The Indian YMCA: The American Wave
The Indian YMCA: The American Wave
Azariah was lifted from his provincial parish past into a new international vision by two American evangelists from the surging Student Volunteer Movement: David McConaughy (1860-1946) and George Sherwood Eddy (1871-1963).
The Indian YMCA promoted itself as an interdenominational Protestant organization which sought to develop harmonious relations with all churches rather than to become itself a new church. McConaughy described it as:
The goal of the YMCA in Madras, as elsewhere, was to meet the so called fourfold needs of young men: physical, intellectual, social, and spiritual. In the words of McConaughy, The finished product of the Young Men's Christian Association is a man - the coming man - with the muscle of an athlete, the brain of a scholar, the manners of a gentleman, and the heart of a Christian.'39 The YMCA played an important role in the widespread development of what has been called `muscular' Christianity in India during the late Victorian period.
The contrast between the `manly' nature of Christianity and the `effeminate' nature of Hinduism was a common theme in some popular missionary polemics and in other literature of the late British Raj. Sports and, specifically, the British public school games ethic helped diffuse throughout the British empire a moralistic ideology closely associated with Christianity and generally supportive of the British imperial enterprise.40 Stories of the forcible introduction of boxing, rowing, football, cricket, ice-sliding, and swimming (and western trousers) to reluctant Indian students in Christian schools were not uncommon,41 the stated purpose being to teach an ethic of fair play and decency necessary to good character and, specifically, to Christian conduct.
The ideal of the manly citizen was one whose body was as fully trained as his mind and spirit. In the words of George Barrie, Bishop of Lahore, they would be `men of character and courage, serving their fellow-men, fighting for truth and justice, constantly engaged in killing dragons, valiant men in thought and action.'42 Under the guidance of McConaughy and his successors, the YMCA influenced a new generation of Indian leaders to admire `manly' principles and practices derived from a vigorous, robust type of Christian culture popular in late Victorian Britain and North America.
In the early stage of the YMCA's history, spiritual work was regarded as the association's first and foremost duty. Nowhere was this emphasis more clearly illustrated than in the Madras branch where Azariah was first drawn into YMCA activities. The main focus was a Bible study class, street preaching in Tamil, and hospital visitations, which were all considered part of the `spiritual side' of the work.43 Sponsorship of Bible classes became a key criterion for admission of associations to the Second Indian National Convention.44
The Madras YMCA actively evangelized its own members, both Christian and non-Christian. Urban associations in India were composed mainly of students and young professionals from the English-educated elites. In order to attract high caliber native members and to win the respect of missionaries in the field who were often skeptical of the YMCA, the association tended to send unusually well-qualified secretaries to foreign countries such as India. McConaughy, Wishard, and their contemporary John Trumbull Swift (1861-1928), who was posted to Japan, all had university educations and, in this respect, were not representative of the majority of YMCA officers in the West during the period.45 By 1903, 15 out of the 20 YMCA secretaries in India were university graduates.46 The membership in urban areas reflected similarly high attainments. In March 1896, the occupational distribution of YMCA membership in Madras was: `Students 171, Clerks 109, Teachers 35, Lawyers 6, Physicians 5, Mechanics 18, Soldiers 2, Merchants 29, Missionaries 27, Signallers 5, Miscellaneous 30.' As The Young Men oflndia noted with a tone of self-congratulation, `this distribution clearly shows that the YMCA is appealing to the right class of young men.'47
All active members were in full communion with a Protestant Christian church, though many were considered to be merely `nominal' Christians by the evangelical YMCA leaders, who persistently tried to deepen their membership's faith through Bible studies, observing a daily time of prayer (the SVM's so-called `Morning Watch') and inspirational addresses. But McConaughy was particularly anxious to keep the Madras association doors open to all young men without distinction of race, rank or religion'48 through associate memberships for non-Christians. By 1894, 302 of the 430 YMCA members in Madras were `native Indian young men,' of whom 202 were Hindu, 12 were Muslim, 3 were Parsis, and 85 were `native Christians.' Thus, non-Christians outnumbered Christians 217 to 213, a development which McConaughy welcomed. The people most thoroughly excluded from associations in Madras and elsewhere were the Roman Catholics, who first gained admission to a YMCA in Mexico City in 1907.49
The YMCA made a concerted effort to convince non-Christian associate members and visitors of the superiority of Christianity over its alter- natives.50 The Second National Convention ofYMCAs in India, which met in Bombay in April 1892, passed the resolution: That Associations be exhorted to do everything in their power towards extending the privileges of their work to the non-Christian communities around them.'51 It was hoped that, by providing an inviting meeting place for men of different faiths, Christian members would be able to influence non-Christians towards accepting the Christian gospel. As David McConaughy wrote: the influence of the Active Members is brought to bear upon the Associate Members constantly, in all departments, not merely in religious meetings; the Secretary is always accessible, and finds frequent opportunities for conversation with the members.'52
Hindus began striking back at the YMCA during Azariah's years as a student in Madras. The conversion of Mr. Ramanujam Cherry (a highcaste Komati) in 1894 caused a great uproar and provoked the Hindu community in Madras to establish a Young Men's Hindu Association (YMHA).53 The YMHA adopted a policy of admitting only Hindus `so as not to hurt the caste feelings of orthodox members,' and sought to provide a defense against what it perceived as a YMCA assault on Hindu traditions. In return, the YMCA criticized the Hindu association for intolerance and defended the liberty of all people to change their faith. By December, The Young Men of India reported that Mr. Ramanujam had relapsed after being virtually imprisoned in his home, besieged by tearful relatives, and required to undergo the `humiliation of maha- prayaschittam, the necessary expiatory ceremonies.'54 Despite the establishment of the YMHA, the YMCA managed to retain a sizable number of Hindu associate members. In 1896 the balance of Christian to Hindus in the YMCA was 152 to 142 (in addition to 8 Muslims, 1 Parsi, and 2 Coorgs).55
By 1889 other religious groups established organizations similar to the Christian association to provide alternatives for their own young men. The progressive theistic Hindu reform movement in Bombay, the Prarthana Samaj, established the Students' Brotherhood. The more defensively communalistic Hindu social reform movement, the Arya Samaj, established the Arya Kumar Sabha, or Young Men's Arya Association. The occult Theosophical Society established the Young Men's Indian Association; the non-violent jams established the Jain Young Men's Association; and the more militaristic Sikhs established the Young Men's Sikh Association in Lahore and the Khalsa Young Men's Association in Amritsar.56 Each of these non-Christian associations replicated the YMCA's organization and methods by providing social clubs and centers of instruction for their respective religions.57 The purpose of some, such as the Theosophists' Young Men's Indian Association in Madras, was explicitly to save young men from Christian influence.58
Azariah became a secretary in the Indian YMCA at a time when the association was seeking to expand both its Christian and non-Christian Indian membership.59 Azariah was attracted to McConaughy's belief that the YMCA in India was not a `foreign mission' and, indeed, that there were no distinctions between foreign and home fields:
This early YMCA generation sought to establish in each country selfsustaining indigenous leadership,61 and by 1896 the expenses of the YMCA in Madras were largely met by local membership fees.62 In comparison with more traditional western missionary societies, the YMCA was relatively quick to promote Indians to positions of leadership and to establish an association controlled by indigenous constituencies.63 At the Madras association's establishment in 1890, an educated Indian was appointed Assistant Secretary;64 and at the First Indian National Convention of YMCAs the following year there were 26 Indian delegates, 2 AngloIndian, and 7 European. At this convention, plans were discussed for the appointment of an Indian evangelist, and the plans were realized with Azariah's appointment in 1895 as the first Tamil Agent of the Indian National Union of YMCAs.65
The YMCA had some difficulty convincing young Indian Christians that its plans for Indianization were sincere. Many Indians, including K. T. Paul, one of the YMCA's greatest future leaders, were initially skeptical. Paul was Azariah's contemporary at Madras Christian College, and he refused to sign a volunteer card in response to John Mott's 1895-96 appeal for Indian student evangelists because `serving God is not serving a foreign mission.'66 By the time Paul reversed his decision seventeen years later and became one of the association's leading secretaries, the YMCA had itself become an effective mouthpiece for the grievances of men like Paul. The Young Men of India often expressed the frustration of young In dian Christians at the `patronizing, condescending spirit' of missionary societies.67
Azariah shared some of these feelings after he left Madras Christian College to become a full-time association secretary. But he and contemporary S. K. Datta saw the YMCA less as a foreign body than as a vehicle for giving greater responsibilities and freedoms to Indian Christians than conventional missionary societies did. The association provided Indian Christians with an unusually large scope for developing independently their own ideas and abilities.68 The YMCA's progressive indigenization program prepared some of the most talented Indian Christians of Azariah's generation, including Paul and Datta, for leadership in the decades ahead.69 At the end of his YMCA career in 1909, Azariah wrote to John Mott:
Although attempting to indigenize the leadership, the YMCA in Madras still conducted its affairs along essentially western lines. Its facilities and activities resembled those in western countries. When Azariah joined the Madras YMCA, it offered the use of reading rooms and a library to its membership;71 it sponsored lectures (on subjects like temperance), commercial classes (e.g., typewriting, phonography, first aid), the monthly publication The Young Men oflndia, music, games, and frequent social gatherings. The government set aside athletic grounds for the YMCA's exclusive use in playing tennis, badminton, cricket, baseball, and football (soccer). Furthermore, the association required egalitarian social standards and disallowed any observance of caste regulations in its buildings or functions. McConaughy reported in 1896:
The YMCA leadership often condemned Western sectarian prejudices along with Indian caste prejudices, thereby planting the seeds for future ecumenical advances in South India:
In its early stages in India, the YMCA adopted what one Indian church historian has called a path of `structural indigenization.' Indians assumed leadership of organizations whose intrinsic structures retained their original western forms and showed little concern for the environment, the style of life and the traditions of the people.'74 Azariah was apparently content with the western patterns of conduct and organization he encountered in the Madras YMCA. Only later, when attempting to establish associations in the smaller towns and villages of Madura and Tinnevelly Districts, did Azariah find it necessary to give YMCA structures and priorities a more distinctively Indian form.