#history
Introduction of Christianity among Badagas.
– Indrani Radhakrishna.
“……..Nevertheless, the missionaries converted a hermit of a low country as early as in 1850 itself at Kaity. However, such conversion was not regarded by the missionaries as ‘victory’, since they had looked upon the Badagas as a special field of labour. It took nearly twelve years to receive the first Badaga convert.
Education was popularised among the Badagas, and in 1874, the Mission started a school in Kaity valley for the benefit of the Badaga children (Francis 1908, p. 127).
The approaches and partially successful attempts of the Christian Mission in converting the Badagas remarkably went into the ecclesiastical channels in the Hills.
More or less, the Badaga Christians emerged as a separate entity and a powerful social group which was recognised by the rest of the people in the region. Anything ‘unnatural’ in the Hills was attributed to the spread of Christianity for which both the missionaries and the Christian converts were looked at with suspicion and anger.
The outbreak of epidemics (cholera in 1854, smallpox in 1855, and plague in 1877) was blamed on Christian sorcery, for which the angry Badagas burnt down the Mission’s house at Kaity.
In spite of the Badaga hostility, in the wake of the Indian Mutiny, a Badaga, Halaiya by name, embraced Christianity in 1858. He was the first Badaga to do so. As a matter of assistance, during natural calamities and epidemics, some of the Badagas were helped with both money and goods in kind (Hockings 1980, p. 189)”.
