[In] Kerala, where the Muslims constitute 25% of the total state population, 99% are classified as OBCs and are claiming reservation quota; - Ishwar Sharan

As these diggings did not produce the required result, Diogo Fernandez was asked, in 1523, to excavate a third tomb which lay partly under the foundation of a dilapidated building that had been occupied by the Portuguese. He refused at first but was persuaded by the attending priest, Fr. Antonio Gil, who heard his confession and that of the two men, Braz Fernandez and Diogo Lourenco, who would assist him in the pious enterprise. They then began the excavation of a deep and elaborate, and very much empty, tomb. It was Saturday afternoon, and they continued the work into the late evening, when, on the suggestion of Diogo Fernandez, they abandoned their unproductive labours and retired for the night. The excavation was left open and unattended until the next morning, a Sunday, when the men began digging again. It was not long now before the grave disgorged bones that were "much worn out", portions of skull and spine, and a clay pot of earth "bedewed with blood", with a thigh bone in it, and hidden in the red earth an iron Malabar spearhead shaped like an olive leaf, which, after fifteen Christian centuries, still had a piece of wooden shaft miraculously preserved in its socket.

This sly communal tale, invented by Jesuits and improved on by Fr. D'Souza, is peculiar to Madras. He tries to establish Hindu support for the story by quoting Hindu publications that repeat it. But Hindu traditions about Little Mount and the other "St. Thomas" sites are quite different and much older than those of the Portuguese. 62 They believe that the hillock, with its cave and spring and imprint of peacock's feet in the rock, was sacred to Murugan, and Hindu women used to visit the site even after the Portuguese had cleared it of shrines. In 1551, a church was built by the cave, called Blessed Sacrement Chapel, and the Jesuits built a second church by the spring of which nothing remains today. The archaeological evidence on the site was destroyed years ago when it was blasted to make way for the modern circular church. Called Our Lady of Health, that now stands there.

Only 10% of all Christians in the country are not availing of any kind of reservation and these would be largely the Goan and the Syrian Christians.