How Does The God of Small Things Portray the Influence of Syrian Christianity in Kerala?
In The God of Small Things (1997), Arundhati Roy portrays the influence of Syrian Christianity in Kerala as a force that shapes social hierarchies, moral codes, and individual identities. The novel exposes how Syrian Christian communities internalized both colonial and caste-based systems of privilege, creating a complex cultural hybrid that perpetuates exclusion despite its Christian ideals of equality. Through the depiction of the Ipe family, Roy critiques how religion—particularly Syrian Christianity—functions as both a cultural anchor and a mechanism of control within Kerala’s social order.
1. The Historical and Cultural Context of Syrian Christianity in Kerala
To understand Roy’s portrayal, it is essential to grasp the historical roots of Syrian Christianity in Kerala. Syrian Christianity, one of the oldest Christian traditions in India, traces its origin to St. Thomas the Apostle, who is believed to have arrived on the Malabar Coast in the first century CE. This community maintained close ties with the Syrian Orthodox Church, blending indigenous customs with Christian theology (Bayly, 1989). Over centuries, Syrian Christians occupied an intermediate social position between upper-caste Hindus and lower-caste groups, adopting Brahminical social markers while preserving their Christian faith.
Arundhati Roy embeds this historical background into the fabric of The God of Small Things, using the Ipe family as representatives of this elite Christian class. The family’s status, education, and mannerisms reflect a community that privileges purity, lineage, and respectability. As Meenakshi Mukherjee (2000) notes, Roy’s portrayal of the Syrian Christian elite reveals their “complicity in reproducing the caste-based hierarchies of Hindu society,” demonstrating that religion did not necessarily dismantle inequality but often reinforced it in new forms.
2. Religion as a Marker of Class and Caste Hierarchy
Although Christianity preaches equality before God, Roy presents a version of Syrian Christianity deeply entangled with caste consciousness. The Ipe family’s disdain for the Paravan caste—embodied by Velutha, the “Untouchable” carpenter—illustrates this contradiction. Mammachi and Baby Kochamma’s prejudice against Velutha exposes the hypocrisy of a faith that claims to transcend social boundaries but remains governed by caste-like distinctions (Roy, 1997).
This dynamic reflects what Gauri Viswanathan (1998) identifies as “the internalization of colonial hierarchies within native religious practices.” Syrian Christians in the novel adopt not only Western religion but also the colonial notion of moral and racial superiority. Roy uses this contradiction to critique the moral bankruptcy of a community that prays devoutly yet persecutes those who transgress its social boundaries. Thus, religion becomes less a spiritual refuge and more a tool of social exclusion and moral surveillance.
3. The Intersection of Colonial Influence and Religious Identity
Syrian Christianity in The God of Small Things is not merely a local phenomenon but one profoundly shaped by colonial contact. British missionaries and administrators reinforced divisions between “native” and “Christianized” populations, often privileging Syrian Christians in education and employment. Roy’s portrayal of the Ipes’ Anglicized lifestyle—speaking English fluently, valuing British manners, and looking down on “less civilized” locals—reflects this colonial inheritance.
According to Elleke Boehmer (2005), postcolonial texts often expose how Christianity operated as an agent of cultural colonization. In Roy’s narrative, the hybrid identity of Kerala’s Syrian Christians exemplifies this process: they are both colonized and complicit, victims of imperial influence yet enforcers of social exclusion. Baby Kochamma’s obsession with her convent education and the family’s rigid moralism show how colonial religion became internalized as cultural capital. Through this depiction, Roy highlights how faith and empire intertwined to produce a morally conflicted and socially divided community.
4. The Role of Women in Syrian Christian Society
Women in Roy’s Syrian Christian world occupy a paradoxical position: revered as moral guardians but confined within patriarchal expectations. Ammu’s rebellion against her family’s strict moral codes—by falling in love with Velutha—represents defiance not only against caste but also against the religious and patriarchal norms of Syrian Christianity. Her punishment—social ostracism and eventual alienation—reveals how the community enforces gendered control under the guise of religious propriety (Roy, 1997).
As Hélène Cixous (1976) suggests, patriarchal societies often control women’s sexuality as a means of maintaining social order. In Roy’s narrative, the church and family act together to discipline female desire. Baby Kochamma’s repressed infatuation with Father Mulligan and Ammu’s tragic romance illustrate how religion enforces silence and shame around women’s bodies. Roy thus uses the Syrian Christian setting to critique the broader patriarchal systems that limit female agency through religious morality.
5. The Church as a Symbol of Authority and Hypocrisy
The Syrian Christian Church in The God of Small Things functions as a symbol of both spiritual and institutional power. Its presence pervades Ayemenem life, influencing family decisions, moral codes, and social status. However, Roy exposes the church’s complicity in sustaining oppression rather than alleviating it. When Ammu’s affair becomes known, the church, instead of offering compassion, reinforces her condemnation.
As Aijaz Ahmad (2000) argues, Roy’s portrayal of the church highlights “the internal contradictions of a faith that preaches redemption but practices exclusion.” The church’s silence on caste injustice and gender oppression mirrors its historical tendency to side with social elites. Through irony and subtext, Roy dismantles the sanctity of organized religion, revealing how spiritual authority often serves as a veil for social control.
6. Velutha and the Subversion of Religious Hierarchies
Velutha, a Paravan and Communist, becomes a symbol of resistance to both religious and social oppression. His relationship with Ammu defies every law of the Syrian Christian moral code—caste, class, and religious boundaries. His name, meaning “white” in Malayalam, carries deep irony: a so-called “Untouchable” who embodies purity and integrity in contrast to the moral corruption of his so-called Christian superiors.
Pramod K. Nayar (2010) interprets Velutha as a “postcolonial Christ-figure,” sacrificed for the sins of a hypocritical society. His brutal death parallels the crucifixion narrative, but unlike Christ, his death brings no redemption—only exposure of social rot. Roy’s use of Christian symbolism in depicting Velutha’s martyrdom turns the Syrian Christian moral order against itself, illustrating how the church’s ideals are betrayed by its own followers.
7. The Symbolism of Purity and Pollution in Syrian Christian Identity
Throughout the novel, Roy uses the motifs of cleanliness, touch, and contamination to explore the Syrian Christian obsession with purity. The Ipe family’s avoidance of physical contact with lower-caste individuals, their emphasis on respectability, and their discomfort with bodily expression all signify a religiosity deeply tied to caste ideology. This echoes Louis Dumont’s (1980) concept of “purity and pollution” as organizing principles of Indian social hierarchy, which Roy reconfigures in a Christian setting.
This obsession with purity is not merely social but spiritual. Mammachi and Baby Kochamma view sin as physical contamination, reinforcing the division between “pure” Christians and “polluted” others. Roy’s ironic treatment of such purity exposes its moral emptiness. By showing how religious obsession with cleanliness masks violence and prejudice, Roy unmasks the dark underbelly of Kerala’s Syrian Christian respectability.
8. Postcolonial Critique: Religion as Cultural Hybridization
Roy’s depiction of Syrian Christianity also serves as a broader postcolonial critique of hybrid identities. The faith in Kerala is neither purely indigenous nor wholly Western—it is a syncretic blend of colonial Christianity and local caste culture. As Homi Bhabha (1994) notes, such hybridity often produces both resistance and imitation. In The God of Small Things, Syrian Christianity becomes a microcosm of postcolonial contradiction: it empowers its adherents socially while binding them spiritually to colonial moral codes.
Roy’s narrative reveals that hybrid identities can perpetuate the very systems they were supposed to transcend. The Ipes, in mimicking colonial morality, sustain both caste exclusion and Western elitism. Through this portrayal, Roy offers a powerful reflection on the legacy of religious and cultural hybridization in postcolonial India—one where liberation is inseparable from complicity.
9. Conclusion: Religion, Power, and the Politics of “Small Things”
In conclusion, The God of Small Things portrays the influence of Syrian Christianity in Kerala as a complex interplay of faith, hierarchy, and identity. Roy reveals how the religion’s moral and social codes, shaped by both caste and colonialism, create a paradoxical culture that preaches love but practices exclusion. The Ipe family’s world is a microcosm of this tension—where devotion, respectability, and oppression coexist under the same sacred banner.
Through her depiction of characters like Ammu and Velutha, Roy exposes the failures of organized religion to deliver justice or compassion. Syrian Christianity, in her vision, becomes both a historical inheritance and a contemporary burden—a faith struggling to reconcile its universal ideals with local hierarchies. By intertwining religious critique with postcolonial analysis, Roy turns the “small things” of personal love and rebellion into acts of profound theological and political defiance.
References
-
Ahmad, Aijaz. In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures. Verso, 2000.
-
Bayly, Susan. Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700–1900. Cambridge University Press, 1989.
-
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
-
Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature. Oxford University Press, 2005.
-
Cixous, Hélène. The Laugh of the Medusa. Signs, 1976.
-
Dumont, Louis. Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications. University of Chicago Press, 1980.
-
Mukherjee, Meenakshi. The Perishable Empire: Essays on Indian Writing in English. Oxford University Press, 2000.
-
Nayar, Pramod K. Postcolonial Literature: An Introduction. Pearson Education, 2010.
-
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. IndiaInk, 1997.
-
Viswanathan, Gauri. Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief. Princeton University Press, 1998.