Replies submitted by Shri R. K. Deshpande, Pleader, Jashpurnagar

1. Answer: We have no figures for the years 1947 and 1954 for the districts.  As regards 1951 we have census figures for both the districts � Raigarh and Surguja.  For 1941 we possess figures only for Jashpur Sub-Division.

Total Population � 223,632
Christians � 56,188
Non-Christians � 167,444
Scheduled Tribes � 168,811
Scheduled Castes � 13,256

Total Population � 919,520
Christians � 13,873
Non-Christians � 905,647
Scheduled Tribes � 228,193
Scheduled Castes � 56,880

Total Population - 822,041.
Christians - 545.
Non-Christians - 821,496.
Scheduled Tribes - 379,980.
Scheduled Castes - 47,884.

NOTE. - With regard to the population of Christians in 1951 in Jashpur Sub-Division attention is invited to our reply to question No. 2.

2. Answer: While there is a general rise of population on account of the common causes that have led to the general rise in the whole of this country, the population of the scheduled tribes has been reduced to a large extent due to conversions to Christianity brought about by the Christian missions.

The Christian population has increased by leaps and bounds.  The intensive activities of the Christian missions have practically begun as late as about 1951 in Surguja and parts of the Raigarh, district except Jashpur sub-division.  The statistical study would, therefore, naturally depend on Jashpur sub-division alone, as the present figures of other areas could not be covered up in the Census of 1951, being the later development.  However, Jashpur sub-division can well be taken as a measuring rod to understand, the implications involved in the problems of the Christian missionary activities in Surguja and the said other parts of the Raigarh district also.

The figure of the population of Christians in Jashpur sub-division as shown in the Census Report of 1951 is a surprise.  Irrespective of the fact that the figure of the 1951 Census shows a fall in the population of Christians, the actual position is that there has been large increase in their population since after the year 1941.  The total population of Roman Catholic Christians according to their own statement in the Catholic Directory of the year 1954 is 80,440 for the year 1953.  This figure is for Raigarh and Surguja districts.  We may roughly estimate the population of.  Roman Catholic Christians in Surguja and other parts of Raigarh district except Jashpur sub-division as about 12,000.  Substracting this figure of 12,000 we get the approximate population of Roman Catholic Christians in Jashpur sub-division 68,440.  According to the Census of 1941 the population or Lutheran Christians in Jashpur sub-division was 6,165.  It can be roughly estimated that the population of the Lutheran Christians had increased up to about 8,000.  Totalling up the figures of Roman Catholic and Lutheran Christians we get the total population of Christians in the Jashpur sub-division 76,440 as against the population of Christians shown in the Census Report of 1951-9,692.

This rapid increase in the population of Christians is due to the intensive and extensive activities of proselytisation on the part of the Christians Missions.

3. Answer: The district authorities or the Missions could alone be in a position to furnish right information in this respect.  But it will be evident from the statistical study of the Christians population at each of the census years that the rise in the population of the Christians was due only in a negligible proportion on account of increase in the birth-rate as compared to the huge rise on account of the newly brought about Christians.

4. Answer: The figures can be supplied by the District authorities or the Missions.  It can only be asserted here that almost all the conversions have taken place amongst the scheduled tribes in tribal areas of these districts.

5. Answer: The Missions maintain registers in which the names of the persons supposed to be newly converted are entered.  Before all other things the top-knots of such persons are cut off.  They are required to attend church prayers on each Sunday.  The pracharaks have to keep a vigilant eye on these persons and mark the progress of their disassociation from their traditional ways of living and customs.  New patterns of social life are tried to be instilled in them.  Such persons qualify themselves for baptism as soon as they have convinced the mission authorities about their complete isolation from the old community life of the village in so far as such life is regarded against the interests of the mission.

People are converted individually as well as in groups.  Yes, in the case of a family, it is only the head of the family who is usually converted.

6. Answers: (1) Roman Catholic Mission of Ginabahar in Raigarh district.

(2) National Missionary Society of South India, H. Q. Guntur (Madras).

(3) British Mission of Nawa Bhandaria, district Palamu (Bihar).

(4) Elim Missionary Society, H. Q. Dehri district, Shahabad (Bihar).

(5) General Conference of Mennonite Mission of North America H. Q. Champa Bilaspur.

(6) Church of Christ Mission of America, H. Q. Bilaspur.

(7) Swedish Lutheran Church, H. Q. Sagar.

(1) Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ranchi (Bihar).
(2) American Evangelical Mission, H. Q. Gass Memorial, Raipur.
(3) Roman Catholic Mission of Ginabahar.

All the above Missions are under the control of their respective Home-Boards in foreign countries.

The agents of these organisations approach people individually.

7. Answer: All the organisations have an established machinery through which contacts with the people are maintained.  In suitable areas, mission centres are working with their respective areas of operation.  Under the heads of these mission centres, personnel up to the Pracharak of the village work.  Each of the activities has a separate department under the charge of trained hierarchy of the personnel.  The popularly known departments are-Ecclesiastical, Educational, Medical, Banking and Moneylending, including Grain Banks and Co-operative Societies, Labour Unions, Labour Recruitment for Tea Gardens in Assam and Bhutan, etc., Students� Unions Women Organisations, Agricultural Department, Handicrafts, Finance, Propaganda, Publications, including Press, etc., Orphanages, Mission Stores, err...

All the above departments work with the spirit of proselytisation.  In places, where this incentive is absent, the missions have not cared to render their so-called humanitarian services.  J. Waskon Pickett, who has tried to justify even the most ignoble acts at mass conversions by the missionaries in India, in his Survey Book "Christian Mass Movements in India�, has recorded:

�In one area several highly qualified missionaries tried to lift a group of outcastes from social degradation, poverty, and illiteracy as a preliminary to ministering their spiritual needs.  Schools were opened, co-operative societies organised, and medical work inaugurated.  Many became literate, economic conditions were improved and many diseases were cured.  But when the missionaries then began to preach Christ, the response of those whom they had helped was: �You are experts in running schools, co-operative societies, and hospitals.  What do you know about religion? For advice on religion we will go to the priests who make that their business�.  At length, the missionaries left the area in discouragement and their beneficiaries slipped back into debt and in-sanitary living conditions.  They only abiding result of years of work was that a number of those whom they had served were able to read.�

This can be taken as a representative case applicable to all the organisations.  Had the poor tribals of this area sufficient mind to reply to the missionaries in the same as the persons in the above case did, then, here too, perhaps, we would have witnessed the departure of the missionaries of this place away to some other areas in search after the fields responsive to their motives.  But another example which Mr. Pickett has recorded could be nearly applicable for this area.

�Why did you become a Christian?, we asked a Govindpur man.  �Because the other did, I suppose�, he answered.  Don�t you know whether that is so? He was asked.  �No, I don�t know why I became a Christian.  One religion is as good as another.  They told me I would be very happy as a Christian and that they would do a great deal for me. But after I was baptised they forgot me.�����.

These activities enable the missions to come in close contact with the people and have gone a long way towards the exploitation of the needs of the people for increasing the strength of converts.  It has also helped the missions to isolate the community of converts from the general community life and to keep them tied down to the loyalty for the missions. In the actual working rarely can the poor Hindu tribals reap any advantage from the missions without risking their faith and culture.

The organisations indulge in the political sphere also.  Whichever politic party suits best their purpose is the criterion on which their adherents are advised to take part.  And the converts are seen tossed from one sphere to another.  For example, in Jashpur, in the beginning of 1948, the Roman Catholic Mission had though it beneficial to sympathise with the Congress.  But later on, when they found that they could not get control over this party here, the converts, as a community, were advised to join Praja-Socialist Party en block, which they did.  Their loyalty to this Party even is not founded on the acceptance of the principles of this Party as such, but on the expectation of dominating the Political sphere of this area, e.g., they have got their own man.  Shri Johan Ekka, elected as M.L.A., on the ticket of the Praja-Socialist Party, they have as many as ten members in the Janapada Sabha of this area.  But in reality all the organisations politically are dreaming of a separate province of Jharkhand which they think would depend on the expansion of Christianity and strong consolidation of the community of their converts.

It must be borne in mind that the general policies of all the organisations are controlled and prescribed by the Home Boards of them in foreign countries.

In new fields the post of Pracharak itself is an inducement and temptation for conversion. In such fields, out of the newly converted persons Pracharaks are in many cases appointed and their influence is utilized to the fullest.  To attract people towards the missions, the posts are also advertised.  But in settled areas, candidates are trained in their training schools and then appointed as Pracharaks.  In new fields, the seasoned Pracharaks of settled areas are also deputed till such areas have fairly progressed.  But in the settled areas the Pracharaks generally belong to the same area in which they work.

The emoluments, in cash, of the Pracharaks, range from Rs. 30 to Rs. 50.  The Pracharak, in addition, as the teacher of the primary school gets contribution in kind yearly from each of the students, e.g., one mound of paddy or so.  Further, he gets help in kind from the villagers of his jurisdiction on some other counts in lieu of the services he renders on behalf of the mission.  The Head Pracharaks get emoluments ranging from Rs. 60 to Rs. 70 per mensem, in addition to what they get in kind similar to the case of the pracharaks mentioned above.

Rewards in different forms are offered to the successful pracharaks.

8. Answer: Different and diversified methods are used by the Christian Missions according to the conditions in which the people live and think.

Approaches are made on the plane of the understanding of the people so that exhortations may be quite-intelligible and appealing to them.

Plans and techniques applied offer vehement inducements on the worldly plane.  The areas chosen have been of purely tribal people whose ignorance and gullibility afford best field for reaping the harvest.

To start with, centres away from the touch of civilized people and possibilities of easy notice or exposure are chosen where a batch of missionaries or Pracharaks is settled who make announcements of the arrival of heavenly aid for the removal of the long-lived sufferings of the people.  People are attracted to offer expression to their needs with the hope of their fulfilment.  Holding this as the first grip, a sense of frustration and hopelessness, as to the means for the satisfaction of their needs of their belief and knowledge is created in the mind of these credulous people and picture of their needs being satisfied by the selfless services of the mission is presented before them.  To convince them inventions or exaggerations are made to paint ugly and black pictures of their exploitation by the Hindu community.  The Government is also not spared inasmuch as it is termed by them as incapable to solve the problems of the people or as hostile to their welfare.  The basic achievement of creating disaffection, discontent, hatred, sense of isolation is further aggravated till the tribals fix it in their mind formerly the false conviction that they are the most hated and neglected people, and non-Hindus.  The remark of Mahatma Gandhi may be aptly quoted here:

�What have I to take to the aborigines and the Assamese Hillmen except to go in my nakedness to them? Rather than ask them to join in my prayer, I would join their prayer.  We were strangers to this sort of classification-�animists, aborigines, etc., But we have learnt it from the English rulers.�

This creates a favourable situation for the mission for gaining the confidence of these ignorant people.  Then they begin rendering a few of the services, like, medical treatment, improving the sanitation, etc., which enables them to gain further confidence of the people.  In course of this naturally some of the people come in more contact and begin to manifest signs of interest or devotion to the mission people with a feeling of obligations.  People also begin to look upon them as benefactors.  It is generally at this stage that the motives of the mission begin materialising, and it is at this stage that it has become easier for them to bring about all types of conversions-mass, group, family individual.

The flood of conversion movement in the Chhota-Nagpur district amongst the tribals-Oraons, Munda, Kharia, etc., entered in the Raigarh and Surguja districts, and the mass conversions of the first two decades in Jashpur subdivision are closely related to those taking place in bordering tract of Chhota-Nagpur.  Hence the mass movement of conversions that took place in Jashpur could be well illustrated from what took place there in strengthening the plans and technique of the missionaries for Jashpur.

�The true history of the agrarian agitation in Chhota-Nagpur has yet to be written.  The task has so far been attempted by partisans only.  Munda children of the German Mission are even now sedulously taught the gospel of hate in the class-room of their schools.  One of the school text-books entitled �Nelem Odo Senem�-Look and Walk-Which was published by the Munda Sabha of the G. E. L. Mission, Chhota-Nagpur, in 1909, tells how the ancestors of the Munda reclaimed the jungles and converted the country, by their labour, into a smiling garden.  It tells the Munda boy how his forefathers successfully drove away all wild animals from the country and also how enemies who were worse than the wild enemies came in as inter-loppers and robbed them of the fruit of their toil.  In further states that in spite of various laws framed by the English to restrain these foreigners, as are still being despoiled by Hindus and Mussalmans.  The schools in which these doctrines are inculcated are largely subsidised by our Government.�

�The missionaries made no secret of the fact that their principal motive in stirring on behalf of the Kols was to preserve and extend the influence of their Mission with their people.�

�During the fifty years which has elapsed since the mutiny, the history of the Ranchi district is one of agrarian discontentment culminating in the Sardari Larai and the Birsa rising.  It is also the history of the spread of Christianity.�

�There is no doubt that the great success of the Christian missions in obtaining converts is due largely to the secular benefits which the Mundas, thus, obtained.�

�An elaborate memorial has now been received bearing the signatures of all the German missionaries.  It contains many passages or expressions which make me fear that the Kols having embraced or intending to embrace Christianity expect to have their rights (real or supposed) vindicated by their priests and pastors.  It would almost be inferred from one passage in the memorial that in some instances they are dissatisfied with their change of religion because they do not and that it leads to social advancement. It so happens that the rights which the Kols claim in the land are being investigated under an enactment especially passed and by Tribunal appointed for the purpose, therefore, it is very undesirable that any extraneous agitation should arise, the benefits asked for by the memorialists� impressively on behalf of the Kols could be conceded in full only by depriving other classes-Hindu and Mohamedan-of something which they now enjoy.�

�The aboriginal tribes of India afford promising field for missions.�

�However, it must be said that the many of those who were the first in their respective localities in embracing Christianity, did so neither for the sake of knowledge nor for morality, but because they believed that, by coming into contact with Europeans and adopting their religion, they would be assisted by them in their social difficulties.�

�The Christians were more frequently the aggressors than the aggressed.�

�An unquestioned fact that many of the latter (Kols) embraced Christianity merely in the hope of obtaining possession of lands to which they rightly or wrongly laid claim.�

�The German missionaries who were then the only missionary body in the country a appeared to have adopted a theory that the Mundas and Oraons gave up their half, the fields of their villages for the maintenance of the Raja, when he was first elected, on the condition that they had the other, the better half, free of rent themselves, and that they continued to do so till the establishment of the British courts in 1834, from that period it was said, oppression began.  There is no evidence whatsoever in support of the theory that the half of the land was reserved for Raja.  The claim to half the lands rent-free was evidently capable of indefinite extension.  It was a very convenient theory for adoption by the turbulent ryots, who dreams of recovering their ancient status through the agency of Christianity.�

�The religious movement among the Kols in the direction of.  Christianity has been at once a consequence and a cause of their disputes with their landlords.�

�Luthern Missionaries instilled such feelings in the Christian Bhuiyars that they turned the tables on their masters and took forcible possession of large quantities of land to which they had not the remotest title.�

�For the belief that many persons conceived the idea that by embracing Christianity they would be entitled to the support riot only of their spiritual pastors but also of Europeans generally in the settlement of their grievances and vindication of their rights.�

�There is not the slightest doubt that the majority of our converts who apply for admission to the Church are almost actuated by secular motives.�

(In the above quotations the term �Kol� is used for Adivasies - Oraon, Munda, etc.).

The Oraons and Munda of Jashpur being related with their neighbours of Chhota-Nagpur, they also were influenced with the sweeping tide of mass conversions that took place among their own kith and kin in Chhota-Nagpur.  The whole history of the foreign missionaries in Chhota-Nagpur reveals how they tinder the pretext of taking up the cause of the tribal people misled them into the belief that they were separate from the Hindu community, the Hindu are aliens and their enemies, the Hindu landlords were their exploiters and oppressors, and turbulent rivalry with the Hindus and the embracing of Christianity were the only possible solutions for the solution of their problems.  And thus ultimately led them into open feuds with the Zamindars and brought about their mass conversions to Christianity.  In the Jashpur State the foreign missionaries created no less trouble.  They began sowing the seeds of their subversive activities in the 1st decade of the 20th century in this area and the newly made converts of Chhota-Nagpur were cleverly used by them as fertilizers for the soil of this tract.  The missionaries from the border lines of the Jashpur State began preaching the gospel of disloyalty towards the Ruling Prince, who being endowed with an exceptional prudence and foresightedness could see through the game of the missionaries.  He made timely and wise protests against the movement of the missionaries to the Political Agents, and took a firm stand against their being permitted to carry on such kind of activities in the State.  But the Britishers guided by their notorious policy of Divide and Rule permitted the entry of these foreign missionaries inside the borders of Jashpur. The result was, which was bound to be, that the Missions established themselves firmly in this area too and converted as many as 40,516 persons up to 1921.  So many subjects of the Ruling Prince had thus become fanatically disloyal to him.  Here too the missionaries tried to spread the poison of false idea that the subjects were being oppressed by the Raja and that the people were mere slaves and that the people must revolt against his administration.  As a climax the missionaries brought about an open rebellion by the converts against the Raja which resulted in loss of life even.  But the disturbed conditions satisfied the missionaries all the more in their lust after gaining converts and in the years to come till today we have witnessed a continuous rapid growth of Christian population and along side with it the influence of the missions in all domains-religious, social and political. Jashpur was the first target of attack by the missionaries and all that took place here entailed a risk on the part of the British Government to support indiscriminately the missionaries.  Hence the trouble that was imminent to break in the adjoining Udaipur State through the activities of the same missionaries was cleverly discouraged by the Political Department and thus fortunately this State was saved.  It was through this State that the tide of the missionary activities was to enter Surguja, Raigarh and other adjoining States of the Chhattisgarh Agency which now form the part of the present Raigarh and Surguja districts.  Hence these States were also saved by force of circumstances that had led the Political Department to think in terms of sobriety till it had regained the confidence of the people and the Ruling Princes.  It was perhaps the postponement of the missionary enterprises in these States and it carried them safely till 1948.  But as soon as India got independence, the secular policies of our Government as if granted a lease to these missionaries to enter into these States and to carry on the work of even the worst type of proselytisation, which they have done within the last three or four years in these places with the result that they have now thousands of converts while they had almost nil prior to the year 1948.

The sense by which the Political Department was thenceforth to be governed had led them to display an impartial attitude and in response to this it came to record certain truths.  In the year 1936, Lt. Col. A. S. Meek, Agent to the Governor-General, Eastern States, Ranchi, made a report to the Government of India on the nature of the activities of the foreign Christian .missionaries.  A few of the following remarks or references of his will be sufficient to throw light in support of what has been stated above.  It is an undisputable fact that the foreign missionaries have played a role in the history of India, of paying the way of establishing the foreign imperialism in this country.  But it is fortunate that occasions used to arise in the midst of the imperialistic rule of the English when the truth itself warranted its expression through the month of the rulers themselves and, therefore, it has much more value:

(1) �Colonel Murphy went immediately to Udaipur and visited 15 of the villages, his visit being without any previous intimation.  He found that the statement that the movement of the people in the Udaipur State towards Christianity was entirely spontaneous and actuated by a knowledge of the benefits to be received was entirely incorrect.  The people concerned had no knowledge whatever regarding such benefits and had been actuated by one idea and one idea only, that being the receipt of money from the mission on loan���  He found that the information bad been disseminated throughout this area of the State that loans were to be readily obtained at the mission station at Tapkara on a note of hand without security, all that was required of payers being that they should have their top-knot cut off �� that when one member of a family had taken a loan all the members of that family were shown as would be converts��� Christian schools had been started by catechists who had invaded the State from Jashpur and in one instance a mission teacher had stopped the boys from going to the State school.  People questioned made it plain that their only purpose in going to the mission station had been to get money and all said that without this payment of money none would have sought to become Christian.�

(2) �The Raja of Jashpur was prevailed upon to agree to terms of a modus operandi but Friction continued and a few months later the Raja sent in a memorial of protest.  His case was that �conversion to Christianity was synonymous with subversion of old custom and existing rights and obligations�.  He stated that the catechists induced catechumen to rebel against his authority and refused to render services due from them as rent-free holders of certain lands.  He demanded that he should be permitted to vindicate his authority and enforce his traditional rights.  The Political Agent was anxious to support the missions and while admitting that catechists did ignore the Ruler he held that the latter must abide by the agreement.�

(3) �Mr. Blakesley made a thorough enquiry in Jashpur and submitted a full report to the Local Government in 1913.  He found that the movement towards Christianity in the Jashpur State was in no sense a religious one, it was one actuated in lesser measure by the expectation of social benefits to be obtained, Christians being able to get their children married by the missionaries in the adjoining districts of British India without incurring heavy expenditure, but the real governing causes were political and agrarian���.  He found that the missionaries had advanced loans to many of their converts and that the missionaries had a considerable hold on them by means of these loans.  He found that the catechists interfered on every possible occasion in the temporal affairs of the Christian converts.  �These catechists carried complaint to the missionaries, wrote petitions for the converts, accompanied them to the courts, worked out cases for them and generally acted as unrecognised Vakils, the State authorities having no control over them at all�.�

(4) �His (Raja of Jashpur�s) distrust and dislike of missionary propaganda, especially that of the Jesuits, arose solely out of the agrarian and political agitation and the subversion of his authority which he foresaw, and against which he sought in vain the protection of the political authorities.�

(5) �Mr. Blakesley showed that, under the guise of religious proselytism, political propaganda had been spread throughout the State (Jashpur). The Roman Catholic priests alleged that they had no concern with the temporal affairs of the State, but this was abundantly disproved and the Arch Bishop had himself been continually referring to the Political Agent in respect of temporal matters. He expressed the opinion that the rulers authority had been seriously undermined, a result which, he observed, the Chief (Raja of Jashpur) had himself expected from the spread of mission activity in his State.  He pointed out that his predecessor had in 1906 assured the Chief that he would be responsible that his authority in his State would not be weakened by people becoming converted to Christianity, a promise that had not been maintained.�

(6) �I will set down here also the fist of note made by Mr. Napier, that the Anglican Bishop of Nagpur, who had worked by the side of the Jesuit Mission, had told him that they had no real hope of Christianising adult men and women but that they did hope to be able to instil the doctrine into the minds of children.  This accounts for the recent action of the Jesuits in removing children from the Udaipur State to the Catholic Station at Tapkara, in Jashpur.�

(7) �I now come to the disturbances which occurred in Jashpur in 1922, and which resulted in some loss of life and in the deposition of the Chief.  In May 1922, the Superintendent of Police at Ranchi informed the Bihar and Orrisa Governments that a society had been formed by the Lutherans of Ranchi called the Unnati Samaj��� In July, an Englishman, who had been in Jashpur in connection with the recruitment of coolies for the Tea Gardens in Assam, reported to the Political Agent that there was a dangerous movement amongst mission preachers in the State, and that secret societies had been formed��� Enquiry revealed that the trouble was caused by the Unnati Samaj acting through the agency of the Lutheran Pastors and Pracharaks.  A state of rebellion ensued, and the Raja connived at illegal acts of repression designed to secure his secret purpose of expelling the mission agents from his State.�

(8) �No trouble of any serious dimensions seems to have taken place till 1927 when the Superintendent made a report that the Roman Catholic Mission was taking a strong action in spreading Christianity through the large Khuria Zamindari, a jagir of the State (Jashpur), which had hitherto not entered the field of the missionary activity��  The Superintendent at the same time was ordered to go into the Illaqa and make a report on the conditions there, and he found that the priest had commenced their operations thereby sending Christians into the country who concealed the fact that they were Christians and took service as field labourers or lived there with relations.  When in course of time a sufficient number of such people had taken up their residence in the Illaqa three preachers went into the country and they appointed 16 assistants from amongst the Christians who had gone to live there and a mass movement of conversion to Christianity ensued.�

(9) �Describing the position as it is today in Jashpur, the Superintendent gives the population of the State as 193,000, the number of Catholics 50,000 and the Lutherans 4,000.  Christians are now to be found in practically all villages of the State (and continuous pressure is being exerted by the Fathers to secure conversion of the remaining part of the population.)�

(10) �There are 12 Jesuit Fathers resident in and distributed throughout the State (Jashpur).  There are 163 Indian preachers paid at rates of Rs. 4 to Rs. 6 plus a small quantity of rice from each Christian family.  The Christians have given these preachers little land so that each holds also a small farm.  They are badly educated people and the Superintendent describes them as mere pawns in the hands of the priests.  They act as Vakils for their people in all matters, and interfere continually in all temporal affairs.  They are compound non-cognisable criminal cases and pay the composition money into the mission funds, and they at times, hide criminal cases occurring in their communities.  In 1935, a preacher was convicted for attempting to suppress the offence of murder and the record of trial shows that one of the Catholic Fathers knew of the murder and connived at the concealment of the crime.  There was a case in 1928 in which preachers so persecuted certain aborigines who had renounced Christianity that one of them committed suicide.  The Superintendent shows that these people have no regard for the ruling House, and that they have in their hands to cause riots and rebellion.  The Superintendent has shown tact in his dealings with the European priests and gets on well with them, but he states that they have no interest in purely humanitarian work and that they have done nothing for the people on the medical side, their whole aim being to secure converts and to increase the number of Christians in the fold.�

(11) �The Roman Catholic Mission has established co-operative banks and through these banks they secure the added obedience and devotion of the people.  They encourage immigration to the Assam Tea Garden, and on the return of the emigrants get them to deposit their savings in the banks.�

(12) �This officer is of opinion that in course of time the Jesuits will convert all the aborigines of all the States in this part of the Agency.  If this were to occur and foreign priests were to be given full freedom of entry and residence the result might be virtually a foreign Government of the whole group.�

(13) �I have shown the admissions of the Jesuit Archbishop of Calcutta and of the Anglican Bishop of Ranchi that, in so far as religion is concerned, the change of faith has practically no meaning for adult men and women amongst aboriginal people.  It is to my mind clear from the methods adopted by the Roman Catholic Missionaries that they too know that the theory of freedom of conscience is a sham.  They know fully well that, as the historical account of missionary enterprise which I have given abundantly proves, the aboriginal people of this part of India change their faith and accept Christianity in the expectation only of material benefits to be received.  True religion has nothing whatever to do with the matter.�

(14) �We have seen that the late Raja of Jashpur was described by many political officers and by the Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces as a just and kind ruler.  He was, apparently, a man of exceptional personal merit who had kept his people content.  He saw the danger that lay in Store for him after the missionaries entered his State and he endeavour 'd to keep them out. They were forced upon him; he lost heart; and when the missionaries stirred up agitation he was unable to cope with the situation and was deposed.�

The above is, in short, the historical record of the deeds of the foreign, missionaries - the deeds which speak for themselves to present a true picture - the picture which represents the implications of their present activities also as also of the future.  As to their methods enumerated in the question, it must be stated that they employ as all these methods.  In further support of this a number of their recent acts and commissions are herewith appended to this - Appendices A and B. Reference to these is invited.

9. Answer: No instance has come to notice where a person of Matriculation standard or above has converted himself to Christianity.  There are instances where boys who have studied higher classes in the mission schools have been converted.  But in such cases the background of long association and the inducements of material benefits were responsible to cause their conversion.

No instance of a well-to-do person of an annual income of Rs. 1,000 or above of his being converted has come to our notice.

10. Answer: In this area, so far, we have not come across any instance where the Conversion was the result of religious conviction.

11.  Answer: True Christianity should not become the cause for the loss of any kind of loyalty to the nation.  But the experience is that the conversion to Christianity has adversely affected the national loyalty and outlook of the converts. Which is this Christianity then? It is the Christianity of the Foreign Missions and not of Jesus Christ. Rev. E. De Meulder, S. J., the foreign missionary whose influence works in this tract, may be cited as an authoritative representative of the mission-Christianity.  He has written a number of books, like �The Whole World Is My Neighbour�, �The Tribal India Speaks�, �India Immortal�, etc.  In his literature, he appears to have spared no pains to make the best of the propaganda for the mission, to justify with the skill of perversion and twisting facts all the activities of the mission, to secure as much benefit as possible from the Government and to, instal in the mind of the reader contempt for, all that might expose or cause failure of the plans of the mission; but, he has not failed to decorate his books with the glazing photos of personalities like, Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore, etc., and why should he have not done so, if he had thought that the blocks of photos in his books would almost blind the readers as to the purpose and reality behind them.  In his �The Whole World is My Neighbour�, this Rev. Father of the Catholic Mission pleads:

����the problem of problems in India is that of the untouchables and of the aboriginals-in all close to 100,000,000-no social or political legislation can change the status of these people as long as they themselves believe in the essential Hindu tenets of birth, rebirth, re-incarnation, karma and caste.  Similarly, caste Hindus can logically treat the untouchables in the villages in no other way than they have always done throughout the centuries.  The iron law of Karma makes untouchables or touchables from birth onwards, and no power on earth can change it.  The only solution-is a change of religion to either Islam or Christianity.  If these 100 million people join Islam, then the Hindu-Islam Problem remains entirely insoluble.  The conclusion is that a third major community is needed in India to keep the balance between the two others and help to keep peace in the country.  This third community is the Christian community, mainly (not only) recruited from the 100 million aborigines and untouchables.�

He further suggests in this book:

���� let young India cast a glance at the Muslim soul and at the Hindu soul.  Let India study their respective relations to Christ and see whether anyone else is as fitted as he is to be the common corner stone of Greater India.�

Finally, in his �India Immortal� the Catholic Rev. Father dreams:

�I have no doubt that a Catholic India would have been the brightest pearl in the Crown of Christ, the King.  Neither have any doubt that Catholicism, with its message of human personality distinct from God, free will, the essential goodness of matter, God�s Mercy, etc., would have made far a greater India than the one we know, and by the very fact, for a better world.�

The above are the aspirations of the Christian Missionaries in India.  Conversion of people is their motto, and, through it, the political domination over this country.  The very methods and the process employed for bringing about conversions cut at the very root of the native sense of national loyalty and outlook.  Almost all conversions have been preceded by the deliberately created background of extreme discontent and abhorrence in the mind of the would-be-converts for their own heritage, culture of thousands of years, social bonds, past history, things of common pride and honour, and other vital factors which go together as the very essence of the sense of nationality.  Can it be believed that a convert who, in the very process of his conversions to Christianity, became defiantly antagonistic to the brotherhood of his community and the fellowship of the countrymen will never be able to regain as a convert what he has lost while in the process of his conversion? It was not for nothing that Dr. Verrier Elwin the anthropologist, wrote, in 1944:

�Tens of thousands of aborigines have been converted in Chhota-Nagpur.  The beautiful Santhal Parganas is rapidly becoming a Christian country.  In Gangpur State, every one of the aboriginals has been converted.  The entire tribe of Karens has been baptised, and so has every Lushai.  In western India, the Bhils and other tribes have been vigorously proselytised.  At the present rate of progress, the entire aboriginal population will be converted.  It will be turned into a querulous, anti-national, aggressive minority community, with none of the old virtues and few of the new, which will be a thorn in the side of the future Government of India.�

Shri K. M. Panikkar, who has served as an Indian Ambassador in China and Egypt, has also said:

�In the first place, the missionary brought with him an attitude of moral superiority and a belief in his own exclusive righteousness

�� Secondly, from the time of the Portuguese to the end of the Second World War, the association of Christian Missionary work with aggressive imperialism introduced political complications into Christian work�� Inevitably, national sentiment looked upon Missionary activity as inimical to the country�s interests and native Christians as secondary barbarians.�

Dr W. Y. Evans-Wentz, M. A., D. Litt., B. Sc. (Oxon), in his speech has delivered a previous warning:

�My friends, the Missionaries have already corrupted and denationalised a large proportion of the boys and girls of the Kendyan chiefs.  I could give you names of boys and girls who are at this moment ashamed of their own Singhalese parents; and these boys and girls were educated in Missionary school.  And so, from this point of view, the Missionaries have done much positive harm to Celyon.  Let us now sum up-

(1) The Missionaries have taught false doctrines.
(2) They have misrepresented Christianity.
(3) They have divorced you from your ancestral culture.
(4) The  have made you worldly.
(5) They have made your boys and girls ashamed of their own parents:�

As a matter of fact, the whole history of India bears testimony to the sad fact that conversion to Christianity adversely affected the national loyalty of the converts.  Right from the first war of our Independence in 1857 till we won it, the history reveals in broad daylight that the converts as a community did not participate in any of our national struggles.  Dr. Duff, known amongst the missionaries as the great Missionary, has made a clean breast of the use the foreign Government could make of the converts :

�Theory and practice alike concur in proving, that to increase and multiply the members of native Christians, is to increase and multiply the only class of truly staunch and loyal native subject of the British Crown among the teaming millions of India.�

During our national struggle in 1857, the Tribal people of Chhota-Nagpur and adjoining areas had shed their blood as any national of other part of the country.  But the history also speaks that the Christian converts who were made of the same blood and flesh of the tribal community to which they had belonged only a short time before, had taken pride in fighting for the British Government, Dr. Richter has described this:

�At Chhota-Nagpur, the German.  Missionaries offered 10,000 Kols as auxiliary troops�� But for any one with eyes to see, it was as clear as daylight that in the native Churches there was a class of people whose interests were coincident with those of the Government, and upon whose good faith, reliance could be kept absolutely.�

The small area of our two districts where there are now converts to a number more than a lakh is a witness to this feature.  It is the converts who are wholeheartedly supporting the cause of the Jharkhand Movement the movement for a separate home-land for Adivasis as they say, the non-Christians Adivasis do not support this movement.  The persons, who are made leaders of this movement like, Jaipalsin