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When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. i Sustainability and the Sacred: A Comparative Study of Indian Religious Environmentalism with Special Reference to Christian and Indigenous Communities in the State of Kerala Paul Singh Job Retnaselvam A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Divinity, The University of Edinburgh September 2019 ii Declaration I hereby declare (a) that this dissertation has been composed by me, (b) that the work is my own, and, (c) that it has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Signature Name: Paul Singh Job Retnaselvam Date: 30/09/2019 iii Abstract This thesis is a study of Indian religious environmentalism with particular reference to Christian and indigenous religions in the state of Kerala, South India. Ethnographic investigations of church communities were carried out in twenty-five locations in four Dioceses of the Church of South India in Kerala. At one location a study was also conducted of an indigenous community of the Kani tribes in the Puravimala Tribal colony in Thiruvananthapuram. In Indian religious environmental discourse Christianity has been blamed as the root cause of the ecological crisis but studies of Indian environmentalism have not been able to substantiate such claims with the support of field-based studies. The Keralan Christian ecological consciousness, which is rooted in pre-Christian tradition, views nature to be sacred, and the sacredness dwells in the quality life of all living and non-living beings in the planet earth. The aim of this thesis is to determine whether Indian religions can play a significant role in the quest for a sustainable society in India, and also to establish to what extent can Indian conceptions of the sacred inform and promote ecological sustainability in India. A second aim of the thesis is to determine the ecological behaviour embedded in the rituals and practices of the Christian and indigenous communities and gather relevant resources to formulate a theology of environmental sustainability. The principal research finding of this thesis is that the concept that nature is sacred is defined within a frame of ecclesial movement by expressing nature as a worshipping community. When nature becomes a worshipping community, it is revealed that ordinary places become sacred places and the Christian rituals and sacraments offer an ecclesiological environmental activism. The second finding is that the sacredness of nature is rooted in indigenous and Christian traditions providing an ecological consciousness through the traditional practice of nature conservation and resource management as a sign of environmental sustainability. The iv indigenous holistic approach to environmental sustainability is the theological foundation of Indian Christian environmental theology and draws resources from environmentalism “from below.” Thirdly, Indian religious environmentalism emerges from the voices of the victims of the environmental crisis by upholding environmental justice and articulating their sufferings “from below.” It engages in local environments as a counter movement to environmentalism “from above.” The concepts of sacred and sustainability provide a theological grounding for environmental sustainability by speaking about quality environment. The doctrines of creation are redefined from the animistic and ecclesial traditions of Indian Christians which are well reflected with their understanding of sacred metaphors, to portray the wounded nature as the “othered body” and the “Christic-cosmic body,” as the cosmic body offers freedom to sustain quality environment. In religious environmentalism the sacred approach to nature defines quality environment as a sacred manifestation of environmental sustainability. The first chapter discusses the contemporary crisis of Indian religious environmentalism, which mainly focuses on the Hindu and Christian approach to the environment and it examines whether the environmentalism of the poor is properly addressed. The second chapter gives an overview about religious environmentalism in the light of ethical questions, which investigates the cosmological consciousness of communities and the discourses of the environmentalism from below. The emergence of the concept of sustainability and the sacred is a main concern of the third chapter, which explains my ethnographic study that was conducted in the ecological landscape of the four CSI dioceses in Kerala and the Kani Tribal colony in Puravimala. The fourth chapter describes the concept of the sacred from the environmental consciousness embedded in the worshipping communities and how these communities maintain environmental activism effectively. The fifth chapter discusses the ecological tradition ‘from below’ in the light of the ethnographic study of the Kani Tribal colony in Puravimala and examines how the ecological behaviour of the CSI Christians in Kerala is related to the ecological spirituality and practices of the Kani Tribal v community. The sixth chapter explains how to understand and respond to environmental problems based on the concerns of Christian environmentalism ‘from below.’ The final chapter attempts to formulate a theology of environmental sustainability, based on the ecological doctrines drawn from the ethnographic locations. This points out that suffering from below and quality environment as theological categories toward environmental sustainability, and the sacred approach to nature defines quality environment as a manifestation of environmental sustainability. vi Lay Summary This thesis is a study of Indian religious environmentalism with special refence to Christian and indigenous religions in the State of Kerala, South India. It is an ethnographic research carried out in twenty five locations in the four dioceses of the Church South India, and an indigenous community which lives in Puravimala Tribal colony, close to one of the congregations of South Kerala Diocese in Thiruvananthapuram. There are numerous discussions about Indian religious environmentalism, but most of them highlight the secular aspect of it. The discussions about Indian religious environmentalism highlight that Indian religious environmentalism does not represent a viable and strong source of pro-environmental behaviours and values. But this study has analysed the concepts of sacred and sustainability, which remain marginalised in current environmental discussions in India. This research examines whether Indian religions are a significant source for a sustainable society in India, based on Indian conceptions of the sacred. It also aimed at determining the relationship between contemporary religious environmentalism and indigenous Indian traditions which pre-date the long introduced religion of Christianity in Kerala. Hence, this study has included a comparative ethnographic engagement with the Kani tribal community in Puravimala tribal Colony alongside the Protestant Christian communities as well as study of indigenous influences among Christians. There are two principal findings that emerge from this study. The first principal finding is that the ecological consciousness of the Christian communities in Kerala is deeply rooted in indigenous traditions, which upholds the widely held Indian view that nature is sacred, and the sacredness is related to all living and non- living beings on the earth. The second finding is that Indian religious environmentalism, that I have examined, has a distinctive perspective ‘from below’ which emerges from the environmental locations of Dalit and Tribal communities. The perspective ‘from below’ also represents the voices of the victims of environmental crisis in rural areas which contrasts with the environmental movement in Indian cities. The Christian approach to Indian religious environmentalism places the experiences of the victims of vii environmental crisis with a special focus on environmental justice, and present freedom to the environmental victims as a theological category toward environmental sustainability. A sacred approach to environment aims at creation of quality environment. Therefore, in religious environmentalism the sacred approach to nature defines quality environment as a sacred manifestation of environmental sustainability. viii Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Michael S. Northcott and Dr. Arkotong Longkumer, my supervisors, for their guidance and support during the time of study, research and writing of this thesis. As principal supervisor (until 31st December 2017), Prof. Michael S. Northcott, acted as a ‘critical friend’ providing valuable guidance, scholarly input and consistent encouragement. I had originally planned