Pentecostal, and charismatic-havebeen selected from a wider set of Mission Handbook as "evangelical" (pp. 249ff). A few are identified descriptors tha t the MissionHandbook provides for identifyingagency simply by denominational tradition; e.g., the Lutheran Brethren tradition. Most agencies select one or more of these particular (affiliated with EFMA; identified with the Lutheran tradition), and descriptors, while a minority prefer to be identified simply by their the Apostolic Christian Church (unaffiliated; identified with the denominational tradition: Baptist, Lutheran, and so forth. Holiness tradition). Two of the IFMA agencies use both"evangeli­ 10. The increase was influenced slightly by the addition of agencies cal" and "fundamentalist" to identify themselves: UFM Interna­ founded subsequent to 1968 (350 out of the total of 9,572). tional and CAM International. 11. The largest share of this gain can be attributed to just two agencies, The group labeled "unaffiliated evangelicals" in Fig. 3 consists of New Tribes Mission (growth rate nearly 6 percent per year) and the twenty-two agencies that are not related either to EFMA or IFMA. Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (growth Sevenagencies in this group appear in the Handbook as"evangelical," rate of about 2 percent). Between them they increased by more than including Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT). The others are identi­ 4,000 missionaries, thereby accounting for two out of every three fied generally by denominational tradition: Anabaptist, Brethren, gained by the fundamentalist missionary community since 1968. Holiness, Lutheran, Mennonite, and Restoration. I perceive these Parenthetically, it should be noted that the entry for Southern denominational agencies as having most affinity with the evangeli­ Baptist FMB (15th ed., p. 221) states that missionaries on furlough cal stream. From 1968 to 1992 the "unaffiliated evangelical" group were not included in the total for career missionaries. If furloughed grew at an annualized rate of 2 percent, with WBT accounting for the missionaries had been included (as they always were in the past), largest share of the growth. several hundred would be added to the total. This illustrates how Although charismatic and Pentecostal agencies are often identi­ variation in the method of reporting a large agency can have a major fied as evangelical, for the purposes of this study they are considered impact upon grand totals and skew comparisons of successive in the separate category of charismatic/Pentecostal. However, a few editions of the Mission Handbook. Pentecostal agencies have long been associated with EFMA and 12. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids, accordingly are included in the evangelical group displayed in Fig. 3 Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989, repro 1992), p. 65. (e.g., the Assemblies of God, and the Pentecostal Assemblies of 13. Fig. 3 includes 131 agencies, almost all of which are identified in the Canada). Ironies of Indigenization: Some Cultural Repercussions of Mission in South India Susan Billington Harper heologies and mission strategies that stress the funda­ wars and partitions in this century, not to mention more subtle T mental importance of indigenization bear an unmistak­ forms of alienation and discrimination. The use of indigenous­ able resemblance to secular ideologies of ethnic or national self­ ness as grounds for inclusion or exclusion has its parallels in determination. Indigenization as a central principle of mission church life, for example in the anti-Western reaction to mission­ constrains the church to operate respectfully within boundaries ary dominance in some sections of the younger churches. established by underlying ethnic groups or nationalities. It is It was therefore interesting to me when I embarked on my citizenship in genetic and geographic entities rather than in a study of one of India's greatest indigenous leaders, V. S. Azariah "higher kingdom" that defines many proper rules of conduct, (1874-1945), to discover his absolute rejection of an exclusivist according to this point of view. attitude towardWesternmissionaries on the basisoftheirethnicity Christian missionaries were influenced by, and contributed or nationality, and indeed toward many otheraspects of Western to, the historical shift in ideologies of sovereignty that accompa­ culture that permeated the churchin India. Explainingthe appar­ nied rapid decolonization in this century. Concepts of self­ ent contradiction between his reputation as an ardent Indian determination were fundamental to Anglican advocates of mis­ na tionalist andhis continuingreliance uponWesternmissionary sionary "euthanasia" and younger church indigenization from support and Western literature and cultural symbols during his Henry Venn onward. But violence in the modern world related career as a missionary and bishop became one of the central to the politicization of ethnic and religious or communal identi­ preoccupations of my work on Azariah's life.' His highly am­ ties-from Bosnia to Ayodhya-raises critical questions about bivalent and sometimes surprising approach to the process of the principle and practice of indigenization itself. Careful scru­ church indigenization suggested to me the need for a deeper tiny of the meaning and operation of indigenization in concrete exploration of Christianity's relation to culture in the particular and varied historical situations is clearly warranted. historical setting of South India in the nineteenth and twentieth "Indigenousness" is the conceptmostcommonly used today centuries. by ethnic groups laying claim to entitlements. "To be legitimate," writes DavidHorowitz in his analysis of ethnic groupconflict, "is Revival and Rejection of Culture to be identified with the territory." But any claim to group legitimacy deriving from attachment to the soil usually involves Christian missions have clearly helped to inspire vernacular the reverse "psychological denial" thatanother group mightalso cultural revivals in South Asia as well as Africa by, in Lamin ownequal shares in the land.' This exclusivist aspect to collective Sanneh's words, "uncapp[ing] the springs of indigenization."3 "indigenous" moral claims to legitimacy has led to numerous Of eight statues honoring the makers of Tamil culture on the Madras Marina, no less than three are Christian missionaries.' Susan Billington Harper is a Lecturer in History and Literature and in Joseph Constantius Beschi, a Jesuit, and Anglicans Robert Expository Writing at Harvard University. Caldwell and George Pope are remembered for their pioneering January 1995 13 grammars of spoken and classical Tamil, as well as for their inherited rituals and symbols of indigenous culture. But the creative contributions to Tamil literature and history. Beschi is character of newly emerging Christian cultures was also medi­ hailed as one of the founders of literary prose in Tamil, and ated by extra-Christian factors such as wider historical circum­ Robert Caldwell's Comparative Grammar ofthe Dravidian orSouth stances and by sociological factors, such as caste mobilization Indian Family of Languages (1856) helped to inspire the renais­ and regional competition. sance of Tamil language and literature in the nineteenth century. In this essay I examine some cultural repercussions of the Christianity's contributions to Tamil culture did not stop with missionary-translation enterprise among two depressed class the missionaries. The first Tamil novel was written by Christian groups: nineteenth-century Nadars, located in the present-day convert Samuel Vedanayagam Pillai. South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and twentieth-century un­ Yet, if Christian missions helped to ignite unexpected ver­ touchable Malas and Madigas in Andhra Pradesh. In both of nacular revivals in South Asia, they largely failed to ignite these areas, Anglican church leaders (both Western and Indian) widespread conversion movements, at least in comparison with made concerted efforts to "indigenize" the church, but several the scale witnessed in Africa. The primarymotive of missionaries factors combined to produce what were clearly ironic conse­ to India to convert the heathen was overtaken by the inescapable quences. Use of the word "ironic" is appropriate because the cultural consequences of their work. Most cultural systems in emerging shape of indigenization was far from what well-mean­ South Asia have been influenced by Christianity, but South ing orientalist indigenizers had intended to cultivate in their Asians have, on the whole, remained stubbornly hostile to evan­ converts. gelization, with only about 3 percent of today's population Christian converts frequently resisted orientalizing efforts claiming to be Christian. Foreign missionaries were clearly in­ to promote indigenization and instead embraced opportunities strumental in stirring up a greater awareness of ethnic and, later, for Westernization. For them, their natural inclinations seemed national identities among some Indians. But the relative to lead toward Westernization. Hence, an indigenized form of marginalization of Christianity in India has occurred at least in Christianity for many outcastes was, in fact, a Westernized form partbecauseof the resourcefulness withwhichcertainsections of that struck missionary indigenizers as not indigenous at all. For Indian society responded to the Christian challenge by revitaliz­ reasons to be explored below, low-caste converts often preferred ing their own traditions