In the shadow of the Mahatma: Bishop V.S. Azariah and the travails of Christianity in British India

Abstract

SUSAN BILLINGTON HARPER. In the Shadow of the Mahatma: Bishop V.S. Azariah and the Travails of Christianity in British India. Grand Rapids, W. B. Eerdmans, 2000. Pp xxii + 461, introduction, bibliography, index. $45.00. Ecclesiastical biography is not a fashionable genre. Nowadays it is rare to encounter an example which is well-written, based on thorough and wide research, well-attuned to its subject's context, unafraid to dwell at length on complicated and seemingly abstruse matters, and ready to take controversial but carefully-argued positions. Susan Billington Harper's study of Samuel Azariah (1874-1945), the first Indian bishop of the Anglican church in India, succeeds triumphantly in all these ways. As a specimen of the genre, it surely ranks amongst the best to have been written in English within the last decade or so, and easily stands comparison with the only other example I would put in the same league, namely Keith Clements's study of Joseph Oldham (1999). Azariah's historical significance is considerable, though no longer widely known. Far from being a mere instrument of British policy in India, he was evidently a man of independent mind, prepared to stand up to his hierarchical superiors and to British officials when necessary, but by no means aligned with Gandhi's emergent Indian nationalism. Consecrated finally bishop of Dornakal in 1912 at the instigation of Henry Whitehead, bishop of Madras, after a three-year struggle within the Indian church over his appointment, he proved to be a vigorous, independent and far-seeing advocate of his faith. He was an unashamed apologist for Christian evangelism in a society in which inter-religious tensions were increasing. Critical of caste, his vision of Christian faith left no place for it, despite the caste-shaped form which so much Indian Christianity took. He was an early and strong advocate of the unification of the Indian churches, taking a central role in the proceedings which eventually led to the formation of the Church of South India. Yet, controversially, he was often supportive of the Raj, and critical of the Indian nationalist movement. For this last reason, it is hardly surprising that, within India generally, he has not been accorded the retrospective significance which Billington Harper claims for him. These points are all substantial reasons in their own right why a study of Azariah should be so welcome, not least because we have no less a person than Stephen Neill's testimony to his importance (p. 2), a testimony that encouraged Billington Harper to take up her work in the first place. The influence not only of Neill, hut of Tapan Raychaudhuri and Lesslie Newbigin, her doctoral supervisors, hovers over the book. Right at the beginning, a sharply focused yet (in the circumstances) controversial prospectus is laid out for the book: [This] is an attempt to rescue leaders who are rooted in religion and not focused on national politics from the arrogantly secular and narrowly political preoccupations of those who form public opinion. In the process, as she asserts, she found almost every cliche about Christian missionary activity in India to be incorrect (p. 2). Billington Harper lays out her account of Azariah's life and work in lour main stages. Three opening chapters trace his family background, his early ministry, and the formation of his approach to mission in India. These are superbly researched and supplement very well other accounts of Christianity in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century India. Though biographical material is indeed presented when appropriate, the main aim is to interpret and evaluate Azariah's life in the context of the history of Indian Christianity as a whole. It is his breadth of engagement at such a crucial period in India's modern history that makes this approach so productive. Here, for example, are thoughtful and informed accounts of the rise and influence of the YMCA in India as a precursor of ecumenical mission, and of Azariah's central role in the formation of indigenous missionary societies, the Indian Missionary Society of Tinnevelly, and the National Missionary Society, among many other matters. …