HARDIMAN
HARDIMAN
AVA I L A B L E I N T H E S E R I E S
CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND THE AESTHETICS OF BRITISHNESS ed. Dana Arnold
BRITAIN IN CHINA
Community, culture and colonialism, 1900–1949 Robert Bickers
RACE AND EMPIRE
Eugenics in colonial Kenya Chloe Campbell
RETHINKING SETTLER COLONIALISM
History and memory in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand and South Africa
ed. Annie E. Coombes
IMPERIAL CITIES
Landscape, display and identity
eds Felix Driver and David Gilbert
IMPERIAL CITIZENSHIP
Empire and the question of belonging Daniel Gorman
SCOTLAND, THE CARIBBEAN AND THE ATLANTIC WORLD, 1750–1820
Douglas J. Hamilton
FLAGSHIPS OF IMPERIALISM
The P&O company and the politics of empire from its origins to 1867 Freda Harcourt
EMIGRANT HOMECOMINGS
The return movement of emigrants, 1600–2000 Marjory Harper
ENGENDERING WHITENESS
White women and colonialism in Barbados and North Carolina, 1625–1865
Cecily Jones
REPORTING THE RAJ
The British press and India, c. 1880–1922 Chandrika Kaul
SILK AND EMPIRE Brenda M. King
COLONIAL CONNECTIONS, 1815–45
Patronage, the information revolution and colonial government Zoë Laidlaw
PROPAGANDA AND EMPIRE
The manipulation of British public opinion, 1880–1960 John M. MacKenzie
THE SCOTS IN SOUTH AFRICA
Ethnicity, identity, gender and race, 1772–1914 John M. MacKenzie with Nigel R. Dalziel
THE OTHER EMPIRE
Metropolis, India and progress in the colonial imagination John Marriott
SEX, POLITICS AND EMPIRE
A postcolonial geography Richard Phillips
IMPERIAL PERSUADERS
Images of Africa and Asia in British advertising Anandi Ramamurthy
GENDER, CRIME AND EMPIRE Kirsty Reid
THE HAREM, SLAVERY AND BRITISH IMPERIAL CULTURE
Anglo-Muslim relations, 1870–1900 Diane Robinson-Dunn
WEST INDIAN INTELLECTUALS IN BRITAIN ed. Bill Schwarz
MIGRANT RACES
Empire, identity and K. S. Ranjitsinhji Satadru Sen
AT THE END OF THE LINE
Colonial policing and the imperial endgame 1945–80 Georgina Sinclair
THE VICTORIAN SOLDIER IN AFRICA Edward M. Spiers
MARTIAL RACES AND MASCULINITY IN THE BRITISH ARMY, 1857–1914
Heather Streets
THE FRENCH EMPIRE BETWEEN THE WARS
Imperialism, politics and society Martin Thomas
ORDERING AFRICA eds Helen Tilley with Robert J. Gordon
BRITISH CULTURE AND THE END OF EMPIRE ed. Stuart Ward
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Missionaries
and their medicine
A CHRISTIAN MODERNITY
FOR TRIBAL INDIA
David Hardiman
MANCHESTER
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Manchester and New York
The right of David Hardiman to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
1 Introduction page 1
2 The Bhils 19
3 The mission to the Bhils 51
4 The great famine 73
5 The conversion of the Bhagats 83
6 Christian healing 105
7 Fighting demons 123
8 Woman’s work for woman 139
9 A little empire 147
10 Medicine on a shoestring and a prayer 165
11 A mission for a postcolonial era 178
12 Medical modernity 189
13 Closure 225
14 Conclusion: mission medicine and Bhil modernity 235
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I L L U S T R AT I O N S
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research on which this book has been based was funded initially by
the Wellcome Trust through a two-year Research Fellowship. Further
research and writing were carried out with the help of a grant from the
Economic and Social Research Council. The archival research was
greatly facilitated by the excellent facilities and help that were provided
for me by the archivists and librarians in the Special Collections room
at the University of Birmingham Library and the Church Missionary
Society (CMS) library at Partnership House in London. At the latter, I
would like to thank in particular Colin Rowe, Elizabeth Williams and
Ken Osborne. In addition, I made use of the holdings of the Oriental and
India Office Library and the British Library in London, the National
Archives of India, New Delhi, the Maharashtra State Archives,
Mumbai, and the Gujarat State Archives, Vadodara. Nicholas Johnson
and Hilary Griffiths were particularly generous in not only granting me
access to the papers of their father, the Reverend Paul Johnson, but also
allowing me to borrow them for a time. In addition, they supplied me
with a copy of a dissertation on Margaret Johnson by Hilary’s daughter,
Rachel Mash, and have allowed me to reproduce three photographs
from their family collection. The Bishop of Gujarat, Vinod Malaviya,
showed similar generosity in allowing me to photocopy records that he
holds. I was able to obtain an almost full set of the Bhil Mission Report
in part from the CMS archives in Birmingham (earlier years), and in part
from copies held by Bishop Malaviya, supplemented by copies held by
Nicholas Johnson and Hilary Griffiths. For help in the research in India,
I would like to thank Kanu Bhavsar and Babulal Damor for accompa-
nying me to the Bhil villages of Mewar and Sabarkantha to conduct
interviews. Raj Kumar Hans gave me invaluable help in Vadodara. For
hospitality, I would like in particular to thank Nadir, Robyn, Perin,
Kate and Amy Bharucha in Mumbai, and Makrand and Shirin Mehta in
Ahmedabad. For their very helpful comments on the manuscript,
I am indebted to David Arnold, Rosemary Fitzgerald, Sarah Hodges,
Colin Jones, Gyan Pandey, Gauri Raje and the anonymous readers for
Manchester University Press.
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In the second half of the nineteenth century, the notion of Christ as the
‘Great Physician’ became increasingly prominent in missionary dis-
course and its iconic representations. As Western medicine, supposedly
emblematic of the onward march of the rational, aspired to ever higher
status, missionaries increasingly saw themselves as healers of bodies as
well as savers of souls. David Livingstone was one of the most notable
precursors in this: many missionaries (perhaps particularly Scottish
ones) subsequently sought to combine medical with theological quali-
fications, ambitiously pursuing a sort of parallel ordination in both
spheres. Nevertheless, attitudes towards the role of medicine in mis-
sionary endeavour were complex and dynamic, as David Hardiman
demonstrates here.
This study examines a relatively long period in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries in a restricted geographical sphere in India. It also
analyses the reactions of one so-called ‘tribal’ people, the Bhils, to the
missionary and medical ambitions of the Church Missionary Society in
their land. This approach offers highly rewarding results: we are able to
follow the intertwining of missionary and medical, administrative and
military developments in this region of the subcontinent. We are also
given the opportunity to consider in detail the ways in which the Bhils
responded to, resisted, or sought relief in these religious, medical and
imperial phenomena appearing in their area. All of this is charted
through the period of the so-called high noon of empire, the emergence
of nationalist resistance, violent and non-violent, the era of imperial
weakening induced by European warfare, and the post-independence
years. We follow the mission and its hospital through a process of rise
and fall, indigenisation and dispersal. Ironically, early medical arrange-
ments were primitive and expertise was often slight; but as profession-
alisation increased (along with the significant role of women), political
and social weakness became more pronounced.
Many other issues are illuminated through this useful focus: the
incorporation of the Bhils into the imperial military establishment
through the formation of the Bhil Corps and the manner in which this
could both help and hinder missionary objectives; the foundation of
schools and the development of education as another ‘social’ arm of
missionary ambitions; the articulation of complex gendered relation-
ships between traditional and mission societies; and the role of mis-
sionaries in famine relief. Missionaries were of course confronting
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indigenous belief systems and concepts of illness and cure. They often
saw these as inimical to their ‘modern’ methods, yet they invariably
placed as much reliance on the ‘supernatural’ as their ‘charges’ and
patients did. Pre-operative prayers were common; praying for ‘miracle
cures’ sometimes seemed to have effect. Bhils often found missionary
doctors’ activities appealing precisely because they seemed to have a
comprehensible spiritual content. Far from the missionaries counter-
posing two Manichaean systems, as they usually imagined they were
doing, the fact was that a greater degree of syncretism was occurring
than they would have been prepared to acknowledge. The Bhils were
often responding to Western medicine and the religious message that
lay behind it in this context by indigenising it and consequently ren-
dering it more comprehensible.
In these and in many other ways, David Hardiman’s book offers
insights into issues of imperial and missionary activity that are applic-
able to many other parts of India and elsewhere in the world. We are
given opportunities to consider the relationship between missionaries
and imperialism, the interaction of recruitment and fundraising in the
imperial metropole and activities in the Indian ‘empire’, the changing
educational attainments and roles of missionaries and medics, the sig-
nificance of women, married and single, and their increasingly signifi-
cant instrumentality. We are also presented with the realities of social,
economic and political hierarchies in India and the ways in which the
British sought to modify these. And all of this is related to theoretical
positions and a wider historiography. This constitutes a rewarding
study for all those interested in the relationships among missionary
endeavour, indigenous responses and imperial rule.
John M. MacKenzie
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A B B R E V I AT I O N S
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G L O S S A RY
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CHAPTER ONE
Einführung
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was taking an account of their number, and the number of their cattle,
in order to kill them all. Others thought it was to impose fresh taxes.
But others, getting still wider of the mark, said that a scheme was being
prepared for giving the fat women to the fat men, and the lean women
to the lean men.’2 Government reports spoke of a further rumour that
the Bhil women were being counted so that they could be taken away
so as to exterminate the Bhils.3 Although no doubt fanciful in detail,
these rumours revealed that there was a deep underlying suspicion
amongst many Bhils of the motives of their rulers. They well under-
stood that counting was a prelude to greater surveillance and control by
the state, along with higher taxes.
The army of Mewar state reacted by marching through the rebellious
villages, killing Bhils in cold blood and burning their houses. The
officer in charge was an Irish mercenary employed by the Mewar gov-
ernment, who was heard describing the Bhils in contemptuous terms
as bandar-jat or ‘monkey-people.’4 Thompson noted the wanton
killings in his first report to his mission society, adding with exaspera-
tion that it was likely to greatly harm the reputation of all Europeans
in the area. He asked: ‘How will this officer’s presence and action affect
us and our work?’5 Although the Bhils called off their revolt following
negotiations in April, Thompson was advised to stay in Kherwara and
not visit the Bhil villages, for the time being at least. Even his attempts
to talk with Bhils who visited Kherwara proved abortive, as the towns-
people had advised them to avoid the white missionary – a devious
person, they said, who would do them harm. Although he managed to
talk to a few, he found himself hardly daring to speak on any topic. As
he later said: ‘If I inquired about the family, then how very naturally
might they have looked upon me as another enumerator. If I spoke
about their cattle, fields, or crops, then the tax question might have dis-
turbed their minds. To talk about God, I knew that with them, as with
others, nothing could so readily or so strongly call forth their highest
fears.’ Then, when the Viceroy paid a visit to Mewar State later in 1881,
a rumour swept the Bhil tracts that the sahib lok (Europeans) were
about to join the state forces and devastate the Bhil country. Thompson
also learnt that when any headmen of Bhil villages came to Kherwara,
they were being taken to the senior native army officer – a high-caste
Hindu – who told them: ‘Don’t go near the Padre Sahib. Have nothing
to say to him. Don’t listen to him.’ The native officer was eager that the
Bhils embrace his form of Hinduism rather than Christianity.6
Nonetheless, as was the pattern in missionary narratives, the initial
gloom gave way to hope. Thompson recounted how on 7 November
1881, a Bhil came to his bungalow at Kherwara complaining of deaf-
ness, and that he began treating him. Next day, he paid his first visit to
[2]
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a Bhil village. Within a few days, the Bhil whom he was treating recov-
ered fully. Thompson continued his visits to the villages within a
seven-kilometre radius of Kherwara, leaving at about seven each
morning and returning to his bungalow in the evening. At first, the
people refused to come anywhere near him, but he managed to talk to
four or five of the village headmen. Although Thompson spoke in his
report of these events about the ‘dark minds’ of the Bhils, and com-
mented on their ‘ignorance’, some of these headmen reached a shrewd
conclusion about Thompson’s position. If, they reasoned, the ‘govern-
ment’ (in the form of the native officer) was telling them to avoid him,
then he was obviously not an agent of that government. They accord-
ingly probed him as to his views on the government. Thompson
reported that he was careful not to commit himself to any opinions,
fearing that whatever he said might be twisted. He gave, however, an
impression of distancing himself from the authorities so that he would
not be implicated in their minds with any future punitive raids on Bhil
villages.7
One of the headmen whom Thompson had met agreed to accompany
him to some other villages. It was still hard to make any contact with
the people, who were highly suspicious of any white person. In
Thompson’s words: ‘Long before we got anywhere near them the chil-
dren ran off to their homes as fast as their legs could carry them. Men
and women, peering round corners, or over the enclosures surrounding
their houses, might be seen watching us in all directions.’ The headmen
were on the whole prepared to meet him and provide hospitality,
though some gave a ‘cold reception.’ As he did not as yet follow the Bhil
dialect, he found communication difficult.8
A breakthrough came after a helper joined Thompson who could act
as an interpreter – an Indian Christian called Masih Charan. The two
decided to focus for a week on Obri, a village five kilometres from
Kherwara. Each day, they set up their makeshift clinic under a shady
tree. A khatlo, or country bed with woven string base, was procured
from an adjoining house. Their first case on the initial day – a Monday –
was a broken leg, which Thompson set. According to Thompson:
It soon became evident that our new plan was going to work admirably.
In the evening we returned home. On the Tuesday we had 15 visits for
medicine or treatment; on the Wednesday, 30; on Thursday, 45; on Friday,
59; and on Saturday 58: total, 207. Some had fevers – some colds – others,
enlarged spleens – some the itch – some ophthalmia – others, nearly deaf –
some headaches – others, sores – one poor little emaciated sufferer was
simply a walking skeleton – some of the old folks complained of rheumat-
ics – one old woman, blind and deaf through old age, came to be, I suppose,
made young again. Among the number was the gammaiti [headman] of
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the pal [village]. On the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we held little
meetings to make known the Saviour. We did not think it advisable to say
too much in this way on our first prolonged visit.9
A week later, there was a large funeral ceremony at Obri, attended by
twenty Bhil headmen. There was a lot of talk about the white sahib and
his medicine, and two headmen were chosen to go and ask him to live
amongst them. In this way, Thompson made his breakthrough. The
Bhils around Kherwara no longer viewed him with suspicion, and in
time he was able to gain his first converts. The medical strategy, it
seemed, had proved its worth.
My project
I myself first came into contact with some descendants of the early Bhil
converts on a visit to this region in 1997. Indian princes had in the past
ruled the whole area, and I had gone there at that time to investigate a
protest movement by the Bhils against their rulers in 1921–22. This had
culminated in a massacre by British-led troops.10 One of those I inter-
viewed was Peter Bhanat, who made me aware of another, very differ-
ent, history – that of the small but flourishing community of Christian
Bhils of this tract. Anglican missionaries had converted his father to
Christianity during the first decade of the twentieth century – a time
when many Bhils had converted. Born in 1913, he had been a life-long
Christian. He was studying in primary school at the time of the mas-
sacre, and he told me how casualties were carried to the nearby mission
station at Biladiya to be treated by the missionary, Lea Sahib. After his
schooling days were over, Peter Bhanat had worked as a teacher in the
mission schools of the area, ending up as the headmaster of the mission
secondary school at Biladiya. His whole demeanour impressed me; he
lived simply, was self-confident in himself and his faith, and as a
teacher had devoted his life to working for the good of his community.11
After returning to England, I decided to consult the records of the
Anglican missionary organisation, the Church Missionary Society
(CMS), which are held in Birmingham University Library. There,
besides uncovering some useful information about the events of
1921–22, including a report by the Reverend James Lea, I also found
detailed records relating to an ongoing struggle for power and influence
between the missionaries and the local Bhil healers – the buvas or
bhopas. The missionaries depicted these herbalists, diviners and exor-
cists as agents of Satan. I was already familiar with some excellent
recent studies of the history of medicine in colonial India, and could see
immediately that the mission records provided a dimension to this
history that had so far been largely ignored, for this work had focused
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Christian modernity
Over the past two centuries, the modernising project that was launched
in Europe at the time of the Enlightenment has undergone many trans-
formations. Associated initially with science, rationality and the fight
against religious superstition, it became transformed into a political
struggle for liberty, equality and fraternity at the time of the French
Revolution. In Britain, at the same time, it became associated with a
modernising Christian evangelicalism that, while largely accepting the
Newtonian and Cartesian understandings of the world, reserved a place
for God over and above the natural forces that He had, it was said,
created and set in motion. Evangelicals were at the forefront of British
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[6]
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In Britain, this enthusiasm was stimulated not only through the social
and political attack on the monarchy and landed gentry, but also
through evangelical fervour, seen most notably in John Wesley’s
Methodist movement. In India, the British had banned Christian mis-
sionaries up until 1813, but allowed them entry thereafter not only
because of strong evangelical pressure from within Britain, but also
because many evangelical administrators came to believe that the exist-
ing religions of the subcontinent acted as a profound barrier to the thor-
oughgoing modernisation of its peoples. While the Utilitarians on the
whole preferred to try to carry out this task through a secular system of
English education, the evangelical administrators believed that the only
effective and lasting remedy lay in mass conversion to Christianity.23
Once the project of evangelical modernity shifted to the overseas
colonies, it took on a new, additional, dimension: that of the colonial.
As Partha Chatterjee has argued, colonialism operated in the name of
modernity, but it also imposed what he calls ‘a rule of colonial differ-
ence’, in which conditions and practices were imposed that continually
countered the attempts made by the colonised subjects who had
embraced this modernity to achieve a state of equality with their colo-
nial masters.24 Unlike the working class of the home countries, whose
members could potentially attain full membership of the middle class
through their own endeavours, the racially different and supposedly
inferior peoples of the colonies were seen to lack certain crucial quali-
ties that might fit them for such a status. They were perceived, in other
words, to be fit only to be subordinates, under the authority and control
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[9]
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cleanse the body of the ‘noxious miasmas’ that had been supposedly
ingested.32 European doctors also dressed wounds and carried out some
basic surgery, such as amputations, excisions and teeth pulling. With
uncertain hygiene, such procedures could provide an entry for danger-
ous infections. The secretary of the CMS had good reason to wonder in
1851 ‘whether a missionary does not lose rather than gain influence
with the natives by the exercise of medical knowledge’.33
This situation was however changing. Some doctors of Edinburgh,
true to their vanguard reputation, were involved in establishing the
first medical missionary society in Europe – the Edinburgh Medical
Missionary Society of 1841. In the early years they found it extremely
hard to recruit physicians to serve as missionaries. They nonetheless
set an agenda for work that was beginning to attract more widespread
support.34 In an influential essay written for this society in 1854,
W. Burns Thomson argued that Jesus had urged his followers to ‘Heal
and Preach’. Healing, he wrote, provided an entry into the hearts and
minds of ‘simple people’ who, like children, were often taught best by
objective demonstration. In this way the rationality and science of the
time could contribute towards the spread of Christianity.35
This intervention came at a time when Western medicine was gaining
a new status and sense of moral direction. In Britain, the Medical Act of
1858 allowed for greater regulation of the profession by creating a regis-
ter of doctors, from which incompetent practitioners could be struck
off.36 Policies of public hygiene and the implementation of preventive
health measures were bringing observable benefits, and breakthroughs
were being made in surgery. As the Comaroffs have noted, medicine
began to compete with the church as the guardian of public and private
health.37 Missionary organisations responded to this development by
trying to keep a foot in both camps – the spiritual and the medical.
It was claimed that Jesus had been ‘the ideal medical missionary’. ‘He
is the Founder and Patron of medical missions; and He has given us an
example that we should follow in His steps.’ It was argued that all the
diseases and disabilities mentioned in the New Testament abounded in
the ‘heathen lands’ of the day. Everywhere the crippled and diseased
could be seen – the lepers, the maimed, the paralysed, the blind, those
scourged by plague – providing a harrowing sight that the inhabitants of
the ‘civilised’ nations were spared. In such an environment, the mission
doctors could through their skill carry out what seemed to be ‘marvels
of healing’. As the ‘battle front of the Church’ was in ‘the heathen lands’,
the best doctors and surgeons were needed for this great work, and
medical colleges were needed to train Christian doctors.38
Closer relationships were fostered between churches and the
medical profession. The Christian Medical Association had been
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It follows, therefore, that no more fatal blow can be dealt at this awful
evil, cursing alike body and soul, than by proving by living demonstration
the fallacy, fatuity, and powerlessness of the superstitious methods of
treatment employed by the medicine man. Destroy the faith of the non-
Christian man in his ‘doctor’ and you have very frequently taken the
surest and simplest course towards the destruction of his faith in the
superstition of his religion.49
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system of belief and practice that provided for all needs – physical and
spiritual.
Medical missionaries were not, however, expected to heal in a mirac-
ulous way by casting out evil spirits or practising supernatural healing,
as the Gospels had shown Jesus doing. Protestant theologians largely
followed the doctrine of dispensationalism, which held that God gave
a dispensation for miracles for only a limited time and purpose. Both
Luther and Calvin had propounded this theory. Luther, for example,
held that the day of miracles had passed, and that now the Gospel stood
revealed, all that was necessary was to preach it. As he stated: ‘now that
the apostles have preached the Word and have given their writings, and
nothing more than what they have written remains to be revealed, no
new and special revelation or miracle is necessary’.50 Calvin stated sim-
ilarly that ‘The gift of healing disappeared with the other miraculous
powers which the Lord was pleased to give for a time, that it might
render the new preaching of the gospel for ever wonderful. Therefore,
even were we to grant that anointing was a sacrament of those powers
which were then administered by the hands of the apostles, it pertains
not to us, to whom no such powers have been committed.’51
This doctrine informed the medical mission upsurge of the late nine-
teenth century. It was held that the display of divine power through mir-
acles had been appropriate for its time, but in modern times God
required a higher form of belief, that of faith by ‘they that have not seen,
and yet have believed’.52 Modern Christians would accordingly be in
error if they sought to emulate the healing practices of the Jesus of the
Gospels. Mission theologians argued that such miraculous cures were
not central to Jesus’ ministry, for he had performed them out of a sense
of compassion, not to impress or win converts.53 In contemporary times,
it was argued, miracle-workers were generally charlatans, and their sup-
posed cures fraudulent.54 They accepted, however, that it was wholly
legitimate to pray for the recovery of a patient. As it was, in missionary
reports from the field there was often considerable ambiguity over
whether or not a cure came through medical intervention or prayer.
The prevailing Protestant missionary hostility towards supernatural
healing was above all the product of a class history, for there had always
been a tension in practice between the stern theologies of Luther, Calvin
and their successors and a popular Christianity based on a belief in
supernatural intervention in everyday life. In Britain, for example, dis-
senting groups had emerged during the seventeenth-century revolution
that believed in supernatural healing. George Fox, founder of the
Quakers, is recorded as having carried out frequent cures of this kind
from the late 1640s onwards.55 The Anglican hierarchy had sought to
dampen such enthusiasm after the Restoration of 1660 as they feared
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that such practices might give rise to a dangerous populism that not
only would undermine church discipline, but could cause wider social
disruption if allowed to flourish.56 Even William Booth, the founder of a
denomination – the Salvation Army – that was known for its evangel-
ical enthusiasm, and who was himself sceptical of modern medicine,
refused to countenance any supernatural healing, on the grounds that it
tended to be associated with ‘one or another form of fanaticism’. Stuart
Mews has argued that he, in common with the leaders of other churches,
feared that such charismatic practices by lower-level clerics or members
of the laity would undermine their ecclesiastical authority.57
There were certain features of the medical mission in colonial terri-
tories that distinguished it from both medical practice at home and
state-controlled medicine in the colonies. For a start, it was a latecomer
in the older colonial territories such as India, becoming important only
from the 1870s onwards. It was, as a result, informed by a strong sense
of biomedical superiority that was the product of the medical revolu-
tion of the mid-to-late nineteenth century, with its breakthroughs in
surgery and its new understanding of disease causation and prevention.
Medical missionaries who were trained in medical schools in metro-
politan cities did not come burdened with any strong commitment to
environmental and miasmic theories of disease causation, as was the
case with many colonial medical officials.58 They were very sure of the
modernity of their practice, and had a correspondingly low view of
most indigenous forms of healing. Their medicine was held to be more
‘advanced’ than the healing practices of the natives, the assumption
being that – in common with ‘backward’ social systems in general –
these practices would decay and wither away as they were forced to
compete with the superior ‘scientific medicine’ of the West.
Nonetheless, although the mission doctors considered their medi-
cine to be ‘scientific’, theirs was not a purely secular practice, for unlike
many lay biomedical practitioners, they maintained that there was a
psychosomatic dimension to healing. This, however, did not lie in the
realms of exorcism, miracle healing or other forms of pagan ceremony,
but came about through prayer and faith in God. For them medical con-
cepts could still be expressed quite validly through religious metaphors.
As Rhodri Heywood has emphasised, religious traditions and move-
ments appropriated biomedicine, and their language in turn influenced
it:
Although there have been persistent attempts to revise and mathematise
the language of medicine, the modern discipline still reveals rich traces
of its religious inheritance. Neurology is still permeated by Christian
notions of order and hierarchy whilst modern pathological concepts of
viruses and germs remain rooted in the magical language of agency.59
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‘English’ medicine
To conclude this introduction, I would like to say something about the
differences between the metropolitan and Indian experiences of modern
medicine. In Europe and America the medical establishment was able
with considerable success to project its practice – hegemonically – as the
only ‘scientific’ and thus valid form of healing. In India, by contrast, a
strong distinction continued to be maintained throughout the colonial
period – and indeed to this day – between the practice of healing that
came with the British, and other indigenous forms of healing. Historians
of medicine have tended to label the former ‘biological medicine’ – or
‘biomedicine’ for short – with the focus being on the bacterial element
to disease and its curing through remedial drugs, or the prevention of
bacterial infection through immunisation and sanitation. These were
certainly core features of the Western system of medicine from the later
part of the nineteenth century onwards. The term ‘biomedicine’ is not
however commonly used in India, the preferred one being ‘allopathy’.
This term, which originated in the early nineteenth century, focused on
the way in which drugs were commonly used in mainstream European
medicine to attack and overwhelm a malady. The term was devised by
the inventor of homeopathy, Hahnemann, who sought to distinguish his
practice from that of the majority of medical practitioners of his day. In
India, however, the term was applied generally to distinguish colonial
forms of medical treatment from indigenous methods of medical knowl-
edge and care, such as the Ayurvedic and Yunani Tibb systems of med-
icine. It might be argued that neither ‘biomedicine’ nor ‘allopathy’ is
entirely appropriate, as another of the core features of Western medicine
was that of surgery involving the application of sophisticated and ever-
evolving technologies. As Nancy Rose Hunt has pointed out in her study
of a medical mission in the Belgian Congo, surgery was for many
‘natives’ the defining feature of such practice, though in the Congo they
hardly viewed the surgeon in a flattering light. Rather, they looked on
with extreme unease as mission doctors wielded their knives over their
anaesthetised patients. Peering through the windows of the operating
theatre, they were reminded of the missionary dinner table; in both
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cases they could see the missionaries gathered around a table to perform
what appeared an intense ritual. Rumours even spread that surgical
patients were being slaughtered and prepared as food for Europeans.60 In
India, the common perception of Western medicine often focused in a
congruent manner on the figure of the white-coated doctor with stetho-
scope hanging around the neck and surgical knife in hand, with the
system as a whole being known as daktari, or ‘doctory’.61 In the region
that forms of subject of this study it was however generally distin-
guished by its place of supposed origin, being known as in some cases
vilayati dava, that is, ‘foreign medicine’, or Angreji dava – ‘English
medicine’.62 What matters here is not so much the particular definition,
but the fact that it had a profoundly symbolic quality. An important
feature of the system of medicine practised by Europeans and Americans
in a colonial context was therefore that it was understood in terms of a
difference that set it apart from indigenous practice. Also, it required
people to define themselves in terms of whether they accepted or
rejected it. The provision and acceptance of the ‘English’ therapy was
always, in consequence, far more than just a medical matter.
Notes
11 C. S. Thompson, ‘Report on Bheel Mission, Kherwara’, The Church Missionary
Intelligencer and Record: A Monthly Journal of Missionary Information (hereafter
Intelligencer), 7 NS (October 1882), 592.
12 Ibid., pp. 591–2.
13 NAI, FD, Pol. A 25–39, April 1881; Pol. A 137–9, April 1881; Pol. A 311–13, August
1881.
14 A. Wingate, 26 April 1881, NAI, FD, Pol. A 311–13, August 1881.
15 Thompson, ‘Report on Bheel Mission, Kherwara’, 592.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid., pp. 592–3.
18 Ibid., pp. 593.
19 Ibid.
10 This will be examined in Chapter 9. I have written up this history more fully in ‘A
Forgotten Massacre: Motilal Tejawat and his Movement amongst the Bhils’, in
David Hardiman, Histories for the Subordinated (New Delhi: Permanent Black,
2006), pp. 29–56.
11 Interview with Peter Galji Bhanat, Samaiya village, Sabarkantha District, 15
December 1997.
12 Most noteworthy are David Arnold, Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and
Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth Century India (Berkeley: California University
Press, 1993); Mark Harrison, Public Health in British India: Anglo-Indian
Preventive Medicine 1859–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
13 Arnold, Colonizing the Body, p. 244.
14 Megan Vaughan, Curing their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 1991), p. 55. Similarly, see Norman Etherington, ‘Education and
Medicine’, in Norman Etherington (ed.), Missions and Empire (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2005), p. 280.
15 On Christian evangelism and modernity, see Peter Van der Veer, ‘Introduction’, in
P. Van der Veer (ed.), Conversion to Modernities: The Globalization of Christianity
(New York: Routledge, 1996), pp. 7–13.
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16 David Hardiman (ed.), Healing Bodies, Saving Souls: Medical Missions in Asia and
Africa (Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi 2006).
17 On this, see Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, 1:
Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 14–15. See also Peter Van der Veer, Imperial Encounters:
Religion and Modernity in India and Britain (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2001), pp. 3–54.
18 Stuart Hall, David Held and Tony McGrew, ‘Introduction’, in Stuart Hall, David
Held and Tony McGrew (eds.), Modernity and its Futures (Cambridge: Polity Press,
1993), p. 2.
19 As suggested by Callum G. Brown, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding
and Secularisation 1800–2000 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2001).
20 Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp. 6–9.
21 Karl Marx, ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law’, in Karl Marx
and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, 3: Works of Karl Marx, March 1843–August
1844, ed. Lev Goilman (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1975), p. 184. Emphasis in
original.
22 Ibid., p. 184. Emphasis in original.
23 For this debate, see Gauri Vishwanathan, Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and
British Rule in India (London: Faber and Faber, 1990).
24 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial
Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 10.
25 Ibid., p. 19.
26 Anna Johnston has thus pointed out how many missionaries were deeply disturbed
by the different gender roles assumed by indigenous women, as they had taken these
roles to be natural and given. They saw this as proof of their savagery. A. Johnston,
Missionary Writings and Empire, 1800–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003), p. 54.
27 J. V. Pickstone, ‘Establishment and Dissent in Nineteenth-Century Medicine’, in
W. J. Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982), pp. 170–
4; and John Wilkinson, The Coogate Doctors: The History of the Edinburgh Medical
Missionary Society 1841 to 1991 (Edinburgh: The Edinburgh Medical Missionary
Society, 1991), p. 22.
28 Pickstone, ‘Establishment and Dissent’, p. 171.
29 Quoted in Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, 2: The
Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1997), p. 336.
30 Henry D. Rack, ‘Doctors, Demons and Early Methodist Healing’, in Sheils (ed.), The
Church and Healing, pp. 139 and 143–4.
31 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1: An Introduction (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1984), pp. 124–5.
32 Comaroff, and Comaroff Of Revelation and Revolution, 2, p. 357 and pp. 497–8
n. 55.
33 C. Peter Williams, ‘Healing and Evangelism: The Place of Medicine in Later
Victorian Protestant Missionary Thinking’, in Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing,
p. 272.
34 Wilkinson, Coogate Doctors, pp. 1–3, 6–7.
35 Thomson’s article is summarised in Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and
Revolution, 2, p. 332.
36 Williams, ‘Healing and Evangelism’, p. 273.
37 Comaroff and Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution, 2, p. 325.
38 All the quotations in this paragraph are from Dr C. F. Strange, ‘The Raison d’Être of
Medical Missions’, Mercy and Truth (February 1921), 33–4.
39 ‘Introduction’ and ‘The Christian Medical Association the Predecessor of the
Medical Prayer Union’, Medical Missions at Home and Abroad, 1 (July 1878), 3–4.
The London School of Medicine for Women had a flourishing Bible and Prayer Union
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at this time. See Antoinette Burton, ‘Contesting the Zenana: The Mission to Make
“Lady Doctors for India” ’, Journal of British Studies, 35:3 (1996), 379.
40 Williams, ‘Healing and Evangelism’, p. 278.
41 Ibid., p. 273.
42 Wilkinson, Coogate Doctors, pp. 22–3.
43 Ibid., p. 23.
44 Mercy and Truth (December 1911); Mercy and Truth (February 1912).
45 Rosemary Fitzgerald, ‘ “Clinical Christianity”: The Emergence of Medical Work as
a Missionary Strategy in Colonial India, 1800–1914’, in Biswamoy Pati and Mark
Harrison (eds.), Health, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Colonial India (New
Delhi: Orient Longman, 2001), p. 77 n. 10 and p. 67.
46 ‘Report by Drs. A. Lankester and A. H. Browne on the Suitability of the Peshawar
Valley for Medical Mission Work’, Mercy and Truth (October 1897), 219–21.
47 Dr A. Lankester, ‘Medical Mission in Theory’, Mercy and Truth (February 1900),
39–41.
48 J. Lowe, Medical Missions: Their Place and Power (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson
and Ferrier, 1886), p. 148; quoted in Fitzgerald, ‘Clinical Christianity’, p. 115.
49 R. Fletcher Moorshead, The Appeal of Medical Missions (Edinburgh: Oliphant,
Anderson and Ferrier, 1913), p. 76.
50 Martin Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, Chapters 14–16, in Luther’s
Works (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955–86), 24, p. 367, quoted in
Morton Kelsey, Healing and Christianity (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1995), p. 17.
51 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B.
Eerdmans, 1953), VI 18, 2:636, quoted in Kelsey, Healing and Christianity, p. 17.
52 John 20:29, cited in this context by Robert Anderson, The Silence of God (London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1897), pp. 153–4.
53 W. F. Buroughs, ‘Our Title’, Mercy and Truth, (January 1897), 2.
54 C. F. H., ‘Principles and Practices of Medical Mission’, Mercy and Truth (May 1912),
24–5.
55 Henry J. Cadbury, George Fox’s Book of Miracles (Cambridge: University of
Cambridge, 1949); David Hodges, George Fox and the Healing Ministry (Guildford:
Friends Fellowship of Healing, 1995).
56 Michael Macdonald, ‘Religion, Social Change and Psychological Healing in England
1600–1800’, in Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing, pp. 101–26.
57 Stuart Mews, ‘The Revival of Spiritual Healing in the Church of England 1920–26’,
in Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing, pp. 300–1.
58 On the survival of such theories within the Indian Medical Service up until the early
twentieth century, see Harrison, Public Health in British India, pp. 49–54, 108–15.
59 Rhodri Hayward, ‘Demonology, Neurology and Medicine in Edwardian Britain’,
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 78:1 (2004), 58.
60 Nancy Rose Hunt, A Colonial Lexicon: Of Birth Ritual, Medicalization and
Mobility in the Congo (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999). See in particular
Chapter 3, ‘Dining and Surgery’, pp. 117–58.
61 Neshat Quaiser, ‘Politics, Culture and Colonialism: Unani’s Debate with Doctory’,
in Biswamoy Pati and Mark Harrison (eds.), Health, Medicine and Empire:
Perspectives on Colonial India (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2001), p. 317.
62 Helen Lambert, ‘Plural Traditions? Folk Therapeutics and “English” Medicine in
Rajasthan’, in Andrew Cunningham and Bridie Andrews (eds.), Western Medicine as
Contested Knowledge (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 193.
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CHAPTER TWO
The Bhils
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Hindus and Muslims, but with little success. In practice, the large
majority of converts were gained from groups who were considered to
be socially the most marginal – in particular the untouchables, but also
the tribals. Increasingly, missionaries focused their attention on such
groups. In the case of the tribals, it was held that they were aboriginals
of Dravidian origin who lacked the sophisticated scripture-based reli-
gion of the Aryans. Their ‘primitive’ beliefs – it was asserted – would
yield easily to Christianity once the truth of the Gospel had been
revealed to them. The strategy was rooted in a notion that religious
beliefs – in common with societies and modes of production – evolved
over time, from primitive animism, to religions with multiple deities,
such as Greco-Roman paganism and Hinduism, to Judaic and Islamic
monotheism, to Christianity, and, at the pinnacle, Protestantism. In
this section, I shall examine how the Bhils were made to fit into such
an evolutionary schema, and then in the rest of this chapter I shall say
something about them, their society, their beliefs and their healing
practices at that time.
The Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce (1886–1952) has examined
the separation made in European thought since the time of the
Enlightenment between those humans who were considered to be a
part of ‘history’ and those who belonged to the ‘inferior reality’ of
nature. The latter were:
men only zoologically, they are to be dominated. They may be tamed and
trained; when this proves impossible, they may be allowed to live on at
the fringes of civilization, without being the object of any of those cruel-
ties that must be avoided against any form of life, but being allowed as a
race to die out like those [native] American races who shrank and died . . .
when a civilization they could not withstand moved upon them.1
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everywhere. Thus, what John Malcolm had to say about the Bhils of
Malwa around 1820 was taken to apply to Bhils everywhere and at all
times. In many cases, a stereotypical model of ‘primitivism’ appears to
have been the starting point for a description, with observations being
recorded only when they accorded with it. This appears to have been
the case with one sweeping generalisation made about the Bhils by
the author of the Rajputana Gazetteer of 1879: ‘They are a dirty race.
The men wear their hair long, and hanging in uncombed masses over
their shoulders. The women are small and ugly’.16 Many counter-
observations might have been made – but they were not – as they would
have opposed the pre-conceived stereotype.
Given that this was the case, we are presented with a problem. With
our knowledge of these people in the past coming from such tainted
sources, is it possible for us to know anything about them that is more
than an objectionable caricature? Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has raised
the question as to what extent, if any, the outside observer can represent
the subaltern.17 Given the chasm that exists between those who inhabit
a space of privilege and those who do not, any representation runs the
risk of being an exercise in bad faith. Too often, the outsider inflicts her
or his beliefs on the subaltern, whether these are of a racialist, religious,
conservative, nationalist, socialist, feminist, environmentalist or any
other bent. In such a situation, she feels, ‘the subaltern cannot speak’.18
Despite this, she goes on to argue that the outsider with a moral com-
mitment to the poor and oppressed may communicate across this
divide, so long as she or he steers clear of all ‘missionary claims’ – that
is avoids any assertion that the subaltern is endorsing any pre-conceived
ideological position.19 What is required above all is moral sympathy and
empathy. While endorsing this entirely, I would add that we also need
to locate the subaltern subject within a clearly defined space and his-
torical time. In this way, we may avoid the sweeping and ahistorical gen-
eralities that are commonly deployed in such descriptions.
In the rest of this chapter, I shall attempt to do this for the Bhils of
this book by locating my observations within such a finite area and
time, namely the tracts inhabited predominantly by Bhils that lay in
the princely states of Mewar and Dungapur in Rajasthan and the
immediately adjoining states of Idar and Pol in Gujarat – which were
the areas in which the CMS mission worked – in the second half of
the nineteenth century. The historically specific detail is valued
over the broad and ahistorical statement. From this base, we may then –
if we wish – go on to make comparative observations drawn from care-
fully defined subaltern groups elsewhere.
Following this, in researching this history, I have travelled through
the region and interviewed many women and men of the community,
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there soon after. They predated the first clinics established by Mewar
State itself, the first of these being a dispensary opened in Udaipur in
1864. In 1869–70 a small hospital was opened at Kherwara for the civil
population that was maintained partly from a grant by the state and
partly from private subscriptions.30 Hendley was posted to Kherwara to
work as a doctor for the MBC in 1871.
Hendley – with his medical training – considered himself a man of
science, and during his long career in India he was to publish many
scholarly articles based on his observations of the people and the
country. In 1875 – still a junior doctor – he was in the vanguard of a new
scientific racialism that held that racial characteristics could be mea-
sured physically. The Anthropological Society of London, founded in
1863, was at that time propagating the theory that ‘savages’ were of a
different species from civilised Europeans, and some of its leading
figures sought to prove this by measuring and comparing the crania of
different peoples. Its racialist views were extremely popular in Britain
during the 1860s and 1870s.31 Hendley’s posting to Kherwara provided
him with an excellent opportunity to carry out what he called an ‘eth-
nology’ of the Bhils that was based on observations of their physical
characteristics and measurements. He did this in 1874, subjecting 129
soldiers of the corps to his measuring tape, recording their height, the
length of various limbs and parts of limbs, body proportions and head
dimensions. He concluded that they were ‘a small-handed race’, with
small chest and pelvis. The head measurements revealed that ‘the Bhil
skull is but slightly dolicho-cephalic, very different from the long thin
walled crania of the pure Hindu.’ He set out his observations of their
physical appearance – their dark skin, straight black hair, foreheads
that were ‘rather more square than amongst Hindus’, ‘nose slightly
retroussé, broad, clubbed at the tip, and rather more varied than the
dead level organ of the Hindu,’ ‘mouths large, lips thick, inexpressive,
sensual’, ‘expression amiable, but timid’, ‘the dilated large nostrils, the
moveable and prominent ear are very suggestive of distrust’. Teeth were
large and horselike, adapted to chewing their staple food of coarse
maize. He was not sure that his measurements provided a ‘certain
proof’ that the Hindu and Bhil races were distinct, though he believed
that they were, the Bhils most likely being descendants of the ancient
inhabitants of India, the Dasyas, who were described in the Vedas as
‘goat-nosed, the noseless, the black-skinned’.32 For all its seeming sci-
entific rigour, this exercise dripped with moral judgement.
Despite this, the detail in other parts of the article is sufficient to
allow us to go beyond such racialist stereotypes. The ‘ethnology’ that
is so objectionable to present-day sensibilities was set out in the article
only towards the end, with a range of far less value-loaded descriptions
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of the Bhils of the Kherwara area preceding it. It is these that I shall look
at, comparing them with other representations if necessary.
According to Hendley, the Mewar Bhils inhabited the southernmost
ranges of the Aravali Mountains of Rajasthan. This was ‘a wonderfully
interlaced series of hills, alternating with defiles, with barely a valley,
much less a plain anywhere. Streams pour down every ridge to feed the
numerous rivers’.33 The hilltops were often forested, with much teak
and bamboo and a dense undergrowth. Around Kherwara, however, the
hilltops were bare. In this region, the Bhils lived in discrete territories
called pals that consisted of a collection of houses scattered widely over
an area, houses being sometimes up to a kilometre apart. Hendley men-
tioned one such pal – Burla – which had a thousand houses and which
occupied a considerable stretch of territory.34 A house was normally
built on the side of a hill at an elevated spot, allowing the inhabitant to
escape quickly into the hills if an enemy approached. A platform was
constructed of stones and earth, and the walls were built of stone, with
a roof of tiles supported by timber beams. These buildings were,
Hendley said, ‘substantial, commodious, and clean, often having a
courtyard in the centre’. In general, high-caste people did not reside in
the pals, but in the village of the local lord – the thakor. These latter
places consisted of the thakor’s fort, erected on a small hill and sur-
rounded by houses, all of which was enclosed by a wall.35
Although the Bhils were often described stereotypically as poor and
slovenly farmers, practising only a rudimentary shifting agriculture
(this being something they were seen to have in common with ‘primi-
tive tribes’ everywhere), Hendley’s account reveals a very different
reality. He describes how they erected walls of stone and earth across
the valleys, creating series of interlinked fields through which rainwa-
ter flowed. These permanent fields were planted with rice, maize and
other crops. They created temporary fields on the hillsides by burning
debris from the forest on a patch that they then enclosed with a rough
hedge of thorns so as to keep animals out. When the rains came, they
ploughed this land and sowed seeds broadcast. Maize was the chief
crop. It may be noted that this was an American staple introduced to
India by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, and it is likely that its
drought-resistant qualities had allowed for a considerable extension of
cultivation in these dry tracts – and a greater population density – in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Bhils kept cows and
goats, which the women would take into the hills to graze. The number
of cattle owned was considered an indicator of a family’s wealth.36 They
ate meat of most kinds, relishing goat in particular, and not eating pork
and beef. Hendley felt that they would have eaten beef if they dared,
but: ‘Some time since a Thakor cut off the legs of two eaters of the
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sacred cow and plunged the stumps into boiling oil.’37 Bhil men hunted
for food, being excellent trackers and particularly adept at killing hares
or catching fish.38
Bhils could earn cash by taking grass, wood, honey and ghee for sale
to villages and towns where there were caste Hindus. They used the
money to purchase ornaments, arrows and various necessities that they
could not make themselves, as well as liquor. Both men and women
enjoyed a drink, though men tended to consume more than women.
The liquor (daru) was distilled from the flower of the mahuda tree and
was known locally as phul daru, or ‘flower liquor’. Families were con-
sidered to have a right to each mahuda tree, however remote it might
be in the forest. Hendley found the liquor to be rather weak in alcoholic
strength; he had had to re-distil it twice before it would burn a spirit
lamp.39
The overall ruler of the Mewar Bhils was the Maharana. A few were
directly subject to him, but most lived in the estates of the thakors –
his feudatories. The thakors were meant to pay a proportion of their
income to the state, and were also obliged to provide horsemen and foot
soldiers when the Maharana demanded it. According to Hendley, they
were mostly pure Rajputs, though a few were of ‘mixed race’, being
descended from the union of Bhil women and Rajput men, though they
still claimed Rajput status.40 Other evidence suggests that such claims
were relatively recent in origin and still tentative. Tod, fifty years
before, had described one such thakor as a Bhil overlord who could
assemble five thousand bowmen when he gave the command.41 In
1868, a British political agent stated that certain Bhils of this region
were under their own chiefs, some of whom were powerful enough to
maintain their own courts.42 In 1902, it was stated that these particu-
lar ‘Bhil’ chiefs now claimed to be pure Rajputs.43 Although Hendley
considered that the remainder of the thakors – who were the overlords
of a much larger area – were ‘pure’ Rajputs, it is probable that in many
cases they were the descendants of Bhil chiefs who in the course of time
had been able to gain acceptance for such a claim. Becoming such an
overlord provided, therefore, an important means by which Bhils could
improve their social status. The ethos associated with such a lifestyle –
such as the valorisation of martial deeds, a strong sense of family and
clan honour that was seen often to rest in the ‘purity’ of female
members, a rigid patriarchy, devotion towards clan goddesses and
Hindu deities and conformity to caste-based rules of purity, pollution
and hierarchy – were consequently ones that percolated through Bhil
society in greater or lesser degrees.
Up until the around the mid-nineteenth century, the Bhils generally
saw their thakor as a protector. They could for example look to support
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in this respect would find it hard to be married, and if she did, she and
her husband would be treated as outcastes. Adultery was considered a
major transgression, and adulterers were fined a large sum – the equiv-
alent of Rs. 187. Women could be divorced for adultery, the case being
settled by the panchayat.47 This was clearly a patriarchal society –
women had little power in the pal within which they were married.
Hendley stated that the Mewar Bhils mainly worshipped local
deities, many of whom were believed to reside on particular hills or
mountains. He had seen one such shrine on the side of a hill near
Kherwara, consisting of a cairn of stones with platforms on which were
placed clay dishes in which ghee or oil had been burnt, and small stone
or earthenware effigies of horses. Hendley noted that clay horses were
offered in a similar way at shrines in many parts of India outside the
tribal regions. Long bamboo poles had also been erected by the cairn,
on which were attached cloth flags, like those found at Hindu, Muslim
and even Christian shrines in India. The Bhils also built stone platforms
on which were erected upright slabs. These slabs were sometimes
plain, in some cases daubed with red paint and named after a deity –
normally Mahadev – and sometimes carved to represent Hanuman,
who Hendley felt was as much an ‘aboriginal’ as Hindu deity. He listed
a number of local deities, mostly goddesses, to whom sacrifices of goats
were made. The foremost deity for the Bhils around Kherwara was the
goddess Samuda Mata. Her sthan, or place, was near the village of
Dhelana, about thirteen kilometres north of Kherwara. There was a
shrine to another goddess called Vajar Mata in a valley at Jawara, where
there were old silver and lead mines. Bhil women worshipped the murti
(image) of this deity to ensure their fertility. Hendley noted that the
officers of the MBC often rested in the shrine during the hot part of the
day while on marches, with the permission of its priest. The mines
were now disused, and the Bhil soldiers of the corps felt that this had
caused the power of the goddess to decline. Their priests were of the
Jogi caste.48 Hendley observed that Bhils generally esteemed saintly
people who came to stay in their region, such as mendicant Brahmans,
fakirs and bairagis, and they paid their respects at their tomb-shrines
after they had died. This appreciation had nonetheless to be earned.
Hendley cited the case of a fakir who was attacked by Bhils near
Kherwara, with his tongue being torn out and his face mutilated, as he
had concealed a rupee in his mouth, which they took as a mark of his
hypocrisy.49 Hendley also observed that the death rituals of the Bhils
were similar to those of the Hindus, as they cremated their dead. The
bones that remained were either buried or taken for immersion at a
sacred spot. In this, the Mewar Bhils appeared to be more Hinduised
than the Bhils of Malwa, who were reported to bury their dead.50
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Hendley argued that ‘the religion of the Bhils is one of ignorance and
fear, modified more or less by contact with powerful and formed
faiths’.51 In other words, a base of ‘primitive’ beliefs and rituals was –
in his view – overlaid unevenly with the beliefs of more ‘advanced’ reli-
gious systems, most notably that of the Brahmans. A similar notion
informed a statement by another British ethnographer: ‘It is not easy to
describe the religion of the Bhils as they are all in stages of civilisation
from the wild fetish and nature worshippers having no idea of a divine
being to the peaceful peasant who observes most of the details of
popular Hinduism.’52 As Aron Gurevich has pointed out, many schol-
ars have tried to analyse the degree to which supposedly ancient ‘pagan’
beliefs survive in later religions. He is critical of such exercises, as they
are based on an idea of ‘pure’ forms of religion – such as the ‘animism’
or ‘totemism’ of the ‘primitive’, or the codified systems of belief of the
Christian, Muslim or Hindu. Rituals and beliefs are analysed in terms
of various deviations from the norm. Gurevich argues that it is prefer-
able to think in terms of a synthesis that has its own integrity that is
particular to a place and time: ‘This synthesis is alogical to Cartesian
minds, but real at the level of daily practice.’53 As an example, Gurevich
notes how in medieval England the Virgin Mary was popularly treated
as a local deity, so that her individual images in a variety of shrines were
each believed to have a particular degree of curative efficacy.54
Approaching the matter of the beliefs and rituals of the Bhils from
such a perspective, we can see that what Hendley observed represented
a discrete local system. Many of the deities that the Bhils worshipped
were particular to them, but there were also various points at which
their system overlapped with the beliefs and rituals of non-Bhils.
Their reverence (in general) for saintly mendicants provided one such
example. Carstairs mentioned that some Brahmans had established
shrines in the Bhil tracts to deities such as Krishna, Shiva and Ganesh
and that the Bhils made offerings to the deities and their Brahman
priests.55 There were also some important temples in the Bhil tract that
were visited by pilgrims from outside the area, such as Shamlaji and
Rikhabnath, and these were revered by the local Bhils. Shamlaji – a
Vaisnavite temple – lay just beyond the border with Mewar, in Idar
State of Gujarat: ‘here is a lake with a very ancient temple much
resorted to by the Bhils, especially at the time of the great winter fair’.56
According to an oral tradition of the Bhils, a Bhil farmer found the
murti of Vishnu that is worshipped in the temple at Shamlaji and was
told by some Brahmans to establish a temple for it. Initially, Bhils were
involved in running the temple, but gradually the Brahmans took
over.57 Rikhabnath was only fifteen kilometres from Kherwara, and was
a Jain temple of the Digambar sect that had been rebuilt on the site of
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malaria. It is held that such people had developed sickle cell anaemia,
which, though debilitating, conferred immunity to malaria.64 Outsiders,
who lacked such immunity, could not survive in these tracts, and it was
this, rather than any great military prowess on the part of such hill-
dwellers, that allowed them to maintain control over their mountain
and forest tracts.65
It is not easy to evaluate whether or not there was indeed an increase
in contagious or other diseases amongst the Bhils during the colonial
period, as we have no clear evidence of their state of health in the pre-
colonial period. What we do know is that when doctors and missionar-
ies began to treat them on a regular basis from the late nineteenth
century onwards, they were found to be suffering from a wide range of
diseases and maladies. Dr James Shepherd, who treated a good number
of Bhils at his hospital at Udaipur from the 1880s onwards, found that
their chief complaints were malaria, dysentery, rheumatism and
‘cough’ or phthisis (e.g. tuberculosis). Many Bhils had sores that needed
dressing or broken bones to be set. Shepherd’s surgical skill also
attracted patients – surgery being a clinical facility that was nowhere
else available in Mewar State at that time. ‘When it became known that
eyes could be given to the blind, old men would occasionally be led in
to be operated on for cataract.’66 Similarly, C. S. Thompson, in his
report on his first medical work in villages near Kherwara in 1881, men-
tioned the prevalence of ‘fevers’ and enlarged spleens (a symptom of
chronic malaria), headaches, eye complaints, blindness, deafness and
rheumatism.67
When Thompson published a primer on the Bhil language in 1895,
he included a vocabulary that listed words used by Bhil for a wide range
of diseases and complaints, each with what he considered to be the
English equivalent. Although not qualified as a doctor, he had been
healing the Bhils using allopathic remedies for over a decade, and so
knew of these maladies and the terms used by the Bhils to describe
them when they came to him for treatment. They included abscesses
(gubadu), ague (taado taav), asthma (haah sadvo), catarrh accompa-
nied by a burning fever (kasro), cholera (kogaliu), cough (udaraha or
thobarajyo), diarrhoea (jhaado or hagaamanu), dropsy (jalandaro),
epilepsy (umar), sores on the feet (piduon), intermittent fever (kantro
tav), fourth day fever (chothio tav), griping pains (vad), guinea worm
(valo), headache (-nu kapal sadvu or sadi javu), indigestion (dakari),
infection (sotu), influenza (thobrajyo), leprosy (kod), lock-jaw (dant
khanhali), lumpy swelling (varholi), measles (ori mata), mumps (ratva),
ophthalmia (ank avani), paralysis in the legs or arms (-na tantya rahi
java), plague (rog), quartan fever (kantro tav), rheumatism (vai, kaltar
or vadol), ringworm (dadar), smallpox (mata), enlarged spleen (badol),
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She regretted that she had no facilities to examine people’s blood for
malarial parasites.73
An epidemic disease that was almost certainly widespread in these
tracts in the pre-colonial period was that of smallpox. In his report of
1875, Hendley singles it out for attention, stating that it was greatly
feared by the Bhils; for them it was a killer. He noted that they prac-
tised their own form of inoculation against this disease, and they pre-
ferred this to Western-style vaccination.74 In a later account, Hendley
provided more detail of their inoculation technique. They dipped a
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grain of dust into the pustule of a smallpox patient and then inserted
this into the skin of a healthy person with the help of a needle. While
doing so they invoked the smallpox goddess.75 As was common
throughout India, the Bhils believed that in cases of smallpox the body
of the sufferer was possessed by a goddess (mata) and thus made fever-
ish. Helen Lambert has described how even in recent times villagers in
Rajasthan have held communal ceremonies of worship to placate such
goddesses and thus protect themselves from the disease.76 The invoca-
tion of the goddess by the Bhils during inoculation would seem to have
had a similar aim. All of this indicates that smallpox was long estab-
lished in this region. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the
British tried to popularise their own method of vaccination amongst
the Bhils. The Mahi Kantha agency, for example, employed a team of
vaccinators, and periodic attempts were made to persuade Bhils to
make use of the facility. In 1863–64, the team travelled to a region bor-
dering Mewar and tried to get the local Bhils to bring their children for
vaccination, without any success.77 In 1883 the political agent reported
that throughout the region the Bhils were the only significant group
that still refused vaccination.78 Practising as they did their own system
of variolation, they appear to have rejected a preventive measure
administered by people whom they had no particular reason to trust.
By contrast, they appear to have largely escaped the other major and
most dreaded epidemic disease of nineteenth-century India – cholera.
Hendley stated that it was very rare amongst the Bhils of this region.
Other sources, nonetheless, report some incidence of the disease in the
tract – for example, nine cases were reported at the annual fair at
Shamlaji, in the heart of the Bhil country, in 1889, of which five proved
fatal. This outbreak does not appear to have spread beyond the town.79
Nonetheless, Thompson’s primer showed that the Bhils had a term for
the disease – kogaliu. Some years after Hendley wrote, in 1900, there
was a devastating cholera epidemic in the region, as we shall see in
Chapter 4. We may speculate that the relative isolation of the Bhils
appears to have protected them to some degree from this epidemic
disease up until the end of the nineteenth century.
This was not the case with either tuberculosis or pneumonia, both of
which appear to have been widespread amongst the Bhils. Dr James
Shepherd, when reporting many cases of tuberculosis among the Bhils he
treated at his hospital at Udaipur, expressed his surprise, as he had
assumed – following beliefs about tuberculosis prevalent in his day – that
the bracing air found in the hills would have kept the disease at bay.80
Writing in 1901, Dr Jane Birkett also noted the high incidence of phthi-
sis, or tuberculosis, amongst Bhils.81 Other missionaries mentioned the
high incidence of pneumonia. Writing in 1896, E. P. Herbert wrote how
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he was ‘saddened by the nightly wailings, for there were many deaths
from pneumonia, and no doctors.’82 Dr Birkett, in her above-mentioned
report of 1901, said that she was called on fairly frequently to treat cases
of acute pluro-pneumonia, a disease that was particularly dreaded by the
Bhils as it normally led to death. She went on to note that the Bhils knew
it as ‘the Gujarati sickness’, which suggests – perhaps – that it had come
from outside this region within living memory.
The evidence on infectious and contagious disease is thus mixed –
some were almost certainly of long standing, while others were becom-
ing major problems for the Bhils only around this time. The Bhils also
suffered from many other minor infections, various chronic complaints
and parasitic infestations. The hospital report for Idar of 1875–76 listed,
in order of importance after malaria, chronic rheumatism (15 per cent
of all case), ‘ulcers’ (9 per cent), porrigo (a disease of the scalp) (6 per
cent), constipation, influenza, eye diseases and scabies (each about 4 per
cent), and psoriasis (a skin disease), acute rheumatism, acute dysentery
and ear infections (each about 3 per cent).83 The missionaries frequently
remarked on how much the Bhils suffered from skin infections, sores
and ulcers. In 1886, G. Litchfield stated that ‘The poor untaught people
continually come to me, with old sores of long standing which they
expect to be cured on the spot . . .’.84 Dr Birkett reported in 1901 that
skin and eye infections came second only to malaria in the number of
cases she was called on to treat.85
Hendley attributed the widespread prevalence of such skin disorders,
as well as parasitical infestation, to ‘the filthiness of the people, whose
legs often remain coated for days with mud’. He himself had carried out
research on guinea worm infestation amongst the Bhils of the MBC that
had been published in The Indian Medical Gazette in 1872. This
was a problem that affected the Bhils in particular – the non-Bhils of
Kherwara town, he said, rarely suffered from it. He believed that the
worms entered into the skin of the Bhils as they were bathing in or
wading through dirty pools of water. People did not die of it, but it
caused great debilitation.86 Dr Birkett, writing nearly thirty years later,
similarly reported that guinea worm was a major problem during the
rainy season, and sufferers often had four or five abscesses on one leg.
She mentioned the case of one abscess that had developed so badly that
the patient eventually died. Ringworm was also widely prevalent.87
The missionaries also reported many minor eye infections that could,
if left untreated, develop into a serious threat to a person’s vision. There
were numerous cases of cataract, which could be operated on to good
effect if a qualified missionary had the appropriate facilities, as did
Dr Shepherd at his hospital in Udaipur. Birkett also described how she
was called on to treat a cancerous tumour, cancer of the lip (it is notable
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in this context that the Bhils were great consumers of tobacco), a very
large hernia and a grossly swollen leg.88 Hendley, in his report, noted,
nonetheless, that venereal disease was unknown among the Bhils,
which, he believed, provided proof of their general sexual restraint.
Goitre, also, was never seen.
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right to good health, and disease was therefore ‘something foreign and
inimical’ to them. ‘They will not say, as we do, that somebody catches
a cold, or gets measles, etc. It is always the other way: it is the disease
which catches, makes a commencement with, attacks, or overpowers
man.’ In many cases, a disease would run its course without any spe-
cific healing intervention, but if it continued, then it became clear that
the malign force was of such power that it had to be countered through
action. In some cases, a deity had become displeased with the sick
person for a particular reason, and this deity had to be propitiated
through various sacrifices and rituals. In other cases, a bonga, or evil
spirit, was believed to be devouring a person. In some cases, witches
deliberately used such bongas against people whom they wished to
harm. The only remedy was to combat both the bonga and the witch
in an appropriate manner.96
Similarly, for the Bhils, it appears that it was above all the obduracy
of a malady that determined its treatment. Herbal remedies might be
tried in the first instance, but if these failed a ritual specialist would be
sought out, such as a bhopa or mendicant. It was assumed that invisi-
ble forces or spirits that affected the lives of the living pervaded the
world. These forces were Janus-faced, being both benign and malign in
differing proportions. The aim in any mode of treatment was to rein-
force the benign while weakening the malign. Even a herbal prepara-
tion was seen not merely as a ‘natural’ medicine for an illness located
in the physical world, but as a remedy that possessed numinous quali-
ties that might be endowed more effectively with benign power
through ritual.
These sorts of consideration were seen in a case of 1843 in which a
Bhil called Rupa of Pol State sought a cure from a sadhu. The informa-
tion comes from the testimony of Rupa’s brother in a court of law. After
his wife fell ill, Rupa approached a sadhu for help, and the sadhu
advised him to go to the liquor shop at a nearby village to purchase
some liquor, after which he promised that he would provide a charm
that would make her better. The charm would be both created and
bestowed in a ritual ceremony conducted by the sadhu. In general, the
liquor that was demanded at such times was used in part for libations
during the ritual, but the healer himself would consume the bulk of it
afterwards. In this sense, it might be seen as a form of payment for ser-
vices rendered. However, in an argument with a state official who later
murdered him, Rupa was said by his brother to have described the
liquor as ‘medicine’.97 The term can hardy have been used in the
modern clinical sense of the term, for liquor – with its consciousness-
changing qualities – was seen to have a certain power to enchant. It
might also be noted that in Ayurvedic medicine, liquor was seen to
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largely obliged. In 1842, the British resident reported that witches were
put to death in public in Udaipur city on the accession of Maharana
Sarup Singh.105 Local thakors acted in a similar manner, as was seen in
a case in 1850, when the Thakor of Gher supervised the public killing
of an alleged witch of a village in his estate.106 Witches were seen to
threaten social stability from within, and it was considered a duty for
those with power to take the lead in countering their sorcery. As it was,
the ones accused tended to be weaker members of the society, such as
old women, widows or, in a few cases, subordinate males. In cases of
illness in which witchcraft was not suspected, no collective response
was considered necessary: individuals and families were left to treat the
malady as they felt fit.
In dealing with the illnesses and misfortunes brought by malign
supernatural forces, Hendley discussed only witchcraft. This was no
doubt the most dramatic manifestation of the phenomenon, but it was
probably not the most common. Singling out a particular person for
blame caused inevitable controversy and bad feeling, and it was done
only in desperation or because of some political motive. As a rule,
malign forces were countered through ritual sacrifices and the deploy-
ment of charms that had no particular human target. A missionary who
worked in this area noted in 1906 that if an illness did not respond to
herbal remedies, offerings of a chicken and some ghee and salt might be
made at the tomb of an ancestor.107 In cases of epidemic disease, rituals
were conducted in which a goat was sacrificed and its head and other
ritual paraphernalia placed in a small wooden chariot and taken beyond
the boundary of the pal. It was hoped that by doing this the spirit
responsible for the epidemic would be tempted away from the place.108
The bhopas who generally prescribed and performed such rituals were
paid as a rule in liquor, or in the meat from the sacrifice. The Bhils also
believed that the sadhus and other mendicants who came to live in soli-
tude in their hills and forests had healing powers. Both the bhopas and
the sadhus deployed what were known as jantra-mantra, or spells with
miraculous powers. Hendley also failed to say anything about illnesses
that were believed to have a divine origin, which are spoken about in
other reports. For example, writing in 1890, the missionary C. S.
Thompson noted that when the rains failed or there was a great deal of
sickness in their villages, the Mewar Bhils would take a vow at the
shrine of the local Devi (mother goddess) that if she brought rain or
stopped the sickness they would sacrifice a buffalo to her. When the
sacrifice was eventually performed, the Devi was offered the blood,
while the meat was sold. Thompson saw this bargaining before the
goddess and their selling of the meat as a sign of their practicality in
such affairs.109
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It is now hereby notified and declared that sorcery and enchantment have
no real existence and are sheer prejudices and deceptions; and let it be
clearly understood by all that the Almighty has not invested any human
being with the supernatural power of causing the death of a fellow crea-
ture by the means of any such imaginary arts, and if any person shall
profess to cause another bodily pain, or any injury to his person, family
or property whatsoever, by pretended witchcraft, magic, or other such
fraudulent practices, or if any person shall threaten to have recourse to
witchcraft, or offer to remove fictitious evil-spirits for any one, and by
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such gross deceit shall receive, or shall obtain a promise of any gratuity,
or remuneration in any shape whatsoever, that person will be punished
for fraud, extortion and intimidation; and it is hereby further proclaimed
that if any person or persons shall cause the death of another person under
the false belief that he or she practised witchcraft or other delusive arts
of any kind, then such person or persons will be tried for the crime of
murder and dealt with accordingly.113
In Whitelock’s view, belief that illness and misfortune could be caused
by an evil force was not only irrational, but opposed also to true reli-
gion. In this, he gave voice to a belief that had emerged in Europe
during the Enlightenment. An important thinker in this respect was
Spinoza (1632–77), who had argued that many popular beliefs were
delusions and superstitions – even when seemingly endorsed by the
scriptures – and that those who were informed by the ‘natural light of
reason’ had no use for them. God had created a good world, without
inherent evil, and by abandoning the idea of evil, humans could free
themselves from irrational fears. By the mid-eighteenth century, main-
stream Anglican theologians had, following such precepts, largely
abandoned the concept of hell and its demonic forces, though some
popular sects continued to believe in them.114 What Whitelock was
reflecting was, in other words, a relatively recent form of theology par-
ticular to Europe. He was, moreover, asserting not only that it was a
delusion to believe in witchcraft and evil agency, but that it was a
notion that was characteristically deployed in a self-serving and ‘fraud-
ulent’ manner. Anyone practising such ‘fraud, extortion and intimida-
tion’ would be punished harshly under the law. Hendley had also made
such an assumption when he wrote, as we have seen above, that the
bhopa was ‘bribed’ to identify a witch, and that he might be made to
change his opinion ‘under the influence of another douceur’.115
Nowhere in this was there recognition that the bhopas were generally
considered sincere and skilled exorcists who were able to use their
powers to make contact with the spiritual world to detect the source
of a malign force.
In a discussion of how historians have approached the question of
medieval trials by ordeal for those who were seen as transgressors, Talal
Asad has noted how they have tended to focus on what people believed,
rather than:
the power structure by which certain truths about transgressions were
determined. Thus, we don’t know what were the real thoughts and feel-
ings of individuals who could at one time resort to the ordeal and who
were later obliged to submit to the inquisitorial courts. But we do
know that they were processed through very different political-legal-
moral structures, subject to very different powers. Their options, their
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claimed that they were losing faith in their deities, who could no longer –
supposedly – protect them against outsiders, and as a result, he argued,
there was an opening for Christian missionaries. He noted that mission-
aries to the Santals of central India – a supposedly similar ‘aboriginal’
tribe – had found such an opening in comparable circumstances.
Conversion was, he believed, possible if the Christian message was kept
as simple as possible, and directed to the whole tribe so that the decision
to convert would be a community rather than individual one. ‘Their
main object is social advancement, and this they may well think would
be most easily secured by reverencing the strong English Gods; their
character would lead, however, to the conclusion that interest alone
would not long remain the ruling motive.’ By this latter statement,
Hendley seems to have been saying that once they were drawn towards
Christianity and learnt more of the faith, they would soon become con-
vinced believers. There was however one possible drawback, namely that
some were already being attracted towards ‘Brahmanism, which comes
within the scope of their understanding, raising them in the social scale,
and, where there are Brahman native officers, giving them, in their
opinion, a better chance of promotion. This feeling the Brahmans are not
slow to take advantage of, and it requires great vigilance to defeat them.’
The missionaries therefore needed to get in fast.119
Hendley’s opinions were echoed by other colonial officials, such as
Sir Lepal Griffen, who stated in 1883:
I believe that it would be an immense advantage if the Bhils could be con-
verted to any form of Christianity by missionaries, either Catholic or
Protestant . . . It is obvious that the inconveniences and even danger
which attend proselytising enterprises in Brahmanical and Muhammadan
States, which possess a creed as dogmatic and systematic as Christianity
itself, do not exist with reference to a people like the Bhils, who have no
dogmatic theology, and who would accept with very little difficulty the
civilising creed which would be offered to them.120
In other words, while it was inadvisable to give strong state support for
missionary endeavours in areas with strongly Hindu or Muslim popu-
lations lest it stir up enmities that could backfire against the British, it
was politically safe to patronise missionaries in ‘aboriginal’ tracts.
Whether or not the Bhils would accept the missionaries with the ease
that Griffin assumed was, of course, another matter, as we shall see in
the next chapter.
Notes
1 Benedetto Croce, Filosofica e storiografica (Bari: Laterza, 1949), p. 246; quoted and
translated by Allesandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories:
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Forms and Meanings in Oral History (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1991), p. 293 n.6.
2 A Social and Economic Atlas of India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987),
p. 27.
3 On this, see in particular David Hardiman, ‘Power in the Forest: The Dangs,
1820-1940’, in David Arnold and David Hardiman (eds.), Subaltern Studies, 8
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994); and Ajay Skaria, Hybrid Histories:
Forests, Frontiers and Wildness in Western India (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1999).
4 On usurers see David Hardiman, Feeding the Baniya: Peasants and Usurers in
Western India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996); on liquor dealers see
David Hardiman, ‘From Custom to Crime: The Politics of Drinking in Colonial
South Gujarat’, in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies, 4 (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1985).
5 James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, ed. William Crooke, 2 (London:
Humphrey Milford, 1920), p. 651. The work was first published in two volumes of
1829 and 1832.
6 Ibid., 1, p. 586.
7 John Malcolm, A Memoir of Central India, Including Malwa, and Adjoining
Provinces, with the History, and Copious Illustrations, of the Past and Present
Condition of that Country (New Delhi: Sagar Publications, 1970; reprint of 1823
edition), 1, pp. 516–17.
8 Ibid., pp. 517–18.
9 Ibid., p. 519.
10 Ibid., p. 521.
11 Ibid., 2, pp. 179–80.
12 ‘Some Account of the Bheels’, Intelligencer (October 1882), 585–91. The notion
that Aryan invaders had driven the aborigines of India into the hills in ancient
times was a staple of British historiography in India. See W. W. Hunter, The Annals
of Rural Bengal (Delhi: Cosmo Publications, 1975; reprint of 1868 edition),
pp. 90–1. Subsequent historiography has rejected such simplistic explanations for
the creation of distinct tribal societies in India. See Romila Thapar, Early India:
From the Origins to AD 1300 (London: Allen Lane, 2002), p. 57.
13 C. S. Thompson, ‘The Bheels’, The Church Missionary Gleaner (October 1897),
148.
14 Sketches of India, 4th edition (1826), pp. 257–8. Quoted in David Arnold, ‘Race,
Place and Bodily Difference in Early Nineteenth Century India’, Historical
Research, 77:196 (2004), 266.
15 Rudyard Kipling, ‘Letters of Marque, Nov–Dec 1887’, reprinted in Kipling, From
Sea to Sea and Other Sketches: Letters of Travel, 1 (London: Macmillan, 1926),
p. 57.
16 The Rajputana Gazetteer, 1 (Calcutta: Government Press, 1879), p. 117.
17 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History
of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1999), pp. 255 and 269. See also Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern
Speak?’, in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds.), Marxism and the
Interpretation of Culture (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988).
18 Spivak, Critique of Postcolonial Reason, p. 273.
19 Ibid., p. 310.
20 T. H. Hendley, ‘An Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal, 44 pt.1:4 (1875), 347–88.
21 The corps was known by the Bhils as the ‘embeecee’, so that the use of these ini-
tials in the rest of this book accords with local usage.
22 Hardiman, ‘Power in the Forest’, p. 107.
23 J. Outram to C. Ovans, 26 October 1836, NAI, FD, 3 April 1837, 23 PC.
24 In Mewar, the Rajput ruler who was acknowledged as head of the ruling Sisodiya clan
enjoyed the title of ‘Maharana’ rather than ‘Maharaja’. Udaipur was his capital city.
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88 Ibid.
89 Bodding’s medical ethnography of the Santals, for example, provides detailed
descriptions of 305 herbal remedies utilised by them. P. O. Bodding, Studies in
Santal Medicine and Connected Folklore (Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 2001;
reprint of 1925–40 edition), pp. 161–393.
90 Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 363.
91 Ibid., 363.
92 Birkett, ‘Report of Medical Work in the Bhil Mission for 1901’.
93 Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, p. 362.
94 Mrs A. I. Birkett, ‘Bhil Mission’, Mercy and Truth (February 1901), 45.
95 This was stated by J. C. Brooke, Commandant of the MBC, in 1851. Brooke to G. S.
P. Lawrence, Pol. Agent, Mewar, 7 April 1851, NAI, FD, 16 February 1853, 121–3 FC.
96 Bodding, Studies in Santal Medicine, pp. 1–4.
97 Deposition of Bheel Kalia Budo of Deraj of the Mondetta Putta taken before
the Attachment Mehta at Mondetta, 14 April 1843. GSAV, Baroda Residency,
English Dept., serial no. 407, Mahi Kantha, Daftar 83, vol. 412, MK 13, vol. 298 for
1843–44.
98 Kavita Sivaramakrishnan, Old Potions, New Bottles: Recasting Indigenous
Medicine in Colonial Punjab (1850–1945) (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2006),
p. 107 n. 3.
99 Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 351–2.
100 J. C. Brooke to G. S. P. Lawrence, Pol. Agent, Mewar, 7 April 1851, NAI, FD,
16 February 1853, 121–3 FC.
101 Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 351.
102 Thanedar of Poshina, 9 April 1864, OIOC, R/2/700/39.
103 R. Wallace, Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, to Malet, 3 September 1850, OIOC,
R/2/700/39.
104 Brooke to G. S. P. Lawrence, Pol. Agent, Mewar, 7 April 1851, NAI, FD, 16 February
1853, 121–3 FC.
105 Hari Sen, ‘Popular Protest in Mewar in the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth
Centuries’, PhD dissertation, University of Delhi, 1996, p. 120.
106 R. Wallace to Malet, 4 September 1850, OIOC, R/2/700/39.
107 A. H. Bull, ‘Some Bhil Customs’, The Nagpur Diocesan Quarterly Magazine
(January 1906), 41, in CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1906, doc. 9.
108 The ceremony is described in detail by the Reverend W. Hodgkinson, ‘Bhils of the
Indian Jungles; V. – Sacrifices’, The Round World (1 September 1909), 142–3, in
Jane and Arthur Birkett Papers, CMS, Unofficial Papers, Acc. 446, Z6. For a
more detailed analysis of such ceremonies, see my book The Coming of the Devi:
Adivasi Assertion in Western India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987),
pp. 24–7.
109 ‘The Bhil Mission’, annual letter of the Reverend C. S. Thompson, Kherwara,
31 January 1890, Intelligencer, 15 NS (September 1890), 610–11.
110 G. S. P. Lawrence, Pol. Agent, Mewar, to Brooke, 31 March 1851, and Brooke to
Lawrence, 7 April 1851, and Lawrence to J. Low, Pol. Agent, Rajputana, 26 April
1851, NAI, FD, 16 February 1853, 121–3 FC.
111 Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry held at Kherwara on 21 July 1852, and Brooke to
Lawrence, 27 July 1852, ibid.
112 Ajay Skaria, ‘Women, Witchcraft and Gratuitous Violence in Colonial Western
India’, Past and Present, 155 (1997), 138.
113 Zahir Nameli (proclamation) issued to the inhabitants of Mahi Kantha, 23 October
1856, OIOC, R/2/700/39.
114 D. P. Walker, The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal
Torment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 7, 253–4 and 262–3;
Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of
Modernity 1650–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 151–3, 333–4,
375–405.
115 Hendley, ‘Account of the Maiwar Bhils’, 351.
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CHAPTER THREE
During the 1870s, the CMS declared its intention to open more missions
‘among the non-Aryan hill-people’, who it was feared were coming under
Hindu influence. The Santals of Bengal and Arrains of Travancore had
‘already yielded a good harvest of souls to the Society’s sowing’. A new
mission to the Gonds of central India had been opened and efforts had
been made from time to time to reach the Bhils, particularly in Khandesh,
where the society had a base at Malegaon.1 The Bishop of Lahore felt that
more missions were needed to work amongst the ‘aboriginal’ Bhils.
Writing many years later, Dorothy McBurney – the daughter of
Montie Rundall, an officer in the MBC – provides us with the story
of how Kherwara was chosen as the site for such a mission. It is a tale
of drama and pathos, as well as British class snobbery. Rundall’s first
posting as a member of the Indian Army was to Kherwara in 1876, and
he received it only days after his marriage in England to Rosa, the
daughter of Edward Bickersteth, Vicar of Hampstead. The couple
set out immediately, arriving eventually at Kherwara in February
1877 after an arduous and slow journey from Bombay. According to
McBurney: ‘Kherwara was calculated to strike dismay into the stoutest
hearts. A low-lying barren, dusty spot, terribly unhealthy, tropically
hot, the only inhabitants an almost savage tribe called the Bhils from
whose wild ranks the regiments were enlisted’. Rosa was already preg-
nant, and she spent her lonely days at Kherwara planning for the eagerly
anticipated arrival, ordering baby clothes, trimming the cradle, plan-
ning the nursery and making arrangements for an ayah. The couple did
not however take to the regimental doctor at Kherwara, who was ‘an
ignorant little cockney just out, with no experience whatever outside
his recent hospital training’. When the time came for her confinement,
‘every mistake that it was possible to make was made by the inefficient
little doctor’. The ‘beautiful baby boy, perfect in every way’ died and
the mother nearly followed him.2
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Rosa decided to build a church in his memory next to his grave. This
was completed in 1878, and consecrated by the Bishop of Calcutta. Rosa
told the bishop that she had been caring for two local orphans whom
she had been bringing up as Christians, and she expressed her willing-
ness to open a small orphanage for Bhils who might then be converted.
The bishop agreed to support the orphanage and went on to state that
in his view Kherwara would be an ideal place for a mission to the Bhils.
He promised to help its establishment in any way he could. Rosa also
wrote to her father in England, who was now the Bishop of Exeter, and
he decided to donate £1,000 of his own money for a missionary to the
Bhils in memory of his grandson. In November 1878, he wrote a letter
that was published in the Record and the Guardian, appealing for a mis-
sionary. In it, he described the Bhils as ‘one of the aboriginal tribes who
were driven up to the hills by the Aryans a thousand years before
Christ’. He went on to say that there were about three million Bhils,
but no systematic attempt had yet been made to evangelise them.
Kherwara was a healthy place, occupied by ‘our troops’ for over thirty
years, but until now the nearest church had been in Ahmedabad, 160
kilometres or so distant. A beautiful stone church had now been built
there, and he hoped that this would be ‘a point of light amid the hith-
erto almost unbroken darkness of this tract of heathendom’. He stated
that he was prepared to provide funds for a clergyman for an initial three
years, and hoped that by then ‘Christianity will have so rooted itself
there, as it has already done among the Karens, the Santhals, the Gonds,
and other primeval races of India’. The missionary would become ‘the
apostle of the Bheels’. He concluded: ‘May God send this home to some
heart, whom He will touch with Christ-like compassion for sheep far
away in the wilderness that have no shepherd!’3
It took almost two years to find a suitable ‘apostle of the Bhils’.
During that time, Rosa had another son, who survived and whom she
took with her back to England in 1879. She never returned to Kherwara,
but each year up until her death in 1926 she sent a wreath to be laid on
the grave of her first son. The man eventually chosen for the mission
to the Bhils was the Reverend Charles Stewart Thompson. Thompson,
then twenty-nine years old, was from Easington in County Durham. He
had spent three years training to be a missionary at college in Islington
in London, and had been ordained as a deacon in June 1880 and as a
priest by the Archbishop of Canterbury in October 1880. Being in the
evangelical wing of the Anglican Church, he was a believer in individ-
ual conversion through strong personal belief and faith, in moral self-
cleansing and in the importance of the Bible and Bible study.4 He left
immediately for India, arriving in Kherwara on 27 November 1880. He
was not married, and indeed never married.
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The Committee believe that the experience you have gained in Africa
will stand you in good stead in many ways in your efforts to carry the
Gospel to the simple aboriginal races. They look to you to be able, with
the blessing of God, to win their confidence and to attract them to the
Saviour. May you and Mrs. Litchfield be the blessed means, under God,
of bringing very many of them to Christ, that their hearts may be puri-
fied by faith and that they may obtain inheritance among them that are
sanctified.14
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In particular, they were to abandon their belief in the evil eye and black
magic as a cause of disease. Also, it helped considerably if they had
received some education and were literate. They were expected to be
able to sustain themselves by their own labour; those who were in it
only for food handouts or a job in the mission were not welcome. The
emphasis was on personal witness rather than mass conversion.
Because the demands were so tough in this respect, Thompson had to
wait many years before he was able to baptise his first Bhil.
Thompson had arrived in Kherwara believing that the Bhils were a
kind of tabula rasa on which missionaries might write with ease. Once
exposed to the truth of the Gospel, the Bhils, like other ‘primitives’,
would quickly accept its message. His particular strategy had been to
establish himself first as a healer and in this way gain sympathy and a
hearing for what he had to tell. He would first heal their bodies, and
then reclaim their souls. However, as he was now discovering, the Bhils
were less ‘primitive’ than supposed, being already engaged in a range of
dialogues with the high-caste Hindus who lived in their midst, accept-
ing or rejecting what they had to offer as they felt fit. Thompson now
found that the Bhils who seemed to be most amenable and sympathetic
to his message – such as the young Bhil who became the schoolmaster
at Kherwara – were those who were most Hinduised, being members of
a local sect known as the Bhagats. They had in the past decade reformed
their way of life in accordance with the doctrines of an inspired reli-
gious leader called Surmaldas, a Bhil who had been inspired initially by
a Brahman and who encouraged his followers to worship the Hindu
deity, Ram. Unlike many Bhils, the Bhagats were eager for education,
and Thompson held out hopes that they might prove sympathetic
towards Christianity. He saw that they were friendly towards him – the
young schoolmaster’s father often visited Thompson and expressed
very clearly his delight that his son held such a position.18 The model
of the tabula rasa was now being replaced in Thompson’s eyes by one
of religious evolution in which people developed from a lower to a
higher faith, with Christianity at the pinnacle. Belief systems, in other
words, were seen to ascend like steps on a ladder. There was clearly
some inconsistency here, for the CMS had been drawn to the Bhils
because of their supposed lack of corruption by Hindu values, with an
assumption that the ‘primitives’ could leap in one step from their sav-
agery to Christianity. Now, the most Hinduised were regarded as being
more open to the Christian message.
The change in strategy drew Thompson to the heartland of the
Bhagat movement, and in particular to Surmaldas’s home village of
Lusadiya. Lusadiya lay beyond the border of Mewar State, being in Idar,
which was in Gujarat. This was not a problem for the mission as such,
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as there were no great differences between the Bhils of the two areas.
They intermarried and were thus related, and they shared a common
patois that had more in common with Gujarati than with Hindi, as
Thompson soon discovered when in 1882 he began translating the
Gospel for the Bhils.19
Idar State
Although Idar State lay in Gujarat, and most of its inhabitants spoke
the Gujarati language, it was often known as ‘Nani Marwar’ (‘Little
Marwar’) as its ruling family and several of its thakors were related to
the Rathod Rajputs of Marwar State in Rajasthan.20 In common with
the rulers of the states of Rajasthan, and unlike those of most other
states of Gujarat, Idar’s rulers had only limited control over their
thakors, whose estates covered about two-thirds of the total area of the
state. The Rathods had conquered the territory at the end of the four-
teenth century, establishing their capital at Idar, where a huge fortified
rock provided a secure stronghold. They had made alliances with exist-
ing Rajput chiefs, or had relied on other Rajputs to subjugate and rule
particular territories that were then considered to be under the nominal
control of the state. In the Bhil areas, the thakors established them-
selves as the patrons of particular Bhil pals, providing support for them
when they raided pals that were under the protection of a different
thakor. The thakors often asserted their independence in rebellions,
some of which threatened the power of the state itself.21 The Idar
Maharajas themselves had often been in a position of subordination to
the Sultans of Gujarat, and afterwards the Mughals, paying tribute to
them. This tiered system of paramountcy and subordination continued
under the British, with Idar becoming the largest and most important
state within the Mahi Kantha political agency, which was established
under the control of the government of Bombay Presidency in 1821.22
The British helped the Maharajas of Idar to extend their power over
the subordinate Rajput thakors. In some cases, the Bhils fought with
their thakors against British troops. The thakors were eventually
brought under greater control in a military campaign of the late 1830s
by the British political agent of that time, James Outram. In the
following years, many were forced to hand over the bulk of their
armouries to the British. The thakors were required to develop their
finances by increasing taxes on their subjects, rather than by relying on
the spoils of military campaigns or Bhil raids. This they did by demand-
ing either a greater share of the crop in kind or – in the case of many
Bhil pals – an enhanced lump sum from the pal as a whole.23 They
forced Bhils to perform corvée labour for them, and hired small forces
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intervened, cancelling the concession made by the Rao, but at the same
time fining him Rs. 9,000 as a punishment for the raids by his sub-
jects.27 Hamirsingji failed to mend his ways. A political agent who
visited him in 1885 reported that he continued to hoard his money and
spent nothing for the welfare of his people. There was not a single
ongoing public works project. ‘I found the Bhils of the Pol District to be
in a much poorer condition than those living in Danta and Posina, these
last looked well-fed and fairly clad, while the Pol Bhils had the appear-
ance of being half-starved and possessed no clothing but a few rags. The
difference may be accounted for partly by the Rajputana Railway,
having stations closer to Danta and Posina and partly from the more
liberal revenue administration of the Chiefs of these districts over that
of the Rao of Pol.’28
Surmaldas
The leader of the Bhil Bhagats, Surmaldas, lived in the village of
Lusadiya. This lay within the small estate of the Thakor of Karchha, a
Rajput who was a tributary of Idar State. The inhabitants of Lusadiya
were almost entirely Bhils. The first time Surmaldas was mentioned in
the colonial records was in 1875, when the commandant of the MBC
met him.29 There were further reports by the Political Agent for Mahi
Kantha in 1880 and 1881.30 Surmaldas was depicted in these reports as
a Bhil who was a devotee of the Hindu deity Rama, and who had
renounced the old turbulent way of life of his community. He was
encouraging his people to live in peace with their neighbours, to
renounce spirituous drinks, to live cleanly, to wear a yellow strip
around their turbans as a mark of identity and to earn a living by culti-
vation rather than crime. This was clearly a message that was dear to
the hearts of the British, who had for the past fifty years been pacifying
the Bhils of the region while at the same time encouraging the maha-
rajas and thakors to create the conditions that would in time induce the
Bhils to reform themselves from within. Here, it seemed, was a Bhil
who would greatly further this process, making them industrious,
peaceful and law-abiding subjects. The reports noted that those who
had converted and become Bhagats (devotees) of Surmaldas were more
prosperous than those who had not changed their way of life. For a
decade, not a single Bhagat had been accused of any crime. Thomas
Hendley commented on this that such teachers had emerged amongst
several of the ‘non-Aryan tribes’ in different parts of India. He called it
a process of ‘rapid conversion to Hinduism’ and explained that it
revealed ‘the universal desire of the wilder tribes to rise in the social
scale.’ 31
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The major snag, though, was that the vast majority of Bhils were not
prepared to accept Surmaldas’s message. The reports reveal that the
Bhagats were being persecuted and boycotted socially by other Bhils,
who placed such ‘conversions’ on a par with becoming a ‘Musalman’,
something that revealed a strong antipathy towards Islam amongst the
Bhils. In this, they were probably influenced by a Rajput culture that
had for many years celebrated the struggles of the Rajputs against
Muslim overlords. But also, they themselves suffered the oppression
of the Muslims, whom many thakors employed as strongmen. The
Political Agent for Mahi Kantha claimed that he had taken measures to
prevent any outright harassment of Surmaldas and his followers,
though in practice it is unlikely that he could have done much to any
prevent any social discrimination that stopped short of violence.
Later reports add extra dimensions to the picture. In his report of
his first meeting with Surmaldas in 1882, Thompson described the
penances that Surmaldas had undergone to gain his miraculous powers,
so that he could have boiling water poured over his naked body without
suffering any harm. He also noted that he forbade his followers to drink
spirits or eat meat, and to eat food with anyone who still ate meat.32 As
in caste society this represented a claim to be ritually superior, it sug-
gests that the social boycott by other Bhils may have been a reaction to
this perceived insult.33 A. L. D. Fordya, the Assistant Political Agent in
Mahi Kantha, met Surmaldas in the following year and reported that
Surmaldas had asked him whether the British could help him to build
a small temple as it would help him gain more followers. Fordya also
stated that the Dewan, or chief minister, of the Maharaja of Idar was
encouraging Surmaldas’s activities. Even so, the assistant political
agent was none too impressed by the Bhil reformer, as he did not seem
to be a very powerful personality and he felt that it was unlikely that
he could sway the masses. The Bhils had co-existed with Hinduism for
centuries without changing their ways, and there was no reason to feel
that they would do so now. One problem that had emerged was that a
vegetarian diet was hard for the Bhils to maintain in years of scarcity,
when they often fell back on eating their livestock or hunting wild
animals. Surmaldas admitted that he had lost many of his followers for
this reason.34
Writing five years later, in 1888, Thompson gave more details about
Surmaldas’s career as a holy man. He had, Thompson said, suffered a
series of calamities, with his son, his daughter and many of his cattle
dying. Believing that he had been cursed, he made an offering to a local
deity, to no avail. He then carried out a penance for thirteen years,
not once standing upright. He sat by a fire during the hot season, and
wore only a loincloth during the cold season and rains. On different
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The people will not know you like that; take a piece of cloth a yard and a
half long, tie it on your head, buy at Tulsi’s shop beads and rosary and put
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marks of ashes and sandalwood on your forehead, for which the native
noblemen and all people will revere you, and will not exact labour from
you without payment.
Hearing of this from the political agent, the Maharaja of Idar also came
and tested Surmaldas by asking him to swallow hot ghee, which he did.
Surmaldas began to preach to the Bhils who came to Lusadiya. He told
them to worship a god that was without any visible form, and to reform
their way of life by stopping stealing and killing cows. Although they
would suffer in the short term, they would eventually improve their
social condition. They would have schools and learn to read and write,
and would live in superior houses. As the Bhils became wealthier and
respectable, so the moral and social condition of the Baniyas and
Brahmans would decline, so that they would be the ones living by agri-
cultural labour, and eating meat and drinking liquor. Surmaldas proph-
esied that there would be a famine, that people’s wealth would be
looted, that an army would come to Shamlaji, and that the River
Ganges would disappear. In twenty years, the people would follow his
commands.
There are a number of elements to this account to be commented on.
It shows that even a very ‘wild’ Bhil like Surmaldas had a clear grasp of
popular Hindu beliefs and rituals and that there were close relation-
ships with the sadhus and other mendicants who lived amongst them.
His family and fellow Bhils believed that Hindu-style ritual purifica-
tion and personal austerity could drive away evil spirits and confer
miraculous powers, which included the power to heal. It is notable that
this healing power was the first great boon that Surmaldas’s new asceti-
cism conferred on him, and it was this that won him followers initially.
In this, he catered to a strong demand for healing within his own
society, something that the missionaries also tried to tap into in their
different way. The account of the ordeals he performed to convince his
rulers as to his power conforms to a formula found in many stories of
saintly figures in India. Whereas in the past the rulers of these ordeal
narratives were sultans, Mughal emperors and maharajas, the chief
authority figure was now the British official, with the Maharaja of Idar
in a clearly secondary position. In the story, the ordeal performed for
the latter was a weaker and less dramatic one – hot ghee has to be swal-
lowed rather than molten lead – and his endorsement was little more
than a footnote. Surmaldas understood very clearly the nature of British
hegemony, something that he appears to have been quite comfortable
with. He was happy – in this account – to accept the advice of the
Britishers as to how he should proceed to spread his religion, even
accepting their suggestions regarding the exact ritual paraphernalia and
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He told his followers that if they followed his teachings, they, as Bhils,
would prosper in health and wealth, while the high castes would lose
their power. No longer able to live by exploiting the Bhils, the latter
would have to put their hands to the plough. He even predicted that
they would lose their morality, and that in the end that the social, eco-
nomic and ritual positions of the high castes and the Bhils would be
reversed. His programme was not, therefore, one of trying to forge a uni-
versal religion for all so much as one of creating an exclusive religion
for the Bhils, who would thereby become God’s chosen people. Rather
than providing an agenda that acquiesced with ruling values, this was
a declaration for Bhil assertion.
Another significant feature of Surmaldas’s message was that he
depicted the old way of life as a state of wildness and lack of civilisa-
tion. He thus described his father as ‘a Bhil, who was a farmer living in
jungles in a very uncivilized and wild state’. This was because he sur-
vived on ‘loot, robbery and plunder’. In this, it might be assumed that
he had internalised the vocabulary of the British. In fact, it is more
likely that he was deploying concepts that long predated colonial rule.
Unfortunately, the source is a translation into English, so that we do
not know the original words used by Surmaldas, but they are likely to
have been jangli, meaning wild and uncouth, and hadu or hadarelu for
‘civilised’.40 Bhils were generally considered by the high castes to be a
jangli people who lacked any sense of propriety, being often boisterous
and drunk in public places, and given to violent feuds and criminal
behaviour.41 Hadu and hadarelu appear to mean the same as the
Gujarati and Hindi sudhrai. Thompson depicted the Bhil language as a
‘corrupt’ form of Gujarati,42 though we may regard it as a local dialect
which, in common with many such dialects, replaced the standard
Gujarati consonant s with h, and dh with d. This is reinforced by the
fact that the Bhil word for ‘improvement’ was hudaro.43 The standard
Gujarati word sudharo is commonly used to mean ‘improvement’ and
‘civilisation’,44 and it is closely related to the word sudhrai. In both
Gujarati and Hindi, sudhrai also means a higher and better state of
being, and thus a state of being ‘civilised’.45 The high castes commonly
saw themselves as being in a state of sudhrai, by which they meant
essentially that they conducted their lives in a respectable God-fearing
manner. As Surmaldas had first reformed himself under the inspiration
of a person of high caste, his project has to be understood primarily as
adopting such high caste, rather than British values. For him, hadu/
hadarelu/hudaro involved such qualities as living in peace with others
rather than a state of constant violent feud, the inculcation of a sense
of honour through devotion rather than violence, sober worship that
had no place for mind-changing substances, such as liquor, hashish or
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and crowds of the Bhils flocked in as much to see what was really going
on I think as anything else; in November and the early part of December
fever was very rife and attendance at the dispensary at the time was
frequently over 500 per day, its reputation was thus thoroughly estab-
lished and it is looked on with much favour by the Bhils of whom the
average daily attendance is from 40 to 50. 48
By adopting this strategy, Thompson avoided any direct confrontation
with the religious beliefs of the Bhils, whether they were of the old or
reformed persuasions.
His second strategy was that of education. A school building was
ready by the end of December of that year and forty-five boys registered
themselves, of whom twenty-four were Bhils. All of the latter were
from Bhagat families, that is, followers of Surmaldas. They appear to
have been confident enough in their religion to take advantage of
the new facility without fear that it would lead to conversion to
Christianity. Thompson went out to neighbouring pals to encourage
other young Bhils to come to the school, and he tried particularly hard
to induce those who were not Bhagats. Possibly, he believed that it
might be easier in the long term to convert them to Christianity. One
of the thakors whom Thompson met on his tours was that of the Pal
estate, which was subordinate to Idar. The thakor – a young man of
twenty-four – was eager to carry out reforms in his territory. He said
that he would provide land and a grant of Rs. 1,200 to erect a dispen-
sary, school and mission house, and a recurring grant of Rs. 300 each
year for the running costs of this establishment. Given a free hand by
the thakor, Thompson went in April 1887 with the chief minister of
Idar to select a site, choosing one in the Bhil pal of Biladiya. Initial
building was completed just before the close of that year, and the school
opened with twenty-six pupils, of whom sixteen were Bhils. Thompson
explored other areas also, and although he found some good spots for
more mission outposts, he could not obtain adequate funding or recruit
suitable people with schooling who had the ability to operate as com-
bined schoolteachers and medical dispensers. In Thompson’s opinion,
unless such people had the personality and diligence to win the respect
of the local Bhils they would be of little use for the mission.49
The chief minister of Idar took a close and enthusiastic interest in
Thompson’s work, even going to Lusadiya in 1887 to inspect the
mission school. Both the schoolmaster and the Bhil pupils whom he
examined greatly impressed him. ‘I was really struck with the distinct
pronunciations and accents of the Bhil boys. They read and spoke just
as boys of the more refined castes do and this speaks a good deal in the
favour of the master who appears a very industrious youth and of a
quiet and settled disposition’. He suggested that the mission open a
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school for girls there as well. He also inspected the medical work and
concluded that ‘Mr. Thompson’s hospital here is a great blessing to the
people of this wild district. I wish every success and God speed to
the noble work.’50 Colonel Scott, the acting political agent, visited
Lusadiya later that year. He judged the school a great success – thirty-
nine of the sixty-one pupils were Bhils, and many were able to read and
write with great fluency. Three or four came from far away, and slept at
nights in the school veranda. They brought food supplies with them,
and when these were exhausted they would ask permission to take two
days off to return home to replenish their stocks. Scott commented: ‘I
think that the Brahman and Baniya boys would not accept education at
such a price.’ He went on to remark that Thompson’s popularity
amongst the Bhils was increasing by the day, ‘and the relief received at
his dispensaries is much appreciated; some of them, however, cannot
yet understand how it is that any one, especially an European, should
take so much interest in, and so much trouble for, them, and all for
nothing, and being of a naturally suspicious nature are inclined to
imagine that there must be some ulterior motive.’51 With such official
support for the mission, the path forward appeared to be bright.
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practise his devotions in the hilly region at the age of fifteen, and after
some initial setbacks had gradually won the respect of the Bhils. He had
nearly four thousand followers at the time of his baptism, and he
believed that they would join him.54 As it was, he was left isolated and
suffered considerable persecution. He nevertheless started preaching
the Gospel to the Bhils, continuing up until his death in 1897. The
other important convert at this time was Premji Hurji Patel, who was
a pupil at the mission school at Kherwara. He was a member of the
Dangi Patel community of Kattibadi village, near Kherwara. His family
members opposed his conversion strongly, and even tried to poison him
when he proved obdurate. He was baptised in 1890, and was subse-
quently employed as a lay preacher by the mission.55
Thompson believed that the tide was turning as far as the Bhagat
movement was concerned. He had seen more of Surmaldas since
working in Lusadiya, and had lost much of his earlier respect for the
Bhil reformer. When they had met he had twice asked Surmaldas to
explain what he meant by prayer and how he prayed, and all that he
could do was to chant repeatedly: ‘He Parmeshwar! He Bhagwan!’ (O
God! Oh God!) He did not, said Thompson, know any other prayer, and
this revealed his ignorance and his profound limitation. Moreover,
Surmaldas realised that he was losing his powers, and had decided to
resume his life of severe penance in the hope that he might somehow
regain them. In Thompson’s words:
The last time I saw the old man he was breathing with difficulty, emaci-
ated, and resolved never again to give up his life of fasting and voluntary
suffering. By remaining out in the open in the rainy and cold seasons, and
by sitting over a fire during the hot weather, he aims at being credited
with that divinity that doth hedge a successful guru. His followers,
however, are leaving the preposterous business of dethroning God. They
are going to send for a leading guru from Kathiawar, and for another from
Meywar, to ask them to point out plainly the road to heaven. If the two
men fail to do this, some of the disciples say they will seek the light and
help from the Christian teachers.56
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Notes
11 ‘The Santal Mission’, Intelligencer, 6 NS (November 1881), 693.
12 Dorothy L. McBurney, ‘The Patron Saint of Kherwara’, typescript dated 1948, Paul
Johnson papers.
13 E. H. Bickersteth, ‘The Mission to the Bheels’, Intelligencer, 5 NS (September 1880),
537–8.
14 Vinodkumar M. Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions to the Church of North India in
Gujarat with Special Reference to Church Growth among the Bhil People of Som-
Sabarkantha’, master’s dissertation, University of Dublin, 1987, p. 98. Malaviya
notes that the Anglican missionaries to the Bhils were neither Anglo-Catholics nor
in the ‘liberal’ wing of the church. He also argues that they were not ‘greatly influ-
enced by the Bishops or the British Raj’.
15 W. Gray, ‘The C.M.S. and Medical Missions’, Intelligencer, 9 NS (May 1884), 313.
16 Ibid., 314–15.
17 See the first section of Chapter 1.
18 ‘The Bheel Mission’, Intelligencer, 8 NS (July 1883), 414.
19 ‘The Bhil Mission’, Annual Letter of the Rev. C. S. Thompson, Kherwara, 31 January
1890, Intelligencer, 15 NS (September 1890), 610–11.
10 ‘The Bheel Mission’, Intelligencer, 8 NS (July 1883), 416.
11 Ibid., 416–17.
12 W. Gray (secretary of CMS) to C. S. Thompson, 22 April 1881, CMS, G2 I 1 L/10,
1881–84.
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CHAPTER FOUR
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as the saintly founding father who had lain down his life for the
salvation of his Bhil ‘flock’. As Charles Gill wrote on 25 May:
Thompson has died as he lived, in the midst of the Bhil people and the
Bhil country, straining every nerve for their temporal and external
welfare. His grave will still be a witness among them for that Saviour and
Friend whom he proclaimed to them. The devotion of his faithful Bhil
servant, Bhagwana, who caught the Cholera from him, and died a few
hours after him, may be an earnest of the future devotion of the Bhil
people to the Saviour in whose footsteps he trod. The corn of wheat has
fallen into the ground and died; but doubtless it will now bring forth
much fruit.21
Fired by this poignant and stirring model of self-sacrifice, volunteers
came forward to take up Thompson’s work.22 The Reverend E. P.
Herbert, of the mission to the Gonds of central India, who had replaced
Thompson for much of the time he had been in England on leave, agreed
to return to stand in once more. Four CMS clergymen based elsewhere
in India offered their services on a temporary basis and were accepted
within days. Miss A. H. Bull wrote from England – where she was on
furlough – offering to join the Bhil mission, and as a female missionary
was required to help Gertrude Outram run the girls’ orphanage at
Kherwara; this was agreed to.23
Writing in late May, Outram calculated that ‘40% of the population
are now dead, and 50% of the remainder, humanly-speaking, must die
before the rains are over, from famine, small-pox and cholera. It is a sad
prospect.’ The only grain that was available for the Bhils anywhere was
supplied by either the MBC or the mission, and it was now in short
supply. When he went to the outpost at Kagdar, where they were
already feeding 500 people, he found 550 extra people ‘all destitute and
bound to die’, but had only enough grain in hand to agree to feed 50 of
them.24 The suffering shocked the volunteers who began arriving at this
time. E. P. Herbert stated that ‘I never saw photographs nor read descrip-
tions vivid or awful enough to describe the sad plight’.25 Each mission
centre he went to was surrounded by dead bodies, which he had to
cremate.26 Cholera was raging unchecked at every place where the Bhils
gathered to be fed. At the Sarsau station, for example, up to ten Bhils
were dying every day from cholera, and the mission schoolmaster had
lost both his wife and his mother to the disease. Working together from
Biladiya, Herbert and J. C. Harrison made it their priority to clean the
wells at each station and to persuade the people there to drink only
from those wells rather than from dirty ponds.27
By July, fresh funds were pouring in through donations from as far
away as the United States and new volunteers were arriving, one of
whom, Dr A. H. Browne of the Amritsar Medical Mission, became
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the first qualified doctor to work for the mission.28 Although the
monsoon was as yet holding off, Outram was fearful of the conse-
quences of any rain, as the people had sold almost all their clothing and,
having no protection from the damp, would almost certainly die long
before any grain could be harvested.29 He asked for donations of cloth-
ing and blankets. Because the surviving people had no seed-grain to sow
once the rain came and no bullocks left alive to plough the ground, the
missionaries provided them with enough to cultivate any field that
could be prepared with hand tools.30 Although the Bhils might have
obtained seed from the Baniya shopkeepers, the latter were demanding
three-quarters of any future crop in repayment. By providing seed-grain
at no cost, the missionaries gained immense goodwill.31 The monsoon
came eventually at the end of July, and the rainfall was sufficient to
hold out the promise of a reasonable harvest for those still able to till
their land.
The damp and cold weather proved fatal for large numbers of Bhils,
many of whom were reported to be like ‘living skeletons’.32 Although
cholera abated in August, it was replaced by epidemics of dysentery
and malaria, both of which proved killers.33 Many had only rags to
wear and were sleeping at night on the ground under trees. Often, they
died during the night. Dr Browne, now working at Biladiya, wrote in
a letter of 6 August that he was walking around the mission com-
pound three or four times a day to see if there were any fresh corpses:
‘Two mornings ago ten were picked up lying in one place or another
under the trees, and six were taken out of my little hospital. The same
afternoon, while I was feeding the hospital patients, three died before
my eyes, and four more during the afternoon died outside.’34 He had
the bodies cremated on a fire that was kept burning continuously. He
estimated that the death rate had quadrupled there since the rains
came, with 18 to 20 deaths each day. The mission was at that time
running six such centres on the Gujarat side, feeding in all 6,400
people each day, and there were similar reports from them. At
Bavaliya, 19 of the 1,100 on relief were reported to have died in one
day.35 They could not even save many of the children in their two
orphanages. Dr Browne wrote in graphic terms of his struggle on 20
August to keep alive ‘eight little ones, but to no use; in the evening
they all died’.36 During three weeks in August the numbers of boys at
this orphanage fell from 202 to 122. At the end of the month, 40 of
them were lying ill in the hospital, and many were still dying. The
death rate was reported to be even heavier at the Kherwara girls’
orphanage.37 At the orphanage for boys run by James Shepherd in
Udaipur city – which never had more than three hundred inmates –
two hundred died of cholera during the worst month.38 The particular
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irony of all this was that the people were dying in greater numbers just
as their crops were at last ripening.
The missionaries themselves suffered badly during the monsoon
period; many had to abandon their relief activities because of sickness.
Outram and his wife Gertrude began to suffer from repeated bouts of
dysentery, and after coming close to death had to take long-term leave
to recover.39 Soon after, Harrison, Herbert and Dr Browne were forced
to give up their work through illness, leaving six volunteers who had
come on a temporary basis running the mission. They included another
British medical doctor, an Indian medical assistant and ‘an earnest
Christian soldier’ who had been granted leave by his regiment to
help out in the famine area. 40 Mrs Dawson, wife of the new MBC
commandant, Major C. Hutton Dawson, agreed to look after the girls’
orphanage at Kherwara.41
Dr Browne returned to work in mid-September, and noticed a change
of attitude amongst the Bhil survivors. Many had come into close
contact with the missionaries at the relief centres, and they were much
less suspicion of their motives than they had been previously. The
manner in which the missionaries had endangered their own health and
even their lives had not gone unnoticed. According to Browne, ‘Some
of the more thoughtful Bhils have said – “I want to know more about
this religion of Christ; for there must be something in it to make the
Sahibs come and live amongst us to save our lives as they have done.” ’
They needed to act fast to take advantage of this mood before it sub-
sided, and he urged the CMS to send the best missionaries and cate-
chists that were available to strike while the iron was hot.42
By October the acute stage of famine had passed, and hardly any
adults were coming for food to the mission centres. The missionaries
were, however, still feeding many children. Only about forty girl and
twenty-five boy orphans remained under their care, as many had died
and others had run away. Charles Gill visited the area at this time
and noted that although the famine was now at an end, the whole
region appeared desolate, with deserted houses, depopulated villages
and uncultivated fields. He regretted that very little proselytisation had
been carried out during the previous year. The strain of the famine, the
paucity of workers and their ignorance of the language had prevented
any real spiritual teaching amongst the crowds assembled for food.
The time had now come for such work. ‘The former barriers of timid-
ity and suspicion are now considerably broken down. They now frankly
recognise us as their friends and helpers in time of calamity; and now
is our opportunity to reach them.’ Unfortunately, most of the volun-
teers were about to leave, and there was no permanent staff of white
missionaries left. There were only a handful of Indian converts working
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Notes
11 Mahi Kantha Gazetteer, p. 50.
12 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 30 November 1899, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1899, doc. 471.
13 Carstairs, Shepherd of Udaipur, pp. 212–13.
14 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 14 December 1899, CMS, G2 I 6/0 1900, doc. 13.
15 For reports on such activities see Pandit Sukhdeo Prasad, The Final Report of the
Famine Operations in Marwar during 1899 and 1900 (Jodhpur: Government Press,
1900), pp. 143–6; L. V. Tarvadi, Ahmedabad, 12 January 1901, Maharashtra State
Archives, Mumbai, Famine Department, 39/169, pt. III.
16 Carstairs, Shepherd of Udaipur, pp. 215–16.
17 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 18 January 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 70.
18 C. S. Thompson to C. H. Gill, Kotra, 25 January 1900, ibid., doc. 92; Gill to Durrant,
Kotra, 15 February 1900, ibid., doc. 129.
19 F. Westcott, ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the
Rajputana Side’, Intelligencer, 25 NS (October 1900), 739.
10 Gill to Durrant, Kotra, 15 February 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, Doc. 129.
11 R. Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils (London: CMS, 1914), p. 21.
12 Report on Famine in Bhil Mission Area by Arthur Outram, Kherwara, 5 July 1900,
CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 383.
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13 Rev. Foss Westcott (S.P.G. Mission, Cawnpore), Cawnpore, 25 July 1900, ‘Work
for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Rajputana Side’,
Intelligencer, 25 NS (October 1900), 738–40.
14 Dewan of Idar State, Administration Report for Idar State, 1899–1900, 22 August
1900, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 52, F 47.
15 ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Gujerat Side’,
Intelligencer, 25 NS (October 1900), 741.
16 C. S. Thompson, Biladia, 9 April 1900, ‘The Mission-Field: North-West Provinces’,
Intelligencer, 25 NS (June 1900), 455.
17 Dewan of Idar State, Administration Report for Idar State, 1899–1900, 22 August
1900, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 52, F 47.
18 Arthur Outram to Durrant, Kherwara, 21 May 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 304.
19 A. Outram to C. H. Gill, 20 May 1900, ibid., doc. 304.
20 In all, seven European missionaries working in Gujarat died of cholera during the
famine. Robin Boyd, Church History of Gujarat (Madras: The Christian Literature
Society, 1981), p. 84.
21 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 25 May 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 303. Gill was
the secretary of the North India Corresponding Committee of the CMS, based in
Allahabad. At the time, this body was in overall charge of the Bhil mission.
22 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 25 May 1900, ibid., doc. 303.
23 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 7 June 1900, ibid., doc. 327.
24 The Famine Distress, leaflet put out by the Famine Distress Committee of the
Punjab Mission, Amritsar, 30 May 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 352.
25 E. P. Herbert, 1 June 1900, quoted in C. H. Gill, 21 June 1900, ‘The Mission-Field:
North-West Provinces’, Intelligencer, 25 NS (August 1900), 614.
26 C. H. Gill, 21 June 1900, ‘The Mission-Field: North-West Provinces’, Intelligencer,
25 NS (August 1900), 613.
27 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 12 July 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 379.
28 Proceedings of the Allahabad Corresponding Committee, Allahabad, 3 July 1900,
ibid., doc. 666.
29 Report on Famine in Bhil Mission Area by Arthur Outram, Kherwara, 5 July 1900,
ibid., doc. 383.
30 Ibid.
31 F. Westcott, ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the
Rajputana Side’, Intelligencer, 25 NS (October 1900), 740–1.
32 ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Gujerat Side’,
ibid., 741.
33 Carstairs, Shepherd of Udaipur, p. 217.
34 ‘Work for the Famine-Stricken in India: The Bhil Mission: On the Gujerat Side’, 742.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid., 740.
37 C. H. Gill, Famine in Rajputana and Gujarat Allahabad, 3 September 1900, CMS, G2
I 6/0, 1900, doc. 431.
38 Carstairs, Shepherd of Udaipur, pp. 216 and 250.
39 Gill to Durrant, Agra, 23 August 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0 1900, doc. 410; J. B. Outram
to Lang, Pitlochry, 21 September 1900, ibid., doc. 415.
40 Gill to Durrant, Narkanda, 19 September 1900, ibid., doc. 439.
41 Ibid., doc. 439.
42 Dr A. H. Browne, 18 September 1900, ibid., doc. 431.
43 C. H. Gill, Famine in Rajputana and Gujarat, Allahabad, 20 October 1900, ibid., doc.
431.
44 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 14 November 1900, ibid., doc. 484.
45 Church Mission High School, Lucknow, memo by A. J. Birkett, Lucknow, 6 March
1897, CMS, G2 I 6/0 1897, doc. 174. Birkett was born in Carlisle in 1863 and edu-
cated at Trinity College and Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He was ordained deacon in
1886, and priest in 1887, going to India that same year.
46 Medical Missions at Home and Abroad, 6 NS (July 1896), 155.
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47 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 31 January 1900, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 84.
48 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 16 November 1900, ibid., doc. 489. Herbert later stated
that both his strength and faith had deserted him during the famine. Herbert to
Durrant, Mandla, 20 June 1901, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1901, doc. 343.
49 A. I. Birkett to C. H. Gill, 15 March 1901, ibid., doc. 225.
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CHAPTER FIVE
In her history of the Bhil mission, Battling and Building amongst the
Bhils, Rose Carter recounted an inspiring narrative of conversion.1 She
stated that before his death at Lusadiya in 1898, Surmaldas, the guru of
the Bhagats, made a number of prophesies:
A terrible famine would shortly occur, and teachers would come from the
north and the west, and teach them the true way of salvation from a book,
free of cost. They would teach them also about a true God, and a sinless
Incarnation born of a virgin. Eventually, a temple would be built for the
worship of the true god on a hill, which he indicated in the middle of the
village . . . He exhorted his followers to worship the sinless god, Whom
they could not see, because he was like air without any form. They were
to pray to Him with uplifted hands, and not to bow down to stones and
idols like their ancestors.
After the famine, she writes, many of the Bhagats became convinced
that the sinless deity was the God of Christians, and they decided to
convert en masse to Christianity.
Carter then goes on to tell the story of the most important of the
Bhagats’ converts, who was called Sava Suvera. Until then, she states,
he had been a leading opponent of the missionaries. He had nonetheless
been shaken profoundly by his experiences during the famine year. His
ten-year-old son Lala, who had studied to the fifth standard at the
mission school, had died, as well as his wife. While dying, Lala had told
his relatives and friends that they should stop practising their rigid caste
rules and start eating with others. He said that he was going to a beau-
tiful country and he implored them to meet him there one day. Sava was
deeply moved, but ‘although recognising in it a direct call from God,
Sava hardened his heart against the truth, and his disciples followed his
lead’.2 Even he, however, could not prevent the truth of their guru’s
prophecy being accepted by others. He determined to leave the village,
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go far away and live by begging. That night he had a dream in which a
voice told him not to leave the village: ‘This kingdom is passing away,
and another kingdom will come.’ He felt that God had spoken to him
and that he had to accept the new religion. He was baptised along with
twenty-one other converts, being renamed Satgurudas.3
In Carter’s account, Surmaldas becomes a kind of John the
Baptist heralding the way for Christ. His prophecies are so set out as to
give them a remarkable prescience. The story – along with the self-
sacrificial death of Thompson – became central elements in the foun-
dational narrative of the Bhil church. To what extent was it credible?
The mission archives provide us with much fuller details, which
show that the prophecies – in common with oracular pronouncements
in general – were ambiguous enough to be read in numerous ways. They
talked in one breath of a sinless God who was without form, but in the
other stated that they should worship this deity by erecting flags on
their temple and houses – a form of self-identification that was
common in the bhakti worship of devotional Hinduism rather than
Christianity. A famine was prophesied, and persecution and suffering
for the Bhagats, followed by the coming of a person who would give
them what they asked:
This village will become a big city. If you are poor you will be rich. People
will come from different countries to reside here. These hills will be walls
of the city. There will be big bazaars. There will be only one master of the
city, and Dharm [a religious way of life]. On the hill in the middle of the
village a house of God will be built with great rejoicings. To teach and
reform your children, one master will come from the West and another
will come from the North, who will make a complete arrangement. Your
children will learn and become very clever. Some soldiers will come
and judge and give the Raj to the Bhils. The lord of this world and
Righteousness will be one. In those days the cows will graze and return
home without a cowherd. The tiger and goat will drink together. God will
punish liars and deceivers by beheading them.
There were other prophecies, such as that the River Ganges would pass
away.4 Much was thus predicted; the coming of the missionaries ful-
filled only a part of it.
Of all the prophecies made by their guru, the one that more than any
other appeared to have been fulfilled was that of a coming time of
famine and terrible suffering. Like most other Bhils, the Bhagats went
hungry in 1899–1900, and a number abandoned their vows and sur-
vived, as did others, by robbery, looting and killing cattle and other
animals for food. The devout Bhagats refused to act like this, and tried
to save themselves by eating the bark and leaves of trees and selling
grass and wood. Scores of them died of starvation and disease.5 Those
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Although there was a good deal here that does not on the surface appear
very Christian, there would have been enough to serve Laxman Hari’s
purpose in either a direct or an allegorical manner.
A further meeting was held next day which was joined by some
Bhagats from a nearby village. Laxman Hari spoke for three hours
explaining how the prophecies of Surmaldas could each be explained
in the Bible. That night they discussed the matter further amongst
themselves. Sava Suvera was still dubious about the missionaries and
their religion, but found himself in a minority. That night, sitting at
home, he came to a decision to leave the village and live elsewhere. At
midnight he suddenly heard a voice from outside: ‘Son, do not flee:
remain here; this religion of the Christians is the one true religion.
This is the way; Christ is the true Light.’ Startled, he opened his door
and asked who it was who had spoken. There was no reply. Before he
could go back inside, another Bhagat came running to tell him that
he had heard a voice saying the same thing. A third soon followed.
Together, they resolved to write a letter to Walker stating that they
wished to become Christians. Walker agreed to prepare them all for
baptism.10
Following their general attitude towards conversion, the CMS
authorities advised the missionaries on the spot not to get carried away,
but to consolidate their advantage with caution. Walker, for example,
waxed lyrically about his new Bhil friends. Charles Gill, in Allahabad,
responded: ‘I have written to Walker and Birkett, strongly depreciating
haste in baptising any of these men. In my opinion they would be wise
to wait until Outram could be present.’11 In other words, Gill wanted
to them to be sure that these were ‘genuine’ converts who understood
what it meant to be a Christian and not so-called ‘rice-Christians’ who
were in it merely to fill their stomachs.
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it for employment or money. Fifteen of the boys and two Bhil men of
the village passed this test and were baptised next day. They were the
first converts from Biladiya.26 The other forty-two boys at the orphan-
age were also prepared and baptised as and when they were ready. At
Lusadiya, following similar procedures, fifty-four more people were
baptised in December 1902, and thirty-five four months later.27 Before
each baptism, the catechist Prema cut off the topknots, or chotis, of the
males with a pair of scissors.28
A considerable degree of this success could be attributed to the evan-
gelical endeavours of Laxman Hari. Arthur Birkett, who had often seen
him preach, commented on his great rapport with his audience, and
how he managed to convey the fundamentals of Christianity in a way
that could be readily grasped by all.
He had unlimited patience for he would go over the same thing time after
time till they understood it. He would also visit the Bhils in their homes;
and at times of special temptation, as for instance at the Holi festival, he
went at night to their houses to see what they were doing and to encour-
age them to stand fast.
He also translated part of the Prayer Book and some Christian tracts.
He was, said Birkett, devoted to his work, showing little concern for his
own personal comforts.29 Despite this, as an Indian Christian, he was
not deemed to be suited to a position of leadership in the mission. When
he was ordained in 1904, he should by rights have been put in charge of
the Lusadiya mission station, as the acting head, Vyse, had not been
ordained. It was however deemed unacceptable for a white missionary
to be under an Indian, and rather than allow it, the CMS ordered
Hodgkinson – who had also been ordained in 1904 and was the only
other priest with such a status in the Bhil mission then available – to
be transferred to Lusadiya immediately.30 Later, when Rose Carter
wrote her history of the Bhil mission – which celebrates the exploits of
the white missionaries in copious detail – she mentions Laxman Hari
in only one paragraph.31
Arthur and Jane Birkett had come initially on a temporary basis and
had left in August 1902, returning to Lucknow, after which they went
to England on furlough during 1903. In the meantime, the overall
responsibility for the Bhil mission was transferred from the North
Indian to the Central Indian CMS Committee. In 1904, the latter com-
mittee decided to request the North Indian committee to allow Arthur
Birkett to be transferred to the Bhil mission in order to become its
head.32 He was an experienced missionary – he had been in India since
1887 – and had worked with great success in the mission during the
famine. The added advantage was that his wife, Jane Birkett, could
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work as a medical missionary without the need for the CMS to pay a
large additional salary. The North Indian committee agreed to this
rather reluctantly in August 1904, and the Birketts took up their posts
at Lusadiya in December of that year. For the first time, a medically
qualified doctor was now based in the mission on a permanent basis.
By the end of 1902, the schoolroom at Lusadiya had become too
small to contain all those who were now attending church services at
Lusadiya, and it was agreed that a separate building was required. As no
funds were then available for such a purpose, the converts decided in
early 1903 to build their own church. The leading Bhil convert,
Satgurudas, suggested it should be constructed where his house stood,
which was on a prominent hill in the centre of the village. This was the
place where he had heard what he believed to be the voice of God
exhorting him to become a Christian. It was also the place where
Surmaldas had lived, and where he had prophesied that a temple would
in future stand. The house was demolished and a new building erected
in traditional style, using a wooden frame, mud-covered walls and a
tiled roof. It was made large enough to take a congregation of 400, as it
was anticipated that more would soon join their church. It was named
‘Christ Church’ at the request of Satgurudas, and formally consecrated
in February 1904 by the Bishop of Nagpur.33 It stood as a powerful
symbol of the transfer of spiritual power from Surmaldas and the way
of the Bhagats to the Christians and Christianity.
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sports for the boys, bow-and-arrow shooting for the men and a baby
show for the mothers, at which ten babies were jointly awarded the first
prize of Rs. 10. There were also prizes for cattle, ploughing, swimming,
singing, needlework, grinding and cooking. There were poetry recitals,
and Bhil choirs competed in the singing of the canticles.
According to Arthur Birkett, the overall effect of the mela was
extremely positive: ‘The past year has witnessed a greater advance in
the Kingdom of God in the Bhil Mission than any since the Church was
established at Lusadia . . . The most important feature of this advance
was the spiritual perception of the evil of sin, which many received
during the Mela’.37 This breakthrough had taken place on the fourth
and final day of the mela, when about eighty converts got up and con-
fessed past sins:
a rug [that was stolen] years ago; a watch; grain to be sown for the orphan-
age farm turned into money and used for themselves by four young men;
money given to buy lime used for themselves by two others, and a false
account given; a camera broken by an inquisitive servant and always
denied though he was dismissed for it; other acts of deception, pride, anger,
covetousness, and, alas, gross sins of the flesh of long ago and recent. Some
confessed with sobs. None could doubt that the Holy Spirit was deeply at
work, and that the couple of hours thus spent was having more spiritual
effect than years of ordinary work or panchayat investigations.38
Hodgkinson, who had led his congregation from Biladiya to the mela,
was very impressed by the participation of his flock in this mass con-
fession: ‘there were unmistakeable signs that God’s Holy Spirit was
mightily at work, and before its close such confessions had been made
that humbled us to the dust and showed how much of the Kingdom of
darkness there was in our little church. And yet who could but thank
God for such a manifestation of the power of God over the devil!’ 39 The
first to confess sin openly was the Biladiya schoolmaster, a Gujarati
who was the second-highest-paid Indian employee in the whole
mission. He confessed to a theft he had committed several years before,
and he did so before his scholars.
Then followed four senior orphan boys who owned up to stealing and
selling grain which had been given them for sowing. After these there was
a constant succession of those who under the power of conviction con-
fessed, some with tears and sobs, others being scarcely able to utter a
word – so intense was the feeling – sins which must have hindered the
blessing coming to the individual soul, and to the whole church. Sadly,
one of the boys whom I least suspected confessed the most heinous sins.40
In all, Arthur Birkett concluded, the mela had created a strong sense of
unity and common purpose amongst the new converts.41
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After the mela was over the Birketts and Helen Bull camped in
Chhitadara to prepare candidates for confirmation. The first converts –
seven in all – had been baptised there in December 1902, and now there
were thirty-eight Christians. Six agreed to attend the daily class. Others
said they could not as they could not in all conscience promise not to
tell lies. Each year at harvest time they were obliged, they said, to give
false statements to the Baniya merchants and also to the thakor’s rent-
collectors; otherwise they would be left with inadequate subsistence for
the rest of the year. One of the six who came forward confessed that he
had paid men ‘to exorcise evil spirits, which he said were infesting his
house and wife. We did our best to persuade him to give it up, but he said
he did not believe they would be removed in answer to prayer, and
continued the exorcism the next night, so he had to be reported to the
Bishop and was excommunicated with his wife.’ Another was found at
night drunk. The other four, and nine women, were confirmed on 12
December. The male communicants formed a church committee, so that
there was now an organised church there.42 Unfortunately, the Maharaja
of Idar refused to provide any land for a church or school in the village.
There were several problems that concerned the missionaries. One
related to the marriage practices of the Bhils, which gave rise to a great
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made it extremely hard for them to find partners. Some of the young
men who had been brought up at the boys’ orphanage at Biladiya ran
away so that they could find brides in the customary manner, and in
the process abandoned their new faith. Some, frustrated, even commit-
ted the more scandalous sin of taking young women forcibly by raping
them. The missionaries tried to find Christian girls for the young men,
but these were in short supply. In the end, in 1912, the missionaries
agreed to provide money for the boys so that they could offer a bride-
price and thus obtain a ‘heathen’ wife who, it was stipulated, had then
to convert to Christianity.47 Arthur Birkett commented on this that
Bhil girls were of independent mind, and would enter into such a mar-
riage only if they were willing to convert.48
Another problem related to the relationship between Bhil and
untouchable converts. In Gujarat as a whole, most conversions to
Christianity during these years were among people classed as untouch-
ables. Most of them were from central Gujarat, far from the Bhil region;
but a few local untouchables were also converted, which led to ten-
sions. The missionaries demanded that the Bhil converts have full
social contact with them, even eating together. There was great unease
amongst the Bhil converts over this, as was apparent when a Chamar
(untouchable) convert from Biladiya was invited by Hodgkinson to take
a meal with the others at the first meeting of the Gujarat District
Church Council in May 1907. One of the influential Christians of
Lusadiya had gestured for him to sit apart from the Bhil Christians, and
he had done so. Peter Suvera, the brother of Satgurudas and one of the
initial converts in Lusadiya, brought up the issue at the second meeting
of the church council in November 1907. He argued that their social
mixing with the Chamar had brought the church into disrepute and
that its further growth was as a result being hindered. He proposed a
resolution: ‘That if a low caste man is converted he may be received
into the Christian religion but shall eat and drink apart and not touch
any one.’ The missionaries spent a lot of time and effort, as well as
prayer, persuading him to drop the resolution. Some said that they
could not eat with the Chamars as they were polluted through eating
the flesh of animals that had died naturally, including cows. In the
debate it became clear that caste feeling rather than disgust at this
unhygienic habit was at the root of the problem, for some younger con-
verts admitted that they were prepared to eat such carrion if served to
them by a Bhil. The Chamar convert, who was at the meeting, took a
solemn vow before God to abstain from all carrion. In the end, they
agreed to eat with untouchable converts, on condition that no
Christian ate carrion. Anyone who broke this rule would be socially
boycotted. Peter Suvera agreed to accept this, but looked extremely
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unhappy, and he absented himself from the common meal when they
all sat down together to eat.49 Because of this, other Bhils considered
the Christian Bhils to be ritually polluted, and many stopped social
contact with them. This created a growing social divide between
Christian and non-Christian Bhils.
Liquor drinking was considered by the missionaries to be another
great vice of many of the converts. Those who had previously been
Bhagats and followers of Surmaldas had adopted the practices of
respectable castes such as the Brahmans and Baniyas by giving up
drinking liquor and eating meat, but after conversion, many had aban-
doned these two abstinences, which had made life easier for them. The
missionaries had no objection to meat eating, but they were strong
advocates of teetotalism, and preferred the converts to take a vow of
abstinence.50 In 1907, Arthur Birkett encouraged the converts to start
teetotaller societies. The three leading Christians of Lusadiya who had
heard the voice of God – Satgurudas, Peter and Jiva – all eventually
signed the required pledge, to Birkett’s great satisfaction.51
These various issues were discussed further at the first meeting of the
Gujarat District Church Council in May 1907. A resolution was passed
that during marriage no Christian should practise idolatry or follow
superstitions, including omens. Also in marriage, no Christian was to
give or receive brideprice, drink spirits, sing lewd songs or say anything
‘evil’. Arthur Birkett saw these as ideals, being well aware that they
could not be enforced strictly. Only recently, there had been much liquor
drinking and singing of bawdy songs at a Christian wedding, and the
bride’s father was even fined by the Idar authorities for distilling more
liquor than he had a licence to do. The dancing and singing had continued
for three weeks. Birkett believed, however, that there had been no idol
worship during the celebrations, which gave him cause for hope.52
In his address to the Gujarat District Church Council in 1909,
Arthur Birkett listed what he saw as the chief impediments to the
growth of the church in the land of the Bhils. The first was ‘ignorance’.
Very few of the converts were as yet able to read and keep accounts,
which was a great hindrance to the development of self-governing
church councils. They had had to appoint non-Bhil evangelists or
schoolteachers to act as secretaries and treasurers of all the societies
except that at Lusadiya. The second great stumbling block was ‘super-
stition’, by which he meant a continuing belief amongst Christians in
demons and evil spirits. The struggles of Arthur and Jane Birkett in this
respect will be described in Chapter 7. The third great evil was ‘world-
liness’. Converts were still spending too much on wedding celebrations
accompanied by liquor drinking, dancing and the singing of lewd songs.
He denied, however, that interdining with untouchables had hindered
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their work. ‘The real obstacle in the way of the growth of the Church
is sin . . . You cannot build on unsafe foundations, and God will not add
many to our Church till it is clean and pure and holy.’53
Whatever the truth of Birkett’s diagnosis, the fact was that during the
next decade there were very few fresh conversions to Christianity.
Writing in 1918, the missionary Walter Wyatt calculated that only
about ten to twelve adult Bhils had been baptised during the past eight
years. He felt that one important reason was that they had been unable
to attract Indian Christian lay pastors and evangelists of sufficient
quality to work for the church.54 Laxman Hari had left the mission in
1910 as a result of continuing ill health compounded by the loss of one
of his children to blackwater fever. He was transferred to work in
Bombay city, where life would be easier for him and his family, and
nobody of comparable evangelical talent was found to replace him.55
This however was only one reason – and not the most important – for
the lack of progress; more significant was the backlash against conver-
sion that occurred during these years.
The backlash
Many high-caste Hindus had from the start been uneasy with the pres-
ence of the missionaries amongst the Bhils. The Indian officers of the
MBC, as we have seen already, had done their best to prevent Bhil
sepoys from converting, and to a large extent they had succeeded in
this. High-caste people of Idar State tried similarly to hinder mission-
ary work in their region. When the Bhils of Jesingpur began to show an
interest in Christianity, the high castes of a neighbouring village con-
demned the Christians for eating with all sorts of polluted people,
stating that if they converted other Bhils would despise them.56 Despite
this, a substantial number of Bhils of the village did decide to be
baptised.57 When the missionaries were camping at the village of
Kanthariya, some Brahmans began a strident counter-campaign and
caused the missionaries considerable difficulty. When a young Bhil of
the village decided to convert, the Brahmans put pressure on his family,
and he changed his mind.58 Writing in 1913, Arthur Birkett argued that
the high castes were opposing them almost everywhere: ‘The great
reason for opposing us is that we educate & raise the most oppressed of
their peoples, & all the higher castes feel that if they can read & keep
accounts their chances of making them work & getting money out of
them are much diminished.’59
The opposition to the work of Christian missionaries by caste
Hindus was becoming more focused and strident during the first decade
of the twentieth century. This was due in part to the growing influence
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of the Arya Samaj and Indian nationalists in the region as a whole. The
Arya Samaj had in the closing years of the nineteenth century begun a
campaign to reclaim people in India who had been supposedly ‘lost’ to
Hinduism, most notably Muslims and Christians, through a ceremony
of purification known as shuddhi.60 It was held that various people or
communities had been converted to ‘non-Indian’ religions through
aggressive proselytism, and that these converts would in time swamp
the Hindus of India. Hindu nationalist propagandists, who were gaining
considerable influence at this time, stoked these fears and promoted
such a campaign.61 These sentiments gained considerable ground
within Gujarat from 1905 onwards, soon becoming for the high castes
a dogma of the sort that passes for ‘common sense’.62
The Arya Samaj gained considerable ground in Idar State during the
first decade of the twentieth century. Dolatsingh, the adopted heir of
Maharaja Pratapsingh, was known to be sympathetic towards the sect,
and he was in a particularly influential position in the state as had been
made Dewan, or chief minister. In 1905, he noticed that three new
mission schools had been opened in the previous year without permis-
sion from the state, and he ordered them to be closed immediately. The
missionaries had to conform to this order. He gave strict instructions
that no new schools were to be opened anywhere without the express
permission of the state, and he then ensured that such permission was
always refused. This hindered the educational expansion of the mission
considerably. He also refused to allow the mission to build churches,
rest houses or any other infrastructure in Chhitadara and Jesingpur –
both of which had good numbers of Bhil converts.63 The Arya Samaj
was encouraged to open two schools for Bhils. Books, slates and cloth-
ing were provided for the pupils free of charge, and by 1906 fifty Bhil
boys were attending the schools.64 The state was not however prepared
to fund this work from its own coffers – in general, it spent almost
nothing on welfare for its Bhil population – and with a drying-up of
donations to the Arya Samaj after the decline of the initial burst of
nationalist zeal in the 1905–10 period, both schools were forced to close
in 1910–11.65
There was another important reason for the new hostility of the Idar
authorities towards the missionaries. The continuing struggle between
the state and the thakors, which was alluded to in Chapter 3, had
become particularly intense at this time, and the missionaries became
caught up in this running encounter. The old ruler, Keshrisinghji – who
had been largely sympathetic towards the missionaries – died in 1901,
and his infant heir died soon after. A new ruler, Pratapsingh, had to be
brought in from Jodhpur in 1902. He found Idar to be a very small and
insignificant town compared with Jodhpur, with a ‘palace’ that was by
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his standards little more than a house. The annual revenue of the state
was by his standards very paltry, and he drew up plans to enhance the
revenue through new taxes. He also decided to build a grand and costly
palace at a new capital city to the south of Idar town that was named
Himatnagar. Because most people lived in villages controlled by
thakors who were responsible for setting and raising their own taxes,
Pratapsingh found it hard to raise revenues sufficient to realise his
grandiose plans. In 1903 he put out a proclamation declaring that he had
a full right to the dues from customs and liquor stills, grazing and reg-
istration fees and a variety of other sources. As the thakors had never
conceded such rights, they saw the proclamation as an attack on their
ancient prerogatives, and they met it with a storm of protest. This con-
tinued over the next eight years until, in 1911, Pratapsingh abdicated
in exasperation and returned to Jodhpur, leaving the thirty-five-year-old
Dolatsingh to succeed.66 The latter was to continue as ruler up until his
death in 1931, being a continuing thorn in the side of the missionaries.
He was however always conscious that the missionaries had the ear of
the British political agents, who were ever on the lookout for evidence
of misrule in princely states. He therefore had to be subtle in the way
he opposed the Christians.
Dolatsingh continued the battle against the thakors. During the First
World War he used the imperial emergency as an excuse to issue an
order to the thakors to provide military service to the state, failing
which they were to provide a large amount of cash in compensation, to
be levied on a sliding scale according to their income. After protest, he
was forced to reduce the demand by a third. The new tax was collected
in a harsh and coercive manner, causing great hardship to many
thakors. A. S. Meek, who served as the Political Agent of Mahi Kantha
in the 1920s, considered Dolatsingh a man of particularly flawed char-
acter. He listed his deficiencies in words that ran the whole gamut of
the stereotype of the ‘Oriental Despot’ – he was a ‘tyrant Indian Ruler’,
being oppressive and extortionate towards his subjects, cruel, vicious
and morally debauched. His state was ‘seething with discontent.’67
Whatever the truth of this verdict, it was one with which the mission-
aries largely agreed. As Birkett stated in a letter to London of 1914: ‘Our
Ruler has good cause to dread exposure’.68 Nonetheless, Birkett and his
colleagues were careful to moderate their language in written docu-
ments, fearing that if their remarks came to the notice of the maharaja,
he might make life yet more difficult for them.69
Some of the thakors appear to have tried to use the missionaries in
their struggle with the maharaja. For example, in the period immedi-
ately after the great famine, two of the thakors near Biladiya had been
very hostile to the mission. One of them, the Thakor of Pal, had threat-
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Until you live in a Native State you can have no idea how jealous they
are of outside interference or indeed of any outsider knowing anything
about their internal affairs. The Rulers do not even like their sirdars
[thakors] playing polo or tennis with English officers lest they should let
out something in friendly talks.73
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The growing hostility of the state towards the missionaries had its
impact on the Bhils. When W. Hodgkinson tried in 1905 to persuade
some Bhils of Kanthariya village to take instruction with a view to
baptism, they told him: ‘We are quite ready to do this, but we are few
in number and very poor, and if we become Christians, the other vil-
lagers around us will cut us off, and the Ruler of the State will perse-
cute us.’ Despite their interest in Christian doctrine, they showed no
desire to convert.75
Over the years, Arthur Birkett tried time after time to gain permis-
sion to open new schools, but failed repeatedly. In 1917, the Bishop of
Bombay took the matter up with the Government of Bombay, asking it
to intercede in the matter.76 The Political Agent in Mahi Kantha,
W. Beale, mentioned the matter to Dolatsingh when they met in 1918.
The maharaja told him that he opposed the schools because the mis-
sionaries ‘were inclined to meddle in State matters and go beyond their
province’.77 He later wrote to Beale stating that some of the mission
teachers of Pal had played a role in ‘creating Bhil trouble there’, and he
was therefore reluctant to allow any more mission schools in his
state.78 Dolatsingh was nevertheless unwilling to turn down Beale’s
request outright, and said that as the Bishop of Bombay was so anxious
to have extra schools, he was prepared to consider allowing a school to
be opened at Devni Mori, so long as ‘I am assured by the Mission that
the Mission teachers will in future mind their own business, and
behave themselves loyally and faithfully towards the State’.79 The
Political Department in Bombay informed the Bishop of Bombay of
this, and he replied to them that the charge against the mission was a
serious one, and he asked for more information and evidence. As it was,
he felt that it was an ‘insinuation, which of course is a hackneyed accu-
sation against mission work by persons, especially in native states, who
do not approve of it’. He insisted that CMS missions ‘have always incul-
cated obedience to the State’. If anything could be proved to the con-
trary, the persons responsible would be punished.80
Idar was not the only state to oppose such educational work. When
a thakor of Dungarpur State, just over the border in Rajasthan, gave the
mission some land for a school – which they promptly constructed –
the Maharaja reprimanded him and then discriminated against him in
a variety of petty ways. The state officials harassed him and his Bhil
subjects, demanding free services from them, to the extent that the
latter began to threaten to leave the place and settle elsewhere.
Commenting on this, Arthur Birkett noted that in the unlikely event
of a thakor being converted to Christianity he would suffer the wrath
of his ruler, his lands would be depopulated and he would almost cer-
tainly be ruined.81
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Notes
11 Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, pp. 26–31.
12 Ibid., pp. 27–8.
13 Ibid., pp. 29–31.
14 ‘Second Letter from the Bhagats’, North India Church Missionary Gleaner
(September 1901), 52. The oral tradition includes some extra prophecies by
Surmaldas that it is claimed were later fulfilled, such as the coming of carts without
bullocks (e.g. cars and lorries), sky-carts (e.g. aeroplanes) and a message from across
the seas that is good and true (e.g. Christianity). Interview with Surjibhai
Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002.
15 ‘Second Letter from the Bhagats’, 52.
16 Edward Walker to Durrant, Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, 9 April 1902, CMS,
G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 184.
17 Mrs A. I. Birkett to Gill, 21 December 1901, ibid., doc. 130.
18 ‘Second Letter from the Bhagats’, 52.
19 Ibid.
10 Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, pp. 29–31. Sava – who changed his
name to Satgurudas after conversion – told his full story to the Reverend S. R. Morse,
who visited Lusadiya in April 1911. Arthur Birkett acted as translator. Morse said
he had been initially sceptical about the idea that Satgurudas had heard a supernat-
ural voice, but after sitting and talking with him he became convinced that it had
indeed been the voice of God. See S. R. Morse, ‘A Visit to the Bhils’, The Church
Missionary Gleaner (2 October 1911), 155. According to Surjibhai Suvera, who is
Satgurudas’s grandson, the other two Bhagats who heard a voice were Satgurudas’s
brother Ghera Soma (who later took the name Peter) and Jiva. Interview with
Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002.
11 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 27 September 1901, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1901, doc. 431.
12 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 11 November 1901, ibid., doc. 483.
13 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 6 November 1901, ibid., doc. 476; Dr Simpson to Gill,
Coonoor, 28 January 1902, ibid., doc. 129; Edward Walker to Durrant, Enniskerry,
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Co. Wicklow, Ireland, 9 April 1902, ibid., doc. 184; Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 28
September 1903, CMS, G2 I 7/0, 1903, doc. 364.
14 ‘The Mission Field: North-West Provinces’, Intelligentsia (February 1902), 131.
15 W. H. Hodgkinson, ‘The Bhil Mission’, The North India Church Missionary Gleaner
(November 1902), 77.
16 A. Outram to Gill, Kherwara, 31 October 1901, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1901, doc. 478.
17 Gill to Durrant, 13 December 1901, ibid., doc. 576.
18 Gill to Durrant, Mussoorie, 18 September 1902, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 397; ‘The
Mission Field: North-West Provinces’, Intelligentsia (September 1902), 691.
19 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 29 May 1902, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 285.
20 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 20 June 1902, ibid., doc. 321.
21 Arthur Outram to Durrant, Kherwara, 25 April 1904, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1904, doc. 34.
He resigned formerly from the mission after his return to England. Outram to Fox,
Tunbridge Wells, 15 December 1904, ibid., doc. 102.
22 G. C. Vyse, ‘Kherwara’, Kherwara, March 1905, BMR, 1904, 8.
23 Dr A. Murphy, Kherwara, 16 September 1902, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1902, doc. 453.
24 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 13 November 1902, ibid., doc. 451.
25 ‘The Mission Field: The United Provinces’, Intelligentsia (April 1903), 295.
26 W. H. Hodgkinson, ‘The Bhil Mission’, The North India Church Missionary Gleaner
(November 1902), 77.
27 ‘The Mission Field: The United Provinces’, Intelligentsia (April 1903), 295; Gill to
Durrant, Allahabad, 16 April 1903, CMS, G2 I 7/0, 1903, doc. 185.
28 Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, p. 36.
29 Rev. A. I. Birkett to Gill, Lucknow, 9 May 1903, CMS, G2 I 7/0, 1903, doc. 256.
30 The Birketts had left the mission in August 1902, returning later in 1904. Herbert
Moloney (Secretary, Jabalpur Corresponding Committee) to Durrant, Balaghat
(Central Provinces), 23 March 1904, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1904, doc. 20; Moloney to
Durrant, Mandla, 4 May 1904, ibid., doc. 36.
31 Carter, Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, pp. 28–9.
32 Proceedings of the Jabalpur Corresponding Committee, 12 July 1904, CMS, G2 I 8/0,
1904, doc. 68.
33 ‘The Mission Field: The United Provinces’, Intelligentsia (April 1903), 295; G. S.
Vyse, ‘A Prediction Verified’, The Church Missionary Gleaner, 357 (September
1903), 141–2; Eyre, Bishop of Nagpur, ‘The Bishop’s Quarterly Letter’, Jubbulpore, 19
March 1904, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1904, doc. 43; Morse, ‘A Visit to the Bhils’, 155; Carter,
Battling and Building amongst the Bhils, pp. 37–9.
34 BMR (1904), 2. Chhitadara, now in Meghraj Takula of Sabarkantha District, was
spelt ‘Khetadra’ in the mission records.
35 A. I. Birkett, Weston-super-Mare, 14 January 1908, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1908, doc. 12.
36 A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1907), 3–4.
37 A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 3. It may be noted that the missionaries spelt the
village ‘Lusadia’, whereas I have used the more accurate transliteration ‘Lusadiya’,
except in cases of direct quotation. A similar rule applies to ‘Biladia’, ‘Biladiya’.
38 A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 4–5.
39 W. Hodgkinson, ‘Biladia’, 17 January 1907, BMR (1906), 20.
40 This ‘heinous sin’ was not elaborated on. Ibid., 21.
41 A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 3.
42 A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 8.
43 On this, see A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 24 October 1907, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1907,
doc. 88.
44 A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 2 March 1906, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1906, doc. 31.
45 A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, Lusadiya, 4 April 1905, BMR (1904), 4.
46 A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 6.
47 Robert Hack, Acting Secretary, Jabalpur, to Durrant, 22 March 1912, CMS, G2 I 8/0,
1912, doc. 11.
48 A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Weston super Mare, 6 July 1912, ibid., doc. 28. In this letter,
Birkett provides a detailed report on Bhil marriage customs and the various pay-
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ments that had to be made to villagers, Brahman priests, musicians etc., all of which
shows that many local people would have lost a source of income when Christians
were married.
49 A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 24 October 1907, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1907, doc. 88;
A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1907), 5–7.
50 When Birkett was told that the CMS was searching for a new missionary for
Kherwara, he wrote to London stating that he very much hoped that the chosen man
would be a teetotaller, as drink was one of the chief ‘besetting sins of the Bhils’. A. I.
Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 24 October 1907, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1907, doc. 88.
51 A. I. Birkett, Lusadiya, 19 May 1908, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1908, doc. 48.
52 A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1907), 4–5.
53 A. I. Birkett, ‘Chairman’s Address to the Gujarati District Church Council, 1909’,
The Third Annual Report of the Indian Church Council Comprising the C.M.S.
Congregations in the Diocese of Nagpur, 1909: Minutes of the Central and District
Church Councils with Statistics (Jabalpur: Christian Mission Press, 1910),
pp. 18–21, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1910, doc. 72.
54 W. Wyatt to E. F. E. Wigram, 18 June 1918, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1918, doc. 60.
55 E. A. Hensley to Durrant, Jabalpur, 11 November 1909 and 26 January 1910, CMS,
G2 I 8/0, 1909, doc. 102.
56 Helen Bull, ‘Jesingpur, near Lusadia’, BMR (1906), 15–16.
57 In 1911, there were fifty-two Christians in Jesingpur. BMR (1911), 3.
58 W. Hodgkinson, Biladiya, 15 January 1911, BMR (1911), 7–8.
59 A. I. Birkett to Waller, Weston super Mare, 25 September 1913, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1913,
doc. 55.
60 J. T. F. Jordens, Dayananda Saraswati: Essays on his Life and Ideas (New Delhi:
Manohar, 1998), pp. 163–8.
61 For the development of such a consciousness in Bengal, see Pradip Datta, ‘Dying
Hindus: Production of Hindu Communal Consciousness in Early Twentieth
Century Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly (19 June 1993).
62 David Hardiman, ‘Purifying the Nation: The Arya Samaj in Gujarat 1895–1930’,
Indian Economic and Social History Review, 44:1 (2007), 41–65.
63 A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 23 August 1905, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1905, doc. 140;
A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, Lusadiya, 4 April 1905, BMR (1904), 4 and 6.
64 Deputy Educational Inspector, Mahi Kantha to the Educational Inspector, Northern
Division, Sadra, 24 April 1906, GSAV, CRR, Daftar 54, F 63, 1905–6.
65 Administration Report of the Idar State for the Year Ending 31 March 1911, OIOC,
V/10/1220, p. 33. It may be noted that the Arya Samaj paper, Arya Patrika, published
in Lahore, had in its issue of 31 July 1909 complained of the unwillingness of Arya
Samajists to fund social work that could provide an adequate challenge to Christian
missionaries. In particular, it argued, they had lost the initiative over medical work.
Quoted in ‘Editorial Notes’, Mercy and Truth (October 1909), 321.
66 Major A. S. Meek, ‘A Discursive Note on some Salient Features of Idar Affairs from
the Fall of the Rao Dynasty till Recent Times’, OIOC, R/2/149/106, pp. 1–5;
Administration Report of the Idar State for the Year Ending 31 March 1912, OIOC,
V/10/1220, p. 2.
67 Meek, ‘A Discursive Note’, pp. 5–15.
68 A. I. Birkett to E. H. M. Waller, 24 June 1914, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1914, doc. 31.
69 Birkett thus cautioned in a private letter to the CMS secretary that on no account
should their critical views of the maharaja be allowed to be voiced in any printed
reports, lest they happen to come into his hands. He was extremely sensitive to even
the slightest criticism, and it would cause great harm to the mission. A. I. Birkett to
Durrant, Bombay, 9 May 1907, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1907, doc. 62.
70 W. Hodgkinson, ‘Biladia’, 17 January 1907, BMR (1906), 21–2.
71 A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, 4 April 1905, BMR (1904), 3.
72 Framroz Sorabji Master, The Mahi Kantha Directory, 1 (Rajkot: Laxmi Printing
Press, 1922), pp. 96–7.
73 A. I. Birkett to E. H. M. Waller, 24 June 1914, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1914, doc. 31.
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74 Ibid.
75 W. Hodgkinson, ‘Biladia’, January 1906, BMR (1905), 17.
76 Edwin James, Bishop of Bombay, 10 July 1917, GSAV, CRR, no. 1382 of 1919.
77 W. Beale, 1 February 1918, GSAV, CRR, no. 1382 of 1919.
78 The nature of this ‘Bhil trouble’ is not stated in this source, but it may have referred
to disputes in which certain thakors and their Bhil subjects were allied against the Idar
authorities, with the missionaries benefiting from the new friendliness of the thakors.
79 W. Beale, quoting the Maharaja of Idar’s letter to him, Idar, 13 March 1918, GSAV,
CRR, no. 1382 of 1919.
80 Edwin James to Robertson, Bombay, 22 March 1918, GSAV, CRR, no. 1382 of 1919.
81 A. I. Birkett to Waller, Weston super Mare, 25 September 1913, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1913,
doc. 55.
82 R. Hack to G. B. Durrant, 21 June 1912, CMS G2 I 8/0 1912, doc. 24.
83 Interview with Captain Stockley, 20 May 1914, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1914, doc. 17.
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CHAPTER SIX
Christian healing
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The more serious cases that were beyond the competence of the mis-
sionaries were passed on – if the patient was willing – to the MBC
doctors, especially if surgery was required.6
Writing in 1888, Thompson reported that he had secured £36 worth
of medicine from England, which he was dispensing.7 These ‘medicines’
appear to have included carbolic acid, Epson salts and quinine, the latter
being a drug that was becoming much more widely available in India at
this time.8 A colleague of his, W. B. Collins, reported in the early 1890s:
Just now malarial fever is the rage, and Epson salts and quinine go fast;
by-and-by, in camp, I shall have foul sores, which no doctor would have
the chance of seeing unless he belonged to the Mission, as they won’t
come in to Kherwara, as I said before. I can only give carbolic acid lotions
and afterwards some healing ointments. They often come for enlarged
spleen, which I cannot treat, ophthalmia, which I can generally cure, and
lots of other things mostly quite beyond me. My list of ailments which I
can help them in is not much over twelve, yet sometimes, on some days,
I am even four or more hours treating and dispensing.9
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system had not been changed in any profound way through such a
contact. The same was true in regard to the medical work carried out
by the missionaries during these early years. A good number of Bhils
sought out the missionaries when they were in pain and the need was
pressing, but this did not mean that they would change their beliefs
about disease and disease causation in any profound way, still less be
attracted to Christianity. The missionaries had become merely one
more resource for the Bhils in their arsenal of possible remedies.
Because this was so, their medical work was not seen to pose any threat
to the local healers, such as the bhopas and buvas. In Lusadiya, for
example, there was at that time a Bhil buva called Jivabhai who was
skilled in the use of jantra-mantra (miraculous spells) and rituals
involving the sacrifice of goats and chickens. Many Bhils were still sus-
picious of the vilayati dava, or ‘foreign medicine’, and his services con-
tinued to be much in demand. He did not regard the missionaries as his
rivals and he made no attempt to hinder their work.16
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erected some sheds on top of a nearby hill to isolate and treat cholera
patients to the best of their limited abilities. According to Outram,
writing in May 1900, they managed to save a good number of the girls
at the orphanage who were sent to these sheds, attributing this to the
fact that they had been getting regular meals.21 A report written two
months later was less positive; many of the orphan girls had, it said,
died from ‘famine diarrhoea’, scurvy and other complaints.22
As we have seen in Chapter 4, Dr A. H. Browne arrived in July 1900
to help at the relief centres on a temporary basis. The people were, he
said, like ‘living skeletons.’ He began by separating the sick, diseased
and dying children from the healthy. They were all, he said, repulsively
dirty, and he had them cleaned up. The sick were given Benger’s food,
but they were so weak in most cases that little could be done for them.
Many died each day despite his care. His ‘hospital’ at Biladiya con-
sisted of a small hut that the mission had purchased from a local
person. It had a tile roof and walls on three sides of bamboo matting
plastered with mud. One side was entirely open to the elements.
Although it was really adequate for only about twelve to fourteen
adults, seventy patients were housed in it, of whom about thirty were
children. Empty grain sacks were provided for them to lie on and for
covering their bodies, but as there were not enough sacks to go round,
many had to lie on the bare floor without any covering. There were
many others who needed to be housed – as the first rains had broken –
but there was no room in the shed, so that they had to suffer in the
open.23
Jane Birkett was the first doctor to work for the mission for an
extended period, arriving in November 1900 and working in the Idar
State villages for almost two years in the first instance. She began at
Bavaliya, and provided an initial report after only five days that brings
out vividly the daunting medical problems she was faced with at that
time. Bavaliya had a ‘hospital’ that consisted of a small hut similar to
the one at Biladiya. In her words: ‘When I first saw the place I groaned
in spirit, it was so unsanitary; but . . . we tried to make the best of it –
we raised the mud floor, and knocked out some of the plaster from the
bamboo work so as to provide windows’.24 The patients were nursed by
Ganki, a Bhil girl aged about fourteen or fifteen who had learnt to read
and write at the mission school and who lived on the premises. She had
worked there throughout the famine, caring for those with cholera. On
arrival, Jane Birkett found three men, two women and two children
lying sick with dysentery, diarrhoea, fever and spongy gums. One of the
children died the first night, and the other – a boy – had a dangerously
high temperature. Soon after, one of the women died; she was deeply
jaundiced. Birkett commented:
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Everybody in this valley seems to be down with fever, and almost every-
one has a huge spleen. There is a little dysentery about. One thing that
catches the eye at once is the scars from burns that are to be seen on the
abdomen and legs of every other man or woman you meet. They were
inflicted during the cholera epidemic, and burning the skin over the seat
of pain seems to be the only idea of treatment that the natives here have.25
The only drugs she found were half an ounce of quinine, two or three
phials of chlorodyne and ‘cholera cures’, a few tabloids of Dover’s
powder and ‘Livingstone Rousers’.26 She asked her husband to order a
fresh supply of drugs from Bombay. She noted that in the whole of that
valley – and she believed other valleys in the region – there was no
Hakim or any other ‘native medicine man’. There was thus a lot of
scope, she felt, for a full medical mission.27
Her work was carried on in what she described as ‘a very primitive
style’. She dared not carry out any operations, except of the most minor
types, as the place was so unsanitary, and she had to advise those who
needed surgery to go to hospitals in Ahmedabad or Bombay. This,
Birkett observed, hardly increased the confidence of the people in
mission medicine. With better facilities, she could have treated a
number of people in a way that would have made a big impression in
the area. She mentioned a number of such cases – including a tumour,
cancer of the lip, a large abscess that killed the patient eventually, a
very large hernia, a grossly swollen leg and numerous cataracts.28
The reports written by Dr A. H. Browne and then Dr Jane Birkett
focused strongly on the bodily afflictions suffered by the Bhils. Browne’s
description of the famine victims, for example, had a precise clinical
tone that set it out from the famine reports of the other missionaries:
Give one of these a slight touch and down the person goes; then it is
piteous to see him trying to get up again. With the hands one leg is bent
and then the other; afterwards by turning the body he gets on to the knees
and rests the weight of the trunk on both hands, the arms being straight-
ened. From this position many can get no further without help, and at last
when the erect position is totteringly gained you see a gaunt figure com-
posed of bones covered with loose skin. From their hips to the feet there
is no change in thickness – just long straight bones covered with skin; the
abdomen in many cases can be encircled by my two hands; the ribs stand
out, and trench-like depressions of the skin mark plainly the spaces
between the ribs; the condition of the arms is something like that of the
legs; the cheek-bones are very prominent through sinking in of the
cheeks, and the eyes are unduly large, or, to use the loose expression,
appear to be starting out of their sockets.29
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afflicted, as well as the exact treatment that she had applied for each
malady. There was none of that vagueness in detail that was found in
earlier accounts of medical work by non-qualified missionaries. The
doctors also placed great stress on the medical inadequacy of the build-
ings in which they had to treat their patients, which were depicted as
being dirty, cramped and ill equipped. For the first time, also, the
patients and their treatments were recorded, so that from this time
onwards medical statistics setting out the numbers of new patients,
returning patients, outpatients, inpatients, cases of minor surgery,
major surgery and babies delivered became a feature of the annual
reports.
Missionaries such as Brown and Birkett, with their medical training,
were thus describing the conditions that were to be alleviated and the
methods adopted in a language not seen before in reports from this
mission. Poverty and suffering were being depicted less in moralistic
and Biblical terms and more through measurable symptoms and struc-
tures. Malnutrition, diseases of poverty, unhygienic living spaces and
lack of medical facilities now became central indices of civilisational
backwardness. In time, the language of all missionaries was to move in
such a direction.
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she had to work at Lusadiya. Her consulting room was hardly more
than three metres square and had a large window on the south-east side
that let in a lot of sun, so that she had to keep her large and cumber-
some sola topi on her head while examining patients. Although the
temperature in the room was bearable during the cold season, it was sti-
fling in the hot season. The medical staff had to see all the patients
there, both men and women, and the Indian medical assistant,
E. Reuben, also compounded medicine and carried out dressing there.
The medical assistant’s house was similarly inadequate, with only two
tiny rooms for Reuben, his wife and three children. There was space in
it for only one bed, so that most had to sleep on the floor. This, Jane
Birkett said was ‘a real trial to an educated town bred man’. They also
needed some inpatient facilities to care for people from distant villages.
In the previous week, she had been forced to house a man from Biladiya
in a temporary house built for the servants. There had to be separate
wards for men and women. She submitted plans for two small rooms
for this purposes, which she had dignified by the title of ‘hospital’. She
intended to use famine relief money to pay for the construction of a new
dispensary, the ‘hospital’ and the assistant’s quarters, which she esti-
mated would come to Rs. 1,500, or £100. Her request – which was very
modest considering that this was for a medical mission’s chief facility
– was immediately accepted in full by the CMS authorities.31
The building went ahead, supervised by Arthur Birkett, who, as
noted earlier, had architectural training. Just as his wife was able to
deploy the technology of biomedicine in the service of the mission, so
was he equipped to create an architecture that would provide a visible
identity to the mission as well order its internal space.32 The Thakor of
Karchha, who ruled Lusadiya, provided the land free of charge on the
understanding that he and his relatives would be treated there at no
cost. The one-storeyed buildings were in local style, being built of brick
with pitched tiled roofs and with one small window in each room. The
largest construction was the three-roomed house for the hospital assis-
tant, which measured 12.5 by 8.5 metres, with a veranda running along
one side. The dispensary was another three-roomed structure with
verandas on two sides, containing a room for male patients, and a room
for female patients – each about 3 metres square – and a room for drug
compounding and medical stores that measured about 2 by 3 metres.
The ‘hospital’ for inpatients consisted of two single-room buildings
that each measured about 7 by 4.5 metres. Each had space for four beds.
The building work was completed in the summer of 1905, just before
the rain came.33
Birkett’s initial medical assistant, Reuben, was replaced in August
1905 by an Indian Christian called John Brand. He was to work with her
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consisted of three rooms holding four beds each and an examining room
in which treatment could be carried out with the seclusion and privacy
demanded by ‘ladies’.47 During that year, 189 people were treated as
inpatients.
Over the years, the thakors continued to send their family members
to Lusadiya for treatment. Often, they made up a significant proportion
of the inpatients. Some showed a polite interest in Christianity and
even purchased Bibles and hymnbooks for their own elucidation.48 Jane
Birkett continued to hope against hope that some would be converted:
‘we long that these gentry should realise that our Saviour is their
Saviour too, as well as the Saviour of the Bhils’.49 Her hope was not to
be realised.50 Caring for this class was nonetheless of importance, for it
won their sympathy and made them less likely to obstruct the mis-
sionaries in their work.
The numbers of patients treated at Lusadiya increased year by year.
Figures from the CMS medical mission journal Mercy and Truth show
that the numbers of outpatient treatments rose from 15,331 in 1910 to
18, 596 in 1915, and that number of inpatients increased from 99 in 1910
to 226 in 1915. The number of minor operations increased from 158 in
1910 to 309 in 1915. Besides this, Jane Birkett and John Brand toured the
surrounding villages treating people. This practice was known in
mission circles as ‘medical itineration’. The purpose was to demonstrate
the value of modern medical treatment and gain the confidence of the
people so that they might be encouraged to go to the mission hospital
when sick. Patients were preached to, and it was hoped that the way
would be then open for ordinary evangelical work at a later time.51
Writing in 1907, Jane Birkett reported that the main problems treated on
tour were fever, enlarged spleen, ophthalmia, skin diseases and ulcers.
Birkett and Brand found that most Bhils were reluctant to come to see
them and they had to go from house to house finding people who
required treatment.52 They often encountered much suspicion. When
she upbraided a Bhil woman for failing to seek treatment for her baby
who was suffering from a bad case of ophthalmia, the reply was: ‘I am
told that if I take her to you and you put medicine in her eye the eye will
burst!’ She applied caustic and the baby’s eyes were soon healed.53
In some years, the missionaries undertook longer tours that com-
bined medical with evangelical work. They took tents with them and
sometimes camped out for months at a time. These tours were carried
out in the winter when the weather was cooler. For example, in 1914
Jane and Arthur Birkett left Lusadiya at the end of November and made
for the large village of Tintoi. They camped there for three days.
This was a village from which many had visited the Lusadiya hospital,
and as they were well known, people besieged their tent requesting
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that the main hospital should be served by what were known as ‘affili-
ated dispensaries’. They dealt with simple conditions, with more
complex cases being passed on to the hospital. It was not expected that
they would be run by European doctors, who were few and far between,
but either by European missionaries who had some basic medical train-
ing or by Indian medical assistants trained at a mission hospital. They
were envisaged as being largely for outpatients, though a few beds might
be necessary for a limited number of inpatients.58 Margaret Hodgkinson,
who had trained for a term at the CMS medical hostel in England before
she went out to India to marry the Reverend William Hodgkinson, ran
the Biladiya dispensary from 1903 to 1913. In 1905 she treated five
hundred cases, sending those who needed more serious attention either
to Lusadiya or to the MBC doctor at Kherwara. She reported that ‘The
Bhils have such faith in our medicine that even before they take it, they
make up their minds that it is going to do them good and this goes a long
way towards their recovery.’59 Her work soon expanded – in 1906 she
treated over 1,800 cases. She reported that almost every family in
Biladiya village itself had taken treatment from her at some time or
other. She was often called out to see sick people in their homes at night,
and the people were very thankful to her for this. She was hard stretched
to do all the work, as she had two infants of her own to look after.
Patients from a distance were accommodated in a spare room in the
mission compound in 1905, but in 1906 this was required for other pur-
poses and she appealed for some money to build a small ward.60
In 1907, she treated 1,907 cases. Often, she said, the children who
were brought to see her required food as much as any medicine. With
better funding, they could provide this. She also reported that some
people who had refused to take treatment in previous years were now
coming to the dispensary. The local people had been particularly
impressed by her success in healing a woman from a neighbouring
village who had been badly gored by a bull, with the horn puncturing
her lung. She had gone to her at night and found the woman in a very
bad way, with air escaping from her lung at every breath. She bandaged
the wound, and after a month of careful dressing it healed completely.
She commented: ‘All the Bhils had quite made up their minds that she
must die and consequently the praises I get on all sides are most enthu-
siastic. I am sure it has done a great deal to break down prejudice and it
has been the means I am certain of winning their confidence.’ She had
confidence, she said, that the work would provide ‘the means of bring-
ing many a sin-stricken Bhil to the Great Physician to get all his needs
satisfied for time and eternity’.61
This was the last extensive report on the Biladiya dispensary
for many years, so it is hard to judge how the work continued there.
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She still had to advise patients who needed more complex surgery to go
elsewhere, but in her experience few were willing to undertake such a
hazardous journey to places that for them were strange and unknown.68
Despite this, the Lusadiya medical facilities had in general gained a
good reputation in the region. In her final report, Birkett praised her
assistant, John Brand, highly. He had, she said ‘built up a great reputa-
tion by his integrity and devotion. He is highly respected by gentry and
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Notes
11 ‘From the Rev. G. Litchfield, Kherwara’, Intelligencer, 11 NS (May and June 1886), 414.
12 Edward P. Herbert to Durrant, Kherwara, 4 January 1898, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1898,
doc. 58.
13 ‘From the Rev. C. S. Thompson, Kherwara (Bheel Mission), Central Provinces’,
CMSE (1887–88), 95.
14 ‘From the Rev. E. P. Herbert, Kherwara, North-West Provinces’, CMSE (1896), 140.
15 Ibid., p. 139.
16 Herbert to Carter, Pol. Agent, Mahi Kantha, Kherwara, 6 August 1898, GSAV, CRR,
Daftar 51, F 45.
17 ‘From the Rev. C. S. Thompson, Kherwara (Bheel Mission), Central Provinces’,
CMSE (1887–88), 95.
18 Harrison, Public Health in British India, p. 160.
19 W. B. Collins, Kherwara, 7 October 1893, Intelligencer, 19 NS (March 1894), 211–12.
10 Horace Mould to Political Agent, Mahi Kantha, Kherwara, 24 July 1899, GSAV, CRR,
Daftar 51, F 46.
11 Lieutenant Colonel J. M. Hunter, Acting Pol. Agent, Mahi Kanta, to Govt. of
Bombay, Sadra, 21 May 1892, MKAAR, OIOC, V/10/1543 (1890–91 to 1908–09),
1891–92, pp. 35–6.
12 The Bishop of Exeter to Ireland Jones, Exeter, 30 July 1896, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1896,
doc. 320.
13 C. S. Thompson, ‘The Bheels’, The Church Missionary Gleaner (October 1897), 149.
14 Thompson to Dr Lankester, Sydenham, 12 October 1899, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1899, doc.
419.
15 Gill to Durrant, Allahabad, 14 December 1899, CMS, G2 I 6/0, 1900, doc. 2.
16 Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002.
17 Tyndale-Biscoe, Kherwara, 1 September 1900, ‘The Famine amongst the Bhils of
Western India’, The Church Missionary Gleaner (1 November 1900), 163.
18 Arnold, Colonising the Body, p. 164. In British Gujarat, an average of 1,025 people died
each year from cholera in the five years before the great famine, while in 1900 42,944
are recorded as having died. Figures aggregated from the Gazetteer of the Bombay
Presidency, B vols. (Bombay: Government Central Press, 1904), for the districts of
Surat and Broach (vol. 2-B), Kaira and Panch Mahals (vol. 3-B), Ahmedabad (vol. 4-B).
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CHAPTER SEVEN
Fighting demons
Rhodri Hayward has noted how the imperial encounter during the nine-
teenth century produced a popular stereotype of the ‘possessed and
demon-haunted natives’.1 Many Christian missionaries believed that
they were engaged in an epic struggle with the forces of Satan. They fre-
quently compared indigenous spirit possession to demonical posses-
sion in the Bible. J. L. Nevius, in Demon Possession and Allied Themes,
described Chinese Christian converts ‘being swept into paroxyms of
blasphemous rage’ through demonic forces.2 In their writings, mission-
aries reported their engagements and victories in this heroic battle in
vivid tones. A missionary to the tribal peoples of central India, J. Fryer,
thus described in 1905 how he had rescued one of his converts. Hearing
that a pagan ceremony was going on at the house of the village Panda
(headman), Fryer went there and saw:
women and men with hair matted, etc., certainly under Satanic influ-
ence, some of them rolling on the ground and foaming at the mouth,
others were dancing round erected idols, beating themselves with chains
having spikes, some of the men were hitting themselves with axes and
making pretence to try and cut their throats and hack pieces out of their
limbs. I then found the reason of my being called – it was to witness the
power of Kali to protect those who trusted in her . . . I found a young Baiga
Christian called Timon possessed. I quickly went among the dancers and
pulled Timon out – some of the dancers fled when I did this. I had Timon
taken home, but that night I heard that he was dancing outside his house
around some flags crying: ‘The devil is in me, I can’t help myself, and he
(the devil) says he will not leave unless Fryer Sahib gives him the order
to go.’ I dressed hastily and went to Timon’s house and found him in the
state described. I held his arm and asked him what was the matter – he
replied: ‘I can’t help it, Satan is inside and won’t go unless you make him
go Sahib, do make him go.’ I said: ‘In the name of Christ I command the
Satan to come out of him.’ Immediately he was all right, and he pointed
with his hand and cried out: ‘There he goes Sahib, I am alright now, come
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Yet, while the works of Antichrist and his organs are not mere tricks and
juggleries, neither are they miracles in the very highest sense of the word;
they only partake of the essential elements of the miracle. This they have,
indeed, in common with it, that they are real works of a power which is
suffered to extend thus far, and not merely dextrous feats of legerdemain;
but this, also, which is the most different, that they are abrupt, isolated,
parts of no organic whole; not the highest harmonies, but the deepest dis-
cords, of the universe; not the omnipotence of God wielding his own
world to ends of grace and wisdom and love, but evil permitted to intrude
into the hidden springs of things just so far as may suffice for its own
deeper confusion in the end, and, in the mean while, for the needful trial
and perfecting of God’s saints and servants.6
Supernatural occurrences could not therefore be taken as any proof of
divine will. ‘A miracle does not prove the truth of a doctrine, or the
divine mission of him that brings it to pass.’ People had to decide
whether the message came from heaven or hell on the basis of whether
it was good or evil, and it was up to them to use their moral judgement
in this respect. What was required was an ‘inward witness’ that all
Christians had the ability to command. The ‘simple and unlearned
Christian’ could discriminate as well as the learned one.7 Applied to the
Bhils, this meant that they had to be brought through Christian teach-
ing and education to a moral state and awareness of the Word of the
Lord that would allow them to distinguish godliness from superstition
and devilry.
Why had God withdrawn miraculous power from Christians in
the latter days? In the early days, Chenevix Trench argued, miracles
were signs for non-believers who were coming for the first time to
Christianity. Christianity had to reveal its superiority by such means.
Once they were recorded in the Bible, later Christians had them as a ref-
erence and did not need constant fresh wonders. Although the people
of ‘heathen lands’ of the present time were new to Christ’s message,
they also no longer needed miracles to win them to the faith, for:
the Church of Christ, with its immense and evident superiorities of all
kinds over everything with which it is brought in contact, and some por-
tions of which superiority every man must recognise, is itself now the
great witness and proof of the truth which it delivers. The truth, there-
fore, has no longer need to vindicate itself by an appeal to something else;
but the position which it has won in the very forefront of the world is
itself its vindication now, and suffices to give it a first claim on every
man’s attention.8
He concluded that the church itself was in our day ‘the wonder’.9
Anglican missionaries working in all parts of the world were thus
convinced that Protestantism – with its emphasis on the power of the
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effects the cure, thus liberating the sufferer from his fears and super-
stitions. The art of the surgeon comes to be looked on as a superior
magic, and once more Christianity has vanquished heathenism with the
weapons that science has placed in its hands.
In effecting these victories, and rescuing the sufferers, science changes
hostility into gratitude, and creates an atmosphere in which the seeds of
truth and religion flourish.
Cook concluded that science provided the most certain cure for the
‘sin-sick soul’.15
Within the CMS, the ordained missionaries and the mission doctors
were seen to be working hand in hand, the one waging holy war on the
‘witch-doctors’ or ‘wizards’ who claimed to be in touch with the spirit
world, while the other treated the physical maladies that provided the
opening for such ‘devilish’ practices. Converts were required to demon-
strate their commitment to their new faith by renouncing all form of
‘devilish’ healing and putting their trust in biomedical treatment alone.
Such a radical mental change was not, as we shall see in this chapter,
easily achieved.
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he believed best to cure it. In another case a boy had grains of wheat
strung on a string and put round his neck to cure his eyes, but, as the
necklace was made at home and no spells were used, we took no action
in the matter.
Birkett punished the offenders by fining them sums ranging from a half
to one rupee.17
In November and December 1906, the Birketts and Helen Bull set up
camp in the village of Chhitadara to provide pastoral services for the
forty or so Christian converts and medical treatment for the people in
general. Jane Birkett was called to see a Christian woman who had
given birth four months previously and since then been sick and
growing ever weaker. On being questioned, the woman said that ‘Satan’
had caused her illness:
Satan came in dreams to her in the night and threatened her because she
had left off idolatry. Her first husband had practised exorcism and had
worshipped the exorcised spirits in his house, where he had a special altar
to them, and she thought he now wanted her and her Christian husband
to return to the old practices, and that because she had not complied
Satan was tormenting her with this mysterious illness.18
The Christian couple had been told by an exorcist that for five rupees
he would remove the spirits from both the woman and the house. So
far they had resisted his offer. They had gone to live with a neighbour,
and were considering abandoning the old house and building a new one
elsewhere. Jane Birkett ‘taught them and prayed earnestly with them
for peaceful sleep for the woman’. The woman’s husband also prayed
with great zeal. In this case the couple appear to have internalised the
vocabulary of the missionaries, though the haunting was understood in
terms of the Bhils’ own cosmos of belief.
A week later news was brought to the Birketts’ tent at night that the
Christian woman who was being haunted by Satan had ‘yielded to her
heathen instincts and practice and has had the exorcist in!’ The two
missionaries went straight over to reason with the woman and her
husband. The husband and wife were however adamant that ‘nothing
but their old custom of exorcising evil spirits could avail in the present
circumstances – medicines and prayer would never cure her’. Jane
Birkett claimed that the woman had in fact been recovering her
strength in the week since they had prayed together. Other villagers
then intervened, abusing the missionaries and stating that if the
woman followed their advice she would inevitably die and her blood
would be on their heads. They threatened that if they did not leave,
their tent would be burnt down next day. The missionaries retired to
their tent ‘very sore at heart’. Next morning they took comfort when
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they found that the reading for the day was from Isaiah 53: ‘Enlarge the
place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habi-
tations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. Fear
not; for thou shalt not be ashamed; neither be thou confounded; for
thou shalt not be put to shame’. Heartened by what they took to be
God’s Word, they resolved to stay put. News was brought to them that
the exorcism had continued for the whole of that night, and that fifteen
evil spirits had been captured by the exorcist and carried away in a sack.
The couple were reported to the bishop and excommunicated.19 The
husband later repented, but the woman remained obdurate.20 The mis-
sionaries camped there for another month, preaching and treating
patients, without suffering the threatened fate. Jane Birkett com-
mented at the end of their stay that:
the Bhils are very shy indeed; even when they seem to be very friendly on
some lines they still cling to their own idea of treatment, so progress here
will be very slow. We can only pray that as they grow in grace they may
have grace to care properly for their own bodies.21
No other such cases came to the ears of the missionaries in that year,
but in 1907 Arthur Birkett caught a Christian uttering a spell over a
woman who had been stung by a scorpion. As he did this, he brushed
her with a small tree branch. This was a very common form of exor-
cism – known as jhara – that involved sweeping the malevolence away
from a sufferer’s body (often a peacock tail feather was used).22 The
guilty man admitted the offence, but claimed that he had only used the
name of the Lord in his spell. He promised to give up using spells in
future.23 In February 1908, there was a much more serious case, again
involving the people of Chhitadara, in which a Christian woman was
alleged to have killed the village headman by cursing him. On investi-
gation, Arthur Birkett found that the woman’s husband – also a
Christian – had fallen gravely ill with pneumonia and she had begun to
behave as if possessed by a demon. She had cursed the headman, and he
had died three days later – of fright, so Birkett believed. Another
Christian then sacrificed a goat to try to placate the evil spirit. Despite
this, the woman’s husband had yet to recover his health, and he was
convinced that it was because she still had an evil influence over him.
All of the villagers, including the Christians, were terrified of her.24
In the following month, March 1908, the second Christian mela was
held at Lusadiya. With the Chhitadara case fresh in mind, the issue
became a topic of debate. There was even an example of such supersti-
tion at the mela itself, when a woman dropped and smashed a pot of
ghee that she was bringing for Helen Bull. Several of the Christians
claimed that another woman had looked at her malevolently, causing
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her to drop the pot. At a special meeting held to discuss this issue,
Satgurudas made a strong speech on the powerlessness of false gods and
evil spirits to hurt those who had a firm faith in God. He told them how
he had gathered all the ancestral stones of his house that he had once
worshipped, and had thrown them all into a stream. On another occa-
sion, when two friends he was walking with bowed before a heathen
idol, he had hit the idol on the cheek and no harm had come to him.
Some of the Christians endorsed these sentiments, stating that they
now found such fear laughable. Others said that the fear was justified.
One couple, for example, was convinced that the house they had moved
into recently was haunted. After this frank discussion, prayers were
held for the sick, so as to demonstrate the correct course for Christians
to take in times of suffering.25
The problem for the missionaries was that they were fighting a
whole culture of belief and practice that was not only deeply inter-
nalised amongst the Bhils, but also rigidly enforced by the patriarchs,
elders and exorcists of the community. Although these Bhil elites
tended to raise no objection to people of their village being treated by
touring missionaries for a range of minor complaints, they were far less
willing to allow them to go to the missionaries when a witch or evil
spirit was believed to have caused an illness. The belief in witchcraft
remained undimmed, even amongst many of the converts. Writing in
1914, Arthur Birkett reported that in the past three years in the area
around Kotada, three women had been done to death as witches. ‘One
was killed with an axe and one had a red hot iron thrust into her’.26
Some cases involved converts. In 1915, a girl in a family of Bhil con-
verts of Abapur village died of tetanus. The father, Makana, and his
brother, Jalji, consulted an exorcist to discover the cause of her death.
They were told that the wife of the headman had bewitched her. The
two Christians went to her house at night and attacked her with an axe,
cutting off one arm and slashing the other to the bone. They tried to
cut her throat, but her screams brought her husband running from the
fields – where he was guarding his crops – and they fled.27
Such attacks by alleged witches were seen to threaten the well-being
and health of the community as a whole, and it was considered imper-
ative that they be dealt with in the appropriate manner, though exor-
cism. Individuals were not considered to have a right to assert their own
feelings and beliefs in such matters; they were members of kin groups
who had to conform to the wishes of the wider family or clan, so as not
to offend and bring misfortune to either the living or the spirits of
ancestors. We can see, furthermore, that refusal to accept such a
method of treatment was also a challenge to the power and prestige of
the elders and exorcists, and this provided a further reason for their
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had a very earnest prayer meeting by his bedside, seeking that God would
stretch forth His hand to heal the lad; and from that moment he began to
improve, the discharge became healthier, the pain less, so that he slept
better, and there was steady though slow progress, so that at the end of a
month he went home with the knee healed, though stiff. All were greatly
impressed by the cure – so absolutely in answer to prayer.30
In another case, from 1909, a Bhil woman from a village near Lusadiya
fell gravely ill. Her husband, Rupaji, had become convinced as to the
truth of Christianity, but had not yet been baptised. His daughter felt
likewise, but his wife and other family members were sceptical and
continued to follow the old rituals. On two occasions when there had
been illness and misfortune in the family, Rupaji had prayed to the
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become a Christian as a result, but his wife and others persuaded him not
to. His sister did, however, become a convert.37
Another such case occurred in 1919, when Jane Birkett’s carriage-
driver fell seriously ill. His relatives brought in an exorcist to treat him,
but his condition worsened. When he appeared to be at death’s door, his
brother went to see John Brand (Birkett was then on leave) and begged
him to treat the case. Brand agreed. In Birkett’s words: ‘The prayer of
faith, together with medicines and proper diet, won him back to life and
health, and he promised the doctor that he would serve the Lord
Jesus’.38 Time went by, and he failed to come forward for baptism. The
reason, according to Birkett, was that his relatives had put pressure on
him not to do so. There were, she said, many similar cases.
There were, nevertheless, victories that conformed to the mission
script that were reported in a spirit of rejoicing. In Devni Mori in 1909,
the wife of a leading Bhil who had for many years hesitated over con-
verting fell ill. He called in exorcists and tried other local remedies, all
to no avail, and eventually took her to the hospital at Lusadiya where
she obtained immediate relief. The following Sunday, in Arthur
Birkett’s words, ‘he removed the tile which served as a demon alter &
the lamps etc. from his house & was with his wife and daughter admit-
ted to the catechumenate’.39 Their conversion made a big impression
in the village, and others soon came forward asking to be prepared for
baptism.40 In similar vein, John Brand told of a great spiritual battle
over the treatment of the lay preacher Premji Hurji Patel, who had
fallen sick. Many of the local converts believed that Premji was a
victim of sorcery, and they tried to persuade him to combat the evil
power in the traditional way. Brand reassured him that he would
recover through a combination of his treatment and the power of
prayer. Premji remained steadfast to his Christian faith, and when he
eventually recovered, Brand interpreted it as demonstrating ‘the power
of God to heal’ in a way that had ‘profoundly shaken the faith of the
heathen in charms and incantations’.41 In the following year, Helen
Bull agreed to treat a Bhil who was suffering from bronchitis and whose
son had already approached an exorcist. The exorcist was extremely
angry at being so defied, and he threatened them all with dire punish-
ment. The man recovered and said that he had lost all of his faith in
exorcism and that he was ‘almost persuaded’ to become a Christian.42
Jane Birkett wrote in 1915 of a young Christian couple whose only son
had fallen gravely ill. Their elder relatives and even leading Christian
converts told them that exorcism was the only remedy, but they
insisted that they would place their faith in God and God alone. Birkett
commented: ‘God honoured their faithfulness and restored the child to
them.’43
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Even today, Bhil Christians tell stories along such lines. I have
referred above to the story of the conversion of Rupaji after his wife was
cured – according to the missionaries – by the power of prayer. In
the popular local account, however, the conversion was obtained by
medical means. Rupaji was, in this version of the story, a powerful and
well-known buva, or exorcist, who used to cure people by driving out
evil spirits with magical incantations (jantra-mantra). He lived in a
village close to Lusadiya. When his wife fell sick, he tried to cure her
using his own methods, but failed. He decided to try the hospital at
Lusadiya, and she was given vilayati dava (foreign medicine). She
recovered, and he began to trust the medicine, and also Christianity. He
converted and gave up his work as a buva entirely.44 This story clearly
gives the credit to the efficacy of ‘foreign’ medicine – as applied by the
missionaries – rather than prayer as such.
The results of such struggles with the exorcists were sometimes
ambiguous. In 1918, for example, there was a battle between the mis-
sionaries and an exorcist in Lusadiya village itself. Jiva Dala, the local
postmaster, a Christian and brother of Satgurudas, was suffering from
what was described in the report as ‘brain-softening’. He was treated by
John Brand, but persuaded by some of his non-Christian relatives to
consult an exorcist also. It seems that his wife also put pressure on him
to do this. The exorcist used both mantras and cauterisation, branding
him with a hot iron across the back of each hand, on the instep of each
foot, above his forehead and just below his chest. This was all done
quickly by force, and he was left in agony. Satgurudas had approved of
this treatment. He recovered eventually. The missionary Walter Wyatt
commented: ‘if he finally recovers, I expect the Bhagat will get the
credit for the cure, while the fact that many Christians were praying for
his recovery will be ignored. I have seen many bullocks cured of lame-
ness and other ailments by branding, but it would seem a somewhat
drastic remedy for a brain affection!’45 Rather than depicting this as a
struggle between ‘superstition’ and scientific medicine, the missionary
interpreted it as a battle between two systems of belief and practice.
While the Christians provided medical treatment and prayer, the exor-
cist applied cauterisation and mantras. Both thus sought to cure
through a combination of appeals to a higher force and physical treat-
ment. Surprisingly, Wyatt even admitted that the exorcist’s chosen
treatment in this latter respect could have been effective.
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Notes
11 Hayward, ‘Demonology’, 45.
12 J. L. Nevius, Demon Possession and Allied Themes (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell,
1894), quoted in Hayward, ‘Demonology’, 46. The quoted words are by Hayward.
13 ‘The Bishop’s Quarterly Letter, Pachmarhi, C. P., 17 June 1905’, The Nagpur
Diocesan Quarterly Magazine (July 1905), 31–4, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1905, doc. 133.
14 A. J. Lees, BMR (1919), 15.
15 Walker, Decline of Hell, pp. 3–7.
16 Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord (London: Macmillan,
1866), pp. 24–5.
17 Ibid., pp. 25–8.
18 Ibid., pp. 47–8.
19 Ibid., p. 55.
10 Fitzgerald, ‘Clinical Christianity’, p. 115.
11 Bede, ‘The Life of Cuthbert’, in D. H. Farmer (ed.), The Age of Bede (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1988), pp. 39–102. See also Kelsey, Healing and Christianity, pp. 103–56.
12 For the healing cult of St Winifred of Holywell see Judith F. Champ, ‘Bishop Milner,
Holywell, and the Cure Tradition’, in Sheils (ed.), The Church and Healing,
pp. 153–8. See also Lea T. Olsan, ‘Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory
and Practice’, Social History of Medicine, 16:3 (December 2003).
13 For a history of Pentecostalism, see Morton Kelsey, Tongue Speaking: An
Experiment in Spiritual Experience (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1973).
14 James B. McCord, ‘Medical Missions and Zulu Witchcraft’, Medical Missions at
Home and Abroad, 13 NS (February 1910), 74.
15 J. Howard Cook, ‘The Contribution of Science to Missionary Work’, Church
Missionary Review (March 1925), 43–5.
16 A. Helen Bull, ‘Itinerating’, Khetadara, January 1906, BMR (1905), 10–12.
17 A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, Lusadiya, January 1906, BMR (1905), 3.
18 Mrs Birkett, ‘Camping out in Khetadra’, Mercy and Truth (April 1907), 102.
19 A. I. Birkett, ‘Report’, BMR (1906), 7.
20 Helen Bull, ‘Jesingpur, Near Lusadia’, BMR (1906), 15.
21 Mrs Birkett, ‘Camping out in Khetadara’, Mercy and Truth (April 1907), 104.
22 See Lambert, ‘Plural Traditions?’, p. 193.
23 A. I. Birkett, Ahmedabad, 27 September 1907, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1907, doc. 89.
24 A. I. Birkett to Durrant, Lusadiya, 6 May 1908, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1908, doc. 51; A. I.
Birkett, Lusadiya, 19 May 1908, ibid., doc. 48.
25 Ibid.
26 A. Birkett to E. Waller, 24 June 1914, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1914, doc. 31.
27 R. Carter, ‘The Power of Darkness in the Bhil Mission’, The Bombay Church
Missionary Gleaner (November 1915), 2–3, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1915, doc. 107.
28 A. Birkett to E. Waller, 24 June 1914, CMS, G2 I 8/0, 1914, doc. 31.
29 ‘Bhil Mission’, Report of the C.M.S. Western India Mission 1916, p. 75, CMS, G2 I
3/0, 1916, doc. 35.
30 Jane Birkett, ‘Two Patients at Lusadia’, Mercy and Truth (February 1907), 54–5.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
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enquiring when she would be baptised, and it seemed so real to her that
she rose and opened the window to see who it could be. The Holy Spirit
is working in her mightily, I am sure. May He who kept her [from
suicide] in August soon lead her into the Fold of Christ in answer to our
united persistent and prevailing prayers.’25 In this way, the hospital at
last obtained a nurse, and, as was often the case in medical missions
during their early years, she was a local convert trained on the job.26
Some of the most successful work for women was carried out
through the orphanage for girls established during the great famine. In
1905, forty-four girls were staying there and receiving education. Miss
B. M. Newton, its supervisor, reported that they did all the domestic
work, such as grinding corn, cooking and carrying water.27 In time, as
they grew up and married, they provided a nucleus of well-educated
Bhil women who were known to be strong in their faith, providing an
example to others of a new form of Bhil womanhood.
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Lusadiya orphanage and was senior to all of the men in terms of years
served, ‘quite graciously acknowledged that she had no right’ in this
respect.29 Women who were senior either through longevity of service
or in their level of professional expertise were not thus considered on a
par with even the most junior male missionaries.
Several feminist scholars have asked more profound questions about
the rhetoric of a ‘sisterhood of women’ in a colonial context. Catherine
Hall, writing of the Caribbean in the early nineteenth century, points
out that although white women commonly lamented the suffering of
their imagined ‘sisters’ – the black slave women – they too were
colonisers. Although the term suggested commonality, it denied the
difference and violence of colonialism. While the Western woman was
seen as the agent of history, the black woman was the object to be
worked on. Used in such a context, the term ‘sister’
slipped between registers of meaning, marking both kinship and a gap,
between fellow philanthropic ladies at home and those they supported
and helped. . . . The term hinted at proximity, but established a difference
between ‘the native female’, ‘not quite/not white’, and the Western fem-
inist, ‘not quite/not male’. Far from fixing ‘native women’ in a close
sibling relationship to white feminists, ‘sister’ destabilised and unsettled,
leaving meanings ambiguous and unresolved.30
This reaching out to the native ‘sister’ – for all its good intent – can
thus be seen above all as providing a strategic intervention in a struggle
for emancipation that was located primarily within the home country,
which is where the missionaries would in any case reside after their days
of service were over. Their solidarity was above all with their own class
and nation, and their prime concern was with their place within it.
The Bhil woman became, for this purpose, what Gayatri Spivak has
described as the ‘self-consolidating other’, who was contrasted with the
‘absolute other’. The former was the good and benighted native, deserv-
ing of uplift, while the latter was the incorrigible savage or heathen,
gloating in his ‘debased’ way of life. In this way, the binary opposites of
coloniser and colonised were modified into a threefold schema of the
coloniser, good native, and bad native.31 It was in such terms that the
missionary drama was enacted, for male and female missionaries alike.
In the next chapter we shall examine in greater detail the relationship
between the missionaries and colonialism, and consider their reaction
to the Indian nationalist challenge to colonial rule.
Notes
11 Dana L. Robert, American Women in Mission: A Social History of their Thought
and Practice (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1996), pp. 1–38.
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CHAPTER NINE
A little empire
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became like little lords – the ‘sahibs’ whom the tribals were expected
to look up to and depend on. Many such missionaries and nationalists
gained personal satisfaction in playing out a role that allowed them to
exercise their benevolence with the feeling that they were respected
and wanted. Elsewhere, in the more densely populated plains regions of
India, and particularly in the towns and cities, the power dynamics
were less stark, and the ‘little empires’ less pronounced. In big colonial
cities like Delhi, missionaries were just one cog within a much larger
governing class.
Even in the tribal tracts this was, nonetheless, a somewhat hollow
‘empire’, for it relied for its security on the armed might of the colonial
state and its local allies, the Indian princes and their gentry. In this, the
missionaries had to steer a difficult course within a complex local
politics, being careful not to alienate either the British authorities or the
local Rajput rulers. Their task was further complicated from the 1920s
onwards with, on the one hand, the emergence of a strong Indian nation-
alist movement and, on the other, a growing assertion by the Christian
converts. We shall examine these developments in this chapter.
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The answer, for Gandhi, was for all true Christians to renounce their
association with British imperialism.
Missionaries in India for the most part rejected this advice. The issue
was debated in the journal of the CMS, The Church Missionary Review,
in an article by D. Howard of March 1922. Howard expressed his admi-
ration for many aspects of Gandhi’s life – particularly his morality and
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his life of simplicity. He noted that Gandhi had praised the ethical prin-
ciples of Jesus Christ and that he saw the Sermon on the Mount as jus-
tifying his doctrine of non-violent resistance. He praised what he
described as a revival in India of ‘national pride’ and a tradition of
‘mystic idealism’, which – he claimed – ‘we have fostered by our edu-
cational system in India’. He understood the antipathy of such Indians
for ‘British rule and British civilisation on its material side; for these,
after all, are India’s chief points of contact with the West’. He accepted
that the First World War had revealed some glaring deficiencies in that
civilisation, and sympathised with the Indian critique in this respect.
Nevertheless: ‘It is easy for Indians to be blind to the obvious good that
has come to India, through many generations, as the result of that rule
and that civilisation.’ He argued that:
Gandhi simply became at first the devoted and venerated leader of the
movement towards spiritual idealism, lending to it all his previous
reputation as a sufferer for his country. If he had remained this, all would
have been well; but many of his methods are grievously wrong, and his
definite alliance with a political party, controlled by selfish aims, has
disappointed his greatest admirers – who number among them a good
many thinking people – for these had looked to him for a spiritual lead-
ership. He is unable to keep his followers true to the ideal of non-violence,
to which he first summoned them.
Howard concluded that Gandhi’s non-cooperation with British rule had
been a blunder, as he and his followers could have worked to implement
their programme of social and economic transformation through the
new legislative councils established under the constitutional reforms
of 1919. Instead, they had boycotted them.10
The CMS hierarchy in India continued to oppose the Gandhian
Congress over the next two decades. In June 1930, when Gandhi’s Civil
Disobedience Movement was at its height, the secretary to the Bombay
Diocese of the CMS, L. B. Butcher noted that some Indian Christian
pastors had held an interdenominational meeting that had passed reso-
lutions of support for the nationalist campaign. No Indian clergy of
CMS had however attended. Butcher stated that Indian clergymen who
supported the Gandhian Congress were misguided. The duty of Indian
Christians, he argued, was to support the moderate nationalists who
were cooperating with the British and demanding Dominion Status
within the British Empire.11 In the same month, The Bombay Diocesan
Magazine reprinted an article by Bishop Fosse of Calcutta condemning
Indian Christians who supported civil disobedience. Fosse argued that
Jesus had refused to set himself up as a king and lead the resistance to
Roman rule in Palestine and that he had commanded his followers to
remain aloof from politics, instructing them to ‘Render unto Caesar the
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things that are Caesar’s.’ Jesus Christ thus forbade civil disobedience.
Christians had a duty to obey the law so that daily life could carry on
without disruption. This was a ‘natural law’. He concluded: ‘You avail
yourself of the safety which a stable government affords you and all the
services which it provides for your convenience but think you are at
liberty to violate its laws with impunity.’12
Although a small minority of missionaries became vocal supporters
of the Indian nationalist cause during the 1920s, the large majority fol-
lowed the instructions of their superiors and either maintained a low
profile on the matter or voiced their active support for the colonial
state.13 The CMS missionaries to the Bhils generally adopted a loyalist
stance. This was seen in particular in 1921–22, when a strong protest
movement linked with the Congress campaign of non-cooperation
swept their region. The leader was Motilal Tejawat (1885–1963), a
Baniya from a small town in the Bhil country south of Udaipur. While
working for a local thakor, he had seen at first hand the way in which
his employer and his henchmen had maltreated the Bhils, beating them
to extract work and taxes, and raping Bhil women. Disgusted by what
he saw, he resigned his position in 1920 and started an eki – or unity –
league. He told the Bhils to boycott the thakors, to refuse rents and
taxes and to establish their own councils to settle disputes. Motilal was
a religious man who believed that his actions enjoyed divine support.
Besides championing the grievances of the predominantly Bhil peas-
antry against the thakors, he also felt he had a religious duty to persuade
them to give up drinking liquor, to stop killing animals and to refrain
from stealing. Members of the eki league were to take an oath to abstain
from all crimes and acts of violence against other humans as well as
animals, and to abjure liquor and take a daily bath. They were to main-
tain their livelihood through agriculture. In this, Motilal was following
in the tradition of the Bhagat reformers of the region.14
In August 1921, one of the thakors captured Motilal and locked
him up. Six to seven thousand Bhils from sixty-five villages gathered
together, marched to the place and secured his release. Thousands more
Bhils then came forward to take the oath of eki. They came not only
from Mewar, but also from the adjoining states of Idar, Pol, Sirohi and
Danta. In early 1922, Motilal began to tour this area, accompanied by
several thousand Bhils armed with bows and arrows, demanding
reforms from the thakors and ruling princes. There were some minor
clashes, with some policemen and officials being beaten. There is no
record of anyone being killed by the Bhils – by their standards they were
protesting in a remarkably non-violent manner.
Motilal saw his protest as being a part of the wider movement for inde-
pendence led by Gandhi, then at its height during the Non-Cooperation
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relatives and fellow villagers. Many of the dead were however from
distant parts. Some of the wounded were taken to the mission dispen-
sary at Biladiya, where the padre, Lea Sahib, treated them. Soon after-
wards, police reinforcements came in motorised vehicles from the
Gujarat side, sent by the Political Agent of Mahi Kantha.18
The missionary concerned, James Lea, later described the scene at
the dispensary: ‘there were a hundred casualties; dead and wounded
were lying all around, some with fearful wounds. Our little hospital
was filled and we were bringing in stretcher cases until 10 p.m.’19 Lea’s
figures were more in tune with the popular account, which put the
number of casualties far above that claimed by Sutton. A nationalist
who was active in Rajasthan at that time, V. S. Pathik, wrote later that
month to the Political Agent for Rajasthan, Robert Holland, stating
that he had heard that casualties had been over a thousand.20 Sutton
appears to have wanted to minimise the episode lest it cause a public
outcry similar to that caused by the massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh in
Amritsar in 1919. In this he succeeded.
Despite claims by the British that the firing had had a salutary effect,
the situation continued tense for many months. In late March, the Bhils
of three estates besieged their thakors in their mansions, the sieges
being lifted only after the appearance of Mewar State soldiers under the
command of a British officer. The troops then marched through the
region to impress on the Bhils the power of the state.21 Motilal himself
had fled back towards the Sirohi side, where he remained in hiding.22 In
Sirohi State, the movement escalated, with widespread refusal by Bhils
and Girasias – a related community – to pay their taxes. Troops were
mobilised under the command of Major Pritchard and punitive raids
were carried out on several rebellious villages, with houses being burnt,
stocks of grain destroyed, and those who resisted shot down. Village
headmen were forced by Pritchard to break their eki oath before him in
public.23
Both the British and the princely authorities prevented nationalist
investigators from entering these states to collect information about
the atrocities carried out under British command. As it was, the
Gandhians in Gujarat did not press the matter. In part, this was because
they were in disarray after Gandhi’s arrest by the British on 10 March –
only three days after the shooting – and subsequent sentence to six
years in jail on 18 March. More important, possibly, was the fact that
they had no particular interest in taking it up. Motilal’s movement was
peripheral to their concerns, which were centred on the British-ruled
areas of Gujarat. The grievances of subjects of princely states against
their rulers were not at that time on their agenda. Gandhi had taken
some interest in the movement during February and early March as it
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had, as he saw it, a violent potential that could reflect badly on the
Congress. Once it had collapsed, the interest of the nationalists waned.
The killing that occurred at Dadhvav on 7 March 1922 was as a result
largely ignored by the outside world. The attempt by the Bhils of this
region to play an active role in the Indian nationalist movement had, at
that juncture, come to nothing.
This suited the missionaries, for it does not appear that they would
have known how to deal with a more prolonged upsurge against the
thakors, the princely rulers and the British. They believed that the Bhils
were misguided in their protest in 1921–22, and when they had the
chance they advised them to abandon the movement and reform their
lives in other directions. Jane Birkett asserted in an unsympathetic tone
that ‘Mr. Gandhi’s emissaries stirred up trouble amongst the non-
Christian Bhils in the western part of our field.’24 James Lea, in his
account of the massacre, depicted Motilal Tejawat as a spiritual rival to
the missionaries, stating that he was a ‘reformer’ who ‘was reputed to
be a god come to relieve the distress among the people’. He alleged that
on 7 March Motilal and his followers had attacked first, forcing Sutton
to resort to ‘rapid fire’. He concluded that the whole affair was ‘a great
evil’.25 In her account, based on her experiences in the area around
Kotada, Rose Carter stated:
At the beginning of the year, Miss Holdom and I were out in camp in the
Kotra district, which was at that time in the throes of political agitation.
We camped amongst crowds of Bhils armed with bows and arrows, guns
and knives of various description, who were amongst those who followed
the agitator [e.g. Motilal Tejawat], and often our evening meetings were
dispersed by the beat of war drums on the hills near us. The people were
exceedingly friendly and often deputations visited our camp to ask what
course of policy to pursue. As missionaries, our counsel was always to
abide on the side of law and order and of fidelity to Raj, but alas, other
counsels often prevailed which resulted in the fight near Pal where the
Police Corps were obliged to fire upon and disperse the rebels. A consid-
erable number of the Bhils were killed. We found the people considerably
troubled and perplexed; much of the older order was changing rapidly, and
the bewildered Bhil mind was definitely seeking something stable, some-
thing to guide him in these strange times. It was pathetic to notice the
eagerness with which many of them listened, and never have we met
with larger or more attentive audiences. At times men from distant places
would come and ask us to visit their village, and one group came from a
part of the country outside the mission area. Owing to scarcity of workers
little work has been done in that remote part of the country and the
people implored us to go and tell them the news of the Sinless Incarnation
of whom we taught. For several reasons we were unable to go and one
learnt with deep regret later of villages burnt to the ground and Bhils
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killed where a few months earlier they had implored us to take them our
Message of peace.26
Carter saw that opportunities were being lost for the missionaries, but
neither she nor her colleagues were willing or able to provide the Bhils
with the leadership that they most wanted, which was guidance in their
struggles against the oppressive thakors and the whole power structure
that propped them up.
As we have seen in previous chapters, the missionaries had managed,
with some difficulty, to situate themselves within local politics as
allies of the thakors. Although sometimes casting a mildly critical eye
on their depredations, they never took a stand against these local auto-
crats. Their attitude was revealed in the belittling tone in which Walter
Wyatt, based at Lusadiya, wrote about a protest by the Bhils of nearby
Devni Mori against their thakor in 1918:
This year the whole village of Mori went out on strike against the exac-
tions of the local Thacker [sic] or land-owner, leaving their houses and
erecting rough enclosures of boughs and branches as a protection during
the night for themselves and their cattle. They stayed in the jungle for
some weeks. Their resolution, however, did not last long as that of the
Thacker Sahib, and they returned home having accomplished nothing
more than giving the Thacker and his friends some amusement.27
The Thakor of Devni Mori ruled over about thirty Bhil villages and he
is remembered to this day for his oppressive treatment of his subjects,
who were obliged to hand over a third of all their produce, including
livestock, each year. To enforce these demands, he employed Pathans
armed with guns and whips who beat up or thrashed those who failed
to meet their dues. Bhil subjects were forced to work for no wages on
the thakor’s own fields; his Pathans would come and take five people
at a time from each village for this work. Despite this, the missionar-
ies at Lusadiya maintained cordial relations with this man. In return,
he tolerated their work in his domain and allowed them even to con-
struct a church in Devni Mori itself.28
The alliance fractured at times. In 1932 the Thakor of Bhetali con-
fiscated the house, land and well of the mission schoolteacher at
Jesingpur, a village in his domain. A former mission teacher, a Bhil of
Lusadiya, had constructed the house with the permission of a previous
thakor in 1909, and subsequent teachers had occupied it since then.
The thakor made it known that he did not want any more Christian
dharamsevaks (religious workers) in his territory, and he began harass-
ing some of the converts. The missionaries appealed to the Political
Agent for Mahi Kantha for help in the matter, and he met the Dewan
of Idar State, who agreed to bring pressure to bear on the thakor.
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had often been in conflict in the late nineteenth century, and during the
first decade of the twentieth century a good number of the Bhagats
either converted to Christianity or seriously considered the idea of con-
verting.37 The mood turned after this, with the majority of the remain-
ing Bhagats turning against the Christians. In this, they were able to
forge a common ground with the unreformed Bhils in a way that
allowed them to follow their beliefs free from the abrasions of the past.
Jane Birkett first encountered such an opposition in 1910, after she had
healed a Bhil woman who was suffering from severe intestinal trouble.
The woman expressed a desire to become a Christian, but after she
returned to her village the Bhagats there brought such pressure to bear
on her that she abandoned the idea.38 In Bavaliya – where a Bhil lay
pastor led the small Christian congregation – the conflict came to a
head in 1915 when one of the Bhagats intruded into a meeting of the
Christians and started threatening them with all sorts of disasters if
they persisted in their folly. The lay pastor urged him to stop cursing
them, but he refused. In the end, the pastor took a stick and beat the
Bhagat, who cringed and begged for mercy. Several of the Christians
were terrified that they would suffer all sorts of calamities as a result,
but the weeks passed and nothing happened.39 In this case, the solidar-
ity of the Christians was reinforced. Elsewhere, in villages in which the
Christians or would-be Christians were few in number, they often
failed to stand up against such opposition.
In many cases, the conflict between the Christian and non-Christian
Bhils revolved around social customs and rituals in which the converts
refused to participate. This was seen by non-Christian Bhils to be
deeply divisive, and in many cases the converts suffered social boycott
as a result. This in turn deterred Bhils who were considering conver-
sion from going any further. In a village near Kotada, for example,
Winifred Holdom managed to win one family and she had hopes of
further conversions, but these hopes were dashed when a boy in the
newly converted family died and they refused to hold the customary
death feast. The other villagers were so disturbed by this that they drew
back from the hoped-for mass conversion.40 Such rituals and practices
were not lightly ignored, particularly in the case of death ceremonies
that were designed to placate the spirit of the dead. In their absence, it
was widely believed that the unsatisfied spirit would haunt the village,
bringing death and misfortune. Few Bhils were prepared to risk this.
Many of the conflicts revolved around healing, with the exorcists
putting pressure on Christians who were sick to make use of their ser-
vices. As we have seen in Chapter 7, many converts failed to resist such
pressures. Some however did. Such was the case when the son of a Bhil
lay pastor called Yusuph Kalasva, who was working for the mission at
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Kotada, fell ill. Two exorcists, or bhopas, approached his wife and
offered to heal him. She believed that her son, like his father, would one
day work for the church, and she had faith that God would spare him
for this task. She sent the bhopas away, declaring that it was God’s will
whether the boy lived or died. The boy survived, and many years later
he was ordained as a priest.41 In some cases, the mission hospital could
provide a place of refuge for those who sought to escape such an influ-
ence. When a Christian woman of Biladiya village fell ill in 1925, she
feared that she would come under the influence of ‘a heathen who deals
in Black Magic, and who lives close to her house’. To resist this pres-
sure, she went to Lusadiya for treatment as an inpatient.42
In a few cases, Christians who had suffered misfortunes lost their
faith in a religion that had failed to protect them from forces that the
exorcists were believed to be able to control. Thus, when a Christian
schoolmaster of Devni Mori died suddenly in 1925, his brother – who
was also a Christian – asserted that the cause was sorcery and that he
and his family no longer would remain within the church. He per-
suaded the schoolmaster’s family to follow him in this.43 A similar
setback occurred at Kotada in 1929, when a seven-year-old Christian
boy died unexpectedly. He was from a poor Bhil family, and he had been
sent to study at the mission school, where he had quickly learnt the
alphabet, gave intelligent answers to questions about the Bible and sang
hymns with zeal. One day he told his mother that he wanted to be ‘a
Jesus child’. Soon after this he suddenly dropped down dead. He had no
history of illness, and Rose Carter was baffled as to the cause. She sus-
pected that ‘an enemy hath done this’, without stating exactly what she
thought that this ‘enemy’ might have done. Was it perhaps sorcery that
she suspected? She noted that the non-Christian Bhils of the area had
been plotting for some time to force the converts to renounce their
Christianity. She could see very clearly that the boy’s sudden and
inexplicable death had gravely undermined her work.44
With Christian numbers stagnant, the diocesan authorities in
Bombay began to question the viability of the Bhil mission. It was, they
claimed, an anachronism, being a small and insignificant mission in a
territory that was otherwise covered by Presbyterians – namely the
Scottish Presbyterians on the Rajasthan side and the Irish Presbyterians
on the Gujarat side. The Presbyterians had the infrastructure and per-
sonnel to make their work viable. It was better for the CMS, they
argued, to hand over the mission to the Presbyterians of each respective
area and consolidate the activities in areas in which they had a much
stronger presence and more converts. The mission found an ally,
however, in Edwin James, the Bishop of Bombay, who visited the
mission in 1919 and came away highly impressed with its work. Indeed,
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he felt that if more resources could be put into its medical work, it
would flourish even more. He recommended very strongly that the
mission be retained by the CMS.45 The matter was therefore shelved for
the time being.
The issue resurfaced in 1929, when L. B. Butcher, the secretary of the
CMS in Bombay, once more suggested that the mission might benefit
from being handed over to the neighbouring Presbyterian churches. The
financial crisis of the time had brought a need for retrenchment within
the CMS, and in Bombay the Bhil mission was the obvious candidate
for cuts. Butcher wrote a highly critical report on the mission that high-
lighted its various failings.46 As soon as the news of this discussion
reached the mission, the lay pastors, schoolmasters and leading Bhil
Christians drew up a petition of protest, which they sent to Butcher.
They argued that Christianity had raised the whole tone of the area, and
that they did not want to be merged with another church, as their rules
and practices were different. Furthermore, if the CMS missionaries
went away, their buildings and schoolhouses might be seized by the
thakors – ‘So confusion would take the place of peace.’47 Butcher’s supe-
rior, Bishop Palmer, visited the mission in December 1929 to judge for
himself. He was highly impressed by the strength of devotion amongst
the Bhil Christians; they joined strongly in prayers and sang their
hymns with fervour. He was deeply concerned that if they abandoned
the mission there would be inevitable ‘lapses to paganism’. He recom-
mended that the work be continued with a reduced European staff.48
This was accepted, and the mission entered into a period of retrench-
ment. About a third of its Indian workers were dismissed and the
mission station at Kotada was closed down. The scheme for a new hos-
pital at Lusadiya was abandoned.49 In a comment on this, written in
1931, Butcher argued that the seeming ill might be turned to good if it
meant that the ‘tiny Bhil Church’ became more self-sufficient and the
local converts made more efforts to evangelise their fellow Bhils.50
The indigenisation of the church was thus seen to be desirable
within the CMS hierarchy not because of the growing tide of Indian
nationalism and its concomitant pressure to hand over power at all
levels to Indians, but because the mission establishment could no
longer afford to provide European staff. While British missionaries
could be employed, there appeared to be no pressing reason to devolve
power in such a way. The white missionaries continued to believe that
amongst a tribal people the church could function only with European
leadership. Writing in 1929, Marjorie Meigh argued: ‘No tribes in India
are more primitive than the Bhils, being probably pre-Dravidian, so few
are less advanced in civilisation. So also our Church is very little devel-
oped. It is scarcely other than pioneer work we are engaged on.’ James
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Lea commented in like vein that the Bhils ‘are in many ways like
children, unfortunately often like very spoilt children. Yet with a
proper mixture of severity and kindness, and the latter to be more than
the first, you win through’.51 Notions of ‘backwardness’ and ‘primi-
tivism’ were still being deployed to justify the continuing need for
white leadership.
These comments were both insensitive and inappropriate, as several
Bhils had already by that time gained the education and expertise that
qualified them to work as lay pastors, medical assistants and school-
masters. Even more, one Bhil had proved worthy enough to be ordained
as a priest. Jakhi Kanji Asari was born in the early 1880s in Valisa village
of Mewar State, and had been converted by the missionaries in
Kherwara.52 After his education, he became a lay pastor working at
Lusadiya. He was considered a diligent and popular worker, and in 1924
he passed the written examination for the ministry, and was ordained
as a deacon 1925.53 He became a full priest in January 1928. At the same
time, young Bhil Christians were replacing non-Bhils in mission
employment. Christian boys and girls with potential were sent for
further studies to higher educational institutions run by the Irish
Presbyterian Mission elsewhere in Gujarat or to the teacher training
college at Ahmedabad. Many of them did very well, achieving excellent
marks in their exams. Once they had qualified, they were appointed to
positions in the mission. By 1932, of the forty-four Indians employed
by the mission, forty-two were Bhil Christians. These figures included
the teachers in the mission schools, all of whom were by then Bhil
Christians.54
The few Europeans who remained in the mission during the 1930s
continued to see themselves as indispensable. No more Bhils were
ordained, in part because the requirements were made more stringent.
The Bishop of Bombay had ruled that all candidates had to be fluent in
English, something that Jakhi Asari had never been. Writing in July
1938, Frank Meigh claimed that the Bhil Christians disliked Indian
pastors from other parts of India and that employing such ‘foreigners’
was not a solution to the problem of their lack of ordained priests.55 In
the following year, Charles Shaw wrote to G. F. Cranswick, the mission
secretary in London, asking for English reinforcements: ‘This primitive
mission needs Europeans, I think, more than more civilised missions
do.’ Indian padres, he stated, had failed to win the confidence of the
Bhils in the way that the European priests had done.56 Heartened by
reports of the fervour of the Bhil converts, and their passionate prayers
that the mission be kept open, Cranswick agreed to sanction the
appointment of a new European missionary in early 1940.57 The
Reverend Paul Johnson was selected, along with his wife Margaret, who
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was a fully qualified doctor. They sailed for India in late 1940 and,
after a period of settling in, took charge of the mission in 1942. With
their arrival, a new era opened for the Bhil mission – one that will be
examined in Chapters 11 and 12.
Notes
11 By the 1940s, the size of these bungalows was becoming an embarrassment. George
Oldham, the CMS secretary in Bombay, visited the Bhil mission in December 1942
and expressed his unease at ‘the racial distinction of the big house for the European
and the katcha [rough or country-style] one for the Indian’. He suggested that parts
of the bungalows could be used for other purposes. G. M. Oldham to G. F. Cranswick,
Calcutta, 11 January 1943, CMS, G2 I 3/1, sub-files 9 and 13, 1943.
12 This does not mean that the British would necessarily act in their interests. Rather,
it represented a popular perception that the overlord could be appealed to for justice
against local oppressors, just as in Tsarist Russia peasant rebels often believed that
the Tsar would support them in their revolt against local officials and landlords. See
Daniel Field, Rebels in the Name of the Tsar (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976).
13 This was despite the fact that Gandhi insisted that the British, rather than the
indigenous local elites, were the enemy. Those who adulated him generally missed
this subtlety. I have analysed the way in which the tribals of south Gujarat perceived
him in such a way from 1921 onwards in David Hardiman, The Coming of the Devi;
see also Shahid Amin, ‘Gandhi as Mahatma’, in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern
Studies, 3 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984).
14 For details on this, see David Hardiman, Gandhi in his Time and Ours (New Delhi:
Permanent Black, 2003), pp. 177–84.
15 Interview to Dr John Mott, before 1 March 1929, CWMG, 45, p. 145.
16 Discussion with C. F. Andrews, on or after 9 November 1936, CWMG, 70, pp. 58–
60.
17 Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi’s Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination
(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 83–4.
18 Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative
Discourse? (London: Zed Books, 1986), p. 93.
19 Interview to Dr John Mott, before 1 March 1929, CWMG, 45, pp. 143–4.
10 D. Howard, ‘Gandhi’, The Church Missionary Review, 73:837 (March 1922), 15–17.
11 L. B. Butcher to W. V. K. Treanor, 13 June 1930, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1930, doc. 79A.
12 The Bombay Diocesan Magazine, 11:11 (June 1930), 550–1, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1930,
doc. 79B.
13 For an account of the problems that some missionaries encountered when they
stepped out of line in this respect, see Frederick Fisher, That Strange Little Brown
Man Gandhi (New Delhi, Orient Longman, 1970), pp. xvii and 107–8. I have dealt
with this issue in more detail in my book Gandhi in his Time and Ours, pp. 177–84.
14 Details of Motilal Tejawat’s movement are found in NAI, FPD, 428-P (Secret-
Printed) of 1922–23.
15 M. K. Gandhi, ‘Danger of Mass Movement’, Young India (2 February 1922).
16 Interview with Peter Galji Bhanat, Samaiya village, Vijaynagar Taluka, Sabarkantha
District, 15 December 1997. Peter, a Christian convert, was nine at the time and
attending the mission school at Biladiya. Interview with Sankaben Kamjibhai Balat,
Biladiya, Vijaynagar Taluka, Sabarkantha District, 15 December 1997. Sankaben, a
Bhil woman, was aged fifteen in 1922, and she went from her natal village of Pal to
see Motilal at Dadhvav on 7 March.
17 Major H. G. Sutton to Pol. Agent, Mahikantha Agency, 7 March 1922, NAI, FPD,
428-P (Secret-Printed) of 1922–23.
18 Interviews with Sankaben Balat in Biladiya; Peter Bhanat in Samaiya; Galjibhai
Badaji Solanki in Dadhvav; Damaji Panaji Gameti in Baleta, 15 December 1997. I
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have also utilised interviews by carried out by Uday Mahurkar in ‘The Other
Jallianwala’, India Today (1 September 1997).
19 J. I. Lea, BMR (1923), 44.
20 B. S. Pathik to Holland, 26 March 1926, NAI, FPD, 428-P (Secret-Printed) of 1922–23.
21 Fortnightly Report, Rajputana, 31 March 1922, ibid.
22 He remained free until 1929; in that year he was arrested and sent to Mewar, where
he was jailed until 1936. Subsequently he became a leading figure in the Mewar Praja
Mandal, being jailed again from 1942 to 1945. He continued with his political and
social work amongst the Bhils till his death in 1963.
23 Pol. Secretary, FPD, to Private Secretary to Viceroy, 13 April 1922; report by H. R.
N. Pritchard, 14 April 1922; press communiqué from FPD, 7 May 1922; report by
H. R. N. Pritchard, 13 May 1922, NAI, FPD, 428-P (Secret-Printed) of 1922–23.
24 Jane Birkett, ‘Lusadia and the Present Opportunity’, The Mission Hospital (June
1923), 124.
25 J. Lea, Report of the CMS Western India Mission 1922, p. 44, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1923,
doc. 72.
26 R. Carter, Report of the C.M.S. Western India Mission 1922, p. 44, CMS, G2 I 3/0,
1923, doc. 72.
27 Walter Wyatt, Lusadiya, Report of the C.M.S. Western India Mission 1918, p. 47,
CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1919, doc. 109.
28 Interview with Virjibhai Daniel Varsat, Vaghpur, Bhiloda Taluka, 19 December 2002.
Virjibhai’s grandfather, Dola, was amongst the first Bhils of Devni Mori to convert
to Christianity in 1902.
29 Report of the CMS Western India Mission 1931–1932, p. 25, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1933,
doc. 65; correspondence on mission worker’s house in Bhetali (Idar State) 1934,
OIOC, R/2/168/269.
30 Administration Report of the Idar State for the Year 1941–42, p. 3, OIOC,
V/10/1229.
31 Gujarat State Gazetteers: Sabarkantha District (Ahmedabad: Government of
Gujarat, 1974), pp. 164–5.
32 BMR (1929), 28.
33 C. L. Shaw, Lusadiya, BMR (1925), 26; interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera
(Satgurudas’s grandson), Lusadiya, 15 December 2002.
34 K. Paine, Lusadiya, BMR (1929), 12; Report by Dr F. C. Read, BMR (1929), 17. The
standoff continued for ten years, until John’s first wife died. With the second mar-
riage no longer bigamous, it was possible in 1935 to negotiate their return to the
church. Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, p. 20.
35 J. I. Lea, Kherwara, BMR (1926), 20.
36 C. L. Shaw, Lusadiya, BMR (1926), 4.
37 For a report on the debates in this respect amongst the Bhagats of Biladiya, see
W. Hodgkinson, ‘Biladia’, BMR (1906), 23.
38 ‘Central Province Mission: Lusadia’, Mercy and Truth (July 1910), 230.
39 R. S. Heywood, ‘A Visit to Bhil Land’, The Bombay Church Missionary Gleaner
(August 1915), 2, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1915, doc. 82.
40 W.B. Holdom, Kotra, BMR (1925), 7.
41 Interview with Daniel Yusaph Kalasva, Bavaliya, Bhiloda Taluka, 16 December
2002. Daniel, now an old man, was the subject of this incident, which took place
when he was eight years old, that is, around 1923.
42 Report by Mrs C. L. Shaw, BMR (1925), 22.
43 C. L. Shaw, Lusadiya, BMR (1925), 25.
44 Report by Miss R. Carter, BMR (1929), 8–9.
45 Edwin James to secretaries of the CMS, London, 25 January 1919, CMS, G2 I 3/0,
1919, doc. 32.
46 L. B. Butcher to W. V. K. Treanor (Secretary CMS, London), Bombay, 29 November
1929, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1929, doc.110.
47 Petition by Evangelists, Schoolmasters and Elders of the Bhil Mission to Butcher, trans-
lated from Gujarati by Frank Meigh, 25 November 1929, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1930, doc. 9.
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48 Bishop of Bombay to Treanor, Bombay, 15 January 1930, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1930, doc.
23; Report by Bishop of Bombay on his Tour of the Bhil Mission 1929, CMS, G2 I
3/1, sub-file 3.
49 Reports by C. Shaw and F. Read, CMS Report of Work in the Western India Mission
(Diocese of Bombay and Nasik) 1930, pp. 9–11, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1931, doc. 82.
50 L. B. Butcher, ‘The Bhil Mission Jubilee’, The Church Missionary Outlook (March
1931), 54.
51 J. Lea and Mrs Meigh, Report of the C.M.S. Western India Mission 1928, 28–9, CMS,
G2 I 3/0, 1929, doc. 54.
52 Interview with Sister Chandrika, Mankroda, Bhiladia Taluka, 16 December 2002.
53 L. B. Butcher, ‘The First Ordination in Bhil Land’, 16 January 1925, CMS, G2 I 3/0,
1925, doc. 15.
54 Report of the CMS Western India Mission 1931–1932, 22–3, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1933,
doc. 65.
55 Report by F. Meigh, Lusadiya, July 1938, CMS, G2 3/1, sub-file 3.
56 C. Shaw to G. F. Cranswick, Lusadiya, 12 May 1939, ibid.
57 For a report on the zeal and prayers of the Bhil Christians, see W. Wilson Cash, ‘Bhil
Christians and the C.M.S.’, Church Missionary Outlook (May 1939), 104–5;
Cranswick to G. Clark, London, 7 February 1940, CMS, I 3/1, sub-file 1.
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CHAPTER TEN
After Dr Jane Birkett retired in 1922, John Brand became the superin-
tendent of the hospital at Lusadiya briefly, until he too retired in 1923.
Lily Shaw – a qualified nurse and the wife of the Reverend Charles Shaw
– ran the dispensary single-handed until in 1924 an Indian medical
assistant was recruited. D. K. Salvi was young, vigorous and an enthu-
siastic Christian, and his initial popularity brought an increase in
patient numbers. There was however a severe setback later that year
when the son of the ex-pastor Premji Hurji Patel – recently expelled
from the church – fell critically ill from blood-poisoning. Salvi did all
he could to save the boy, who was in great pain, but he died within days.
Premji accused Salvi of killing his son, and he then spread what Lily
Shaw described as ‘horrible lies as to the work of the hospital’. For some
months, hardly anyone came for treatment. Lily Shaw commented that
‘The evil influence of this ex-pastor is felt in almost every part of the
mission.’1
In 1925 a British doctor, Frank Read, took charge at Lusadiya. His
wife was a qualified nurse. When the couple arrived, they found that
the medical work was in disarray. The shortage of funds was such that
there were no means to replace wornout equipment. For example, the
beds for inpatients – which were no more than cheap khatlos of wood
and string – were old and falling to pieces, The situation was so bad in
this respect that Salvi and Lily Shaw had to dissuade many would-be
inpatients from coming for treatment because of the lack of beds.
Instead, in most cases, Shaw treated the sick in their own homes, even
when this meant that she had to walk a considerable distance. When a
case was critical, she would go two or three times in one day. Anyone
who wanted to be admitted had to bring their own bed or sleep on the
floor. Only after Dr Read had arrived was the mission able to make good
this deficiency, as he had some funds that had been donated by sup-
porters in Carlisle, and he used these to purchase iron beds.
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medical training in his work. His report for 1929 was full of accounts of
how ‘seemingly impossible tasks have been accomplished by God’s won-
derful prayer’. Five or six boarding-school children had fallen ill with
whooping cough and then developed broncho-pneumonia. Although this
was an extremely dangerous condition, only one girl had died – and
she already had a weak constitution – while the rest recovered in a
most remarkable way. On another occasion a boy was carried in from
Kherwara with high fever. The parents were tearful, fearing he would die.
In Read’s words: ‘We prayed together, and what seemed almost impossi-
ble happened, and the boy took a turn for the better from that time.’
Another ‘miraculous’ recovery took place soon after, when a Bhil man
who appeared to be dying was saved as a result of Read’s treatment and
some careful nursing by an untrained Bhil woman. According to Read:
‘Truly the hand of God was in this.’11
In January 1931, Read was transferred for a year to Ranaghat in Bengal
‘to get further experience in the administration of a mission hospital’.
An Indian Christian, John Hamilton, was appointed to replace him at
Lusadiya.12 Hamilton had qualified from the Agra Medical School in
1915 as a Licentiated Medical Practitioner. He was paid Rs. 120 per
month and provided with free quarters for himself and his family.13
Read’s deficiencies as a doctor were further exposed at Ranaghat, and in
1932 he was informed that the CMS no longer required his services. He
returned to England severely disappointed, still believing that his failure
had been caused by the lack of funding for the Lusadiya medical
mission.14 In a letter to London of August 1932, Butcher wrote that
although the mission would like a doctor from England to replace Read,
the need was not urgent given the financial situation at that time. As it
was, Hamilton had already proved his capabilities.15
Frank Meigh held a very different opinion of the new doctor. His
attitude towards Hamilton appears to have been based on a racist
opinion that ‘native doctors’ were invariably inferior to their English
counterparts. Writing to Butcher in November 1932, he argued that
‘Far more confidence is naturally placed in an English Doctor. The Bhils
do not readily trust one of Hindu extract even though a Christian.’
Previous ‘native doctors’, he asserted, had proved unsatisfactory in
one way or another. They had disliked the ‘loneliness and isolation of
the jungle’. They were unable to bear being so far from their relatives.
They knew that they could earn far more in the cities and had
resigned to work there. Alternatively, they had been involved in
intrigues with the local thakors and Brahmans. The Bhils did not
trust them and they lacked the character to win their confidence, so that
they soon lost interest in their work and became lazy. One became
corrupt, taking fees for treatment on the side. Another took drugs. As
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Bhils are normally fairly healthy on account of their open outdoor life;
but in sickness they are specially fearful, helpless, hopeless. It is a great
thing inspiring confidence to know there is a place to go in their need.
Take it away and you throw them into sheer despair.18
Once more, the notion of the ‘primitivism’ of the Bhils was being regur-
gitated to justify the work of the mission. Though depicted in one
respect as children of nature who enjoyed good health, they were also –
by implication – naturally sinful, being mired in superstition and
subject to the ‘powers of evil’. Whatever its merits, this appeal went
down well with Cook, who made a point of visiting Lusadiya in late
1934 on a tour of India. He responded in like terms – his report of his
visit deployed the word ‘primitive’ at every turn. Leaving the nearest
railway station to Lusadiya, he had to take a ‘primitive motor omnibus’.
The road passed through ‘primitive villages’, along rough tracks with
protruding tree roots and fords across rushing streams. Arriving at
Lusadiya, he found there a ‘primitive little hospital containing six beds,
equipment of the simplest type, and yet a living work being carried on
which is of inestimable value to the Church and the Mission in this iso-
lated spot’.
Fortunately for the mission, Cook was highly impressed. He noted
that Dr John Hamilton had had to overcome a number of problems after
he arrived. The Bhils were, for example, suspicious of Hindi-speaking
people. They were also prejudiced against Indian Christian doctors, as
the previous one had alienated both the people and the Bhil church.
Hamilton had nonetheless won them round through his sympathetic
and friendly demeanour, his care of the sick and his indefatigable visits
to their homes. The number of patients had doubled in numbers since
he took over; in the past twelve months over 11,000 outpatients had
been treated at Lusadiya. Cook concluded that ‘This Medical work
could not be closed without serious loss to the whole Bhil Mission.’19
On his return to London, Cook ensured that the CMS continued to fund
Lusadiya sufficiently to allow the work to continue there.20
In 1935, Hamilton compiled a table showing attendance at Lusadiya
during his time there. In the first full year when he had been in charge
– 1932 – there were 5,452 outpatients and 23 inpatients, whereas in
1934 there were 10,571 outpatients and 43 inpatients. In 1932, there
were 95 minor operations, against 184 in 1934. In 1934, there were 238
home visits.21 In the following year, Hamilton wrote a detailed report
on his work that was of a quality not seen since the reports of Jane
Birkett many years before. In this, he stated that the outpatients came
mainly from villages in a radius of about thirty-two kilometres, though
some came from further away. The great majority were poor and of low
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could handle, suffering some strain that was showing in his attitude to
others.27
During this period, the dispensary at Biladiya was run initially by an
Indian medical assistant, Dr Dey, and then by Marjorie Meigh, a trained
nurse. The facilities could generally cope with minor complaints, but
they were helpless in the face of serious illness. Thus, when they were
hit by an epidemic of ‘relapsing fever and pneumonia’ in the winter of
1923–24, twelve Christians died despite Meigh’s attentions, ‘a large
number for such a small Christian community’. Many more non-
Christians also died; Meigh saw them burying their dead in the dry river
bed and could hear ‘the dreadful heart-rending wailing of those who
mourn without . . . the hope of the glorious resurrection in Christ
Jesus’.28 As a nurse, Meigh could provide basic drugs, dressings and
nursing care, but was helpless in the face of serious illness and injury.
Thus, when in 1925 a man was brought in from Mundeti village,
twenty-five kilometres from Biladiya, with serious abdominal injuries
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abscess take its time enduring far more pain of course.’ She told a
humorous story of one patient with a very painful abscess who, to avoid
having to endure such a treatment, fled across the fields pursued by his
wife. The man’s brother asked Holdom to join in the chase, but she
refused saying that she never treated anyone against their will – and
would still less run after them across the countryside – and that if he
wanted treatment he would have to come back of his own volition. He
never did.31
Inspired by the faith that God was with her in her medical work, the
unqualified Holdom appears to have been a far more effective healer
than the unconfident Frank Read. For example, she wrote in 1935 of
how she had saved the life of a four-year-old orphan boy whose clothes
had caught alight and who had received terrible burns. Although she
felt that he was unlikely to survive, she had applied daily dressings with
great care and administered a diet of milk and cod-liver oil. He recove-
red and was soon running about happily. According to Holdom, the
local people were convinced that it was a miracle.32 Writing in 1941,
she claimed that she had carried out more medical work at Biladiya
than any others had ever done. When she had taken the work over she
had anticipated that she would be mainly responsible for the care of the
local Christian community, but to her surprise more and more non-
Christians had come over the years. She was often called to go out to
treat people from all over the area. She commented: ‘All I can say is that
God was very good and overruled many mistakes I must have made and
for some reason the people seemed to have faith in me and that counts
for everything with our Bhils.’33
It is notable that during this entire period, none of the reports from
the Bhil mission mention any attempts at sustained medical education,
with, for example, lantern slide shows or pamphlets or posters setting
out the principles of biomedicine.34 In this area, the Idar State authori-
ties took the lead during the 1930s, with campaigns for vaccination, the
distribution in villages of pamphlets on village sanitation, and lantern
slide shows at village schools on health and hygiene.35 The missionar-
ies do not appear to have felt that such campaigns were necessary to
their work at this time. They deployed their medicine to win trust,
sympathy and converts, rather than to stimulate curiosity about its
techniques or a grasp of its principles. They seem to have had little
desire to demystify what appeared to local people to be a form of ‘super-
ior magic’.36
In such a light, the supposedly bizarre beliefs of the Bhils on illness
and health provided more a source of amusement than one of grave
concern. Agnes Lees thus spoke of some ‘amusing incidents’ that
enlivened her itineration of 1923:
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One old man with a bad headache was given aspirin tablets. He turned up
next day to enquire whether the tablets were to be rubbed on the head or
swallowed. Another story is that of six old men sitting before the tent door.
They asked for cough mixture, and having no bottles were given a dose at
once, whereupon the question was “have we one cough or many coughs?”37
Rowena Watts had similar tales from her tour of 1925:
We have the humorous side too, which is usually connected with the dis-
pensing of simple remedies in the villages. Once when I was about to
administer a dose to a man who was seemingly very willing to swallow
it, I suddenly found it was for his wife at home! It is not quite proper to
speak about his lady at home, so it is a little embarrassing at times,
though amusing. The same thing happened last week out this way, but
on being asked to put out his tongue, the truth came out! It is such a
delight that these people have a keen sense of humour.38
Such stories – included ostensibly to lighten up the reports – sent out a
clear message as to the ‘backwardness’ of the Bhils and their continu-
ing need for Christian ministry and the wonders of ‘English medicine’
as administered by mission workers.
Notes
11 Lilian Shaw, Lusadiya, BMR (1924), p. 22.
12 Frank Read, Anand, BMR (1925), 16–17. The Medical Missionary Association was
an interdenominational body founded in 1878 that recruited and trained medical
missionaries and supported their work to a limited extent in the field. Salaries were
paid by each separate missionary society – in Read’s case the CMS.
13 ‘Bhil Country: Lusadia’, The Mission Hospital (August 1928), 210–11.
14 W. B. Holdom, Kherwara and Bavaliya, BMR (1927), 9, 28.
15 F. C. Read, Lusadiya, BMR (1927), 15–16; ‘Bhil Country: Lusadia’, The Mission
Hospital (August 1929), 208–9.
16 F. C. Read, Lusadiya, BMR (1929), 14–17.
17 L. B. Butcher to W. V. K. Treanor, Bombay, 29 November 1929, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 929,
doc. 110.
18 Butcher to Treanor, 19 August 1932, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1932, doc. 69.
19 Butcher to Treanor, Bombay, 29 November 1929, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1929, doc. 110.
10 F. Meigh, Comment on Canon Butcher’s Letter of 14 November 1929, CMS, G2 I
3/0, 1929, doc. 122.
11 F. C. Read, Lusadiya, BMR (1929), 14–15.
12 ‘Among the Bhils: Lusadia’, The Mission Hospital (August 1931), 208.
13 Minutes of Bombay Corresponding Committee, 9 March 1931, CMS, MY I 3, 1931.
14 F. C. Read to Treanor, 6 June 1932, CMS, G2 I 3/0 1932, doc. 50; Butcher to Treanor,
4 June 1932, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1932, doc. 53; Butcher to Treanor, 30 September 1932,
CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1932, doc. 91.
15 Butcher to Treanor, 19 August 1932, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1932, doc. 69.
16 Frank Meigh to Butcher, Lusadiya, 15 November 1932, CMS, MY I 3.
17 Report of the CMS Western India Mission 1931–1932, p. 25, CMS, G2 I 3/0, 1933,
doc. 65.
18 F. Meigh and W. Holdom to Dr J. Howard Cook, Lusadiya, 14 April 1934, CMS, MY
I 3.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
Paul and Margaret Johnson, who took charge of the Bhil mission in
1942, came mentally prepared for the transfer of power from the British
to an independent Indian government, and they were the ones who
steered the mission through the period of transition in the late 1940s.
In 1948, Mewar was merged into the new state of Rajasthan, and Idar
and other adjoining minor princely states became a part of Bombay
State as the district of ‘Sabarkantha’, which meant the area lying along
the banks of the Sabarmati River. In 1953, the name for the church
changed from that of a ‘mission to the Bhils’ to one defined in terms of
the territory it covered, which stretched from the banks of the Som
River in Mewar to the Sabarmati River in the erstwhile Idar State, being
called the ‘Som-Sabarkantha church’.
In contrast to the missionaries before them, the Johnsons had a pos-
itive attitude towards the Indian nationalist movement. They were
strong admirers of Gandhi, and when their stay in Mussoorie in May
1946 happened to coincide with a visit there by the Mahatma, they met
him and prayed with him. They proudly kept a photograph in their
family album showing them strolling and chatting with the great man.1
They celebrated Indian independence in good spirit in August 1947, and
Paul wrote optimistically in his annual report for that year: ‘We mis-
sionaries certainly rejoice that a new relationship renders the old sus-
picions and doubts in Indian minds obsolete. We still have important
services to render and a rich Christian heritage to share, but no longer
are we to be identified with a foreign ruling power.’2 The chief of these
‘services’ had by then become the medical one, with huge amounts of
effort and resources being poured into providing an up-to-date hospital
for the Bhil mission, as we shall see in the next chapter.
Margaret Johnson had trained to become a medical missionary
because she had doubted the value of missionary work that focused
only on conversion.3 Nonetheless, she hoped that her medical practice
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In this, she was claiming that education in itself was not enough to
transform the life of a Bhil in a truly ‘civilised’ manner; Christianity
was also required.
She knew that progress would be slow in this respect. In 1945 she
stated: ‘We are not getting any obvious spiritual results from our
work; no spectacular conversions or lists of baptisms, but I am sure that
like the leaven it is working slowly, as things do in this country.’6
She was careful to ensure that patients were aware of the Christian
content of the service they received. For example, in 1945 she scheduled
daily prayers at the hospital for a later time when outpatients would be
around so as to attract a larger audience. Repeating the theme of healing
leading towards faith, she wrote in 1951 that the Bhils who took treat-
ment for malaria came to believe in the efficacy of the anti-malarial
drugs even though they did not understand how it worked, and ‘that this
is the first step to belief in the teaching which leads from the mere mos-
quito to the love of God who is waiting to heal the ills of the soul.’7
Paul, by contrast, was still deploying the more strident tones of a
‘muscular Christianity’.8 Writing about the defeat of Japan in 1945, he
stated: ‘Our deadly warfare is still going on and we more than ever need
to be spiritually fit, alert and ready at our Captain’s word to go in and
set free those who are still bound in ignorance, superstition, fear and
moral disease.’9 In their respective ways, Margaret and Paul thus con-
tinued to stress the ‘civilising’ value of Christianity, though he tended
to use a language that was by then already becoming outmoded,
whereas she adopted subtler ways of expressing this principle.10
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When the Johnsons took charge in 1942, they became responsible for
1,329 baptised Christians in nine separate parishes. The largest was
the parish of Lusadiya, with 449 baptised Christians (34 per cent of
the total), followed by Biladiya with 276 (21 per cent), Bavaliya with 133
(10 per cent), Kherwara with 113 (8.5 per cent), and the others with
fewer than 100 each. The numbers had increased gradually over the
years largely as a result of natural reproduction, as the families of the
original converts had expanded over the generations.11 Fresh conver-
sions had been few and far between, and when they did occur, they were
normally of youths studying in the mission schools.12 The opposition
to conversion within the wider Bhil society continued as strong as ever.
Students at the mission schools who expressed a wish to convert were
commonly threatened with social boycott.13 Patients at the hospital
who expressed an interest in conversion might be snatched away by
their relatives before they could take the step, even if they were seri-
ously ill. When, for example, a woman who was dying of cancer at
Lusadiya hospital expressed her desire to become a Christian, a relative
of hers, who was a well-known buva, came and forced her to return to
her village. She told her husband on her deathbed that Christ had come
to her in a vision to call her away, after which she was said to have died
in peace.14
In 1942 the Idar State government passed a law that required anyone
intending to change their religion to register their name in the court
at the state capital at Himatnagar, which was sixty-five kilometres
from Lusadiya. Charles Shaw commented, hopefully, that this would
perhaps ensure the sincerity and openness of future converts.15 In fact,
it meant that officials could bring strong pressure to bear on any poten-
tial convert or his or her family, either harassing them in the court or
in their villages, or operating bureaucratic procedures in such a way as
to make it very hard to complete a successful registration.16 For
example, a young Bhil called Manji from a village near Biladiya, who
had studied up to the sixth standard at the mission school at Biladiya,
decided in 1945 to convert to Christianity. During that year, he went
on foot on three occasions to register his resolve in the court at
Himatnagar. The application was turned down each time on the ground
that he was still a minor. Back home, he faced severe persecution from
his family, being beaten and starved of food. When a group of young Bhil
men threatened to kill him, he fled to Lusadiya, where he took refuge
in the mission compound. He was taken on for training as a com-
pounder in the hospital.17 In the following year, he made several more
fruitless visits to the court. Eventually, the magistrate ruled on the
basis of evidence from Manji’s father that he was yet to come of age,
and he was ordered to return to his family. As his relatives were not in
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Christians. This was a time when the Gandhian influence was still
strong amongst many such people, and, following their mentor, the
Congress leaders and social workers placed a strong emphasis on reli-
gious tolerance. With the demise of the princely states, Gandhian
workers were able to establish ashrams in areas from which they had
previously been excluded. A Sarvodaya worker called Narsinhbhai
Bhavsar founded one such institution at Shamlaji, close to Lusadiya. He
became a frequent visitor to the mission at Lusadiya, and even sent
some of the ashram schoolchildren to the church there at Christmas so
that they could experience a Christian festival.27 K. K. Shah, the influ-
ential President of the Bombay Provincial Congress Committee, took a
keen interest in the medical work of the mission, and in 1957 he agreed
to come in person to open a new block for the Lusadiya hospital.28 The
political climate in the 1950s was as a result in general more favourable
to the missionaries than it had been in the 1940s. There were however
a few ominous signs. In 1954, for example, the police were ordered to
provide fortnightly reports on the activities of foreign missionaries, and
instructions were sent out that no attempt should be made to convert
pupils in mission schools.29 It also became increasingly difficult for
missionaries to obtain visas to work in India, and applications were
delayed and in a few cases turned down.30
Soon after his arrival, Paul Johnson expressed his dissatisfaction
with the concept of a ‘Bhil mission’. Writing in 1943, he stated:
Although the title ‘Bhil Mission’ is useful in designating the area of a par-
ticular work in C.M.S. circles yet I feel that we should aim at the creat-
ing of a church composed of people drawn from all walks of life,
eventually dropping this caste-promoting title. The Bhils of course love
it, and show little desire to receive an influx of people who might deprive
them of their livelihood as servants of the mission.31
He went on to say that his ambition was to extend the church to other
communities of Gujarat. He felt that the medical work had allowed the
misssionaries to build strong links with many non-Bhils, and said that
he was planning to take a team of evangelists to Himatnagar, the Idar
State capital, to preach to the townspeople there. He tried to rationalise
the Bhil Christians’ desire to keep the church to themselves in terms of
narrow self-interest – they gained jobs within the mission. In fact, only
a small number so benefited – their Christianity was not based on such
mercenary considerations. Johnson failed to see that what the Bhils were
asserting was a consistent and, for them, valid counter-narrative in
which their attachment to Christianity provided a means to strengthen
their community. For them, this was a perfectly moral desire.
As it was, Paul Johnson failed to extend his evangelising to the towns
and other castes of Idar State. In the same letter he complained about
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how his life was being taken up with ‘petty business’. ‘Often I have felt
more like the manager of an estate than a missionary.’ He had to buy
supplies, food and livestock, plan and supervise various building works
for the mission and its hospital, pay merchants’ bills, act as paymaster
for the staff, do the mission accounts, negotiate with tax officials, run
a cooperative credit scheme for Bhil Christians and sit as chairman of
the church panchayats (councils). On top of this, he had to perform the
church services each day, celebrate Holy Communion at the outlying
churches in rotation and provide pastoral care for the congregation.
There was little time left, he grumbled, for any evangelistic work.32
In the annual report for 1942, he elaborated on the work of the
Lusadiya church panchayat. Nearly all of the cases that came before it
concerned adultery, and they were so tangled with intrigue and lies that
it took a long time to unravel the truth and obtain a confession. The
punishments laid down for the guilty in such cases were twenty-five
strokes with a stick for the guilty man, and the cutting-off of hair for
the woman.33 He described this as ‘the local Christian ruling’, as if to
distance himself from such forms of corporal punishment. It is however
clear that he went along with them, as did his predecessor, Charles
Shaw. Shaw described in his diary one such case before the panchayat
from 1940. At that time, the court consisted of Shaw and five Bhil elders
of the church. On 19 December of that year they met to discuss a case
involving two young Christians, Daniel and Esther. Daniel’s father,
Hira, and Esther’s father, Hakara, were also present. Shaw commented:
‘We got Hira to give Daniel a bit of a beating, and got Hakara to make
it up with Hira. (While Daniel was being beaten, a bit of the stick flew
off and hit me in the eye).’34 Nancy Rose Hunt, whose research likewise
uncovered missionary-sanctioned corporal punishment – in this case in
the Belgian Congo – has argued that missionary idioms of compassion
towards their flock become intertwined, incongruously, in such
instances with a language of colonial discipline.35 While this observa-
tion is pertinent, it must also be stressed that the demand for such dis-
cipline came in the case of the Bhil panchayat from the patriarchal
elders of the community, while a missionary like Paul Johnson
appeared to be somewhat uneasy about it. As it was, the church hier-
archy eventually put a stop to all corporal punishment, as we shall see
below.
The process of indigenisation of the church received a blow in 1943
when the first Bhil clergyman, Jakhi Asari – then based at Biladiya – was
discovered in an adulterous relationship. He made a full confession,
thus forestalling the need for a diocesan enquiry, but still had to be dis-
missed from his post.36 Nonetheless, a second Bhil clergyman, Rupji
Bhanat, soon replaced him. A product of the mission school at
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Biladiya – which was also his home village – Rupji had caught the eye of
Charles Shaw and had been sent for theological training in Ahmedabad
and then Baroda. He was ordained as a deacon in 1945 and a priest in
1946, and he worked initially under Paul Johnson at Lusadiya.37 In
1946, there were twenty-three mission staff in all, of whom six were
British, four were Indians from outside the region, and thirteen were
Bhils. Of the three main mission centres, two were under British mis-
sionaries (Paul Johnson at Lusadiya, and Charles Shaw at Biladiya),
while only one – Kherwara – was under an Indian pastor, the Reverend
Philip Parmar. Of the thirteen Bhil staff members, one – Rupji Bhanat
– was a priest, while nine were lay pastors. The remaining three Bhils
were Dr Daniel Christian, the nurse Shanti Joria and a hospital evan-
gelist.38
Philip Parmar was from a family of untouchable converts of central
Gujarat. He had received theological training in Bombay and was
appointed to the mission in 1943. After his ordination at Lusadiya in
1944, he was sent to take charge at Kherwara. There, he encountered
sharp opposition from Agnes Lees, who had been working with the
mission since 1916, and since 1942 had become the senior missionary at
Kherwara when the girls’ boarding school that was under her charge was
shifted there from Lusadiya. Distressed by her attitude towards him and
his wife, Parmar requested a transfer away from Kherwara. In the end,
the CMS decided to get rid of Lees, who was informed that it was time
for her to retire. She left eventually in mid-1946, returning to Britain.39
Now in undisputed charge at Kherwara, Parmar decided that the
church needed to change its image, which was too closely entangled
with British colonialism. It had, for example, become over-dependent
on donations from Britain, and to counter this he introduced the idea
of a ‘God’s field’, in which land was cultivated by church members vol-
untarily and the produce used for the poorer members of the church.
The scheme enjoyed considerable success. He also held dialogues with
sympathetic Hindus, such as members of the Kabir Panth, hoping
thereby to break down the barriers that had grown between local
Hindus and Christians.40 Writing on the eve of Indian independence,
Parmar noted how nationalist politicians were working against them,
‘arguing among other things, that Christianity is a western religion
established with a view to uphold a foreign rule’. Often, the Bhil
Christians were unable to find convincing arguments to counter this
charge. The time had come, he argued, to replace the idea of a Bhil
mission with that of a Christian church.
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In this, he was in accord with Paul Johnson in his desire to broaden the
church, and so far as he was concerned this ideal was a long way from
being achieved.
The lay pastors of this period were in many cases second-generation
Christians with a strong family commitment to the church. The
Kalasva family provides one such case. Yusuph Kalasva, who was born
around 1890, was a famine orphan of a village near Kherwara who had
studied to the fourth standard before being appointed a lay pastor,
working at Lusadiya, Kotada and Bavaliya. His son Daniel was born in
1915 and, in an interview that I conducted with him in 2002, remem-
bered moving from one mission station to another with his father,
mother and eight siblings every two or so years. He studied up to the
fourth standard at Kherwara, and was then sent by Charles Shaw for
training in theology in Ahmedabad and Bombay, being appointed a lay
pastor in 1940. He failed his further theological exams, and as a result
was never ordained. He was sent to Biladiya to work under Charles
Shaw in 1942, and used to accompany Shaw in his preaching tours.42
His eldest sister, Manglibai, was also based in Biladiya at this time. She
was the wife of another lay pastor, who was often absent on church
business, leaving her to bring up their children and manage their fields
alone. Despite this she found time to hold frequent prayer meetings and
a weekly Bible class for women, and was considered a pillar of the
local church. She died, suddenly, of malaria in 1945, and was greatly
mourned not only by the local Christians, but also by many non-
Christians who respected her for her many kindnesses.43
Since 1907, the pastoral and evangelical work of the Bhil church had
been the responsibility of a series of church councils, or panchayats.
Each of the nine congregations had a council that initially consisted of
all communicant Christians, but later – as numbers grew – became
elected bodies. These were presided over by either a priest or lay pastor,
and met about twice a month. Over and above them were the three
parish councils of Lusadiya, Biladiya and Kherwara, which consisted of
all the members of these lower councils, and which met monthly under
the parish priest. At the apex there was the council for the entire Bhil
church, known as the moti panchayat, or great council. It consisted of
all the parish priests, lay pastors, parish council secretaries and treas-
urers, and some members elected from each parish. Although all of
these councils had a large majority of Indian members, and the aim
from the start had been to promote democracy within the church, the
leading figures – to whom the others invariably deferred in the last
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instance – were still the priests, and particularly the white priests. The
councils had no responsibility so far as the medical and educational
work of the mission was concerned; this was the responsibility of the
Bhil Mission Conference, which was composed of all the white mis-
sionaries working in the area. It was only in 1952 that the first Indian
clergyman, Rupji Bhanat, was allowed to sit on this latter body.44
The constitution of the church was revised also in 1952, the new
version coming into effect at the start of 1953. This declared that the
responsibility for the work of the evangelical and pastoral church lay
with its councils, rather than the C M S. According to Paul Johnson,
this was a transitional arrangement, and for the time being support
would continue to be provided by the parent body in London. The days
were however approaching when the church would have to look after
itself entirely.45 Because it was now illegal under Bombay State law for
non-official bodies to apply corporal punishment, they were no longer
allowed to hand out sentences in matters of church discipline. Instead,
all such cases were to be heard before a local council, with a report
being sent to the Bishop of Bombay, who would rule on the appropriate
punishment. It was at this juncture that the church was renamed ‘Som-
Sabarkantha’. According to Paul Johnson, this was ‘because there were
large numbers of people other than the Bhils all to be won for Christ
and the Church was anxious not to perpetuate the name Bhil and
become another caste Church’.46
In 1954, Paul Johnson was appointed Archdeacon of Ahmedabad,
which made him responsible for all Anglicans in Gujarat. This task was
over and above his work as the leader of the Som-Sabarkantha church,
and it took him on tours all over the region. He served in this position
until 1959, when Rupji Bhanat took over. In 1957, the management of all
the schools and hostels was transferred to the moti panchayat. This
meant that the medical work was the only area kept outside any such
democratic control, being still under the management of the CMS. From
1957 onwards, the medical side of the mission published its own sepa-
rate annual report – previously its affairs had been included in the general
Bhil mission report. The period of independence did not last long, for in
1960 the Gujarat church was placed under the Bombay Diocesan
Council, with all of its property being transferred to the diocese. In 1961,
the diocese took over the responsibility for the educational and medical
work – a change that was to have profound implications for both of these
areas of work, as we shall see in Chapter 13.47
During the 1950s, Bhil priests began to take charge at the higher level
of the church. By 1958, only one of the parishes, Lusadiya, was under a
foreign missionary – Paul Johnson. The parish priest at Kherwara was
the Reverend Valji Pandav, brother of Shanti Joria, who had been
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Notes
11 Rachel Mash, ‘Margaret Fitzhugh Johnson, Doctor and Missionary (1941–1963): Her
Work and Family Life in the Context of Pre-Independence and Post-Independence
India’, BA dissertation, University of Brighton, 2001, p. 51.
12 ‘The Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1947), 14.
13 Mash, ‘Margaret Fitzhugh Johnson’, p. 26.
14 Ibid., p. 29.
15 Ibid., p. 26.
16 ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1945), 12–13.
17 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1951), 19.
18 This tendency has been studied by Clifford Putney, Muscular Christianity:
Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, Mass
achusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001).
19 P. Johnson, circular letter, 20 August 1945, Paul Johnson papers.
10 Looking back in 1987 at his early ambition to ‘preach the Gospel in “heathen
lands” ’, Paul Johnson remarked with hindsight that it was ‘an expression I would
not use today’. N. Johnson, ‘Paul Henry Johnson: The Constant Call’, p. 1, Paul
Johnson papers. Rosemary Fitzgerald has told me, in like vein, that an ex-mission-
ary she interviewed told her that she now cringed when she thought of the ways in
which she had spoken and acted in the past.
11 BMR (1942), 23.
12 ‘Miss Holdom Writes’, BMR (1943), 18.
13 ‘Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1955), 4.
14 ‘Rev. Canon C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1948), 3–4.
15 ‘Rev. Canon C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1942), 10.
16 ‘The Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 5.
17 ‘Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1945), 5.
18 ‘Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1946), 14.
19 For further details of Manji’s harassment see Dr M. Fitzhugh Johnson, ‘Corn in
India’, The Church Missionary Outlook (June 1948), 5.
20 ‘Rev. Canon C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1947), 3.
21 ‘Rev. Canon C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1948), 1.
22 ‘Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1949), 1.
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23 P. Johnson, ‘Circular Letter No. 3’, Lusadiya, February 1943, Paul Johnson papers.
24 ‘The Rev. P. B. Parmar Writes’, BMR (1945), 14 and 16.
25 ‘The Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1965), 15.
26 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1954), 21.
27 ‘The Ven. P. H. Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1957–58), 5. See also ibid., 17
for friendships between missionaries and Gandhian workers.
28 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1957), 3.
29 P. Johnson, ‘Chronology of the Bhil Mission’, entry for 1954, Paul Johnson papers.
30 In the case of two Danish citizens who volunteered to work for the Bhil mission in
the early 1950s, one application took about two years to process, and the other was
rejected. The latter person went to work in Pakistan instead. See correspondence in
CMS, G2 I 3/2, passim.
31 P. Johnson, ‘Second Annual Letter for Year Ending 30 June 1943’, Lusadiya, 16
August 1943, Paul Johnson papers.
32 P. Johnson, ‘Second Annual Letter for Year Ending 30 June 1943’, Lusadiya, 16
August 1943, Paul Johnson papers.
33 The Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 14–15.
34 Diary of Charles Shaw, entry for 19 December 1940, CMS, Unofficial Papers, Acc.
162.
35 Hunt, A Colonial Lexicon, pp. 94–5.
36 ‘The Rev. Canon C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1943), 7.
37 Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, p. 50.
38 ‘C.M.S. Bhil Mission Staff, 1946’, BMR (1943), 2.
39 L. Butcher to C. Milford, Bombay, 4 February 1946 and 9 July 1946, CMS, G2 I 3/1
sub-file 1, 1946.
40 Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, p. 52.
41 ‘The Rev. P. B. Parmar Writes’, BMR (1946), 26.
42 Interview with Daniel Yusuph Kalasva, Bavaliya, 16 December 2002.
43 ‘Mrs. C. L. Shaw Writes’, BMR (1945), 9–10.
44 Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, pp. 61 and 69–70.
45 ‘Rev. P. H. Johnson Writes from England’, BMR (1952), 8–9.
46 ‘Address by the Rev. P. H. Johnson (Bhil Mission)’, Church Mission House, Salisbury
Square, London, 1953, Paul Johnson papers.
47 Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, pp. 71 and 80.
48 ‘The Ven. P. H. Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1957–58), 3–4.
49 ‘Church Statistics, 1958’, BMR (1957–58), 25.
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C H A P T E R T W E LV E
Medical modernity
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the post-First World War period. Before then, she says, it was expected
that all missionaries – whatever their particular expertise – would
devote a substantial part of their time to evangelical work. In the case
of medical missionaries, the emphasis began to shift towards a more
exclusive focus on medical work after the First World War, as mission-
aries with full medical qualifications began to demand with increasing
stridency that they be allowed to devote their full energies to the work
in which they had been trained. The old corner-cutting and making do
were becoming increasingly outmoded in a world of more exacting and
sophisticated medical therapy, and no longer was the ‘native’ likely to
be dazzled by second-best treatment. In addition, local Christians were
increasingly carrying out evangelistic activity, while foreign mission-
aries focused on supervisory, organisational or professional work. This
was happening at the same time as the challenge of nationalist move-
ments in European colonial territories and a growing respect amongst
many Christians for other religions saw the development of a belief
that missionaries should try to work with indigenous people rather
than merely convert them to Christianity. Gandhi, with his strand of
Hinduism and strong spirituality, was particularly admired. There was
a growing emphasis on the shared project of many religious people. In
this way, the old certainties were being replaced with an attitude of
greater circumspection and humility. It was felt increasingly that mis-
sionaries should seek to exemplify a Christian way of life in their own
persons through their compassion and good work. Medical work for its
own sake provided an exemplary means towards this end. As a result,
missionaries in the field became more and more involved in social
work, and they often saw this as their authentic life mission. Like
Stanley, Brouwer describes this as an affirmation of the ‘social gospel’.2
Although Stanley and Brouwer make some useful observations about
developments in missionary strategy and practice, I am not convinced
that they should be analysed in terms of any triumph of the principle
of the ‘social gospel’. The ‘social gospel’ movement was, after all, met-
ropolitan rather than colonial, and it evolved independently from the
work of missionaries in European colonies. Charles Hopkins has shown
how it originated in the United States in the period after the Civil War,
being, as he claims, a ‘uniquely American movement towards the
socialising and ethicising of Protestantism.’3 Also known as ‘social
Christianity,’ it was not, according to Paul Carter, so ‘unique’, having
as it did affinities with the contemporary Christian socialist movement
in Britain and social Catholicism in Europe.4 For Hopkins, it repre-
sented a Christian response to the social problems that resulted from
industrial capitalism and it had strong links to trade unionism. It
was critical of the materialism and greed of the capitalist ethos and
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Dr Daniel Christian saw the outpatients and where the medicine was
stored. There were a labour bed and a cupboard of surgical instruments,
some of which had been purchased by Dr Frank Reid as army surplus
stock. While there was a good range of equipment for eye operations,
there were few instruments suited for abdominal and gynaecological
surgery. A proper operating table was needed – the labour bed had a
habit of collapsing without warning. The other three buildings housed
the so-called ‘family wards’ for inpatients. These consisted of eleven
small rooms for patients, each with a veranda and an attached kitchen.
Besides each patient there were – invariably – a number of accompany-
ing relatives and friends who accommodated themselves on the floor of
the room or veranda and cooked in the kitchen. There were, Margaret
Johnson discovered, only five mattresses, six tattered sheets and two
pillows to share between the eleven beds. The windows of these ‘wards’
were unglazed, allowing birds to nest in the rooms. There was no elec-
tricity or independent water source for the hospital, and it was without
latrines or wash-places.9
The scene was thus set for the ‘modernisation’ of the hospital under
the expert guidance and leadership of a doctor fresh from Britain. It was
not once asked whether such a development would be sustainable in
the long run, given that it was already being foreseen that the days of
the white missionaries in India were numbered. Writing at the same
time, Margaret Johnson’s husband Paul noted that some Indian
Christians were urging the missionaries to leave India as soon as pos-
sible so that they could run their churches themselves, and he acknowl-
edged that this was inevitable sooner or later.10 However, rather than
consolidate what had been achieved and hand over power quickly at
every level, including the medical, the two inaugurated a strategy that
would require their presence and the presence of future white mission-
aries for many years hence. Like his predecessors, Johnson continued to
repeat the mantra of Bhil ‘primitivism’ and the need for continuing
white guidance and leadership, stating in 1942 that ‘I presume it will
be our increasing concern to wean them [the Bhils] from this deadening
and initiative-sapping dependence on the Mission. While this weaning
process is going on, it seems to me essential that our mission staff
should be as adequate as possible to meet the needs of training the
leaders of this very simple community.’11 In arguing thus, he ignored
the fact that Jakhi Kanji Asari had been working as an ordained priest
since 1928, that there were also several Bhil lay pastors who played a
crucial role in running the church, and that local Bhils were already
running the hospital and working as schoolteachers in many of the
schools. Rather than acknowledge this success, he could see only the
need for further ‘training’ under white tutelage. The stage was thus set
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for the final phase of the work of CMS missionaries amongst the Bhils,
which saw the building-up of a flourishing modern hospital. It proved,
however, to be an achievement built on sand, as we shall see in the next
chapter.
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and clay was dug out, hand-moulded, sun-dried and baked in a make-
shift kiln by the river at Lusadiya.17
As yet, Margaret Johnson was unable to make use of her greatest
skill, that of a surgeon. She had studied medicine at Liverpool
University, graduating with distinction in gynaecology and obstetrics
in 1934, and then gained further surgical qualifications at Edinburgh in
1937. She had proved extremely adept in surgical work, and could easily
have found a good appointment in Britain, particularly during a time –
that of the Second World War – when prospects for women in skilled
vocations had opened up considerably. She had, however, already deter-
mined to become a medical missionary.18 Writing in early 1944, she
regretted that the missionaries were very restricted by their facilities at
Lusadiya and that she was prepared to carry out major surgery only
when it was imperative. The patients did not as yet have great confi-
dence in her abilities in this respect, and neither did she, given the state
of the operating theatre and equipment. The most common major
surgery performed in 1943 had been operations to remove stones in the
bladder. There was a steady demand for cataract operations, with a
waiting list for this procedure.19 The missionaries had only one small
steriliser, which restricted them to one operation per day. She had an
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major and 305 minor operations being performed in 1945. In all 373 inpa-
tients had been treated (compared with 278 in 1942 – a 34 % increase),
with an average stay each of 22.5 days. Of these, 10 were confinements.25
The demand for beds created a new feature of the hospital – grass-hut
wards. Writing in 1945, Margaret Johnson exclaimed:
When patients are told there is no room, they simply build one for them-
selves! Yesterday I counted six grass huts in the compound, and two
‘rooms’ made by winding a length of sheeting around veranda pillars. We
supply beds and blankets and they spread straw on the ground and build
fireplaces outside, and are as cosy as can be.26
In her report for 1945, Margaret Johnson complained that in the absence
of extra trained workers, the quality of the treatment that each patient
received was bound to decline. Being overstretched, the medical staff
had no time to give adequate teaching to those in training, and the lab-
oratory work was also suffering. 27
In 1946, the mission lost its only Bhil doctor when Daniel Christian
established a private practice in Lusadiya. Margaret Johnson stated in
her annual report that he had been asked to resign and commented: ‘We
have been trying to avert this for years, but eventually he left us no
alternative, and has now set up in private practice opposite the hospi-
tal.’ She saw it as a case of ‘disunity’ that ‘strikes a blow at the heart of
the Christian witness of the whole community’.28 Writing three years
later on a visit to Lusadiya, the medical superintendent for the CMS in
London, Dr H. Anderson, stated that Daniel Christian had been dis-
missed because of his ‘uncontrollable temper and secret private prac-
tice.’ He also believed that he may have felt some resentment at the
way in which the superiority of the British missionaries was asserted
at every turn, as was made very graphic by the ‘enormous size of the
two missionary residences as compared to everything else’.29 According
to a fellow villager, Daniel was upset when Margaret Johnson was
appointed over his head. He had since 1938 built up a good practice and
was attracting many patients. His discontent in this respect led, even-
tually, to his resignation.30
Writing in 1939, Agnes Lees stated that although Daniel Christian
was a person of upright moral character, he had a tendency towards
‘pride and impatience’.31 In 1942, Margaret Johnson commended Daniel
for his keenness, sympathy, eagerness to learn, and even – contra Lees –
his patience, but noted: ‘He is no organiser though and has been unable
to work harmoniously with those under him, thus causing criticism
and bad feeling.’32 Coupled with Anderson’s remark about his ‘uncon-
trollable temper’, this reveals that a major problem was that Daniel had
had a tendency to alienate his colleagues. The missionaries explained
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church panchayat, ran a Bible class for women and a Sunday school,
and organised various Christian celebrations. He did not particularly
want to create or run a hospital that would be a beacon of Christian
modernity, attracting all sorts of people from various other communi-
ties to Lusadiya. When Margaret Johnson was appointed over his head,
he knew that he was being overruled in this respect. His immediate
reaction was to declare his intention to resign before she arrived, and
indeed in 1941, just before she took up her post, she believed that he
was about to leave.36 He decided, however, to battle it out, trying to
make the best of what for him seemed a bad job. Initially, she was full of
praise for him – for he was a diligent and hard-working practitioner –
but the strains soon developed.
The most serious allegation against Daniel Christian was that he
was carrying on his own ‘private’ practice on the side. The implication
was that he was using mission facilities to earn an income in a corrupt
manner. Again, the problem was one of different expectations. Daniel
saw himself as a healer who was located within his community, and for
him there was no irregularity in blurring the distinction between the
public and the private. A man of strong moral integrity, he clearly saw
nothing at all wrong in this. It led, however, to him being asked to
resign.
In his new practice, Daniel Christian was once again his own master,
a situation that obviously suited him better. Working as he did very close
to the mission hospital, he appeared to be in direct competition with the
missionaries. In fact, outpatient attendances at the mission establish-
ment were higher in the year after his departure (24,629) than they had
been in the year preceding it (23,977). There was more than enough work
for both to handle. Daniel Christian took on all sorts of cases, treating
men, women and children and carrying out deliveries. He built a
good reputation, with many Bhils coming to him for treatment from a
considerable distance. He continued in his church work, and his wife
Gladys became secretary of the Mothers’ Union at Lusadiya.37 Relations
between him and the Johnsons continued to be strained over the next
decade, and he used his considerable influence in the villages to stir up
opposition to her ongoing plans to expand the hospital.38
By 1946, sufficient money had accumulated in the building fund to
start extensive construction work. The bulk of the donations had come
from thakors and other high-caste people who had received treatment
at the hospital. Building began after the rains of 1946, using the bricks
and tiles that had been manufactured in Lusadiya. The first structures
to be completed, early in 1947, were the new quarters for the hospital
staff. They had cement floors – in contrast to the mud floors of the
existing quarters – and had washrooms and a veranda for cooking. The
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If patent medicine or an injection was required, half the cost was paid.
People were somewhat suspicious of the scheme at first, but gradually,
as the benefits were observed, more and more families took it up. By
the end of the first year, 170 people were so covered, at an average cost
of one rupee per head.41
It proved hard to find a permanent replacement for Daniel Christian,
and for a time Margaret Johnson was the only doctor at the hospital.
Although fresh recruits joined her in time, none stayed for long in this
isolated spot. Indeed, one was so distressed by what he saw on his
arrival that he left without even meeting the Johnsons. They were
however joined in 1948 by a fully qualified nurse from Britain, Margaret
Kirk. Writing soon after, Margaret Johnson reported of her work:
Sister Kirk’s influence is at work everywhere, in fact the Bhil staff are
beginning to appreciate the fact that previously they had no idea of
nursing at all. It is a drawback that none of them have seen a hospital, as
we know it, with general wards and white tiles etc., but as no training
school in India will take pupils who have not done 3rd standard English,
these Bhils who have only learnt the vernacular cannot be sent for
Nurses’ training.42
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clean and pure air at Lusadiya was particularly efficacious for the cure
of tuberculosis. The large number of neem trees in the hospital
compound were said to enhance this effect by further purifying the
atmosphere. The water from the well also gained a reputation for its
healing properties. Many of the patients were housed in grass huts that
were likewise considered to have particular health-bearing qualities.
Some even said that the large numbers of goats in the vicinity added to
this overall effect as their urine and stools countered the tuberculosis
bacilli, and patients in some cases insisted that a goat be tethered to the
legs of their bed at night. Margaret Johnson, who was well aware of the
importance of belief in healing, went along with this. In time, more and
more people from distant towns and cities began to book themselves in
for treatment at Lusadiya, or even to just come for a holiday in a roman-
tic and peaceful setting away from the crowd. As such people had
plenty of money that could be used for the benefit of the hospital, they
were accommodated in the grass huts.51
Malaria continued to be the single most debilitating disease for the
people of this area. It flared up during the monsoon and its aftermath,
being less virulent in years of poor rainfall. It could at times be fatal. In
severe cases, patients were admitted to the hospital and administered
intravenous quinine, mepracrine drips or chloroquine. These treat-
ments were not always effective in advanced cases or with the cerebral,
or falciparum, variety of the disease. The hospital itself was sprayed
with DDT, and prophylactics were given to staff and patients. Those
who were covered by the health insurance scheme were from 1950
advised to take an anti-malarial prophylactic during the monsoon
period. The few who took the tablets regularly were found to be remark-
ably free from the disease, while those who failed to do so suffered
accordingly. This, according to Margaret Johnson, helped to impress on
others the value of such medication.52 A government programme for
intensive spraying of DDT that was funded by the World Health
Organization was implemented in Sabarkantha District from 1954
onwards, with all houses being sprayed by a team of government
workers. This saw a reduction in malaria for a time.53 In 1958, with the
disease once more extremely virulent, the mission acquired a stock of
mosquito nets for patients, which could also be purchased by those who
visited the hospital for six rupees apiece.54
Epidemic diseases could be a killer also, particularly for children.
These were often worst after periods of scarcity, when the malnour-
ished had low resistance. In 1949, for example, there were heavy rains
after two years of scarcity, which brought epidemics of gastro-enteritis,
dysentery, smallpox, typhoid, mumps and whooping cough. Sulpha
drugs were used in cases of dysentery. There were also occasional
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and held exams allowing each of them to progress to the next level.
Each was given one, two or three red cloth stripes to wear on their
shoulder according to their grade. A further exam was set for those who
had completed the third grade, and if they passed they were then classed
as a ‘staff nurse’, designated by a red cross on their shirt or blouse
pocket. According to Kirk: ‘All this has given everyone something defi-
nite to work for, resulting in a higher standard of care and efficiency,
and a much greater interest shown in all departments of nursing’.74
Margaret Kirk established an infant and antenatal clinic at the hos-
pital in 1955. Babies were examined and weighed, and mothers given
advice on diet and upbringing. Anti-malarial and vitamin tablets were
also given out. Kirk found it hard to persuade young mothers to attend
regularly, finding that they often put in an appearance only when they
or their babies were ill. Initially, only Christian mothers came, though
the clinic was open to non-Christians also. Kirk found that babies were
fed entirely on breast milk for their first two years, after which they
were given small amounts of the normal food of the Bhils, such as
maize roti and dishes made with a lot of chilli. For the first six to eight
months, babies were generally healthy, but from about nine months to
three years old they were often weak and anaemic, suffering from defi-
ciency diseases and lacking resistance to infections. This was, she
believed, above all due to poor feeding. She felt that the problem could
be best tackled with regular health visiting to mothers in their villages.
This would allow problems to be found and treated before they caused
permanent damage to children. For this, however, the mission needed
a full-time health visitor.75 Two years later, the infant clinic was
reported to be flourishing, with about sixty babies and toddlers being
brought each Wednesday to be weighed and given milk, shark liver oil
and vitamins.76
One of the great problems that the mission faced with such work was
that in general women and young children had a low entitlement to
food in families. The best of whatever could be afforded was provided
to the men, with the justification being that they needed to be well
nourished to carry out their hard work. In fact, women also had to work
extremely hard, becoming malnourished and susceptible to disease.
Women who were unable to bear children were considered practically
worthless, having perhaps the lowest claim to food and with no money
being made available to them for any medical treatment. As Margaret
Johnson remarked in 1958: ‘A woman who cannot have her babies nor-
mally is an incubus and better dead: such is the village verdict.’77 She
cited a harrowing case of this. In 1958, a woman of the Hindu black-
smith caste came to her with advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. She
had treated this woman previously in 1953, when she had been brought
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multi-roomed block. In it were two ten-bed wards with duty rooms and
sanitary facilities, and an administrative unit, consisting of offices for
the doctors and head nurse, an X-ray room and a storeroom. The build-
ing had a flat roof of reinforced concrete designed to allow a second
storey to be erected when funds became available. There was a second-
hand generator provided by a well-wisher from Bombay, so that for the
first time the mission had electric power. Banks had brought with him
from England a second-hand X-ray machine that could now be operated
using the new power supply. A water tower was also built, financed
from collections from England, and a 300-gallon iron tank hoisted on
top. Once a network of pipes was laid, running water became available
from taps for the first time.82 In all, it cost Rs. 70,000, and it left the
mission in debt.83
Because funds had run out, the missionaries were unable to complete
parts of the plan, such as the provision of all of the desired wards. There
were now two wards, one for men – named ‘Birkett’ in honour of the
original founder of the hospital – and one for women named ‘Mariam’.
In addition, there were some individual rooms for the dangerously ill,
the highly infectious or the well-to-do who could afford to pay
extra for the facility. In all, there were beds for eighty inpatients.
Round-the-clock nursing was provided in the new wards, obviating the
need for care by relatives. Margaret Johnson lauded this new system,
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complaining that the separate rooms of the old hospital had made it like
a ‘rabbit warren’ with much of the care being left to unskilled relatives.
The patients themselves were not always so positive about these
changes, for their relatives – who still came – were given no separate
sleeping spaces or cooking facilities in the new wards. When a new
nurse, Eve Auerbach, arrived from London in 1958, she was astonished
to find on her first night round that there was multi-occupancy in many
beds, with relatives sleeping with the patients. Higher-caste patients
and their relatives had to occupy beds alongside those they considered
lower in the social scale, something they found unsettling. Some of
the novel facilities were misunderstood. Patients and relatives, for
example, often threw all of their rubbish down the lavatories, causing
blockages. They failed to turn off the new taps, so that the tank often
ran dry. Margaret Johnson had to direct her staff to be constantly
vigilant to prevent these abuses of their hard-earned new facilities.84
With electric lighting, work at the hospital could be carried on more
efficiently and, if necessary, late into the night. Seen from afar, the
twinkling lights were a novelty in the area – many people came to
Lusadiya just to see this wonder.85 A strip of 100 watt bulbs was rigged
up to provide light in the operating theatre, giving better illumination
during daytime operations and allowing emergency surgery to be per-
formed at night. The number of operations increased – 158 major and
925 minor operations were performed in 1958. Eighty-three babies were
also delivered in that year.86 One of the surgical assistants, Ashraydas
Suvera – who was a Bhil from Lusdaiya with pharmaceutical qualifica-
tions – recalled in an interview how efficient the surgical staff became
as a team in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They worked very fast,
taking out an appendix in fifteen minutes, or fixing a hernia in little
more time. They were meant to carry out only sixteen operations in a
day, but he remembered once doing twenty-nine.87 The X-ray unit was
now up and running under the charge of a new recruit, Dr Robert Singh,
who had been trained in radiology at the Christian hospital at Vellore.
He was also an experienced eye-surgeon. He had offered his services as
he wanted the challenge of a ‘pioneering job’.88 His wife, Florence, was
also medically trained, having gained her medical degree at the
Christian women’s medical college at Ludhiana.89
With no comparable modern hospital nearer than 150 kilometres
away, patient numbers continued to swell. The building of the first
metalled road to Lusadiya in 1953 and inauguration of a regular three-
times-a-day bus service meant that it had also become much easier to
reach. Writing in 1960, Margaret Johnson said that the hospital staff had
come to dread the arrival of each bus bearing its fresh load of patients.
They did not, however, have the heart to turn people away who needed
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This was, however, to be the last report that he was to write on an enter-
prise that was about to collapse.
Perceptions of healing
Although the emphasis during these years was on creating a beacon of
medical modernity at Lusadiya, the Bhils were drawn to the hospital
not so much because they admired its new technologies and facilities,
but because Margaret Johnson had reputation for being a healer of extra-
ordinary power. This had begun at Biladiya, where she practised briefly
in 1941–42, before moving to Lusadiya. Once news was about that a
new doctor had arrived, patients were soon streaming in from as far as
fifty kilometres away. In the first three months of 1942, she treated
about three thousand patients in all. She found that the local Christian
women were prepared to come to the dispensary ward for their con-
finements, and after it happened that the first four babies that she deliv-
ered were all boys, there was a rush in demand for this service, with
pregnant women even coming for check-ups. Word had spread that a
new ‘English doctor’ had arrived with wondrous powers, which in this
case extended to influencing the sex of babies.102 A year later she noted
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how ‘women come from near and far expecting me to do magical things
by touching their pulse’.103 Writing many years later, a clergyman based
at Lusadiya, the Reverend W. S. Bhagora, said that former patients of
the hospital had often told him ‘that she was possessing of some godly
power by which she was able to heal the sick people’. It was believed
that even if her shadow fell on a sick person he or she had a good chance
of recovery. This belief, he said, was found amongst both Christian and
non-Christian people.104 Surjibhai Suvera, a Bhil Christian of Lusadiya
who was born in 1929, remembered how when he was once sick she
came to visit him, took his hand in hers and examined him with great
compassion. She was always polite and exuded a spirit of kindness –
you only had to look at her to feel better, such was her demeanour.
People were impressed by the way in which she always held prayers
before starting her day’s work and also before carrying out each opera-
tion, as they felt that her hand was guided by a higher power.105
In all this, it was understood that Margaret Johnson’s power
stemmed from a combination of learnt skills and religious faith, with
her practice being for her not only an expression of her Christian faith,
but also a channel through which the power of a great deity – Jesus
Christ – was invoked for the benefit of her patients. This – it was
believed – gave her the ability to heal in seemingly miraculous ways. In
an analogous manner, the indigenous healers – the buvas and bhopas –
were believed to gain their curative powers from their ability to
combine a hard-learnt practical knowledge of medicinal plants and
healing techniques with divine inspiration. They believed their prac-
tice to be a form of worship, with the power of the supernatural being
channelled through their bodies to provide succour for those who came
to them for help. Indeed, in some parts of Gujarat, such healers
described their power to cure as their bhakti, meaning an act of devo-
tion to a deity.106
Margaret Johnson was not the only medical missionary working in
Gujarat at this time with such a reputation. Dr Bramwell Cook, a New
Zealander who served in the Salvation Army hospital at Anand in
central Gujarat from 1932 to 1952, became famous all over the region
for his great healing abilities. Even high-caste Hindus would insist on
going to him for operations, as they knew that he was sincere in his
practice, unlike many secular doctors, who had a reputation for being
often callous and money-minded. Cook’s pre-operation prayers inspired
trust in this respect – even though they were to a Christian God – with
patients feeling confident that their operation would succeed as a
result.107 In this, such patients were validating a healing practice that
combined biomedical skills with a sincere faith – something that was
perceived as lacking in many other doctors of that day and age.
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We . . . often find cases who from their own or their relatives’ inertia
would lie there for months without getting any treatment than the super-
stitious rites practised by everyone in these parts. I am always pointing
out the foolishness of lying down beside a well to die of thirst. The simile
is exact and the cause a combination of laziness, superstition, suspicion
and ignorance, which may be summed up in the one word fatalism.
Village visits can do more to dispel this than a lifetime of sitting in one’s
consulting room.112
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by about sixty women. A projector and films were brought over from
Lusadiya to show religious and health educational films.126 In 1958,
Margaret Johnson established the first Gujarati branch of the Mothers’
Union, based in Lusadiya. Twenty-six women who were willing to
serve their community joined and began visiting homes and instruct-
ing mothers on the need for cleanliness.
From 1957 onwards, Margaret Kirk and two young Bhil women who
had been trained in midwifery made regular medical propaganda tours
to villages around Lusadiya. They showed pictures that set out the
causes of diseases and simple forms of prevention. They also distrib-
uted dried milk, rice and beans to malnourished children in Lusadiya
and three nearby villages, and rice and beans to old and destitute people
and those recovering from severe illnesses. The food came from the
USA under the PL 480 ‘Food for Peace’ programme that had been inau-
gurated in 1954. One difficulty they encountered was that they were in
general prevented from meeting and talking to expectant mothers.
According to Kirk, there was a widespread belief that women should
never take any medicine while pregnant, and it was feared that the
medical workers would try to persuade them otherwise. She gave an
example of a young pregnant woman called Shantibai whom, as an
exception, they had managed to examine. They were gravely concerned
about her weak and sickly condition, but despite strong encourage-
ment, she refused to take any treatment. Her family backed her up in
this. Kirk told them that they were putting her life in danger and that
they should at least take her to Lusadiya for her delivery. As it was
Shantibai gave birth at home, but had to be brought to the hospital six
days later with acute sepsis. Despite being given the latest drugs, she
was by then very weak and she died. Kirk concluded: ‘We are hoping
and praying that as people get to know us better, they will gradually
trust us more, and that we shall be able to break down this most diffi-
cult of all barriers of fear and superstition.’127
Margaret Johnson was well aware that attitudes would not be shifted
overnight. Writing in 1954, she said that ‘It takes time to change the
habits of thousands of years and the village homes are the strongholds
of the old bad habits so it is there that we must tackle them.’128 She
stressed that without gaining the confidence and friendship of often-
suspicious villagers, the missionaries had little change of success.
There were a few hopeful signs. Writing in 1955, she noted that patients
at the hospital were accepting the need for blood tests, and that ‘the
superstition about having their blood drawn off is being dissipated’.129
Other reports were less sanguine. Gladys Smith reported in 1956 that
it was extremely hard to convince Bhil women of the need for hygiene
and preventive measures. When she tried to persuade them, they
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replied that it was not necessary, for if their babies or children fell ill
they could always take them to the hospital at Lusadiya or dispensary
at Biladiya for treatment. She noted that even the dispensary staff at
Biladiya continued to be careless over matters of hygiene.130 In all,
progress in this sphere was frustratingly slow, encountering all sorts of
stubborn opposition at every turn.
Despite all of this publicity focusing on the physical causes of ill
health, there was also a continuing emphasis on the psychosomatic in
healing. Patients of all sorts at Lusadiya – whether Christian, non-
Christian Bhils, caste Hindus or Muslims – joined without complaint
in the weekly ritual of prayers, Christian homilies and hymns that was
celebrated on the veranda.131 All those involved regarded this as central
to the healing process. The organic link between the hospital and the
church on the nearby hill was underscored with an annual celebration
of ‘Hospital Sunday.’ This involved a procession by the hospital staff to
the church while singing Christian bhajans, accompanied by drums
and manjira (small cymbals).132
The Christian doctors at the hospital were all, without exception,
firm believers in the efficacy of prayer in treatment. Margaret Johnson
thus reported in 1960 how she and Paul had performed constant prayers
while she was operating to try to save a Bhil woman who had been
burnt severely in a domestic accident. The case seemed hopeless, but
to their amazement, the woman had survived.133 Writing two years
earlier, Arthur Banks wrote about two children whose parents had
removed them from the hospital before they had recovered. He had held
prayers for them, and he later found out that they had made unexpected
progress. The two cases, he said, had ‘convinced me how much more
vital is prayer than our instruments and medicines’. He had established
a Healer Prayer Circle Union to perform mass prayers for sick parish-
ioners.134 Robert Singh wrote in 1964 of a small boy who had been
brought to the hospital with a smashed skull. His brain was exposed
and damaged, and Singh was sure that he would die. He told the boy’s
father that only a miracle could save the child, and that they must pray
to God. Their prayers were, he believed, answered, for the boy soon
recovered ‘miraculously’. ‘From that case’, Singh commented, ‘I have
learnt not to give up hope even for the worst possible case, but to trust
the Lord and do whatever we best can do in our small hospital.’ He felt
that God was using their hospital to show that through faith ‘anything
and everything’ was possible.135
Although the medical missionaries had always sought to augment
their biomedical treatment with prayer, it is possible to detect in these
statements a more confident assertion of the efficacy of prayer, as well
as an attempt to use prayer in treatment in a more systematic way, as
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Notes
1 John R. Stanley, ‘Professionalising the Rural Medical Mission in Weixian, 1890–
1925’, in Hardiman (ed.), Healing Bodies, Saving Souls, pp. 119–31.
2 Ruth Compton Brouwer, Modern Women Modernizing Men: The Changing
Missions of Three Professional Women in Asia and Africa, 1902–69 (Vancouver:
University of British Columbia Press, 2002), pp. 8–13.
3 Charles Howard Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism
1865–1915 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), p. vii.
4 Ibid., p. 7. Paul A. Carter, The Decline and Revival of the Social Gospel: Social and
Political Liberalism in American Protestant Churches, 1920–1940 (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1956), p. 4.
5 Hopkins, Rise of the Social Gospel, pp. 319–26.
6 Carter, Decline and Revival, pp. 4–5.
7 Ibid., pp. 220–5.
8 The staff are described in ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 11–12.
9 M. Johnson to H. Anderson, Lusadiya, 16 July 1942, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1942; ‘Mrs.
Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 12.
10 P. Johnson, annual letter, 28 August 1942, Paul Johnson papers.
11 Ibid.
12 M. Johnson to H. Anderson, Dohad, 21 September 1941, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1941; P.
Johnson circular letter, 17 November 1941, Paul Johnson papers.
13 The Biladiya dispensary continued to function during the 1940s and 1950s much
as it had done in the past, as described in Chapter 10. It did not expand at all. I have
therefore not set out its further history in this chapter.
14 ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 11–12.
15 H. Anderson to M. Johnson, London, 16 November 1942, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1942.
16 ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1943), 13; ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1945), 11.
17 Ibid.
18 Mash, ‘Margaret Fitzhugh Johnson’, p. 26.
19 ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1943), 14.
20 Mash, ‘Margaret Fitzhugh Johnson’, p. 29.
21 ‘C.M.S. Bhil Mission Medical Statistics, 1943’, BMR (1943), 38.
22 M. Johnson to Dr Anderson, Lusadiya, 16 July 1942, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1942; ‘Mrs.
Johnson Writes’, BMR (1942), 11.
23 ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1943), 13.
24 ‘C.M.S. Bhil Mission Medical Statistics, 1945’, BMR (1945), 24.
25 ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1945), 11–12.
26 P. H. and M. H. Johnson, ‘Lusadia Hospital: Report for 1944’, autumn 1945, CMS,
G2 I 3m 1, 1945.
27 ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1945), 11.
28 ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1946), 15.
29 Dr H. G. Anderson, ‘Journal’, no. XV, entry for 20 November 1949, CMS, M/AD 4,
1949.
30 Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002.
31 Agnes Lees to Cranswick, Malvern, 17 April 1940, CMS, I 3 I, sub-file 1, 1939.
32 M. Johnson to H. Anderson, Lusadiya, 16 July 1942, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1942.
33 Agnes Lees to Cranswick, Malvern, 17 April 1940, CMS, I 3 I, sub-file 1, 1939.
34 Dr H. G. Anderson, ‘Journal’, no. XV, entry for 20 November 1949, CMS, M/AD 4,
1949.
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35 Interview with Rajnikant Daniel Christian, Nava Rewas, Idar Taluka, 17 December
2002.
36 M. Johnson to H. Anderson, Dohad, 21 September 1941, CMS, M/Y I 3, 1941.
37 Gladys Christian, ‘Report of the Lusadiya Branch of the Mothers’ Union 1959’,
BMR (1957–58), 14.
38 ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1950), 11.
39 ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1946), 17–18; M. Johnson, ‘CMS Mission Share Plan,
New Sheet 1947 B, Lusadia Hospital’, CMS, G2 I 3 m1, 1947; ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’,
BMR (1947), 9.
40 ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1946), 16.
41 Ibid.
42 ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1950), 10.
43 This was true in general in the field of tropical medicine at the time. See Mark
Harrison and Michael Worboys, ‘A Disease of Civilisation: Tuberculosis in Britain,
Africa and India, 1900–39’, in Lara Marks and Michael Worboys (eds.), Migrants,
Minorities and Health: Historical and Contemporary Studies (London: Routledge,
1997), p. 93.
44 ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1948), 10–11.
45 ‘Dr. Ashirvadam Writes’, BMR (1950), 13. By the mid-twentieth century, tubercu-
losis was the second-greatest cause of mortality in India as a whole. See Harrison
and Worboys, ‘A Disease of Civilisation’, p.116.
46 ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, and ‘Dr. Ashirvadam Writes’, BMR (1950), 9 and 13.
47 Harold Balme, ‘Medical Missions in the World of To-Day’, Conquest by Healing,
25:1 (March 1948), 10.
48 ‘Dr. (Mrs) Ashirvadam Writes’, BMR (1951), 9 and 13.
49 Interview with Rajnikant Christian, Nava Rewas, Idar Taluka, 17 December 2002.
50 ‘Dr. (Mrs) Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1953), 15 and 24.
51 Interview with Rajnikant Christian, Nava Rewas, Idar Taluka, 17 December 2002.
52 ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1950), 9.
53 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1955), 9.
54 ‘Dr. Arthur Banks Writes’, BMR (1957), 15.
55 ‘Mrs. Johnson Writes’, BMR (1949), 9–10.
56 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1952), 17.
57 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1951), 11 and 17–18.
58 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1952), 17–18.
59 Ibid.
60 ‘Dr. Ashirvadam Writes’, BMR (1952), 21.
61 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1951), 18–19.
62 M. Johnson to Anderson, Modasa, 19 April 1954, CMS, G2 I 3/2, 1954.
63 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1954), 18–19.
64 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1952), 17.
65 M. Johnson to Campbell, Birmingham, 28 April 1953, CMS, G2 I 3/2, 1953.
66 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes from Lusadia’, BMR (1954), 19.
67 T. Tate to D. Stevens, Lusadiya, 2 December 1959, CMS, G2 I 3/1, 1955–59, sub-
files 3 and 4.
68 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1958), 7–8.
69 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1954), 20.
70 ‘Miss Kirk Writes’, BMR (1953), 18.
71 ‘Miss Kirk Writes’, BMR (1954), 24.
72 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1954), 20.
73 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, BMR (1952), 19.
74 ‘Miss Kirk Writes’, BMR (1955), 18.
75 ‘Miss Kirk Writes’, BMR (1955), 19 and 20–1.
76 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1957), 4.
77 Ibid., 8.
78 Margaret Johnson, ‘Bringing Health to the Bhils’, CMS Outlook (October 1953), 5.
79 ‘Dr. Margaret Johnson Writes’, LMHR (1957), 7–8.
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C H A P T E R T H I RT E E N
Closure
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created a problem for the hospital that became all too apparent when
the books were examined by her successors. When the new superin-
tendent, Dr Robert Singh, tried to make the subscribers pay their dues
so that he could balance the accounts there was much acrimony, for
many of the Christians felt that they had a right to free treatment.5 In
his report for 1963–64, Singh noted that the problems were such that
they were severely tempted to close the hospital. The cost of living was
rising every day and they could no longer afford to pay a realistic wage
to their staff of fifty at Lusadiya and six at Biladiya.6
Some long-term opponents of the hospital managed to turn the situ-
ation to their advantage. The leader of this group was Dr Daniel
Christian, who had continued over the years to snipe at what he saw as
the unnecessary and unviable expansion of the hospital.7 One of his
leading supporters was Dr I. J. Pukadyil, who had been dismissed in
1957 – departing with threats of vengeance – and who was now running
a small clinic in Tintoi village. Others who joined him included several
Bhil Christians who had for some time been aggrieved that the educa-
tional work of the mission had been starved of funds to pay for the hos-
pital.8 The opponents were able to mobilise considerable support for the
closure of the hospital, to the extent that Bishop Robinson was able to
claim that a majority of Christian Bhils supported the move. Whether
or not this was true, a significant number also protested against the
decision.9 The affair as a whole left a bitter taste within the Christian
community.
The hospital thus lay abandoned. Without maintenance, the older
country-style buildings eventually collapsed, leaving derelict shells.
The main concrete structure of the new hospital – built in the 1950s –
proved more substantial. In 1996, a Tamil Christian couple from south
India who work for a Christian social service organisation called the
Navjeevan Seva Mandal took charge. He is a compounder by training
and she is a nurse. They live in the large and sprawling house that was
once inhabited by the Birketts and their successors, and they have
opened up some of the rooms of the hospital for use as a small dispen-
sary with one bed for an inpatient. Today its cavernous main hall is
largely empty but for a few worn tables and chairs, left only with the
memories of a busier past. It attracts a fitful number of patients –
around ten to twelve each day.10
The doctors, nurses and others with recognised medical qualification
who lost their jobs in 1964 had little difficulty in finding alternative
ones elsewhere, normally on much better pay. One such person was
Ashraydas Suvera, a Bhil who was born in Lusadiya in 1935. His grand-
father was one of the original converts in Lusadiya, at the time of the
great famine. He had studied at Lusadiya, at Biladiya, and then at a
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that in general, such people are strongly critical of the buvas, bhopas
and other indigenous healers, whom they regard as quacks and often
charlatans.
Despite the presence of such allopathic doctors, it is clear that the
medical mission to the Bhils failed to inculcate any general or wide-
spread understanding of the principles of this system of medicine. The
attempt to carry out active health education got off the ground only in
the 1950s, just before the mission closed down, coming too late in the
day to have any widespread impact. This failure can be seen, to take one
striking example, in popular beliefs about intravenous injections, in
which an allopathic remedy is understood to possess almost magical
powers. Its origins go back to the period after the Second World War,
when new ‘wonder-drugs’ such as antibiotics became available that
were able – when administered correctly – to bring rapid relief from a
range of maladies. The belief soon developed that the strongest and
most certain cure for many complaints was through ‘an injection’, and
soon people were demanding this ‘fast’ remedy, even when it was not
appropriate. When Margaret Johnson set up her health insurance
scheme at Lusadiya in 1946, injections were considered too expensive
and exceptional a remedy to be covered by it – those who wanted one
had to pay extra. Nonetheless, she also reported at this time that injec-
tions were becoming increasingly popular. By the late 1950s, she was
reporting that villagers were commonly demanding ‘an injection and
medicine’ in the first instance. There was a strong belief that all that
was required was a single injection. This had no clinical base, for
allopathic practice requires that antibiotics and most other drugs be
administered as a course of treatment – a single dose might bring a
seeming improvement, but would fail to provide any long-term cure.
Nonetheless, the belief in the power of the single injection soon spread
to even the most out-of-the-way places. A doctor called Navnit Fozdar,
who volunteered his services within the Gandhian Sarvodaya move-
ment, was surprised to discover when he began his medical work in a
remote tribal tract in south Gujarat in the mid-1960s that people who
had almost no previous contact with biomedical doctors demanded ‘an
injection’ from him, regardless of his diagnosis. He tried his best to
educate his patients as to when injections were necessary and when
they were not, and how they should be administered.19 He was unable
to make many inroads into shaking this belief: a doctor who today oper-
ates a regular travelling clinic in this area told me in an interview that
the demand for injections is almost universal among the tribal people.20
Anyone who can use a syringe is now a potential ‘doctor’. A fertile
ground has thus been created for flourishing practices in tribal areas by
syringe-wielding quacks.
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Notes
11 Lesslie Newbigin, ‘The Healing Ministry in the Mission of the Church’, in Frank
Davey (ed.), The Healing Church: The Tübingen Consultation 1964 (Geneva: World
Council of Churches, 1965), p. 10.
12 Erling Kayser, ‘Medicine and Modern Philosophy: An Introduction’, in Davey (ed.),
The Healing Church, pp. 18 and 20–1.
13 Boyd, Church History of Gujarat, pp. 189–90. It may be noted that Gujarat became
a state in 1960, when Bombay State (the erstwhile British presidency of Bombay) was
divided into the two new states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. The hospital closures
stretched to other areas also – the Scottish mission hospital in Udaipur that had been
founded by Shepherd was also closed around this time. A. D. Stirling, Indian
Harvest: The Story of the Scottish Churches’ Mission to Rajputana 1860–1960
(Stirling: Art of Crafts, 2001), p. 27.
14 Malaviya, ‘Anglican Contributions’, pp. 80–1.
15 Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002; inter-
view with Rajnikant Christian, Nava Rewas, 17 December 2002.
16 Robert S. Singh, LMHR (1963–64), 8.
17 For example, see ‘Mrs Johnson Writes’, BMR (1950), 11.
18 Mabel Wilson, 28 April 1958, CMS, G2 I 3/1 1955–59, sub-files 3 and 4.
19 Interview with Surjibhai Timothibhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 15 December 2002.
10 Interview with Sister Nirmala Wilson, Lusadiya, 19 December 2002.
11 Interview with Ashraydas Kavdabhai Suvera, Lusadiya, 19 December 2002.
12 Interview with Harjibhai Kavdabhai Asari, Bavaliya, Bhiloda Taluka, 16 December
2002.
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13 Interview with Virjibhai Daniel Varsat, Vaghpur, Bhiloda Taluka, 19 December 2002.
14 Interview with Harjibhai Kavdabhai Asari and Enjalkumar Harjibhai Asari, Bavaliya,
Bhiloda Taluka, 16 December 2002.
15 Interview with Dr B. D. Damor, Shamlaji, 14 December 2002; interview with
Fr. Ignas Ordonez, Mankroda, Bhiloda Taluka, 16 December 2002; interview with
Rajnikant Christian, Ahmedabad, 12 December 2004.
16 Ibid.
17 Interviews with Dr B. D. Damor, Shamlaji, 11 December 2001.
18 Interview with Rajnikant Christian, Nava Revas, 17 December 2002.
19 Interview with Dr Navnit Fozdar, Gora Colony, Kevadia, Narmada District,
8 December 2004.
20 Interview with Dr Daxa Patel, Dharampur, Navsari District, 2 December 2004.
21 Sushila Jain and Seema Agrawal, ‘Perceptions of Illness and Health Care among
Bhils: A Study of Udaipur District in Southern Rajasthan’, Studies of Tribes and
Tribals, 3:1 (2005), 15–19; Veena Bhasin, ‘Sickness and Therapy among Tribals of
Rajasthan’, Studies of Tribes and Tribals, 1:1 (2003), 77–83.
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C H A P T E R F O U RT E E N
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way, as time went by, medicine gained a new emphasis within mission
work as a whole. Although, for example, the medical mission at
Lusadiya was successfully indigenised as early as 1938, with Daniel
Christian taking over its management in that year, Margaret Johnson
was appointed over his head in 1941, thus reversing this process. This
strategy collapsed finally only in the 1960s, and along with it the hos-
pital. In all of this, medicine was more than just a technology; it pro-
vided, rather, a fulcrum for a number of evolving strategies that were
designed to consolidate, extend and legitimise the mission project. It
thus had a fluid quality, being deployed to different intent in changing
historical situations.
In contrast to official colonial medicine, mission medicine sought to
situate itself very strongly within non-European social and institu-
tional milieus as a form of day-to-day practice. Rather than being
enclosed in centralised urban medical establishments, military can-
tonments and prisons, mission medicine reached out to embrace all
classes of ‘native’ society – the rich and the poor, the high-caste and the
low-caste, men and women. The mission hospital or dispensary was
merely a focal point, with medical work being carried on also by
mission schoolmasters in their villages, and by missionaries on tour.
The mission doctors also made regular medical itinerations, travelling
from village to village and living in tents, discovering people who
required treatment and providing it to the best of their ability. Those
who needed more elaborate treatment were encouraged to come to the
mission hospital as inpatients. In this way, a medical service was pro-
vided that operated relatively cheaply, in that it provided biomedical
treatment over a wide area without maintaining a large and costly
network of local clinics. It was hardly an adequate form of medical pro-
vision, as most people of the regions covered by missions had no ready
access to treatment – having, as a rule, to travel long distances to
consult a mission doctor. It is nonetheless a model that is still followed
very widely to this day in India, with inadequately funded medical ser-
vices operating travelling clinics both to provide on-the-spot treatment
and to identify cases that require hospitalisation at a central facility.
Medical missions made great efforts to reach out to and provide
treatment for women, who were seen as being oppressed and victimised
and were often denied access to modern medical treatment, even when
it was available. Many of the missionaries were themselves women,
including – in the case of the Bhil mission – its two most important
mission doctors, Jane Birkett and Margaret Johnson. Such missionaries
were often guided by a belief in a sisterhood of women, and saw them-
selves as reaching out across racial barriers to embrace and uplift
women everywhere. They sought to gain an entrance into homes
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through their medical work, which then provided them with an oppor-
tunity to inculcate a sense of self-worth in their patients as to the value
of their bodies and their position in society. As was the case generally
in India, Bhil society was deeply patriarchal, with women being con-
vinced of their own inferiority. Although it proved hard to shift such a
mentality, it became gradually chipped away as more and more Bhil
women began to demand education and accord greater value to their
own well-being. This dimension to the medical work of the missionar-
ies was to a large extent lacking in the medicine provided by the colo-
nial state – it never saw the empowerment of women as a guiding
concern. The missions’ attack on beliefs about witchcraft and the evil
eye was also potentially liberating for women, for many were routinely
suspected of practising witchcraft, and in some cases tortured or put to
death as a result. The missionaries provided an alternative understand-
ing of the underlying rationale of disease, and by this means sought to
free Bhil society from the fear of malign spirits that were alleged to be
under the control of female witches. Nonetheless, for all their talk of
‘sisterhood’ with native women, the white female missionaries did not
in general regard the latter as their equals.
The mission clinic was an institution with a clear internal hierarchy.
At the top, in charge, was the white doctor with training in Europe or
America. Below this figure was the ‘hospital assistant’, whose medical
training had been in India. These assistants tended to come from
outside the mission area, and regarded themselves as being socially
superior to the local converts. They in turn trained local converts to act
as nurses, pharmacists and wound-dressers. The hospital thus provided
a microcosm of colonial society, with its white ruler, educated inter-
mediaries and subaltern staff. In this respect, the mission clinic differed
little from that of the colonial state.
In its institutional practice, nonetheless, it was generally far more
responsive to local need. This could be seen in the way in which the
architecture of a mission hospital such as Lusadiya differed profoundly
from that of the metropolitan hospital. The most important space
within the latter was the large ward with its lines of beds. Relatives
were allowed to intrude into this space only as temporary visitors, con-
fined to strict ‘visiting hours’ and only barely tolerated by the medical
staff. In a mission hospital such as Lusadiya, by contrast, each patient
was housed in a small apartment along with her or his relatives, who
cooked her or his food and acted as nurses. This system had arisen in
part because of caste distinctions that required food to be cooked sepa-
rately, in part because of a lack of nurses, and also because such an
arrangement was preferred and the missionaries had to maintain the
trust of their patients. Many people feared that once they were in
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hospital the missionaries would have great power over them – both
physically and mentally – and this can be seen as having provided a
means to assuage some of these fears. When space ran out, patients
were allowed to erect temporary grass huts in the mission compound,
where they lived with their families. This was much less of a discipli-
nary space than the metropolitan ward, with the medics having to
concede some of their power to relatives. In her first building scheme,
initiated in the 1940s, Margaret Johnson continued to provide separate
apartments for patients, arguing that failure to do so would hamper
their work. The emphasis began to change after 1948, when a fully qual-
ified nurse – Margaret Kirk – was appointed from Britain, which meant
that the existing nursing staff could to be trained to handle a metro-
politan-style ward and constantly supervised while doing so. When the
new and much enlarged hospital was built in the 1950s, two ten-bed
wards were included with their ordered lines of beds, each with its own
duty room and sanitary facilities. These wards were not popular, as
people of different caste were made to sleep and eat alongside each
other. Relatives often insisted on staying by the patient’s bed – or even
sharing it at night. The sanitary facilities were misused, with taps not
being turned off and rubbish being thrown down the lavatories, block-
ing them. These wards proved to be short-lived, not surviving the
closure of the hospital in 1964. Nowadays, the norm in many Indian
hospitals is for relatives to stay with patients, sleeping by them, with
extra beds often being provided for this purpose. Again, this limits the
power of the nursing and other medical staff, who have to negotiate
constantly with the relatives, rather than merely impose their will on
the patient. The system of medicine today being almost entirely priva-
tised, Indian medical practitioners are forced to heed their patients in a
way that is not often found in the more centralised and hierarchical
medical systems of the West.
Because mission medicine was not a government project, it was
carried out in a less bureaucratic and regularised manner than the med-
icine of the colonial state. The downside to this was that it could be
erratic, relying on the availability of adequate personnel and their
quality as practitioners. If the mission doctor was incompetent, as was
the case with the unfortunate Dr Frank Read, the work suffered accord-
ingly. When a missionary doctor was absent on furlough, there was
often no fully qualified doctor practising in the mission, so once again
the work was affected. Dispensaries such as that at Biladiya tended to
be operated by whoever was available, irrespective of their medical abil-
ities or qualifications. In good cases, a woman missionary with train-
ing in nursing might be available; otherwise an unqualified missionary
would have to suffice.
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training, and the other, his wife Jane, was a doctor. The former took
charge of creating a physical space that defined what the mission stood
for and required from its converts. The latter filled this space with her
own technology, that of biomedical practice. In these ways, an envi-
ronment was created that provided the conditions to lead people
towards a new way of life and being. In Foucault’s terms, the
missionaries provided the ‘technologies of the self, which permit
individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a
certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts,
conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to
attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or
immortality’.6 Christianity can thus be seen to have provided the tech-
nologies that made possible radical social and intellectual change, and
the development of a new form of personhood.
We may nonetheless question the extent to which this process
created a new sense of individuality amongst the Bhils. Modernity is
often equated with the growth of individualism. It is held that the indi-
vidual comes to be seen as a quasi-sacred being, absolute in his or her
own right. An antagonism is then posed between the individual and
society.7 It might be argued that in this respect, Bhil Christians, by
opting out from the wider Bhil society, were demonstrating an individ-
ual self-determination that brought them into conflict with this
society. It would be noted that ‘traditional’ Bhil society was charac-
terised by a lack of individualism, with each individual being subject to
the will of the group – as expressed through the panchayat of the pal –
and punishable for transgressions through fines, ostracism, expulsion
or even torture and death. Against this, we need to note that even in
this so-called ‘traditional’ society, there were cases of people opting out
through conversion to devotional sects that imposed their own social
codes and rules on members. This was the case with the Bhagats of
Surmaldas, and it created considerable tension and strife within Bhil
society. Conversion to Christianity was largely an extension of this
process, though in this case the values and religion were those of white
missionaries rather than caste Hindus, and it created similar tensions.
In both cases, the groups that opted out formed new communities
with their own rules, and can hardly be seen to have embodied a new
individualism.
There was one particularly important respect in which the agendas
of both the Bhagats and the Bhil Christians eluded such a governmen-
tal project, namely that both sought to create sects that restricted them-
selves to members of the Bhil community. In this way, they believed,
the Bhils could assert themselves against the dominant classes, in time
reversing the social order so that they would be dominant while the
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labour – the ‘footloose labour’ that Jan Breman has written about so
graphically.11 A Catholic missionary who worked in the area around
Lusadiya in the 1970s and 1980s has written a collection of short stories
about Bhil women who live by migrant labour that brings out in har-
rowing detail the ways in which high-caste people as well as middle-
class Bhils exploit and sexually abuse them in a routine manner.12 This,
for the large majority of present-day Bhils, is the reality of modernity
and India’s much-hallowed entry into a new global society.
The Bhil converts to Christianity had been attracted by the modern
forms of power that the missionaries had brought with them, and were
among the first to adapt to them and apply them. In time, however, a
stratum of non-Christian Bhils also began to adopt these technologies,
but without any adherence to Christianity. The way was thus paved for
a wider Bhil modernity that enmeshes self-disciplinary techniques
within devotion to Hindu deities. This process, as yet, has been only
very partially realised in the region as a whole. It continues apace,
however, as modern Hindu sects such as that of Swaminarayan and
Swadhyaya Parivar implement a concerted programme of proselytisa-
tion in the ‘tribal belt’ of Gujarat, building lavish temples and carrying
out their own forms of social work.13 Today, the majority of middle-
class Bhils – whether officials, teachers, medical workers or traders –
now maintain small shrines in their homes with pictures and images
of mainstream Hindu deities. These now provide the chief focus for
their devotional practices. In this way, modernity has been freed from
its association in this region with Christianity, being now aligned
predominantly with forms of contemporary Hindu practice.
Notes
11 For a study of such work, see Shobana Shankar, ‘The Social Dimensions of Christian
Leprosy Work among Muslims: American Missionaries and Young Patients in
Colonial Northern Nigeria, 1920–1940’, in Hardiman (ed.), Healing Bodies, Saving
Souls, pp. 281–305.
12 For such work in the interior of China see Stanley, ‘Rural Medical Mission in
Weixian’, pp. 119–31.
13 See Kavery Nambisan, ‘The Mahatma and the Medics’, The Hindu (1 October 2006),
magazine section.
14 Arnold, Colonizing the Body, pp. 141–4.
15 Michel Foucault, ‘Chapter 4: Governmentality’, in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon
and Peter Miller (eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (Hemel
Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), pp. 87–104.
16 Michel Foucault, ‘Technologies of the Self’, in Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman and
Patrick H. Hutton (eds.), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), p. 18.
17 On this, see Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and its
Implications (London: Paladin, 1972), pp. 38–9.
18 Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for
“Indian” Pasts?’ Representations, 37 (1992), 10–11.
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19 In 1961, Christians made up only 2.6 per cent of the population of Bhiloda Taluka of
Sabarkantha District (the area in which both Lusadiya and Biladiya were situated,
and with a predominantly Bhil population). Gujarat State Gazetteers: Sabarkantha,
p. 187.
10 On this, see David Pocock, Kanbi and Patidar: A Study of the Patidar Community
of Gujarat (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 132–40.
11 Jan Breman, Footloose Labour: Working in India’s Informal Economy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996).
12 Marija Sres Mishkaben, To Survive and to Prevail: Stories of the Tribal Women of
Sabarkantha (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 1996).
13 I have examined the spread of the Swadhyaya movement in this part of Gujarat in
‘The Politics of Water Scarcity in Gujarat’, in Amita Baviskar (ed.), Waterscapes: The
Cultural Politics of a Natural Resource (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2006),
pp. 58–9.
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(Bombay: Government Central Press, 1880)
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Carter, P. A., The Decline and Revival of the Social Gospel: Social and Political
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Datta, P., ‘Dying Hindus: Production of Hindu Communal Consciousness in
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Rafferty, J. Robinson and R. Elkan (eds.), Nursing History and the Politics of
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INDEX
Africa 5, 9–10, 12, 55, 189, 236 Belgian Congo 15, 183
Agra Medical School 168 Bengal 20
Ahmedabad Bhagat sect 57, 60–69, 83–7, 90, 95,
archdeacon of 186–7 151, 157–8, 241, 243, 245
city 79, 110, 148, 161, 184 Bhagora, Revd W. S. 213
college 172, 229–30 Bhanat, Peter 4
Ajmer 156, 166–7 Bhanat, Revd Rupji 183–4, 186–7,
Amra, Maniben 206, 208 196, 217
Amritsar Medical Mission 76 Bhanat, Shanti see Pandav, Shanti
Anand Joria
Irish Presbyterian high school 172 Bharuch mission hospital 226
Irish Presbyterian mission hospital Bhavsar, Narsinhbhai 182
166, 169, 226, 228–9 Bhetali, thakor of 99, 155–6
Salvation Army mission hospital Bhil mission of Church Missionary
213 Society
Anderson, Dr H. (CMS medical church councils 90, 94–6, 183,
superintendent, London) 194, 185–7, 199
197–8 church discipline 147, 183, 186,
Anthropological Society of London 235
26 churches 52, 90, 97, 147, 183
Arnold, David 5, 240 educational work 54, 56, 66–8, 74,
Arya Samaj 70, 97, 115, 181 96–7, 100–1, 147, 157, 159,
Asad, Talal 43–4 180–1, 186, 211, 227–8
Asari, Harjibhai 228–9 hymns (bhajans) 91, 160
Asari, Revd Jakhi Kanji 161, 183, 193 Indian doctors 112–13, 115, 117,
Ashirvadam, Dr Azariah 201–2, 204, 199–20, 132, 134–5, 165–74,
208 192–4, 197–9, 201–2, 204, 206,
Ashivardian, Dr Vijayam 201–2, 208 208, 210–12, 219, 227, 238, 244
Auerbach, Eva 187, 210 Indian pastors and catechists of 3,
Ayurvedic medicine 15, 38–9, 229, 54, 56, 69, 79, 85–6, 88–9, 95–6,
232 99, 113, 131, 134, 136, 143,
158–61, 172, 183–7, 193, 215
Baleta 152 Indian schoolteachers 56, 67, 106,
Baniyas 64, 68, 77, 90, 92, 95, 115, 155–6, 159–61, 193, 237
151, 156, 244 marriage regulations imposed by
Banks, Dr Arthur 187, 208–9, 211, 92–5, 244
219–20 medical subordinates 56, 105–6,
Baroda 109, 112–13, 119, 161, 166, 174,
city 184 180–1, 192, 196, 201, 205–7, 210,
mission hospital 226 217–19, 227–30, 238
Bastar 20 medical work 1–4, 53–7, 66–8,
Bavaliya 75, 77–8, 80, 85, 87, 105, 76–80, 89–90, 99, 101, 105–20,
109, 111, 157–8, 166, 171, 180, 165–76, 178–9, 182, 186, 192–21
228–9 nurses 113, 120, 143–4, 166, 168, 172,
thakor of 80 196, 201, 206–7, 210–11, 238–9
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Bhil mission of Church Missionary dispensary 67, 77, 80, 105, 109–10,
Society (cont.) 117–19, 153, 172–5, 194, 201,
opposition to exorcism 92, 95, 212, 217, 219, 227, 233, 239
124–35 orphanage 74, 77, 88–9, 94, 99, 133
origins 1–4, 51–2 school 4, 67, 98–9, 106, 174, 180,
orphanages 73, 76–8, 87–9, 93–4, 201, 227–8, 233
144 Birkett, Revd Arthur 79–80, 87,
women’s education 142 89–96, 98–9, 112, 116–17,
women’s work 141–5, 196, 199, 128–37, 142, 144, 214, 227,
207–8, 217–18, 237–8 242–3
Bhils Birkett, Dr Jane 34–7, 79–80, 85, 87,
agriculture of 27 89–90, 92–3, 109–17, 119, 128–9,
attitudes towards Europeans 1–4, 131–4, 136, 139, 143–4, 154, 158,
61, 63–6, 148 165–6, 170, 209, 214, 227, 237,
caste practices of 53–4, 61, 83 243
death ceremonies 158 Bodding, Revd P.O. 37
diet of 27–8, 53, 61, 94–5, 198, 202, Bombay
207 Bishop of 100, 159–61, 186, 204,
British attitudes towards 2, 5, 206, 226
21–4, 26, 51–4 city 96, 110, 156, 172, 184
headmen 3, 22, 28–9, 44 Presidency, government of 58, 100,
healing practices of 4, 37–40, 43, 156
62–3, 92, 105, 108, 127–35, 159, State (1947–60) 178, 181, 186, 211
171, 213–15, 220–1, 229, 232 Booth, William 14
health of 3–4, 32–7 Borsad mission hospital (Irish
Hindu attitudes towards 65 Presbyterian Mission) 172
Hindus, interactions with 2–3, Brahmans 30–1, 45, 57, 64, 68, 95–6,
53–5, 57, 60–6, 88 115, 156, 168, 172, 244
insurgency by 1–2, 4, 21, 58–60 Brand, Dr. John 112–13, 115, 117,
language of 23, 53, 58, 65 199–20, 132, 134–5, 165–6
marriage customs of 70, 92–5, 142 Breman, Jan 246
pals (villages) 27, 29, 58–9 Britain 6–8, 13–14
panchayats 29–30, 243 Brouwer, Ruth Compton 189–91
patriarchy of 28–30, 142–3, 200, Browne, Dr A. H. 76–9, 109–11
238 Bull, A. H. (Helen) 76, 87, 117, 127–9,
religion of 28–32, 53–4 132, 134, 139, 141–5
religious reform amongst 19, 57, Burns Thomson, Dr W. 10
60–70 Butcher, Revd L.B. (CMS secretary,
Bhiloda Bombay) 150, 160, 167–8
dispensary (Idar state) 174 Butler, Dr Fanny 140
town 75, 136, 230 buva see Bhils; healing practices of
bhopa see Bhils; healing practices of
Bickersteth, Bishop Edward 51–2, Calvin, John 13
55 cancer 34, 36–7, 55, 110, 180
Bigriker, Grace 206 Carstairs, George 31
Biladiya village 79–80, 87–9, 90, Carter, Paul 190–1
111–12, 115, 133, 152–3, 174, Carter, Rose 83, 87, 89, 132, 142,
183–5, 187, 206, 217 154–5, 159
Christian community 90, 157, 175, Catholicism see Roman Catholicism
180, 183–4 cauterisation 37, 110, 135, 214, 232
church building 99, 133, 233 Chakrabarty, Dipesh 244
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Gill, Revd Charles H. (CMS secretary Indian Christian priests see Bhil
for North India) 76, 78–80, 86–8 mission of Church Missionary
Girasia community 153 Society; Indian pastors and
glucose drips 230 catechists of
Gonds 51–2, 54, 76, 85 Indian Medical Service 25, 113, 115
Goodwin, Revd J. W. 87 Indian nationalism 8, 97, 147–54,
Government of India, British period 178, 181–2, 184, 190, 230
7, 21 Indian princely states
Gujarat state, government of 228 medical facilities in 25–6, 33–4, 36,
Gurevich, Aron 31 169, 174
individualism 243–4
hakims 110 Indonesia 225
Hall, Catherine 145 injections, intravenous 200–1, 208,
Hamilton, Dr John 168–72 229–32
Hari, Revd Laxman 85–6, 88–9, 93, Irish Presbyterian Mission 159–61,
96 226
hashish 65 Islam 6, 61
Hatya village 143 itineration see medical itineration
Hendley, Dr Thomas Holbein 25–8,
30–2, 34–5, 37, 39–41, 43–5, 60, Jains 31–2
64, 144 Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in
herbal remedies 37–8, 232 Amritsar 153
Herbert, Revd E. P. 76, 78, 80, 105–6 Jesingpur 96–7, 99, 127, 136, 143,
Heywood, Rhodri 14, 123 155–7, 171
Himatnagar 98, 180, 182, 229 Jesus Christ 150, 191, 213–14, 216
Hindu Mahasabha 181 as healer 10–11, 13
Hindus and Hinduism 2, 20, 22, 26, Jharkhand 20
30–1, 37, 51, 80, 84, 88, 96–7, Johnson, Dr Margaret 161–2, 178,
106, 115, 149, 168–9, 181, 184, 187, 192–7, 198–201, 203–21,
190, 207, 213, 219, 245–6 214, 226, 228, 231, 237, 239–40
Hodgkinson, Margaret 118–19, 133, Johnson, Revd Paul 161–2, 178, 181–7,
139 193–4, 211–12, 214–16, 219
Hodgkinson, Revd William 79, 87–9, Jorgensen, Else 187
94, 100, 115, 118–19, 133, 142
Holdom, Winfred 158, 166, 174–5, Kabir Panth sect 184
196 Kagdar 76, 157
homeopathy 15 Kalasva, Yusuph 158–9
Hopkins, Charles 190 Kalbai 75, 79
Hunt, Nancy Rose 15, 183 Kaliparaj, the 21
Kanthariya village 96, 100
Idar Karchha, thakor of 60, 66, 99, 112,
chief minister of 67, 97, 155–6 115
famine relief work by 75 Kayser, Dr Erling 225–6
maharajas of 58–61, 63, 92, 97–9, Khandesh region 25, 51, 54
155 Kheda district 148
praja mandal (people’s association) Kherwara
156, 181 Christian community 90, 157, 180,
state 24, 31, 57–60, 66, 73, 96–101, 185
109, 115, 151, 155, 175, 178, church building 52
180–2 dispensary 54–6, 105–6, 108–9
town 34, 229–30 orphanage 73–4, 76–8, 87–8
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school 54, 56, 106, 161, 184, 187, political agents 40, 42, 59, 60–3,
228 66, 68, 98, 100, 153, 155
town 1, 25, 27, 51–8, 73–5, 79, Scott College at Sadra 99, 115
87–8, 90, 105, 131, 168–9, 184, malaria 9–10, 33–4, 36, 73, 77, 106,
217, 236 108, 110, 115, 171, 173, 179, 196,
Kipling, Rudyard 23 203, 207, 215–16, 229
Kirk, Margaret 201, 206–7, 218, 239 Malaviya, Bishop Vinod 233
Koch, Robert 108 Malcolm, John 21–2, 24
Korea 140, 189 Marx, Karl 6–7
Kotada 25, 74, 124, 154, 157–60 maternity care and obstetrics 144,
Koya, Waga 131 171, 192–3, 199–200, 207,
210–12, 216–19, 230
Lambert, Helen 35 Mayo College, Ajmer 156
landlords 21, 29 Mayoh, Revd John 187
lantern slide shows 117, 175, 217 medical fundraising 115, 166, 194,
Lea, Revd James 4–5, 153–4, 157 199, 205
Lees, Agnes 124, 169, 172, 175, 184, medical itineration 116–17, 237
197–8, 214 medical mission movement 8–15, 53,
liquor (daru) 28, 38–9, 41, 61, 63, 65, 101, 119, 126–7, 189–92, 235–41
92, 95, 98, 151, 198 Medical Missionary Association
liquor dealer 21 (London) 11, 166
Litchfield, Revd G. 36, 55–6, 105 medical practice by missionaries,
Livingstone College, London 174 forms of
Livingstone, Dr David 9–10 decolonisation period 191–4,
London School of Medicine for 225–6, 236–7
Women 140–1 early-nineteenth century 9–10
Lowe, Dr. John 119 early-twentieth century 108–20,
Lucknow mission of CMS 79–80 165–76, 189–92
Lusadiya late-nineteenth century 14–15, 34,
Christian mela (fair) 90–3, 129–30, 105–8, 119
142–3 medical education by 175, 215–19,
Christians of 66, 83–91, 94, 157, 231
171, 172, 180–1, 185, 213, 227–8, women, work amongst 140–1
230 Meigh, Revd Frank 161, 167–9, 174
church building 90, 171, 233 Meigh, Marjorie 160, 173–4
dispensary 66–8, 99, 105, 165, mental health 32
192–4, 196 Methodists 7, 140, 226
hospital 111–19, 131, 134, 143, Mewar Bhil Corps (MBC) 1–2, 25–6,
159–60, 165–73, 180–2, 192–221, 30, 40, 42, 44, 51, 54, 56, 60, 64,
226–7, 237–9 73–4, 87–8, 96, 101, 152–4, 236,
Mother’s Union 199, 218 241
orphanage 88, 144–5 famine relief work by 73–4, 76,
school 66–8, 83, 90, 172, 184 87
village 57, 60, 62–3, 66, 83–91, 108, medical work of 25–6, 51, 54–5,
135, 136, 155, 161, 170, 186, 195, 106, 111, 118
210, 214, 217, 230, 233 Mewar State 1–2, 21, 24–5, 33, 42,
Luther, Martin 13 73, 101, 153, 178
Praja Mandal (People’s Association)
Maharana of Mewar 25, 28, 41 181
Mahi Kantha Agency 25, 42, 58–60 Mews, Stuart 14
medical work by 35 Mildmay hospital, London 174
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