THE CHURCH IN ANDHRA PRADESH IT'S ORIGIN AND GROWTH
Prof.R.R. Sundara Rao (AP , India )
The present writing project, calls for a study of the beginnings and growth of Christianity in Andhra Pradesh the religious and social background of the converts, the factors that have contributed for their conversion, the indigenous methods that these converts have adapted for the nourishment of their spiritual life, and the main attempts that they have made to be part of the indigenous culture of Telugu speaking people. This study is necessary to have fuller and better understanding of the Christian community in Andhra Pradesh. During the past hundred years a great variety of writings on the Christian work in Andhra Pradesh have emerged. The authors of these writings, in almost all cases, were missionaries or the persons related to the mission projects of the respective home boards abroad. These writings, therefore, include the detailed account of success and failures of the work of the respective denominations, often followed by a note of criticism of the original religion of the people among whom they started their work.
In their pursuit of creating interest among the members of their supporting Churches abroad, these writers dealt vividly with the history and activities of their missions and missionaries, their living conditions and personal sacrifices which, no doubt, deserve a high degree of appreciation. But what was the cost paid by the converts when they decided to become Christians? What was their participation and contribution to Church-building in Andhra Pradesh? What were the problems they have faced as a minority community when they had to live among large numbers of people of other faiths? How were these early Christians able to survive these pressures and frustrations? These questions remain unanswered in many cases, if they are answered they lack the thoroughness they deserve. This is also an attempt to answer some of these questions.
Beginnings of Christianity in Andhra Pradesh: "The first effort at evangelization," writes Martin L Dolbeer, Jr., "Came from French Jesuits of Pondicherry, with the work of M. Manduit in the Chittor District. His first converts came from Punganur in 1701. Manduit's labours did not mark the beginnings of the history of Christianity in Andhra Pradesh, as stated by Martin L Dolbeer,Jr. but intensified the efforts already made with minimum success. Elsewhere we read that Franciscan missionaries baptized all the Brahmins of one village at one time, and we hear of the mass baptisms of pearl fishermen in 1536 in a village called Mudgal, which was then the largest centre of the mission with three hundred converts. This was in the Sultanate of Bijapur, situated on the border of this Sultanate and the Kingdom of Golconda. Almost all of these 300 converts were Telugu speaking people. The Muslim sovereign of Bijapur allowed Portuguese Jesuits to estab1ish mission Churches in various parts of the State and was so well disposed towards the Christians that he granted several acres of land for the support of the Mudgal congregation. But the subsequent growth, of the Roman Catholic Church in this area was slow, that a Roman Catholic Diocese of Hyderabad was not formed until 1886.
The next attempt by the Jesuits was made in Chandragiri, the capital of Venkataraya-II of Aravidu dynasty. Two Roman Catholic priests, namely, De Sa and Francisco Rieio, went there from Santhome , Madras on tenth of October 1598 at the invitation of the Obul Raya, the uncle of Venkataraya. Venkataraya granted audience to them and told them through his uncle, Obul Raya, that he had determined "to give them two vil1ages for their expenses and for the construction of the temple; and then a golden palankin, which only permitted to grandees and gurupis. Finally he allowed them to build as many temples as they wished throughout his dominions.” Accordingly, they moved to Chandragiri on August 12th, 1599 and built a small church and a place to live in.
This mission did not last long because of the conflict between the inhabitants of santhome and the soldiers of Adigar which ended with the partial destruction of Madras and Mylapur. When news of this disaster reached Venkataraya's ears, he was inflamed with anger and decided to send the fathers away from his kingdom. But he later changed his mind and sent them to Vellore, another town in his kingdom but located in the Tamil speaking area. The Fathers had baptized six people in Chandragiri who were their helpers in their residence. It may, therefore, be concluded that this mission to the court of Venkataraya in Chandragiri was a failure. Another set of Telugu people were converted to Christianity in and around Madurai by Robert de Nobili ,who had learned Telugu well enough to write in that language to aid the new converts from Telugu community.
Later, Fr. Manco and Fr. Alvars proceeded to the kingdom of Golconda and received permission from the King to preach the Gospel. But whether there were any conversions then was not known. Yet one can infer so since the Pope in 1696 appointed Fr. Peter as Apostolic Vicar for Bijapur and Golconda. Usually Vicarates were not formed unless there was a Christian community of the Catholic Church. This seems to have been all that was achieved by the Roman Catholic missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries, either in Andhra pradesh or in other places among the Telugu speaking people. As has been already pointed, M.Manduit renewed and carried out this effort with great success in Chittoor, Anandapur and Bellary Districts, all of which were the Telugu speaking areas. For the next hundred years this was the only Christian mission in Andhra. although Ziegenbalg and Benjamin Schultze, Lutheran missionaries at Tranquebar and Madras, respectively, came to Andhra Pradesh at different times and visited Tirupati, the place of famous Vaishnava shrine, seven miles north of Chandragiri. This was the first visit of Protestant missionaries to Andhra Pradesh. Schultze, however, worked among Telugu speaking people in Madras city, establishing schools and translating the Christian scriptures into Telugu language for them.
Schultze completed the translation of New Testament into Telugu by 1727 and the Old Testament by 1732. Unfortunately forgotten in Halle to which they were sent for printing. This Writer made an attempt to find out the fate of these manuscripts during his visit to East Germany in May and June of 1986 to attend the 150th anniversary of the establishment of Leipzig Lutheran Mission Society. His efforts were not fruitful anyway.
In this background the London Missionary Society may claim to have established the first Protestant Mission Center in Andhra Pradesh at Visakhapatnam. Its missionaries, George Crane and Augustus Des Granges, reached Visakhapatnam in July 1805.They had the double responsibility of conducting worship services in English for employees of the East India Company, while attempting to learn Telugu and to translate the Christian scriptures into that language. In both these attempts they were greatly assisted by Anandraur, a Brahmin who bore the evidence of genuine conversion and of whom they entertained the highest opinion. At this point it should be mentioned that Serampore trio, William Carry, Marshman and Ward, also completed their translation of the New Testament by 1811. In 1812 in Serampore and in 1818 in Madras this Telugu translation was printed. Subsequently in 1854 the Old Testament was completed and issued.
The second Protestant Mission to have its missionary sent to Andhra Pradesh was the American Baptist Missionary Society. Its first missionary to Andhra Pradesh was Samuel Day who arrived at Visakhapatnam on March 7th , 1836. After a few days' stay at Visakhapatnam, he and his family moved to Chicacole (the present Srikakulam) and after a few months, they were again moved to Madras on March 7th 1837.
After three years of his service as a Pastor to a local church in Madras, he decided to go to Nellore, thus marking the beginnings of American Baptist Mission work in Andhra Pradesh.
Just about the time the pioneer American Lutheran Missionary C.F. Heyer set his voyage to India, Robert de Nobili of the Church Missionary Society arrived at Machilipatnam on October 28, 1841 and started his work, while C.F. Heyer,a Lutheran Missionary from America, arrived at Guntur on July 31,1842. Meanwhile the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel intensified it's efforts, mostly in the Rayalaseema districts having it's centre at Cuddappah. This society met with surprising success in this area. These were the first major denominations to start their work in Circar and Ceded or Rayalaseema districts.
Telugu speaking areas of the State of Hyderabad were late in receiving missionaries even though British Chaplains had been present for some time since the British army had barracks in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. These Chaplains were responsible for Christian activities in this area. The American Methodist Episcopal Church sent its missionaries to Hyderabad in 1873 while Wesleyan Methodists arrived in December 1878 at Secunderabad and started their work. The person who helped them most in this area was Joseph Cornelius, himself a migrant from the Tamil area. Besides these foreign missions there was an organization of indigenousmissions known as "The Indian Missionary Society of Tirunelveli" which started its work in the Nijam districts of Khammam, Karimnagar and Warangal, with Dornaka1 as its main center in 1903. Its first missionary was V.S. Azariah, an internationally known leader with versatile talents and great vision and venture. Not only his men and money but his methods were indigenous too.
This is a fair description of the work of the major Christian missions in Andhra Pradesh. Drawing their strength and impetus from the religious awakening all over the world during the last century, these denominations found economically backward, socially downtrodden and religiously deprived communities in Andhra for their work. Not loosing a single opportunity, they concentrated on their goals. They were encouraged even astonished by the stunning and surprising results that their work accomplished in these areas. At present Christians constitute four percent of total population of Andhra. When compared with the results of many of the other areas in India this figure is more striking; and it almost reaches at what J. Pickett characterizes as a "mass movement" .
These mass conversions to Christianity were the result of a group decision taken within the given groups in Andhra Pradesh. An Indian, (and so an Andhra) having come from a traditional society, tends to conceive himself as a part of or dependent on various groups, and not as a separate, independent being. In traditional societies the stress is placed on the society as a whole, as collective Man, and the ideal derives from the organization of society to its end. More than anything, this group consciousness affected Christianity in Andhra. It may seem now, when we look back at what happened some decades ago, that these people lacked a sense of individual responsibility, but that was the way things happened then.
As Stephen Neill observes, these movements fulfilled neither the worst fears of their critics nor the highest hopes of their supporters. By and large those who received Christianity in these group conversions had a feeling of security in the event that the consequences following their conversion would be contrary. Besides, the sense of belonging to a distinct community continues to exert among them, which gave them a unique joy, happiness and satisfaction for which perhaps they had been longing throughout their past life. However, one may notice a defect that these masses with a very high rate of illiteracy and lack of sound instruction in religious beliefs and personal experience often failed to live up to their expectations in many cases.
They were typically nominal Christians, in that they had a keen sense of belonging to a Christian community,but lacked even a rudimentary knowledge of Christian commitment and dedication. The Church is thus handicapped by a large dragging section of nominal Christians. In the words of Kenneth S. Laourette "to win these nominal Christians to the rea1life that is in Christ and to nourish them up into the full stature of manhood is a very different matter. However these movements having reached their peak in area after area, within a few years gradually lost impetus and sank back into slow and hardly remarkable progress.
Regarding the growth of the Church, unfortunately, there exist some misconceptions that missionaries provided material benefits to those who accepted Christianity despite the fact that these converts paid a very high price for their conversion to Christianity. In the Indian context conversion means more than the change of one religion to another. It means an automatic excommunication of the caste in most areas, and exclusion from the caste, normally means exclusion from the caste occupation. What is means to be excommunicated not only from the caste and caste occupation but from one's own total circle of relatives can be understood only by those who have undergone such an experience or should have seen the victims, J.S. Dubois explains this situation:
A person who embraces it (Christianity) becomes a proscribed and outlawed man; he loses at once all that can attach him to life. A husband, a father is forthwith forsaken and deserted by his own wife and children, who obstinately refuse to have further intercourse with their degraded relatives. A son is unmercifully driven out of his paternal mansion, and entirely deserted by those who gave birth. Dubois' description of the fate of the converts to Christianity is that of a personal eye witness of what happened to them during the last century. If the belief that Christianity has attached the masses by giving the material benefits to them is true, then it must be balanced against the estimate of whether there is any fitting compensation for what these new converts lost by accepting Christianity.
Some argue that the so-called "outcastes" were the ones who thus benefited by accepting Christianity, not the people of high caste. So writes B. Kesavanarayana: The miserable lot of the untouchables was exploited by Christian missionaries to bring about mass conversions of these unfortunate people. It was pointed out the conversion to Christianity provided alluring prospects of revolutionary transformation of social, economic and religious status in glaring contrast to the degraded and poverty-stricken life they would be leading under the fold of Hinduism.
What is true in this statement is not the first part of it, but its description of the degraded and poverty-stricken life of the untouchables under the fold of the Hinduism. Christianity did not exploit the miserable lot of untouchables for the benefit of spreading of the Gospel. Rather treated them as fellow human beings and created better conditions for them so that they could lead a more meaningful life. Christianity made them human beings by infusing in them a new sense of self-reliance and self-respect. As Kesavanarayana himself agreed in another place, missionaries did valuable service to improve the lot of the down-trodden untouchables by opening educational institutions, by establishing hospitals and by obtaining land from the Government for the betterment of these people.
The case studies made recently in various areas in South India prove that the change of religion did not bring any fortune to the untouchables except the sense of satisfaction that comes from having a religion which they could claim as their own and a place for worship with their own priest, and other needed religious facilities. The conversion to Christianity does not seem to make a real economic difference and that the absence of purchasing power has been evidenced everywhere among the Christians who came from "outcaste" communities. However, it would be a misinterpretation to conclude that there was nothing done by the Christian Church for these converts. The Church helped them to improve their living conditions and health through the Schools and Health Institutions. But these facilities were not limited to Christians alone. Andhra Pradesh region was prone to frequent severe storms (similar to that of one which occurred in November 1977) and famines. It was during these times that the Church helped the people, Christians and other alike, who were affected. This kind of Christian relief work was not motivated by the desire to win the converts. Rather Christian organizations seemed unable to keep themselves away from responding to the situations of need to help the victims in whatever manner they could. If some of the victims thus touched by the charity of Christian missions entered the Church in masses they might have done so on a voluntary basis.
