All records of an early existence of Christians in South Canara were lost at the time of their deportation by Tippu Sultan in 1784. Hence, it is not known when exactly Christianity was introduced in South Canara, although it is possible that Syrian Christians settled in South Canara just as they did in Malabar, a region south of Canara.[3] The Italian traveler Marco Polo recorded that there were considerable trading activities between the Red Sea and the Canara coast in the 13th century. It can be surmised that foreign Christian merchants were visiting the coastal towns of South Canara during that period for commerce and possibly some Christian priests might have accompanied them for evangelistic work.[4] In 1321, the French Dominican friar Jordanus Catalani of Severac (in south-western France) had arrived in Bhatkal in North Canara.[5] According to Mangalorean historian Severine Silva, the author of History of Christianity in Canara (1961), no concrete evidence has yet been found that there were any permanent settlements of Christians in South Canara before the 16th century.[4] It was only after the advent of the Portuguese in the region that Christianity began to be propagated.[4] In 1498, the Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama landed on St Mary's Islands in South Canara on his voyage from Portugal to India, and planted a cross there.[6] In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral, a Portuguese explorer, arrived at Anjediva in North Canara with eight Franciscan missionaries. These missionaries under the leadership of Henrique Soares de Coimbra converted 22 or 23 natives to Christianity in the Mangalore region.[7] In 1526, under the viceroyship of Lopo Vaz de Sampaio, the Portuguese took possession of Mangalore.[8] The Portuguese Franciscans slowly started propagating Christianity in Mangalore[8]
Contemporary Mangalorean Catholics are, however, descended mainly from the Goan Catholic settlers, who had migrated to Canara from Goa, a state north of Canara, between 1560 and 1763, in two major waves. The first wave occurred during the Goa Inquisition of 1560, to escape the trials of the Inquisition. These migrants were welcomed by the native Bednore rulers of Canara for their agricultural skills. The second major wave occurred during the Portuguese-Maratha wars in Goa during the late 17th and the early 18th century.[9] According to Mangalorean historian Alan Machado Prabhu, the author of Sarasvati's Children: A History of the Mangalorean Christians (1999), the Mangalorean Catholics numbered about 58,000 by 1765, during the capture of Canara by Hyder Ali.[10]
The commencement of British rule in Canara, following the defeat of Tippu Sultan in 1799, was a matter of joy for the Canara Catholics because it meant liberation of their brethren from 15 years of captivity in Srirangapatnam. Tippu had razed down churches in Canara and confiscated the properties and wealth of Canara Catholics in a massive military operation on Ash Wednesday in 1774. A century later, Jerome Saldanha, a government servant during the British Raj at the Bombay Presidency, noted in an article in Mangalore Magazine, published by St. Aloysius College, which chronicled contemporary developments and views from the closing decades of the 19th century:
"People of all classes belonging to Canara, specially the Christians, had suffered so dreadfully from Tippu's regime of terror that they welcomed the British with a sense of relief and joy, and a hope of future peace and prosperity, that perhaps nowhere else was felt in India on the advent of the British. Nor were our ancestors disappointed, for they found that the main object of British rule in India was to secure the happiness of the people over whom it was held".[11]
Role
Following retirement from government service in Bombay, Jerome Saldanha returned to Mangalore and represented the District in the Madras Legislative Council. In his later years, he began to move with the rising tide of nationalism and became a sincere admirer of Mahatma Gandhi. When Gandhiji visited Mangalore in 1927, Jerome, as President of South Canara District Congress Committee, presided at the public meeting addressed by the Mahatma.
According to Dr. Michael Lobo, who has chronicled the community through two authoritative books, The Mangalore Catholic Community – A Professional History / Directory and Distinguished Mangalorean Catholics 1800–2000, a photograph of the two leaders taken on the occasion is in the possession of his family. However, Jerome was born in 1868, one year before the Mahatma, and died in 1947, just a few months before Independence.
Though not an active freedom fighter, Jerome supported the freedom movement through articulation in writing, specially in Mangalore Magazine. For instance, during World War II, in 1942, the Japanese joined the Axis (Germany and Italy) and after capturing Singapore and Burma, were threatening to break through the eastern border of India. In this context, the moderates among Mangalorean Catholics felt that this was hardly the time for Gandhiji to persist in the Quit India Movement. For, they reasoned, if the Japanese succeeded in taking over India, the position of the country would be infinitely worse off and prospects of freedom might vanish altogether. Instead, they argued, this was the time for Britain and India to stand together in the defense of the sub-continent.
One of those who held this view was an eminent lawyer, Cajetan Lobo who, writing in Mangalore Magazine, went to the extent of insinuating that Gandhiji was, in the context of the war, a fifth columnist. Jerome was quick to rise to the defense of Gandhiji:
"It is sheer nonsense to talk of Gandhiji as a fifth columnist…. He is one of the great men of the world—dominated by high ideals …about human family. Whether those ideals are always practicable in our difficult world may be questioned, but that Mr. Gandhi is a great patriot, a great man and a great spiritual leader, who can doubt?"[11]
Another supporter of the freedom movement was Maurice Salvador Sreshta, a government servant under British Raj, who retired as Postmaster General of Ceylon. Following retirement, he was elected to the Madras Legislative Council.
As Dr. Michael Lobo notes, " Throughout his career, he wished to be identified as Indian and he adopted the surname Sreshta (from a Sanskrit word meaning great ) – a daring move for a British civil servant at a time when the other civil servants were, if anything, attempting to anglicize their names." His children were also provided with Indian names in addition to their Christian names. Shortly after returning to Mangalore from Colombo, in 1928, he spoke to students of St. Aloysius College, commending Gandhiji to them.
Yet another Canara Catholic supporter of the freedom movement was Felix Albuquerque Pai, magnate of the Albuquerque tile factory in Mangalore. Inspired by Gandhiji, he had manufactured salt in defiance of British law (1930). When Jawaharlal Nehru came to Mangalore in 1933, he first landed at the Albuquerque residence at Bolar and was taken in procession to Falnir where a public meeting was held – the reception being financed by Felix Pai.
According to the account by Dr. Michael Lobo, the 1930s saw the entry of three Canara couples into the freedom movement – Thomas and Helen Alvares, Cyprian and Alice Alvares and Joachim and Violet Alva. The involvement of the last couple is a long story, well known to merit repeating. Suffice to say that they were the first couple to be members of Parliament and Violet Alva ended up as the Deputy Chairperson of Rajya Sabha. For their wedding in Bombay on 18 July 1936, Gandhiji, though bedridden, sent a message to the couple hoping that the union would result in greater service to the country. He also expressed his joy that " Nothing unseemly as dancing and drinking would have part in the wedding festivities".[11]
Thomas and Helen Alvares had settled down in Colombo where they opened a branch of their tile business. The couple were converted to the cause of freedom by the Mahatma himself, whom they once entertained to tea. So impressed were they by the Mahatma that they decided to give their children Indian first names. Helen herself adopted the name of Alva Devi. She was a great votary of Satyagraha and articulated it through public speeches.
The third couple was Cyprian and Alice Alvares. Cyprian was arrested in 1930 during WadalaSalt Satyagraha and was one of the few freedom fighters of the Mangalorean Catholic community to receive Sanman Patra in the 1930s. His wife, Alice, joined Quit India Movement with her husband and went underground. But both were arrested in November 1942 and put in separate lock-ups in Bombay. Alice escaped and went to Daman and worked with the underground leaders – Lohia and Savarkar – while Cyprian was an ailing prisoner. Alice was arrested again and was first interned in the Yerwada Central Jail in Pune and later expelled from Bombay and interned in Central Jail, Mangalore. The couple operated a wireless system for Congress Radio from their own school.
John Francis Pinto, a Bombay-based Mangalorean Catholic businessman (proprietor of Pintos Coffee), who was preoccupied in politics, earlier as a freedom fighter (later his Nephew Frederick Michael Pinto became a MLA), became an admirer of Gandhiji soon after the latter took the lead in the freedom struggle in the early 1920s. Because of his admiration for Gandhi, his donning the Gandhi-cap and his active participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement in the 1930s, he acquired the nickname as " Gandhi Pinto".[11]
Citations
↑ Pai & Supriya 1981, p. 203: "This city (Mangalore) has a very influential proportion of Roman Catholics, numbering over a good quarter of the total population. It is the seat of the Mangalore Roman Catholic Diocese, and hence when we speak of the Mangalorean Catholics, we do not limit ourselves only to the roughly 60,000 Catholics within the city limits, but to a total of much over 2,00,000 Catholics spread over the whole diocese." harvnb error: no target: pai (help)
↑ Madtha 1984, p.4, "The Konkani speaking Christians of Mangalore are generally catholics. They use their mother-tongue not only for their religious purpose in the churches as well as at homes but also in their social activities as a medium of oral and written communications."
Kanara or Canara, also known as Karavali is the historically significant stretch of land situated by the southwestern coast of India, alongside the Arabian Sea in the present-day Indian state of Karnataka. The subregion comprises three civil districts, namely: Uttara Kannada, Udupi, and Dakshina Kannada. Kassergode was included prior to the States Reorganisation Act.
Mangalorean Catholics are an ethno-religious community of Latin Christians from the Diocese of Mangalore and the erstwhile South Canara area, by the southwestern coast of present-day Karnataka, India.
The Milagres Church is a historic Roman Catholic Church situated in the Hampankatta locality of Mangalore. The church was built in 1680 by Bishop Thomas de Castro, a Theatine from Divar, Goa. The original structure was constructed at the site of the present-day cemetery. It is one of the oldest churches in Dakshina Kannada.
The History of Mangalore dates back to the 3rd century BC and has been ruled by a number of rulers. In the era of modern India, the area was controlled by the Portuguese in Goa and Bombay, who lost it to Shivappa Nayaka, who in turn lost it to Hyder Ali.
Shett is a surname and title of the Daivajna subcaste of Konkani people, residing along the coast of the Konkan region in western India. It is also an honorific used by them in Goa, Damaon, Konkan division of Maharashtra, and Kanara subregion of Karnataka.
Roman Catholic Brahmin is a caste among the Goan, Bombay East Indian and Mangalorean Catholics who are descendants of Konkani Brahmin converts to the Latin Catholic Church, in parts of the Konkan region that were annexed into the Portuguese East Indies, with the capital (metropole) at Velha Goa, while Bombay was the largest territory (province) of Portuguese India. They retain some of the ethno-social values and customs of their ancestors, and most of them exhibit a noticeable hybrid Latino-Concanic culture. They were known as the Brahmins among the "New Christians".
Joachim Ignatius Sebastian Alva or Joachim Piedade Alva was an Indian lawyer, journalist and politician from Mangalore. He was a prominent Mangalorean Christian figure involved in the Indian independence movement.
The culture of Mangalorean Catholics has been shaped by their Christianisation in Goa, their migrations& their captivity. They adopted elements of the local Mangalorean culture, but retained many of their Konkani customs and values. The ethnic Mangalorean houses of the older generation have spacious porticos, red oxide cemented floors, terra cotta roofs layered with the once famous Mangalore tiles. The houses are usually accompanied by their own private wells or ponds, and are normally attached to orchards of coconut trees, jackfruit trees, ice apple trees, Alphonso mango trees, areca nut trees etc.
The History of Mangalorean Catholics comprises three major eras. The first era consists of the cultural heritage shaped by Indo-Aryan migration into the Indus valley, later the migration to Govapuri and other prominent areas of the Konkan region, possibly due to a natural disaster that caused the drying up of the Sarasvati. Also, the various invasions and the political upheavals that followed in the pre-Partition eras of the northwest Indian subcontinent might be responsible for migration to Konkan in Western India. The second era was the legacy of Lusitanian culture, from the conversion of their Konkani ancestors to Roman Catholicism in the colonies of the Portuguese in Goa and Bombay, and the final era being the migration of the Roman Catholics in Goa to Mangalore and other parts of South Canara between the mid-16th and mid-18th centuries, forming a unique Mangalorean Catholic identity, and the subsequent growth and development of the community. Four centuries of living in South Canara gave these Catholics an identity of their own, distinct from Goans and Bombay East Indians.
The Mangalorean Catholic Cuisine is the cuisine of the Mangalorean Catholic community.
Mangalorean Catholic names and surnames encompass the different naming conventions of the Mangalorean Catholic community. Historically, many of them had names of Christian saints, while Portuguese-language surnames were most commonly found. A formal Mangalorean Catholic name consists of a given name, a middle name, and a surname.
History of Goan Catholics recounts the history of the Goan Catholic community of the Indian state of Goa from their conversion to Christianity to date.
Mangaloreans are a collection of diverse ethnic groups that hail from the historical locales of South Canara (Tulunaad) on the south western coast of Karnataka, India, particularly the residents native to Mangaluru.
The captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam (1784–1799) was a 15-year imprisonment of Mangalorean Catholics and other Christians at Seringapatam, in the Carnataca region of India by Tippu Sultan, the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. Estimates of the number of captives range from 30,000 to 80,000, but the generally accepted figure is 60,000, as stated by Tipu in the Sultan-ul-Tawarikh. The captivity was the most disconsolate period in the community's history.
Monti Fest is a major Catholic festival held on 8 September every year by the Latin Catholic community of Konkani people, originating in the Konkan region of India, and their descendants in the Canara region of south India. This festival celebrates the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and in the Mangalorean Catholic community involves blessing of Novem. In certain Goan Catholic dialects the festival's name is corrupted to "Moti Fest".
Tulu Nadu State movement is aimed at increasing Tulu Nadu's influence and political power through the formation of separate Tulu Nadu state from Karnataka and Kerala. Tulu Nadu is a region on the south-western coast of India. It consists of the Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts of Karnataka and Kasargod district up to the Chandragiri river in Kerala. The Chandragiri River has traditionally been considered a boundary between Tulu Nadu and Kerala from the fourth century AD onwards. The first call for a separate Tulu Nadu state was made just after the Quit India Movement in 1942 by Srinivas Updhyaya Paniyadi, a banker and a press owner from Udupi. Mangalore is the largest and the chief city of Tulu Nadu. Tulu activists have been demanding a separate Tulu Nadu state since the late 2000s, considering language and culture as the basis for their demand.
Padval is a subgroup of the Christian Cxatria caste, bearing the same paik surname among Mangalorean Catholics, they converted from the Jain Bunt varna that is native to Canara in Karnataka.
Roman Catholic Kshatriyas are a modern Christianised caste among Goan, Bombay East Indian, Mangalorean, Kudali & Karwari Catholics. They are the patrilineal descendants of Kshatriya and Vaishya Vani converts to the Latin Church, in parts of the Konkan region that were under Portuguese Goan rule. They are known as Chardo in Goan Konkani, Charodi in Canarese Konkani & as Sandori or Vadval in Damanese and Mahraashtrian Konknni, while others also identify as Bhandari or Khatri in the Bombay East Indian dialect. The well known households and well to do individuals among them, have mostly been endogamous.
Dom Thomas de Castro (c.1621-1684) was a native of Divar in Goa, Portuguese India. The Holy See appointed him Vicar Apostolic of Canara on 30 August 1675. He later founded the famous Milagres Church in Mangalore, South Canara, Karnataka. He was the nephew of Dom Matheus de Castro (c.1594−1677), the first Indian Bishop of The Catholic Church.
Catholic Association of South Kanara (CASK), formerly South Kanara Catholic Association, is a Christian organisation based in Mangalore, India.
References
Buchanan, Francis (1988) [1807]. A Journey from Madras Through the Countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar: For the Express Purpose of Investigating the State of Agriculture, Arts and Commerce, the Religion, Manners, and Customs, the History Natural and Civil, and Antiquities. Asian Educational Services. ISBN81-206-0386-9.
Silva, Severine (1957). "History of Christianity in Canara". I. Kumta, North Canara: Star of Kanara Press.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
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