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Understanding the Response to Portuguese Missionary Methods in India in the 16Th – 17Th Centuries

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Understanding the Response to Portuguese Missionary Methods in India in the 16Th – 17Th Centuries UNDERSTANDING THE RESPONSE TO PORTUGUESE MISSIONARY METHODS IN INDIA IN THE 16TH – 17TH CENTURIES Christianity has had a very long history in the sub-continent. Even if the traditional belief of the arrival of one of the apostles of Jesus, St. Thomas is discounted, there is evidence to prove that Christian merchants from west Asia had sailed and settled on the west coast of India in the early centuries of the present era. Catholic missionaries, mainly of the Franciscan order arrived as early as the 13th century, in the northern reaches of the Indian west coast. Some of them were, in medieval terminology, even “martyred” for the faith.1 The arrival of the Portuguese, with their padroado (patronage) privileges however marks the first large-scale appearance of Christian missionaries in India. Despite such a longstanding Christian tradition the focus of Church history writing in India, in the context of it being written as a form of ‘mission history’ has always been on the agency, the agents and their work. This has meant that the overarching emphasis has been on the mission bodies, their practices and when it has concentrated on the local bodies, the numbers they were able to convert. Conversion stories have also been narrated, yet it is done with the view to highlight the activities of the mission and their underlying role in bringing about that conversion. This overemphasis on the work of the converting agencies was no doubt the consequence of the need to legitimize their work as well as the need for further financial and other forms of aid, but it has had several implications. 1 A.M. Mundadan, History of Christianity, Vol. 1. From the Beginning up to the Middle of the 16th century, Bangalore, 1989, pp.78-107,126-137. One of them being the dichotomisation of the act of conversion as the function of two distinct role players the missioniser and the recipient; in other words, the conversion process has normally been seen as a passive reception, without the active agency of the recipient communities. The provision of royal patronage or padroado real which called for a close functioning between the Estado da Índia (State of India) and the Catholic Church has also reinforced the idea that Christianity was an Imperial tool for domination wherein those who imposed always imposed and those who received always received. Such discrete roles are extremely watertight, giving no agency or scope of change to those involved and predicating the activities of those involved in a static time warp. In such a hypothesis those who brought the religion always transported fixed “European’ Christian ideas and the recipients always accepted on those terms. It thus essentialises the mission bodies as well as the receivers into distinct role-players. The attempt in this essay is to look at the various ways in which the natives responded to the proliferation of Christianity by looking at various sections of society to show that just as there was a certain dynamism in proliferation methods, similarly the reception of the faith was not passive and that there were various forms that it could take. The criticism of the static-role players is not to deny the existence of these role players but rather to see the changing dynamics and the historical contingencies involved in the playing out of these roles. Thus if the spectrum were to start with missionising and active violent resistance the opposite end, then there were also intervening points that could range from adaptations on the part of mission bodies to active reinterpretation of the Christian message in what is popularly known as syncretism and acculturation of beliefs, and other forms of resistance. Two vital issues need to be taken into consideration when one is studying the response to Christianity as propagated by the Portuguese in India in the 16th-17th centuries. Firstly, from James Scott’s work on the Arts of Resistance, one is made aware of the various forms that resistance can take and I intend to examine the evidence that Portuguese India offers us in the light of their formulations. Scott highlights the interaction between the “powerful and the powerless” in the form of “transcripts”, a “public transcript,” which essentially is the outwardly performance or completion of the roles assigned as dominator and dominated. While the manifestation of roles may imply in the eyes of the public a smooth relationship, there are what Scott calls the “hidden transcripts,” the outcome of what the dominated really feel against those who dominate, taking various forms, short of direct rebellion and are articulated in “hidden spaces.” Scott’s work is important for our study because it highlights the forms that resistance can take to the ideological domination of a dominant group and this paper will try and locate the manner in which resistance to Christianity was articulated. Secondly, while resistance to Christianity can take different forms it cannot be denied that there was an overwhelming acceptance of the religion. In this context, there are two issues that need to be addressed. Firstly why do people convert and consequently what does conversion do to the people concerned in terms of belief. Conversion has often been linked to “an association to a hegemonic power,” or because “it embodies a cultural logic which is superior.” 2 In the preface to her book Outside the Fold , Gauri Vishwanathan has pointed out to the underlying assumption in conversion debates in recent times, which pre-supposes a lack of agency amongst the poor and the weaker sections in society in determining their choice and their 2 Gauri Vishwanathan, Outside the Fold, Conversion, Modernity, and Belief, New Delhi, 2001. p. xiii. vulnerability to conversions.3 In other words it is believed that conversions mainly privilege the poor because of their economic dependency. Pertinent to this study therefore are the questions, who were the people who were being exposed to Christian beliefs and who were those being converted and why did they do so? Upon conversion, it is evident that acceptance of a faith is not static and in fact forms of belief may vastly differ from that intended by the missionaries. 4 Consequently as Hefner has pointed out in the larger context of conversions to the macro religions, conversions can take many forms, because it is “ influenced by a larger interplay of identity, politics and morality.”5 Or in other words, the differences in the processes of conversions at various places may yield different results. Concluding from such a premise Hefner et al. point out that localisation and contextualisation of the received religion may not make it (in this case Christianity) as monolithic as one may assume it to be.6 Thus the receiving of religion may not be as rigid and static or even dominating as one may think or visualise it to be. Hegemony and an “open” transcript Taking the lead from Scott on the need for an ideology in order to dominate, one must go back to the early years of the Portuguese presence and more specifically to a letter, which was sent by the D. Manuel to the ruler of 3 Ibid. 4 Robert W. Hefner, World Building and the Rationality of Conversion, in Robert W. Hefner (ed), Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation, Berkeley, 1993, p. 19. 5 Ibid. p. 4. 6 Ibid.p. 5. Cochin through his viceroy Pedro Alvares Cabral.7 The letter is interesting on various counts. It is a communication seeking alliance with Cochin to further Portugal’s trading interests in the region. At the same time it is also a statement for the legitimisation of Portuguese requests and demands, and its presence using religious idioms. The confusion over Portuguese aims in the region stems from this use of religion by the Portuguese to suit their needs. In an age when the church did not necessarily uphold economic pursuits, there was a need to convince themselves and Europe of the legitimacy of their endeavour. Coming back to the letter itself, D. Manuel called the king of Cochin his brother and cognizant of the presence of Christians there tried to build bridges, by resorting to the technique of a reminder of the common heritage that they shared. He reminded the king that just like themselves, the Christian message had come to them through the first Apostles of Christ. He also told the ruler of Cochin of the need to help each other. He went on to set common boundaries by pointing out that the Moors were their mutual enemy as they from the seventh century had prevented contact with one another. D. Manuel was thus fulfilling his duties as a Christian king by building links with them. However, there was a veiled threat as well. D. Manuel was sure to admit his willingness to the use of force if it was needed if the people of Malabar did not respond. Thus by using the ‘Christian brotherhood’ logic, D. Manuel was extracting from the ruler of Cochin his alliance. The drawing of religious links and commonalities was as the Portuguese came to realise rather tenuous and therefore there was a need to resort to other resources. With a firm, though not always dogmatic belief in their superiority due to their belief in a certain religious tradition, the 7 Silva Rego, Documentação para a História. das Missões do Padroado Português do Oriente, (12 Vols.) Lisbon, 1947-58. Vol. 1. pp. 15-22. Doc. 4. Letter of D. Manuel to the King of Calecut through Pedralvares Cabral. 1500. Portuguese sought to use it to dictate and rule in all spheres of life-be it religious, economic, political or cultural.
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