ALAN MACHADO replies to
issues raised in "Dissecting
the genetic history of the
Roman Catholic populations of
West Coast India"
A recent research paper (Kumar 2021) has attempted to
decipher the genetic composition of the Roman Catholics of
the west coast of India. The paper was widely reported on in
the mainstream media across the country and beyond. It
raises many issues that need reconciling in the interest of
academic and historical accuracy.
On analysing genetic material from 110 individuals,
the paper concluded that "the Roman Catholics of
Goa, Kumta, and Mangalore regions are the remnants
of very early lineages of Brahmin community of
India, having Indo-Europeans genetic affinity along
with cryptic Jewish admixture." The Indo-European
ancestry is revealed by the presence of the
Y-chromosome R1a typically found among Brahmans
from north-western and northern India. The paper
is less certain of the "hypothesis of dubious
origin of Roman Catholics from Jewish community,"
stating only that there are some indications of
Ashkenazi and Yemenite Jewish ancestry not found
among other Brahmans, and possibly dating to around
Solomon's reign (977-937 BC).
The laboratory work has been conducted by geneticists at
institutions of the highest reputation using the latest
technologies. The paper states that data and material has
been used from other comparative studies made by the foremost
geneticists in India and other parts of the world.
Such studies, however, are based on samples drawn
from the targeted population. This is where I
question the conclusions reached by the paper. How
and from whom were the samples collected? How
representative was it of the Roman Catholics of the
entire west coast of India? A large section of
this population is composed of non-Brahman castes
(Chardos, Shets, Mahars, Gavdis, Kunbis, etc). Is
their ancestry reflected in this study? Did census
and civic data have any role in the determination
of a sample truly representative of the diverse
composition of the target population?
Earlier journalistic reports suggest this collection of
samples from volunteers were flawed and representative of only
a small section of the Roman Catholic community of the west
coast of India mostly drawn from privileged sections of urban
society. I may be wrong and am open to correction.
In a census of South Kanara's population taken in 1801, about
a third of the non-Christian Konkani migrants from Goa were
of the cultivator, servant, and other menial classes.
Similarly, a sizeable section of Konkani-speaking Goan
emigrants settled in Cochin derive from Kunbi cultivator
ancestry. It is reasonable to assume the same applies to the
Christians of Kanara. Have these been reflected in the
sampling?
THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
There are very serious shortcomings in the
historical narrative which the paper relies on.
Most citations are taken from Kranti Farias's book
'The Christian Impact in South Kanara' published in
1999. It would, therefore, be worth glancing
through.
Farias cites a fanciful narrative for the arrival of
Christianity in Kanara (Farias 1999: 3). Quoting tradition
(whose, it is not specified) she says "St Bartholomew the
Apostle" landed at a port "adjacent to the Kallianpur Fort"
and began to preach Christianity.
She writes he was known as Bhethal from which name a rather
convoluted derivation is made for Barkur, an ancient town
some 15 kms away from Kalyanpura. She quotes a popular
saying related to the Goan deity Nagdo Betal distributing
water to labourers in fields and concludes "The water
referred to here is obviously the waters of baptism."
There is so much wrong with all this. There was no
fort at Kalyanpura which, being located some
distance away from the coast, has no port. Nagdo
Betal is a pre-Vedic deity worshipped in Goa, not
Kanara. Surely, he would not be transferring the
allegiance of his worshippers to another religion!
A similar pattern follows in many sections of the book in
which statements are blandly peppered with the qualification
"possibly" and "probably".
Contradictory statements are made on different pages. For
instance, on page 24, Farias writes prior to 1510, "the
Portuguese had some settlements in Kanara probably with some
Regular or secular priests there", three churches were built
in 1526, and many conversions were made. On page 27 she
writes the first church was built in Mangalore in 1580 but
there were only a few Christians.
This not being a dissection of the book but the research
paper, further observations will be confined to statements
made in the latter.
The paper refers to forcible conversions in Goa
without citing any evidence for physical force
being employed. It is true that coercive laws were
promulgated in Goa prohibiting the public practice
of other religions, and inducements were extended
to effect conversions. Many of these may be
likened to services available to citizens of a
country today, for instance, access to the public
health service, ration cards, concessional taxation
etc.
Portugal saw conversions to Christianity as a means of
securing its subjects' loyalties. Both Church and king
wanted these conversions to come voluntarily and with an
element of sincerity.
The king was acutely aware that Goa could not survive without
a strong economy which required a productive population as
well as business expertise. He soon realised that the
economy could not flourish without the active participation
of influential sections of the Goan population that refused
to convert.
For instance, the collection of taxes (rendas)
imposed on food, cloth, tobacco, opium, spices,
paper, and a number of other products was
contracted to the highest bidder. For the period
1600-70, Brahmans, Gujarati Vanias, Chatims
(goldsmiths) held four-fifths of all rendas by
number and two-thirds by value (Pearson 1981:
98-99).
During the first decade of the seventeenth century,
non-Christian Brahmans collected 91.7% of all
taxes. They were an inalienable part of the
State's economy in trade, commerce, and banking, as
well as in the political sphere as translators and
diplomats. Realising this, the king decreed that
"they be favoured so that they will be encouraged
to serve me..."
To state that "thousands of these Hindus fled from Goa
because of forced conversions... (Farias 1999)" is an utter
contradiction of the facts. An estimate made from the 1801
census of Kanara arrives at the figure at 1,685 immigrants to
Kanara if all the emigration had occurred in the 1560s
(Machado: Goa's Inquisition).
It is equally wrong to state "The Brahmins/Hindus, who
remained in Goa were made to convert... but they were
subjected later on to severe persecution under the dreadful
‘Inquisition'... established in 1560 (Farias 1999). Due to
intense torture under the ‘Rigour of Mercy' of the
Inquisition with its dreaded ‘Auto de Fe', the Brahmin
population got severely reduced and many of these newly
converted Christians also fled southwards in a second wave."
The Inquisition was established to ensure that converts
remained loyal Christians and deter others from doing
anything to weaken that loyalty. The Inquisition worked in
the king's interests as a primary institution involved in the
social disciplining of his subjects in line with Portugal's
experience with its New Christian (Jewish and Muslims
converts and their descendants) population.
Its primary objective was the reconciliation of
deviants and bringing them back into the discipline
of religion and society as visualised in Portugal.
Torture was selectively used to elicit the truth in
line with contemporary European judicial
procedures. There were strict rules on its use,
with a doctor and witnesses being present. In
1774, new regulations issued by the Inquisitor
General banned it except in exceptional cases with
the statement "torture is a most cruel method of
investigating crimes..."
"INTENSE TORTURE"? "SEVERE PERSECUTION"? "EXTERMINATION"?
The rigor de misericordia was a policy introduced in Goa by
Portugal in 1541 to effect conversion to Christianity. It
emphasised "the application of moral force", that is
preaching, education, incentives, etc in achieving
conversions. It had nothing to do with the Inquisition whose
focus was on keeping those who had already converted in line.
The auto-da-fe (literal meaning: an act of faith) was a public
ceremony in which delinquents who confessed to and abjured
their errors were reconciled. It was a public demonstration
of the Inquisition's capability in bringing back to the faith
those who had strayed.
Only in extreme and rare cases where the
Inquisition failed to obtain an abjuration, those
judged as "dogmatic" heretics and serial sodomites,
was burning resorted to. The number physically
burned in 177 autos-da-fe (for which statistics are
available) held between 1560 and 1773 was 331 or
1.52% of the total convicted, averaging less than
one annually (Machado: Goa's Inquisition). Many
years went by without any executions.
The Inquisition's records reveal that such unsubstantiated
statements cannot go unchallenged. The idea of the
Inquisition, an institution reporting to the king, torturing
and driving out Christians who were to form a bulwark against
hostile neighbouring States is flawed and cannot be
substantiated.
In fact, the king had ordered that converts be granted
immunity from prosecution for 20 years after converting, and
that they not be punished for their first offence. The
auto-da-fe records reveal that most punishments meted out by
the Inquisition related to spiritual penances, terms in
prison, or in the gun powder factory, galleys, or exile,
accompanied by a dose of instruction in the faith.
PRIMARY REASON FOR MIGRATION
Stating "Historical records suggest that during Portuguese
colonisation in the West Coast and the Goan inquisition, the
Roman Catholics faced severe torture and even extermination
(by ‘Auto-de-Fe': means burning at the stake) (Farias 1999)
and hence, possibility of population bottleneck", the paper
adds that a drop in population numbers about 15-20
generations ago "corroborates with the significant reduction
in population size during the Goan inquisition under
Portuguese invasion to West Coast."
Considering 25 years per generation, this would
take us to 1700 when a Maratha military offensive
against the Estado da India began peaking. During
this period the Inquisition's primary focus shifted
to the northern province of the Estado da India
(Salsette, Thane, Daman, etc to the north of Goa)
which contributed 71% of case files between 1685
and 136 (Machado. Goa's Inquisition).
Aurangzeb's death in 1707 upset the fragile Mogul-Maratha-Goa
equation and freed a resurgent Maratha State under Baji Rao's
dynamic stewardship to concentrate its forces against the
Estado da India. In 1739, the Marathas captured the northern
province and large parts of Goa itself. They left Goa only
after a large ransom was paid by depleting State, Church, and
private reserves. The resulting disruption to the economy
and agricultural cycle caused acute food shortages and
connected problems. This was the primary reason for
migrations.
The main bottleneck in the Kanara Roman Catholic community
occurred during their Captivity under Tipu Sultan. This
15-year event (1783-99) began with the arrest and deportation
of Christians in Tipu's State to Srirangapatna. Less than
half Kanara's Christian population survived.
The post-Captivity years saw large increases in family
numbers. It was very common for parents to have children
above what was normal among neighbouring communities, for men
to remarry when their wives died in childbirth, and
marriages taking place between closely related couples in the
tradition of strict endogamy. That this is not mentioned
anywhere in a paper investigating the genetic profile of
Kanara's Christians seriously undermines its credibility.
But, then, geneticists are generally not historians.
"LOST TRIBE OF ISRAEL"? WHAT SOUTH ASIAN Y-CHROMOSOMES TELL US
The premise that coastal Roman Catholics belong to
a "Lost Tribe of Jews" is a figment of a narrative
that is, as the paper itself calls, "dubious" and
"cryptic". It is a premise with no basis whatsoever.
Coastal ports have attracted traders from other places, who
being restricted from returning for long months due to the
monsoon, have at times married local women. Moplas in
Malabar and Bearys in Kanara are an example of this. For a
time such trade involved Jews from west Asia; records from
the Cairo Genizah Collection and Jewish settlements in
Malabar are testimony to this.
South Asia's genetic profile shows that while its
mtDNA (maternal) is composed largely from the first
out-of-Africa event (65-70,000 years ago), almost
two-thirds of its paternal inheritance is derived
from male-dominated immigrations from west and
central Asia during Neolithic (from 10,000 years
ago). R1a and J are the primary haplogroups
associated with these migrations. Surprisingly,
they are found in substantial amounts in tribal
populations whose colonisation of South Asia dates
to many thousand years earlier, even perhaps to the
out-of-Africa event.
J2a-M410 is mainly concentrated in the northwest (Gujarat and
Rajasthan) and is present in frequencies of 17-50% among
Toda, Chenchu, and other south Indian tribal populations.
J2b-M102 is concentrated in eastern India with a presence of
15-35% among certain tribal populations. (Singh: 2016).
Among the Chenchu tribal population of Andhra Pradesh, the
most frequent mtDNA M sub-cluster is M2 with a coalescence
time of about 73,000 years. It suggests their early
settlement of South Asia, from about the time of the Toba
super-eruption. In contrast, their Y-chromosome gene pool
contains significant levels of Hgs J-M172 (17-50%) and R1a1
(27%) (Singh 2016; Cordaux 2004).
What it tells us is that there was substantial
one-way gene flow from Neolithic migrants to
hunter-gatherer communities in South Asia. The
Chenchu R1a1 haplotypes represent two lineages, one
about 3,200 years old and the other 350. The
earlier date is closely linked to the migrations of
Indo-Aryan speakers; the other to the time of the
Moghul campaign in Andhra.
The Laws of Manu v 3.13 ordain that a man's first marriage
should be to a woman of his own caste. If he desires a
second wife, then "a Sudra woman alone (can be) the wife of a
Sudra, she and one of his own caste (the wives) of a Vaisya,
those two and one of his own caste (the wives) of a
Kshatriya, those three and one of his own caste (the wives)
of a Brahmana" (translation G. Buhler).
While they also specify that a Brahman's marriage
to a woman of lower caste degraded him, the law a
is a clear pointer that the spread of male
Y-chromosomes was one-way, from Brahman's to other
castes. These genetic profiles confirm this.
It would not be any surprise if a small amount of
Jewish DNA is found among coastal Roman Catholics,
or for that matter among other coastal communities.
In no way can any inference be drawn from this that
coastal Roman Catholics are a "Lost Tribe of Israel".
A GENETIC STUDY OF LOUTOLIM (SALCETE) BRAHMANS
An example of how credible sample collection and historical
background is woven into a genetic study is illustrated in a
research paper that set out to determine the ancestral
migratory route of Lotli Brahmans, both Christian and
non-Christian, to Goa (Mascarenhas 2015).
Most male members of this clan of Goud Sarasvat Brahmans
carry a rare R1a1 Y-haplogroup designated as LPKSTR. The
paper states: "A Brahmin family Y-chromosome lineage is
likely to exhibit greater genetic proximity to a culturally
related group situated thousands of miles away than to any of
the dozens of geographically proximate communities that might
traditionally serve as comparators. Thus, in assessing
genetic proximity within highly differentiated Brahmin
milieu, the rational choice of selected comparators for TMRCA
computation requires the use of historical data." And it goes
about this in a rational way.
The paper cites archaeological data, Harapan iconography,
details of kuladevatas and family and community traditions
and practices in conjunction with documented historical
narratives to conclude that the ancestral migration to Goa
had a western, rather than eastern origin.
A similar approach has been taken in collecting samples.
Volunteers were identified and validated using oral
communications with town social networks, comunidade
records, electoral rolls, public databases, matrimonial sites
(gotra), church baptismal and marriage records going back
150-400 years, temple archives, and practices in naming
children.
END COMMENT
The recent paper does not demonstrate such meticulous details
were used either for the collection of samples or historical
accuracy. It would have enhanced the value of the paper if
it elaborated, within ethical standards, on the
representation given to different social groups comprising
the Catholic community of the west coast based on census and
other statistical data.
Which parts of Goa were the samples taken from, and
why were other regions of Kanara with significant
Catholic populations (Honavar, Kundapura, Bantwal,
Mulki etc) not considered? Why were ganvkari and
Church records which give caste, occupation, and
other details, (or the numerous individual genetic
profiles made through companies like 23andMe), not
considered as done in Mascarenhas's study? The
authors of the paper do not seem to be aware of
this study for they do not refer to it, and also
write "the only genetic study with group related to
Roman Catholics done till date" was in 1976.
To state Goans, both Christian and otherwise, faced "intense
torture", "severe persecution", and "extermination" without
any evidence or citation is not only very wrong but violates
the very essence of historiography.
No citation has been given for the statement on the origins
of Roman Catholics: "some historians and anthropologists...
relating them for being members of the Jews Lost Tribes in
the first Century migration to India." Which historians,
which anthropologists? If ill-informed opinions are
considered seriously as facts, then the historical narrative
on which the paper draws some of its conclusions is undermined.
References
Cordaux, R et al. 2004. ‘Independent Origins of Indian
Caste and Tribal Paternal Lineages'. Current Biology
Farias, Kranti. 1999. The Christian Impact in South Kanara.
Church History Association of India. Mumbai
Kumar, L et al. 2021. Dissecting the genetic history of the
Roman Catholic populations of West Coast India. Springer
Nature
Machado, A. Goa's Inquisition: Facts Fiction Factoids.
under publication
Mascarenhas, D et al. 2015. Genetic and Cultural
Reconstruction of the Migration of an Ancient Lineage.
BioMed Research International
Pearson, M. 1981. Coastal Western India. Concept
Publishing House. New Delhi.
Singh, Sakshi et al. 2016. ‘Dissecting the influence of
Neolithic demic diffusion on Indian Y-chromosome pool through
J2-M172 haplogroup'. Scientific Reports.
--
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Alan Machado is the author of 'Slaves of Sultans', 'Shades
Within Shadows' and 'Saraswati's Children', three books
dealing with the Mangalorean Christian community. Contact
the author via email at alan.macha...@gmail.com or via
WhatsApp at +91 94801 02236.
