The Indian Perspective on Azariah's Consecration
The Indian Perspective on Azariah's Consecration
On the Indian side, the response to Azariah's consecration was equally complex and surprising: there was little concern from Hindus and Muslims but much concern from Indian Christians. In Calcutta, for example, the event passed unnoticed in the daily newspaper, The Bengalee, edited by the great nationalist champion of better representation for Indians in the Indian civil service, Surendranath Banerjea. The appointment of the first Indian bishop was overlooked in favor of political events such as the Twenty-Seventh Indian National Congress sessions held at Bankipur, and religious events such as the Theosophical Convention and the Inaugural meeting of the All-India Cow Preservation Society. The Bengalee reported on a sermon from the Bishop of Lahore - about the December 1912 attempt to murder the Viceroy in Delhi - but the consecration of the first Indian bishop passed unnoticed.
The Madras-based weekly newpaper The Hindu gave Azariah's consecration only slightly more notice. `Yesterday at St. Paul's Cathedral, the first Indian clergyman belonging to the Church of England was made a Bishop,' the paper reported. `There was a great gathering of clergymen, and Bishop Copleston, who leaves India very soon, presided.' Without mentioning Azariah's name, the short telegraphed article then went on to describe the differences between Bishop Copleston and his successor, Bishop Lefroy.137 The faceless new Indian bishop was thus passed over in favor of his British colleagues, and the significance of his appointment was obfuscated entirely. It is doubtful that such newspapers would have ignored such an event if the new Indian bishop had hailed from a more elite background: the appointment of a Bengali Brahmin as the first Indian bishop, for example, most certainly would have created a considerable stir, if not controversy. However, non-Christian elites were basically uninterested in the appointment of a mere `Indian clergyman' (read: former `low caste' or `untouchable') to a position of prominence in a church that was regarded primarily as the home of British rulers and Indian out- castes.138 The marginalization of Azariah's ministry by Indian elites therefore began with the very date of his consecration.
Locally in Dornakal, Muslim officials from the Nizam of Hyderabad's government consented to the establishment of the Dornakal Diocese more readily than their Christian official counterparts from the British Raj had done. Purchase deeds in today's Dornakal Diocese Compound suggest that the church had no difficulty procuring permission from the local Taluqdar and Bunjudar of Dornakal, or from higher authorities in the Nizam's government, to buy land or to erect buildings for religious purposes.139 Dornakal was clearly a backwater area that few government officials cared about; and IMS missionaries reported that the Nizam himself was more concerned for the lions in Dornakal than for the `tribals.' Yet villagers today also recall (and the historical record affirms) that the Nizam's administration was so pleased to have the church working among poor people in the remote Dornakal area that it donated three hundred acres of land to the diocese free of charge as part of its benefactions to charitable institutions. 140 The Nizam also gave Azariah free firstclass railway passage throughout the state, and he at least once asked Azariah to talk with him while passing through Dornakal on a train.141
The more vociferous indigenous opposition to Azariah's consecration came from Indian Christians rather than from Indians of different religions who, at this stage, were not threatened by his proposed work with outcastes. Different factions within the Indian Christian community fired off strongly critical petitions to the Metropolitan and bishops in India, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishop of London, the relevant missionary societies, the Secretary of State for India, and the Governor of Madras. One such document, signed by `members of the Church of England' in Tinnevelly, castigated Azariah for allegedly lacking experience, sanctity, advanced university or theological education, high social position, and repute among Hindus.142 Another petition, which claimed to represent over a thousand adult communicant members of the Church of England in the Telugu districts and Madras, attacked Azariah on similar grounds and added unfavorable references to his nonconformist associations in the YMCA.143 Some Telugu Christians resented the appointment of a Tamil; others protested the exclusion of Indian Christians from the consultative process;144 and the Episcopal Synod itself complained that Whitehead's secretiveness in planning Azariah's appointment had contributed to the opposition.145
Whitehead defended himself vigorously against these protests, writing to the Metropolitan:
The Episcopal Synod, the Archbishop, and others were persuaded by Whitehead's defense of Azariah and also by letters and counterpetitions received from Indian Christians in Azariah's support. One such petition from Tinnevelly Christians that was circulated in both the Tamil and Telugu areas implied that Azariah's opposition was organized by Tinnevelly Christians of different caste origins who were unable to accept `another Tinnevelly Christian who is not a relation of theirs, attaining a position above their own.'148 Azariah's consecration thus became an occasion for the open articulation of interregional and intercaste disputes, but their effect was limited by the closed nature of the episcopal selection process, which did not require clerical or congregational consent, and by the constancy of Henry Whitehead's patronage.
Whitehead's zeal for indigenization and sympathy for Indian nationalism led him to minimize the continuing power of subnational loyalties to undermine many of his plans for Dornakal and for church unity, and to make the appointments of bishops in Indian Protestant churches controversial up to the present day.
The controversy over Azariah's consecration was not a simple confrontation between a monolithic bloc of oppressed Indian Christians and an opposing monolithic bloc of conservative and racist British Christians trying to thwart Azariah's elevation. Azariah and his Indian Christian colleagues were not fighting a nationalist battle against the dark forces of imperialism. It was, rather, a controversy that accurately reflected the complexities and contradictions inherent within both British and Indian societies during the last decades of the Raj. Azariah was promoted by liberal westerners against the wishes of many less liberal westerners and Indians. His appointment opened up rifts within the established church, within the British, Indian, and Madras governments, within and between various missionary societies, and within factions of Indian Christianity itself. Azariah and his supporters weathered these and no doubt other controversies that lie outside the reach of this study. But there were invisible costs, and Azariah himself faced enormous new personal and professional challenges.