Seven Sister States in India

[badnewsbarrett]

India doesn’t have an especially high percentage of Christians. There are some, spread out all over the country, but I recently discovered that there’s certain Indian states where the concentration is much higher than others. Of particular note are the Seven Sister States in northeast India, it’s that lump of land halfway surrounded by Bangladesh and connected to the rest of India by a tiny corridor of land.

In order of population, highest to lowest, these states are Assam (in the middle, over 30 million people), Tripura (south, 3.5 million or so and the rest of them range from there down to 1 million and change), Meghalaya (west), Manipur (east), Nagaland (also east), Arunachal Pradesh or AP (north), and Mizoram (south).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sister_States#/media/File:SevenSisterStatesNew.png

Now, there was a certain point where I ran across a list of Indian states arranged by the percentage of their populations that are Christian, and here are the top five on that list, found here. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_India
Nagaland 87.93%, Mizoram 87.16%, Meghalaya 74.59%, Manipur 41.29%, Arunachal Pradesh 30.26%. These are the top 5 states in all of India in terms of their percentage being Christian, All of those look familiar somehow. The average nationwide is 2.30%.

Of particular note in this region is how incredibly high the rate of weekly church attendance is, the likelihood that these people speak some English compared to the rest of India, and the dedication and hard work that’s happening across the board in order to continue giving Christianity a bump in the rest of the region. It also tends to be a more matriarchal type of society than is average for India, and Christianity has a noticeable tendency to have a higher proportion of women to men than any other religion in India.

On a related note, here’s a map of the Scheduled Tribes in India (which, along with forward castes, is a demo that Christianity’s doing relatively well with).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_Castes_and_Scheduled_Tribes#/media/File:2011_Census_Scheduled_Tribes_distribution_map_India_by_state_and_union_territory.svg
Interestingly enough, it seems like only three states in India fall in the 85+ percent range when it comes to Scheduled Tribes (apart from some tiny islands way off the coast of India that are all Muslim), and those are the very same three states that have an overwhelmingly majority Christian population.

It’s very interesting to see how these Scheduled Tribes in this region are so heavily Christian, it will be especially interesting to see if that can slide into a slightly more broad regional trend, which does seem to be in its beginning stages already. I’ll be keeping an eye on the region as updated figures become available, there should be some good news about a couple more states joining the majority-Christian club before too long. AP is coming along quickly, Assam is the big prize, of course, and we’ll have to see how that goes down the road.

 

[RPRPsych]

The sad part of this is that our current government keeps making noises about passing “anti-conversion” laws.

 

[SyroMalankara]

Don’t forget about the historically Christian-minority state of Kerala, which is home to the St. Thomas Christians.

 

[RPRPsych]

Don’t forget about the historically Christian-minority state of Kerala, which is home to the St. Thomas Christians.

 

[wllmjoseph]

I attend Mass at St. Thomas Aquinas in Charlotte, NC. Bishop Jugis of the Diocese of Charlotte allowed a priest from India to come and speak of the need of supporting Seminarians in India. He was able to speak at various parishes in the Diocese to raise money for Seminarians and for the general needs of his Diocese. It was with great pride that Father advised the parishioners that his family has been Catholic for 250 years.
He went on to explain that the great persecution of the Christian churches that it currently going on in India. He explained that two families of a low caste are neighbors. One family is Hindu and the other family is Christian. The Hindu family will receive assistance from the Indian government while the Christian family will not.
He also went on to explain that it costs approximately $2,000.00 a year to educate a Seminarian. In his Diocese there were 18 young men who applied to Seminary but they were only able to take five of them due to financial constraints. What is very inspiring is how the Catholic Church on India is continuing to grow strong even with the persecution the Church is currently experiencing

 

[badnewsbarrett]

The sad part of this is that our current government keeps making noises about passing “anti-conversion” laws.

Tribal areas must have known they would be especially vulnerable to conversion attempts, AP in particular had an early anti-conversion law that was pretty effective until right about the turn of this past century. Other states that I’m using this thread to focus on also passed anti-conversion laws, but they did it later and by that point it was rather too late. Those laws were able to limit the involvement of missionaries from outside the country, but an effective and mobile infrastructure of converted indigenous tribe members was already well in place.

In other parts of India, I’m not sure what that’s looked like, I haven’t looked into it in detail yet. That is quite interesting though, Hindus are fairly unlikely to leave their religion anyway, do they still feel like they need such protection? Or is it another religious minority seeking protection?

 

[RPRPsych]

Tribal areas must have known they would be especially vulnerable to conversion attempts, AP in particular had an early anti-conversion law that was pretty effective until right about the turn of this past century. Other states that I’m using this thread to focus on also passed anti-conversion laws, but they did it later and by that point it was rather too late. Those laws were able to limit the involvement of missionaries from outside the country, but an effective and mobile infrastructure of converted indigenous tribe members was already well in place.

In other parts of India, I’m not sure what that’s looked like, I haven’t looked into it in detail yet. That is quite interesting though, Hindus are fairly unlikely to leave their religion anyway, do they still feel like they need such protection? Or is it another religious minority seeking protection?

It’s largely posturing on the part of our current government, which (to quote my brother) is taking a leaf out of any second-rate right-wing European politician’s playbook. They want to prove their “credibility” to the right-wing Hindu voters who put them into power, and attacking conversions to Christianity is an easy target for them. (Interestingly, despite talking tough about Islamic fundamentalism before the elections, they are to the left of Barack Obama on that issue now. Funny, ain’t it? )

 

[badnewsbarrett]

Don’t forget about the historically Christian-minority state of Kerala, which is home to the St. Thomas Christians.

Ah yes, that’s in south India next to Tamil Nadu, which is in a roughly similar situation. Kerala is almost 20% Christian out of a population of over 30 million, it is by far the highest Christian percentage of any Indian state remotely close to it in size. Tamil Nadu has over 60 million people and is just over 6% Christian, in raw numbers of Christians per state it comes out to 6 million for one and 4 million for the other, by far the two states in India with the most Christians in raw numbers. Do you know how the weekly church attendance is for those two states, and how committed those members are to evangelizing?

 

[SyroMalankara]

Ah yes, that’s in south India next to Tamil Nadu, which is in a roughly similar situation. Kerala is almost 20% Christian out of a population of over 30 million, it is by far the highest Christian percentage of any Indian state remotely close to it in size. Tamil Nadu has over 60 million people and is just over 6% Christian, in raw numbers of Christians per state it comes out to 6 million for one and 4 million for the other, by far the two states in India with the most Christians in raw numbers. Do you know how the weekly church attendance is for those two states, and how committed those members are to evangelizing?

I can’t speak for Tamil Nadu, but in Kerala:
Evangelism has historically been kept to a minimum, due to local Hindu sensibilities. However, in the last 200 years or so, more people are joining on their own, not due to proselytizing, but due to the charity and worship that the churches provide. Weekly attendance is fairly stable, but not what it used to be, due to increasing secularization and many working abroad in the Middle East and elsewhere.

 

[badnewsbarrett]

I can’t speak for Tamil Nadu, but in Kerala:
Evangelism has historically been kept to a minimum, due to local Hindu sensibilities. However, in the last 200 years or so, more people are joining on their own, not due to proselytizing, but due to the charity and worship that the churches provide. Weekly attendance is fairly stable, but not what it used to be, due to increasing secularization and many working abroad in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Yeah, that’s something I’ve noticed but haven’t really followed up on all the way. What I’ve noticed is that in certain Arab emirates and countries- mostly emirates, honestly- there seems to be, well, it’s almost like Indian colonialism in a way. Just in the sense that in certain areas, just about everyone there is an Indian Muslim, a Pakistani Muslim, or a Bangladeshi Muslim. Everybody’s a Muslim from the subcontinent, or if they were born there their parents are probably Muslims from the subcontinent, and there’s certain places on the Arabian peninsula where whole societies are being built up almost exclusively in this way.

What I’m curious to know is, does that figure into the goal-setting and the frame of mind of some Muslims in India? Is there any sort of widespread mindset where they live in India but the ultimate dream is to move to the Arabian peninsula, largely for religious reasons? And do Hindus in India also want to go to the Middle East, or do they mostly want to go to North America and/or Europe?

I’m also curious about the caste system in Hinduism, do you think that’s leaving them vulnerable? I mean, the vast majority of Hindus are lower caste, although I’m not sure if that holds true to the same extent in these southern states. It seems like it would be easy for Hindus to leave for a caste-less religion if they’re stuck in a lower caste and dissatisfied with their situation.