Mini
M Abraham
Abstract
The Slayer Slain,
a novel published in Vidya Sangrah,
the CMS College magazine in 1864, holds a unique position in 19th
century Indian literature in English as the first missionary novel written by a
woman. Set in nineteenth century Travancore, the native Syrian Christian
characters seen through the missionary lens appear shallow and ritualistic. The
benign solution to all crises proposed in the novel is to turn away from
everything perceived as native and thus fallacious, to traverse the salvific
path outlined by the Western Protestant Missionaries. Although the novel appears to manifest the
humane and benign side of colonialism, this paper argues that it actually
exemplifies Foucault’s pastoral power and good shepherd model of governance.
The essential aim of such power is “salvation of the flock”, through the “power
of care” using a spiritual trajectory.
Pastoral power acts as an “individualizing power” wherein each
individual within the flock is guided with a proper model of rectitude and
penitence to act in ways which are for “their own good”, a good which, on their
behalf is decided by another. This
willing transformation and remodelling the ‘self’ into a western protestant
model, points to a manipulative power which ultimately results in the making of
a fragmented, uneasy self, dependent upon the emancipatory potential of the
colonizer’s religion to make sense of one’s life.
Keywords:
The Slayer Slain (Novel), Nineteenth Century literature, Pastoral Power, Syrian
Christians, Western Protestant ideology, good shepherd model of governance.
INTRODUCTION:
THE MISSIONARY AND COLONIAL PRESENCE IN SOUTH INDIA
In
order to take stock of the impact of Christian missionaries in 19th
century India, it takes a nuanced understanding of the history and influence of
colonialism and of colonial modernity. Bellenoit reports that Anglican
missionaries were allowed by the British government to enter the Company
territories first in 1813 and later in 1833. According to him, there was a
general consensus among missionaries that Christianity, western scholarship and
European civilization were all intertwined and that these should be implemented
in the colonies (25). He further points out that due to such beliefs, the
missionary engagements in India were initially confrontational in approach. At
an ideological level, Christianity in the nineteenth century was closely interlinked
with the expansion of colonial power and its influence in the world.
Missionaries wanted to win adherents to their spiritual as well as worldly
empires. No conflict was seen by them between the priorities of the world and the
other-worldly empires. Dilip Menon points out that the 19th century
imperial state was “mirrored and informed by a British Protestant spiritual
empire” (1673). Thus, the missionaries exerted a kind of parallel governing
influence in conjunction with the colonial masters.
While
the colonial masters were primarily interested in capitalist endeavours and
allied political activities, the missionary presence was more complex. Evangelical
Christianity saw inequality and superstition as the defining features of the
indigenous societal structure, which generated assent among some groups and
revivalist dissent among others. Missionary rhetoric posited the idea that all
individuals should be subjected equally before the rule of law. But the abstract idea of the individual was
presumed to be within a well defined hierarchy. While the caste system
subordinated the individual within the community, missionary rhetoric harped on
a “new community based on equality and brotherhood in Christ” (Menon 1674).
SITUATING THE SLAYER SLAIN AMONG 19th
CENTURY INDIAN LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
During
the 19th century, colonial endeavours were pervasive and at the
zenith of power. Within the purview of
this paper, 19th century Indian Literature in English is limited to
the works written in English by Indian authors (by birth or settlement) about
the Indian experience. The prominent names include Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath
Tagore, Henry Derozio, Michael Madhusudan Dutta, Toru Dutt and Krupabai
Satthianadhan. Mrs. Frances Wright Collins, the author of The Slayer Slayer Slain,(henceforth TSS) was the wife of a missionary, Rev. Richard Collins who
was the Principal of The College, Cotym (now CMS College Kottayam) from 1856-
1864. Due to ill health and untimely demise, she could not
complete the slim novel, which seems be her sole literary output. Her husband
completed and published it in Vidya Sangraham,
the quarterly magazine of the college, in serialized form between 1864 and
1866. Although it lay in obscurity for over a century, the novel is now
considered as a significant document for tracing the colonial modernity in
Kerala, reflecting the social conditions then prevailing in Travancore. It
contributes to the corpus of Victorian literature by giving a firsthand account
of the life and practices of the small but powerful Syrian Christian community
in Kerala, albeit through a missionary/colonizer perspective. The notion of
nation and revolt which was taking shape in north and central India hadn’t
quite taken hold of the Keralite’s imagination. It is also interesting to note
that the Syrian Christian tradition in Kerala pre-dates the Western Christian
tradition by at least a few centuries1. Moreover, in order to
appreciate the power dynamics during 19th century Kerala, it is
pertinent to note here that TSS can never be treated as just a piece of fiction
as most of the events fictionalized in the story are based on actual events
referred to in the missionary records like the Madras Church Missionary
Register, The CMS Intelligencer and the Travencore Cochin Diosesan Record. They
mention the burning down of slaves’ churches and the conversion of a Brahmin in
Mavelikkara under Rev. Joseph Peet. It has to be treated as a (fictionalized) documentary
evidence of the socio-economic relations in the nineteenth century. Mrs. Collins is
concerned with issues of caste as well as the superiority of Protestantism over
Syrian Christianity. Menon observes the influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin, in the plot, where man's inhumanity to man is
alluded to. In both novels, compassion, repentance and redemption form the
focal themes. As missionaries considered caste to be a local variant of slavery,
a connection is established between race/slavery in the western society and
caste/subordination in India, pointing to an extraterritorial affinity(1674).
FORMS
OF POWER IN THE SLAYER SLAIN
Next, the
question of the kind of power wielded by the missionaries: Did they make
inroads into the hearts and psyche of the natives? This paper argues that the
missionary influence revealed in TSS is the perfect exemplar of Foucault’s
exercise of pastoral power through a good shepherd model of governance (124-129).
Although
the novel appears to manifest the humane and benign side of colonialism, a
closer reading reveals darker layers of meaning and signification. The plotline
follows the lives of Koshy Curien, an arrogant Syrian Christian landlord, and
his family who are upper caste Syrian Christians; Poulosa, a lower caste
untouchable slave; a local pastor and his family and an old Brahmin among
others living in the picturesque background of Travancore and the Meenachil
river. Koshy Curian is brought up in the Protestant faith, but reverts to a
ritualistic, shallow and materialistic lifestyle. The novel deals with his
change of heart of occasioned by the compassion and generosity of his
untouchable pulaya slave. A parallel
subplot traces the life of his exemplary daughter Mariam. She is educated at
the mission school on liberal education and is heavily influenced by the
Western Protestant school of thought. She is portrayed as an ideal Christian
character in the western protestant worldview. The conversion of an old Brahmin
to Christianity forms another important part of the novel’s plot. Thus, it is
seen that the three major characters in the novel represent three different
types of turmoil in the turbulent times- Koshy Curien represents the upper
caste anxieties over ruptures in the existing land and labour relations. In the
person of Paulosa, we see the eagerness to question the existing relations of
hierarchy and the embrace of a faith that promises equality in the eyes of God.
Mariam, the 14-year-old daughter of Curien, is the voice of the mission school
educated woman, questioning the existing gender role assigned to her as well as
pondering on the essence of spirituality and goodness (Thomas 75).
The novel reveals three different
forms of power coming into play. The first and the obvious one is the caste
dynamics prevalent in 19th century Kerala. The upper caste Hindus
and Syrian Christians equally ill-treated the lower castes as is seen in Koshy Curien’s
ill treatment of his slave. When the slave Poulosa requests for a break from
work on Sabbath, he is beaten up and abused by Curien. “It is all your teaching
and reaching, and you shall bear the suffering. Seize him! Seize him!... and
his stick was raised again to add weight to the command…”(Collins 16). The caste subjugation in the slaves’ minds was
such that despite vastly outnumbering the master, they stood cowering,
terrified and submissive in the face of violent abuse. Curien’s blow meant for
Poulosa accidently kills his grandchild. This incident in the novel has strong
historical roots. John Thomas affirms that in the mid-19th century,
many of the untouchable slaves were converted to protestant Christianity,
generating widespread fear and anxiety among the propertied Nair and Syrian
Christian landlords over the possible breakdown of the existing socio-political
economy and caste structure. This fear was often translated into “brutal and
violent persecution of the slaves, especially those who were inclined towards
Christian instruction and conversion” (69). Syrian Christians considered the
missionaries responsible for instigating the slaves to flout existing rules. Thomas
adds that the continuance of the caste structure in Travancore was partly due
to the labour-intensive agrarian practices which required a steady stream of
cheap labour for its sustenance. For this purpose, the lower castes- the pulayas and the parayas, were kept “in a perpetual state of landlessness, poverty
and dependence by the upper castes, through denial of alternative forms of
employment” (65). They were treated as commodities to be owned, bought and
sold.
The second kind of power was that
of the colonizer over the native. An example is the incident where the minions
of Koshy Curien put Poulosa in chains and immerse him in muddy water with his
head uncovered in the blazing sun. The native pastor, passing by, rescues Poulosa
by threatening to report the minion’s misconduct to the sircar. He intimidates the servants with the threat of bringing sircar peons to arrest and throw them in
jail- “It will require but a few minutes to have a dozen Sircar peons on the
spot, and when once within the walls of the Thanah you will find it no easy to
get out again” (Collins 29). This shows
that even an indirect subordinate of the missionaries of the colonizing sircar wields more power than the rich
and powerful in a colony. It may be acceptable for the prevention of
atrocities, but the larger question about the right of the colonizer to control
native lives remains unanswered. The other examples are not so obvious. As part
of their proselytization-based doctrine, the missionaries made inroads into the
hitherto limited educational spaces of the state. The
Western ideology was taught and disseminated through the educational spaces. Mission
high schools and colleges sometimes became sites of struggle between competing
sets of eastern and western values as in the case of Mariam. This encouraged her
to denigrate and reject her traditional Syrian Christian practices in favour of
Western Protestant ones. This implies a willing acceptance of the colonizer’s
religion and practices as opposed to her older and native traditions.
PASTORAL POWER AND THE GOOD SHEPHERD MODEL
OF GOVERNANCE
The
third and the most pervasive power is seen in the form of what Foucault calls “pastoral
power” (125-26). Pastoral power and how it plays out in the novel will be
explored in the following paragraphs.
A
perusal of the history of power reveals that we have come a long way from the “might
makes right” credo. According to Freud, the simplest and immediate conception
of power is that of “might makes right.” But in The Genealogy of Morals,
Friedrich Nietzsche had preceded Freud in pointing out that in human society
the weak, including women, will violate Darwin’s principle of survival of the
fittest by conspiring to topple the strong by way of cunning and banding
together (Freud, Nietzsche and Foucault qtd. in Rapaport 250-252). This being the case, the powerful realize that the
overt display of power becomes intolerable and hence leads to unstable
relationships. Foucault argues that the current social expressions of power,
like, bureaucratic power – act as a response to and transformation of the
‘might makes right’ concept of power (Freud, Nietzsche and Foucault qtd. in
Rapaport 250-252). This gives way to alternate forms of power like pastoral
power. The paper argues that though the missionaries were not directly in
charge of local governance, they exercised the invisible form of pastoral power
or the good shepherd model of governance over the colonized natives.
Foucault argues that the pastorate
in Christianity gives rise to a dense, complicated, and closely woven
institutional network coextensive with the entire Church and the Christian
community. He adds that in Christianity the pastorate practices an art of “conducting,
directing, leading, guiding, taking in hand, manipulating men, of monitoring
and urging them on step by step, thus taking charge of them collectively and
individually throughout their life and at every moment of their existence” (164-65).
In Security, Territory, Population, Foucault discusses this good
shepherd model of governance, which originated in the Near East and established
a foothold in early Christian societies.
Foucault summarizes the central attributes and features of this model as
follows: Firstly, “the shepherd’s power is not exercised over a territory but,
over a flock, even in its movement from one place to another. The shepherd’s
power is essentially exercised over a multiplicity in movement” (129). So, whereas the Greek god is territorial, the
Hebrew deity (the shepherd) wanders. In TSS, the missionaries form a parallel
power structure either directly or through the local network of pastors, where
they take up a beneficent role in educating the locals and being sympathetic
towards them. They travel to the homes of the needy to render help and solace,
as opposed to the needy going to the deity to pray for his needs. The whole of
chapter 11 of the novel describes such benevolent deeds of the local pastor,
who represents the local variant of the colonial missionary. He visits the
dilapidated homes of the poor, cooks food for them and spreads the message of
God. He also visits a Nair’s house where some men try to draw him into gossip.
He chastises them for whiling away their time. Thus, the administration of
kindness is over a whole flock, irrespective of religion and territory. And the
emissary of the deity in the form of the pastor visits and comforts the
flock. In another instance, Mariam, a product
of liberal missionary schooling, acts as a peace emissary and comforting angel
to Poulosa by visiting his home- “Mariam took a Jack-leaf , and with ready
fingers formed it into a kind of spoon,
into which her grandmother dropped a piece of sugar and some powerful mixture,
which Mariam with the help of the old woman placed in the mouth of the
sufferer”(Collins 31). Thus, while the British governing officials
became more isolated from Indians and resorted to scientific racism to justify
their rule, the missionary educators directly or through a pastoral network became
more engaged with Indians and grew increasingly sympathetic to Indian culture,
and adamantly opposed scientific racism (Bellenoit 22-24). In essence the
‘good’, ‘ethical’ and ‘moral’ characters are all who follow the western
Protestant practices.
Elaborating
on the second feature of pastoral power, Foucault states, “pastoral power is
fundamentally a beneficent power … its only raison d’etre is doing good
…” (115). The essential aim of such power is “salvation of the flock” (115).
This is an exercise of power akin to the violent conquest of enemies, the
display of omnipotence through symbolism, and the prudent governance of a
society, but its emphasis is decidedly spiritual. Moreover, such power is what
Foucault calls the “power of care.” (127). The shepherd cares so zealously that he puts
the well-being of the flock ahead of himself. Unlike the despot in Plato, the
good shepherd provides for the flock; he does not make the flock tremble before
his power, as that is detrimental to the flock’s well-being. The missionaries’
agenda seems to be almost entirely spiritual- they are interested in winning
souls for the kingdom of God. For this, they preach the good news of the word
of God with its central message of equality, protection, redemption and
salvation. So, the persecuted slaves are drawn to the philosophy and are
willing to convert to a religion which potentially offers them dignity and
liberty. The missionaries’ endeavours do not seem to have any agenda or purpose
apart from doing good. The exemplification of this power is again manifested in
the local pastor who goes around doing good to all the needy, irrespective of
caste or religion. He does not seem to seek any self-aggrandizement. Poulosa’s
forgiveness towards Curien is also the result of manifestation of this
beneficent power wherein he fully believes in the power of repentance and
redemption. He does not feel the need for having a ‘reason’ in the worldly
scheme of affairs to do good. He feels that praying for his enemy Koshy Curien
will bring about his repentance and salvation.
At a socio-political
level, Dilip Menon observes that “The colonial state, while it adopted the
rhetoric of freedom and individual dignity, was reluctant to dismantle social
structures like slavery that would involve both a loss of revenue as well as
the allegiance of the landed groups who were their bulwark” (1667). He adds
that “Missionaries rushed in where the colonial state feared to tread” (1677). In
1855, following the intervention of missionaries, a royal proclamation for the
abolition of slavery was issued. Here, the missionaries come across as good
shepherds who care for the flock without any benefit to themselves. They also
seem to attempt to establish equality before the law. But the document was
vague enough to maintain existing labour relations without disrupting the
existing social dynamics.
The third feature according to
Foucault is that “pastoral power is an individualizing power” (169-70). The shepherd not only has to look after the
flock as a whole, but each individual within the flock. He must correct the
sheep that act in ways that are not for their own good, which the shepherd does
by acting as the proper model of rectitude. The shepherd is powerful insofar as
his example reveals itself to be salvific and therefore one that has to be
followed by way of emulation. The assumption here is that whether master or
slave, the attitudes of the natives is fallacious and needs to be corrected
using the western Protestant faith. The novel persistently evokes the premise
of the superiority of Protestantanism over Syrian Christian faith.
Now, a note on the
individualizing power at work in the novel: The earliest example is the
reaction of Poulosa to the murder of his grandchild by Koshy Kurien. Poulosa is a Christian convert who is taught
to practice the virtues of repentance and forgiveness. Filled with agony at the
sight of his dead grandchild, he looks heavenward and gasps, “Saviour of mercy,
Saviour of love, look down and pity us. Bless and forgive my cruel master. Lay
not this sin to his charge, Amen, Amen”(Collins 18). Even under such harrowing
circumstances, he is able to forgive and pray for his antagonist even if part
of his behavior may be attributed to utter helplessness. Hence, instead of
holding a grudge against his master, he returns good for evil. He saves the
life of Mariam from drowning. When the boat carrying Mariam and her grandmother
capsizes, Paulosa jumps into the raging river to save the life of the young
girl. Later he throws a challenge to Koshy Curien saying "You killed my
child, but I have saved yours. We are now equal"(Collins 38). Poulosa is claiming that they were equal in
the spiritual realm. This ‘insolence’ shown by Poulosa in throwing a challenge
to his master is also a reflection of pastoral power. He is taught about
equality and brotherhood in Christ. This is what gives him the courage to speak
thus.
The next example is the
reaction of Koshy Kurien to Poulosa’s challenge. Despite his haughty and
violent behavior towards the slaves, Curien is eaten up by guilt about the
death of the child but is too proud to admit it. This guilt and his inability
to act upon it could be a reflection of his assertive Syrian Christian male
identity constructed upon ideas of affluent lineage and feudal legacies which
sets him above the slave whom he considers as nothing more than a commodity
that he owned. But he is also a product of Western Protestant upbringing
despite his Syrian Christian bloodline. Hence, he searches for Poulosa and on
finding him, seeks Poulosa’s forgiveness. Overcome with remorse, Koshy goes to
the extent of accepting the pulayan
as his teacher and equal, if not moral superior. "From now on, you are not
my slave. I have known that you are more suited to be my master. I wish to
learn from you"(Collins 79). This
echoes the missionary rhetoric of equality and brotherhood in Christ. It also
echoes the influence of Foucault’s pastoral power in the way the haughty Kurien
humbles himself before a slave. It is also interesting that despite the heavily
patriarchal society of the time, he is consistently polite to his mother even
when he doesn’t agree with her actions, and is affectionate towards his
beautiful wife. Further, he is absolutely besotted by his lovely 14 year old
daughter Mariam, who is gentle, firm and bright.
As a new convert, Poulosa
says that in his pre-Christian days, he used to steal and be dishonest, but after
conversion, he became honest and straightforward. Koshy Curien’s ritualistic,
materialistic and cruel ways are attributed to his Syrian Christianity. When he
decides to mend his ways through repentance, it is only under the guidance of
the pastor, and hence construed as the corrective influence of western
Protestantanism and individualizing power. Next is the example of Mariam who is
described as a model of piety and goodness. She tells her siblings stories from
the Bible, and is actively responsible for the conversion of Poulosa into
Christianity when she was but a child. When she goes to his home(an unusual act
for a Syrian Christian woman to visit the house of a slave in those days),
Poulosa recalls how she told him about the love of Jesus Christ and advised him
against stealing mangoes. She argues with her father about his abusive attitude
to slaves and his practice of meaningless religious rituals. When her father
arranges a very advantageous marital alliance with Ummen Thoma’s son for her,
she actually persuades her father to back out of that socially advantageous
marriage. She insists that the boy was uncouth and unread and that it was a
spiritually incompatible match. Her attitude of placing compatibility and
spirituality over material wealth and comforts is another reflection of her
mission school education. She eventually marries a Protestant minister’s
assistant who is educated and decent, but not rich. Her worldview forms a
direct reflection of the pastoral power embedded in her missionary school
education.
The pastor’s wife was
initially an illiterate, irresponsible person and an avid gossiper uninterested
in pious activities. After her elder son’s death she repents, mends her ways
and turns to the Bible under the guidance of her husband. This is yet another
example of individualizing pastoral power where the native is incapable of
goodness without the guidance from the missionary network. And the old brahmin’s
ideology too is perceived as fallacious. His account of and his salvation is also
through conversion into Christianity. He confesses that the Vedas had given him
no solace even though he went to Kasi. His reading the book on atonement
impressed him and facilitated his conversion to Christianity. This event can be
called the crowning glory of the triumph of pastoral power as the upper caste
Brahmin relinquishes his faith to embrace the faith of the colonizer. Thus,
each individual’s redemption is a result of conversion. And this power of
accomplishing willing conversions from individuals is a manifestation of this
individualizing power. And for each individual, the pastors follow up the case.
And after conversion too, care is disseminated in many forms.
The
texture and tone of the novel through the above examples seems to read like a sweet,
feel-good text dealing with the higher, refined human emotions like repentance
and forgiveness, and the triumph of the meek and humble over the proud
reverberating the biblical verses. But this paper argues that these instances actually
reveal an art of the missionary network in conducting, directing, leading,
guiding, taking in hand, manipulating men, of monitoring and urging them on
step by step, thus taking charge of them collectively and individually
throughout their life and at every moment of their existence. For the
missionaries, the Syrian Christians represented the ‘prodigal son’, who had
strayed away from the ‘true’ faith and become estranged, and therefore, in need
of a conversion experience.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it can be said that while
tracing the modus operandi of the missionaries in the colonial machinery, we
can see a shift away from the “might makes right” impulse which is wrought
through social repression and the formation of bad conscience. In the “Good
shepherd model”, we see a reversal in practice whereby the despot who only
cares about himself to the point that he does harm to the community, is
replaced by the good shepherds who really care about the flock. But due to
false consciousness and camera obscura, the colonizers perceive the actions,
rituals and religion of the native as deficient and fallacious, conveniently
ignoring the fact that as per evidence, Syrian Christianity in Kerala claims a
history to be far older than their own European one. And in order to rectify
the perceived fault lines, the colonizers in conjunction with the missionaries resorted
to the “Pastoral power” politics instead of the overtly coercive “might is
right” ideology. This means that instead of subjugating the natives through
brute force, as done by the colonizing government, a parallel power structure is
unleashed by the missionaries. This is more of an invisible power which rewrites
the centuries old construct of the identity of the native individual in the
social hierarchy. It is a form of power which threatens to destabilize and
reconstitute the existing social dynamics. It shapes shapes and trains the
psyche of the individual into completely trusting and following a spiritual
ideology very different from his own. In this expression of power, the
individual within the flock is coaxed and guided with a proper model of rectitude and penitence
to act in ways which are for “their own good” , a good which is decided by
someone else though. The powerful and long-lasting psychological impact of this
invisible power was to colonize the mind of the native, to devalue his own
history and traditions, to make him internalize the faith of the colonizer and
to completely modify his attitudes and behavior. This willing transformation
and remodeling the ‘self’ into a western protestant model, points to the
Pastoral Power dialectic proposed by Foucault- a power which ultimately results
in the making of a fragmented, uneasy self, dependent upon the emancipatory
potential of the colonizer’s religion to
make sense of his life.
Notes
1.
In A Survey of Kerala History, Sreedhara
Menon states that Christianity was introduced in Kerala in the first century
A.D., which is three centuries before it gained official recognition in Europe
or became the established religion in Rome. Legend has it that Apostle St.
Thomas landed at Maliankara, a place adjoining Muziris, in 52 A.D., converted
several Brahmins and others and founded seven churches on the Malabar coast.
Though some historians have
questioned the historicity of this claim, Menon maintains that it is not an
improbability considering the extensive trade relations prevalent between
Kerala and the Mediterranean countries from the 7th century BC
onwards. There are traditional accounts preserved by the Jews who came
to Cranganore in 68 A.D. which contain a reference to the existence of a
Christian community at the place. Further, the statement of Pantaenus, the head
of the Alexandrian school who visited Kerala in the 2nd century A.D. that he
found a flourishing Christian community here is also cited as evidence in
favour of the Apostolic origin of the Kerala Church. Since the introduction of
the Christian faith in Kerala, it has come to be accepted as an indigenous
faith despite its foreign origin.
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