Book: Missionaries in India : Continuities, Changes, Dilemmas By Arun Shourie

Finished reading my third Arun Shourie book - "Missionaries in India". It was published first in year 1996 and I read its fourth reprint in year 2010 by Rupa & Co. (ISBN: 81-291-0573-X). In this book the author shares extensive research and review of the work done by Christian missionaries in India from the British days onward; with resource as Gandhiji's writing, Vivekananda's speeches and official literature from Church and missionaries speeches. The book serves as a reappraisal and critique of the role of Christian Missionaries and their religious “conversion” techniques and methods in India.

Arun Shourie said about his book: "To celebrate the 50th anniversary of its establishment the C.B.C.I. convened a meeting in January 1994 to review the work of the Church in India. For some reason the organizers were so kind to ask me to give the Hindu perception of the work of Christian missionaries in India. That lecture and the discussion which followed form the scaffolding of this book.”

Since the missionaries found hard to "convert" caste-Hindus, they started "converting" the Tribal, Dalits, Harijans etc in large numbers, and Gandhiji was fuming at this design. Gandhiji said, "When a Christian preacher goes and says to a Harijan that Jesus was the only begotten Son of God, he will give him a blank stare. Then he holds out all kinds of inducements which debase Christianity". Gandhiji challenged missionaries to convert him, rather than convert uneducated poor people by promising them money and support, and in fact they tried to convert him too! Of course they failed.

The book contains Gandhiji's conversations and arguments with missionaries, taken from his Collected Works, and it is fascinating to read. Also, it contains letters and speeches from British high-rank officials, which tell how they thought that converting Indians into Christianity would ensure long life and success for the British Raj, since converted person changes his "loyalty"; also that they tried to use "English education" as a means for the same purpose.

I would like to reproduce two excerpts from the book with titles of my own. These will give you an idea about the rich content in this book.

Education System in India Prior to the British Rule

British Parliamentarian Keir Hardie wrote in his book 'India' that Bengal before British occupation had 80000 native schools, which meant 1 school for every 400 of the population! Ludlow, in his 'History of British India' wrote that "in every Hindu village which has retained its old form children are able to read, write and cipher, but where we (the British) have swept away the village system in Bengal, there the village school has also disappeared."

Report of A.D. Campbell, Collector of Bellary (Karnataka), dated 17 August, 1823 mentions: "Of nearly a million of souls in this district, not 7000 are now at school... In many villages where formerly there were large schools, there are now none, and in many others where there were large schools, now only a few children of the most opulent are taught, others being unable from poverty to attend..."

What is revealed is that before British occupation, Hindu kings and rulers used to grant huge "funds" to the schools, which taught in native languages and Sanskrit, and hence people were in general well educated. But the British stopped funding any of the native language schools and hence education system was gradually destroyed... Later on the British brought out Macaulay policy; setup English schools and missionary schools - with aims to mold young people's minds in favor of the British so that people, having been educated through this system would never wish to let the British go away from India!

Gandhiji in conversion with a Christian missionary

Gandhiji was angry at the missionaries for converting the tribal and harijans and the missionary begins by asking why he should not convert:

A Christian missionary: “Why may I not share with others my experience of Jesus Christ which has given me such ineffable peace?” (in a way asking why he should no convert others).

Gandhiji: “Because you cannot probably say that what is best for you is best for all… And again, is it not super-arrogance to assume that you alone possess the key to spiritual joy and peace, and that an adherent of a different faith cannot get the same in equal measure from a study of his scriptures? I enjoy a peace and equanimity of spirit which has excited the envy of many Christian friends. I have got it principally through the Gita.”

Missionary: “But what is your attitude to Jesus?”

Gandhiji: He was a great world-teacher among others. His sacrifice is an example to all. But that he was the greatest, I cannot accept. He had not for instance the compassion of the Buddha.

Missionary: “But what about his being God-incarnate, the Son of God?”

Gandhiji: I do not take the words literally. Jesus was the son of God only in the sense that we are all children of God. God has endowed us all with the capacity to attain the heights Jesus did, if only we put in the effort. The word ‘son’ can only be used in a figurative sense. If a man is spiritually miles ahead of us we may say that he is in a special sense the son of God, though we are all children of God.

Missionary: “What about the miracles?”

Gandhiji: There is no miracle in the story of the multitudes fed on a handful of loaves. A magician can create that illusion. But woe worth the day on which a magician would be hailed as the Savior of humanity. As for Jesus raising the dead to life, well, I doubt if the men he raised were really dead… The laws of nature are changeless, unchangeable, and there are no miracles in the sense of infringement or interruption of Nature’s laws.

(Portions taken from ‘Collected Works’, volumes 60, 65, 71)

I got to know many new facts after reading this book. I can’t express the feeling of having been able to read it. I highly recommend this book to all.

- Rahul 

Arun Shourie's Eminent Historians

Reading Arun Shourie's ‘Eminent Historians: their technology, their line, their fraud'. He describes how a group of historians with Leftist leanings work like friends-with-benefits; helping each other and occupying all influential positions in India. Then they produce nothing new but keep siphoning govt grants and funds. He shows how the communist govt in Bengal issued a circular revising school text books in 1989 in order to delete any mentions about Muslims destroying Hindu temples or forcefully converting in history, etc and Brahmins are made to show in bad light. The idea, Arun Shourie writes, is to "make them ashamed of the things they revere - their Gods, their scriptures, their language, Sanskrit..." He also shows how Communist Party had sided with the British during our freedom struggle. So far really enlightened. Reading Arun Shourie for the first time and he has mesmerized me! Recommended for serious read!

This book is about a communist leaning group of historians who have formed a nexus to be become "Eminent Historians". Revelations are like: One such historian Tasneem Ahmad simply stole the work of another historian Dr. P. Saran who had died some time back and published it in his own name. He was proven guilty in probe. And many false theories published in the name of history and so much editing of text books.

I know many of us are suspicious of history; many friends don't know if they should believe or not believe in certain things from history. While reading Arun Shourie's Eminent Historians, a lot of doubt has got cleared. Currently govt is asking a group of Historians to write or edit text book of history taught in schools. These historians with Leftist ideology and govt seeking minority votes hide a lot of historical facts. But history is not subjective. Arun Shourie writes that most Kings had a designated person in their court whose job was to keep writing their deeds and exploits, preserved for future generations. Many times Kings wrote about their work themselves. And these accounts are available for our reference even today! In this book, he quotes from many such historians who saw it from their own eyes and wrote accounts on the same day events happened. They tell about these Kings attacking Hindu kings all over India and destroying temples and idols. They killed priests and made mosques in place of those temples; they disgraced idols and gave away idols to be used by butchers to weigh meat or cemented idols in the stairs of mosques so that people and Namazis could insult them daily. Hindus were forbidden from wearing Tilak and religious marks; they were not allowed to take holy dips in rivers on auspicious days; if a Hindu was found worshiping, he was given a choice to either convert to Islam or get killed. On many instances Brahmins were found having made small temples and worshiping idols; in one such case from Delhi the Brahmin was burnt alive publicly with his small wooden temple because he declined to convert to Islam. For our govt and politicians these historical facts documented by historians and kings of those times who saw from their eyes are inconvenient and hence they try to hide these facts. But history is not subjective and we should understand their conspiracy.

Do you know that Communist Party of India had sided with the British during 1942 Quit India movement and used to send Weekly Reports to the British to show how they were working hard to foil the Congress led movement? (much correspondence and reports are available which establish this). Do you know that Muslim orgs and intellectuals like AMU founder Syed Ahmad Khan had tried hard to convince Muslims not to take part in freedom movement because they thought it was not worth it and instead focus on education? (enough documents from those times prove it). Do you know that Muslim hardliners condemned Jinnah for getting a separate nation Pakistan for Muslims, because they thought instead of getting a portion of the land, whole country was available for Islamic rule? All these proven facts from Arun Shourie's book Eminent Historians.

Mughals are not the only ones who destroyed India and Hindu temples. The book talks about Sikandar Lodi; Ahmud Shah, Mujahid Shah; Sultan NasirudDin, Jalaluddin Khalji, and of course Firuz Shah Tughlaq... Each a greater demon than others in his destruction...

Arun Shourie also quotes SR Goel as a good Historian. The communist historians tried to paint Golden age of India (basically the history before Muslim invaders came) as a chaotic period with class conflict. Often they would write things like, "There must have been class conflict though evidences of these are wanting." How hilarious! They condemned Maurya empire for centralization of administration, and also condemned Guptas for decentralization of administration. How hypocritical? When a foreign traveler came during Gupta rule and wrote in his accounts that "people were generally happy", our communist historian will conclude "it is likely that he met only the rich among the population." When art on the temple walls depicted people relaxing and in doing things all happy and prosperous, our communist historians will conclude, "temple art depicted only the rich of the population." This is why we need to have objective understanding of history by various sources. Do not trust one man's writing but match it with many other primary sources. There would be ruins and excavations which will confirm about kingdom's structure and there would be multiple people of those times (kings, designated historian in their court, foreign visitor, foreign traveler, etc) writing about things and we have to match and understand if there was peace at that time or there was anarchy. For example, communist historians wrote that all Islamic invaders broke temples only for money (financial motive), but those invaders have written themselves that they were doing what their religion wanted. Sikh scriptures like Guru Granth Sahib also tells about atrocities done by Muslim kings, but our eminent historians will keep repeating good things and keep hiding bad things about Muslim rule...

Though this book is not about Islam, Arun Shourie throws light on many of its aspects in order to expose what the communist historians have been hiding from all of us. He says that whole of Mecca pilgrimage is basically coming from Pagan practices from pre-Islamic times. So they are hypocritical in saying that they don't have symbols and rituals, etc. In the last pages, Shourie quoted some intellectuals who said that Hindus, our saints and India were not known to the Arabs and that is why these are not mentioned in their book. Shourie asked: how come being known to Arabs mattered when the book is basically word of Allah who is supposed to know all? So how come he did not know that India/Hindus/our Saints existed? He said that to defeat them we have to counter them on facts every time and they will retreat. And after a while all their arguments will be known (because they are not allowed free thinking and hence cease to grow), and hence will bear no fruits.

One more puzzle got solved for me from this book. As we notice communists are generally anti-religion but they seem to love islam. But Arun shourie says that communists have been doing switch on and switch off to islam as per their needs of the time. He says,

"Soviet and Chinese writings on Buddhism and Islam illustrate the matter. It was not just that the subtle insights of the Buddha were reduced to ashes, one thing was said about them one day and its opposite the next - according to the relevant entries in any handy reference book - for instance, the Encyclopedia of Marxism, Communism and Western Socialism - nails the pattern. In 1917-27 the Soviet rulers needed to pacify Buddhists. Therefore, they extolled Buddhism as an ideology of the oppressed masses, they extolled it for what they said was its atheism, for its emphasis on equality… After 1929 when crushing was in order, they portrayed Buddhism as having been an instrument created by feudal lords to keep the working masses in thrall. Once the stamping-out began, Stalin declared that it was “absurd” to “equate” Buddhism and Dialectical Materialism. ..

The writings on Islam, we learn from the same authorities, went through the same cycle. By the thirties and forties Soviet writers were portraying the Prophet and Quran in dark, minatory colours – ridiculing accounts of miracles attributed to the Prophet, questioning not just the spiritual worth, not just the literary worth but even the coherence of the Quran…”

So it seems that they have sided with them for their own benefit and it is just a phase. If communists captured power, which is nowhere going to happen as such, they would again have gone back to their hatred towards Islamists, but as of now they need them so as to undermine Hindus and hence are looking like one team...

I think single book will give lots of perspective and I have learned new ways of thinking and analyzing situations thanks to reading Arun Shourie. I realize that there is so much to learn and now I am planning to buy some of his other books also.