How Christianity Transformed a Village

It was in 1942 that one white missionary, Dr. Broad, came to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to an obscure village. The name of the village was Phuba (Phyabu in local language), in present North East India, which was then 8 hours of walking from the nearest conveyance available. Similar kind of preaching by missionaries continued on and off in 1943. In 1944, seven families decided to follow Jesus Christ. And among those 7 families, one of them was  my paternal grandparents.

The obvious thing for these 7 families was to set up a new pattern of life in a new village. So in February 12, 1944, they moved some 3 kilometres away and set up a new village which is now called Phuba Thapham (Khyoubu, the village is shown in the picture). In this new village, they gave up drinking completely. And this was a very significant step for them; and this continues to be significant even today whenever someone becomes a follower of Jesus in that particular context. This was so because drinking was so much part of their life. In fact, the local dialect for someone of my place who was and is not a Christian is "drinking people". Since people would be drunk for many hours of the day, they were not hygienic. They did not have time for learning too and therefore literacy rate would probably have been around 1%. Roughly 40%-50% of the children that were born would die due to lack of medical facility and unhygienic way of life. But often the villagers would attribute death to the work of the spirits. So it was common to give filthy names ( of filthy words) to the children thinking that spirits would not take away children with such names.

Here I wish to mention that those who converted did not receive "rice" from anyone. They were not all rich, but the reason for them to convert was not because they were offered "rice" by anyone. 

In the new village they quit drinking. They lived hygienic life. The children mortality rate went up.  My dad was 12 years old then when his parents shifted to this new village. The same year my paternal grandfather went around to neighbouring villages to preach the Gospel and help those who converted to set up new homes. In 1946, after WW II, the Allied troops were pulling out from the region. My grandfather and many others served as porters for the troops who were going back home. While returning to the village in rainy  July after his service as a porter my grandfather developed a certain sickness. Few days later he passed away leaving behind 3 sons and 2 daughters.  But the new church and the village these 7 families have started by then have more than 5 times the original number. My grandmother lived till 1994.

In 1948 my maternal grandfather came as a missionary- teacher to the village, with his family members. Besides teaching Bible to the youth group of the village,  he was the first man who taught women of the village how to read and write. The following years he taught people of this village how to build orchard and also how to plough the fields using buffaloes. He also taught them how to cultivate many items of vegatables and pulses. Till then villagers relied mostly on wild plants for food. (Even today plants in the forest continue to be an important source of food items). After roughly 10 years of fruitful service to this obscure village my maternal grandparents left the family with their children, leaving behind my mother who by then had got married to my father. This grandfather died in 1979; and grandmother is still alive.

Today the village has over 1800 members; more so because new converts came to live in the village and mortality rate decrease significantly. The literacy rate would be somewhere around 98%.Seeing the significant differences between Christian and non-christian almost every family  in the mother village has become Christian now. Some people criticise Christianity for destroying the tribal way of life. Well, I would very much prefer this life to the life then. My parents would say the same. And my grandparents would not disagree with the preference, I know! 

Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922)

Ramabai was born as the sixth child to Anant Shastri Dongre and Lakshmibai. Her father earned his living by rendering Vedic recitals in temples, teaching and narrating Puranas in public platform and other similar activities performed by a devout Brahmin. The family lived under severe economic strain. With famine sweeping the region the economic hardship increased. It was in this condition, when Ramabai was just 16, her father passed away. Within few days her mother too passed away under the continued paid of starvation and the emotional trauma of having lost her husband. Even her elder sister died of cholera within a short time leaving behind only her brother and herself, since her other siblings have died in early years. But before her parents died she has mastered Sanskrit under her mother.

For years she led an intellectual nomadic life with her brother. In 1878 when Ramabai was 20 she reached Calcutta with her brother. It was her that Ramabai was honoured with the title 'Pandita' by Calcutta University for her learning in Sanskrit. Tragedy, however, struck her again when her brother Srinivas succumbed to Cholera in 1880. Shortly Pandita Ramabai married her brother's friend Bipen Behari Das, a lawyer from a non-Brahmin (Shudra) background. Worse was to come when her husband died of cholera two years later leaving her with their daughter Manorama.

When she was 25 she travelled to England to study medicine. There got converted to Christianity and got baptised in the Church of England. Three years later she travelled to the US where she spent two years publicising her plan to open a home for high-caste Hindu widows in India.

In 1889, when she was 34, she started a widow's home called Sharada Sadan in Bombay which eventually was shifted to Pune and came to be known as Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission. She spoke out against gambling, drinking and other social evils that destroy homes. She has acquired a fighting spirit from her parent as she went about encouraging widow's remarriage despite opposition from conservative Brahmin. After all even her father faced social boycott for having insisted on educating his wife when such virtue was considered an anathema. Just as she led an independent life she taught women to be independent and confident. Pandita Ramabai also introduced kindergarten system of education to India for the first time.

In 1882 she started one Arya Mahila Samaj for the cause of women's education. She also wrote two books: Stri Dharma Niti in 1882 and The High Caste Hindu Women in 1887. The former representing a reformist approach to Hindu womenhood and the latter critiquing the deplorable condition of Hindu widows. She went on to suggest, in Lok Stithi, that Hindi should be enriched and developed by incorporating from other language wherever necessary. Her contribution to literature would be incomplete if her work in translating Bible to Marathi from original Hebrew and Greek is not given due recognition.

The way she withstood personal loss, the manner in which she critiqued Hindu religious traditions that legitimized patriarchal oppression and her long quest for the truth which she found in Christ Jesus are some lessons one can learn from her life. In 1989 the Government of India in recognition of her contribution to the advancement of Indian women issued a commemorative stamp.

N T Wright

Nicholas Thomas Wright, popularly known as Tom Wright, is the 4th highest ranking Bishop of the Church of England. He is one of the most well known New Testament scholars within and outside the Church. He started his student’s life as a president of Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, which is equivalent to being the president of an ICEU (of UESI) in India, studying Classical Literature, Philosophy and History. Later on he went to teach New Testament at Cambridge, Oxford, McGill etc till his moving into Church ministry in 2003. He received his Ph. D and D.D from Oxford.

Wright has been known to be audacious and intelligent. He does not shy away from speaking his mind; whether it is about theology or history or politics. Many conservatives are angry with him for having challenged Augustine and Luther on the doctrine of Justification. On the other hand his defence of (bodily) resurrection of Jesus from the dead is welcomed by all. His 800 odd page Resurrection of the Son of God (RSG) is so far the most voluminous work on resurrection by any scholar. His Christian Origin Series, of which RSG is one, challenges liberal’s account of Christian origin. He is also the one who coined the term "the third quest for Historical Jesus", and he is an expert on Historical Jesus.

He is very eloquent. And his message is very clear. Those individuals who are interested in grafting ‘saving of soul’ into the big picture of the Bible should read or listen to him. Some called his book Simply Christian as the 'Mere Christianity' of 21st century. He has been one of those theologians from whom I have learned so much this recent time. Go on Rev. Wright... go on!

His website: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/