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following Christian teachings of forgiveness Henry Baker lr, one of the  most famous missionaries, recorded a number of cases where runaway  slaves had taken refuge in the eastern hills amid the Mala Araya tribe. In  some of the cases, a few poor slaves who had joined the CMS mission in  the hills went down to Kottayam to meet their old masters. Two of the  returnees were severely beaten up (Baker Jr 18621 49).  One extreme case was that of a runaway slave owned by a Syrian  Christian at a place called Parlai (Palai). He had escaped to the hills  to live in a Mala Araya village and had come under the instruction of  CMS. Eventually, he became close to Baker, who named him 'Uncle  Tom' because of some supposed 'likeness to Mrs. Stowe's character'.  He was under the missionary's aegis for two years and impressed them  with his knowledge of Christianity and apparent consistency (Baker Jr  1862=57i  One day he called on Baker to tell him of his resolve to visit his mas-  ter whom he had deserted; he had a present ready with him in order  to avert his anger. Although Baker warned him not to go, as he knew  how cruel the master was--especially through his previous attempts  to capture the runaway slaves-the slave stuck to his decision. When  the slave returned to his master, he was seized, tortured, and smeared  with hot ash all over his body, he was then confined in the cellar of a  granary. The master's son himself told Baker that 'the poor fellow lay  there days groaning and praying that God would forgive all his sins, and  his master's too'. When he asked for water, they gave him filth from  the cowshed. The poor man died of the wounds and his mortal remains  were burnt away (Baker Jr 1862: 57-61).  These narratives are food for thought in relation to the notions of  sin and repentance, and their relationship to the idea of equality. These  instances show how determined the slaves were to return to their for-  mer masters, knowing fully well that the masters would punish them.  Learning of Christian principles through catechism also found expres-  sion in similar acts. However, these did not diminish the significance  of the decision taken by the slave to return to his master in an act  of repentance and with an expectation of similar goodwill from the  master. It showed the new resolve the slaves had acquired as a result of  their learning. This is particularly evident in the last case where in spite  of the missionary's warning 'the slave stuck to his decision'. It means  that he had abandoned the disposition of a slave and had begun to have an opinion of his own-one that was formed by an awareness of the  consequences of his actions.  Furthermore, the equality of the master and the slave was empha-  sized by the slave in the dungeon as he prayed to God to forgive all his  own sins and those of his master's too. A prayer like this is only possible  if the slave felt himself to be the equal of his master, indeed better-in  that he could seek forgiveness for the master. The slave's brave return  to his former master raises further questions about issues of false con-  sciousness or traditionalist thinking. Missionaries who worked among  the slave castes in the second half of the nineteenth century have  noted the latter's commitment to their masters and further observed  that 'their warmth of temper makes them zealous for the cause they  embrace'. It has often been reported that the commitment of the low-  caste slaves to their masters was absolute (Kamalasanan 1993: 30-1).  Such commitments that were part of the traditional order came  to be evaluated in the new context, and quite often turned out to be  detrimental to the interests of the slaves as the masters had not under-  gone any change of heart even if they were Christians. The power of  the notion of sin in directing the decisions and actions of slave castes  should be viewed in this larger context. There is another dimension to  the narrative that the missionary provided on 'Uncle Tom'. The latter  emerges in the narrative as a Christ-like figure, who suffered extreme  forms of torture and was banished in the granary cellar to die. He prays  to the Lord to forgive his sins and the crimes of his master. When the  slave asked for water, he was given filth of the cowshed-reminiscent  of the sour wine that was given to Christ to quench his thirst while  he was dying on the cross. The slave's pardoning of the master before  his death, reminds one of Christ forgiving the repenting thief who was  crucified along with him and thus elevates slave to a higher plane in die  narrative, which was unthinkable for a cruel master who was himself  a Christian. The narrative has different layers of meanings when read  against the fact that the image of the slave who returned is recalled in  the classic fashion of an African-American 'Uncle Tom', which makes  it possible to observe the abolitionist overtones that run through the  narrative.  There are examples that highlight other aspects of the   regime of  sin and repentance. Thus, for example, there is the case of a man who   went fishing without observing Sabbath. He was   reprimanded but   he refused to admit his mistake. The missionary prevailed upon him with  the help of the elders of the congregation and hally convinced him of  his mistake. He tried to justify his actions by saying that it had been too  late to attend the service after his return from fishing and, furthermore,  that others were inimical towards him. As he was deemed not to be  repentant, he was dismissed from the communion. He immediately  admitted his mistakes and solemnly promised to avoid in future similar  violations, he also expressed his readiness to submit to any discipline in  the way of punishment that might be imposed up on him.99  The cases I have described show the notions of sin and repentance  being used to discipline slaves. We need to ask if these concepts offer any  possibilities beyond disciplining of slaves. The most significant aspect of  the disciplining is that it is situated in a social context where members  of the slave castes are made to realize the 'mistakes' that are labeled  as sins and urged to avoid them. Although it was a sin committed by  an individual who did not attend the divine service, the congregation  considered it a serious one. As a community of believers it needed to  discipline those who would go against its norms. The new community  gradually became strong as it developed specific institutional structures  and norms unlike what used to be the experience of slave castes before  the coming of Protestant Church.  The readiness of the repenting person to undergo punishments as  given out by the elders and the missionary show how much he had  internalized the disciplining power that the fledgling congregation was  able to impose. The final decision by the individual to follow the norms  of the congregation shows his readiness to bring under the control of  the congregation his individual choices. Another dimension of the event  points to the conflictual relations between the 'individual   wilT   and the  'power of the community'. The whole incident brings to the fore the  significance of Sabbath. We have seen several examples of slave caste  people being punished for not worldng on die day of Sabbath. Now,  in this example, a member of the congregation was being tormented  for not observing Sabbath by going out ashing. The significance of a  day dedicated to the Lord was part of the sacred calendar and each  individual was reminded of die duty of observing the day of Sabbath.   This was in   contradiction to the practices of the individuals of the slave  castes before joining the missionary Church. Ultimately, the individual   in this case   succumbed to a new moral regime that of the Church. The elders of the congregation had a role in this, along with the   mis-   sionary, as they formed a community that could reprimand people who  were believed to be in sin. In other words, the disciplinary   practice   was internalized by the community and each individual was urged to  be on his/her guard. This guarding of one's own behaviors could be  extended to other social contexts, it was the self-awareness that con-  trolled their behaviour in those contexts to a large extent.  The disciplining had created a liberatory threshold that was   essential   for the later development of slave castes as citizens who would enjoy  social equality. There was actually, however, another side to d i s develop-  ment in later years, as was established in due example of the slave caste  people who joined the missions on being subjugated and controlled by  the discourses and practices of the missions. By the first decade of the  twentieth century, the Anglican church itself accepted the existence of  discontent among those slave caste individuals who joined the   missions   as they were kept out of the developments that the mission brought in  (TCDR April 191 l: 45; also see TCDR October 1913: 102).   Without   going into the details of this process, one can refer to the complex nature  of the disciplining strategies that the mission aries introduced.  * * *   The relationship between colonial modernity and Dalit communities  in Kerala right from due mid-nineteenth century was the central prob-  lem of this chapter. Throughout the nineteenth century in the colonial,  missionary, and native discourses, Dali's have been represented using  a variety of tropes such as slaves/slave caste or those such as Pulaya/  Paraya slaves, etc. Although I have been mostly dealing with the slave  castes who had joined the missions, much of the generalizations on the  problem of slavery--including its abolition and the subsequent changes  in the lives of the slave castes-had been by and large the same for  those who joined the missions as well as those who continued in the old  way. The missionary interpretations of slavery through their particular  discourses from the mid-nineteenth century onwards are crucial to our  discussion. It was through such discourses that the image of the suffering  slave was created and made her/him available for ameliorative action.  The missionary discourses on slavery, it is argued here, established  the modernity of slavery, and slaves began to consider themselves as modern human beings through their interaction with the missionar-  ies. In the meanwhile, the missionaries' recognition of slaves as human  beings, who were attributed with inalienable rights by their creator,  was decisive in the tum of events. In the missionaries' perception, they  had to evolve as free individuals restoring their humanity that was  alienated from them under slavery. These ideas have been fundamental  to the enlightenment notions of human beings, which was central to  modernity. The slave caste in Kerala, as noted in this chapter, gradu-  ally imbibed these ideas through the teachings of the missionaries and  began to consider themselves differently from their representations in  the traditional hegemonic discourses. This particular situation brought  about changes in their disposition that enabled them to articulate their  expectations of a future out of the horrible experiences of their slave  past. This was what enabled them to imagine social change that would  eventually liberate them in spite of the uncertainties that loomed  large. This situation was vividly expressed by the Travancore slaves  Thewatthan and Cherrady who were interviewed by the missionary  Hawksworth. Similarly, the testimonies of many slaves quoted in an  earlier section of the chapter show how they recalled the slave past  to compare with the changes in their situation in die first decade of  the twentieth century. This does not mean that caste oppression and  domination had ceased to exist by then.  Contemporary debates on Atlantic slavery have shown that slavery  was very much part of modernity and that it was the very resources of  modernity that enabled the slaves to resist it. The intellectual resources  of the enlightenment helped the slaves to imagine a different future,  a future of freedom and lead revolts against the imperial powers as it  happened in the case of Haiti. This particular notion of the modernity  of slavery has been taken up in the analysis of slavery in Kerala as it was  found very productive in analysing the missionary discourses on slavery,  although the slavery that prevailed in Kerala was very much part of the  precolonial caste formation.  The concern of this chapter was to analyse the agency of the slave  castes under transformative experiences, a fact the reigning historiogra-  phies failed to look into. Most historiographies considered the religious  experiences of the slave caste as inauthentic and a matter of convenience  as die latter expected the missionaries to improve their material life.  This particular argument, which has been repeated endlessly, put under erasure the religious experiences and new mentality of slave castes in  the nineteenth century and, subsequently, that of the Dalit Christians  all through the twentieth century and thereafter. The multiple negotia-  tions in which the slave castes were engaged since the mid-nineteenth  century with the missionaries, the upper-caste landlords, and the state  would prove beyond any doubt their new mentality.  Another problem that this chapter discusses is the genre of mis-  sionary writings and discourses. The genre of missionary discourses  have been explored by critical social scientists for writing, history,  anthropology, etc., of the colonized regions of the world in the last two  decades, giving rise to new theoretical insights and methodologies. The  missionary archive is used not just for supportive facts for the narra-  tive of modernization and social change. Instead, the challenge right  now is to view the very production of the missionary archive and the  theoretical presuppositions behind the particular representations of the  non-European world by the European missionaries. The assumptions  and mentalities that enabled them to produce the colonial knowledge  have been a major area of enquiry since the path-brealdng notion of  Orientalism proposed by Edward Said (2001). While one could fol-  low the trajectory opened up by the critique offered by Orientalism,  there are certain unresolved problems when it comes to the mission-  ary representations of the slave castes in Kerala. This is related to the  absence of sources of information on the experiences of slave castes  that provide an entry into their social world other than missionary  sources. The genre of missionary writings, thus, enable the social science  project of constructing narratives on the life and world of the slaves.  Some anthropologists have suggested ethnohistorical appropriation of  key missionary texts and their oppositional reading by anthropologists  (Douglas 2001). V5/hat such a reading of missionary texts accomplishes  is the analysis of the missionary narratives to unpack the concepts and  categories used in their narratives and discourses to illuminate the dif-  ferent layers of their meanings.  The construction of the category of social suffering is central to this  chapter. The missionary discourses through various strategies of   textual   representation could construct the image of suffering slaves. This nar-  rative of suffering and the empirical examples that have been   discussed   in the ¢-hapter shows the commensurability   of the bodily suilerings of   the slaves with that of   the sufferings of Jesus Christ. The biblical image of the suffering Christ and the images of the suffering slaves of the  missionary narratives develop a mutuality and generate meanings that  had decisive impact on the mental world of the slaves. This partial ula  identification was very significant in understanding the impact of the  Gospel on the slave castes.  This particular issue takes us to another problem addressed in the  chapter-the interiority of the slaves-which has not been adequately  dealt with in the missionary discourses. While the missionary discourses  are very potent with constructions of the sufferings of the slaves at the  individual and social levels, there is a limiting factor when it comes  to the intimate realm of the experiences of the slaves. This could be  considered as the flip side of the missionary discourses. This problem  runs all through the missonaries' discourses objectifying the slaves. This  failure of the missionaries leaves open the need for analysing the mean-  ings of the inner transformation that all of them had undergone. This  inner transformation was the result of the new moral language that they  could acquire through missionary Christianity. This new moral language  was crucial to understand their mentality, which remained elusive to the  missionaries who were otherwise bent upon testing the worth of their  converts as shown in the sections on sin and repentence in this chapter.  In the twentieth century, encouraged by the ideals of modernity  Dalits intensified their struggles against the structures of caste domina-  tion. In a way we find the continuation of the struggles that began in  the mid-nineteenth century reaching a decisive turn by the twilight of  nineteenth century and ushering in significant anti-caste mobilization  in the first half of the twentieth century.�