The Bombay Experience: The Armenian Orthodox Community of India – A tribute to a once highly influential community in a secular country!

It was because of their connections with the Mughals, that the East India Company began cultivating a relationship with them. As the situation back home got worse, more and more Armenians came to India. But by then, the Mughal Empire was collapsing, and they spread to other parts of India, settling in large numbers in Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. They could never establish themselves well enough in Bombay’s trade because the Parsis were already mediating between the British and the locals.

It is difficult to say when they first came to Kolkata, but we do know they were here, at least 60 years before the British. The oldest Christian grave in Kolkata, marked 11^th July 1630 CE – Rezabeebeh, ‘wife of the late Charitable Sookias’ – is of Armenian Descent.

The last round of settlers came in the years following the outbreak of the First World War, in 1915. In fact 2015 is the centenary of what historians call the Armenian genocide, the systematic killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Many fled the region—and about 2,000 found refuge in India. When the British left, there were approximately 3000-4000 Armenians in Kolkata.

Armenian Community in India:

Calcutta:

In Kolkata, the Armenian College and Philanthropic Academy (ACPA) that started in 1821 is evidence of centuries-old Indo-Armenian ties. The college is open to Armenians whose education and lodging is sponsored by the church and community.

Emblem of the Armenian College and
Philanthropic Academy (ACPA)

Many an Armenian descendant will agree when one states that Park Street, Calcutta was once a scene of its own. It was the throbbing pulse of an otherwise conservative city. The Anglo-Indians mixed with the Bengali elite, the Armenians and the Parsis. These small communities, who lived here, roared in the 1920s and swung to the tune of the 1960s.

Those were the days of cabaret in the mornings, sensual singers crooning to entertain diners at Mocambo and lots of parties. Not all Armenians were wealthy of course – but many were. Very.

They owned trading companies, shipping lines, publishing houses. They had big businesses – indigo, shellac, jewellery. Their European heritage and enterprising attitude made them natural allies of the British – and like the Anglo-Indians, they had coveted government jobs. They owned prime real estate too. And the stories of their lives seem like they’re out of a novel.

Here are some of the contributions made by prominent Armenian Community Members in India:

In the early 20th century, the race course magnate Johannes Carapiet Galstaun owned some 350 buildings and 100 racehorses (he supposedly lost his fortunes thrice and recovered them at the races) and donated Rs 25,000 to the Victoria Memorial building fund at the time.

The hotelier Arathoon Stephen had come penniless to the city and eventually built The Grand Hotel (now the Oberoi Grand) and Stephen Court, the building on Park Street where the famous patisserie Flurys is located.

Realtor TM Thaddeus, who built Park Mansions, owned a Rolls Royce but travelled in rickshaws because he did not trust a driver with his prized possession.

Once, all Armenian families grew grapes in their houses, not for the fruit but for the vine leaves, used to wrap meat to make their most loved dish, dolmas. The vine was replaced by cabbage. Rice pilaf became pulav. And stews gave way to curries, more spices and less water.

But the Sunday Church service is still in Armenian. Christmas is celebrated on January 6 and in the summer, there's Vardavar, "like your Holi, but only with water," says Victoria, making it sound completely desi.

Mumbai

The Armenian Community in Mumbai traces its ancestry to the 16th and 17th Centuries with their arrival for trade and further settlements in Calcutta. Their impact on the Bombay City is made evident by the existence of the only Armenian Orthodox Church located at the Bombay Fort Area.

St. Peter’s Armenian Orthodox Church is the oldest Oriental Orthodox Church in Mumbai built in AD 1796 and reconstructed in 1961 with funds poured in from the community nestled in Calcutta. It is today considered to be the Mother Church of all Orthodox Churches in Western India.

It is believed that the Armenian Church in Mumbai was established by the relatives of Queen Mariam Zamani Begum, the wife of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. The relatives of Queen Mariam were initially residing in Surat, then shifted to Bombay and then finally to Agra where the Queen lies buried at the Armenian Cemetery! The Armenian Church Mumbai Parish was functional from 1773 by the initiatives of the Eknan family. Mrs. Rosy Eknan, who recently passed away, was the last member of the family, used to live on the fouth floor of the apartment attached to the church building, close to the Bombay Stock Exchange Building.

Zabel Joshi (Hayakian), the mother of actress Tulip Joshi, is the only surviving Armenian in Mumbai and, thus, sole trustee of the 215-year-old St Peter’s Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church in Fort that was established in 1796. It is now being used by the Malankara Orthodox Syrians for services.

The Armenians, like the Jews and the Parsis, had good relations with the British during the Raj as they were perceived to not just look like them but also had Western style sensibilities; but their stay in Bombay was short-lived as they had to compete with the Parsi Community who claimed the monopoly of being the intermediaries between the British and the Common Man.

Zabel Joshi lights a candle
at the Armenian Church in Fort

Due to their dwindling numbers in Bombay and not wanting the church to go in disrepair, the Eknan and Joshi family opened the Church doors, in consultation and approval from the Supreme Catholicos of all Armenians at Yerevan and confirmed the status of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church as their true sister church and the first service of the Holy Qurbana was conducted by HH Baselios Mar Thoma Mathews II, Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitian on October 7, 1998.

There is also a surrounding myth that engulfs the very building. People state that the church is protected by a male and female snake who live in the premises and have claimed that they protect the building every time someone tries to demolish it!

Today, the church opens its doors to Syrian Catholics, Russian and Armenian Orthodox members for their Sunday Services. The church was also visited by two Syrian Catholic Saints Parumala Thirumeni and Vattasseril Thirumeni in 1895 during their stopover in Bombay en route to Jerusalem.

Chennai

“The Chennai church is a heritage site. Once a year, a group from Kolkata, led by one of the two priests in Kolkata, visits these churches and conducts services,” says Mike Stephen, 44, an Indian Armenian, and the former caretaker of the Armenian Church of Virgin Mary in Chennai. His family has been in India since 1860.

Armenian Church of Virgin Mary in Chennai

Like in Calcutta, there is an Armenian street nestled in the city of Chennai. Locally known as Aranmanaikaran Street, it is one of the historical streets of the commercial centre of George Town in Chennai, India. The street is dotted with several century-old historical structures. The street is named for the Armenians, who were some of the early settlers in the city of Madras. Several moved to the long street of the commercial neighbourhood of George Town in the 1750s, eventually making the street bear their name. The locals, however, corrupted the name to Aranmanaikaran Street, which means the 'street of palaces'.

The Armenians of Madras were believed to be the first to discover the sepulchre of St. Thomas upon the Mount and took the Portuguese there in the 16th century. Legend has it that the church atop the mount served as a lighthouse to guide Portuguese and Armenian ships around that time. Although the time when Armenians began settling down in the city remains obscure, records clearly suggest that the Armenians monopolised trade between India and West Asia on the one hand and Manila, a Spanish bastion then, on the other. Their main trades included silk, spices and gems. The last Armenian to live in the city was Michael Stephen, who too left the city in 2010.

The long and narrow street houses several historically important buildings, including several places of worship. The Armenian Church is perhaps the most visible Armenian monument in the city. It was first built in 1712 and later rebuilt after the French siege in 1772. The first church was built of timber in the present High Court area after obtaining permission from the East India Company. The East India Company gave the Armenians 50 pounds towards managing the expenses of the church, which encouraged more traders to settle in and around the church. In Vestiges of Old Madras, H. D. Love points out that the earliest Armenian Church, situated in Old Black Town, as shown in Thomas Pitt's map, was probably built shortly after the Company entered into a covenant with the Armenian residents in India.

The new church, however, was consecrated in Aga Shawmier's chapel grounds in George Town. It is the church that gave the street its name. The church has the biggest bells in the city, each weighing 200 kg and the oldest two dating back to 1754 and 1778, and its altar belongs to an earlier Armenian church that was near the Madras High Court. Two other bells were gifted by Eliazar Shawmier and the remaining two are from 1837. The church complex also served as a cemetery for the Armenian population in the city. Reverend Haroutiun Shmavonian, the founder, publisher and editor of the world's first Armenian periodical 'Azdarar', is buried here. Today, the Armenian Church complex is managed by an Armenian trust based in Kolkata.

Today the Church functions only as a heritage site, the Church is opened for visitors from 9 am till 2:30 pm. It is funded by the Armenian Apostolic Church and maintained by The Armenian Church Committee in Calcutta. The graves of about 350 Armenians have been laid out throughout the Church. The founder, publisher and editor of the world's first Armenian periodical "Azdarar", Reverend Haroutiun Shmavonian, is buried here.The Belfry adjacent to the main Church structure houses six large bells which are rung every Sunday at 9:30 am by the caretaker.

The Armenians were a select group of merchants in Madras Presidency. They walked all the way from Armenia, through the Hindukush Mountains and came down to Madras. When the British were trading cotton cloth, Armenians dealt with fine silk, expensive spices and gems.

Armenian Plight in today’s India

The plight of Armenians and their fate in India was sealed with the departure of the British in 1947. When the British left, there were approximately 3000-4000 Armenians in Kolkata. But at the time, “If you had an Indian name, it carried a lot of weight. But our names didn’t give us opportunities,” says Peter Hyrapiet, 67, the current president of the Armenian Club.

“Armenians were being isolated. People who were very well established, they all left,” Hyrapiet adds rather matter-of-factly. The parties were over. It was time for nation building – and communities that had flourished under the English were seen as a reminder of the colonists.

In the 1970s and 1980s, more Armenians left, coinciding with the Indian brain drain – and they still continue to do so. An example of this are the son’s of Paul Stephen, the 67-year-old caretaker of the Holy Church of Nazareth, both staunch Armenians and proud of their Indian Armenian heritage, have moved abroad too, one to Australia and the other to New Zealand.

The Armenians have a large diaspora spread around the world. The Indian Armenians, though a small community, have been influential merchants and jewelry traders who have set up churches, clubs and educational institutions in port cities such as Kolkata, Chennai and Mumbai.

“There are no young Armenians to get married to!” says 35-year-old singer Shayne Hyrapiet, Peter’s son. "An Armenian wedding is a rare event – the last was five years ago and was covered by two television channels, a documentary filmmaker and “I don’t know how many newspapers!”.

Armenian Community Welfare

The Armenian Church of Holy Nazareth, the centre of this tiny community, has assets worth thousands of crores, “mostly in the form of prime real estate and some five million shares of HSBC,” stated a report published in Mint in November 2013.

If you’re Armenian in India, you’re entitled to free education, medical care and accommodation when you retire. If you want aid, help of any kind, you need only ask.

The early Armenian settlers were conservative and clannish. They did not usually marry out of their community, and it was important for them to preserve their identity, their culture. And in order to pass on this heritage, schools were established for educating Calcutta’s Armenians.

In 1821, the Armenian College and Philanthropic Academy (ACPA) was formalised – a school for young Armenians until Class X, which would also teach them the Armenian language, history and music.

Until the 1960s, nearly all Indian-Armenians studied here. But as the community shrank and as the world moved on, they began to integrate themselves into the mainstream – children were sent to more established schools in the city.

According to the Armenian General Benevolent Union news magazine, the number of students dropped from 206 in 1961 to just six in 1998. The school had always welcomed immigrant Armenians as residential students, but it now became necessary to bring even more Armenians from abroad. (Education for all Armenians, anywhere from around the world is free at the school – including boarding, lodging and a trip back home every three years. They even give financial aid to students after they finish school).

Students at the Armenian College and Philanthropic Academy

At the moment, there are only two Indian-Armenian students in the school. The other 58 are from Armenia, Iran and Iraq. But the school has improved, tremendously – is the general consensus.

Whereas at one time, many of its students had to settle for low-paying jobs (according to a 1988 India Today report), they are now finishing high school at premier institutions of the city, many staying on to complete college before going back home to Armenia – or settling abroad.

They are best known in Kolkata as the boys who are brilliant at rugby – a game they’ve been pros at for more than a hundred years in this city.

Princess Diana

In 2013, it was reported that Britain’s Prince William is 1/256th part Indian from his mother’s side, traced back six generations to an Eliza Kewark. Interestingly, Kewark’s father was an Armenian in Surat. She had married a Scotsman in India, and after his death, sent her daughter, Kitty, off to Scotland in 1818.

To quote Zabel Joshi, now Mumbai’s last surviving Armenian, was raised as a Lebanese Armenian in Beirut and whose husband is a Mumbai-based cloth merchant, “While retaining their ethnic language and culture, most Armenian migrants have adopted India as warmly as India has adopted them”.

“I have been to Armenia several times and travel to Beirut every year, but today I consider myself truly Indian,” said Joshi. She married at 23 and moved to Mumbai in 1972 and now speaks fluent Armenian, Arabic, Turkish, English, Gujarati, Hindi and Marathi.