DEENABANDHU MEMORIAL

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

DEENABANDHU MEMORIAL

 

 

Innumerable people all over the world, who have been plunged into sorrow by the recent death of Charles Freer Andrews, must have been feeling, in their grief, that it behoves his friends to carry on the work of service and reconciliation in which he laboured so greatly. We would not willingly let die the memory of his life; we seek a way to perpetuate, in permanent and visible from, the spirit of that life. Andrews’s permanent Indian home, the place with which for over a quarter of a century he affectionately identified himself, was Santiniketan in the Birbhum District of Bengal. This Ashram was originally founded by the late Maharshi Debendranath Tagore and supported by the ancestral funds. Under the leadership of his son, the Poet Rabindranath Tagore, the educational institutions at Santiniketan, with the centre of rural reconstruction close by at Sriniketan, have far outgrown the first conception, and become a world-famous centre of international culture. To the welfare of these institutions, with their vision of universal brotherhood and their service of international understanding and peace, Andrews, the Poet’s closest friend, gave his whole-hearted devotion. No private resources could be adequate for the support of such a centre of study and research, and many of the financial and other contributions which have been made to it from East and West alike have been owed to Andrews’s perseverance, hard work, and faith in its future. No more fitting place can be conceived for a memorial to him, nor one which he himself would have loved better, as we who came into the closest contact with him know.

It is true that no memorial in stone and mortar can fully perpetuate Andrews’s memory. That can best be done by promoting true and lasting peace between India and Great Britain as independent nations and, through their joint effort, universal peace. But this work of reconciliation must find concrete form in some centre from which his influence can radiate. There could be no better memorial to him than the place where he found his spiritual home and greatest human inspiration should be so endowed as to enable it to fulfil his high hopes for it unhampered by the constant financial anxiety with which it is now burdened. In his name and that of the Poet whose vision he so entirely shared, we appeal for this endowment to be generously given. There are two projected developments of the work of Santiniketan and Sriniketan which Charles Andrews himself specially longed to see. The generous response of the public to our appeal for a memorial fund will enable them both to be carried out in addition to ensuring the permanence of the present established work. They are as follows: Andrews was most appropriately called ‘Deenabandhu’, the friend of the poor, and the poor of the Birbhum district knew his friendship.

The rural centre at Sriniketan has a good doctor and dispensary but no hospital or operating theatre. We propose to build a small but properly equipped hospital to serve the villages round us, and to dig each year ‘Deenabandhu wells’ in the neediest areas. The Birbhum district is not served by the large rivers of Bengal, and lack of adequate water supply is the main cause of its grinding poverty. It was true insight which caused an Indian friend to interpret the initials C. F. A. as meaning “Christ’s Faithful Apostle”. Christ was the centre of his life. Devotion to Him was his outstanding characteristic and the source of his inspiration and strength. During the last months at Santiniketan he often expressed the hope that in this place, where the civilizations of the world can share with each other the bases of their strength, there might be established a Hall of Christian culture which could do for India’s thought through contact with the Western world, what the ‘Cheena Bhawan’ is expected to do for our relationship with China. The central purpose of the Hall would be the study of the teaching and character of Christ and its application to the solution of international problems.

It would seek to attract scholars and students, especially of the East, to the task of interpreting in their own modes of thought the spirit and mind of Christ. We envisage a modest building, sufficiently endowed to enable us to offer such scholars and students a home at a minimum cost, with simple living accommodation, meeting hall, and the library whose nucleus Charles Andrews had already begun to assemble. He himself made Santiniketan his headquarters during a life of practical Christian service which reached our from here to the ends of the earth. We hope that such a Hall would enable others consecrated to the same kind of service to enjoy the same kind of home. The full carrying out of this programme will require a fund of at least Rs. 5, 00,000 (£40,000). We ask Andrews’s friends and admirers all over the world to give liberal support to a scheme which will make possible, in his name, the preservation and enrichment of this work nearest to his own heart. Santiniketan and Sriniketan are in the charge of Dr. Rabindranath Tagore, Founder-President, Sir Nilratan Sarkar, Shri Hirendranath Datta, Shri L. K Elehirst, Dr. D. M. Bose, Treasurer, and Shri Rathindranath Tagore, General Secretary, as trustees. The trust deed is registered. Its corpus today is valued at Rs. 1,700,000. Its annual expenditure is about Rs. 330,000.