PLIGHT OF THE `EAST INDIAN'
CHRISTIANS OF MUMBAI
correspondent:
East Indians are descendants of the thousands
of original inhabitants of North Konkan, West
Maharashtra mainly Bombay, Vasai, Thane and
Raigad districts, on the west cost of India,
who were primarily nature worshippers and who
embraced Catholicism during the period 1200
- 1600 due to the missionary work of European
Fransiscans and Jesuits. The East Indians speak
a dialect of the Marathi language although majority
of the East Indians are fluent in Hindi, shudh
Marathi and English.
Pope John XXII in 1329 has acknowledged the
presence of Christians when he addressed letters
to the Christians of 'Konkan-Thana', and sent
them with Bishop Jordan Catalini of Quilon,
who had been a missionary at Thane, Sopara,
etc from 1321 onwards. The Apostle St. Bartholomev
is reputed to have come to Kalyan (Thane district)
which means there were Christians even in the
1st century. Many more European and middle-east
missionaries had come in Konkan (Thane, Bombay,
Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg districts) between
1st and 12th century. So even before the 12th
century there were thousands of Christians in
North Konkan, west Maharashtra.
The British East Indian Company designated them
with the name 'East Indians' during the Diamond
Jubilee celebrations of Queen Victoria in 1887
to distinguish them from the Goan and Manglorean
Catholics who came to Bombay in search of jobs
and who had similar surnames as Catholics of
north Konkan, west Maharashtra. Before 1887
East Indians did not have a fixed or all embracing
designation so obviously they referred to themselves
as Catholics or Christians. The Gazetteer of
the Bombay Presidency, Vol. XIII, Part I, published
in 1882, has about 19 pages on the native Christians
in which it consistently calls them 'Thana Christians'
as Bandra and the rest of Salsette Island was
included in Thane District till a few decades
ago. The gazetteer was published just five years
before the designation 'East Indian' was adopted.
In the whole of India including Bombay only
the Goan and Manglorean Catholics know who East
Indians are. People living in east India (west
Bengal, Assam, Nagaland) are not referred to
as East Indians just as people living in Rajasthan,
Gujarat, and Maharashtra are not known as West
Indians. BELIEVE this - 99.99% of Hindus and
Muslims living in Bombay including Hindus and
Muslims living in gaothans of East Indians in
Bombay have no idea who the East Indians are.
Migrants (slum dwellers) and the legal migrants
(middle/upper/business class) living in Bombay
believe that Bombay was an uninhabited island
and they also believe that majority of Catholics
living in Bombay are mainly from Goa.
East Indian Gaothans: There are more than 200
East Indian gaothans (villages) spread across
Bombay alone. Before 1960 all this gaothans
were surrounded by agricultural lands, ponds
and wells. First the British who ruled India
till 1947 took the agricultural lands of East
Indians for various industrial/economic purposes
(textile mills, railway factories, railway lines,
Sahar, Santa Cruz, Juhu airport, roads, shipyards,
Kalina and Colaba military camps, residential
complexes, etc) and also gave a lot of agricultural
lands of East Indians to Parsi and Gujarati
charitable trusts........But the British did
not do anything for the welfare of East Indians.
This is the reason why many East Indians joined
the freedom struggle against the British notable
among them was Joseph Kaka Baptista the right
hand man of freedom fighter Lokmanya Tilak and
the first president of the Home Rule League.
Around 25% of the agricultural lands of East
Indians in Bombay were taken by the British
before 1947; and after 1960 the Maharashtra
government took the remaining 75% of the agricultural
lands of East Indians in Bombay.
How were these East Indian gaothans formed in
Bombay and its surroundings: Hundred's of Centuries
back ancestors of East Indians in Bombay built
their houses close to one another and formed
a gaothans/village, often on a rocky or less
fertile spot, so as to leave the surrounding
land free for the cultivation of Rice. It is
precisely on the former rice fields surrounding
a gaothan that town planning schemes, housing
societies, Sahar / Juhu / Santa Cruz airports,
roads, industrial/residential complexes, SEEPZ,
MIDC, industrial areas, Kalina / Bombay University,
railway lines, slums, etc have sprung up. East
Indians did not build fences around their houses
and that's the reason you will find houses in
gaothans are very close to one another. The
Maharashtra Government during the 1960s took
all the agricultural lands of the East Indian
Christians by invoking the land acquisition
act and town planning act but did not give any
compensation or government jobs to East Indians
neither gave additional FSIs or concession in
property taxes to the gaothans / villages where
East Indians were/are living. Due to this many
East Indians had suffered economically. Since
there are no Additional FSIs for gaothans/villages
of East Indians they cannot raise their houses
to accommodate additional members of the family.
The Maharashtra government and the Bombay Municipal
Corporation (BMC) have 1990 onwards spent more
than 25,000 crores of rupees for the welfare
of slum dwellers in Bombay including giving
free houses of 225 sq. ft. to slum dwellers,
but for East Indians even to repair or reconstruct
their old and dilapidated houses in their gaothans
they have to beg and bribe the BMC. It is very
clear from the above that the Maharashtra govt.
and the Bombay Municipal Corporation have economically
persecuted the East Indian Christians.
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