Christianity, Zoroastrianism & Judaism

Christianity. About 2.3% of the population, roughly 28 million people. The Saint Thomas Christians of Kerala trace their origin to the apostle’s arrival in 52 CE; historians can’t verify it, but a Christian community in Kerala with Syriac liturgical roots is attested well before European contact, making it older than most European churches. Portuguese Catholic missions arrived in the sixteenth century, and Protestant missions with the British. Today, the largest concentrations are in Kerala, Goa, and the northeastern states, several of which are Christian-majority.

Zoroastrianism. The Parsis, who arrived from Persia between the eighth and tenth centuries, fleeing Islamic conquest, settled in Gujarat and later Bombay. Fewer than sixty thousand remain in India, declining steadily, and India nonetheless holds the largest Zoroastrian community left in the world. Their impact on Indian commerce and public life (Tata, Godrej, Wadia, and a long list of jurists and reformers) is extraordinary relative to their size.

Judaism. Three ancient communities: the Cochin Jews of Kerala, the Bene Israel of the Konkan coast, and the Baghdadi Jews of Calcutta and Bombay. Most emigrated to Israel after 1948, leaving a few thousand. India is one of the very few places in the world with essentially no indigenous history of antisemitic persecution, which is a small and genuinely unusual thing to be able to say.