C. F. ANDREWS MINISTER OF RECONCILIATION By the Same Author THE CASE FOR INDIA THE CROSS MOVES EAST G. K. GOKHALE THE WARFARE OF RECONCILIATION AN INDIAN PEASANT MYSTIC VILLAGE SONGS OF WESTERN INDIA DIGGING WITH THE UNEMPLOYED THE WAY OP ST. FRANCIS DIGGING FOR A NEW ENGLAND HOW CHRIST MET AGGRESSION PRAYER AND THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION INDIAN DAWN ETC. Plwto b}· A. U" tn~. Birmi1:gJr,1rn CHARLES FREER A::-.-DREWS I 7I-I Q40 C.. F. ANDREWS MINISTER OF RECONCILIATION By JOHN S. HOYLAND ALLENSON & CO., LTD. 5 WARDROBE PLACE, CARTER LANE, E.C.4 IWII AD l'IJIIftll .. GliAl IIITA.. IY I'VIIDU. AD 110., Lt'D., fAVL'IOI (IOIIIUIIT) AID loOIDOI FOREWORD THIS little book does not purport to be a 'Life' of C. F. Andrews. It is doubtful indeed, whether an adequate account of his career will ever be possible, because his activities on behalf of suffering humanity were so extraordinarily varied, and the details of them have been forgotten even by himself. All that has been intended in the writing of these pages has been the paying of an offering of friendship, to one who has caused many of us to believe, by the quality of his friendship, in the reality of the indwelling Spirit of Christ, as a personal force which may transform humanity into the mirror of Christ. Acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., for the quotations made from Tagore's Gitanjali. J. S. H. Work Camp Clearing House, Woodbrooke Settlement, Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham. March 12th, 1940. v CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER FOREWORD • V· I. 1913: THE GURUKULA, 9 II. BROTHER OF THE POOR l8 III. THE ETERNAL SPRINGTIME 27 IV. 1913: G. K. GOKHALE. 34 v. ANTI-INDENTURE 40 VI. SHANTINIKETAN • 57 VII. SATYAGRAHA 69 VIII, THE STATES 8o IX. THE TRADE UNION CONGRESS 90 x. THE BIHAR EARTHQUAKE IOI XI. THE BELOVED COMMUNITY . 110 XII. MINISTER OF RECONCILIATION 114 XIII. THE SPIRIT OF THE MAN 118 XIV. PRACTICE , 135 xv. PRACTICE (continued) • ISI XVI. LEADERSHIP 163 XVII. CONCLUSION 170 INDEX 173 vii C. F. ANDREWS MINISTER OF RECONCILIATION CHAPTER I 1913: THE GURUKULA LATE in 1912 I went out to India as a young missionary. My father had been a member of a Quaker missionary deputation to India some years before. During a visit to Delhi he had become acquainted with C. F. Andrews, an Anglican clergyman working as a missionary professor in St. Stephen's College there, and had been deeply impressed by his spirit and character. He was able to arrange that I should spend the first months of my life in India with C. F. Andrews at Delhi, learning the Urdu language from a delightful old Indian teacher, and learning many more important things from C.F.A. himself. I lived in the family of the Indian Principal of St. Stephen's College, Dr. S. K. Rudra. This experience was in itself an invaluable introduction to the study of the problems of reconciliation as they affect Northern India, for S. K. Rudra was not merely a College Principal, he was a Christian statesman, and in addition a man of extraordinary charm of personality. " The main principles behind C. F. Andrews' concep­ tions of reconciliation were already by that time abun­ dantly evident. He believed in what may be called the 9 IO C. F. ANDREWS extension of the principle of the Incarnation, in the sense of self-identification with the needs and problems of the estranged people, in this case the Indians, and especially with the needs and problems of the poorest amongst them-those who were most obviously and cruelly the victims of exploitation and oppression. He was at that time also. thinking out the best method of action in view of this self-identification. He was becoming dissatisfied with the station of superiority automatically conferred upon him by his position as a missionary professor, and he was experimenting with what was afterwards to become one of his most notable and fruitful lines of action, the work of the small team of Franciscanly-minded ministers of reconciliation, concerned to serve some particular situation of distress, oppression or hatred. Later this method of action was destined to develop into the general conception of a Ministry of Reconciliation. The phrase •Franciscanly-minded' has just been used. By this it is intended to signify people who, in the spirit of Christ's sacrament of the Feet-washing, and of the life and example of St. Francis, have per· ceived that their part in the service of reconciliation is best performed by means of manual and lDenial service, without material reward. Just as St. Francis sent out his little groups of young people, over a war-torn world, to build creative peace by working with their hands, without pay, on the fields of impoverished peasants, or for the suffering lepers in the leper-houses, so later on C. F. Andrews was to inspire the sending out of very numerous similar teams (in 1939 there were, for instance, at least two hundred of these teams known to have been at work in England alone). Just as the original Franciscan work of this character, starting in one small city, and dealing with local problems of class-estrangement and the need of 19IJ: THE GURUKULA II reconciliation .between hostile factions, spread first all over Italy, reconciling hostility between rich and poor, Imperialist and Papalist,. and then spread far beyond, reconciling French with English and German with Italian, always by the same method of humble unpaid manual service, so the movement inspired by C. F. Andrews was destined to spread, from Delhi to the far ends of the earth. Moreover, just as the early Franciscans brought by their spirit, not merely joy but a new creative Christian civilization, to which we still owe immeasurable benefits, so the movement initiated by C. F. Andrews was to bring joy and newness of life, not merely to oppressed Indian coolies in Assam or Fiji or South Mrica, but to unnumbered others in far-off countries. And the move­ ment is as yet only begun. We have only made the most tentative and fumbling beginnings at the working out of C.F.A.'s master-idea of the Ministry of Reconciliation. One thing which immediately struck anyone coming for the first time into contact with C. F. Andrews, and which continued to impress his friends year after year, was his unshakeable belief in men, even in the most wretched, down-trodden and apparently worthless men. He seemed absolutely confident that somewhere in them there was hidden an element intensely worth­ while and precious, a spirit of generosity and self­ sacrifice which might be 'reached' and called into activity in such a manner as eventually to control their whole lives. In his contact with men of every type he. had a genius for appealing to this 'Divine Witness' in them. He did it partly by his candid and friendly approach; partly by the evident existence of the same spirit in himself; partly by Franciscan action of the kind already mentioned, little unostentatious actions of very ordinary service, which yet shone out like stars when I2 C. F. ANDREWS performed by a member of the ruling race towards the victims of exploitation and dominance. This side of C.F.A.'s belief and activity was strikingly exemplified when he first reached South Mrica at the end of I9IJ, or the beginning of 1914. There is in India a well-known gesture which expresses the willing­ ness to take this attitude and to perform what we in the West would call Franciscan service on behalf of another person. It is the gesture of bending down and touching the feet of the one to whom such service is offered. It is also a gesture of reverence, affirming belief in and acknowledgmen~ of the Divine element in others. As he stepped ashore at Durban, C.F.A. was met by Mr. Gandhi, who had only recently come into pro­ minence in connection with his work for the oppressed Indian labourers in South Mrica. C.F.A. made this gesture to Mr. Gandhi. Immediately a howl of in­ dignation went up throughout South Mrica. C.F.A. was accused of letting down the white race. The feeling aroused was intense. But in that action two spiritual worlds met, the world of race-dominance, and the world of Franciscan service; and service vanquished dominance. Mention has been made above of the fact that by 1912, C. F. Andrews was already experimenting with the method of action which was to become later char­ acteristic of him, as of St. Francis and a Greater than St. Francis, in the effort to reach and raise up the Divine Witness in men through humble service. This was the method of sending, or rather going with, small teams of people desirous to do such Franciscan work, in a spirit of self-identifying service for the sufferers from some particular disaster, or form of oppression, or expression of hatred and hostility. Later on, this form of action was to develop into C.F.A.'s conception of the Ministry of Reconciliation. 1913: THE GURUKULA IJ Early in 1913 he undertook what may perhaps· be called an exploratory expedition in this method of action. With one other, S. K. Rudra's son, I was for­ tunate enough to have a place in this expedition, as a young companion to C.F.A. himself, a member of his team of three. In those days the spearhead of the nationalist move­ ment in India was formed by the Arya Samaj.