ABSTRACT
In the absence of a comprehensive scholarly work on Christianity and Christians in the Telugu-speaking region of South India, this chapter is an attempt to map the social history of Christianity, which would serve as the context for the study. Through this chapter, I argue that Christianity was not established among the natives in the Telugu country (i.e. the Telugu-speaking region of the Madras Presidency) till the end of the 17th century. It is to be noted here that Christianity was established in other parts of South India by then. It explains how the advent of Protestantism, which views caste as a social evil, and a gradual shift in the methods of proselytization and paying attention to the lower castes together facilitated the process to making inroads into the Telugu-speaking region. Most importantly, this chapter highlights how Lutheranism became a new framework to express the long-simmering caste consciousness against institutionalized forms of discrimination in the form of ‘mass movements’ to Christianity among the lower castes, especially the scheduled castes who came to identify themselves as Dalits in modern India. Therefore, this chapter highlights a significant observation that the history of Christianity and the development of Dalit movement in Andhra must not be examined separately, as they have been hand in glove with each other from day 1. Therefore, the idea that the Dalit movement in Andhra is not devoid of Christianity sets the context for this study to analyse anthropological insights from the field in the coming chapters.
