When did Indians convert to Christianity?

It was in waves.. The first wave supposedly early 1 ACE when the 12 apostles wanted to spread the message or savior across the World.. It is said to be that St Thomas, one of the Apostles came to India via existing trade sea route and converted south Indians to Christianity especially today's Kerala, Goa and Mangalore region..There is no archaeological or contemporary historic documentation to prove this but it is the current belief of many Christian today..Usually these initial Indian Christians claim as Syrian Christians or Nazranis and usually placed as superior in the Christian social strata due to their long christian history. Their oral tradition claims that the first 3 Brahmins priests of Kerala, the pakkalomattom family were converted by the apostle himself and later further they in-turn converted others within their community..

The second wave took time because of Ottoman Turks blocking the land route and crusade declaration by both European Christian and Central Asian Muslims upon each other..the wave started mid 14 ACE when the Imperial Europe where ordered to find new sea route to India and China for trade..Vas-goda-Gama Portuguese sailor reached Goa and Mangalore, Post this the Portuguese invaded Goa and conquered few parts of it…in-fact the Portuguese were surprised to see copies of Hebrew old testament already in India (ones Syrian Christians used), they ordered all these to be burnt and introduced Constantine's new testament bibles to replace existing ones and conversion wave 2 started around 1560s. Probably the bloodiest evangelism of the millennia initiated by st Francis Xavier referred to as the Goa Inquisition took place at this point of time..The Constantine new testament was created in 4 ACE (King James Bible version is popular version) which means no new missionary came after that until 14th CE with new testament, invariably between 1st and 14 ACE there are gaps in chronology..

Third wave was during British imperialism in 17th CE when they came in as a trading company as Britain east India company..later when they took over under the queen in 1857 The highest number of conversation happened until they left in 1947..Seventh day Adventists, Today's st Thomas Christian, Baptist, India Evangelical societies originated mainly at this point..It is also recorded that the East India company fought against the Christian missionaries in British parliament that evangelist spoil the trade business by intervening, but later after few decades they worked together on evangelism. This is quite an important wave because the first time Indian Christians mass converted other Indians.

The fourth wave was post Indian independence in 1950/60s where new minority laws where introduced, NGOs were given grants to run schools and missionaries in rural and urban India..There were number of Evangelical NGOs started which were sponsored by British, French, Germans with help of Indian Christians which went to it's peak and dropped suddenly in 1970s and 80s..

The current wave Fifth wave after 1990s are run by institutions owned by Indian origin 2nd,3rd..etc generation Christians but heavily sponsored from American or European corporate foundation like ford foundation, green peace, Rockefeller foundation, Dalit freedom network etc..This current wave works mainly in corporate method of marketing, selling, targeting the right audience..they sometimes use contemporary methods of evangelism like money, food, studies sponsor, adoptions, disguise, false magic , TV and social media etc..

The fifth wave is quite important because of the method used, some of the joshua.org project used digestion as a mechanism where in the the new converts basically stuck on to current rituals (Be it Hindu/Islamic or tribal religions), but registered themselves as Christians. The white dressed priests became saffron priests, Bible was renamed as veda, followed Mary and Jesus processions, constructed churches with exact temple architecture etc.. It is mainly targeted the Dalits, marginalized and tribal community..In a way it brought social & economic status on other hand they got cut off from their original practice and roots..

overall it may be called a positive change from the converts point of view…They far right wing Hindu will call it an attack on their culture, while the Muslims are also being targeted, there are more movements from Christian to Islam than other way in India..Evangelism from Muslims are called Dahwa and jihad is also popular way of converting Others including Christians towards Islam.

Personally “Evangelism is very narrow thinking of our own diversity of Nature vis-à-vis every one is unique yet same..When Christian Institutions understand or come to terms on the relationship with macro cosmos to the micro Cosmos hopefully this narrow thinking will end..Evangelism has lead to wide spread destruction of entire culture and practices without being traceable back…Evangelists need to understand that to spread the good message of savior one need not convert, give democracy of people who want to convert or not…They also need to stop abusing and take advantage of one's financial or mental status to convert just to increase the statistics as we realize that nothing is permanent in this world including the Earth itself.

Live n let Live…Help need not be mutual, but respect needs to be mutual..Remember the Noah's ARK “Act of Random kindness” has no religion..

Disclaimer: all the data above are from personal research & opinion only.