A Failed Attempt at Reconciliation
A Failed Attempt at Reconciliation
The conflict between Gandhi and Christian missionary forces over depressed class conversions threatened to worsen the already growing atmosphere of intercommunal distrust in the newly open political arena. Tragically, this hostility grew when a group consisting primarily of British Quakers sympathetic to the Indian national movement attempted to intervene in the mass movement dispute of 1936 and 1937. The India Conciliation Group had been founded by associates of Gandhi's friend, C. F. Andrews, during the second Round Table Conference to represent the interests of Indian nationalists in England. Troubled by Gandhi's deteriorating relations with Christian missionary forces, several Conciliation Group leaders mounted a well-intentioned but ultimately counter-productive effort to reconcile Gandhi with the man whom they regarded as his principal Indian Christian adversary, the Bishop of Dornakal.
The most important, though least public participant in this mediatory effort was Agatha Harrison (1885-1954), personal assistant to C. F. Andrews and Secretary of the India Conciliation Group (ICG) from its establishment in 1931.84 Harrison had accepted an informal commission from Gandhi that year to `work for mutual understanding between Britain and India' and subsequently visited India six times on behalf of the ICG with the financial assistance of Gandhi's supporter, the Marwari industrialist G. D. Birla. Her main function was to facilitate relations between Indian nationalist leaders and influential Britons by arranging informal meetings and consultations. She attempted to work `behind the scenes' as an unofficial diplomat free from association with the official political networks of either the Congress Party or the British Raj. She established intimate contacts within both the British government and the Indian national movement, trying to interpret one side to the other in the somewhat naive belief that better communication would solve the divisive problems at issue.85 Her private papers provide a unique `third party' account of a number of critical events occurring during the final years of the independence movement, including the most complete account available of the hitherto neglected Gandhi-Azariah controversy.
From November 1936 to February 1937, Harrison undertook her third trip to India in order to calm the growing crisis over depressed class conversions. Having discussed the mass movements in London with leading missionaries and ecumenists - John Mott, Basil Matthews, William Paton, A. L. Warnshuis, Merle Davies, and Godfrey Phillips - Harrison was convinced by the validity of their claims, but also knew of Gandhi's objections through personal correspondence and her reading of the Harijan. The urgency of the situation became apparent immediately on board ship to Ceylon, where Harrison discovered that most passengers were not only aware of the depressed class situation, but also enthusiastic supporters of Christian evangelism.86 As her first act of `mediation' with those on board who had `come primed with the usual mission literature,' Harrison arranged a lecture by Dr. Barra, a Hindu government official from Bengal's Department of Public Health, who criticized missionary activity.
Once in India and before joining Gandhi at Wardha, Harrison set out to investigate for herself the truth of missionary claims about the mass movements.87 In order to see the best of Christian work,' she scheduled a 24-hour visit to Dornakal diocese on 22 November.88 After a tour of villages with Azariah's daughter Mercy, Harrison concluded that this work is real and deserving of support.' She was impressed that recent converts exhibited a good understanding of Christian doctrine, but remained doubtful that the mass movements were as large as Bishop Azariah and western missionary societies claimed.89
At first, Harrison served essentially as an apologist for the missionaries against Hindu critics. In an interview with Gandhi's ally, C. Rajagopalachari, in Madras in early November, she `tried to convey to him the honesty of purpose behind the (Christian) "forward move."' In response, he asked Harrison to speak about the mass movements to a meeting of about thirty orthodox Brahmins and high-caste Hindus at the home of Venkatarama Sastri on 13 or 14 November (it is not clear from her letters which day the meeting was held). The meeting's purpose, she wrote, was to stir them to a realization of what is going on.'
Afterwards, she faced `a perfect barrage of questions.' Some implied that missionaries had political motives in seeking untouchable allegiance before an election. Others wondered why Christians sought to divide a community that was already in a dire plight. Two or three emphasized the need to reform Hinduism, saying `that when oppression ended, conversion would end.' In Madras, Harrison also met with mass movement critic A. V. Thakkar, who presented information about Christian conversions that, she claimed, was `widely divergent from that reaching the Mission Boards.'91
Harrison concluded that the conflict between missionaries and Hindu reformers in the religious field was serious enough to aggravate the conflict between Britain and India in the political field.92 She also worried that, as Hindu concern about untouchable conversion clashed with Christian enthusiasm about the mass movements, it threatened to add to the Hindu-Muslim tension ... a Hindu-Christian tension.'93
Her solution lay in trying to lessen the tension through improved communication and informal talks. She hoped that a gathering of mission leaders from throughout India and the world for three meetings of the NCC during December in Nagpur would help bridge the gap between Hindus and Christians.94 The Bishop of Dornakal was to preside over an Executive Committee meeting of the NCC on 1-2 December, followed by a conference on the mass movements initiated by John Mott and a Biennial Meeting of the NCC from 29 December 1936 to 1 January 1937.95
Before the conferences, C. F. Andrews arranged an extended interview over two days between John Mott and Gandhi at nearby Wardha in which the two leaders disagreed over the legitimacy of depressed class con- versions.96 As Mott had recalled after an earlier meeting with Gandhi in 1930:
No one thing disappointed me more with Gandhi during the three hours' talk I had with him than his evasion and gross ignorance of these untouchables. From his answers it would appear that the Christian movement had nothing whatever to do with the Mass Movement and if it did have a little share, then it was a distasteful part.97
By 1936, Gandhi had clearly learned more about these untouchables. `Evasion and gross ignorance' were no longer the problem. But the Mahatma remained unwilling to admit a role for Christian conversion in their uplift. Christianity was still, to Gandhi, `a distasteful part' of Harijan uplift, despite its evident (and, hence, hotly contested) successes.
Harrison arrived in Wardha on 24 November to join Andrews in his efforts to reconcile Gandhi and the missionary establishment. In her own discussions with the Mahatma at Sevagram Ashram, she was intimidated by his anger over the mass movements.
Christian leaders in Nagpur were not receptive to Harrison's first mediatory efforts. Mott denied her permission to attend the Mass Movement Conference,99 and appears to have ignored her subsequent request that Gandhi be invited to Nagpur `for serious discussion of the impasse."°° After attending the Congress Conference in Faizpur on 27-29 December, Harrison returned to Nagpur to attend the Biennial Meeting of the NCC, where she was met by ICG Chairman Carl Heath and his wife. Coming from a meeting of Congressites to a meeting of Christians was, Harrison wrote, `like coming into another world.'IOI
Debates over the legitimacy of mass movement evangelism dominated the Christians' Nagpur meetings, with critics counseling delay, inac tion, or outright opposition to the missionary program favored by Azariah and others.102 The ICG delegates joined a dissenting faction of city-dwelling Indian Christians who had been influenced by Gandhi to question the validity of mission to the depressed classes during a period of internal Hindu reform. Azariah wrote to John Mott soon after the December meetings: `My first concern is in regard to the attitude of certain Indian Christian leaders of urban areas whose attitude to Mass Movements and Evangelism is indifferent or critical and antagonistic.'1°3
His debates with these Indian Christian critics appear to have shaken Azariah's confidence rather severely. Pickett reported three months later:
Harrison was annoyed by the critical attitude of most missionaries and Indian Christians toward Hindu reforms, and she cited Azariah's claim that the Travancore temple openings were mainly a 'political move' as an example of this `unhelpful' attitude.101 Relations between Christians and Hindus, she found, were now marked by `suspicion and lack of faith on both sides.'1°6
Despite her broad sympathy for Gandhi, Harrison was persuaded during the Nagpur meeting that Gandhi's criticisms of Azariah, Pickett, and the CMS in the Harijan had still been misguided. On the last day of the conference, she told Pickett that Gandhi had been mistaken in his charges and that the Mahatma owed both Pickett and Azariah an apol- ogy.107 Showing Pickett a handwritten statement from Gandhi (stating that if he was convinced of the incorrectness of his charge he would offer an apology), Harrison proposed that Azariah and Pickett meet with Gandhi the following week.108
On 31 December, Harrison and Heath had a'deeply interesting and illuminating private talk' with Azariah and obtained his promise to meet Gandhi.109 Gandhi reciprocated at Wardha the following day, provoking Heath to write optimistically:
The meeting was set for mid-February, with Bishop Pickett to be included along with Gandhi and Azariah as a participant.111 Harrison shared Heath's high hopes about this meeting, and wrote home:
No transcript of the subsequently controversial Gandhi-AzariahPickett meeting appears to have survived. The only written record of the interview was kept by Gandhi's secretary, Mahadev Desai, `for his own files,'113 and the participants agreed that neither these notes nor any record of the conversation would be published.114 Because Desai's transcript seems to have disappeared from the records, 115 secondary tes timonies of the participants and others who talked with them provide the best available information about the meeting. Such accounts are often contradictory about the contents of the discussion and even about the date of the meeting, which was probably held on 12 February 1937.116
The three men met in the bungalow of NCC Secretary J. Z. Hodge, at Nagpur, along with four silent observers - Hodge, Desai, Pickett's wife, and Miss M. Reid. 117 Despite the agreement regarding confidentiality, rumors circulated afterwards about the outcome of the meeting, and in the following year it became the focus of a heated debate over the prospects of religious freedom for Christians under swaraj.
The controversy was sparked by a three-part article entitled The Battle for Brotherhood in India Today,' which appeared in the Londonbased Christian quarterly World Dominion. Written by an American missionary to India from the United Christian Missionary Society, Donald A. McGavran (1897-1990), the article described depressed class conversion movements as the focal point of a great battle led by Gandhi for the preservation of caste and the maintenance of Hinduism.118 The series concluded with the following account of the Gandhi-AzariahPickett meeting:
This account fueled existing Indian Christian fears that Gandhi would restrict the religious liberty of both Indian Christians and Christian missions in an independent India.120 Particular concern was expressed about Gandhi's threat to use state force to prevent proselytiz- ation.121 Although Gandhi had previously condoned the use of legislation to end proselytizing,122 Christian missionaries had never before felt so seriously threatened with the possibility of coercive civil or police action.
Hindu-Christian relations seemed to be headed for another crisis when both Gandhi and Azariah denied the truth of McGavran's account. Gandhi pressed for an apology to be printed in the relevant papers (World Dominion, Guardian, and Harijan),123 and Azariah responded vehemently in the Guardian:
Despite his published disavowal, McGavran continued to believe to the end of his life that he correctly represented Gandhi's opinions.I26 His interpretation of the Gandhi-Azariah-Pickett meeting was consequently invoked by former Baptist missionary Vern Middleton to support a theory that Azariah lied in order to defend Gandhi,127 and that Gandhi was the inspirational force behind later anti-missionary statements, such as those of the 1956 Niyogi Commission which concluded that Christian evangelism was harmful to Indian national unity.128
McGavran's disingenuous apology of 1938 seems to have been motivated by the desire to protect his true informer, Bishop Pickett.129 In a 1938 letter to Azariah, McGavran claimed that he had been unaware of the agreement against publicizing the interview and had assembled his account from `a dozen' secondhand reports, thereby presenting a con struction derived from hearsay as Gandhi's direct quotation.130 In the unpublished first draft of his apology to World Dominion, McGavran admitted that he was guilty of an inappropriate use of quotations, but not of misrepresenting Gandhi's beliefs.131 This explanation infuriated Gandhi, Azariah, and the Editor of World Dominion, who insisted that he retract the second part of his excuse.132 McGavran bowed to the pressure but denied in later years that he had either misquoted or misunderstood Gandhi.133
McGavran was further isolated when two silent observers at the meeting, Hodge and Desai, also denied the truth of McGavran's account. 134 There was a conspicuous silence from the meeting's third participant, J. W. Pickett,135 but Pickett's private correspondence suggests that McGavran's article reflected the Methodist bishop's views with some accuracy. One month after the disputed meeting, Pickett wrote:
In the interview with Gandhi which Bishop Azariah, Hodge and I had on the 12th February, he intimated that if we continue seeking conversions from the Depressed Classes, he will draw away from the Church many educated Indian Christians who share his aversion to the conversion of Untouchables.
Furthermore, Pickett claimed:
Bishop Pickett's assessment of Gandhi's hostile intentions towards missionaries was influenced greatly by Ambedkar, with whom Pickett had regular contact during this period. In the same letter, Pickett wrote:
I discussed this matter last week with Dr. Ambedkar and he feels sure that the Hindus under the leadership of Gandhi are likely to make a sus tained effort to legislate for the control of conversion. But he believes that the combined efforts of the Depressed Classes, the Christians and the Moslems, can prevent anything of that sort happening.137
That leaders of the depressed classes and other religious groups shared Pickett's misgivings regarding Gandhi's perceived Hindu bias lends some credence to McGavran's thesis concerning Gandhi's real intentions. Anti-missionary legislation after Independence suggests that there was strong public support in India for Gandhi's alleged views, although it hardly proves the accuracy of McGavran's account.138 The weight of available evidence concerning the disputed interview (the firsthand accounts of Azariah, Gandhi, Desai, and Hodge against McGavran's version of Pickett's testimony) indicates that McGavran misrepresented the conversation itself. There is some plausibility in his general characterizations because of Gandhi's evident anger over untouchable conversions. But, if McGavran's inflammatory account had been true, Gandhi and Desai would probably have wanted to suppress it, and it would not have been in the Christians' interest to conceal Gandhi's threats once they were already well publicized. Azariah and Hodge would have had little motivation to lie about Gandhi's threatening posture toward evangelism.
Middleton accused Azariah of disputing the accuracy of McGavran's article in order `to save face with Gandhi.' In so doing, Azariah allegedly brushed truth aside `for that which is politically expedient."39 Azariah had reason to be embarrassed that McGavran (or, more aptly, Pickett) had broken the privacy agreement, and probably desired to disassociate himself from this blunder. But it is difficult to imagine what political expediencies would have tempted the bishop to lie when any revelation of Gandhi's intention to stop proselytization by law would have given welcome ammunition to Gandhi's critics. It is possible that Azariah was scared to play a visible role in fueling Gandhi's opposition; but it seems unlikely that the bishop (not to mention Hodge and the silent observers) stood to gain either personally or on behalf of the church by protecting Gandhi.
Azariah's long activity in support of the mass conversion movements had placed him on a collision course with Gandhi well before the 1937 meeting. The bishop's evangelism could hardly have been construed as anything but an effective, if unintended, rival to Gandhi's `Children of God' bid to secure the allegiance of the untouchables within the political fold of his charismatically Hindu form of messianic nationalism. Given Azariah's hitherto fearless and unpopular promotion of depressed class conversions to Christianity, it seems unlikely that Azariah would have been intimidated into minimizing Gandhi's opposition to evangelism in 1938. It was in Azariah's interest to preserve evangelization as a lawful activity for Christians in an independent India, and it would have been odd for Azariah to risk his integrity to save Gandhi from criticism for being opposed to the continuance of precisely that liberty. But Gandhi was a formidable opponent, and it is possible that by 1938 Azariah was simply unwilling to take on a major public battle with him.
Frequently throughout his life Azariah took independent political positions in opposition to Gandhi and the Congress Parry. Although he was ultimately in favor of Indian independence and repeatedly warned Indian Christians against `the delusion that nationalism is a contaminating influence that they should dread,'I40 he opposed civil disobedience, noncooperation, and `rebellion' as means to achieve political autonomy.I4I In a speech entitled `Nationalism and Indian Christianity,' delivered to the Bezwada Town Congress Committee on 2 January 1936, Azariah praised the Congress Party for its national service but explained that many Indian Christians found objectionable in principle the Congress policy of civil disobedience and its use of khadi as a condition of membership.142 Azariah was clearly unafraid to disagree with Congress and its leadership over fundamental principles and practical policies. But charging Mahatma Gandhi directly with a specific threat against Christian missionary activity would have been a more challenging task.
It is possible, as McGavran ultimately believed, that neither Pickett nor Azariah was lying, but merely interpreting Gandhi's words differ- ently.143 It is also possible that these different interpretations sprang, in part, from differences between Indian and western perceptions, sensibilities, and loyalties. McGavran believed there was a fundamental cultural or racial element to the conflict: `Azariah and Gandhi were pulling together, were two nationals, and Pickett was a foreigner and I was a foreigner.'144
The problem of correctly interpreting Gandhi's words has plagued, not just westerners, but also Gandhi's closest disciples. As the Editor of The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi explained to author Ved Mehra:
It is particularly ironic in light of Gandhi's New Testament analogy that interpretive disputes seemed to occur with special frequency over Gandhi's statements concerning Christian conversion. While touring Travancore to see the temple openings in January 1937, Gandhi met with Christian leaders in Kottayam to discuss misunderstandings over his ac cusations in the Harijan against Bishops Azariah, Pickett, and the CMS. Afterwards, Gandhi and Desai protested that an account of the Kottayam interview in the Madras Mail was inaccurate and that a corrected version should be published instead.I46 The American evangelist E. Stanley Jones also recalled an occasion when Gandhi claimed that a more favorable statement on the permissibility of conversion made in a private meeting at Wardha had been misrepresented by his Christian interlocutors (all of whom in turn defended the truth of their own accounts).147
Similar possibilities for interpretive error existed for those privy to the conversation between Gandhi, Azariah and Pickett on the sensitive topic of conversion. What is clear, in the end, is that the meeting proposed by the idealistic ICG to relieve communal tensions resulted in significantly worsening them and in driving a wedge between Azariah and Pickett, one of his closest associates in the mass movement work.
Harrison's relations with the NCC in India had been troubled since the early 1920s when she refused to undertake industrial work for the NCC due to disagreements over Christian doctrine. Her uncomfortable relationship with the Anglican church was broken finally in 1940 when she joined the Society of Friends.149 During the controversies with Gandhi in the mid-1930s, she was keenly aware of her disagreements with many missionaries over basic theological questions, particularly concerning the authority of Christian revelation. Although not a theologian, Harrison had an obvious distaste for the missionary enterprise and was more inclined towards a universalist approach which implied equality and pluralism of religions; she had a correspondingly dim view of conversion. As she wrote home to her family from India:
Harrison's experience highlighted some of the basic divisions among different kinds of Christians over an appropriate response to Gandhi and depressed class unrest. It also illustrated the insincerity of Harrison's (and Gandhi's) claims of tolerance for all "Movements of God." Under the guise of neutral mediation in a heated controversy, Harrison and the ICG really wished to criticize the Christian missionary enterprise in India. Azariah and much of the missionary and Indian church establishment realized that their disagreements with Gandhi sprang from more than just misunderstanding, and necessitated more than just objective mediation. William Paton wrote to Hodge before the McGavran controversy erupted:
I am very glad indeed that the [Gandhi-Azariah] meeting was held, not that I ever believed that Gandhi would change, or that there could be anything but a real gulf between his position and that of the Christian evangelist. It is however worth trying to remove needless obstacles and misunderstandings. I 52
Azariah agreed, and wrote to Harrison on 17 January 1937 that his differences with Gandhi were not ultimately based on a lack of understanding but on fundamental differences in matters of faith and principle.
Gandhi's attack on Christian missions was supported, Azariah noted, by Rajagopalachari, who `intensely dislikes' mass movements. After the report of the 1931 Census was published, Rajagopalachari called upon Hindus to wake up and give up their social inequalities, in order that the depressed classes may not be driven away from Hinduism'. Azariah continued:
Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Rajagopalachari ... vehemently attack Missions and Missionaries for re-doubling their efforts at such a time as this. It is realized that the possibility of conversion of large numbers to Christianity is even greater today than ever before. They therefore attack foreign money, the foreign missionary; and not only these but also all indigenous propaganda work, as they have never done before.
Azariah went on to suggest an appropriate Christian response to Hindu critics which probably resembled his own response to Gandhi in their meeting less than one month later:
What, I ask, is our duty at this time - as followers of Christ and as Indian nationalists. First and foremost it is our duty to be loyal to Christ, and therefore we must proclaim Him to all our people as the Way, the Truth and the Life. If while doing this our national leaders oppose us and misjudge us - we must bear it all - even as the early Apostles did. Christ and his message always arouse opposition. He came not to send peace (in this sense) but a sword. Conflicts are inevitable when His followers are loyal to Him. On the other hand, if unworthy methods are used in this work by any particular Mission or Church or in any particular area, it is our duty to discover these and rectify blunders. But the remedy for a mistaken method of work is not to stop the work!
My conclusion is therefore this. Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Rajagopalachari ... must first abandon their attitude of antagonism to change of religion as such. Each religion stands for certain truths. When a man genuinely seeks after truth, he will come to a point where Truth must win his obedience. This obedience must mean abandoning one religious system and uniting with another. If a man fears this result, he will either effect a compromise with the Truth as he sees it, or yield to an unreality, professing to see in his old religion the new truth he has found in the new religion.
To Azariah, a partial acceptance of Jesus' teaching constituted a rejection of the normative biblical proclamation of the missionary enterprise as a sine qua non of faith and practice. Gandhi had no scruples about taking a selective approach to religious scriptures of all faiths - or about suggesting that he might have a more legitimate interpretation of any par ticular faith than the practitioners of the faith themselves.I16 Writing in the Harijan in 1936, he asserted: `I rebel against orthodox Christianity as I am convinced that it has distorted the message of Jesus.'1S7
It is ironic that these two men, both profoundly religious and committed to the cause of helping India's untouchables, should have been drawn into such a conflict. In a seventieth birthday tribute, Azariah praised Gandhi for having called India back to religious ideals in an age of growing materialism and for having assisted the outcastes by changing the attitudes of caste Hindus.118 Ultimately, however, despite certain shared affinities between the two, underlying philosophical, religious, and political disagreements kept them apart. Azariah chose to bear Gandhi's attacks, opposition, misjudgments, and antagonism as the early Apostles did' - remaining silent while going on with his work.