Paper Short Abstract:

This paper will explore recent juridical interventions on the question of compulsory endogamy among a section of Christians in India. These interventions illustrate the ongoing contestations between global conventions and local customs that animate the everyday practices of South Asian Christianity.

Paper Abstract:

Knanaya Christians (or Southists) of Kerala, India are a multi-denominational endogamous community who trace their origins to a fourth century Mesopotamian merchant named Thomas of Kana. In the early 20th century, they were successful in carving out an autonomous diocese ( known as the Kottayam diocese) within Catholicism. The Kottayam diocese historically maintained rules of compulsory endogamy, with no scope for marital conversion. In 1989, Biju Uthup's civil suit in a local court challenged the 'christianness' of this rule and catalysed a reform movement against blood marriages and expulsions in the diocese and beyond. This paper is a sociological reading of the Uthup judgement and other relevant court utterances from the past three decades to highlight the conflicts between: one, the 'endogamy-breaking' individual and the community; two, global Catholicism and local customs. The petitioner and defendants position themselves as guardians of the faith, fighting over its meanings using conflicting interpretations of the bible. In this conundrum, the Indian court tries to resolve the conflict within a postcolonial secular logic that places Christianity as irretreivably different from a caste-based Hinduism . This paper analyzes these standpoints and provides a glimpse of how Indian Christianity is an active field of socio-legal discourses on endogamy. This paper is also a contribution to ongoing anthropological conversations that challenge attempts to conceive South Asian Christianity simply as an annexure to European colonialism with little say in postcolonial or decolonial paradigms. It highlights social configurations that necessitate new ways of approaching Christian lives.