Caste and Christianity

I have been reading today about the problems of caste divisions within Christian churches in India. According to Robinson et al Caste divisions have often been present in church Congregations. A famous historical case is the church at Vadakkankulam, in Tamil Nadu, which in the mid 19th Century had a 20 foot high brick barrier running down the centre, which divided high and low caste congregants. In more recent times Caplan noticed in Madras a considerable conflict between high caste and low caste members of the church. This all makes me wonder about the churches in Shimla and if Caste politics ever plays out there?. Although there is no physical wall dividing people in Christ Church or St Michaels is there a less visible yet nevertheless just as real division?

On the whole people never explicitly raised the issue of caste with me in Shimla – this goes for both Christian and non–Christian Shimlites. I do remember scattered occasions, but these were rare and fleeting moments. One such moment occurred during tea one Sunday when a member of one of the two churches mentioned to me that Caste division still occurs in the villages around Shimla, a claim which was backed by an offer to take me to villages where people of a lower caste are not allowed in certain public buildings. I remember that I declined the kind offer, but asked if caste was ever an issue in Shimla itself, -‘you’d be surprised’ they replied in a lowered voice. Other than this caste never really presented itself explicitly to me and I wonder if it is because of an obsession with caste by academics (post Dumont) rather than the centrality of caste in lived reality that causes it to crop up so much in literature about Christians of India?

This is not to say that I didn’t spot denominational and inter–denominational divisions in the Christian (and wider) communities of Shimla, it is rather that these were never articulated explicitly as caste divisions. Rather they were stressed as divisions of upbringing (whether one is from a good family), and/or education. There was also a division between those who saw themselves as maintainers of tradition and those who saw themselves as reformers of a tradition that could be at times overly exclusive. Not to mention issues of regionalism, language, styles of worship and economic background that all divided the congregations in clear ways. Are all these things symptoms of Casteism? Or are they rather symptoms of more universal phenomenon that occur the world over whenever a diverse group of people are brought into communion with each other?