WI: Significant Christian Minority in India?

After the death of Christ one of his 12 Apostles, Saint Thomas, went East and spread Christianity to India. While there he baptized the first of the 'Saint Thomas Christians' in Southern India and built seven churches. In reality the Christian population of India has remained rather small and in fact decreasing. However, what if Christianity became more popular in India and became a long lasting third major religion in India? How would that change Indian history? Especially the Colonial Period.
 
Parts of India, like Nagaland, are majority Christian today thanks to British missionary efforts.

As for the St. Thomas Christians, it’s difficult to build them up in an ATL because AFAIK they only ever really were relevant in Kerala. I’ve been curious about them becoming a major political player in an ATL, but it seems far fetched.

Maaaaaaybe you could try something when colonization rolls in, have them become the favored bureaucratic class and expand that way? I think this was somewhat true OTL though...
 

Maoistic

Banned
It's really hard to achieve. Make the Arabs Christian instead of Muslim and still make these Arabs or at least "Arabised" Christians extensively settle and trade with India, just like it happened in the OTL, and you not only end up with a sizeable Christian minority but even with Christian Hindustani empires.
 
Have a situation like the phillipines where colonial evangelism means a large area converts over time.

Phillipines are much different than India. While India had about 700 years of Muslim rule, Hinduism remained the vast majority religion even today (80% in India, around 63% if you add Bangladesh and Pakistan as well...).

The succes of the Spanish was due to the smalle states, population and some islands nor even being civilised as much as India. Majority of the Phillipines were also Pagan. Todays Evangelist have it easier as well due to the fact that Catholicism isn't much different than Evangelicalism. The transition becomes easier.
 
Phillipines are much different than India. While India had about 700 years of Muslim rule, Hinduism remained the vast majority religion even today (80% in India, around 63% if you add Bangladesh and Pakistan as well...).

The succes of the Spanish was due to the smalle states, population and some islands nor even being civilised as much as India. Majority of the Phillipines were also Pagan. Todays Evangelist have it easier as well due to the fact that Catholicism isn't much different than Evangelicalism. The transition becomes easier.

And prior to the british conquering the lot, india was also a realm of small states, pagans and has some rather uncivilised bits. If the amount of effort was put into whatever part of india Spain/Portugal/France owned that was put into the phillipines, then it could convert.
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
Even now there are Christian missionary efforts in India that have been going on for centuries from the St Thomas group in Kerala, the Catholics in the 15th century, to 21st century American evangelicals.

We could still see Christianity gain ground in the sub continent yet.
 
And prior to the british conquering the lot, india was also a realm of small states, pagans and has some rather uncivilised bits. If the amount of effort was put into whatever part of india Spain/Portugal/France owned that was put into the phillipines, then it could convert.

India was also a realm of great, advanced empires (if by that time in decline) and impressive feats of civilization. Hinduism as an organized religion has been established in India for millennia as well; IMO it’s a different set of circumstances.

I do think bits and pieces of India could have converted (IIRC Goa was majority Christian at some point under Portugal, and again more rural parts did convert under Britain) but not any massive sea change like in Africa.
 
India was also a realm of great, advanced empires (if by that time in decline) and impressive feats of civilization. Hinduism as an organized religion has been established in India for millennia as well; IMO it’s a different set of circumstances.

I do think bits and pieces of India could have converted (IIRC Goa was majority Christian at some point under Portugal, and again more rural parts did convert under Britain) but not any massive sea change like in Africa.

The same can be said of say, the Anatolian and north African portion of the Byzantine Empire, or whats modern pakistan and Bangladesh. Civilisation does not make an area immune to conversion. Hinduism is unlikely to vanish, but it could quite easily be pushed out of areas where it made up a majority by a prostletised state religion.
 
The same can be said of say, the Anatolian and north African portion of the Byzantine Empire

The conversion of Anatolia took a thousand years and wasn’t completed until the 20th century population exchanges; it was also partially an ethnic/lifestyle division where the inland nomads were Muslim and the coastal populations Christian.

The conversion of North Africa to Islam was chiefly among Berbers who had never fully converted to Christianity and then suppressed the Christians.

, or whats modern pakistan and Bangladesh.

I’m less knowledgeable about Islam in those regions, but I do know it was never a near-total process in Pakistan and Bangladesh until the exchanges of the Partition (even today there are significant numbers of Hindus in both states).

Civilisation does not make an area immune to conversion. Hinduism is unlikely to vanish, but it could quite easily be pushed out of areas where it made up a majority by a prostletised state religion.

I agree it’s possible, but it would need a significantly different mindset on the part of the colonizer, i.e. the government actively trying to convert the populace, to any of OTL. It would also probably take a few centuries, so the earlier the process began the better.

You’d probably need a religious government in power in a colonizer—maybe a Spanish or greater Portuguese India could pull it off?
 
The conversion of Anatolia took a thousand years and wasn’t completed until the 20th century population exchanges; it was also partially an ethnic/lifestyle division where the inland nomads were Muslim and the coastal populations Christian.

The conversion of North Africa to Islam was chiefly among Berbers who had never fully converted to Christianity and then suppressed the Christians.



I’m less knowledgeable about Islam in those regions, but I do know it was never a near-total process in Pakistan and Bangladesh until the exchanges of the Partition (even today there are significant numbers of Hindus in both states).



I agree it’s possible, but it would need a significantly different mindset on the part of the colonizer, i.e. the government actively trying to convert the populace, to any of OTL. It would also probably take a few centuries, so the earlier the process began the better.

You’d probably need a religious government in power in a colonizer—maybe a Spanish or greater Portuguese India could pull it off?

Yes, but i'm not arguing for a complete conversion, just a rough majority (Which was achieved in much less time in both places). Spain or portugal expanding their holdings in either southern india or the gujarat during the height of their power (15-1600's) does seem the most doable for a rough majority. Though how large these areas actually are depends on many things.
 
Maybe this--no Islam, but we have some major Yemeni state convert to Nestorianism and remain powerful for a few centuries. Their trade with Kerala would reinforce the St. Thomas Christians, and eventually, at least one Keralan ruler would convert (you might be able to have this with a spontaneous conversion of a Kerelan ruler, but I'm not too sure of the plausibility). Even if this Yemeni state collapses and another religion takes over, hopefully Christianity is still established in India. Other trading areas in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat would hopefully also be host to a large Christian minority, and some smaller states would be totally Christian with Christian rulers even if they're nominally ruled by Hindus or whatever. The end result means we'll have at least a couple of Indian social groups which are entirely Christian, some maybe well-scattered throughout India. In time, a powerful regional Christian state might emerge and be able to convert a significant amount of its people to Christianity, even if it will have to have some manner of religious tolerance.

So we can probably have at least a large part of Kerala following Christianity, along with scattered communities elsewhere in India. Europeans will no doubt be interested by these large Christian communities, but probably disdainful of them due to their heretical nature. If we somehow assume a "united India" (without colonialism, this is obviously very difficult, but either an insanely brilliant conquerer and his empire survives and unites the subcontinent or Indian states merge into a federalised "Indian Union"), then Christians would make up a sizable minority in this Indian state.
 
Yes, but i'm not arguing for a complete conversion, just a rough majority (Which was achieved in much less time in both places). Spain or portugal expanding their holdings in either southern india or the gujarat during the height of their power (15-1600's) does seem the most doable for a rough majority. Though how large these areas actually are depends on many things.

Portugal had send just enough troops to defend settlements on the coast, not wage war and conquer larger sultanates like Gujarat or states like Vijayanagar which is for the 16th and 17th century asb. And even then they will lose their hard to defend lands to either the Rajput, Mughals or Mysore. Conquering inlands in India is hard if not impossible to defend for European states in the 16th and 17th century.

A rough majority is hard to achieve in India. It didn't work for 700 years Islamic rule, how would it work with 2 centuries of Iberian rule? The only time it worked it was either in some cities Portugal ruled or in some parts of Assam where there still were lots of Pagans. Pagans have always been easier to convert.
 
Portugal had send just enough troops to defend settlements on the coast, not wage war and conquer larger sultanates like Gujarat or states like Vijayanagar which is for the 16th and 17th century asb. And even then they will lose their hard to defend lands to either the Rajput, Mughals or Mysore. Conquering inlands in India is hard if not impossible to defend for European states in the 16th and 17th century.

A rough majority is hard to achieve in India. It didn't work for 700 years Islamic rule, how would it work with 2 centuries of Iberian rule? The only time it worked it was either in some cities Portugal ruled or in some parts of Assam where there still were lots of Pagans. Pagans have always been easier to convert.

I point to examples of large scale populations converting in less time, see the Koreans adopting a lot of protestantism, the two century conversion of most of indonesia to islam and other things. In any case, it doesn't even need to be a majority, though that could happen. The OP asked if christianly could become an indian third wheel to Islam and Hinduism, which is not only possible but doable. If Spain, France, Britain or Portugal really put an effort into converting rather than the "meh" attitude they adopted OTL then its quite possible for parts of the population to convert, especially if a Indian ruler does so for trade preferences similar to Japanese lords in the sengoku jidai. Which could end up with parts of modern india having major christian populations as per the OP.
 
Justinian has a much better reign. Khosrow dies from the plague and Anoshazad and his Christian allies win the following power struggle. The Byzantine Empire is secure in the east. Ethiopia also remain in control of Yemen.

The Christians in India arn't cut off from Byzantium and missionary activity is increased due to easier travel. A southern Indian state uses Christianity as a unifying force and builds a powerful maritime empire. Christianity becomes apart of a southern cultural identity against the Hindu north centuries later.
 
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