The Ingredients of Casteism: Holy Week and Syrian Christian Food Practices in Kerala, India

Abstract

This article examines casteism and the food practices of dominant-caste Syrian Christians during Holy Week in Kerala, India. Kerala is often deemed to be educated, progressive and secular. However, education and secular practices have not eradicated casteism. Looking at three specific breads made by Syrian Christians during Holy Week, I trace the difference between Syrian Christian food-giving to Dalit Bahujan workers, and food-sharing between Syrian Christians and dominant-caste Hindus. Food, I argue, gives us a lens to understand how casteism continues to function despite narratives of Kerala’s secular and progressive exceptionalism.

Keywords:

• Caste
• casteism
• food
• Holy Week
• Syrian Christians

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of parts of this article was delivered in December 2019 titled ‘Masala Politics: How Syrian Christian Cuisine Became Malayalee “Christian” Food Culture’, co-authored with Carmel Christy Kattithara Joseph. The author would like to thank Dr. Carmel Joseph, Dr. Bindu Menon for commentary, Dr. Ajay Sekhar for resources, and the participants at the ‘Exploring Sovereignty and Charisma: Engagements, Contestations and Fabulations’ conference at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, 2019. The author would additionally like to thank Pallavi Rao for resources on Brahmans claiming to be the ‘Jews of India’, and the two anonymous South Asia reviewers for their detailed comments and helpful feedback.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. See, for example, Gayatri Devi, ‘Unrepentant Sinner’, in North Dakota Quarterly (27 June 2018) [https://ndquarterly.org/2018/06/27/unrepentant-sinner/, accessed 1 June 2020].

2. Dalit is a term that means ‘broken’ and is used by the former untouchable caste, which falls into the official category of SC/ST (Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes). Bahujan is a term meaning ‘majority’ and refers to castes which fall into the official category of OBC (Other Backward Classes). Dominant caste refers to those with caste privilege falling into the official category of forward or upper castes.

3. In this article, I use the terms ‘landlord’ and ‘slave castes’ following Dalit scholarship on slavery in Kerala. I am mindful of the terminology used by slavery scholars writing on slavery in the Americas/Black Atlantic. I try and contextualise this use of ‘landlord’ and ‘slave caste’ by also using the adjective ‘enslaved’ because ‘people weren’t slaves; they were enslaved’: P. Gabrielle Foreman et al., ‘Writing about Slavery/Teaching about Slavery: This Might Help’, community-sourced document [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A4TEdDgYslX-hlKezLodMIM71My3KTN0zxRv0IQTOQs/mobilebasic, accessed 16 Dec. 2021].

4. Caroline Osella and Filippo Osella, ‘Food, Memory, Community: Kerala as Both “Indian Ocean” Zone and as Agricultural Homeland’, in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 31, no. 1 (2008), pp. 170–98 [174].

5. Interviews were conducted in Malayalam and translated by the author. Names have been changed to protect research participants.

6. ‘Religion’, Census India [http://censusindia.gov.in/Census_And_You/religion.aspx, accessed 24 June 2015]; and K.C. Zachariah, ‘Religious Denominations of Kerala’, Working Paper Series, no. 468, Centre for Development Studies (April 2016), p. 9 [https://cds.edu/publications/working-papers/, accessed 18 Dec. 2021].

7. K.C. Zachariah, The Syrian Christians of Kerala: Demographic and Socio-Economic Transition in the Twentieth Century (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2006), p. 10.

8. Susan Visvanathan, ‘Legends of St. Thomas of Kerala’, in India International Centre Quarterly, Vol. 22, nos. 2/3 (Summer-Monsoon 1995), pp. 27–44.

9. Zachariah, The Syrian Christians of Kerala, p. 28.

10. Uma Chakravorty, ‘Conceptualising Brahmanical Patriarchy in Early India’, in Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 28, no. 14 (April 1993), pp. 579–85.

11. Rajan Gurukkal, Social Formations of Early South India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 247.

12. Ibid., p. 310. Aryanisation is a caste-washed term for the implementation of the caste system in the region. As the Brahmans of Kerala are thought to be of the Aryan race and differentiated from the Dravidian natives of South India, the term also carries a racialised/colour connotation.

13. M.G.S. Narayanan, ‘Further Studies in the Jewish Copper Plates of Cochin’, in Indian Historical Review, Vol. XXIX, nos. 1–2 (Jan. and July 2002), pp. 66–76 [72].

14. L.K. Anantakrishna Ayyar, Anthropology of the Syrian Christians (Ernakulam: Cochin Government Press, 1926), p. 52.

15. H. Gundert, ‘Translation and Analysis of the Ancient Documents Engraved on Copper in Possession of the Syrian Christians and Jews of Malabar, in Madras Journal of Letters and Science, Vol. 13, no. 1 (1844), pp. 115–46 [132].

16. See Decrees XII and XIII in Scaria Sacharia (ed.), The Acts and Decrees of the Synod of Diamper, 1599 (Edamattam: Indian Institute of Christian Studies, 1994), pp. 207–8.

17. Sanal Mohan, Modernity of Slavery: Struggles against Caste Inequality in Colonial Kerala (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 59.

18. Ibid., p. 70.

19. Ibid., p. 54.

20. Ayyar, Anthropology of the Syrian Christians, p. 213.

21. Mohan, Modernity of Slavery, p. 175.

22. Ibid., p. 158.

23. Interview with Annamamma, Kottayam district, 30 June 2017. I have not included the names of the villages where the interviews took place to protect the interviewees’ anonymity. See also Prabhavathi, a Dalit woman, discussing landowning dominant castes giving food to Dalit workers in a hole lined with banana leaves [https://twitter.com/Arpo_IN/status/1449705166945484805, accessed 16 Dec. 2021].

24. Mohan, Modernity of Slavery, p. 129.

25. A. Sathiya Susuman et al., ‘Female Literacy, Fertility Decline and Life Expectancy in Kerala, India: An Analysis from Census of India 2011’, in Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 51, no. 1 (2014), pp. 32–42 [39].

26. ‘State of Literacy’, Census India, p. 108 [http://censusindia.gov.in/2011-prov-results/data_files/india/Final%20PPT%202011_chapter6.pdf, accessed 27 Jan. 2020].

27. Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002).

28. Many recipes have been gathered and are listed on nasrani.net: see ‘Kerala Nasranee Pesaha Recipes’ Amprayil [https://www.nasrani.net/2008/03/16/kerala-nazranee-pesaha-receipes/, accessed 22 June 2020].

29. See Mareena’s Recipe Collections [https://mareenasrecipecollections.com/pesaha-appaminriyappamindriyappam-recipe/, accessed 22 June 2020]; and ONmanorama [https://food.manoramaonline.com/food/in-season/pesaha-appam-pesaha-pal-recipe-maundy-thursday.html, accessed 22 June 2020].

30. Interview with Elsie, Thiruvananthapuram district, 24 Dec. 2014.

31. Interview with Kochamma, Kottayam district, 1 July 2017; interview with Thangamma, Kottayam district, 30 June 2017; and interview with Claramma and Elia, Kottayam district, 2 July 2017.

32. Father Jacob Aeranat, Home Liturgy (Ernakulam: The Viani Printings, 1980), pp. 267–71.

33. Sunish George J. Alumkal, ‘Pesaha Tradition of Saint Thomas Christians of India’, in Parole de l’Orient, Vol. 40 (2015), pp. 55–66 [61].

34. See ‘Pesaha of Mar Thoma Nasranis’, in which it is argued the Pesaha is known only in the Syrian Christian community in India and overseas, p. 2 [https://docs.google.com/document/preview?hgd=1&id=11-cqnjAAbM_HeQ1RJUUwhL9R1zg7nrDFCI1oVdPG9aE, accessed 25 Oct. 2021].

35. Alumkal, ‘Pesaha Tradition of Saint Thomas Christians of India’, p. 64.

36. Ibid.

37. Leslie Brown, The Indian Christians of St. Thomas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), p. 227; see also ‘INRI Appam: Celebrating Holy Thursday with Traditional Home Ritual’ [https://www.catholicsandcultures.org/syro-malabar-catholics-celebrate-holy-thursday-traditional-home-ritual, accessed 22 June 2020].

38. See, for example, ‘Pesaha of Mar Thoma Nasranis’.

39. Interview with Katrinamma, Kottayam district, 30 June 2017.

40. Ayyar, Anthropology of the Syrian Christians, pp. 239–40.

41. This elevation of veganism during religious ritual periods may be true of other religious communities in Kerala as well. Looking at Muslim food practices in a Kerala village, Osella and Osella found that on ritual occasions, Muslim participants avoided non-vegetarian foods: Osella and Osella, ‘Food, Memory, Community’, p. 182.

42. Interview with Achamma and Paulose, Kottayam district, 30 June 2017; and interview with Chacko, Kottayam district, 23 June 2017.

43. Corinne Dempsey, ‘Selective Indigenization and the Problem of Superstition in Kerala’, in Vidyajyoti: Journal of Theological Reflection, Vol. 69, no. 6 (2005), pp. 404–14 [411].

44. Ibid., p. 413.

45. For instance, John Pallakunnel writes: ‘It will be unrealistic to think that the Apostles discarded a large Jewish diaspora in the well known India unserved despite their Lord’s call “to go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”’: John Pallakunnel, ‘Christianity Is Truly Indigenous’, in Bosco Puthur (ed.), St. Thomas Christians, and Nambudiris, Jews, and Sangam Literature: A Historical Appraisal (Kochi: LRC Publications, 2003), pp. 220–3 [222].

46. Alumkal, ‘Pesaha Tradition of Saint Thomas Christians of India’, p. 63.

47. Ayyar, Anthropology of the Syrian Christians, pp. 53–4.

48. Narayanan, ‘Further Studies in the Jewish Copper Plates of Cochin’, pp. 73–4.

49. Junaid Rana, ‘The Story of Islamophobia’, in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 9, no. 2 (2007), pp. 148–61 [153].

50. Act VIII, Decree 9 in Zachariah, The Syrian Christians of Kerala, p. 135.

51. Thenmozhi Soundararajan, ‘Twitter’s Caste Problem’ [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/03/opinion/twitter-india-caste-trolls.html, accessed 15 June 2020].

52. ‘Twitter’s Apology a Cop Out or Was CEO Jack Dorsey Wrong to Hold Brahmin Patriarchy Poster?’, The Print [https://theprint.in/talk-point/twitters-apology-a-cop-out-or-was-ceo-jack-dorsey-wrong-to-hold-brahmin-patriarchy-poster/152114/, accessed 15 June 2020].

53. ‘Twitter Row: Congress’ Manish Tewari Says Anti-Brahminism Reality of Indian Politics, Brahmins New Jews of India’, The Financial Express [https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/twitter-row-congress-manish-tewari-says-anti-brahminism-reality-of-indian-politics-brahmins-new-jews-of-india/1388675/, accessed 15 June 2020].

54. S. Anand, ‘We Are Like the Jews’, Outlook India [https://www.outlookindia.com/magasine/story/we-are-like-the-jews/227027, accessed 15 June 2020].

55. Ajantha Subramanian, The Caste of Merit: Engineering Education in India (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), pp. 225–6.

56. Lisa Weinstein and Pranathi Diwakar, ‘Brahmins Are the New Jews of India? Here’s Why That’s Utterly Wrong’, Scroll.in [https://scroll.in/article/903542/why-it-is-utterly-wrong-to-call-brahmins-the-new-jews-of-india, accessed 15 June 2020].

57. Ibid.

58. The etymology of indriappam needs further analysis. I have seen websites that attribute the word indriappam to ‘INRIappam’. INRI is the Latin acronym for ‘The King of the Jews’ inscribed on the crucifix. See, for example, ‘Pesaha | Inri | Kurisu Appam & Paal’, Nish Kitchen [https://nishkitchen.com/pesaha-inrikurisu-appam-paal-unleavened-bread-and-jaggery-syrup-for-holy-thursday/, accessed 5 June 2020]; and ‘INRI Appam: Celebrating Holy Thursday with Traditional Home Ritual’, Catholics & Cultures [https://www.catholicsandcultures.org/syro-malabar-catholics-celebrate-holy-thursday-traditional-home-ritual, accessed 5 June 2020]. But not one of my research participants pronounced the bread as INRIappam, opting instead for the indriappam pronunciation. As an anonymous reviewer for this article noted, indriappam can also be pronounced indariyappam, mentioned in the autobiography of Joseph Pulikkennel, a critic of casteism in the Syrian Christian faiths: Joseph Pulikkennel, Ithu Ente Vashi (Kottayam: DC Books, 1920).

59. Interview with Thresiamma, Kottayam district, 23 June 2017.

60. Interview with Mary Kutty, Kottayam district, 26 June 2017.

61. Interview with Thangamma, Kottayam district, 30 June 2017.

62. Ajay S. Sekher, ‘The Broken Buddha of Pattanam, Boddhisatvas in Disguise and the Silent Siddha of Kayikara: Iconology, Histories and Textuality of Buddhist Idols in Kerala’, unpublished paper [https://ajaysekher.net/about-me/, accessed 5 June 2020].

63. Interview with Mary Kutty, Kottayam district, 26 June 2017; interview with Elia and Claramma, Kottayam district, 2 July 2017; and interview with Kochamma, Kottayam district, 1 July 2017.

64. Subramanian, The Caste of Merit, p. 104.

65. Sharika Thiranagama, ‘Respect Your Neighbor as Yourself: Neighborliness, Caste, and Community in South India’, in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 61, no. 2 (2019), pp. 269–300 [285].

66. Interview with Penamma, Kottayam district, 25 June 2017.

67. Ninan Koshy, Caste in the Kerala Churches (Bangalore: Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, 1968), p. 64. The study labels Dalit Bahujan Christians as ‘backward Christians’.

68. Ibid., p. 63

69. Ibid., p. 40.

70. Ibid., pp. 63–4.

71. Interview with Anamamma, Idukki district, 30 June 2017.

72. See Sonja Thomas, ‘The Tying of the Ceremonial Wedding Thread: A Feminist Analysis of “Ritual” and “Tradition” among Syro-Malabar Catholics in India’, in Journal of Global Catholicism, Vol. 1, no. 1 (Sept. 2016), pp. 104–16.

73. Carmel Christy Kattithara Joseph, ‘Indriappam and Vindaloo: Caste and Food Culture among Kerala “Christians”’, unpublished paper presented at the ‘Exploring Sovereignty and Charisma: Engagements, Contestations and Fabulations’ conference, Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, Dec. 2019.