Paremmakkal Thoma Kathanar (1736–1799) is the author of Varthamanappusthakam (1790), the first ever travelogue in an Indian language. Also known as Roma Yatraa Varthamanapusthakam, it postulates that the foundation of Indian nationalism rests on the basic principle that India should achieve civic self-rule. Long before the debates on nationalism shaking the intellectual circles of Europe, Asia, and Africa, Thoma Kathanar offers a distinctive positionality as a minority Syriac Christian priest and subsequent administrator of the Archdiocese of Cranganore with transnational ties to Portuguese ecclesiology who nevertheless argues in favor of autonomous civic Indian governance.