Rhoda Alex
What has Christianity done for India is an oft discussed question in current day India. This essay is my attempt to understand the question and try and answer based on a few writings on this subject.
In his best-seller book, ‘Christ of the Indian Road’,(1927) Dr. E Stanley Jones a missionary to India from the Methodist Episcopal Church of America says that “It is a most significant thing for India and the world that a great people of amazing spiritual capacities is seeing, with remarkable insight, that Christ is the center of Christianity, that utter commitment to him and catching his mind and spirit and living his life constitute a Christian. … Whenever Christianity has struck out a new path in her journey it has been because the personality of Jesus has again become living, and a ray from his being has once more illuminated the world.”
Christianity in India surely struck a new path and what a path it has been. True to the words of Dr. E. Stanley Jones, India has indeed accepted Christ without the Western Civilization. From the north to the south, east to the west — the astounding number of varied traditions and practices that take place in churches are a testament to India’s ability to accept and own the faith as it seems fit. But, is the expression of Christianity merely limited to the church system? What has Christ in India done in modern history?
Christ has touched all the people and continues to.
The oppressed and marginalized people especially those who were considered untouchables by instruction from the Manu experienced human touch again through the missionaries. Chakali Chandra Sekhar explains this in his article — In Search of a Touchable Body: Christian Mission and Dalit Conversions (2019) — as follows –“The touch of the missionaries was liberating and humanizing for Dalits who were treated and made to believe for centuries that their body, presence, and shadow was untouchable and impure.
Generally, Dalits were made to believe that, in their presence and with their touch, even the (Hindu)gods became polluted. However, the god of the missionaries was not contaminated by the presence of Dalits. The touch of the missionaries had a profound effect on the lives of Dalits as it broke the stigma that their bodies were not worthy of being touched.”
This is important not only for the oppressed but also to the others in the society — the movement towards accepting all humans as equal had been set in motion in modern India by Christ through the missionaries. Both Christians and Non-Christians have taken this movement forward across India . Untouchability (Offences) Act came into force in 1955 and much later The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 have been included in the law of this land.
During the time of Christ on earth, his touch was transformative — it healed, it saved, it changed, it strengthened and it even disciplined the person who was touched. After the death and resurrection of Jesus, his disciples and followers were empowered through the Holy Spirit to be like Christ and carry forward the message of God through time. The words of E. Jones are resounding here — No higher compliment can be paid to human nature than to be called Christlike.
The touch of Christ enabled missionaries in India to start hospitals that would be open to all who are sick. If today, we are able to walk into hospitals without worrying about touched by or touching someone else — the beginnings were in the hands of hundreds of medical missionaries who arrived in India. Today, if Medical Tourism is a reality in India with Corporate hospitals at the helm — then the beginnings can be traced back to the arduous efforts of early medical missionaries who travelled in bullock carts and had to convince people to get treated for their ailments.
Christ set forth a social transformation and continues to.
Christianity came to India when its people lived more in its villages. Of course there were towns and cities, forts and ports, but the majority lived in a rural setting. When the ‘touch of Christ’ was experienced by the outcastes and they sought to convert to Christianity en-masse — the village experienced a social transformation. In his book, ‘Christ in the Indian Village’ (1930) , Rev. Azariah Vedanayagam records the changing dynamics after the conversion of outcastes in a village. They were first oppressed and ill-treated by the caste landlords due to their conversion — but later their social progress left those higher up the caste hierarchy perplexed and impressed. “ The impression thus made upon the caste people by the transformation of outcaste communities in their own villages is the strongest possible evidence of the spiritual power of the gospel of Christ.”
Much recently in 2020, Dr. K. Jamandas explains social transformation with a variety of potent examples in his paper “Let us remember Revolutionary Jesus — “…To feed the hungry is social service, to create situation where nobody remains hungry is social change. To teach an illiterate is social service, to destroy the social structure which made him illiterate is social change. To open a new school in the vicinity of an illiterate poor colony of zopadpatti could be social service, to motivate the poor hungry and illiterate man to send his child to school walking five kilometers away even on an empty stomach is social transformation..” In this very same article Dr. K. Jamamadas says that at best, the missionaries did social service . But I would differ and say they certainly started a movement of social transformation. They showed how it was possible to look at each other as humans whatever our differences may be in a new light. Reformist movements were not new to India, but the missionaries were successful in creating working models of societies in which all can respect and accept each other. These ideas and models have since been taken and employed by one and all.
Education for all is the single most important social transformation that has been effected by the acceptance of Christ in India. Starting schools even in remote areas and insisting on education for girls was an important revolutionary thought that was planted and nurtured by the missionaries. This process is still continuing and is owned by all religious and social groups in India today.
Have Christians taken forward Christ in India? Have they been flag-bearers of a Christ-like life that keeps on transforming the individual and society? Everyone knows the answer. Caste and custom have managed to stranglehold ‘Christians’ too and prevent the process of constant evolution towards freedom in Christ. Its own leaders have taken up oppression and discrimination. Church based Christianity may not grow in leaps and bounds anymore. Christianity may even continue to fail in India and even be openly oppressed by its powerful rulers today. All the contributions of Christians to modern India in the areas of Education, Literacy, Art, Publishing, Writing, Science, Research, Medicine, Industry may even be dismissed and disregarded. Right now in 2023, more than 300 churches have been burned down in Manipur and the state powers have not intervened. But every day in some corner of this great nation, believers continue to exhibit what it is to experience Christ.
(Ms. Rhoda Alex is a communication artist engaged in freelance book design work. Also a Sunday School teacher exploring and learning along with the youngsters — lessons on faith and life. Enjoys working on anthropological projects that study the expressions of Christianity in the Tamil landscape, interaction between people groups, parallel cultures and artistic expressions. Loves observation, language and literature, photography and adventure.)
