The implantation of the Capuchin Order in India took place when a Novitiate House was started by the Italian Capuchins of the Province of Tuscany, opened at Mussorie, in the year 1880. The recruits were made only from Europeans and Anglo-Indians. Due to the want of vocations and also due to various other reasons, the Novitiate House was closed down at Mussorie. Later, on 26 February 1922, a new Novitiate House was opened at Sardhana for the purpose of receiving Anglo-Indians and Indians. The Indian branch of the Capuchin Order was born with the opening of this Novitiate House at Sardhana, near Meerut, in Uttar Pradesh. The Indian branch of the Order became a Commissariat of the Province of Paris. The growth was further augmented with the shifting of the Novitiate House from the North (Sardhana) to the South (Monte Mariano, Farangipet, Karnataka) on the 1st of May 1930.

The Indian unit of the Order was raised to the status of a General Commissariat on 21st of October 1938. Later in 1948, the then Minister General Most Rev. Fr. Clement of Milwaukee made the visitation and decided to put the Commissariat under the Province of Calvary, U.S.A. On 26th May 1951, the Indian Unit was declared as the Provincial Commissariat.  Fr. Clement of Milwaukee, the General Minister, who had known the growth of the Capuchin jurisdiction in India already at the time of his first visit, paid a second visit in 1962, especially for constituting the Indian unit into a full-fledged Capuchin Province. On 13th April 1963, the Indian Unit of the Order is raised to the status of an autonomous Province known as the Province of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In the year 1972, the Province of the Immaculate Heart of Mary underwent a further division into four entities: Holy Trinity Province of Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra, The Amala Annai Province of Tamil Nadu, St. Joseph [Syro-Malabar] Province of Kerala and St. Francis Vice-Province, Kerala, which was later upgraded to the status of Province and to which the Bodhi Institute of Theology belongs.