Republishing....

Yesterday, I posted my comments that were rejected/blocked by a certain Blog earlier. 

The next one that rejected/blocked my following innocuous comment is the Blog titled

'WIN…ED:    Syrian Christians, Brahmin Ancestors and St.Thomas'.

My comment was once again a rejoinder to the comment posted by J…., where he claimed, among other things, that Syrian Christians had Portuguese ancestry!!

IN REPLY, I ATTEMPTED TO POST THE FOLLOWING COMMENT AROUND 5^TH DECEMBER 2014 TO NO AVAIL.

"Where did J....   get the idea that the Portuguese intermarried with Syrian Christians of Kerala? If he is just parroting the statements made by some others in Blog comments earlier, I should say he is absolutely wrong. 

It was only in Goa that the Portuguese intermarried with Indians in substantial numbers. It happened primarily because they had sovereignty over the land which prompted them to settle in Goa in fairly large numbers and to take up vocations in the Military, Administration and Commerce. The habit of taking local wives soon followed. Compared with other European colonists, the Portuguese were less racist and so were willing to take native women as wives and to have families. Also, some Portuguese orphan girls (white Europeans) were brought by the Portuguese authorities to Goa to marry either Portuguese Goans or Indians of high status. It must be noted that such generally tolerant attitude of the Portuguese with respect to race gave rise to mixed-blood people in all of its Colonies. Brazil is an example where mixed blood populations of Portuguese origin happen to be very large in numbers. Also, the black-white racial divide in socioeconomic terms is less pronounced in Brazil in comparison with countries settled by northern Europeans like the USA, South Africa, Australia etc. Mixed-blood progeny of the Portuguese still exist in Goa and they carry traits of Portuguese culture and many (especially the elderly) can speak Portuguese language even now. Many of such Eurasians migrated to mainland Portugal during the rule of strongman Salazar, before and after the forcible annexation of Goa by Indian forces. 

It was Alfonso De Albuquerque's policy known as ‘Politicos dos casamentos' that encouraged Portuguese soldiers in India to marry native women to ensure that a loyal class of natives was created. In this, Albuquerque was copying the Arabs who engaged in this kind of loyalty creation in India for quite some time. Note the origins of the ‘Nawayaths’ of Karnataka (Bhatkal), Goa and Maharashtra (Konkan region) or the ‘Lebbais’ of Tamil Nadu (Thoothukkudi). All the Indian communities involved in this liaison with foreigners were from the coastal regions. It must be noted that the Arab sea-traders were the rivals of Portuguese in India, at least during the initial days of their engagement.

The Portuguese marital alliances in Kerala were also limited to the coastal areas where they occasionally took wives from among the Latin Catholic community whom they converted to Christianity. The descendents of such Portuguese alliances are the Eurasians of Kerala ie., the ones that are known as ‘Anglo Indians’ today. These Eurasians occasionally mixed with the later colonizers like the Dutch and English and therefore cannot be considered to have descended exclusively from the Portuguese on the European side. They can still be found in Cochin, Calicut, Kannur etc., and sparingly in southern pockets of Kerala like Alappuzha, Kayamkulam, Mavelikkara, Kollam (Neendakara, Chavara, Eravipuram,  Tangassery ) and very sparingly in some pockets of Trivandrum like Kunnukuzhi, Pettah, Murukkumpuzha, Anjengo (Anchuthengu) and outlying coastal hamlets. All these places were erstwhile Portuguese/Dutch/English enclaves, forts or military camps. Today, they live so thoroughly mixed with the Latin Catholics in many of these places that their identity has fused with that of the Latin Catholics of the area. Thus, the ‘Anglo Indian’ social tag is no more attached to many of them though they still carry some discernible European cultural traits in the socio-religious customs they follow. Many have already migrated to Metros like Chennai and Bangalore and many settled overseas, like in Australia, Canada etc., after independence. Therefore, if at all Portuguese descendants are to be found in Kerala they are among the Latin Catholics and not among Syrian Christians. In fact, the Portuguese used such Latin Catholics as soldiers and native militia in their service during their rule in Kerala during the 16th and 17th centuries and even later in the employment of European Bishops who were in charge of Syrian Catholic (present Syro-Malabar) Sees. I shall give details later."

It is for the information of those who are unaware of the marital connections the Portuguese had with Kerala Christians that I decided to republish my above comment  that did not see the light of day earlier( probably due to my debunking the claim that Syrian Christians have Portuguese ancestry too, obviously to the chagrin of the Syrian Christian author of the concerned Blog who brazenly claimed that Syrian Christians have  Nampoothiri Brahmin ancestry  and is now perhaps eager to latch on to the next false claim ie., a European ancestry). This is the problem affecting many Syrian Christians today. They want to be known as descending from Brahmins or Europeans or any other group that carries socioeconomic clout in the contemporary world but never from the aborigine low castes of Kerala.They are ashamed of such fact and either try to hide or to vociferously dispute it.