The Continuing Lack of Indian Bishops
The Continuing Lack of Indian Bishops
Azariah's episcopal appointment was heralded in 1912 as the beginning of a new age for indigenous church leadership.68 `Rejoice in the appointment of Indian Bishops and ask for many more,' said Copleston;69 and Bishop Whitehead predicted the appointment of more Indian bishops in the not far distant' future in a sermon delivered at Cambridge in the same year.70
However, the hopes of both the Metropolitan and his colleague in Madras were disappointed for the next three decades. No other Indians were made diocesan bishops during Azariah's lifetime. Of the thirty-four appointed to Anglican dioceses in India, Burma, and Ceylon from 1912 to 1945, all were British except Azariah and C. K. Jacob, an Indian who was consecrated Bishop of Travancore and Cochin after Azariah's death in 1945.7'
Azariah had no Indian diocesan colleagues during his career. Although two Indian assistant bishops were appointed to Calcutta (1935) and Lahore (1937),72 Azariah remained what one historian has called a `native curiosity'73 in the Episcopal Synod to the end of his life.
The failure to follow up on the 1912 initiative is particularly startling in light of the almost unanimous agreement among European church leaders that Azariah's work in Dornakal was enormously successful. Already in 1917, the Metropolitan wrote confidentially to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the heads of London's major missionary societies praising Azariah for having won the esteem and affection of English missionaries in Dornakal, many of whom had previously `expressed their entire unwillingness to work under him.' Azariah had developed such a degree of trust with his fellow Indian workers that the Metropolitan felt `quite a new sense of what the life and power for the work of Evangelization of the indigenous Indian Church will be when under Indian leaders - provided they are, more or less, of the type of Bishop Azariah.'74 The Archbishop of Canterbury responded, in turn, that Azariah's consecration marked `a new departure in the Mission Field on the right lines.'75 So pleased was the Anglican establishment with Azariah's work that his diocese was enlarged from an area roughly the size of Wales to one roughly the size of England within a decade of his conse- cration.76 There is simply no indication that the church failed to appoint more Indian bishops because of displeasure with Azariah's performance, as had been the case with the pioneering bishopric of Samuel Crowther in Africa.
Yet there is also surprisingly little evidence in the preserved archival records of Indian Christian frustration or anger about the continuing lack of Indian bishops during these decades of growing nationalism. The problem was hardly referred to until the 1940s - and then only in the context of more general criticisms of the missionary establishment. In the highly charged anti-imperialist atmosphere of the Quit India movement with its promise of imminent independence, several Indian Christians compared the Anglican church's reluctance to transfer ecclesiastical control to Indian leaders with the British government's similar unwillingness to relinquish political control. The former principal of Serampore College, C. E. Abraham, argued that Azariah's long isolation as the only Indian bishop illustrated the church's insincerity in its stated goal of devolving authority from foreign missions to the native church. The Anglican church, like the British government, `continually promised freedom for Indian people and in actuality always tried to delay it.'77 An Anglican priest, M. C. Chakra- varty, described the church in India as `a side-show of British imperialism, an instrument subtly devised for the perpetuation of British domination in this country.'78 Why, he asked, were there so few Indian church leaders and so little discontent with British dominance of the Episcopal Synod during the three decades leading up to independence?
The nationalist critique of the Indian church implied that nonIndian church leadership was responsible for excluding Indians from the episcopal ranks. It was true that Anglican churchmen often harbored aloof and condescending attitudes towards Indians. Before disestablishment of the church in 1930, the complex and undemocratic nature of the appointment system permitted the continued exclusion of Indians from the Synod.79 Both the church and the government abandoned Copleston and Whitehead's enthusiasm for episcopal indigenization. But, after dis establishment and the introduction of more democratic methods of episcopal selection, the pattern of exclusion did not change.80 Many segments of the Indian Christian population continued to prefer British bishops to Indian ones. Given the opportunity to choose, a more indigenous and democratic church did not necessarily prefer Indian bishops. Democratization did not necessarily lead to indigenization; in fact, it may have hindered it.
Azariah declined comment on the absence of other Indian diocesan bishops for most of his career. He himself generally appointed Englishmen rather than Indians to important positions in the Dornakal Diocese: three European archdeacons and a European assistant bishop shouldered much of the responsibility for his diocesan administration. He may have sought to prove that white men could work successfully and harmoniously under Indian authority. But Azariah's lack of protest about his racial isolation in the Synod and his unwillingness to rely more on native Indian talent within his diocese indicated that, whatever his motives, the promotion of Indians was not his highest priority. Not until 1942 (and, ironically, at the prompting of Tinnevelly's `barefoot' bishop, Stephen Neill) did Azariah break his silence and formally protest the church's failure to appoint more Indian bishops in a circular letter to his episcopal col- leagues.81 Stephen Neill had urged the Synod and church to appoint more Indian bishops and moved the formation of a committee, led by Azariah, to devise proposals for removing obstacles in the way of such a development.
According to Azariah's committee report, the chief factor inhibiting the naming of more Indian diocesan bishops was the democratization brought about by church disestablishment. The chances of an Indian being elected bishop actually decreased after the church gained its independence from civil control in 1930, he contended, when the new Church of India, Burma, and Ceylon placed most episcopal elections into the hands of the dioceses. `According to the present Constitution whereby Bishops are elected by the Dioceses themselves, there does not appear to be much chance for any of the Dioceses with large Indian Church populations to elect Indians as Diocesan Bishops.'82 Regarding the dioceses of Tinnevelly, Travancore, and Chota Nagpur which had elected foreign bishops after disestablishment, Azariah explained that `the large Rural Christians [sic] probably think they need a European Bishop to watch over their interests. Communal and personal jealousies also often come into play.'83
Azariah's conclusion was based on grassroots experience in his own diocese where intercaste and interregional rivalries led many to conclude that we would prefer to be ruled by a European to being ruled by an Indian as the former has generally a broad outlook and no vested interests in this country.'84 The widespread preference for European over native church leaders did not end with the coming of national independence. Bishop Neill wrote as late as 1952 that:
In order to elect more Indians to diocesan bishoprics, Azariah recommended that the church find ways to subvert its own constitution, just as the old Church of England in India had subverted the legal restrictions on its expansion. Azariah proposed that the problem be solved by appointing Indian assistant bishops who, after a few years of episcopal ministry under their diocesan bishops, would be given independent spheres of authority within the boundaries of the diocese:
The problem Azariah confronted in 1942 was remarkably similar to that which his mentor Henry Whitehead had faced three decades earlier. In both cases, the Episcopal Synod was dominated by British bishops, and the most vocal opposition to Indianization came from Indian clergy and laity. Now as then, the most effective solution to the problem appeared to be the appointment of Indian assistants. The Synod made an exception to its policy against a 'dual episcopate' in 1922 when it decided that `in some places it might be advisable to appoint Assistant Bishops as a temporary expedient or as a step intended to prepare the way for a division of the Diocese,'87 and this permitted the appointment of two Indian suffragans. Azariah justified his 1942 recommendation that this method be employed again by claiming that Indian appointees would benefit from apprenticeships as assistants to more experienced diocesan (and European) bishops.
When Azariah procured consent from the Synod and the General Council to appoint an Assistant Bishop for Dornakal in 1935, he chose an Irish CMS missionary and Archdeacon, A. B. Elliot, for the post. Azariah's principal reason for appointing the Irishman was that he doubted the abilities of Dornakal's Mala, Madiga, and caste converts to handle the responsibilities of episcopal office. In a 1934 letter, Azariah suggested that all Telugu clergymen in his diocese lacked the education, age, and experience needed for the job:
Ironically, Azariah rejected Telugu candidates on the very same grounds upon which his own critics had sought to reject him before his 1912 consecration. He seemed more cautious than his mentors Whitehead and Copleston about `taking a chance' on an Indian appointee. This decision and his controversial educational policy (examined below) left a legacy of bitterness in Dornakal in later years, particularly among the more educated Telugu converts. But there was little Telugu opposition to Elliot's appointment at the time, apart from a complaint by `SPG Christians' that Azariah had chosen a CMS missionary.89 Most Christians in the diocese appear to have preferred western missionaries to Indian clergymen. One SPG Christian later criticized Azariah for expelling `the saintly and self-sacrificing European missionaries, who have spent their energy, money and blood for the SPG Telugu Church.' He also argued that SPG territories should have a separate bishop, presumably chosen from among the remaining Europeans.90
After Azariah's death in 1945, many Christians in the Dornakal Dio cese campaigned vigorously for a European bishop, rather than an Indian, to be elected as his successor. Numerous petitions to the Metropolitan complained that the aspirations of `Andhra Christians' had been ignored under the `Native Tamil Bishop.' One letter accused Azariah of imposing on Andhra's Christians `a most dissatisfied life with strenuous struggle for their betterment,' and criticized Azariah for distancing the Dornakal church from `the Mother Church of England, just as a child was forcibly removed from the hands of her mother: making us to lament the loss.' The authors decried `the tyrannical yoke of this Indian Bishop,' citing particular dissatisfaction with his educational policies. Some congregations professed to be considering desertion to `CATHOLISM' [sic], an occurrence which, they said, `could never have taken place if we had an English Bishop.'91 Another petition asserted that Telugus had been held back in their social, religious, political, and educational development `under the leadership of a Native Tamil Bishop' and urged the election of `ONLY an EUROPEAN BISHOP,' [sic] preferably the current assistant bishop, A. B. Elliot.92 One missive claiming to represent 360 congregations criticized Azariah's administration, called on the Metropolitan to `grant us afresh English bishop who is not trained by the treacherous late Tamilian bishop,' and concluded with the chorus: We want English Bishop! We want English Bishop! We want English Bishop!'93 Although one petitioner favored an Indian for the post, he dismissed all native clergymen as incompetent and recommended the election of a native layman, which the Metropolitan informed him was impossible under the church constitution.94 Another letter called for the election of a Telugu bishop, but only one from `a decent family and (with) a good College and Theological education', an apparent call for an educated caste candidate. The writer feared that an Indian bishop would be less able to obtain financial support from missionary societies and that, `among Indians, the non-Andhras (Tamilians) will find a place.' Although he claimed that `most of us in the Diocese feel that we ought to have an Indian again, as our next Bishop,'95 all other preserved archival records suggest that the vast majority of Dornakal's congregations favored a European successor.
In the end, five Europeans, three Tamils, and three Andhras were nominated for the Dornakal post. After most withdrew their names from consideration, Elliot was elected by a vast majority as Bishop of Dornakal,96 and the retiring Irishman reluctantly accepted in a letter to the Metropolitan:
The story of Azariah's consecration, bishopric, and succession suggests that intercaste and interregional competition for control of the church's considerable resources, combined with attitudes of dependency typical of colonial situations, created unexpectedly complex resistance to indigenization. Azariah's appointment had been essentially a European idea brought to fruition against considerable indigenous opposition. The European Synod's failure on numerous occasions to promote Indians to positions of leadership, particularly between 1912 and 1930, produced little indigenous protest. Diocesan clergy and laity in India, Burma, and Ceylon demonstrated little interest in appointing Indian bishops until political independence was imminent. Even then, this interest was confined mainly to educated Indian Christians with nationalist sentiments. Former outcastes, who filled the vast majority of Anglican churches in the Dornakal diocese, apparently considered British bishops preferable to most Indian alternatives, particularly Tamils. They regarded British missionaries and bishops as powerful patrons more likely to protect their interests than Indian bishops preoccupied with the interests of their particular caste or language group. Indian bishops were also regarded as less effective at garnering financial and other support from western sources.
Critics of Azariah's career focused much of their ire on his Tamil identity. The 1945 petitions reflected the influence of the broader cultural and political `Andhra movement' which swept through the territory of the Dornakal Diocese during Azariah's lifetime and vented much of its frustration against Tamil neighbors to the south.98 The Telugu-Tamil controversies that so weakened the effectiveness of the justice Party in the 1920s had many cultural dimensions, as was demonstrated in the campaign that led to the creation of a separate Telugu-language university for Andhra in Vijayawada on 26 April 1926. The campus lay within the boundaries of the Dornakal Diocese, and Azariah was invited to deliver a convocation address there in 1929,99 but the 1945 petitions against the appointment of further Tamil bishops for the Telugu church indicated how deeply antiTamil sentiments had penetrated rural Andhra society. The Dornakal church stressed the use of indigenous Telugu musical and dramatic idioms in worship and evangelism, and this may have made Telugu Christians more self-consciously aware of their Telugu heritage than most nonChristian Malas and Madigas. But rising Telugu objections to Tamil dominance over ecclesiastical affairs echoed similar objections expressed by secular counterparts against perceived Tamil political and cultural domination. Sir Charles Todhunter in a 1919 minute for the Government of Madras observed that `the Telugu ... has for officers one set of foreigners (Englishmen), and if and when they depart he does not want to exchange them for another set of foreigners (Tamils)."°°
The formerly untouchable Telugu Christians were not generally prepared to accept Tamil authority during this period, and were almost equally hostile to competing Andhra ascendancies. Rivalry persisted within the church between Malas and Madigas, each of whom hoped to benefit from the objective arbitration of a western bishop in their recurrent disputes. Though continued British leadership was not desired by many educated Indian Christians, particularly those in urban areas, proBritish sentiment continued among less confident rural Indian Christians and appears to have had continuing influence on episcopal appointments after 1930. The church was in the unenviable position of discovering that the very instrument it had chosen to facilitate the process of indigeni zation in India, disestablishment, had virtually eliminated the short-term prospects for an indigenous episcopate.
The bishops' evident frustration at their inability to convince the Indian church of its rights and responsibilities regarding self-government belies the nonconformist charge that Anglican bishops constituted a fundamentally conservative force blocking the more progressive aspirations of the laity.'°' It seems equally doubtful that Azariah remained the only Indian bishop because of `the extreme reluctance of Western churches and missions in India to relinquish the dominant hold they had in the affairs of the Christian movement in India.'102 On the contrary, the greatest challenge to the appointment of Indian bishops came from Indian Christians who, in the case of Azariah's appointment, were unable to prevail. Synodical reforms and disestablishment, both of which placed greater decisionmaking powers in Indian hands, did not lead to Indianization of the Synod but rather to continued dependence on western leadership.
Of course, not all bishops in India favored rapid indigenization. The Bishop of Lahore from 1899 to 1913, G. A. Lefroy, vigorously opposed the appointment in 1907 of S. K. Rudra as principal of St. Stephen's College (Delhi) with the argument that no Indian would have `the same power of vigorous and effective leadership or would be trusted and followed by the Indian Professors and students themselves at all in the same way as (would) a good Western (Principal).'I03 Lefroy did not greatly alter his opinions about Indian leadership during his ensuing tenure as Metropolitan from 1913 to 1919, and this probably contributed to the paucity of Indian episcopal appointments via undemocratic means during those years. But even Lefroy demonstrated a softening of his attitude towards Indian aspirations when, at the suggestion of C. F. Andrews, he publicly supported South African Indians in their satyagraha struggle of 1913.
Lefroy was supported in his position by five of his episcopal col leagues, while two opposed him. Significantly, Azariah gave only modified consent, in contrast to the Bishop of Madras' urging to take more radical action.104 And by 1917, Lefroy favored transferring all remaining CMS Telugu missions to Azariah's diocese, remarking that `it was delightful seeing Bishop Azariah among his people; the true leadership, together with the entire sympathy and mutual understanding."0S By the early 1940s, leading European bishops such as Stephen Neill, Michael Hollis, and Foss Westcott were at least as determined to end the `foreignness' of the Anglican leadership in India as highly educated Indian Christian nationalists.
The church's decision to encourage the mass movements of depressed classes into Christianity propelled western missionaries and bishops into becoming the protectors and patrons of previously powerless people. Once the control of episcopal appointments was placed more firmly in diocesan hands, these converts were understandably reluctant to jettison their relatively disinterested new defenders in favor of Indians who seemed less powerful and more likely to favor `foreign' or rival castes.
ack in Dornakal, Azariah continued his work of church building. He
turned the small IMS mission outpost in Dornakal into the center of
India's fastest-growing Anglican diocese. In so doing, he forged an original, independent path - following neither the western norms preferred by
most villagers nor the Indian norms preferred by most westerners and Indian nationalists. His goal was nothing short of transforming both the
structure and the worldview of rural Telugu life. He presented Christianity as a new and sacramental framework for Andhra's depressed and nonBrahmin classes. Traditional moral, socioeconomic, political, legal, and
spiritual priorities were all to be thoroughly reordered. Azariah's success
with the so-called `mass movements' in Andhra eventually caught the eye
and earned the disapproval of the broader non-Christian Indian community, including Gandhi. But few if any of Azariah's critics have bothered to
study the actual history of Dornakal Diocese under Azariah's guidance.
Azariah's approach to mission in Dornakal was, first and foremost, orthodox and church-centered. He believed it was impossible to be Christian outside the institutional `Body of Christ.' Christian life found its proper social and historical expression, Azariah asserted, only through the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ and functioning as `the one instrument of His spirit's special operation in the world.' Azariah disagreed with Hindu reformers such as Manilal C. Parekh and Keshub Chunder Sen, who argued that one could be a Christian while having `little to do with organized forms of Christianity of any kind.' The bishop held this view to be nothing more than a `parody' and a `presumption' since the Church is not an association that individuals can or may organize for their own convenience,' but is rather `a new creation' established in history by God himself on the first Easter day to continue the work ofJesus Christ on earth. This orthodox position did not win Azariah many friends in an age and culture dominated by triumphant heterodoxies, beginning with Gandhi's idiosyncratic interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita and extending to Christian reinterpretations of theology as well.' But it proved to be a steady guide to Azariah in Dornakal, where he worked from 1909 until his death in 1945.
The Dornakal diocese lay in the land of the Telugus, or Andhras,2 which was divided politically between the British and the Nizam of Hyderabad, but united by a common language and ancient heritage. Comprising a triangular area extending along the seacoast from just north of Madras to the border of Orissa and westward to Bellary beyond the subcontinent's center, it encompassed 61,378 square miles in 13 districts of the Madras Presidency and 41,512 square miles in 9 districts of the Nizam's Dominions.3 There were fertile coastal areas nourished by the Kistna (Krishna), Godavari, and Pennar Rivers, hilly inland regions of the Eastern Ghats and the great plains of the Deccan. Most of this territory had once been part of the kingdom of Telingana, and later belonged to a powerful Muslim Governor of the Deccan, known as the Nizam-ul-mulk. The territory north of the Coromandel Coast (the so-called `Circars' or `Northern Circars' of Ganjam, Vizagapatam, Godavari and Kistna), was given to the French in 1757 and, after pressure from Robert Clive, to the British in 1765. The Nizam ceded the southern districts of Cuddapah, Kurnool, and Bellary (known as the `Ceded Districts') to the British by 1800.
Economic and social conditions varied widely across the Telugu area. Under the British, coastal Andhra became one of India's great grain producers. An extensive irrigation system helped to control the Kistna and Godavari Rivers, boosted the production of rice and sugarcane, and ameliorated persistent problems of flood, famine, and epidemic.4 Economic conditions were harsher in the less fertile inland districts where forests provided some timber (primarily teak and sal) and arable lands were farmed for millet, cotton, indigo, and some rice. Dornakal itself was situated in a forested area used by the Nizam for hunting and gaming.
The emerging Indian Christian community in Andhra was composed almost entirely of former untouchables who lived on meager daily wages from agricultural and leather work, and were the first to suffer during famines such as those of 1832-33, 1865-66, and 1876-77.5 A gradual erosion of economic and social security caused by the dislocating effect of western rule upon the jajmani system during the nineteenth century left the depressed classes with fewer strong patrons and, in most cases, a lower standard of living than before. As the system of reciprocal duties and services which had hitherto regulated rural village society slowly weakened, the depressed classes were freed to some extent from social pressure enforced by higher castes to consider the claims of new western missionary patrons.6
In the Nizam's districts, the lack of effective legal safeguards against the power of the landlords (maktedars and pattedars) to subject tenants to serfdom and slavery (baghela and vetti chakiri) made the plight of the poorest agricultural laborers especially onerous. A lack of control over revenue collectors made the lowest groups in the social hierarchy desperate for the kind of protection which outside missionaries - particularly Europeans - provided. In the earliest days of the IMS mission to Dornakal, Mala converts looked to IMS missionary Samuel Pakianathan for help in an ultimately successful court case over water resources against a local landlord (dora). Without missionary backing, the local Malas would probably not have had the courage to confront the powerful dora, who was reputed to steal sheep and cows without penalty.? Azariah's son Ambrose remembers that the advocacy of IMS missionaries such as the Rev. Gell Knight against oppressive upper castes was one of the primary reasons for untouchable, tribal, and low-caste receptivity to Christianity in Dornakal.8
The mass movements to Christianity occurred in Andhra during a time of dramatic regional awakening and self-assertion on many levels. A rediscovery of Telugu culture was already underway when Azariah arrived in Dornakal, partly rooted in the influence of earlier western Christian missionaries. Telugu journals proliferated from one to twenty during the period from 1858 to 1905,9 and English education spread1° and created a new type of Telugu elite instructed in western liberal principles and skeptical of many practices common to orthodox Hindu society.
By the second half of the nineteenth century, Telugu elites in the districts under direct British rule were relatively receptive to new stirrings of both regional and national political sentiment. But this was less true at the outcaste or lowest caste levels of Telugu society, to which missionaries now increasingly turned their attention. And it was even less true in the districts under the Nizam's control, where Urdu was the required language for education and administration and English education had not yet penetrated." This was the region to which Azariah brought a religious and social message that provided the society's poorest inhabitants with a new sense of purpose and confidence both as Christians and as Telugus.