During the latter part of the nineteenth century and the

Transcription

1 Implications of Having an Independent Missionary: A Review of the 1910 Kuki Mission Jangkholam Haokip During the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century, Christian mission work in what is now called Northeast India was conducted in collaboration with the British colonial administration then present. In fact, the period during which missionaries were most active in Northeast India, particularly in the area where the Kuki people lived, coincided with the peak of colonialism. Missionary activity in that period was based on a concept of racial and cultural superiority and was marked by the religious optimism of the West. In this article I evaluate, from an insider s viewpoint, the work a century ago of an independent Welsh missionary, Watkin Roberts (see accompanying photograph), among the Kuki, whose traditional homeland now forms parts of Northeast India, Burma, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. I argue that a fresh look at such independent mission enterprises can enlighten contemporary mission thinking and practice. 1 Mission Enterprise in Northeast India The earliest known Christian missionaries in Northeast India were Roman Catholic missioners in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Their work was not sustained, possibly because of a lack of vision for the region. 2 After a century-long gap, Christianity was reintroduced, but this time the faith came in conjunction with the rise of colonial power, which operated with the conviction that what could not be achieved by the military power could be gained by the power of the gospel. 3 The Serampore Mission of the British Baptist Missionary Society was the first agency to be invited by the colonial administration to work in Northeast India, and the American Baptist Missionary Union came in contact with Northeast India at the invitation of Francis Jenkins, a colonial officer. 4 The first American missionaries arrived in the Brahmaputra Valley in March 1836, and Jenkins himself supported their work. 5 A third agency was the Welsh Presbyterian Mission, which in its beginnings had no ties with the colonial administration. David Evan Jones, the first Welsh Presbyterian missionary, arrived in the Lushai Hills, now called Mizoram, on August 31, Ten years later a medical doctor named Peter Fraser joined Jones in Mizoram, and independent missionary Watkin Roberts in turn assisted Fraser. In 1894 William Pettigrew of Arthington Aborigine Mission brought Christianity to the princely state of Manipur, working Jangkholam Haokip was previously registrar and lecturer in the Department of Theology and Ethics, Union Biblical Seminary, Pune, India. Following completion of doctoral studies at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, in 2011, he has been involved in the development of local theology and integral mission in India. lamboihaokip@gmail.com among the dominant Meitei Hindus in the valley. 6 The colonial authorities soon revoked their permission for this work because of its perceived threat to the colonial administration; as a result, Pettigrew relocated his mission among the Tangkhul people in the hills of the northern part of the state. 7 By 1896 Pettigrew had left the Arthington Aborigine Mission and had joined the forces, as they were called, of the American Baptist Mission. 8 Since Pettigrew had been the first missionary to work in Manipur, the colonial government recognized him as the sole official missionary in the state and refused access to Manipur to any other missionary. Mission through a Back Door The 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh can be considered the high point of world evangelization. For the Kukis, however, 1910 was the dawn of Christianity. Despite the tight restrictions in Manipur, Watkin Roberts brought Christianity to the Kukis in 1910, sixteen years after Pettigrew, the official missionary, had first arrived. A successful quarryman, Watkin Roberts was born in 1886 at Carnarvon, North Wales, and was a product of the revival in Wales. At the Keswick Convention of 1907 he learned about and committed to the work in Assam and soon thereafter traveled to India as an independent missionary to assist the work of Fraser, as mentioned above. 9 Roberts was never on the staff of the Welsh Presbyterian Mission or of the Baptist Mission. Rather, he was self-appointed, unpaid, and unordained an untrained missionary working at his own expense as an assistant to Fraser. A letter from Fraser to R. J. Williams, secretary of the Calvinist Methodist Mission Society, shows Roberts s commitment: [Roberts] believes he would be disobeying our Lord if he stayed at home now for a number of years. Fraser continues, It is my duty and privilege to pray that the Lord will send out labourers into His harvest. Mr. Roberts seems to be an answer to that prayer. 10 Since he was a product of the revival in Wales and subsequently of the Keswick Convention, it is not surprising that Roberts s main mission objective was the spiritual conversion of the people. He learned the Lusei dialect and did evangelism while assisting Fraser in his clinic. During that time he received a gift of five pounds through a minister in Wales, with which he bought copies of the Gospel of John, which he distributed among the surrounding chiefs. As a result, he received an invitation from Kamkholun Singson, chief of Senvon, to come and explain the message of the book. It was an invitation that he saw as a Macedonian call. The invitation read, Sir, come yourself, and tell us about this book and your God. 11 Roberts immediately responded by visiting Kamkholun Singson at his village in 1910 and preaching in the surrounding villages as well. In 1910 Roberts formed an independent mission called the Thado-Kuki Pioneer Mission, whose main purpose was to evangelize those who did not yet have a missionary, specifically, 90 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 38, No. 2

2 the Kukis. The heading on the official letterhead read, An undenominational and thoroughly Evangelical Mission, formed with the express desire of preaching the Gospel among the Thado- Kookies in the State of Manipur, India. 12 The Thado are one of the largest clans within the Kuki, although, as with any other ethnic identity, the boundary of the group cannot be precisely ascertained. The Thado developed and, like the Lusei in the Lushai hills of Mizoram to the south, became influential in the region; the Thado-Kuki language was spoken by others, including some Nagas to the north. Possibly it was for this reason that the hyphenated term Thado-Kuki was used, but the scope of the mission included all the Kuki groups, which, since the government of India recognized them as separate A report in the November 1929 issue of Kristian (Christian), a monthly journal published by the mission, shows that the mission was growing both numerically and geographically. It was becoming a uniting organization among the Kuki people in Lakhipur (now a city in Assam), Tripura (the third smallest state in the country of India, now dominated by migrants), Chittagong Hill Tracts (now in Bangladesh), and Upper Chindwin and Upper Burma (now in Myanmar). 14 By 1954 there were 27,824 converts, with 134 national pastors, evangelists, and teachers; 341 chapels in Manipur; and 1,762 enrolled in Sunday School. There were 50 teachers in Chittagong Hill Tracts. 15 By 1960 the number of converts had grown to 29,678, hence the remark, From our Mission Compound at Churachandpur men and women go forth to preach, to teach and to baptize, not only within the confines of the North East India General Mission field, but in other areas as well. 16 The NEIGM, today called the Evangelical Congregational Church of India (ECCI), claims to be one of the largest evangelical denominations in Northeast India. 17 With a deep sense of gratitude, Thimkhup Buiting, a local ordained minister, writes about the work of the Kuki Mission in the Chittagong Hill Tracts: Thus Christianity was spread among the Bâwm [Kuki] people, and today the Bâwm are 100% Christian. The first adopted denomination Evangelical Christian Church continues its mission till today. 18 Mission versus Structures tribes, are now known by various names (such as, besides the Thado, the Hmar, Gangte, and Vaiphei, as well as a number of others). Altogether, the Kukis today number half a million. We see evidence for the broader vision held by the mission from (1) the mission s first converts, who were Thangkai and Lungpau of the Vaiphei group; (2) the first chief to be converted, who was Kamkholun Singson of the Thado group; and (3) the first village to be converted, which was Senvon, populated by the Hmar group. Because of the mission s breadth of outreach, it is more appropriate now in the postmissionary era to refer to the whole as the Kuki Mission of Viewed from outside and as occurred with pioneering missions elsewhere, the Thado-Kuki Pioneer Mission was formed for all the Kuki groups in the region. Viewed from within, the mission was designed by God for all the Kuki communities, and they all need to cherish it. With the support of local converts, initially from their brethren in Mizoram and then from within the Kuki groups in Manipur themselves, within five years the Christian message had spread throughout the entire hill region in the south of Manipur. It then moved on to wherever the Kuki people lived beyond Manipur, including areas that are now part of Burma and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. In 1923, in order to include all the regions, the name Thado-Kuki Pioneer Mission was changed to North East India General Mission (NEIGM). 13 Unlike Pettigrew s ministry, the work of Roberts had no connections with the colonial administration. April 2014 A faith mission practitioner, Roberts came into fierce confrontation with the structures of the established institutional mission agencies, and the authorities regarded him as an intruder. Conflict began when Roberts first officially forwarded a request, sent through a colonial officer in the Lushai Hills, to the political agent in Manipur seeking permission to work in Manipur. 19 In October 1911 the political agent of Manipur, William Shakespear, sent a telegraph to the superintendent of Lushai Hills directing him to stop Roberts from entering Manipur when he had already started his work there. Although the matter appeared purely political, Pettigrew, being the only officially recognized missionary in the state, was informed of all the developments either by the political agent or by the vice president of the Darbar (i.e., the council to the maharaja). 20 Besides his zeal for evangelization, Roberts viewed the Kuki Mission as based on what he considered to be an issue of justice and fairness for all people. This matter of justice and fairness led both Fraser and Roberts to fight unswervingly for the abolition of bawi, or soh, a local system of slavery. They did so based on the fact that slavery had been abolished in Britain. 21 With regard to the legitimacy of the Kuki mission, Roberts wrote in 1912: If the fact that the Gospel has been preached to a people so long neglected, and in whose language not a single missionary could preach the Gospel, previous to our entering the territory, has been the cause of any ill-feeling, I am extremely sorry. Sorry, not that the Lord has given us the honour of being the first to take the Gospel to this important tribe, but sorry for those who are decidedly working on lines which are not Scriptural. The heathen are perishing, and no one can afford to be annoyed 91

3 and Upset over these matters when we have His very own command to go... into all the world. Praise God, even the Thado-Kookies are included in His programme! 22 The official statement of the Kuki mission, signed on February 20, 1914, by D. Lloyd Jones and Watkin Roberts, argued: The American Baptists... had not done any work at all among the Thados... who were in utter darkness.... Heathen are perishing and have a right to know of their Saviour who died for them, and Mr Roberts felt, after being invited by the Chief... that he had to go.... After seeing the terrible darkness of the people and how they were going into Eternity without having heard of Jesus and His love, [he] pledged himself to God that he would do all [in his power] to help to save these precious souls for whom Jesus died. Is this considered a crime by the Church of Christ, the carrying of the Gospel to perishing souls? If so, is there not something wrong somewhere? 23 A local observer, D. Khaizalian, suggests that, as the Kuki Mission grew, so did antagonistic feelings against Pettigrew for utilizing governmental machinery to protect his privileged position. Khaizalian records that in 1911 some 50 households, led by Letzakai from a village in Lushai Hills (now the state of Mizoram), migrated to Tuithaphai in Manipur and that another group of nearly 150 families from the same region subsequently settled in Khopibung, also in Manipur, where Watkin Roberts established a school for them. This step helped them to grow numerically. 24 Having learned about the situation, Pettigrew became alarmed and recalled the agreement with the Manipur Maharaja that in the State of Manipur no one but ABM [American Baptist Mission] could preach the Christian faith. 25 The government arrested some and, since they had failed to comply with an order for them to leave Manipur, asked them to join the American Baptist Mission. 26 In 1914, during the annual conference of the Kuki Mission, the president of the Darbar for Manipur State, under incessant pressure from Pettigrew, gave an order for the group to quit Manipur State. 27 Having seen no response to that order, the government issued a stronger one: If you do not want to go away, you should stop being Christian. 28 Roberts s status as a private missionary and an adherent of nondenominational mission clearly was causing friction between him and other missionaries and their agencies. The Decline of Kuki Mission The positive developments and growth of Roberts s work, the very sign of the success of his mission, turned out to be the reason for the fate that befell him. The regional mission association, Protestant Foreign Missions in Bengal and Assam, suspended Roberts s mission in December 1922 for breaching comity, the agreement by which missions were restricted from working outside their allocated geographic territories. 29 Following India s independence in 1947, the Kuki people found themselves divided among three countries, and cooperation among them across international boundaries became even more difficult. Translation of the Bible, carried out with the intent of hastening the process of evangelization, served to fragment the people. The decision to translate the Bible into each local dialect rather than to produce a pan-kuki translation became a major disintegrating factor among the Kuki people following India s independence. In A Critical Historical Study of Bible Translations among the Zo People in North-East India, Khup Za Go clearly outlines the negative effects of these efforts. According to his findings, Bible translation began in the southern part of Manipur 92 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 38, No. 2

4 with Watkin Roberts translating the Gospel of John into Vaiphei in Next to be translated was the Gospel of Mark, into the Hmar dialect in The Gospel of John was further translated into Thado-Kuki (1924), Paite (1951), and Simte (1957); and the Gospel of Matthew, into Gangte (1952) and Kom Rem (1954). The entire New Testament was translated into Zou in Peter Chiru, who is currently translating the Bible into a Chiru dialect, observes that translators often coined words in order to make the tribe and language concerned look different from others, 31 although for the most part the languages of the various groups are mutually intelligible. Following such practices in Bible translation has led inevitably to divisions within the church. This practice has been followed, even though the Kuki Mission at first had its own publications (e.g., Kristian, North East India Tidings, Rest, and Herald of Truth), in which all the dialects were used and were understood by all. Some of these publications were still being published as late as the early 1950s. If the earlier Kuki peoples could use and understand a common literature, why were separate Bible translations into each of the dialects felt to be necessary? On a deeper level, we could ask, Why did the various groups use their own Bible translation for their own glory and pride instead of recognizing that God was doing a common work of grace among them? Implications of an Independent Mission The response of the Kuki to Watkin Roberts s evangelizing began early, and the number of Christians among the Kuki continued to grow. Today the majority, if not all, of the Kuki identify themselves as Christians. In light of the Kuki Rebellion of , one wonders whether one factor in the Kukis positive response to Roberts s message might have been an affinity they saw between the independent, entrepreneurial spirit shown by him and their own resistance to British overlordship. 32 The role that Roberts s independence played, positively and negatively, bears further examination. Though other tribal groups in adjacent areas responded to the Gospel in equally high percentages when it was brought to them by missionaries supported by denominational mission boards, in what ways might Roberts s nonaffiliation have had particular resonance for the Kuki? At the same time, Roberts s style of spiritual and ecclesiastical independence also had drawbacks. One of the main and obvious limitations entailed by having an independent missionary was lack of wider connections, which resulted in a relatively narrow theology and practice. The church Roberts founded reflected his one-sidedly spiritual approach to mission; in the absence of a plurality of teachers, its theology was informed almost solely by his understanding of God and mission, including his imminent expectation of the Parousia. The theology he bequeathed lacked an integral understanding of salvation and spirituality. For him the ultimate purpose of mission was to convert local people and then simply unleash them to evangelize others. His work did not lay a theological foundation sufficient to enable the people to respond to their contemporary context effectively. Another limitation can be observed in the church s ecclesiastical structure. While converts of established missions became part of their respective denominations and continued to get support through connection with a broader community of Christians, the products of the independent Kuki Mission become an isolated community. They were like an island in the midst of a vast sea, having no links with other converts as part of a wider community of God. The impact was and is crucial, especially in a hierarchical social structure such as that of India, April

5 where the so-called tribal peoples are at the bottom of the social structure. In pursuit of what they perceived as a better option, the people developed their own community-based churches, but doing so did not serve them equally. Smaller communities were left behind, and the particularization of the church within each clan promoted overall disintegration and isolation from other Kuki peoples. The third and final limitation, related to the two previous points, is that ad hoc independent mission lacks a long-term vision and plan for the newly formed Christian community and its life in a multiethnic context. Wider issues including the social, political, and economic concerns of the people were not part of the mission agenda. The mission was oblivious to them, an absence that is still present in the one-sided emphasis on spirituality and evangelization among Kuki churches today. These limitations must not blur the fact that, because of Roberts, the Kuki people received the opportunity to hear the Christian message. Other missionaries serving in the same time period as Roberts simply overlooked the Kuki people. Roberts noticed the situation of the Kukis and took up the challenge of Notes 1. A longer version of this article was presented at a meeting of the Yale-Edinburgh Group on the History of the Missionary Movement and World Christianity, held June 27 29, 2013, at Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut. The article is based upon original research and makes use of materials in the archives of the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, Regent s College in Oxford, the British Library in London, and the Council of Baptist Churches of North-East India (CBCNEI) in Guwahati, Assam, India. The photograph of Watkin Roberts on page 90 is courtesy of Bibles for the World, Colorado Springs, Colorado. 2. See Lal Dena, Christian Missions and Colonialism: A Study of Missionary Movement in North East India, with Special Reference to Manipur and Lushai Hills, (Shillong: Vendrame Institute, 1988), 18, and Frederick S. Downs, History of Christianity in India, vol. 5, part 5, North-East India in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Bangalore: Church History Association of India, 1992), Dena, Christian Missions, The American Baptist Missionary Union later changed its name to the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, hereafter referred to as the American Baptist Mission. 5. Downs, History, Dena, Christian Missions, William Pettigrew, letter, December 1894, in William Pettigrew, Mission Reports and Letters, , comp. Champhang Jajo (Gauhati, Assam, India: Chandan Press, n.d), Report on Christian Work in Manipur, in 125 Anniversary Jubilee Reports of Baptist Work in North East India, , pre served at CBCNEI. 9. Lal Dena, In Search of Identity: Hmars of North-East India (New Delhi: Akansha Publishing House, 2008), Peter Fraser, letter to R. J. Williams, secretary, Calvinistic Methodist Mission Society, September 14, 1908, C. M. Archives, 27, 314, preserved in the National Library of Wales. 11. S. T. Henpu, Kum 50 Jubilee Thu Belh (The Jubilee Year), Rest: Christian Magazine (quarterly issued by NEIGM), March 1960, An official letter of TKPM, C. M. Archives, 27, 318, preserved in the National Library of Wales. Regarding the date of the mission s founding the document states, On November 29th 1910 Dr and Mrs Fraser and Mr Roberts started on a journey of about 500 miles to the Khasia Hills. They stayed a few days at Silchar as the guests of the Rev and Mrs T.W. Reese. At the request of Mr Reese, Mr Roberts spoke in English of the new Thado-Kuki work. 13. D. Ruolngul, Chanchintha Kalchawi (The Gospel s Onward Movement), (Churachandpur, Manipur: published by author, 1982), 20. starting a work among them. If it had not been for his radical mission approach, the Kuki people of southern Manipur would not have had the chance to hear the Christian message in 1910 and to respond in the way they did. Roberts brought a heart for and a commitment to this marginalized group of people. His commitment was rooted in his Christian understanding of justice and fairness, leading him to stand against the structures that deprived the marginalized communities and to bring the Christian message to the Kuki. Watkin Roberts played a prophetic role in mission, and for that reason he can be called a missionary ahead of his time. Despite what can be viewed now as limitations, Roberts brought the Christian message of salvation, and Kuki believers today bear the responsibility of making it relevant to their own time and setting. In rediscovering and reowning their God-given missionary, Watkin Roberts, the Kuki people will find in him God s desire for their lives and unity as a people. In granting recognition to the unrecognized missionary, world Christianity will find itself better able to hear similar voices of the people without voice in our increasingly complex world. 14. Kristian, November This report gives the names of workers and their place of origin, their date of joining, and the place and nature of their work; copy in author s files. 15. Census Report from Manipur State, India, and Chittagong Hill Tracts, Pakistan, North East India Tidings (monthly magazine of NEIGM), December 31, Thangkai, How the Light First Pierced into the Darkness, North East India Tidings, May 1960, ECCI: Who We Are, Thimkhup Buiting, The Advent of Christianity among the Bâwms, K. M. Singh, History of Christian Missions in Manipur and the Neighbouring States (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1991), Ibid., Sources, including seventy-two pages of a document file Doctor Fraser s Case, are kept in the National Library of Wales. There see CMA 27,318, Letter File V; Lloyd George Correspondence, NLM MS 22522, ; and A Report on Slavery in Lushai, CMA 27, 316, File III. 22. Roberts s letter dated June 22, 1912, preserved in the National Library of Wales. 23. An official letter of TKPM, C. M. Archives, 27, 318, preserved in the National Library of Wales. 24. Khaizalian, quoted in L. Jeyaseelan, Impact of the Missionary Movement in Manipur (New Delhi: Scholar Publishing House, 1996), Ibid., Savoma, Pathian Thu Lo Luh Dan (How the Word of God Came), Rest: Christian Magazine (March 1960), Ruolngul, Chanchintha, Khaizalian, quoted in Jeyaseelan, Impact, Dena, Christian Missions, Khup Za Go, A Critical Historical Study of Bible Translations among the Zo People in North East India (Churachandpur: Chin Baptist Literature Board, 1996), Peter Chiru, interviewed by the author on February 22, 2008, on the way to Choroi Kholen in Churachandpur, Manipur. 32. In opposition to the colonial administration s order to support the British forces in the war in France, the Kukis fought against the colonial administration during the period , suffering heavy losses of cattle and houses and the loss of some parts of their ancestral lands. The British also imposed a new administration in the region. 94 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 38, No. 2

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