Pentecostal, and charismatic-havebeen selected from a wider set of Mission Handbook as "evangelical" (pp. 249ff). A few are identified descriptors tha t the MissionHandbook provides for identifyingagency simply by denominational tradition; e.g., the Lutheran Brethren tradition. Most agencies select one or more of these particular (affiliated with EFMA; identified with the Lutheran tradition), and descriptors, while a minority prefer to be identified simply by their the Apostolic Christian Church (unaffiliated; identified with the denominational tradition: Baptist, Lutheran, and so forth. Holiness tradition). Two of the IFMA agencies use both"evangeli­ 10. The increase was influenced slightly by the addition of agencies cal" and "fundamentalist" to identify themselves: UFM Interna­ founded subsequent to 1968 (350 out of the total of 9,572). tional and CAM International. 11. The largest share of this gain can be attributed to just two agencies, The group labeled "unaffiliated evangelicals" in Fig. 3 consists of New Tribes Mission (growth rate nearly 6 percent per year) and the twenty-two agencies that are not related either to EFMA or IFMA. Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (growth Sevenagencies in this group appear in the Handbook as"evangelical," rate of about 2 percent). Between them they increased by more than including Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT). The others are identi­ 4,000 , thereby accounting for two out of every three fied generally by denominational tradition: Anabaptist, Brethren, gained by the fundamentalist community since 1968. Holiness, Lutheran, Mennonite, and Restoration. I perceive these Parenthetically, it should be noted that the entry for Southern denominational agencies as having most affinity with the evangeli­ Baptist FMB (15th ed., p. 221) states that missionaries on furlough cal stream. From 1968 to 1992 the "unaffiliated evangelical" group were not included in the total for career missionaries. If furloughed grew at an annualized rate of 2 percent, with WBT accounting for the missionaries had been included (as they always were in the past), largest share of the growth. several hundred would be added to the total. This illustrates how Although charismatic and Pentecostal agencies are often identi­ variation in the method of reporting a large agency can have a major fied as evangelical, for the purposes of this study they are considered impact upon grand totals and skew comparisons of successive in the separate category of charismatic/Pentecostal. However, a few editions of the Mission Handbook. Pentecostal agencies have long been associated with EFMA and 12. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids, accordingly are included in the evangelical group displayed in Fig. 3 Mich.: Eerdmans, 1989, repro 1992), p. 65. (e.g., the , and the Pentecostal Assemblies of 13. Fig. 3 includes 131 agencies, almost all of which are identified in the Canada).

Ironies of Indigenization: Some Cultural Repercussions of Mission in South Susan Billington Harper

heologies and mission strategies that stress the funda­ wars and partitions in this century, not to mention more subtle T mental importance of indigenization bear an unmistak­ forms of alienation and discrimination. The use of indigenous­ able resemblance to secular ideologies of ethnic or national self­ ness as grounds for inclusion or exclusion has its parallels in determination. Indigenization as a central principle of mission church life, for example in the anti-Western reaction to mission­ constrains the church to operate respectfully within boundaries ary dominance in some sections of the younger churches. established by underlying ethnic groups or nationalities. It is It was therefore interesting to me when I embarked on my citizenship in genetic and geographic entities rather than in a study of one of India's greatest indigenous leaders, V. S. Azariah "higher kingdom" that defines many proper rules of conduct, (1874-1945), to discover his absolute rejection of an exclusivist according to this point of view. attitude towardWesternmissionaries on the basisoftheirethnicity Christian missionaries were influenced by, and contributed or nationality, and indeed toward many otheraspects of Western to, the historical shift in ideologies of sovereignty that accompa­ culture that permeated the churchin India. Explainingthe appar­ nied rapid decolonization in this century. Concepts of self­ ent contradiction between his reputation as an ardent Indian determination were fundamental to Anglican advocates of mis­ na tionalist andhis continuingreliance uponWesternmissionary sionary "euthanasia" and younger church indigenization from support and Western literature and cultural symbols during his Henry Venn onward. But violence in the modern world related career as a missionary and bishop became one of the central to the politicization of ethnic and religious or communal identi­ preoccupations of my work on Azariah's life.' His highly am­ ties-from Bosnia to Ayodhya-raises critical questions about bivalent and sometimes surprising approach to the process of the principle and practice of indigenization itself. Careful scru­ church indigenization suggested to me the need for a deeper tiny of the meaning and operation of indigenization in concrete exploration of 's relation to culture in the particular and varied historical situations is clearly warranted. historical setting of in the nineteenth and twentieth "Indigenousness" is the conceptmostcommonly used today centuries. by ethnic groups laying claim to entitlements. "To be legitimate," writes DavidHorowitz in his analysis of ethnic groupconflict, "is Revival and Rejection of Culture to be identified with the territory." But any claim to group legitimacy deriving from attachment to the soil usually involves Christian missions have clearly helped to inspire vernacular the reverse "psychological denial" thatanother group mightalso cultural revivals in as well as by, in Lamin ownequal shares in the land.' This exclusivist aspect to collective Sanneh's words, "uncapp[ing] the springs of indigenization."3 "indigenous" moral claims to legitimacy has led to numerous Of eight statues honoring the makers of Tamil culture on the Madras Marina, no less than three are Christian missionaries.' Susan Billington Harper is a Lecturer in History and Literature and in Joseph Constantius Beschi, a Jesuit, and Anglicans Robert Expository Writing at Harvard University. Caldwell and George Pope are remembered for their pioneering

January 1995 13 grammars of spoken and classical Tamil, as well as for their inherited rituals and symbols of indigenous culture. But the creative contributions to Tamil literature and history. Beschi is character of newly emerging Christian cultures was also medi­ hailed as one of the founders of literary prose in Tamil, and ated by extra-Christian factors such as wider historical circum­ Robert Caldwell's Comparative Grammar ofthe Dravidian orSouth stances and by sociological factors, such as caste mobilization Indian Family of Languages (1856) helped to inspire the renais­ and regional competition. sance of and literature in the nineteenth century. In this essay I examine some cultural repercussions of the Christianity's contributions to Tamil culture did not stop with missionary-translation enterprise among two depressed class the missionaries. The first Tamil novel was written by Christian groups: nineteenth-century Nadars, located in the present-day convert Samuel Vedanayagam Pillai. South Indian state of , and twentieth-century un­ Yet, if Christian missions helped to ignite unexpected ver­ touchable Malas and Madigas in Andhra Pradesh. In both of nacular revivals in South Asia, they largely failed to ignite these areas, Anglican church leaders (both Western and Indian) widespread conversion movements, at least in comparison with made concerted efforts to "indigenize" the church, but several the scale witnessed in Africa. The primarymotive of missionaries factors combined to produce what were clearly ironic conse­ to India to convert the heathen was overtaken by the inescapable quences. Use of the word "ironic" is appropriate because the cultural consequences of their work. Most cultural systems in emerging shape of indigenization was far from what well-mean­ South Asia have been influenced by Christianity, but South ing orientalist indigenizers had intended to cultivate in their Asians have, on the whole, remained stubbornly hostile to evan­ converts. gelization, with only about 3 percent of today's population Christian converts frequently resisted orientalizing efforts claiming to be Christian. Foreign missionaries were clearly in­ to promote indigenization and instead embraced opportunities strumental in stirring up a greater awareness of ethnic and, later, for Westernization. For them, their natural inclinations seemed national identities among some Indians. But the relative to lead toward Westernization. Hence, an indigenized form of marginalization of Christianity in India has occurred at least in Christianity for many outcastes was, in fact, a Westernized form partbecauseof the resourcefulness withwhichcertainsections of that struck missionary indigenizers as not indigenous at all. For Indian society responded to the Christian challenge by revitaliz­ reasons to be explored below, low-caste converts often preferred ing their own traditions and identities and, in consequence, Western ways to prima facie indigenous ones; frequently the constructing a cultural wall against conversion. latter signified to them aspects of caste or regional oppression This outcome was deeply influenced by India's complex, that they wished to avoid rather than embrace. The election of hierarchicallybased social structure. Caste-notthe static groups Western church leaders and the adoption of some Western described by British colonial ethnographers but what we now cultural practices by Christian converts was often the result not know to be fluid, changing, and dynamic social groupings-was of missionary hegemony but of indigenous pressure. In fact, the perhaps the most important determinate of the highly variable impetus to Indianize the church came more consistently from way in which Indian society responded to Christian mission. It Westerners than from Indian Christians. Christian conversion was among some of the least culturally proud sections of Indian generated a highly eclectic process of culture change, mixing society that Christianity planted its deepest roots during the last elements from Western, Sanskritic, and local vernacular cul­ century of British rule. Despite the efforts of virtually all early tures. The emerging cultural systems cannot be described as missionaries to convert India "from the top down" via the upper either fully foreign or fully indigenous, for it is in the nature of castes, onlythe lowest, or "untouchable," castes and tribal groups Christianity both to respect and to transcend ethnic and political categories. The impetus to Indianize Nadar Conversion and Culture Change the church came more from Group conversions of the semi-untouchable Nadar caste in the Westerners than from old British districts of Tinnevelly (now ) and neigh­ boring Travancore transformed the Protestant church inherited Indian Christians. from Lutheran missionaries in the early nineteenth century.' By 1851, the Nadars of Tirunelveli and neighboring Travancore comprised more than half of the Christian converts registered responded to the Gospel in significant numbers. The semi­ with Protestant missions in India," the numbers in Tirunelveli untouchable Shanars (now Nadars) were the subject of Robert alone reaching forty-three thousand by 1857.7 By the end of the Caldwell's most scathing criticisms for their low morals and, to nineteenth century, 95 percent of the Christians in the Madras him, barbarous religious practices. It was these lowly Nadars, Presidency came from the Nadar caste. rather than the more respectable higher-caste elites, who re­ One such Nadar convert was born in 1821 to a small mer­ sponded most enthusiastically to the Gospel in Tirunelveli. This chant family and named Velayudham after the popular deity pattern was repeated elsewhere on the subcontinent and led Subramanya. Little is known about the circumstances of his missionaries to conclude, rather reluctantly, that India would be conversion or its impact on his immediate or extended family. converted to Christianity "from the bottom up," if at all. Records show merely that Velayudham entered the CMS school Although responses to Christian mission were as varied as in Megnanapuram at the age of eighteen, where he was baptized Indian society itself, Bible translations and the production of "Thomas Vedanayagam," a name combining the surname of the vernacular literatures from missionary presses fundamentally local Welsh missionary, John Thomas, with a Christian equiva­ altered the cultures that became evangelized. Interaction and lentof his Hinduname (veda meaning "knowledge" butprobably communication with foreign missionaries within the broader referring in this case to the Bible, and nayagam meaning "master" political context of foreign imperial rule led to radical self­ or "leader").8 questioning, reinterpretation, and, sometimes, rejection of many The vehicle of Christian education permitted Thomas

14 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH Vedanayagam to abandon the stigmatized hereditary occupa­ was to share them. Thomas Vedanayagam's congregation-and, tions of his caste-with their associated low social and ritual by 1899, over a thousand others in CMS areas of Tirunelveli rankings-and to enter the employ of the CMS as a catechist. alone-made very considerable voluntary sacrifices to raise the After thirty years' service as a vernacular agent for Western money,quarrythe rocks, andbuildWesternstylevillagechurches missionaries, he was recruited by JohnThomas for a new training and smaller chapels." In Vellalanvilai, converts carried rocks on scheme designed to promote Indians to positions of greater their heads for five kilometers from the quarry to the church authority in the church." Stringent requirements for the priest­ building site. JohnThomas could nothave made themdo this. He hood, including an English-medium theology course, Greek, did not force Thomas Vedanayagam's son, S. V. Thomas, to and Hebrew, had hitherto been an effective barrier to most becomean avidreaderandstylistic imitatorofThomasBabington Indians interested in the ordained ministry. Thomas's reformed Macaulay. (It was said that S. V. Thomas's writings were "often curriculum was designed to meet the needs of local congrega­ mistaken by the press for those of an English gentleman, and tions by requiring experience in village ministry (at least fifteen were quoted as sUCh.")15 Nor did John Thomas or any other years), loyaltyto the church, andpersonalreputation, rather than missionary force S. V. Thomas to write articles critical of Indian academic accomplishments in foreign languages, as criteria for nationalism, which he did. Those who credit Western missionar- ordination. The training scheme included "intensive study of the Bible in Tamil, an outline of church history, Christian doctrine based on the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, preaching (of which they already had considerable experience), Churches in Tirunelveli and pastoral care and village problems."!" This course prepared still have a Western Thomas Vedanayagam for ordination as a deacon with twenty­ character in architecture, one others in 1869, and as a priest in 1871. He then served the years remaining before his death in 1889 as priest of the village aesthetics, and liturgy. congregation ofVellalanvilai, wherehe adopted largely Western models of religious practice (from liturgy to music) and built Holy Trinity Church, a semi-Gothic structure erected upon foun­ ies with this kind of power and influence are unrealistic, not only dation stones taken from a shrine to the goddess Essakiamman about the capabilities of Westerners but also about the malleabil­ that had been destroyed after the conversion of local inhabitants. ity of IndianChristians. Instead, manyIndianconvertswantedto Vernacular ordination training was a key component in the adopt foreign symbols for their faith and ironically chose West­ so-called structural indigenization of the Tirunelveli church, ern cultural expressions for indigenous reasons. whichgaveIndianChristiansgreatercontrolovertheirchurches.11 Reasons for these choices have less to do with perceived Yet neither translation of church liturgy and hymns nor judgments about the relative value of Western and Indian cul­ Indianization of church leadership fundamentally altered the tural systems than with the dynamics of South Indian caste Western, even quintessentially English, cultural character of the mobilization under British imperial rule. Western cultural sym­ church. Anglican liturgy and Western hymns translated into bols served as important tools in competitive bids by the Nadar Tamil were used regularly for worship, and Western institu­ caste to improve its social ranking through the rejection of tional structures were reproduced among the palmyra trees. stigmatized indigenous cultural symbols and practices. The Except perhaps in the area of hymnody where the Tamil lyrics of Nadar caste was one of nineteenth-century South India's most Vedanayagam Sastriar became increasingly popular, neither rapidly changing communities." Nadar moneylenders and mer­ Indian leadership nor Indian congregations seemed particularly chants, like Thomas Vedanayagam's father, took advantage of interested in replacing Western with more indigenous forms of improved transportation and communication created by the Pax ritual and expression. This is well illustrated by the extremely Britannicain the wake of the PoligarWars (1755-1801) to develop limited impact of Sattampillai's Hindu Church of Lord Jesus, trade links to the north in cotton and tobacco. As their wealth which was established to free Indian Christians from white grew, and as trade towns were established in the north, many of missionary influences. The Hindu Christian movement reached the merchant communities sought to dissociate themselves from the height of its membership in 1860 (about six thousand) and caste fellows in Tirunelveli and, from about the 1860s,to lift their thereafter declined until today there is only a tiny community of social status through the process of "Sanskritization," that is, the Hindu Christians in existence." The Gothic-style steeples visible adoption of manners and practices of the higher castes. Many in villages throughout Tirunelveli today attest to the enduringly otherNadarschose to follow the differentpa th ofChristianization Western character of much of nineteenth- and even twentieth­ and were similarly uninhibited about adopting the manners and century church life, its aesthetic expressions, liturgy, and ritual. practices of the British imperial elite. Indian Christians who adopted Western symbols have often The communalcontextof Nadar conversions to Christianity been described by critics as "denationalized." Attitudes of de­ deeply influenced the character of the newly emerging Nadar pendence typical of colonial situations, combined with domi­ cultural systems-both Christian and non-Christian. Christian neering missionary paternalism,havebeenidentified as the chief missions were responsible for awakening Nadar community culprits in this process of denying ethnic self-determination and self-consciousness over wide geographic areas, and Nadar con­ self-realization. Missionaries such as John Thomas could indeed verts became the pacemakers for the wider Nadar community exert a domineering influence in village affairs. Duringhis thirty with regard to social change. Missions provided a spiritual and four years in Megnanapuram, he built a Gothic church with a organizational base for unity among the previously fractionated 192-foot spire, a large mission compound, and a school." After a community, which extended eventually beyond the Christian particularly severe storm, he basically redesigned the whole core as the caste gained political consciousness and sought to village: streets were straightened, houses were rebuilt in rows, uplift itself and to take advantage of economic and educational trees were planted, and wells were improved. opportunities in British India. Nadars abandoned their old ap­ But records suggest that Nadar converts were as eager to pellation"Shanar" for the new, less-stigmatized "Nadar,"fought adopt Western cultural symbols and practices as John Thomas a bloody battle against an upper-caste requirement that Nadar

January 1995 15 women go naked above the waist, and generally turned their Western Bishops for Andhra backs on many ritual rules and regulations that for centuries had kept them in thraldom." The mass movements to Christianity To begin, there was strong resistance among IndianChristians to must be understood as a part of-indeed, as a catalyzing agent Azariah's initial appointment as bishop. Azariah's consecration in-thisbroadereffort to reject caste traditions and to adoptnew, in 1912 would never have occurred without the steadfast defense more respectable forms of social identity. and advocacy of the Britishbishop of Madras, Henry Whitehead Having traditionally been forbidden from entering Hindu (brother of the famous philosopher Alfred North Whitehead), temples, it is perhaps not surprising that Nadar Christians did and the British metropolitan, Reginald Copleston, against stub­ not want their churches to resemble Hindu temples. Unlike the born indigenous opposition. This is not the place to explore the Sanskritizing Nadars, these Nadars turned their backs on complexities of this controversy and its implications for church­ exclusivist higher Hinduism. Nor, however, did they want their state relations in the British Raj.21 Suffice it to say that petitions churches to resemble their former local shrines-those thatched sent to protest Azariah's consecration were signed by a wide mud huts or simple altars eulogized by Westerners as "indig­ range of Tamil and Telugu Christians, criticizing him for lack of enous" but representing to the converts little but their former experience and education, for low social position, for noncon­ poverty and ritually polluting untouchability. A pukka stone formist associations with the YMCA, and for Tamil origins." Gothic church was infinitely preferable to these indigenous Theseprotestswereinterpretedby his mentor, HenryWhitehead, alternatives, particularly if its steeplewashigher than the nearest as expressions of the "four sick passions that are the curse of the Hindu temple gopurams." Far from being a weak concession to Church in South India: race prejudice, caste feeling, party spirit domineering missionaries, Westernization represented a sym­ and personal jealousy."23 Azariah's consecration clearly became bolic challenge by long-suppressed lower classes to an oppres­ an occasionfor the openarticulationof interregionalandintercaste sive indigenous social order. In this context, indigenization disputes, but their effect was limited by the closed nature of the along the lines expected by Western orientalizing indigenizers episcopal selection process, which did not require clerical or would have been viewed as just another form of indigenous congregational consent, and by the constant patronage of a small oppression. group of liberal-minded Western church leaders. As appointment procedures were opened to greater demo­ Western Indigenizers and Indigenous cratic participation after the 1930 disestablishment of the Angli­ Westernizers can church in India, it became harder rather than easier to appoint Indians to high posts in the church. After Azariah's It wasnotuntil the twentieth century that Indian Christians were death in 1945, a similarly vehement campaign was launched by faced regularly with the challenge of resisting cultural Indian Christians against the appointment of an Indian succes- indigenization proposed by Westerners. The rise of nationalism deep1y affected manyof India's morehighly educa ted Christians by the end of the nineteenth century, although it left the vast Mass movements to majority of Christianconverts untouched and unmoved. Indeed, the cleavages that developed between the pro-indigenizing Christianity must be Western and Indian Christian leadership-often located in ur­ understood as a part of a ban areas-and the pro-Westernizing Indian Christian villagers were similar to the cleavages that developed in wider Indian broader effort to adopt society and were described with cutting irony in Kipling's fasci­ more respectable forms of nating but little-known short story "The Enlightenments of Pagett, M.P."19 The shock experienced by the liberal British M.P. social identity. Pagett, who discovers that only a small elite of Western- (often missionary-) educated Indians is interested in the new Indian National Congress is similar to the frustration experienced by sor. Numerous petitions to the metropolitancomplained that the progressive Western missionaries and many highly educated aspirations of "Andhra Christians" had been ignored under the Indian Christians who discovered that most Indian Christians "Native Tamil Bishop." One letter accused Azariah of distancing were not at all interested in church indigenization. the Dornakal church from "the Mother Church of England, just This ambivalence toward indigenization among many In­ as a child was forcibly removed from the hands of her mother: dian Christians is well illustrated by the career of Thomas making us to lament the loss." Some congregations were so Vedanayagam's third and youngest son, V. S. Azariah, who opposed to native bishops that they threatened to desert to became one of India's earliest indigenous missionaries and is Catholicism, and most petitions ended with a call for the election remembered today mainly as the first Indian bishop of the of a European or English bishop." Anglican Church." Azariah was, and continues to be in mission In the end, five Europeans, three Tamils, and three Telugus history, a prominent symbol of church indigenization by virtue werenominatedfor the Dornakalpost. AnIrishCMS missionary, of his appointment as an Indian bishop and because of his A. B.Elliot, was elected by a vast majority of the diocesan synod Indianizing policies in Dornakal. Neglected in the popular pic­ but accepted the post only with reluctance. "It is undoubtedly ture are two realities that emerge from the written and oral desirabletha t thereshouldagainbe an IndianBishop of Domakal," historical records: first, that Indianization was often advocated Elliot wrote to the metropolitan after the vote, accepting the post more strongly by Azariah's Western mentors than by Azariah only on the condition that he could help to prepare the way for himself; second, that Indianizing strategies were often actively another Indian bishop by "preparing an assistant bishop or resisted by local Indian village congregations. A few examples bishops and then making way for another election.?" from the beginning and ending of Azariah's career will suffice to Although Azariah would undoubtedly have been disap­ illustrate the point. pointed to witness this denouement to Henry Whitehead and

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:)/0 1'/ yourmissiou« career /uda) : m {/ aOO-992-4652 . C® BIOLA UN I V E RS ITY Schoo l oj l ntercull urul Studies 13800Biola Avenue, La Mirada, California 90639 Reginald Copleston'sexperimentin Indianleadership,he would Indianmissionarysocietyand to go himselfas a missionaryto the not have been surprised. Azariah had analyzed the reasons for Telugus. There is almost no textual evidence, even of an indirect Indian Christian resistance to indigenization of church leader­ kind, to support the theory that the founders of the Indian ship in a reportto the EpiscopalSynod of 1942. He argued that the MissionarySociety (IMS)weremotivatedby anythingotherthan chances of an Indian being elected bishop decreased after 1930, the biblical commission to preach the Gospel to nonbelievers. when the new Church of India, Burma, and Ceylon placed most The study of Scripture and of inspirational works by Andrew episcopal elections into the hands of their dioceses. "According Murray and A. H. Arden, combined with prayer in the context of to the present Constitution whereby Bishops are elected by the spiritual revival, led the founders of the IMS to conclude that Dioceses themselves," Azariah concluded, "there does not ap­ missionary service was a duty incumbent on all Christians. The pear to be much chance for any of the Dioceses with large Indian society was the fruit of an enthusiastic and serious spiritual Church populations to elect Indians as Diocesan Bishops." The maturity, not ethnic or national self-expression. dioceses of Tirunelveli, Travancore, and Chota Nagpur had all Azariah emerged from the rural culture of Tirunelveli with electedforeignbishopssince disestablishment. "RuralChristian[s] a relatively secure sense of his own identity as an Indian Chris­ probably think they need a European Bishop to watch over their tian. He was fundamentally uninterested in becoming more interests. Communal and personal jealousies also often come "indigenous." But letters to his wife indicate that pressure to into play," Azariah explained." As a layman's association in indigenize was exerted, first by his beloved YMCA colleague Dornakal expressed it, "We would prefer to be ruled by a Sherwood Eddy, and then by his Anglican mentor Henry European to being ruled by an Indian as the former has generally Whitehead and Whitehead's wife, Isabel, a rather formidable a broad outlook and no vested interests in this country.'?" The active memsahib of the old school. In 1906 Azariah wrote that he preference for European over native church leaders was wide­ was promoting another "indigenous" missionary society, the spread and did not end with the coming of national indepen­ National Missionary Society, "simply because of Mr. Eddy and dence. Bishop Neill wrote in 1952 that "in the (Anglican) Church not because I feel that it is the Lord's will for me.'?" of India, the inclination still to elect European and not Indian A few years later, when Azariah was preparing for episco­ bishops is so strong as to causesome dismay to those whobelieve pacy, he felt obliged to reject the Whiteheads' efforts to Indianize firmly in the principle of indigenous leadership.?" him. Isabel Whitehead, who assumed the task (to her exceed­ In Andhra, resistance to orientalizing indigenization sprang inglyimportant) of finding suitablyoriental-styledvestmentsfor mainly from caste conflict between the two major untouchable the new Indianbishop, at first insisted upon the classic symbol of groups-the Malas and the Madigas-neither of whom wanted oriental dignity in the West: a turban. From Azariah's perspec­ their rivals to gain privileged access to ecclesiastical authority tive, a turban seemed about as foreign as it would to most and resources. Resistance was also attributable to interregional Westerners, so he launched a determined campaign of noncoop­ conflict during a period in which Telugus increasingly resented eration against Isabel's orientalizing plans, writing to his wife, the political, linguistic, and cultural dominance of their Tamil "Mrs. Whitehead is taking me to task for not buying a turban!"30 neighbors. The so-called Andhra Movement challenged their Mrs. Whitehead's symbol clearly made Azariah distinctly un­ perceived subordination and led to the establishment of a sepa­ comfortable. One year later, he was persuaded to purchase two rate Telugu language university within Azariah's diocese in turbans (one brown and one white silk) for his first trip to 1926. Azariah's educational policies, which stressed village re­ England with the Whiteheads but conceded to his wife from the construction over higher education and included the closing of a outgoing ship that he did not have the courage to wear them. missionary college that functioned importantly as a conduit for Instead, he donated the white one to an English gentleman from those aspiring to escape from local village life, were perceived by the First Class attending a fancy dress ball as an Indian prince." Telugus-Christians and non-Christians alike-as a Tamil effort To Azariah, turbans were more appropriate as dress-ups for to blocktheirlegitimateaspirations. However, indigenousTelugu Englishmen acting out their perceptions of a largely imaginary intercaste competition for social, economic, and ritual prefer­ Orient than as working attire for the episcopacy. Azariah faced ment stifled the effects of the Andhra awakening in the episcopal the awkward reality that, in being groomed for the first Indian selection process. bishopric, he was being sculpted into a symbol of Indianization for and by Westerners. Orientalizing Sahibs and Memsahibs For the most part, Azariah successfully resisted Isabel Whitehead's attempts to dress him up as the Indianbishop of her Many other illustrations of this unexpectedly complex reaction own orientalist imagination. The turban was abandoned, and to indigenization in Dornakal could be examined, such as why eventually a simple cassock was substituted for the costly En­ local Christians preferred white Victorian representations of glishcoat andbreechesdonnedby the otherbishops (and likened Christ over brown indigenized versions in the otherwise indig­ to that of a Highlander going to a funeral)." The Whiteheads enous Dornakal Cathedral, or why they rejected some Hindu succeeded, however, in persuading Azariah to shave off his customs but voluntarily adopted others such as a prohibition on fashionable mustachebeforehis 1912entryinto the conservative, beef eating. But I would like to conclude by taking a brief look at albeit amply whiskered, company of India's British bishops. the dilemma of Western missionaries in India and at the way in (Three of these bishops sported mustaches with beards, and which their zeal for indigenization-for the development of expansive muttonchop sideburns had successfully colonized some kind of Indian ethnic self-determination and self-expres­ most of the metropolitan's face.):" sion in ecclesiastical matters-ultimately threatened to under­ Pressure to conform to an English interpretation of what it mine itself by becoming another form of foreign domination. meant to be Indian persisted and caused Azariah continuing Although Azariah's education at Madras Christian College discomfort. The cassock Azariah chose was widely adopted by and his early career as a YMCA secretary had exposed him to Anglican bishops, who eventually took efforts to present them­ Indian nationalism, it was primarily his understanding of the selves in a more Indian manner than Azariah himself. Stephen Gospel that inspired him to establish the first major indigenous Neill wrote in later years, "It has always amused me that,

18 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH whereasI the foreigner always wentto Churchbarefoot,Azariah, of the Church of South India in 1947. It was children of former the Indian, always wore leather shoes.":" Azariah took a good­ untouchables who helped to reconcile many highly educated humored approach to Westerners who advocated Indian prac­ Western leaders of Episcopal and non-Episcopal churches to tices he considered inappropriate, joking in response that they each other for the first time in history. Church unity did not should introduce the "real Indian ecclesiastical vestment ... eradicate the influence of caste in postindependence South In­ nothing at all!":" But he was never entirely free from Western dian church life, particularly on disputes over episcopal succes­ pressure to Indianize. During the Whiteheads' regular visits to sion. Nor, however, did the simultaneous achievement of Indian Dornakal, Mrs. Whitehead used to berate the bishop and his national independence lead to the severing of ties between family for eating English breakfasts rather than Indian iddli. Indian and Western Christians. The Church of South India When Azariah named a new Christian village in his diocese appointed Lesslie Newbigin as bishop of Madurai and Ramnad Whitehead Farm, the Whiteheads insisted that he rename it in 1947and as bishop in Madras in 1965.Being botha dispassion­ Vedanayagapuram." ate "outsider" by virtue of his foreign nationality and lack of The irony of indigenization in twentieth-century South In­ caste affiliation, and a committed "insider" by virtue of his dia is that it was so often initiated by well-meaning Westerners missionary work in South India and his fluency in Tamil, Bishop withoutstrong guidance and supportfrom the majority of Indian Newbiginsuited perfectly the needs of his Indiandioceses at that Christians. This caused it to have a certain artificial quality." "To time. His appointments symbolized the important degree to be indigenous," an Anglican divine has written, "means simply which Indian Christianity desired to transcend local ethnic and to be free to respond to Christ and to the world without any of the national boundaries and to retain access to a more universal self-consciousness whichis imposed by the attitudes of others.":" Christian community. But it was perhaps as difficult for many liberal Westerners as it Thus, we see in mission history the rediscovery of a crucial was for Indian nationalists to accept that, in some situations, aspect of the Christian revelation. It is sometimes argued that it Indian Christians desired closer identification with the West was the prophet Amos who discovered, or at least applied, the than with their own local or national traditions. Liberation is potent idea of "one God of all the nations." It can also be argued always an indigenous desire, and Christianity, in its Anglican that the rise of Christianity in the ancient world was an explosion missions-mediated forms, apparently provided the most clear of this potent universalizing theology from within the and straightforward path out of the demeaning cultural matrix overcompressed confines of Judaic nationalism into the broad from which these converts wished to exit. spaces of the diverse Hellenistic multiethnic conglomerate of the Roman Empire. In this way, it was Jesus Christ who extended The Universal Gospel (Christians would say fulfilled) the prophetic hope of a God of all the nations and united, for the first time, one godly people from Azariah frequently objected to descriptions of the Christian all nations. It was the divine sovereignty of Jesus the King, rather community in India as a static communal group, stressing in­ than a democratic sovereignty of collective ethnicity or national­ steadits dynamicandinclusive qualities for"all races, all tongues ity, that provided the focus of loyalty for this new universal and all castes.":" "The of Christ is one of the most brotherhood and, I would suggest hopefully, continues to do so dynamic factors in the world. It always bursts its boundaries, today. In this sense, Christianity is a religion that fits more however strong and rigid those boundaries may be.... It refuses comfortably into the multiethnic empires of the first or the to be confined to anyone race, class, or caste. It seeks to embrace nineteenth centuries than into the democratically self-determin­ all.":" This recognition of the Gospel's dynamism led him to ing but competing and increasingly fractionated ethnicities, oppose, with Gandhi, the system of separate electorates erected nationalisms, and class identities of our blood-drenched twenti­ by the British government. But his beliefin the universal mission­ eth century. The irony of nineteenth- and twentieth-century ary ambitions of Christianity also led him into a bitter dispute church indigenization in South India is that it so often under­ with Gandhi over the legitimacy of conversion in South Asia." It mined its goal of being midwife to the birthof an authentic Indian was his belief that in Christianity Indians could participate in a Christianitybecause of its focus upon legitimizing perceptions of universal brotherhood fundamentally different from India's Indian national and ethnic identity and, ultimately therefore, oppressive hierarchical caste system that led him to work so because of its subservience to the modernizing Zeitgeist. As tirelessly for church unity in South Asia. Denominationalism history shows so clearly, the church that is wedded to the spirit threatened to create a community as divided as the former caste of the age will be widow to the next generation. The beauty of society, particularly as denominational lines in India began to missionary history is that, in penetrating appearances, realities correspond remarkably with caste lines. The enormous frustra­ are discovered that greatly enrich our understanding of the tion Azariah and his colleagues felt as "denomination" was distinctive contributions of this much more culturally complex translated into "caste" was a prime motivation in the formation church to world Christianity.

Notes------­ 1. David L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: Univ. of 4. L. Newbigin, UnfinishedAgenda:An Autobiography(London: SPCK, California Press, 1985), pp. 201-2. 1985), pp. 218-19. On Christian influence in the Tamil and Bengali 2. Susan B.Harper, "Azariah and Indian Christianity in the Late Years renaissances, see Charles Ryerson, Regionalism and Religion: The of the Raj" (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford Univ., 1991), which contains more TamilRenaissance and Popular Hinduism (Madras: CLS, 1988), pp. 60­ detailed discussion and documentation of issues raised in this essay. 81; and M. A. Laird, Missionaries and Education in Bengal: 1793-1837 3. Lamin Sanneh, "Christian Mission in the Pluralist Milieu: The Afri­ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 55-58, 265. can Experience," International Review of Mission, 74, no. 294 (April 5. The membership of the Lutheran church in South India grew to 1985): 199-211. See also Lamin Sanneh, Translatingthe Message: The about thirty-seven thousand during the first century of its existence. MissionaryImpacton Culture (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1989). See exact figures taken from Julius Richter in S. C. Neill, A Historyof

January 1995 19 Christianityin India: 1707-1858 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, John Thomas on this subject, see Grey-Edwards, Memoirof the Rev. 1985), p. 56. John Thomas, p. 70. 6. Of a total of 91,092 Christians, 51,355 belonged to Tirunelveli's CMS 19. R. Kipling, "The Enlightenments of Pagett, M.P.," Contemporary and SPG missions and to South Travancore's London Missionary Review58 (1890): 333-55. Society (LMS) (J.Richter, A HistoryofMissionsin India, trans. Sydney 20. Harper, "Azariah and Indian Christianity." H. Moore [Edinburgh: OliphantAndersonand Ferrier, 1908],p. 201). 21. Susan B. Harper, "The Making of an Oriental Bishop: V. S. Azariah On LMS work in Travancore, see Dick Kooiman, Conversion and and the Anglican Church in India," to appear in Festschrift honoring Social Equalityin India (New Delhi: South Asia Pubs., n.d.). Professor Robert E. Frykenberg. 7. This is the number of converts received by the CMS and SPG 22. Petitions may be found in 178:369-72, 386-88, Davidson Papers, missions given in RobertCaldwell, Lectures ontheTinnevellyMissions Lambeth Palace, London; and in 5:1/4, Dornakal, Metropolitan (London: Bell and Daldy, 1857), p. 14. Archives of the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon 8. On Thomas Vedanayagam's early life, see "Bishop Azariah's Family (MACIPBC), Bishop's College, Calcutta. and Early Life," Dornakal Diocesan Magazine 22, no. 5 (May 1945); A. 23. Whitehead to Copleston, November 8, 1911, 5:1/2, Dornakal, J.Azariah,A Biographical Sketch ofSamuelVedanayagam Thomas (1855­MACIPBC. 1890) (Saidapet, Madras: Mount Printing Works, 1970); Mercy 24. Petitions may be found in 5:2/7, Dornakal, MACIPBC. Azariah, Bishop Azariahof Dornakal: A Play(Coonoor, Nilgiris: India 25. A. B. Elliot to the Metropolitan, April 27, 1945, 5:2/7, Dornakal, Sunday School Union, 1948); Carol Graham, Azariah of Dornakal MACIPBC. (London: SCM, 1946); J. Z. Hodge, Bishop Azariah of Dornakal (Ma­ 26. "Circular Letter," November 16, 1942, 1:4, Episcopal Synod, dras, CLS, 1946). Information has also been taken from a group MACIPBC. interview on March 10, 1986, with K. Thasiah, C. Christian Devaraj, 27. Manifesto of the Layman's Association of the CMS Churches of the and other villagers in Vellalanvilai; and from interviews and corre­ Dornakal Diocese 5:2/6, Dornakal, MACIPBC. spondence with Thomas Vedanayagam's grandson, Ambrose 28. S. C. Neill, The Christian Society(London: Fontana Library, Collins, Azariah, of Madras. 1952), p. 253. See also Graham Houghton, The Impoverishment of 9. The scheme has been described as revolutionary by Stephen Neill (A Dependency: TheHistoryoftheProtestant Church in Madras, 1870-1920 History of Christianityin India, p. 400). (Madras: CLS, 1983). 10. Ibid., p. 400. Although Hebrew and Greek ceased to be required of 29. V. S. Azariah (VSA) to Anbu, August 17, 1906, Azariah Collection, candidates, there is evidence that Thomas Vedanayagam acquired Madras (ACM). some knowledge of those languages anyway. See Henry Whitehead, 30. VSA to Anbu, May 21, 1909, ACM. On the subject of orientalism and "VedanayagamSamuel Azariah," International ReviewofMissions34, discourses of identity produced by colonialism, see Edward Said, no. 134 (April 1945): 184. Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Press, 1978). 11. For useful distinctions between different types, or levels, of 31. VSA to Anbu, April 11 and 19, 1910, ACM. indigenization, see Immanuel S. David, "The Development of the 32. As one historian has written of the younger churches' persistent use Concept of Indigenisation Among Protestant Christians in India of Western clothing styles, "Native priests were dressed up like from the Time of Henry Venn" (M.Th. thesis, United Theological European clergymen, and even native bishops, when there came to College, Bangalore, 1975). be such, adorned themselves in the riding attire of eighteenth­ 12. Neill, A History of Christianityin India, pp. 231-33. century English prelates, which has sometimes been mistaken for 13. "Western" cultural expressions were (and are) as eclectic as Indian that of a Highlander going to a funeral" (Alec R. Vidler, TheChurch ones, and the use of Gothic styles in Tirunelveli was the result of in the Age of Revolution: 1789 to the Present Day [London: Hodder & nineteenth-century England's Gothic revival, not of any simple Stoughton, 1962], p. 252). consensus among Westerners about the superiority or supreme 33. VSA to Mrs. Whitehead, October 3, 1912, Sundkler Collection, "Westernness" of Gothic modes. John Thomas built his English Uppsala. The Whiteheads' reasons for making him shave off his Gothic-style church with the help of plans from the Oxford Society mustache remain a matter for speculation. John Carman has sug­ for Promotingthe Study of Gothic Architecture (A. H. Grey-Edwards, gested to me in conversation that the mustache may not have been Memoirof the Rev. John Thomas: C.M.S. Missionaryat Megnanapuram acceptable because of its association with the martial castes. Tinnevelly,South India, 1836-1870 [London: Paternoster Press, 1904], 34. S. C. Neill, "Bishop Azariah," in Birth Centenary of Bishop Azariah­ p.67). 1974 (Madras: Diocesan Press, 1974), p. 38. 14. By 1899 a total of 1,028 churches and smaller chapels had been built. 35. That is, nothing above the waist or below the knee (ibid.). See D. S. George Muller and V. Joseph Abraham, The Trail of the 36. Interviews with Ambrose Azariah, March 2 and 24, 1986, Madras; Tirunelveli Church (Palamcottah: Literature Work Standing Commit­ and interviews with Rev. M. Daniel, March 29 and April 8, 1986, tee of the Tirunelveli Diocesan Council, 1964), p. 8. See also Grey­ Dornakal. Edwards, MemoiroftheRev.John Thomas, pp. 66-67, on the establish­ 37. InterviewwithBishop MichaelHollis, September7,1984,Manormead, ment of native church-building funds to which villagers gave their Hindhead, England. See also K. M. de Silva, "From Elite Status to best day's earnings each year. Beleaguered Minority: The Christians in Twentieth Century Sri 15. "Introduction," in Essays by Samuel V. Thomas, M.A. (Medalist in Lanka," in Asie du Sud:Traditions et Changements, European Confer­ Sanskrit, Universityof Madras), p. i. This bound volume of essays, in ence on Modern South Asian Studies, VI, 1978,Sevres, France (Paris: the personal possession of Dr. D. Packiamuthu of Palaymkottai, CNRS, 1979), p. 349. includes no information on date or place of publication. 38. John V. Taylor, "Selfhood-Presence or Persona?" in The Church 16. This is clearly demonstrated in Robert Hardgrave, The Nadars of Crossing Frontiers: Essays on the Nature of Mission in Honourof Bengt Tamilnad: The Political Culture of a Community in Change (Berkeley: Sundkler,ed. P. Beyerhaus and C. F. Hallencreutz (Uppsala: Gleerup, Univ. of California Press, 1969), upon which the following discus­ 1969), p. 176. sion is based. 39. VSA,"Christiansandthe NewGovernment: The Bishop of Domakal's 17. Ibid., pp. 43-70, 96-109, 265-66; and Duncan Forrester, "The De­ Call for Support," Madras Diocesan Magazine 33, no: 2 (February pressed Classes and Conversion to Christianity, 1860-1960," in 1938): 60-62. Religion in South Asia:Religious Conversion and RevivalMovements in 40. VSA, "The Communal Award," Guardian (Madras), 10, no. 31 (Sep­ SouthAsiain Medieval andModern Times,ed. G. A. Oddie (New Delhi: tember 8, 1932): 368. Manohar, 1977), p. 53. 41. S. B. Harper, "The Politics of Conversion: The Azariah-Gandhi 18. This sense of competition with Hindus is expressed in Tirunelveli Controversy over Christian Mission to the Depressed Classes in the today mainly through jokes and tongue-in-cheek comparisons. For 1930's," Indo-British Review,Special Issue on Religion and National­ ism (1988), pp. 147-75.

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