Women Missionaries- Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- [e-mail];

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Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

 

 

Women Missionaries- Mahatma Gandhi

 

I accepted your invitation to speak before you only in order that I may have an opportunity to explain certain things which I wanted you to understand. The movement with which the Deshbandhu and others including myself are identified is a movement for self-purification. This does not mean that it is not a political one; it is indeed very much a political movement. But what is political and what is religious? Can life be divided into such watertight compartments? The whole machine is run by one person from one place. If that person and that place are clean and pure, then all the activities will also be clean and pure; if they are both tainted, then all the activities will also be tainted. I am amused at such distinction of our various activities, because my experience has been different.

I have never made such distinctions. The seemingly different activities are complementary and produce the sweet harmony of life. Politics separated from religion stinks, religion detached from politics is meaningless. Politics means any activity for the welfare of the people. How can anyone who seeks God remain indifferent to this benevolent activity? And since according to me God and Truth are one, I will always cherish the wish to see the rule of truth prevail even in the domain of politics. To try to explain Jesus’ teachings to the followers of Jesus is like carrying the Ganga water to Varanasi. But although I am myself not a Christian, as an humble student of the Bible, who approaches it with faith and reverence, I wish respectfully to place before you the essence of the Sermon on the Mount. If, while doing so, I do not place before you frankly my inmost thoughts, I would be unfit to address you as brothers and sisters. I remember the speech I delivered in 1916 before a conference of missionaries in Madras. I had observed at that time that the missionaries were making a grave error in counting the numbers of their followers. I have absolutely no faith in the proselytizing activity that is being carried on today. It may have benefited some persons, but the benefit is of little account when compared with the harm which has followed. Religious controversy serves no purpose. God wants us to profess what we sincerely believe. There are thousands of men and women today who, though they may not have heard about the Bible or Jesus have more faith and are more god-fearing than Christians who know the Bible and who talk of its Ten Commandments.

Religion is no matter for words, it is the path of the brave. And my humble intelligence refuses to believe that a man becomes good when he renounces one religion and embraces another. I can cite numerous instances of Indians and Zulus who have become Christians but who know nothing of Jesus’ way of love or sacrifice or his message. In this connection, I recall the talk I had with a missionary named Mr. Murray in Johannesburg. A friend had introduced me to him hoping that I would become a Christian. We went out for a walk in the course of which Mr. Murray cross-examined me by asking me a number of questions. When he had cross-examined me enough, he told me:

“No, friend! I do not wish to convert you. Not only that, I will never try to convert anyone in future.” I was very much pleased. He even accepted my interpretation of Jesus’ teaching! Quoting from the Bible itself, I had said to him: “Not he who says ‘God, God’ shall gain deliverance, but he who surrenders himself to God and does His will, he alone shall gain it. I am aware of my weaknesses. I am struggling against them with what strength God has given me, not with my own. Do you wish that, instead of thus struggling with my God-given strength, I should repeat parrot wise that Jesus has washed off my sins and that I have become pure?” He looked up, stopped me and said: “I understand what you say.” I am today talking to you with the same emotion with which I talked to my friend then, because I want to touch your hearts just as I wanted to touch his. Why do you want merely to count heads, why do you not go on with silent service? Will you please tell me why you wish to convert people? Should it not be enough if, by coming into contact with you, people learn to live pure and noble lives, and they give up the way of untruth and darkness and take to the path of truth and light? What more do you want than that you take up a helpless child and help it to earn the means wherewith to feed and clothe itself? Is not this sufficient reward for your work? Or is it that you wish to make the person whom you serve say without conviction, “I have become a Christian”? Today we see competition and conflict among different religions for counting the number of their followers. I feel deeply ashamed of this and, when I hear of people’s achievement in converting such and such a number to a particular faith, I feel that that is no achievement at all, that on the contrary it is a blasphemy against God and the self. Your work does not end with serving people. You should identify yourselves with them. Only when you meet the poorest of the poor will you be able to render true service. In this connection I recall the words of Lord Salisbury to a deputation of missionaries which waited on him. Those missionaries had arrived from China and were seeking Government protection against the Boxers. Lord Salisbury told them:

“I am not unwilling to offer you protection. But will it do you any credit? The missionaries of old were brave. Trusting that the only true protection was God’s they opposed all obstacle and sacrificed their lives. If you must go as far as China for the propagation of religion, you should seek such protection as the god-fearing seek and take the risks which one would take for whom religion is one’s very life breath would take.” Those were the words of an honest and practical man. You, too, if you wish to serve the people of India, should go on with your work moving about with your life in your hand. Whatever the failures or harassment you may have to face, serve them in a truly missionary spirit. If you would breathe life into these poor people, embrace the programme which I have been placing before every Indian today and enter their lives along with it. Through no other kind of work can you fulfil the command of Jesus as well as you can through this.

 

Reference:

Navajivan, 21-6-1925