Missionaries and their medicine: A Christian modernity for tribal India 9781526119179

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A Christian modernity for tribal India

D AV I D H A R D I M A N

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general editor John M. MacKenzie When the ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series was founded more than twenty years ago, emphasis was laid upon the conviction that ‘imperialism as a cultural phenomenon had as significant an effect on the dominant as on the subordinate societies’. With more than sixty books published, this remains the prime concern of the series. Cross-disciplinary work has indeed appeared covering the full spectrum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining aspects of gender and sex, frontiers and law, science and the environment, language and literature, migration and patriotic societies, and much else. Moreover, the series has always wished to present comparative work on European and American imperialism, and particularly welcomes the submission of books in these areas. The fascination with imperialism, in all its aspects, shows no sign of abating, and this series will continue to lead the way in encouraging the widest possible range of studies in the field. ‘Studies in Imperialism’ is fully organic in its development, always seeking to be at the cutting edge, responding to the latest interests of scholars and the needs of this ever-expanding area of scholarship.

Missionaries and their medicine

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AVA I L A B L E I N T H E S E R I E S CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND THE AESTHETICS OF BRITISHNESS ed. Dana Arnold BRITAIN IN CHINA Community, culture and colonialism, 1900–1949 Robert Bickers RACE AND EMPIRE Eugenics in colonial Kenya Chloe Campbell

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RETHINKING SETTLER COLONIALISM History and memory in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand and South Africa ed. Annie E. Coombes IMPERIAL CITIES Landscape, display and identity eds Felix Driver and David Gilbert IMPERIAL CITIZENSHIP Empire and the question of belonging Daniel Gorman SCOTLAND, THE CARIBBEAN AND THE ATLANTIC WORLD, 1750–1820 Douglas J. Hamilton FLAGSHIPS OF IMPERIALISM The P&O company and the politics of empire from its origins to 1867 Freda Harcourt EMIGRANT HOMECOMINGS The return movement of emigrants, 1600–2000 Marjory Harper ENGENDERING WHITENESS White women and colonialism in Barbados and North Carolina, 1625–1865 Cecily Jones REPORTING THE RAJ The British press and India, c. 1880–1922 Chandrika Kaul SILK AND EMPIRE Brenda M. King COLONIAL CONNECTIONS, 1815–45 Patronage, the information revolution and colonial government Zoë Laidlaw PROPAGANDA AND EMPIRE The manipulation of British public opinion, 1880–1960 John M. MacKenzie THE SCOTS IN SOUTH AFRICA Ethnicity, identity, gender and race, 1772–1914 John M. MacKenzie with Nigel R. Dalziel THE OTHER EMPIRE Metropolis, India and progress in the colonial imagination John Marriott SEX, POLITICS AND EMPIRE A postcolonial geography Richard Phillips IMPERIAL PERSUADERS Images of Africa and Asia in British advertising Anandi Ramamurthy GENDER, CRIME AND EMPIRE Kirsty Reid THE HAREM, SLAVERY AND BRITISH IMPERIAL CULTURE Anglo-Muslim relations, 1870–1900 Diane Robinson-Dunn WEST INDIAN INTELLECTUALS IN BRITAIN ed. Bill Schwarz MIGRANT RACES Empire, identity and K. S. Ranjitsinhji Satadru Sen AT THE END OF THE LINE Colonial policing and the imperial endgame 1945–80 Georgina Sinclair THE VICTORIAN SOLDIER IN AFRICA Edward M. Spiers MARTIAL RACES AND MASCULINITY IN THE BRITISH ARMY, 1857–1914 Heather Streets THE FRENCH EMPIRE BETWEEN THE WARS Imperialism, politics and society Martin Thomas ORDERING AFRICA eds Helen Tilley with Robert J. Gordon BRITISH CULTURE AND THE END OF EMPIRE ed. Stuart Ward

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Missionaries and their medicine Downloaded from manchesterhive © Copyright protected It is illegal to copy or distribute this document

A Christian modernity for tribal India David Hardiman

MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS Manchester

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Copyright © David Hardiman 2008 The right of David Hardiman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS ALTRINCHAM STREET, MANCHESTER M1 7JA, UK

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www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for

ISBN

978 0 7190 7802 6 hardback

First published 2008 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset in Trump Medieval by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire

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CONTENTS

List of illustrations — page vii Acknowledgements — page ix General editor’s introduction— page xi Abbreviations — page xiii Glossary — page xv Map of CMS Bhil mission area — page xvii 1 Introduction

page 1

2 The Bhils

19

3 The mission to the Bhils

51

4 The great famine

73

5 The conversion of the Bhagats

83

6 Christian healing

105

7 Fighting demons

123

8 Woman’s work for woman

139

9 A little empire

147

10 Medicine on a shoestring and a prayer

165

11 A mission for a postcolonial era

178

12 Medical modernity

189

13 Closure

225

14 Conclusion: mission medicine and Bhil modernity

235

Select bibliography — 248 Index — 255

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I L L U S T R AT I O N S

1

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2

3 4 5

Bhil Christians of Chhitadara, 1904. Source: Paul Johnson papers. Missionaries and their families at Lusadiya, 1911. Source: The Church Missionary Gleaner (2 October 1911), 154. See also papers of Jane and Arthur Birkett, CMS, Unofficial Papers, acc. 446, Z6, clippings file. Dr Daniel Christian, Lusadiya, 1940. Source: The Church Missionary Outlook (October 1940). Outpatients being treated on the veranda of Lusadiya Hospital, 1943. Source: Paul Johnson papers. Dr Margaret Johnson seeing outpatient, Lusadiya Hospital, 1955. Source: Paul Johnson papers.

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93 173 195 209

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The research on which this book has been based was funded initially by the Wellcome Trust through a two-year Research Fellowship. Further research and writing were carried out with the help of a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council. The archival research was greatly facilitated by the excellent facilities and help that were provided for me by the archivists and librarians in the Special Collections room at the University of Birmingham Library and the Church Missionary Society (CMS) library at Partnership House in London. At the latter, I would like to thank in particular Colin Rowe, Elizabeth Williams and Ken Osborne. In addition, I made use of the holdings of the Oriental and India Office Library and the British Library in London, the National Archives of India, New Delhi, the Maharashtra State Archives, Mumbai, and the Gujarat State Archives, Vadodara. Nicholas Johnson and Hilary Griffiths were particularly generous in not only granting me access to the papers of their father, the Reverend Paul Johnson, but also allowing me to borrow them for a time. In addition, they supplied me with a copy of a dissertation on Margaret Johnson by Hilary’s daughter, Rachel Mash, and have allowed me to reproduce three photographs from their family collection. The Bishop of Gujarat, Vinod Malaviya, showed similar generosity in allowing me to photocopy records that he holds. I was able to obtain an almost full set of the Bhil Mission Report in part from the CMS archives in Birmingham (earlier years), and in part from copies held by Bishop Malaviya, supplemented by copies held by Nicholas Johnson and Hilary Griffiths. For help in the research in India, I would like to thank Kanu Bhavsar and Babulal Damor for accompanying me to the Bhil villages of Mewar and Sabarkantha to conduct interviews. Raj Kumar Hans gave me invaluable help in Vadodara. For hospitality, I would like in particular to thank Nadir, Robyn, Perin, Kate and Amy Bharucha in Mumbai, and Makrand and Shirin Mehta in Ahmedabad. For their very helpful comments on the manuscript, I am indebted to David Arnold, Rosemary Fitzgerald, Sarah Hodges, Colin Jones, Gyan Pandey, Gauri Raje and the anonymous readers for Manchester University Press.

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GENERAL EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the notion of Christ as the ‘Great Physician’ became increasingly prominent in missionary discourse and its iconic representations. As Western medicine, supposedly emblematic of the onward march of the rational, aspired to ever higher status, missionaries increasingly saw themselves as healers of bodies as well as savers of souls. David Livingstone was one of the most notable precursors in this: many missionaries (perhaps particularly Scottish ones) subsequently sought to combine medical with theological qualifications, ambitiously pursuing a sort of parallel ordination in both spheres. Nevertheless, attitudes towards the role of medicine in missionary endeavour were complex and dynamic, as David Hardiman demonstrates here. This study examines a relatively long period in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a restricted geographical sphere in India. It also analyses the reactions of one so-called ‘tribal’ people, the Bhils, to the missionary and medical ambitions of the Church Missionary Society in their land. This approach offers highly rewarding results: we are able to follow the intertwining of missionary and medical, administrative and military developments in this region of the subcontinent. We are also given the opportunity to consider in detail the ways in which the Bhils responded to, resisted, or sought relief in these religious, medical and imperial phenomena appearing in their area. All of this is charted through the period of the so-called high noon of empire, the emergence of nationalist resistance, violent and non-violent, the era of imperial weakening induced by European warfare, and the post-independence years. We follow the mission and its hospital through a process of rise and fall, indigenisation and dispersal. Ironically, early medical arrangements were primitive and expertise was often slight; but as professionalisation increased (along with the significant role of women), political and social weakness became more pronounced. Many other issues are illuminated through this useful focus: the incorporation of the Bhils into the imperial military establishment through the formation of the Bhil Corps and the manner in which this could both help and hinder missionary objectives; the foundation of schools and the development of education as another ‘social’ arm of missionary ambitions; the articulation of complex gendered relationships between traditional and mission societies; and the role of missionaries in famine relief. Missionaries were of course confronting [ xi ]

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GENERAL EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

indigenous belief systems and concepts of illness and cure. They often saw these as inimical to their ‘modern’ methods, yet they invariably placed as much reliance on the ‘supernatural’ as their ‘charges’ and patients did. Pre-operative prayers were common; praying for ‘miracle cures’ sometimes seemed to have effect. Bhils often found missionary doctors’ activities appealing precisely because they seemed to have a comprehensible spiritual content. Far from the missionaries counterposing two Manichaean systems, as they usually imagined they were doing, the fact was that a greater degree of syncretism was occurring than they would have been prepared to acknowledge. The Bhils were often responding to Western medicine and the religious message that lay behind it in this context by indigenising it and consequently rendering it more comprehensible. In these and in many other ways, David Hardiman’s book offers insights into issues of imperial and missionary activity that are applicable to many other parts of India and elsewhere in the world. We are given opportunities to consider the relationship between missionaries and imperialism, the interaction of recruitment and fundraising in the imperial metropole and activities in the Indian ‘empire’, the changing educational attainments and roles of missionaries and medics, the significance of women, married and single, and their increasingly significant instrumentality. We are also presented with the realities of social, economic and political hierarchies in India and the ways in which the British sought to modify these. And all of this is related to theoretical positions and a wider historiography. This constitutes a rewarding study for all those interested in the relationships among missionary endeavour, indigenous responses and imperial rule. John M. MacKenzie

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A B B R E V I AT I O N S

BMR

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CMS

CMSE

CRR CWMG doc. FD FPD Govt. GSAV LMHR MBC MKAAR NAI NS OIOC Pol.

Bhil Mission Report, used to denote the annual Church Missionary Society Report of the Mission to the Bhils Church Missionary Society. Used in footnotes, this refers to the CMS records held in the Special Collections, University of Birmingham Library Church Missionary Society Extracts, used to denote annual Church Missionary Society: Extracts from the Annual Letters of the Missionaries Crown Representative Records Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi document Foreign Department Foreign and Political Department Government Gujarat State Archives, Vadodara Branch Lusadia Mission Hospital Report, used to denote Report of the Lusadia Mission Hospital and Biladia Dispensary Mewar Bhil Corps Mahi Kantha Annual Administration Report National Archives of India, New Delhi new series Oriental and India Office Collection, British Library, London Political

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G L O S S A RY

Baniya Bhagat bhajan bhakti bhopa buva Chamar dai dakran daru Devi gameti jangli jantra-mantra jogi khatlo mahuda mantra mela murti pal panchayat pandal Patel puja Purdah Rajput roti sadhu sahib thakor

merchant caste devotee, a reformed Bhil devotional song devotion to a deity Rajasthani term for an indigenous healer, practising a mixture of herbalism, divination and exorcism Gujarati term for indigenous healer, as in bhopa leather tanners; untouchable caste midwife witch (Mewari); also dakhan (Gujarati) country liquor, made normally from mahuda flowers mother goddess headman of a Bhil pal wild spell with miraculous powers priest of the Bhils bed, consisting of a wooden frame with woven string base – known as charpoy in northern India large tree (bassia latifolia), the flowers of which are used to make country liquor sacred verse or formula, an incantation, a spell fair image of a deity Bhil ‘village’, consisting of houses scattered over a stretch of countryside council cloth canopy supported by poles farmer caste religious rites performed to a deity lit. ‘curtain’ – seclusion of women in a household warrior caste, often rulers and overlords flat, round piece of unleavened bread, made of wheat, millet or maize flour holy man who has renounced worldly life honorific applied to European men, and to Indians in positions of similar authority overlord who provided a mix of military service and tribute to a ruling prince in return for being granted [ xv ]

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G L O S S A RY

vilayati dava

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zenana

administrative, judicial and taxation powers over the subjects of his estate ‘foreign medicine’, meaning allopathy or biomedicine secluded apartment for women within a household

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CMS Bhil mission area

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CHAPTER ONE

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Introduction

In November 1880 the Reverend Charles Thompson arrived at Kherwara, a small town in the hilly tracts of Mewar State in Rajasthan. He had come there to establish the first Anglican mission to the Bhils – a so-called ‘primitive tribe’ that inhabited this region of India. The town was to be his base for the next twenty years. He knew that his task would not be an easy one. He believed nonetheless that he had a method that would provide him with the crucial opening – he would go amongst them as a healer. In this he sought to follow the path of Jesus, though the healing was not – as with Jesus – to be based on faith and miracles, but to be carried out through modern scientific medicine. Although he was not a qualified doctor, he had taken some medical training in England, and he believed that his knowledge of the basic principles of such medicine was adequate to impress the Bhils and win them to the Gospel. As it was, his task proved harder than expected. An army doctor, a Britisher, who also practised from Kherwara, had recently tricked some Bhils into being operated on. Exasperated by the fact that very few Bhils would agree to submit themselves to the surgical knife, even in minor and easily cured cases, this doctor had offered financial inducements to attract them into his surgery and had then carried out operations without gaining their consent. This had clearly been a terrifying experience for the Bhils, who saw it as a violation of both their bodies and spiritual being. Arriving soon after, Thompson found that that the large majority of Bhils were refusing to take any treatment from white people.1 Thompson’s problems were compounded by a major Bhil revolt in March 1881. The revolt came at a time when census operations were being carried in the area, leading to rumours that the people were being counted for nefarious ends. According to Thompson: ‘All kinds of absurd notions troubled their dark minds. Some said that our Queen [1]

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MISSIONARIES AND THEIR MEDICINE

was taking an account of their number, and the number of their cattle, in order to kill them all. Others thought it was to impose fresh taxes. But others, getting still wider of the mark, said that a scheme was being prepared for giving the fat women to the fat men, and the lean women to the lean men.’2 Government reports spoke of a further rumour that the Bhil women were being counted so that they could be taken away so as to exterminate the Bhils.3 Although no doubt fanciful in detail, these rumours revealed that there was a deep underlying suspicion amongst many Bhils of the motives of their rulers. They well understood that counting was a prelude to greater surveillance and control by the state, along with higher taxes. The army of Mewar state reacted by marching through the rebellious villages, killing Bhils in cold blood and burning their houses. The officer in charge was an Irish mercenary employed by the Mewar government, who was heard describing the Bhils in contemptuous terms as bandar-jat or ‘monkey-people.’4 Thompson noted the wanton killings in his first report to his mission society, adding with exasperation that it was likely to greatly harm the reputation of all Europeans in the area. He asked: ‘How will this officer’s presence and action affect us and our work?’5 Although the Bhils called off their revolt following negotiations in April, Thompson was advised to stay in Kherwara and not visit the Bhil villages, for the time being at least. Even his attempts to talk with Bhils who visited Kherwara proved abortive, as the townspeople had advised them to avoid the white missionary – a devious person, they said, who would do them harm. Although he managed to talk to a few, he found himself hardly daring to speak on any topic. As he later said: ‘If I inquired about the family, then how very naturally might they have looked upon me as another enumerator. If I spoke about their cattle, fields, or crops, then the tax question might have disturbed their minds. To talk about God, I knew that with them, as with others, nothing could so readily or so strongly call forth their highest fears.’ Then, when the Viceroy paid a visit to Mewar State later in 1881, a rumour swept the Bhil tracts that the sahib lok (Europeans) were about to join the state forces and devastate the Bhil country. Thompson also learnt that when any headmen of Bhil villages came to Kherwara, they were being taken to the senior native army officer – a high-caste Hindu – who told them: ‘Don’t go near the Padre Sahib. Have nothing to say to him. Don’t listen to him.’ The native officer was eager that the Bhils embrace his form of Hinduism rather than Christianity.6 Nonetheless, as was the pattern in missionary narratives, the initial gloom gave way to hope. Thompson recounted how on 7 November 1881, a Bhil came to his bungalow at Kherwara complaining of deafness, and that he began treating him. Next day, he paid his first visit to [2]

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INTRODUCTION

a Bhil village. Within a few days, the Bhil whom he was treating recovered fully. Thompson continued his visits to the villages within a seven-kilometre radius of Kherwara, leaving at about seven each morning and returning to his bungalow in the evening. At first, the people refused to come anywhere near him, but he managed to talk to four or five of the village headmen. Although Thompson spoke in his report of these events about the ‘dark minds’ of the Bhils, and commented on their ‘ignorance’, some of these headmen reached a shrewd conclusion about Thompson’s position. If, they reasoned, the ‘government’ (in the form of the native officer) was telling them to avoid him, then he was obviously not an agent of that government. They accordingly probed him as to his views on the government. Thompson reported that he was careful not to commit himself to any opinions, fearing that whatever he said might be twisted. He gave, however, an impression of distancing himself from the authorities so that he would not be implicated in their minds with any future punitive raids on Bhil villages.7 One of the headmen whom Thompson had met agreed to accompany him to some other villages. It was still hard to make any contact with the people, who were highly suspicious of any white person. In Thompson’s words: ‘Long before we got anywhere near them the children ran off to their homes as fast as their legs could carry them. Men and women, peering round corners, or over the enclosures surrounding their houses, might be seen watching us in all directions.’ The headmen were on the whole prepared to meet him and provide hospitality, though some gave a ‘cold reception.’ As he did not as yet follow the Bhil dialect, he found communication difficult.8 A breakthrough came after a helper joined Thompson who could act as an interpreter – an Indian Christian called Masih Charan. The two decided to focus for a week on Obri, a village five kilometres from Kherwara. Each day, they set up their makeshift clinic under a shady tree. A khatlo, or country bed with woven string base, was procured from an adjoining house. Their first case on the initial day – a Monday – was a broken leg, which Thompson set. According to Thompson: It soon became evident that our new plan was going to work admirably. In the evening we returned home. On the Tuesday we had 15 visits for medicine or treatment; on the Wednesday, 30; on Thursday, 45; on Friday, 59; and on Saturday 58: total, 207. Some had fevers – some colds – others, enlarged spleens – some the itch – some ophthalmia – others, nearly deaf – some headaches – others, sores – one poor little emaciated sufferer was simply a walking skeleton – some of the old folks complained of rheumatics – one old woman, blind and deaf through old age, came to be, I suppose, made young again. Among the number was the gammaiti [headman] of

[3]

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the pal [village]. On the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we held little meetings to make known the Saviour. We did not think it advisable to say too much in this way on our first prolonged visit.9

A week later, there was a large funeral ceremony at Obri, attended by twenty Bhil headmen. There was a lot of talk about the white sahib and his medicine, and two headmen were chosen to go and ask him to live amongst them. In this way, Thompson made his breakthrough. The Bhils around Kherwara no longer viewed him with suspicion, and in time he was able to gain his first converts. The medical strategy, it seemed, had proved its worth.

My project I myself first came into contact with some descendants of the early Bhil converts on a visit to this region in 1997. Indian princes had in the past ruled the whole area, and I had gone there at that time to investigate a protest movement by the Bhils against their rulers in 1921–22. This had culminated in a massacre by British-led troops.10 One of those I interviewed was Peter Bhanat, who made me aware of another, very different, history – that of the small but flourishing community of Christian Bhils of this tract. Anglican missionaries had converted his father to Christianity during the first decade of the twentieth century – a time when many Bhils had converted. Born in 1913, he had been a life-long Christian. He was studying in primary school at the time of the massacre, and he told me how casualties were carried to the nearby mission station at Biladiya to be treated by the missionary, Lea Sahib. After his schooling days were over, Peter Bhanat had worked as a teacher in the mission schools of the area, ending up as the headmaster of the mission secondary school at Biladiya. His whole demeanour impressed me; he lived simply, was self-confident in himself and his faith, and as a teacher had devoted his life to working for the good of his community.11 After returning to England, I decided to consult the records of the Anglican missionary organisation, the Church Missionary Society (CMS), which are held in Birmingham University Library. There, besides uncovering some useful information about the events of 1921–22, including a report by the Reverend James Lea, I also found detailed records relating to an ongoing struggle for power and influence between the missionaries and the local Bhil healers – the buvas or bhopas. The missionaries depicted these herbalists, diviners and exorcists as agents of Satan. I was already familiar with some excellent recent studies of the history of medicine in colonial India, and could see immediately that the mission records provided a dimension to this history that had so far been largely ignored, for this work had focused [4]

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INTRODUCTION

largely on doctors of the colonial medical service and state initiatives.12 In fact, David Arnold had noted that ‘the extent to which missionaries were successful disseminators of Western medical ideas and practices in India remains, for the present, a matter of speculation as it has yet to receive serious scholarly attention’.13 Megan Vaughan had similarly stated in her pathbreaking book on colonial medicine in Africa that much of the literature ‘is strangely silent on the activities of mission doctors and nurses’.14 This all encouraged me to embark on the research that forms the subject of this book. Although the research was thus framed initially as an exercise in medical history, I soon found from my reading of the archives that the ‘medicine’ provided by the missionaries encompassed far more than just treatment for physical illness. What they were providing, rather, was an all-round therapy that was designed to ‘civilise’ the supposedly ‘primitive’ Bhils, bringing them into the light of a Christian modernity.15 The ‘medicine’ of the title of this book should be understood in terms of this wider exercise undertaken by the missionaries. For them, healing was a part of this modernising process. Because I wanted to understand how this practice worked itself out over a relatively long period of time, and because I wanted to elucidate the relationship between missionaries and a discreet subaltern community, I decided to focus on just the one mission, that of the CMS mission to the Bhils of the area I had visited in 1997. It begins with the opening of the mission in 1880 and ends in 1964, when key white missionaries had left and the mission’s showpiece hospital was closed down. It is not claimed that this particular history was necessarily typical of the medical work of missions elsewhere in India or in other parts of the world. This will have to be determined through further case studies. A start in this direction has been made already in a volume that I have edited on medical missions in Africa and Asia.16

Christian modernity Over the past two centuries, the modernising project that was launched in Europe at the time of the Enlightenment has undergone many transformations. Associated initially with science, rationality and the fight against religious superstition, it became transformed into a political struggle for liberty, equality and fraternity at the time of the French Revolution. In Britain, at the same time, it became associated with a modernising Christian evangelicalism that, while largely accepting the Newtonian and Cartesian understandings of the world, reserved a place for God over and above the natural forces that He had, it was said, created and set in motion. Evangelicals were at the forefront of British [5]

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radical politics, as anti-slavery campaigners and electoral reformers. They were also deeply involved, as missionaries, in the project of colonial expansion, which was one of the foremost defining features of British power at that time.17 In this respect, missionaries were in their day and society the most modern of men and women. There is a certain teleology that suggests that the modernity of the Christian missionary was a retrogressive and relatively transient form of this historical process, for modernity was associated above all with the ‘transition from a religious to a secular culture’.18 From Max Weber onwards, sociologists have declared that secularism is the inevitable outcome of the process set in motion by the Enlightenment and its accompanying revolutions. In fact, it was just one important strand to modernity. Championed with increasing success by radical liberals and socialists in the latter part of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, it became a major feature of Western culture only during the latter part of the twentieth.19 Today, by contrast, secularism appears everywhere to be on the retreat, as modern American evangelicals champion a supposed global battle against Islam, modern Muslims embrace Wahhabi fundamentalism (and, if female, adopt the hijab), and modern Hindus demand the eradication of Islam in India. Throughout the globe, diasporic minorities create communities for themselves out of transformed religious identities.20 Because of this, we have little choice but to reject the teleology of Weberian sociology in favour of a definition of modernity as a process of continuing dialectical engagement between the religious and the secular. This dialectic was foundational to the Enlightenment, being there from the start of the modern era, and although both sides have shifted their ground considerably over time, it has never been, and perhaps never can be, transcended within the framework of modernity as we know it. Seen in such terms, evangelical Christianity was a thoroughly modern project. It was one in which an emerging middle class in Britain sought to create a ‘New Jerusalem’ of Christian civilisation, something that was taken as being universally desirable. Members of this class believed that they had a moral duty to evangelise and reform the peoples of not only their own nation, but also those of other countries and clines. As Marx pointed out: ‘a definite class, proceeding from its particular situation, undertakes the general emancipation of society. This class emancipates the whole of society but only provided the whole of society is in the same situation as this class’.21 In other words, the conversion to bourgeois modernity involved a long drawn-out process of educating the masses to become like the middle class, a process that included the inculcation of values such as self-help, sobriety, representative governance, thrift and profitable enterprise. [6]

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For middle-class evangelicals, the labouring poor of their own nation as well as the heathen masses of other parts of the world could become truly ‘civilised’ only – and indeed Christian – through a process of purging their existing cultures and internalising such values. For these ends, evangelicals established missions, both within their own countries and overseas, that were designed to win the sympathy of the masses and then educate them in the mores of the new ‘civilisation’ and thus integrate them within the newly created public sphere. In this way, bourgeois modernity would be universalised. Once this vision was in place, strategies were evolved to win mass support. As Marx noted, the middle class had to arouse: a moment of enthusiasm in itself and in the masses, a moment in which it fraternises and merges with society in general, become confused with it and is perceived and acknowledged as its general representative; a moment in which its demands and rights are truly the rights and demands of society itself; a moment in which it is truly the social head and the social heart.22

In Britain, this enthusiasm was stimulated not only through the social and political attack on the monarchy and landed gentry, but also through evangelical fervour, seen most notably in John Wesley’s Methodist movement. In India, the British had banned Christian missionaries up until 1813, but allowed them entry thereafter not only because of strong evangelical pressure from within Britain, but also because many evangelical administrators came to believe that the existing religions of the subcontinent acted as a profound barrier to the thoroughgoing modernisation of its peoples. While the Utilitarians on the whole preferred to try to carry out this task through a secular system of English education, the evangelical administrators believed that the only effective and lasting remedy lay in mass conversion to Christianity.23 Once the project of evangelical modernity shifted to the overseas colonies, it took on a new, additional, dimension: that of the colonial. As Partha Chatterjee has argued, colonialism operated in the name of modernity, but it also imposed what he calls ‘a rule of colonial difference’, in which conditions and practices were imposed that continually countered the attempts made by the colonised subjects who had embraced this modernity to achieve a state of equality with their colonial masters.24 Unlike the working class of the home countries, whose members could potentially attain full membership of the middle class through their own endeavours, the racially different and supposedly inferior peoples of the colonies were seen to lack certain crucial qualities that might fit them for such a status. They were perceived, in other words, to be fit only to be subordinates, under the authority and control [7]

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of white superiors.25 This ‘rule of colonial difference’ was imposed in its most blatant form in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, coinciding with both the consolidation of Social Darwinist theory and missionary activity. Indeed, it may be argued that missionaries had prepared the ground for the wider reception of Social Darwinism, as from the start they had seen their task as one of ‘civilising the savage’. In their widely circulated writings, they always made a point of emphasising the ‘primitivism’ of the ‘backward’ natives amongst whom they laboured, placing missionaries in a position in which only they were considered to have the moral and intellectual backbone to guide each community of converts to Christianity. Because of this, the ‘conversion to modernity’ was textured in a markedly different way in colonial territories. This book, which focuses on the medical work of Protestant missionaries in India, becomes therefore a study of a particular form of civilising enterprise undertaken by evangelical Christians that became something else within the colonial context. At home, the cultural distance between middle-class evangelicals and the subordinate classes was much less pronounced than it was in the colonies. In Britain, the members of both groups had not long before shared a subordinate status, and the two therefore had much in common. In the colonies, Christian evangelists encountered peoples whose language, culture and religious beliefs were both alien and hard to grasp, and they commonly took this as a marker of a profound racial difference.26 As the colonised were seen to embody a range of defective qualities, such as ‘low intelligence’, ‘childishness’, ‘irrationality’, ‘superstition’ and ‘immorality’, as well as a whole range of other failings, the missionary was placed in a position of having to always act for the native convert. Education might bring the convert to a certain level, but never so far as to make the white missionary redundant. How the missionaries sought to maintain their role in this respect after the emergence of a powerful nationalist movement in India, the juncture at which they conceded defeat, and the implications of that defeat for their subjects – the Christian converts – will be one of the questions that I shall examine.

The mission clinic There was from the start a medical sub-theme to the mission project. From the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a small number of middle-class evangelical doctors had established medical missions in urban centres to provide medical treatment for the poor at a moderate cost. This work was pioneered in Edinburgh, where the first charitable dispensaries had been opened for the sick poor in 1776 and was followed [8]

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by others in later years.27 By demonstrating their concern and compassion for suffering and sick inferiors, evangelical doctors and medical students sought to create bonds of sympathy that would win the hearts and minds of those they treated. In this, they saw themselves as treading in the path of Christ the healer. In setting this agenda, a base was laid for future medical work by missionaries in colonial territories. The middle-class evangelical doctors of cities like Edinburgh were however pioneers, and their approach did not become a part of mainstream missionary work for nearly a century. In general, dissenting Christians distrusted the medical profession for its dubious methods and association with rich clients. John Wesley thus believed that doctors tended to obfuscate an understanding of the true principles of health, and he held a generally low opinion of them.28 He preached that moral salvation lay in bodily hygiene, a clean house, a temperate life and an ordered and industrious daily routine. As he once stated: ‘Every one that would preserve health should be as clean and sweet as possible in their houses, clothes and furniture.’29 He claimed his own healing arts to be superior, and was in the habit of prescribing for his sick followers a range of folk remedies – such as powdered toads, cowdung plasters and live puppies on the belly – along with the power of prayer.30 Doctors, in return, were similarly disdainful of Wesley’s methods. In contrast to the old aristocracy – which was obsessed with heredity and ‘blood’ – the assertive new middling orders were concerned above all with maintaining their own health and fitness, both physical and moral.31 Evangelicals often depicted paganism as a sickness of both mind and body, requiring an all-round therapy administered by a man of God. The ‘natives’ of the European colonies were seen as a source of moral and physical contamination and infection. This being the case, illness hardly required the attention of a medical man; any godly person who understood the rudimentary principles of hygiene and sanitation was in a position to bring health to the ‘natives’ by cleansing their bodies with soap and their minds with the Gospel. Another cause of the antipathy amongst mission organisations at that time towards any strongly focused medical work was that European medicine – as then practised by physicians, surgeons and apothecaries – was not at all efficacious in the colonies. Indeed, the treatment resorted to by such practitioners was frequently more iatrogenic than curative. Purgatives and emetics were prescribed frequently and lancing was used to extract blood or drain pustules to cleanse the body of what were seen to be accumulations of noxious substances or to correct its ‘nervous tone’. When treating malaria, for example, David Livingstone administered strong purgatives that were designed to [9]

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cleanse the body of the ‘noxious miasmas’ that had been supposedly ingested.32 European doctors also dressed wounds and carried out some basic surgery, such as amputations, excisions and teeth pulling. With uncertain hygiene, such procedures could provide an entry for dangerous infections. The secretary of the CMS had good reason to wonder in 1851 ‘whether a missionary does not lose rather than gain influence with the natives by the exercise of medical knowledge’.33 This situation was however changing. Some doctors of Edinburgh, true to their vanguard reputation, were involved in establishing the first medical missionary society in Europe – the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society of 1841. In the early years they found it extremely hard to recruit physicians to serve as missionaries. They nonetheless set an agenda for work that was beginning to attract more widespread support.34 In an influential essay written for this society in 1854, W. Burns Thomson argued that Jesus had urged his followers to ‘Heal and Preach’. Healing, he wrote, provided an entry into the hearts and minds of ‘simple people’ who, like children, were often taught best by objective demonstration. In this way the rationality and science of the time could contribute towards the spread of Christianity.35 This intervention came at a time when Western medicine was gaining a new status and sense of moral direction. In Britain, the Medical Act of 1858 allowed for greater regulation of the profession by creating a register of doctors, from which incompetent practitioners could be struck off.36 Policies of public hygiene and the implementation of preventive health measures were bringing observable benefits, and breakthroughs were being made in surgery. As the Comaroffs have noted, medicine began to compete with the church as the guardian of public and private health.37 Missionary organisations responded to this development by trying to keep a foot in both camps – the spiritual and the medical. It was claimed that Jesus had been ‘the ideal medical missionary’. ‘He is the Founder and Patron of medical missions; and He has given us an example that we should follow in His steps.’ It was argued that all the diseases and disabilities mentioned in the New Testament abounded in the ‘heathen lands’ of the day. Everywhere the crippled and diseased could be seen – the lepers, the maimed, the paralysed, the blind, those scourged by plague – providing a harrowing sight that the inhabitants of the ‘civilised’ nations were spared. In such an environment, the mission doctors could through their skill carry out what seemed to be ‘marvels of healing’. As the ‘battle front of the Church’ was in ‘the heathen lands’, the best doctors and surgeons were needed for this great work, and medical colleges were needed to train Christian doctors.38 Closer relationships were fostered between churches and the medical profession. The Christian Medical Association had been [ 10 ]

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founded in 1853 to encourage an active faith amongst doctors in Britain. This and its successor organisation from 1874, the Medical Prayer Union, worked actively with medical students, encouraging them to study the Bible and pray regularly. In some medical colleges up to a quarter of all students attended its meetings.39 The Student Christian Movement had a similarly strong medical following – of its members in 1893, 38 per cent were medical students.40 Young Christian doctors were often moved by a desire to do good in the world, and they saw their medical work as providing a means to this end. At the same time as the medical profession was expanding vigorously in size and prestige, a career in the church was fast falling from favour.41 Despite this, recruitment for missionary work remained buoyant in the last three decades of the nineteenth century, and this was due in no small part to the new emphasis on engaging qualified doctors. Many such doctors might not have found such fulfilling employment in Britain, especially as the medical profession was becoming overstocked at that time. This development was consolidated by a spate of new medical missionary societies. The Medical Missionary Association, which was established in London in 1878, provided grants for potential medical missionaries to study medicine, and it opened a hostel for their residence in the city while they studied.42 The New York Medical Missionary Society (later the International Medical Missionary Society) was founded in 1881, with a dispensary being opened in 1882. It also provided funding to students undergoing training, and the first of them graduated in 1884. Dr Martyn Scudder, who had been a medical missionary in India, founded the American Medical Missionary Society in Chicago in 1885. In Germany, the Medical Missionary Society of Stuttgart was founded in 1898 as an auxiliary of the Basel Missionary Society.43 Until the 1870s, no hard-and-fast distinction was made between the evangelical and the medical missionary. Many medically unqualified missionaries turned their hand to medical work, believing that for Jesus and the apostles healing and ministry went together. Indeed, in Britain before the Medical Act of 1858, just about anyone could call themselves a doctor if they so wished. Thereafter, there was a growing regulation of the profession. This process led to the emergence of a clear demarcation between careers in medicine and the church, and a clear distinction began accordingly to be made between the evangelical and the medical missionary. Although many medically unqualified missionaries continued to provide rudimentary medical care as a part of their work, such people were no longer considered to be ‘medical missionaries’. This title was now reserved in missionary parlance for those who had full medical training and qualifications. In this way, medically qualified missionaries distanced themselves from untrained missionary practitioners. They [ 11 ]

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were, nonetheless, expected to have some theological training, to know their Bible and engage in evangelism to some extent.44 This all created a demand for medically qualified missionaries. The numbers of medical missionaries grew rapidly. In 1858 there had been only 7 in India and China together; the total rose to 28 in 1882, 140 in 1895, and 280 in 1905. By the 1890s there were 680 medically qualified Protestant missionaries working worldwide, of whom 338 were American, 288 British, 27 Canadian, 7 Australian, and 20 from continental Europe. By 1916 the Protestant medical mission force worldwide had grown to 1,052 doctors and 537 nurses. Of these doctors 40 per cent were serving in China and 27 per cent in India, while 24 per cent of missionary nurses were in China and 20 per cent in India. By 1916, missionaries in India were running 183 hospitals and 376 dispensaries, which treated over 1,250,000 million patients each year.45 The standard view of such work within Protestant missionary circles in the late nineteenth century was that it was not carried out for a purely medical purpose, but used as a beneficent means to spread Christianity. It was carried out where most converts could be won, not necessarily where the need was greatest. Treatment was seen to put people in a receptive frame of mind to the message of the Gospel.46 The mission dispensary and hospital were designed to act like a ‘magnet’, drawing patients from near and far to the missionaries. It also demonstrated that Christians practised what they preached, in a way that emphasised the superiority of their religion.47 It was also seen to be an invaluable resource in challenging ‘heathen’ systems of belief. As one advocate argued in 1886: ‘In India, China, Africa, Madagascar and in almost every heathen land, crude systems of medicine are intimately associated with the religions of the people, and the treatment of disease, such as it is, is monopolised by the priests, or by others under their control.’48 Missionaries, by providing an alternative and more effective medicine, could break the hold of such priests and healers. In the words of another campaigner: It follows, therefore, that no more fatal blow can be dealt at this awful evil, cursing alike body and soul, than by proving by living demonstration the fallacy, fatuity, and powerlessness of the superstitious methods of treatment employed by the medicine man. Destroy the faith of the nonChristian man in his ‘doctor’ and you have very frequently taken the surest and simplest course towards the destruction of his faith in the superstition of his religion.49

Heathenism, in other words, had to be attacked on the medical as well as the religious front, with Christianity providing an alternative [ 12 ]

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system of belief and practice that provided for all needs – physical and spiritual. Medical missionaries were not, however, expected to heal in a miraculous way by casting out evil spirits or practising supernatural healing, as the Gospels had shown Jesus doing. Protestant theologians largely followed the doctrine of dispensationalism, which held that God gave a dispensation for miracles for only a limited time and purpose. Both Luther and Calvin had propounded this theory. Luther, for example, held that the day of miracles had passed, and that now the Gospel stood revealed, all that was necessary was to preach it. As he stated: ‘now that the apostles have preached the Word and have given their writings, and nothing more than what they have written remains to be revealed, no new and special revelation or miracle is necessary’.50 Calvin stated similarly that ‘The gift of healing disappeared with the other miraculous powers which the Lord was pleased to give for a time, that it might render the new preaching of the gospel for ever wonderful. Therefore, even were we to grant that anointing was a sacrament of those powers which were then administered by the hands of the apostles, it pertains not to us, to whom no such powers have been committed.’51 This doctrine informed the medical mission upsurge of the late nineteenth century. It was held that the display of divine power through miracles had been appropriate for its time, but in modern times God required a higher form of belief, that of faith by ‘they that have not seen, and yet have believed’.52 Modern Christians would accordingly be in error if they sought to emulate the healing practices of the Jesus of the Gospels. Mission theologians argued that such miraculous cures were not central to Jesus’ ministry, for he had performed them out of a sense of compassion, not to impress or win converts.53 In contemporary times, it was argued, miracle-workers were generally charlatans, and their supposed cures fraudulent.54 They accepted, however, that it was wholly legitimate to pray for the recovery of a patient. As it was, in missionary reports from the field there was often considerable ambiguity over whether or not a cure came through medical intervention or prayer. The prevailing Protestant missionary hostility towards supernatural healing was above all the product of a class history, for there had always been a tension in practice between the stern theologies of Luther, Calvin and their successors and a popular Christianity based on a belief in supernatural intervention in everyday life. In Britain, for example, dissenting groups had emerged during the seventeenth-century revolution that believed in supernatural healing. George Fox, founder of the Quakers, is recorded as having carried out frequent cures of this kind from the late 1640s onwards.55 The Anglican hierarchy had sought to dampen such enthusiasm after the Restoration of 1660 as they feared [ 13 ]

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that such practices might give rise to a dangerous populism that not only would undermine church discipline, but could cause wider social disruption if allowed to flourish.56 Even William Booth, the founder of a denomination – the Salvation Army – that was known for its evangelical enthusiasm, and who was himself sceptical of modern medicine, refused to countenance any supernatural healing, on the grounds that it tended to be associated with ‘one or another form of fanaticism’. Stuart Mews has argued that he, in common with the leaders of other churches, feared that such charismatic practices by lower-level clerics or members of the laity would undermine their ecclesiastical authority.57 There were certain features of the medical mission in colonial territories that distinguished it from both medical practice at home and state-controlled medicine in the colonies. For a start, it was a latecomer in the older colonial territories such as India, becoming important only from the 1870s onwards. It was, as a result, informed by a strong sense of biomedical superiority that was the product of the medical revolution of the mid-to-late nineteenth century, with its breakthroughs in surgery and its new understanding of disease causation and prevention. Medical missionaries who were trained in medical schools in metropolitan cities did not come burdened with any strong commitment to environmental and miasmic theories of disease causation, as was the case with many colonial medical officials.58 They were very sure of the modernity of their practice, and had a correspondingly low view of most indigenous forms of healing. Their medicine was held to be more ‘advanced’ than the healing practices of the natives, the assumption being that – in common with ‘backward’ social systems in general – these practices would decay and wither away as they were forced to compete with the superior ‘scientific medicine’ of the West. Nonetheless, although the mission doctors considered their medicine to be ‘scientific’, theirs was not a purely secular practice, for unlike many lay biomedical practitioners, they maintained that there was a psychosomatic dimension to healing. This, however, did not lie in the realms of exorcism, miracle healing or other forms of pagan ceremony, but came about through prayer and faith in God. For them medical concepts could still be expressed quite validly through religious metaphors. As Rhodri Heywood has emphasised, religious traditions and movements appropriated biomedicine, and their language in turn influenced it: Although there have been persistent attempts to revise and mathematise the language of medicine, the modern discipline still reveals rich traces of its religious inheritance. Neurology is still permeated by Christian notions of order and hierarchy whilst modern pathological concepts of viruses and germs remain rooted in the magical language of agency.59

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Christian medicine and its psychosomatic method was nonetheless to be distinguished sharply from heathen forms of healing practised by priests and ‘witchdoctors’, which were labelled as false and demonical, being paths to damnation rather than salvation. The Christian Self was thus counterpoised to the Satanic Other. This could give rise to the use of vivid and provocative imagery in the writings of missionaries, as we shall see in the course of this book.

‘English’ medicine To conclude this introduction, I would like to say something about the differences between the metropolitan and Indian experiences of modern medicine. In Europe and America the medical establishment was able with considerable success to project its practice – hegemonically – as the only ‘scientific’ and thus valid form of healing. In India, by contrast, a strong distinction continued to be maintained throughout the colonial period – and indeed to this day – between the practice of healing that came with the British, and other indigenous forms of healing. Historians of medicine have tended to label the former ‘biological medicine’ – or ‘biomedicine’ for short – with the focus being on the bacterial element to disease and its curing through remedial drugs, or the prevention of bacterial infection through immunisation and sanitation. These were certainly core features of the Western system of medicine from the later part of the nineteenth century onwards. The term ‘biomedicine’ is not however commonly used in India, the preferred one being ‘allopathy’. This term, which originated in the early nineteenth century, focused on the way in which drugs were commonly used in mainstream European medicine to attack and overwhelm a malady. The term was devised by the inventor of homeopathy, Hahnemann, who sought to distinguish his practice from that of the majority of medical practitioners of his day. In India, however, the term was applied generally to distinguish colonial forms of medical treatment from indigenous methods of medical knowledge and care, such as the Ayurvedic and Yunani Tibb systems of medicine. It might be argued that neither ‘biomedicine’ nor ‘allopathy’ is entirely appropriate, as another of the core features of Western medicine was that of surgery involving the application of sophisticated and everevolving technologies. As Nancy Rose Hunt has pointed out in her study of a medical mission in the Belgian Congo, surgery was for many ‘natives’ the defining feature of such practice, though in the Congo they hardly viewed the surgeon in a flattering light. Rather, they looked on with extreme unease as mission doctors wielded their knives over their anaesthetised patients. Peering through the windows of the operating theatre, they were reminded of the missionary dinner table; in both [ 15 ]

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cases they could see the missionaries gathered around a table to perform what appeared an intense ritual. Rumours even spread that surgical patients were being slaughtered and prepared as food for Europeans.60 In India, the common perception of Western medicine often focused in a congruent manner on the figure of the white-coated doctor with stethoscope hanging around the neck and surgical knife in hand, with the system as a whole being known as daktari, or ‘doctory’.61 In the region that forms of subject of this study it was however generally distinguished by its place of supposed origin, being known as in some cases vilayati dava, that is, ‘foreign medicine’, or Angreji dava – ‘English medicine’.62 What matters here is not so much the particular definition, but the fact that it had a profoundly symbolic quality. An important feature of the system of medicine practised by Europeans and Americans in a colonial context was therefore that it was understood in terms of a difference that set it apart from indigenous practice. Also, it required people to define themselves in terms of whether they accepted or rejected it. The provision and acceptance of the ‘English’ therapy was always, in consequence, far more than just a medical matter.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12

13 14

15

C. S. Thompson, ‘Report on Bheel Mission, Kherwara’, The Church Missionary Intelligencer and Record: A Monthly Journal of Missionary Information (hereafter Intelligencer), 7 NS (October 1882), 592. Ibid., pp. 591–2. NAI, FD, Pol. A 25–39, April 1881; Pol. A 137–9, April 1881; Pol. A 311–13, August 1881. A. Wingate, 26 April 1881, NAI, FD, Pol. A 311–13, August 1881. Thompson, ‘Report on Bheel Mission, Kherwara’, 592. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 592–3. Ibid., pp. 593. Ibid. This will be examined in Chapter 9. I have written up this history more fully in ‘A Forgotten Massacre: Motilal Tejawat and his Movement amongst the Bhils’, in David Hardiman, Histories for the Subordinated (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2006), pp. 29–56. Interview with Peter Galji Bhanat, Samaiya village, Sabarkantha District, 15 December 1997. Most noteworthy are David Arnold, Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth Century India (Berkeley: California University Press, 1993); Mark Harrison, Public Health in British India: Anglo-Indian Preventive Medicine 1859–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Arnold, Colonizing the Body, p. 244. Megan Vaughan, Curing their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), p. 55. Similarly, see Norman Etherington, ‘Education and Medicine’, in Norman Etherington (ed.), Missions and Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 280. On Christian evangelism and modernity, see Peter Van der Veer, ‘Introduction’, in P. Van der Veer (ed.), Conversion to Modernities: The Globalization of Christianity (New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 7–13.

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19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26

27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

David Hardiman (ed.), Healing Bodies, Saving Souls: Medical Missions in Asia and Africa (Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi 2006). On this, see Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, 1: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 14–15. See also Peter Van der Veer, Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 3–54. Stuart Hall, David Held and Tony McGrew, ‘Introduction’, in Stuart Hall, David Held and Tony McGrew (eds.), Modernity and its Futures (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), p. 2. As suggested by Callum G. Brown, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding and Secularisation 1800–2000 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2001). Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp. 6–9. Karl Marx, ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law’, in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, 3: Works of Karl Marx, March 1843–August 1844, ed. Lev Goilman (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1975), p. 184. Emphasis in original. Ibid., p. 184. Emphasis in original. For this debate, see Gauri Vishwanathan, Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (London: Faber and Faber, 1990). Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 10. Ibid., p. 19. Anna Johnston has thus pointed out how many missionaries were deeply disturbed by the different gender roles assumed by indigenous women, as they had taken these roles to be natural and given. They saw this as proof of their savagery. A. Johnston, Missionary Writings and Empire, 1800–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 54. J. V. Pickstone, ‘Establishment and Dissent in Nineteenth-Century Medicine’, in W. J. Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982), pp. 170– 4; and John Wilkinson, The Coogate Doctors: The History of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society 1841 to 1991 (Edinburgh: The Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, 1991), p. 22. Pickstone, ‘Establishment and Dissent’, p. 171. Quoted in Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, 2: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 336. Henry D. Rack, ‘Doctors, Demons and Early Methodist Healing’, in Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing, pp. 139 and 143–4. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1: An Introduction (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), pp. 124–5. Comaroff, and Comaroff Of Revelation and Revolution, 2, p. 357 and pp. 497–8 n. 55. C. Peter Williams, ‘Healing and Evangelism: The Place of Medicine in Later Victorian Protestant Missionary Thinking’, in Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing, p. 272. Wilkinson, Coogate Doctors, pp. 1–3, 6–7. Thomson’s article is summarised in Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, 2, p. 332. Williams, ‘Healing and Evangelism’, p. 273. Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, 2, p. 325. All the quotations in this paragraph are from Dr C. F. Strange, ‘The Raison d’Être of Medical Missions’, Mercy and Truth (February 1921), 33–4. ‘Introduction’ and ‘The Christian Medical Association the Predecessor of the Medical Prayer Union’, Medical Missions at Home and Abroad, 1 (July 1878), 3–4. The London School of Medicine for Women had a flourishing Bible and Prayer Union

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at this time. See Antoinette Burton, ‘Contesting the Zenana: The Mission to Make “Lady Doctors for India” ’, Journal of British Studies, 35:3 (1996), 379. Williams, ‘Healing and Evangelism’, p. 278. Ibid., p. 273. Wilkinson, Coogate Doctors, pp. 22–3. Ibid., p. 23. Mercy and Truth (December 1911); Mercy and Truth (February 1912). Rosemary Fitzgerald, ‘ “Clinical Christianity”: The Emergence of Medical Work as a Missionary Strategy in Colonial India, 1800–1914’, in Biswamoy Pati and Mark Harrison (eds.), Health, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Colonial India (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2001), p. 77 n. 10 and p. 67. ‘Report by Drs. A. Lankester and A. H. Browne on the Suitability of the Peshawar Valley for Medical Mission Work’, Mercy and Truth (October 1897), 219–21. Dr A. Lankester, ‘Medical Mission in Theory’, Mercy and Truth (February 1900), 39–41. J. Lowe, Medical Missions: Their Place and Power (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1886), p. 148; quoted in Fitzgerald, ‘Clinical Christianity’, p. 115. R. Fletcher Moorshead, The Appeal of Medical Missions (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1913), p. 76. Martin Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, Chapters 14–16, in Luther’s Works (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955–86), 24, p. 367, quoted in Morton Kelsey, Healing and Christianity (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1995), p. 17. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1953), VI 18, 2:636, quoted in Kelsey, Healing and Christianity, p. 17. John 20:29, cited in this context by Robert Anderson, The Silence of God (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897), pp. 153–4. W. F. Buroughs, ‘Our Title’, Mercy and Truth, (January 1897), 2. C. F. H., ‘Principles and Practices of Medical Mission’, Mercy and Truth (May 1912), 24–5. Henry J. Cadbury, George Fox’s Book of Miracles (Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1949); David Hodges, George Fox and the Healing Ministry (Guildford: Friends Fellowship of Healing, 1995). Michael Macdonald, ‘Religion, Social Change and Psychological Healing in England 1600–1800’, in Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing, pp. 101–26. Stuart Mews, ‘The Revival of Spiritual Healing in the Church of England 1920–26’, in Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing, pp. 300–1. On the survival of such theories within the Indian Medical Service up until the early twentieth century, see Harrison, Public Health in British India, pp. 49–54, 108–15. Rhodri Hayward, ‘Demonology, Neurology and Medicine in Edwardian Britain’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 78:1 (2004), 58. Nancy Rose Hunt, A Colonial Lexicon: Of Birth Ritual, Medicalization and Mobility in the Congo (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999). See in particular Chapter 3, ‘Dining and Surgery’, pp. 117–58. Neshat Quaiser, ‘Politics, Culture and Colonialism: Unani’s Debate with Doctory’, in Biswamoy Pati and Mark Harrison (eds.), Health, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Colonial India (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2001), p. 317. Helen Lambert, ‘Plural Traditions? Folk Therapeutics and “English” Medicine in Rajasthan’, in Andrew Cunningham and Bridie Andrews (eds.), Western Medicine as Contested Knowledge (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 193.

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CHAPTER TWO

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The Bhils

While this book is framed around the study of a medical mission between 1880 and 1964, it also provides a history of a subordinate group, that of the Bhils of the hilly tracts on the borders between modern-day Gujarat and Rajasthan. These people were never the passive objects of missionary attention, and the missionaries had constantly to adapt and modify their strategies to gain a response from them. In many important ways, the Bhils can be seen as deploying the missionaries as a resource to further their own desires and needs. Furthermore, the conversion to Christianity had strong roots in an earlier movement for self-purification, and in many respects the Bhil Christians continued in this path despite the day-to-day pastoral care exercised by the missionaries. Bhils may have disciplined themselves to become good Christians, but it was Christianity on their own terms. In this chapter, I shall examine their society, their history and their healing practices. In the next chapter there will be a discussion of a movement for Bhil self-reform under the guidance of an inspired leader and healer called Surmaldas that preceded the coming of the missionaries and later gave rise to a major breakthrough for the missionaries during the first decade of the twentieth century. The remainder of the book will set out the history of the continuing, and often troubled, interaction between the missionaries and the Bhils up until 1964. This is not, therefore, only a history of missionaries and their medicine, but also one of how certain Bhils forged their own relationship with modernity.

Representations of the ‘primitive’ C. S. Thompson had come to work amongst the Bhils in 1880 in accordance with a new strategy that the CMS was adopting at that time in India. During the early nineteenth century, it had targeted higher-class [ 19 ]

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Hindus and Muslims, but with little success. In practice, the large majority of converts were gained from groups who were considered to be socially the most marginal – in particular the untouchables, but also the tribals. Increasingly, missionaries focused their attention on such groups. In the case of the tribals, it was held that they were aboriginals of Dravidian origin who lacked the sophisticated scripture-based religion of the Aryans. Their ‘primitive’ beliefs – it was asserted – would yield easily to Christianity once the truth of the Gospel had been revealed to them. The strategy was rooted in a notion that religious beliefs – in common with societies and modes of production – evolved over time, from primitive animism, to religions with multiple deities, such as Greco-Roman paganism and Hinduism, to Judaic and Islamic monotheism, to Christianity, and, at the pinnacle, Protestantism. In this section, I shall examine how the Bhils were made to fit into such an evolutionary schema, and then in the rest of this chapter I shall say something about them, their society, their beliefs and their healing practices at that time. The Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce (1886–1952) has examined the separation made in European thought since the time of the Enlightenment between those humans who were considered to be a part of ‘history’ and those who belonged to the ‘inferior reality’ of nature. The latter were: men only zoologically, they are to be dominated. They may be tamed and trained; when this proves impossible, they may be allowed to live on at the fringes of civilization, without being the object of any of those cruelties that must be avoided against any form of life, but being allowed as a race to die out like those [native] American races who shrank and died . . . when a civilization they could not withstand moved upon them.1

The British, when they conquered India, categorised in this manner a range of disparate communities scattered over the subcontinent, in the process creating for them a conceptual unity that they had never hitherto possessed. Those so singled out lived for the most part in the more inaccessible hill and forest tracts, and survived largely from hunting and gathering or rudimentary shifting agriculture. They were classed as ‘aboriginals’ or ‘early tribes’, being characterised, amongst other things, by their ‘clan’-based systems of kinship and their ‘animistic’ religious beliefs. Sometimes, they were defined in terms of their habitat, as ‘jungle tribes’. In India, the largest concentrations of people so classed were in the north-east. Elsewhere, many were found in the central-eastern region, in what is now the state of Jharkhand and areas adjoining to it in Bengal, Orissa and Bastar, and in a belt of western India running over the four [ 20 ]

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modern Indian states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.2 In this latter area, there were considered to be two main types of such people – the so-called ‘Kaliparaj’ (‘black people’), who were found in the southern part of this belt, and the Bhils. The former were generally considered to be less aggressive than the latter. In many cases, the Bhils had in the past been organised in warlike kinship groups that had prevented outside rulers from extending their control over the mountains. The British had subjugated such Bhils – with considerable difficulty – during the first half of the nineteenth century. Even afterwards, there were several revolts by them. The British believed that they had a moral duty to ‘civilise’ these ‘primitives’: to free them from the state of nature in which they were mired and bring them within the ambit of ‘history’. They were encouraged to practise a more settled and intensive agriculture. In many cases, they were excluded from large tracts of forest that they had previously controlled, so that state foresters could exploit the timber wealth of the woodlands.3 Landlords, usurers and liquor dealers who were protected by the colonial and princely states ruthlessly exploited those who became settled.4 A large proportion of the tribal belt of western India was ruled by Indian princes rather than directly by the British colonial state. Although nominally independent, these princes relied on British troops and British-run militias to maintain their control over their tribal subjects. This was the case in Mewar and the adjoining princely states of Rajasthan and Gujarat – the region that we are concerned with in this book – where the tribal people were predominantly of the Bhil community. James Tod, who served as Political Agent in Mewar from 1818 to 1822, stated that the ‘primitive inhabitants’ of that state were ‘content to be called’ Bhumiputra (‘Sons of the Earth’) or Vanaputra (‘Children of the Forest’). He saw them as a culturally distinct group.5 He also described them as ‘lawless’ or ‘wild tribes’ who were being given too much freedom by the princely rulers: Had the wild tribes been under the sole influence of British power, nothing would have been so simple as effectually, not only to control, but to conciliate and improve them; for it is a mortifying truth, that the more remote from civilization, the more tractable and easy to manage, more especially the Bhil.6

Unfortunately, according to Tod, ‘these children of nature’ were in these parts under the rule of oppressive feudal lords whose continuing misrule caused frequent revolts. The most influential of the earlier colonial texts relating to the Bhils was John Malcolm’s A Memoir of Central India, published in 1823. Malcolm, a general in the army of the East India Company, was sent in [ 21 ]

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1818 to establish British control over Malwa and southern Rajasthan. He said that it was hard to know the Bhils, due to ‘their dispersion over rugged mountains, their extreme ignorance and prejudices, and their repugnance to confidential intercourse with all except their own tribe’.7 Despite this, he attempted ‘some conjectures regarding the origin and progress of the tribe’. They were, he said, ‘a distinct race, insulated in their abodes, and separated by their habits, usages, and forms of worship, from the other tribes of India’.8 In the remote past they had been expelled to the woods and hill after they had slaughtered the favourite bull of the god Mahadev – a dire transgression in Hindu society. They became Nishada, or outcastes. From that time on ‘they have since dwelt, subsisting partly on their industry, but more on the plunder of the rich landholders in their vicinity’.9 Although some had settled down in the plains regions as peaceful cultivators, the ‘wild, or mountain Bheel’ continued to prefer ‘savage freedom and indolence to submission and industry, [and] have continued to subsist by plunder’.10 The plundering or wild Bheels, who reside among the hills, are a diminutive and wretched-looking race, whose appearance shews [sic] the poverty of their food; but they are nevertheless active and capable of great fatigue. They are professed robbers and thieves, armed with bows and arrows: they lie in wait for the weak and unprotected, while they flee from the strong. Ignorant and superstitious to a degree, they are devoted to their Turwees [chieftains], whose command is a law which they implicitly obey. The men, and still more the women, have their intellect formed by their condition; they are quick, have a kind of instinctive sense of danger, and are full of art and evasion. To kill another when their Turwee desires, or to suffer death themselves, appears to them a matter of indifference. The whole race are illiterate, and they are, without exception, fond of tobacco and liquor to excess. Their quarrels begin and end in drunken bouts . . .11

In Malcolm’s account, the ‘wild, or mountain’ Bhils were characterised by their animal-like or feral traits, as seen in their undomesticated habitat, their rudimentary and predatory forms of subsistence, their instinctive rather than considered reactions, their proclivity towards excess rather than a civilised moderation, their unreflective obedience to the leader of the pack, their pre-religious amorality, their superstition and their complete lack of learning. In every way, they were the mirror image of the civilised British, being a people that more than any other had to be disciplined and civilised. The missionaries who entered these territories later in the nineteenth century took such accounts as their guide. Thus, when the journal of the CMS, the Intelligencer, published an article on the Bhils in 1882, it reproduced large swathes of Malcolm’s text almost verbatim. The unstated assumption was that as the Bhils existed in a state of [ 22 ]

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nature, their condition would have remained largely unchanged since 1820. They were classed as ‘non-Aryans’, that is, as an aboriginal race that was distinct from the later Aryan invaders who had driven then into the hills.12 Even when the missionaries later provided more detailed descriptions of the Bhils that were based on their own enquiries and observations, they remained confined within these mental parameters. C. S. Thompson thus argued in an article of 1897 that those amongst whom he worked were in fact of mixed race, being descended in part from a pre-Aryan ‘primitive people’ of central India, as well as from Mongolian tribes that entered India before 1500 BC, and also from ‘predatory Rajput chiefs’ who had seized and married Bhil women after about 1000 AD. In this way he sought to explain the fact that he had observed many physical gradations amongst them, ‘from the man who is almost a pure Rajput in complexion and physique to the black and stunted inhabitant of the forest. Moreover, here and there may be noticed features which are distinctly Mongolian. There can, therefore, hardly be any doubt that the Bheels unite in themselves a strain of these aboriginal, Mongolian, and Rajput stocks.’13 It is clear from this passage that Thompson was unable to transcend a discourse of racial identity that was both fanciful and insidious. A feature of this discourse was that it conferred a homogenised identity on peoples who might be scattered over large regions, countries or even continents. Thus, a variety of groups that lived in hills and forests were categorised as ‘primitive tribes’ who were supposed to share similar global characteristics. Viewed through such a lens, Bhils might be seen to possess certain ‘negroid’ characteristics. An anonymous British traveller in western India in the early 1820s thus described the Bhils as ‘a short, thick-set people, with hideous countenances, flat noses, and thick lips, but far less handsome and finely formed men than the Africans; . . . they look stupid . . .. Their women are even more hideous than the men.’14 Rudyard Kipling made a similar sort of comparison over sixty years later on a visit to Mewar State, where he had observed some Bhils whose speech, he claimed, ‘seems to possess some variant of the Zulu click, which gives it a weird and unearthly character’.15 In fact, the language of the Mewari Bhils was very close to the neighbouring Gujarati, as was discovered by the missionaries when they began to translate the Gospel for their benefit. The Bhils – who were found throughout a belt of hills and mountains in western India that stretched over 300 kilometres from north to south and in places 150 kilometres from east to west – were all lumped together as one unique ethnic and cultural category. It was assumed that ‘the Bhil’ everywhere had practically identical traits, so that an observation of a Bhil in one area could be taken to apply to all Bhils [ 23 ]

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everywhere. Thus, what John Malcolm had to say about the Bhils of Malwa around 1820 was taken to apply to Bhils everywhere and at all times. In many cases, a stereotypical model of ‘primitivism’ appears to have been the starting point for a description, with observations being recorded only when they accorded with it. This appears to have been the case with one sweeping generalisation made about the Bhils by the author of the Rajputana Gazetteer of 1879: ‘They are a dirty race. The men wear their hair long, and hanging in uncombed masses over their shoulders. The women are small and ugly’.16 Many counterobservations might have been made – but they were not – as they would have opposed the pre-conceived stereotype. Given that this was the case, we are presented with a problem. With our knowledge of these people in the past coming from such tainted sources, is it possible for us to know anything about them that is more than an objectionable caricature? Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has raised the question as to what extent, if any, the outside observer can represent the subaltern.17 Given the chasm that exists between those who inhabit a space of privilege and those who do not, any representation runs the risk of being an exercise in bad faith. Too often, the outsider inflicts her or his beliefs on the subaltern, whether these are of a racialist, religious, conservative, nationalist, socialist, feminist, environmentalist or any other bent. In such a situation, she feels, ‘the subaltern cannot speak’.18 Despite this, she goes on to argue that the outsider with a moral commitment to the poor and oppressed may communicate across this divide, so long as she or he steers clear of all ‘missionary claims’ – that is avoids any assertion that the subaltern is endorsing any pre-conceived ideological position.19 What is required above all is moral sympathy and empathy. While endorsing this entirely, I would add that we also need to locate the subaltern subject within a clearly defined space and historical time. In this way, we may avoid the sweeping and ahistorical generalities that are commonly deployed in such descriptions. In the rest of this chapter, I shall attempt to do this for the Bhils of this book by locating my observations within such a finite area and time, namely the tracts inhabited predominantly by Bhils that lay in the princely states of Mewar and Dungapur in Rajasthan and the immediately adjoining states of Idar and Pol in Gujarat – which were the areas in which the CMS mission worked – in the second half of the nineteenth century. The historically specific detail is valued over the broad and ahistorical statement. From this base, we may then – if we wish – go on to make comparative observations drawn from carefully defined subaltern groups elsewhere. Following this, in researching this history, I have travelled through the region and interviewed many women and men of the community, [ 24 ]

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in the process gaining – so I hope – a sympathetic rapport with them. I have also sought out documents from the past that were created in a stated context, locality and situation and which are rich in detail. Although they will inevitably give voice to the prejudices of the writer, the detail should be sufficient to allow us to distinguish their particular prejudices and go on to provide a reading ‘against the grain’. My starting point in this respect is an article written by Thomas Hendley of the Indian Medical Service, who served as an assistant surgeon at the small military hospital of the Mewar Bhil Corps at Kherwara during the 1870s. He was in daily contact with his Bhil patients, and he took an active interest in them and their way of life. He also talked at length with a local thakor, or feudal overlord, called Gambhir Sing. Major Gunning, the commandant of the Bhil corps, read Hendley’s first draft and added more details. The resulting forty-two-page account was published in 1875.20 Before looking at this report, something needs to be said about the Mewar Bhil Corps (MBC),21 as it was a critical element within the politics of this region at that time. It had been established in 1840, following the example of the Bhil corps established in 1825 in Khandesh, Maharashtra, by James Outram. He and his successors had acted as a new type of paternalistic overlord, learning the Bhils’ dialect, getting to know their mountains intimately, hunting with them, participating in their festivities and acting as an unofficial judiciary.22 Outram was promoted in 1835 to be the Political Agent for the Mahi Kantha agency, being in charge of overseeing the princely states in Gujarat bordering Mewar and other parts of southern Rajasthan, some of which had large Bhil populations. He soon found that these hills were almost completely out of the control of either the British or the Indian rulers.23 After considerable persuasion, the ruler of Udaipur, the Maharana,24 gave his consent to the establishment of a Bhil corps in his territory. Its officers were British, with a few Indian soldiers posted from elsewhere serving as non-commissioned officers in charge of the Bhils.25 Kherwara was chosen as the headquarters because the Bhils of that immediate area were considered somewhat less turbulent than those further into the mountains. Kherwara – ‘the place of the kher tree’ – was about eighty kilometres to the south of Udaipur on the main road to Gujarat. It lay at an elevation of about 300 metres in a valley between hills.26 Recruitment began in late 1840, and soon about 400 Bhils had been enrolled as sepoys (soldiers).27 About two-thirds of the costs were borne by the British, about one-third by the Mewar State. A hospital was sanctioned for the corps at Kherwara, and the first doctor arrived later in 1841.28 Another small hospital was set up at Kotada,29 in the west of the Mewar hill tracts, when a subsidiary base for the Corps was established [ 25 ]

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there soon after. They predated the first clinics established by Mewar State itself, the first of these being a dispensary opened in Udaipur in 1864. In 1869–70 a small hospital was opened at Kherwara for the civil population that was maintained partly from a grant by the state and partly from private subscriptions.30 Hendley was posted to Kherwara to work as a doctor for the MBC in 1871. Hendley – with his medical training – considered himself a man of science, and during his long career in India he was to publish many scholarly articles based on his observations of the people and the country. In 1875 – still a junior doctor – he was in the vanguard of a new scientific racialism that held that racial characteristics could be measured physically. The Anthropological Society of London, founded in 1863, was at that time propagating the theory that ‘savages’ were of a different species from civilised Europeans, and some of its leading figures sought to prove this by measuring and comparing the crania of different peoples. Its racialist views were extremely popular in Britain during the 1860s and 1870s.31 Hendley’s posting to Kherwara provided him with an excellent opportunity to carry out what he called an ‘ethnology’ of the Bhils that was based on observations of their physical characteristics and measurements. He did this in 1874, subjecting 129 soldiers of the corps to his measuring tape, recording their height, the length of various limbs and parts of limbs, body proportions and head dimensions. He concluded that they were ‘a small-handed race’, with small chest and pelvis. The head measurements revealed that ‘the Bhil skull is but slightly dolicho-cephalic, very different from the long thin walled crania of the pure Hindu.’ He set out his observations of their physical appearance – their dark skin, straight black hair, foreheads that were ‘rather more square than amongst Hindus’, ‘nose slightly retroussé, broad, clubbed at the tip, and rather more varied than the dead level organ of the Hindu,’ ‘mouths large, lips thick, inexpressive, sensual’, ‘expression amiable, but timid’, ‘the dilated large nostrils, the moveable and prominent ear are very suggestive of distrust’. Teeth were large and horselike, adapted to chewing their staple food of coarse maize. He was not sure that his measurements provided a ‘certain proof’ that the Hindu and Bhil races were distinct, though he believed that they were, the Bhils most likely being descendants of the ancient inhabitants of India, the Dasyas, who were described in the Vedas as ‘goat-nosed, the noseless, the black-skinned’.32 For all its seeming scientific rigour, this exercise dripped with moral judgement. Despite this, the detail in other parts of the article is sufficient to allow us to go beyond such racialist stereotypes. The ‘ethnology’ that is so objectionable to present-day sensibilities was set out in the article only towards the end, with a range of far less value-loaded descriptions [ 26 ]

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of the Bhils of the Kherwara area preceding it. It is these that I shall look at, comparing them with other representations if necessary. According to Hendley, the Mewar Bhils inhabited the southernmost ranges of the Aravali Mountains of Rajasthan. This was ‘a wonderfully interlaced series of hills, alternating with defiles, with barely a valley, much less a plain anywhere. Streams pour down every ridge to feed the numerous rivers’.33 The hilltops were often forested, with much teak and bamboo and a dense undergrowth. Around Kherwara, however, the hilltops were bare. In this region, the Bhils lived in discrete territories called pals that consisted of a collection of houses scattered widely over an area, houses being sometimes up to a kilometre apart. Hendley mentioned one such pal – Burla – which had a thousand houses and which occupied a considerable stretch of territory.34 A house was normally built on the side of a hill at an elevated spot, allowing the inhabitant to escape quickly into the hills if an enemy approached. A platform was constructed of stones and earth, and the walls were built of stone, with a roof of tiles supported by timber beams. These buildings were, Hendley said, ‘substantial, commodious, and clean, often having a courtyard in the centre’. In general, high-caste people did not reside in the pals, but in the village of the local lord – the thakor. These latter places consisted of the thakor’s fort, erected on a small hill and surrounded by houses, all of which was enclosed by a wall.35 Although the Bhils were often described stereotypically as poor and slovenly farmers, practising only a rudimentary shifting agriculture (this being something they were seen to have in common with ‘primitive tribes’ everywhere), Hendley’s account reveals a very different reality. He describes how they erected walls of stone and earth across the valleys, creating series of interlinked fields through which rainwater flowed. These permanent fields were planted with rice, maize and other crops. They created temporary fields on the hillsides by burning debris from the forest on a patch that they then enclosed with a rough hedge of thorns so as to keep animals out. When the rains came, they ploughed this land and sowed seeds broadcast. Maize was the chief crop. It may be noted that this was an American staple introduced to India by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, and it is likely that its drought-resistant qualities had allowed for a considerable extension of cultivation in these dry tracts – and a greater population density – in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Bhils kept cows and goats, which the women would take into the hills to graze. The number of cattle owned was considered an indicator of a family’s wealth.36 They ate meat of most kinds, relishing goat in particular, and not eating pork and beef. Hendley felt that they would have eaten beef if they dared, but: ‘Some time since a Thakor cut off the legs of two eaters of the [ 27 ]

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sacred cow and plunged the stumps into boiling oil.’37 Bhil men hunted for food, being excellent trackers and particularly adept at killing hares or catching fish.38 Bhils could earn cash by taking grass, wood, honey and ghee for sale to villages and towns where there were caste Hindus. They used the money to purchase ornaments, arrows and various necessities that they could not make themselves, as well as liquor. Both men and women enjoyed a drink, though men tended to consume more than women. The liquor (daru) was distilled from the flower of the mahuda tree and was known locally as phul daru, or ‘flower liquor’. Families were considered to have a right to each mahuda tree, however remote it might be in the forest. Hendley found the liquor to be rather weak in alcoholic strength; he had had to re-distil it twice before it would burn a spirit lamp.39 The overall ruler of the Mewar Bhils was the Maharana. A few were directly subject to him, but most lived in the estates of the thakors – his feudatories. The thakors were meant to pay a proportion of their income to the state, and were also obliged to provide horsemen and foot soldiers when the Maharana demanded it. According to Hendley, they were mostly pure Rajputs, though a few were of ‘mixed race’, being descended from the union of Bhil women and Rajput men, though they still claimed Rajput status.40 Other evidence suggests that such claims were relatively recent in origin and still tentative. Tod, fifty years before, had described one such thakor as a Bhil overlord who could assemble five thousand bowmen when he gave the command.41 In 1868, a British political agent stated that certain Bhils of this region were under their own chiefs, some of whom were powerful enough to maintain their own courts.42 In 1902, it was stated that these particular ‘Bhil’ chiefs now claimed to be pure Rajputs.43 Although Hendley considered that the remainder of the thakors – who were the overlords of a much larger area – were ‘pure’ Rajputs, it is probable that in many cases they were the descendants of Bhil chiefs who in the course of time had been able to gain acceptance for such a claim. Becoming such an overlord provided, therefore, an important means by which Bhils could improve their social status. The ethos associated with such a lifestyle – such as the valorisation of martial deeds, a strong sense of family and clan honour that was seen often to rest in the ‘purity’ of female members, a rigid patriarchy, devotion towards clan goddesses and Hindu deities and conformity to caste-based rules of purity, pollution and hierarchy – were consequently ones that percolated through Bhil society in greater or lesser degrees. Up until the around the mid-nineteenth century, the Bhils generally saw their thakor as a protector. They could for example look to support [ 28 ]

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from their thakor in a feud with the Bhils of a neighbouring thakor, or perhaps anticipate that their thakor would shelter them after they had carried out a marauding raid on the plains, providing a cut from the proceeds in recompense.44 The situation was relatively fluid, with thakors who were able to command a loyal following and who had the necessary political skills enhancing their position within the Rajput polity at the expense of other less able and popular thakors. During the colonial period, the opportunity for such advancement was largely curtailed, as rights were clearly defined and estates mapped out. The thakors now came to be regarded as landlords who paid a tribute to their ruler and who were in turn granted the power to collect rent from their ‘tenants’ – the mass of the Bhils. Although they were meant to be responsible for maintaining law and order in their estates, they in fact had little control in the pals, and the ‘justice’ they exercised was generally spasmodic and arbitrary, though at times it could be very vicious, as we have seen from Hendley’s report on the way in which one thakor dealt with cow-killing Bhils. The headman of a pal was known as the gameti. The position was normally hereditary, subject to the confirmation of the thakor. The leading Bhil elders constituted a village council, or panchayat, that heard all sorts of cases, whether involving crimes or social problems. The normal punishment awarded was a fine.45 The report of 1864 added to this that the gameti had little authority as an individual, and if he tried to punish another member of the pal on his own initiative this would be resented and could cause a feud. He therefore always called the panchayat before taking action. Although there was no very pronounced hierarchy in Bhil society as compared to the caste-based society of the plains regions, the gameti and elders were in a position of authority, being responsible for maintaining the cohesion and unity of their pal. They were considered to have a duty to insist that individual members conform to the ethos of the group, and transgressions would be punished with a range of fines and social sanctions. Bhil women normally married soon after puberty, and they had to take a husband who was of a different clan from that of their father. Often, this meant that they married outside the pal in which they had been born and raised. The bridegroom’s father had to pay a brideprice to the girl’s father – normally a small amount such as Rs. 1.12.0 with a quantity of rice. Men were allowed to take as many wives as they could afford. Women could leave their husbands, and there was no prohibition on widow remarriage.46 Bhil women rarely had affairs with nonBhils: ‘An attempt of this kind on the part of a foreigner lately gave rise to trouble, the whole pal resenting the outrage.’ Sexual relationships outside marriage were frowned on, and a woman with a bad reputation [ 29 ]

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in this respect would find it hard to be married, and if she did, she and her husband would be treated as outcastes. Adultery was considered a major transgression, and adulterers were fined a large sum – the equivalent of Rs. 187. Women could be divorced for adultery, the case being settled by the panchayat.47 This was clearly a patriarchal society – women had little power in the pal within which they were married. Hendley stated that the Mewar Bhils mainly worshipped local deities, many of whom were believed to reside on particular hills or mountains. He had seen one such shrine on the side of a hill near Kherwara, consisting of a cairn of stones with platforms on which were placed clay dishes in which ghee or oil had been burnt, and small stone or earthenware effigies of horses. Hendley noted that clay horses were offered in a similar way at shrines in many parts of India outside the tribal regions. Long bamboo poles had also been erected by the cairn, on which were attached cloth flags, like those found at Hindu, Muslim and even Christian shrines in India. The Bhils also built stone platforms on which were erected upright slabs. These slabs were sometimes plain, in some cases daubed with red paint and named after a deity – normally Mahadev – and sometimes carved to represent Hanuman, who Hendley felt was as much an ‘aboriginal’ as Hindu deity. He listed a number of local deities, mostly goddesses, to whom sacrifices of goats were made. The foremost deity for the Bhils around Kherwara was the goddess Samuda Mata. Her sthan, or place, was near the village of Dhelana, about thirteen kilometres north of Kherwara. There was a shrine to another goddess called Vajar Mata in a valley at Jawara, where there were old silver and lead mines. Bhil women worshipped the murti (image) of this deity to ensure their fertility. Hendley noted that the officers of the MBC often rested in the shrine during the hot part of the day while on marches, with the permission of its priest. The mines were now disused, and the Bhil soldiers of the corps felt that this had caused the power of the goddess to decline. Their priests were of the Jogi caste.48 Hendley observed that Bhils generally esteemed saintly people who came to stay in their region, such as mendicant Brahmans, fakirs and bairagis, and they paid their respects at their tomb-shrines after they had died. This appreciation had nonetheless to be earned. Hendley cited the case of a fakir who was attacked by Bhils near Kherwara, with his tongue being torn out and his face mutilated, as he had concealed a rupee in his mouth, which they took as a mark of his hypocrisy.49 Hendley also observed that the death rituals of the Bhils were similar to those of the Hindus, as they cremated their dead. The bones that remained were either buried or taken for immersion at a sacred spot. In this, the Mewar Bhils appeared to be more Hinduised than the Bhils of Malwa, who were reported to bury their dead.50 [ 30 ]

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Hendley argued that ‘the religion of the Bhils is one of ignorance and fear, modified more or less by contact with powerful and formed faiths’.51 In other words, a base of ‘primitive’ beliefs and rituals was – in his view – overlaid unevenly with the beliefs of more ‘advanced’ religious systems, most notably that of the Brahmans. A similar notion informed a statement by another British ethnographer: ‘It is not easy to describe the religion of the Bhils as they are all in stages of civilisation from the wild fetish and nature worshippers having no idea of a divine being to the peaceful peasant who observes most of the details of popular Hinduism.’52 As Aron Gurevich has pointed out, many scholars have tried to analyse the degree to which supposedly ancient ‘pagan’ beliefs survive in later religions. He is critical of such exercises, as they are based on an idea of ‘pure’ forms of religion – such as the ‘animism’ or ‘totemism’ of the ‘primitive’, or the codified systems of belief of the Christian, Muslim or Hindu. Rituals and beliefs are analysed in terms of various deviations from the norm. Gurevich argues that it is preferable to think in terms of a synthesis that has its own integrity that is particular to a place and time: ‘This synthesis is alogical to Cartesian minds, but real at the level of daily practice.’53 As an example, Gurevich notes how in medieval England the Virgin Mary was popularly treated as a local deity, so that her individual images in a variety of shrines were each believed to have a particular degree of curative efficacy.54 Approaching the matter of the beliefs and rituals of the Bhils from such a perspective, we can see that what Hendley observed represented a discrete local system. Many of the deities that the Bhils worshipped were particular to them, but there were also various points at which their system overlapped with the beliefs and rituals of non-Bhils. Their reverence (in general) for saintly mendicants provided one such example. Carstairs mentioned that some Brahmans had established shrines in the Bhil tracts to deities such as Krishna, Shiva and Ganesh and that the Bhils made offerings to the deities and their Brahman priests.55 There were also some important temples in the Bhil tract that were visited by pilgrims from outside the area, such as Shamlaji and Rikhabnath, and these were revered by the local Bhils. Shamlaji – a Vaisnavite temple – lay just beyond the border with Mewar, in Idar State of Gujarat: ‘here is a lake with a very ancient temple much resorted to by the Bhils, especially at the time of the great winter fair’.56 According to an oral tradition of the Bhils, a Bhil farmer found the murti of Vishnu that is worshipped in the temple at Shamlaji and was told by some Brahmans to establish a temple for it. Initially, Bhils were involved in running the temple, but gradually the Brahmans took over.57 Rikhabnath was only fifteen kilometres from Kherwara, and was a Jain temple of the Digambar sect that had been rebuilt on the site of [ 31 ]

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an earlier shrine in 1374.58 It was visited annually by thousands of people from Rajasthan and Gujarat. The principal murti, hewn from black marble, represented the first of the great Jain prophets (tirthamkar), Rikhabnath. The Bhils had great reverence for this deity, which they worshipped as Kalaji – or the ‘black one’ – and it was reported by Erskine that ‘an oath by Kalaji is one of the most solemn a Bhil of these parts can take’.59

The health of the Bhils In his report, Hendley claimed that in general ‘The Bhils are a healthy race.’ In making this claim, he appears to have been guided more by certain notions current at that time about the ‘healthy primitive’ than by any reality on the ground. In common with many other medical men of that era, he appears to have believed that ‘primitive’ people were less subject to the ravages of illness than the more ‘civilised’. As the French physician Tissot had stated just before the Revolution: ‘Before the advent of civilisation, people had only the simplest, most necessary diseases. Peasants and workers still remain close to the basic nosological table; the simplicity of their lives allows it to show through in its reasonable order: they have none of those variable, complex, intermingled nervous ills, but down-to-earth apoplexies, or uncomplicated attacks of mania.’60 It was believed that as people improved their condition of life, and as the social network tightened its grip around individuals, ‘health seems to diminish by degrees’. Diseases became diversified and combined with one another – in Tissot’s words: ‘their number is already great in the superior order of the bourgeoisie; . . . it is as great as possible in people of quality’.61 Writing in such a vein a century later, Hendley said of the Bhils: ‘Insanity is uncommon, perhaps unknown as we should expect in a savage race with the mind rude and uncultivated and little to excite it. I have never seen a case of mania, and only one or two of dementia in old age’.62 More recently, other reasons have been advanced to explain what is claimed to be the relatively good health of groups such as the Bhils. One is that they were protected from many contagious diseases through their isolation in the hills. This adopts the sort of argument put forward by Kingsley Davis, who has suggested that India as a whole was comparatively free of much epidemic disease before colonial times thanks to its relative isolation.63 Following this, it might appear that it was the opening up of these tracts to outsiders from the late nineteenth century onwards that led to a decline in health. It has also been claimed that in many parts of India hill- and forest-dwelling people had a built-in resistance to one of the most devastating diseases of the subcontinent – [ 32 ]

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malaria. It is held that such people had developed sickle cell anaemia, which, though debilitating, conferred immunity to malaria.64 Outsiders, who lacked such immunity, could not survive in these tracts, and it was this, rather than any great military prowess on the part of such hilldwellers, that allowed them to maintain control over their mountain and forest tracts.65 It is not easy to evaluate whether or not there was indeed an increase in contagious or other diseases amongst the Bhils during the colonial period, as we have no clear evidence of their state of health in the precolonial period. What we do know is that when doctors and missionaries began to treat them on a regular basis from the late nineteenth century onwards, they were found to be suffering from a wide range of diseases and maladies. Dr James Shepherd, who treated a good number of Bhils at his hospital at Udaipur from the 1880s onwards, found that their chief complaints were malaria, dysentery, rheumatism and ‘cough’ or phthisis (e.g. tuberculosis). Many Bhils had sores that needed dressing or broken bones to be set. Shepherd’s surgical skill also attracted patients – surgery being a clinical facility that was nowhere else available in Mewar State at that time. ‘When it became known that eyes could be given to the blind, old men would occasionally be led in to be operated on for cataract.’66 Similarly, C. S. Thompson, in his report on his first medical work in villages near Kherwara in 1881, mentioned the prevalence of ‘fevers’ and enlarged spleens (a symptom of chronic malaria), headaches, eye complaints, blindness, deafness and rheumatism.67 When Thompson published a primer on the Bhil language in 1895, he included a vocabulary that listed words used by Bhil for a wide range of diseases and complaints, each with what he considered to be the English equivalent. Although not qualified as a doctor, he had been healing the Bhils using allopathic remedies for over a decade, and so knew of these maladies and the terms used by the Bhils to describe them when they came to him for treatment. They included abscesses (gubadu), ague (taado taav), asthma (haah sadvo), catarrh accompanied by a burning fever (kasro), cholera (kogaliu), cough (udaraha or thobarajyo), diarrhoea (jhaado or hagaamanu), dropsy (jalandaro), epilepsy (umar), sores on the feet (piduon), intermittent fever (kantro tav), fourth day fever (chothio tav), griping pains (vad), guinea worm (valo), headache (-nu kapal sadvu or sadi javu), indigestion (dakari), infection (sotu), influenza (thobrajyo), leprosy (kod), lock-jaw (dant khanhali), lumpy swelling (varholi), measles (ori mata), mumps (ratva), ophthalmia (ank avani), paralysis in the legs or arms (-na tantya rahi java), plague (rog), quartan fever (kantro tav), rheumatism (vai, kaltar or vadol), ringworm (dadar), smallpox (mata), enlarged spleen (badol), [ 33 ]

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throat disease (galjibi), tonsillitis (kagalo), tumour (ganth or damru) and ulcer (sandi).68 The list covers most of the complaints noted by Shepherd and Thompson in their list of the main prevalent maladies, as well as many others. There is no mention of tuberculosis, but this probably was classed under ‘cough’ so far as the Bhils were concerned. The reports suggest that even if there was a degree of resistance to malaria, it was still a chronic and debilitating disease for large numbers of Bhils. The high incidence of malaria in this region was highlighted also by a report for the hospital at Idar town for 1875–76, which reported that the most common complaint, making up about 23 per cent of all cases examined, was febris intermittens.69 This was most probably the common form of malaria known now as Plasmodium vivax, which is characterised by a severe chill followed by a high fever. This tended to recur periodically, with red blood cells being destroyed, and those who went without treatment often became severely anaemic, with enlarged and hardened spleens. In some cases, the liver also became enlarged and the skin jaundiced.70 The many Bhils who suffered from chronic malaria would have survived in a severely debilitated state. This picture is one that is clearly at odds with the one of the malaria-resistant hill-dweller. Reports by missionaries who treated the Bhils in these years reinforce this picture. W. B. Collins, writing in 1893, thus noted how: ‘Just now malarial fever is the rage, and Epson salts and quinine go fast’.71 Writing eight years later, Dr Jane Birkett stated: ‘Everybody in this valley seems to be down with fever, and almost everyone has a huge spleen.’72 In the following year she reported: Malarial fever with immense enlargement of the spleen is the commonest ailment, and it is quite pitiful to see the extent of anaemia and debility from which the whole population suffers in consequence. Tiny babies, only a few weeks old often had spleens the size of the palm of my hand, beyond their ribs; and adults often present a hard smooth tumour which passes from the L. ribs to well over the right of the middle line, and even into the R. iliac fosa.

She regretted that she had no facilities to examine people’s blood for malarial parasites.73 An epidemic disease that was almost certainly widespread in these tracts in the pre-colonial period was that of smallpox. In his report of 1875, Hendley singles it out for attention, stating that it was greatly feared by the Bhils; for them it was a killer. He noted that they practised their own form of inoculation against this disease, and they preferred this to Western-style vaccination.74 In a later account, Hendley provided more detail of their inoculation technique. They dipped a [ 34 ]

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grain of dust into the pustule of a smallpox patient and then inserted this into the skin of a healthy person with the help of a needle. While doing so they invoked the smallpox goddess.75 As was common throughout India, the Bhils believed that in cases of smallpox the body of the sufferer was possessed by a goddess (mata) and thus made feverish. Helen Lambert has described how even in recent times villagers in Rajasthan have held communal ceremonies of worship to placate such goddesses and thus protect themselves from the disease.76 The invocation of the goddess by the Bhils during inoculation would seem to have had a similar aim. All of this indicates that smallpox was long established in this region. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the British tried to popularise their own method of vaccination amongst the Bhils. The Mahi Kantha agency, for example, employed a team of vaccinators, and periodic attempts were made to persuade Bhils to make use of the facility. In 1863–64, the team travelled to a region bordering Mewar and tried to get the local Bhils to bring their children for vaccination, without any success.77 In 1883 the political agent reported that throughout the region the Bhils were the only significant group that still refused vaccination.78 Practising as they did their own system of variolation, they appear to have rejected a preventive measure administered by people whom they had no particular reason to trust. By contrast, they appear to have largely escaped the other major and most dreaded epidemic disease of nineteenth-century India – cholera. Hendley stated that it was very rare amongst the Bhils of this region. Other sources, nonetheless, report some incidence of the disease in the tract – for example, nine cases were reported at the annual fair at Shamlaji, in the heart of the Bhil country, in 1889, of which five proved fatal. This outbreak does not appear to have spread beyond the town.79 Nonetheless, Thompson’s primer showed that the Bhils had a term for the disease – kogaliu. Some years after Hendley wrote, in 1900, there was a devastating cholera epidemic in the region, as we shall see in Chapter 4. We may speculate that the relative isolation of the Bhils appears to have protected them to some degree from this epidemic disease up until the end of the nineteenth century. This was not the case with either tuberculosis or pneumonia, both of which appear to have been widespread amongst the Bhils. Dr James Shepherd, when reporting many cases of tuberculosis among the Bhils he treated at his hospital at Udaipur, expressed his surprise, as he had assumed – following beliefs about tuberculosis prevalent in his day – that the bracing air found in the hills would have kept the disease at bay.80 Writing in 1901, Dr Jane Birkett also noted the high incidence of phthisis, or tuberculosis, amongst Bhils.81 Other missionaries mentioned the high incidence of pneumonia. Writing in 1896, E. P. Herbert wrote how [ 35 ]

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he was ‘saddened by the nightly wailings, for there were many deaths from pneumonia, and no doctors.’82 Dr Birkett, in her above-mentioned report of 1901, said that she was called on fairly frequently to treat cases of acute pluro-pneumonia, a disease that was particularly dreaded by the Bhils as it normally led to death. She went on to note that the Bhils knew it as ‘the Gujarati sickness’, which suggests – perhaps – that it had come from outside this region within living memory. The evidence on infectious and contagious disease is thus mixed – some were almost certainly of long standing, while others were becoming major problems for the Bhils only around this time. The Bhils also suffered from many other minor infections, various chronic complaints and parasitic infestations. The hospital report for Idar of 1875–76 listed, in order of importance after malaria, chronic rheumatism (15 per cent of all case), ‘ulcers’ (9 per cent), porrigo (a disease of the scalp) (6 per cent), constipation, influenza, eye diseases and scabies (each about 4 per cent), and psoriasis (a skin disease), acute rheumatism, acute dysentery and ear infections (each about 3 per cent).83 The missionaries frequently remarked on how much the Bhils suffered from skin infections, sores and ulcers. In 1886, G. Litchfield stated that ‘The poor untaught people continually come to me, with old sores of long standing which they expect to be cured on the spot . . .’.84 Dr Birkett reported in 1901 that skin and eye infections came second only to malaria in the number of cases she was called on to treat.85 Hendley attributed the widespread prevalence of such skin disorders, as well as parasitical infestation, to ‘the filthiness of the people, whose legs often remain coated for days with mud’. He himself had carried out research on guinea worm infestation amongst the Bhils of the MBC that had been published in The Indian Medical Gazette in 1872. This was a problem that affected the Bhils in particular – the non-Bhils of Kherwara town, he said, rarely suffered from it. He believed that the worms entered into the skin of the Bhils as they were bathing in or wading through dirty pools of water. People did not die of it, but it caused great debilitation.86 Dr Birkett, writing nearly thirty years later, similarly reported that guinea worm was a major problem during the rainy season, and sufferers often had four or five abscesses on one leg. She mentioned the case of one abscess that had developed so badly that the patient eventually died. Ringworm was also widely prevalent.87 The missionaries also reported many minor eye infections that could, if left untreated, develop into a serious threat to a person’s vision. There were numerous cases of cataract, which could be operated on to good effect if a qualified missionary had the appropriate facilities, as did Dr Shepherd at his hospital in Udaipur. Birkett also described how she was called on to treat a cancerous tumour, cancer of the lip (it is notable [ 36 ]

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in this context that the Bhils were great consumers of tobacco), a very large hernia and a grossly swollen leg.88 Hendley, in his report, noted, nonetheless, that venereal disease was unknown among the Bhils, which, he believed, provided proof of their general sexual restraint. Goitre, also, was never seen.

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Bhil practices of healing Left to their own devices, the Bhils sought to cure such diseases and disorders in a range of ways. In the first instance, if a disease persisted for more than a day or two, they generally sought a cure in various herb, root or tree products. Although we know from studies of other parts of India that people such as the Bhils were highly skilled in the use of such remedies, the historical evidence from this region is very scanty.89 Hendley reported that the Bhils used the roots of certain plants or leaves of trees. For example, a small shrub called bhut bhangra was dried and powdered and used to treat open wounds. If a purulent wound was caused by the bite of a tiger, a cure was obtained from the kajera tree. Sat or bara mula was used in cases of fever accompanied with dry swollen tongue and bad smell, and as a mouthwash. Hendley lists only eight such herbal remedies,90 but there must have been many more. He also stated that the ‘priests are the chief physicians, although most old men are supposed to know something about medicine’.91 By this, he presumably meant medicines derived from herbs and tree products that were obtained locally. Dr Birkett similarly reported how guinea worm infestations were treated with a poultice of leaves that caused the abscess to burst and evacuate the worm.92 Hendley mentioned another common method of treatment: ‘The remedy for everything is the actual cautery; few adults, few children, and even animals are without scars’.93 Dr Birkett reported that ‘Amongst the Bhils fire seems to be the great therapeutic agent. Most of them are marked with an arrow-head in the pit of the stomach; this was done to cure cholera. Scars from burns are also on their legs and arms.’94 Such cauterisation was not peculiar to the Bhils; it was used throughout the region at that time, notably amongst the caste Hindus of the plains. For Bhils, the rationale for this practice was that it drove away the malign spirit that was causing the problem, as such spirits feared fire.95 In this case, the efficacy of what might appear to have been a physical form of treatment – cauterisation – was seen to lie in its ability to drive out the malign. Here, we enter into the realm of exterior malign forces. The missionary-anthropologist P. O. Bodding argued, for example, that the Santals of eastern India considered that people had a [ 37 ]

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right to good health, and disease was therefore ‘something foreign and inimical’ to them. ‘They will not say, as we do, that somebody catches a cold, or gets measles, etc. It is always the other way: it is the disease which catches, makes a commencement with, attacks, or overpowers man.’ In many cases, a disease would run its course without any specific healing intervention, but if it continued, then it became clear that the malign force was of such power that it had to be countered through action. In some cases, a deity had become displeased with the sick person for a particular reason, and this deity had to be propitiated through various sacrifices and rituals. In other cases, a bonga, or evil spirit, was believed to be devouring a person. In some cases, witches deliberately used such bongas against people whom they wished to harm. The only remedy was to combat both the bonga and the witch in an appropriate manner.96 Similarly, for the Bhils, it appears that it was above all the obduracy of a malady that determined its treatment. Herbal remedies might be tried in the first instance, but if these failed a ritual specialist would be sought out, such as a bhopa or mendicant. It was assumed that invisible forces or spirits that affected the lives of the living pervaded the world. These forces were Janus-faced, being both benign and malign in differing proportions. The aim in any mode of treatment was to reinforce the benign while weakening the malign. Even a herbal preparation was seen not merely as a ‘natural’ medicine for an illness located in the physical world, but as a remedy that possessed numinous qualities that might be endowed more effectively with benign power through ritual. These sorts of consideration were seen in a case of 1843 in which a Bhil called Rupa of Pol State sought a cure from a sadhu. The information comes from the testimony of Rupa’s brother in a court of law. After his wife fell ill, Rupa approached a sadhu for help, and the sadhu advised him to go to the liquor shop at a nearby village to purchase some liquor, after which he promised that he would provide a charm that would make her better. The charm would be both created and bestowed in a ritual ceremony conducted by the sadhu. In general, the liquor that was demanded at such times was used in part for libations during the ritual, but the healer himself would consume the bulk of it afterwards. In this sense, it might be seen as a form of payment for services rendered. However, in an argument with a state official who later murdered him, Rupa was said by his brother to have described the liquor as ‘medicine’.97 The term can hardy have been used in the modern clinical sense of the term, for liquor – with its consciousnesschanging qualities – was seen to have a certain power to enchant. It might also be noted that in Ayurvedic medicine, liquor was seen to [ 38 ]

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have beneficial heating properties – a popular Ayurvedic remedy was, for example, known as safed daru (white liquor), and it is likely that the sadhu was influenced by this sort of understanding also.98 In all of this, the desire was to create an effect in which the malign in all its multiple manifestations would be countered by the benign. Doctors who came from a clinical background were both perplexed and annoyed by the way in which people such as the Bhils utilised what they saw as ‘supernatural’ means to combat what was for them selfevidently a ‘natural’ condition that was susceptible to reasoned analysis and treatment based on scientific principles. Any healer who failed to act according to such principles – such as the above-mentioned sadhu – was, for them, a charlatan who was bamboozling and exploiting the gullible through trickery. The mental chasm between the doctors who came to practice amongst the Bhils from the late nineteenth century onwards and the Bhils themselves was not easily bridged. In later chapters, I shall trace the history of this encounter – a narrative of continuing misunderstanding and bad feeling. First, however, I shall say something about the strong belief that the Bhils had in the malign power of witches, the methods they used to counter this and the efforts that the British took to eradicate such practices in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Illness and the supernatural Hendley observed that the Bhils believed that some people – mainly women – had the ability to cause sickness, misfortune or death. It was considered that they were in touch with malevolent spirits, such as bhuts and churails (male and female departed spirits), and they could cause them to attack a person through their malign glance. They were known as dakran (Hindi – dakini), which was translated normally by the British, including Hendley, as ‘witch’. Many Bhils wore charms or amulets on their right forearms or – with women especially – on their heads to keep such spirits at bay. The charms consisted generally of a piece of blue string with seven knots that were tied by an exorcist while he chanted incantations.99 What Hendley failed to mention, but had come out in an earlier report by a commandant of the Bhil corps, was that women who possessed such powers were also valued for the protection that they were believed to be able to provide for their own families. ‘To protect themselves from the consequences of being bewitched they will not marry into a family in which there is not a reputed witch to defend them from others of her species, and these again, as in England in former days, do everything to encourage, for the sake of the influence thereby acquired, [ 39 ]

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this belief in their supernatural power.’100 The dakran was thus an important figure within a village politics that revolved around rivalries between families. In serious cases of alleged witchcraft, such as a sudden and unexpected death, the attribute could have tragic consequences for the woman concerned. In such cases, an exorcist – called a bhopa – was employed to name the witch responsible. Any one who is willing and has a grievance, sickness, or otherwise, has only to bribe a witch-finder sufficiently to obtain a victim, generally the wife or relative of an enemy, who is at once swung, head downwards, on a tree, where she is tortured by applications of red pepper to her eyes, nostrils, &c. Not twenty years ago, during the rains, a woman was swung in this way in the presence of British officers, who were unable to rescue her, as an impassable river lay between them. Should the unlucky woman escape death, she is turned out of the village, or, perhaps, the bhopa finds out under the influence of another douceur, that he was mistaken.101

Although Hendley’s language is laced with contempt for the bhopa, bhopas were highly regarded within Bhil society. Those who enjoyed a wide reputation for their skill and integrity would sometimes be called from a great distance to intervene in the most intractable cases. It was considered wrong to take action against a witch without a bhopa passing judgement first, as in 1864, when a Bhil of Idar State killed a woman whom he suspected of injuring his brother. The local official stated this act was considered reprehensible as ‘If the woman was a witch the Bhopas ought to have been sent for to establish the fact.’102 A particularly malign case of witchcraft was considered a general social threat, and once a witch had been named, everyone, including her relatives, was required to support the action against her. Thus, when in 1850 a Bhil woman of Idar State was seized by her fellow villagers and burnt alive in public for supposedly causing the death of her sister-inlaw, the Political Agent of Mahi Kantha commented that all the villagers participated, and that even her close relatives did nothing to save her, believing that she was a witch. He noted that her killing was seen ‘merely as an act of self-defence not only reasonable but almost as necessary’.103 Nonetheless, it seems that in most such cases the woman escaped with her life, either through a confession leading to some punishment for her and her family or through her exile from the village. Writing in 1851, J. C. Brooke, commandant of the MBC, estimated that there were about a hundred such cases each year in the area under his jurisdiction, of which about one in ten led to the death of the accused woman.104 The Bhils looked to their rulers to take a lead in preventing witchcraft, and up until the middle years of the nineteenth century they [ 40 ]

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largely obliged. In 1842, the British resident reported that witches were put to death in public in Udaipur city on the accession of Maharana Sarup Singh.105 Local thakors acted in a similar manner, as was seen in a case in 1850, when the Thakor of Gher supervised the public killing of an alleged witch of a village in his estate.106 Witches were seen to threaten social stability from within, and it was considered a duty for those with power to take the lead in countering their sorcery. As it was, the ones accused tended to be weaker members of the society, such as old women, widows or, in a few cases, subordinate males. In cases of illness in which witchcraft was not suspected, no collective response was considered necessary: individuals and families were left to treat the malady as they felt fit. In dealing with the illnesses and misfortunes brought by malign supernatural forces, Hendley discussed only witchcraft. This was no doubt the most dramatic manifestation of the phenomenon, but it was probably not the most common. Singling out a particular person for blame caused inevitable controversy and bad feeling, and it was done only in desperation or because of some political motive. As a rule, malign forces were countered through ritual sacrifices and the deployment of charms that had no particular human target. A missionary who worked in this area noted in 1906 that if an illness did not respond to herbal remedies, offerings of a chicken and some ghee and salt might be made at the tomb of an ancestor.107 In cases of epidemic disease, rituals were conducted in which a goat was sacrificed and its head and other ritual paraphernalia placed in a small wooden chariot and taken beyond the boundary of the pal. It was hoped that by doing this the spirit responsible for the epidemic would be tempted away from the place.108 The bhopas who generally prescribed and performed such rituals were paid as a rule in liquor, or in the meat from the sacrifice. The Bhils also believed that the sadhus and other mendicants who came to live in solitude in their hills and forests had healing powers. Both the bhopas and the sadhus deployed what were known as jantra-mantra, or spells with miraculous powers. Hendley also failed to say anything about illnesses that were believed to have a divine origin, which are spoken about in other reports. For example, writing in 1890, the missionary C. S. Thompson noted that when the rains failed or there was a great deal of sickness in their villages, the Mewar Bhils would take a vow at the shrine of the local Devi (mother goddess) that if she brought rain or stopped the sickness they would sacrifice a buffalo to her. When the sacrifice was eventually performed, the Devi was offered the blood, while the meat was sold. Thompson saw this bargaining before the goddess and their selling of the meat as a sign of their practicality in such affairs.109 [ 41 ]

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The attack on ‘superstition’ The British officers of the MBC anticipated during its early years that with medical treatment now available for the Bhil sepoys, belief in the supernatural causes of illness would be weakened and that the ‘civilising’ influence of the corps would help to bring an end to the persecution and killing of alleged witches. From the start, the officers had tried to persuade their men to disassociate themselves from this, though they were not at that time authorised by law to take action to stamp it out. In this, they had to steer a fine course between an insensitive intervention in local affairs that might backfire and a wider colonial opinion that was liable to condemn them for a seeming apathy in the matter. For example, in 1851 there was a report in the Bombay Telegraph which accused the then commander of the MBC, John Brooke, of conniving at the persecution of women accused of witchcraft. A case was cited in which he allegedly allowed the continuing torture of one such woman until the doctor of the corps eventually rescued her. Brooke argued in his defence that given ‘the wild and barbarous state of the country’ they could not hope to stop such practices amongst the Bhils ‘till long after they have made considerable advances in civilization.’110 Nonetheless, after a woman who was supposed to have bewitched a sepoy of the MBC was put to death later in 1851, Brooke announced that it would be his policy in future to dismiss any sepoy who was involved in any way in the killing of witches.111 It was as a result of these and other such cases that the British announced a ban on all witch killing throughout Rajasthan in 1853. A similar ban was announced in the Mahi Kantha Agency in 1856.112 Anyone who was convicted of having killed a witch was now considered guilty of murder and subject to the appropriate punishment. The rulers of princely states were expected to enforce this law; failures would incur a strong reprimand from the paramount authority. The government of Mewar passed its own law to this effect around 1862. When announcing the ban in the states of Mahi Kantha, the political agent, Major Whitelock, issued a proclamation: It is now hereby notified and declared that sorcery and enchantment have no real existence and are sheer prejudices and deceptions; and let it be clearly understood by all that the Almighty has not invested any human being with the supernatural power of causing the death of a fellow creature by the means of any such imaginary arts, and if any person shall profess to cause another bodily pain, or any injury to his person, family or property whatsoever, by pretended witchcraft, magic, or other such fraudulent practices, or if any person shall threaten to have recourse to witchcraft, or offer to remove fictitious evil-spirits for any one, and by

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such gross deceit shall receive, or shall obtain a promise of any gratuity, or remuneration in any shape whatsoever, that person will be punished for fraud, extortion and intimidation; and it is hereby further proclaimed that if any person or persons shall cause the death of another person under the false belief that he or she practised witchcraft or other delusive arts of any kind, then such person or persons will be tried for the crime of murder and dealt with accordingly.113

In Whitelock’s view, belief that illness and misfortune could be caused by an evil force was not only irrational, but opposed also to true religion. In this, he gave voice to a belief that had emerged in Europe during the Enlightenment. An important thinker in this respect was Spinoza (1632–77), who had argued that many popular beliefs were delusions and superstitions – even when seemingly endorsed by the scriptures – and that those who were informed by the ‘natural light of reason’ had no use for them. God had created a good world, without inherent evil, and by abandoning the idea of evil, humans could free themselves from irrational fears. By the mid-eighteenth century, mainstream Anglican theologians had, following such precepts, largely abandoned the concept of hell and its demonic forces, though some popular sects continued to believe in them.114 What Whitelock was reflecting was, in other words, a relatively recent form of theology particular to Europe. He was, moreover, asserting not only that it was a delusion to believe in witchcraft and evil agency, but that it was a notion that was characteristically deployed in a self-serving and ‘fraudulent’ manner. Anyone practising such ‘fraud, extortion and intimidation’ would be punished harshly under the law. Hendley had also made such an assumption when he wrote, as we have seen above, that the bhopa was ‘bribed’ to identify a witch, and that he might be made to change his opinion ‘under the influence of another douceur’.115 Nowhere in this was there recognition that the bhopas were generally considered sincere and skilled exorcists who were able to use their powers to make contact with the spiritual world to detect the source of a malign force. In a discussion of how historians have approached the question of medieval trials by ordeal for those who were seen as transgressors, Talal Asad has noted how they have tended to focus on what people believed, rather than: the power structure by which certain truths about transgressions were determined. Thus, we don’t know what were the real thoughts and feelings of individuals who could at one time resort to the ordeal and who were later obliged to submit to the inquisitorial courts. But we do know that they were processed through very different political-legalmoral structures, subject to very different powers. Their options, their

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behaviour, their relationship to the personnel necessary for determining guilt or innocence were all very different.116

In arguing as they did, colonial officers such as Whitelock and Hendley likewise focused on belief rather than social structure, in the process failing to acknowledge the degree to which the notion of witchcraft was socially embedded and universally believed in as a matter of common sense. For example, even the unfortunate women accused of being witches believed in the reality of casting curses, their main plea being that they had either not – or had at least not intentionally – cast such spells. In approaching the matter on the level of true and false consciousness, Whitelock and Hendley failed to appreciate that such an argument would carry no weight with those to whom it was addressed. Local holders of power took action against witches because they were convinced that they had a duty to preserve their society from malign supernatural forces. They strongly resented the new law, and the practice was driven underground rather than suppressed. Nonetheless, the law gave rise to a new politics, for it was now possible to look to it for protection against witchcraft accusations. For example, when in 1872 three women of Bagdari in Dungarpur State were identified by a bhopa as having caused the death of a woman in childbirth and her baby through witchcraft, the son of one of them tried to protect her by threatening to complain either to the authorities of that state or to the officers of the MBC. The reaction that followed revealed how great the obstacles still were to making such an appeal. The son was threatened by the gameti of the village that if he went ahead and made his complaint he personally would be held responsible for a number of deaths that had occurred as a result of the witchcraft of his mother. She was then tortured and ordered to leave the village, which she did. Her son continued to remain silent, as the other villagers and the local thakor told him in a menacing manner that if he made any fuss a blood feud would be declared and he also would have to flee.117 After the authorities came to know of this case, the thakor confessed that he had failed to inform them of this crime, but claimed that he was threatened by 500 Bhils and did not dare to do so. He said that his father had had his hands and feet cut off by the Bhils when he had fallen out with them many years before, and that he himself continued to live in fear of them.118 The Dungarpur State authorities eventually arrested two of the ringleaders, sentencing one to four years in prison and the other to one and a half years. By this time, it was becoming clear to the British that the law could not by itself eradicate such ‘superstitious’ practices – their minds would have to be won by other means. One of these was that of conversion to Christianity. In his report on the Bhils, written in 1880, Thomas Hendley [ 44 ]

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claimed that they were losing faith in their deities, who could no longer – supposedly – protect them against outsiders, and as a result, he argued, there was an opening for Christian missionaries. He noted that missionaries to the Santals of central India – a supposedly similar ‘aboriginal’ tribe – had found such an opening in comparable circumstances. Conversion was, he believed, possible if the Christian message was kept as simple as possible, and directed to the whole tribe so that the decision to convert would be a community rather than individual one. ‘Their main object is social advancement, and this they may well think would be most easily secured by reverencing the strong English Gods; their character would lead, however, to the conclusion that interest alone would not long remain the ruling motive.’ By this latter statement, Hendley seems to have been saying that once they were drawn towards Christianity and learnt more of the faith, they would soon become convinced believers. There was however one possible drawback, namely that some were already being attracted towards ‘Brahmanism, which comes within the scope of their understanding, raising them in the social scale, and, where there are Brahman native officers, giving them, in their opinion, a better chance of promotion. This feeling the Brahmans are not slow to take advantage of, and it requires great vigilance to defeat them.’ The missionaries therefore needed to get in fast.119 Hendley’s opinions were echoed by other colonial officials, such as Sir Lepal Griffen, who stated in 1883: I believe that it would be an immense advantage if the Bhils could be converted to any form of Christianity by missionaries, either Catholic or Protestant . . . It is obvious that the inconveniences and even danger which attend proselytising enterprises in Brahmanical and Muhammadan States, which possess a creed as dogmatic and systematic as Christianity itself, do not exist with reference to a people like the Bhils, who have no dogmatic theology, and who would accept with very little difficulty the civilising creed which would be offered to them.120

In other words, while it was inadvisable to give strong state support for missionary endeavours in areas with strongly Hindu or Muslim populations lest it stir up enmities that could backfire against the British, it was politically safe to patronise missionaries in ‘aboriginal’ tracts. Whether or not the Bhils would accept the missionaries with the ease that Griffin assumed was, of course, another matter, as we shall see in the next chapter.

Notes 1

Benedetto Croce, Filosofica e storiografica (Bari: Laterza, 1949), p. 246; quoted and translated by Allesandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories:

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Forms and Meanings in Oral History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), p. 293 n.6. A Social and Economic Atlas of India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 27. On this, see in particular David Hardiman, ‘Power in the Forest: The Dangs, 1820-1940’, in David Arnold and David Hardiman (eds.), Subaltern Studies, 8 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994); and Ajay Skaria, Hybrid Histories: Forests, Frontiers and Wildness in Western India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999). On usurers see David Hardiman, Feeding the Baniya: Peasants and Usurers in Western India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996); on liquor dealers see David Hardiman, ‘From Custom to Crime: The Politics of Drinking in Colonial South Gujarat’, in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies, 4 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985). James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, ed. William Crooke, 2 (London: Humphrey Milford, 1920), p. 651. The work was first published in two volumes of 1829 and 1832. Ibid., 1, p. 586. John Malcolm, A Memoir of Central India, Including Malwa, and Adjoining Provinces, with the History, and Copious Illustrations, of the Past and Present Condition of that Country (New Delhi: Sagar Publications, 1970; reprint of 1823 edition), 1, pp. 516–17. Ibid., pp. 517–18. Ibid., p. 519. Ibid., p. 521. Ibid., 2, pp. 179–80. ‘Some Account of the Bheels’, Intelligencer (October 1882), 585–91. The notion that Aryan invaders had driven the aborigines of India into the hills in ancient times was a staple of British historiography in India. See W. W. Hunter, The Annals of Rural Bengal (Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1975; reprint of 1868 edition), pp. 90–1. Subsequent historiography has rejected such simplistic explanations for the creation of distinct tribal societies in India. See Romila Thapar, Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 (London: Allen Lane, 2002), p. 57. C. S. Thompson, ‘The Bheels’, The Church Missionary Gleaner (October 1897), 148. Sketches of India, 4th edition (1826), pp. 257–8. Quoted in David Arnold, ‘Race, Place and Bodily Difference in Early Nineteenth Century India’, Historical Research, 77:196 (2004), 266. Rudyard Kipling, ‘Letters of Marque, Nov–Dec 1887’, reprinted in Kipling, From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches: Letters of Travel, 1 (London: Macmillan, 1926), p. 57. The Rajputana Gazetteer, 1 (Calcutta: Government Press, 1879), p. 117. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 255 and 269. See also Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988). Spivak, Critique of Postcolonial Reason, p. 273. Ibid., p. 310. T. H. Hendley, ‘An Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 44 pt.1:4 (1875), 347–88. The corps was known by the Bhils as the ‘embeecee’, so that the use of these initials in the rest of this book accords with local usage. Hardiman, ‘Power in the Forest’, p. 107. J. Outram to C. Ovans, 26 October 1836, NAI, FD, 3 April 1837, 23 PC. In Mewar, the Rajput ruler who was acknowledged as head of the ruling Sisodiya clan enjoyed the title of ‘Maharana’ rather than ‘Maharaja’. Udaipur was his capital city.

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29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

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A. Speirs, Pol. Agent, Mewar, to N. Alves, Agent to Governor General in Rajputana, 25 August 1838; N. Alves to Secretary to Govt. of India, 29 August 1838; both in NAI, FD, 26 September 1838, 75 PC. C. S. Thompson, ‘Report on Bheel Mission, Kherwara’, Intelligencer, 7 NS (October 1882), 591. J. Sutherland, Pol. Agent, Rajputana, and J. Robinson, Pol. Agent, Mewar, to J. H. Maddock, Secretary to Govt. of India, 25 March 1841, NAI, FD, 3 May 1841, 44–5 FC. Secretary to Govt. of India to Sutherland, 23 August 1841, NAI, FD, 23 August 1841, 16 FC. It should be noted that Kotada was generally spelt ‘Kotra’ in the colonial and mission records. Rajputana Gazetteers, 2A: The Mewar Residency (Ajmer: Scottish Mission Industries, 1908), p. 85. Carol MacCormack, ‘Medicine and Anthropology’, in W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter (eds.), Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, 2 (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 1349. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 367–8. Ibid., 364. Ibid., 356. Ibid. Ibid., 355–6. Ibid. Ibid., 357–8. Ibid., 357. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, pp. 359–60. Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, 1, p. 12. Under-Secretary of Foreign Dept., Govt. of India, 16 July 1870, NAI, FD Pol. A, 277– 94, May 1871. A. F. Pinhey, Resident, Mewar, 11 May 1902, NAI, Intl-A, 51–6, February 1904. The British were often exasperated by the attitude of such thakors, holding them responsible for harbouring ‘criminals’. For an example, see S. H. Partridge, Acting Assistant Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, to the Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, 12 August 1843, GSAV, Baroda Residency, English Department, Serial no. 418, Mahi Kantha, Daftar 83, vol. 413, MK 14, vol. 212 for 1844. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 359. Ibid., 352–3. Ibid., 353. A more recent study by the anthropologist R. S. Mann lists many more local deities worshipped by the Bhils of this region. They include goddesses that could either cause or prevent certain diseases, such as Shitla and Vejwa, and various minor village-specific deities that ensured rain and good harvests and provided protection for livestock. Mann, ‘Structure and Role Dynamics among the Bhils of Rajasthan: A Case of the Bhagats’, in K. S. Singh (ed.), Tribal Movements in India, 2 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1983), pp. 313–14. Ibid., 347–50. Ibid., 353–4. Ibid., 347. R. E. Enthoven, The Castes and Tribes of Bombay Presidency (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1920) 1, p. 164. Aron Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 219–20. Ibid., p. 217. George Carstairs, Shepherd of Udaipur and the Land he Loved (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1926), p. 233. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, p. 365. Interview with Babulal K. Damor, Bhiloda, 17 December 2002.

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Vand Mal to Maharana Bhopalsinghji, Ajmer, 22 June 1933, OIOC, R/2/177/334. Rajputana Gazetteers, 2A: Mewar, p. 118. Quoted in Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 16. Quoted ibid., p. 17. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 363. Kingsley Davis, The Population of India and Pakistan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 42. The sickle cell trait has been found to be most prevalent in India amongst tribal populations, reaching a particularly high level of 38 per cent amongst the tribal peoples of Bastar, and being found also amongst the tribal peoples of central and western India. Sumit Guha, Health and Population in South Asia: From Earliest Times to the Present (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001), p. 72. David Arnold, ‘Disease, Resistance, and India’s Ecological Frontier, 1700–1947’, in James C. Scott and Nina Bhatt (eds.), Agrarian Studies: Synthetic Work at the Cutting Edge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 187–99. Carstairs, Shepherd of Udaipur, pp. 239–40. C. S. Thompson, ‘Report on Bheel Mission, Kherwara’, Intelligencer, 7 NS (October 1882), 593. C. S. Thompson, Rudiments of the Bhili Language (Ahmedabad: Union Printing Press, 1895), pp. 199–307. P. S. V. Fitzgerald, Acting Pol. Agent, Mahi Kanta, to P. H. Le Geyt, 20 July 1876, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1542 (1863–90), 1875–76, pp. 118–19. Leonard G. Wilson, ‘Fevers’, in W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter (eds.), Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, 1 (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 384–5. W. B. Collins, Kherwara, 7 October 1893, Intelligencer, 19 NS (March 1894), 211–12. Mrs A. I. Birkett, ‘In the Bhil Country’, Mercy and Truth (September 1901), 208. Jane L. J. Birkett, Report of Medical Work in the Bhil Mission for 1901, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 75. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 362. T. H. Hendley, General Medical History of Rajputana (Calcutta: Government Press, 1900), p. 148. Helen Lambert, ‘The Cultural Logic of Indian Medicine: Prognosis and Etiology in Rajasthan Popular Therapeutics’, Social Science and Medicine 34:10 (1992), p. 1071. See also Arnold, Colonizing the Body, pp. 121–5. Arnold examines indigenous forms of inoculation on pp. 125–33. Major J. Black, Pol. Agent, Mahi Kanta, to H. L. Anderson, Govt. of Bombay, Sadra, 17 May 1864, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1542 (1863–90), 1864, p. 3. Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Wodehouse, Pol. Agent, Mahi Kanta, to Govt. of Bombay, Sadra, 14 July 1883, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1542 (1863–90), 1882–83, pp. 20–1. MKAAR, 1889–90, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 50, F 37, Colonel H. L. Nutt, Acting Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, to Pol. Dept., Govt. of Bombay, Sadra, 21 and 23 July 1890, p. 21. Carstairs, Shepherd of Udaipur, p. 239. Jane L. J. Birkett, ‘Report of Medical Work in the Bhil Mission for 1901’, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 75. ‘From the Rev. E. P. Herbert, Kherwara, North-West Provinces’, CMSE (1896), 140. P. S. V. Fitzgerald, Acting Pol. Agent, Mahi Kanta, to P. H. Le Geyt, 20 July 1876, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1542 (1863–90), 1875–76, pp. 118–19. ‘From the Rev. G. Litchfield, Kherwara’, Intelligencer, 11 NS (May–June 1886), 414. Birkett, ‘Report of Medical Work in the Bhil Mission for 1901’, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 75. T. H. Hendley, ‘Filaria Dracunculus or Medinensis at Kherwarrah’, The Indian Medical Gazette, 7 (1872), 59–60. Birkett, ‘Report of Medical Work in the Bhil Mission for 1901’.

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109 110 111 112 113 114

115

Ibid. Bodding’s medical ethnography of the Santals, for example, provides detailed descriptions of 305 herbal remedies utilised by them. P. O. Bodding, Studies in Santal Medicine and Connected Folklore (Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 2001; reprint of 1925–40 edition), pp. 161–393. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 363. Ibid., 363. Birkett, ‘Report of Medical Work in the Bhil Mission for 1901’. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, p. 362. Mrs A. I. Birkett, ‘Bhil Mission’, Mercy and Truth (February 1901), 45. This was stated by J. C. Brooke, Commandant of the MBC, in 1851. Brooke to G. S. P. Lawrence, Pol. Agent, Mewar, 7 April 1851, NAI, FD, 16 February 1853, 121–3 FC. Bodding, Studies in Santal Medicine, pp. 1–4. Deposition of Bheel Kalia Budo of Deraj of the Mondetta Putta taken before the Attachment Mehta at Mondetta, 14 April 1843. GSAV, Baroda Residency, English Dept., serial no. 407, Mahi Kantha, Daftar 83, vol. 412, MK 13, vol. 298 for 1843–44. Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, Old Potions, New Bottles: Recasting Indigenous Medicine in Colonial Punjab (1850–1945) (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2006), p. 107 n. 3. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 351–2. J. C. Brooke to G. S. P. Lawrence, Pol. Agent, Mewar, 7 April 1851, NAI, FD, 16 February 1853, 121–3 FC. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 351. Thanedar of Poshina, 9 April 1864, OIOC, R/2/700/39. R. Wallace, Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, to Malet, 3 September 1850, OIOC, R/2/700/39. Brooke to G. S. P. Lawrence, Pol. Agent, Mewar, 7 April 1851, NAI, FD, 16 February 1853, 121–3 FC. Hari Sen, ‘Popular Protest in Mewar in the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Centuries’, PhD dissertation, University of Delhi, 1996, p. 120. R. Wallace to Malet, 4 September 1850, OIOC, R/2/700/39. A. H. Bull, ‘Some Bhil Customs’, The Nagpur Diocesan Quarterly Magazine (January 1906), 41, in CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1906, doc. 9. The ceremony is described in detail by the Reverend W. Hodgkinson, ‘Bhils of the Indian Jungles; V. – Sacrifices’, The Round World (1 September 1909), 142–3, in Jane and Arthur Birkett Papers, CMS, Unofficial Papers, Acc. 446, Z6. For a more detailed analysis of such ceremonies, see my book The Coming of the Devi: Adivasi Assertion in Western India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 24–7. ‘The Bhil Mission’, annual letter of the Reverend C. S. Thompson, Kherwara, 31 January 1890, Intelligencer, 15 NS (September 1890), 610–11. G. S. P. Lawrence, Pol. Agent, Mewar, to Brooke, 31 March 1851, and Brooke to Lawrence, 7 April 1851, and Lawrence to J. Low, Pol. Agent, Rajputana, 26 April 1851, NAI, FD, 16 February 1853, 121–3 FC. Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry held at Kherwara on 21 July 1852, and Brooke to Lawrence, 27 July 1852, ibid. Ajay Skaria, ‘Women, Witchcraft and Gratuitous Violence in Colonial Western India’, Past and Present, 155 (1997), 138. Zahir Nameli (proclamation) issued to the inhabitants of Mahi Kantha, 23 October 1856, OIOC, R/2/700/39. D. P. Walker, The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 7, 253–4 and 262–3; Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 151–3, 333–4, 375–405. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 351.

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Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), p. 91 n. 5. Depositions of Khaloo Kana Damur Bheel of Bagdari and Khemi, mother of Mugjee Pudmawut of Bagdari, now residing at Dehgamra in case of witch swinging in Bagdari in Dungarpur, 1872, OIOC, R/2/161/207. Deposition of Thakor Deerjee Naroojee of Bagdari in case of witch swinging in Bagdari in Dungarpur, 1872, OIOC, R/2/161/207. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 349. Sir Lepal Griffen, 17 March 1883, NAI, FD, Pol.-I, 212–58, June 1883.

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The mission to the Bhils

During the 1870s, the CMS declared its intention to open more missions ‘among the non-Aryan hill-people’, who it was feared were coming under Hindu influence. The Santals of Bengal and Arrains of Travancore had ‘already yielded a good harvest of souls to the Society’s sowing’. A new mission to the Gonds of central India had been opened and efforts had been made from time to time to reach the Bhils, particularly in Khandesh, where the society had a base at Malegaon.1 The Bishop of Lahore felt that more missions were needed to work amongst the ‘aboriginal’ Bhils. Writing many years later, Dorothy McBurney – the daughter of Montie Rundall, an officer in the MBC – provides us with the story of how Kherwara was chosen as the site for such a mission. It is a tale of drama and pathos, as well as British class snobbery. Rundall’s first posting as a member of the Indian Army was to Kherwara in 1876, and he received it only days after his marriage in England to Rosa, the daughter of Edward Bickersteth, Vicar of Hampstead. The couple set out immediately, arriving eventually at Kherwara in February 1877 after an arduous and slow journey from Bombay. According to McBurney: ‘Kherwara was calculated to strike dismay into the stoutest hearts. A low-lying barren, dusty spot, terribly unhealthy, tropically hot, the only inhabitants an almost savage tribe called the Bhils from whose wild ranks the regiments were enlisted’. Rosa was already pregnant, and she spent her lonely days at Kherwara planning for the eagerly anticipated arrival, ordering baby clothes, trimming the cradle, planning the nursery and making arrangements for an ayah. The couple did not however take to the regimental doctor at Kherwara, who was ‘an ignorant little cockney just out, with no experience whatever outside his recent hospital training’. When the time came for her confinement, ‘every mistake that it was possible to make was made by the inefficient little doctor’. The ‘beautiful baby boy, perfect in every way’ died and the mother nearly followed him.2 [ 51 ]

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Rosa decided to build a church in his memory next to his grave. This was completed in 1878, and consecrated by the Bishop of Calcutta. Rosa told the bishop that she had been caring for two local orphans whom she had been bringing up as Christians, and she expressed her willingness to open a small orphanage for Bhils who might then be converted. The bishop agreed to support the orphanage and went on to state that in his view Kherwara would be an ideal place for a mission to the Bhils. He promised to help its establishment in any way he could. Rosa also wrote to her father in England, who was now the Bishop of Exeter, and he decided to donate £1,000 of his own money for a missionary to the Bhils in memory of his grandson. In November 1878, he wrote a letter that was published in the Record and the Guardian, appealing for a missionary. In it, he described the Bhils as ‘one of the aboriginal tribes who were driven up to the hills by the Aryans a thousand years before Christ’. He went on to say that there were about three million Bhils, but no systematic attempt had yet been made to evangelise them. Kherwara was a healthy place, occupied by ‘our troops’ for over thirty years, but until now the nearest church had been in Ahmedabad, 160 kilometres or so distant. A beautiful stone church had now been built there, and he hoped that this would be ‘a point of light amid the hitherto almost unbroken darkness of this tract of heathendom’. He stated that he was prepared to provide funds for a clergyman for an initial three years, and hoped that by then ‘Christianity will have so rooted itself there, as it has already done among the Karens, the Santhals, the Gonds, and other primeval races of India’. The missionary would become ‘the apostle of the Bheels’. He concluded: ‘May God send this home to some heart, whom He will touch with Christ-like compassion for sheep far away in the wilderness that have no shepherd!’3 It took almost two years to find a suitable ‘apostle of the Bhils’. During that time, Rosa had another son, who survived and whom she took with her back to England in 1879. She never returned to Kherwara, but each year up until her death in 1926 she sent a wreath to be laid on the grave of her first son. The man eventually chosen for the mission to the Bhils was the Reverend Charles Stewart Thompson. Thompson, then twenty-nine years old, was from Easington in County Durham. He had spent three years training to be a missionary at college in Islington in London, and had been ordained as a deacon in June 1880 and as a priest by the Archbishop of Canterbury in October 1880. Being in the evangelical wing of the Anglican Church, he was a believer in individual conversion through strong personal belief and faith, in moral selfcleansing and in the importance of the Bible and Bible study.4 He left immediately for India, arriving in Kherwara on 27 November 1880. He was not married, and indeed never married. [ 52 ]

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In addition to the new focus on the ‘aboriginals’ of India, the CMS was at this time also developing an interest in medical work as a means for proselytisation. At the Oxford Missionary Conference of 1877, Bishop McDougall produced statistics to show that Anglicans had neglected medical missions in comparison with other denominations, and he claimed that ‘the work of the Missions of our own Church has been much retarded in modern times because the medical element has been left out’.5 Others, including influential clerics connected with India, endorsed this sentiment. The secretary of the CMS in London, William Gray, stated in response to this that medical work was expensive, and it would not be easy to find suitable medical missionaries. It was however worth trying out in cases in which local missionaries felt that medical work was vital for their success, or in places where it was felt that the impact of such work would be particularly great. Gray believed that in many other cases, unqualified missionaries might carry out simple medical work to good advantage.6 Thompson arrived in Kherwara with a firm belief in the evangelical value of such medical work. We have seen already in chapter 1 how Thompson’s amateur practice managed to gain a valuable opening for him in the Bhil villages surrounding Kherwara.7 Despite gaining an audience for his preaching, Thompson found that the Bhils had no desire to convert to Christianity. He felt that this was in part because they were far more Hinduised than many in the church hierarchy had realised. He quoted a statement made in 1882 by the Reverend H. P. Parker, secretary of the CMS in Calcutta, that ‘The Bheels are almost free from caste prejudices against Christianity, like other aboriginal tribes in North India, and they have so much more strength of character than some of the others (for example, the Pahariyas of Rajmahal), that the Bheel mission-field may be reckoned as a hopeful opening for the missionary.’ Thompson felt that this was misleading. He had found the Bhils around Kherwara were ‘very much Hinduized’, and noted that Major Maccrae, the second-in-command of the Bhil Corps, regarded them as low-caste Hindus. They appeared, superior in physique to most Indian ‘aboriginals’ and many greatly resembled the Hindus. Some tribes considered themselves superior to others; for example, those who lived around the Debar Lake would have nothing to do with other Bhils. Their language was wholly ‘Aryan’, no traces being left of the primordial ‘Dravidian language’ that as ‘preAryan aboriginals’ they must once have spoken. The religion of the Bhils was more Hindu than anything else, and there was a jogi, or priest, in every pal who was sometimes a Hindu. He had seen Bhils sitting around a fire at night singing Hindi songs and doing puja to the Devi. However, they ate beef, and those on the Debar Lake ate alligator flesh. [ 53 ]

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As further evidence of their Hindu identity, Thompson stated that they had a highly suspicious character.8 By this, he seems to have meant that they no longer retained that childlike sense of trust that, according to the colonial stereotype, was the mark of the ‘savage’. In a report written some years later, Thompson elaborated on these points. He argued that the Bhils, unlike the Santals, were great sticklers for caste. ‘They are the more particular because they can rightly claim to have so little.’ He had recently happened to enter a room where his Bhil servant was cooking his food. To his astonishment, the man considered the food ritually polluted and threw it away uneaten, even though this meant that he then had to march sixteen kilometres with the missionary on an empty stomach. Thompson had visited the Bhils of Khandesh, far to the south, and had treated their sick. He had found that in contrast to the Mewar Bhils, they had no caste amongst them, for when he had treated them they did not object to taking medicine directly from his hands. Unlike the Mewar Bhils, they ate carrion and monkeys. This showed that they had no regard for Hindu deities, and particularly the monkey god, Hanuman. One of the reasons for the Mewar Bhils being more Hinduised was, in Thompson’s view, that they were ruled by highly conservative Hindu princes who had succeeded in inculcating their Hindu beliefs. Another was that their ‘aboriginal’ blood had been diluted through mixture with that of the caste Hindus – and particularly the proud and warlike Rajputs. In his words: ‘One more contrast is that whereas the Santhals and Gonds are quiet, inextricable aborigines, the Bhils are a wild, turbulent, mongrel race.’9 The idea that the Bhils were, in social and religious terms, a blank slate ready to be written on was for Thompson becoming increasingly untenable. Despite all this, Thompson adopted an optimistic tone in his second report. The Bhils around Kherwara, he said, no longer had any fear whatsoever of him and his catechist. A native officer of the MBC who had worked against them earlier on had become far more sympathetic, and was even giving them useful help. He was in the process of collecting material to build a school and dispensary at Kherwara.10 His medical work, in particular, was going well, though he was unable to state the number of patients he had treated or their maladies as he had dared not write these details down ‘for fear of raising silly suspicions in the Bheel’s dark mind’. However, a great many had received treatment. He was being called out to villages almost daily, and sometimes twice a day, to treat people. He described a number of his cures and the gratitude of the people concerned. He had refused to treat the townspeople of Kherwara itself – despite their strong demand – as the MBC dispensary and hospital was open to them and he did not want to compete with the corps doctor in his work. In the past year there had been three [ 54 ]

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separate doctors stationed in Kherwara, and all had given helpful advice to the mission, especially in serious cases that were beyond Thompson’s limited expertise. They had even travelled out to the Bhil pals with Thompson to visit the sick. One of them gave him a small tent that he now used as a travelling hospital. ‘A poor man, with hardly any face left, through cancer, is at this moment occupying it.’ A young Bhil who was educated in the small mission school that Thompson had established at Kherwara was acting as his medical assistant. Within nine months, this previously illiterate young man had learnt enough to be able to start reading the New Testament. The medical work had cost Rs. 411 during that year – money that Thompson clearly felt was well spent.11 Thompson had been sent to Kherwara for an initial three years, funded by Bishop Bickersteth, and his continuation there depended on either a renewal of funding by the bishop or the provision of fresh funding from the limited coffers of the CMS.12 As such missions to ‘aboriginals’ were still considered a priority area, and as Thompson seemed in general to be getting on well, it was decided in 1883 to make the Bhil mission a permanent one, funded by the CMS. Donations were obtained – including a fresh payment of £1,000 from Bickersteth – to employ a second English missionary to work with Thompson.13 It was decided to transfer the Reverend G. Litchfield and his wife from the Nyanza mission in Africa to Kherwara. Writing to this missionary to inform him of the decision, the CMS secretary in London stated: The Committee believe that the experience you have gained in Africa will stand you in good stead in many ways in your efforts to carry the Gospel to the simple aboriginal races. They look to you to be able, with the blessing of God, to win their confidence and to attract them to the Saviour. May you and Mrs. Litchfield be the blessed means, under God, of bringing very many of them to Christ, that their hearts may be purified by faith and that they may obtain inheritance among them that are sanctified.14

Despite Thompson’s reservation as to the true ‘aboriginal’ nature of the Mewar Bhils, they were still being projected in such terms for the purposes of the mission. The missionaries who were recruited on the basis of such appeals came with romantic notions of redeeming a wild but impressionable people, following in the footsteps of the apostles by forging large congregations of Christians in heathen lands. Warnings by missionaries such as Thompson, who understood the difficulties of working with a community that had a strong self-identity, a highly resilient culture and certain Hinduising tendencies, were ignored. There were soured [ 55 ]

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hopes and deep frustrations that were at times vented in somewhat unchristian tones. The Reverend Horace Mould, who served in the Bhil mission for four years in the 1890s, thus commented bitterly just after leaving the mission that he had lost interest through ‘a dislike for the work amongst the natives of this country, which has not come on me suddenly, but has been growing on me for some time past, and which makes work amongst them a heavy burden rather than a labour of love’. In Kherwara, his only consolation appears to have been the company of the MBC officers, for he went on to state that ‘My great desire now is to obtain work amongst soldiers in India, if possible.’15 Thompson was made of sterner stuff. He realised that long and patient labour was required that had three main dimensions – the medical, the educational and the evangelical. He ran his dispensary at Kherwara and went out to treat the Bhils in the surrounding pals. A school was established at Kherwara, run initially by Masih Charan, the catechist. Of the seven young Bhils who became the first pupils, three soon dropped out. Two of those remaining proved particularly promising, and before long one was able to take over as schoolmaster, while the other became Thompson’s medical assistant. Of the other two, one became Thompson’s house servant and the other the mission errandrunner. Other young Bhils joined the school, and it grew in size. They were given a stipend of Rs. 2.8.0 a month for food and clothing, which ensured a steady stream of pupils. A school for girls was also opened. Thompson began exploring further afield, and by the end of 1884 had established eight outstations to the north-east of Kherwara.16 Litchfield and his wife arrived in November 1884 and took over the work in Kherwara and the eight outstations, while Thompson travelled to the south and west with a view to opening outstations there. Litchfield concentrated on improving the infrastructure in Kherwara, building a new dispensary, a schoolhouse and a residence for a native Christian master and about twenty young Bhil men, who were to form the nucleus of a teacher-training class. It was envisaged that they would eventually run schools and dispense medicine in the outstations. Litchfield stated in mid-1886: ‘The erection of these various buildings naturally gives an appearance of organisation and system which was entirely wanting before’. 17 Thompson, in common with most other Anglican missionaries, adopted very stringent tests and criteria before he was prepared to accept anyone as a convert. The would-be Christian had to show that he or she would conform to the social and cultural values of the missionaries. Males had to promise never to take more than one wife. They had to agree to accept the clinical medicine provided by the missionaries and renounce their older eclecticism in treatment and cure. [ 56 ]

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In particular, they were to abandon their belief in the evil eye and black magic as a cause of disease. Also, it helped considerably if they had received some education and were literate. They were expected to be able to sustain themselves by their own labour; those who were in it only for food handouts or a job in the mission were not welcome. The emphasis was on personal witness rather than mass conversion. Because the demands were so tough in this respect, Thompson had to wait many years before he was able to baptise his first Bhil. Thompson had arrived in Kherwara believing that the Bhils were a kind of tabula rasa on which missionaries might write with ease. Once exposed to the truth of the Gospel, the Bhils, like other ‘primitives’, would quickly accept its message. His particular strategy had been to establish himself first as a healer and in this way gain sympathy and a hearing for what he had to tell. He would first heal their bodies, and then reclaim their souls. However, as he was now discovering, the Bhils were less ‘primitive’ than supposed, being already engaged in a range of dialogues with the high-caste Hindus who lived in their midst, accepting or rejecting what they had to offer as they felt fit. Thompson now found that the Bhils who seemed to be most amenable and sympathetic to his message – such as the young Bhil who became the schoolmaster at Kherwara – were those who were most Hinduised, being members of a local sect known as the Bhagats. They had in the past decade reformed their way of life in accordance with the doctrines of an inspired religious leader called Surmaldas, a Bhil who had been inspired initially by a Brahman and who encouraged his followers to worship the Hindu deity, Ram. Unlike many Bhils, the Bhagats were eager for education, and Thompson held out hopes that they might prove sympathetic towards Christianity. He saw that they were friendly towards him – the young schoolmaster’s father often visited Thompson and expressed very clearly his delight that his son held such a position.18 The model of the tabula rasa was now being replaced in Thompson’s eyes by one of religious evolution in which people developed from a lower to a higher faith, with Christianity at the pinnacle. Belief systems, in other words, were seen to ascend like steps on a ladder. There was clearly some inconsistency here, for the CMS had been drawn to the Bhils because of their supposed lack of corruption by Hindu values, with an assumption that the ‘primitives’ could leap in one step from their savagery to Christianity. Now, the most Hinduised were regarded as being more open to the Christian message. The change in strategy drew Thompson to the heartland of the Bhagat movement, and in particular to Surmaldas’s home village of Lusadiya. Lusadiya lay beyond the border of Mewar State, being in Idar, which was in Gujarat. This was not a problem for the mission as such, [ 57 ]

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as there were no great differences between the Bhils of the two areas. They intermarried and were thus related, and they shared a common patois that had more in common with Gujarati than with Hindi, as Thompson soon discovered when in 1882 he began translating the Gospel for the Bhils.19

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Idar State Although Idar State lay in Gujarat, and most of its inhabitants spoke the Gujarati language, it was often known as ‘Nani Marwar’ (‘Little Marwar’) as its ruling family and several of its thakors were related to the Rathod Rajputs of Marwar State in Rajasthan.20 In common with the rulers of the states of Rajasthan, and unlike those of most other states of Gujarat, Idar’s rulers had only limited control over their thakors, whose estates covered about two-thirds of the total area of the state. The Rathods had conquered the territory at the end of the fourteenth century, establishing their capital at Idar, where a huge fortified rock provided a secure stronghold. They had made alliances with existing Rajput chiefs, or had relied on other Rajputs to subjugate and rule particular territories that were then considered to be under the nominal control of the state. In the Bhil areas, the thakors established themselves as the patrons of particular Bhil pals, providing support for them when they raided pals that were under the protection of a different thakor. The thakors often asserted their independence in rebellions, some of which threatened the power of the state itself.21 The Idar Maharajas themselves had often been in a position of subordination to the Sultans of Gujarat, and afterwards the Mughals, paying tribute to them. This tiered system of paramountcy and subordination continued under the British, with Idar becoming the largest and most important state within the Mahi Kantha political agency, which was established under the control of the government of Bombay Presidency in 1821.22 The British helped the Maharajas of Idar to extend their power over the subordinate Rajput thakors. In some cases, the Bhils fought with their thakors against British troops. The thakors were eventually brought under greater control in a military campaign of the late 1830s by the British political agent of that time, James Outram. In the following years, many were forced to hand over the bulk of their armouries to the British. The thakors were required to develop their finances by increasing taxes on their subjects, rather than by relying on the spoils of military campaigns or Bhil raids. This they did by demanding either a greater share of the crop in kind or – in the case of many Bhil pals – an enhanced lump sum from the pal as a whole.23 They forced Bhils to perform corvée labour for them, and hired small forces [ 58 ]

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of retainers – who were often Muslims – to enforce these demands. The thakors thus changed from being patrons and allies of the Bhils to, in many cases, their oppressors. Increasingly, the Bhils looked to their Maharaja or the British to support them against their thakors. This was given under the condition that the Bhils renounce their violent ways – which included feuds and plundering raids – and settle in their pals as peaceful and industrious peasant farmers. They were also required to stop persecuting alleged witches – a practice that their thakors had always supported fully. Throughout the colonial period, a central feature of the politics of Idar State was the continuing conflict between the Maharajas and the thakors, with the former trying continually to extend their power over the latter. The British generally sought to retain the status quo that had been reached in the middle part of the nineteenth century, so that the thakors often found it expedient to appeal to the political agent over the head of their Maharaja. For example, when Maharaja Keshrisinghji assumed ruling power in Idar in 1882 after a long minority (his father had died in 1869, when he was only seven), he tried to assert himself against the thakors in a blustering and tactless manner, causing much resentment.24 When he ordered that the thakors of Pal and Tintoi (two estates in Bhil areas) be deprived of certain powers that had been recognised by the British, they appealed to the Political Agent in Mahi Kantha. Agreements were reached only after long negotiations between Keshrisinghji, the thakors and the British official.25 In a few cases, the thakors were relatively benevolent and paternalistic; the majority tended to be high-handed and oppressive, causing tensions and sometimes provoking outright revolt. One of the most notorious of the Rajput chiefs was the Rao of Pol, whose estate lay on the border with Mewar with a mostly Bhil population. The rulers of Pol were Rathod Rajputs – as were the Idar Maharajas – and although they paid tribute to Idar, they considered themselves to be largely independent. The Rao of Pol from 1864 to 1889 was Hamirsinghji. A British political agent who visited Pol described him as ‘very backward in all his ideas’ – a man who while taxing his subjects harshly provided almost nothing for them in return. Instead, he hoarded from a half to three-quarters of his revenue each year. There were no proper roads, and the Rao had never even seen a railway. He never travelled outside his state.26 When the Bhils of Mewar rebelled in 1881 in protest at the census operations of that year, the Bhils of Pol decided to follow them by rising up and besieging Hamirsinghji in his capital with a demand that he end his exactions. He agreed to make many liberal concessions. The rebels then linked up with other Bhils of Mewar and Idar and raided and plundered a number of villages in Idar. The British quickly [ 59 ]

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intervened, cancelling the concession made by the Rao, but at the same time fining him Rs. 9,000 as a punishment for the raids by his subjects.27 Hamirsingji failed to mend his ways. A political agent who visited him in 1885 reported that he continued to hoard his money and spent nothing for the welfare of his people. There was not a single ongoing public works project. ‘I found the Bhils of the Pol District to be in a much poorer condition than those living in Danta and Posina, these last looked well-fed and fairly clad, while the Pol Bhils had the appearance of being half-starved and possessed no clothing but a few rags. The difference may be accounted for partly by the Rajputana Railway, having stations closer to Danta and Posina and partly from the more liberal revenue administration of the Chiefs of these districts over that of the Rao of Pol.’28

Surmaldas The leader of the Bhil Bhagats, Surmaldas, lived in the village of Lusadiya. This lay within the small estate of the Thakor of Karchha, a Rajput who was a tributary of Idar State. The inhabitants of Lusadiya were almost entirely Bhils. The first time Surmaldas was mentioned in the colonial records was in 1875, when the commandant of the MBC met him.29 There were further reports by the Political Agent for Mahi Kantha in 1880 and 1881.30 Surmaldas was depicted in these reports as a Bhil who was a devotee of the Hindu deity Rama, and who had renounced the old turbulent way of life of his community. He was encouraging his people to live in peace with their neighbours, to renounce spirituous drinks, to live cleanly, to wear a yellow strip around their turbans as a mark of identity and to earn a living by cultivation rather than crime. This was clearly a message that was dear to the hearts of the British, who had for the past fifty years been pacifying the Bhils of the region while at the same time encouraging the maharajas and thakors to create the conditions that would in time induce the Bhils to reform themselves from within. Here, it seemed, was a Bhil who would greatly further this process, making them industrious, peaceful and law-abiding subjects. The reports noted that those who had converted and become Bhagats (devotees) of Surmaldas were more prosperous than those who had not changed their way of life. For a decade, not a single Bhagat had been accused of any crime. Thomas Hendley commented on this that such teachers had emerged amongst several of the ‘non-Aryan tribes’ in different parts of India. He called it a process of ‘rapid conversion to Hinduism’ and explained that it revealed ‘the universal desire of the wilder tribes to rise in the social scale.’ 31 [ 60 ]

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The major snag, though, was that the vast majority of Bhils were not prepared to accept Surmaldas’s message. The reports reveal that the Bhagats were being persecuted and boycotted socially by other Bhils, who placed such ‘conversions’ on a par with becoming a ‘Musalman’, something that revealed a strong antipathy towards Islam amongst the Bhils. In this, they were probably influenced by a Rajput culture that had for many years celebrated the struggles of the Rajputs against Muslim overlords. But also, they themselves suffered the oppression of the Muslims, whom many thakors employed as strongmen. The Political Agent for Mahi Kantha claimed that he had taken measures to prevent any outright harassment of Surmaldas and his followers, though in practice it is unlikely that he could have done much to any prevent any social discrimination that stopped short of violence. Later reports add extra dimensions to the picture. In his report of his first meeting with Surmaldas in 1882, Thompson described the penances that Surmaldas had undergone to gain his miraculous powers, so that he could have boiling water poured over his naked body without suffering any harm. He also noted that he forbade his followers to drink spirits or eat meat, and to eat food with anyone who still ate meat.32 As in caste society this represented a claim to be ritually superior, it suggests that the social boycott by other Bhils may have been a reaction to this perceived insult.33 A. L. D. Fordya, the Assistant Political Agent in Mahi Kantha, met Surmaldas in the following year and reported that Surmaldas had asked him whether the British could help him to build a small temple as it would help him gain more followers. Fordya also stated that the Dewan, or chief minister, of the Maharaja of Idar was encouraging Surmaldas’s activities. Even so, the assistant political agent was none too impressed by the Bhil reformer, as he did not seem to be a very powerful personality and he felt that it was unlikely that he could sway the masses. The Bhils had co-existed with Hinduism for centuries without changing their ways, and there was no reason to feel that they would do so now. One problem that had emerged was that a vegetarian diet was hard for the Bhils to maintain in years of scarcity, when they often fell back on eating their livestock or hunting wild animals. Surmaldas admitted that he had lost many of his followers for this reason.34 Writing five years later, in 1888, Thompson gave more details about Surmaldas’s career as a holy man. He had, Thompson said, suffered a series of calamities, with his son, his daughter and many of his cattle dying. Believing that he had been cursed, he made an offering to a local deity, to no avail. He then carried out a penance for thirteen years, not once standing upright. He sat by a fire during the hot season, and wore only a loincloth during the cold season and rains. On different [ 61 ]

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occasions he had swallowed without harm a pound of chillies, then boiling ghee, and then two pounds of molten lead. In this way, he gained a reputation for miraculous power. His followers worshipped him, removing their turbans in his presence and touching the ground at his feet with their foreheads. He also treated the sick. ‘His one medicine, a specific for every disease and sickness, if taken in strong faith, is a grain of parched Indian corn, thickly coated with the ashes of his wood-fire.’35 This reveals that Surmaldas was also a healer, providing charms to cure the sick. It is probable that this was one of his main attractions, drawing sick people to Lusadiya from a wide surrounding area. All of these reports provide only second-hand accounts of Surmaldas and his reform movement. It was only some years later, in 1901, that Surmaldas’s own account first appeared in written form. By then, he had been dead for three years, but some of his close disciples in Lusadiya who were literate had written down his autobiographical account – a narrative that they obviously knew extremely well. They gave it to the missionary Edward Walker, who published it in the North India Church Missionary Gleaner.36 In this account, Surmaldas stated that he was the son of a Bhil outlaw and murderer who drifted about in Mewar during much of his life, living by robbery. He and his brother had followed their father in this respect, and had committed many heinous crimes. He told how in the year 1868 he had met some mysterious people – one of whom was a sadhu – who had said that they wanted to rescue him from his low and degraded condition. The Bhils, they said, were once a clever people, but their condition had deteriorated over the years and they needed to reform their lives. He had returned home in a stupefied state. His family and neighbours believed that he had been possessed by an evil spirit, and they carried out various rituals to purify the house, such as throwing away all of their liquor and meat and spreading cowdung. A sacred fire, or dhuni, was lit and left to burn. Surmaldas performed a long penance, in which he fasted and sat in a deliberately uncomfortable position by the sacred fire. He then found that he had gained supernatural power and was able to heal the sick by anointing their foreheads with red paste (kanku) and ash from the sacred fire. ‘In the same manner the blind, the lame, the barren, the feverish and all kind of sick people came to the sacred fire and were healed.’ He became well known for these healing powers amongst the Bhils of Idar, Mewar and Dungarpur states. He demonstrated his powers to the British political agent by swallowing molten lead in front him, after which the political agent had blessed him in his work and stated: The people will not know you like that; take a piece of cloth a yard and a half long, tie it on your head, buy at Tulsi’s shop beads and rosary and put

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marks of ashes and sandalwood on your forehead, for which the native noblemen and all people will revere you, and will not exact labour from you without payment.

Hearing of this from the political agent, the Maharaja of Idar also came and tested Surmaldas by asking him to swallow hot ghee, which he did. Surmaldas began to preach to the Bhils who came to Lusadiya. He told them to worship a god that was without any visible form, and to reform their way of life by stopping stealing and killing cows. Although they would suffer in the short term, they would eventually improve their social condition. They would have schools and learn to read and write, and would live in superior houses. As the Bhils became wealthier and respectable, so the moral and social condition of the Baniyas and Brahmans would decline, so that they would be the ones living by agricultural labour, and eating meat and drinking liquor. Surmaldas prophesied that there would be a famine, that people’s wealth would be looted, that an army would come to Shamlaji, and that the River Ganges would disappear. In twenty years, the people would follow his commands. There are a number of elements to this account to be commented on. It shows that even a very ‘wild’ Bhil like Surmaldas had a clear grasp of popular Hindu beliefs and rituals and that there were close relationships with the sadhus and other mendicants who lived amongst them. His family and fellow Bhils believed that Hindu-style ritual purification and personal austerity could drive away evil spirits and confer miraculous powers, which included the power to heal. It is notable that this healing power was the first great boon that Surmaldas’s new asceticism conferred on him, and it was this that won him followers initially. In this, he catered to a strong demand for healing within his own society, something that the missionaries also tried to tap into in their different way. The account of the ordeals he performed to convince his rulers as to his power conforms to a formula found in many stories of saintly figures in India. Whereas in the past the rulers of these ordeal narratives were sultans, Mughal emperors and maharajas, the chief authority figure was now the British official, with the Maharaja of Idar in a clearly secondary position. In the story, the ordeal performed for the latter was a weaker and less dramatic one – hot ghee has to be swallowed rather than molten lead – and his endorsement was little more than a footnote. Surmaldas understood very clearly the nature of British hegemony, something that he appears to have been quite comfortable with. He was happy – in this account – to accept the advice of the Britishers as to how he should proceed to spread his religion, even accepting their suggestions regarding the exact ritual paraphernalia and [ 63 ]

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dress that should be adopted. Although it is somewhat far-fetched to believe that the British would have made such prescriptions, it clearly mattered to Surmaldas that they should be made to appear to legitimatise these practices and marks of identification in such a way. He was well aware that British support could provide a strong boost to his movement, as well as help to protect him against his many Bhil opponents. In his account of the Mewar Bhils, Thomas Hendley had noted that ‘Most Bhils think the strong English Gods too much for the weak deities of their country, hence their desire to embrace Brahmanism, which comes within the scope of their understanding, raising them in the social scale’.37 In earlier times the Bhils had asserted themselves and maintained their independence through their prowess in battle. This was no longer possible under British rule, for the colonial state had managed to extend its control deep into the hills through military campaigns and the formation of the MBC. The thakors had ceased to be their allies and protectors and were now their exploiters. With the opening of the hills to trade and commerce, Baniya usurers were also extending their control over them, taking a greater and greater part of their crop to service their debts, backed now by the power of the thakors and the British.38 Many Bhils understood this in supernatural terms, believing that their gods had lost their power and could no longer protect them. Seen in such terms, Surmaldas, like many other Bhils of his generation, was looking to what Hendley called ‘Brahmanism’ for the divine protection that his own deities could no longer provide. This required a profound change in values. The celebration of raids on rival Bhil pals and caste peasant villages, conspicuous consumption of the loot (including cattle) in communal feasts, drunken merriment and the hunt – all central to the old culture – was to be replaced with an ethos of sobriety, abstinence, vegetarianism, diligent and honest labour, and personal development through education. In earlier times, many Bhils who had settled in the plains regions had been integrated into caste society as peasant cultivators, in the process often becoming a local caste within a hierarchical society. In the process, they tended to become more Hinduised. The independent Bhils of the hill tract had for the most part refused to follow such a path, as they had no desire to become merely a subordinate caste. In the changed conditions of the day, with thakors asserting Brahmanical values in a sometimes aggressive manner (as seen in the case referred to by Hendley in which a thakor mutilated and tortured two Bhil cowkillers39), and the Baniya usurers exploiting their monopoly over writing to trap the profligate Bhils in bonds of debt, Surmaldas provided an alternative path that allowed for both adaptation and self-assertion. [ 64 ]

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He told his followers that if they followed his teachings, they, as Bhils, would prosper in health and wealth, while the high castes would lose their power. No longer able to live by exploiting the Bhils, the latter would have to put their hands to the plough. He even predicted that they would lose their morality, and that in the end that the social, economic and ritual positions of the high castes and the Bhils would be reversed. His programme was not, therefore, one of trying to forge a universal religion for all so much as one of creating an exclusive religion for the Bhils, who would thereby become God’s chosen people. Rather than providing an agenda that acquiesced with ruling values, this was a declaration for Bhil assertion. Another significant feature of Surmaldas’s message was that he depicted the old way of life as a state of wildness and lack of civilisation. He thus described his father as ‘a Bhil, who was a farmer living in jungles in a very uncivilized and wild state’. This was because he survived on ‘loot, robbery and plunder’. In this, it might be assumed that he had internalised the vocabulary of the British. In fact, it is more likely that he was deploying concepts that long predated colonial rule. Unfortunately, the source is a translation into English, so that we do not know the original words used by Surmaldas, but they are likely to have been jangli, meaning wild and uncouth, and hadu or hadarelu for ‘civilised’.40 Bhils were generally considered by the high castes to be a jangli people who lacked any sense of propriety, being often boisterous and drunk in public places, and given to violent feuds and criminal behaviour.41 Hadu and hadarelu appear to mean the same as the Gujarati and Hindi sudhrai. Thompson depicted the Bhil language as a ‘corrupt’ form of Gujarati,42 though we may regard it as a local dialect which, in common with many such dialects, replaced the standard Gujarati consonant s with h, and dh with d. This is reinforced by the fact that the Bhil word for ‘improvement’ was hudaro.43 The standard Gujarati word sudharo is commonly used to mean ‘improvement’ and ‘civilisation’,44 and it is closely related to the word sudhrai. In both Gujarati and Hindi, sudhrai also means a higher and better state of being, and thus a state of being ‘civilised’.45 The high castes commonly saw themselves as being in a state of sudhrai, by which they meant essentially that they conducted their lives in a respectable God-fearing manner. As Surmaldas had first reformed himself under the inspiration of a person of high caste, his project has to be understood primarily as adopting such high caste, rather than British values. For him, hadu/ hadarelu/hudaro involved such qualities as living in peace with others rather than a state of constant violent feud, the inculcation of a sense of honour through devotion rather than violence, sober worship that had no place for mind-changing substances, such as liquor, hashish or [ 65 ]

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opium, the careful harbouring of resources rather than displays of ostentatious consumption, hard work, non-stealing, truthfulness and so on. The Bhagats followed Surmaldas in this, reforming their lives in such a way that they could now claim to be ‘civilised’ in these various ways.

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The Lusadiya mission Thompson, for his part, felt that Surmaldas’s movement created the conditions for a possible acceptance of the ‘civilisation’ of the Christian missionaries, and thus Christianity. He decided to establish a mission base in the area, and began negotiating to this effect with the Political Agent in Mahi Kantha, the Idar authorities and local thakors. He was attracted particularly to Lusadiya village, as he believed that many of Surmaldas’s followers would respond to what he believed to be the superior message of Christianity. The British and Idar authorities provided wholehearted support for his scheme – the Idar government even promised some financial support and free supplies of teak for building – and the Thakor of Karchha agreed to provide land at no cost in May 1886. Thompson arrived after the monsoon of that year, ready to start work. To this day, Christians in Lusadiya can relate how he first pitched his tent under a large banyan tree and from there went out to contact the local Bhils.46 Some of the thakors of the area became alarmed by his presence, believing that he was involved in a plot to seize their land, and four of them tried to stir up the local Bhils to attack Lusadiya to drive him away. The Bhils however ignored them, as they saw no advantage in putting themselves out in this respect. As it was, three of the four thakors concerned died during the course of the next two years – which suggested to many that they had incurred supernatural wrath as a punishment for their ill will – and their younger successors proved friendlier towards the mission.47 Thompson sought initially to gain the confidence of the people by focusing on medical work. In the words of the political agent: As previously arranged the Rev. Mr. Thompson came there [Lusadiya] as soon as the season opened at the latter end of October, and pitching his tent near the site he had selected for the school and the mission houses began operations by opening a dispensary and commenced making arrangements for the timber and material required for building. It was something so entirely new to the Bhil to find any one who took an interest in him and his welfare, and especially when it went to the length of looking after his bodily ailments, and giving him medical advice and medicine just for the mere asking for it, that at first he could hardly understand it, and for some few days after the dispensary was opened crowds

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and crowds of the Bhils flocked in as much to see what was really going on I think as anything else; in November and the early part of December fever was very rife and attendance at the dispensary at the time was frequently over 500 per day, its reputation was thus thoroughly established and it is looked on with much favour by the Bhils of whom the average daily attendance is from 40 to 50. 48

By adopting this strategy, Thompson avoided any direct confrontation with the religious beliefs of the Bhils, whether they were of the old or reformed persuasions. His second strategy was that of education. A school building was ready by the end of December of that year and forty-five boys registered themselves, of whom twenty-four were Bhils. All of the latter were from Bhagat families, that is, followers of Surmaldas. They appear to have been confident enough in their religion to take advantage of the new facility without fear that it would lead to conversion to Christianity. Thompson went out to neighbouring pals to encourage other young Bhils to come to the school, and he tried particularly hard to induce those who were not Bhagats. Possibly, he believed that it might be easier in the long term to convert them to Christianity. One of the thakors whom Thompson met on his tours was that of the Pal estate, which was subordinate to Idar. The thakor – a young man of twenty-four – was eager to carry out reforms in his territory. He said that he would provide land and a grant of Rs. 1,200 to erect a dispensary, school and mission house, and a recurring grant of Rs. 300 each year for the running costs of this establishment. Given a free hand by the thakor, Thompson went in April 1887 with the chief minister of Idar to select a site, choosing one in the Bhil pal of Biladiya. Initial building was completed just before the close of that year, and the school opened with twenty-six pupils, of whom sixteen were Bhils. Thompson explored other areas also, and although he found some good spots for more mission outposts, he could not obtain adequate funding or recruit suitable people with schooling who had the ability to operate as combined schoolteachers and medical dispensers. In Thompson’s opinion, unless such people had the personality and diligence to win the respect of the local Bhils they would be of little use for the mission.49 The chief minister of Idar took a close and enthusiastic interest in Thompson’s work, even going to Lusadiya in 1887 to inspect the mission school. Both the schoolmaster and the Bhil pupils whom he examined greatly impressed him. ‘I was really struck with the distinct pronunciations and accents of the Bhil boys. They read and spoke just as boys of the more refined castes do and this speaks a good deal in the favour of the master who appears a very industrious youth and of a quiet and settled disposition’. He suggested that the mission open a [ 67 ]

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school for girls there as well. He also inspected the medical work and concluded that ‘Mr. Thompson’s hospital here is a great blessing to the people of this wild district. I wish every success and God speed to the noble work.’50 Colonel Scott, the acting political agent, visited Lusadiya later that year. He judged the school a great success – thirtynine of the sixty-one pupils were Bhils, and many were able to read and write with great fluency. Three or four came from far away, and slept at nights in the school veranda. They brought food supplies with them, and when these were exhausted they would ask permission to take two days off to return home to replenish their stocks. Scott commented: ‘I think that the Brahman and Baniya boys would not accept education at such a price.’ He went on to remark that Thompson’s popularity amongst the Bhils was increasing by the day, ‘and the relief received at his dispensaries is much appreciated; some of them, however, cannot yet understand how it is that any one, especially an European, should take so much interest in, and so much trouble for, them, and all for nothing, and being of a naturally suspicious nature are inclined to imagine that there must be some ulterior motive.’51 With such official support for the mission, the path forward appeared to be bright.

The first conversions As it was, the missionaries had to wait until 1889 before they were able to baptise their first Bhils. Although many of the Bhil pupils at the mission schools were said to be Christian at heart, it was reported that they lacked the courage to come forward for baptism, as they knew that they would suffer social boycott if they did.52 In the end it was an older man of Khandi Umbari village called Sukha Damor (aged about fortyfive), his wife Hirki and their four children aged between five and ten who became the first converts, being baptised on 15 December 1889. Sukha was one of the Bhils who had helped Thompson to make his initial contacts in the villages around Kherwara in November 1881, and he had continued to help him on his tours. He was a Bhagat who wore a mala – a string of beads that marked a person as a Bhagat. He had been told by his fellow Bhils: ‘If you become a Christian your fellowcountrymen will disown you, and the Padre Sahib may leave India.’ He said that his friends could do as they pleased, even kill him, and that he had his saviour over and above the Padre Sahib. Once baptised, he gave up wearing his mala.53 A prominent Bhagat called Isadas soon followed, becoming an important evangelist for the mission. Thompson also converted a sadhu called Satyadas, who was from a family of sadhus of the pilgrimage centre of Nathadwara in the plains region of Mewar. He had come to [ 68 ]

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practise his devotions in the hilly region at the age of fifteen, and after some initial setbacks had gradually won the respect of the Bhils. He had nearly four thousand followers at the time of his baptism, and he believed that they would join him.54 As it was, he was left isolated and suffered considerable persecution. He nevertheless started preaching the Gospel to the Bhils, continuing up until his death in 1897. The other important convert at this time was Premji Hurji Patel, who was a pupil at the mission school at Kherwara. He was a member of the Dangi Patel community of Kattibadi village, near Kherwara. His family members opposed his conversion strongly, and even tried to poison him when he proved obdurate. He was baptised in 1890, and was subsequently employed as a lay preacher by the mission.55 Thompson believed that the tide was turning as far as the Bhagat movement was concerned. He had seen more of Surmaldas since working in Lusadiya, and had lost much of his earlier respect for the Bhil reformer. When they had met he had twice asked Surmaldas to explain what he meant by prayer and how he prayed, and all that he could do was to chant repeatedly: ‘He Parmeshwar! He Bhagwan!’ (O God! Oh God!) He did not, said Thompson, know any other prayer, and this revealed his ignorance and his profound limitation. Moreover, Surmaldas realised that he was losing his powers, and had decided to resume his life of severe penance in the hope that he might somehow regain them. In Thompson’s words: The last time I saw the old man he was breathing with difficulty, emaciated, and resolved never again to give up his life of fasting and voluntary suffering. By remaining out in the open in the rainy and cold seasons, and by sitting over a fire during the hot weather, he aims at being credited with that divinity that doth hedge a successful guru. His followers, however, are leaving the preposterous business of dethroning God. They are going to send for a leading guru from Kathiawar, and for another from Meywar, to ask them to point out plainly the road to heaven. If the two men fail to do this, some of the disciples say they will seek the light and help from the Christian teachers.56

Writing a year and a half later, in 1891, Thompson reported that Surmaldas’s reputation continued to wane, and that Christianity stood ready to take the place of ‘Bhagatism’.57 Nevertheless, the going continued to be slow; by 1895 there were still only twenty-four Bhil converts. In part this was because of opposition by the local thakors and other high-caste Hindus. Some Bhils had asked for schools, but under pressures from their thakors had later said that they no longer required them. In one case in which a school was started despite this, a rumour was spread that quickly emptied it of its [ 69 ]

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pupils.58 There were also stirrings of a new religious nationalism. A member of the Arya Samaj who had an intense hatred towards Christianity began agitating against the missionaries.59 Another reason for the slow progress was, according to Thompson, that Bhil men preferred to have more than one wife if they could afford to pay the necessary brideprice, as it saved them from having to labour for themselves. They realised that if they became Christians they would not be allowed to do this. Furthermore, the young men who been baptised had found it very hard to obtain wives for themselves, as they were being boycotted socially. Some converts later left the church as a result of such pressures. Thompson also took a stern attitude towards those who might convert to gain access to mission charity, demanding that converts be self-supporting before he would accept them. He was not prepared to take any easy short cuts in this respect. Thompson ordered one young convert who tried to stay in the mission compound to leave and earn his living outside. He subsequently stopped taking communion. Thompson commented that ‘We do want true and manly independence, and we must inculcate into the minds of our people that slavish dependence on missionaries is entirely antagonistic to the spirit of Christianity.’ To do otherwise would ruin ‘the Christian name’. This, he believed, was the method of Christ.60 The tide was however about to turn, but it did so only after a time of intense suffering and mass mortality. This, the great famine of 1899–1900 and its aftermath form the subject of the next chapter.

Notes 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

‘The Santal Mission’, Intelligencer, 6 NS (November 1881), 693. Dorothy L. McBurney, ‘The Patron Saint of Kherwara’, typescript dated 1948, Paul Johnson papers. E. H. Bickersteth, ‘The Mission to the Bheels’, Intelligencer, 5 NS (September 1880), 537–8. Vinodkumar M. Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions to the Church of North India in Gujarat with Special Reference to Church Growth among the Bhil People of SomSabarkantha’, master’s dissertation, University of Dublin, 1987, p. 98. Malaviya notes that the Anglican missionaries to the Bhils were neither Anglo-Catholics nor in the ‘liberal’ wing of the church. He also argues that they were not ‘greatly influenced by the Bishops or the British Raj’. W. Gray, ‘The C.M.S. and Medical Missions’, Intelligencer, 9 NS (May 1884), 313. Ibid., 314–15. See the first section of Chapter 1. ‘The Bheel Mission’, Intelligencer, 8 NS (July 1883), 414. ‘The Bhil Mission’, Annual Letter of the Rev. C. S. Thompson, Kherwara, 31 January 1890, Intelligencer, 15 NS (September 1890), 610–11. ‘The Bheel Mission’, Intelligencer, 8 NS (July 1883), 416. Ibid., 416–17. W. Gray (secretary of CMS) to C. S. Thompson, 22 April 1881, CMS, G2 I 1 L/10, 1881–84.

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22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

Intelligencer, 8 NS (June 1883), 378. W. Gray to Rev. G. Litchfield, October 1883, CMS, G2 I 1 L/10, 1881–84. H. Mould to Gill, Gorakhpur, 26 November 1899, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1899, doc. 479. Bishop of Exeter to Ireland Jones, Exeter, 30 July 1896, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1896, doc. 320. ‘From the Rev. G. Litchfield, Kherwara’, Intelligencer, 11 NS (May and June 1886), 412–13. ‘The Bheel Mission’, Intelligencer, 8 NS (July 1883), 418. W. Gray to C. S. Thompson, 11 October 1882, CMS, G2 I 1 L/10, 1881–84. History of Idar State by A. S. Meek, 1925, OIOC, R/2/149/106, pp. 17–18. A. K. Forbes, Ras Mala: or Hindoo Annals of the Province of Goozerat in Western India (London: Richardson, 1878), pp. 249–52, 267–70, 282–4, 293–304 and 308–11. Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, 5: Cutch, Palanpur and Mahi Kantha (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1880), p. 382 (hereafter Mahi Kantha Gazetteer). P. S. V. FitzGerald, Acting Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, to Pol. Dept., Bombay, Sadra, 12 August 1895, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1543 (1890–91 to 1908–9), 1894–95, pp. 4–5. Major W. A. Salmon, Acting Pol. Agent, Mahi Kanta, to Govt. of Bombay, Ahmedabad, 26 July 1884, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1542 (1863–90), 1883–84, p. 4. Lieutenant Colonel A. M. Philips, Acting Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, to Govt. of Bombay, Sadra, 30 May 1885, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1542 (1863–90), 1884–85, pp. 4–6. Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Wodehouse, Pol. Agent, Mahi Kanta, to Govt. of Bombay, Sadra, 14 July 1883, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1542 (1863–1890), 1882–83, p. 22. Major C. Wodehouse, Pol. Agent, Mahi Kanta, to Govt. of Bombay, Sadra, 31 July 1882, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1542 (1863–90), 1881–82, pp. 3–4. Lieutenant Colonel A. M. Philips, Acting Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, to Govt. of Bombay, Sadra, 30 May 1885, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1542 (1863–90), 1884–85, pp. 4–6. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 388. Mahi Kantha Gazetteer, p. 366; Major C. Wodehouse, Pol. Agent, Mahi Kanta, to Govt. of Bombay, Sadra, 31 July September 1881, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1542 (1863– 90), 1881–82, p. 4. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 388. ‘The Bheel Mission’, Intelligencer, 8 NS (July 1883), 417. Ibid., 417. A. L. D. Fordya, Assistant Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, 1 December 1883, OIOC, R/2/699/38. ‘From the Rev. C. S. Thompson, Kherwara (Bheel Mission), Central Provinces’, CMSE (1887–88), 93–4. Edward Walker, ‘Letter From the Bhil Mission’, North India Church Missionary Gleaner (September 1901), 51–2. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 349. For an examination of this process, see David Hardiman, ‘The Bhils and Sahukars of Eastern Gujarat’, in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies, 5 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987). Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 356–7. This is the word that, according to Thompson, the Bhils used for the English idea of being ‘civilised’. Thompson, Rudiments of the Bhili Language, p. 218. See G. Morris Carstairs, The Twice-Born (London: Hogarth Press, 1968), pp. 126 and 135. Thompson, Rudiments of the Bhili Language, p. i. Ibid., p. 249. P. G. Deshpande, Gujarati–Angreji Kosh (Ahmedabad: University Book Production Board, 1974), p. 906. The word sudhrai is also found in Hindi. Both the Hindi and the Gujarati are derived from the Sanskrit word sudharin, which means maintaining orderly and good behaviour. See M. Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit–English Dictionary (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1990), p. 1225.

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Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002. Surjibhai’s grandfather Savabhia Somabhia Suvera was a follower of Surmaldas who came under the influence of Thompson at that time. ‘From the Rev. C. S. Thompson, Kherwara (Bheel Mission), Central Provinces’, CMSE (1887–88), 94. Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, to Chief Secretary, Govt. of Bombay, 28 July 1887, MKAAR, 1886–87, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 49, F 34. Ibid.; Colonel W. Scott, Acting Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, to Pol. Dept., Bombay, Sadra, 8 August 1888, MKAAR, 1887–88, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 49, F 35, p. 3. Dewan, Idar State, Memorandum Containing Observations on the General Management of the State of Idar during the Year 1886–87, Idar, 30 June 1887, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 49, F 34. Colonel W. Scott, Acting Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, to Pol. Dept., Bombay, Sadra, 8 August 1888, MKAAR, 1887–88, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 49, F 35, p. 37. A. Clifford, ‘ Report on the Bhil Mission’, Intelligencer, 14 NS (October 1889), 632. ‘The Bhil Mission’, Annual Letter of the Rev. C. S. Thompson, Kherwara, 31 January 1890, Intelligencer, 15 NS (September 1890), 609–10. I was told in an interview that his full name was Bada Sukha Damor. Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002. ‘From the Rev. W. B. Collins, Bheel Mission, Kherwara, North India’, CMSE (1891– 92), 426. Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, pp. 19–20. Annual Letter of the Rev. C. S. Thompson, Kherwara, 31 January 1890, in Intelligencer, 15 NS (September 1890), 610–11. C. S. Thompson and W. B. Collins, Kherwara, 22 July 1891, Intelligencer, 17 NS (August 1892), 582. ‘Annual letter of the Rev. W. B. Collins for 1889, Kherwara, 2 February 1890’, Intelligencer, 15 NS (September 1890), 612–13. C. S. Thompson and W. B. Collins, Kherwara, 22 July 1891, Intelligencer, 17 NS (August 1892), 582. C. S. Thompson, Kherwara, June 1895, Intelligencer, 20 NS (October 1895), 771.

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The great famine

In their medical work, the missionaries had sought to gain sympathy though their compassionate response to personal crisis. A similar principle was invoked during famines, but now the crisis was allencompassing, and the need for help became exponentially greater. A great famine that began in 1899 brought radical changes in the mission to the Bhils. Existing staff fell ill and in some cases died, creating an influx of fresh workers to cope with the disaster. For the first time, qualified medical doctors came to work for the mission. The famine also led to a wave of conversion, so that henceforth the missionaries would be the leaders and guides of a significant community of Bhil Christians. Thompson returned in November 1899 from a stay in Britain to find the Bhil region in the grip of a severe famine. In Idar State, only 16 mm of rain had fallen during the monsoon that year, compared with the average annual rainfall for the previous six years of 108 mm.1 Never within living memory had there been such a failure. When Thompson arrived back in at Kherwara, he found that the missionary who had been in charge for the past year, Arthur Outram, was sick with malaria.2 As yet, he had provided relief for only a few famine victims in the immediate vicinity of the mission station. Colonel Bignall, the MBC commandant, had outdone him by making arrangements for about 250 needy people to be fed. The Mewar State authorities took no direct action in this area, as they considered that the responsibility lay with the local thakors. A few of these tried to give some help, but lacked the experience, ability and resources to cope with such an overwhelming disaster, while many did nothing. In effect, the authorities in Mewar provided almost no relief throughout the famine.3 Thompson quickly took matters in hand. He ordered sheds to be built to house famine victims, started a food kitchen, opened an orphanage, and ordered supplies of grain from northern India. By mid-December, about fifty were taking advantage of these facilities, most of them children.4 [ 73 ]

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A small number of Bhils migrated to urban centres, where rich merchants were at that time paying for food to be cooked and distributed to the starving in the streets.5 Some made for James Shepherd’s mission in Udaipur, as he had gained a reputation for his sympathetic treatment of the Bhils who had previously visited his hospital in the city. He opened a relief centre where he provided food that was paid for in part from his own pocket and in part from charitable donations by the people of the city. Very often, the Bhils brought their children and begged him to care for them while the famine lasted. He housed them at a refuge he had already set up for Bhil boys; the girls he sent to be cared for in mission stations to the north.6 It would appear, however, that only the Bhils of the hilly tracts close to Udaipur sought relief in this way in significant numbers, as they used to visit the city regularly. Elsewhere, the large majority of the Bhils lived far from any city and, lacking any familiarity with such alien places and being apprehensive of their fate there, they failed to make use of this potential lifesaver. Leaving Outram in charge of Kherwara, Thompson toured the mission outstations, organising similar relief measures there.7 He found that many of the Bhil men had fled the villages, leaving only women and children, and he found himself surrounded everywhere by crowds of starving children. By mid-January, seven relief centres were up and running, feeding six hundred children, who were also attending the mission schools. At Kotada, for example, the number of children at the mission school had within weeks increased from three to fifty-one. Thompson commented that ‘this famine is offering us great opportunities’. The work was however taking its toll on his health – which had never been good since the mid-1890s – especially as he had been travelling from outstation to outstation over the mountains on foot.8 The large majority of those who came to the mission centres for help were women and children. The few Bhil men who came tended to be the sick or incapacitated, as the able-bodied preferred to try to provide for themselves through robbery.9 The officers of the MBC had managed to hire some five hundred camels to transport food grain to these and their own centres.10 These had to be escorted by armed soldiers to prevent them from being looted.11 As supplies were very limited, lists were compiled of the needy, with children taking priority over adults. Outram described vividly how crowds of starving people would plead to be included on the list and the hard choices that had to be made. Medical attention was also provided for those who were sick; guinea worm, fever and diarrhoea were common complaints.12 Orphaned children were sent – depending on their sex – to the girls’ orphanage at Kherwara or the boys’ orphanage at Biladiya. Many were very [ 74 ]

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weak and soon succumbed to ailments such as ‘famine diarrhoea’ and scurvy.13 On the Gujarat side, the Idar authorities opened relief works in various parts of the state that employed 15,604 in May 1900. The people were put to hard work constructing roads, some of which passed though Bhil areas, notably that from Idar to Shamlaji via Bhiloda. Some tanks were also excavated.14 Very little of this helped the Bhils in their villages. One solitary thakor in the Bhil tract, the Rao of Ghoradar, was reported to have made any efforts; he provided food for about fifty people. The missionaries ran their own relief from the mission compound at Ghoradar, feeding about a thousand each day.15 As winter gave way to summer, the crisis deepened. Writing on 9 April, Thompson exclaimed: ‘Wherever one goes, the starving, dying people, with an intense craving for food, are pleading hard for it with tears. Oh, this is a bitter time!’16 With bodies weakened through the eating of almost indigestible, often toxic vegetation and drinking filthy water, increasing numbers of the malnourished began to die from disease – particularly cholera, which escalated into a major epidemic in May. There was a panic when cholera broke out in the relief works run by the Idar State authorities – over half of the terrified workers fled.17 By now, the mission was feeding 5,500 children twice daily in fifteen centres. Each had to be supplied with grain weekly. Cholera did not spare these centres – in one, eighty children died in a week.18 Thompson was staying overnight at the small centre at Bavaliya, near Lusadiya, on the night of 18–19 May when he woke at three in the morning with severe stomach pains. Aware that he had contracted cholera, he decided that he had to return immediately to Kherwara for treatment. Too weak to walk, he was carried on a cot. The entourage had gone only about five kilometres when he asked to be set down under a forest tree near the village of Jhanjari. There, at noon, he died. An urgent message had already been sent to Outram in Kherwara, who hurried to the spot. Arriving at the mission outpost at Kalbai at midnight, Outram met a melancholy procession bearing Thompson’s body. In his words: ‘I at once had a grave dug on a little hill opposite the Kanbia [sic] school, thinking that he would have liked as it were to be in sight of his own work; and, just as dawn broke the grave was ready and we laid his body to rest – a weary, worn out body – knowing his spirit was with the Saviour he loved and worked for.’19 Thompson’s personal servant Bhagwan – who had nursed him in his illness – had himself fallen ill of the disease and was soon dead also.20 A tragedy for the mission, Thompson’s death in the forest was nonetheless a potent force for inspiration; he could now be acclaimed [ 75 ]

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as the saintly founding father who had lain down his life for the salvation of his Bhil ‘flock’. As Charles Gill wrote on 25 May: Thompson has died as he lived, in the midst of the Bhil people and the Bhil country, straining every nerve for their temporal and external welfare. His grave will still be a witness among them for that Saviour and Friend whom he proclaimed to them. The devotion of his faithful Bhil servant, Bhagwana, who caught the Cholera from him, and died a few hours after him, may be an earnest of the future devotion of the Bhil people to the Saviour in whose footsteps he trod. The corn of wheat has fallen into the ground and died; but doubtless it will now bring forth much fruit.21

Fired by this poignant and stirring model of self-sacrifice, volunteers came forward to take up Thompson’s work.22 The Reverend E. P. Herbert, of the mission to the Gonds of central India, who had replaced Thompson for much of the time he had been in England on leave, agreed to return to stand in once more. Four CMS clergymen based elsewhere in India offered their services on a temporary basis and were accepted within days. Miss A. H. Bull wrote from England – where she was on furlough – offering to join the Bhil mission, and as a female missionary was required to help Gertrude Outram run the girls’ orphanage at Kherwara; this was agreed to.23 Writing in late May, Outram calculated that ‘40% of the population are now dead, and 50% of the remainder, humanly-speaking, must die before the rains are over, from famine, small-pox and cholera. It is a sad prospect.’ The only grain that was available for the Bhils anywhere was supplied by either the MBC or the mission, and it was now in short supply. When he went to the outpost at Kagdar, where they were already feeding 500 people, he found 550 extra people ‘all destitute and bound to die’, but had only enough grain in hand to agree to feed 50 of them.24 The suffering shocked the volunteers who began arriving at this time. E. P. Herbert stated that ‘I never saw photographs nor read descriptions vivid or awful enough to describe the sad plight’.25 Each mission centre he went to was surrounded by dead bodies, which he had to cremate.26 Cholera was raging unchecked at every place where the Bhils gathered to be fed. At the Sarsau station, for example, up to ten Bhils were dying every day from cholera, and the mission schoolmaster had lost both his wife and his mother to the disease. Working together from Biladiya, Herbert and J. C. Harrison made it their priority to clean the wells at each station and to persuade the people there to drink only from those wells rather than from dirty ponds.27 By July, fresh funds were pouring in through donations from as far away as the United States and new volunteers were arriving, one of whom, Dr A. H. Browne of the Amritsar Medical Mission, became [ 76 ]

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the first qualified doctor to work for the mission.28 Although the monsoon was as yet holding off, Outram was fearful of the consequences of any rain, as the people had sold almost all their clothing and, having no protection from the damp, would almost certainly die long before any grain could be harvested.29 He asked for donations of clothing and blankets. Because the surviving people had no seed-grain to sow once the rain came and no bullocks left alive to plough the ground, the missionaries provided them with enough to cultivate any field that could be prepared with hand tools.30 Although the Bhils might have obtained seed from the Baniya shopkeepers, the latter were demanding three-quarters of any future crop in repayment. By providing seed-grain at no cost, the missionaries gained immense goodwill.31 The monsoon came eventually at the end of July, and the rainfall was sufficient to hold out the promise of a reasonable harvest for those still able to till their land. The damp and cold weather proved fatal for large numbers of Bhils, many of whom were reported to be like ‘living skeletons’.32 Although cholera abated in August, it was replaced by epidemics of dysentery and malaria, both of which proved killers.33 Many had only rags to wear and were sleeping at night on the ground under trees. Often, they died during the night. Dr Browne, now working at Biladiya, wrote in a letter of 6 August that he was walking around the mission compound three or four times a day to see if there were any fresh corpses: ‘Two mornings ago ten were picked up lying in one place or another under the trees, and six were taken out of my little hospital. The same afternoon, while I was feeding the hospital patients, three died before my eyes, and four more during the afternoon died outside.’34 He had the bodies cremated on a fire that was kept burning continuously. He estimated that the death rate had quadrupled there since the rains came, with 18 to 20 deaths each day. The mission was at that time running six such centres on the Gujarat side, feeding in all 6,400 people each day, and there were similar reports from them. At Bavaliya, 19 of the 1,100 on relief were reported to have died in one day.35 They could not even save many of the children in their two orphanages. Dr Browne wrote in graphic terms of his struggle on 20 August to keep alive ‘eight little ones, but to no use; in the evening they all died’.36 During three weeks in August the numbers of boys at this orphanage fell from 202 to 122. At the end of the month, 40 of them were lying ill in the hospital, and many were still dying. The death rate was reported to be even heavier at the Kherwara girls’ orphanage.37 At the orphanage for boys run by James Shepherd in Udaipur city – which never had more than three hundred inmates – two hundred died of cholera during the worst month.38 The particular [ 77 ]

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irony of all this was that the people were dying in greater numbers just as their crops were at last ripening. The missionaries themselves suffered badly during the monsoon period; many had to abandon their relief activities because of sickness. Outram and his wife Gertrude began to suffer from repeated bouts of dysentery, and after coming close to death had to take long-term leave to recover.39 Soon after, Harrison, Herbert and Dr Browne were forced to give up their work through illness, leaving six volunteers who had come on a temporary basis running the mission. They included another British medical doctor, an Indian medical assistant and ‘an earnest Christian soldier’ who had been granted leave by his regiment to help out in the famine area. 40 Mrs Dawson, wife of the new MBC commandant, Major C. Hutton Dawson, agreed to look after the girls’ orphanage at Kherwara.41 Dr Browne returned to work in mid-September, and noticed a change of attitude amongst the Bhil survivors. Many had come into close contact with the missionaries at the relief centres, and they were much less suspicion of their motives than they had been previously. The manner in which the missionaries had endangered their own health and even their lives had not gone unnoticed. According to Browne, ‘Some of the more thoughtful Bhils have said – “I want to know more about this religion of Christ; for there must be something in it to make the Sahibs come and live amongst us to save our lives as they have done.” ’ They needed to act fast to take advantage of this mood before it subsided, and he urged the CMS to send the best missionaries and catechists that were available to strike while the iron was hot.42 By October the acute stage of famine had passed, and hardly any adults were coming for food to the mission centres. The missionaries were, however, still feeding many children. Only about forty girl and twenty-five boy orphans remained under their care, as many had died and others had run away. Charles Gill visited the area at this time and noted that although the famine was now at an end, the whole region appeared desolate, with deserted houses, depopulated villages and uncultivated fields. He regretted that very little proselytisation had been carried out during the previous year. The strain of the famine, the paucity of workers and their ignorance of the language had prevented any real spiritual teaching amongst the crowds assembled for food. The time had now come for such work. ‘The former barriers of timidity and suspicion are now considerably broken down. They now frankly recognise us as their friends and helpers in time of calamity; and now is our opportunity to reach them.’ Unfortunately, most of the volunteers were about to leave, and there was no permanent staff of white missionaries left. There were only a handful of Indian converts working [ 78 ]

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on a permanent basis, such as Premji, based at Bavaliya, Isadas at Kalbai, Teza at Biladiya and Badda, his brother, who was working as a schoolmaster at Kherwara. All the other mission schoolteachers were non-Christians from Gujarat. Two fresh missionaries had been recruited from England – the Reverend W. Hodgkinson and Mr G. C. Vyse – and they were due to arrive in November. They would have to focus initially on learning the language rather than preaching the Gospel.43 Writing in November 1900, Gill set out his plans to establish the Bhil mission on a much firmer footing. In the initial years, Thompson had carried out almost all of the evangelistic and itinerating work. ‘He was a Hercules spiritually and physically.’ Now, however, the mission had to go beyond the ‘one-man stage’. It can hardly be expected that Missionaries of ordinary physique can live in the rough and ready way endured by Mr. Thompson. Accommodation must be improved; a more permanent residence for a married Missionary must be erected on the Gujarat side; proper arrangements must be made for the obtaining of supplies from Kherwara or Ahmedabad; dispensaries should be erected for Medical work; efforts should be made to introduce native Christian preachers and to direct their work.

Gill noted that Thompson had always wanted a permanent medical mission, and one possibility was that Dr A. H. Browne of the Punjab mission should have his services at the Bhil mission extended by one year.44 The problem was solved when the Reverend and Mrs Birkett of the Lucknow mission volunteered to serve in the Bhil region. Arthur Birkett was manager of the Church Mission High School, Lucknow. He had made this into the best high school in the city: it regularly stood first in the annual public examinations.45 He had also trained for a time in England as an architect before he took holy orders, so that he had come to India equipped with technological skills that would be of use in the construction of new mission facilities, as and when required. His wife, whom he had married in 1899, was a medical doctor, with qualifications from Brussels and Edinburgh. As Dr Jane Haskew, she had been appointed by the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission of the CMS to carry out medical work in Lucknow, where she had met her future husband.46 She had run both the Kinnaird Hospital at Lucknow and a dispensary for women at Nigohan, a large village outstation thirty-eight kilometres from the city. It was a condition for women who served in the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission that they remained unmarried, and once she became Mrs Birkett she had to resign and relinquish her post at the hospital. She continued to carry [ 79 ]

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out her work at Nigohan on a purely voluntary basis, as the dispensary would otherwise have closed.47 As the wife of a missionary, Jane Birkett was no longer seen as having any valid grounds for pursuing an independent career; her status within the CMS was henceforth to be merely that of an adjunct to her husband in his work. Arthur Birkett himself clearly respected his wife’s skills, and does not appear to have been happy about her downgrading in this respect. It seems that the two wanted to make a fresh start as a couple and volunteered to leave Lucknow for this end. Gill believed that they were particularly suited for the Bhil mission, and he appointed them for a year in the first instance, with Arthur Birkett to serve as head of the mission in place of A. P. Herbert, who had left the mission in November 1900 after collapsing both physically and mentally. The Birketts arrived in the same month and based themselves initially at Bavaliya.48 They moved to Biladiya in early 1901, as the thakor at Bavaliya – whom Arthur Birkett considered a very troublesome man to deal with – was proving obdurate on the matter of providing land for the mission to build on. Biladiya was, he felt, better located for the outstations on the Gujarat side, and there was sufficient land to construct an orphanage. It was a larger place, with Bhils, Patels and other Hindus who were friendly towards them. He decided to upgrade the existing rest house to a residence for a permanent missionary by adding an extra storey.49 Jane Birkett ran the dispensary at Biladiya. Then, during the summer of 1901, a major breakthrough came for the mission at Lusadiya, where some leading Bhagats announced that they wished to convert to Christianity. This development will be examined in the next chapter.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Mahi Kantha Gazetteer, p. 50. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 30 November 1899, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1899, doc. 471. Carstairs, Shepherd of Udaipur, pp. 212–13. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 14 December 1899, CMS, G2 I 6/0 1900, doc. 13. For reports on such activities see Pandit Sukhdeo Prasad, The Final Report of the Famine Operations in Marwar during 1899 and 1900 (Jodhpur: Government Press, 1900), pp. 143–6; L. V. Tarvadi, Ahmedabad, 12 January 1901, Maharashtra State Archives, Mumbai, Famine Department, 39/169, pt. III. Carstairs, Shepherd of Udaipur, pp. 215–16. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 18 January 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 70. C. S. Thompson to C. H. Gill, Kotra, 25 January 1900, ibid., doc. 92; Gill to Durrant, Kotra, 15 February 1900, ibid., doc. 129. F. Westcott, ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Rajputana Side’, Intelligencer, 25 NS (October 1900), 739. Gill to Durrant, Kotra, 15 February 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, Doc. 129. R. Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils (London: CMS, 1914), p. 21. Report on Famine in Bhil Mission Area by Arthur Outram, Kherwara, 5 July 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 383.

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Rev. Foss Westcott (S.P.G. Mission, Cawnpore), Cawnpore, 25 July 1900, ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Rajputana Side’, Intelligencer, 25 NS (October 1900), 738–40. Dewan of Idar State, Administration Report for Idar State, 1899–1900, 22 August 1900, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 52, F 47. ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Gujerat Side’, Intelligencer, 25 NS (October 1900), 741. C. S. Thompson, Biladia, 9 April 1900, ‘The Mission-Field: North-West Provinces’, Intelligencer, 25 NS (June 1900), 455. Dewan of Idar State, Administration Report for Idar State, 1899–1900, 22 August 1900, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 52, F 47. Arthur Outram to Durrant, Kherwara, 21 May 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 304. A. Outram to C. H. Gill, 20 May 1900, ibid., doc. 304. In all, seven European missionaries working in Gujarat died of cholera during the famine. Robin Boyd, Church History of Gujarat (Madras: The Christian Literature Society, 1981), p. 84. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 25 May 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 303. Gill was the secretary of the North India Corresponding Committee of the CMS, based in Allahabad. At the time, this body was in overall charge of the Bhil mission. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 25 May 1900, ibid., doc. 303. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 7 June 1900, ibid., doc. 327. The Famine Distress, leaflet put out by the Famine Distress Committee of the Punjab Mission, Amritsar, 30 May 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 352. E. P. Herbert, 1 June 1900, quoted in C. H. Gill, 21 June 1900, ‘The Mission-Field: North-West Provinces’, Intelligencer, 25 NS (August 1900), 614. C. H. Gill, 21 June 1900, ‘The Mission-Field: North-West Provinces’, Intelligencer, 25 NS (August 1900), 613. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 12 July 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 379. Proceedings of the Allahabad Corresponding Committee, Allahabad, 3 July 1900, ibid., doc. 666. Report on Famine in Bhil Mission Area by Arthur Outram, Kherwara, 5 July 1900, ibid., doc. 383. Ibid. F. Westcott, ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Rajputana Side’, Intelligencer, 25 NS (October 1900), 740–1. ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Gujerat Side’, ibid., 741. Carstairs, Shepherd of Udaipur, p. 217. ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Gujerat Side’, 742. Ibid. Ibid., 740. C. H. Gill, Famine in Rajputana and Gujarat Allahabad, 3 September 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 431. Carstairs, Shepherd of Udaipur, pp. 216 and 250. Gill to Durrant, Agra, 23 August 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0 1900, doc. 410; J. B. Outram to Lang, Pitlochry, 21 September 1900, ibid., doc. 415. Gill to Durrant, Narkanda, 19 September 1900, ibid., doc. 439. Ibid., doc. 439. Dr A. H. Browne, 18 September 1900, ibid., doc. 431. C. H. Gill, Famine in Rajputana and Gujarat, Allahabad, 20 October 1900, ibid., doc. 431. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 14 November 1900, ibid., doc. 484. Church Mission High School, Lucknow, memo by A. J. Birkett, Lucknow, 6 March 1897, CMS, G2 I 6/0 1897, doc. 174. Birkett was born in Carlisle in 1863 and educated at Trinity College and Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He was ordained deacon in 1886, and priest in 1887, going to India that same year. Medical Missions at Home and Abroad, 6 NS (July 1896), 155.

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Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 31 January 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 84. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 16 November 1900, ibid., doc. 489. Herbert later stated that both his strength and faith had deserted him during the famine. Herbert to Durrant, Mandla, 20 June 1901, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1901, doc. 343. A. I. Birkett to C. H. Gill, 15 March 1901, ibid., doc. 225.

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CHAPTER FIVE

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The conversion of the Bhagats

In her history of the Bhil mission, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, Rose Carter recounted an inspiring narrative of conversion.1 She stated that before his death at Lusadiya in 1898, Surmaldas, the guru of the Bhagats, made a number of prophesies: A terrible famine would shortly occur, and teachers would come from the north and the west, and teach them the true way of salvation from a book, free of cost. They would teach them also about a true God, and a sinless Incarnation born of a virgin. Eventually, a temple would be built for the worship of the true god on a hill, which he indicated in the middle of the village . . . He exhorted his followers to worship the sinless god, Whom they could not see, because he was like air without any form. They were to pray to Him with uplifted hands, and not to bow down to stones and idols like their ancestors.

After the famine, she writes, many of the Bhagats became convinced that the sinless deity was the God of Christians, and they decided to convert en masse to Christianity. Carter then goes on to tell the story of the most important of the Bhagats’ converts, who was called Sava Suvera. Until then, she states, he had been a leading opponent of the missionaries. He had nonetheless been shaken profoundly by his experiences during the famine year. His ten-year-old son Lala, who had studied to the fifth standard at the mission school, had died, as well as his wife. While dying, Lala had told his relatives and friends that they should stop practising their rigid caste rules and start eating with others. He said that he was going to a beautiful country and he implored them to meet him there one day. Sava was deeply moved, but ‘although recognising in it a direct call from God, Sava hardened his heart against the truth, and his disciples followed his lead’.2 Even he, however, could not prevent the truth of their guru’s prophecy being accepted by others. He determined to leave the village, [ 83 ]

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go far away and live by begging. That night he had a dream in which a voice told him not to leave the village: ‘This kingdom is passing away, and another kingdom will come.’ He felt that God had spoken to him and that he had to accept the new religion. He was baptised along with twenty-one other converts, being renamed Satgurudas.3 In Carter’s account, Surmaldas becomes a kind of John the Baptist heralding the way for Christ. His prophecies are so set out as to give them a remarkable prescience. The story – along with the selfsacrificial death of Thompson – became central elements in the foundational narrative of the Bhil church. To what extent was it credible? The mission archives provide us with much fuller details, which show that the prophecies – in common with oracular pronouncements in general – were ambiguous enough to be read in numerous ways. They talked in one breath of a sinless God who was without form, but in the other stated that they should worship this deity by erecting flags on their temple and houses – a form of self-identification that was common in the bhakti worship of devotional Hinduism rather than Christianity. A famine was prophesied, and persecution and suffering for the Bhagats, followed by the coming of a person who would give them what they asked: This village will become a big city. If you are poor you will be rich. People will come from different countries to reside here. These hills will be walls of the city. There will be big bazaars. There will be only one master of the city, and Dharm [a religious way of life]. On the hill in the middle of the village a house of God will be built with great rejoicings. To teach and reform your children, one master will come from the West and another will come from the North, who will make a complete arrangement. Your children will learn and become very clever. Some soldiers will come and judge and give the Raj to the Bhils. The lord of this world and Righteousness will be one. In those days the cows will graze and return home without a cowherd. The tiger and goat will drink together. God will punish liars and deceivers by beheading them.

There were other prophecies, such as that the River Ganges would pass away.4 Much was thus predicted; the coming of the missionaries fulfilled only a part of it. Of all the prophecies made by their guru, the one that more than any other appeared to have been fulfilled was that of a coming time of famine and terrible suffering. Like most other Bhils, the Bhagats went hungry in 1899–1900, and a number abandoned their vows and survived, as did others, by robbery, looting and killing cattle and other animals for food. The devout Bhagats refused to act like this, and tried to save themselves by eating the bark and leaves of trees and selling grass and wood. Scores of them died of starvation and disease.5 Those [ 84 ]

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who survived were left in a state of destitution, mourning members of their families and relatives. Their faith had been challenged, and many seem to have felt that new explanations were required to underpin their strong moral commitments. They decided to enter into a dialogue with the Christian padres who had given them food and other help and who had risked their lives for them during the famine. In 1901, Edward Walker came to stay and work in Lusadiya. He was a lay worker for the Gond mission who had volunteered his services for the Bhil mission while Outram was on sick leave. With the help of the lay preacher Premji Hurji Patel, he was able develop a rapport with the local Bhils. Walker wrote of how ‘I so love the people amongst whom my lot is cast that any spare time I have I try to spend amongst them acquiring their language, ways, usages and customs.’ He said that he enjoyed nothing better than to ‘go and squat in a Bhil’s hut and tell him about God who made the “Sun Moon and Stars” ’.6 Jane Birkett, who saw him working there, feared for his health as, unlike most other missionaries, he drank water freely in the houses of the Bhils and took few other precautions. She observed, however, that he had managed to win their affection to a remarkable degree.7 A turning point came when they were visited by Laxman Hari, a catechist whose services had been lent by the Sind mission and who was then in charge of the outstation at Bavaliya. He was a Gujarati whose Hindu parents had converted to Christianity, and he had worked as a CMS schoolteacher in Karachi. He was considered an excellent and persuasive preacher. He preached two sermons to the leaders of the Bhils which were full of ‘spiritual power’ and which made a big impression in the village. While there is no record of what he said, it appears that he was able to speak to the Bhils in a way that resonated – in contrast, it seems, to the white missionaries, whose grasp of the language and local idioms was comparatively limited. The Bhagats held a meeting soon after, and reached a consensus that the missionaries were most probably those that Surmaldas had prophesied would come to save them after the famine. In the following days, they debated the matter with Walker. They said that they now believed that conversion to the religion of the missionaries would lead to the fulfilment of some of Surmaldas’s pronouncements, but stated that they expected all of the other prophecies to be fulfilled, such as that one day they would become future masters of a great and prosperous city and rulers of the land.8 A meeting was arranged in which Laxman Hari listened to the bhajans (devotional songs) of the Bhagats, commenting on each verse and showing how they accorded with the truth of the Gospel. We do not have actual examples of how he managed this, but he appears to have had a good enough grasp [ 85 ]

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of the Bible to be able to make relevant connections from one passage or another. We know the words of two of the bhajans that were sung at that time:

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The sinless God will come with an army on a white horse; From his mouth will go forth the Spirit: He will come in great pomp decorated with jewels. To save the world, and all quarters will hear him. Swords will be turned into garlands And He will marry the heavenly (sanctified) bride. In this sinful land load your hearts with jewels, We wander in this world like a blind man in a bazaar. Take bundle of wisdom. Rupa begs you to come to the City of Immortality.9

Although there was a good deal here that does not on the surface appear very Christian, there would have been enough to serve Laxman Hari’s purpose in either a direct or an allegorical manner. A further meeting was held next day which was joined by some Bhagats from a nearby village. Laxman Hari spoke for three hours explaining how the prophecies of Surmaldas could each be explained in the Bible. That night they discussed the matter further amongst themselves. Sava Suvera was still dubious about the missionaries and their religion, but found himself in a minority. That night, sitting at home, he came to a decision to leave the village and live elsewhere. At midnight he suddenly heard a voice from outside: ‘Son, do not flee: remain here; this religion of the Christians is the one true religion. This is the way; Christ is the true Light.’ Startled, he opened his door and asked who it was who had spoken. There was no reply. Before he could go back inside, another Bhagat came running to tell him that he had heard a voice saying the same thing. A third soon followed. Together, they resolved to write a letter to Walker stating that they wished to become Christians. Walker agreed to prepare them all for baptism.10 Following their general attitude towards conversion, the CMS authorities advised the missionaries on the spot not to get carried away, but to consolidate their advantage with caution. Walker, for example, waxed lyrically about his new Bhil friends. Charles Gill, in Allahabad, responded: ‘I have written to Walker and Birkett, strongly depreciating haste in baptising any of these men. In my opinion they would be wise to wait until Outram could be present.’11 In other words, Gill wanted to them to be sure that these were ‘genuine’ converts who understood what it meant to be a Christian and not so-called ‘rice-Christians’ who were in it merely to fill their stomachs. [ 86 ]

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Even amongst these Anglicans, with their distaste for over-enthusiastic exultation, there was nonetheless a mood of firm optimism. Finally, the Bhil mission appeared to be making good. New members of staff were taking up their posts. Two single missionary women, Rose Carter and Helen Bull, had arrived to supervise the girls’ orphanage at Kherwara. G. C. Vyse had begun work at Bavaliya, and W. H. Hodgkinson had joined the Birketts in Biladiya, where the refurbishment of the missionary residence was now complete. Outram returned to the mission from his sick leave in October, being based once more at Kherwara. There were however setbacks. J. W. Goodwin, who had been working at Kherwara for over a year, was forced by illness to take time off in September, but after seeming to recover he died in November from a combination of blackwater fever and jaundice.12 Edward Walker fell dangerously ill in midOctober when his chronic malaria developed into blackwater fever. He had to be taken to Ahmedabad to recover, and then went on to south India to convalesce. There, it became clear that his health was in very poor shape, and he went back to Ireland, never returning to the Bhil mission.13 The Birketts moved to Lusadiya to take his place, and there, on Sunday 24 November 1901, twenty-two men, women and children – all of Bhagat families – were baptised.14 Seeing that until that time only fourteen people had been baptised since the mission began in 1880, this was a radical advance.15 The 1901–2 season was a poor one, with rainfall of only about 230 mm and a plague of rats, as well as grasshoppers, both of which ate the crops as they stood in the fields before the harvest. The missionaries had once more to open relief camps and provide food for the people.16 In Lusadiya, for example, about 2,000 people were being fed daily by mid-December 1901.17 There were other major relief centres at Biladiya and Kherwara. The numbers on relief increased over the next months. By the summer of 1902, about 6,000 were being fed at Lusadiya and 2,000 at Biladiya.18 The Kherwara centre was run by Outram, with the assistance of the commandant of the MBC, Hutton Dawson. The two men fell out in May 1902 when Outram suddenly stopped providing relief for the 1,500 people who were coming each day. He claimed that there was no grain available, but had in fact been piqued by Hutton Dawson requisitioning some workmen who had been constructing a mission granary. Hutton Dawson reported the matter to the British Resident in Mewar, who then stated that Outram had acted in an injudicious and objectionable manner. The commandant also wrote to Charles Gill, stating that he and his fellow officers were no longer prepared to put up with Outram’s presence in Kherwara, and demanded that he be transferred. This was a great blow to the mission, as Hutton Dawson and his wife had hitherto been its strong supporters. Gill wrote [ 87 ]

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to Outram advising him to back down.19 The resident visited the station to mediate; Outram agreed to apologise and the matter was ostensibly laid to rest.20 Following this, in 1904, Outram decided that as his health still remained poor – he complained of not having had one firm stool since returning to Kherwara – he and his family would return to England for good.21 This episode indicated that the time had come for the mission to shift its focal point from Mewar to Gujarat, so that it could break away from its formative dependence on the Bhil corps and its officers. Although the presence of the MBC had been a great help in establishing the mission in the first place, the missionaries had encountered considerable opposition to their work from its Indian officers. G. C. Vyse, who replaced Outram in Kherwara, reported that the highcaste officers strongly discouraged the Bhil sepoys from developing any interest in Christianity, and he cited the case of a young Christian who joined and quickly renounced his new faith under such pressure. Because of the strong influence of the corps in the villages around Kherwara, the Bhils of that region were also hostile to and suspicious of the missionaries. In this, Vyse remarked, there was a marked difference from the attitude of the Bhils of Lusadiya and the surrounding area.22 The shift from Kherwara began in late 1902, when the medical officer of the MBC inspected the girls’ orphanage and pronounced it to be unfit for human habitation.23 It was decided to relocate the whole institution to Lusadiya.24 Following their general rule of discouraging conversion for instrumental reasons, the missionaries were reluctant to baptise people so long as the period of dearth continued. Catechists preached to the people at the relief centres on a regular basis, and classes were held at which people were taught to recite the Creed, Lord’s Prayer and Ten Commandments and to answer simple questions on the life of Christ. About 160 ‘inquirers’ were attending such a class at Lusadiya in March 1902. Vyse noted that many of them had asked to be baptised, but he told them that they had to wait until the crisis had passed. He hoped thereby to discourage those ‘with some unworthy motive’ and to sift ‘the true and loyal from the rest’.25 Laxman Hari ran another class at Biladiya that was attended mainly by the boys of the mission orphanage. Hodgkinson, the missionary in charge there, was prepared to baptise only the first batch of these boys after the dearth had ended. He held an examination for them in September 1902, in which he questioned each candidate individually on Christian doctrine. Amongst other things, he asked them to give reasons why they wanted to be Christians. Besides being expected to provide convincing and worthy answers to this question, they had to satisfy him that they were not in [ 88 ]

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it for employment or money. Fifteen of the boys and two Bhil men of the village passed this test and were baptised next day. They were the first converts from Biladiya.26 The other forty-two boys at the orphanage were also prepared and baptised as and when they were ready. At Lusadiya, following similar procedures, fifty-four more people were baptised in December 1902, and thirty-five four months later.27 Before each baptism, the catechist Prema cut off the topknots, or chotis, of the males with a pair of scissors.28 A considerable degree of this success could be attributed to the evangelical endeavours of Laxman Hari. Arthur Birkett, who had often seen him preach, commented on his great rapport with his audience, and how he managed to convey the fundamentals of Christianity in a way that could be readily grasped by all. He had unlimited patience for he would go over the same thing time after time till they understood it. He would also visit the Bhils in their homes; and at times of special temptation, as for instance at the Holi festival, he went at night to their houses to see what they were doing and to encourage them to stand fast.

He also translated part of the Prayer Book and some Christian tracts. He was, said Birkett, devoted to his work, showing little concern for his own personal comforts.29 Despite this, as an Indian Christian, he was not deemed to be suited to a position of leadership in the mission. When he was ordained in 1904, he should by rights have been put in charge of the Lusadiya mission station, as the acting head, Vyse, had not been ordained. It was however deemed unacceptable for a white missionary to be under an Indian, and rather than allow it, the CMS ordered Hodgkinson – who had also been ordained in 1904 and was the only other priest with such a status in the Bhil mission then available – to be transferred to Lusadiya immediately.30 Later, when Rose Carter wrote her history of the Bhil mission – which celebrates the exploits of the white missionaries in copious detail – she mentions Laxman Hari in only one paragraph.31 Arthur and Jane Birkett had come initially on a temporary basis and had left in August 1902, returning to Lucknow, after which they went to England on furlough during 1903. In the meantime, the overall responsibility for the Bhil mission was transferred from the North Indian to the Central Indian CMS Committee. In 1904, the latter committee decided to request the North Indian committee to allow Arthur Birkett to be transferred to the Bhil mission in order to become its head.32 He was an experienced missionary – he had been in India since 1887 – and had worked with great success in the mission during the famine. The added advantage was that his wife, Jane Birkett, could [ 89 ]

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work as a medical missionary without the need for the CMS to pay a large additional salary. The North Indian committee agreed to this rather reluctantly in August 1904, and the Birketts took up their posts at Lusadiya in December of that year. For the first time, a medically qualified doctor was now based in the mission on a permanent basis. By the end of 1902, the schoolroom at Lusadiya had become too small to contain all those who were now attending church services at Lusadiya, and it was agreed that a separate building was required. As no funds were then available for such a purpose, the converts decided in early 1903 to build their own church. The leading Bhil convert, Satgurudas, suggested it should be constructed where his house stood, which was on a prominent hill in the centre of the village. This was the place where he had heard what he believed to be the voice of God exhorting him to become a Christian. It was also the place where Surmaldas had lived, and where he had prophesied that a temple would in future stand. The house was demolished and a new building erected in traditional style, using a wooden frame, mud-covered walls and a tiled roof. It was made large enough to take a congregation of 400, as it was anticipated that more would soon join their church. It was named ‘Christ Church’ at the request of Satgurudas, and formally consecrated in February 1904 by the Bishop of Nagpur.33 It stood as a powerful symbol of the transfer of spiritual power from Surmaldas and the way of the Bhagats to the Christians and Christianity.

Forging a Protestant ethic By 1905 there were over 250 converts in the Bhil mission. They were found in 16 different villages. The largest number – 80 – were in Lusadiya, followed by 36 in Kherwara, 35 in Biladiya, 25 in Chhitadara, 22 in Nana Kanthariya, 15 in Devni Mori and varying numbers below 10 in the other villages.34 Church councils were formed in that year in the three parishes of Lusadiya, Biladiya and Kherwara on which male Bhil communicants were expected to sit. These were designed to encourage self-sufficiency and a spirit of self-government and democracy amongst the Christians. The councils met twice a year.35 Over and above these village councils there was the Gujarat District Church Council, established in 1907. In the first meeting of this body in May 1907, twelve villages were represented by twenty-six converts.36 A mela, or fair, for Christians was held at Lusadiya in November 1906 that was designed to bring the Christians of the three parishes together and inculcate a sense of common purpose and identity. Tents were erected for the participants and a large pandal for the meeting. Some Baniyas established stalls and enjoyed a good trade. There were [ 90 ]

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sports for the boys, bow-and-arrow shooting for the men and a baby show for the mothers, at which ten babies were jointly awarded the first prize of Rs. 10. There were also prizes for cattle, ploughing, swimming, singing, needlework, grinding and cooking. There were poetry recitals, and Bhil choirs competed in the singing of the canticles. According to Arthur Birkett, the overall effect of the mela was extremely positive: ‘The past year has witnessed a greater advance in the Kingdom of God in the Bhil Mission than any since the Church was established at Lusadia . . . The most important feature of this advance was the spiritual perception of the evil of sin, which many received during the Mela’.37 This breakthrough had taken place on the fourth and final day of the mela, when about eighty converts got up and confessed past sins: a rug [that was stolen] years ago; a watch; grain to be sown for the orphanage farm turned into money and used for themselves by four young men; money given to buy lime used for themselves by two others, and a false account given; a camera broken by an inquisitive servant and always denied though he was dismissed for it; other acts of deception, pride, anger, covetousness, and, alas, gross sins of the flesh of long ago and recent. Some confessed with sobs. None could doubt that the Holy Spirit was deeply at work, and that the couple of hours thus spent was having more spiritual effect than years of ordinary work or panchayat investigations.38

Hodgkinson, who had led his congregation from Biladiya to the mela, was very impressed by the participation of his flock in this mass confession: ‘there were unmistakeable signs that God’s Holy Spirit was mightily at work, and before its close such confessions had been made that humbled us to the dust and showed how much of the Kingdom of darkness there was in our little church. And yet who could but thank God for such a manifestation of the power of God over the devil!’ 39 The first to confess sin openly was the Biladiya schoolmaster, a Gujarati who was the second-highest-paid Indian employee in the whole mission. He confessed to a theft he had committed several years before, and he did so before his scholars. Then followed four senior orphan boys who owned up to stealing and selling grain which had been given them for sowing. After these there was a constant succession of those who under the power of conviction confessed, some with tears and sobs, others being scarcely able to utter a word – so intense was the feeling – sins which must have hindered the blessing coming to the individual soul, and to the whole church. Sadly, one of the boys whom I least suspected confessed the most heinous sins.40

In all, Arthur Birkett concluded, the mela had created a strong sense of unity and common purpose amongst the new converts.41 [ 91 ]

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1

Bhil Christians of Chhitadara, 1904.

After the mela was over the Birketts and Helen Bull camped in Chhitadara to prepare candidates for confirmation. The first converts – seven in all – had been baptised there in December 1902, and now there were thirty-eight Christians. Six agreed to attend the daily class. Others said they could not as they could not in all conscience promise not to tell lies. Each year at harvest time they were obliged, they said, to give false statements to the Baniya merchants and also to the thakor’s rentcollectors; otherwise they would be left with inadequate subsistence for the rest of the year. One of the six who came forward confessed that he had paid men ‘to exorcise evil spirits, which he said were infesting his house and wife. We did our best to persuade him to give it up, but he said he did not believe they would be removed in answer to prayer, and continued the exorcism the next night, so he had to be reported to the Bishop and was excommunicated with his wife.’ Another was found at night drunk. The other four, and nine women, were confirmed on 12 December. The male communicants formed a church committee, so that there was now an organised church there.42 Unfortunately, the Maharaja of Idar refused to provide any land for a church or school in the village. There were several problems that concerned the missionaries. One related to the marriage practices of the Bhils, which gave rise to a great [ 92 ]

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2

Missionaries and their families at Lusadiya, 1911. Arthur Birkett is in the centre, with Dr Jane Birkett on his right. Birkett was considered unusual amongst missionaries of his time, as he adopted Indian dress. The other British missionary couple are G. C. Vyse and his wife. Although the others are not named in the source, one of the Indian staff may be the Reverend Laxman Hari, as he was based at Lusadiya at that time.

deal of what the missionaries classed as ‘immorality’ and ‘sin’.43 Bhils could get divorced very easily and marriage was not considered in any sense a life-long sacrament. In British India, Christians became subject to the Indian Christian Marriage Act, but this was not the case in princely states.44 According to Arthur Birkett: ‘This liberty threatens to be a great danger to the young church.’45 Another problem was that Bhil men could, if they wished and had the resources, take more than one wife. This was an anathema for the church; no man with two or more wives was allowed to be a member. There were also the payments that were made on marriage, which included a brideprice of about Rs. 60 and marriage fees to be paid to the gameti and the thakor. During the mela of 1906, the Christians resolved to stop paying brideprice, but they could not avoid paying the other two fees.46 This created particular problems for the famine orphans who had become Christians. When they reached a marriageable age, their refusal to give or take brideprice [ 93 ]

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made it extremely hard for them to find partners. Some of the young men who had been brought up at the boys’ orphanage at Biladiya ran away so that they could find brides in the customary manner, and in the process abandoned their new faith. Some, frustrated, even committed the more scandalous sin of taking young women forcibly by raping them. The missionaries tried to find Christian girls for the young men, but these were in short supply. In the end, in 1912, the missionaries agreed to provide money for the boys so that they could offer a brideprice and thus obtain a ‘heathen’ wife who, it was stipulated, had then to convert to Christianity.47 Arthur Birkett commented on this that Bhil girls were of independent mind, and would enter into such a marriage only if they were willing to convert.48 Another problem related to the relationship between Bhil and untouchable converts. In Gujarat as a whole, most conversions to Christianity during these years were among people classed as untouchables. Most of them were from central Gujarat, far from the Bhil region; but a few local untouchables were also converted, which led to tensions. The missionaries demanded that the Bhil converts have full social contact with them, even eating together. There was great unease amongst the Bhil converts over this, as was apparent when a Chamar (untouchable) convert from Biladiya was invited by Hodgkinson to take a meal with the others at the first meeting of the Gujarat District Church Council in May 1907. One of the influential Christians of Lusadiya had gestured for him to sit apart from the Bhil Christians, and he had done so. Peter Suvera, the brother of Satgurudas and one of the initial converts in Lusadiya, brought up the issue at the second meeting of the church council in November 1907. He argued that their social mixing with the Chamar had brought the church into disrepute and that its further growth was as a result being hindered. He proposed a resolution: ‘That if a low caste man is converted he may be received into the Christian religion but shall eat and drink apart and not touch any one.’ The missionaries spent a lot of time and effort, as well as prayer, persuading him to drop the resolution. Some said that they could not eat with the Chamars as they were polluted through eating the flesh of animals that had died naturally, including cows. In the debate it became clear that caste feeling rather than disgust at this unhygienic habit was at the root of the problem, for some younger converts admitted that they were prepared to eat such carrion if served to them by a Bhil. The Chamar convert, who was at the meeting, took a solemn vow before God to abstain from all carrion. In the end, they agreed to eat with untouchable converts, on condition that no Christian ate carrion. Anyone who broke this rule would be socially boycotted. Peter Suvera agreed to accept this, but looked extremely [ 94 ]

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unhappy, and he absented himself from the common meal when they all sat down together to eat.49 Because of this, other Bhils considered the Christian Bhils to be ritually polluted, and many stopped social contact with them. This created a growing social divide between Christian and non-Christian Bhils. Liquor drinking was considered by the missionaries to be another great vice of many of the converts. Those who had previously been Bhagats and followers of Surmaldas had adopted the practices of respectable castes such as the Brahmans and Baniyas by giving up drinking liquor and eating meat, but after conversion, many had abandoned these two abstinences, which had made life easier for them. The missionaries had no objection to meat eating, but they were strong advocates of teetotalism, and preferred the converts to take a vow of abstinence.50 In 1907, Arthur Birkett encouraged the converts to start teetotaller societies. The three leading Christians of Lusadiya who had heard the voice of God – Satgurudas, Peter and Jiva – all eventually signed the required pledge, to Birkett’s great satisfaction.51 These various issues were discussed further at the first meeting of the Gujarat District Church Council in May 1907. A resolution was passed that during marriage no Christian should practise idolatry or follow superstitions, including omens. Also in marriage, no Christian was to give or receive brideprice, drink spirits, sing lewd songs or say anything ‘evil’. Arthur Birkett saw these as ideals, being well aware that they could not be enforced strictly. Only recently, there had been much liquor drinking and singing of bawdy songs at a Christian wedding, and the bride’s father was even fined by the Idar authorities for distilling more liquor than he had a licence to do. The dancing and singing had continued for three weeks. Birkett believed, however, that there had been no idol worship during the celebrations, which gave him cause for hope.52 In his address to the Gujarat District Church Council in 1909, Arthur Birkett listed what he saw as the chief impediments to the growth of the church in the land of the Bhils. The first was ‘ignorance’. Very few of the converts were as yet able to read and keep accounts, which was a great hindrance to the development of self-governing church councils. They had had to appoint non-Bhil evangelists or schoolteachers to act as secretaries and treasurers of all the societies except that at Lusadiya. The second great stumbling block was ‘superstition’, by which he meant a continuing belief amongst Christians in demons and evil spirits. The struggles of Arthur and Jane Birkett in this respect will be described in Chapter 7. The third great evil was ‘worldliness’. Converts were still spending too much on wedding celebrations accompanied by liquor drinking, dancing and the singing of lewd songs. He denied, however, that interdining with untouchables had hindered [ 95 ]

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their work. ‘The real obstacle in the way of the growth of the Church is sin . . . You cannot build on unsafe foundations, and God will not add many to our Church till it is clean and pure and holy.’53 Whatever the truth of Birkett’s diagnosis, the fact was that during the next decade there were very few fresh conversions to Christianity. Writing in 1918, the missionary Walter Wyatt calculated that only about ten to twelve adult Bhils had been baptised during the past eight years. He felt that one important reason was that they had been unable to attract Indian Christian lay pastors and evangelists of sufficient quality to work for the church.54 Laxman Hari had left the mission in 1910 as a result of continuing ill health compounded by the loss of one of his children to blackwater fever. He was transferred to work in Bombay city, where life would be easier for him and his family, and nobody of comparable evangelical talent was found to replace him.55 This however was only one reason – and not the most important – for the lack of progress; more significant was the backlash against conversion that occurred during these years.

The backlash Many high-caste Hindus had from the start been uneasy with the presence of the missionaries amongst the Bhils. The Indian officers of the MBC, as we have seen already, had done their best to prevent Bhil sepoys from converting, and to a large extent they had succeeded in this. High-caste people of Idar State tried similarly to hinder missionary work in their region. When the Bhils of Jesingpur began to show an interest in Christianity, the high castes of a neighbouring village condemned the Christians for eating with all sorts of polluted people, stating that if they converted other Bhils would despise them.56 Despite this, a substantial number of Bhils of the village did decide to be baptised.57 When the missionaries were camping at the village of Kanthariya, some Brahmans began a strident counter-campaign and caused the missionaries considerable difficulty. When a young Bhil of the village decided to convert, the Brahmans put pressure on his family, and he changed his mind.58 Writing in 1913, Arthur Birkett argued that the high castes were opposing them almost everywhere: ‘The great reason for opposing us is that we educate & raise the most oppressed of their peoples, & all the higher castes feel that if they can read & keep accounts their chances of making them work & getting money out of them are much diminished.’59 The opposition to the work of Christian missionaries by caste Hindus was becoming more focused and strident during the first decade of the twentieth century. This was due in part to the growing influence [ 96 ]

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of the Arya Samaj and Indian nationalists in the region as a whole. The Arya Samaj had in the closing years of the nineteenth century begun a campaign to reclaim people in India who had been supposedly ‘lost’ to Hinduism, most notably Muslims and Christians, through a ceremony of purification known as shuddhi.60 It was held that various people or communities had been converted to ‘non-Indian’ religions through aggressive proselytism, and that these converts would in time swamp the Hindus of India. Hindu nationalist propagandists, who were gaining considerable influence at this time, stoked these fears and promoted such a campaign.61 These sentiments gained considerable ground within Gujarat from 1905 onwards, soon becoming for the high castes a dogma of the sort that passes for ‘common sense’.62 The Arya Samaj gained considerable ground in Idar State during the first decade of the twentieth century. Dolatsingh, the adopted heir of Maharaja Pratapsingh, was known to be sympathetic towards the sect, and he was in a particularly influential position in the state as had been made Dewan, or chief minister. In 1905, he noticed that three new mission schools had been opened in the previous year without permission from the state, and he ordered them to be closed immediately. The missionaries had to conform to this order. He gave strict instructions that no new schools were to be opened anywhere without the express permission of the state, and he then ensured that such permission was always refused. This hindered the educational expansion of the mission considerably. He also refused to allow the mission to build churches, rest houses or any other infrastructure in Chhitadara and Jesingpur – both of which had good numbers of Bhil converts.63 The Arya Samaj was encouraged to open two schools for Bhils. Books, slates and clothing were provided for the pupils free of charge, and by 1906 fifty Bhil boys were attending the schools.64 The state was not however prepared to fund this work from its own coffers – in general, it spent almost nothing on welfare for its Bhil population – and with a drying-up of donations to the Arya Samaj after the decline of the initial burst of nationalist zeal in the 1905–10 period, both schools were forced to close in 1910–11.65 There was another important reason for the new hostility of the Idar authorities towards the missionaries. The continuing struggle between the state and the thakors, which was alluded to in Chapter 3, had become particularly intense at this time, and the missionaries became caught up in this running encounter. The old ruler, Keshrisinghji – who had been largely sympathetic towards the missionaries – died in 1901, and his infant heir died soon after. A new ruler, Pratapsingh, had to be brought in from Jodhpur in 1902. He found Idar to be a very small and insignificant town compared with Jodhpur, with a ‘palace’ that was by [ 97 ]

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his standards little more than a house. The annual revenue of the state was by his standards very paltry, and he drew up plans to enhance the revenue through new taxes. He also decided to build a grand and costly palace at a new capital city to the south of Idar town that was named Himatnagar. Because most people lived in villages controlled by thakors who were responsible for setting and raising their own taxes, Pratapsingh found it hard to raise revenues sufficient to realise his grandiose plans. In 1903 he put out a proclamation declaring that he had a full right to the dues from customs and liquor stills, grazing and registration fees and a variety of other sources. As the thakors had never conceded such rights, they saw the proclamation as an attack on their ancient prerogatives, and they met it with a storm of protest. This continued over the next eight years until, in 1911, Pratapsingh abdicated in exasperation and returned to Jodhpur, leaving the thirty-five-year-old Dolatsingh to succeed.66 The latter was to continue as ruler up until his death in 1931, being a continuing thorn in the side of the missionaries. He was however always conscious that the missionaries had the ear of the British political agents, who were ever on the lookout for evidence of misrule in princely states. He therefore had to be subtle in the way he opposed the Christians. Dolatsingh continued the battle against the thakors. During the First World War he used the imperial emergency as an excuse to issue an order to the thakors to provide military service to the state, failing which they were to provide a large amount of cash in compensation, to be levied on a sliding scale according to their income. After protest, he was forced to reduce the demand by a third. The new tax was collected in a harsh and coercive manner, causing great hardship to many thakors. A. S. Meek, who served as the Political Agent of Mahi Kantha in the 1920s, considered Dolatsingh a man of particularly flawed character. He listed his deficiencies in words that ran the whole gamut of the stereotype of the ‘Oriental Despot’ – he was a ‘tyrant Indian Ruler’, being oppressive and extortionate towards his subjects, cruel, vicious and morally debauched. His state was ‘seething with discontent.’67 Whatever the truth of this verdict, it was one with which the missionaries largely agreed. As Birkett stated in a letter to London of 1914: ‘Our Ruler has good cause to dread exposure’.68 Nonetheless, Birkett and his colleagues were careful to moderate their language in written documents, fearing that if their remarks came to the notice of the maharaja, he might make life yet more difficult for them.69 Some of the thakors appear to have tried to use the missionaries in their struggle with the maharaja. For example, in the period immediately after the great famine, two of the thakors near Biladiya had been very hostile to the mission. One of them, the Thakor of Pal, had threat[ 98 ]

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ened to punish anyone who became a Christian, and he had forced a mission school to close for a time. Then, soon after Pratapsingh’s move of 1903 to take away the prerogatives of the thakors, his attitude suddenly changed. He stated that he approved fully of the school and he began to socialise with the missionaries in a friendly way. He offered to provide land for the orphan boys to settle on and farm with his full protection. The other previously hostile thakor now permitted the missionaries to quarry stones and extract sand in his territory for the construction of a new church at Biladiya, free of any charge.70 In 1904, the Thakor of Bhetali provided land to the mission to start a school in Jesingpur, and the Thakor of Karchha a spot at Lusadiya for their medical work.71 An additional reason for these changes in attitude was that a new generation of thakors was emerging that had received English education at a special college set up for this class by the British at Sadra, the headquarters of the Mahi Kantha agency, located thirty-five kilometres north of Ahmedabad city. The political agents had from 1850 onwards provided some educational facilities for the sons of the local nobility, but this was placed on a much firmer foundation in 1885, when the Scott College was opened, paid for by subscriptions from members of this class. The thakors were strongly advised to send their sons to this boarding school, where they received ‘a sound primary vernacular and English education’.72 Many who became rulers around the first decade of the twentieth century had been educated there. Armed with a more ‘English’ sophistication – which generally included European dress topped by a Rajput turban – they were able to socialise and interact with the missionaries with much greater finesse than their forebears. In all this, the missionaries had to steer a very careful course. Writing to the London office of the CMS in 1914, Birkett commented: Until you live in a Native State you can have no idea how jealous they are of outside interference or indeed of any outsider knowing anything about their internal affairs. The Rulers do not even like their sirdars [thakors] playing polo or tennis with English officers lest they should let out something in friendly talks.73

These concerns extended even to the minutiae of house styles. When one of the Indian lay pastors wanted to construct a house for himself in the village in which he was working, Birkett advised him to make a roof that sloped on all four sides so as to protect the mud walls from rain. The lay pastor told him that this was not a good idea as the state authorities would see it as the house of a ‘sahib’ and consider that the missionaries were trying to get land by stealth. He therefore built it in local style, with a sloping roof on two sides and gable ends.74 [ 99 ]

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The growing hostility of the state towards the missionaries had its impact on the Bhils. When W. Hodgkinson tried in 1905 to persuade some Bhils of Kanthariya village to take instruction with a view to baptism, they told him: ‘We are quite ready to do this, but we are few in number and very poor, and if we become Christians, the other villagers around us will cut us off, and the Ruler of the State will persecute us.’ Despite their interest in Christian doctrine, they showed no desire to convert.75 Over the years, Arthur Birkett tried time after time to gain permission to open new schools, but failed repeatedly. In 1917, the Bishop of Bombay took the matter up with the Government of Bombay, asking it to intercede in the matter.76 The Political Agent in Mahi Kantha, W. Beale, mentioned the matter to Dolatsingh when they met in 1918. The maharaja told him that he opposed the schools because the missionaries ‘were inclined to meddle in State matters and go beyond their province’.77 He later wrote to Beale stating that some of the mission teachers of Pal had played a role in ‘creating Bhil trouble there’, and he was therefore reluctant to allow any more mission schools in his state.78 Dolatsingh was nevertheless unwilling to turn down Beale’s request outright, and said that as the Bishop of Bombay was so anxious to have extra schools, he was prepared to consider allowing a school to be opened at Devni Mori, so long as ‘I am assured by the Mission that the Mission teachers will in future mind their own business, and behave themselves loyally and faithfully towards the State’.79 The Political Department in Bombay informed the Bishop of Bombay of this, and he replied to them that the charge against the mission was a serious one, and he asked for more information and evidence. As it was, he felt that it was an ‘insinuation, which of course is a hackneyed accusation against mission work by persons, especially in native states, who do not approve of it’. He insisted that CMS missions ‘have always inculcated obedience to the State’. If anything could be proved to the contrary, the persons responsible would be punished.80 Idar was not the only state to oppose such educational work. When a thakor of Dungarpur State, just over the border in Rajasthan, gave the mission some land for a school – which they promptly constructed – the Maharaja reprimanded him and then discriminated against him in a variety of petty ways. The state officials harassed him and his Bhil subjects, demanding free services from them, to the extent that the latter began to threaten to leave the place and settle elsewhere. Commenting on this, Arthur Birkett noted that in the unlikely event of a thakor being converted to Christianity he would suffer the wrath of his ruler, his lands would be depopulated and he would almost certainly be ruined.81 [ 100 ]

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Surveying this depressing situation, the secretary to the CMS Central India Mission, the Reverend Robert Hack, stated that missionary educational work was being hindered in almost all of the princely states of the region. These states were less suspicious of medical work, especially as they had almost no medical facilities of their own. Other missionary societies had, he said, long ago come to the conclusion that medical work in such territories was vital to evangelisation.82 These sentiments were reinforced by Captain Stockley of the MBC, who stated in 1914 that the Rajputs in general were antipathetical to Bhil education in a situation in which very few Bhils themselves had any desire for learning. Both Idar and Dungarpur states were hindering mission education – Mewar State perhaps less so. By contrast, he believed that these rulers would welcome mission doctors. In the circumstances, medical work would, he felt, open more doors for the missionaries.83 In the next chapter we shall look at the medical work of the mission during these years in greater detail, seeing to what extent it did indeed manage to make openings for the missionaries in such a way.

Notes 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13

Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, pp. 26–31. Ibid., pp. 27–8. Ibid., pp. 29–31. ‘Second Letter from the Bhagats’, North India Church Missionary Gleaner (September 1901), 52. The oral tradition includes some extra prophecies by Surmaldas that it is claimed were later fulfilled, such as the coming of carts without bullocks (e.g. cars and lorries), sky-carts (e.g. aeroplanes) and a message from across the seas that is good and true (e.g. Christianity). Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002. ‘Second Letter from the Bhagats’, 52. Edward Walker to Durrant, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, 9 April 1902, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 184. Mrs A. I. Birkett to Gill, 21 December 1901, ibid., doc. 130. ‘Second Letter from the Bhagats’, 52. Ibid. Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, pp. 29–31. Sava – who changed his name to Satgurudas after conversion – told his full story to the Reverend S. R. Morse, who visited Lusadiya in April 1911. Arthur Birkett acted as translator. Morse said he had been initially sceptical about the idea that Satgurudas had heard a supernatural voice, but after sitting and talking with him he became convinced that it had indeed been the voice of God. See S. R. Morse, ‘A Visit to the Bhils’, The Church Missionary Gleaner (2 October 1911), 155. According to Surjibhai Suvera, who is Satgurudas’s grandson, the other two Bhagats who heard a voice were Satgurudas’s brother Ghera Soma (who later took the name Peter) and Jiva. Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 27 September 1901, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1901, doc. 431. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 11 November 1901, ibid., doc. 483. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 6 November 1901, ibid., doc. 476; Dr Simpson to Gill, Coonoor, 28 January 1902, ibid., doc. 129; Edward Walker to Durrant, Enniskerry,

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Co. Wicklow, Ireland, 9 April 1902, ibid., doc. 184; Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 28 September 1903, CMS, G2 I 7/0, 1903, doc. 364. ‘The Mission Field: North-West Provinces’, Intelligentsia (February 1902), 131. W. H. Hodgkinson, ‘The Bhil Mission’, The North India Church Missionary Gleaner (November 1902), 77. A. Outram to Gill, Kherwara, 31 October 1901, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1901, doc. 478. Gill to Durrant, 13 December 1901, ibid., doc. 576. Gill to Durrant, Mussoorie, 18 September 1902, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 397; ‘The Mission Field: North-West Provinces’, Intelligentsia (September 1902), 691. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 29 May 1902, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 285. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 20 June 1902, ibid., doc. 321. Arthur Outram to Durrant, Kherwara, 25 April 1904, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1904, doc. 34. He resigned formerly from the mission after his return to England. Outram to Fox, Tunbridge Wells, 15 December 1904, ibid., doc. 102. G. C. Vyse, ‘Kherwara’, Kherwara, March 1905, BMR, 1904, 8. Dr A. Murphy, Kherwara, 16 September 1902, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 453. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 13 November 1902, ibid., doc. 451. ‘The Mission Field: The United Provinces’, Intelligentsia (April 1903), 295. W. H. Hodgkinson, ‘The Bhil Mission’, The North India Church Missionary Gleaner (November 1902), 77. ‘The Mission Field: The United Provinces’, Intelligentsia (April 1903), 295; Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 16 April 1903, CMS, G2 I 7/0, 1903, doc. 185. Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, p. 36. Rev. A. I. Birkett to Gill, Lucknow, 9 May 1903, CMS, G2 I 7/0, 1903, doc. 256. The Birketts had left the mission in August 1902, returning later in 1904. Herbert Moloney (Secretary, Jabalpur Corresponding Committee) to Durrant, Balaghat (Central Provinces), 23 March 1904, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1904, doc. 20; Moloney to Durrant, Mandla, 4 May 1904, ibid., doc. 36. Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, pp. 28–9. Proceedings of the Jabalpur Corresponding Committee, 12 July 1904, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1904, doc. 68. ‘The Mission Field: The United Provinces’, Intelligentsia (April 1903), 295; G. S. Vyse, ‘A Prediction Verified’, The Church Missionary Gleaner, 357 (September 1903), 141–2; Eyre, Bishop of Nagpur, ‘The Bishop’s Quarterly Letter’, Jubbulpore, 19 March 1904, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1904, doc. 43; Morse, ‘A Visit to the Bhils’, 155; Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, pp. 37–9. BMR (1904), 2. Chhitadara, now in Meghraj Takula of Sabarkantha District, was spelt ‘Khetadra’ in the mission records. A. I. Birkett, Weston-super-Mare, 14 January 1908, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1908, doc. 12. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1907), 3–4. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 3. It may be noted that the missionaries spelt the village ‘Lusadia’, whereas I have used the more accurate transliteration ‘Lusadiya’, except in cases of direct quotation. A similar rule applies to ‘Biladia’, ‘Biladiya’. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 4–5. W. Hodgkinson, ‘Biladia’, 17 January 1907, BMR (1906), 20. This ‘heinous sin’ was not elaborated on. Ibid., 21. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 3. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 8. On this, see A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 24 October 1907, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1907, doc. 88. A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 2 March 1906, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1906, doc. 31. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, Lusadiya, 4 April 1905, BMR (1904), 4. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 6. Robert Hack, Acting Secretary, Jabalpur, to Durrant, 22 March 1912, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1912, doc. 11. A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Weston super Mare, 6 July 1912, ibid., doc. 28. In this letter, Birkett provides a detailed report on Bhil marriage customs and the various pay-

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ments that had to be made to villagers, Brahman priests, musicians etc., all of which shows that many local people would have lost a source of income when Christians were married. A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 24 October 1907, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1907, doc. 88; A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1907), 5–7. When Birkett was told that the CMS was searching for a new missionary for Kherwara, he wrote to London stating that he very much hoped that the chosen man would be a teetotaller, as drink was one of the chief ‘besetting sins of the Bhils’. A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 24 October 1907, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1907, doc. 88. A. I. Birkett, Lusadiya, 19 May 1908, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1908, doc. 48. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1907), 4–5. A. I. Birkett, ‘Chairman’s Address to the Gujarati District Church Council, 1909’, The Third Annual Report of the Indian Church Council Comprising the C.M.S. Congregations in the Diocese of Nagpur, 1909: Minutes of the Central and District Church Councils with Statistics (Jabalpur: Christian Mission Press, 1910), pp. 18–21, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1910, doc. 72. W. Wyatt to E. F. E. Wigram, 18 June 1918, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1918, doc. 60. E. A. Hensley to Durrant, Jabalpur, 11 November 1909 and 26 January 1910, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1909, doc. 102. Helen Bull, ‘Jesingpur, near Lusadia’, BMR (1906), 15–16. In 1911, there were fifty-two Christians in Jesingpur. BMR (1911), 3. W. Hodgkinson, Biladiya, 15 January 1911, BMR (1911), 7–8. A. I. Birkett to Waller, Weston super Mare, 25 September 1913, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1913, doc. 55. J. T. F. Jordens, Dayananda Saraswati: Essays on his Life and Ideas (New Delhi: Manohar, 1998), pp. 163–8. For the development of such a consciousness in Bengal, see Pradip Datta, ‘Dying Hindus: Production of Hindu Communal Consciousness in Early Twentieth Century Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly (19 June 1993). David Hardiman, ‘Purifying the Nation: The Arya Samaj in Gujarat 1895–1930’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 44:1 (2007), 41–65. A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 23 August 1905, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1905, doc. 140; A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, Lusadiya, 4 April 1905, BMR (1904), 4 and 6. Deputy Educational Inspector, Mahi Kantha to the Educational Inspector, Northern Division, Sadra, 24 April 1906, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 54, F 63, 1905–6. Administration Report of the Idar State for the Year Ending 31 March 1911, OIOC, V/10/1220, p. 33. It may be noted that the Arya Samaj paper, Arya Patrika, published in Lahore, had in its issue of 31 July 1909 complained of the unwillingness of Arya Samajists to fund social work that could provide an adequate challenge to Christian missionaries. In particular, it argued, they had lost the initiative over medical work. Quoted in ‘Editorial Notes’, Mercy and Truth (October 1909), 321. Major A. S. Meek, ‘A Discursive Note on some Salient Features of Idar Affairs from the Fall of the Rao Dynasty till Recent Times’, OIOC, R/2/149/106, pp. 1–5; Administration Report of the Idar State for the Year Ending 31 March 1912, OIOC, V/10/1220, p. 2. Meek, ‘A Discursive Note’, pp. 5–15. A. I. Birkett to E. H. M. Waller, 24 June 1914, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1914, doc. 31. Birkett thus cautioned in a private letter to the CMS secretary that on no account should their critical views of the maharaja be allowed to be voiced in any printed reports, lest they happen to come into his hands. He was extremely sensitive to even the slightest criticism, and it would cause great harm to the mission. A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Bombay, 9 May 1907, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1907, doc. 62. W. Hodgkinson, ‘Biladia’, 17 January 1907, BMR (1906), 21–2. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, 4 April 1905, BMR (1904), 3. Framroz Sorabji Master, The Mahi Kantha Directory, 1 (Rajkot: Laxmi Printing Press, 1922), pp. 96–7. A. I. Birkett to E. H. M. Waller, 24 June 1914, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1914, doc. 31.

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80 81 82 83

Ibid. W. Hodgkinson, ‘Biladia’, January 1906, BMR (1905), 17. Edwin James, Bishop of Bombay, 10 July 1917, GSAV, CRR, no. 1382 of 1919. W. Beale, 1 February 1918, GSAV, CRR, no. 1382 of 1919. The nature of this ‘Bhil trouble’ is not stated in this source, but it may have referred to disputes in which certain thakors and their Bhil subjects were allied against the Idar authorities, with the missionaries benefiting from the new friendliness of the thakors. W. Beale, quoting the Maharaja of Idar’s letter to him, Idar, 13 March 1918, GSAV, CRR, no. 1382 of 1919. Edwin James to Robertson, Bombay, 22 March 1918, GSAV, CRR, no. 1382 of 1919. A. I. Birkett to Waller, Weston super Mare, 25 September 1913, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1913, doc. 55. R. Hack to G. B. Durrant, 21 June 1912, CMS G2 I 8/0 1912, doc. 24. Interview with Captain Stockley, 20 May 1914, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1914, doc. 17.

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Christian healing

Although the medical treatment provided by the early missionaries was rudimentary – for none had medical qualifications – it nevertheless proved popular. Writing from Kherwara in 1886, Litchfield stated that on average, four to five hundred sick Bhils came each month for medical treatment, some from a long distance, ‘though the present dispensary and consulting-room is simply an empty horse-stall in the stables. The poor untaught people continually come to me, with old sores of long standing which they expect to be cured on the spot, while the women display their faith in a still more trying way by bringing sick and weeping babies in baskets on their heads.’1 Wounds were cleaned with plenty of hot water and carbolic acid, and then bandaged.2 Writing in 1888, Thompson reported that their only real competitor was Surmaldas, who was healing people with his panacea of a roasted grain of maize coated in holy ash from his sacred fire. Thompson noted that the further away he was from Surmaldas’s home village of Lusadiya, the more people came to him for treatment. One Sunday he had, for example, treated about 250 people. He concluded: ‘I don’t really know what I should have done amongst the Bheels without medicines.’3 The missionaries worked either from the dispensaries at Kherwara, Lusadiya and Biladiya or from their tents while on tour. E. P. Herbert described how when he was staying at Biladiya and then Bavaliya in 1896, he made ‘rounds daily to sick people on my pony like a country doctor’. He lacked any medical qualifications and was ‘saddened by the nightly wailings, for there were many deaths from pneumonia, and no doctors.’4 From 1895, the dispensary at Kherwara began taking inpatients, housing them in some empty outhouses. Relatives were required to bring food for them. A Bhil convert called Pema assisted the missionaries in looking after the patients. According to Herbert: [ 105 ]

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cleanliness, carbolic, and simple ointment work wonders, and horrible sores which have festered for months have healed up under Pema’s care. I wish you could see Pema in the verandah of the dispensary with the sick round him and his face lit up as he preaches the Gospel, and hear his kindly words as he tends their ulcerated limbs, and cheerfully does for Christ’s sake what would otherwise be loathsome.5

The more serious cases that were beyond the competence of the missionaries were passed on – if the patient was willing – to the MBC doctors, especially if surgery was required.6 Writing in 1888, Thompson reported that he had secured £36 worth of medicine from England, which he was dispensing.7 These ‘medicines’ appear to have included carbolic acid, Epson salts and quinine, the latter being a drug that was becoming much more widely available in India at this time.8 A colleague of his, W. B. Collins, reported in the early 1890s: Just now malarial fever is the rage, and Epson salts and quinine go fast; by-and-by, in camp, I shall have foul sores, which no doctor would have the chance of seeing unless he belonged to the Mission, as they won’t come in to Kherwara, as I said before. I can only give carbolic acid lotions and afterwards some healing ointments. They often come for enlarged spleen, which I cannot treat, ophthalmia, which I can generally cure, and lots of other things mostly quite beyond me. My list of ailments which I can help them in is not much over twelve, yet sometimes, on some days, I am even four or more hours treating and dispensing.9

Collins noted that a major reason for the missionaries’ popularity amongst the Bhils was that they were providing such medical care. The Bhils, he claimed, preferred medical treatment by the missionaries to that of government doctors, even though the former lacked the medical credentials of the latter, as the tribal people had a profound distrust of anything connected with their rulers. The village schoolmasters employed by the mission also offered basic treatment at their schoolhouses. As it was not easy to attract suitable educated men to run these establishments, Thompson trained young Bhils at the Kherwara boarding school for the task, and by 1899 there were in all seven Bhil masters and assistant masters working in the mission schools.10 Others were run by high-caste Hindu teachers. A political agent who visited Biladiya in 1891–92 commented that ‘These schools are real centres of civilisation among these wild people’.11 Their ‘civilising’ work included the inculcation of new ideas about health and healing. When Thompson was on leave in England from 1896 to 1899, he tried hard to persuade the CMS authorities to send a qualified doctor and nurse to the mission.12 His appeal was couched in vivid language, with scenes from the Bible being transposed to the land of the Bhils: [ 106 ]

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Medical work has broken down many barriers, softened thousands of hearts, and drawn the people to the Mission. Apart from it, the missionary might earnestly preach to the poor ignorant hillmen, but would make scarcely any impression on their dense, dark minds. When, however, he goes about among a crowd of helpless sufferers syringing loathsome ulcers, stilling the cries of little children in pain, and speaking gently and kindly to all, the Bheels at last are moved, and become more than ready to hear what the preacher has to tell them about Christ. To watch the “sick gather together at the door” of the Kherwara Dispensary, especially when there is an ulcer plague, leads the mind back to the time when the poor suffering ones came to the Lord Jesus in the towns and villages of the Holy Land. Some of the afflicted are brought in on beds ‘borne of four’; others arrive in rude carts drawn by a couple of oxen. Many limp in leaning on the arms of friends, and little children lying in baskets are carried in on their mother’s heads. Similar scenes to these may be witnessed at any of the six outstations, or wherever the mission-tent may be pitched in the districts. Here, indeed, is work for fully-qualified medical missionaries.13

Later, just before his return to India, Thompson set out his appeal in a more schematic way. Thousands of Bhils, he claimed, were dying for want of medical aid, and the work was much appreciated by them. As they lived in scattered huts, it was hard to gain an audience when the missionaries went to evangelise, but when news came that medical services were available, they flocked there in large numbers. If they had a full-time medical missionary, he himself would have much more time for his purely evangelistic work. The thakors would, furthermore, welcome such a doctor, and would want to be treated by him, which would win over that class. He concluded: ‘Nowhere, perhaps, in the world would a healing hand touch a greater sore’.14 Nonetheless, hardly a month after Thompson had departed for India, the secretary of the north Indian section of the CMS set out his priorities areas for medical missions – and the Bhils were not on the list.15 As the new century opened, there seemed little chance that a full-fledged medical mission would be established amongst the Bhils in the near future. As Thompson must have realised, the missionaries were still merely scratching the surface. Medical work had helped the missionaries to overcome the distrust of the Bhils and gain access to their homes. Although the missionaries probably did not know it, such a path to acceptance had had a long history, for – as we have seen in Chapter 2 – over the centuries many Hindu mendicants had similarly won the trust of the Bhils by providing cures for their ills that were both medical and supernatural. Such holymen were often found in remote forest regions, so that they were relatively familiar and esteemed for their supernatural and other powers. Despite this, the Bhils had continued to revere their own deities and follow their own distinct customs; their value [ 107 ]

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system had not been changed in any profound way through such a contact. The same was true in regard to the medical work carried out by the missionaries during these early years. A good number of Bhils sought out the missionaries when they were in pain and the need was pressing, but this did not mean that they would change their beliefs about disease and disease causation in any profound way, still less be attracted to Christianity. The missionaries had become merely one more resource for the Bhils in their arsenal of possible remedies. Because this was so, their medical work was not seen to pose any threat to the local healers, such as the bhopas and buvas. In Lusadiya, for example, there was at that time a Bhil buva called Jivabhai who was skilled in the use of jantra-mantra (miraculous spells) and rituals involving the sacrifice of goats and chickens. Many Bhils were still suspicious of the vilayati dava, or ‘foreign medicine’, and his services continued to be much in demand. He did not regard the missionaries as his rivals and he made no attempt to hinder their work.16

Medical work during the famine years The crisis during the famine period was caused by starvation made lethal through disease. Food provided the best medicine against this deadly combination, and this the missionaries did their best to provide. Beyond that, there was little that they could do in most cases – even if available the best medical treatment of the day could hardly have saved sick people so severely weakened through hunger. Medicine, eye lotions and chlorodyne (a painkiller that combined chloroform, morphia, cannabis and prussic acid) were administered along with food at the relief centres for complaints such as guinea worm, malaria, diarrhoea, scurvy and ophthalmia.17 Cholera was particularly lethal, and it was no coincidence that the year 1900 had the highest annual mortality from cholera ever recorded for India as a whole.18 Although the reason for the transmission of the disease – through contaminated water – had been known since 1855, and Robert Koch had isolated the bacterium Vibrio cholerae in 1883–84, doctors had not as yet developed a safe means to provide the intravenous replacement of salt and water that would make the disease largely treatable. This came only in the following decade, being developed by Leonard Rogers in Calcutta.19 Disinfecting wells with potassium permanganate or chlorine was considered the most effective preventive measure against cholera and dysentery, and in 1900 the missionaries sought to do this at the famine relief centres whenever possible. It was known also that careful nursing, applying, for example, cold compresses and oil massages, might save a few of the stricken.20 At Kherwara, the missionaries [ 108 ]

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erected some sheds on top of a nearby hill to isolate and treat cholera patients to the best of their limited abilities. According to Outram, writing in May 1900, they managed to save a good number of the girls at the orphanage who were sent to these sheds, attributing this to the fact that they had been getting regular meals.21 A report written two months later was less positive; many of the orphan girls had, it said, died from ‘famine diarrhoea’, scurvy and other complaints.22 As we have seen in Chapter 4, Dr A. H. Browne arrived in July 1900 to help at the relief centres on a temporary basis. The people were, he said, like ‘living skeletons.’ He began by separating the sick, diseased and dying children from the healthy. They were all, he said, repulsively dirty, and he had them cleaned up. The sick were given Benger’s food, but they were so weak in most cases that little could be done for them. Many died each day despite his care. His ‘hospital’ at Biladiya consisted of a small hut that the mission had purchased from a local person. It had a tile roof and walls on three sides of bamboo matting plastered with mud. One side was entirely open to the elements. Although it was really adequate for only about twelve to fourteen adults, seventy patients were housed in it, of whom about thirty were children. Empty grain sacks were provided for them to lie on and for covering their bodies, but as there were not enough sacks to go round, many had to lie on the bare floor without any covering. There were many others who needed to be housed – as the first rains had broken – but there was no room in the shed, so that they had to suffer in the open.23 Jane Birkett was the first doctor to work for the mission for an extended period, arriving in November 1900 and working in the Idar State villages for almost two years in the first instance. She began at Bavaliya, and provided an initial report after only five days that brings out vividly the daunting medical problems she was faced with at that time. Bavaliya had a ‘hospital’ that consisted of a small hut similar to the one at Biladiya. In her words: ‘When I first saw the place I groaned in spirit, it was so unsanitary; but . . . we tried to make the best of it – we raised the mud floor, and knocked out some of the plaster from the bamboo work so as to provide windows’.24 The patients were nursed by Ganki, a Bhil girl aged about fourteen or fifteen who had learnt to read and write at the mission school and who lived on the premises. She had worked there throughout the famine, caring for those with cholera. On arrival, Jane Birkett found three men, two women and two children lying sick with dysentery, diarrhoea, fever and spongy gums. One of the children died the first night, and the other – a boy – had a dangerously high temperature. Soon after, one of the women died; she was deeply jaundiced. Birkett commented: [ 109 ]

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Everybody in this valley seems to be down with fever, and almost everyone has a huge spleen. There is a little dysentery about. One thing that catches the eye at once is the scars from burns that are to be seen on the abdomen and legs of every other man or woman you meet. They were inflicted during the cholera epidemic, and burning the skin over the seat of pain seems to be the only idea of treatment that the natives here have.25

The only drugs she found were half an ounce of quinine, two or three phials of chlorodyne and ‘cholera cures’, a few tabloids of Dover’s powder and ‘Livingstone Rousers’.26 She asked her husband to order a fresh supply of drugs from Bombay. She noted that in the whole of that valley – and she believed other valleys in the region – there was no Hakim or any other ‘native medicine man’. There was thus a lot of scope, she felt, for a full medical mission.27 Her work was carried on in what she described as ‘a very primitive style’. She dared not carry out any operations, except of the most minor types, as the place was so unsanitary, and she had to advise those who needed surgery to go to hospitals in Ahmedabad or Bombay. This, Birkett observed, hardly increased the confidence of the people in mission medicine. With better facilities, she could have treated a number of people in a way that would have made a big impression in the area. She mentioned a number of such cases – including a tumour, cancer of the lip, a large abscess that killed the patient eventually, a very large hernia, a grossly swollen leg and numerous cataracts.28 The reports written by Dr A. H. Browne and then Dr Jane Birkett focused strongly on the bodily afflictions suffered by the Bhils. Browne’s description of the famine victims, for example, had a precise clinical tone that set it out from the famine reports of the other missionaries: Give one of these a slight touch and down the person goes; then it is piteous to see him trying to get up again. With the hands one leg is bent and then the other; afterwards by turning the body he gets on to the knees and rests the weight of the trunk on both hands, the arms being straightened. From this position many can get no further without help, and at last when the erect position is totteringly gained you see a gaunt figure composed of bones covered with loose skin. From their hips to the feet there is no change in thickness – just long straight bones covered with skin; the abdomen in many cases can be encircled by my two hands; the ribs stand out, and trench-like depressions of the skin mark plainly the spaces between the ribs; the condition of the arms is something like that of the legs; the cheek-bones are very prominent through sinking in of the cheeks, and the eyes are unduly large, or, to use the loose expression, appear to be starting out of their sockets.29

In a similar manner, Jane Birkett focused on specific, named diseases and conditions, providing descriptions of the physical appearance of the [ 110 ]

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afflicted, as well as the exact treatment that she had applied for each malady. There was none of that vagueness in detail that was found in earlier accounts of medical work by non-qualified missionaries. The doctors also placed great stress on the medical inadequacy of the buildings in which they had to treat their patients, which were depicted as being dirty, cramped and ill equipped. For the first time, also, the patients and their treatments were recorded, so that from this time onwards medical statistics setting out the numbers of new patients, returning patients, outpatients, inpatients, cases of minor surgery, major surgery and babies delivered became a feature of the annual reports. Missionaries such as Brown and Birkett, with their medical training, were thus describing the conditions that were to be alleviated and the methods adopted in a language not seen before in reports from this mission. Poverty and suffering were being depicted less in moralistic and Biblical terms and more through measurable symptoms and structures. Malnutrition, diseases of poverty, unhygienic living spaces and lack of medical facilities now became central indices of civilisational backwardness. In time, the language of all missionaries was to move in such a direction.

A hospital for Lusadiya Soon after her arrival, Jane Birkett wrote to the CMS authorities stating that the mission needed a proper hospital. Although there was a cantonment hospital at Kherwara, this was not adequate for their needs, for it was forty-eight kilometres away from Lusadiya and about thirty-five from Biladiya, Bavaliya and Ghoradar. As it was, the equipment at Kherwara was not very adequate. While she was visiting, one of the girls in the Kherwara orphanage needed an unsightly eye enucleated, but she was having to wait while a suitable pair of scissors was obtained from Bombay. She noted that one of the young MBC officers had died of an obstruction in his bowel while the doctor was away on leave for ten days. The hospital assistant had not been up to the task of operating. They could not therefore depend on that hospital. Also, it was a government and not a mission hospital. One was needed on the Gujarat side, ‘both for the physical well-being of Missionaries, orphans, workers, and inhabitants, and as a powerful evangelistic agency. No doctor, even in his first year, would be idle there.’ She recommended Lusadiya as the best place ‘because the people there are more ready, and the Thakurs (who are about equivalent to lords of the manor) are friendly and progressive’.30 In January 1905, Jane Birkett wrote to Herbert Moloney, the secretary of the CMS for central India, describing the conditions in which [ 111 ]

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she had to work at Lusadiya. Her consulting room was hardly more than three metres square and had a large window on the south-east side that let in a lot of sun, so that she had to keep her large and cumbersome sola topi on her head while examining patients. Although the temperature in the room was bearable during the cold season, it was stifling in the hot season. The medical staff had to see all the patients there, both men and women, and the Indian medical assistant, E. Reuben, also compounded medicine and carried out dressing there. The medical assistant’s house was similarly inadequate, with only two tiny rooms for Reuben, his wife and three children. There was space in it for only one bed, so that most had to sleep on the floor. This, Jane Birkett said was ‘a real trial to an educated town bred man’. They also needed some inpatient facilities to care for people from distant villages. In the previous week, she had been forced to house a man from Biladiya in a temporary house built for the servants. There had to be separate wards for men and women. She submitted plans for two small rooms for this purposes, which she had dignified by the title of ‘hospital’. She intended to use famine relief money to pay for the construction of a new dispensary, the ‘hospital’ and the assistant’s quarters, which she estimated would come to Rs. 1,500, or £100. Her request – which was very modest considering that this was for a medical mission’s chief facility – was immediately accepted in full by the CMS authorities.31 The building went ahead, supervised by Arthur Birkett, who, as noted earlier, had architectural training. Just as his wife was able to deploy the technology of biomedicine in the service of the mission, so was he equipped to create an architecture that would provide a visible identity to the mission as well order its internal space.32 The Thakor of Karchha, who ruled Lusadiya, provided the land free of charge on the understanding that he and his relatives would be treated there at no cost. The one-storeyed buildings were in local style, being built of brick with pitched tiled roofs and with one small window in each room. The largest construction was the three-roomed house for the hospital assistant, which measured 12.5 by 8.5 metres, with a veranda running along one side. The dispensary was another three-roomed structure with verandas on two sides, containing a room for male patients, and a room for female patients – each about 3 metres square – and a room for drug compounding and medical stores that measured about 2 by 3 metres. The ‘hospital’ for inpatients consisted of two single-room buildings that each measured about 7 by 4.5 metres. Each had space for four beds. The building work was completed in the summer of 1905, just before the rain came.33 Birkett’s initial medical assistant, Reuben, was replaced in August 1905 by an Indian Christian called John Brand. He was to work with her [ 112 ]

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in Lusadiya for nearly two decades. Writing in January 1906, Jane Birkett reported that Brand had been a success from the start. He had at once gained the confidence of the people by his kind and unassuming manner, and at one of his first visits to a private patient he astonished everyone by not asking for a fee, unlike Reuben, who had always taken something.34 He told them that Christians acted differently from others. He trained his own assistant, who took the title of ‘medical dresser’. Before 1915, there were no nurses as it proved impossible to find suitable local Christian girls to train for this task. The wife of an Indian lay preacher helped out in this respect in emergencies. In particularly critical cases, Brand acted as nurse, being relieved from time to time by Jane Birkett. Otherwise, family members or friends of the inpatients came to stay at the hospital to look after them while they were treated.35 The new hospital thus incorporated a hierarchy of medical staff, albeit a rudimentary one as yet. Michel Foucault has pointed out how the clinical system of medicine that was forged in the period after the French Revolution incorporated a clear-cut distinction between the doctor qualified through rigorous training in the medical school and teaching hospital and the ‘officer of health’, who might be trained on the job or receive a shorter training in a medical school.36 In India, the hierarchy was both racialised and more extreme. A clear distinction was established between members of the Indian Medical Service, who were mostly Europeans, and those of the Subordinate Medical Service, who were Indian. There was vast disparity in their scales of pay: in 1903 the former started on a salary of Rs. 450 per month, which rose to Rs. 550 after ten years’ service, whereas the latter might begin on a salary as low as Rs. 5 per month, which rose to a maximum of Rs. 55.37 Mission clinics followed similar principles; the doctors in charge were trained in Europe, whereas their Indian assistants – who had qualified in Indian institutions – had a lower status. This was despite the fact that the latter often did the bulk of the work, and for long periods frequently ran the hospitals single-handed while the white missionaries were on holiday or on furlough in Britain. Once the hospital was up and running, a record was maintained of the numbers of patients treated. In her report at the end of January 1906, Birkett registered a total of three inpatients in the new wards, and 1,715 outpatients. Many of these had attended more than once. In several cases, the patients had failed to stick to their prescribed treatments: ‘We are of course often disappointed in a patient for whom we have taken much thought and care when some day we discover that our medicines are being supplemented by superstitious practices of Bhil quackery. At other times after a very brief trial of our treatment we are asked [ 113 ]

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not to trouble further as the “country” medicine is preferred.’38 Birkett also reported that the missionaries had also performed forty-one minor surgical procedures. Being a general practitioner, she lacked the experience and skill to carry out complicated surgery. As it was, without an operating theatre at Lusadiya and skilled nurses to care for patients after such an operation, it would not have been possible to perform with safety any surgery that required body cavities to be opened up. She and Brand confined themselves largely to very minor surgical operations and advised any patients who needed major surgery to go elsewhere.39 The number of patients increased rapidly. In 1906, the missionaries treated 32 inpatients and carried out 10,488 outpatient consultations at the hospital, of which 3,198 were new registrations. They performed seventy-six minor operations, and also visited 530 sick people in their homes.40 It was not always easy to ensure that inpatients remained at the hospital long enough for them to recover. In several cases, the motives of the missionaries were suspected and relatives – fearing conversion to Christianity – removed patients. For example, a woman who developed puerperal fever during labour was admitted to the hospital. The treatment was going well when after eight days her family suddenly took her home, where she died. In another case, a woman who had suffered ill health for many years came to the hospital for treatment. Soon after, her stepmother arrived and, finding that she had been responsive to the Christian message, promptly ordered her to return home. Jane Birkett gave milk and food to sustain her on the journey, but the stepmother threw them out on the road in front of the hospital in an ostentatious manner. The woman somehow survived her journey home by bullock cart over a very rough road, but died four months later.41 In medical missionary circles, inpatient treatment was commonly regard as providing an excellent opportunity for conversion, as patients were confined and thus amenable to preaching and other ‘Christian’ influences. As inpatients tended to be more seriously ill, it was believed that they would be in a frame of mind that was more amenable to the message of the Gospel.42 At Lusadiya, it was clear that many patients and their relatives were only too aware of this possibility, and were prepared to curtail the treatment if they suspected that things were going that way. One of the reasons why the thakors were prepared to tolerate medical work in their territories as against missionary educational work was that access to Western medicine was during this period becoming a mark of social status amongst them. This process had begun with the great maharajas, who had been in some cases prepared to pay huge sums for the treatment of themselves and family members by European doctors.43 By the early years of the twentieth century, the [ 114 ]

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aspiration for ‘English’ treatment was percolating down to the local gentry in areas such as Idar State. Their experience as boarders at the Scott College at Sadra, where there was a hospital run by the Indian Medical Service, also gave them a taste for such medicine. The Thakor of Karchha had thus been eager to provide land for the new hospital at Lusadiya on condition that he and his family receive free treatment. Jane Birkett initially charged thakors and their family members for medicine, but soon after the hospital was up and running she decided to ask for only a voluntary donation to be placed in a collecting bottle at the hospital.44 Soon, many local thakors were taking advantage of the new facilities, even at the risk of being preached to and evangelised by the missionaries. For example, in 1907 the Thakor of Pal brought his son and heir to be cured of what he feared to be tuberculosis. The youth was being educated at Sadra, and during his vacations he had shown some interest in Christianity, often visiting Hodgkinson in Biladiya, which was close to Pal, for discussions on religion. The thakor had been concerned that his son was showing excessive interest and made him curtail his visits. Despite this, he was prepared to place the youth in the care of Jane Birkett. He however kept a close eye on what was happening, staying with a family of Brahmans five kilometers from Lusadiya during the two months of his son’s treatment so that he could visit frequently. Jane Birkett diagnosed malaria, and the youth was put on a course of quinine and tonics. When the thakor came for his visits, she lectured him on the evils of idolatry. He said – in a haughty way – that he was well aware that idol worship was wrong, but that he was bound by custom in the matter. He predicted that in twenty years or so his son would be able to abandon idolatry and there would be no practice of puja. Jane Birkett appears to have believed that her arguments had hit the mark,45 but this may not have been the case, for the Arya Samaj was also highly critical of idol worship, and the thakor may have seen his statement as merely an acknowledgement of the need for religious reform within Hindu practice. Encouraged by the example of the thakors, other high-caste people – such as the Baniyas – began to send their families to Lusadiya for treatment. This created a problem, as the two tiny wards were clearly inadequate for such ‘respectable’ persons. The wives of the thakors, for example, had to be cared for in Brand’s own home, so that the house that had been intended for the medical assistant and his family became what was in essence another hospital ward.46 Because of this demand, it was decided to build a new block for women patients. The thakors and other richer patients were asked to give donations for this purpose, which they did. The new ward, which was opened in January 1912, [ 115 ]

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consisted of three rooms holding four beds each and an examining room in which treatment could be carried out with the seclusion and privacy demanded by ‘ladies’.47 During that year, 189 people were treated as inpatients. Over the years, the thakors continued to send their family members to Lusadiya for treatment. Often, they made up a significant proportion of the inpatients. Some showed a polite interest in Christianity and even purchased Bibles and hymnbooks for their own elucidation.48 Jane Birkett continued to hope against hope that some would be converted: ‘we long that these gentry should realise that our Saviour is their Saviour too, as well as the Saviour of the Bhils’.49 Her hope was not to be realised.50 Caring for this class was nonetheless of importance, for it won their sympathy and made them less likely to obstruct the missionaries in their work. The numbers of patients treated at Lusadiya increased year by year. Figures from the CMS medical mission journal Mercy and Truth show that the numbers of outpatient treatments rose from 15,331 in 1910 to 18, 596 in 1915, and that number of inpatients increased from 99 in 1910 to 226 in 1915. The number of minor operations increased from 158 in 1910 to 309 in 1915. Besides this, Jane Birkett and John Brand toured the surrounding villages treating people. This practice was known in mission circles as ‘medical itineration’. The purpose was to demonstrate the value of modern medical treatment and gain the confidence of the people so that they might be encouraged to go to the mission hospital when sick. Patients were preached to, and it was hoped that the way would be then open for ordinary evangelical work at a later time.51 Writing in 1907, Jane Birkett reported that the main problems treated on tour were fever, enlarged spleen, ophthalmia, skin diseases and ulcers. Birkett and Brand found that most Bhils were reluctant to come to see them and they had to go from house to house finding people who required treatment.52 They often encountered much suspicion. When she upbraided a Bhil woman for failing to seek treatment for her baby who was suffering from a bad case of ophthalmia, the reply was: ‘I am told that if I take her to you and you put medicine in her eye the eye will burst!’ She applied caustic and the baby’s eyes were soon healed.53 In some years, the missionaries undertook longer tours that combined medical with evangelical work. They took tents with them and sometimes camped out for months at a time. These tours were carried out in the winter when the weather was cooler. For example, in 1914 Jane and Arthur Birkett left Lusadiya at the end of November and made for the large village of Tintoi. They camped there for three days. This was a village from which many had visited the Lusadiya hospital, and as they were well known, people besieged their tent requesting [ 116 ]

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treatment. They then went into the south-eastern part of Dungarpur State, turned north, visited Dungarpur town itself, then made for Mewar State and back home. During the two months, they camped at twentyfive different places and treated 2,090 patients. They preached at each place, put on lantern slide shows and sold religious literature. Crowds often came to their tents, and in some places they were asked to visit regularly. Many of these villages had largely non-Bhil populations. Only in a few places did they encounter any suspicion, and according to Jane Birkett this was soon overcome. At Dungarpur they met the maharaja and his officials, who received them in a friendly manner, and they also visited eighty-one houses to treat women of high status in their homes. Jane Birkett commented that although an excellent opening had been made in this state, they lacked the resources and personnel for regular tours of this type, and that ‘we would earnestly ask for a male medical recruit who can take up the work that clamours to be done’.54 No such person was forthcoming at that time, nor would be for many years. Brand also undertook tours of his own. He had been provided with a pony for this purpose, and he used to go out on about two days each week to villages within a convenient distance from Lusadiya accompanied by a young helper who carried his medicine chest. In 1906, he personally visited forty-eight different villages in this way – most more than once – and treated 825 patients in all. He also undertook some longer tours, travelling in a bullock cart with bedding and cooking equipment, but no tents, as he was happy to stay in local houses. He was usually accompanied by some local converts, who carried a drum so that they could sing hymns of worship to the villagers.55 As in the past, medically unqualified missionaries continued to provide medical care when they were on tour. Helen Bull had taken some basic medical instruction while on furlough in London in 1904, being funded by the CMS to attend a short course in Bermondsey.56 She soon became very adept at treating people on itinerating tours. Describing one such tour of 1914, she said that she was able to help in most cases, and as news of successful cures spread from village to village people began to come in large numbers to demand her medicine. In one village, for example, the Bhils were at first suspicious of her and her party, but when one of them recognised her as the person who had cured a badly burnt boy at another village, the attitude changed dramatically: ‘Then was the welcome hearty indeed; and day after day, and night after night, the people simply flocked for medicines for sick bodies, and to hear our teaching and see the magic lantern slides depicting the Life of our Lord.’57 The other centre for medical work was Biladiya, where there was a small dispensary. It was one of the principles of medical mission work [ 117 ]

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that the main hospital should be served by what were known as ‘affiliated dispensaries’. They dealt with simple conditions, with more complex cases being passed on to the hospital. It was not expected that they would be run by European doctors, who were few and far between, but either by European missionaries who had some basic medical training or by Indian medical assistants trained at a mission hospital. They were envisaged as being largely for outpatients, though a few beds might be necessary for a limited number of inpatients.58 Margaret Hodgkinson, who had trained for a term at the CMS medical hostel in England before she went out to India to marry the Reverend William Hodgkinson, ran the Biladiya dispensary from 1903 to 1913. In 1905 she treated five hundred cases, sending those who needed more serious attention either to Lusadiya or to the MBC doctor at Kherwara. She reported that ‘The Bhils have such faith in our medicine that even before they take it, they make up their minds that it is going to do them good and this goes a long way towards their recovery.’59 Her work soon expanded – in 1906 she treated over 1,800 cases. She reported that almost every family in Biladiya village itself had taken treatment from her at some time or other. She was often called out to see sick people in their homes at night, and the people were very thankful to her for this. She was hard stretched to do all the work, as she had two infants of her own to look after. Patients from a distance were accommodated in a spare room in the mission compound in 1905, but in 1906 this was required for other purposes and she appealed for some money to build a small ward.60 In 1907, she treated 1,907 cases. Often, she said, the children who were brought to see her required food as much as any medicine. With better funding, they could provide this. She also reported that some people who had refused to take treatment in previous years were now coming to the dispensary. The local people had been particularly impressed by her success in healing a woman from a neighbouring village who had been badly gored by a bull, with the horn puncturing her lung. She had gone to her at night and found the woman in a very bad way, with air escaping from her lung at every breath. She bandaged the wound, and after a month of careful dressing it healed completely. She commented: ‘All the Bhils had quite made up their minds that she must die and consequently the praises I get on all sides are most enthusiastic. I am sure it has done a great deal to break down prejudice and it has been the means I am certain of winning their confidence.’ She had confidence, she said, that the work would provide ‘the means of bringing many a sin-stricken Bhil to the Great Physician to get all his needs satisfied for time and eternity’.61 This was the last extensive report on the Biladiya dispensary for many years, so it is hard to judge how the work continued there. [ 118 ]

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In 1913, the Hodgkinsons were transferred to a different mission, and Rowena Watts, who had some medical training, took over the dispensary.62 In 1915 a hospital assistant called M. M. Dey was employed to run it. He was a Bengali Christian, and besides his medical duties he preached the Gospel.63 He was in charge over the next decade. Jane Birkett continued to be in charge of the medical work of the mission up until her retirement in 1922. By this time, she was becoming very conscious of its limitations. Elsewhere, she saw medical missions expanding their facilities in complex new ways, particularly in the field of surgery. The Reverend Dr John Lowe had argued as long ago as 1886 that ‘it is in the hospital that the most satisfactory and successful medical and surgical work will be accomplished – work which will produce the deepest impression, and direct public attention most favourably to the higher objects of the mission’.64 In Lowe’s day, a high proportion of patients who underwent major surgery were still dying from post-operative infections. With the development of better antisepsis in subsequent years, success rates had soared. Once such success had became the norm in the mission hospital, the occasional failure did not tell against it.65 Such work was not possible at Lusadiya. No surgeon was appointed to work alongside Jane Birkett, and no modern surgical equipment was provided. Writing in 1919, she stated: ‘There are such great surgical possibilities, in a very wide district, only waiting to be used for the help of the people, both body and soul; but I am physically unable to attempt them – (and one hates to be unable to properly fill a post).’66 Soon after, she put in a plea for a surgeon and surgical equipment for ‘up-to-date surgical and bacteriological and electrical treatment’. In the meantime, she did the best she could, carrying out some minor surgery, but nothing requiring any major incisions. She commented: Urgent cases, such as intestinal obstructions, appendicitis, and ruptured ectopic gestations (which would undoubtedly have been operated on immediately if a well-manned and equipped hospital had been available), have been successfully treated by rest and prayer, and sent home rejoicing; so that the non-Christians are learning that there is a God Who hears and answers prayers, and they often ask for our prayers. 67

She still had to advise patients who needed more complex surgery to go elsewhere, but in her experience few were willing to undertake such a hazardous journey to places that for them were strange and unknown.68 Despite this, the Lusadiya medical facilities had in general gained a good reputation in the region. In her final report, Birkett praised her assistant, John Brand, highly. He had, she said ‘built up a great reputation by his integrity and devotion. He is highly respected by gentry and [ 119 ]

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officials and loved by hundreds; and it is entirely due to his untiring care that local contributions have usually covered all expenses for drugs and dressings.’ A dresser whom Brand had trained assisted them. There was no qualified nurse, and they had failed to find a suitable Christian girl for training. The wife of one of the lay pastors helped out as a nurse in emergencies. She noted that patients often came from long distances because they were confident that they would be treated in an honest and straightforward way at Lusadiya, regardless of their status in life and the payment that they could afford. Most non-mission hospitals and dispensaries had, she alleged, a reputation for providing treatment and medication only to the extent that the patient could pay, or even bribe, the doctor.69 Despite this, the large majority of the Bhils, including the Christian converts, still continued to believe that many illnesses were often caused by the malign power of evil spirits. In the next chapter we shall see how the Birketts struggled to break the hold of such beliefs.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

‘From the Rev. G. Litchfield, Kherwara’, Intelligencer, 11 NS (May and June 1886), 414. Edward P. Herbert to Durrant, Kherwara, 4 January 1898, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1898, doc. 58. ‘From the Rev. C. S. Thompson, Kherwara (Bheel Mission), Central Provinces’, CMSE (1887–88), 95. ‘From the Rev. E. P. Herbert, Kherwara, North-West Provinces’, CMSE (1896), 140. Ibid., p. 139. Herbert to Carter, Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, Kherwara, 6 August 1898, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 51, F 45. ‘From the Rev. C. S. Thompson, Kherwara (Bheel Mission), Central Provinces’, CMSE (1887–88), 95. Harrison, Public Health in British India, p. 160. W. B. Collins, Kherwara, 7 October 1893, Intelligencer, 19 NS (March 1894), 211–12. Horace Mould to Political Agent, Mahi Kantha, Kherwara, 24 July 1899, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 51, F 46. Lieutenant Colonel J. M. Hunter, Acting Pol. Agent, Mahi Kanta, to Govt. of Bombay, Sadra, 21 May 1892, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1543 (1890–91 to 1908–09), 1891–92, pp. 35–6. The Bishop of Exeter to Ireland Jones, Exeter, 30 July 1896, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1896, doc. 320. C. S. Thompson, ‘The Bheels’, The Church Missionary Gleaner (October 1897), 149. Thompson to Dr Lankester, Sydenham, 12 October 1899, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1899, doc. 419. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 14 December 1899, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 2. Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002. Tyndale-Biscoe, Kherwara, 1 September 1900, ‘The Famine amongst the Bhils of Western India’, The Church Missionary Gleaner (1 November 1900), 163. Arnold, Colonising the Body, p. 164. In British Gujarat, an average of 1,025 people died each year from cholera in the five years before the great famine, while in 1900 42,944 are recorded as having died. Figures aggregated from the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, B vols. (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1904), for the districts of Surat and Broach (vol. 2-B), Kaira and Panch Mahals (vol. 3-B), Ahmedabad (vol. 4-B).

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24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31 32

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45 46 47

Reinhard S. Speck, ‘Cholera’, in Kenneth F. Kilpe (ed.), The Cambridge Historical Dictionary of Disease (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 77–8. Sheldon Watts, Epidemics and History: Disease, Power and Imperialism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 173. Arthur Outram, 22 May 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 304. Rev. Foss Westcott, Cawnpore, 25 July 1900, ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Rajputana Side’, Intelligencer (October 1900), 739. ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Gujerat Side’, ibid., 740–3. Jane Birkett, Report of Medical Work in the Bhil Mission for 1901, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 75. Mrs A. I. Birkett, ‘In the Bhil Country’, Mercy and Truth, (September 1901), 208. Dover’s powder was a compound invented by Dr Dover that contained opium and ipecacuanha. It was used widely at this time by doctors as a stimulant, sedative and pain killer. See H. W. Felter and J. U. Lloyd, King’s American Dispensatory (Cincinnati: Ohio Valley Co., 1898). ‘Livingstone Rousers’ were pills devised by Dr David Livingstone in Africa to treat malaria that contained oil of jalap, quinine and opium. Mrs A. I. Birkett, ‘In the Bhil Country’, Mercy and Truth (September 1901), 207–9. Jane L. J. Birkett, Report of Medical Work in the Bhil Mission for 1901, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 75. ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Gujerat Side’, Intelligencer (October 1900), 741–2. Jane L. J. Birkett to Gill, 23 December 1901, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 74. Proceedings of the Jabalpur Corresponding Committee, 18 January 1905, CMS, M/FL I 5. From the start, Birkett had taken the construction of new facilities for the Bhil mission to hand. He had surveyed sites for mission buildings at the various mission stations, drawn up plans, and supervised building work. See A. I. Birkett to C. H. Gill, 15 March 1901, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1901, doc. 225; C. H. Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 3 May 1901, ibid., doc. 283. Lusadia Hospital, Dispensary and Hospital Assistant’s Quarters, plans, 14 December 1904, CMS, M/FL I 5; Jane L. J. Birkett, ‘Medical Work’, Lusadiya, 30 January 1906, BMR (1905), 7–8. Did this attribution of a mean money-mindedness to Reuben – an Indian Jew – reflect some anti-Semitic prejudice in Birkett? I am grateful to Sarah Hodges for raising this question. Jane Birkett, ‘Lusadia and the Present Opportunity’, The Mission Hospital (June 1923), 125. Foucault, Birth of the Clinic, pp. 80–1. Harrison, Public Health in British India, pp. 11–12 and n. 28, p. 252. Jane L. J. Birkett, ‘Medical Work’, Lusadiya, 30 January 1906, BMR (1905), 9. Ibid. Jane L. J. Birkett, ‘Medical Work’, BMR (1906), 12. Ibid., 11–12. See the statement by Lowe, Medical Missions, p. 48; quoted in Rosemary Fitzgerald, ‘A “Peculiar and Exceptional Measure”: The Call for Women Medical Missionaries for India in the Later Nineteenth Century’, in Robert A. Bickers and Rosemary Seton (eds.), Missionary Encounters: Sources and Issues (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996), p. 192. Harrison, Public Health in British India, p. 12. Jane L. J. Birkett, ‘Medical Work’, Lusadiya, 30 January 1906, BMR (1905), 7–8. Jane Birkett, ‘Medical Work at Lusadia’, April 1907, Mercy and Truth (July 1907), 204. ‘Central Provinces Mission: Lusadia’, Mercy and Truth (July 1909), 229; ‘Central Provinces Mission: Lusadia’, Mercy and Truth (July 1910), 228–9. ‘Central Provinces Mission: Lusadia’, Mercy and Truth (July 1909), 236–7.

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53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

Jane Birkett, ‘Lusadia Medical Mission’, BMR (1913), 7. Jane Birkett, Lusadiya, ‘Church Missionary Society (Western India Mission) in Maharashtra and Bhil Land 1920’, p. 48, CMS, G2 I O, 1921, doc. 66. ‘Lusadia’, Mercy and Truth (July 1921), 198. For a general discussion, see C.F.H., ‘Principles and Practice of Medical Missions, Chapter VI: Itineration’, Mercy and Truth (June 1912), 184–6. ‘Central Provinces and Rajputana Mission, Lusadia’, Mercy and Truth (October 1907), 319. Mrs Birkett, ‘Camping out in Khetadra’, Mercy and Truth (April 1907), 103. Jane Birkett, ‘A Medical Itineration from Lusadia’, Mercy and Truth (September 1915), 311–13. Ibid., 313. A. H. Bull to Durrant, London, 24 June 1904, CMS, G2 I O, 1904, doc. 57. A. H. Bull, Kotra, BMR (1914), 16–17. C.F.H., ‘Principles and Practices of Medical Missions, Chapter VII: Affiliated Dispensaries’, Mercy and Truth (August 1912), 280–1. Margaret M. Hodgkinson, Biladiya, January 1906, BMR (1905), 20–1. Margaret M. Hodgkinson, Biladiya, January 1907, BMR (1906), 24. Margaret M. Hodgkinson, Biladiya, January 1908, BMR (1907), 20–3. R. Carter to Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, Biladiya, 20 January 1914, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 455, F 73, 1912–13. Jane Birkett, ‘Lusadia and the Present Opportunity’, The Mission Hospital (June 1923), 24. Lowe, Medical Missions, p. 48; quoted in Fitzgerald, ‘Peculiar and Exceptional Measure’, p. 192. Editorial, ‘The Hand of God in the Direction and Development of Modern Medical Mission’, Medical Missions at Home and Abroad (October 1919), 270–1. Jane Birkett to Dr Lankester, Weston super Mare, 6 February 1919, CMS, MY I 3, 1919. Jane Birkett, ‘Lusadia and the Present Opportunity’, The Mission Hospital (June 1923), 125–6. Jane Birkett to C. W. Thorne, Lusadiya, 28 May 1919, CMS, MY I 3, 1919. Jane Birkett, ‘Lusadia and the Present Opportunity’, The Mission Hospital (June 1923), 125–6.

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Fighting demons

Rhodri Hayward has noted how the imperial encounter during the nineteenth century produced a popular stereotype of the ‘possessed and demon-haunted natives’.1 Many Christian missionaries believed that they were engaged in an epic struggle with the forces of Satan. They frequently compared indigenous spirit possession to demonical possession in the Bible. J. L. Nevius, in Demon Possession and Allied Themes, described Chinese Christian converts ‘being swept into paroxyms of blasphemous rage’ through demonic forces.2 In their writings, missionaries reported their engagements and victories in this heroic battle in vivid tones. A missionary to the tribal peoples of central India, J. Fryer, thus described in 1905 how he had rescued one of his converts. Hearing that a pagan ceremony was going on at the house of the village Panda (headman), Fryer went there and saw: women and men with hair matted, etc., certainly under Satanic influence, some of them rolling on the ground and foaming at the mouth, others were dancing round erected idols, beating themselves with chains having spikes, some of the men were hitting themselves with axes and making pretence to try and cut their throats and hack pieces out of their limbs. I then found the reason of my being called – it was to witness the power of Kali to protect those who trusted in her . . . I found a young Baiga Christian called Timon possessed. I quickly went among the dancers and pulled Timon out – some of the dancers fled when I did this. I had Timon taken home, but that night I heard that he was dancing outside his house around some flags crying: ‘The devil is in me, I can’t help myself, and he (the devil) says he will not leave unless Fryer Sahib gives him the order to go.’ I dressed hastily and went to Timon’s house and found him in the state described. I held his arm and asked him what was the matter – he replied: ‘I can’t help it, Satan is inside and won’t go unless you make him go Sahib, do make him go.’ I said: ‘In the name of Christ I command the Satan to come out of him.’ Immediately he was all right, and he pointed with his hand and cried out: ‘There he goes Sahib, I am alright now, come

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on Christian brothers, break up these flags, spit on them.’ We did this. Timon asked for prayers, and we all knelt and prayed. Next day, Timon said that he was bewitched by the Panda after he had struck the son of the Panda who had stolen some sweet potatoes from his field. Since then, Timon has been a better Christian than he was before. I have told him that if Jesus went with him everywhere, Satan would have no power over him. The incident has shown to the people that evil spirits have no power over our Christians, and are subject to Jesus.3

The missionaries working amongst the Bhils likewise believed that Satan was in their midst, constantly enticing their hard-won converts to relinquish their new faith and revert to their ‘heathen’ ways. Festivals such as Holi were seen as examples of devil-worship, as is apparent from the following description of this annual celebration by Agnes Lees, who was based at the Kotada mission station in 1919: it was unfortunately the time of the Holi festival, when license is granted for all sorts of wild revelry. The first night we were surrounded by a howling mob of villagers, usually quite quiet people, but at that time like a pack of wolves. Although it was near midnight they sent to me three times demanding money, and one felt at grips with Satan himself while their dreadful drum was beaten, shrill pipes blown, and evil songs sung. I have never prayed so earnestly that the Holy Spirit would definitely fight the evil spirits with which we were undoubtedly surrounded. I had to go out to deliver the third refusal myself; and only then was the gameti persuaded to take his people away. It was a spiritual conflict, but we were on the always-victorious side.4

Over the years, the belief in the ever-present reality of Satan and demonic forces had waxed and waned within the Anglican Church. During the eighteenth century, under the influence of Spinoza, Anglican theologians generally held that as God had created nature in its entirety, it made no sense for Him to have created demons also. The concept of hell and eternal damnation had been devised to keep Christians on the straight and narrow, and in an age of reason such beliefs were no longer required.5 During the nineteenth century there was a strong reaction against such a theology within the Anglican Church by theologians who asserted that the struggle between God and Satan had continued throughout human history, and it would continue into the future. Richard Chenevix Trench – a leading theologian and archbishop who lived from 1807 to 1886 – thus depicted Satan as a real force, able to win humans to his ways through what appeared to be dazzling miracles. Whereas in the early days, Christ and the apostles had won converts through miracles wrought by their own hands, in the latter days God had withdrawn such powers from believers, so that such wonders were now a sure mark of the devil. [ 124 ]

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Yet, while the works of Antichrist and his organs are not mere tricks and juggleries, neither are they miracles in the very highest sense of the word; they only partake of the essential elements of the miracle. This they have, indeed, in common with it, that they are real works of a power which is suffered to extend thus far, and not merely dextrous feats of legerdemain; but this, also, which is the most different, that they are abrupt, isolated, parts of no organic whole; not the highest harmonies, but the deepest discords, of the universe; not the omnipotence of God wielding his own world to ends of grace and wisdom and love, but evil permitted to intrude into the hidden springs of things just so far as may suffice for its own deeper confusion in the end, and, in the mean while, for the needful trial and perfecting of God’s saints and servants.6

Supernatural occurrences could not therefore be taken as any proof of divine will. ‘A miracle does not prove the truth of a doctrine, or the divine mission of him that brings it to pass.’ People had to decide whether the message came from heaven or hell on the basis of whether it was good or evil, and it was up to them to use their moral judgement in this respect. What was required was an ‘inward witness’ that all Christians had the ability to command. The ‘simple and unlearned Christian’ could discriminate as well as the learned one.7 Applied to the Bhils, this meant that they had to be brought through Christian teaching and education to a moral state and awareness of the Word of the Lord that would allow them to distinguish godliness from superstition and devilry. Why had God withdrawn miraculous power from Christians in the latter days? In the early days, Chenevix Trench argued, miracles were signs for non-believers who were coming for the first time to Christianity. Christianity had to reveal its superiority by such means. Once they were recorded in the Bible, later Christians had them as a reference and did not need constant fresh wonders. Although the people of ‘heathen lands’ of the present time were new to Christ’s message, they also no longer needed miracles to win them to the faith, for: the Church of Christ, with its immense and evident superiorities of all kinds over everything with which it is brought in contact, and some portions of which superiority every man must recognise, is itself now the great witness and proof of the truth which it delivers. The truth, therefore, has no longer need to vindicate itself by an appeal to something else; but the position which it has won in the very forefront of the world is itself its vindication now, and suffices to give it a first claim on every man’s attention.8

He concluded that the church itself was in our day ‘the wonder’.9 Anglican missionaries working in all parts of the world were thus convinced that Protestantism – with its emphasis on the power of the [ 125 ]

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Word as inscribed in the Bible and its mastery of modern science, as seen most particularly in clinical medicine – could provide the necessary ‘all-encompassing cosmology that addressed the needs of body, mind and soul’.10 In this, there was no room for ‘magical’ practices, such as exorcism, the laying-on of hands or the use of charms. Such practices were, rather, seen to be positively dangerous, as they would concede too much ground to the enemy, which at that time included both ‘heathens’ and Roman Catholics who continued to perform such rituals. In this, these Protestants were ignoring the long history of conversion from paganism to Christianity in their own country, a process that had frequently manifested itself in supernatural cures by saintly healers. The seventh-century saint of Northumbria, Cuthbert, is for example depicted by Bede as healing the sick through prayer and the laying-on of hands, all of which cemented the faith of the people in their new religion.11 There was during medieval times no clear dividing line between healing and Christian ministry, with the shrines of saints being major therapeutic centres.12 This whole experience was being rejected by these missionaries, and there is no doubt that in many cases they would have gained considerable advantage from applying such methods, as has been seen by the subsequent global success of spiritual healing sects such as the Pentecostalists.13 The Anglican missionaries viewed attempts to heal through the invocation of supernatural powers as not only suspect, but also devilish, being the method of the ‘heathen witch doctor’. They regarded their ‘Christian’ biomedicine as standing in stark opposition to the pagan healing of the indigenous exorcist-cum-priest. It was held that the more their ‘scientific’ practice was extended, the more the faith of the ‘natives’ in their old belief systems would be undermined. As James B. McCord stated in an article of 1910 on ‘Zulu Witchcraft’: Every native who goes to the dispensary for medicine takes a step, and a long one, away from his witch doctor and his heathen belief in witchcraft. Every native who leaves the dispensary and receives help from the medicine is a missionary to all his acquaintances, testifying to the fact that a man may be cured without resort to witchcraft, and therefore the sickness could not be caused by witchcraft.14

Writing fifteen years later, a well-known medical missionary in Uganda, J. Howard Cook, stated: ‘Where the light of science enters, superstition rapidly disappears like those unclean insects which scatter when the stone that buries them is upturned.’ He continued: Many diseases are by the ignorant native ascribed to witchcraft or malicious poisoning, or the breach of taboo, or a hundred other superstitions or imaginary causes. Science in many of these cases reveals the cause and

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effects the cure, thus liberating the sufferer from his fears and superstitions. The art of the surgeon comes to be looked on as a superior magic, and once more Christianity has vanquished heathenism with the weapons that science has placed in its hands. In effecting these victories, and rescuing the sufferers, science changes hostility into gratitude, and creates an atmosphere in which the seeds of truth and religion flourish.

Cook concluded that science provided the most certain cure for the ‘sin-sick soul’.15 Within the CMS, the ordained missionaries and the mission doctors were seen to be working hand in hand, the one waging holy war on the ‘witch-doctors’ or ‘wizards’ who claimed to be in touch with the spirit world, while the other treated the physical maladies that provided the opening for such ‘devilish’ practices. Converts were required to demonstrate their commitment to their new faith by renouncing all form of ‘devilish’ healing and putting their trust in biomedical treatment alone. Such a radical mental change was not, as we shall see in this chapter, easily achieved.

The powers of darkness While on tour in 1905, Helen Bull spent five weeks camping in Jesingpur, where there were a handful of Bhil converts. She received a warm welcome, being told, ‘You have come to be one of us and to be our teacher of God.’ They said that under the influence of Christianity they had given up many of their superstitions, such as watching for omens on the start of a journey. Nonetheless, Bull commented, they still felt the need to propitiate the ‘evil eye’, and the belief in witchcraft continued as strong as ever. Bull was however optimistic, observing that ‘we can take courage and go on, knowing that when The Holy Spirit of God through Jesus Christ reigns in Bhil Land these will, with all the powers of darkness disappear.’16 Arthur and Jane Birkett were far less sanguine on this score. They saw that there would be a long and arduous struggle before the belief of the Bhil converts in ‘heathen’ charms, witchcraft and exorcism was broken. Writing in early 1906, Arthur Birkett reported: Three cases of superstition came to our notice during the year. One husband tried to cure his wife by tying some pulse round her neck like a locket. Another tied a string of black hair round his wife’s leg. The pulse and the string had both been rendered effective by the use of spells and burning butter. In the third case the cowherd, a catechumen, offered a sacrifice of a cock to try to cure the buffalo of the matron of the Girl’s Orphanage. She had promised him a cloth if it got well, and so he did what

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he believed best to cure it. In another case a boy had grains of wheat strung on a string and put round his neck to cure his eyes, but, as the necklace was made at home and no spells were used, we took no action in the matter.

Birkett punished the offenders by fining them sums ranging from a half to one rupee.17 In November and December 1906, the Birketts and Helen Bull set up camp in the village of Chhitadara to provide pastoral services for the forty or so Christian converts and medical treatment for the people in general. Jane Birkett was called to see a Christian woman who had given birth four months previously and since then been sick and growing ever weaker. On being questioned, the woman said that ‘Satan’ had caused her illness: Satan came in dreams to her in the night and threatened her because she had left off idolatry. Her first husband had practised exorcism and had worshipped the exorcised spirits in his house, where he had a special altar to them, and she thought he now wanted her and her Christian husband to return to the old practices, and that because she had not complied Satan was tormenting her with this mysterious illness.18

The Christian couple had been told by an exorcist that for five rupees he would remove the spirits from both the woman and the house. So far they had resisted his offer. They had gone to live with a neighbour, and were considering abandoning the old house and building a new one elsewhere. Jane Birkett ‘taught them and prayed earnestly with them for peaceful sleep for the woman’. The woman’s husband also prayed with great zeal. In this case the couple appear to have internalised the vocabulary of the missionaries, though the haunting was understood in terms of the Bhils’ own cosmos of belief. A week later news was brought to the Birketts’ tent at night that the Christian woman who was being haunted by Satan had ‘yielded to her heathen instincts and practice and has had the exorcist in!’ The two missionaries went straight over to reason with the woman and her husband. The husband and wife were however adamant that ‘nothing but their old custom of exorcising evil spirits could avail in the present circumstances – medicines and prayer would never cure her’. Jane Birkett claimed that the woman had in fact been recovering her strength in the week since they had prayed together. Other villagers then intervened, abusing the missionaries and stating that if the woman followed their advice she would inevitably die and her blood would be on their heads. They threatened that if they did not leave, their tent would be burnt down next day. The missionaries retired to their tent ‘very sore at heart’. Next morning they took comfort when [ 128 ]

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they found that the reading for the day was from Isaiah 53: ‘Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed; neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame’. Heartened by what they took to be God’s Word, they resolved to stay put. News was brought to them that the exorcism had continued for the whole of that night, and that fifteen evil spirits had been captured by the exorcist and carried away in a sack. The couple were reported to the bishop and excommunicated.19 The husband later repented, but the woman remained obdurate.20 The missionaries camped there for another month, preaching and treating patients, without suffering the threatened fate. Jane Birkett commented at the end of their stay that: the Bhils are very shy indeed; even when they seem to be very friendly on some lines they still cling to their own idea of treatment, so progress here will be very slow. We can only pray that as they grow in grace they may have grace to care properly for their own bodies.21

No other such cases came to the ears of the missionaries in that year, but in 1907 Arthur Birkett caught a Christian uttering a spell over a woman who had been stung by a scorpion. As he did this, he brushed her with a small tree branch. This was a very common form of exorcism – known as jhara – that involved sweeping the malevolence away from a sufferer’s body (often a peacock tail feather was used).22 The guilty man admitted the offence, but claimed that he had only used the name of the Lord in his spell. He promised to give up using spells in future.23 In February 1908, there was a much more serious case, again involving the people of Chhitadara, in which a Christian woman was alleged to have killed the village headman by cursing him. On investigation, Arthur Birkett found that the woman’s husband – also a Christian – had fallen gravely ill with pneumonia and she had begun to behave as if possessed by a demon. She had cursed the headman, and he had died three days later – of fright, so Birkett believed. Another Christian then sacrificed a goat to try to placate the evil spirit. Despite this, the woman’s husband had yet to recover his health, and he was convinced that it was because she still had an evil influence over him. All of the villagers, including the Christians, were terrified of her.24 In the following month, March 1908, the second Christian mela was held at Lusadiya. With the Chhitadara case fresh in mind, the issue became a topic of debate. There was even an example of such superstition at the mela itself, when a woman dropped and smashed a pot of ghee that she was bringing for Helen Bull. Several of the Christians claimed that another woman had looked at her malevolently, causing [ 129 ]

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her to drop the pot. At a special meeting held to discuss this issue, Satgurudas made a strong speech on the powerlessness of false gods and evil spirits to hurt those who had a firm faith in God. He told them how he had gathered all the ancestral stones of his house that he had once worshipped, and had thrown them all into a stream. On another occasion, when two friends he was walking with bowed before a heathen idol, he had hit the idol on the cheek and no harm had come to him. Some of the Christians endorsed these sentiments, stating that they now found such fear laughable. Others said that the fear was justified. One couple, for example, was convinced that the house they had moved into recently was haunted. After this frank discussion, prayers were held for the sick, so as to demonstrate the correct course for Christians to take in times of suffering.25 The problem for the missionaries was that they were fighting a whole culture of belief and practice that was not only deeply internalised amongst the Bhils, but also rigidly enforced by the patriarchs, elders and exorcists of the community. Although these Bhil elites tended to raise no objection to people of their village being treated by touring missionaries for a range of minor complaints, they were far less willing to allow them to go to the missionaries when a witch or evil spirit was believed to have caused an illness. The belief in witchcraft remained undimmed, even amongst many of the converts. Writing in 1914, Arthur Birkett reported that in the past three years in the area around Kotada, three women had been done to death as witches. ‘One was killed with an axe and one had a red hot iron thrust into her’.26 Some cases involved converts. In 1915, a girl in a family of Bhil converts of Abapur village died of tetanus. The father, Makana, and his brother, Jalji, consulted an exorcist to discover the cause of her death. They were told that the wife of the headman had bewitched her. The two Christians went to her house at night and attacked her with an axe, cutting off one arm and slashing the other to the bone. They tried to cut her throat, but her screams brought her husband running from the fields – where he was guarding his crops – and they fled.27 Such attacks by alleged witches were seen to threaten the well-being and health of the community as a whole, and it was considered imperative that they be dealt with in the appropriate manner, though exorcism. Individuals were not considered to have a right to assert their own feelings and beliefs in such matters; they were members of kin groups who had to conform to the wishes of the wider family or clan, so as not to offend and bring misfortune to either the living or the spirits of ancestors. We can see, furthermore, that refusal to accept such a method of treatment was also a challenge to the power and prestige of the elders and exorcists, and this provided a further reason for their [ 130 ]

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opposition. Treatment could thus become a battlefield between the Bhil elders and the missionaries. In 1914, for example, a Bhil woman who was married to a Christian convert fell ill. When her father-in-law proposed to take her to the mission hospital at Lusadiya, a local exorcist told him that if he did this his son – her husband – would fall ill and die. The woman’s own father was eager to take her for treatment, but the will of the exorcist, as exercised over the father-in-law, prevailed. The woman died as a result. Arthur Birkett was so disgusted by this that he excommunicated the whole family.28 In 1915 the Birketts discovered that Waga Koya, a lay pastor who led the congregation at Chhitadara, had been taking part in ‘superstitious practices’ for many years previously. He had himself asked for help from a ‘wizard’, such as an exorcist, on at least one occasion. Several converts had left the church, and the Birketts felt that Waga Koya’s behaviour was to blame. This seems unlikely, as the pressure to use the exorcists was just as likely to have come from the converts as from the lay pastor. Waga Koya was ordered to go to work far away in Kherwara. He seems to have been genuinely baffled by this, stating that he had done no wrong, and begged to be allowed to stay in Chhitadara. As a result of this grave lapse, fifty-one of the converts of that village were excommunicated.29 Although the missionaries were theologically opposed to the idea that they could perform Christian exorcisms – this being a highly suspect ‘Roman’ practice – they at times used prayer and countersuggestion for a treatment that was more psychosomatic than medical. We find one such example from 1907, when Jane Birkett was treating a Bhil youth of Chhitadara who was suffering from a swollen leg and high temperature. She painted the leg with iodine, but admitted that there was little she could do for him besides providing careful nursing. In her words, they had a very earnest prayer meeting by his bedside, seeking that God would stretch forth His hand to heal the lad; and from that moment he began to improve, the discharge became healthier, the pain less, so that he slept better, and there was steady though slow progress, so that at the end of a month he went home with the knee healed, though stiff. All were greatly impressed by the cure – so absolutely in answer to prayer.30

In another case, from 1909, a Bhil woman from a village near Lusadiya fell gravely ill. Her husband, Rupaji, had become convinced as to the truth of Christianity, but had not yet been baptised. His daughter felt likewise, but his wife and other family members were sceptical and continued to follow the old rituals. On two occasions when there had been illness and misfortune in the family, Rupaji had prayed to the [ 131 ]

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Christian God and his prayers, so he believed, had been answered. On this occasion, however, his prayers were to no avail. His wife was in terrible pain, crying aloud throughout the night for a whole month. In the end, he agreed to approach some exorcists. Their rituals and charms were equally ineffective. Finally, he decided to take her to the hospital at Lusadiya. He told John Brand very frankly of all the remedies that they had tried, both Christian and non-Christian. Brand told him that he had tempted God by consulting exorcists, and he should not break his Christian vows again. Brand could not, however, find anything in particular wrong with the woman. He felt that it must be that she was being chastised by God for her failure to embrace her husband’s faith, and he gave a simple medicine as a placebo and told her, ‘Do not be afraid, God will send you relief.’ On his return to his village, Rupaji told the other villagers that his wife was not ill as such, but she was ‘in the grip of the hand of God’. She slept well for the first time that night and next day awoke fully recovered. Visitors to the house were, according to Rose Carter, ‘amazed at God’s power and love. Their faces were radiant with joy and they eagerly desired baptism. Even now Rupaji was a little afraid of the evil spirit and hesitated to remove its shrine from his house, but at last he carried it out, threw it away, and was baptised.’31 Many missionaries believed that in certain cases the sick could be healed by trust in Christ and prayer alone. Helen Bull thus reported a case from a village in which the missionaries had had little previous success in gaining a sympathetic hearing from the Bhils. A woman and her children had fallen ill during the monsoon of 1913 and she had put a charm of knotted hair string around her neck to ward off the evil eye. She had however once heard the missionaries preach, and had second thoughts. In Bull’s words: After a struggle she felt she must take it off, and she asked God to forgive her; and then said in her own simple way, ‘since then day by day I have said, ‘O Lord, keep me, keep all my little ones, and my house and cattle, and take away all my superstition.’ And then triumphantly exclaimed, ‘He has done it.’32

The cure for the Bhil woman and her children had in this case depended on faith, rather than in any medical intervention. The Christian deployment of supernatural power was not confined only to the sphere of healing. In times of dearth, for example, the missionaries advocated prayers for rain. Arthur Birkett thus reported in 1905 that until 10 September of that year the monsoon almost entirely failed. Then from that date there were three full days of good rain. ‘This last rain was sent in answer to prayer. We had a midday prayer-meeting for three weeks before it came, and had appointed a day to be a whole [ 132 ]

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day of prayer in connection with the Gujarat United Missionary Conference, but the rain came first and made the appointed day one of praise and thanksgiving.’33 Herbert Moloney commented on this: ‘Really the faith of these new Christians puts one to shame. Last year they brought down rain when things seemed hopeless.’34 Another rather different ‘miracle’ was said to have occurred in 1907 when Hodgkinson was building a new church at Biladiya. The builder whom they had contracted for the work was a Muslim, and he was at the same time constructing a mosque in his own village three kilometres away. Hodgkinson feared that the mosque would be completed before the church, but the mosque suddenly collapsed in ruins because of a design fault. The church was as a result finished first. In the words of the missionary: ‘God grant that like the mosque so the faith of Mohammedans and all other false faiths may be destroyed, and the Church of Christ established throughout the world.’35 In the following year, Arthur Birkett wrote about a convert of Chhitadara called Matthew who was threatened with prosecution on a false charge. The other Christians prayed for him, and the charge was suddenly withdrawn.36 Even when the missionaries provided – as they saw it – clear proof of the superiority of their methods over that of the exorcists, it was uncertain whether it would lead to any change of attitude or actual conversion. This was the case with a man of Biladiya who in March 1907 collapsed as he was returning home one evening. Paralysed on one side and unable to speak, he lay undiscovered for a night and a day. He was eventually found and taken home by his family, who were convinced that he was possessed by a ‘dumb spirit’. They called in an exorcist, who sacrificed a goat, made him drink the blood, and cauterised him on the knee and hand of his afflicted side. After he failed to get any better, his family, including his wife, left the house for fear of being possessed themselves. Margaret Hodgkinson heard of his problem from the sick man’s brother, who was a convert, and she went to his house to see what she could do. She found him lying in a pitiable state, on a broken and dirty bed. Although his wife had returned, she hardly dared touch him through fear. Hodgkinson saw that the case was beyond her limited healing powers, and decided to wait until Jane Birkett came on her next visit, which was soon due. Birkett duly diagnosed a stroke, and ordered that the patient should be taken to the mission compound for twice-daily treatment. Nobody was however prepared to help carry him the three kilometres involved, as they believed that the evil spirit would possess them. He thus had to be brought in by the bigger and stronger boys of the Biladiya Christian orphanage. Margaret Hodgkinson treated the man according to Birkett’s prescriptions, and he was soon well enough to return home, after which he recovered completely. She felt that he was ready to [ 133 ]

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become a Christian as a result, but his wife and others persuaded him not to. His sister did, however, become a convert.37 Another such case occurred in 1919, when Jane Birkett’s carriagedriver fell seriously ill. His relatives brought in an exorcist to treat him, but his condition worsened. When he appeared to be at death’s door, his brother went to see John Brand (Birkett was then on leave) and begged him to treat the case. Brand agreed. In Birkett’s words: ‘The prayer of faith, together with medicines and proper diet, won him back to life and health, and he promised the doctor that he would serve the Lord Jesus’.38 Time went by, and he failed to come forward for baptism. The reason, according to Birkett, was that his relatives had put pressure on him not to do so. There were, she said, many similar cases. There were, nevertheless, victories that conformed to the mission script that were reported in a spirit of rejoicing. In Devni Mori in 1909, the wife of a leading Bhil who had for many years hesitated over converting fell ill. He called in exorcists and tried other local remedies, all to no avail, and eventually took her to the hospital at Lusadiya where she obtained immediate relief. The following Sunday, in Arthur Birkett’s words, ‘he removed the tile which served as a demon alter & the lamps etc. from his house & was with his wife and daughter admitted to the catechumenate’.39 Their conversion made a big impression in the village, and others soon came forward asking to be prepared for baptism.40 In similar vein, John Brand told of a great spiritual battle over the treatment of the lay preacher Premji Hurji Patel, who had fallen sick. Many of the local converts believed that Premji was a victim of sorcery, and they tried to persuade him to combat the evil power in the traditional way. Brand reassured him that he would recover through a combination of his treatment and the power of prayer. Premji remained steadfast to his Christian faith, and when he eventually recovered, Brand interpreted it as demonstrating ‘the power of God to heal’ in a way that had ‘profoundly shaken the faith of the heathen in charms and incantations’.41 In the following year, Helen Bull agreed to treat a Bhil who was suffering from bronchitis and whose son had already approached an exorcist. The exorcist was extremely angry at being so defied, and he threatened them all with dire punishment. The man recovered and said that he had lost all of his faith in exorcism and that he was ‘almost persuaded’ to become a Christian.42 Jane Birkett wrote in 1915 of a young Christian couple whose only son had fallen gravely ill. Their elder relatives and even leading Christian converts told them that exorcism was the only remedy, but they insisted that they would place their faith in God and God alone. Birkett commented: ‘God honoured their faithfulness and restored the child to them.’43 [ 134 ]

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Even today, Bhil Christians tell stories along such lines. I have referred above to the story of the conversion of Rupaji after his wife was cured – according to the missionaries – by the power of prayer. In the popular local account, however, the conversion was obtained by medical means. Rupaji was, in this version of the story, a powerful and well-known buva, or exorcist, who used to cure people by driving out evil spirits with magical incantations (jantra-mantra). He lived in a village close to Lusadiya. When his wife fell sick, he tried to cure her using his own methods, but failed. He decided to try the hospital at Lusadiya, and she was given vilayati dava (foreign medicine). She recovered, and he began to trust the medicine, and also Christianity. He converted and gave up his work as a buva entirely.44 This story clearly gives the credit to the efficacy of ‘foreign’ medicine – as applied by the missionaries – rather than prayer as such. The results of such struggles with the exorcists were sometimes ambiguous. In 1918, for example, there was a battle between the missionaries and an exorcist in Lusadiya village itself. Jiva Dala, the local postmaster, a Christian and brother of Satgurudas, was suffering from what was described in the report as ‘brain-softening’. He was treated by John Brand, but persuaded by some of his non-Christian relatives to consult an exorcist also. It seems that his wife also put pressure on him to do this. The exorcist used both mantras and cauterisation, branding him with a hot iron across the back of each hand, on the instep of each foot, above his forehead and just below his chest. This was all done quickly by force, and he was left in agony. Satgurudas had approved of this treatment. He recovered eventually. The missionary Walter Wyatt commented: ‘if he finally recovers, I expect the Bhagat will get the credit for the cure, while the fact that many Christians were praying for his recovery will be ignored. I have seen many bullocks cured of lameness and other ailments by branding, but it would seem a somewhat drastic remedy for a brain affection!’45 Rather than depicting this as a struggle between ‘superstition’ and scientific medicine, the missionary interpreted it as a battle between two systems of belief and practice. While the Christians provided medical treatment and prayer, the exorcist applied cauterisation and mantras. Both thus sought to cure through a combination of appeals to a higher force and physical treatment. Surprisingly, Wyatt even admitted that the exorcist’s chosen treatment in this latter respect could have been effective.

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to their evangelical and medical work. Indeed, Arthur Birkett stated in December 1915 that his difficulty in this respect was weighing on him more and more, even to the extent of keeping him awake at night. During the hot weather that year he had almost suffered a breakdown in consequence.46 During the monsoon of 1916, the Birketts took their annual holiday in the Nilgiri Mountains of South India. They returned in mid-August before the rains had ended. On 17 August, Arthur Birkett rode ahead alone while Jane Birkett followed in a cart with their luggage. The rivers were in spate, but he pressed ahead, determined to reach the rest house at Jesingpur before nightfall. While crossing the Vanga River just before Jesingpur, his horse appeared to have stumbled on a hidden boulder; he fell and became entangled in his heavy waterproof riding-coat, and was swept downstream in the raging torrent. Jane Birkett, in the cart, had meanwhile decided to halt for a meal at Bhiloda when a messenger came to tell her that her husband’s horse had been found standing beside the river with no rider. She set out with a search party, and they soon found his body washed against a tree. He had drowned. He was taken back to Lusadiya, and next day buried there, with the service being performed by the catechist Premji Patel, as no ordained priest was available. The funeral was attended by large numbers of grieving converts, including many Christian women. As a rule, Bhil women did not attend funerals, so the sight was unusual and impressive. The Reverend Charles Shaw – now the only ordained priest left in the mission – arrived soon after from Kherwara, consumed – so he said – by a feeling of ‘utter desolation’. He commented: ‘His death seems utterly mysterious. It may be that we had come to rely on him too much, and that God is teaching us to put more personal reliance on Himself.’47 It was certainly a great blow to the mission, as Birkett had proved over the years a powerful and popular leader. Unlike most missionaries of his day, he was prepared to adapt himself to local practices in a way that was derided by many Europeans at that time as ‘going native’. He often wore a turban rather than sola topi, and a photograph shows him sitting cross-legged on the ground with his Indian helpers. After his death, the Bhils performed a dance in his memory and composed a song, ‘Birkata Sahib bahadure’ (‘Courageous Birkett Sahib’), that is sung to this day in the region.48 C. S. Thompson had died feeling overwhelmed by the horrors of an Indian famine. Birkett had died burdened by doubt as to his abilities to overcome the demons that haunted the minds of the Bhils. He was from a generation that had been raised in a spirit of enlightened optimism about the power of Light to overcome the Powers of Darkness. Christianity and its scientific civilisation were believed to be a sure and [ 136 ]

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irresistible force in this respect. Faced by the reality of life in the mission to the Bhils, he was beginning to have misgivings on this score. He died during the First World War, when the darkness at the heart of European civilisation and its scientific killing was being revealed to the world in all its horror. Future generations, under the growing influence of Freudian psychoanalysis, would understand the shadows at the heart of human consciousness in new ways, and with less optimism that they could be overcome through the power of Reason – or the Gospel.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Hayward, ‘Demonology’, 45. J. L. Nevius, Demon Possession and Allied Themes (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1894), quoted in Hayward, ‘Demonology’, 46. The quoted words are by Hayward. ‘The Bishop’s Quarterly Letter, Pachmarhi, C. P., 17 June 1905’, The Nagpur Diocesan Quarterly Magazine (July 1905), 31–4, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1905, doc. 133. A. J. Lees, BMR (1919), 15. Walker, Decline of Hell, pp. 3–7. Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord (London: Macmillan, 1866), pp. 24–5. Ibid., pp. 25–8. Ibid., pp. 47–8. Ibid., p. 55. Fitzgerald, ‘Clinical Christianity’, p. 115. Bede, ‘The Life of Cuthbert’, in D. H. Farmer (ed.), The Age of Bede (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988), pp. 39–102. See also Kelsey, Healing and Christianity, pp. 103–56. For the healing cult of St Winifred of Holywell see Judith F. Champ, ‘Bishop Milner, Holywell, and the Cure Tradition’, in Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing, pp. 153–8. See also Lea T. Olsan, ‘Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice’, Social History of Medicine, 16:3 (December 2003). For a history of Pentecostalism, see Morton Kelsey, Tongue Speaking: An Experiment in Spiritual Experience (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973). James B. McCord, ‘Medical Missions and Zulu Witchcraft’, Medical Missions at Home and Abroad, 13 NS (February 1910), 74. J. Howard Cook, ‘The Contribution of Science to Missionary Work’, Church Missionary Review (March 1925), 43–5. A. Helen Bull, ‘Itinerating’, Khetadara, January 1906, BMR (1905), 10–12. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, Lusadiya, January 1906, BMR (1905), 3. Mrs Birkett, ‘Camping out in Khetadra’, Mercy and Truth (April 1907), 102. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 7. Helen Bull, ‘Jesingpur, Near Lusadia’, BMR (1906), 15. Mrs Birkett, ‘Camping out in Khetadara’, Mercy and Truth (April 1907), 104. See Lambert, ‘Plural Traditions?’, p. 193. A. I. Birkett, Ahmedabad, 27 September 1907, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1907, doc. 89. A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 6 May 1908, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1908, doc. 51; A. I. Birkett, Lusadiya, 19 May 1908, ibid., doc. 48. Ibid. A. Birkett to E. Waller, 24 June 1914, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1914, doc. 31. R. Carter, ‘The Power of Darkness in the Bhil Mission’, The Bombay Church Missionary Gleaner (November 1915), 2–3, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1915, doc. 107. A. Birkett to E. Waller, 24 June 1914, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1914, doc. 31. ‘Bhil Mission’, Report of the C.M.S. Western India Mission 1916, p. 75, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1916, doc. 35. Jane Birkett, ‘Two Patients at Lusadia’, Mercy and Truth (February 1907), 54–5.

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MISSIONARIES AND THEIR MEDICINE 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47

48

Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, pp. 71–2. Helen Bull, ‘Report’, BMR (1913), 18. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, Lusadiya, January 1906, BMR (1905), 5. Moloney to Durrant, Jubbulpore, 22 September 1905, CMS, G2 I 8/0 1905, doc. 149. W. Hodgkinson, ‘Biladia’, BMR (1907), 25–6. A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1907), 10. Margaret M. Hodgkinson, Biladiya, 1 January 1908, BMR (1907), 20. ‘Mrs Birkett’s Report for 1919’, BMR (1919), 3. A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 9 September 1909, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1909, doc. 91. R. Carter, Lusadiya, 3 January 1910, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1910, doc. 45. Report by J. Brand, BMR (1913), 8–10. H. Bull, Kotra, BMR (1914), 17. Jane Birkett, ‘Lusadia Medical Work’, BMR (1914), 8. Interview with Surjibahi Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002. Rev. W. Wyatt, Report of the CMS Western India Mission 1918, p. 49, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1919, doc. 109. Wyatt here describes the exorcist as a ‘Bhagat’. The Bhagats were reformed Bhils who generally renounced such methods. Had he confused ‘Bhagat’ with buva? A. I. Birkett to Wigram, Lusadiya, 6 December 1915, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1915, doc. 110. Dr Jane Birkett, ‘Mrs Birkett’s Story’, Papers of Dr H. G. Anderson, CMS, Unofficial Papers, Acc. 376, F1A/2; Report of the C.M.S. Western India Mission 1916, pp. 5, 72– 3, 79, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1916, doc. 35; G. C. Vyse, ‘In Memoriam: The Rev. A. I. Birkett’, Intelligencer (December 1916), 615–16; C. L. Shaw, BMR (1948), 4. Boyd, Church History of Gujarat, p. 102; Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, p. 42.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

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Woman’s work for woman

Female missionaries, supported by male Indian assistants, sustained much of the clinical work of the Bhil mission. Jane Birkett and Margaret Hodgkinson were the wives of ordained missionaries, but others, such as Helen Bull and Rowena Watts, were single women. In her history of American women missionaries Dana Robert has shown that until the mid-nineteenth century, women were to a large extent accepted in the mission field only if they went as the wives of missionaries. In this role, they were expected to establish Christian homes in mission outposts, demonstrating to indigenous people the domestic arrangements and gender relations of a Christian family. In fact, from the start women had gone beyond the domestic boundary, helping with basic educational and medical work amongst local women and children. This was carried out either on the veranda of the mission house or in the homes of the local people, and it was seen as an extension of domestic work.1 Attempts by single women to gain support from the missionary societies to be sent as missionaries were in almost all cases blocked.2 This situation changed in the second half of the nineteenth century as women began to assert the central role of women in missionary work. It was argued that ‘heathen’ beliefs and culture could be attacked effectively only within the home, and that female missionaries were required to work with native women, winning their sympathy and through them influencing their children. This strategy became known as ‘woman’s work for woman’.3 According to Robert, it was based on the ‘belief that non-Christian religions trapped and degraded women, yet all women in the world were sisters and should support each other’.4 Inspired by a spirit of compassion, they sought to provide the religious, educational and medical blessings of Christian civilisation to such women. A central focus was on converting mothers so that they would purify their homes, influence their children and provide a shining example of [ 139 ]

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Christian values. ‘The emphasis on the conversion of mothers, and through them their children, and through children, the society, continued as a justification for the movement into the twentieth century.’5 Medical work was a key element within this. Robert notes that in many cultures, women were expected to heal, and this allowed women mission doctors an opening. This was in contrast to the experience of educationalists, who generally encountered strong opposition when they tried to teach women. This development came at a time when women were gaining new freedoms and responsibilities in American society. The Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church was the foremost women’s mission organisation. Founded in 1869, it was not auxiliary to any male-dominated mission board. It appointed and paid for its own missionaries, and it sent the first female physicians to India, China and Korea. It opened the first women’s hospitals in India, China and Korea also.6 Robert maintains: ‘The embracing of medical missions by American Protestant women in the late nineteenth century was one of the most important missiological advances of “Woman’s Work for Woman.” ’7 As medical education for women had been pioneered in America, American women were best placed to begin such work.8 An American called Dr Clara Swain was the first female medical missionary, being sent to India in 1869 by the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society, and her success there silenced the objections of male missionaries.9 In Britain, the first medical school for women – the London School of Medicine for Women – was founded in 1874, and three more such single-sex institutions followed in 1886, 1888 and 1890. The first British woman doctor to practice in India was Fanny Butler, who had been one of the first students to enrol at this school. Qualifying in 1880, she was sent in the same year to India by the CMS Zenana Missionary Society, an organisation that focused on work in the zenana – the private apartment for women within a household.10 A special hospital for such secluded women was established in Delhi in 1885, and although in the early years it proved hard to attract suitably qualified women doctors and nurses to work there, an adequate number become available in the 1890s.11 The work was consolidated with the opening of the North India School of Medicine for Christian Women at Ludhiana in 1894. Its prime object was to train Indian Christian women for zenana medical work. In the early twentieth century it began to admit non-Christian students and changed its name to the Women’s Christian Medical College. A course there lasted four years, and students gained diplomas from Lahore University.12 Working in a mission, a woman could expect to find herself in a position of greater responsibility and suffer less discrimination from male [ 140 ]

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doctors than was likely to be the case at home – an attractive proposition for idealistic young Christian women. By the end of the nineteenth century, a third of all students at the London School of Medicine for Women were found to be training there with the intention of becoming medical missionaries. In 1900 there were 258 women on the British Medical Register – of these 72 were serving as medical missionaries, 45 of them in India. Also in that year, the total number of qualified medical missionaries from Britain and elsewhere stationed in Indian missions stood at 169:88 women and 81 men.13 In 1910, American, British and European Protestant missions employed 341 women doctors throughout the world. Of these, half were serving in India and one-third in China.14 Robert argues that the effect of this work was far greater than the numbers alone suggest, as it gave an opening for missionaries in otherwise hostile places, and also because missionary doctors made the training of indigenous women a top priority, and in the process ‘revolutionised the medical treatment of women in India and China’.15 Another important and novel feature of mission medicine was, therefore, that women occupied a central role as practitioners. In their work, they sought to reach out to local women, hoping thereby to carry the Christian message to the heart of the non-Christian family. They saw that Indian women frequently suffered gross maltreatment and neglect at the hands of callous male elders, and believed that they could be rescued from their predicament through Christian healing and, ultimately, Christianity. They sought to encourage in women a spirit of self-assertion, so that they not only would insist on taking treatment in the mission clinics – often in defiance of male members of their family – but might also be won to Christ. As it was, Indian women were in general more willing to accept treatment from these missionary women than from the male doctors of the colonial service. This strong focus on women was one of the most radical components of mission medicine, distinguishing it sharply from the medical practice of the colonial state.

Work for Bhil women The women of the Bhil mission sought similarly to embrace and uplift their Bhil ‘sisters’. Although Bhil women did not practise purdah or live in zenanas, the missionaries could see that they had a low social status and were frequently oppressed by their menfolk. The latter certainly did not consider women in any way their equals. When Helen Bull stated at a meeting at Chhitadara that the sexes were equal, a leading man of the village, who was also a teacher, asked her incredulously ‘But [ 141 ]

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is a woman really equal to a man?’16 Clearly, this was a strongly patriarchal society. A woman was expected to marry into a different lineage, which meant normally that she had to go outside her paternal village. The brideprice paid by her father made her in effect the property of her husband. Although she was considered to have a right to leave her husband, a repayment of the brideprice had to be negotiated with her father or new husband. She was not considered to have any right of property in either her father’s or her husband’s family. Women were considered to be particularly susceptible to possession by evil spirits and becoming witches, and were in consequence excluded from important ritual ceremonies. Christianity offered a possible escape for Bhil women who were seeking a new dignity and independence in their lives, but any independent conversion was likely to be resisted strongly by male elders. Even the missionaries were reluctant to be the cause of family strife by accepting women for baptism when their husbands were unwilling to convert.17 In most cases, women became Christians only when their fathers or husbands had taken the initiative in the matter. The white women missionaries found it hard to inculcate the desired spirit of self-sufficiency in Bhil women, and often expressed their disappointment with their flock in this respect. Rose Carter thus reported in 1910 that while some male converts had organised their own earlymorning prayer meetings, women had so far not done anything like this. ‘May God shed abroad the same spirit of prayer in the hearts of the women is our earnest desire.’18 In a society in which women were believed to be ritually unclean and were thus excluded from many religious ceremonies, the insistence by the missionaries that all should pray and worship together in a spirit of equality before God took time to be accepted. As Hodgkinson stated in 1907: ‘Here in a land where women are looked upon as mere chattels, it is a great victory to find husbands and wives kneeling together for prayer and praise’.19 As a first step, the female missionaries held special literacy classes for women. It was not easy to attract a group for this, because of male opposition. In Lusadiya, women who attended such a class were jeered at, and it was a rare and courageous woman who persevered.20 Even the converts saw little need for female education; girls, for instance, were expected to carry out farm work, such as tending animals and guarding crops, rather than go to school.21 This meant that most of the Christian women were illiterate, unable to read the Bible and lacking, according to Arthur Birkett, any knowledge in depth of their new faith. In early 1908, Helen Bull spent much time and effort trying to remedy this defect amongst the Christian women of Lusadiya, and her reward came at the second Christian mela held in March of that year when at the [ 142 ]

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special meeting for women there was an outburst of simultaneous prayer ‘which we have never experienced before amongst these reserved Bhil women’.22 The missionaries also tried to impress on Bhil men the need to treat the women of their families with greater consideration. It was, for example, considered legitimate for a husband to beat his wife. The missionaries believed that they had brought some changes in this respect. When Helen Bull visited Jesingpur in 1905, a Bhil woman informed her with gratitude that her that her husband no longer beat her since they had become Christian. On one occasion, she said, her nine-month-old baby had been burnt after rolling on a fire while she was out of the house collecting water. When her husband returned he was very angry with her for her neglect, but despite this he refrained from thrashing her, as he would have done previously.23 There were a few isolated cases in which women took the initiative in the matter of conversion. When Helen Bull and her Bhil evangelist, Mengo, preached in Hatya village in the winter of 1906–7, a woman called Mangli came ‘primarily out of curiosity to see and hear a white woman, of whom she had heard, but had never come into contact’. She was strongly impressed by what she heard, and she persuaded her husband to convert to Christianity along with the rest of the family. She was related to Mengo, which must have had a bearing on her decision. The family suffered considerable opprobrium within the village, being insulted and told that they would be put out of caste, but they remained firm in their resolve. Soon afterwards, three other families in the village became converts.24 In another case, a Rajput woman who had been widowed in childhood took treatment at Lusadiya hospital in 1910 and began to practise as a Christian when she returned home, observing Sunday as a day of rest and singing hymns and telling stories from the Gospels. She earned her living by working as a household servant for another Rajput. When Jane Birkett visited the village in 1914, some Rajputs told her to take the woman away as ‘she belongs to your religion’. Soon after, she returned to Lusadiya in an anaemic state, and after treating her Jane Birkett employed her as a nurse on five rupees a month, which was less than she had earned as a servant. During her first holiday in August 1915 she returned to her natal village and tried to reclaim some of her property. Her mother refused to see her and her brother even threatened to kill her, so she returned empty-handed. She was so distressed that she tried to hang herself three times, but was stopped from doing so by other villagers. After she returned to Lusadiya, Rajput patients at the hospital tried to persuade her to return to the Hindu fold. Then, according to Jane Birkett: ‘A few nights ago she was wakened by a voice [ 143 ]

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enquiring when she would be baptised, and it seemed so real to her that she rose and opened the window to see who it could be. The Holy Spirit is working in her mightily, I am sure. May He who kept her [from suicide] in August soon lead her into the Fold of Christ in answer to our united persistent and prevailing prayers.’25 In this way, the hospital at last obtained a nurse, and, as was often the case in medical missions during their early years, she was a local convert trained on the job.26 Some of the most successful work for women was carried out through the orphanage for girls established during the great famine. In 1905, forty-four girls were staying there and receiving education. Miss B. M. Newton, its supervisor, reported that they did all the domestic work, such as grinding corn, cooking and carrying water.27 In time, as they grew up and married, they provided a nucleus of well-educated Bhil women who were known to be strong in their faith, providing an example to others of a new form of Bhil womanhood.

The limits to ‘sisterhood’ There were a number of limits to this work. For example, there is a surprising lacuna in the mission records on the issue of childbirth – an area in which the missionaries could have done much to ameliorate the condition of Bhil women. In his report of 1875, Hendley had noted that as a rule female friends aided mothers in labour. They kept them in a warm hut, ‘and even in cases of haemorrhage, apply warm cloths, and administer hot-spiced drinks’. If there were difficulties, a wise woman of another caste might be called, or the women merely invoked the mother goddess. The baby was suckled for two or three years.28 The missionaries do not appear to have been called out much in this respect, even in cases of difficult childbirth, for the records – at least – are noticeably silent on this score. No cases are mentioned of women coming to the hospital for lying-in, only of a few women admitted who had suffered complications after giving birth. Indeed, it was only in the late 1930s that this side to the mission work began to develop, as we shall see in later chapters. Another, rather different, issue was that for all their insistence that the sexes were equal, it was clear to all that the female missionaries were of subordinate status within the mission. Even Jane Birkett, a qualified doctor, suffered the indignity in 1904 of being informed that as a woman she could not be a member of the Bhil mission committee. Her husband was so offended by this slight to his wife that he refused to sit on it himself. Hubert Moloney, the mission secretary, remarked on this – smugly – that it was ‘quite contrary to precedent’ for a woman to sit on such bodies, and that Helen Bull, who was in charge of the [ 144 ]

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Lusadiya orphanage and was senior to all of the men in terms of years served, ‘quite graciously acknowledged that she had no right’ in this respect.29 Women who were senior either through longevity of service or in their level of professional expertise were not thus considered on a par with even the most junior male missionaries. Several feminist scholars have asked more profound questions about the rhetoric of a ‘sisterhood of women’ in a colonial context. Catherine Hall, writing of the Caribbean in the early nineteenth century, points out that although white women commonly lamented the suffering of their imagined ‘sisters’ – the black slave women – they too were colonisers. Although the term suggested commonality, it denied the difference and violence of colonialism. While the Western woman was seen as the agent of history, the black woman was the object to be worked on. Used in such a context, the term ‘sister’ slipped between registers of meaning, marking both kinship and a gap, between fellow philanthropic ladies at home and those they supported and helped. . . . The term hinted at proximity, but established a difference between ‘the native female’, ‘not quite/not white’, and the Western feminist, ‘not quite/not male’. Far from fixing ‘native women’ in a close sibling relationship to white feminists, ‘sister’ destabilised and unsettled, leaving meanings ambiguous and unresolved.30

This reaching out to the native ‘sister’ – for all its good intent – can thus be seen above all as providing a strategic intervention in a struggle for emancipation that was located primarily within the home country, which is where the missionaries would in any case reside after their days of service were over. Their solidarity was above all with their own class and nation, and their prime concern was with their place within it. The Bhil woman became, for this purpose, what Gayatri Spivak has described as the ‘self-consolidating other’, who was contrasted with the ‘absolute other’. The former was the good and benighted native, deserving of uplift, while the latter was the incorrigible savage or heathen, gloating in his ‘debased’ way of life. In this way, the binary opposites of coloniser and colonised were modified into a threefold schema of the coloniser, good native, and bad native.31 It was in such terms that the missionary drama was enacted, for male and female missionaries alike. In the next chapter we shall examine in greater detail the relationship between the missionaries and colonialism, and consider their reaction to the Indian nationalist challenge to colonial rule.

Notes 1

Dana L. Robert, American Women in Mission: A Social History of their Thought and Practice (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1996), pp. 1–38.

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9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31

Ibid., pp. 127–8. Ibid., p. 130. Ibid., p. 133. Ibid., p. 135. Ibid., p. 137. Ibid., p. 166. There was little regulation of medical education in the USA, and so-called ‘irregular’ medicine flourished there during the nineteenth century, which made it possible for women to establish special medical schools without the sort of opposition encountered in Britain. I am grateful for this point to Rosemary Fitzgerald. Swain’s career in India is described in Robert, American Women in Mission, pp. 164–5. Rosemary Fitzgerald, ‘Rescue and Redemption – The Rise of Female Medical Missions in Colonial India during the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, in Anne Marie Rafferty, Jane Robinson and Ruth Elkan (eds.), Nursing History and the Politics of Welfare (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 73. Fitzgerald, ‘Peculiar and Exceptional Measure’, p. 195. Moorshead, Appeal of Medical Missions, p. 153. Fitzgerald, ‘Peculiar and Exceptional Measure’, pp. 190–2. Fitzgerald, ‘Rescue and Redemption’, p. 69. Robert, American Women in Mission, p. 162. Helen Bull, ‘Jesingpur, Near Lusadia’, BMR (1906), 14. Minutes of the Women’s Conference, November 1906, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1906, doc. 130. R. Carter, CMS Mission to the Bhils, Occasional Letter, Lusadiya, 3 January 1910, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1910, doc. 45. W. Hodgkinson, ‘Biladia’, BMR (1907), 27. R. Carter, Kotgarh, 20 September 1907, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1907, doc. 89. B. M. Newton, ‘Girl’s Orphanage’, Lusadiya, January 1906, BMR (1905), 13–14. A. I. Birkett, Lusadiya, 19 May 1908, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1908, doc. 48. A. Helen Bull, ‘Itinerating’, Khetadra, January 1906, BMR (1905), 12. Helen Bull, ‘Khetadra’, BMR (1907), 12–14. Jane Birkett, ‘Lusadia’, The Annual Report of the Church Missionary Society in Western India 1915, pp. 63–4, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1916, doc. 71. On this, see Fitzgerald, ‘Rescue and Redemption’, pp. 74–5. B. M. Newton, ‘Lusadia Girl’s Orphanage and Women’s Work’, BM, (1905), 6. Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, p. 352. Hubert Moloney to Durrant, Mandla, 28 July 1904, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1904, doc. 68. It might be noted that unmarried and widowed women missionaries gained full voting rights in the United Presbyterian Mission in 1904, though not married women (this only came in 1936). The Birketts stand can be seen in the context of this gradual move within the mission movement to acknowledge the central role of women missionaries in the work in general. See Jeffrey Cox, Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818–1940 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. 155. Catherine Hall, Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830–1867 (Oxford: Polity Press, 2002), pp. 18–19. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (New York: Routledge, 1985), p. 244.

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CHAPTER NINE

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A little empire

Protestant missionary societies carved out areas of work in India with clearly defined boundaries. For example, in each annual report of the Bhil mission there was a map showing the territorial borders of the mission, drawn in a strong black line, so that there could be no ambiguities on the matter. These boundaries were negotiated with other missionary societies so as to avoid any overlap, and it was considered reprehensible for one society to try to evangelise in the area of another. Each constituted a unit that can be described as a ‘little empire’, governed by missionaries located in a few strategic centres. The mission station provided a visual demonstration of Christian colonial values. There was the church, preferably built in stone in old English style, the hospital or dispensary, which both provided ‘modern’ medicine and demonstrated the superiority of Western technology, the school, which provided a Christian education, and the large multi-storeyed colonial-style ‘bungalows’ of the white missionaries, which required considerable everyday maintenance by servants.1 All of these, and the surrounding compound, were kept neat and cleanly swept as a demonstration of the inner cleanliness of Christian civilisation. They missionaries ruled over their ‘subjects’, the Christian converts, applying a coercive church discipline that might include corporal punishment, as we shall see in Chapter 11. These ‘little empires’ were particularly pronounced in the more remote regions of the world where the colonial presence was not otherwise obvious on a day-to-day basis. The tribal tracts of India came into such a category – the missionaries were the only white people associated with the colonial state over a wide area. Their mission stations represented outposts of Western modernity and governance in a space as yet ‘uncivilised’. From there they ruled their roosts. Later, when Gandhian nationalists began to challenge them by establishing ashrams in such regions, their presence had a similar quality. They too [ 147 ]

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became like little lords – the ‘sahibs’ whom the tribals were expected to look up to and depend on. Many such missionaries and nationalists gained personal satisfaction in playing out a role that allowed them to exercise their benevolence with the feeling that they were respected and wanted. Elsewhere, in the more densely populated plains regions of India, and particularly in the towns and cities, the power dynamics were less stark, and the ‘little empires’ less pronounced. In big colonial cities like Delhi, missionaries were just one cog within a much larger governing class. Even in the tribal tracts this was, nonetheless, a somewhat hollow ‘empire’, for it relied for its security on the armed might of the colonial state and its local allies, the Indian princes and their gentry. In this, the missionaries had to steer a difficult course within a complex local politics, being careful not to alienate either the British authorities or the local Rajput rulers. Their task was further complicated from the 1920s onwards with, on the one hand, the emergence of a strong Indian nationalist movement and, on the other, a growing assertion by the Christian converts. We shall examine these developments in this chapter.

Missionaries in a nationalist era The ‘little empires’ that the missionaries presided over began to appear more and more anomalous as the Indian nationalist movement gathered momentum in the years after the First World War. Before that time, nationalism had in most parts of India been confined to a relatively small elite that had failed to win widespread popular support. Subaltern groups saw that the British wielded the ultimate power, and generally looked to them for support against their upper-class and high-caste oppressors. As we have seen in the princely states of the Bhil territories, the British political agents were often appealed to in this way.2 Christian missionaries were seen as an arm of British rule in this respect, and they were able to garner support on that basis. The missionaries also provided the poor and oppressed with a powerful alternative theology and cultural practice that many found to be liberating in their day-to-day life. At that time the lower classes were in general unaware of the existence of the nationalist movement and its agenda and, even if they were, were rarely attracted to it. This all changed with the emergence of Gandhi. Through his work in Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda in 1917–18, he established himself in popular perception as a potent champion of the poor against not only the British but also repressive princely rulers, landlords and local officials. During the period 1917–22 large numbers throughout India came to perceive him as a saintly figure with immense power to [ 148 ]

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combat all forms of local oppression.3 Gandhi’s Hinduism was moreover imbued with the spirit of bhakti, emphasising the unity and equality of worshippers before God in a common devotion, and through it he and his followers were able to reach out to the poor in a manner that often paralleled that of the missionaries. They established nationalist ashrams in villages, set up schools for the oppressed, and encouraged people to reform their lives in moralistic ways. Gandhi had considerable sympathy for Christianity as a religion, but opposed the missionary agenda of converting people to Christianity.4 As he stated in 1929: ‘I disbelieve in the conversion of one person by another. My effort should never be to undermine another’s faith but to make him a better follower of his own faith. This implies belief in the truth of all religions and therefore respect for them.’5 What he rejected in other words was the missionary practice of strident proselytisation with a view towards conversion, an idea he found repulsive for any religion, including Hinduism.6 He believed that a person should strive to work through their destiny within the religious tradition in which they were raised. He wanted people to be better people as Muslims, Hindus or Christians. Thus, when his ardent follower Madeline Slade was attracted to the idea of becoming a Hindu, he advised her strongly to remain a Christian, which she did.7 Gandhi did not seek to attack the British by condemning Christianity. This was in contrast to many Hindu nationalists, who depicted Christianity as inferior to Hinduism. For Gandhi, this stance merely reversed the approach of the evangelising missionaries, replacing one form of intolerance with another. Gandhi, by contrast, saw Christianity as a religion containing great moral truths, and he argued that modern Western civilisation had turned its back on these values.8 Whereas the missionaries had seen themselves as being in the vanguard of a superior civilisation, Gandhi argued that their association with imperialism had demeaned their religion: Unfortunately, Christianity in India has been inextricably mixed up for the last one hundred and fifty years with the British rule. It appears to us as synonymous with materialistic civilization and imperialist exploitation by the stronger white races of the weaker races of the world. Its contribution to India has been therefore largely of a negative character.9

The answer, for Gandhi, was for all true Christians to renounce their association with British imperialism. Missionaries in India for the most part rejected this advice. The issue was debated in the journal of the CMS, The Church Missionary Review, in an article by D. Howard of March 1922. Howard expressed his admiration for many aspects of Gandhi’s life – particularly his morality and [ 149 ]

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his life of simplicity. He noted that Gandhi had praised the ethical principles of Jesus Christ and that he saw the Sermon on the Mount as justifying his doctrine of non-violent resistance. He praised what he described as a revival in India of ‘national pride’ and a tradition of ‘mystic idealism’, which – he claimed – ‘we have fostered by our educational system in India’. He understood the antipathy of such Indians for ‘British rule and British civilisation on its material side; for these, after all, are India’s chief points of contact with the West’. He accepted that the First World War had revealed some glaring deficiencies in that civilisation, and sympathised with the Indian critique in this respect. Nevertheless: ‘It is easy for Indians to be blind to the obvious good that has come to India, through many generations, as the result of that rule and that civilisation.’ He argued that: Gandhi simply became at first the devoted and venerated leader of the movement towards spiritual idealism, lending to it all his previous reputation as a sufferer for his country. If he had remained this, all would have been well; but many of his methods are grievously wrong, and his definite alliance with a political party, controlled by selfish aims, has disappointed his greatest admirers – who number among them a good many thinking people – for these had looked to him for a spiritual leadership. He is unable to keep his followers true to the ideal of non-violence, to which he first summoned them.

Howard concluded that Gandhi’s non-cooperation with British rule had been a blunder, as he and his followers could have worked to implement their programme of social and economic transformation through the new legislative councils established under the constitutional reforms of 1919. Instead, they had boycotted them.10 The CMS hierarchy in India continued to oppose the Gandhian Congress over the next two decades. In June 1930, when Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience Movement was at its height, the secretary to the Bombay Diocese of the CMS, L. B. Butcher noted that some Indian Christian pastors had held an interdenominational meeting that had passed resolutions of support for the nationalist campaign. No Indian clergy of CMS had however attended. Butcher stated that Indian clergymen who supported the Gandhian Congress were misguided. The duty of Indian Christians, he argued, was to support the moderate nationalists who were cooperating with the British and demanding Dominion Status within the British Empire.11 In the same month, The Bombay Diocesan Magazine reprinted an article by Bishop Fosse of Calcutta condemning Indian Christians who supported civil disobedience. Fosse argued that Jesus had refused to set himself up as a king and lead the resistance to Roman rule in Palestine and that he had commanded his followers to remain aloof from politics, instructing them to ‘Render unto Caesar the [ 150 ]

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things that are Caesar’s.’ Jesus Christ thus forbade civil disobedience. Christians had a duty to obey the law so that daily life could carry on without disruption. This was a ‘natural law’. He concluded: ‘You avail yourself of the safety which a stable government affords you and all the services which it provides for your convenience but think you are at liberty to violate its laws with impunity.’12 Although a small minority of missionaries became vocal supporters of the Indian nationalist cause during the 1920s, the large majority followed the instructions of their superiors and either maintained a low profile on the matter or voiced their active support for the colonial state.13 The CMS missionaries to the Bhils generally adopted a loyalist stance. This was seen in particular in 1921–22, when a strong protest movement linked with the Congress campaign of non-cooperation swept their region. The leader was Motilal Tejawat (1885–1963), a Baniya from a small town in the Bhil country south of Udaipur. While working for a local thakor, he had seen at first hand the way in which his employer and his henchmen had maltreated the Bhils, beating them to extract work and taxes, and raping Bhil women. Disgusted by what he saw, he resigned his position in 1920 and started an eki – or unity – league. He told the Bhils to boycott the thakors, to refuse rents and taxes and to establish their own councils to settle disputes. Motilal was a religious man who believed that his actions enjoyed divine support. Besides championing the grievances of the predominantly Bhil peasantry against the thakors, he also felt he had a religious duty to persuade them to give up drinking liquor, to stop killing animals and to refrain from stealing. Members of the eki league were to take an oath to abstain from all crimes and acts of violence against other humans as well as animals, and to abjure liquor and take a daily bath. They were to maintain their livelihood through agriculture. In this, Motilal was following in the tradition of the Bhagat reformers of the region.14 In August 1921, one of the thakors captured Motilal and locked him up. Six to seven thousand Bhils from sixty-five villages gathered together, marched to the place and secured his release. Thousands more Bhils then came forward to take the oath of eki. They came not only from Mewar, but also from the adjoining states of Idar, Pol, Sirohi and Danta. In early 1922, Motilal began to tour this area, accompanied by several thousand Bhils armed with bows and arrows, demanding reforms from the thakors and ruling princes. There were some minor clashes, with some policemen and officials being beaten. There is no record of anyone being killed by the Bhils – by their standards they were protesting in a remarkably non-violent manner. Motilal saw his protest as being a part of the wider movement for independence led by Gandhi, then at its height during the Non-Cooperation [ 151 ]

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Movement. In speeches he stated that once ‘Gandhi raj’ was established they would only have to pay one anna in the rupee to the state. Some of his followers took to wearing white Congress-style caps. He clearly believed that in trying to wean the Bhils away from violence he was following the programme of the Gandhian movement closely. This was not however how Gandhi saw it when his attention was drawn to the matter in early 1922. Writing in his magazine Young India in early February 1922, he condemned the movement as its followers were carrying weapons.15 Seeing that Motilal was now isolated from wider nationalist support, the British decided to move against him. Major H. G. Sutton, commander of the MBC, was given the go-ahead to crush the protest. On 6 March 1922, Motilal and about two thousand Bhils reached the territory of the Thakor of Pal. They camped on the banks of the River Hera, close to a village called Dadhvav and less than a kilometre from the CMS mission station at Biladiya. Messages were passed from village to village that Motilal had come and that they should gather to see him. He was, it was said, telling the people to protest against free labour demands and taxes of the thakors, and that if they did this they would be free. People set out, reaching Dadhvav by the morning of the 7th, many carrying coconuts and coins, which they presented to Motilal after touching his feet. Several thousands came, swelling the numbers to three to four thousand in all. Around midday, news came that a platoon of the MBC was approaching from Baleta village.16 According to Sutton, as soon as he reached the spot he shouted through a megaphone from 200 metres away that he wanted to talk with them. Motilal, however, had ordered his followers to attack, and he had had to resort to ‘defensive firing’ to disperse the crowd. Twentytwo Bhils were killed and twenty-nine wounded, while Motilal escaped.17 In Sutton’s accounts, the impression was conveyed that the protestors were all male Bhils, armed to the teeth and spoiling for a fight. The popular account – as retained in oral memory – provides a very different understanding of this encounter. In this version, the crowd consisted of men and women, mainly Bhils – for they made up the bulk of the population in the region – but with other castes represented. They had gathered with peaceful intentions, and did not initiate the violence in any serious respect. The firing was virtually unprovoked, and took the crowd by surprise. Once it started, there was pandemonium as everyone tried to scramble to safety. People fled with blood pouring from wounds, some dying on the way, others after they had reached their homes. According to these accounts, 1,200 to 1,500 were killed, of whom about a third were women. Surveying the scene, Sutton decided that the first priority was to dispose of the bodies. People were allowed to come forward to drag away the corpses of their [ 152 ]

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relatives and fellow villagers. Many of the dead were however from distant parts. Some of the wounded were taken to the mission dispensary at Biladiya, where the padre, Lea Sahib, treated them. Soon afterwards, police reinforcements came in motorised vehicles from the Gujarat side, sent by the Political Agent of Mahi Kantha.18 The missionary concerned, James Lea, later described the scene at the dispensary: ‘there were a hundred casualties; dead and wounded were lying all around, some with fearful wounds. Our little hospital was filled and we were bringing in stretcher cases until 10 p.m.’19 Lea’s figures were more in tune with the popular account, which put the number of casualties far above that claimed by Sutton. A nationalist who was active in Rajasthan at that time, V. S. Pathik, wrote later that month to the Political Agent for Rajasthan, Robert Holland, stating that he had heard that casualties had been over a thousand.20 Sutton appears to have wanted to minimise the episode lest it cause a public outcry similar to that caused by the massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh in Amritsar in 1919. In this he succeeded. Despite claims by the British that the firing had had a salutary effect, the situation continued tense for many months. In late March, the Bhils of three estates besieged their thakors in their mansions, the sieges being lifted only after the appearance of Mewar State soldiers under the command of a British officer. The troops then marched through the region to impress on the Bhils the power of the state.21 Motilal himself had fled back towards the Sirohi side, where he remained in hiding.22 In Sirohi State, the movement escalated, with widespread refusal by Bhils and Girasias – a related community – to pay their taxes. Troops were mobilised under the command of Major Pritchard and punitive raids were carried out on several rebellious villages, with houses being burnt, stocks of grain destroyed, and those who resisted shot down. Village headmen were forced by Pritchard to break their eki oath before him in public.23 Both the British and the princely authorities prevented nationalist investigators from entering these states to collect information about the atrocities carried out under British command. As it was, the Gandhians in Gujarat did not press the matter. In part, this was because they were in disarray after Gandhi’s arrest by the British on 10 March – only three days after the shooting – and subsequent sentence to six years in jail on 18 March. More important, possibly, was the fact that they had no particular interest in taking it up. Motilal’s movement was peripheral to their concerns, which were centred on the British-ruled areas of Gujarat. The grievances of subjects of princely states against their rulers were not at that time on their agenda. Gandhi had taken some interest in the movement during February and early March as it [ 153 ]

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had, as he saw it, a violent potential that could reflect badly on the Congress. Once it had collapsed, the interest of the nationalists waned. The killing that occurred at Dadhvav on 7 March 1922 was as a result largely ignored by the outside world. The attempt by the Bhils of this region to play an active role in the Indian nationalist movement had, at that juncture, come to nothing. This suited the missionaries, for it does not appear that they would have known how to deal with a more prolonged upsurge against the thakors, the princely rulers and the British. They believed that the Bhils were misguided in their protest in 1921–22, and when they had the chance they advised them to abandon the movement and reform their lives in other directions. Jane Birkett asserted in an unsympathetic tone that ‘Mr. Gandhi’s emissaries stirred up trouble amongst the nonChristian Bhils in the western part of our field.’24 James Lea, in his account of the massacre, depicted Motilal Tejawat as a spiritual rival to the missionaries, stating that he was a ‘reformer’ who ‘was reputed to be a god come to relieve the distress among the people’. He alleged that on 7 March Motilal and his followers had attacked first, forcing Sutton to resort to ‘rapid fire’. He concluded that the whole affair was ‘a great evil’.25 In her account, based on her experiences in the area around Kotada, Rose Carter stated: At the beginning of the year, Miss Holdom and I were out in camp in the Kotra district, which was at that time in the throes of political agitation. We camped amongst crowds of Bhils armed with bows and arrows, guns and knives of various description, who were amongst those who followed the agitator [e.g. Motilal Tejawat], and often our evening meetings were dispersed by the beat of war drums on the hills near us. The people were exceedingly friendly and often deputations visited our camp to ask what course of policy to pursue. As missionaries, our counsel was always to abide on the side of law and order and of fidelity to Raj, but alas, other counsels often prevailed which resulted in the fight near Pal where the Police Corps were obliged to fire upon and disperse the rebels. A considerable number of the Bhils were killed. We found the people considerably troubled and perplexed; much of the older order was changing rapidly, and the bewildered Bhil mind was definitely seeking something stable, something to guide him in these strange times. It was pathetic to notice the eagerness with which many of them listened, and never have we met with larger or more attentive audiences. At times men from distant places would come and ask us to visit their village, and one group came from a part of the country outside the mission area. Owing to scarcity of workers little work has been done in that remote part of the country and the people implored us to go and tell them the news of the Sinless Incarnation of whom we taught. For several reasons we were unable to go and one learnt with deep regret later of villages burnt to the ground and Bhils

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killed where a few months earlier they had implored us to take them our Message of peace.26

Carter saw that opportunities were being lost for the missionaries, but neither she nor her colleagues were willing or able to provide the Bhils with the leadership that they most wanted, which was guidance in their struggles against the oppressive thakors and the whole power structure that propped them up. As we have seen in previous chapters, the missionaries had managed, with some difficulty, to situate themselves within local politics as allies of the thakors. Although sometimes casting a mildly critical eye on their depredations, they never took a stand against these local autocrats. Their attitude was revealed in the belittling tone in which Walter Wyatt, based at Lusadiya, wrote about a protest by the Bhils of nearby Devni Mori against their thakor in 1918: This year the whole village of Mori went out on strike against the exactions of the local Thacker [sic] or land-owner, leaving their houses and erecting rough enclosures of boughs and branches as a protection during the night for themselves and their cattle. They stayed in the jungle for some weeks. Their resolution, however, did not last long as that of the Thacker Sahib, and they returned home having accomplished nothing more than giving the Thacker and his friends some amusement.27

The Thakor of Devni Mori ruled over about thirty Bhil villages and he is remembered to this day for his oppressive treatment of his subjects, who were obliged to hand over a third of all their produce, including livestock, each year. To enforce these demands, he employed Pathans armed with guns and whips who beat up or thrashed those who failed to meet their dues. Bhil subjects were forced to work for no wages on the thakor’s own fields; his Pathans would come and take five people at a time from each village for this work. Despite this, the missionaries at Lusadiya maintained cordial relations with this man. In return, he tolerated their work in his domain and allowed them even to construct a church in Devni Mori itself.28 The alliance fractured at times. In 1932 the Thakor of Bhetali confiscated the house, land and well of the mission schoolteacher at Jesingpur, a village in his domain. A former mission teacher, a Bhil of Lusadiya, had constructed the house with the permission of a previous thakor in 1909, and subsequent teachers had occupied it since then. The thakor made it known that he did not want any more Christian dharamsevaks (religious workers) in his territory, and he began harassing some of the converts. The missionaries appealed to the Political Agent for Mahi Kantha for help in the matter, and he met the Dewan of Idar State, who agreed to bring pressure to bear on the thakor. [ 155 ]

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A meeting was arranged between the missionaries and the thakor at Shamlaji, presided over by the Dewan. The thakor agreed under pressure to allow the schoolteacher to build a new house and cultivate a plot of land at Jesingpur.29 The fact that the Idar authorities were prepared to intervene on the side of the missionaries against a local thakor revealed that there had been a shift in attitude by the state towards the missionaries. Maharaja Dolatsingh – the old foe of the missionaries – had died in 1931, and the new Maharaja, Himmatsingh, proved friendlier. Born in 1899, he was educated at Mayo College, the elite school for the Indian nobility run by the British in Ajmer.30 He was on excellent terms with the British, and looked to them to back him in his rejection of the demands of the nationalists of the state Praja Mandal, or People’s Association, for a democratic devolution of power. This body had been established by some subjects of the state at a meeting in Bombay in 1925. They had publicised details of the ‘reign of terror’ of Maharaja Dolatsingh, and complained about his misrule to the Bombay Government. As a result of their pressure, the ruler dismissed his Dewan and deposed the Thakor of Chandarni. He also had to agree to accept a humiliating reduction in his powers. In 1927 he agreed to allow the Praja Mandal to function within his state. Himmatsingh, once he came to the throne, ensured that he maintained cordial relations with the British in the expectation that they would reward his loyalty by supporting him against his nationalist opponents. In this, his hopes were fulfilled. In 1938, for example, the British raised no objection when he punished the Praja Mandal leader, Gangaram Shukla, by confiscating his landholdings and sending him to jail for two years.31 The missionaries, who were considered an arm of the colonial state, benefited from this new direction in Idar State policy in the years before Indian independence. The Praja Mandal leaders – who were mainly urban Brahmans and Baniyas – were not allowed to establish Gandhian-style ashrams within the state to carry out educational and social work amongst the peasantry, so that they were prevented from gaining a base in rural areas. The missionaries therefore had no rivals within this particular sphere, as they often did in British-ruled areas. In this way, the missionaries maintained their hard-won little empire, isolated for the time being from the winds of change that were sweeping British India. The downside to this was that the nationalists of Gujarat tended to view the missionaries as supporters of colonial rule and enemies of the incipient nation state. In the remainder of this chapter, we shall examine the history of the Bhil church until around 1940. [ 156 ]

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Vicissitudes of the Bhil church The Bhil church failed to expand in any very significant manner during these years. Its membership numbers fluctuated as converts were at times expelled from the church for various violations of its rules, then readmitted once they had repented. In Lusadiya, for example, a storm within the church saw its membership numbers crash from 249 in 1924 to 72 in 1926, followed by a making-up that resulted in a membership of 283 by 1929. There were during the 1920s a total of ten Bhil churches, with the following membership in 1929: Lusadiya 283, Biladiya 135, Kherwara 116, Ghodi 59, Jesingpur 59, Bavaliya 57, Chhitadara 56, Kagdar 36 and Kotada 5 – in all, a total of 806.32 The crisis in the Lusadiya church that brought a crash in membership during the 1920s was caused by a case of bigamous marriage. In 1925, the leading Christian, Satgurudas, arranged the marriage of his daughter to John Patel, who was already married. What was particularly serious about the case was that John’s father was Premji Hurji Patel, the well-known lay preacher. He was then working in Lusadiya, and had encouraged the marriage. The missionaries discovered that John’s first wife had fallen ill through malnutrition, after which he had decided to try to find another. All of those involved were excommunicated. Many other Christians of Lusadiya then left the church in protest.33 Satgurudas and Premji acted in a vindictive manner, ordering some Christians who had rented land and houses from them to vacate. Satgurudas was even reported to have threatened to shoot them if they did not leave, and one moved out as a result. Satgurudas accused other Christians of theft, and registered cases against them with the local court, which was known for its corrupt practices.34 The main reason for the failure of the church to expand during these years was that few Bhils were prepared to stand up to strong community pressure against conversion. When James Lea asked his Bhil cook why he would not become a Christian, the latter replied with no hesitation: ‘Fear of the world’ – by which he meant fear of falling out with his community. Lea commented that although Bhils were often very brave in a number of ways, they were loath to stand up to persecution within their own community.35 The elders of the community frequently orchestrated this opposition. In 1926, for example, leading Bhils from a number of villages held meetings to consider how they could prevent the spread of Christianity. A boycott of Christian schools was proposed.36 From around 1910 onwards, many of the Bhagats – those who, following Surmaldas, had reformed their way of life – began to join forces with the unreformed Bhils in opposing the Christians. The two groups [ 157 ]

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had often been in conflict in the late nineteenth century, and during the first decade of the twentieth century a good number of the Bhagats either converted to Christianity or seriously considered the idea of converting.37 The mood turned after this, with the majority of the remaining Bhagats turning against the Christians. In this, they were able to forge a common ground with the unreformed Bhils in a way that allowed them to follow their beliefs free from the abrasions of the past. Jane Birkett first encountered such an opposition in 1910, after she had healed a Bhil woman who was suffering from severe intestinal trouble. The woman expressed a desire to become a Christian, but after she returned to her village the Bhagats there brought such pressure to bear on her that she abandoned the idea.38 In Bavaliya – where a Bhil lay pastor led the small Christian congregation – the conflict came to a head in 1915 when one of the Bhagats intruded into a meeting of the Christians and started threatening them with all sorts of disasters if they persisted in their folly. The lay pastor urged him to stop cursing them, but he refused. In the end, the pastor took a stick and beat the Bhagat, who cringed and begged for mercy. Several of the Christians were terrified that they would suffer all sorts of calamities as a result, but the weeks passed and nothing happened.39 In this case, the solidarity of the Christians was reinforced. Elsewhere, in villages in which the Christians or would-be Christians were few in number, they often failed to stand up against such opposition. In many cases, the conflict between the Christian and non-Christian Bhils revolved around social customs and rituals in which the converts refused to participate. This was seen by non-Christian Bhils to be deeply divisive, and in many cases the converts suffered social boycott as a result. This in turn deterred Bhils who were considering conversion from going any further. In a village near Kotada, for example, Winifred Holdom managed to win one family and she had hopes of further conversions, but these hopes were dashed when a boy in the newly converted family died and they refused to hold the customary death feast. The other villagers were so disturbed by this that they drew back from the hoped-for mass conversion.40 Such rituals and practices were not lightly ignored, particularly in the case of death ceremonies that were designed to placate the spirit of the dead. In their absence, it was widely believed that the unsatisfied spirit would haunt the village, bringing death and misfortune. Few Bhils were prepared to risk this. Many of the conflicts revolved around healing, with the exorcists putting pressure on Christians who were sick to make use of their services. As we have seen in Chapter 7, many converts failed to resist such pressures. Some however did. Such was the case when the son of a Bhil lay pastor called Yusuph Kalasva, who was working for the mission at [ 158 ]

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Kotada, fell ill. Two exorcists, or bhopas, approached his wife and offered to heal him. She believed that her son, like his father, would one day work for the church, and she had faith that God would spare him for this task. She sent the bhopas away, declaring that it was God’s will whether the boy lived or died. The boy survived, and many years later he was ordained as a priest.41 In some cases, the mission hospital could provide a place of refuge for those who sought to escape such an influence. When a Christian woman of Biladiya village fell ill in 1925, she feared that she would come under the influence of ‘a heathen who deals in Black Magic, and who lives close to her house’. To resist this pressure, she went to Lusadiya for treatment as an inpatient.42 In a few cases, Christians who had suffered misfortunes lost their faith in a religion that had failed to protect them from forces that the exorcists were believed to be able to control. Thus, when a Christian schoolmaster of Devni Mori died suddenly in 1925, his brother – who was also a Christian – asserted that the cause was sorcery and that he and his family no longer would remain within the church. He persuaded the schoolmaster’s family to follow him in this.43 A similar setback occurred at Kotada in 1929, when a seven-year-old Christian boy died unexpectedly. He was from a poor Bhil family, and he had been sent to study at the mission school, where he had quickly learnt the alphabet, gave intelligent answers to questions about the Bible and sang hymns with zeal. One day he told his mother that he wanted to be ‘a Jesus child’. Soon after this he suddenly dropped down dead. He had no history of illness, and Rose Carter was baffled as to the cause. She suspected that ‘an enemy hath done this’, without stating exactly what she thought that this ‘enemy’ might have done. Was it perhaps sorcery that she suspected? She noted that the non-Christian Bhils of the area had been plotting for some time to force the converts to renounce their Christianity. She could see very clearly that the boy’s sudden and inexplicable death had gravely undermined her work.44 With Christian numbers stagnant, the diocesan authorities in Bombay began to question the viability of the Bhil mission. It was, they claimed, an anachronism, being a small and insignificant mission in a territory that was otherwise covered by Presbyterians – namely the Scottish Presbyterians on the Rajasthan side and the Irish Presbyterians on the Gujarat side. The Presbyterians had the infrastructure and personnel to make their work viable. It was better for the CMS, they argued, to hand over the mission to the Presbyterians of each respective area and consolidate the activities in areas in which they had a much stronger presence and more converts. The mission found an ally, however, in Edwin James, the Bishop of Bombay, who visited the mission in 1919 and came away highly impressed with its work. Indeed, [ 159 ]

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he felt that if more resources could be put into its medical work, it would flourish even more. He recommended very strongly that the mission be retained by the CMS.45 The matter was therefore shelved for the time being. The issue resurfaced in 1929, when L. B. Butcher, the secretary of the CMS in Bombay, once more suggested that the mission might benefit from being handed over to the neighbouring Presbyterian churches. The financial crisis of the time had brought a need for retrenchment within the CMS, and in Bombay the Bhil mission was the obvious candidate for cuts. Butcher wrote a highly critical report on the mission that highlighted its various failings.46 As soon as the news of this discussion reached the mission, the lay pastors, schoolmasters and leading Bhil Christians drew up a petition of protest, which they sent to Butcher. They argued that Christianity had raised the whole tone of the area, and that they did not want to be merged with another church, as their rules and practices were different. Furthermore, if the CMS missionaries went away, their buildings and schoolhouses might be seized by the thakors – ‘So confusion would take the place of peace.’47 Butcher’s superior, Bishop Palmer, visited the mission in December 1929 to judge for himself. He was highly impressed by the strength of devotion amongst the Bhil Christians; they joined strongly in prayers and sang their hymns with fervour. He was deeply concerned that if they abandoned the mission there would be inevitable ‘lapses to paganism’. He recommended that the work be continued with a reduced European staff.48 This was accepted, and the mission entered into a period of retrenchment. About a third of its Indian workers were dismissed and the mission station at Kotada was closed down. The scheme for a new hospital at Lusadiya was abandoned.49 In a comment on this, written in 1931, Butcher argued that the seeming ill might be turned to good if it meant that the ‘tiny Bhil Church’ became more self-sufficient and the local converts made more efforts to evangelise their fellow Bhils.50 The indigenisation of the church was thus seen to be desirable within the CMS hierarchy not because of the growing tide of Indian nationalism and its concomitant pressure to hand over power at all levels to Indians, but because the mission establishment could no longer afford to provide European staff. While British missionaries could be employed, there appeared to be no pressing reason to devolve power in such a way. The white missionaries continued to believe that amongst a tribal people the church could function only with European leadership. Writing in 1929, Marjorie Meigh argued: ‘No tribes in India are more primitive than the Bhils, being probably pre-Dravidian, so few are less advanced in civilisation. So also our Church is very little developed. It is scarcely other than pioneer work we are engaged on.’ James [ 160 ]

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Lea commented in like vein that the Bhils ‘are in many ways like children, unfortunately often like very spoilt children. Yet with a proper mixture of severity and kindness, and the latter to be more than the first, you win through’.51 Notions of ‘backwardness’ and ‘primitivism’ were still being deployed to justify the continuing need for white leadership. These comments were both insensitive and inappropriate, as several Bhils had already by that time gained the education and expertise that qualified them to work as lay pastors, medical assistants and schoolmasters. Even more, one Bhil had proved worthy enough to be ordained as a priest. Jakhi Kanji Asari was born in the early 1880s in Valisa village of Mewar State, and had been converted by the missionaries in Kherwara.52 After his education, he became a lay pastor working at Lusadiya. He was considered a diligent and popular worker, and in 1924 he passed the written examination for the ministry, and was ordained as a deacon 1925.53 He became a full priest in January 1928. At the same time, young Bhil Christians were replacing non-Bhils in mission employment. Christian boys and girls with potential were sent for further studies to higher educational institutions run by the Irish Presbyterian Mission elsewhere in Gujarat or to the teacher training college at Ahmedabad. Many of them did very well, achieving excellent marks in their exams. Once they had qualified, they were appointed to positions in the mission. By 1932, of the forty-four Indians employed by the mission, forty-two were Bhil Christians. These figures included the teachers in the mission schools, all of whom were by then Bhil Christians.54 The few Europeans who remained in the mission during the 1930s continued to see themselves as indispensable. No more Bhils were ordained, in part because the requirements were made more stringent. The Bishop of Bombay had ruled that all candidates had to be fluent in English, something that Jakhi Asari had never been. Writing in July 1938, Frank Meigh claimed that the Bhil Christians disliked Indian pastors from other parts of India and that employing such ‘foreigners’ was not a solution to the problem of their lack of ordained priests.55 In the following year, Charles Shaw wrote to G. F. Cranswick, the mission secretary in London, asking for English reinforcements: ‘This primitive mission needs Europeans, I think, more than more civilised missions do.’ Indian padres, he stated, had failed to win the confidence of the Bhils in the way that the European priests had done.56 Heartened by reports of the fervour of the Bhil converts, and their passionate prayers that the mission be kept open, Cranswick agreed to sanction the appointment of a new European missionary in early 1940.57 The Reverend Paul Johnson was selected, along with his wife Margaret, who [ 161 ]

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was a fully qualified doctor. They sailed for India in late 1940 and, after a period of settling in, took charge of the mission in 1942. With their arrival, a new era opened for the Bhil mission – one that will be examined in Chapters 11 and 12.

Notes

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1

2

3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16

17 18

By the 1940s, the size of these bungalows was becoming an embarrassment. George Oldham, the CMS secretary in Bombay, visited the Bhil mission in December 1942 and expressed his unease at ‘the racial distinction of the big house for the European and the katcha [rough or country-style] one for the Indian’. He suggested that parts of the bungalows could be used for other purposes. G. M. Oldham to G. F. Cranswick, Calcutta, 11 January 1943, CMS, G2 I 3/1, sub-files 9 and 13, 1943. This does not mean that the British would necessarily act in their interests. Rather, it represented a popular perception that the overlord could be appealed to for justice against local oppressors, just as in Tsarist Russia peasant rebels often believed that the Tsar would support them in their revolt against local officials and landlords. See Daniel Field, Rebels in the Name of the Tsar (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976). This was despite the fact that Gandhi insisted that the British, rather than the indigenous local elites, were the enemy. Those who adulated him generally missed this subtlety. I have analysed the way in which the tribals of south Gujarat perceived him in such a way from 1921 onwards in David Hardiman, The Coming of the Devi; see also Shahid Amin, ‘Gandhi as Mahatma’, in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies, 3 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984). For details on this, see David Hardiman, Gandhi in his Time and Ours (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003), pp. 177–84. Interview to Dr John Mott, before 1 March 1929, CWMG, 45, p. 145. Discussion with C. F. Andrews, on or after 9 November 1936, CWMG, 70, pp. 58– 60. Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi’s Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 83–4. Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (London: Zed Books, 1986), p. 93. Interview to Dr John Mott, before 1 March 1929, CWMG, 45, pp. 143–4. D. Howard, ‘Gandhi’, The Church Missionary Review, 73:837 (March 1922), 15–17. L. B. Butcher to W. V. K. Treanor, 13 June 1930, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1930, doc. 79A. The Bombay Diocesan Magazine, 11:11 (June 1930), 550–1, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1930, doc. 79B. For an account of the problems that some missionaries encountered when they stepped out of line in this respect, see Frederick Fisher, That Strange Little Brown Man Gandhi (New Delhi, Orient Longman, 1970), pp. xvii and 107–8. I have dealt with this issue in more detail in my book Gandhi in his Time and Ours, pp. 177–84. Details of Motilal Tejawat’s movement are found in NAI, FPD, 428-P (SecretPrinted) of 1922–23. M. K. Gandhi, ‘Danger of Mass Movement’, Young India (2 February 1922). Interview with Peter Galji Bhanat, Samaiya village, Vijaynagar Taluka, Sabarkantha District, 15 December 1997. Peter, a Christian convert, was nine at the time and attending the mission school at Biladiya. Interview with Sankaben Kamjibhai Balat, Biladiya, Vijaynagar Taluka, Sabarkantha District, 15 December 1997. Sankaben, a Bhil woman, was aged fifteen in 1922, and she went from her natal village of Pal to see Motilal at Dadhvav on 7 March. Major H. G. Sutton to Pol. Agent, Mahikantha Agency, 7 March 1922, NAI, FPD, 428-P (Secret-Printed) of 1922–23. Interviews with Sankaben Balat in Biladiya; Peter Bhanat in Samaiya; Galjibhai Badaji Solanki in Dadhvav; Damaji Panaji Gameti in Baleta, 15 December 1997. I

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19 20 21 22

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23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

have also utilised interviews by carried out by Uday Mahurkar in ‘The Other Jallianwala’, India Today (1 September 1997). J. I. Lea, BMR (1923), 44. B. S. Pathik to Holland, 26 March 1926, NAI, FPD, 428-P (Secret-Printed) of 1922–23. Fortnightly Report, Rajputana, 31 March 1922, ibid. He remained free until 1929; in that year he was arrested and sent to Mewar, where he was jailed until 1936. Subsequently he became a leading figure in the Mewar Praja Mandal, being jailed again from 1942 to 1945. He continued with his political and social work amongst the Bhils till his death in 1963. Pol. Secretary, FPD, to Private Secretary to Viceroy, 13 April 1922; report by H. R. N. Pritchard, 14 April 1922; press communiqué from FPD, 7 May 1922; report by H. R. N. Pritchard, 13 May 1922, NAI, FPD, 428-P (Secret-Printed) of 1922–23. Jane Birkett, ‘Lusadia and the Present Opportunity’, The Mission Hospital (June 1923), 124. J. Lea, Report of the CMS Western India Mission 1922, p. 44, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1923, doc. 72. R. Carter, Report of the C.M.S. Western India Mission 1922, p. 44, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1923, doc. 72. Walter Wyatt, Lusadiya, Report of the C.M.S. Western India Mission 1918, p. 47, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1919, doc. 109. Interview with Virjibhai Daniel Varsat, Vaghpur, Bhiloda Taluka, 19 December 2002. Virjibhai’s grandfather, Dola, was amongst the first Bhils of Devni Mori to convert to Christianity in 1902. Report of the CMS Western India Mission 1931–1932, p. 25, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1933, doc. 65; correspondence on mission worker’s house in Bhetali (Idar State) 1934, OIOC, R/2/168/269. Administration Report of the Idar State for the Year 1941–42, p. 3, OIOC, V/10/1229. Gujarat State Gazetteers: Sabarkantha District (Ahmedabad: Government of Gujarat, 1974), pp. 164–5. BMR (1929), 28. C. L. Shaw, Lusadiya, BMR (1925), 26; interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera (Satgurudas’s grandson), Lusadiya, 15 December 2002. K. Paine, Lusadiya, BMR (1929), 12; Report by Dr F. C. Read, BMR (1929), 17. The standoff continued for ten years, until John’s first wife died. With the second marriage no longer bigamous, it was possible in 1935 to negotiate their return to the church. Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, p. 20. J. I. Lea, Kherwara, BMR (1926), 20. C. L. Shaw, Lusadiya, BMR (1926), 4. For a report on the debates in this respect amongst the Bhagats of Biladiya, see W. Hodgkinson, ‘Biladia’, BMR (1906), 23. ‘Central Province Mission: Lusadia’, Mercy and Truth (July 1910), 230. R. S. Heywood, ‘A Visit to Bhil Land’, The Bombay Church Missionary Gleaner (August 1915), 2, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1915, doc. 82. W.B. Holdom, Kotra, BMR (1925), 7. Interview with Daniel Yusaph Kalasva, Bavaliya, Bhiloda Taluka, 16 December 2002. Daniel, now an old man, was the subject of this incident, which took place when he was eight years old, that is, around 1923. Report by Mrs C. L. Shaw, BMR (1925), 22. C. L. Shaw, Lusadiya, BMR (1925), 25. Report by Miss R. Carter, BMR (1929), 8–9. Edwin James to secretaries of the CMS, London, 25 January 1919, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1919, doc. 32. L. B. Butcher to W. V. K. Treanor (Secretary CMS, London), Bombay, 29 November 1929, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1929, doc.110. Petition by Evangelists, Schoolmasters and Elders of the Bhil Mission to Butcher, translated from Gujarati by Frank Meigh, 25 November 1929, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1930, doc. 9.

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52 53 54 55 56 57

Bishop of Bombay to Treanor, Bombay, 15 January 1930, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1930, doc. 23; Report by Bishop of Bombay on his Tour of the Bhil Mission 1929, CMS, G2 I 3/1, sub-file 3. Reports by C. Shaw and F. Read, CMS Report of Work in the Western India Mission (Diocese of Bombay and Nasik) 1930, pp. 9–11, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1931, doc. 82. L. B. Butcher, ‘The Bhil Mission Jubilee’, The Church Missionary Outlook (March 1931), 54. J. Lea and Mrs Meigh, Report of the C.M.S. Western India Mission 1928, 28–9, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1929, doc. 54. Interview with Sister Chandrika, Mankroda, Bhiladia Taluka, 16 December 2002. L. B. Butcher, ‘The First Ordination in Bhil Land’, 16 January 1925, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1925, doc. 15. Report of the CMS Western India Mission 1931–1932, 22–3, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1933, doc. 65. Report by F. Meigh, Lusadiya, July 1938, CMS, G2 3/1, sub-file 3. C. Shaw to G. F. Cranswick, Lusadiya, 12 May 1939, ibid. For a report on the zeal and prayers of the Bhil Christians, see W. Wilson Cash, ‘Bhil Christians and the C.M.S.’, Church Missionary Outlook (May 1939), 104–5; Cranswick to G. Clark, London, 7 February 1940, CMS, I 3/1, sub-file 1.

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Medicine on a shoestring and a prayer

After Dr Jane Birkett retired in 1922, John Brand became the superintendent of the hospital at Lusadiya briefly, until he too retired in 1923. Lily Shaw – a qualified nurse and the wife of the Reverend Charles Shaw – ran the dispensary single-handed until in 1924 an Indian medical assistant was recruited. D. K. Salvi was young, vigorous and an enthusiastic Christian, and his initial popularity brought an increase in patient numbers. There was however a severe setback later that year when the son of the ex-pastor Premji Hurji Patel – recently expelled from the church – fell critically ill from blood-poisoning. Salvi did all he could to save the boy, who was in great pain, but he died within days. Premji accused Salvi of killing his son, and he then spread what Lily Shaw described as ‘horrible lies as to the work of the hospital’. For some months, hardly anyone came for treatment. Lily Shaw commented that ‘The evil influence of this ex-pastor is felt in almost every part of the mission.’1 In 1925 a British doctor, Frank Read, took charge at Lusadiya. His wife was a qualified nurse. When the couple arrived, they found that the medical work was in disarray. The shortage of funds was such that there were no means to replace wornout equipment. For example, the beds for inpatients – which were no more than cheap khatlos of wood and string – were old and falling to pieces, The situation was so bad in this respect that Salvi and Lily Shaw had to dissuade many would-be inpatients from coming for treatment because of the lack of beds. Instead, in most cases, Shaw treated the sick in their own homes, even when this meant that she had to walk a considerable distance. When a case was critical, she would go two or three times in one day. Anyone who wanted to be admitted had to bring their own bed or sleep on the floor. Only after Dr Read had arrived was the mission able to make good this deficiency, as he had some funds that had been donated by supporters in Carlisle, and he used these to purchase iron beds. [ 165 ]

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The Medical Missionary Association in London had also given Read equipment for an operating theatre – which included surgical instruments, an operating table and a microscope – but he found that was no place in the hospital suitable for operations, as the floors were of mud and the roof let through all kinds of dust and dirt.2 In 1927, he launched a drive to raise funds to build an operating theatre to house the new equipment. He toured the villages around Lusadiya appealing for money, and by August of that year the necessary sum had been obtained.3 During that year, 4,981 outpatients and seventeen inpatients were treated, slightly more than in the previous year, but far fewer than in the days of Birkett and Brand. Winifred Holdom, while on tour in the area around Bavaliya, found that many Bhils were coming to her for treatment, but when she advised those with the more serious complaints to go to see Read in Lusadiya, few were prepared to make the journey: ‘they are strange people and often will go on suffering rather than take the trouble to make a fourteen miles’ journey to Lusadia’.4 The hospital also suffered staffing problems at this time. Salvi left in 1926 and was replaced by another Christian medical assistant, Dr A. B. Varman, but he proved unsuited to the work and left at the end of 1927. For two years, no replacement could be found. A Bhil dresser was also found to be untrustworthy and unreliable, and was dismissed. Rupji Dhana, a Bhil youth from the mission school at Kherwara, replaced him and was trained on the job by Read and his wife. The hospital staff consisted of Read as doctor, his wife as nurse, Rupji Dhana as compounder and Jakhi Magan as dresser. Read commented on his two Bhil assistants: ‘We train them as best we can, but they do not realise very easily the necessity of asepsis and cleanliness in all their work’. A Bhil girl called Shanti Joria Pandav had been chosen to train as a nurse at the mission hospital at Anand; however, it would be five years before she was qualified. When Read was away from Lusadiya, either on tour or on holiday, the hospital had to be closed. On one occasion he managed to obtain an Indian locum from Ajmer who worked there for two months, but on other occasions there was no replacement. At the close of 1927 the mission received some encouraging news. The CMS medical committee in London had been left a legacy of £2,700 to build a pioneer mission hospital in India, along with a £900 capital fund for an endowment, and the sum had been awarded to Lusadiya. The hospital was to be built on a new and better site, replacing the existing dilapidated buildings.5 Despite the staffing problems, patient numbers rose over the next two years. In 1929, 6,877 outpatients and 32 inpatients were treated, and 109 minor and three major operations were performed. Read claimed that he was prevented from carrying [ 166 ]

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major surgery on any scale because he lacked an anaesthetist and trained assistant.6 The other missionaries had a different view – Read, they stated, was scared to perform operations. He had not had much experience of surgery before he came to India, and after his arrival he had no chance of honing his skills under the guidance of another doctor. According to Lily Shaw, he was far too squeamish to make a good doctor – he shied away even from giving inoculations to his fellow missionaries. He was using the excuse of the lack of an operating theatre to avoid having to carry out surgery. Only while he had been away and was replaced by the locum from Ajmer had the operations that appeared in the statistics in fact been carried out.7 L. B. Butcher, the CMS secretary in Bombay, was informed of all this in confidence by Read’s fellow missionaries.8 He decided that Read should be transferred to another, larger medical mission where he could gain experience from the other doctors. He was sorry about this, as Mrs Read’s services would be lost, and she was – in his patronising words – ‘a brave little thing and really worth two of her husband’.9 The revelations about Read’s incompetence came just as the CMS was having to cut back on its work, because of the financial crisis mentioned in the previous chapter, and Butcher proposed that the Bhil mission would have to do with Indian doctors only. Frank Meigh wrote to protest against this. The mission’s ‘native doctors’, he asserted, had all been a grave disappointment. They had not been loyal to the mission, and some had intrigued with ‘unworthy people’ (was this a reference to Premji Hurji Patel, the dissident ex-pastor at Lusadiya?). An ‘English Doctor’ was no luxury: ‘one only has to live in this isolated part in an epidemic, or see people in serious illness, or with a sudden accident, see them dying for lack of skilled attention, and the nearest qualified doctor 70 miles (= 3⁄4 days between the decision to call and his possible arrival) to know it is an absolute necessity, not only for the Bhils, but for the sake of our own lives also’. Meigh predicted that if a competent person could be recruited ‘who both displayed assurance and inspired confidence, and himself performed operations, he would soon have patients from many miles around’.10 Although the site for the new hospital at Lusadiya had been chosen and plans drawn up for its construction, the order for retrenchment within the mission in early 1930 saw the proposal being postponed indefinitely. Read, who was still in situ, commented that it was a great disappointment, but that he had to accept it as ‘God’s purpose’, for ‘He evidently knows that whatever means we have at our disposal for our medical work, poor and inadequate though they may seem to us, in His hands can be used to bring about most wonderful results’. Read, in fact, seemed to be relying as much on his faith as a Christian than on his [ 167 ]

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medical training in his work. His report for 1929 was full of accounts of how ‘seemingly impossible tasks have been accomplished by God’s wonderful prayer’. Five or six boarding-school children had fallen ill with whooping cough and then developed broncho-pneumonia. Although this was an extremely dangerous condition, only one girl had died – and she already had a weak constitution – while the rest recovered in a most remarkable way. On another occasion a boy was carried in from Kherwara with high fever. The parents were tearful, fearing he would die. In Read’s words: ‘We prayed together, and what seemed almost impossible happened, and the boy took a turn for the better from that time.’ Another ‘miraculous’ recovery took place soon after, when a Bhil man who appeared to be dying was saved as a result of Read’s treatment and some careful nursing by an untrained Bhil woman. According to Read: ‘Truly the hand of God was in this.’11 In January 1931, Read was transferred for a year to Ranaghat in Bengal ‘to get further experience in the administration of a mission hospital’. An Indian Christian, John Hamilton, was appointed to replace him at Lusadiya.12 Hamilton had qualified from the Agra Medical School in 1915 as a Licentiated Medical Practitioner. He was paid Rs. 120 per month and provided with free quarters for himself and his family.13 Read’s deficiencies as a doctor were further exposed at Ranaghat, and in 1932 he was informed that the CMS no longer required his services. He returned to England severely disappointed, still believing that his failure had been caused by the lack of funding for the Lusadiya medical mission.14 In a letter to London of August 1932, Butcher wrote that although the mission would like a doctor from England to replace Read, the need was not urgent given the financial situation at that time. As it was, Hamilton had already proved his capabilities.15 Frank Meigh held a very different opinion of the new doctor. His attitude towards Hamilton appears to have been based on a racist opinion that ‘native doctors’ were invariably inferior to their English counterparts. Writing to Butcher in November 1932, he argued that ‘Far more confidence is naturally placed in an English Doctor. The Bhils do not readily trust one of Hindu extract even though a Christian.’ Previous ‘native doctors’, he asserted, had proved unsatisfactory in one way or another. They had disliked the ‘loneliness and isolation of the jungle’. They were unable to bear being so far from their relatives. They knew that they could earn far more in the cities and had resigned to work there. Alternatively, they had been involved in intrigues with the local thakors and Brahmans. The Bhils did not trust them and they lacked the character to win their confidence, so that they soon lost interest in their work and became lazy. One became corrupt, taking fees for treatment on the side. Another took drugs. As [ 168 ]

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for Hamilton, though a ‘Christian gentleman’, he was not on top of his work. His health was poor and half his salary was going into paying for his children to attend boarding school elsewhere. His medical abilities were doubtful, so that the Bhils, including the Bhil Christians, were losing confidence in him. They were as a result falling into ‘hopelessness and helplessness and soon resort again to heathen superstition’. Some of the ‘stronger Christians’ were taking lengthy journeys for treatment by poorly qualified non-Christian doctors in the towns. The missionaries for their part had to go to Anand, 240 kilometres away. Meigh put in a plea for an English medical missionary who could, through his good work, once more open the heart of the Bhils to the Gospel.16 Other missionaries did not share Meigh’s opinion of Hamilton. Agnes Lees wrote that Hamilton and his wife were ‘very nice, helpful people’. Although the number of patients was not large, people were coming from a good distance for treatment and there had been ‘some almost miraculous recoveries’. Hamilton had been ill at times, but she had been able to fill in for him with no great difficulty. Their main problem was that the medical fund was unable to cover the work that they were doing, so that they were running a deficit.17 Things became worse when the London office decided to transfer the grant that had been promised for Lusadiya to a different mission hospital in Kashmir. The ongoing grant to Lusadiya was also reduced and suggestions were voiced that the hospital might have to be closed. The missionaries met together in Kherwara in April 1934 to decide on their response. They drew up a list of reasons why the medical work of the mission was essential and sent it to Dr J. Howard Cook, who had been a well-known medical missionary in Uganda and who now chaired the medical committee of the CMS in London. In this, they stated that there were very few dispensaries run by the princely states, and the experience of the Bhils who had tried to use such establishments had not been good, for they were treated there as ‘jungly’ people whose presence lowered the tone of the place. This was in contrast to the reception of caste Hindus at such dispensaries. Without mission facilities for the Bhils, they would be effectively barred from any access to modern forms of treatment. Bhils truly are primitive, and given to gross superstitions and dealings with the powers of evil. You would be stopping a work which is gradually weaning them from such things; and would be throwing back upon their heathen remedies many who have learnt to come to us.

Such ‘superstition’ was alive still amongst even the converts to Christianity, and ‘It would be leading them into serious temptation the only remedy for which had been taken away.’ Furthermore: [ 169 ]

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Bhils are normally fairly healthy on account of their open outdoor life; but in sickness they are specially fearful, helpless, hopeless. It is a great thing inspiring confidence to know there is a place to go in their need. Take it away and you throw them into sheer despair.18

Once more, the notion of the ‘primitivism’ of the Bhils was being regurgitated to justify the work of the mission. Though depicted in one respect as children of nature who enjoyed good health, they were also – by implication – naturally sinful, being mired in superstition and subject to the ‘powers of evil’. Whatever its merits, this appeal went down well with Cook, who made a point of visiting Lusadiya in late 1934 on a tour of India. He responded in like terms – his report of his visit deployed the word ‘primitive’ at every turn. Leaving the nearest railway station to Lusadiya, he had to take a ‘primitive motor omnibus’. The road passed through ‘primitive villages’, along rough tracks with protruding tree roots and fords across rushing streams. Arriving at Lusadiya, he found there a ‘primitive little hospital containing six beds, equipment of the simplest type, and yet a living work being carried on which is of inestimable value to the Church and the Mission in this isolated spot’. Fortunately for the mission, Cook was highly impressed. He noted that Dr John Hamilton had had to overcome a number of problems after he arrived. The Bhils were, for example, suspicious of Hindi-speaking people. They were also prejudiced against Indian Christian doctors, as the previous one had alienated both the people and the Bhil church. Hamilton had nonetheless won them round through his sympathetic and friendly demeanour, his care of the sick and his indefatigable visits to their homes. The number of patients had doubled in numbers since he took over; in the past twelve months over 11,000 outpatients had been treated at Lusadiya. Cook concluded that ‘This Medical work could not be closed without serious loss to the whole Bhil Mission.’19 On his return to London, Cook ensured that the CMS continued to fund Lusadiya sufficiently to allow the work to continue there.20 In 1935, Hamilton compiled a table showing attendance at Lusadiya during his time there. In the first full year when he had been in charge – 1932 – there were 5,452 outpatients and 23 inpatients, whereas in 1934 there were 10,571 outpatients and 43 inpatients. In 1932, there were 95 minor operations, against 184 in 1934. In 1934, there were 238 home visits.21 In the following year, Hamilton wrote a detailed report on his work that was of a quality not seen since the reports of Jane Birkett many years before. In this, he stated that the outpatients came mainly from villages in a radius of about thirty-two kilometres, though some came from further away. The great majority were poor and of low [ 170 ]

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caste, being predominantly Bhils and mostly Christians. The most frequent visitors were Christians who attended the church at Lusadiya and who lived in the village itself or the eight nearby villages. Christians from villages further away, such as Chhitadara, Devni Mori, Jesingpur and Bavaliya, also came fairly often. The number of inpatients was relatively low as Bhils had – he said – a terror of dying away from home, and if their illness was serious they were that much more reluctant to come for treatment. Another reason was that an inpatient had to be looked after in part by a family member who stayed at the hospital, and this meant the loss of the labour of that person at home, something that few poor families could afford. Hamilton reported that the most common complaints that he had to treat during the rainy season were dysentery, diarrhoea, malaria, and skin and eye problems. During the rains of 1935 there was an epidemic of dysentery in the area around Lusadiya that caused a great deal of suffering. Three Christians had died, because, he said, ‘They did not ask for help till they were dangerously ill. They were lying in their own filth and insanitary condition. Then they would not come into hospital, and within two or three days of treatment they died.’ All the others whom he had treated recovered. This included a fifteen-year-old boy from Rampur and an eight-year-old girl from Chhapara Kuski for whom there seemed no hope, ‘but we thank God that they were wonderfully cured’. He described the compounds of drugs he used, such as magnesium sulphate and quinine sulphate, and diets, such as boiled rice with curds. All those who had been treated promptly along such lines had, to his knowledge, survived. He noted that guinea worm was a major problem in the area, especially during the hot weather. The people did not like to have the worms taken out through an incision on their skin, as it was very painful to do this. Also, it was not satisfactory to remove the worms in this way, as they did not always come out completely. Instead, he applied carbolic or nitric acid to the inflamed part of the skin, and also boric fomentations, four to six times daily. The area then suppurated and opened or burst out itself, leaving the worms to be extracted without breaking. This had worked even in the most intractable cases, and the people preferred it. Another problem that Hamilton came across was that pregnant women would not take any medicine as their ‘superstitious ideas about births are prejudicial to it’. He had however managed to persuade some to have quinine injections on alternate days, and this had been beneficial. In general, he found that ‘All the people have very superstitious ideas, using crude remedies of their own. There are many Christians even, who have not altogether given up their superstitions. This causes great difficulty in Medical work, and much patience is needed.’22 [ 171 ]

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During that year, 13,142 outpatients and sixty-seven inpatients were treated, which represented another considerable increase.23 There was a setback in 1936 when Hamilton fell seriously ill and the hospital and to be closed for two months. Although Agnes Lees carried on the work at the dispensary, the number of outpatients fell during that year.24 Thereafter, the numbers revived. While this work continued, a young Bhil called Daniel was for the first time attending medical school. Born in 1906, he was one of four sons of Kavada Soma Suvera, a lay preacher who had been one of the original converts from Lusadiya village. Daniel had excelled in his studies at the mission school and was advised by the missionaries to go for further study. He completed his matriculation at the Irish Presbyterian High School at Anand, and then went on to Ahmedabad College for his degree, which he obtained in 1932. He decided that he wanted to become a doctor, and went for his training to the well-known medical school run by the American Presbyterian mission at Miraj in Maharashtra. There he met Gladys, a second-generation Christian from Karnataka (a CMS missionary had converted her father, who was a Brahman). They were married while Daniel’s studies continued. He obtained his medical degree in 1938, and despite several offers of high salaries to practise elsewhere, he returned to work among his own people, starting at the dispensary at Biladiya. He adopted the surname Christian.25 Meanwhile, in the same year, Shanti Pandav completed her training as a nurse at the Irish Presbyterian mission hospital at Borsad, in central Gujarat. She stood first in all of Gujarat in her nursing examination, after which she took and passed her midwifery examination in Bombay. Her marks were such that several doctors tried to persuade her to stay and work in Bombay city, offering her a monthly salary of up to Rs.150. She refused these offers, and returned to Borsad to work there for a year, fulfilling a promise made when the Irish Presbyterian missionaries had undertaken to bear the cost of her training. She was offered a permanent post there on good pay, but she insisted on returning to Lusadiya to work for a low monthly starting salary of only Rs.15. She quickly gained a high reputation as a nurse at the hospital, and as a maternity and welfare worker amongst the women and children of the area.26 In 1939, Daniel Christian took over from John Hamilton as superintendent of the hospital at Lusadiya. In a letter of 1940, Agnes Lees praised him for his work there. Besides treating crowds of patients, he ran a weekly Bible class for women and helped organise the church services. He was a frequent visitor to the girls’ school and the girls there adored him; and children were, Lees argued, good judges of character. The only problem was that he appeared to be taking on more than he [ 172 ]

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3

Dr Daniel Christian, Lusadiya, 1940.

could handle, suffering some strain that was showing in his attitude to others.27 During this period, the dispensary at Biladiya was run initially by an Indian medical assistant, Dr Dey, and then by Marjorie Meigh, a trained nurse. The facilities could generally cope with minor complaints, but they were helpless in the face of serious illness. Thus, when they were hit by an epidemic of ‘relapsing fever and pneumonia’ in the winter of 1923–24, twelve Christians died despite Meigh’s attentions, ‘a large number for such a small Christian community’. Many more nonChristians also died; Meigh saw them burying their dead in the dry river bed and could hear ‘the dreadful heart-rending wailing of those who mourn without . . . the hope of the glorious resurrection in Christ Jesus’.28 As a nurse, Meigh could provide basic drugs, dressings and nursing care, but was helpless in the face of serious illness and injury. Thus, when in 1925 a man was brought in from Mundeti village, twenty-five kilometres from Biladiya, with serious abdominal injuries [ 173 ]

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caused by a fall from a tree on to a pointed branch, she cleaned up the wound, tried to restore and sew in the injured parts and dress the injury, all without any anaesthetic. He nonetheless died after a few days. Marjorie’s husband Frank reflected on this case that if Dr Read had been available, they could have called on him; but he had arrived at Lusadiya only after this.29 As we have seen already, it is doubtful whether the squeamish Read would have in fact have been able to handle such an injury. The dispensary was closed after Meigh and her husband left the station in 1929, and remained so until Winifred Holdom was appointed to replace them in 1931. Holdom had received the news of her new posting while on furlough in London in 1931 and, aware that she would be in charge of the dispensary, had undertaken some training at Livingstone College – a CMS-run establishment in London that provided basic medical training for missionaries – and had also gained some experience at the Mildmay Hospital in Bethnal Green. She ran the dispensary throughout the 1930s, assisted by a young Bhil who had been trained as a dresser at Lusadiya. Although she also carried out evangelical and educational work at Biladiya, she soon found that the medical work was taking up most of her time. She ran the dispensary with far more enthusiasm than Marjorie Meigh had ever done,30 and during 1932 was seeing an average of a hundred new patients each month. This was despite the fact that the Idar authorities had opened a dispensary in the late 1920s at Bhiloda, which was only ten kilometres away. Several patients had come to Biladiya from Bhiloda, and when her assistant had asked them why they did not use the new dispensary, they had stated that they did not obtain ‘good medicine’ there. Nonetheless, Holdom was all too aware of her deficiencies. In one of her reports, she regretted that she lacked the ability to diagnose many of the complaints adequately. However, ‘God has certainly blessed some of the very simple remedies used.’ The hardest times had been during the summer, when there had been a nasty epidemic of dysentery, mostly amongst children, and in the winter, when there had been many cases of influenza and pneumonia. These illnesses, she reported, required careful nursing, but unfortunately the Bhils hardly ever provided proper care for the sick in their homes. She cited a case of a non-Christian woman who was desperately ill from pneumonia, but who was left to lie on the floor of her house with nothing to cover her beyond her own clothes. Holdom also commented in her report that ‘I have been trying to follow the teaching of Livingstone College, to “stick a knife in” wherever possible with usually most satisfactory results both to the amateur doctor and the patient. Some times however their courage fails and they don’t let me give them relief quickly, but prefer to let an [ 174 ]

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abscess take its time enduring far more pain of course.’ She told a humorous story of one patient with a very painful abscess who, to avoid having to endure such a treatment, fled across the fields pursued by his wife. The man’s brother asked Holdom to join in the chase, but she refused saying that she never treated anyone against their will – and would still less run after them across the countryside – and that if he wanted treatment he would have to come back of his own volition. He never did.31 Inspired by the faith that God was with her in her medical work, the unqualified Holdom appears to have been a far more effective healer than the unconfident Frank Read. For example, she wrote in 1935 of how she had saved the life of a four-year-old orphan boy whose clothes had caught alight and who had received terrible burns. Although she felt that he was unlikely to survive, she had applied daily dressings with great care and administered a diet of milk and cod-liver oil. He recovered and was soon running about happily. According to Holdom, the local people were convinced that it was a miracle.32 Writing in 1941, she claimed that she had carried out more medical work at Biladiya than any others had ever done. When she had taken the work over she had anticipated that she would be mainly responsible for the care of the local Christian community, but to her surprise more and more nonChristians had come over the years. She was often called to go out to treat people from all over the area. She commented: ‘All I can say is that God was very good and overruled many mistakes I must have made and for some reason the people seemed to have faith in me and that counts for everything with our Bhils.’33 It is notable that during this entire period, none of the reports from the Bhil mission mention any attempts at sustained medical education, with, for example, lantern slide shows or pamphlets or posters setting out the principles of biomedicine.34 In this area, the Idar State authorities took the lead during the 1930s, with campaigns for vaccination, the distribution in villages of pamphlets on village sanitation, and lantern slide shows at village schools on health and hygiene.35 The missionaries do not appear to have felt that such campaigns were necessary to their work at this time. They deployed their medicine to win trust, sympathy and converts, rather than to stimulate curiosity about its techniques or a grasp of its principles. They seem to have had little desire to demystify what appeared to local people to be a form of ‘superior magic’.36 In such a light, the supposedly bizarre beliefs of the Bhils on illness and health provided more a source of amusement than one of grave concern. Agnes Lees thus spoke of some ‘amusing incidents’ that enlivened her itineration of 1923: [ 175 ]

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One old man with a bad headache was given aspirin tablets. He turned up next day to enquire whether the tablets were to be rubbed on the head or swallowed. Another story is that of six old men sitting before the tent door. They asked for cough mixture, and having no bottles were given a dose at once, whereupon the question was “have we one cough or many coughs?”37

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Rowena Watts had similar tales from her tour of 1925: We have the humorous side too, which is usually connected with the dispensing of simple remedies in the villages. Once when I was about to administer a dose to a man who was seemingly very willing to swallow it, I suddenly found it was for his wife at home! It is not quite proper to speak about his lady at home, so it is a little embarrassing at times, though amusing. The same thing happened last week out this way, but on being asked to put out his tongue, the truth came out! It is such a delight that these people have a keen sense of humour.38

Such stories – included ostensibly to lighten up the reports – sent out a clear message as to the ‘backwardness’ of the Bhils and their continuing need for Christian ministry and the wonders of ‘English medicine’ as administered by mission workers.

Notes 1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Lilian Shaw, Lusadiya, BMR (1924), p. 22. Frank Read, Anand, BMR (1925), 16–17. The Medical Missionary Association was an interdenominational body founded in 1878 that recruited and trained medical missionaries and supported their work to a limited extent in the field. Salaries were paid by each separate missionary society – in Read’s case the CMS. ‘Bhil Country: Lusadia’, The Mission Hospital (August 1928), 210–11. W. B. Holdom, Kherwara and Bavaliya, BMR (1927), 9, 28. F. C. Read, Lusadiya, BMR (1927), 15–16; ‘Bhil Country: Lusadia’, The Mission Hospital (August 1929), 208–9. F. C. Read, Lusadiya, BMR (1929), 14–17. L. B. Butcher to W. V. K. Treanor, Bombay, 29 November 1929, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 929, doc. 110. Butcher to Treanor, 19 August 1932, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1932, doc. 69. Butcher to Treanor, Bombay, 29 November 1929, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1929, doc. 110. F. Meigh, Comment on Canon Butcher’s Letter of 14 November 1929, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1929, doc. 122. F. C. Read, Lusadiya, BMR (1929), 14–15. ‘Among the Bhils: Lusadia’, The Mission Hospital (August 1931), 208. Minutes of Bombay Corresponding Committee, 9 March 1931, CMS, MY I 3, 1931. F. C. Read to Treanor, 6 June 1932, CMS, G2 I 3/0 1932, doc. 50; Butcher to Treanor, 4 June 1932, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1932, doc. 53; Butcher to Treanor, 30 September 1932, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1932, doc. 91. Butcher to Treanor, 19 August 1932, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1932, doc. 69. Frank Meigh to Butcher, Lusadiya, 15 November 1932, CMS, MY I 3. Report of the CMS Western India Mission 1931–1932, p. 25, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1933, doc. 65. F. Meigh and W. Holdom to Dr J. Howard Cook, Lusadiya, 14 April 1934, CMS, MY I 3.

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M E D I C I N E O N A S H O E S T R I N G A N D A P R AY E R 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

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26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

J. Howard Cook, ‘Impressions on a Secretarial Visit to India’, Conquest by Healing, 12:3 (September 1935), 73–4. Gordon Hewitt, The Problem of Success: A History of the Church Missionary Society 1910–1942, 2: Asia: Overseas Partners (London: SCM Press, 1976), p. 154. ‘CMS Hospital Lusadia, 1931 to 1934’, CMS, M AD I C, 1934–35. J. Hamilton, ‘CMS Mission Hospital, Lusadia, Report for 1935’, CMS, M AD I C, 1934–35. The Mission Hospital (August 1936), 211. The Mission Hospital (September 1937), 233. Interview with Rajnikant Christian (Daniel’s son), Nana Revas, Idar Taluka, 17 December 2002. ‘Western India: Lusadia’, The Mission Hospital (September 1938), 231; F. Meigh, Lusadiya, July 1938, CMS, G2 I 3/1, 1938, sub-file 3; Lilian Shaw, ‘The First Bhil Doctor and Nurse’, CMS Outlook (September 1940). Agnes J. Lees to Cranswick, 17 April 1940, CMS, I 3/1, sub-file 1. M. Meigh, Biladiya, BMR (1924), 10. F. Meigh, Biladiya, BMR (1925), 7. For criticisms of Meigh in this respect, see Butcher to Treanor, Bombay, 29 November 1929, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1929, doc. 110. W. B. Holdom, Biladia, BMR (1932), 14. ‘A Miracle of Healing’, The Church Missionary Outlook (April 1935), 87. Winifred Holdom to Dr Anderson, Biladiya, 8 May 1941, CMS, M Y I 3. The mission had a lantern and slides from the 1890s, but they were used only to show scenes from the Bible. ‘From the Rev. E. P. Herbert, Kherwara, North-West Provinces’, CMSE (1896), 140. Administration Report of the Idar State for the Year 1934–5 (1–10–1934 to 30–9– 1935), pp. 66, 95, OIOC, V/10/1228. A term used by J. Howard Cook to describe how the people of Uganda supposedly regarded his medical work. Cook, ‘The Contribution of Science to Missionary Work’, The Church Missionary Review (March 1925), 43. Report of the C.M.S. Western India Mission 1923, 13, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1924, doc. 57. Rowena Watts, Biladiya, BMR (1925), 5.

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A mission for a postcolonial era

Paul and Margaret Johnson, who took charge of the Bhil mission in 1942, came mentally prepared for the transfer of power from the British to an independent Indian government, and they were the ones who steered the mission through the period of transition in the late 1940s. In 1948, Mewar was merged into the new state of Rajasthan, and Idar and other adjoining minor princely states became a part of Bombay State as the district of ‘Sabarkantha’, which meant the area lying along the banks of the Sabarmati River. In 1953, the name for the church changed from that of a ‘mission to the Bhils’ to one defined in terms of the territory it covered, which stretched from the banks of the Som River in Mewar to the Sabarmati River in the erstwhile Idar State, being called the ‘Som-Sabarkantha church’. In contrast to the missionaries before them, the Johnsons had a positive attitude towards the Indian nationalist movement. They were strong admirers of Gandhi, and when their stay in Mussoorie in May 1946 happened to coincide with a visit there by the Mahatma, they met him and prayed with him. They proudly kept a photograph in their family album showing them strolling and chatting with the great man.1 They celebrated Indian independence in good spirit in August 1947, and Paul wrote optimistically in his annual report for that year: ‘We missionaries certainly rejoice that a new relationship renders the old suspicions and doubts in Indian minds obsolete. We still have important services to render and a rich Christian heritage to share, but no longer are we to be identified with a foreign ruling power.’2 The chief of these ‘services’ had by then become the medical one, with huge amounts of effort and resources being poured into providing an up-to-date hospital for the Bhil mission, as we shall see in the next chapter. Margaret Johnson had trained to become a medical missionary because she had doubted the value of missionary work that focused only on conversion.3 Nonetheless, she hoped that her medical practice [ 178 ]

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would win some converts. On starting work in Lusadiya in 1942, she stated: ‘The medical work here is worthwhile in itself, and none of us believe in regarding it as “bait” to give us a chance of proselytising, but it is doubly worthwhile if we can help the patient to spiritual as well as physical health.’4 She thus sought to answer the critics of the missionaries who accused them of healing merely to convert, while refusing to disown the value of conversion. As it was, she was soon giving greater emphasis to the value of proselytisation. Writing in the same year, she said that her former rather negative idea about evangelisation has been entirely removed by seeing the difference between Christians and non-Christians here. It isn’t just a matter of education. There are plenty of people who have been through our schools and have not become Christians, and there are others who have been baptised and gone back on it, but their lives have not got the same quality as those who have freely and whole-heartedly decided for Christ and stuck to their guns. I can usually, or very often, tell from patients’ faces and bearing when coming to outpatients whether they are Christians or not.5

In this, she was claiming that education in itself was not enough to transform the life of a Bhil in a truly ‘civilised’ manner; Christianity was also required. She knew that progress would be slow in this respect. In 1945 she stated: ‘We are not getting any obvious spiritual results from our work; no spectacular conversions or lists of baptisms, but I am sure that like the leaven it is working slowly, as things do in this country.’6 She was careful to ensure that patients were aware of the Christian content of the service they received. For example, in 1945 she scheduled daily prayers at the hospital for a later time when outpatients would be around so as to attract a larger audience. Repeating the theme of healing leading towards faith, she wrote in 1951 that the Bhils who took treatment for malaria came to believe in the efficacy of the anti-malarial drugs even though they did not understand how it worked, and ‘that this is the first step to belief in the teaching which leads from the mere mosquito to the love of God who is waiting to heal the ills of the soul.’7 Paul, by contrast, was still deploying the more strident tones of a ‘muscular Christianity’.8 Writing about the defeat of Japan in 1945, he stated: ‘Our deadly warfare is still going on and we more than ever need to be spiritually fit, alert and ready at our Captain’s word to go in and set free those who are still bound in ignorance, superstition, fear and moral disease.’9 In their respective ways, Margaret and Paul thus continued to stress the ‘civilising’ value of Christianity, though he tended to use a language that was by then already becoming outmoded, whereas she adopted subtler ways of expressing this principle.10 [ 179 ]

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When the Johnsons took charge in 1942, they became responsible for 1,329 baptised Christians in nine separate parishes. The largest was the parish of Lusadiya, with 449 baptised Christians (34 per cent of the total), followed by Biladiya with 276 (21 per cent), Bavaliya with 133 (10 per cent), Kherwara with 113 (8.5 per cent), and the others with fewer than 100 each. The numbers had increased gradually over the years largely as a result of natural reproduction, as the families of the original converts had expanded over the generations.11 Fresh conversions had been few and far between, and when they did occur, they were normally of youths studying in the mission schools.12 The opposition to conversion within the wider Bhil society continued as strong as ever. Students at the mission schools who expressed a wish to convert were commonly threatened with social boycott.13 Patients at the hospital who expressed an interest in conversion might be snatched away by their relatives before they could take the step, even if they were seriously ill. When, for example, a woman who was dying of cancer at Lusadiya hospital expressed her desire to become a Christian, a relative of hers, who was a well-known buva, came and forced her to return to her village. She told her husband on her deathbed that Christ had come to her in a vision to call her away, after which she was said to have died in peace.14 In 1942 the Idar State government passed a law that required anyone intending to change their religion to register their name in the court at the state capital at Himatnagar, which was sixty-five kilometres from Lusadiya. Charles Shaw commented, hopefully, that this would perhaps ensure the sincerity and openness of future converts.15 In fact, it meant that officials could bring strong pressure to bear on any potential convert or his or her family, either harassing them in the court or in their villages, or operating bureaucratic procedures in such a way as to make it very hard to complete a successful registration.16 For example, a young Bhil called Manji from a village near Biladiya, who had studied up to the sixth standard at the mission school at Biladiya, decided in 1945 to convert to Christianity. During that year, he went on foot on three occasions to register his resolve in the court at Himatnagar. The application was turned down each time on the ground that he was still a minor. Back home, he faced severe persecution from his family, being beaten and starved of food. When a group of young Bhil men threatened to kill him, he fled to Lusadiya, where he took refuge in the mission compound. He was taken on for training as a compounder in the hospital.17 In the following year, he made several more fruitless visits to the court. Eventually, the magistrate ruled on the basis of evidence from Manji’s father that he was yet to come of age, and he was ordered to return to his family. As his relatives were not in [ 180 ]

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court, he returned to Lusadiya and continued his training.18 The missionaries continued to be unable to baptise him so long as the law remained in place.19 By 1947, Shaw had changed his tune, writing that the law had proved to be a ‘serious deterrent’ to conversion, with only one successful case registered during that year.20 Fortunately for the missionaries, the law was repealed when Idar was merged into Bombay State in 1948 as it was contrary to the law of that territory.21 Manji could now be baptised. His family were as a result boycotted in his village. He married a Christian, was confirmed, and subsequently became a leading figure in the Christian community in Lusadiya.22 There was also during these years considerable opposition to the missionaries by nationalists, particularly in the pre-independence period. The corollary to this was that the Christians often enjoyed a new-found support from those who felt threatened by the nationalist agenda. When Paul Johnson visited Modasa town during the Quit India protest of 1942, he found a strike in progress in this small British-ruled enclave. He managed to find a refuge from the hostile crowd in the Muslim quarter of the town, where a shopkeeper informed him: ‘You are quite safe here, this is Pakistan.’ In other words, it was popularly perceived that the missionaries, like the Muslims of the Muslim League who were demanding an independent state of Pakistan, were the enemies of the Congress nationalists.23 Within the princely states of Mewar and Idar, the Praja Mandals (People’s Associations) began to adopt a more vociferous stance as independence loomed. These bodies were mainly supported and led by higher-caste Hindus from the towns. Members of the Arya Samaj – who tended to come from such a background – were particularly strident in their opposition. In Mewar, the Arya Samaj trained schoolteachers actively to counter the work of the missionaries, and in one village with a mission school opened a rival establishment of their own. They were countered by the local thakor – an ex-pupil of the mission school – who dissuaded the villagers from using the Arya Samaj school. Instead of losing pupils, the mission school increased its numbers. Like the Muslims of Modasa, the thakor saw the nationalists as his enemy (for they aimed ultimately to deprive the Rajput rulers of their power), and he thus made common cause with the Christians.24 The Praja Mandal of Idar State similarly opened schools that were designed to compete with the mission schools. They paid higher salaries to the schoolteachers, putting the loyalty of the mission teachers under considerable strain.25 This sort of opposition declined once India gained independence in 1947. Although the Hindu Mahasabha tried to whip up a protest against the missionaries in the early 1950s,26 the local Congress leaders and social workers adopted a generally benign stance towards the [ 181 ]

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Christians. This was a time when the Gandhian influence was still strong amongst many such people, and, following their mentor, the Congress leaders and social workers placed a strong emphasis on religious tolerance. With the demise of the princely states, Gandhian workers were able to establish ashrams in areas from which they had previously been excluded. A Sarvodaya worker called Narsinhbhai Bhavsar founded one such institution at Shamlaji, close to Lusadiya. He became a frequent visitor to the mission at Lusadiya, and even sent some of the ashram schoolchildren to the church there at Christmas so that they could experience a Christian festival.27 K. K. Shah, the influential President of the Bombay Provincial Congress Committee, took a keen interest in the medical work of the mission, and in 1957 he agreed to come in person to open a new block for the Lusadiya hospital.28 The political climate in the 1950s was as a result in general more favourable to the missionaries than it had been in the 1940s. There were however a few ominous signs. In 1954, for example, the police were ordered to provide fortnightly reports on the activities of foreign missionaries, and instructions were sent out that no attempt should be made to convert pupils in mission schools.29 It also became increasingly difficult for missionaries to obtain visas to work in India, and applications were delayed and in a few cases turned down.30 Soon after his arrival, Paul Johnson expressed his dissatisfaction with the concept of a ‘Bhil mission’. Writing in 1943, he stated: Although the title ‘Bhil Mission’ is useful in designating the area of a particular work in C.M.S. circles yet I feel that we should aim at the creating of a church composed of people drawn from all walks of life, eventually dropping this caste-promoting title. The Bhils of course love it, and show little desire to receive an influx of people who might deprive them of their livelihood as servants of the mission.31

He went on to say that his ambition was to extend the church to other communities of Gujarat. He felt that the medical work had allowed the misssionaries to build strong links with many non-Bhils, and said that he was planning to take a team of evangelists to Himatnagar, the Idar State capital, to preach to the townspeople there. He tried to rationalise the Bhil Christians’ desire to keep the church to themselves in terms of narrow self-interest – they gained jobs within the mission. In fact, only a small number so benefited – their Christianity was not based on such mercenary considerations. Johnson failed to see that what the Bhils were asserting was a consistent and, for them, valid counter-narrative in which their attachment to Christianity provided a means to strengthen their community. For them, this was a perfectly moral desire. As it was, Paul Johnson failed to extend his evangelising to the towns and other castes of Idar State. In the same letter he complained about [ 182 ]

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how his life was being taken up with ‘petty business’. ‘Often I have felt more like the manager of an estate than a missionary.’ He had to buy supplies, food and livestock, plan and supervise various building works for the mission and its hospital, pay merchants’ bills, act as paymaster for the staff, do the mission accounts, negotiate with tax officials, run a cooperative credit scheme for Bhil Christians and sit as chairman of the church panchayats (councils). On top of this, he had to perform the church services each day, celebrate Holy Communion at the outlying churches in rotation and provide pastoral care for the congregation. There was little time left, he grumbled, for any evangelistic work.32 In the annual report for 1942, he elaborated on the work of the Lusadiya church panchayat. Nearly all of the cases that came before it concerned adultery, and they were so tangled with intrigue and lies that it took a long time to unravel the truth and obtain a confession. The punishments laid down for the guilty in such cases were twenty-five strokes with a stick for the guilty man, and the cutting-off of hair for the woman.33 He described this as ‘the local Christian ruling’, as if to distance himself from such forms of corporal punishment. It is however clear that he went along with them, as did his predecessor, Charles Shaw. Shaw described in his diary one such case before the panchayat from 1940. At that time, the court consisted of Shaw and five Bhil elders of the church. On 19 December of that year they met to discuss a case involving two young Christians, Daniel and Esther. Daniel’s father, Hira, and Esther’s father, Hakara, were also present. Shaw commented: ‘We got Hira to give Daniel a bit of a beating, and got Hakara to make it up with Hira. (While Daniel was being beaten, a bit of the stick flew off and hit me in the eye).’34 Nancy Rose Hunt, whose research likewise uncovered missionary-sanctioned corporal punishment – in this case in the Belgian Congo – has argued that missionary idioms of compassion towards their flock become intertwined, incongruously, in such instances with a language of colonial discipline.35 While this observation is pertinent, it must also be stressed that the demand for such discipline came in the case of the Bhil panchayat from the patriarchal elders of the community, while a missionary like Paul Johnson appeared to be somewhat uneasy about it. As it was, the church hierarchy eventually put a stop to all corporal punishment, as we shall see below. The process of indigenisation of the church received a blow in 1943 when the first Bhil clergyman, Jakhi Asari – then based at Biladiya – was discovered in an adulterous relationship. He made a full confession, thus forestalling the need for a diocesan enquiry, but still had to be dismissed from his post.36 Nonetheless, a second Bhil clergyman, Rupji Bhanat, soon replaced him. A product of the mission school at [ 183 ]

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Biladiya – which was also his home village – Rupji had caught the eye of Charles Shaw and had been sent for theological training in Ahmedabad and then Baroda. He was ordained as a deacon in 1945 and a priest in 1946, and he worked initially under Paul Johnson at Lusadiya.37 In 1946, there were twenty-three mission staff in all, of whom six were British, four were Indians from outside the region, and thirteen were Bhils. Of the three main mission centres, two were under British missionaries (Paul Johnson at Lusadiya, and Charles Shaw at Biladiya), while only one – Kherwara – was under an Indian pastor, the Reverend Philip Parmar. Of the thirteen Bhil staff members, one – Rupji Bhanat – was a priest, while nine were lay pastors. The remaining three Bhils were Dr Daniel Christian, the nurse Shanti Joria and a hospital evangelist.38 Philip Parmar was from a family of untouchable converts of central Gujarat. He had received theological training in Bombay and was appointed to the mission in 1943. After his ordination at Lusadiya in 1944, he was sent to take charge at Kherwara. There, he encountered sharp opposition from Agnes Lees, who had been working with the mission since 1916, and since 1942 had become the senior missionary at Kherwara when the girls’ boarding school that was under her charge was shifted there from Lusadiya. Distressed by her attitude towards him and his wife, Parmar requested a transfer away from Kherwara. In the end, the CMS decided to get rid of Lees, who was informed that it was time for her to retire. She left eventually in mid-1946, returning to Britain.39 Now in undisputed charge at Kherwara, Parmar decided that the church needed to change its image, which was too closely entangled with British colonialism. It had, for example, become over-dependent on donations from Britain, and to counter this he introduced the idea of a ‘God’s field’, in which land was cultivated by church members voluntarily and the produce used for the poorer members of the church. The scheme enjoyed considerable success. He also held dialogues with sympathetic Hindus, such as members of the Kabir Panth, hoping thereby to break down the barriers that had grown between local Hindus and Christians.40 Writing on the eve of Indian independence, Parmar noted how nationalist politicians were working against them, ‘arguing among other things, that Christianity is a western religion established with a view to uphold a foreign rule’. Often, the Bhil Christians were unable to find convincing arguments to counter this charge. The time had come, he argued, to replace the idea of a Bhil mission with that of a Christian church. This can only be achieved by encouraging them [the Bhil Christians] with equal opportunities in training for leadership and in shouldering

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responsibilities; thereby making them, and others, realise more thoroughly that the Church is open to all, irrespective of race, or nation.41

In this, he was in accord with Paul Johnson in his desire to broaden the church, and so far as he was concerned this ideal was a long way from being achieved. The lay pastors of this period were in many cases second-generation Christians with a strong family commitment to the church. The Kalasva family provides one such case. Yusuph Kalasva, who was born around 1890, was a famine orphan of a village near Kherwara who had studied to the fourth standard before being appointed a lay pastor, working at Lusadiya, Kotada and Bavaliya. His son Daniel was born in 1915 and, in an interview that I conducted with him in 2002, remembered moving from one mission station to another with his father, mother and eight siblings every two or so years. He studied up to the fourth standard at Kherwara, and was then sent by Charles Shaw for training in theology in Ahmedabad and Bombay, being appointed a lay pastor in 1940. He failed his further theological exams, and as a result was never ordained. He was sent to Biladiya to work under Charles Shaw in 1942, and used to accompany Shaw in his preaching tours.42 His eldest sister, Manglibai, was also based in Biladiya at this time. She was the wife of another lay pastor, who was often absent on church business, leaving her to bring up their children and manage their fields alone. Despite this she found time to hold frequent prayer meetings and a weekly Bible class for women, and was considered a pillar of the local church. She died, suddenly, of malaria in 1945, and was greatly mourned not only by the local Christians, but also by many nonChristians who respected her for her many kindnesses.43 Since 1907, the pastoral and evangelical work of the Bhil church had been the responsibility of a series of church councils, or panchayats. Each of the nine congregations had a council that initially consisted of all communicant Christians, but later – as numbers grew – became elected bodies. These were presided over by either a priest or lay pastor, and met about twice a month. Over and above them were the three parish councils of Lusadiya, Biladiya and Kherwara, which consisted of all the members of these lower councils, and which met monthly under the parish priest. At the apex there was the council for the entire Bhil church, known as the moti panchayat, or great council. It consisted of all the parish priests, lay pastors, parish council secretaries and treasurers, and some members elected from each parish. Although all of these councils had a large majority of Indian members, and the aim from the start had been to promote democracy within the church, the leading figures – to whom the others invariably deferred in the last [ 185 ]

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instance – were still the priests, and particularly the white priests. The councils had no responsibility so far as the medical and educational work of the mission was concerned; this was the responsibility of the Bhil Mission Conference, which was composed of all the white missionaries working in the area. It was only in 1952 that the first Indian clergyman, Rupji Bhanat, was allowed to sit on this latter body.44 The constitution of the church was revised also in 1952, the new version coming into effect at the start of 1953. This declared that the responsibility for the work of the evangelical and pastoral church lay with its councils, rather than the C M S. According to Paul Johnson, this was a transitional arrangement, and for the time being support would continue to be provided by the parent body in London. The days were however approaching when the church would have to look after itself entirely.45 Because it was now illegal under Bombay State law for non-official bodies to apply corporal punishment, they were no longer allowed to hand out sentences in matters of church discipline. Instead, all such cases were to be heard before a local council, with a report being sent to the Bishop of Bombay, who would rule on the appropriate punishment. It was at this juncture that the church was renamed ‘SomSabarkantha’. According to Paul Johnson, this was ‘because there were large numbers of people other than the Bhils all to be won for Christ and the Church was anxious not to perpetuate the name Bhil and become another caste Church’.46 In 1954, Paul Johnson was appointed Archdeacon of Ahmedabad, which made him responsible for all Anglicans in Gujarat. This task was over and above his work as the leader of the Som-Sabarkantha church, and it took him on tours all over the region. He served in this position until 1959, when Rupji Bhanat took over. In 1957, the management of all the schools and hostels was transferred to the moti panchayat. This meant that the medical work was the only area kept outside any such democratic control, being still under the management of the CMS. From 1957 onwards, the medical side of the mission published its own separate annual report – previously its affairs had been included in the general Bhil mission report. The period of independence did not last long, for in 1960 the Gujarat church was placed under the Bombay Diocesan Council, with all of its property being transferred to the diocese. In 1961, the diocese took over the responsibility for the educational and medical work – a change that was to have profound implications for both of these areas of work, as we shall see in Chapter 13.47 During the 1950s, Bhil priests began to take charge at the higher level of the church. By 1958, only one of the parishes, Lusadiya, was under a foreign missionary – Paul Johnson. The parish priest at Kherwara was the Reverend Valji Pandav, brother of Shanti Joria, who had been [ 186 ]

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ordained as a priest in 1952. Biladiya was under Valji’s brother-in-law, Rupji Bhanat, who was also chairman of the Som-Sabarkantha moti panchayat. He took over from Paul Johnson as Archdeacon of Gujarat in 1959, becoming the senior figure in the Gujarat church as a whole. Despite this, foreign missionaries still had a strong presence. Margaret Johnson was running the hospital, and Dr Arthur Banks joined her in 1956 with his wife and children. The Reverend John Mayoh had arrived with his own family in 1957, and was studying Gujarati in preparation for taking over at Lusadiya once Paul Johnson retired. A Danish missionary called Else Jorgensen ran the girls’ hostel at Kherwara, and when she left in April 1958, Gladys Smith took her place. Two new recruits arrived from Europe in that year, Eva Auerbach and N. F. Tate. At the end of that year, there were therefore seven white missionaries – a larger number than there had been ten years earlier.48 By this time, there were in total 2,492 baptised Christians of the Som-Sabarkantha church.49

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Rachel Mash, ‘Margaret Fitzhugh Johnson, Doctor and Missionary (1941–1963): Her Work and Family Life in the Context of Pre-Independence and Post-Independence India’, BA dissertation, University of Brighton, 2001, p. 51. ‘The Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1947), 14. Mash, ‘Margaret Fitzhugh Johnson’, p. 26. Ibid., p. 29. Ibid., p. 26. ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1945), 12–13. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1951), 19. This tendency has been studied by Clifford Putney, Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, Mass achusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001). P. Johnson, circular letter, 20 August 1945, Paul Johnson papers. Looking back in 1987 at his early ambition to ‘preach the Gospel in “heathen lands” ’, Paul Johnson remarked with hindsight that it was ‘an expression I would not use today’. N. Johnson, ‘Paul Henry Johnson: The Constant Call’, p. 1, Paul Johnson papers. Rosemary Fitzgerald has told me, in like vein, that an ex-missionary she interviewed told her that she now cringed when she thought of the ways in which she had spoken and acted in the past. BMR (1942), 23. ‘Miss Holdom Writes’, BMR (1943), 18. ‘Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1955), 4. ‘Rev. Canon C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1948), 3–4. ‘Rev. Canon C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1942), 10. ‘The Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 5. ‘Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1945), 5. ‘Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1946), 14. For further details of Manji’s harassment see Dr M. Fitzhugh Johnson, ‘Corn in India’, The Church Missionary Outlook (June 1948), 5. ‘Rev. Canon C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1947), 3. ‘Rev. Canon C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1948), 1. ‘Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1949), 1.

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28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

P. Johnson, ‘Circular Letter No. 3’, Lusadiya, February 1943, Paul Johnson papers. ‘The Rev. P. B. Parmar Writes’, BMR (1945), 14 and 16. ‘The Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1965), 15. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1954), 21. ‘The Ven. P. H. Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1957–58), 5. See also ibid., 17 for friendships between missionaries and Gandhian workers. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1957), 3. P. Johnson, ‘Chronology of the Bhil Mission’, entry for 1954, Paul Johnson papers. In the case of two Danish citizens who volunteered to work for the Bhil mission in the early 1950s, one application took about two years to process, and the other was rejected. The latter person went to work in Pakistan instead. See correspondence in CMS, G2 I 3/2, passim. P. Johnson, ‘Second Annual Letter for Year Ending 30 June 1943’, Lusadiya, 16 August 1943, Paul Johnson papers. P. Johnson, ‘Second Annual Letter for Year Ending 30 June 1943’, Lusadiya, 16 August 1943, Paul Johnson papers. The Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 14–15. Diary of Charles Shaw, entry for 19 December 1940, CMS, Unofficial Papers, Acc. 162. Hunt, A Colonial Lexicon, pp. 94–5. ‘The Rev. Canon C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1943), 7. Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, p. 50. ‘C.M.S. Bhil Mission Staff, 1946’, BMR (1943), 2. L. Butcher to C. Milford, Bombay, 4 February 1946 and 9 July 1946, CMS, G2 I 3/1 sub-file 1, 1946. Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, p. 52. ‘The Rev. P. B. Parmar Writes’, BMR (1946), 26. Interview with Daniel Yusuph Kalasva, Bavaliya, 16 December 2002. ‘Mrs. C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1945), 9–10. Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, pp. 61 and 69–70. ‘Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes from England’, BMR (1952), 8–9. ‘Address by the Rev. P. H. Johnson (Bhil Mission)’, Church Mission House, Salisbury Square, London, 1953, Paul Johnson papers. Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, pp. 71 and 80. ‘The Ven. P. H. Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1957–58), 3–4. ‘Church Statistics, 1958’, BMR (1957–58), 25.

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Medical modernity

In a study of Chinese medical missions, John R. Stanley has argued that from the early years of the twentieth century, medical missionaries refused increasingly to act as jack-of-all-trades. Previously, they had been regarded as subordinates, providing their professional services under the overall leadership of the evangelising missionary-priests and subject to their command. From around 1900 onwards they began to demand that they be allowed to devote their full energies to their medical work. This gave rise to considerable acrimony in some Chinese missions in the first decade and a half of the century. A turning point came when the Rockefeller Foundation established a China Medical Board in 1914 that made large grants available for medical work by mission organisations. Large and sophisticated mission hospitals could be built that provided a focus for mission work in general. Mission work had always been hampered by a lack of funds, which were raised mostly from voluntary contributions. Medical work no longer had to be carried out on a shoe-string, and this inevitably enhanced the status of the medical as against other poorly funded wings of missionary activity. Henceforth, medical missionaries could carry on their work for its own sake rather than have to justify it in term of its evangelical potential. Nonetheless, to gain and maintain such funding, missions had to demonstrate a high standard in their medical work. This could have a knock-on effect, with missions being encouraged to improve their medical services even in cases in which no such funding was obtained. Medical missionaries became increasingly assertive in stressing that their prime commitment was to healing, rather than evangelism. This Stanley defines as an assertion of the principle of the ‘social gospel’.1 Ruth Compton Brouwer has put forward a similar argument in a study of three women missionaries who worked in India, Korea and Africa during the first sixty years of the twentieth century. Two of them were doctors and one a teacher. She dates the transition, however, to [ 189 ]

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the post-First World War period. Before then, she says, it was expected that all missionaries – whatever their particular expertise – would devote a substantial part of their time to evangelical work. In the case of medical missionaries, the emphasis began to shift towards a more exclusive focus on medical work after the First World War, as missionaries with full medical qualifications began to demand with increasing stridency that they be allowed to devote their full energies to the work in which they had been trained. The old corner-cutting and making do were becoming increasingly outmoded in a world of more exacting and sophisticated medical therapy, and no longer was the ‘native’ likely to be dazzled by second-best treatment. In addition, local Christians were increasingly carrying out evangelistic activity, while foreign missionaries focused on supervisory, organisational or professional work. This was happening at the same time as the challenge of nationalist movements in European colonial territories and a growing respect amongst many Christians for other religions saw the development of a belief that missionaries should try to work with indigenous people rather than merely convert them to Christianity. Gandhi, with his strand of Hinduism and strong spirituality, was particularly admired. There was a growing emphasis on the shared project of many religious people. In this way, the old certainties were being replaced with an attitude of greater circumspection and humility. It was felt increasingly that missionaries should seek to exemplify a Christian way of life in their own persons through their compassion and good work. Medical work for its own sake provided an exemplary means towards this end. As a result, missionaries in the field became more and more involved in social work, and they often saw this as their authentic life mission. Like Stanley, Brouwer describes this as an affirmation of the ‘social gospel’.2 Although Stanley and Brouwer make some useful observations about developments in missionary strategy and practice, I am not convinced that they should be analysed in terms of any triumph of the principle of the ‘social gospel’. The ‘social gospel’ movement was, after all, metropolitan rather than colonial, and it evolved independently from the work of missionaries in European colonies. Charles Hopkins has shown how it originated in the United States in the period after the Civil War, being, as he claims, a ‘uniquely American movement towards the socialising and ethicising of Protestantism.’3 Also known as ‘social Christianity,’ it was not, according to Paul Carter, so ‘unique’, having as it did affinities with the contemporary Christian socialist movement in Britain and social Catholicism in Europe.4 For Hopkins, it represented a Christian response to the social problems that resulted from industrial capitalism and it had strong links to trade unionism. It was critical of the materialism and greed of the capitalist ethos and [ 190 ]

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demanded that a truly Christian society be a more co-operative and egalitarian one. It did not in general assume a similarly critical stance on issues of imperialism and racism.5 Carter has understood the movement more in terms of a reaction to the strong emphasis in American Protestantism on individual salvation, with an understanding that good and evil were not merely the sum total of the good and evil of individuals, but collective and societal qualities. As God pronounced judgement on societies as a whole as well as individuals, Christians were obliged to work for the good of society. It followed in a longstanding tradition stretching back to medieval times of reading the Bible as a subversive tract, in which Jesus cleansed social corruption through his demand for a new ethical base to society.6 Initially a form of dissent within the established churches, it became more mainstream and reached a zenith in the period immediately preceding the First World War. It received a severe setback during the First World War and its aftermath, a period when churches were discredited by their support for the war, followed by their backing for the unpopular policy of Prohibition. It revived again during the period of the New Deal in the 1930s, when many were seeking a collective solution to the contemporary crisis of capitalism.7 Clearly, the idea that medical work came to the fore in missionary work as the result of the ascendancy of the ‘social gospel’ cannot be brought into line with this particular theological history without some adaptation, and this has not been thought through by either Stanley or Brouwer. Medical mission work had its own history and trajectory – described in Chapter 1 – that were not connected with trade union activity or a critique of capitalist society and the like. While it is true that terms can at times be usefully adapted to delineate a different phenomenon, the concept of the ‘social gospel’ fails, I believe, to explain why medical work became more and more prominent during the course of the twentieth century. The question that needs to be posed is: why did a strategy that originated with a minority of missionaries – the medical – in the nineteenth century, and which always existed in a state of some tension with more purely evangelical activities (as it channelled resources and energies away from such work), become so much more important within the missionary movement during the course of the twentieth century? The answer, I believe, is that it provided a restatement of the ‘civilising mission’ in an era of decolonisation, but with a new vocabulary and in other terms. Although the missionary project in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had been driven by a desire to save souls for Christ, it had been justified also for its ‘civilising’ effect. Conversion, by itself, was not enough – the convert had to accept the [ 191 ]

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need for a continuing relationship of subordination in which he or she would undergo a long process of education under the instruction of the white missionary. A British – or American – upbringing and higher education was thus seen to endow the ‘character’ needed to run a mission station. Similarly, technical training in a Western university or medical school was seen to provide the necessary expertise to run good-quality educational or health services for the peoples of the mission field. As nationalist demands led to an increasing devolution of power within many colonies, the belief that only Westerners could administrate in an efficient, even-handed and effective way became increasingly discredited. By the 1940s, fewer and fewer missionaries were hanging on to the claim that their mission would collapse without white leadership. The same was true for their educational projects, where highly competent local teachers were replacing them. Medicine became increasingly their refuge of last resort, for here there was still a huge perceived ‘gap’ between the metropolitan countries and the rest of the globe, and it was anticipated that the latter areas would continue to require Western skill and expertise as provided by Western medical workers long after they had ceased to be ruled directly or indirectly by the colonial powers. Here, it seemed, was the most fruitful prospect for a continuing missionary engagement in a postcolonial world. Missionaries were, in future, to be the bearers of medical modernity to the ‘underdeveloped’. The focus was switching from saving the ‘sin-sick body’ as a part of a ‘civilising mission’ to curing the pathological body through ‘developmental aid’. This all helps explain the fact that the new doctor for the Bhil mission, Margaret Johnson, had been dispatched to take over the running of a hospital – Lusadiya – that was by then being run entirely by local converts as a community-based resource. The doctor in charge, Daniel Christian, had been the first Bhil to qualify as a doctor, and he was by the year of her arrival, 1941, managing the institution competently. Second to him was the nurse, Shanti Joria, who was popularising the maternity work of the mission in the region. Her brother, Suleman Joria, had been trained locally as a dispenser, and he made up the prescriptions. There was also a dresser called Walji Bada, who looked after any patients who required bandaging.8 A process of indigenisation had been accomplished, and it was now being reversed. In her initial reports on the hospital at Lusadiya, Margaret Johnson made no mention of this remarkable fact. Her gaze – that of a highly skilled doctor and surgeon fresh from Britain – was, rather, directed at its many obvious shortcomings. She noted that it consisted of four buildings made of local brick and tiles, with mud floors, which were scattered over a craggy hillock. One of these was the dispensary, where [ 192 ]

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Dr Daniel Christian saw the outpatients and where the medicine was stored. There were a labour bed and a cupboard of surgical instruments, some of which had been purchased by Dr Frank Reid as army surplus stock. While there was a good range of equipment for eye operations, there were few instruments suited for abdominal and gynaecological surgery. A proper operating table was needed – the labour bed had a habit of collapsing without warning. The other three buildings housed the so-called ‘family wards’ for inpatients. These consisted of eleven small rooms for patients, each with a veranda and an attached kitchen. Besides each patient there were – invariably – a number of accompanying relatives and friends who accommodated themselves on the floor of the room or veranda and cooked in the kitchen. There were, Margaret Johnson discovered, only five mattresses, six tattered sheets and two pillows to share between the eleven beds. The windows of these ‘wards’ were unglazed, allowing birds to nest in the rooms. There was no electricity or independent water source for the hospital, and it was without latrines or wash-places.9 The scene was thus set for the ‘modernisation’ of the hospital under the expert guidance and leadership of a doctor fresh from Britain. It was not once asked whether such a development would be sustainable in the long run, given that it was already being foreseen that the days of the white missionaries in India were numbered. Writing at the same time, Margaret Johnson’s husband Paul noted that some Indian Christians were urging the missionaries to leave India as soon as possible so that they could run their churches themselves, and he acknowledged that this was inevitable sooner or later.10 However, rather than consolidate what had been achieved and hand over power quickly at every level, including the medical, the two inaugurated a strategy that would require their presence and the presence of future white missionaries for many years hence. Like his predecessors, Johnson continued to repeat the mantra of Bhil ‘primitivism’ and the need for continuing white guidance and leadership, stating in 1942 that ‘I presume it will be our increasing concern to wean them [the Bhils] from this deadening and initiative-sapping dependence on the Mission. While this weaning process is going on, it seems to me essential that our mission staff should be as adequate as possible to meet the needs of training the leaders of this very simple community.’11 In arguing thus, he ignored the fact that Jakhi Kanji Asari had been working as an ordained priest since 1928, that there were also several Bhil lay pastors who played a crucial role in running the church, and that local Bhils were already running the hospital and working as schoolteachers in many of the schools. Rather than acknowledge this success, he could see only the need for further ‘training’ under white tutelage. The stage was thus set [ 193 ]

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for the final phase of the work of CMS missionaries amongst the Bhils, which saw the building-up of a flourishing modern hospital. It proved, however, to be an achievement built on sand, as we shall see in the next chapter.

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A modern hospital for Lusadiya Before Margaret and Paul Johnson began their work amongst the Bhils, they spent several months in 1941 travelling around India and spending time at other medical missions so that they could gain experience of the sort of work that Margaret would be doing as a doctor, surgeon and hospital administrator once they arrived at Lusadiya. Between March and November of that year, she gained experience of twelve mission hospitals in all.12 She then looked after the dispensary at Biladiya for a few months after that, before taking charge of the hospital at Lusadiya from Daniel Christian in June 1942.13 A new outpatient block had just been completed, consisting of three rooms, each about five metres square, with a smaller room at one end. These became, respectively, a consulting room, an operating theatre, a dispensarycum-drug store, and a water store-cum-sterilising room. It had a spacious and shady veranda at the front that provided a space for patients to wait their turn for treatment while an evangelist preached to them. A smaller veranda at the back was used for dressing and bandaging those who required it. The old dispensary was turned into another ward. Margaret Johnson made the operating theatre her domain, examining all of the women and children outpatients there. She left the consulting room to Daniel Christian, who saw all the male outpatients. The two doctors began each day with a combined round of the inpatients in their separate wardrooms. Margaret Johnson initiated a system of keeping a case record for each patient, something not done before.14 Writing in November 1942, Dr H. Anderson, the medical superintendent of the CMS in London, told Margaret Johnson that expansion work would largely have to be financed from earnings and donations rather than by any large CMS grants.15 She therefore opened a savings account into which funds could be deposited for this purpose. The first necessity, so far as she was concerned, was a source of water, and she ordered work to begin on excavating a well. The site being on solid rock, the missionaries had to blast their way down with dynamite. It could not however be completed until 1948, because of the wartime dearth of the cement needed to line the walls. In 1945, work began on a septic tank, attached latrines and a washhouse.16 Because of the wartime shortages, the missionaries decided to manufacture their own bricks, [ 194 ]

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4

Outpatients being treated on the veranda of Lusadiya Hospital, 1943.

and clay was dug out, hand-moulded, sun-dried and baked in a makeshift kiln by the river at Lusadiya.17 As yet, Margaret Johnson was unable to make use of her greatest skill, that of a surgeon. She had studied medicine at Liverpool University, graduating with distinction in gynaecology and obstetrics in 1934, and then gained further surgical qualifications at Edinburgh in 1937. She had proved extremely adept in surgical work, and could easily have found a good appointment in Britain, particularly during a time – that of the Second World War – when prospects for women in skilled vocations had opened up considerably. She had, however, already determined to become a medical missionary.18 Writing in early 1944, she regretted that the missionaries were very restricted by their facilities at Lusadiya and that she was prepared to carry out major surgery only when it was imperative. The patients did not as yet have great confidence in her abilities in this respect, and neither did she, given the state of the operating theatre and equipment. The most common major surgery performed in 1943 had been operations to remove stones in the bladder. There was a steady demand for cataract operations, with a waiting list for this procedure.19 The missionaries had only one small steriliser, which restricted them to one operation per day. She had an [ 195 ]

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operating table made by a local carpenter to replace the rickety delivery table, but it was a crude makeshift at best.20 Winifred Holdom – the missionary responsible for women’s work at Lusadiya – acted as anaesthetist, though she had no formal training in this skill. Altogether, twenty-eight major and 296 minor operations were performed in 1943.21 The problem of inadequate equipment was compounded by the lack of trained and experienced nurses. Shanti Pandav, the one trained nurse, had married the Bhil clergyman Rupji Bhanat in 1942, and children soon followed. Being expected to manage the household of her busy husband and look after her children, she had little time for nursing during these years. Margaret Johnson arranged for Shanti to give informal training to Hannah Yusuph, an educated woman who had recently left her husband after an unhappy marriage.22 The missionaries also took on Yakub Lakma for similar training. Margaret Johnson was not altogether satisfied with this arrangement, stating in 1943 that they really needed a European nurse to supervise and train the staff. She added: ‘We have had an average of 51 out-patients per working day and it is quite impossible for the doctors to attend to them and to inpatients, as well as to all the little points in the wards and in dispensary, and the training of workers who are ignorant of the simplest hygiene.’23 The dispensers and dressers at the hospital were all locally trained Christian Bhils. Margaret Johnson provided a vivid description of the work of the dressers in her report for 1945. That year, they had to treat an unusually large number of cases of ulcers after the monsoon. ‘Nearly every day fresh cases arrived, often on a bed in a cloud of flies, feverish and smelly, plastered with roots, dung, or clay.’ They were admitted as inpatients. Each day, they would limp painfully into line with groans and complaints, and be seen one by one. The first dresser cleaned and swabbed the wound, and the second applied ointments and powder, helped by an assistant holding the bottles and powder-shaker, while the third bandaged up. They had to work almost continuously from morning till four in the afternoon each day. Many of these patients were found to be suffering from other debilitating conditions, such as malaria, intestinal parasites and malnutrition. Those who needed were given quinine injections for their malaria, mepracrine tablets for their intestinal problems and doses of shark liver oil.24 The latter was a treatment used since the 1920s to speed the healing of damaged tissue. The numbers of patients grew considerably during these years, putting further strain on the facilities at Lusadiya. In 1945, for instance, there were 8,111 new outpatients and 15,866 follow-up visits – making a total of 23,977 outpatient consultations. This represented an increase of 46 % in two years. Surgical cases were comparatively stable in numbers, 28 [ 196 ]

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major and 305 minor operations being performed in 1945. In all 373 inpatients had been treated (compared with 278 in 1942 – a 34 % increase), with an average stay each of 22.5 days. Of these, 10 were confinements.25 The demand for beds created a new feature of the hospital – grass-hut wards. Writing in 1945, Margaret Johnson exclaimed: When patients are told there is no room, they simply build one for themselves! Yesterday I counted six grass huts in the compound, and two ‘rooms’ made by winding a length of sheeting around veranda pillars. We supply beds and blankets and they spread straw on the ground and build fireplaces outside, and are as cosy as can be.26

In her report for 1945, Margaret Johnson complained that in the absence of extra trained workers, the quality of the treatment that each patient received was bound to decline. Being overstretched, the medical staff had no time to give adequate teaching to those in training, and the laboratory work was also suffering. 27 In 1946, the mission lost its only Bhil doctor when Daniel Christian established a private practice in Lusadiya. Margaret Johnson stated in her annual report that he had been asked to resign and commented: ‘We have been trying to avert this for years, but eventually he left us no alternative, and has now set up in private practice opposite the hospital.’ She saw it as a case of ‘disunity’ that ‘strikes a blow at the heart of the Christian witness of the whole community’.28 Writing three years later on a visit to Lusadiya, the medical superintendent for the CMS in London, Dr H. Anderson, stated that Daniel Christian had been dismissed because of his ‘uncontrollable temper and secret private practice.’ He also believed that he may have felt some resentment at the way in which the superiority of the British missionaries was asserted at every turn, as was made very graphic by the ‘enormous size of the two missionary residences as compared to everything else’.29 According to a fellow villager, Daniel was upset when Margaret Johnson was appointed over his head. He had since 1938 built up a good practice and was attracting many patients. His discontent in this respect led, eventually, to his resignation.30 Writing in 1939, Agnes Lees stated that although Daniel Christian was a person of upright moral character, he had a tendency towards ‘pride and impatience’.31 In 1942, Margaret Johnson commended Daniel for his keenness, sympathy, eagerness to learn, and even – contra Lees – his patience, but noted: ‘He is no organiser though and has been unable to work harmoniously with those under him, thus causing criticism and bad feeling.’32 Coupled with Anderson’s remark about his ‘uncontrollable temper’, this reveals that a major problem was that Daniel had had a tendency to alienate his colleagues. The missionaries explained [ 197 ]

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this in terms of an over-abrupt transition from savagery to civilisation that led to emotional instability in the young Bhil doctor. Lees thus added to her statement about his ‘pride and impatience’ that ‘He has reached the highest place ever attained by one of our people, and high places are dangerous places.’33 Anderson concluded his comments by stating: ‘He had been brought up almost brooded over by a missionary here, and as so often, I think the psychological strain of the relationship proved too much for him’.34 This, in other words, was a Bhil out of place. There is no doubt that Daniel Christian was a difficult person to live with. In an interview, his son summed up his character with the Gujarati word jidi, meaning ‘obstinate, stubborn and dogged’. He had a tendency to demand complete obedience from subordinates and be unwilling to tolerate the authority of superiors. He set high personal standards for himself, and was known for his upright and puritanical lifestyle. He followed a strict daily routine and lived very frugally. His staple diet was the common maize roti of the Bhil cultivator, and when he went out for the day he refused to drink tea or eat any outside snacks, carrying only some dry chickpeas and a banana for nourishment. He never smoked or drank liquor. He lacked tolerance towards those who failed to live up to such ideals. Within his own household, he was a strict disciplinarian, demanding that his children work hard and diligently, much to their resentment. His wife Gladys even left him for a time in the late 1940s, returning to her paternal home in Miraj. They made up in the 1950s, however, and lived together for the rest of their lives.35 The picture that we have here is that of a prickly and unbending man whose high ideals and manners inspired respect but little affection. Rather than being a Bhil who had risen too fast and too far in a way that had thrown him out of balance – as the missionaries alleged – this was a man who had a very clear agenda for himself and his community. In this, he came into almost inevitable conflict with the British missionaries, who still had the ultimate power in the mission. As I have pointed out in the first section of this chapter, the prime agenda of the missionaries was to ‘modernise’ the mission while retaining control over its Eurocentric trajectory, while the leading Bhil Christians sought above all to further the interests of their community – whether in terms of moral reform, educational achievement, financial stability or good health. Daniel Christian had undertaken medical training and returned to his paternal village in 1938 to provide medical care and Christian service to his fellows. He could have obtained lucrative employment in a town or city, but was committed to working within his own community. Besides his medical practice, he became a leading figure on the [ 198 ]

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church panchayat, ran a Bible class for women and a Sunday school, and organised various Christian celebrations. He did not particularly want to create or run a hospital that would be a beacon of Christian modernity, attracting all sorts of people from various other communities to Lusadiya. When Margaret Johnson was appointed over his head, he knew that he was being overruled in this respect. His immediate reaction was to declare his intention to resign before she arrived, and indeed in 1941, just before she took up her post, she believed that he was about to leave.36 He decided, however, to battle it out, trying to make the best of what for him seemed a bad job. Initially, she was full of praise for him – for he was a diligent and hard-working practitioner – but the strains soon developed. The most serious allegation against Daniel Christian was that he was carrying on his own ‘private’ practice on the side. The implication was that he was using mission facilities to earn an income in a corrupt manner. Again, the problem was one of different expectations. Daniel saw himself as a healer who was located within his community, and for him there was no irregularity in blurring the distinction between the public and the private. A man of strong moral integrity, he clearly saw nothing at all wrong in this. It led, however, to him being asked to resign. In his new practice, Daniel Christian was once again his own master, a situation that obviously suited him better. Working as he did very close to the mission hospital, he appeared to be in direct competition with the missionaries. In fact, outpatient attendances at the mission establishment were higher in the year after his departure (24,629) than they had been in the year preceding it (23,977). There was more than enough work for both to handle. Daniel Christian took on all sorts of cases, treating men, women and children and carrying out deliveries. He built a good reputation, with many Bhils coming to him for treatment from a considerable distance. He continued in his church work, and his wife Gladys became secretary of the Mothers’ Union at Lusadiya.37 Relations between him and the Johnsons continued to be strained over the next decade, and he used his considerable influence in the villages to stir up opposition to her ongoing plans to expand the hospital.38 By 1946, sufficient money had accumulated in the building fund to start extensive construction work. The bulk of the donations had come from thakors and other high-caste people who had received treatment at the hospital. Building began after the rains of 1946, using the bricks and tiles that had been manufactured in Lusadiya. The first structures to be completed, early in 1947, were the new quarters for the hospital staff. They had cement floors – in contrast to the mud floors of the existing quarters – and had washrooms and a veranda for cooking. The [ 199 ]

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septic tank was also completed, with attached latrines. Margaret Johnson announced that patients and their relatives who were in future caught defecating in the hospital grounds would be fined, and she hoped that it would soon be possible to enjoy a stroll around the area without being subjected to noisome smells. Work continued in 1947 on two substantial new private wards with cement floors. These were designed so that maternity cases could be accommodated in a way that did not cause offence to local susceptibilities. For three weeks after giving birth, a mother was considered to be ritually ‘polluting’, and no male relative was allowed even to see her. The new design provided an entirely enclosed sleeping, washing and cooking space for the mother, with an adjoining separate room and kitchen for the relatives. Margaret Johnson justified this compliance with local proscription by arguing that it would help them to attract far more maternity cases. From 1948, statistics began to be printed in the annual report of the mission showing the number of confinements at the Lusadiya hospital, showing that obstetrics was now considered to be a significant feature of their work. Nevertheless, the number of cases remained relatively low. In 1948, there were twenty-seven confinements at Lusadiya, and no deliveries were carried out in people’s homes by the medical staff. Even ten years later, in 1958, the numbers had not risen very much; in that year there were fifty-one confinements in the hospital, and two deliveries carried out at home. The hospital continued to lack any facilities for refrigeration, which meant that certain medicines, such as penicillin, could not be kept there during the hotter months of the year. The medical staff also needed a still to make distilled water for intravenous injections, which were becoming increasingly popular. The best they could do was to collect rainwater from the roof in the monsoon, which was hardly a satisfactory solution.39 The hospital also gained an ambulance in 1946. Previously, the only motorised vehicle that was available to the mission was Charles Shaw’s car, and this had been practically useless during the Second World War, when petrol was very hard to obtain. The new vehicle – a Red Cross ambulance donated by the Bombay medical department – was used to transport patients, mission workers and even building materials. It was often packed with people; on one trip from Biladiya to Lusadiya seventeen ‘patients, mothers, mothers-to-be and babies’ were recorded as travelling in it, bringing with them ‘mountains of luggage’.40 In the same year, Margaret Johnson established a health insurance scheme for Christians. It cost Rs. 5 a year for a family, Rs. 2 for an individual. Membership entitled a family or person to free ‘ordinary’ medicine, surgical procedures and hospital treatment for up to a month. [ 200 ]

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If patent medicine or an injection was required, half the cost was paid. People were somewhat suspicious of the scheme at first, but gradually, as the benefits were observed, more and more families took it up. By the end of the first year, 170 people were so covered, at an average cost of one rupee per head.41 It proved hard to find a permanent replacement for Daniel Christian, and for a time Margaret Johnson was the only doctor at the hospital. Although fresh recruits joined her in time, none stayed for long in this isolated spot. Indeed, one was so distressed by what he saw on his arrival that he left without even meeting the Johnsons. They were however joined in 1948 by a fully qualified nurse from Britain, Margaret Kirk. Writing soon after, Margaret Johnson reported of her work: Sister Kirk’s influence is at work everywhere, in fact the Bhil staff are beginning to appreciate the fact that previously they had no idea of nursing at all. It is a drawback that none of them have seen a hospital, as we know it, with general wards and white tiles etc., but as no training school in India will take pupils who have not done 3rd standard English, these Bhils who have only learnt the vernacular cannot be sent for Nurses’ training.42

In 1950, the mission managed to obtain the services of a Teleguspeaking Anglican couple trained in Madras, Dr Azariah and Dr Vijayam Ashirvadam. Azariah Ashirvadam was an expert in the treatment of tuberculosis, and his experience in this respect brought, according to Margaret Johnson, a complete change in outlook at Lusadiya. Although missionaries working in the area had reported tuberculosis from the late nineteenth century onwards, they had not hitherto regarded it as a major health issue.43 Margaret Johnson was already conscious of the fact that large numbers of Bhils suffered from the disease, reporting in 1948 that tuberculosis ‘is rampant in these villages’ and that the missionaries saw cases daily that were in urgent need of hospital treatment. She believed that it had developed in many cases from pneumonia that had not been treated. Sufferers were too poor to go for treatment in specialist sanatoria, and their only hope was a long stay at Lusadiya or Biladiya.44 Azariah Ashirvadam made the missionaries very conscious of the fact that, in his words, ‘in India there is one patient dying from tuberculosis for every one minute’.45 He made an effort to detect cases amongst the mission staff and school pupils, and found that two of their schoolmasters, a boy at the Biladiya boarding school and the hospital driver were suffering from the disease. There were many other cases in the area as a whole of tuberculosis of the lungs, abdomen, bones and so on. He began treatment with the new drug streptomycin – discovered in 1944 – which successfully inhibited the development of the disease. [ 201 ]

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It was however an expensive remedy, and the mission could afford to provide it only in critical cases, or for those who had the means to pay. It also invested in some special apparatus for artificial pneumothorax, or collapse therapy. One major drawback was that without electricity the medical workers were unable to carry out X-rays, and an electric generator and X-ray machine were added to their list of needs. In the meantime, they used tests that measured blood sedimentation rates, which proved an effective means of monitoring the progress of the disease and their treatment of it. They set aside a separate block of rooms for such patients, and they were soon full.46 Tuberculosis had in India become something of a speciality for medical missions. There were at that time eleven sanatoria run by missions in different parts of India, and half of the total number of beds for Indian tuberculosis patients were in mission institutions. The most famous of these was the Union Mission Tuberculosis Sanatorium at Arogyavaram, in the Telegu-speaking region of Madras Presidency, an institution that the Ashirvadams would have been familiar with as they were from that region. The Indian state governments saw this as an area in which they could work in co-operation with missionaries, and recently the government of the Central Provinces had paid for the erection of two wards for forty patients in a mission sanatorium there.47 Here, it appeared, might be an area that could attract government support for the hospital at Lusadiya. Writing in 1952, Vijayam Ashirvadam noted that at Lusadiya the medical staff often had to treat tuberculosis that had reached a very advanced and complex stage. The disease carried a strong social stigma, and many people refused to come for treatment until they were seriously ill. Without an X-ray machine, it was hard to carry out such treatment in a satisfactory manner. Those who came at the early stage and maintained their treatment were cured in most cases, though she had to report with regret that two promising young Christians had died because they failed to follow the prescribed regime.48 Patients often stayed for several months. In 1952 the medical staff treated a total of ninety-six tuberculosis inpatients, in the following year eighty-two. In the case of patients from a poorer background, who often came in a highly emaciated state, a diet rich in milk and eggs helped them to build their body weight and thus fight the disease. Milk and eggs were not at that time consumed to any extent by most Bhils.49 By 1953, Lusadiya was gaining a wide reputation for this work, and the hospital were receiving more applications for admission than it could accept. Unfortunately, at the end of that year the Ashirvadams had to leave for family reasons.50 Despite this, the work that they had initiated flourished and even took off in new directions. Word spread throughout the region that the [ 202 ]

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clean and pure air at Lusadiya was particularly efficacious for the cure of tuberculosis. The large number of neem trees in the hospital compound were said to enhance this effect by further purifying the atmosphere. The water from the well also gained a reputation for its healing properties. Many of the patients were housed in grass huts that were likewise considered to have particular health-bearing qualities. Some even said that the large numbers of goats in the vicinity added to this overall effect as their urine and stools countered the tuberculosis bacilli, and patients in some cases insisted that a goat be tethered to the legs of their bed at night. Margaret Johnson, who was well aware of the importance of belief in healing, went along with this. In time, more and more people from distant towns and cities began to book themselves in for treatment at Lusadiya, or even to just come for a holiday in a romantic and peaceful setting away from the crowd. As such people had plenty of money that could be used for the benefit of the hospital, they were accommodated in the grass huts.51 Malaria continued to be the single most debilitating disease for the people of this area. It flared up during the monsoon and its aftermath, being less virulent in years of poor rainfall. It could at times be fatal. In severe cases, patients were admitted to the hospital and administered intravenous quinine, mepracrine drips or chloroquine. These treatments were not always effective in advanced cases or with the cerebral, or falciparum, variety of the disease. The hospital itself was sprayed with DDT, and prophylactics were given to staff and patients. Those who were covered by the health insurance scheme were from 1950 advised to take an anti-malarial prophylactic during the monsoon period. The few who took the tablets regularly were found to be remarkably free from the disease, while those who failed to do so suffered accordingly. This, according to Margaret Johnson, helped to impress on others the value of such medication.52 A government programme for intensive spraying of DDT that was funded by the World Health Organization was implemented in Sabarkantha District from 1954 onwards, with all houses being sprayed by a team of government workers. This saw a reduction in malaria for a time.53 In 1958, with the disease once more extremely virulent, the mission acquired a stock of mosquito nets for patients, which could also be purchased by those who visited the hospital for six rupees apiece.54 Epidemic diseases could be a killer also, particularly for children. These were often worst after periods of scarcity, when the malnourished had low resistance. In 1949, for example, there were heavy rains after two years of scarcity, which brought epidemics of gastro-enteritis, dysentery, smallpox, typhoid, mumps and whooping cough. Sulpha drugs were used in cases of dysentery. There were also occasional [ 203 ]

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epidemics of cholera, and anti-cholera injections were given at such times. Those who fell ill with the disease were – if possible – rushed to the hospital and given an intravenous drip.55 In 1952 a new operating theatre, labour room, women’s consulting room and laboratory were added to the dispensary block. Construction had started in the previous year, using locally manufactured bricks and roof tiles as much as possible. Sand and gravel were brought from the nearby river bed in bullock carts and mixed with lime in a large circular mixer operated by bullocks, while carpenters transformed logs into doors and store-cupboards. Other materials, such as glass and water pipes, had to be brought from outside by lorry.56 The operating theatre was completed first and was opened ceremoniously in January 1952 by the Bishop of Bombay. It boasted running water from a tap, concealed drainage, washable walls and an asbestos-cement ceiling. Margaret Johnson was thrilled, commenting: ‘No longer can the stray squirrel or inquisitive sparrow menace our sterile operative field. We feel the height of modernity!’57 The other new buildings were completed later that year. The operating theatre was named ‘Shanti’ (peace), the labour ward ‘Anand’ (joy), the women’s consulting room ‘Prem’ (love), and the veranda where the outpatients waited for treatment ‘Dhiraj’ (patience). The total cost was Rs. 12,000 for the buildings and Rs. 3,000 for the equipment, leaving the mission Rs. 2,000 in debt. 58 Looking back at the successful completion of this phase of growth, Margaret Johnson remarked: ‘We pray that this material extension may have its counterpart of spiritual expansion so that our medical work may give unmistakable witness to the gospel of love.’59 Azariah Ashirvadam, for his part, enthused over the new pathological laboratory which he and his wife had played a leading role in designing: As Pasteur once said: ‘Take interest I beseech you in those institutions which we designate under the expressive name of laboratory. Demand that they may be advanced. They are the temples of wealth and of the future’. In these laboratories humanity grows greater, stronger, and richer.60

Besides discovering, in common with Margaret Johnson, a spiritual dimension to their modernisation programme, he also saw it as a step up the ladder of human evolution. Already, Margaret Johnson was planning to replace these improved facilities with an entirely new and much larger building to house thirty or more inpatients, a surgical and midwifery unit, offices, storerooms, a prayer room and a library. The mission would generate its own electricity, and have an X-ray unit. The existing hospital was for the first time managing to balance its routine expenditure with its income, and [ 204 ]

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she anticipated that in time it might earn a sufficient annual surplus to subsidise other areas of mission work, such as education and pastoral work. Her ambitions required major funding, and she canvassed the Bombay government for a grant. An inspection by the Sabarkantha District Civil Surgeon led to a promise of Rs. 50,000. She also persuaded twenty-six influential businessmen and professionals from Sabarkantha District to back an appeal for funds, and set about pressurising them and others to donate.61 Fundraising continued over the next few years, with the missionaries touring the villages collecting money in cash for the new hospital.62 While the money gradually accumulated, they tackled the problem of lack of accommodation in the existing wards by constructing some Bhil-style houses of bamboo plastered with mud and with tiled roofs. They cost Rs. 300 each. The number of beds was increased by this means to fifty. Often, in practice, many more patients were being treated. When there were no beds available, patients brought their own bedding, or hired it from a local shop, and settled on the veranda. During 1954, there were 908 inpatients in all, spending an average of fifteen days at the hospital. The mission also improved the watersupply system and completed two washrooms for patients and their relatives.63 While on furlough in England in 1952, the Johnsons purchased a Land Rover and shipped it to India. There, a body was built on the chassis that enabled it to be used as an ambulance and for a travelling clinic.64 The old ambulance was still in service, but it was becoming increasingly expensive to keep on the road, as it did only nineteen kilometres to the gallon, in contrast to the Land Rover’s forty-eight.65 Having a four-wheel drive, the Land Rover was particularly useful during the monsoon. Even then, it sometimes became bogged down in the mud and had to be dragged out by bullocks.66 The main drawback was that as it was a British-made vehicle, the parts for it were expensive and hard to obtain in India, in contrast to its main rival, the American Jeep, which began to be manufactured on licence in India during the 1950s.67 The Land Rover was in use constantly, bringing supplies for the Lusadiya mission, including the hospital, from the railway station at Modasa, fetching building materials, carrying patients in on stretchers, conveying mission staff, and taking medical workers for outside day-clinics. Within five years it was practically worn out with overuse on the rough, pot-holed village roads.68 The expanding facilities brought a need for extra hospital assistants, with promising young Bhils being sent for training in larger mission hospitals in central Gujarat. In October 1954, Kadva Yohan passed his hospital technician’s exam and began work as the first full-time [ 205 ]

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laboratory worker at Lusadiya, using a microscope to test patients’ blood samples in the new laboratory. By this means he diagnosed many cases of malaria and dysentery, as expected, but also discovered an unanticipated number of cases of hookworm and filariasis.69 Girls who were intended for nursing or midwifery had to learn some English as well so as to be able to pass their exams in these subjects.70 The second Bhil woman to qualify as a nurse after Shanti Bhanat was Maniben Amra – also a native of Biladiya – who returned from her training to work at Lusadiya in 1955. Margaret Kirk instituted a system of night duty in 1954, so for the first time there was round-the-clock care for the inpatients. The young junior assistants who carried out much of this work insisted on always having at least one companion, owing to a strong fear of ghosts. As Kirk admitted: ‘as the hospital is overrun with rats, the noises at night are quite terrifying’.71 The assistants did not always conform to the expected work discipline; on one occasion when she was called out suddenly in the middle of the night, Kirk found that one of the assistants had gone off to attend a wedding feast in a nearby village. The hospital assistants knew that wages at Lusadiya were significantly lower than those outside, particularly those paid by government medical institutions. In 1954 they agitated for better pay. Margaret Johnson told them that unlike the government, the mission could not raise taxes to pay such expenses and that there was insufficient money in the hospital coffers to afford their demands. Later that year, nonetheless, she agreed to increase their wages somewhat.72 She was also distressed to discover that she could not rely on the integrity of all of her staff, for the senior dispenser, Harji Kauda, was found to be stealing the drugs in his care. The first time he was discovered he was let off with a warning, but he was once more found with missing drugs in his possession and dismissed. He refused to admit that he was in any way in the wrong; like Daniel Christian, he appears not to have appreciated the difference between what the missionaries classed as the public and the private. The Bishop of Bombay punished him for his intransigence with minor excommunication.73 With the increase in staff numbers, a system of staff grading was established in 1955. A mission nurse from Pune with forty years of experience called Grace Bigriker came to help put the new system in place. She was designated as hospital matron – being the first person to hold such a title at Lusadiya. She took charge of all the drugs, linen and equipment, and also acted as the anaesthetist in operations. She wrote out the routines for each department and displayed them on a notice board so that everyone would be clear as to their particular duties. She gave regular training lectures for first-, second- and third-year staff, [ 206 ]

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and held exams allowing each of them to progress to the next level. Each was given one, two or three red cloth stripes to wear on their shoulder according to their grade. A further exam was set for those who had completed the third grade, and if they passed they were then classed as a ‘staff nurse’, designated by a red cross on their shirt or blouse pocket. According to Kirk: ‘All this has given everyone something definite to work for, resulting in a higher standard of care and efficiency, and a much greater interest shown in all departments of nursing’.74 Margaret Kirk established an infant and antenatal clinic at the hospital in 1955. Babies were examined and weighed, and mothers given advice on diet and upbringing. Anti-malarial and vitamin tablets were also given out. Kirk found it hard to persuade young mothers to attend regularly, finding that they often put in an appearance only when they or their babies were ill. Initially, only Christian mothers came, though the clinic was open to non-Christians also. Kirk found that babies were fed entirely on breast milk for their first two years, after which they were given small amounts of the normal food of the Bhils, such as maize roti and dishes made with a lot of chilli. For the first six to eight months, babies were generally healthy, but from about nine months to three years old they were often weak and anaemic, suffering from deficiency diseases and lacking resistance to infections. This was, she believed, above all due to poor feeding. She felt that the problem could be best tackled with regular health visiting to mothers in their villages. This would allow problems to be found and treated before they caused permanent damage to children. For this, however, the mission needed a full-time health visitor.75 Two years later, the infant clinic was reported to be flourishing, with about sixty babies and toddlers being brought each Wednesday to be weighed and given milk, shark liver oil and vitamins.76 One of the great problems that the mission faced with such work was that in general women and young children had a low entitlement to food in families. The best of whatever could be afforded was provided to the men, with the justification being that they needed to be well nourished to carry out their hard work. In fact, women also had to work extremely hard, becoming malnourished and susceptible to disease. Women who were unable to bear children were considered practically worthless, having perhaps the lowest claim to food and with no money being made available to them for any medical treatment. As Margaret Johnson remarked in 1958: ‘A woman who cannot have her babies normally is an incubus and better dead: such is the village verdict.’77 She cited a harrowing case of this. In 1958, a woman of the Hindu blacksmith caste came to her with advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. She had treated this woman previously in 1953, when she had been brought [ 207 ]

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in after two days of obstructed labour. Margaret Johnson had performed a caesarean section – the first she had carried out at Lusadiya – and she had delivered a healthy baby boy. A photograph captioned ‘The radiant Hindu mother with her baby son’ was published in the CMS Outlook magazine in October of that year.78 Since then, however, the woman had lost two babies. When she fell ill in 1958, her husband refused to pay for any treatment, on the grounds that she had failed as a mother and was no longer worth maintaining. She saved up five rupees of her own and walked twenty-four kilometres to the hospital to ask for ‘an injection and medicine’. There was a strong belief in the villages that all health problems could be sorted out by a ‘doctor’ with a single injection. Margaret Johnson commented: ‘She had absolute faith that I could cure her, but I was helpless, and she went home, not only to die, but in the process infect 5 other members of her village circle, probably including the precious son’.79 With its improved facilities, the reputation of the hospital spread throughout the region. People began to travel greater and greater distances for treatment, as both outpatients and inpatients. Many of these had heard about the hospital from friends, while some brought doctors’ letters and X-rays. One of the attractions, according to Margaret Johnson, was that it was not a moneymaking venture, and the mission was appreciated for the way in which it that they put the welfare of patients above profits. She was, however, still very conscious of the inadequacy of its facilities, lacking as it did a raised tank to supply running water, electricity and X-ray facilities.80 In 1955, after the Ashirvadams left, there was a series of five temporary doctors before the missionaries managed to recruit Dr I. J. Pukadyil. Dr Arthur Banks, a medical missionary from Britain, joined them in 1957. He arrived to find a crisis, for in May it was discovered that Pukadyil had made the Bhil nurse Maniben Amra pregnant and had then carried out an abortion on her secretly. He was dismissed, and Maniben decided also to leave and take further training in Bombay. She was informed that she could seek re-employment if and when she married. Pukadyil was furious about his dismissal, and as he left issued threats that he would see that the hospital was ruined.81 In 1955, plans were drawn up for a new inpatient block to be built across the road from the existing hospital. The plan was to move the hospital gradually to the new site, leaving the old buildings for use only by tuberculosis patients. Work began in 1956, with the site being prepared initially by a bulldozer in eight hours – a sight that caused amazement in the village, as huge boulders were heaved aside and a slope was levelled. Again, locally manufactured bricks were used for the building. It was on a wholly different scale from the old hospital, being a large [ 208 ]

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5

Dr Margaret Johnson seeing outpatient, Lusadiya Hospital, 1955.

multi-roomed block. In it were two ten-bed wards with duty rooms and sanitary facilities, and an administrative unit, consisting of offices for the doctors and head nurse, an X-ray room and a storeroom. The building had a flat roof of reinforced concrete designed to allow a second storey to be erected when funds became available. There was a secondhand generator provided by a well-wisher from Bombay, so that for the first time the mission had electric power. Banks had brought with him from England a second-hand X-ray machine that could now be operated using the new power supply. A water tower was also built, financed from collections from England, and a 300-gallon iron tank hoisted on top. Once a network of pipes was laid, running water became available from taps for the first time.82 In all, it cost Rs. 70,000, and it left the mission in debt.83 Because funds had run out, the missionaries were unable to complete parts of the plan, such as the provision of all of the desired wards. There were now two wards, one for men – named ‘Birkett’ in honour of the original founder of the hospital – and one for women named ‘Mariam’. In addition, there were some individual rooms for the dangerously ill, the highly infectious or the well-to-do who could afford to pay extra for the facility. In all, there were beds for eighty inpatients. Round-the-clock nursing was provided in the new wards, obviating the need for care by relatives. Margaret Johnson lauded this new system, [ 209 ]

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complaining that the separate rooms of the old hospital had made it like a ‘rabbit warren’ with much of the care being left to unskilled relatives. The patients themselves were not always so positive about these changes, for their relatives – who still came – were given no separate sleeping spaces or cooking facilities in the new wards. When a new nurse, Eve Auerbach, arrived from London in 1958, she was astonished to find on her first night round that there was multi-occupancy in many beds, with relatives sleeping with the patients. Higher-caste patients and their relatives had to occupy beds alongside those they considered lower in the social scale, something they found unsettling. Some of the novel facilities were misunderstood. Patients and relatives, for example, often threw all of their rubbish down the lavatories, causing blockages. They failed to turn off the new taps, so that the tank often ran dry. Margaret Johnson had to direct her staff to be constantly vigilant to prevent these abuses of their hard-earned new facilities.84 With electric lighting, work at the hospital could be carried on more efficiently and, if necessary, late into the night. Seen from afar, the twinkling lights were a novelty in the area – many people came to Lusadiya just to see this wonder.85 A strip of 100 watt bulbs was rigged up to provide light in the operating theatre, giving better illumination during daytime operations and allowing emergency surgery to be performed at night. The number of operations increased – 158 major and 925 minor operations were performed in 1958. Eighty-three babies were also delivered in that year.86 One of the surgical assistants, Ashraydas Suvera – who was a Bhil from Lusdaiya with pharmaceutical qualifications – recalled in an interview how efficient the surgical staff became as a team in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They worked very fast, taking out an appendix in fifteen minutes, or fixing a hernia in little more time. They were meant to carry out only sixteen operations in a day, but he remembered once doing twenty-nine.87 The X-ray unit was now up and running under the charge of a new recruit, Dr Robert Singh, who had been trained in radiology at the Christian hospital at Vellore. He was also an experienced eye-surgeon. He had offered his services as he wanted the challenge of a ‘pioneering job’.88 His wife, Florence, was also medically trained, having gained her medical degree at the Christian women’s medical college at Ludhiana.89 With no comparable modern hospital nearer than 150 kilometres away, patient numbers continued to swell. The building of the first metalled road to Lusadiya in 1953 and inauguration of a regular threetimes-a-day bus service meant that it had also become much easier to reach. Writing in 1960, Margaret Johnson said that the hospital staff had come to dread the arrival of each bus bearing its fresh load of patients. They did not, however, have the heart to turn people away who needed [ 210 ]

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help.90 The situation was made worse by the constant haemorrhage of staff who were attracted by the higher pay and better living conditions in the towns and cities of central Gujarat. This left the remaining staff having to work long hours at high pressure, and several fell ill as a result. Margaret Johnson had, in addition, the strain of supervising the construction of the new hospital and fundraising against a background of continuing debt. She also had to face criticism from some Bhil Christians, who felt that the educational work of the mission was being starved of funds in favour of the medical work, and that such a big hospital was an over-indulgence.91 Her health began to deteriorate; in 1957, she went down with a debilitating glandular infection, which was followed by a severe bout of dysentery in 1958. She and Paul, fearing permanent damage to their health caused by such strains, began actively to plan their retirement. In the meantime, they took furlough in England during 1959–60. This in itself brought a setback, for when word got round that ‘Memsahib’ was away, far fewer patients came to Lusadiya, and the income of the hospital fell by more than half.92 Writing in 1959, Margaret Johnson stated that ‘our Christian witness in medical work is vital to the growing church’.93 For her, there could be no resting on her laurels: the hospital had to expand and improve if it was to flourish for this important end. The problem was that more and more funding was required. For some years the Bombay State authorities had been urging the missionaries to make Lusadiya a centre for the training of nurses, and she hoped that this would be possible once they had sufficient experienced staff to act as teachers.94 She felt that it was best first to start a training school for dais (midwives), and extend this to nurses later. She accepted that this would all involve a further extensive building programme.95 Nonetheless, they needed to do this to keep up with the times, for educated young people now demanded paper qualifications. As she stated in 1959: ‘In modern India all keen youngsters demand recognised certificates of training so that we are losing the best of our young Christians to the government institutions.’96 There were other needs also, such as more wards and kitchens for the patients, and a new outpatient unit. An upper floor was planned for the main building as well, with a surgical and maternity unit. The Land Rover also had to be replaced by a heavier-duty Jeep.97 Worrying about what would happen once she retired, Margaret Johnson wrote in 1959: ‘The Bhil Church is not in a position to take over yet, and we have found no Indian doctor suitable or prepared to take over the Medical Superintendency.’98 Although Arthur Banks acted in this capacity on a temporary basis while she was on furlough in 1959–60, the time had clearly arrived for an Indian to take over permanently. It was decided eventually that Robert Singh was the most [ 211 ]

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suitable candidate, and arrangements were made for him to be sent to England for further surgical training.99 He left in February 1961 and returned in March 1963. In the following month, April 1963, Margaret Johnson handed over charge and with Paul departed for England.100 There was the expected drop in numbers after she had gone, but work was still brisk, and the number of operations and X-ray examinations even increased in the following months. Road, railway and dam construction works by the government in the area brought a surge in accident cases, and Singh was able to put his new expertise gained in England in casualty and orthopaedic work to good use. As a result of all this, the hospital income went up that year. Overall, Singh reported that the services of the hospital continued to be in strong demand, and that the mission would soon have to expand its surgical, radiological and tuberculosis units. He had, it said, weathered the problem of transition and the local people had discovered that even without the Johnsons: our hospital team is still giving the same good Christian service and that the workers are full of missionary zeal to help them in their sickness. Patients and their relatives have now realised that we are all disciples of Christ, our Lord, who heals the physically and mentally ill and that we follow His commandment ‘To go unto all people to preach the gospel of love and to heal the sick.’101

This was, however, to be the last report that he was to write on an enterprise that was about to collapse.

Perceptions of healing Although the emphasis during these years was on creating a beacon of medical modernity at Lusadiya, the Bhils were drawn to the hospital not so much because they admired its new technologies and facilities, but because Margaret Johnson had reputation for being a healer of extraordinary power. This had begun at Biladiya, where she practised briefly in 1941–42, before moving to Lusadiya. Once news was about that a new doctor had arrived, patients were soon streaming in from as far as fifty kilometres away. In the first three months of 1942, she treated about three thousand patients in all. She found that the local Christian women were prepared to come to the dispensary ward for their confinements, and after it happened that the first four babies that she delivered were all boys, there was a rush in demand for this service, with pregnant women even coming for check-ups. Word had spread that a new ‘English doctor’ had arrived with wondrous powers, which in this case extended to influencing the sex of babies.102 A year later she noted [ 212 ]

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how ‘women come from near and far expecting me to do magical things by touching their pulse’.103 Writing many years later, a clergyman based at Lusadiya, the Reverend W. S. Bhagora, said that former patients of the hospital had often told him ‘that she was possessing of some godly power by which she was able to heal the sick people’. It was believed that even if her shadow fell on a sick person he or she had a good chance of recovery. This belief, he said, was found amongst both Christian and non-Christian people.104 Surjibhai Suvera, a Bhil Christian of Lusadiya who was born in 1929, remembered how when he was once sick she came to visit him, took his hand in hers and examined him with great compassion. She was always polite and exuded a spirit of kindness – you only had to look at her to feel better, such was her demeanour. People were impressed by the way in which she always held prayers before starting her day’s work and also before carrying out each operation, as they felt that her hand was guided by a higher power.105 In all this, it was understood that Margaret Johnson’s power stemmed from a combination of learnt skills and religious faith, with her practice being for her not only an expression of her Christian faith, but also a channel through which the power of a great deity – Jesus Christ – was invoked for the benefit of her patients. This – it was believed – gave her the ability to heal in seemingly miraculous ways. In an analogous manner, the indigenous healers – the buvas and bhopas – were believed to gain their curative powers from their ability to combine a hard-learnt practical knowledge of medicinal plants and healing techniques with divine inspiration. They believed their practice to be a form of worship, with the power of the supernatural being channelled through their bodies to provide succour for those who came to them for help. Indeed, in some parts of Gujarat, such healers described their power to cure as their bhakti, meaning an act of devotion to a deity.106 Margaret Johnson was not the only medical missionary working in Gujarat at this time with such a reputation. Dr Bramwell Cook, a New Zealander who served in the Salvation Army hospital at Anand in central Gujarat from 1932 to 1952, became famous all over the region for his great healing abilities. Even high-caste Hindus would insist on going to him for operations, as they knew that he was sincere in his practice, unlike many secular doctors, who had a reputation for being often callous and money-minded. Cook’s pre-operation prayers inspired trust in this respect – even though they were to a Christian God – with patients feeling confident that their operation would succeed as a result.107 In this, such patients were validating a healing practice that combined biomedical skills with a sincere faith – something that was perceived as lacking in many other doctors of that day and age. [ 213 ]

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As we have seen in Chapter 7, one of the Birketts’ greatest concerns, causing them many sleepless nights, had been the continuing hold over the converts of belief in evil spirits and witchcraft. The issue continued to be of concern to their successors. The diary of Charles Shaw for a period in late 1940 provides us with an insight into the ongoing dayto-day pastoral encounter between the missionaries and their flock in this respect. Shaw was then based at Lusadiya with his wife Lily. On 2 August 1940, the couple went together to Chhitadara to charge a Christian woman with using ‘magic’. Four days later, Shaw recorded that he had managed to make a Christian woman of Lusadiya admit ‘to black magic going on’. Three days later, he and Lily went to Mewada village to accuse some Christians there ‘of practising magic’. They all denied it. On 11 September, he addressed the congregation at Chhitadara on the topic of ‘magic.’ On 8 September the couple had a discussion with some local Christians about ‘devil-possession’, and to finish they all ‘prayed that the devil might be cast out’. Two days later, he grilled another Christian on this topic. On 16 November, he had to tackle a charge of witchcraft, forcing a confession, and on 5 December he convened a meeting of church elders to hear charges against three Christians who were alleged to have been involved in such practices.108 The Shaws and other missionaries of their generation believed very strongly that the well-being of the church could be maintained – and the souls of the converts saved – only if such practices were rooted out energetically. Thus, Agnes Lees – who began working for the mission in 1916 – stated at the time of her retirement in 1946 that human beings were naturally evil and drawn to the powers of darkness, but that once they came under the influence of Jesus Christ, they moved over to the side of goodness and light. In this way, they passed ‘from darkness to light, from wrath to salvation, from uncleanness to holiness, and from being aliens and foreigners to being children of God through faith in Christ Jesus’.109 From such a standpoint, it was morally wrong to turn a blind eye to practices that by their nature condemned those who indulged in them to eternal damnation. The Johnsons, representing a new generation of missionaries, judged the matter primarily from a medical rather than a pastoral and theological standpoint. Soon after her arrival in Lusadiya, Margaret Johnson noted that villagers who took treatment from local healers such as the buva put themselves at needless risk. She noted one case in which a two-year-old boy was suffering from an easily treatable mastoid infection. He was cauterised behind his ear with a red-hot poker placed, being burnt to the bone. The burn turned septic, and by the time he was brought to the hospital it was too late to save him. For her, such tragedies were the real evil of such beliefs and practices.110 Paul Johnson largely took the cue from his wife in this [ 214 ]

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respect. In a letter of 1945 he described in detail a propitiation ceremony conducted by a buva that he had witnessed, which involved the sacrifice of a chicken and the expulsion of the evil spirit. He commented that ‘This event took place only five kilometres away from our Christian Hospital and the sad thing is that the sick person, often in a dying condition, will be brought to the Hospital.’ For him, this revealed how the Bhils were still bound by ‘ignorant superstition’.111 From such a standpoint, the prime need was to attack the hold of ‘backwardness’ and ‘ignorance’ through a medical education that explained the causes of disease, the efficacy of appropriate biomedical intervention and the need to prevent ill health through hygiene and sanitation. In this, the missionaries could project themselves as being in tune with the nation-building and developmental priorities of the new India. A modern hospital could only be one component of such a programme – medical outreach through lectures and regular village clinics was also vital. Margaret Johnson had from the start wanted to extend the medical work in this direction – one that, as we have seen in Chapter 10, had until then been largely neglected in the mission – but understaffing at the hospital, a lack of suitable transport over the rough and broken roads, and a severe shortage of petrol that had continued until the late 1940s had all conspired to prevent any significant outreach work. She was able to rectify this from 1950 onwards, when she was able to organise regular visits to villages around Lusadiya by a team consisting of a doctor, a compounder and a lay pastor who preached to the patients and sold gospels and religious tracts. Besides holding clinics, they went from house to house trying to discover if anyone required treatment. Margaret Johnson reported that by this means: We . . . often find cases who from their own or their relatives’ inertia would lie there for months without getting any treatment than the superstitious rites practised by everyone in these parts. I am always pointing out the foolishness of lying down beside a well to die of thirst. The simile is exact and the cause a combination of laziness, superstition, suspicion and ignorance, which may be summed up in the one word fatalism. Village visits can do more to dispel this than a lifetime of sitting in one’s consulting room.112

Besides treating the sick, they sought to prevent future sickness through lectures on disease causation, sanitation and hygiene. For example, they tried to impress on the people the link between stagnant water and malarial mosquitoes, though, in Margaret Johnson’s words: ‘They don’t believe a word of it.’113 The lay preacher who accompanied them to the villages showed waiting patients picture-books that [ 215 ]

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illustrated each phase of Christ’s life, as well as health charts and stories with a sanitary moral. The latter had been procured from an organisation called India Village Service.114 In 1953, the touring group was joined by one of the mission schoolteachers who had been cured of tuberculosis through treatment at Lusadiya, who gave similar talks.115 Something of the flavour of this work of medical education was conveyed in an interview with Rajnikant Christian, who said that the mission workers sought above all to convince the people that diseases were not caused by the blow of an evil spirit (bhutmar), the curse of a witch (dakhan) or the anger of a goddess (matajino kop), or as a curse (shrap) caused by the past misdeeds of themselves or their ancestors, but by a pathological condition that could be cured medically. It was widely believed, for example, that evil spirits might make people gradually weaken and die while coughing blood. The mission workers taught them that the real cause was probably tuberculosis, or perhaps a peptic ulcer. If the former, the blood that was coughed from a diseased lung would be of a brick-red colour, if the latter, the blood came from the stomach and was dark red in colour. Doctors, the villagers were told, could thus diagnose the problem and treat it in the hospital. Similarly, when a person had a high temperature and began to convulse and shout in pain, it was not because an evil spirit had entered into his or her body and was crying out, but because of – most probably – malarial fever, which again could be treated through drugs. The missionaries used to project pictures on a wall illustrating different diseases. They also tried to explain the need for medical care in delivery, showing pictures of women’s bodies and explaining, for example, how the common practice of pressing on the stomach of a woman in labour was likely to tear the uterus and cause severe injury to the mother.116 The campaign was extended from 1954 in a way that linked the message of health, hygiene and sanitation with instruction on citizenship, education, sobriety, agricultural improvement and the Christian way of life. All the mission staff – medical and non-medical alike – were expected to take part in this. Paul and Margaret Johnson were inspired by work that was being carried out at a Christian organisation at Ankleshwar in southern Gujarat called the Rural Service Centre. This body promoted a range of programmes that were designed to improve the lot of peasant farmers, such as, in Paul Johnson’s words, ‘literacy, farmer’s associations, agricultural and poultry improvements, rural libraries, home crafts, health and sanitation, Bible study and the Christian Home movement’. They sent two young Bhils there in 1954 to be trained. After their return, the two toured villages teaching improved agricultural techniques and the need for ‘personal cleanliness, sanitation and drinking “safe” water’. The schoolmasters in the [ 216 ]

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mission schools also were encouraged to focus more strongly on inculcating the idea that good citizenship involved ‘knowledge of health and hygiene, cleanliness, discipline’.117 In the past, the mission workers had sought to capture audiences through magic-lantern shows that illustrated scenes from the Bible. By the mid-twentieth century, this particular media was losing its novelty. The movies had arrived, with, for example, two cinemas plying their trade at the annual mela at Shamlaji, and a circus as an added attraction. Faced with such competition, magic-lantern shows could no longer attract large audiences.118 In 1954, the mission put on the first film shows of its own when a visiting Methodist missionary arrived with a portable electric generator, film projector and loudspeakers. His shows at Lusadiya and Biladiya combined the religious epic King of Kings with health documentaries. About 2,000 Christians and nonChristians turned up to view the open-air show at Lusadiya.119 The mission also acquired a Kerascope filmstrip projector from a donation by an English well-wisher.120 This was used by the two young men trained at Ankleshwar at a camp they held in 1955 for twenty-one Bhil students from the parishes of Lusadiya, Biladiya and Kherwara. Lectures on ‘marriage, money and giving, health and certain common diseases’ were illustrated with relevant filmstrips.121 In the same year a group of Lusadiya women went to a conference at Ankleshwar, and on their return held regular meetings for women that consisted of a religious discourse followed by a talk on health and home-making illustrated by filmstrips. These attracted large and appreciative audiences, and there were, according to Margaret Johnson, ‘keen and interested’ discussions of these issues.122 The group also assembled a set of flash cards and posters that explained about germs, dirt, tetanus, the effects of drinking dirty water and so on.123 Margaret Johnson believed that a key to breaking down the old beliefs lay in educating mothers on the causes of disease and the need for cleanliness and hygiene. For this, she needed to take the message to women in their villages, but during the early years she had lacked staff with time to do this.124 This began to be rectified from the mid-1950s. Gladys Smith, who had been appointed initially as a nanny for Margaret Johnson’s children, became free for other work when they were sent to boarding school in early 1955. Smith moved to Biladiya, where she worked as a village health visitor. She organised baby welfare clinics in villages in which flash cards and posters were used to dispel ‘ignorance of infant feeding and care’ and to promote ‘positive health teaching ’125 Efforts were made also to organise meetings for women and establish local women’s organisations. In 1957, for example, Rupji Bhanat organised a conference for the women of the Biladiya area that was attended [ 217 ]

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by about sixty women. A projector and films were brought over from Lusadiya to show religious and health educational films.126 In 1958, Margaret Johnson established the first Gujarati branch of the Mothers’ Union, based in Lusadiya. Twenty-six women who were willing to serve their community joined and began visiting homes and instructing mothers on the need for cleanliness. From 1957 onwards, Margaret Kirk and two young Bhil women who had been trained in midwifery made regular medical propaganda tours to villages around Lusadiya. They showed pictures that set out the causes of diseases and simple forms of prevention. They also distributed dried milk, rice and beans to malnourished children in Lusadiya and three nearby villages, and rice and beans to old and destitute people and those recovering from severe illnesses. The food came from the USA under the PL 480 ‘Food for Peace’ programme that had been inaugurated in 1954. One difficulty they encountered was that they were in general prevented from meeting and talking to expectant mothers. According to Kirk, there was a widespread belief that women should never take any medicine while pregnant, and it was feared that the medical workers would try to persuade them otherwise. She gave an example of a young pregnant woman called Shantibai whom, as an exception, they had managed to examine. They were gravely concerned about her weak and sickly condition, but despite strong encouragement, she refused to take any treatment. Her family backed her up in this. Kirk told them that they were putting her life in danger and that they should at least take her to Lusadiya for her delivery. As it was Shantibai gave birth at home, but had to be brought to the hospital six days later with acute sepsis. Despite being given the latest drugs, she was by then very weak and she died. Kirk concluded: ‘We are hoping and praying that as people get to know us better, they will gradually trust us more, and that we shall be able to break down this most difficult of all barriers of fear and superstition.’127 Margaret Johnson was well aware that attitudes would not be shifted overnight. Writing in 1954, she said that ‘It takes time to change the habits of thousands of years and the village homes are the strongholds of the old bad habits so it is there that we must tackle them.’128 She stressed that without gaining the confidence and friendship of oftensuspicious villagers, the missionaries had little change of success. There were a few hopeful signs. Writing in 1955, she noted that patients at the hospital were accepting the need for blood tests, and that ‘the superstition about having their blood drawn off is being dissipated’.129 Other reports were less sanguine. Gladys Smith reported in 1956 that it was extremely hard to convince Bhil women of the need for hygiene and preventive measures. When she tried to persuade them, they [ 218 ]

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replied that it was not necessary, for if their babies or children fell ill they could always take them to the hospital at Lusadiya or dispensary at Biladiya for treatment. She noted that even the dispensary staff at Biladiya continued to be careless over matters of hygiene.130 In all, progress in this sphere was frustratingly slow, encountering all sorts of stubborn opposition at every turn. Despite all of this publicity focusing on the physical causes of ill health, there was also a continuing emphasis on the psychosomatic in healing. Patients of all sorts at Lusadiya – whether Christian, nonChristian Bhils, caste Hindus or Muslims – joined without complaint in the weekly ritual of prayers, Christian homilies and hymns that was celebrated on the veranda.131 All those involved regarded this as central to the healing process. The organic link between the hospital and the church on the nearby hill was underscored with an annual celebration of ‘Hospital Sunday.’ This involved a procession by the hospital staff to the church while singing Christian bhajans, accompanied by drums and manjira (small cymbals).132 The Christian doctors at the hospital were all, without exception, firm believers in the efficacy of prayer in treatment. Margaret Johnson thus reported in 1960 how she and Paul had performed constant prayers while she was operating to try to save a Bhil woman who had been burnt severely in a domestic accident. The case seemed hopeless, but to their amazement, the woman had survived.133 Writing two years earlier, Arthur Banks wrote about two children whose parents had removed them from the hospital before they had recovered. He had held prayers for them, and he later found out that they had made unexpected progress. The two cases, he said, had ‘convinced me how much more vital is prayer than our instruments and medicines’. He had established a Healer Prayer Circle Union to perform mass prayers for sick parishioners.134 Robert Singh wrote in 1964 of a small boy who had been brought to the hospital with a smashed skull. His brain was exposed and damaged, and Singh was sure that he would die. He told the boy’s father that only a miracle could save the child, and that they must pray to God. Their prayers were, he believed, answered, for the boy soon recovered ‘miraculously’. ‘From that case’, Singh commented, ‘I have learnt not to give up hope even for the worst possible case, but to trust the Lord and do whatever we best can do in our small hospital.’ He felt that God was using their hospital to show that through faith ‘anything and everything’ was possible.135 Although the medical missionaries had always sought to augment their biomedical treatment with prayer, it is possible to detect in these statements a more confident assertion of the efficacy of prayer, as well as an attempt to use prayer in treatment in a more systematic way, as [ 219 ]

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in the establishment by Banks of a prayer circle that canvassed the prayers of the Christians community as a whole to be directed in a focused manner on particular cases. Thus, while on the one hand the obsession with banishing all ‘satanic’ healing practices from the life of the local congregation was fading away to be replaced by a new stress on the need for medical education, on the other hand there was a greater emphasis on the role of prayer in healing. In some respects, this represented an adjustment by the missionaries to the values of the converts, for the Bhil Christians placed a firm emphasis on combating illness through prayer. In Ghodi village, for example, the congregation as a whole took it on themselves to visit the houses of sick people to perform mass prayers. According to Philip Parmar, their results were such that even those who had not converted had requested them to come to their houses to perform the prayers. By this means they had managed to save a non-Christian who was considered to be on his deathbed.136 The new prominence given to prayer by the Christian doctors and priests can in this respect be seen as a part of the ongoing decolonisation and democratisation of the church. But also, new psychoanalytical theories on the realm of the unconscious in human behaviour had provided an opening for a more confident assertion in mainstream Anglican circles of the power of psychosomatic forces in healing. Theologians could now make a case for the power of faith and prayer in healing that could no longer be dismissed as mere superstition.137 We may close this chapter with an anecdote about Margaret Johnson, related to me in an interview, that sums up many of these particular themes. Patients often used to tell her what the buva had advised them with respect to their illness. If on examination she found that the problem was minor, such as headache or excess gas, she would give them a note to take to the compounder, prescribing either a B-complex tablet dissolved in water or perhaps just plain water. After taking this drink, they would invariably say that they felt better. She would then tell them that although they had not in fact been given any medicine, their faith in her medical abilities had cured them. She pointed out that faith in the buva might have a similar effect, as did faith in God and prayer. However, she would continue, if they had a serious condition, such as tuberculosis, faith by itself was unlikely to help them. Nor would the buva be any use, however many coconuts, chicken or goats they paid him. The only remedy was the correct medicine, as prescribed by her. Even then, they would need to pray and be prayed for if they were to be sure of healing in full.138 In this way, rather than condemning the buva outright, as her predecessors would have done, Margaret Johnson appreciated that such healers might be effective at some [ 220 ]

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levels. They had, however, severe limitations, so that it was better for people to place their trust in Christian doctors, who would cure them of their ills more surely through a combination of good medicine, compassionate care and prayer.

Notes 1

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2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

John R. Stanley, ‘Professionalising the Rural Medical Mission in Weixian, 1890– 1925’, in Hardiman (ed.), Healing Bodies, Saving Souls, pp. 119–31. Ruth Compton Brouwer, Modern Women Modernizing Men: The Changing Missions of Three Professional Women in Asia and Africa, 1902–69 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2002), pp. 8–13. Charles Howard Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism 1865–1915 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), p. vii. Ibid., p. 7. Paul A. Carter, The Decline and Revival of the Social Gospel: Social and Political Liberalism in American Protestant Churches, 1920–1940 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956), p. 4. Hopkins, Rise of the Social Gospel, pp. 319–26. Carter, Decline and Revival, pp. 4–5. Ibid., pp. 220–5. The staff are described in ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 11–12. M. Johnson to H. Anderson, Lusadiya, 16 July 1942, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1942; ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 12. P. Johnson, annual letter, 28 August 1942, Paul Johnson papers. Ibid. M. Johnson to H. Anderson, Dohad, 21 September 1941, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1941; P. Johnson circular letter, 17 November 1941, Paul Johnson papers. The Biladiya dispensary continued to function during the 1940s and 1950s much as it had done in the past, as described in Chapter 10. It did not expand at all. I have therefore not set out its further history in this chapter. ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 11–12. H. Anderson to M. Johnson, London, 16 November 1942, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1942. ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1943), 13; ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1945), 11. Ibid. Mash, ‘Margaret Fitzhugh Johnson’, p. 26. ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1943), 14. Mash, ‘Margaret Fitzhugh Johnson’, p. 29. ‘C.M.S. Bhil Mission Medical Statistics, 1943’, BMR (1943), 38. M. Johnson to Dr Anderson, Lusadiya, 16 July 1942, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1942; ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 11. ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1943), 13. ‘C.M.S. Bhil Mission Medical Statistics, 1945’, BMR (1945), 24. ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1945), 11–12. P. H. and M. H. Johnson, ‘Lusadia Hospital: Report for 1944’, autumn 1945, CMS, G2 I 3m 1, 1945. ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1945), 11. ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1946), 15. Dr H. G. Anderson, ‘Journal’, no. XV, entry for 20 November 1949, CMS, M/AD 4, 1949. Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002. Agnes Lees to Cranswick, Malvern, 17 April 1940, CMS, I 3 I, sub-file 1, 1939. M. Johnson to H. Anderson, Lusadiya, 16 July 1942, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1942. Agnes Lees to Cranswick, Malvern, 17 April 1940, CMS, I 3 I, sub-file 1, 1939. Dr H. G. Anderson, ‘Journal’, no. XV, entry for 20 November 1949, CMS, M/AD 4, 1949.

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38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

Interview with Rajnikant Daniel Christian, Nava Rewas, Idar Taluka, 17 December 2002. M. Johnson to H. Anderson, Dohad, 21 September 1941, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1941. Gladys Christian, ‘Report of the Lusadiya Branch of the Mothers’ Union 1959’, BMR (1957–58), 14. ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1950), 11. ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1946), 17–18; M. Johnson, ‘CMS Mission Share Plan, New Sheet 1947 B, Lusadia Hospital’, CMS, G2 I 3 m1, 1947; ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1947), 9. ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1946), 16. Ibid. ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1950), 10. This was true in general in the field of tropical medicine at the time. See Mark Harrison and Michael Worboys, ‘A Disease of Civilisation: Tuberculosis in Britain, Africa and India, 1900–39’, in Lara Marks and Michael Worboys (eds.), Migrants, Minorities and Health: Historical and Contemporary Studies (London: Routledge, 1997), p. 93. ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1948), 10–11. ‘Dr. Ashirvadam Writes’, BMR (1950), 13. By the mid-twentieth century, tuberculosis was the second-greatest cause of mortality in India as a whole. See Harrison and Worboys, ‘A Disease of Civilisation’, p.116. ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, and ‘Dr. Ashirvadam Writes’, BMR (1950), 9 and 13. Harold Balme, ‘Medical Missions in the World of To-Day’, Conquest by Healing, 25:1 (March 1948), 10. ‘Dr. (Mrs) Ashirvadam Writes’, BMR (1951), 9 and 13. Interview with Rajnikant Christian, Nava Rewas, Idar Taluka, 17 December 2002. ‘Dr. (Mrs) Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1953), 15 and 24. Interview with Rajnikant Christian, Nava Rewas, Idar Taluka, 17 December 2002. ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1950), 9. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1955), 9. ‘Dr. Arthur Banks Writes’, BMR (1957), 15. ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1949), 9–10. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1952), 17. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1951), 11 and 17–18. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1952), 17–18. Ibid. ‘Dr. Ashirvadam Writes’, BMR (1952), 21. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1951), 18–19. M. Johnson to Anderson, Modasa, 19 April 1954, CMS, G2 I 3/2, 1954. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1954), 18–19. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1952), 17. M. Johnson to Campbell, Birmingham, 28 April 1953, CMS, G2 I 3/2, 1953. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1954), 19. T. Tate to D. Stevens, Lusadiya, 2 December 1959, CMS, G2 I 3/1, 1955–59, subfiles 3 and 4. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1958), 7–8. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1954), 20. ‘Miss Kirk Writes’, BMR (1953), 18. ‘Miss Kirk Writes’, BMR (1954), 24. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1954), 20. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1952), 19. ‘Miss Kirk Writes’, BMR (1955), 18. ‘Miss Kirk Writes’, BMR (1955), 19 and 20–1. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1957), 4. Ibid., 8. Margaret Johnson, ‘Bringing Health to the Bhils’, CMS Outlook (October 1953), 5. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1957), 7–8.

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82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117

‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1955), 9. M. Johnson to Campbell and Anderson, Lusadiya, 10 June 1957, CMS, G2 I 3/1, subfile 1, 1955–59. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1956–57), 7–9. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1957), 3–4. Ibid., 4–5; ‘Miss Auerbach Writes’, BMR (1957–58), 11. Interview with Rajnikant Christian, Nava Rewas, 17 December 2002. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1958), 5. Interview with Ashraydas Kavdabhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 19 December 2002. P. Johnson to Wittenbach, Lusadiya, 16 June 1958, CMS, G2 3/1, 1955–59, sub-file 1. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1957), 6; ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1958), 6. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1959–60), 4. Norman Macpherson to Dr Anderson, 31 January 1959, CMS, G2 I 3/2; M. Wilson, Secretary of CMS, Bombay, to Wittenbach, Bombay 28 April 1958, CMS, G2 I 3/1, 1955–59, sub-file 3 & 4. ‘Dr. Banks Writes’, LMHR (1959–60), 6. ‘Precis of Dr. Margaret Johnson’s Talk to Medical Committee on 3rd November 1959’, CMS, G2 I 3/1, 1955–59, sub-file 5. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1957), 6. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1958), 6. ‘Precis of Dr. Margaret Johnson’s Talk to Medical Committee on 3rd November 1959’, CMS, G2 I 3/1, 1955–59, sub-file 5. Ibid. Ibid. ‘Dr. Banks Writes’, LMHR (1959–60), 7. Robert S. Singh, ‘Christ Church Hospital, Lusadia’, LMHR (1963–64), 5. Ibid., 9. M. Johnson to H. Anderson, Lusadiya, 16 July 1942, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1942. ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1943), 14. Rev. W. S. Bhagora to P. Johnson, Lusadiya, 20 December 1978, Paul Johnson papers. Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002. Information from Gauri Raje, from research on healers in the Dangs. Interview with Makrand Mehta, Ahmedabad, 13 December 2002. Dr W. J. Wanless of the Miraj Mission Hospital in Maharashtra had a similar reputation in the early years of the century. A well-to-do Parsi patient who had come a great distance for medical treatment rather than use the hospital near his home stated: ‘I know that Dr. Wanless prays before he performs an operation, and because he personally visits and is interested in all his surgical patients, and because he tells us the exact truth and does just what he says he will do.’ Alice K. Ebey, ‘India Notes’, The Missionary Visitor, 15:12 (December 1913), 402. Another report said of Wanless: ‘He has often spent several hours before daybreak praying over difficult cases that were entrusted to him’. Anna M. Ebey, ‘Marathi Mission in India’, The Missionary Visitor, 18:1 (January 1916), 25. Diary of Charles Shaw, 1940, Charles and Lilian Shaw papers, CMS, Unofficial Papers, Acc. 162, Box F1, 1934–46. ‘Miss A. J. Lees Writes’, BMR (1946), 33. Mash, ‘Margaret Fitzhugh Johnson’, p. 29. Paul Johnson, Circular Letter no. 4, 20 August 1945, Paul Johnson papers. ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1950), 11. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1951), 19. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1953), 17. ‘Address by the Rev. P. H. Johnson (Bhil Mission) at CMS House, Salisbury Square, London, 1953’, Paul Johnson papers. Interview with Rajnikant Christian, Nava Rewas, Sabarkantha District, 17 December 2002. ‘The Ven. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1954), 12–13.

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120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138

‘The Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1949), 1. ‘The Rev. R. G. Bhanat Writes’, and ‘The Ven. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1954), 9 and 17. ‘Miss Kirk Writes from England’, BMR (1952), 23. ‘The Ven. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1955), 6–7. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1955), 11. Nicholas Johnson, ‘India – My Home’, 14 November 1998, p. 8, Paul Johnson papers. ‘Dr Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1958), 8. ‘Miss G. M. Smith Writes’, BMR (1955), 15. ‘The Rev. R. G. Bhanat Writes’, BMR (1956–57), 15. ‘Miss Kirk Writes’, BMR (1956–57), 11–12. ‘Mrs. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1953), 15. ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1954), 20. ‘Miss G. M. Smith Writes’, BMR (1955), 15. ‘Dr. V. G. Koshy Writes’, BMR (1948), 11. ‘Miss N. F. Tate Writes’, BMR (1957–58), 13. Circular letter by Paul and Margaret Johnson, 18 November 1960, p. 3, Paul Johnson papers. ‘Dr. Arthur Banks Writes’, BMR (1957–58), 17. Robert G. Singh, LMHR (1963–64), 7. ‘The Rev. P. B. Parmar Writes’, BMR (1946), 23. For a study of this development, see Mews, ‘Revival of Spiritual Healing’, pp. 300–1. Interview with Rajnikant Christian, Nava Rewas, 17 December 2002.

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In 1964, a special meeting of the World Council of Churches was convened at Tübingen in Germany to discuss the role of the medical mission in the postcolonial era. Lesslie Newbigin, a former bishop of the Church of South India, recalled how medical missionaries working in remote villages had once been at the forefront of the evangelical battle against ‘the forces of evil’, revealing to the people the superiority of Christian over and above pagan forms of healing. Successful healing by missionaries had validated the preached Word in a simple and direct way. Now, however, as secular medical services were extended into remote areas by modern governments, medical missionaries were no longer in such a unique position. The errors of local healers were being exposed by other, secular means. In some respects, this could be seen as a fulfilment of the work of medical missionaries – they had started a system of health care for the poor that governments were now taking up. However, it also meant that the missionaries had lost a particular advantage. He wondered whether this meant that the time had come to wind up this branch of Christian evangelical work. Would it not be better to now teach Christians doctors and nurses to act as good Christians within a secular medical system?1 In his contribution to the debate, Erling Kayser, a Norwegian who had served as a medical missionary in Indonesia, pointed out what he saw as an even deeper problem. Newbigin took it as a given that modern biomedicine was superior to indigenous systems that were associated with paganism. In this, he ignored the disquiet that had grown in recent years about biomedicine, with scandals such as the thalidomide affair, ‘which was in a sense, an epidemic of a very handicapping disease, brought about by a modern drug, the result of the physician’s work’. There was a widespread feeling that something was seriously wrong with biomedicine. Also, much disease was hardly understood, and it was increasingly realised that many illnesses were [ 225 ]

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psychosomatic. This being the case, ‘Can the medical profession . . . continue to ignore or look askance at pre-scientific forms of healing?’ Citing Freud, he argued that disease was likely to develop if strong emotions were repressed or were in conflict. ‘The point is that there is no dichotomy between soul and body.’2 The implication here was that Christians might serve their cause better if they focused on spiritual rather than biomedical healing. Whether from Newbigin’s or Kayser’s point of view, the wheel appeared to have turned against the medical mission project. This was certainly the case in western India, where there was a spate of closures of Protestant mission hospitals in the 1950s and 1960s. The main reason given at the time by the various denominations was that with the growing indigenisation of their churches in the past decades, funding was no longer forthcoming from Europe and America to maintain such costly establishments. Within the state of Gujarat, the Methodists closed their hospital in Baroda in 1956, the Irish Presbyterians their hospitals in Bharuch, Surendranagar and Anand in 1956, 1965 and 1966 respectively, the Church of the Brethren their hospital in Valsad in 1965, and the CMS its hospital in Lusadiya in 1964. Of a total of eleven Protestant mission hospitals in Gujarat, six closed during this period, leaving only five. In many cases the closures caused much bad feeling. This was the case in Anand, where the mission hospital was a flourishing and much-loved institution. The closure split the local congregation, with those who resented it running parallel church services and other activities. The dispute continued for five years, until a compromise was reached when the hospital premises were rented out to a Christian doctor who opened a private hospital there.3 The closure of Lusadiya Hospital in 1964 was, similarly, the cause of strong local controversy. Some felt that the Bishop of Bombay at that time, C. J. G. Robinson, was out of touch with local feelings in the matter. Since 1961, the medical work of the CMS had come under the direct administration of the Anglican Diocese of Bombay, and faced by financial problems, Bishop Robinson had sanctioned widespread slashing of both medical and educational spending. Lusadiya Hospital was one of the establishments that lost out.4 There was no doubt that it was in a state of financial crisis. Although there had been a time in the 1950s when it had been breaking even and even at times making a profit from fees and donations, the situation had changed for the worse in the early 1960s. One reason for this was that Margaret Johnson had been reluctant to pursue those who had failed to keep up their health subscriptions, even when they had taken treatment for themselves and their families. This generosity had enhanced her popularity, but it had [ 226 ]

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created a problem for the hospital that became all too apparent when the books were examined by her successors. When the new superintendent, Dr Robert Singh, tried to make the subscribers pay their dues so that he could balance the accounts there was much acrimony, for many of the Christians felt that they had a right to free treatment.5 In his report for 1963–64, Singh noted that the problems were such that they were severely tempted to close the hospital. The cost of living was rising every day and they could no longer afford to pay a realistic wage to their staff of fifty at Lusadiya and six at Biladiya.6 Some long-term opponents of the hospital managed to turn the situation to their advantage. The leader of this group was Dr Daniel Christian, who had continued over the years to snipe at what he saw as the unnecessary and unviable expansion of the hospital.7 One of his leading supporters was Dr I. J. Pukadyil, who had been dismissed in 1957 – departing with threats of vengeance – and who was now running a small clinic in Tintoi village. Others who joined him included several Bhil Christians who had for some time been aggrieved that the educational work of the mission had been starved of funds to pay for the hospital.8 The opponents were able to mobilise considerable support for the closure of the hospital, to the extent that Bishop Robinson was able to claim that a majority of Christian Bhils supported the move. Whether or not this was true, a significant number also protested against the decision.9 The affair as a whole left a bitter taste within the Christian community. The hospital thus lay abandoned. Without maintenance, the older country-style buildings eventually collapsed, leaving derelict shells. The main concrete structure of the new hospital – built in the 1950s – proved more substantial. In 1996, a Tamil Christian couple from south India who work for a Christian social service organisation called the Navjeevan Seva Mandal took charge. He is a compounder by training and she is a nurse. They live in the large and sprawling house that was once inhabited by the Birketts and their successors, and they have opened up some of the rooms of the hospital for use as a small dispensary with one bed for an inpatient. Today its cavernous main hall is largely empty but for a few worn tables and chairs, left only with the memories of a busier past. It attracts a fitful number of patients – around ten to twelve each day.10 The doctors, nurses and others with recognised medical qualification who lost their jobs in 1964 had little difficulty in finding alternative ones elsewhere, normally on much better pay. One such person was Ashraydas Suvera, a Bhil who was born in Lusadiya in 1935. His grandfather was one of the original converts in Lusadiya, at the time of the great famine. He had studied at Lusadiya, at Biladiya, and then at a [ 227 ]

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secondary school in Modasa, where he gained his matriculation. He was trained in pharmacy under Dr Cook in the mission hospital at Anand between 1951 and 1953, gaining a certificate. He returned to Lusadiya and worked there as a compounder and surgical assistant. After the hospital was closed, he found employment with the government and worked at medical centres in three different places in Sabarkantha District before he retired in 1993.11 Many of mission medical staff had however been recruited from the mission schools and trained on the job, and although generally competent in their tasks as compounders, dressers, nurses or midwifes, they lacked the paper qualifications that were essential for outside medical employment. The church authorities took the matter up with the Government of Gujarat, explained the situation and requested that the talents of such people should not be wasted and that they be given the status of Registered Medical Practitioner (RMP). They were interviewed, and in many cases given the required certificate as a one-off concession. Armed with this piece of paper, they were able to once more practise their skills.12 Some used their certificates to get positions in government-run institutions. One such person was Singrabhai Varsat, the son of another famine orphan. He had studied at Biladiya to the seventh standard, after which he was taken on as a compounder at Lusadiya. When the hospital closed he was given what I was told was a ‘Memsahib’s Certificate’ that enabled him to find work as a compounder in a government health centre elsewhere in Sabarkantha District. He worked in two other health centres in other parts of the district before he retired, after which he went to live in Vaghpur, near Lusadiya. While there, he used to treat a few patients who requested ‘English medicine’, but this was not a regular practice. He died in 1992 at the age of sixty-six. I was told these details by his younger brother, who seems to have been under the impression that Margaret Johnson (‘Memsahib’) had the power to hand out RMP certificates, a confusion that says something about her continuing repute in the area.13 Others decided to work as community ‘doctors’ based in villages. They had the competence to carry out basic diagnosis and treatment, providing allopathic drugs, injections and minor surgery. One such person was Harjibhai Asari, who was born in 1915. His father was one of the Bhil orphans who had been converted at the time of the great famine of 1899–1900. Harjibhai was educated in the mission school at Kherwara, and after he passed his vernacular final exam he was appointed a teacher in the mission school at Bavaliya in Idar State. After the Johnsons arrived, he was persuaded to join the medical side of the mission, and was sent to the mission hospital at Anand for training [ 228 ]

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under Dr Cook. He returned to Lusadiya to work as a compounder in the hospital, working there until it closed in 1964. He was one of the ones who received an RMP certificate, and he decided to set up an independent practice at Bavaliya. He worked from a room in his house, which was identical to the houses of his neighbours. He was known as a ‘doctor’ who prescribed ‘English’ medicine (angreji dawa). He obtained his medicine from the towns of Idar and Himatnagar. He often gave injections and vaccinations, and performed minor surgery, such as draining pus or extracting teeth. He took a small fee, for example eight annas for an injection. If a patient was very poor, he would not demand payment. He was, he told me in an interview, a very popular ‘doctor’, and people would come to him from surrounding villages for treatment. Some came from as far away as Rajasthan. He continued to practise in this way until about 1990, when his eyesight began to deteriorate. His son Enjalkumar had meanwhile trained as an Ayurvedic doctor in Ahmedabad, for which he received a certificate to practise medicine. He took over his father’s practice, and continues to this day to work in Bavaliya as, essentially, a biomedical ‘doctor’. Enjalkumar told me that nowadays the people of the area generally approach him rather than go to a buva.14 I was told of a number of other former staff members of the hospital who opened similar practices in villages in the area.15 Some of those who had managed to find government employment also carried on such a practice from their homes after their retirement. They generally worked from very modest premises, stocked with a small range of drugs. They were addressed locally with an honorific ‘Dr’ before their names, being distinguished in this way from other local healers, most notably the buva. The closure of the hospital thus had a diasporic effect, scattering men and women trained in allopathic medicine and with a biomedical understanding of disease all over the area. In each place, they became a nucleus for such medical provision, gaining acceptance for it on a day-to-day basis through their ongoing practice. While they have not displaced the buva and suchlike diviners and exorcists, they exist alongside them, providing an additional service for all those who choose to avail themselves of it. Like the buvas, they enjoy status within their society. Because of their relative isolation, and also perhaps because they are limited by their training, they have tended to focus on a rather narrow range of treatments. Their main repertoire of drugs consists of chloroquine (for malaria), terramycin and chloramphenicol (two broadspectrum antibiotics), B-complex (for debilitation and also it seems as a general panacea) and calcium gluconate (for ‘weakness’). The latter is much appreciated as it makes the body warm, and patients feel that it [ 229 ]

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is having a good effect on them. They also provide injections and glucose drips, both of which are in strong demand. Because of this, these drugs are, if possible, administered in a solution in a drip or injection rather than in tablet form. They also carry out deliveries.16 Some of these remedies are open to question, either on the ground of unsuitability or because of potential harmful side-effects, and because wrong dosage and overuse can build bacterial resistance. Be that as it may, this is how biomedical treatment is most widely provided and practised in India today. In many respects, this has vindicated the approach that had been favoured by Dr Daniel Christian, namely that of providing small-scale local biomedical facilities run by Bhils for Bhils as a community service. Daniel himself continued to practise in this way in Lusadiya, as well as playing a leading role within the Christian community of the area, up until his death in 1996. Other medically qualified Bhils – not all Christians – have subsequently followed his example in this respect. For example, Dr B. D. Damor and his wife Suryaben, who are nonChristian Bhils with medical training, have practised in Sabarkantha District since 1985. In 1994, they opened the small ‘Shamlaji General Hospital’, which serves the people of this small town and its surrounding area. Trained as an orthopaedic surgeon, he specialises in fractures but also carries out basic general surgery, while she deploys her qualification as an anaesthetist to assist in the operations. He is strongly critical of beliefs about supernatural causation of disease and popular healing practices, and in an interview he suggested some ‘scientific’ reasons why such remedies at times appear – mistakenly – to work. He is a strong Bhil patriot who is involved in local politics, and in my interview with him he also deplored the failure of the Gujarat Government to acknowledge or commemorate the participation of the Sabarkantha Bhils in India’s freedom struggle. In all this, he is very well rooted within his community.17 Daniel Christian’s own son, Rajnikant, followed a similar path. Born in 1945, he studied initially at Lusadiya, and then in towns outside the area. He wanted to become an engineer or a lawyer, but his father insisted that he become a doctor and serve his people. He studied medicine in Ahmedabad, and after qualification worked for two years with Dr Pukadyil – Daniel’s old ally – in Tintoi village. After working for two further years with his father in Lusadiya, he established his own practice in 1980 at Nava Rewas village. His surgery consists of a single very modest room on the main road between Bhiloda and Idar, where he sits throughout the day examining and treating all comers, mainly with the allopathic drugs that he stocks there. He has a car, which he uses to go to see people in their homes when requested, and he carries out deliveries. He has no assistants.18 I found [ 230 ]

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that in general, such people are strongly critical of the buvas, bhopas and other indigenous healers, whom they regard as quacks and often charlatans. Despite the presence of such allopathic doctors, it is clear that the medical mission to the Bhils failed to inculcate any general or widespread understanding of the principles of this system of medicine. The attempt to carry out active health education got off the ground only in the 1950s, just before the mission closed down, coming too late in the day to have any widespread impact. This failure can be seen, to take one striking example, in popular beliefs about intravenous injections, in which an allopathic remedy is understood to possess almost magical powers. Its origins go back to the period after the Second World War, when new ‘wonder-drugs’ such as antibiotics became available that were able – when administered correctly – to bring rapid relief from a range of maladies. The belief soon developed that the strongest and most certain cure for many complaints was through ‘an injection’, and soon people were demanding this ‘fast’ remedy, even when it was not appropriate. When Margaret Johnson set up her health insurance scheme at Lusadiya in 1946, injections were considered too expensive and exceptional a remedy to be covered by it – those who wanted one had to pay extra. Nonetheless, she also reported at this time that injections were becoming increasingly popular. By the late 1950s, she was reporting that villagers were commonly demanding ‘an injection and medicine’ in the first instance. There was a strong belief that all that was required was a single injection. This had no clinical base, for allopathic practice requires that antibiotics and most other drugs be administered as a course of treatment – a single dose might bring a seeming improvement, but would fail to provide any long-term cure. Nonetheless, the belief in the power of the single injection soon spread to even the most out-of-the-way places. A doctor called Navnit Fozdar, who volunteered his services within the Gandhian Sarvodaya movement, was surprised to discover when he began his medical work in a remote tribal tract in south Gujarat in the mid-1960s that people who had almost no previous contact with biomedical doctors demanded ‘an injection’ from him, regardless of his diagnosis. He tried his best to educate his patients as to when injections were necessary and when they were not, and how they should be administered.19 He was unable to make many inroads into shaking this belief: a doctor who today operates a regular travelling clinic in this area told me in an interview that the demand for injections is almost universal among the tribal people.20 Anyone who can use a syringe is now a potential ‘doctor’. A fertile ground has thus been created for flourishing practices in tribal areas by syringe-wielding quacks. [ 231 ]

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Recent research on beliefs about sickness and appropriate forms of treatment among the Bhils of southern Rajasthan has revealed that the large majority consider disease to have dual physical and supernatural aspects, with both requiring treatment in their own ways. Thus, in the first instance, a family member may use herbs reinforced with a charm. If the illness persists, a village-based specialist is generally consulted. The herbalist (jaangar or jaankar), who administers desi-dvai (country medicine derived from herbs, bark, roots, etc.), the pulse specialist (nabj or nadu), and midwives-cum-‘wise woman’ (dai) caters to the physical side, while the bhopa exorcist, grain diviner (devala) and priest (khoont) – who use mantras fitted to specific complaints – seek to combat the supernatural causes. Beliefs persist that are alien to modern allopathy, such as the classification of sicknesses according to whether they move ‘down’ or ‘up’ the body. Many fevers are seen to move gradually down the body, passing through it and away after some days. Others are believed to move up the body, and treatment seeks to prevent the poison reaching the head. Besides physical treatment through herbal and other remedies, it is believed that in each case the sequence may be interrupted through appropriate ritual before it causes lasting damage, or even death. Painful parts of the body continue to be cauterised with hot irons, with a similar intent of both treating the physical manifestation of the problem as well as driving out evil spirits. When allopathic facilities are available – and in many cases they are not – Bhils will use them. It is, for example, widely believed that certain problems, such as fever and headache, yield well to allopathic drugs and injections. These are often described as angrezi bimari or ‘English illnesses’. Nonetheless, while taking this ‘English medicine’ from ‘doctors’ – who may be qualified or unqualified – Bhils will still consult their own ritual specialists so that the efficacy of the allopathic cure is enhanced with charms, mantras and exorcism. Although it was found that some educated Bhils had a better grasp of allopathic principles, the majority, including many educated Bhils, continued to understand disease in this dual and non-biomedical way. Intriguingly, this research has also found that there is a widespread belief today amongst Bhils in humoral principles, with distinctions, for example, being made between diseases of cold (sardi ki bimarai) and diseases of heat (garmi ki bimari). Such beliefs were not recorded in earlier ethnographic reports on the Bhils, and this opens up the possibility that they have become widespread only in recent years, being evidence for a growing popularisation of Ayurvedic principles during a period when this system of medicine has received a certain degree of state patronage. Further research is needed to elucidate this.21 [ 232 ]

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As a whole, the Christian community that was created in the early twentieth century is thriving, despite a political atmosphere that is today often hostile to Christians. Since 1970, most of the Protestant denominations of this region – including the Anglicans – have merged into the Church of North India. A Bhil who was born and brought up in Lusadiya – the Reverend Vinod Malaviya – today serves as the Bishop for the Diocese of Gujarat. Christ Church has been rebuilt more than once on its hill over the years to accommodate the growing congregation, and today it is a large and substantial concrete structure that is filled with enthusiastic worshippers each Sunday. Its vicar, the Reverend Emmanuel Christian, lives in a relatively modest onestoreyed structure, constructed in more recent times. In Biladiya, the other major centre for the old Anglican mission, the dispensary has long gone, but the former missionary residence – another very imposing structure – has been converted into a boarding school for boys. Run by Christians, it is has a high reputation throughout the region. The small church of St Andrew’s serves the Christians of a number of villages round about. As in Lusadiya, the Christians of this area are a self-confident and flourishing community. As they embrace so many of the values that were considered by the missionaries to be a mark of ‘civilisation’, the present-day life of the Sabarkantha Christians represents a success of sorts for the mission project that was inaugurated in this region by C. S. Thompson in the late nineteenth century.

Notes 1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Lesslie Newbigin, ‘The Healing Ministry in the Mission of the Church’, in Frank Davey (ed.), The Healing Church: The Tübingen Consultation 1964 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1965), p. 10. Erling Kayser, ‘Medicine and Modern Philosophy: An Introduction’, in Davey (ed.), The Healing Church, pp. 18 and 20–1. Boyd, Church History of Gujarat, pp. 189–90. It may be noted that Gujarat became a state in 1960, when Bombay State (the erstwhile British presidency of Bombay) was divided into the two new states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The hospital closures stretched to other areas also – the Scottish mission hospital in Udaipur that had been founded by Shepherd was also closed around this time. A. D. Stirling, Indian Harvest: The Story of the Scottish Churches’ Mission to Rajputana 1860–1960 (Stirling: Art of Crafts, 2001), p. 27. Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, pp. 80–1. Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002; interview with Rajnikant Christian, Nava Rewas, 17 December 2002. Robert S. Singh, LMHR (1963–64), 8. For example, see ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1950), 11. Mabel Wilson, 28 April 1958, CMS, G2 I 3/1 1955–59, sub-files 3 and 4. Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002. Interview with Sister Nirmala Wilson, Lusadiya, 19 December 2002. Interview with Ashraydas Kavdabhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 19 December 2002. Interview with Harjibhai Kavdabhai Asari, Bavaliya, Bhiloda Taluka, 16 December 2002.

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16 17 18 19 20 21

Interview with Virjibhai Daniel Varsat, Vaghpur, Bhiloda Taluka, 19 December 2002. Interview with Harjibhai Kavdabhai Asari and Enjalkumar Harjibhai Asari, Bavaliya, Bhiloda Taluka, 16 December 2002. Interview with Dr B. D. Damor, Shamlaji, 14 December 2002; interview with Fr. Ignas Ordonez, Mankroda, Bhiloda Taluka, 16 December 2002; interview with Rajnikant Christian, Ahmedabad, 12 December 2004. Ibid. Interviews with Dr B. D. Damor, Shamlaji, 11 December 2001. Interview with Rajnikant Christian, Nava Revas, 17 December 2002. Interview with Dr Navnit Fozdar, Gora Colony, Kevadia, Narmada District, 8 December 2004. Interview with Dr Daxa Patel, Dharampur, Navsari District, 2 December 2004. Sushila Jain and Seema Agrawal, ‘Perceptions of Illness and Health Care among Bhils: A Study of Udaipur District in Southern Rajasthan’, Studies of Tribes and Tribals, 3:1 (2005), 15–19; Veena Bhasin, ‘Sickness and Therapy among Tribals of Rajasthan’, Studies of Tribes and Tribals, 1:1 (2003), 77–83.

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C H A P T E R F O U RT E E N

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Conclusion: mission medicine and Bhil modernity

Mission medicine was made possible by European colonialism, and it inevitably shared some of its characteristics. It was, for example, based on the premise that the subjects of its work were ‘backward’ in comparison with Europeans. The missionaries also applied ‘the rule of colonial difference’. Although they sought to educate and ‘civilise’ the natives, they proved very reluctant in practice to hand over power to converts. In many cases, they retained effective power within their missions for some time after the demise of colonial rule. In the case of the mission to the Bhils, it suited the missionaries to depict the converts as ‘primitive’ and ‘childlike’ up until the 1940s, so as to justify their continuing rule within their ‘little empire’. This was despite the fact that an educated stratum had emerged from amongst the Christian Bhils by the late 1930s that was quite capable of taking over much of the educational, medical and pastoral work of the mission. Although to this extent a form of colonial practice, the work of medical missionaries must, nonetheless, be distinguished clearly from the medical work of colonial states. Missionaries held no official position and lacked, for the most part, coercive powers over the mass of the people. They had no power to carry out, for example, enforced vaccination or inoculation, compulsory checks for epidemic diseases, or programmes to enforce sanitary cleanliness. The only coercive power available to them lay in their ecclesiastical authority over members of their congregation; and this they did deploy, as they ordered Christian transgressors to be excommunicated, fined or even whipped. It was, however, a form of power that could be exercised over only a limited number of people. Many medical missionaries worked in areas that were not ruled directly by colonial officials, through they were under their broad influence. This was the case with the CMS mission to the Bhils, where the local rulers were Indian princes and the Rajput gentry. The same was [ 235 ]

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true for medical missionaries working in areas of indirect rule in Africa, such as the Emirates of Northern Nigeria,1 and also in the interior of China, which was never ruled directly by European colonial powers, though its rulers were forced to allow Christian missionaries to operate in their territories after the Opium Wars of the 1840s.2 In such regions, the missionaries had to negotiate a series of highly complex local politics, winning a foothold for themselves through the provision of needed services, such as education and health care, while being careful to avoid being accused of trying to convert people in an underhand manner. The missionaries often felt that it would be of advantage for them to disassociate themselves somewhat from the representatives of the colonial powers in their region. In the case of the mission to the Bhils, C. S. Thompson distanced himself from the British-officered MBC in the 1880s so as not to be associated with its punitive raids on the Bhils. In 1902, the mission shifted its headquarters away from Kherwara – the base for the MBC – so as to escape this influence, after Arthur Outram had fallen out with its commandant. Mission medicine also differed from state medicine in its aims and intentions. It was devised in the first place as a means to gain an access for missionaries to ‘difficult’ areas and win the trust of the people. This, as we have seen in the case of Thompson’s entry into the Bhil villages in the 1880s, often proved a successful strategy. Medical work henceforth became a central feature of the mission. Secondly, it was believed that those who were cured by mission doctors would be more open to conversion; indeed, it was anticipated that many who were healed would take this as proof of the superiority of ‘Christian’ technology and culture and thus embrace Christianity. On the whole, this strategy was far less successful. In the case of the mission to the Bhils, the mass conversion came as a result of a devastating famine and a resulting crisis of faith. Very few people converted primarily because the missionaries had cured them. The third main objective of medical missionary work was to reveal the compassion of the Christian, providing an example in action of the best of ‘Christian civilisation’. In this respect, missionaries had a moral duty to apply their skills as healers, regardless of whether or not the work led to conversion. In practice, this was how much mission medicine was practised after a base had been established and consolidated in a particular area. Non-Christians utilised the service and appreciated it, and thus tolerated the missionaries even if they rejected their religion. Fourthly, the extension of skilled medical work in a remote tract required the presence of trained physicians. This provided a justification for the continuing employment of white missionaries, who were perceived to be better qualified and more capable than converts. In this [ 236 ]

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way, as time went by, medicine gained a new emphasis within mission work as a whole. Although, for example, the medical mission at Lusadiya was successfully indigenised as early as 1938, with Daniel Christian taking over its management in that year, Margaret Johnson was appointed over his head in 1941, thus reversing this process. This strategy collapsed finally only in the 1960s, and along with it the hospital. In all of this, medicine was more than just a technology; it provided, rather, a fulcrum for a number of evolving strategies that were designed to consolidate, extend and legitimise the mission project. It thus had a fluid quality, being deployed to different intent in changing historical situations. In contrast to official colonial medicine, mission medicine sought to situate itself very strongly within non-European social and institutional milieus as a form of day-to-day practice. Rather than being enclosed in centralised urban medical establishments, military cantonments and prisons, mission medicine reached out to embrace all classes of ‘native’ society – the rich and the poor, the high-caste and the low-caste, men and women. The mission hospital or dispensary was merely a focal point, with medical work being carried on also by mission schoolmasters in their villages, and by missionaries on tour. The mission doctors also made regular medical itinerations, travelling from village to village and living in tents, discovering people who required treatment and providing it to the best of their ability. Those who needed more elaborate treatment were encouraged to come to the mission hospital as inpatients. In this way, a medical service was provided that operated relatively cheaply, in that it provided biomedical treatment over a wide area without maintaining a large and costly network of local clinics. It was hardly an adequate form of medical provision, as most people of the regions covered by missions had no ready access to treatment – having, as a rule, to travel long distances to consult a mission doctor. It is nonetheless a model that is still followed very widely to this day in India, with inadequately funded medical services operating travelling clinics both to provide on-the-spot treatment and to identify cases that require hospitalisation at a central facility. Medical missions made great efforts to reach out to and provide treatment for women, who were seen as being oppressed and victimised and were often denied access to modern medical treatment, even when it was available. Many of the missionaries were themselves women, including – in the case of the Bhil mission – its two most important mission doctors, Jane Birkett and Margaret Johnson. Such missionaries were often guided by a belief in a sisterhood of women, and saw themselves as reaching out across racial barriers to embrace and uplift women everywhere. They sought to gain an entrance into homes [ 237 ]

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through their medical work, which then provided them with an opportunity to inculcate a sense of self-worth in their patients as to the value of their bodies and their position in society. As was the case generally in India, Bhil society was deeply patriarchal, with women being convinced of their own inferiority. Although it proved hard to shift such a mentality, it became gradually chipped away as more and more Bhil women began to demand education and accord greater value to their own well-being. This dimension to the medical work of the missionaries was to a large extent lacking in the medicine provided by the colonial state – it never saw the empowerment of women as a guiding concern. The missions’ attack on beliefs about witchcraft and the evil eye was also potentially liberating for women, for many were routinely suspected of practising witchcraft, and in some cases tortured or put to death as a result. The missionaries provided an alternative understanding of the underlying rationale of disease, and by this means sought to free Bhil society from the fear of malign spirits that were alleged to be under the control of female witches. Nonetheless, for all their talk of ‘sisterhood’ with native women, the white female missionaries did not in general regard the latter as their equals. The mission clinic was an institution with a clear internal hierarchy. At the top, in charge, was the white doctor with training in Europe or America. Below this figure was the ‘hospital assistant’, whose medical training had been in India. These assistants tended to come from outside the mission area, and regarded themselves as being socially superior to the local converts. They in turn trained local converts to act as nurses, pharmacists and wound-dressers. The hospital thus provided a microcosm of colonial society, with its white ruler, educated intermediaries and subaltern staff. In this respect, the mission clinic differed little from that of the colonial state. In its institutional practice, nonetheless, it was generally far more responsive to local need. This could be seen in the way in which the architecture of a mission hospital such as Lusadiya differed profoundly from that of the metropolitan hospital. The most important space within the latter was the large ward with its lines of beds. Relatives were allowed to intrude into this space only as temporary visitors, confined to strict ‘visiting hours’ and only barely tolerated by the medical staff. In a mission hospital such as Lusadiya, by contrast, each patient was housed in a small apartment along with her or his relatives, who cooked her or his food and acted as nurses. This system had arisen in part because of caste distinctions that required food to be cooked separately, in part because of a lack of nurses, and also because such an arrangement was preferred and the missionaries had to maintain the trust of their patients. Many people feared that once they were in [ 238 ]

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hospital the missionaries would have great power over them – both physically and mentally – and this can be seen as having provided a means to assuage some of these fears. When space ran out, patients were allowed to erect temporary grass huts in the mission compound, where they lived with their families. This was much less of a disciplinary space than the metropolitan ward, with the medics having to concede some of their power to relatives. In her first building scheme, initiated in the 1940s, Margaret Johnson continued to provide separate apartments for patients, arguing that failure to do so would hamper their work. The emphasis began to change after 1948, when a fully qualified nurse – Margaret Kirk – was appointed from Britain, which meant that the existing nursing staff could to be trained to handle a metropolitan-style ward and constantly supervised while doing so. When the new and much enlarged hospital was built in the 1950s, two ten-bed wards were included with their ordered lines of beds, each with its own duty room and sanitary facilities. These wards were not popular, as people of different caste were made to sleep and eat alongside each other. Relatives often insisted on staying by the patient’s bed – or even sharing it at night. The sanitary facilities were misused, with taps not being turned off and rubbish being thrown down the lavatories, blocking them. These wards proved to be short-lived, not surviving the closure of the hospital in 1964. Nowadays, the norm in many Indian hospitals is for relatives to stay with patients, sleeping by them, with extra beds often being provided for this purpose. Again, this limits the power of the nursing and other medical staff, who have to negotiate constantly with the relatives, rather than merely impose their will on the patient. The system of medicine today being almost entirely privatised, Indian medical practitioners are forced to heed their patients in a way that is not often found in the more centralised and hierarchical medical systems of the West. Because mission medicine was not a government project, it was carried out in a less bureaucratic and regularised manner than the medicine of the colonial state. The downside to this was that it could be erratic, relying on the availability of adequate personnel and their quality as practitioners. If the mission doctor was incompetent, as was the case with the unfortunate Dr Frank Read, the work suffered accordingly. When a missionary doctor was absent on furlough, there was often no fully qualified doctor practising in the mission, so once again the work was affected. Dispensaries such as that at Biladiya tended to be operated by whoever was available, irrespective of their medical abilities or qualifications. In good cases, a woman missionary with training in nursing might be available; otherwise an unqualified missionary would have to suffice. [ 239 ]

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Despite this, mission medicine gained a reputation for being practised with integrity. Mission establishments were far more popular than government ones, where the doctors were considered to be careerists who lacked empathy and were often careless in their methods. This was despite the fact that government institutions might be better funded and equipped. Mission doctors had a reputation for being guided by compassion, commitment and selflessness, rather than a desire to make money from their practice. They thus provided a standard against which other practitioners were judged, as well as a yardstick to measure the ‘good doctor’. In this way, a reference point was created that continues to be deployed by patients to judge their doctors, regardless of whether or not they are Christians. In today’s India, for example, the Gandhian hospital at Sevagram – though rather unimpressive in terms of its facilities – has a similar reputation for being staffed by particularly upright, empathetic and committed doctors, and patients are drawn by its reputation from great distances.3 There was a strong focus on the personality, even charisma, of the doctor in mission work. Margaret Johnson was thus considered to have semi-miraculous powers. Her great faith in Christ, her compassionate demeanour and her prayers at the bedsides of the patients all contributed to this effect. It was popularly believed that devotion to a deity – bhakti – enhanced a healer’s powers, and in her case she was seen to gain it through her devotion to Christ. Mission doctors such as Margaret Johnson gained a reputation in this respect that often survived long after they left the mission field, again providing a reference point for what was considered a particularly exemplary form of biomedical practice. In this, mastery of medical technology was not in itself considered to be sufficient; the exemplary doctor-hero should be able to combine technological ability with a thaumaturgic touch. Even educated people who understood the principles of scientific medicine commonly believed that strong and sincere devotion greatly enhanced the ability of a doctor to heal. In a similar manner, the mission hospital itself might sometimes attract a reputation that went beyond any science. For example, the atmosphere in the vicinity of Lusadiya, the water from the hospital well and the presence of goats in the grass wards were said to be highly effective in curing people of tuberculosis. In all this, prayer was of central importance, being another feature that distinguished mission medicine sharply from colonial medicine. As David Arnold has pointed out, colonial medical officers made a point of purging their practice of any religious content, even in situations in which their work would have benefited if they had included some, as when they refused to mollify strong beliefs about the goddess Sitala when carrying out smallpox vaccinations.4 Prayers were [ 240 ]

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considered essential in the mission hospital or dispensary at the start of each day’s practice, at the bedside of patients and before any surgical operation. Services were also conducted to bless the hospital and its equipment. This was all greatly appreciated by patients, who saw such ritual as sanctifying the work of the mission doctors and guiding their hands more surely. I have suggested that prayer acquired greater importance in the practice of mission healing in the final years of the mission, that is, during the 1950s. This, I have argued, can be seen in part as a response to popular Christian practice in the region. The Bhil Christians greatly valued all sorts of prayer for the sick and often organised group prayers when one of their number was ill. These types of gatherings in turn gave rise to special healing services in which congregational prayers were directed to the cure of sick individuals. Anglican theologians were able to respond to this development far more positively than had been the case in earlier years, as new development in psychology provided an opening for a greater acceptance of psychosomatic forms of healing. Today, healing services are a regular feature of the work of the Church of North India.

A Christian modernity for the Bhils The first attempts to ‘civilise’ and modernise the Bhils of this region came from the British – namely, the political agents in princely states and the officers of the MBC. They suppressed the Bhils in military campaign, laid down laws that the princes were required to implement and, through the MBC, provided education and medicine for the Bhil sepoys. They had hoped that the Bhil people as a whole would respond readily to these initiatives. This hope was not realised, for up until the closing years of the nineteenth century, the mass of the Bhils continued to live their lives according to the old values, forcibly asserting their independence from outside authority, carrying on their internal feuds, raiding and looting villages outside their own pals and persecuting alleged witches. The more significant reform came initially from a very different direction, namely from Surmaldas and his Bhagat movement. Although it can be argued that, in preaching as he did, Surmaldas was challenging his fellow Bhils to adapt themselves to the Pax Britannica imposed by the MBC, the idiom that he employed was rooted in the local vernacular. With the arrival of the CMS, a governmental strategy began to be implemented that had a very different quality from that of the colonial state. The mission organisations emerged from and operated within the sphere of civil society in Europe and North America, and were autonomous agents that did not act for any state, and in fact often [ 241 ]

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existed in some tension with governments at home and in the colonies. Although the colonial state and the missionaries shared a ‘civilising’ agenda, it was carried through in very different ways and using different means. The missionaries sought to bring about a very personal reformation, with an emphasis on pastoral care and day-to-day guidance. Converts were expected to become Christian through conviction, rather than because they wanted charitable handouts, jobs or economic support. They were encouraged to learn to read and write and think for themselves, to become economically self-sufficient and to learn to impose self-discipline in their lives and thoughts. They were encouraged to see themselves as members of a universal church that brought together peoples of different regions and ethnic groups on a basis of equality before God. In these ways, converts were guided through close pastoral care towards a personal cleansing and reformation of their minds, bodies and souls. In the case of health and healing, Christians were expected to have faith in scientific medicine and disavow exorcism and non-allopathic remedies – such as the holy ash that Surmaldas provided to his followers as a cure-all, or the protective charms that Bhils used to protect themselves from the malign influence of evil spirits. Christians were required to make use of the services of mission medical workers and accept their allopathic remedies. Prayers for the sick were nevertheless valued, as it was recognised by mission doctors that healing was not a purely technological process, for faith in a cure was often an important element in recovery. The mental transformation that the missionaries demanded was therefore secular only to a degree, for it also involved a radical restructuring of belief about the supernatural in the process of healing. Whereas unreformed Bhils deployed charms and exorcism to ward off the evil spirits and other supernatural forces that caused illness and misfortune, Christians were expected to deploy prayer as a channel for the goodness and mercy of Christ. Whereas the charm or ritual of exorcism was directed against spirits that had the ability to harm in the hope that their evil aspect would be countered and their benign aspect reinforced, prayer appealed to an inherently benign God. In the process, the understanding of the supernatural and the divine was to be transformed. To this end, the missionaries deployed what Foucault has defined as ‘technologies of governance’.5 They provided new tools and techniques for the converts – such as school education, councils with written constitutions, new forms of building and architectural space, and a scientific medical technology. In this respect, it is significant that the missionary couple who guided the mission during some of its most formative years were technicians: one, Arthur Birkett, had architectural [ 242 ]

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training, and the other, his wife Jane, was a doctor. The former took charge of creating a physical space that defined what the mission stood for and required from its converts. The latter filled this space with her own technology, that of biomedical practice. In these ways, an environment was created that provided the conditions to lead people towards a new way of life and being. In Foucault’s terms, the missionaries provided the ‘technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality’.6 Christianity can thus be seen to have provided the technologies that made possible radical social and intellectual change, and the development of a new form of personhood. We may nonetheless question the extent to which this process created a new sense of individuality amongst the Bhils. Modernity is often equated with the growth of individualism. It is held that the individual comes to be seen as a quasi-sacred being, absolute in his or her own right. An antagonism is then posed between the individual and society.7 It might be argued that in this respect, Bhil Christians, by opting out from the wider Bhil society, were demonstrating an individual self-determination that brought them into conflict with this society. It would be noted that ‘traditional’ Bhil society was characterised by a lack of individualism, with each individual being subject to the will of the group – as expressed through the panchayat of the pal – and punishable for transgressions through fines, ostracism, expulsion or even torture and death. Against this, we need to note that even in this so-called ‘traditional’ society, there were cases of people opting out through conversion to devotional sects that imposed their own social codes and rules on members. This was the case with the Bhagats of Surmaldas, and it created considerable tension and strife within Bhil society. Conversion to Christianity was largely an extension of this process, though in this case the values and religion were those of white missionaries rather than caste Hindus, and it created similar tensions. In both cases, the groups that opted out formed new communities with their own rules, and can hardly be seen to have embodied a new individualism. There was one particularly important respect in which the agendas of both the Bhagats and the Bhil Christians eluded such a governmental project, namely that both sought to create sects that restricted themselves to members of the Bhil community. In this way, they believed, the Bhils could assert themselves against the dominant classes, in time reversing the social order so that they would be dominant while the [ 243 ]

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Brahmans, Baniyas and Rajputs would be subordinate. This was not therefore a universalistic project. In this, there was clearly a conflict of expectation between the missionaries and the Bhil Christians. The former believed that a modern church had to be open to all who embraced the Christian message, regardless of caste or community – this was the path of ‘modernity’. The Christian Bhils rejected this teleology; for them the church was an instrument for their self-assertion as a discrete community. As Dipesh Chakrabarty has pointed out, there was continuing tension in India between two competing narratives of change. On the one hand, there was the programme, initiated by the British and carried on by their Indian successors, that sought to create a modern state composed – ideally – of individual citizens who were equal under the law. On the other hand, there were a multiplicity of indigenous narratives that situated the self within a community and its particular agenda for self-assertion. While the former claimed that its schema was a matter of historical inevitability, the latter eluded it not so much by proposing a legitimising counter-narrative as through its everyday practice. Although this appeared to be a conflict between ‘modernity’ and ‘backwardness’, in fact it was a struggle for the assertion of two very different narrative trajectories that each existed on its own terms in modern times.8 As it was, the strategies pursued in practice by the Christian missionaries often furthered the community-based agenda of the Bhils rather than a more universalistic agenda. For example, they sought to encourage the generational reproduction of the Christian community through a rule that in marriage both partners should be Christian, or that the non-Christian partner would agree to convert after marriage. In this, they found themselves in conformity with the existing Bhil practice of non-tolerance of liaisons outside their community, but adapted in this case to the new community of Christian Bhils. They also accepted the need to provide brideprices. This all helped to ensure that such liaisons were confined almost entirely within the community of Bhil Christians. This attitude continued even after the first generation of converts was replaced by a second generation of educated Bhil Christians who were qualified to take over the running of their church, schools and medical facilities. They too tended to see themselves as working for the good of their community rather than for the church as a whole. Thus, Dr Daniel Christian – the first Bhil Christian to qualify as a doctor – returned to Lusadiya to practise there, and he remained there till his death, running a small dispensary that he saw as being more appropriate to the needs of his fellows than a large and modern hospital that would have served the region and its people as a whole. Because of all [ 244 ]

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this, the ideal of a universal church remained unrealised – the Bhil church remained essentially just that, and it has remained so to this day. Today, the Christian Bhils stand socially apart in a society that seeks to define itself increasingly as ‘Hindu’. The community has therefore to insist on its right to inhabit a separate space within a civil society that is based on the principle of providing rights for religious minorities. The Christian Bhil has, in other words, to be a champion of secular values and inhabit a political space that strongly asserts the values of religious and cultural pluralism against the sectarian nationalism of Hindutva. In this, the Christian Bhils’ struggle can be situated within a much wider global battle for the right of minorities to peaceful coexistence within a plural world. They are now both citizens of the world and, uniquely, Christian Bhils. Overall, the success of the mission project was in this region very partial, for as a whole very few Bhils converted to Christianity.9 Rather than becoming a new religion for all the Bhils, as the missionaries had hoped, Christianity became merely a marker for a small sub-category, that of the ‘Christian Bhil’. This group has become in many respects a small local caste, or jati. In common with other such jatis there is a general feeling of loyalty to the collectivity that emphasises the value of solidarity against outsiders, while within the group there is often competition and a struggle for status.10 Christian Bhils tend to marry amongst their own and promote their own interests first and foremost. This they have done with notable success, raising themselves from their often-impoverished state in the earlier years of the twentieth century to a condition of relative prosperity today. In this, they have to a certain extent fulfilled the long-term aspirations of first the Bhagats, and then the early Christian converts. In the process, new values have been accommodated and adapted to local agendas. The boundary around a community that was forged through the conversion movement of the early twentieth century has thus remained firm even as the Christian Bhils have transformed themselves internally. In this way, the governmental project that the missionaries inaugurated has borne a certain fruit, but it is not one that they – with their dreams of a church for people of all castes and communities – would have desired. The way of life that the missionaries propagated was in many respects a middle-class one, incorporating values such as sobriety, hard work, thrift, literacy, medical rationality and so on. The Christian Bhils absorbed this, and in the process became to a large extent a middle-class stratum within their wider society. There remains a very much larger lower class of Bhils whose modernity has taken a very different form, namely social marginalisation and increasing dependence on migrant [ 245 ]

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labour – the ‘footloose labour’ that Jan Breman has written about so graphically.11 A Catholic missionary who worked in the area around Lusadiya in the 1970s and 1980s has written a collection of short stories about Bhil women who live by migrant labour that brings out in harrowing detail the ways in which high-caste people as well as middleclass Bhils exploit and sexually abuse them in a routine manner.12 This, for the large majority of present-day Bhils, is the reality of modernity and India’s much-hallowed entry into a new global society. The Bhil converts to Christianity had been attracted by the modern forms of power that the missionaries had brought with them, and were among the first to adapt to them and apply them. In time, however, a stratum of non-Christian Bhils also began to adopt these technologies, but without any adherence to Christianity. The way was thus paved for a wider Bhil modernity that enmeshes self-disciplinary techniques within devotion to Hindu deities. This process, as yet, has been only very partially realised in the region as a whole. It continues apace, however, as modern Hindu sects such as that of Swaminarayan and Swadhyaya Parivar implement a concerted programme of proselytisation in the ‘tribal belt’ of Gujarat, building lavish temples and carrying out their own forms of social work.13 Today, the majority of middleclass Bhils – whether officials, teachers, medical workers or traders – now maintain small shrines in their homes with pictures and images of mainstream Hindu deities. These now provide the chief focus for their devotional practices. In this way, modernity has been freed from its association in this region with Christianity, being now aligned predominantly with forms of contemporary Hindu practice.

Notes 1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

For a study of such work, see Shobana Shankar, ‘The Social Dimensions of Christian Leprosy Work among Muslims: American Missionaries and Young Patients in Colonial Northern Nigeria, 1920–1940’, in Hardiman (ed.), Healing Bodies, Saving Souls, pp. 281–305. For such work in the interior of China see Stanley, ‘Rural Medical Mission in Weixian’, pp. 119–31. See Kavery Nambisan, ‘The Mahatma and the Medics’, The Hindu (1 October 2006), magazine section. Arnold, Colonizing the Body, pp. 141–4. Michel Foucault, ‘Chapter 4: Governmentality’, in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon and Peter Miller (eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), pp. 87–104. Michel Foucault, ‘Technologies of the Self’, in Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman and Patrick H. Hutton (eds.), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), p. 18. On this, see Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its Implications (London: Paladin, 1972), pp. 38–9. Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for “Indian” Pasts?’ Representations, 37 (1992), 10–11.

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10 11 12

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13

In 1961, Christians made up only 2.6 per cent of the population of Bhiloda Taluka of Sabarkantha District (the area in which both Lusadiya and Biladiya were situated, and with a predominantly Bhil population). Gujarat State Gazetteers: Sabarkantha, p. 187. On this, see David Pocock, Kanbi and Patidar: A Study of the Patidar Community of Gujarat (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 132–40. Jan Breman, Footloose Labour: Working in India’s Informal Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Marija Sres Mishkaben, To Survive and to Prevail: Stories of the Tribal Women of Sabarkantha (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 1996). I have examined the spread of the Swadhyaya movement in this part of Gujarat in ‘The Politics of Water Scarcity in Gujarat’, in Amita Baviskar (ed.), Waterscapes: The Cultural Politics of a Natural Resource (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2006), pp. 58–9.

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Archives and manuscript collections Church Missionary Society archives, University of Birmingham Library Church Missionary Society library, Partnership House, Waterloo, London Gujarat State Archives, Vadodara branch Maharashtra State Archives, Mumbai branch National Archives of India, New Delhi Oriental and India Office Collection, British Library, London Paul Johnson papers, held by his son Nicholas Johnson and daughter Hilary Griffiths

Mission periodicals and annual reports The Annual Reports of the Church Missionary Society in Western India The Bombay Church Missionary Gleaner The Bombay Diocesan Magazine The Church Missionary Gleaner The Church Missionary Intelligencer and Record: A Monthly Journal of Missionary Information The Church Missionary Outlook The Church Missionary Review Church Missionary Society: Extracts from the Annual Letters of the Missionaries Church Missionary Society Report of the Mission to the Bhils Conquest by Healing Medical Missions at Home and Abroad Mercy and Truth The Mission Hospital The Missionary Visitor The Nagpur Diocesan Quarterly Magazine North India Church Missionary Gleaner Reports of the C.M.S. Western India Mission Reports of the Lusadia Mission Hospital and Biladia Dispensary

Government reports Administration Reports of the Idar State Enthoven, R. E., The Castes and Tribes of Bombay Presidency (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1920–22), 3 vols. Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, 5: Cutch, Palanpur and Mahi Kantha (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1880)

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Mash, R., ‘Margaret Fitzhugh Johnson, Doctor and Missionary (1941–1963): Her Work and Family Life in the Context of Pre-Independence and PostIndependence India’, BA dissertation, University of Brighton, 2001 Mews, S., ‘The Revival of Spiritual Healing in the Church of England 1920–26’, in W. J. Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982) Mishkaben, M. S., To Survive and to Prevail: Stories of the Tribal Women of Sabarkantha (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 1996) Moorshead, R. F., The Appeal of Medical Missions (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1913) Newbigin, L., ‘The Healing Ministry in the Mission of the Church’, in F. Davey (ed.), The Healing Church: The Tübingen Consultation 1964 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1965) Olsan, L. T., ‘Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice’, Social History of Medicine, 16:3 (December 2003) Pickstone, J. V., ‘Establishment and Dissent in Nineteenth-Century Medicine’, in W. J. Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982) Pocock, D., Kanbi and Patidar: A Study of the Patidar Community of Gujarat (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972) Portelli, A., The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Forms and Meanings in Oral History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991) Putney, C., Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001) Quaiser, N., ‘Politics, Culture and Colonialism: Unani’s Debate with Doctory’, in Biswamoy Pati and Mark Harrison (eds.), Health, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Colonial India (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2001) Rack, H. D., ‘Doctors, Demons and Early Methodist Healing’, in W. J. Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982) Ranger, Terence, ‘Godly Medicine: The Ambiguities of Medical Mission in Southeast Tanzania, 1900–1945’, Social Science and Medicine, 15B (1981) —, T., ‘Medical Science and Pentecost: The Dilemma of Anglicanism in Africa’, in W. J. Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982) Robert, D. L., American Women in Mission: A Social History of their Thought and Practice (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1996) Sen, Hari, ‘Popular Protest in Mewar in the Late-Nineteenth and EarlyTwentieth Centuries’, PhD dissertation, University of Delhi, 1996. Shankar, S., ‘The Social Dimensions of Christian Leprosy Work among Muslims: American Missionaries and Young Patients in Colonial Northern Nigeria, 1920–1940’, in D. Hardiman (ed.), Healing Bodies, Saving Souls: Medical Missions in Asia and Africa (Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi, 2006) Sheils, W. J. (ed.), The Church and Healing (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982) Sivaramakrishnan, K., Old Potions, New Bottles: Recasting Indigenous Medicine in Colonial Punjab (1850–1945) (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2006)

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Skaria, A., ‘Women, Witchcraft and Gratuitous Violence in Colonial Western India’, Past and Present, 155 (1997) —, Hybrid Histories: Forests, Frontiers and Wildness in Western India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999) Speck, R. S., ‘Cholera’, in Kenneth F. Kilpe (ed.), The Cambridge Historical Dictionary of Disease (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) Spivak, G. C., In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics (New York: Routledge, 1985) —, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in C. Nelson and L. Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988) —, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1999) Stanley, J. R., ‘Professionalising the Rural Medical Mission in Weixian, 1890– 1925’, in D. Hardiman (ed.), Healing Bodies, Saving Souls: Medical Missions in Asia and Africa (Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi, 2006) Stirling, A. D., Indian Harvest: The Story of the Scottish Churches’ Mission to Rajputana 1860–1960 (Stirling: Art of Crafts, 2001) Thompson, C. S., Rudiments of the Bhili Language (Ahmedabad: Union Printing Press, 1895) Tod, J., Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, ed. William Crooke, 3 vols (London: Humphrey Milford, 1920) Van der Veer, P., ‘Introduction’, in P. Van der Veer (ed.), Conversion to Modernities: The Globalization of Christianity (New York: Routledge, 1996) —, Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) Vaughan, M., Curing their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991) Vishwanathan, Gauri, Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India (London: Faber and Faber, 1990) Walker, D. P., The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964) Watts, S., Epidemics and History: Disease, Power and Imperialism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997) Wilkinson, J., The Coogate Doctors: The History of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society 1841 to 1991 (Edinburgh: The Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, 1991) Williams, C. P., ‘Healing and Evangelism: The Place of Medicine in Later Victorian Protestant Missionary Thinking’, in W. J. Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982) Wilson, L. G., ‘Fevers’, in W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter (eds.), Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, 1 (London: Routledge, 1993)

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Africa 5, 9–10, 12, 55, 189, 236 Agra Medical School 168 Ahmedabad archdeacon of 186–7 city 79, 110, 148, 161, 184 college 172, 229–30 Ajmer 156, 166–7 Amra, Maniben 206, 208 Amritsar Medical Mission 76 Anand Irish Presbyterian high school 172 Irish Presbyterian mission hospital 166, 169, 226, 228–9 Salvation Army mission hospital 213 Anderson, Dr H. (CMS medical superintendent, London) 194, 197–8 Anthropological Society of London 26 Arnold, David 5, 240 Arya Samaj 70, 97, 115, 181 Asad, Talal 43–4 Asari, Harjibhai 228–9 Asari, Revd Jakhi Kanji 161, 183, 193 Ashirvadam, Dr Azariah 201–2, 204, 208 Ashivardian, Dr Vijayam 201–2, 208 Auerbach, Eva 187, 210 Ayurvedic medicine 15, 38–9, 229, 232 Baleta 152 Baniyas 64, 68, 77, 90, 92, 95, 115, 151, 156, 244 Banks, Dr Arthur 187, 208–9, 211, 219–20 Baroda city 184 mission hospital 226 Bastar 20 Bavaliya 75, 77–8, 80, 85, 87, 105, 109, 111, 157–8, 166, 171, 180, 228–9 thakor of 80

Belgian Congo 15, 183 Bengal 20 Bhagat sect 57, 60–69, 83–7, 90, 95, 151, 157–8, 241, 243, 245 Bhagora, Revd W. S. 213 Bhanat, Peter 4 Bhanat, Revd Rupji 183–4, 186–7, 196, 217 Bhanat, Shanti see Pandav, Shanti Joria Bharuch mission hospital 226 Bhavsar, Narsinhbhai 182 Bhetali, thakor of 99, 155–6 Bhil mission of Church Missionary Society church councils 90, 94–6, 183, 185–7, 199 church discipline 147, 183, 186, 235 churches 52, 90, 97, 147, 183 educational work 54, 56, 66–8, 74, 96–7, 100–1, 147, 157, 159, 180–1, 186, 211, 227–8 hymns (bhajans) 91, 160 Indian doctors 112–13, 115, 117, 199–20, 132, 134–5, 165–74, 192–4, 197–9, 201–2, 204, 206, 208, 210–12, 219, 227, 238, 244 Indian pastors and catechists of 3, 54, 56, 69, 79, 85–6, 88–9, 95–6, 99, 113, 131, 134, 136, 143, 158–61, 172, 183–7, 193, 215 Indian schoolteachers 56, 67, 106, 155–6, 159–61, 193, 237 marriage regulations imposed by 92–5, 244 medical subordinates 56, 105–6, 109, 112–13, 119, 161, 166, 174, 180–1, 192, 196, 201, 205–7, 210, 217–19, 227–30, 238 medical work 1–4, 53–7, 66–8, 76–80, 89–90, 99, 101, 105–20, 165–76, 178–9, 182, 186, 192–21 nurses 113, 120, 143–4, 166, 168, 172, 196, 201, 206–7, 210–11, 238–9

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Bhil mission of Church Missionary Society (cont.) opposition to exorcism 92, 95, 124–35 origins 1–4, 51–2 orphanages 73, 76–8, 87–9, 93–4, 144 women’s education 142 women’s work 141–5, 196, 199, 207–8, 217–18, 237–8 Bhils agriculture of 27 attitudes towards Europeans 1–4, 61, 63–6, 148 caste practices of 53–4, 61, 83 death ceremonies 158 diet of 27–8, 53, 61, 94–5, 198, 202, 207 British attitudes towards 2, 5, 21–4, 26, 51–4 headmen 3, 22, 28–9, 44 healing practices of 4, 37–40, 43, 62–3, 92, 105, 108, 127–35, 159, 171, 213–15, 220–1, 229, 232 health of 3–4, 32–7 Hindu attitudes towards 65 Hindus, interactions with 2–3, 53–5, 57, 60–6, 88 insurgency by 1–2, 4, 21, 58–60 language of 23, 53, 58, 65 marriage customs of 70, 92–5, 142 pals (villages) 27, 29, 58–9 panchayats 29–30, 243 patriarchy of 28–30, 142–3, 200, 238 religion of 28–32, 53–4 religious reform amongst 19, 57, 60–70 Bhiloda dispensary (Idar state) 174 town 75, 136, 230 bhopa see Bhils; healing practices of Bickersteth, Bishop Edward 51–2, 55 Bigriker, Grace 206 Biladiya village 79–80, 87–9, 90, 111–12, 115, 133, 152–3, 174, 183–5, 187, 206, 217 Christian community 90, 157, 175, 180, 183–4 church building 99, 133, 233

dispensary 67, 77, 80, 105, 109–10, 117–19, 153, 172–5, 194, 201, 212, 217, 219, 227, 233, 239 orphanage 74, 77, 88–9, 94, 99, 133 school 4, 67, 98–9, 106, 174, 180, 201, 227–8, 233 Birkett, Revd Arthur 79–80, 87, 89–96, 98–9, 112, 116–17, 128–37, 142, 144, 214, 227, 242–3 Birkett, Dr Jane 34–7, 79–80, 85, 87, 89–90, 92–3, 109–17, 119, 128–9, 131–4, 136, 139, 143–4, 154, 158, 165–6, 170, 209, 214, 227, 237, 243 Bodding, Revd P.O. 37 Bombay Bishop of 100, 159–61, 186, 204, 206, 226 city 96, 110, 156, 172, 184 Presidency, government of 58, 100, 156 State (1947–60) 178, 181, 186, 211 Booth, William 14 Borsad mission hospital (Irish Presbyterian Mission) 172 Brahmans 30–1, 45, 57, 64, 68, 95–6, 115, 156, 168, 172, 244 Brand, Dr. John 112–13, 115, 117, 199–20, 132, 134–5, 165–6 Breman, Jan 246 Britain 6–8, 13–14 Brouwer, Ruth Compton 189–91 Browne, Dr A. H. 76–9, 109–11 Bull, A. H. (Helen) 76, 87, 117, 127–9, 132, 134, 139, 141–5 Burns Thomson, Dr W. 10 Butcher, Revd L.B. (CMS secretary, Bombay) 150, 160, 167–8 Butler, Dr Fanny 140 buva see Bhils; healing practices of Calvin, John 13 cancer 34, 36–7, 55, 110, 180 Carstairs, George 31 Carter, Paul 190–1 Carter, Rose 83, 87, 89, 132, 142, 154–5, 159 Catholicism see Roman Catholicism cauterisation 37, 110, 135, 214, 232 Chakrabarty, Dipesh 244

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Chamar community 94 Champaran district 148 Chandarni, thakor of 156 Charan, Masih 3, 56 Chatterjee, Partha 7 Chhitadara 90, 92, 97, 128–9, 131–2, 141, 157, 171, 214 China 12, 123, 140–1, 189, 236 cholera 33, 35, 37, 75–7, 108–10, 204 Christian, Dr Daniel 172–3, 184, 192–4, 197–9, 201, 206, 227, 230, 237, 244 Christian, Revd Emmanuel 233 Christian, Gladys 172, 198–9 Christian, Rajnikant 198, 216, 230 Christian Medical Association 10–11 Christian socialist movement 190 Church of England 13–14, 43, 52, 124–6, 233, 241 Church of North India 233, 241 Church of South India 225 ‘civilising mission’ 7–8, 21, 42, 65–6, 147, 149, 179, 191–2, 235, 241–6 Collins, Revd W. B. 34, 106 colonialism 6–8, 14, 145, 147–8, 156, 184, 235–8, 240 Comaroff, Jean and John 10 compassionate healing 212–13, 220–1, 236, 240 Congress Party 181–2 conversion to Christianity Bhils 4, 19, 56–7, 68–70, 83–90, 92, 96, 100, 132–3, 135, 142–3, 157–8, 179–80, 241–6 caste Hindus of Bhil mission region 100, 115–16 Gandhi’s views on 149 general 7, 178, 242–3 in India 19–20, 45, 97 legal restrictions on 180–1 medical strategy for 1–4, 12–13, 57, 66–7, 114, 236 opposition to 95–101, 114–15, 134, 143, 157, 159, 180–2 untouchables 94–5 Cook, Dr Bramwell 213, 228–9 Cook, Dr. J. Howard 126–7, 169–70 craniognomy 26 Cranswick, Revd G. F. (CMS secretary in London) 161 Croce, Benedetto 20

Dadhvav 152, 154 Damor, Dr D. D. 230 Damor, Sukha 68 Damor, Suryaben 230 Danta state 60, 151 Davis, Kingsley 32 decolonisation in India 178 Delhi city 140, 148 Devni Mori thakor of 155 village 90, 100, 134, 155, 159, 171 Dey, M. M. 119, 173 dispensationalism 13, 125–6 Dungarpur maharaja of 100, 117 state 24, 44, 100–1, 117 town 117 dysentery 33, 36, 77, 108–10, 171, 174, 203 Edinburgh 8–10, 195 Medical Missionary Society 10 Enlightenment, the 5–6, 20, 43 evangelical Christians 5–9 eye diseases and complaints 33, 36, 106, 108, 110–11, 116, 171, 195 famine 1899–1900 (the ‘great famine’) 73–80, 83–5, 108–11, 236 charity by Indians during 74 missionary relief activities during 73–80, 87 prophesy of 63, 83–4 First World War 98, 137, 148, 190–1 Foucault, Michel 113, 242 Fox, George 13 Fozdar, Dr Navnit 231 French revolution 5, 32, 113 Freudian psychoanalysis 137, 220, 226 Gandhi, M. K. 148–50, 153, 190 missionary attitudes towards 149–51, 178 Gandhians 147–8, 153, 156, 181–2, 231, 240 German missionaries 11 Ghodi 157, 220 Ghoradar estate 75 town 111

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Gill, Revd Charles H. (CMS secretary for North India) 76, 78–80, 86–8 Girasia community 153 glucose drips 230 Gonds 51–2, 54, 76, 85 Goodwin, Revd J. W. 87 Government of India, British period 7, 21 Gujarat state, government of 228 Gurevich, Aron 31 hakims 110 Hall, Catherine 145 Hamilton, Dr John 168–72 Hari, Revd Laxman 85–6, 88–9, 93, 96 hashish 65 Hatya village 143 Hendley, Dr Thomas Holbein 25–8, 30–2, 34–5, 37, 39–41, 43–5, 60, 64, 144 herbal remedies 37–8, 232 Herbert, Revd E. P. 76, 78, 80, 105–6 Heywood, Rhodri 14, 123 Himatnagar 98, 180, 182, 229 Hindu Mahasabha 181 Hindus and Hinduism 2, 20, 22, 26, 30–1, 37, 51, 80, 84, 88, 96–7, 106, 115, 149, 168–9, 181, 184, 190, 207, 213, 219, 245–6 Hodgkinson, Margaret 118–19, 133, 139 Hodgkinson, Revd William 79, 87–9, 94, 100, 115, 118–19, 133, 142 Holdom, Winfred 158, 166, 174–5, 196 homeopathy 15 Hopkins, Charles 190 Hunt, Nancy Rose 15, 183 Idar chief minister of 67, 97, 155–6 famine relief work by 75 maharajas of 58–61, 63, 92, 97–9, 155 praja mandal (people’s association) 156, 181 state 24, 31, 57–60, 66, 73, 96–101, 109, 115, 151, 155, 175, 178, 180–2 town 34, 229–30

Indian Christian priests see Bhil mission of Church Missionary Society; Indian pastors and catechists of Indian Medical Service 25, 113, 115 Indian nationalism 8, 97, 147–54, 178, 181–2, 184, 190, 230 Indian princely states medical facilities in 25–6, 33–4, 36, 169, 174 individualism 243–4 Indonesia 225 injections, intravenous 200–1, 208, 229–32 Irish Presbyterian Mission 159–61, 226 Islam 6, 61 itineration see medical itineration Jains 31–2 Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in Amritsar 153 Jesingpur 96–7, 99, 127, 136, 143, 155–7, 171 Jesus Christ 150, 191, 213–14, 216 as healer 10–11, 13 Jharkhand 20 Johnson, Dr Margaret 161–2, 178, 187, 192–7, 198–201, 203–21, 214, 226, 228, 231, 237, 239–40 Johnson, Revd Paul 161–2, 178, 181–7, 193–4, 211–12, 214–16, 219 Jorgensen, Else 187 Kabir Panth sect 184 Kagdar 76, 157 Kalasva, Yusuph 158–9 Kalbai 75, 79 Kaliparaj, the 21 Kanthariya village 96, 100 Karchha, thakor of 60, 66, 99, 112, 115 Kayser, Dr Erling 225–6 Khandesh region 25, 51, 54 Kheda district 148 Kherwara Christian community 90, 157, 180, 185 church building 52 dispensary 54–6, 105–6, 108–9 orphanage 73–4, 76–8, 87–8

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school 54, 56, 106, 161, 184, 187, 228 town 1, 25, 27, 51–8, 73–5, 79, 87–8, 90, 105, 131, 168–9, 184, 217, 236 Kipling, Rudyard 23 Kirk, Margaret 201, 206–7, 218, 239 Koch, Robert 108 Korea 140, 189 Kotada 25, 74, 124, 154, 157–60 Koya, Waga 131 Lambert, Helen 35 landlords 21, 29 lantern slide shows 117, 175, 217 Lea, Revd James 4–5, 153–4, 157 Lees, Agnes 124, 169, 172, 175, 184, 197–8, 214 liquor (daru) 28, 38–9, 41, 61, 63, 65, 92, 95, 98, 151, 198 liquor dealer 21 Litchfield, Revd G. 36, 55–6, 105 Livingstone College, London 174 Livingstone, Dr David 9–10 London School of Medicine for Women 140–1 Lowe, Dr. John 119 Lucknow mission of CMS 79–80 Lusadiya Christian mela (fair) 90–3, 129–30, 142–3 Christians of 66, 83–91, 94, 157, 171, 172, 180–1, 185, 213, 227–8, 230 church building 90, 171, 233 dispensary 66–8, 99, 105, 165, 192–4, 196 hospital 111–19, 131, 134, 143, 159–60, 165–73, 180–2, 192–221, 226–7, 237–9 Mother’s Union 199, 218 orphanage 88, 144–5 school 66–8, 83, 90, 172, 184 village 57, 60, 62–3, 66, 83–91, 108, 135, 136, 155, 161, 170, 186, 195, 210, 214, 217, 230, 233 Luther, Martin 13 Maharana of Mewar 25, 28, 41 Mahi Kantha Agency 25, 42, 58–60 medical work by 35

political agents 40, 42, 59, 60–3, 66, 68, 98, 100, 153, 155 Scott College at Sadra 99, 115 malaria 9–10, 33–4, 36, 73, 77, 106, 108, 110, 115, 171, 173, 179, 196, 203, 207, 215–16, 229 Malaviya, Bishop Vinod 233 Malcolm, John 21–2, 24 Marx, Karl 6–7 maternity care and obstetrics 144, 171, 192–3, 199–200, 207, 210–12, 216–19, 230 Mayo College, Ajmer 156 Mayoh, Revd John 187 medical fundraising 115, 166, 194, 199, 205 medical itineration 116–17, 237 medical mission movement 8–15, 53, 101, 119, 126–7, 189–92, 235–41 Medical Missionary Association (London) 11, 166 medical practice by missionaries, forms of decolonisation period 191–4, 225–6, 236–7 early-nineteenth century 9–10 early-twentieth century 108–20, 165–76, 189–92 late-nineteenth century 14–15, 34, 105–8, 119 medical education by 175, 215–19, 231 women, work amongst 140–1 Meigh, Revd Frank 161, 167–9, 174 Meigh, Marjorie 160, 173–4 mental health 32 Methodists 7, 140, 226 Mewar Bhil Corps (MBC) 1–2, 25–6, 30, 40, 42, 44, 51, 54, 56, 60, 64, 73–4, 87–8, 96, 101, 152–4, 236, 241 famine relief work by 73–4, 76, 87 medical work of 25–6, 51, 54–5, 106, 111, 118 Mewar State 1–2, 21, 24–5, 33, 42, 73, 101, 153, 178 Praja Mandal (People’s Association) 181 Mews, Stuart 14 Mildmay hospital, London 174

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Protestantism 8, 20, 45, 125–6, 147, 190–1 psychosomatic healing 14–15, 219–21, 226, 240–2 Pukadyil, Dr. I. J. 208, 227, 230

Miraj medical school (American Presbyterian Mission) 172, 198 Modasa town 181, 228 modernity 6–7, 241–6 Moloney, Revd Herbert (CMS secretary for central India) 111, 133, 144–5 Mould, Revd Horace 56 Mughal emperors 63 Muslims 6, 20, 30–1, 45, 59, 61, 97, 133, 149, 155, 181, 219

Quakers 13

Nana Kanthariya village 90 Nathadwara 68 Navjeevan Seva Mandal 227 Nevius, Revd J. L. 123 Newbigin, Bishop Lesslie 225–6 Newton, B. M. 144 Nigeria, Emirates of Northern 236 nurses 113, 120, 143–4, 165–6, 168, 172–3, 196, 201, 206–7, 210–11, 227, 238–9 operations see surgery opium 66 Orissa 20 Outram, Revd Arthur 73–8, 85–8 Outram, Gertrude 76, 78 Outram, James 25, 58 Pal estate 152 thakor of 59, 67, 98–9, 115 Pandav, Shanti Joria 166, 172, 184, 186, 192, 196 Pandav, Revd Valji 186–7 Parmar, Revd Philip 184, 220 Patel community 69, 80 Patel, Premji Hurji 69, 79, 85, 134, 136, 157, 165, 167 Pathans 155 Pathik, V. S. 153 Pentecostalism 126 plague 33 pneumonia 35–6, 105, 168, 173–4 Pol State 24, 59–60, 151 Posina region 60 prayers for healing 131–2, 168, 213, 219–21, 240–2 ‘primitive, the’ 8, 160–1, 169–70, 176, 193, 198, 235

racialist science 26 Rajputs 23, 28, 54, 58, 60, 101, 143, 148, 181, 235, 244 values of 28, 61 Read, Dr Frank 165–8, 174, 193, 239 religious evolution 20, 57 Reuben, E. 112–13 Rikhabnath temple 31–2 Robert, Dana 139, 141 Rockefeller Foundation 189 Rogers, Leonard 108 Roman Catholicism 45, 126, 131, 190, 246 Rural Service Centre, Ankleshwar 216 Sabarkantha district 178, 203, 205, 228, 230, 233 Salvation Army 14 Salvi, Dr D. K. 165–6 Santals 37–8, 45, 51–2, 54 Sarsau 76 Sarvodaya movement 182, 231 Satan (the devil) 4, 15, 123–5, 128, 214 Satgurudas (Sava Suvera) 83–7, 90, 94–5, 130, 135, 157 Satyadas, Sadhu 68 Scottish Presbyterians 159–60 Scudder, Dr Martyn 11 Second World War 179, 194–5, 231 secularism 6 Sevagram hospital 240 Shah, K. K. 182 Shamlaji ashram 182 hospital 230 temple 31 town 35, 63, 75, 156, 217 Shaw, Revd Charles 136, 161, 165, 180, 183–4, 214 Shaw, Lilian (Lily) 165, 167, 214 Shepherd, Dr James 33–6, 74, 77

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Shukla, Gangaram 156 Singh, Dr Florence 210 Singh, Dr Robert 210–12, 219, 227 Sirohi state 151, 153 skin diseases and complaints 33–4, 36, 105–6, 116, 171, 173–4, 196 Slade, Madeline (Mirabai) 149 smallpox 33–5, 76, 203, 240 Smith, Gladys 187, 217–18 Social Darwinism 8 social gospel, the 189–91 Soma, Jiva 95 Som-Sabarkantha church 178, 186–7 Spinoza, Baruch 43, 124 spirit possession 37–9, 123–35, 214 spiritual healing 126, 226, 241 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 24, 145 Stanley, John 189–91 Student Christian Movement 11 Surendranagar mission hospital 226 surgery 1, 10, 14, 15–16, 33, 106, 110, 114, 116, 119, 166–7, 170, 193–7, 200, 204, 210, 212, 229–30 Surmaldas, Sant 19, 57, 60–67, 69, 83–6, 90, 95, 105, 241–3 Suvera, Kavada Soma 172 Suvera, Peter 94–5 Swadhyaya Parivar sect 246 Swain, Dr Clara 140 Swaminarayan sect 246 Tate, N. F. 187 Tejawat, Motilal 151–2, 154 thakors 25, 27–9, 41, 44, 58–61, 64, 66, 69, 73, 75, 80, 92, 97–100, 107, 111, 114–16, 151–3, 155–6, 160, 168, 181, 199 Thompson, Revd Charles Stewart 1–3, 19, 23, 33–5, 41, 52–8, 61, 66–70, 73–6, 79, 84, 105–6, 136, 233, 236 Tintoi estate 59 village 116, 227, 230

Tod, James 21–2 Trench, Archbishop Richard Chenevix 124–5 tribal people of India in general 20–1, 23, 51–3, 55 tuberculosis 33–5, 201–3, 207–8, 212, 216, 240 Tübingen consultations of 1964 225–6 Udaipur 25–6, 33, 35, 41, 74, 77 Union Mission Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Arogyavaram 202 untouchables 20 Christian converts 94–6 usury 21, 64 Utilitarians 7 Valsad mission hospital 226 Varsat, Singrabhai 228 Vaughan, Megan 5 Vellore Christian hospital 210 Vyse, Revd G. C. 79, 87–9, 93 Walker, Edward 62, 85–7 Watts, Rowena 119, 139, 176 Weber, Max 6 Wesley, John 7, 9 witchcraft beliefs 38–44, 59, 129–30, 142, 214, 238, 241 Women’s Christian Medical College (Ludhiana) 140, 210 Women’s Foreign Mission Society 140 World Council of Churches 225–6 World Health Organisation 203 worm infestation 33, 36–7, 74, 108, 171, 196 Wyatt, Revd Walter 96, 135, 155 Yunani Tibb medicine 15 Zenana Mission Society of the CMS 79, 140

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