The Struggle against Caste

Hinduism was responsible for most of what Azariah perceived to be the negative aspects of Indian culture, and the Christian gospel would provide the only truly effective corrective.

It is by the proclamation of this truth that the early Church turned the world upside down. It was this that rebuilt society in the corrupt pagan Roman world. It is this that will to-day redeem Indian society and emancipate it from the thralldom of centuries.8

Azariah accordingly insisted that all beliefs, rituals, practices, and cultural manifestations of Hinduism that the church judged to be evil should be renounced at baptism. Chief among these `evils' was the caste system, with its dehumanizing conceptualization and rationalization of `pollution' and `untouchability' - relegating up to one-fifth of society to perpetual thraldom. Azariah believed the caste system to be so integral to the Hindu religion that, without caste, Hinduism would lose its core identity. In an essay published in response to an article by the Brahmo Samajist and critic of Christian missions, Manilal C. Parekh, Azariah wrote:

Hinduism has never set forth a body of doctrines which every follower of that religion should more or less accept; it presents a scheme of life. A Hindu may believe in anything and everything, or nothing; he will still be a Hindu if only he does not transgress the social restrictions of that particular caste in which he was born, to which he belongs through life, and in which he must die. In this limited sense, caste is Hinduism and Hinduism is caste. In other words, Hinduism represents a scheme of life; it is a bundle of practices and observances that have caste as their centre and circumference.

Azariah contrasted Hindu society's caste-centeredness with Christianity's Christ-centeredness:

But what is Christianity? It is often said that Christianity is Christ. That is true; but it is also a way of life. `The Way' was the name given to it in the days of the apostles. Christianity is not a doctrine about God; it is not hero-worship of Jesus, it is a scheme of life in a society; it is an organism, a family, a fellowship, a brotherhood - whose centre, radius and circumference is Christ. In fellowship with all others who are attached to the Lord, bound together by outward rules and rites and throbbing with one inward pulse and purpose, men and women of all ages, races, tongues, colours and nationalities have accepted this scheme of life, and separated from all others are more and more experiencing in this fellowship the impetus and power issuing from the Spirit who is its indweller and life-giver.9

As ways of life, Christian and Hindu norms were therefore radically opposed to each other: The Hindu way of life stands for caste and exclusiveness; the Christian way of life for catholicity and inclusiveness.' In contrast to Parekh, who believed, with Keshub Chunder Sen, that in the `New Dispensation of the Spirit' it was possible to remain loyal to both the Christian and Hindu religions, Azariah stressed the radical discontinuity between the two religious systems and the necessity of choosing between allegiance to caste and the fellowship of Christ.10

The bishop's response to Parekh has been criticized more recently by the late Indian theologian, M. M. Thomas, for stressing the historical manifestation of life in the Church as the essence of faith at the expense of the more eschatological, or transcendent, aspects of Christianity. Thomas suggested that, by absolutizing Christian religion and Christian society, Azariah overlooked the degree to which Christ may transcend His own manifestation as `Christian religion and society' and create `spiritual ferment' within Hindu society and religion, as for example, in the internal efforts of Hindus to reform the caste system. For, Thomas asked, when Hinduism itself has rejected that scheme as inadequate and is engaged in a struggle to express a new idea of society more in tune with the Christian scheme, can this be considered in some sense a movement of Hinduism to Christ?'11

Although Azariah sounded like many nineteenth-century British missionaries when discussing Hindu religion, Thomas may have an inadequate appreciation of Azariah's recognition of the value of modern Hindu reform movements. In the bishop's book The Church and Evangelism, Azariah described Hindu social service organizations, the Harijan uplift movement, the demand for temple entry for all, and the attempts to reform social evils as `signs of the moving of the Spirit of God' and as `providential preparations for the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.' He also portrayed `centuries of Hinduism ... with sacraments, with ideas of incarnation, with its insistence upon the invariable results of sin and its emphasis on the need of deliverance ... as preparing the way of the Lord.' Azariah assigned a more positive value than most nationalists would to foreign imperial power when Christian conversion was the result. He believed in the efficacy of an extra-ecclesiastical `Providence' functioning as a praeparatio evangelica both in the Roman Empire during the time of Christ and in the British Empire during his own lifetime. And Azariah never ruled out the possibility that God worked through Hinduism itself to achieve His own eschatological purposes.12

Throughout his tenure in Dornakal, however, the bishop argued for the complete repudiation of caste loyalties in order to achieve a successful ,new brotherhood' that would be inclusive rather than exclusive. The Christian community should not be considered just another static communal group, but something dynamic and different that included `all races, all tongues and all castes.... Our status is not to be a caste among the many Hindu castes.'13 `The moment a person is baptized, he is no longer a Mala, a Madiga or a Sudra, but all are one in Christ Jesus,' Azariah wrote,14 echoing the vast majority of missionaries who, from the midnineteenth century, had formed a consensus of opposition to the caste system.'5

The struggle against caste feeling was therefore one of the central struggles of his ministry in Dornakal, and a constant theme in diocesan records. Azariah frequently enjoined his diocese to pray against `the spirit of faction' caused by `caste ... quarrels about land ... pride.'16 A 1934 evangelism campaign report described how caste loyalties hindered the integration of outcastes and non-Brahmin low-castes within the same congregations and churches:

The stronghold of caste is being very badly shaken by the assault of the Christian message of salvation for all, yet it is a stronghold still. In a village of Japanapalle pastorate the caste people asked whether they could not have a separate church of their own instead of joining with the outcaste Christian church.

In Rottamakuruvu the caste people fear their caste landlord who threatens to drive them out if they become Christians. In Komma- gudem the caste people asked the preaching Band: `Have you not seen that our idols and shrines are fallen down? We have left off worshipping them; we worship now the only true God the Creator of all, but because of caste we cannot become Christians.'17

In addition to preventing a new brotherhood from emerging between caste groups, the caste system prescribed a complex set of ritual rights and responsibilities which defined and regulated relationships between village subgroups. The Christian `way' threatened to undermine this complex system in several crucial areas.

Azariah's diocese strictly enforced a prohibition against Sunday work, despite the provocation it represented to higher-caste employers and the persecution it brought to some converts.18 It also required aban doning caste appellations for new Christian names (called `civilized names') taken either from the Bible (Rachel, Job, and Abraham) or from Telugu and Sanskrit words for important virtues (Dina for humility).19 Problems sometimes arose when new converts hastily adopted unfamiliar names, as Bishop Elliot reported from a village during a 1935 Dornakal Diocese confirmation tour:

One specially quiet nice-looking girl-candidate had, I found for some extraordinary reason been christened Jezebel. We took the opportunity of making a change, and she chose the name Mary.20

The church also required male converts to shave the juttu (the tonsure, or tuft of hair, that signified their Hindu identity), and women to remove the caste mark (traditionally removed at the death of a husband).21

Like most nineteenth-century Protestant missions and many Hindu reform movements, Azariah's church condemned and forbade idol worship, although it had particular difficulty enforcing this ban. The destruction of the village shrine followed by the erection of a church (in which hymns ridiculing idol worship might be sung) usually provided the most dramatically visible sign of conversion in the untouchable hamlets.22

Converts were expected to abandon the performance of most of the duties previously required of them in Hindu sacrifices, rituals, and festivals; as a result they were often threatened with physical harm or loss of income. One Madiga convert recorded the loss of customary gifts and income (mamool, or `custom') earned previously from zamindars (or landholders) for performance of certain sacrifices. Another convert named Yesuratnam narrowly missed a beating and loss of wages when he refused to perform the traditional boundary sacrifice in which the blood of a sacrificed chicken was poured on boiled rice and sprinkled on the land's boundaries to invoke the blessing of a local goddess on the crop.23 One Hindu pujari (or priest, de scribed as a devout `worshipper of Ganganamma') gave up his regular sacrifices after his conversion; another asadi, who used to tell the story of Peddamma (the village goddess) in a drunken state for the amusement of caste onlookers at Hindu festivals, also gave up this practice.24

The rejection of traditional authority represented not just the repudiation of old idols by new converts, but also a challenge to the social order by long suppressed lower classes. The higher castes were quick to disparage efforts by members of the depressed classes to assume new airs.'25 Sometimes the persecution became so intense that converts migrated to new Christian `Villages of Refuge' such as Vedanayagapuram.

Many villagers who placed themselves on the church rolls as `enquirers' (i.e., they were still non-baptized) were not willing or able to abide by many of the church's rules regarding former Hindu practices. In 1928, some 2,000 villagers in the Kistna (Krishna) district were struck off the registers for having `fallen back,' another 300 were expelled for not having attended church in fifteen months, and 2,000 others were discharged for 'indifference.'26 Excommunications (the required discipline for communicant members) were pronounced regularly for apostasy - both on individuals and on groups. In the 1929 case of a village that converted its chapel into a Hindu temple, all but one of its Christian families were excommunicated.27

Azariah warned that the church's permanence and strength depended on expressing outwardly `by repentance and new life' the inner experience of faith in Jesus Christ, which permitted no conciliation with 'pagan rites.' `Compromise with evil, leniency in regard to discipline, indifference in the matter of worship and instruction - these will always spell serious loss to Church life,' he wrote in 1934.28 Azariah presented Anglican Christianity to Andhra's depressed classes as a dramatic alternative to their former religious practices and was often frustrated by the tendency of converts to treat the new faith and its practices as complements to the old.

However, the church also sought to forge some links with existing Hindu village culture, drawing distinctions between `harmless' duties performed by the depressed classes for ryots at village festivals (cleaning up houses, preparing grain, etc.), `debatable' duties (leading up animals for slaughter as offerings to Hindu gods), and those `definitely forbidden to Christians' (sprinkling the blood of the sacrifice, i.e., taking part in Hindu puja).29 Christians also sought creative and theologically acceptable ways to insert their new religion into traditional rituals, such as using prayers to Jesus as a substitute for previous sacrificial incantations during the traditional boundary sacrifice.30

But in Dornakal, as elsewhere, many Hindu ceremonies and customs were never fully given up.31 One evening in 1938, an entire body of Christian village elders near Nandyal participated in a devara (a buffalo sacri- fice).32 Continued deference to Hindu custom was reflected in the common practice of avoiding weddings on the inauspicious days of Tuesday or Saturday and having baptisms in the second month after birth - practices which persist to this day.33 An animated discussion with Indian Christian teachers' wives in 1938 about `superstitions' remaining in the church caused one missionary to exclaim: `there are so many interesting lapses to record.'34 Many Hindu practices were clearly still considered to be both useful and legitimate by many converts and viewed less as `lapses' from Christianity than as integrated parts of an emergent Indian Christian culture within Hindu society.31

The type of information available in diocesan and missionary ar chives does not permit a complete description of the sociological implications of conversion to Christianity. Most primary written materials are devoid of the sort of subtle ethnographic distinctions found in modern scholarly studies.36 Whether Mala converts belonged to the `land-holding,' right-handed, Saiva section (Reddi-Bhumalu) or to the `service-giving,' left-handed, Vaishna sections (Murikinai or Pokanati) was clearly less important to the church than the numbers of Malas converting. Neither diocesan journals nor missionary accounts provide much sense of whether certain subgroups of Malas or Madigas tended to be more receptive to conversion, whether conversion was linked to particular social changes (such as the breaking of rules related to group endogamy), or even the precise jati identity of most converts. Nor do the Church Censures, which recorded all infractions of diocesan rules, contain much detail about the nature of the `heathen practices' and the `Hindu rites' for which its members were so frequently excommunicated. However, both scattered evidence in primary records and interviews with elderly church leaders in Dornakal suggest that, although some progress was made, the church did not succeed in eradicating many of the caste practices it condemned.37 In this sense, the Christianization of Azariah's diocese always remained incomplete.

The bishop's most frequently articulated social goals were to lessen the age-old animosities between Malas and Madigas and to soften the negative feelings of `Sudras' towards 'untouchables. '38 His sermons, writ ings, and informal teachings were uncompromising in their denunciation of caste as a system of social organization. He used Telugu Christian lyrics to popularize his call on Christians to `destroy caste feelings.'39 Converts of different caste backgrounds were required to attend the same chapels, to drink from the same communion cup, to send children to the same schools (where they could receive training in occupations reserved traditionally for their own, or for rival castes), and to eat together at public celebrations such as marriages, harvest festivals, and other communityjatras.

Although Azariah recognized that the struggle to abandon notions of ritual purity and impurity which delineated and reinforced caste boundaries was difficult for all, he believed it was especially so for those commonly labeled `Sudras' and/or `Tribals.' A Yerukala (Erukala) convert named Premamma refused for four years after her conversion to join former Malas and Madigas at Christian wedding feasts, insisting that she cook and eat her food separately. She eventually abandoned the belief that interdining would result in ritual pollution. Azariah reported that during the remaining seventeen years before her death in 1932, she betrayed no caste spirit and provided a powerful witness to the transforming power of Christ.'40

Diocesan literature contains substantial evidence that conversion to Christianity was accompanied by the abandonment of many attitudes and practices regulated by the caste system - particularly those related to the customary subordination of untouchables by the higher castes.41 The unusual conversions of non-Brahmins (mostly Kammas) to Christianity throughout Telugu country during this period were accompanied by discernible `softenings' of prejudice towards outcastes. By December 1931, there were approximately 26,000 Christians of so-called `Sudra' origin in Andhra, over 10,000 of whom had been received into the church during the previous five years. Azariah attributed these conversions and concurrent changes in attitude towards untouchability primarily to improvements in the lives of outcastes resulting from Christianity. A survey of caste accessions to Telugu churches conducted by American Methodist Bishop J. Waskom Pickett noted that (1) `Sudra' conversions were most numerous in areas where mass movements among outcastes were most successful (both numerically and in terms of changed lifestyle), and (2) wherever `Sudras' had converted to Christianity relations improved between caste and outcaste.42

Notwithstanding these changes, Azariah found varied and numerous obstacles to eradication of caste. The church's goal was, after all, tantamount to changing an entire way of life. Caste provided, in the words of one commentator, `a framework for all social activity, quite literally from conception to the afterlife, at the local level of the village community.'43 The tenacity of caste loyalties displayed itself most forcefully in the struggle between Malas and Madigas. Each tried desperately to avoid being the lowest ranking group. That the Christian community had not fully abandoned this animosity was illustrated by a riot which erupted when an assistant pastor of Madiga origin attempted to preside at a wedding in a predominantly Mala congregation. One woman was injured, and the entire congregation temporarily defected to the Roman Catholic Church.44 Another pastor remembered how the Malas of his village introduced IMS missionaries to their own Mala friends and relatives but `would not allow' them to visit the Madigas who converted to Christianity until only much later.45 Temporary closures of schools, defections to other denominations, and a reluctance to welcome converts of different castes into the church hindered an otherwise energetic missionary program and attested to the continuing persuasiveness of notions of ritual pollution and caste rank within the new Christian society. `We deplore the many exhibitions of caste spirit within the Church,' lamented Azariah in 1935.46 But the pages of his diocesan magazine bore repeated testimony to the survival of such caste prejudices.47 As in virtually all other areas of India, the church was apparently unable to produce a sense of total community strong enough to replace caste.48

Of particular concern to Azariah as leader of the ultimately successful ecumenical effort to unite South India's churches was the way in which Christian denominationalism permitted and even exacerbated caste divisions. As he observed in 1932:

In many places, the Baptist Church has all the Madigas of a village; the Church of India (Anglican) has all the Malas of the village. In the Kurnool District in many a small village we may see two chapels, two village schools and two teachers - each serving one, and only one, of the two great out-caste communities in the area. At one of our Pastorate centres, the Baptist chapel (entirely consisting of Madiga converts) stands at a distance of twenty yards from our chapel! ... These divisions pander to the age-long caste spirit of the people. Malas and Madigas hate to sit side by side, never eat in each other's houses, yea, never drink from the same well. Denominationalism then comes and panders to this inter-caste hatred. If one section joins one Church, the other joins another, and caste is thus perpetuated within the Church. The resulting local Church has thus no chance of becoming really Christian or truly Catholic, but for ever remains sectarian, racial and caste-ridden.49

Far from eradicating caste, the divided Christian church provided new alliances around which rival kulams might organize themselves and reinforce their sense of distinctiveness from other groups. Denominationalism thus undermined the anti-caste policy of Andhra's churches and further complicated the already elusive goal of making conversion to Christianity the occasion for overcoming caste distinctions.50

Although Azariah always rejected the exclusivity of caste (its treatment of the `other'), he valued some aspects of caste as an integrative system which helped to preserve the community life of its members. Azariah remained adamant to his death that converts of all castes should `show in practice that all are brethren in Christ,'51 but his opposition to caste was tempered by his recognition that caste also served some more positive social functions. In particular, Azariah saw caste structures as natural and effective instruments for publicizing the gospel and vehicles for encouraging conversion. His experience with the mass movements in Andhra convinced him that group conversions along caste lines were much less socially disruptive than individual accessions.

Azariah agreed fully with (and influenced) Pickett's conclusion that `mass' movements were more `natural' for Indians trained from birth to act and behave in groups than for people from western countries with their more individualistic ways. Group movements protected converts from social dislocation, preserved the social frameworks in which converts could exercise a stabilizing influence over one another, and minimized the danger of westernization by permitting the survival of Indian social patterns and customs so that the life of the group, in its external aspects, remained `natural, real and therefore genuinely indigenous.'12 Having entered the church in groups ranging from families to entire village kulams, they could remain in their homes and continue to pursue their former occupations in the company of non-Christians. Persecution from employers angry at the new Christians' refusal to work on Sundays could be endured collectively without isolation in mission compounds (though some persecuted Christians did move to `model' Christian villages such as Vedanayagapuram, where they leased land from the church). The church and its missionaries also continued to use caste channels of communication to spread the Christian message and news of the conversion move- ments.53

In perhaps his most distinctive break with the commonly accepted anti-caste policies of western Protestant missionary colleagues, Azariah allowed some church leaders in Dornakal to make substantial, if shortterm, concessions to the caste sensibilities of non-Brahmin converts. The author of a diocesan report on a special mission to the `Sudras' urged Mala and Madiga converts to be patient towards caste converts who felt they had made an enormous `sacrifice' by joining former untouchables. Compelling caste converts immediately to eat with former outcastes would put unnecessary stumbling blocks in the way of the `Sudras' progress,' and would constitute not only foolishness but a great sin.' Better to allow `Sudras' to make decisions regarding such `social matters' according to their own consciences, which would be persuaded over the long run to abandon caste prejudices by exposure to Christian teaching and prac- tice.54 Undesirable elements of caste rank and privilege were thus to be tolerated reluctantly and temporarily in order to establish the church's roots in local Telugu culture, though caste affinities would have to be abandoned eventually. `While the gathering in of peoples along communal lines may be justifiable in the early stages of missionary work,' wrote Azariah in 1934, to be content with such a state of affairs for ever may positively prove a great hindrance to the progress of the Gospel.'55

Azariah desired nothing less than to replace caste by a whole new framework of life from conception to afterlife. But membership in the new Christian community in Dornakal would entail many social rights and responsibilities similar to those formerly imposed by caste. Thus caste provided some positive elements to build upon. Ideally, the Christian community, like the former kulam, would be an endogamous group, not marrying outsiders. Azariah condemned `mixed marriages' between Christians and non-Christians, although he contended that Christians ought not to be `yoked with unbelievers'56 on biblical grounds rather than on the basis of the indigenous practice of marrying within the kulam. He prescribed excommunication, like outcasting, as the proper punishment for the offense.57 Such disciplinary actions were executed in a manner similar to that of the former kulam. Bodies of church elders were constituted as informal village panchayats in every village and entrusted with limited disciplinary powers.

In most cases, the same people who served as village elders (pedda- garus) before conversion continued to serve as church elders after bap- tism.58 The congregation elders are for the most part none other than the old community elders, for in the mass movement as a rule the whole community has come over to Christianity together,' wrote one observer in 1933.59 Like their non-Christian counterparts, the informal panchayats of Christian elders settled quarrels, inquired into misdemeanors, and had the power to inflict small fines. The church elders were associated with the local lay Christian teacher and area pastor much as were nonChristian elders and village headmen. Both the Christian pastor and the village headman officiated as priests at weddings and arbitrated difficult matters affecting the village by calling formal panchayats composed of the village elders (and, occasionally, elders from other villages). The Christian panchayat's findings in matters of discipline were reported to the Bishop's Local Council (of clergy and laymen), and, if necessary, to the bishop who held the final power of excommunication or restoration of church privileges. Non-Christian panchayats could impose more serious sanctions (heavy fines and outcasting) and usually functioned as the final court of appeal in caste affairs, unlike their Christian counterparts who deferred to the bishop's decision on heavier penalties. Some non-Christian castes had regional panchayats ruling over specific territories, while others had caste gurus judging on caste affairs in a manner somewhat comparable to that of Christian bishops.

Excommunication from the church was not all that different from outcasting from the kulam. Azariah forbade Christians to `keep on friendly terms with the excommunicated' and insisted that they `hold no intercourse with such and not even ... eat with them.'60 He based his policy prohibiting interdining and social intercourse with Christian outcastes on `apostolic command' rather than on Indian social traditions, and he consistently resisted the idea that the Christian community was to become just another caste like all previously introduced religions in India. Yet Azariah saw the advantage of preserving certain traditional or `natural' social structures and modes of behavior that could be helpful in establishing an independent Indian Christian community and need not be incompatible with its ideals. The church's disciplinary system closely resembled the system it replaced, even if the standards for judging crimes and misdemeanors changed. The most direct and serious threat to the power of traditional village elders in Andhra during this period came from the intrusive external authority of the police and the law courts rather than the church. Many Christians and non-Christians alike were turning to formal litigation as a final court of appeal - and often revenge. One of Azariah's primary goals in establishing a strong system of Christian village panchayats was to provide a humane local mechanism for solving disputes without recourse to outside courts.61

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