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Christian missionary
activities in India

Christian missionary activities in

British India

Generally, a missionary movement presupposes a group of

people who take it as their religious duty to spread their
religion to other parts of the World. It is the religious
thought and the passion to make more and more
people aware of their religious superiority or to make
others conform to the same belief that a missionary
movement is organised.

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The British Government had three roles in India, first that of

a trader, second that of ruler and then that of a Christian
propagandist.British rulers held and professed Christianity.
Consequently British rule was equated with Christian
domination.

Early years of British rule: Upto 1813

In the early years of its rule the Company had taken a

position of neutrality with regard to the religious and social
affairs of its subject. The East India Company decided not to
interfere with the traditional cultures of the people by
supporting missionary work. The companys policy was
non-interference in Indian education but favouring
traditional Hindu or oriental learning.
The non-interference probably based was on the fear that
missionaries through English education expecting to aid
conversions might offend the Hindu subjects of the
company and create unrest. They felt that the missionaries
would encourage the religious sentiments among the
people in India that could affect the business policy and the
diplomatic role of the East India Company. (This policy of
non-interference with the customs and traditions of the
natives and lack of support for missionary work were
reviewed after the Company Charter was reviewed in 1813.)
It was during the 1770s and 1780s that several
Englishmen, such as Edmund and Burke, argued that
the East India Companys power could not be justified
unless it were exercised with morality and subject to
Parliaments control. But there efforts were not paid heed
to.
Then Charles Grant, a junior officer in British East India
Company, drafted the original proposal for mission in
1786-87, in their personal capacity, and campaigned for
it for decades at their own expense. Grant sought only
for an official endorsement of the East India Company for
his proposal to start a missionary endeavour. He neither
sought for Companys money nor its manpower. He himself
offered support to one of the missionaries from his
personal capacity. Yet he was only given a hearing to
Lord Cornwallis. However, though Lord Cornwallis assured
him that he would not oppose the move for missions, he
could not, as the Governor General, give his active
support. Grant was therefore forced to go to the Christian
leaders in England, who were big enough to influence the
Government or big enough to fight the Company.
At that time, the only missionary-minded Christian figure in
England, who had the status to bypass the East India
Company and influence the Government itself, was John
Wesley. Refusing permission to John Wesley to open
mission would thus have been politically incorrect for the
British. Besides him, the only Christian politician, then,
who had the stamina to fight for a moral cause, was

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William Wilberforce. In 1793, Wilberforce studied Grants

Book, and Wilberforce moved the famous Resolution on
Missions, which were drafted by Grant himself. Three
days later,the missionary clauses were accepted by the
Committee, which sought to empower the East India
Company to send out schoolmasters, and other approved
persons, foe the religious and moral improvement of the
inhabitants of the British Dominions in India. However, on
the third reading of the Bill, the Clauses were rejected and
the Court of Proprietors of East India Stock had a special
Meeting and passed a resolution against the Missionary
Clause.
Thus it can be found that while it is often accused that the
Missionaries came to spread Christianity and are thus
opposed because of it, there was also a counter force, in the
form of the Company and few other influential people in
England, who made an attempt to stop the promotion of
Missionary movement in India as they feared that it would
lead to the awakening of the Indian Hindu, and ultimately it
would be the Companys interestthat would suffer. Any rise
in character of the natives could be so lament so as to lead
to a most serious and fatal disaster.
Thus, it created an agitation against the East India
Company that the Company was opposed to the teachings
of Christ and neglected to provide education for the Indians.

Charter Act 1813

The battle for Missions heated up again in 1813, when the

Companys Charter came up for renewal. The situation
was vastly different this time. Grant had grown in
stature and influence, and had won himself a seat in
Parliament. William Careys work had earned immense
respect for missions, in Bengal as well as in England. Also,
his struggle against the inhumanity of sati and the
Companys cowardice in not banning such an inhuman
practice had became well known. It had therefore
became harder to maintain that Indians should not be
challenged to critically examine their beliefs and
practices and missionaries should not be allowed to teach
Indians to distinguish true faith from superstition.
There was a great unrest in the British Parliament ,in the
year 1813, when the issue of permission to start
missionary movement in India was asked. The chief
ammunition for the opponents of mission was provided
by the Vellore Mutiny, which began on July 10, 1806,
being instigated by the sons of Tipu Sultan, who were
allowed to live at Vellore after being defeated by the
British forces. The immediate causes of the mutiny revolved
mainly around resentment felt towards changes in the
sepoy dress code, introduced in November 1805. Hindus
were prohibited from wearing religious marks on their
foreheads and Muslims were required to shave their beards

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and trim their moustaches. This Mutiny followed a lot of

events creating unrest in Britain as well as in India and
ended with the Governor General of Madras Presidency,
William Bentick being recalled back to London.
Several officials of the Company argued that the
restrictions on the missionaries should continue: the
Indian are civilized enough and do not need the
missionaries. But the missionaries and their political
supporters had prepared a formidable attack. Indians are in
the darkest plight, they argued. The conversion of India
to Christianity will spell temporal benefits to the
heathens. Far from the unsettling it, the conversion of the
heathens to Christianity will further consolidate the empire.
Finally a missionary clause was attached to Charter Act 1813
passed by the Parliament. Charter Act of 1813 permitted
made provisions to grant permission to the persons who
wished to go to India for promoting moral and religious
improvements that means Christian missionaries to
propagate English and preach their religion.
It also allotted Rs 100,000 to promote education in Indian
masses.

Charter Act 1833

The charter act of 1833 laid down regulation of permanent

presence of missionaries in India and the number of
Bishops were made 3. The charter act of 1833 made
provision for Anglican hierarchy at Calcutta.
Finally in 1833, the policy of the company was changed
under pressure from the Evangelicals in England. This
marked the first decisive step of missionary work in India. A
spokesman of the Evangelicals declared: The true cure of
darkness is the introduction of light. The Hindus err because they
were ignorant and their errors have never fairly been laid before
them. The communication of our light and knowledge to them
would prove the best remedy for their disorders.
With the expansion of the British Empire missionaries
began to arrive and Christianity began to spread by
establishing dioceses at Madras and Bombay. Ever since
there existed a renewed cooperation between the
missionaries and the colonial power in helping one another
in their missions.

Charter of 1853

Then came the Charter of 1853, which declared a renewed

commitment of Educational responsibility of the Company.
This provision led to the famous Educational Dispatch of
1854, drafted by the Committee chaired by Sir Charles Wood,
a devout Evangelical who was also an undercover
missionary.
This fact was summed up by the 1858 Proclamation of
Queen which said that it should breathe feelings of

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generosity, benevolence and religious feelings, pointing out

the privileges which the Indians will receive in being placed
on an equality with the subjects of the British Crown.

Missionaries views on Indian Culture

The characteristic feature of nineteenth century missions

was the enthusiasm for the multiplication of missionary
efforts. The priority of the colonial missions was conversion.
Conversion of individual souls was considered the sole end
of mission.
The British rule had provided favourable atmosphere and
necessary infrastructure for the missions to work even in
the remotest mountain villages without confronting much
opposition. Julius Richter says that, it would be hard to find
any land possessing so great an attraction for the
missionary societies.
After the Charter of 1833 was renewed, missionaries were
allowed freely to come to India. Missionary teams became
powerful and their style of work changed. By this time a new
set of missionaries rooted in the iconoclastic zeal of
extreme Protestantism began to arrive. These missionaries,
soon through letters, reports and stories, created a very
distorted image about the people and culture in India. They
were imbued with the western imperial sentiments and
the sense of cultural superiority and agreed with Charles
Grant, the spokesman of the Evangelicals in England, that it
was not any inborn weakness that made Hindu degenerate
but the nature of their religion. For the evangelicals India
was in darkness and would need the light present in the
western world.
Claudius Buchanan another spokesman of the evangelicals
who had been a missionary in India said: The missionaries
asserted that since God laid upon Britain the solemn duty of
evangelizing India, the Government should not hesitate to throw
its weight into the struggle. They demanded above all open
Government patronage of Christian education and vigorous
warfare upon the abuses associated with Hindu religion.
The Evangelicals and other mission societies made a
combined attempt to change the policy of the British
Government and demanded the introduction of legal and
social reforms in India. It was thus that William Bentick in
March 1835 issued his resolution intended mainly to
promote European literature and science and utilize funds
mainly for English education. The study of Indian literature
and oriental works was admitted to be of little intrinsic
value and the opinion was that these literatures inculcate
the most serious errors on the subjects. Also the customs
and traditions and the religious beliefs of the subject
people were considered by the missionary educators and
their societies in England as a sign of depravity and futility.
The remedy was the introduction of English education.

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Alexander Duff, Scottish missionary and leading educator

thought that though Hindu philosophical discourse
contained lofty terms in its religious vocabulary what they
conveyed were only vain, foolish and wicked conceptions.
According to Duff, Hinduism spread like a dark universe
where all life dies and death lives. The Christian task for
him was to do everything possible to demolish such a
gigantic fabric of idolatry and superstition. Needless to say,
such an attitude prevented any positive encounter between
Christianity and Indian culture.
Duff, Buchanan, Trevelyan, Macaulay and others had great
influence on the missionary thinking. The missionaries and
civil servants who came to India were so prejudiced that
they did not see anything good in India society.
The missionaries and their societies subscribed to the view
that civilizing the Indian people would prepare the primitive
religious people to embrace Christianity. Missions were
unwilling to understand the complexities of Indian cultural
variants. Deeply entrenched in them was a sense of
superiority of European civilization and that coloured their
approach to people of other cultures and religious faiths.
English education was a means towards this goal. That is to
facilitate change from exterior to interior, from trade to
religion, a cultural revolution for the betterment of the
natives by disseminating knowledge of Christianity and
make them loyal to the British.
The evangelical supporters of Anglican mission were far
more interested in the dissemination of the Bible and
baptismal statistics than in any measure for the general
enlightenment of India.
The primary interest of the Raj was to keep control over
India. The dominant interest of missions was to work for
the conversion of Indians to Christianity. But in the colonial
situation they found themselves in need of one another and
so mutual support was but natural.
Although the missionaries worked hard and suffered a lot
for bringing education and awareness of social justice to
the people living in the rural areas of India, as they were
associated with the colonial-imperial powers, the
significance of their selfless service was either overlooked
or misunderstood.

Positive outcome of missionary activities in India

Gandhiji held the view that the work of Missionaries

quickened the task of Hindu reformers to set down our
own house in order. The missionaries zeal to convert
Hindus and the realization that they were specially
targeting the sections which had been trodden down, lent
an urgency to the determination of reformers to work for
the uplift and integration of these sections into the rest of
the Hindu society. One example to this effect was that
Missionaries took up the cause of leprosy elimination.

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The work they undertook set the example, which was later
followed on by others in India.
Generations of young man and women received modern
education, many of whom were endowed with the ideals of
service and uprightness and rectitude because of the
educational institutions maintained by these missionary
societies. Lakhs of people were saved and restored to
normal health by hospitals set up by the Church-affiliated
organizations, namely the Missionaries, The Christian
Medial College at Vellore stands as a distinct example of
which.
The standards of living of the tribals was raised and they
were able to carve out a living with the aid of the
Missionaries.
Educational Reforms imbibed in the Missionaries a unifying
spirit in the Indians and they came together to fight for the
cause as a united nation.

Negative impact of missionary activities in India

Where the Missionaries educated the Indians their

shortcomings, they completely destroyed the self
confidence and the self-respect of the natives. On such
instance of which is reflected when Swami Vivekananda
wrote, The child is taken to school and the first thing he learns is
that his father is a fool,the second thing that his grandfather is a
lunatic, the third thing that all his teachers are hypocrites, the
fourth that all his sacred books are a mass of lies. By the time he
reaches sixteen, he is a mass of negation, lifeless and boneless
The mass conversion led to degradation of Indian Culture
and a conflict between the classes themselves originated.
The educational inequalities made the so-educated Indians
contempt the fellow Indian and the following quote
by Charles Trevelyan is an illustration to prove that. A
generation is growing up which repudiates idols. A young Hindu,
who had received a liberal English education, was forced by
his family to attend the shrine of kali, upon which he took off his
cap to Madam Kali, made her a low bow, and hoped her lady ship
was well

Analysis of Christian Missionary

The missionaries, however, had come to India in

obedience to Jesus Christ. Christ claimed that he was
the light to the world. His plan of bringing light to
the world involved sending His disciples into all the
world as light. Therefore, to challenge everything that
appeared darkness was a necessary part of the true
Christian Mission.
The claims made by the Christian Missionaries also
tend to highlight their actual interests, which are not
hidden. They laid that Brahmanism tried hard to retain the
monopoly of the religion with itself in India. It neither

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shared its own rich language with others, nor did it develop
the languages of the people. India was still, at the
time of advent of the Christian Missionaries, an under-
developed country because Brahmanism did not
develop our languages. It was therefore a task laid for the
Christian Missionaries to perform.
It is indisputably agreed that Brown, Buchanan and Carey
were using a secular College (at Fort William) meant for
training secular administrators, for translating the Bible
and imparting a missionary spirit to administrators.
They had the full backing of the Governor General and
support of some of the directors of the Company, the
objective being to give stability to the Government in India
and to Christianize the Government. For 150 years, even as
they served the interests of British imperialism, the Church
tried to orient its Indian adherents away from Indian
nationalism. The Collected Works contain several accounts
in which Missionaries acknowledge to Mahatma Gandhi
that the institutions and services were indeed incidental to
the aim of gathering a fuller harvest of converts for the
Church. There activities were also admonished by
Swami Vivekananda as taking Spiritual Advantage of
famines and Cholera.
The 1911 Census Reports on Bengal Bihar, Orissa and
Sikkim state that converts from among the four tribes-
Oraons, Mundas, Kharis and santhals- accounted for nearly
nine-tenth of Christian Converts. The speech delivered to
the Baptist Missionary Society in London in April 1883 by
Sir Richard Temple stated that every Christian is duty
bound to spread the religion; that the heaviest
responsibility in this regard had fallen upon the British-
that Buddhism and Hinduism are dying and dead; that the
tribals ought to be made the special focus of the exertions
of the missionary and in the moral responsibilities before
God and man, India was a country which of all others the
Christians in Britain were bound to enlighten with Eternal
truth.

================================================

Q. The Christian Missionary propaganda from 1813 onward was

often insensitive and wounding. Comment.

Ans:

The Character Act of 1813 was the first parliamentary

approval for propagation of Christianity in India.
The policy of modernising Indian society and culture was
also encouraged by the Christian missionaries and
religious minded persons such as William Wilberforce and
Charles Grant, the Chairman of the Court of Directors of the
East India Company, who wanted to spread Christianity in
India. They too adopted a critical attitude towards Indian

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society but on religious grounds. They passionately believed

that Christianity alone was the true
The English language played an important role in this
respect. It became the medium for the spread of modern
ideas. It also became the medium of communication and
exchange of ideas between educated Indians from different
linguistic regions of the country.
But soon English also became a barrier to the spread of
modern knowledge among the common people. It also acted
as a wall separating the educated urban people from the
common people, especially in the rural areas. This fact was
fully recognised by the Indian political leaders.
Where the Missionaries educated the Indians their
shortcomings, they completely destroyed the self
confidence and the self-respect of the natives. On such
instance of which is reflected when Swami Vivekananda
wrote, The child is taken to school and the first thing he learns is
that his father is a fool,the second thing that his grandfather is a
lunatic, the third thing that all his teachers are hypocrites, the
fourth that all his sacred books are a mass of lies. By the time he
reaches sixteen, he is a mass of negation, lifeless and boneless
(Include several insensitive comments made by missionary
leaders and other facts from the chapter discussed above).

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4 Comments

nice

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Hi, very interesting article. Can you please tell me what books were
used to gather such information? Many thanks

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