V. Chakkarai Chettiar

Vengal Chakkarai Chettiar (17 January 1880 – 14 June 1958) was an Indian Christian theologian, missionary, independence activist, politician and trade unionist. He was president of AITUC from 1954 to 1957.

Early life

Chakkarai was born to a Hindu Chettiar family. He was educated at the Scottish Mission School, Madras Christian College, graduating in 1901 after majoring in philosophy.

Career In 1913, Chakkarai joined the Danish Mission Room as a Christian preacher and worked as a missionary for twenty years. During these years, he also became a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi and participated in the Indian independence movement. He served as the Mayor of Madras from 1941 to 1942. He was the president of the Tamil Nadu unit of All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) from 1943 to 1945, and as the all-India president of AITUC from 30 May 1954 to 29 December 1957.

Theology

Chakkarai was baptised as a Christian on February 22, 1903.

He was a member of the Rethinking Christianity group along with his brother-in-law,Pandipeddi Chenchiah. He believed in the Indianisation of Christianity, although the anti-colonial feeling of the time led many people to feel that an Indian could not be a Christian without abandoning their Indian culture. Instead he suggested that Christians should refuse allegiance to earthly states and overcome their nationalistic behaviour.

He tried to explain the Christian faith through the Hinduism point of view. Jesus is truly human (sat purusa). The Holy Spirit is Christ himself, who continues to exist and work until now. God cannot be seen as the creator of sin. Humans themselves are responsible for the sins that they commit. Knowledge of God is not something that is intellectual (jnana), but a personal experience of God (anubhava). Sin is seen as the handcuffs (pasa), which prevents the human soul (pasu) to reach God. The essence of sin is the desire to find "the mystery of the forbidden".

Publications Jesus the Avatar (1927) The Cross and Indian Thought (1932) A selection (Library of Indian Christian theology)

Death He died on 14 June 1958.

Descendants His daughter's daughter, V. Vasanthi Devi is an educationist and social activist. She served as Vice-Chancellor of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University (1992–98) and as Chairperson of the Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women (2002–05).