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IN the early days of British rule in India, Lord Macaulay, a member of Supreme Council of Education and a noted British Scholar, advised his government in England that in order to conquer India, the culture of the land would have to be conquered. He advised that English language be introduced in schools. The education system would be framed so as to produce only clerks and no visionaries. Macaulay’s advice later on manifested in the activities of Christian Missionaries who had come to India in large numbers. The real motive behind Missionaries’ activities was to support and consolidate British rule in India.
For this purpose, they entered the field of education and set up missionary schools. The effort was to impact the tender minds of children and prepare them to be future Christians and later on win over their parents. Looking to the tough resistance put up by the Indian Hindus and other natives, the Missionaries targeted the vulnerable sections in Hindus i.e. Scheduled Castes and other Dalits. The missionaries would change their tack at times, condemning Hinduism, its rituals and Sanskritised mantras. They would design to find similarities between Hinduism and Christian faith. Another aspect of the Church’s history is an ideology of power which is inextricably involved once military and political power is established. They also tried the Hindu philosophy of inclusiveness and tolerance, thereby taming and winning over the natives. In order to facilitate conversion, a policy of appeasement was adopted and convert Hindus were allowed to retain their identity like name and dress etc. in 18th Century. After 1857 rebellion, the Missionaries felt that Christian education was most essential for British Rule in India as the native Christians (converts) proved to be more loyal during the 1857 mutiny. In government services and even in courts, the converts found favourable buyers. The impact of missionaries was more perceptible in the South. In Kerala, 3.000 Nadars came to the fold of Christianity in one day. However, it could not break the ice in North India, specially in the then united Punjab where the movements like Singh Sabha Lehar and Arya Samaj had come up and opposed conversions. More so, parts of Punjab were ruled by Sikh princely states and the missionaries hardly dared to enter their areas. As regards the caste aspect of conversions studied by the author, in Bengal and the South, learned persons and wealthy communities did adopt Christianity, taking it a better one compared to their own religion and they found its similarity with Hinduism in a refined way. The other economically vulnerable classes fell into the missionaries’ trap of a better livelihood etc. Later on, these classes felt that even after adopting Christianity they continued to be discriminated by the upper caste native Christians although in Church there is no place for caste. This discrimination also continues in other religions like Sikhism, Islam apart from Hinduism which is infamous for caste-based discrimination. The caste system is deeply seeped into the fabric of Indian society since days of Manu Smriti. The author has brought out the poor plight of Dalits in all the religions who profess equality for all its members. This,in fact, is more due to the poor economic conditions of Dalits. The discrimination exists even in the same community of Dalits on the basis of economic conditions among different sects like Chamars, Valmikis. The spread of education and economic development, however, is by and by changing the conditions of Dalits for the better.
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