A Journey of Faith Affirming Hope and Justice

During the time of Indian freedom struggle the churches had foreign ministers and a well established foreign patronage. But when the spirit of nationalism spread over the subcontinent, the great church responded positively. Here, it is mandatory to remember Bishop VS Azariah and revisit his contributions in laying the foundation for an Indian church as the first Indian Bishop. A few of his contributions are remembered here.

Firstly, Bishop Azariah was the first person to acknowledge the native culture to incorporate into divine worship. It was a time when the Western culture was condemned. But Bishop Azariah made a good blend of East and West. He was an advocate for Indianization. His new approach brought the neglected Harijan community (Harijan was the word used for Dalits during his days) into the church, sang Telugu songs with native musical instruments and said Humility, the beauty of Holiness.

Secondly, Bishop Azariah was in the company of K.T. Paul and A.A.Appasamy with a new sense of dignity and independence. Bishop Azariah formed NMS and IMS in 1903 and 1905 respectively. The avowed principles for these organisations were: Indian men, Indian money and Indian management. It was Bishop Azariah who made the Indian church as a contributor for mission rather be a receiver for mission.

Thirdly, in 1932 when the communal award was published Bishop Azariah was the first person to whole-heartedly condemn the proposal for separate electorate for Christians. He wrote “The religion of Christ is one of the most dynamic factors in the world. It always burst its boundaries… refusing to be confined to any one race, class or caste, seeking to embrace all.”

Bishop Solomon Doraisawmy, Bishop of Trichy-Tanjore Diocese wrote about the courage of Bishop Azariah. During the time of freedom struggle, Mahatma Gandhi wrote an article “Sowrajya Missionaries Get Back”. In this article Gandhi mentioned missionaries in India can do only social, educational and medical services to the downtrodden people and they should not preach Christ as the unique saviour of mankind. Bishop Azariah wrote a fitting reply to Gandhi. He wrote, “My dear Mahatmaji, you are expecting the railway train with all goods and passengers to run without an engine. The motive force of all Christian services is the constraining love of Christ. If you wish to remove that and ask us speak nothing about Him, no goods can be delivered”. In Azariah the love for the nation and the love for the saviour are well balanced.

Church of South India was born on September 27, 1947. Its birth was so happened with the birth of the Indian nation on August 15, 1947. The first official document that assesses the extent of poverty in the independent India states that, “The per capita annual income in 1960-61 was approximately Rs 330. The average expenditure on consumption is about Rs 300 per head per year or Rs 25 per head per month. This is too meagre to sustain a level of living which could be considered tolerable in the modern context. This situation is actually far more distressing because the condition of large proportion of the people is much worse than the average would suggest.

At the time of Independence, chemical fertilizers and other key factors of today’s agriculture were absent. Irrigation was available for only 1/6th of the area. Industries employed only 1/10th of the labour force. Though there were factories producing cement, basic chemicals, paper and light engineering products, their output was very low. Average food availability was less in terms of quality and quantity. Illiteracy was very high (84%). Children aged 6-11 did not attend school. Mass communicable diseases like Malaria, Cholera and Small pox were high. Poverty, ignorance and diseases were aggravated by the unequal distribution of resources between groups and regions.

Mr.Ashok Mehta, the then Minister of Planning, Petroleum and Chemicals in his inaugural address at the Consultation on Food Production, Delhi, March 15-17, 1966 said that “We must reclaim 900 million people of the world who are totally in a state of abject depression. This human reclamation requires a peculiar type of social engineering. This is to my mind the big challenge that all people, all men of religion, all men of God, have to face. And if it is the proud claim of the Christian churches that they have a spiritual understanding, the spiritual agony, and the spiritual outflow is going to be greater than that of other men of God, it has got to be proved, as I said in the crucible of life itself. If it is the claim of Christians that even to this day they feel the agony of Christ on the cross whenever humanity suffers as it were, it has to be proved in action, not by any statement”. CSI addressed the challenge.

In India, in the olden days, education was not open to all. It was restricted only to the three varnas of the caste system, namely: the Brahmin, the Ksatriya and the Vaisya. The Shudras the fourth varna and the outcastes the Dalits were denied education. Only the three varnas Brahmins, Ksatriyas and Vaisyas were given the sanctioning of wearing the sacrificial cord and pass through the ceremony of Upanayana. Women of all varnas were denied education for they were not entitled to have upanayana. This contributed to high rate of illiteracy in India.

In the early days, the East India Company followed the policy of the Orientalists and funded local systems like Madarasa and Gurukul not to upset the local population and to recruit staff for local governance. In 1781, The Calcutta Madarasa was established by Governor General Warren Hastings. In 1791, The Banaras Sanskrit College was started by Jonathan Dunken and direct British funds were given to them. The amount given was one lakh per annum. Lord Babington Macaulay issued the Education minutes in 1835, recommending western education and withdrawing the support to the Gurukul and Madarasa. The missions in India were given the opportunity to start education institution with government grants. Further, the education policy, the Educational Despatch of Charles Wood in 1854 made the basis for today’s education system. It was this period much of the mission schools and colleges were started. The slogan Sarva siksha Abiyan (education for all) today was pronounced by us for nearly 200 years before breaking the restrictions of the caste system.

The CSI educational institutions had an inclination towards the marginalised and women’s education. As poverty was acute it was felt by the Christian churches to run hostels for the needy children. These hostels were previously boarding homes run by the missionary societies. Later they were made CSI- CCC homes with foreign grants. Today the CSI runs thousands of educational institutions across South India, managing roughly 2,300 schools, 150 colleges, and hundreds of residential hostels that provide accessible or free education to poor and meritorious children.

Mr.C. Bedford, the then Deputy Director, writes, “The CSI—CCC is a body under the Synod of the Church of South India, established in the year 1969 to take the responsibilities of running the child care homes from Kindernothilfe (KNH). It is motivated to assist the churches in India to provide physical facilities and overall development. Transcending all barriers of caste and creed and community CSI—CCC reached the needy children, provided then a meaningful life, enabled them to build a character and nurtured them in Christian faith. Dr.Samuel Issmer, the then Principal of the Training Centre for Wardens, CSI—CCC, Bangalore writes that these hostels took care of enriching academic education along with the development of faith, responsibility, discipline, aesthetic excellence and character formation.

The first mission board to send medical missionaries to India was American Board. John Scudder arrived in Madras in 1836, and two of his sons, who were also medical missionaries, joined him in 1851. They moved to Arcot, and in the meanwhile the London Mission started to work in Neyoor in 1838. The arrival of women medical missionaries and helpers contributed to a radical growth of this mission among women and children. Later Ida Scudder launched the great hospital at Vellore with medical schools issuing “M.B” and “B.S” degrees which was later developed into the present medical college. The Neyoor, Vellore, Miraj, Ludhiana were well known for surgery.

The premier tuberculosis sanatorium in India is the Union Mission Sanatorium, Arogyavaram founded in 1915 as a co-operative venture of fourteen missions for a leading position in treatment and research in the field of tuberculosis in India. These Mission hospitals provided health care for all, irrespective of their caste, class, community and creed divisions. The charity approach they followed made it possible for all the poor and the needy to avail the medical help they needed.

The Medical mission in India worked for two Pandemic reliefs. The Influenza or the Spanish flu, a Pandemic struck a hundred years before in 1918. In India it started to spread its infection from Mumbai the then known as Bombay. It took a great toll and the suffering was intensified by the fears of World War I. The Asian version of Influenza struck again in the year 1957. This time the Pandemic came to the subcontinent through Chennai the then known as Madras. People who witnessed this Pandemic are with us. Church of South India, the newly formed church and its leaders handled the devastating effects of the Pandemic effectively and protected the faith of the congregation.

In the eighties the Mission hospitals faced severe problem in competing with the Government hospitals and Speciality clinics that operate for commercial gain. Rt.Rev. Victor Premsagar, Deputy Moderator CSI addressed the situation by calling the medical workers to view their occupation not as a job but mission. The medical work is a promise that demands a lifetime commitment for Healing Ministry is a fruit and expression of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Indian Republic following the economic model of Nehru there was a centralised planning as a spearhead of economic development and removal of poverty. In the mid-sixties due to the structural weakness in the economic policies of the nation, the economic stagnation, instead of development, came to surface. Adding to the misery, India had to face heavy inflation, and monsoon failure resulting in a bad harvest. This created general discontent among the people. Future of the nation was uncertain.

In 1974 this situation was well handled by Jayaprakash Narayan. Mrs. Gandhi’s promises for a new economic policy and corresponding 20-point programme were published, but failed to gain public confidence. The Allahabad high court convicted her for corrupt election processes, and as a result Indira Gandhi declared Emergency. During this period, many voluntary organisations, action groups and people’s movements started to work on the themes, poverty and development, participatory development, development from below, people-centred development and so on. The CSI engaged itself as one of the voluntary agencies devoted to work for the development of the rural poor in India. Under the leadership of the then Moderator, The Most Rev.N.D.Ananda Rao Samuel, a seminar was organised jointly with C.I.S.R.S., the I.T.S. and E.C.C. at the E.C.C. campus, Whitefield, Bangalore in September 1974. Representatives from CSI and all the churches in India participated. Francois Houtart was the special speaker for the seminar. Francois Houtart used the Marxist tools of analysis. He converted the ideology of Karl Marx, the Base and Superstructure into a working model, a framework for analysis to study a society, understand its contradictions, provide counter cultural productions to overcome the illusion that upholds the status quo, enter into an action- reflection process for change and initiate the process for liberation. The seminar brought out the famous book Church and Social Justice which was celebrated by the people’s movements for a long time and still remains a guideline for any theological student doing Social Analysis.

The C.T.V.T. programs started to reach the every corner of South India. James E.Balraj, Director C.T.V.T. writes, “Development is a process by which both persons and the societies come to realise the full potential of human life in a context of social justice, with an emphasize on self-reliance; economic growth being seen as one of the means of carrying forward this process.” He further explains development is (i) growth with redistribution, (ii) awareness by people of their problems, power and potential they have in working together, (iii) ‘de-development’ of people from the bonds of oppressions and powers that suppress them, (iv) being our brother’s brother and not only his keeper, (v) Respect for individuals dignity, pride and self-esteem. To achieve this development Balraj discussed the models before CSI, namely (i) Model of Missionaries of Charity, (ii) Model of Institutionalised economic development, and (iii) Model of Radical Reconstruction. He advocated the Model of Radical Reconstruction for CSI.

Rev.P.J. Lawrence, Bangalore declared that “Our urgent task is to listen to the cry of the people, like Moses called by God to the cry of the people of Israel under Egypt and identify with the people’s struggle for liberation.”

All the struggles of the people did not bring a change, rather, the forces of death led the country towards distress. The New economic Policy was introduced during the Sixth Plan (1979-84) and Seventh Plan (1984-89) periods. During this period, the Survey on National Savings was conducted. The results showed 70% of the population had only 6% savings where as 10% of the population had 68% of the nation’s savings .Furthermore, among the 10%, 5% of the population had 50% savings. This brought a change in the economic approach of the country.

The nation left all its Socialist ideals and the determination for the alleviation of poverty and became market- based in economic operations. The approach was 1.Encouraging the rich to consume more, 2.More production, 3.More exports and integration with global economy and 4.Rapid Industrial growth. During this plan period the outlook of the government as a welfare state was changed. In such a climate the advent of globalization happened. When globalization was introduced in 1991, it was said that everyone was supposed to be a winner- those in the developed and in the developing world; globalization was to bring unprecedented prosperity to all.

When the economy of the nation was linked to the trading centres of the developed West, CSI delinked its theological basis from the international perspective and started to bring forth contextual theologies. Previously in the Seventies the Liberation theology gained the momentum so far given to Systematic Theology. Liberation theology made it mandatory to have a preferential option for the poor. Further, it compelled to have the following four for a theological articulation, namely (i) contact with the social reality- the experience; (ii) social Analysis in a ideological framework, (iii) theological reflection and (iv) plan of action for change. The contextual theologies come out of the basic framework of Liberation theology, emphasising one social reality deeply. CSI facilitated such theological formations centring upon the suffering experience of a particular group of people. Bishop Devasahayam writes, “Dalit theology as a counter ideology to caste ideology makes clear that the present situation under the caste system is an unacceptable situation.” Devasahayam further says, Dalit theology wants to build another kind of God, perceived in Jesus. The God expressed in Jesus was not almighty, sovereign Lord but as one who comes in weakness and humility and stand with those despised and suffering people. Dalit theology removed the distance of God from the toiling people and bring divine close to what was thought of ‘polluting’ locations. These polluting occupations became the images of God in the world. Through this encounter with God, the ‘polluted’ Dalits became ‘sacred’ channels of communicating God’s Grace.

The CSI brought forth various dimensions of Dalit theology in the book Hushed, Crushed, But not Defeated edited by Adv. Fernandes Rathinaraja, Rev. Sunil Raj Philip and Rev. Christopher Dharmaraj. This book brings forth various aspects of Dalit theology consulting both the sociological and theological schools. Jati is a dangerous enslaving socio-political device and mechanism that capitalizes on the vulnerability of avarnas this fundamental on which the empire was built. Caste in its conception is venomous and violent. Countering this violent web is a theological necessity.

The CSI treated the plight of the Tribals as equally important to that of the Dalits. In the early 2000s, Dr.Daniel Premkumar gave good leadership to the Tribal concerns. He writes, Dalits, Tribals and the Backward classes together constitute 600 million people who stand alienated, discriminated, duly un-represented and exploited. The commonwealth of Dalits and Tribals is reduced to ‘no people,’ people without face, voice and presence.

The Feminist scholarship of CSI in the late eighties rejected the subordinate position of women and declared her as equal partner created in the image of God. The awakening for equality among the women of CSI, in sociological and theological discourses happened in eighties. Leelamma Athyal writes after attending the Consultation of Asian Women’s Theology that the personality and commendable achievements of women in the midst of suffering and the hope they carried were valued highly in the conference and the responsibility of women in shaping a future was discussed. In the Quadrennial Conference of CSI WF in 1988, Aruna Gnanadasan called the women to roll away the stones of poverty, patriarchy and casteism as in the case of the resurrection narrative of the Gospel.

The environmental issues were taken seriously. The church of South India conducted various seminars on environmental issues and motivated the churches to protect the earth created by God for the future generations. It highlighted how the people of the subcontinent suffer after environmental issues.

The Church is under the surveillance of the state. The Union Government is not friendly to the church. The state no more acknowledges and appreciates the contributions of the church to the life and development of the nation but rather accuses the church on false grounds of forced conversion. The communal forces target the Christians and the Muslims and portrays as aliens of the land. Around 12 to 13 states of the Subcontinent out of the 36 sub national divisions (28 states and 8 union territories) have anti-conversion law in force. There are numerous attacks on churches, missionaries, schools and centres for social development.

This year the new FCRA bill targets to freeze the entire functioning of the church. The prayers and organised struggles of the church blocked the implementation for time being. The role of the officers of the synod in organising protests, meeting the policy makers of the state and making the voice of the church in the Parliament is to be appreciated. It is high time to acknowledge the role of the Moderator, Deputy Moderator, General Secretary and the Treasurer for their meticulous work in this regard.

So far in the faith journey of the church, the church witnessed the suffering, moved by compassion of Christ and was involved in the redemptive act. Precisely Christian ministers were Good Samaritans and the church was the inn. Now the situation has changed. Church is the person affected and people pass by on the other side. Today church is not at the crossroads but on the single road, the way of the cross, the path of Calvary. The Church needs to hear the voice of its Saviour calling, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt 16:24). This is not the time to fight within ourselves but to develop in solidarity and focus on the persecution let loose against the church. Paul adds to the call of Jesus saying, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against authorities, against powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm” (Ephesians 6:12).

When we survey the eighty-year historical journey of CSI, the Church remained as a faithful bride to her groom Jesus Christ in all changing contexts. It cherished in the company of its saviour and shared the love of Christ with all in need. As the psychologists say everyone needs to face his/her Goliath in life, the church CSI is also facing its Goliath. The Goliath standing before is communal hatredness which is changing every social relationship from hospitality to hostility. The faith of David in the company of God is the need of the hour. The faith praxis needed is to take up the sling, and load it with prayerful, prophetic participation in the non-violent struggle against communalism. I conclude, “He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Ps121:4). Let us all say, Amen.