It is said, in the grand tradition of
apocrypha, that long, long before Christianity wore the vestments of Rome’s
official state religion, the Gospel of Christ arrived in Kerala on a Syrian
boat and seeped into its being like tea from a teabag (with due credit to
Arundhati Roy’s The God Of Small Things). Not entirely canonical
legend has it that St Thomas the Apostle, a disciple of Iso Misiha (Jesus the
Messiah), with a few Syrian families, docked on the shores of Kodungalloor, Kerala
in 52 AD. And therefrom begins one of the most fantastic backstories ever
devised by immigrants anywhere, which has—with devotedly persistent
retelling—entered popular imagination and even crept into school textbooks. The
story goes that St Thomas converted a few Brahmins and established seven
churches along the Malabar Coast. Historians are not without doubts about this
theory. They point out that Kerala’s Aryanisation probably happened much later:
in the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries AD. It follows that there may have been no
Brahmins hanging about in an earlier time to be converted.
Interestingly though, if you examine
any diligently upkept Syrian Christian family tree, you find its roots are
drawn from the Brahmin families of yore. The names are listed with pride,
Kalli, Kallyamgal, Sankarapuri etc, and then proceed to articulate which branch
they are descended from. Historian M. Gangadharan says, “The original Syrian
Christians, like the Arabs and Jews, came to Kerala as traders. Perhaps a few
Brahmins did convert to Christianity due to land disputes or other reasons.
Kerala had abundant spices and oceanic trading played a crucial role in its
economy. All trading was done in exchange for gold and the traders were
immensely wealthy.” The secular kings welcomed foreign philosophies and allowed
settlers to build places of worship. Syrian Christians were even accorded
caste-restricted privileges like the use of the umbrella, the spread cloth to
walk upon, or the banana leaf doubling as a plate.
At some point in time, Syrian Christians chose not
to remain the ‘other’ and positioned themselves as high-caste converts and with
great canniness inserted themselves into the deeply caste-embedded society. No
small feat given the standing strictures on hierarchy. And having managed to
meld into society, they weathered the upheavals that time wrought and
tenaciously preserved their position. The conversion story was a handy aid to
augment this process. A nativised form of worship evolved, which resembled a
fusion of Hindu rites and ancient Syrian liturgy. Says Thiruvananthapuram MP
and writer Shashi Tharoor, “Perhaps their greatest contribution has been in
infusing the Christian tradition into the Indian socio-religious mosaic in a
truly indigenous way, thereby reiterating India’s ability to achieve the
highest form of pluralism within a single, holistic working system of human
society and thought.”This high-caste positioning also
had considerable influence on their conduct. Says Jose Dominic, MD and CEO of
CGH Earth (a Syrian Catholic in the hospitality business), “Syrian Christians
take great pride in coming from a ‘good family’ and their behaviour is governed
by this. They behave very civilly in society and are good workmen as well.”
The
Syrians were largely a monolithic church with strong relations to the Oriental
Churches of the East till the Portuguese came on the scene in the 16th century AD and with papal
sanction tried to induct them into the Catholic fold. They succeeded: in
splitting the Syrian Christian church into a number of splinters, some of which
adopted Catholicism, but many retained their Oriental rites. Says Babu Paul,
writer, orator and former IAS officer, “The Syrian Christians underwent different
divisions and reunions and now are spread across the total spectrum of church
theology from the Syro-Malabar at one end to the Pentecostal at the other.”
The caste ladder in Kerala did not have a native Vaishya
rung and the Syrians filled the gap. Some took to paddy cultivation and became
agriculturists. The introduction of rubber cultivation in the early 1900s
had few takers among the Namboodiris and Nairs. In the pre-land reform days,
they were sitting pretty. It needed an unfulfilled entrepreneurial streak to go
into the forested hills. Today, the rubber belt of Kerala—Pala, Kottayam,
Kanjirappally, Pathanamthitta, Koney—has a strong Syrian Christian presence.
The larger companies are the A.V. George group and the Malankara plantations,
both blessed with wide acreage. But, as Dominic says, “It is a well-known tale,
the world over, that it is in its migrant state that a community excels. When
the Syrian Christians became a landed community, the ownership gave them a
sense of security and their sense of enterprise was reduced. They weren’t able
to live up to their full capabilities during this time. However, the present
generation has realised the need to do something besides owning property and
are once again making forays in IT, hospitality and jewellery.”
As traders, they amassed considerable
amounts of wealth. This lent itself quite naturally to money-lending activities
and later to banking practices. “A story goes,” says P.J. Alexander, a former
DGP of Kerala, “a Syrian Christian woman enters her husband’s house with 20
eggs and a hen. Her survival instincts are so strong that the eggs will hatch
and the hens will soon multiply and she will have a roaring business.”
Chicken-egg analogies aside, there are real-life evincements of such success in
the finance sector; in particular, they have consistently enjoyed a foothold in
the gold loan business.
In the mid-20th century, Syrian
Christian-owned banks—like Palai Central Bank, Kottayam Orient Bank, or Quilon
Bank—undertook rapid expansion. One banker says, “You could say they were
pioneers in agricultural financing. If you look at the old audit books of the
State Bank of India (SBI), there are notes from the RBI that attest to
agricultural financing being a non-banking activity. Today, they have reversed
that policy.” These banks were liquidated in the early 1960s and merged with
national banks like SBI, State Bank of Travancore, Indian Bank among others.
But banks like Federal Bank and South Indian Bank flourish. Companies like
Muthoot Finance and Muthoot Fincorp have carved out a solid presence in the
gold loan sector.Forbes Asia magazine had Muthoot
Finance chairman M.G. George Muthoot and his three brothers listed among the
hundred richest Indians.
Malayala Manorama, the third largest circulated newspaper in the country, is run by the
Kandathil Mappilai Syrian Christian family and has shaped Malayalee public
opinion since its first edition rolled off the press in 1890. Says veteran journalist
and writer Kurian Pampadi, “Varghese Mappilai, the founding editor, was a
visionary who wrote his first editorial pleading for the upliftment of the
untouchable Pulayas. Business acumen, vision and practical wisdom helped the
Mappilais build up Malayala Manorama into one of India’s
largest media powerhouses. Kerala being divided into Centre-right and Left in
political affiliation, the MM gives due coverage to the Left
while staying steadfast to its more right-leaning stance.” The daily has a circulation
of over two million with 18 units in Kerala, India and the Gulf. The group
brings out about a dozen titles from its stable, forays into English,
Hindi, Tamil and Bengali and even traverses mediums with radio and television
broadcasts.
Admittance into the upper echelons of
power came early post-Independence, with John Mathai becoming India’s first
railway minister and later taking over, yes, the finance portfolio. He
presented two budgets. Defence minister and former chief minister of Kerala
A.K. Antony is a Syrian Christian. As is the state’s current CM, Oommen Chandy.
Interestingly, all the PMs from the Gandhi family have had Syrian Christian
personal assistants or secretaries. Though dutiful in service, there have been
visionaries too like Dr Verghese Kurien, the spearhead of India’s white
revolution. And John Mathai’s son Ravi J. Mathai was the founder member of the
prestigious Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad).
An unsung hero in the Indian sports
arena is the late Ravi Mammen of MRF (owned by the Kandathil family), who
created the Pace Foundation in 1987 to train and develop young fast bowlers.
With out-of-the box strategising in the 1980s—its sponsorship of motorsports in
particular—MRF was able to establish itself as a market leader. Yes, as Dominic
says, “They have excelled in every sphere. They have even done excellent work
as teachers in the field of education.”
Not that there aren’t areas for
improvement. Dominic laments, “In the field of arts, theatre, music and
letters, we don’t find too many. To do that, perhaps one needs to have rich
cultural resources from an ancient environment. But who here now knows the
Syriac culture? No Syrian Christian speaks Syriac.” A grievance many in the
community acknowledge. The willingness to sacrifice bits of self-identity in
order to better assimilate into the whole. As an anti-scriptural pithyism
perhaps purports to illustrate: a Syrian will marry a tribal princess and
readily shed his clothes to become the chief when she inherits the throne.
.First published by Outlook magazine:http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?282335
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