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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
This paper traces aspects of the evangelical encounter in Chhattisgarh, a large region bound through linguistic ties in Central India. Evangelical missionaries, bearing the Cross and signs of civilization, arrived in Chhattisgarh in the 1860s. Oscar Lohr, the pioneer missionary of the German Evangelical Mission Society, chanced upon a group of heathens, the Satnamis, whose faith enjoined them to believe in one god and to reject idolatory and caste. Was this not the hand of ‘divine providence’? The missionary, it seemed, had only to reveal the evangelical ‘truth’ to the Satnamis before they would en masse‘witness’ and be redeemed by Christ-the-Saviour. The group did not see the coming of the millennium. It did not go forward to meet its destiny. The missionaries persevered. The halting enterprise of conversion in the region grew primarily through ties of kinship among indigenous groups and the prospects of a better life under the paternalist economy of mission stations.
1 The paper draws upon my ‘Religion, Identity and Authority among the Satnamis in Colonial Central India’, Ph.D dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1992.Google Scholar The dissertation constructs a history of the Satnamis —an untouchable and heretical group who combined the features of a caste and a sect —and is under revision for publication. The themes addressed by this paper will only put in a cameo appearancein the book. Instead, they form a part of another study, ‘Missionary Agendas, Indigenous Categories and Local Initiatives: Christianity in Chhattisgarh, Central India, 868–1955.’ The study broadly feeds into the team-project on ‘Socio-religious movements and cultural networks in Indian Civilisation’ of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. I thank Ishita Banerjee for translating the German sources used in this paper. The paper uses the following abbreviations: ARM: Annual Reports of Missionaries; BMF: Bisrampur Malguzari File; CPG: Central Provinces Government; DDM: Der Deutsche Missionsfreund; EAL: Eden Archives and Library, Webster Groves, Missouri; FS: Folder on Satnamis; MPDP: M. P. Davis Papers, Webster Groves; MPSRR: Madhya Pradesh Secretariat Record Room, Bhopal; QRM: Quarterly Reports of Missionaries.
2 Satnampanth was initiated in the first half of the nineteenth century by Ghasidas, a farm servant, among the Chamars of Chhattisgarh. The Chamars, who collectively embodied the stigma of death pollution of the sacred cow, constituted a significant proportion—a little less than one sixth—of the population of Chhattisgarh. They either owned land or were share-croppers and farm servants. The Chamars who joined Satnampanth became Satnamis. They had to abstain from meat, liquor, tobacco, certain vegetables—tomatoes, chillies, aubergines — and red pulses. Satnampanth rejected the deities and idols of the Hindu pantheon and had no temples. The members were asked to believe only in a formless god, satnam (true name). There were to be no distinctions of caste within Satnampanth. With Ghasidas began a guru parampara (tradition) which was hereditary. Satnampanth developed a stock of myths, rituals and practices which were associated with the gurus.
3 Whitehead, Henry, ‘The mass movements towards Christianity in the Punjab’, International Review of Missions, 2 (1913), pp. 442–53;Google ScholarManor, James C., ‘Testing the barrier between caste and outcaste: the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church in Guntur District 1920–1940’, Indian Church History Review, 5 (1971), pp. 27–41;Google ScholarOddie, G. A., ‘Christian conversion in Telugu country, 1860–1900: a case study of one Protestant movement in the Godavery Christian Delta’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 12 (1975), pp. 61–79;CrossRefGoogle ScholarForrester, Duncan B., Caste and Christianity. Attitudes and Policies on Caste of Anglo-Saxon Protestant Missions in India (London, 1980)Google Scholar. Frykenberg, Robert raises wider issues about conversion but does not really address the problems I have raised in his ‘On the study of conversion movements’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 17 (1981), pp. 187–243.Google Scholar
4 Bayly, Susan, Saints, Goddesses and Kings. Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society 1700–1900 (Cambridge, 1989).Google Scholar See also Stirrat, R. L., ‘Compradazgo in Catholic Sri Lanka’, Man, 10 (n.s.), (1975), pp. 589–606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 Richard Eaton's work, which explores the changing encounter between Christian conceptions of divinity and the religious system of the Nagas to explore the strategies of Protestant missionaries and the Naga conversion to Christianity is an interesting but somewhat weak exception. The difficulties in Eaton's work stem from the ratherrigid and formal opposition that he sets up between Christianity as a religion with universal characteristics and the religion of the Nagas as rooted in a narrow domain defined by local divinities. Thus, it was only when the conceptual universe of the Nagas broadened through an exposure to broader processes —for instance, the Great War—that large—scale conversions took place. The picture is much too neat and the opposition overarching. Eaton misses out on the wider issues raised by the historical and ethnographic record of the evangelical encounter. This contrasts, for instance, with David Scott's sensitive tracing of the genealogies of the formation of the specific anthropologized concept of ‘demonism’ in Sri Lanka. This involved the early British ‘orientalist’ understanding of religion in Sri Lanka, its expansion through encounters with Sinhala customs and the needs of colonial rule and, eventually, the evangelical missionaries’ identification of the ‘dangerous durability’ of demonism. Richard Eaton, ‘Conversion to Christianity among the Nagas, 1876–1971’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 21 (1984), pp. 1–44;CrossRefGoogle ScholarScott, David, ‘Conversion and demonism:colonial Christian discourse on religion in Sri Lanka’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 34 (1992), pp. 331–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 These issues are suggested by studies in the anthropology of colonialism and Christianity and of ‘radical culture contact.’ I will address them in detail in my larger work on evangelical Christianity in Chhattisgarh that I have mentioned above.
7 Typescript ‘Autobiography of Oscar Lohr’ (manuscript written in German in 1902 and translated into English in 1971) EAL; Seybold, Theodore C., God's Guiding Hand: A History of The Central India Mission 1868–1967 (Pennsylvania, 1971), p. 1.Google Scholar
8 ‘Autobiography of Oscar Lohr’, p. 2,.Google Scholar
9 DDM, 2, 12 (12 1867), p. 86, EAL.Google Scholar
10 Seybold, God's Guiding Hand, p.6.Google Scholar
11 Ibid., p.8.
12 ‘Autobiography of Oscar Lohr’, p. 2.Google Scholar
13 Ibid., pp. 3–4.
14 Der Friedensbote, 79, 20 (1928), pp. 309–15, EAL.Google Scholar
15 Thus the missionary Notrott in the manuscript of the first history of the mission at Bisrampur. The manuscript was written in 1892; Notrott revised and typed the history in 1936. Both copies are in German. Notrott (Typescript) ‘History of Mission’, p. 5, EAL.Google Scholar
16 See, for instance, Prins, Gwyn, The Hidden Hippopotamus: Reappraisals in African History (Cambridge, 1980).Google Scholar
17 The janeu or the sacred thread is, of course, a mark of the twice-born castes in the Hindu social order. The Satnamis, considered an untouchable community, were barred from wearing it. Balakdas, the second guru of the Satnampanth, distributed the sacred thread among the Satnamis in the 1850s. Satnami myths rehearse the tale of Balakdas's wearing and distribution of the janeu as a simultaneous questioning of and challenge to upper caste authority and colonial power within the region. Dube, Saurabh, ‘Myths, Symbols and Community: Satnampanth of Chhattisgarh’ in Chatterjee, Partha and Pandey, Gyan (eds.), Subaltern Studies VII: Writings on South Asian History and Society (Delhi, 1992), pp. 151–4.Google Scholar
18 Seybold, God's Guiding Hand, pp. 21–2;Google ScholarDer Friedensbote, 79, 21 (1928), pp. 325–31, EAL.Google Scholar
19 In December 1869 a cautious but modestly satisfied Lohr had reported to the Home Board: ‘I haven't baptised anyone but inspite of it I am happier than I was a year back. We have applications from a few Satnamis. But in reality there are more converts this year and it is I who hasn't baptised them. I have become more careful and I don't want to please myself by gathering a group of nominal Christians. Besides what is required is a deeper understanding of Christian truth and a thorough grounding in the same than what the sons of wilderness can grasp in three or four months. Finally, decisiveness about what one feels and holding one's ground in the face of persecution and enmity is required from the heathens. This can be expected when the value of Christian religion is understood which is too much to expect from this folk in a few months, given the limitedness of their understanding and their materialist instincts.’ DDM, 6. 4 (April 1870), p. 1, EAL.
20 Report of the Chuttesgurh Mission, 06 1870–07 1871, pp. 5–6, ARM, EAL.Google Scholar
21 Ibid., p. 5.
22 DDM, 8, 4 (04 1872), p. 25, EAL.Google Scholar
23 Report of the Chuttesgurh Mission, 06 1871–07 1872, pp. 8–9, ARM, EAL.Google Scholar
24 Ibid., p. 9.The missionaries more than colonial officials understood the difference between Satnamis and Chamars. This did not, however, prevent them at certain moments from referring to Satnamis as Chamars in their reports.
25 DDM, 8, 4 (April 1872), pp. 25–6; DDM, 9, 2 (Feb. 1873), P- I 0; DDM, 9, 11 (11 1873), p. 83Google Scholar, EAL. By 1883 the number of converts at Bisrampur had grown to 175 and there were other relatives of these families who were waiting for baptism. The baptismal register for Bisrampur shows that this process of slow growth went on till 1890 when the number of converts came to stand at 258. The famine years around the turn of the century witnessed a dramatic increase in conversions. But this was followed very soon by what was described by missionaries as a ‘backsliding from Christianity.’ Report of the Chuttesgurh Mission, 1883, p. 17, ARM, EAL; Bisrampur Baptismal Register, 1870–90, EAL. The conversions during the famine years and their aftermath are discussed in the reports of missionaries in DDM, 1898–1907.
26 Annual Reports of the Chuttesgurh Mission, 1870–71, pp. 5–6; 1871–72, pp. 4–8; 1874–75, PP. 8–13; 1876–77, pp. 8–10; 1878–80, pp. 6–11, 15–16; 1880–81, p. 6, 13; 1881–82, pp. 11–12; 1882–83, pp. 5–7, 8–10, p. 15, ARM, EAL. This picture is also confirmed by the missionary reports from Bisrampur published in DDM, 1870–90, EAL.Google Scholar
27 DDM, 9, 7 (July 1873), p. 48.Google Scholar
28 DDM, 10, 8 (Aug. 1874), p. 57.Google Scholar While the church was being constructed Lohr, on 27 January 1872 had stated: ‘The news has spread like wildfire because in Chhattisgarh the construction of a church is like a carnival … However, it is also of some significance or importance. If a large temple of the god was being built it would not be anything to be noticed. But a church is something new … In other words, the construction of the church draws a huge mass of people’. DDM, 8, 4 (April 1872), p. 26.Google Scholar
29 Comaroff, Jean and Comaroff, John, ‘Christianity and colonialism in SouthAfrica’, American Ethnologist, 13, 1 (1986), pp. 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
30 In September 1870 Lohr had written that he looked after the running of the station in mornings and evenings. At 9.00 a.m. he took a lesson in school, then breakfast, and at 10.00 he visited people who were ill. Till 2.00 p.m. Lohr taught the children and then took a lesson in catechism for an hour. From 3.00 to 4.00 he looked after the work in the fields, then had lunch and after that went off to inspect the garden. DDM, 6, 12 (12 1870), pp. 89–90.Google Scholar
31 DDM, 6, 4 (April 1870), p.3;Google ScholarDDM, 8, II (November 1872), p.82;Google ScholarDDM, 13, 2 (February 1877), p. 11;Google ScholarDDM, 10, 10 (October 1874), p. 74;Google ScholarDDM, 11, 2 (Feb. 1875), p. 13;Google ScholarAnnual Report of the Chuttesgurh Mission, 1874–1875, pp. 10–14, ARM, EAL.Google Scholar
32 DDM, 8, 7 (07 1872), p. 50; DDM, 8, 11 (11 1872), p. 85; DDM, 9, 8 (08 1873), p. 58Google Scholar; See also the photographs of missionaries and converts in Lohr, J.J., Bilder aus Chattisgarh (Place of publication not given, 1899).Google Scholar
33 C. P. Ethnographic Survey XVII, Draft Articles on Hindustani Castes, First Series (Nagpur, 1914), p. 57.Google Scholar
34 These issues were played out in the context of the convert challenge to missionary authority and are discussed in the next section.
35 Bisrampur Kalasiya ki Vishesh Agyayen (Special Rules of the Congregation at Bisrampur) (Bisrampur, 1890).Google Scholar
36 Ibid., pp. 2–3.
37 Annual Report of the Chuttesgurh Mission, 1876–77, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar There were close ties between the converts and their relatives who followed them to Bisrampur. Since the families often retained relations of commensality, both the converts and their relatives were excommunicated from Satnampanth. The evidence we have, in fact, confirms the hostility of Satnami leadership towards conversions. At the same time, this hostility and missionary injunctions could not prevent intimacy and relationships between the converts and other Satnamis. DDM, 11, 11(11. 1875), pp. 81–3; DDM, 13, 2(02 1877), pp. 18–19; DDM, (n.s.) 4, 4 (04 1887), pp. 29–31.Google Scholar
38 Bisrampur Kalasiya ki Vishesh Agyayen, p. 5.Google Scholar
39 DDM, 9, 8 (08 1873), p. 57; DDM, (n.s.), 4, 9 (09 1886), pp. 68–70.Google Scholar
40 Bisrampur Kalasiya ki Vishesh Agyayen, p.5.Google Scholar
41 Ibid., pp. 5–6; DDM, 9, 8 (Aug. 1873), PP. 57–8; Annual Report of the Chuttesgurh Mission, 1876–77, pp. 2–3. Apart from the reports included in the footnotes the arguments of the last three paragraphs are based upon the information contained in several issues of DDM between 1870 and 1900.
42 Immanuel Church, Bisrampur to Menzel, P. A., Secretary, American Evangelical Mission, U.S.A., 25 October 1933Google Scholar, BMF, EAL. The letter had 168 signatures. A number of the applications, notes and letters written by the converts are in Hindi. The translations are mine.
43 The India Mission District of the Evangelical Synod of North America was set up in 1924 as a self-governing church body in India. It was made up of missionaries of the American Evangelical Mission stationed at six mission stations. Seybold, God's Guiding Hand, pp. 75–6.Google Scholar
44 Koenig, J. C., Bisrampur to F. A. Goetsch, St. Louis, 22 Jan. 1935, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
45 Jacob, Premdas, Bisrampur to Chairman, Evangelical Synod of North America, Detroit, 17 04 1935, BMF, EAL; J. C. Koenig, Bisramput to F. A. Goetsch, St Louis, 22 01 1935, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
46 Jacob, Premdas, Bisrampur to Chairman, Evangelical Synod of North America, Detroit, 17 April 1935, BMF EAL; Noordaas and Powel, Christian members, Ganeshpur (near Bisrampur) to Chairman Saheb (?), 29 March 1934, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
47 Miller, ‘Survey of Bisrampur’, 1925, p. 4, BMF, EAL. Another survey conducted in 1943 revealed that about 96 per cent of the Christians of Bisrampur and Ganeshpur had descended from ‘Satnami-Chamar’ families. Moreover, the congregation at Bisrampur made for about 42.5 per cent of the total Christian members of the American Evangelical Mission. ‘A study of Christian descendants from Chamars and Satnamis’ (handwritten and typed note), 1943, pp. 1–5, FS, MPDP, EAL.Google Scholar
48 Miller, ‘Survey of Bisrampur’, p. 4.Google Scholar
49 Goetsch, F. A., Second Quarterly Report, Bisrampur, 27 July 1926, QRM, EAL.Google Scholar
50 The survey stated, ‘out of a communicant membership of 575 [185 families] — 176 families own their houses, 112 own land, 85 own teams of cows or buffaloes while perhaps 80 have savings in some form or other than those mentioned or other than regular household equipment.’ Miller, ‘Survey of Bisrampur’, 1925, p. 5.Google Scholar
51 Miller, ‘Survey of Bisrampur’, 1925, pp. 4–5; P. M. Konrad, Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1925, p. 2, ARM; Mrs T. Twente, ‘Report on Bible-women's work’, Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1927, pp. 1–2, ARM; ‘Note on Christian descendants from Satnami families’, 1940, pp. 1–5, FS, MPDP, EAL; E. W. Menzel, Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1951, pp. 2–7, ARM, EAL.Google Scholar
52 According to Seybold, Pandit Gangaram, Oscar Lohr's faithful co-worker, had paid the missionary the finest compliment when he called him ‘Apostle to the Satnamis’. Seybold, God's Guiding Hand, p. 57; E. W. Menzel, ‘Note on Sixtieth Anniversary Celebrations at Bisrampur’, Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1928. pp. 1–2, ARM, EAL; Paul, M. M., Evangelical Kalasiya ka Sankshipt Itihas (Allahabad, 1936), pp. 7–9, 22–3;Google Scholar Rev. Hagenstein, , Satmat ka Updesh (Allahabad, 1934), p. 4.Google Scholar
53 The missionary was ‘the civic authority (through the Malguzari), the employer or landlord of most people, the legal guardian of many or the legal guardian of [villager's] children or other relatives, as well as the symbol in which ecclesiastical moral authority and charitable enterprises was more or less vested’, E. W. Menzel, ‘Note on Bisrampur’, 1940, pp. 2–3, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
54 Ibid.;J. Purti, ‘Annual Congregational Report’, Bisrampur, 1929, ARM, EAL.
55 The difficult economic situation was evident in the early 1920s. F. A. Goetsch, Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1922, pp. 2–4, ARM, EAL.
56 Menzel, E. W., Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1938, p. 6, ARM, EAL.Google Scholar
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59 Koenig, J. C., ‘Note regarding the Bisrampur jungle’, Bisrampur, 5 05 1929, p. 1, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
60 Noordass and Powel, Christian members, Bisrampur to Chairman Saheb(?), 29 03 1934, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
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62 Ibid., p. 3.
63 Davis, M. P., ‘Report of the Bisrampur Church trouble’, 28 02 1934, p. i, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
64 Ibid.
65 Application from Immanuel Church, Bisrampur to P. A. Menzel, Secretary, American Evangelical Mission. U. S.A., 25 Oct. 1933, p. 1, BMF, EAL.
66 Ibid.
67 Bisrampur congregation to the Home Board in the U.S., 14 Dec. 1933, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
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71 In a very different context, Lata Mani and Rosalind O'Hanlon have discussed how women increasingly came to be the key ‘sign’ in the nineteenth century debates about the status of Hindu tradition and the legitimacy of colonial power. These debates did not offer women a voice as subjects and denied them agency. Mani, Lata, ‘Contentious traditions: the debate on sati in colonial India’, in Sangari, Kumkum and Vaid, Sudesh (eds.), Recasting Women, Essays in Colonial History (Delhi, 1989), pp. 86–126;Google ScholarO'Hanlon, Rosalind, ‘Issues of widowhood: gender and resistance in colonial western India’, in Haynes, Douglas and Prakash, Gyan (eds), Contesting Power. Resistance and Everyday Social Relations in South Asia (Delhi, 1991), p p. 62–108.Google Scholar
72 The annual and quarterly reports of the missionaries frequently referred to this problem. The missionary Goetsch provided a detailed comment. Goetsch, F. A., Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1925, pp. 2–3, ARM, EAL.Google Scholar
73 Application from Immanuel Church, Bisrampur to Menzel, P. A., Secretary, American Evangelical Mission, U. S.A., 25 12 1933, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
74 Bisrampur congregation to the Home Board in the U.S., 14 12 1933, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
75 Ibid.
76 Ibid.
77 Immanuel Church, Bisrampur to Menzel, P. A., Secretary, American Evangelical Mission U.S.A., 25 10 1933, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
78 Ibid.
79 Bisrampur congregation to the Home Board in the U.S., 14 12 1933Google Scholar, BMF, EAL; ‘Note on missionaries’ by Premdas Munshi, no date, BMF, EAL.
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89 The different missionary organizations at work in Chhattisgarh were all Protestant: the Disciples of Christ, the Missionary Bands of the World, the Methodists, the American Mennonite Mission and the General Conference Mennonites. These different groups — all much smaller that the American Evangelical Mission — cooperated with each other and worked together in an organization called the Chhattisgarh Missionary Association. Seybold, God's Guiding Hand, pp. 59–60; Lapp, J. A., The Mennonite Church in India (Scottdale, 1972), pp. 168–70.Google Scholar
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91 Ibid. It is difficult to say who these Arya Samaj leaders could have been; the formal Arya Samaj presence in Chhattisgarh was negligible. ‘Memo of the Deputy Commissioner, Raipur’, 3 Nov. 1939, CPG Political and Military Department, Confidential, no. 298, 1939, MPSRR.
92 Purti, J., Annual Congregational Report, Bisrampur, 1929, ARM, EAL.Google Scholar
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96 Ibid.
97 Koenig, J. C., First Quarterly Report, Bisrampur, 1935, p. 2, QRM, EAL.Google Scholar
98 Jacob, Premdas, Bisrampur, to the Board of Foreign Missions, Evangelical Synod of North America, 17 04 1935, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid.
101 J. C. Koenig, Bisrampur to F. A. Goetsch, St Louis, 22 Jan. 1935, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
102 Ibid.
103 Koenig, J. C., Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1935, p. 2, ARM, EAL.Google Scholar
104 Jacob, Premdas, Bisrampur to F. A. Goetsch, camp Baitalpur, 15 02 1936, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
105 Earlier ‘people had a desire to educate their children and were interested in Church, Sunday School and religious matters, they zealously carried out their duties and wanted the improvement of the congregation,’ However, ‘the condition of the present congregation between 1927 and 1935 makes us want to cry, after the workers trained by you die our condition will become like our ancestors before they became Christians.' S. Tilis, Ganeshpur to F. A. Goetsch, camp Bisrampur, 4 Feb. 1936. The letter had 135 other signatures.Google Scholar
106 Ibid.
107 Ibid.
108 Premdas Jacob, Bisrampur to F. A. Goetsch, camp Baitalpur, 15 02 1936, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
109 S. Tilis, Ganeshpur to F. A. Goetsch, camp Bisrampur, 4 02 1936, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
110 E. W. Menzel, ‘Note on Bisrampur’, 1940, p. 7, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
111 Ibid., J. C. Koenig, Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1937, p. 3, ARM, EAL; E. W. Menzel, Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1938, p. 6, ARM, EAL.
112 Baur, , Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1940, p. 3; Baur, Second Quarterly Report, Bisrampur, 1941, p. 2Google Scholar; Baur, Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1942, pp. 3–4, ARM, EAL.
113 Koenig, J. C., Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1937, pp. 3–5Google Scholar, ARM, EAL; E. W. Menzel, Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1940, pp. 2–4, ARM, EAL.
114 Baur, , Annual Report, Bisrampur, 1945, pp. 2–6Google Scholar, ARM, EAL. All annual reports of the missionaries stationed in Bisrampur between 1940 and 1950 mention these problems.
115 Menzel, E. W., Annual report, Bisrampur, 1951, p. 2, ARM, EAL.Google Scholar
116 (Circular in Hindi) ‘Demands of Immanuel Church to American Evangelical Mission’, 07 1955, BMF, EAL.Google Scholar
