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Social history of Christianity and Lutheranism in Andhra
It is rather strange and equally disappointing to find out that there is no single comprehensive book available on the history of Christianity and Christians in the Telugu-speaking region of South India in social science literature. Some significant works are available on specific Christian mission fields operated from this region published by the CHAI (Church History Association of India), which is an ecumenical body, over a period. Even then, the Telugu-speaking region has been disproportionately underrepresented in those writings published by the CHAI owing to various historical reasons. The Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC), which is under study now, being one of the largest churches in India, happened to be the most significantly neglected one both in the writings of the CHAI and also in the social science scholarship on South Indian Christianity.
The only scholarly work on Andhra Lutherans was produced by M. L. Dolbeer (1959), a missionary himself, in the form of a book titled A History of Lutheranism in the Andhra Desa: The Telugu Territory of India, 1842–1920. Another historical account of conversion narratives of the Hindu and Christian in South India by J. Oddie (1991) titled Hindu and Christian in South-east India partly covers the Telugu-speaking region. Another significant scholarly work on the Telugu Baptist Mission in Nellore was also produced by a missionary called John E. Clough (1914) titled Social Christianity in the Orient: The Story of a Man, a Mission, and a Movement. This chapter is not an attempt to produce a comprehensive account on the history of Christianity in Andhra – any such attempt could potentially be a book project – but to provide the necessary context and historical background, primarily to analyse the anthropological insights collected from the field. Therefore, the scope and scale of the archival material being used in the following sections may pose limitations of their own.
The early efforts of Catholic missionaries
Historically speaking, it was only at the end of the 16th century that the first ever attempt in the Telugu country of the Madras Presidency to preach the gospel or evangelize people to the Christian faith was recorded. It was, in fact, the Jesuits who made those pioneering attempts unsuccessfully (Thekkadeth, 1982). The Jesuits made early efforts to spread the gospel in the capital cities – namely, Chandragiri and Vellore – of the Vijayanagara kingdom (Thekkadath, 1982, p. 298). After the Jesuits, the credit for making notable efforts to spread the gospel and Christianity in the Telugu country goes to both the Theatines and the Augustinians for their unceasing determination. To be more precise, the early Theatine missionaries to Telugu country landed in Goa in October 1640 before reaching the territory of their evangelical mission. In the early days of their missionary work, they had to confront a whole spectrum of difficulties with padroado1 authorities, but those difficulties were eased off in 1648 after obtaining permission from the Portuguese king to start missionary work in India (Thekkadath, 1982, pp. 298–299). One of the Theatine missionaries named Father Manco, along with a Goan priest, had gone to Bijapur in December 1640. Bijapur was already one of the mission fields of the Theatines. Father Manco soon decided to leave Bijapur and desired to work in the area of Golkonda.
In search of a suitable mission field, Father Manco was not content with Golkonda and therefore travelled to Machilipatnam, a port town, where he built a chapel. Initially, he started to serve the resident European Catholics in the town, who had not seen a priest for many years. Father Manco gradually expanded evangelistic work to Bimlipatnam, where he is said to have baptized 19 natives, and later a church was built over there with their support (Thekkadath, 1982, p. 299). With the help of the newly baptized members from Bimlipatnam, he continued to evangelize people in the Golkonda region as well. Father Manco had breathed his last at Bimlipatnam in 1646. It was the beginning of a new era of Christian missions in India, in general, and Telugu country, in particular. There were as many as 43 Theatine missionaries who left Europe for India between 1640 and 1694. A couple of them had shown their keen interest to work in the Telugu country, while others remained in Goa. The most prominent Theatine missionaries who worked in the Telugu country were Monaldini, Bergamora, and Gallo. After a gap of a few years, it was noted that these three missionaries continued the missionary work at Machilipatnam and Bimlipatnam, which Father Manco had initiated earlier. Despite all such efforts, the Theatines could not succeed in evangelizing the native people of the Telugu country to a significant extent (Thekkadath, 1982, p. 299).
There were a few Augustinian missionaries simultaneously working in some pockets of the Telugu-speaking land. In the year 1652, the Augustinians built a church at Bagnagar, close to the court of the Sultan of Golkonda. This particular church at Bagnagar had the strength of 100 regular members, and most of them were Europeans. The Augustinians also built a church six miles away from Bagnagar, which had the strength of 300. They also built a church at Machilipatnam in 1652. Although the church at Machilipatnam had a Christian population of 400, it mostly consisted of traders from Europe and elsewhere, as it was a prominent port city then. After the demise of one of the Theatine missionaries, Father Bergamora, in 1693, the Theatines handed over their churches to the Augustinians; the churches located at Narsapur, Corange, Visakhapatnam, Bimlipatnam, and Srikakulam were the notable ones. As was the case of the Theatines, the Augustinians too did not succeed in evangelizing the natives of the Telugu country. Because of that, one cannot argue that Christianity was established among natives in the Telugu-speaking land in the 17th century (Thekkadeth, 1982, pp. 299–300).
After the Theatines and Augustinians, it was the French Jesuits of Pondicherry who made their pioneering attempts to evangelize the people of the Telugu country with the missionary work of Pierre Mauduit at Punganuru of the Chittoor district. It was Charles de la Brueille, as the superior of the Pondicherry Jesuits, during 1698–1701, who took the initiative to send one of his colleagues, Pierre Mauduit, to work in the Telugu-speaking land (Hambye, 1997, p. 311). Before arriving at Punganuru of Chittoor district, Pierre Mauduit went to Mylapore in Madras Presidency, where he learned Telugu in a short time. He was accompanied by a group of catechists on his journey to Punganuru, wherein the first Christian church/centre for Telugus was set up. In 1701 Pierre Mauduit baptized one woman, three children, and a young man – all were natives of Punganuru – who belonged to the Velama caste group (Dolbeer, 1959, pp. 34–35). From Punganuru, the missionary work of Pierre Mauduit spread to the Ananthapur district first and to the territory of Raja Venkatagiri in the Nellore district eventually (Dolbeer, 1959, p. 35). There were about ten Christian churches/centres established among the Telugus in 1744 at Chik Ballapur, Punganuru, Kambaldine, Venkatagiri Kota, Krishnapatnam, Mudigubba, Dharmavaram, Pendekallu, Peddarikatla, and Alladikalam. The native Telugu Christians in the above-mentioned centres were under the direct supervision of six French Jesuits (Hambye, 1997, p. 320).
The political ramifications of the War of Austrian Succession (1740–1748)2 were not confined to Europe alone, as in some parts of India, it turned the political equations right on its head. The birth of a new power struggle between the French and the English in India owing to the War of Austrian Succession significantly influenced the missionary work and subsequently the course of Christianity thereafter. The feud between the French and the English began to manifest itself in terms of local clashes/disputes or wars in the Telugu country that consequently forced many Christian converts and missionaries to move towards the Northern Circars,3 where they could live under the protection of the French. It would perhaps be a necessary exercise to give a brief idea on how the Northern Circars came under the control of the French.
In 1724, Asaf Jah, the then governor of Hyderabad, declared his independence from the disintegrating Mughal Empire, claiming the title of Nizam al Mulk of Hyderabad. Salabat Jang, the son of the Nizam al Mulk, who felt indebted to the French for his elevation to the throne, granted the district of Kondavid or Guntur to the French in return for their services. Soon after, the other Circars followed. In a nutshell, this area was given to the French in return for the services of the Marguis de Bussy to the Nizam for training his army (Sandeep, 1991, p. 322). In the aftermath of the War of Austrian Succession, a majority of Christian missionaries and newly converted Christians moved to the French-ruled Northern Circars for safety and shelter. Many of them settled on the lands given to them in the Nellore and Guntur districts of the Northern Circars. But again, the withdrawal of the French troops from this region after the English took over the Northern Circars in 1765 caused a lot of inconvenience to people, Christians in particular, and social unrest in the region.
To turn our attention to the methods and methodology of evangelization that the Jesuits adopted from day one, it is quite intriguing to realize that the prime targets were people belonging to the upper-caste background. Such methods were strongly backed by an underlying premise that if you succeed in bringing people from the higher social status to Christian faith, then in the next step, it would be easy to trickle down the same religious faith to other sections of society in the caste hierarchy. As a result of such methods, till the end of the 18th century, only people from the Kamma, Reddy, and Velama caste groups were converted to Christianity. One can find them in the present districts of Chittoor, Anantapur, Cuddapah, Nellore, Kurnool, Prakasam, and Guntur. There were a sizable number of converts to Christianity from the upper-caste background. There were about 1,500 and 1,000 Catholic members in the Kondavedu and Punganuru Christian churches/centres, respectively (Hambye, 1997, p. 322). At the end of the 18th century, many places in the Rayalaseema region witnessed the presence of Christianity and Christians, but only four Jesuit priests were available, which is considered very low, for the entire region to cater to the spiritual needs of the local Christians.
On the other hand, Machilipatnam and Bimlipatnam being one of the early Christian centres in the coastal Andhra region continue to evangelize more locals in addition to a sizable presence of Europeans of various nationalities – especially the Dutch, the French, and the English. Despite prevailing opinions about the climate of this region, regarded as unsuitable for foreigners, one could see an active and consistent presence of Europeans, who owned many retailed stores and factories in these two places (Hambye, 1997, p. 322). It was the Theatines from Goa who were initially looking after the Christian communities of this region. After the Theatines left this place in 1694, they have come under the direct control of the Augustinians. Unlike the Theatines, the Augustinians were not able to provide a sufficient number of missionaries/priests to this region. For instance, the Visakhapatnam church in 1729 was without a vicar. The bishop of Mylapore, being fully aware of this fact, wrote to the Augustinian provincial of India in 1729 to take proper care of the parish at Visakhapatnam. It took the Augustinian provincial of India almost five years to appoint a priest, which took place in 1734, to look after the church at Visakhapatnam. At the beginning of 1802, it is clear that Christian groups were present in Machilipatnam, Corangui (near Yanam), Visakhapatnam, Chiracole (Srikakulam), and Ganjam. It is important to be noted here that the social composition of Christian groups in these places was a dynamic mix of both natives and Europeans (Hambye, 1997, p. 326).
The advent of Protestantism in Andhra
The advent of Protestantism had begun in the Telugu country with the entry of Bartholomaus Ziegenbalg (24 June 1683–23 February 1719), who was considered the pioneering Protestant missionary to India. He was also a member of the Lutheran clergy. He was not only the first Protestant missionary to India but also the first Protestant missionary to visit the Telugu country. In his first ever visit to the Telugu country, he went to Tirupati to take a brief look at one of the most famous Hindu temples of South India, the Temple of the Lord Venkateswara (also called the Lord Balaji), and did a bit of evangelizing, but he was strongly opposed by the local Brahmin priests. Consequently, he could not continue his missionary work there. It was one of his successors, Benjamin Schultze, who started his work among the Telugus soon after he arrived in Madras in 1726 (Dolbeer, 1959, pp. 35–36; Sandeep, 1991, p. 19).
Benjamin Schultze first focused on learning the Telugu language and eventually desired to translate the New Testament into Telugu. He could successfully translate the Gospels into the Telugu language by the end of May 1727. After Schultze, it was John Philip Fabricius who continued the work of Protestant missions among the Telugus in the Madras Presidency. When the French occupied Fort St. George in 1746, the mission building was destroyed, and Fabricius moved to Pulicat, a Dutch settlement, where he received a warm welcome. He took it as an opportunity to visit the villages around Pulicat Lake and laid the foundation for many village churches to grow in this region. After Fabricius, there was no evidence of notable work by the Protestant missions until after the rise of the modern missions that kick-started with the arrival of William Carey (Dolbeer, 1959, p. 37).
The London Mission Society (LMS) had set up its first mission centre at Visakhapatnam in 1805. Reverends George Gram and Augustus Des Grauges, the pioneering missionaries of the LMS, arrived at Visakhapatnam in July 1805. The resident British community and the then collector of Visakhapatnam were among those who received these pioneering missionaries of the LMS. Given the support and encouragement they received from the local colonial administration, the LMS missionaries started their missionary work without any delay and, at the same time, began looking after the spiritual needs of the British community there. Shortly afterwards, Gordon and Pritchett joined the mission and made notable contributions especially in the field of Telugu Christian literature. The LMS missionaries had established many schools and preached the Gospel to the natives regularly. Nonetheless, it took the mission 30-odd years to have its first native convert – namely, Purushottam Chowdhary (Dolbeer, 1959, pp. 37–38). The LMS had expended its activities, towards the southern parts of the Telugu country, into the districts of Cuddapah, Bellary, Anantapur, and Kurnool in 1822. Having Cuddapah as its southern headquarters, the LMS made much more progress in this part of the Telugu country than the one at Visakhapatnam. The Cuddapah mission had about 100 native converts in less than ten years and also experienced a mass movement to Christianity among the Malas, a lower-caste group, in the 1850s (Sandeep, 1991, p. 21). Simultaneously, the LMS started mission centres in the Nandyala, Jammala Madugu, Gothi, and Kalapuram taluks, where many natives accepted Christianity as their new faith.
The American Baptists also...
