And Now for something totally different.  Back in my college days, I remember more than 1 run in w/ some of the other Indian kids @ Penn who were amazed that my family was Catholic.    Were they forced converts during British occupation?   Were they Hindu untouchables looking to "upgrade" their lot in life?   Uh, no.   Not quite.

Did some random websurfing last night looking for the history of Christianity in India. 

http://members.tripod.com/~Berchmans/kerala.html

Christianity in Kerala is as old as Christianity itself, and it is the cradle of Christianity in India. Many Keralites became Christians even before St. Peter reached Rome in 68 A.D. The traditional belief is that St. Thomas, one of the disciples of Jesus, came to Kerala in 52 A.D., and converted several persons to Christianity, and founded seven churches there. He was martyred in 72 A.D. by a fanatic at Little Mount (near Madras, which is the capital city of the nearby state of Tamilnadu) and his body was brought to Mylapore (near Madras) and was buried there. His tomb is venerated until this day. So Kerala Christians have a longer history and a higher ancestry than that of Christians of many of the European countries.

On the ever sensitive topic of caste & early Christians in Kerala:  (http://members.tripod.com/~Berchmans/early.html)

These Christians were respectfully addressed as "Nazarani mappilas", "sons of kings" or "first kings". They were of high rank and greatly reputed, well formed and of good behavior. According to Antony de Gouvea, no other caste was of similar value and esteem among the Malabarians as these Syrian Christians. A. Ayyar asserts that they were almost on a par with their sovereigns and were even allowed to have a military force of their own, using this military power to safeguard their special privileges. They were also protectors of certain low-castes and were called "Lords of seventeen castes". They could try all the cases of their subjects and even inflict capital punishment on them. Gouvea says that the Christians supplied the Raja (king) of Cochin with an army of fifty thousand gunmen, and the success of the king in war often depended on the number of his Thomas Christian subjects.

...The characteristic note of the social life of the early Christians of India was that though Christian in faith, they remained strictly attached to the Hindu way of life. They have been described as "Hindu in culture, Christian in religion and Oriental in worship"...

One particular church that's central to my father's family history is described here:  http://www.ramapuram.net/PHP/History.php

This was at around AD 1450. The Church at Ramapuram has been renovated several times since then. In AD 1559 St. Augustine’s Statue was brought and the renovated Church was dedicated to him. In AD 1864 when the new church was built in memory of the old Church it was dedicated to Mother Mary.

I'll look around and see if I can find a more comprehensive pointer or 2...   I know there's a LOT of politics around the various strains of Syrian, Catholic, Jacobite, Marthoma, etc. that I can't even begin to parse.