Vengal Chakkarai

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

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. He then studied at Madras Law College, and practiced for some time as a lawyer.

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 mayor of Madras from 1941 to 1942. He was the president of the All India Trade Union Congress from 1954 to 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. This can be seen when he tried to find the meaning of the Christian cross for the followers of Christianity in how it could bring moksha.

Some of the Chakkarai's views about Christianity included:
 * 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)