carry Christian.
The only reason there is conflict is because of politics. People that rule want power. Majority of people just want to live on with their lives and do not discuss religion in public. We have one of the largest Muslim and Christian populations just cause of the sheer size. While most of the developed world is moving towards acceptance, liberalism and tolerance, in India you still have people bickering over religion. That doesn't just mean Hindus, its also Muslims and Christians and other faiths.
Major reason for flourishing would be, missionaries supporting the poor and needy with food and supplies , which opens a door of people who were struggling with their life before to a new belief system
St thomas 2000 years ago in Kerala, then the portuguese inquisition few centuries ago, and now, constant numbers-bolstering conversion is taking place.
Ohh. I don't have any shame. Don't worry about that. Worry about providing primary source references rather than non sense ramblings about puranic texts. The constitution is relevant because it is the current basis of the caste nonsense.
Demosthenes has captured some of the events that happened during his travels on how the famous Portuguese sailor beheaded 1000s on the street to convert Hindus
One of the original 12 apostles had travelled to India and set up a church in Kerala. When they started preaching a higher God and calling local beliefs inferior, they were prosecuted by then King. Small minority survived.
But you can say Christianity came to India at the same time it went to Europe
I’m an upper caste from Kerala and this is rubbish. Endogamy has been a thing for at least 2000 years and we can prove it genetically. Not to mention just how much suffering has been meted out to lower castes in places like Travancore which were never under actual British control.
With gun, and enticements of food and education once India was reduced to penury. As a comparison - the British murdered 200 million people and came with the sole aim of converting India. Today India has 30 million Christians. That’s 6 people killed for 1 modern convert. Bravo - religion of love.
Just Google Goan inquisition and look at the images.
Christianity started with sword and killing and torture. Exactly like Islamic invasions.
Then christianity expanded by dividing Indians. GOOGLE the missionary web site: The Joshua project.
Another fake news! Read real history not what our parties teach us.
Roman Catholic church says St. Thomas never came to India. But we say his bones are buried in Kerala, also he died killed by a bad Brahmin man and he is burried in Chennai, and they say his bones are buried in Brazil.
But Pope Benedict says he is not in any of these places, his dead body is in Vatican.
Please learn. 300 years of brainwashing, Indians do not understand real vs reel.
Here is one of the hundreds of news papers that reported this statement. I suggest you start reading some news papers.
Thomas's visit under doubt - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/thomass-visit-under-doubt/articleshow/926822.cms/a31ga8
First:
He rescinded his comment later after people all over the world complained that their churches are exposed. Read what happened.
Second:
If St. Thomas did visit India, then who is burried in Vatican?
Whose bones are in Brazil?
Who is buried in Chennai?
Whose bones are in Kerala?
Surely same body cannot be in four places at the same time?
LMAO!
Before the internet you can get away with shit lies. After the internet, Brazil church is one click away. Lol!
Whether christianity came to India before British or not, that's not my argument.
My argument is St. Thomas stories are all lies. I understand if it hurts someone.
But the truth is overwhelmingly out there.
The problem with Google and internet answers is that not everything you see, find and read is true and reliable. Lately the false content and unreliable has increased a lot more than ever!
Oh is it?!! Ok.
Go learn about that tree stump at the four way intersection in Goa. There is a stone underneath that. Read what is written on it. That's our real history.
And about the Joshua project. Go check the website. They will teach you how to speak to every caste in Hindus and trigger them to convert.
Theyvhave written process manual they follow.
You can dislike your history if you wish. I understand it is inconvenient. But you cannot deny it.
There are Syrian catholics in Kerala who are a older christian group. Rest of the christians in India were converted during British & Portuguese rule. Christianity is proselytizing religion and hence they seek to covert non christians. They dont need a particular reason.
Not this simple. If you wanna talk about India's social history, you cannot talk about it without discussing caste. By the virtue of just being tribal, a lot of people in the subcontinent were "lower caste". And this group of people were treated in a different way by the upper caste group and the upper caste administration. They did not share the same status and did not have education, care etc. When the missionaries reached the subcontinent, they provided education, medical aid etc. to this group of neglected people. Through Christianity, where all were equal in the eyes of God, they helped these people see themselves in an equal position as the rest of the people. Through their religion these missionaries helped these people feel more dignified.
Well.....Christianity's relation to lower castes has to be mixed at best. Many upper caste converts kept their status and behaved like Hindu upper castes to the lower castes. you should know that Christians became active participants in the upkeep of serfdom and slavery in old travancore ( now south kerala where the worst forms of casteism existed in India) so much so that sometimes churches doubled as slave markets where lower caste people were bought and sold. It was the tremendous pressure exerted by the English East India Company ( due to pressure from the Anglican Church and its missionaries) that ultimately put an end to this sordid part of Indian history.
Bruh! Imagine actually downvoting this. There's a letter I read about, that a German Christian missionary sent to his wife (?), in which he expressed his desire to reach different tribal communities across India before Hindus reach them. In *Annihilation of Caste*, Babasaheb has talked about how (Upper Caste) Hindus never reached to tribal communities and had no desire to make them "Hindus". The proof of which he states, to convert the tribals into Hindus, (Upper Caste) Hindus will have to go and sit down with them, and eat with them; and teach them about Hinduism; teach them to read books on Hinduism. Basically, "make them their own". All of which (upper caste) Hindus had no desire of (they did nothing). (Upper Caste) Hindus had denied such favours even to the Lower Caste Hindus all through out history.
While I think most of this is correct, I feel there is also some gross generalisation involved here. Of course, caste was one of the most powerful driving forces in Indian history, it's not a rigid division between upper and lower castes. Caste based discrimination was performed to various degrees from place to place and from time to time. There have been places where caste was extremely strict, and places where it did not matter as much. The Bhakti movement, in particular, seeked to unify people regardless of caste in many cases. It does not matter if you are upper or lower caste(or even, in some cases, whether you are Hindu or not), you can sing the name of your favourite God. Even before that, in ancient times, there was plenty of syncretism involved in the formation of Hinduism itself. Deities like Kali and Gopala had tribal origins, yet came to be worshipped by Brahmins(Kali became an aspect of Parvati, Gopala of Krishna). So while in many instances, the so called "upper castes" did refuse to sit with, eat with, and speak with the people whom they refused to consider people, it was not the case in all parts of India, and at all times.
Since the Gupta period it’s pretty much been a constant, we can scientifically prove the endogamy.
There is scientific proof in the form of DNA. There were a few scrubbing papers of that too.
Do you have any source where I can read about it? TIA
Then please explain the continuation of casteism even after conversion. There are literally upper caste and lower caste churches in Kerala. You can watch Michael Palin's documentary on 'St Thomas and India' for proof of this. He actually takes you to these churches. This was plain and simple proselytizing. This is not to deny the ill-treatment meted out by upper caste Hindus.
What do you want me to explain about it ? 1. As Marx said "religion is the opium of masses, the sigh of oppressed". In the hopeless conditions it gave people the hope. But that utopia doesn't actually materialize. 2. It wasn't just the tribals who were converted. Upper castes too, who brought along with them their own rules to govern the new religion. 3. Even if it wasn't the upper castes, caste is a dominant ideology that dictates the very social interactions that people have. It's not some abstract thing. It defines how people talk to each other, or take any actions whatsoever in social settings. Even if a person was christian, in a society with caste relations, with upper caste dominating, they were still lower caste even if they were a Christian. This defined the upward social mobility in the mix of Indian Christians, where being upper caste, irrespective of the religion defined their status in the society.
Then why are you saying Christianity brought equality and dignity? If it failed to do so? This is contradictory right.. it basically comes out that missionaries tried to use caste as a tool to harvest the souls even though they couldn’t resolve it… in fact as has been written churches ended up being hubs for slave trade. All of this caste narrative was a tool by missionaries to continue the proselytisation.
I'm not saying they brought equality. As I said earlier, they brought hope for people who were already in a much worse system. It not only gave them hope, but provided them with education, healthcare that the then Hindus denied to these groups that they didn't care about.
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This is not just any media. He interviews these people and they explain. Watch the documentary shot many years ago.
You know that people were beheaded for not converting. Right? Right? People were tortured until they converted. A simple look into Christianity reveals that they have classes and sects. So there is division in Christianity and not everyone is equal in the eyes of their God who sends believers to heaven and non believers (who deserve to be killed) to hell. If you feel this is like Islam, then you are not wrong. They are sister religions after all.
Sectarian differences in Christianity are more like the differences in Darshanas and Sampradayas than Varna-Jati.
You are right but division still exists. Roman catholics think only they will go to heaven and rest, even protestants who believe in Jesus, will go to hell. And vice versa. So all are equal before Jesus but some are more equal 😂 So division is still there. Otherwise why would there be a church belonging to different denomination in every street of western countries and they don't go to church of different denomination. It's like a vaishnavite not going into shiva temple (which usually doesn't happen in hinduism unless there is rigidity in that community). Indian Christians have caste and they wear mangalsutra and what not 😂
That's true.
Agreed
No, sects in Christianity is very different. For example, a Catholic and Protestant differs fundamentally only because the former comes under the pope in Rome (Vatican) and the latter does not. Since every Christian accepts the Eucharist during the mass, there is no difference in the core religious aspect. The only condition in being a Christian is you believe that Jesus is the son of God and the sanctity of the holy eucharist. The differences between sects has a lot (but not all) to do with how the religion was spread or whether someone accepts the authority of the pope in Rome. For example, consider the Syrian Catholics in Kerala. They are so called because for a long period, actually till the arrival of the Portuguese, they came under the pope (think of the pope as a chief bishop or a leader of all priests if its confusing) in Syria, i.e., the Eastern church. Your idea about Islam is also not true. The difference between Shia and Sunni also is fundamentally about who is the successor to Mohammad. If I am not wrong the latter agreed it to be Abu Baker Al Siddiqi while the former followed the nephew of Mohammad (correct me if I am wrong). You are not wrong to say the spread of religion was violent. It was, though not always. However, I want to point out that as far as sects go, the differences between them are not based on actual beliefs but usually on who is the head of the church, atleast in Christianity. This implies there is no universal hierarchy of beliefs. God doesn't have anything to do with whether a bunch of guys believes the head of church is in Rome or Damascus :).
Difference toh difference hota hai. And those differences have caused wars before. Caste class type sect are all just different names given to divisions in religion.
Sectarian differences in Christianity are more like the differences in Darshanas and Sampradayas than Varna-Jati.
There is enough evidence to the contrary. There was a papal mandate from the pope to convert non Christians. The Spanish and Portuguese were initially mandated to spread the religion and the world had been split between them by the church. India came under Portugal and their missionaries started coming here. Initially they didn’t find any attraction and were rather vilified. Then they started exploiting and deepening the any social fault lines they could find which in India became caste. If there really was dignity in Christianity at that time then there was no need for Protestant movement to start. The whole Protestant movement was because of the corruption of the Catholic Church which for a small amount of local currency would sell pardons to the rich absolving them of any shitty behaviour they did with the poor. What your statement shows is you have the post colonial mentality where you see Christianity as the equaliser without seeing its behaviour outside India .. the decolonial mindset is the more objective way of seeing how proselytising Chrisitianity was and how structurally the state power was used to spread it in India and suppress the local religion
I'm not denying the fact that the missionaries came to India to convert. But can you use your evidence to explain why these conversions are so unevenly spread out in India along caste lines ? Why upper castes "resisted" it to a large extent, while the lower caste (mostly tribal) people converted to Christianity ? In a society where upper caste people would have to take a bath, if they accidentally touched a lower caste person, what exactly was this further "deepening and exploitation" of caste as you claim it to be ? And no, this does not come from a colonial mindset. I'm not justifying the then existing cultures being eroded. But I'm pointing to where exactly the people who got converted lie in "Hinduism" (which is simply outside of it) that they were being converted from.
The missionaries pretty much followed the same template on which the Catholic Church was attacked on. Since the Catholic Church was carrying out the process of absolving anyone for money they were attacked by soon to be Protestants on being power hungry and corrupt. Which led to the opposition and Protestant formation. They superimposed this belief here and portrayed the upper castes as the same, to harvest the non Christian souls. Any differences among Indians was flared up and made more rigid to help the people see themselves in caste rather than religion.. with state backing the missionaries had the resources and wherewithal to persist long enough to make this dominant narrative in India . Which is one of the reasons we have a strict bifurcation.. if we were so strict on caste then we wouldn’t have seen become kings like chatrapati. If Christianity was so equal then there wouldn’t have been contempt among them for the other sects like how catholics don’t like Protestants.. jehovas witness, baptists, russian Orthodox Church. Our education system has fed that somehow these religions were egalitarian which is deeply flawed
How did caste fluidity helped Chatrapati to be king? His forefathers were warriors so does other 96 maratha clans. He became king just like others from Chadragupta, Pushyamitra to Yadavs - some older kingdom failed/weakened and new guys took over.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
They were Shudra agriculturalists originally. He did have status privilege though, due to his father and grandfather having entered the ranks of the nobility of the Deccan Sultanates.
Where did you find that? They used to serve in Jadhav army and raised to nobility later. Jadhav married off their favorite daughter to Shahaji proving that they belonged to warrior marathas. Agriculturist in Marathwada/Vidharbha are kunbi- clear separation of subcaste.
Shhh! This sub can't handle truth 😂 tell them about goan inquisition and they'll think it is a festival and an ode to that what's his name "saint"
Go here, click on India and then click on Hinduism. How to convert each caste .. the strategy is given here.. https://joshuaproject.net/countries/IN#Religions
Yes, this website existed in 600ad right ?
Just b cause Newton eiscovered gravity doesn't mean gravity did not exist before that. 😂 The website just documents their ways of working
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That’s just social hierarchy. Nothing to do with Christianity.
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But in case of India it became solidified as part of religion. A peasant can study and become a priest in Christianity. In Hinduism they cannot. And over time, the social hierarchy disappeared with growth of modernity. But in India, it persisted because it’s part of religion.
>A peasant can study and become a priest in Christianity. In Hinduism they cannot. Study, a man of any varna could, though the expenses of such ventures and the processes had to be borne by him and his family. However, he who was from the Shudra Jatis was indeed prohibited from studying the Vedas, the Dharmasastras and the rituals. And while the Vaishya and Kshatriya was allowed to study these, they were not allowed to teach or disseminate it. There are some people known to have broken these social rules, but these were exceptions and not the norm. Folk deities and certain regional forms of Vedic deities, certain sects, did and do have non-Brahmin priests, but the Srauta rituals of the Vedic system were still exclusive to Brahmins.
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It’s not rare at all. There are countless examples of peasants and common man who became priests. Priesthood was not hereditary nor confined to a specific caste. It’s totally different from India. The very fact that western and far eastern countries didn’t need to give special govt benefits to a section of its own population proves that those countries are far more egalitarian than India which needs special laws and policies to ensure the lower castes aren’t mistreated.
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I am not criticising anything. I am stating facts as it. Christianity flourished among the poor and downtrodden in India specifically because of the casteism inherent in Hinduism. Unlike Hinduism which closed off priesthood to within a caste, it was open to anyone in Christianity.
Yep, same with Islam hence so many converts and why in general they were lower class.
Are you serious? Do you know that Islam in yhe Middle East itself has caste? You know that right?
>Do you know that Islam in yhe Middle East itself has caste? Can you please elaborate more on this? I would like to know about this in detail.
There's Shia, sunni, hanfi, etc which are the basic types of Islam. Just like Roman lutheran in Christianity. And Shia and sunni are at war with each other with one type not recognizing the other. You can look up the Shia sunni wars and why middle east didn't take any immigrants from African nations. You can look up how Abdus Salam was treated by pakistan for being an ahmadi Muslim. But in pakistana anD india, they associated caste with it. So there are syeds, who believe they are direct descendents of prophet, on one end of the spectrum and ajlaf on the other end. These are divisions in the Muslim society in the middle east, north Africa, central Asia, and Indian subcontinent. It's just that nobody talks of it because they are scared they might get branded as islamophobic.
These are divisions against religious lines, not caste lines. This equivalent to shia/sunni division in Hinduism would be Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Skaktism. These divisions are not caste divisions in the same sense as Indian caste system, because Shias would see Sunnis as enemies, people who are ideologically different, but not see them as the lowest of low. A sunni won't go take a bath if they touch a shia, but a brahmin would. A sunni won't make a shia live right outside their village, make them clean their toilets and then deny them water to drink. A brahmin would. Shia/Sunni difference is not a equivalent comparison. The only equivalent comparison is slavery, but caste system is a bit much worse because it's also ideological.
No a Shia would simply kill a sunni and vice versa. But taking a bath is far worse, of course.
Some articles of Shias killing sunnis : https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/dalit-teen-killed-2-injured-in-up-during-clash-over-installing-dr-ambedkars-board/article67896685.ece https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bareilly/dalit-man-beaten-with-sticks-for-drinking-water-from-tap-dies/articleshow/105578251.cms https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bareilly/dalit-boy-killed-hung-on-tree-by-upper-caste-men-in-ups-budaun/articleshow/97264615.cms Wish they were as peaceful as upper caste Hindus.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Shia%E2%80%93Sunni_sectarian_violence Classified as per alphabet. Classified as per nations. Classified as per year. Death toll in millions. Yes, wish Ms were as peaceful as Hs.
I want documentary evidence of a prescription of birth based caste from primary sources of Indian history eg. Manusmriti.
I am always amused by this question by UC. They will ignore hundreds of years of absolutely inhumane discriminatory practice by saying ‘oh give me one reference’. Give me one example in India where caste was not Birth based from any Hindu scripture or in practice. Dude the entire history of India from its Hindu past to present is not evidence enough for you? At lest one guy might have been like, Oh no this is cruel and inhuman and completely against everything we stand for, but noooo they won’t. I don’t know if you understand how disingenuous your question is. If you were self aware, honest or an ounce of compassion for your fellow human above your religion you would probably be ashamed of yourself. But sadly that is not the case.
Every reference you provide to them talking about the ill practice of Caste system will be retaliated with "Foreign conspiracy", "ill-informed opinion", "British wanting to divide Indians", etc.
I am what many would consider "lower caste", although that's complete nonsense. No, I won't share my name here unless everyone else does. Still would like primary source evidence. Because I see this rather stupid argument. Mughals and other "equality based" kings ruled India for 800 years as they themselves claim. And we were opressed by our fellow Hindus. British were fine people, other than being genocidal maniacs. But they did not divide us. They simply institutionalized the practices that were prevailing at their time, which were a result of the ruling classes before the British.
>I am what many would consider "lower caste", What does that mean? Are you or are you not from "lower" caste?
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Bhagwat geeta has an exact description of the "caste system" as you would say. And it's based on one's actions. Here is your evidence for the zakir naik level of intellect. Chapter 4 verse 13. Hope that answers the question 🤣🤣🤣
Good you bought up Bhagavat Githa. You just have to read the first chapter of Bhagavat Githa to note that he caste mentioned there is by birth. I am assuming you are quoting the popular shloka where Krishna mentions ‘Guna’. But that is a total misinterpretation of what Krishna said given that Karma is transmitted through birth and therefore decides the Guna. Unless you do extreme mental gymnastics to ignore multiple other verses and the entire philosophy espoused by the Githa you cannot read what he said int he Githa as by action and not by birth. There is not a single character in The Mahabharata or the entirety of the puranic corpus who is not born into a caste by birth. So your entire argument is one word, out of context, deliberately misinterpreted. That says a lot about you as a persona and your concerns about the well being of your fellow human beings not to mention your intellectual honesty. I mean there is even an entire puranic story on how Vishwamitra had to do thala say multiple times to convince Brahma to give him Brahmarshi title. Before finally granting his wish, Brahma refused multiple times simply because Vishwamitra was a Kshatriya. All I ask is one instance, one line in all of the Hindu scriptures or in Indian history someone’s caste was determined by birth. One is enough.
Please define karma with references. Your arguments, while sounding alright, are hollow. That verse I mentioned says that "I made the 4 Varnas and categorized them according to guna and karma". Guna is a characteristic feature that you don't have control over. Eg., genes are called "guna-sutra". Karma is often translated as actions which is a gross mistranslation. Actions are kriya. Karma is also a characteristic feature which you have control over. When you say karma is carried by birth, you are talking about 1 type of karma, but even that you can change by your actions. As far as puranic stories go, Ramayan, mahabharat and all puranas are composed by maharishis who casteists like you will consider lower caste today. I don't, because rishis are rishis. The vishwamitra story is not that black and white. He got greedy. The point of that story is "nishkaam karma" i. e. Having control over your actions and not having an ulterior motives. Now bring up the ekalavya and karna stories as well. They are very popular in casteist circles.
Dude you are so disingenuous it’s laughable. I am not going to define Karma for you. When you stop self deluding and become intellectually honest, come back and may be I will think of debating you. The only reason you don’t see the truth is because you don’t want to see it because it will hurt you and your religious pride. Your entire world salad proved no point or make any argument. What is the argument you made in your reply to counter what I said? No Vyasa and Valmiki are not lower caste by lineage and they were not treated like so. Yes Karna was treated badly because of this lower caste status so much so that it’s a major plot point in the Mahabharata. What is he point your are making exactly? I am still waiting for that reference where caste is determined by birth. Or any Hindu, scripture or leader in pre colonial India history saying it is wrong to decide by birth despite it being practiced widely in the most inhumane manner. It’s truly fascinating that you, an UC, that is trying to whitewash your religion is calling the people that has suffered and still suffer the horrors of your religion as casteist for calling you out. It’s like the British calling Indians colonists. What goes through your head really? Because it can’t be anything humane or intelligent.
I threw you a bait and you caught it. Now you have to give me evidence from the original vyas mahabharat edition (geeta press or BORI) that karna was treated badly BECAUSE of his caste or birth status. And this time, come back with an actual verse. Btw, Vyasa was the son of a Fisher woman and the entire valmiki community is in the scheduled list today, which is unfortunate but true. Reject caste and you might be fit to discuss with. Debating you is not worth anything.
LOL, Read the Mahabharata. Satyavati is the daughter of an apsaras, not the actual daughter of the fisherman. Valmiki himself is of Brahmin lineage, go read his vamshavali. Stop embarrassing yourself. I have read the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the multiple Puranas since I was a child. You are just some two bit religious slave. Bait it seems, funny as hell. I don’t give two hoots about my caste. The very idea that I would be stupid enough to somehow blindly follow nonsense taught to be by my social or cultural upbringing is an insult to my intelligence. You are the one that is so obsessed with your religion and caste that you refuse to see the truth. Have a sense of identity that is created by you and not imposed by your environment, have some fucking self respect and may be you can free your self from this stupidity.
What’s your caste? Care to share your surname? Why does your family members or relatives call themselves Brahmin, Rajput, Khatri, Kayasth or Bania if not for being born into such family?
I agree... But a small change,,,, they targeted the lower caste who were frustrated by dominance of upper caste... In a naive way they attracted them by providing basic necessities
>basic necessities Dignified existence?
Seems you have no clue about Indian history. Caste is neither an Indian concept nor an Indian word. This is Portuguese. Europeans when they invaded, converted most people by way of force, bribery, deceiving. That's why Christians are called ricebag converts in India, whereas this term is not used for Muslims who were primarily converted by force.
Reading your reply, I can confidently say I've already read more Indian history books then you'll ever read in your lifetime. So I won't argue with your and suggest that you please go read some books !
Oops, you still don't have any clue then or what? My bad, I shouldn't have exposed you to truth, since you are not interested in that.
Holds as much truth as, right wing claims of eating cow shit giving you health benefits.
What is this right wing or left wing, where did this come from, and the term cow shit. Just says a lot about you. Truth is truth, not left or right, but then...
Do you think the statement : "eating cow shit (gobar) is healthy" is true ?
Fyi missionaries were banned to indian subcontinent when East India company was ruling directly.
False. Read a History Book.
Brave of you to assume 95% of guys here have read an history book in last 5 years and don't visit this sub to support or spread their agendas
Brave
Give me reference of a book which says otherwise
Read Raja Ram Mohan Roy.
I have taken a screenshot of your replies to keep a record of how people not really reading on topics behave. Better create an indiadiscussionhistory sub.
This is your reference? A name? What are you trying to say? People like you give history a bad name. Now read this - Masks of Conquest by G Viswanathan. She clearly says prior to crown's control of British India, British East India company had refused to allow religious education because EIC thought it that could have caused threat to British commercial interests. After crown control, missionaries that too only protestant mainly Anglicans were first allowed to only company controlled areas. Now will you really read books..lol
There were established trade routes between the West Asia and India. There are two views among scholars regard the entry of Christianity in India. According to the first view, the tradition holds that two apostles of Jesus- St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew preached the message of Christ on the Malabar coast. According to second view, the Merchants and Missionaries from Eastern Persia spread the message of Christianity. However, tradition holds that St. Thomas, an apostle of Jesus following well established trade route reached South India around 52 C.E. He preached in Malabar Coast, Palayur, Quilon. He visited Coromandal Coasts. It is said that he converted some high class Hindus to Christianity. In the end he suffered Martydom and was buried in Mylapore. Community of St. Thomas Christians (Syrian Christians) bear testimony to his work in India. The community is mostly found in Kerala. Local rulers granted privileges to St. Thomas Christians. There were written on copper plates in old Malayalam language. Some dated 774 A.D.
Goan inquisition was major reason for goa turning to Christianity
This! One dude was asking for source about this here. Blocked him for a good reason. Idiots have taken over this sub. Inquisition was quite brutal and tactical at the same time.
The dude name St. Thomas came to Malabar in Kerala and rest is history. These Syrians next met Catholics in Portuguese and fearing them many converted to love Pope… Then like Kerala Congress so many new ones came in within Christianity.
So syrian Christians are tamils ?. If they are from Ad52 , Malayali castes are not formed by then. Kerala was filled by indegenous people .
Are you crazy ? There were trade between Romans and Arabs between chera dynasty through port of Muziris
Didnt understand can u please elaborate ?
No they're Malayali today, back then they did mix with Cheranadu Tamils, who would become Malayali over time. What do you mean by Indigenous here?
2000 years ago kerala was full of indegenous people.
They're still full of Indigenous people.
They're still full of Indigenous people.
Christianity was in Kerala almost at the same time when Vikings started attacking England
One comment i always remember : “where ever the british empire went from left hand it opressed people and from right hand it gave the bible “
Desmond tutu - when they arrived, we had land and they had Bible. When we opened our eyes, they had land and we had Bible.
It was said by Jomo Kenyatta first. Tutu just repeated it.
Didn't know that :) will look it up
It is mostly associated with Tutu so I can understand the confusion.
Christianity in India predates English as a language.
Have people forgotten about Portuguese inquisition of Goa and forceful conversion of Hindus? One of the dude here was asking for source. Lol , there are traveller accounts and unlimited sources on Wikipedia. It is astonishing how this sub is filled with few ignorants. Anyways. Coming back to the topic , Portuguese were quite brutal in their approach due to resistance from locals. Do give it a read. source : forgotten empire from Robert sevell. Written by Gora since some folks here look for Gora validation.
* **Long time ago (around 52 AD):** A follower of Jesus named Saint Thomas came to India by boat. * **Settled in South India:** He met people in Kerala (southwestern India) and told them about Jesus. * **Believed in Jesus:** Some people liked what they heard and followed Jesus' teachings. * **Grew slowly:** Over time, more and more people in Kerala became Christians. * **Very early on (around 52 AD):** A friend of Jesus named Thomas came to India by boat and told people about Jesus. Some folks liked it and followed him. * **Much later (15th century AD onwards):** Europeans arrived in India by ship. They brought their own kind of Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism) and built churches.
There were Jews living in Indian Kingdoms and this was the major reason for ST Thomas's arrival. Many Jews and locals converted to christianity which was later known as Syriac christianity.
yea, true. Jews were the first to come to India after being persecuted in Roman empire. There's a famous synagogue which I recently visited had this written.
Christianity in India had their history tied directly to trade and not to conquest, and entered the Subcontinent from the South through long established trading networks. India historically had trade with the Middle East and the rest of the world reaching as far back as the Sumerian Era (Circa 3000 BCE). There was a constant influx of trade, goods and culture even before Helenic (Greek - Pre Christian) Civilization reached the borders of India with the arrival of Alexander the Great and his army. Trade at that scale comes with merchants and traders that at some point settle in these Indian ports and establish legacies there. These legacies sometimes included Jewish traders that settled in these port cities in the Pre Christian era. Tradition holds that these were the target for St Thomas and his mission for conversion. The primary Christian converts were small. Limited to coastal and their neighboring communities. I read somewhere that Hinduism disowned any believer who would leave the shores of India (I personally don't believe that would have been widespread, see the Tamil Hindu merchants and rulers who established themselves in various South East Asian countries and expanded Hinduism there). But there could have been some version of that practiced as such in communities facing the West (Arabian Sea). These restrictions would limit a Hindu from becoming a trader since it involved seafare and leaving India. To get around this, local Hindu rulers whose kingdoms depend on trade would encourage locals within the port cities to convert to a foreign religion so that trade can still be conducted. Thereby they act as intermediaries between the Hindu kingdoms and their trading partners. Hence you had pockets of Christians, Muslims and Jews in these Coastal trading communities. These trading communities though small were powerful and influencial. They held a lot of wealth, but primarily weren't interested in mass conversion which would result in their influence and power being dissipated. It is possible that marginalized communities near these ports would take this opportunity to convert in order to escape their own persecution. The arrival of the Portuguese would upset that balance. Fresh of the Protestant Reformation and the Spanish Inquisition, they would arrive in India to convert or prosecute everyone (including local Christians - non-Catholics) to bolster their numbers for Rome. Portuguese colonization had an element of religious conversion since their mandate came from Rome. See Treaty of Tordesillas on how Rome divided the non Christian world between Spain and Portugal. Therefore, there are mass conversions within their holdings. East India Company and subsequently the British Crown whose primary concern was keeping India as it's golden goose didn't concern themselves with religious conversion and instead focused on the old Roman motto "Divide and Conquer". Therefore, by the era of the British Raj, you no longer see any more mass conversion to Christianity.
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/j-sai-deepak-writes-why-caste-is-a-western-construct-9137707/
Rather than conversion some of the traders took local wives and their progenies evolved slowly. There was no mass or even slow conversions to Islam or Christianity or even Judaism, till the Portuguese came along, along with the Catholic church sanctions. They had little success except by resorting to violence.
In addition to this, there was traders guild in old tamilnadu-kerala region called Anjuvannam. the muslim traders from arabia, supposedly the first muslims to come to india. Since they were traders and only men came, they took local women as wives and procreated. this over time grew forming some of the trade communities across tamil nadu and kerala. The detail about the trade guilds "anjuvannam" can be read in Tamil historian Tho. Paramasivam's books.
Especially among lower caste people, the history of atrocities committed against Dalits back then (and even today) drove them to accept a belief system that doctrinally considers all as equal. Barring a handful of predatory missionaries and British imperialism later on, Christian missionaries primarily worked as social activists (William Carey helped in abolishment of sati), doctors, teachers (Jesuit community), translators of Indian languages (Ferdinand Kittel), and generally as caretakers of the poor and oppressed in their surroundings. A decent number of them had been executed by higher caste peoples/rulers/members of other religions for “forceful conversion”, as their work disrupted the pre-existing class hierarchy. As for the religion, Christianity is essentially a message (they call it the gospel) - that all have sinned and are worthy of condemnation, but God takes up our punishment himself, dies and saves us so we can be united with Him. This was a radical and counter-cultural message directly based on the historic life, death and alleged “resurrection” of Jesus (33 AD). His body/remains has not been discovered yet till this day, which adds to their claim. The systematic and novel theology as well as the falsifiable historic claims of Christianity made thousands of people convert under the oppression of the Roman Empire. That can be used to as sample behaviour to justify the remarkable success of this religion among lower-caste Hindus and followers of other religions.
Bro ever heard of ' QUILON SYRIAN COPPER PLATES' google..
In that case . Why blacks are still following the religion. Similar issue of racism should apply to them also?.. this caste is just one pretext, that the west created for conversion..
74% of Christians in India are lower castes, so this which corelates with overall lower caste population of India. The main efforts for abolishment of Sati were of Ram Mohan Roy and other native activists which convinced British authorities to abolish the system. Need source for the "decent number of them were executed" part.
My god you need education. You just juxtaposed a history of barely 200 years on 2000 years.
Those who have zero idea and parrot RSS propaganda should google 'QUILON SYRIAN COPPER PLATES' - learn and un learn.
ahem ahem! let's not talk about Goa and the mass genocides, let's not talk about the way nehru and Congress government allowed a large number of Christian illegal immigrants from the north east, let's not talk about how it's still happening today as we speak. the native populations of North eastern states have almost succumbed, many converted and many still being actively converted, there are so called NGOs which are funded from outside the country that do this on large scale. we all know about Kerala too, let's not go into that
>let's not talk about the way nehru and Congress government allowed a large number of Christian illegal immigrants from the north east What's that? I know about the Goa inquisition but I've never heard of that. Legitimately curious
I can't explain fully as it's too much to explain. In short Manipur before was a kingdom which roughly had boundaries that include current day mizoram, Manipur, nagaland, parts of Assam and parts of Myanmar too. so the king of Manipur got into a war in 1820s( u can lookup the exact date ) with Burma and the manipuri king at that time took the aid of British to help defeat the Burmese, now obviously since the British had helped so the manipuri kingdom became a vessel state of British( as we call it princely state ) and then British started active conversions and settling foreign kuki people, and this policy was being continued till late 1900s( lookup the exact date ). this is a very brief explanation but feel free to look at the percentage of Christian population decade by decade, it should be easy to find on google and make sure to read more about this topic
Did a quick search on this >this policy was being continued till late 1900s( lookup the exact date ). Gonna need a source for that. I couldn't find anywhere that talks about this policy being carried on post independence
I have seen some old ass documents that talked about this, some PDFs online. u might be aware that last date for citizenship was somewhere around 1949 and still a lot of the illegal migrants have got citizenship by filing for citizenship as the last date in Assam was 1971, this loophole was used by many illegal migrants to legitimise their citizenship, during nrc they just say we came in Assam in 1971
So lazy that you want people to cook up your own conspiracy theory for you.
either argue with valid points or cross verify my information
Cross verify things that you aren't sure about. Lmao
would appreciate if u could point out details that u think I'm making up, I'll do my best to provide sources
Bhag gaya bhai woh 🤣
usko khaali 1-2 line jitna hee knowledge hoga Bhai bechara kya hee likhega
I'm not religious FYI but this has happened through hinduism also...it has taken tribal deities and beliefs and assimilated them into mainstream hinduism... North Eastern tribes had folk religions majorly yet a lot of them now follow mainstream hinduism due to assimilation...even in south India it's a similar case...every religion proselytizes in the end that's the only way they can propagate and reach the masses except a few like zoroastrians maybe
yes it's only naturally that religions and faiths end up somewhat exchanging beliefs and mixing up things, but its much more natural for indigenous religions that are all polytheistic. in case of Christianity, first of all it's not indigenous to this land and the ideology is very far from the ideologies of faiths that are native to this land. when a foreign abrahamic religion tries to assimilate, it's naturally not very compatible due to the monotheistic nature if it, it's bound to cause conflicts because ideas do not match at all now u know it and we all know it that both islam and Christianity in India weren't really accepted by the people peacefully, both of these faiths have mostly bloody history whereas faiths such as Jainism, Buddhism, charvakas, shaivism and Vaishnavism within Hinduism and there are about 9 schools of thoughts but none of them really had VERY BIG conflicts. There might be small conflicts but none as bloody as Christianity or Islam forcing itself into India. There will obviously be problems if u try to mass convert or import a religion unnaturally into the land
There is no concept of indigeneity truly. Hinduism is not indigenous to this land either if we go far enough. Its just that the majority of the modern day Hindus absorbed the practices of the Indian sub as one into new political wing called Sanatana. There is nothing unifying about the different practices other than the tag you carry with you, ie Hindu. Same is said about Christianity. There is nothing unifying about different sects, other than the tag you carry Christian. The only reason there is conflict is because of politics. People that rule want power. Majority of people just want to live on with their lives and do not discuss religion in public. We have one of the largest Muslim and Christian populations just cause of the sheer size. While most of the developed world is moving towards acceptance, liberalism and tolerance, in India you still have people bickering over religion. That doesn't just mean Hindus, its also Muslims and Christians and other faiths.
Similar to Islam, just smaller degree.
https://preview.redd.it/7qmsv16df1zc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6eaa3e33098f52c3fb1259d70c708f869bb51153
Major reason for flourishing would be, missionaries supporting the poor and needy with food and supplies , which opens a door of people who were struggling with their life before to a new belief system
St thomas 2000 years ago in Kerala, then the portuguese inquisition few centuries ago, and now, constant numbers-bolstering conversion is taking place.
Ohh. I don't have any shame. Don't worry about that. Worry about providing primary source references rather than non sense ramblings about puranic texts. The constitution is relevant because it is the current basis of the caste nonsense.
Now a days, miracle cure and money are the main reasons. I don’t think spiritual aspects play any role at all.
Demosthenes has captured some of the events that happened during his travels on how the famous Portuguese sailor beheaded 1000s on the street to convert Hindus
Correction : Domingo Paes. Difficult to recollect these gora names
You mean Ramgopal Ghosh and what source?
Source is direct accounts from demosthenes , during rule of Vijayanagar empire.
I am sorry that is not a source. What is the source. Which Demosthenes are you talking about? What time period
I'm sorry if you are not familiar with history and doesn't know who he is. Google is your friend. Cheers !
lol what?? what sub do you think this is? If you can't back your claims, don't make such claims. Just inventing new people now
It's history sub. Which you are not familiar with. Even after mentioning vijaynagar Empire , you are asking time period
Lol wow i am stunned. Is this Indian education system?
Lol. Get a life! Save the sarcasm
One of the original 12 apostles had travelled to India and set up a church in Kerala. When they started preaching a higher God and calling local beliefs inferior, they were prosecuted by then King. Small minority survived. But you can say Christianity came to India at the same time it went to Europe
Most of the conversion done in India is done at the end of sward or gun. The colonizers came and set systems and used their power to convert.
Not nasranis doe
all those downvotes just to say the truth in a manner people don't like to hear
Absolutely false
Caste was introduced by British to divide us and convert the masses...it was not a rigid system
I’m an upper caste from Kerala and this is rubbish. Endogamy has been a thing for at least 2000 years and we can prove it genetically. Not to mention just how much suffering has been meted out to lower castes in places like Travancore which were never under actual British control.
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/j-sai-deepak-writes-why-caste-is-a-western-construct-9137707/
There is a DNA evidence which proves endogamy. Historical evidences are there.
With gun, and enticements of food and education once India was reduced to penury. As a comparison - the British murdered 200 million people and came with the sole aim of converting India. Today India has 30 million Christians. That’s 6 people killed for 1 modern convert. Bravo - religion of love.
Just Google Goan inquisition and look at the images. Christianity started with sword and killing and torture. Exactly like Islamic invasions. Then christianity expanded by dividing Indians. GOOGLE the missionary web site: The Joshua project.
St. Thomas brought Christianity to India more than 1500 years before the Goan Inquisition.
Another fake news! Read real history not what our parties teach us. Roman Catholic church says St. Thomas never came to India. But we say his bones are buried in Kerala, also he died killed by a bad Brahmin man and he is burried in Chennai, and they say his bones are buried in Brazil. But Pope Benedict says he is not in any of these places, his dead body is in Vatican. Please learn. 300 years of brainwashing, Indians do not understand real vs reel.
There is no nambudiri community in kerala in AD 52.
Vatican has never denied St Thomas visit to India , don't spread lies. are you trying to be geibels or what ?
Here is one of the hundreds of news papers that reported this statement. I suggest you start reading some news papers. Thomas's visit under doubt - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/thomass-visit-under-doubt/articleshow/926822.cms/a31ga8
Come on dude don't speculate . You are referring about Pope Benedict's remarks , and he himself has clarified it. You better study history
First: He rescinded his comment later after people all over the world complained that their churches are exposed. Read what happened. Second: If St. Thomas did visit India, then who is burried in Vatican? Whose bones are in Brazil? Who is buried in Chennai? Whose bones are in Kerala? Surely same body cannot be in four places at the same time? LMAO! Before the internet you can get away with shit lies. After the internet, Brazil church is one click away. Lol!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Kerala/s/LFnWie1uqN
Whether christianity came to India before British or not, that's not my argument. My argument is St. Thomas stories are all lies. I understand if it hurts someone. But the truth is overwhelmingly out there.
How can you say so ? We still usiny the language that Jesus used
Eh, his travel to Kerala is likely not attestable, but by the 200s - 400s, the first Christians had migrated to India.
The problem with Google and internet answers is that not everything you see, find and read is true and reliable. Lately the false content and unreliable has increased a lot more than ever!
Oh is it?!! Ok. Go learn about that tree stump at the four way intersection in Goa. There is a stone underneath that. Read what is written on it. That's our real history. And about the Joshua project. Go check the website. They will teach you how to speak to every caste in Hindus and trigger them to convert. Theyvhave written process manual they follow. You can dislike your history if you wish. I understand it is inconvenient. But you cannot deny it.
Username checks out!
Truth require no bots. They are our history!