I am sure all friends will agree with me that the family has got precedence over the individual. It is our experience that we are readily willing to deal with a individual whose whereabouts ie family background are known, whereas we hesitate to deal with individuals whose family background are not known, or if he belongs to a family of disrepute. Thus we give much importance to family. Even in the case of arranged -marriage, family antecedents are carefully gathered. In the Mahabharatha, it is clearly told that a individual may be abandoned for the sake of the family, and a family for the sake of a village, and a village for the sake of the Kingdom. Here also the family is more important than the individual. Thus family constitutes the most elementary unit which gives strength to a caste/community/nation.
And at some point of time in the past, among the members of the Hindu community in Kerala, INDIVIDUALISM took over. It is reflected in the novel Nalukettu (1958) of M.T.Vasudevan Nair, which got Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 1959.Though fictional, could MT have fully assessed the travails of the Karanavar,(family patriarch) due to British policies & governance ? How did this individualistic tendency come about? Did it creep into the Hindu psyche through the education they received, Western style and mostly run by Church institutions. !!?? If we read Missionary narratives, we see concerted attempts by them to rupture and tear our existing social fabric, by targeting our robust family system. Within and without, individuals were instigated to disregard traditional family & social relationships as well as values, and to disobey and disrespect the family as well as community head/leaders. Agricultural labourers were instigated not to work on Sundays. Such subversive tactics by Missionaries encouraging open rebelliousness against customary heads with the tacit support of the British Govt, ultimately led to the collapse of the joint-family.(One of the main reasons) We had grown up seeing dysfunctional joint-families, but never cared to unravel how this state of affairs came to be. One beneficiary of this outcome was the Communist Party in Kerala.
Now here we see a Lady Missionary in action while dearly clinging on to the words of Jesus Christ and putting IT into effective use at the same time assuaging her guilty feelings. She is using Christ’s words as a battering ram to break-up families, and also justifying her actions. Though her actions were the means employed at getting converts, she(and people like her) did not fully succeed in it, but was able to spread such negative values making individualism acceptable in society. The result Hindu families became weak and got atomized and caste cohesiveness suffered. Except for the SNDP, whose members are becoming more organized,(and becoming militant) no other community is even reckoned in the politics of Kerala.They have become very weak in all aspects.
Given below is the Missionary justifications, in breaking-up (trying to) traditional Hindu families.
Missionary Quote : “ The second objection is, "Why break up families by insisting on baptism as a sine quâ non of discipleship?"
And again we answer, Because we believe our Master tells us to. He said, "Baptising them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." (Mathew 29:19) What right have we, His servants, to stop short of full obedience? Did He not know the conditions of high-caste Hindu life in India when He gave this command? Was He ignorant of the breaking up of families which obedience to it would involve? "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you nay, but rather division." (Luke 12:51) And then come words which we have seen lived out literally in the case of every high-caste convert who has come. "For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." These are truly awful verses; no one knows better than the missionary how awful they are. There are times when we can hardly bear the pain caused by the sight of this division. But are we more tender than the Tender One? Is our sympathy truer than His? Can we look up into His eyes and say, "It costs them too much, Lord; it costs us too much, to fully obey Thee in this"?
But granted the command holds, why should not the baptised convert return home and live there? Because he is not wanted there, as a Christian. Exceptions to this rule are rare (we are speaking of Caste Hindus), and can usually be explained by some extenuating circumstance.
The high-caste woman who said to us, "I cannot live here and break my Caste; if I break it I must go," spoke the truth. Keeping Caste includes within itself the observance of certain customs which by their very nature are idolatrous. Breaking Caste means breaking through these customs; and one who habitually disregarded and disobeyed rules, considered binding and authoritative by all the rest of the household, would not be tolerated in an orthodox Hindu home. It is not a question of persecution or death, or of wanting or not wanting to be there; it is a question of not being wanted there, unless, indeed, she will compromise. Compromise is the one open door back into the old home, and God only knows what it costs when the choice is made and that one door is shut.
This ever-recurring reiteration of the power and the bondage of Caste may seem almost wearisome, but the word, and what lies behind it, is the one great answer to a thousand questions, and so it comes again and again. In Southern India especially, and still more so in this little fraction of it, and in the adjoining kingdoms of Travancore and Cochin, Caste feeling is so strong that sometimes it is said that Caste is the religion of South India. But everywhere all over India it is, to every orthodox Hindu, part of his very self. Get his Caste out of him? Can you? You would have to drain him of his life-blood first.
It is the strength of this Caste spirit which in South India causes it to take the form of a determination to get the convert back……….”
All Excerpts From
Carmichael, Amy. “Things as They Are / Mission Work in Southern India.” iBooks. (pages 335-37 of 374)
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