A Dalrymple documentary! – St. Thomas the Apostle in India

I found this documentary fascinating.  This well known British journalist, who has studied India and other countries and its religions, thinks that St. Thomas may very well have come to the west coast of India after Jesus died.  Perhaps St. Thomas bones are really buried just down the street from me at the Thomas Cathedral (the story is that he was killed and buried here on the East Coast of India)-   This is an excellent product of the BBC and a great example of India’s melting pot history.   Pope John came here and made this local church a Basilica!

My novel protagonist has a Hindu mother and a Christian father.  The Mother “converted” to marry her father, but in her heart she is a Hindu.  “Appa”, the father, comes from several generations of poor and outcaste Christians, easily converted by 19th century Christian missionaries (the predecessors of the United Church of Christ, a very liberal mainstream US denomination) because the missionaries offered equality, services, education and uplift of women.  Most Indians never converted, but the early Catholic and later Protestant missionaries did well among tribal and low-caste communities, who had little to lose and much to gain.