Chapter Four, Section I
As on most mission fields,' the day's work began with devotions when we committed ourselves and sought guidance and strength for whatever might eventuate. It was not long before we learned that, for the pioneering missionary, each new day can thrust one, often violently, into new and hitherto unexperienced crises.
Anthony, Colleen, Ruth and I had so much for which to be thankful. We had arrived safely, along with all our baggage; fare-wise, we had not been penalized by the railways for having missed the train; the permit for the public address system had finally been received and we had been able to import from Australia, urgently needed food for the four missionary families.
Prayerfully, we also remembered James Russell and his Indian colleagues on the dangerous front in Surgapam, Janice, holding the fort in Bhavnagar and Lionel on the "road" or precarious jungle tracks, hauling vital stores. There was so much to occupy our prayer time but for Anthony, the public address system had the pre-eminence. It was a moment for real rejoicing when we finally found all the bits and pieces in the various trunks and got the thing working.
Anthony couldn't wait to get word, through Tazil, to Pintu Babu, pastor of the Daulatapur church. It was mid-morning of our first full day on the field when Anthony, Pintu and I, climbed aboard the old Mission Jeep. Loaded with tracts, Gospel portions, the P.A. system and plenty of boiled water, we headed for Fardapur where hundreds of thousands from all parts of Bihar and beyond were still assembling for the big Mela. There were devout Hindu pilgrims, traders and merrymakers, all converging upon the small town by every means of transport. Hundreds were arriving by every train from Badami and Dharmapuri directions, not a few of these having travelled on the roof or clinging to the side of the coach.
From the station, they would either have to walk the twenty miles to Fardapur or, if lucky, get a bus. Such a trip on the bus may mean perching precariously on the roof or clinging to the back. Needless to say, there are many accidents at Mela times. I have both seen and travelled in such buses, which somehow, have accommodated up to two hundred passengers, though they were licensed to carry only eighty! It is amazing the weight that can be borne by axles, springs and even worn-out tires, especially if the latter have "full round gettis" patches actually bolted over the affected tread!
There must have been at least half a million people crowded into the "maidan" and other surrounding fields - just one seething mass of humanity. On seeing this huge crowd, the first thing I asked myself was, "What if someone right in the centre wanted to go to the lavatory?" But then, it's only the Western mind that is pre-occupied with such questions. For the Indian, it is a matter of facing the problem when it arises, which accounts for the fact that there were no toilet facilities whatsoever to cater for all those people for a full week's sojourn!.
Shivers of joy went up and down my spine as Pintu Babu proclaimed the Gospel of Christ, while Anthony and I distributed free literature. But, in spite of the charisma of the occasion, I was not really enthused. While not denying the power of the written or spoken Word to change lives, I felt, at the time, that this was not the ultimate in evangelism. The whole venture, which depended mainly on eloquent preaching, seemed so impersonal, reminding me that the Word is no longer mere words, but Incarnate - initially in Jesus Christ and secondarily in the lives of those compassionate women and men of faith, who seek to serve Him through people in need.
We arrived back at Daulatapur bungalow to find Lionel in a very agitated frame of mind. He related a torrid experience of the previous day that had left him heartbroken. While we were at the Mela, he reached Daulatapur from Bhavnagar after a very difficult crossing of the Komela River. Even though both Mission vehicles were four-wheel drive, there were many times during river crossings when there were real apprehensions that the force of the flowing water would carry everything before it. But it wasn't the fear of getting bogged, or even a new threat of severe persecution that was troubling Lionel; it was something far more personal and far more sinister.
Tragically, his immediate Indian colleague, Kanker Babu, one whom he had trusted implicitly, and to whom he had committed his most confidential plans concerning the expedition into Surgapam, had betrayed him.
This apparently dynamic teacher-evangelist had sought a loan of money from Lionel, ostensibly to tide his family over a difficult period while he was away on tour, seeking the best place to set up a Mission base in Surgapam. Lionel was stunned when he discovered that Kanker Babu had been using the loaned money to bribe loose women into giving him sexual favours! And all this was taking place in the very village where the Mission had been negotiating to establish camp. Although Love and Grace always have to over-rule in such situations, one has to be pragmatic, so Kanker Babu was sacked.
In the years that were to follow, Ruth and I were to have a number of similar experiences when the very people we thought we could trust, turned traitor, as it were. On one occasion, one of my closest friends let me down so disappointingly, that it is nothing less than a miracle that I now have any faith left at all. But that is all part of the Ministry. Christ had Judas with whom to contend and no sincere man or woman in the Christian Ministry will ever completely escape such fiery trials.
And so our hearts went
out to Lionel who also was very concerned about the possible outbreak of bitter
persecution against the young
In those days, there were no bridges across the Komela River and the only way we could get a vehicle to Bhavnagar and from there on to Surgapam, was to go via, Barwani, south from Daulatapur. The old East India Railway Company had a loco repair workshop at Barwani where, also, there was a colliery. As early as 1937, plans had been laid to construct a railroad from Barwani, through Bhavnagar and Surgapam, to link up with the Bombay main line to Victoria Station, thus cutting 200 miles off the route taken by the Calcutta to Bombay trains. However, the Company fell on hard times when one of the chief engineers embezzled large sums of money. This was not before it had built the foundations of dozens of bridges. To provide building material for this construction work, a gravelled track extended from Barwani through forty miles of dense jungle to within ten miles of our ultimate destination - Champapur, Surgapam. Unfortunately, many parts of that track had become overgrown with jungle but much of it was recoverable.
Between Barwani and Bhavnagar there were two treacherous rivers - the Komela and the smaller Duffi. I'm sure that, during the next twenty-five years, those two rivers combined to take ten years off my life, but on this trip with Lionel, they were to treat us kindly. Although there were two occasions when it seemed we would not make it to the opposite bank, the old Dodge, with all four wheels throwing up sand and water, maintained its momentum to some degree until the tires could bite into more solid ground on the other side. Then we could breathe again.
On this occasion, the
trip to Bhavnagar, through thirty miles of beautiful jungle, was uneventful. Up
and down we went; round and round, climbing, descending, over hazardous timber
"bridges", swampy fields and quagmires. If one were lucky, the trip
could be made from Daulatapur to Bhavnagar in four hours, but on this occasion,
we did it in three and a half. Lionel really hit the throttle because he
planned to get back to Daulatapur that night to go on to Nagpur, the then
centre of government in Madhya Pradesh. Surgapam is a district of Madhya
Pradesh and Lionel wanted to report to the provincial government the fears he
and the church had of persecution. For the first time in India's history, the
Constitution had granted freedom of religion to all sections of the community
and Lionel wanted the
We stayed only a short time with Janice Russell in Bhavnagar, just long enough to enjoy a cup of tea together and reminisce over happy times with her and James, when they passed through Melbourne during their previous furlough. Janice was quite anxious over James' safety, but a time of prayer during that brief stopover assured us that we were not in the struggle alone. Christ had gone through it all before and he didn't promise his followers an easier path.
Because Christ was continuing the battle against injustice, inequity, exploitation, greed and hate, we knew that, cost what. it may, he would have the ultimate victory. The local churches and we were all conscious of the fact that someone might get killed in the ensuing months. The price to lift the oppressive yoke from the people of Surgapam was going to be great. What a thrill it was to meet dedicated Christians in Bhavnagar who were prepared to pay that price with their very lives.
Janice packed up a nice parcel for James and quickly sent us on our way so that both Lionel and I could complete our respective travels before dark. After a further twelve miles along the old railway company's track, we reached Bundi, the end of the road so far as vehicular traffic was concerned. From here it was to be a twelve mile cycle ride in the company of Bikram Khujuri, another of Lionel's Indian colleagues. Bikram had arranged a team of coolies to carry all the stores destined for James Russell's camp at Karanja, only a mile from Champapur.
Our area of Surgapam was so backward that a wheel was not yet in use, not a vehicle of any sort, not even a bullock cart. Earlier, there had been times when the Maharajah had ordered tracks to be cut deep into the jungle for the purpose of tiger hunting. Sometimes his Jeep would be seen on those tracks, equipped with powerful spotlights to facilitate night shooting. The only other wheeled vehicles ever seen in the area - a few cycles - had all been brought in from Bihar, by our Mission teams.
Bikram and I set off, keeping to the foot-track and having to carry our cycles over terrain too difficult for pedalling. Bikram seemed to be a jovial fellow, singing to his heart's content. Later, I learned that this is a way of warning animals that may be on the path ahead. In our part of Surgapam there were many wild beasts that could be quite dangerous if suddenly surprised, particularly the bear, which, when standing on its rear legs, is the height of an average man and is the most to be feared. The tiger, unless of course it happens to be a man-eater, is generally rather timid and will avoid humans. The same may be said of the leopard, while a huge wild boar, with menacing tusks, can strike terror at the heart. Wild elephants were seen only rarely and then mostly in herds which could go berserk and completely destroy a small village in a matter of minutes.
I had not been used to such strenuous exercise and found the cycle ride, with heavy pack, quite an effort, but that ride was soon to become all in a day's work. What a joy it was to arrive at James' Karanja Camp, around 6 pm. By that time, Lionel ought to have been somewhere near Barwani en route back to Daulatapur, that is, if he had not bogged down in the Komela or Duffi Rivers. James kindly arranged for me to get some water for a wash down. Water was scarce at the time and for drinking, it had to be filtered and boiled. A full bucket of water, therefore, was very much appreciated.
Beside my tent, James had erected a toilet-cum-bathroom. This consisted of an area ten feet square surrounded by cut, leafy branches for privacy, a bucket of water, a small shovel, a hole three feet deep and a drain leading to a small vegetable garden. A lantern had to be kept burning throughout night to ward off any dangerous animals. It was a major problem keeping those lanterns supplied with kerosene, every drop of which had to be brought from Daulatapur to Bhavnagar by Jeep and the "road" to that village was blocked for five months of the year, during and immediately following the monsoon. From Bhavnagar, further on to Karanja, we depended on porters.
How different this accommodation was from that of Daulatapur and yet it was here, in this primitive environment, that I felt more at ease. The chilly night air of the Surgapam jungle made fellowship around the campfire a most pleasant experience. Adding to the joy of the moment was a delicious curry, which James had prepared with the help of his cook, Santosh. I was amazed at the culinary skill and my first impression was that James was putting on a special show for the new addition to the staff. But no, James was like this all the time, meticulous in everything he did. An Indian friend remarked of James: - "Mr. Russell is slow to begin a new work, but once having begun, he leaves it beautifully finished."
James was in my tent, helping me string up my mosquito net, when there was an urgent cry outside..."Sahib, Sahib, bahut zaroori bat hai." It was Prabhu Das, one of James' karamcharis (teacher-pastors) who had a very important message that could not wait until morning. What had already been anticipated since the advance party crossed the border from Palamghat, Bihar, on New Year's Day, 1951, was now eventuating. It appeared that one of the village petty officials who, under normal circumstances, would have strongly opposed any foreign intrusion into the area of his jurisdiction, had developed a love for those who had come with the Love of Jesus Christ.
This particular headman, who had been critically ill, was helped medically by Janice. His good response to treatment saved his life and turned him in our favour. In gratitude, he decided to reveal a plot to ensnare us. James, Lionel and their Indian colleagues had heard rumours of such a scheme, but no details had been known. Now it all became clear and, as we huddled over the campfire, we shuddered as our Hindu friend fearfully disclosed all the stages of the conspiracy that could well result in our imprisonment.
The plan was for a local magistrate to plant a bag of rice within our camp, under cover of darkness. The police would then pounce on us, making the charge that we had been smuggling and hoarding rice illegally in order to transport it over the border into drought-stricken Bihar. The penalty for moving rice out of the State during famine conditions was very severe. It was even illegal, without a special permit, to move rice from one part of the district to another, even within the State.
Our Hindu friend had a strong feeling that the authorities would not launch their attack during full moon, so we had a few days in our favour. As we discussed and prayed over the problem, various suggestions were made. There were now six karmcharis, our Hindu friend, James and myself and we talked long into the night until sleep began to overtake us. I was reminded of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and how the disciples had tried to figure out ways of preventing His arrest. The occasion also called to mind some of the crazy ideas they came up with and the impulsiveness that drove Peter to cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant.
I think I must have had a little too much of the spirit of Peter, for I wrote the following in my diary: - "What we need to do is catch the men (those planting the rice) without compromising our non- violent convictions, tie them up until morning to photograph them (we had no flash bulbs), and appeal to Nagpur, (Provincial capital at the time) against corruption in the Police Force etc "
When I look back on that diary entry, it is amazing that I was so stupid. Now I ask you: can you imagine capturing and tying up police agents without being violent? But I believe that not all of my proposals were absurd. The idea, which we did carry out, was to write aerogramme letters to friends in various countries, carefully revealing all the details of the plot about to be carried out in the days or weeks ahead. The addressees were requested to hold those letters which could later serve as evidence in a Court of Law, should the need arise.
The nearest post office was twenty miles away, at Bhavnagar and the postman was a good friend. I requested him to do the franking very carefully so that the date of posting our mail was clearly legible. This could prove that we knew of the plot before it was carried out. Another suggestion was that we should request Janice to send the Burtons' big dog, "Rajiv", to guard the camp. Lionel's wife, Caroline, was in South India at the time, with her two daughters, Maria and Kathy and had no need of the dog, a vicious looking Airedale.
Next morning, it seemed that all our efforts to avoid a conflict with the police were futile. The village Chowkidar, (village-level policeman) had brought orders for Laxshman to appear before the Area Officials at Police Headquarters. Laxshman was a courageous man who had initially invited us into the area and who had turned over portion of his land for our camp and possible Mission bungalow and compound. James called a conference with his karmcharis and it was decided that it would be dangerous for Laxshman to go alone, lest he suffer a severe beating and other injustices. Four karmcharis and four friendly villagers offered to go with him to serve as witnesses. The following morning, the party set out on foot and it was a week before we knew the outcome of that encounter. Meanwhile, we lived from day to day with the fear that the police might arrive to take us into custody. They didn't come.
Probably because of his eight companions at hand to support him, Laxshman was let off with nothing more than a brusque reprimand and threat of punishment if he did not turn the missionaries from his land. This was a great disappointment for James who had visions of setting up a beautiful compound with Mango, Mulberry, Paw Paw, Custard Apple, Banana, and Guava trees, along with flowering trees and shrubs such as Poinciana, Poinsettia, Frangipani, Bougainvillea, Hibiscus, Oleander and certain indigenous varieties. James was especially gifted when it came to arranging a garden. Some of the fruit trees already had been planted and a twenty feet diameter well dug to a depth of about five feet when word reached him of the threat to Laxshman if the work continued.
The foundations for the bungalow also had been dug but all this work was brought to a halt on the return of Laxshman from the police station.
Chapter Four, Section *** II
While Keith remained with James in Surgapam, I had waited anxiously with Anthony and Colleen at Daulatapur, for word that the travellers were safe. With no CB radios or telephone communications in those days, mission wives had to endure times of great stress and concern. The "roads" were treacherous and often caused vehicular failure due to blown tires, broken springs and stripped differentials and transmissions. It was nothing for a wooden, bridge to collapse under a truck because termites had eaten through a main beam.
All our communications between Daulatapur, Bhavnagar and Surgapam passed through dense jungle, which, in the hot, dry season, could become a roaring inferno when the west wind ("loo") reached its high peak in the afternoon. In walking to a distant village to seek help in times of vehicle breakdown, our men frequently were in danger from wild animals and there were the dacoits, who could murder a lone traveller to gain a few rupees or a bag of rice.
Of course, we ourselves were just as much at risk and missionary husbands constantly feared for our safety when bandits were known to be in the area. But Lionel did arrive back safely and I could breathe again, as I knew now that Keith was safe at the other end. The plan was that I should go out to Bhavnagar to stay a while with Janice Russell because the situation had grown very tense and it was thought that my presence would give her some peace of mind. There were times when she could not sleep because of her concern for James' safety. Janice did not have those feelings on her own so we would be able to comfort each other.
The journey to Bhavnagar with Lionel in the Dodge truck was nothing less than chaotic. Because the main river ford was too deep, Lionel made a detour along a rough, narrow track from which he thought it possible to make a successful entry to the river and a safe crossing to the other side. From the bank, the crossing looked reasonably safe, so, engaging the lowest gear and four-wheel drive, we drove straight in, but before long, bogged down heavily.
I shall never forget that experience. It certainly was an initiation into travel in the Real India and all this with an eight months old baby and four year old Robert. For three and a half hours we had to wait on the riverbank while Lionel and some coolies cut branches and gathered stones to free the truck. Because of swarm upon swarm of ants, and cow dung wherever one stood, there was no place to sit down. So, for the full time the truck was being dug out of the river, I just had to walk about. Coupled with that were the flies and mosquitoes - myriads of the brutes.
The delay at the Komela River meant that we did not reach Bhavnagar until late at night and by that time it was cold because we were now at 1,200 feet above sea level. As for the "road", well, I could not count the number of bends, culverts, streams, hills and valleys we had to negotiate before reaching journey's end. And when it seemed that it would never end, a small bright light appeared in the distance - a pressure lamp, which Lionel said Janice had put out to direct us home. For almost half an hour, we saw that light again and again until finally we were there.
How wonderful it was to be reunited with Janice. Not a moment was dull when she was around! Her compassion and nursing expertise were a great attraction that daily brought many desperately ill people to our "clinic", which consisted of an old rickety cupboard containing the most primitive equipment and what medicines were available in such a remote area. This single piece of clinic furniture was placed up against the mud wall of the bungalow's back verandah.
That day, Janice treated a man from Surgapam who had a lump of wood firmly wedged between the bones of one hand. How he had come to suffer such a shocking injury I do not know, but Janice gave the necessary treatment and the man went home rejoicing. Many of the minor operations she performed, would only be tackled by a qualified doctor in a Western country. Treatments included dealing with Malaria, which was highly endemic in the area.
In fact, Bhavnagar was known as a "punishment area", where delinquent officials were sent with the danger of sickness to add to their discipline of transfer or demotion. Tuberculosis and venereal diseases were also rife, along with worms, dysenteries, fractures, terrible burns and maulings from wild animals.. Occasionally there was an obstetrical case, also an odd one of Leprosy (Hansens Disease), although, at this stage, our clinic had no anti-leprosy drugs. All Janice could do was treat the sufferers' massive ulcers and give loving, tender care. By the time clinic was over, we were exhausted. .
There was no time to rest. "Coolie to ar gaya," called Baidnath, Janice's cook, intimating that a porter had brought a load from James and Keith. It was a good sign that our husbands were still free, but for how long? There was mail for posting and some of this was so important that a karmchari had to be dispatched to Daulatapur. Less important mail was posted at Bhavnagar, adding a week to its delivery time. James had sent a long list of requirements, for there was no proper bazaar at Champapur. Almost every item of need for the Surgapam field, had to be supplied through Bhavnagar. When we could not provide the necessary things, word had to be sent to Anthony in Daulatapur.
Preparing the loads for Surgapam was one of the tasks I felt I could do to relieve Janice of some of her heavy responsibilities. Each porter carried two packages with a combined weight of eighty pounds. This balanced load was suspended from a flexible bamboo bar, which rested on a massive shoulder muscle. Without exaggeration, if this muscle were removed from the body when fully inflated, it would be no less than a large handful. Nature had provided this protection to a people who carried everything in this way.
It may seem cruel to load up a man with eighty pounds and send him off on a twenty-two mile trek, expecting him to complete the run in eight hours, but that is the way the whole community carried its loads. We were not imposing on them any more than they would do willingly for themselves and at their rate for those days of one rupee (about ten cents Australian) for the trip. We made up this load of eighty pounds with flour, sugar, powdered milk, vegetables, margarine, some medicines, a few slates and pencils, a cycle tire, tube and valve rubber.
It was becoming clear that, if the Surgapam work developed further, we could not depend upon porters alone to move all the supplies needed. Somehow, a vehicle had to get through to Champapur. Keith, in his last letter, did mention something about trying to survey a road. He and Bikram Khujuri had gone out on cycles to determine just where a Jeep could somehow get through from Bundi. They concluded, after a day of searching, that it would take a miracle for us, with our meagre resources, to make a Jeep track through those ten miles of dense jungle between Bundi and Champapur.
For some distance it was impossible even to cycle, for the foot track followed the top of the embankments between rice paddy fields. In some places, the track was only six inches wide and a slip could send the unsure traveller heading for a mud bath. Yes, it would take a miracle, but then, from the moment of our arrival, we had been witnessing the making of a miracle. Almost daily, we saw what could only be the outworking of faith - a spirit of determination and positive thinking.
I was just settling down to a little Hindi language study, trying to memorize verb forms, when one of Anthony's karmcharis arrived by cycle from Daulatapur, a fifty-mile ride through the jungle, via the short cut. Prem Chand had a bag of mail, including an important letter from the Mission Home Board in Britain. "There just has to be something in the Minutes this time," said Janice. "For months we have been waiting for the final word of approval from the British Missionary Committee, that we may enter Surgapam on their behalf."
Soon after arriving on the field, Keith and I were stunned to learn that our colleagues had entered Surgapam without the Mission's consent and we could hardly believe it. After all, had we not received the Call through reading articles in the British Gospel Mission's magazines, "The Christian Sentinel" and "Gospel Advocate"? Also, had we not read challenging articles in the Missionary Committee's own pamphlet, "Open Channels"? Our men were digging in at Karanja, just a few miles from Champapur bazaar village and launching out into a totally new field while still operating on the old budget. The whole thing was ludicrous and irresponsible for the Home board to neglect us in this way. And in these Minutes from Britain, there was no resolution covering Surgapam. It almost seemed that the Home Board was deliberately refusing to face the issue!
"Dare we pullout now? Could we turn back when courageous men like Laxshman and his brothers, Pachhman and Mahina, were willing to risk being severely beaten, or sacrificing their very lives for a faith that is often taken for granted in the West?" These were the questions we each asked ourselves.
With no immediate hope of
budget approval, our four colleagues decided to contribute ten percent of their
salaries to maintain the work across the border. When we were invited to join
the scheme, we happily agreed. It was a venture of faith, especially as there
were times when we had no salaries from which to donate the ten percent ! Sometimes it would take months for
remittances to reach us from Britain and very few people in the Home
We felt sure that Lionel would be able to make this point clear before the Chief Minister of the Province. After all, the Uraon people of Surgapam District, M.P., only wanted the peace and joy that had so much changed the lives of their relatives over the border, in Bihar. In that time of prayer around the campfire, we thanked God for the great leaders of the Indian Independence Movement who had risked death to achieve freedom. Surely their sacrifices had not been in vain. Especially, we expressed gratitude for those Christian women and men who, in a non-violent way, had struggled to redeem India from the ignominy of foreign oppression and who had helped to frame the Constitution, infusing it with the Christian ethic.
One such outstanding person, at Cabinet level, was the late Rajkumari (Princess) Arnrit Kaur who, for sixteen years, had been one of Mahatma Gandhi's secretaries. It was to be my very great privilege, a few years later, to meet this gracious lady and to develop with her a close friendship. Soon after Independence, she wrote concerning foreign missionaries in India:-
"A certain amount of misunderstanding has recently been engendered in the minds of foreign missionaries as to whether India wishes them to remain in India, or not.
Ours is a secular State and the Constitution allows complete freedom of worship as well as the right to preach and propagate one’s religion. I do not think there is any lack of appreciation on the part of the Government and people of India as to the very great services rendered to people by missionaries, both in the past and in New India. Grants are even today being gladly given to missionary medical and educational enterprise.
The only thing that is desired by the Government is that foreign missionaries should keep themselves entirely aloof from political propaganda and work. I have no doubt that all foreign missionaries will understand and appreciate the legitimacy of this demand and will continue to render service in both educational as well as medical spheres with that single-minded devotion which is the characteristic of their work, and which shows forth the Light of Jesus Christ in their lives, by their actions rather than by word of mouth. "
Signed: - Rajkumari Amrit Kaur
UNION MINISTER OF HEALTH
Yes, with such people at the helm, we felt sure that Lionel would return to give us a fresh faith in humankind and the Indian democratic legal system. We returned to our tents that night with less fear, confident that the persecutions were only a transient phase - teething pains, as it were. Some of the trouble that was to follow may be traced to a misunderstanding on the part of certain Indian officials who interpreted our work among Uraon tribals as "political". I would rather think that they wanted our work to appear political because we were dealing with a unique tribe. To understand the complexity of the enigma, one has to go back to where the Uraons have their ancestral roots.
Prior to the arrival of the Aryans, there was a "Indus Valley Civilization" - a great pre-Hindu culture. Archaeologists and anthropologists now know that the beginning of civilization in India is nearly as old as civilization itself. They believe that by at least as early as 4,000 B.C., but possibly millennia earlier, the human race began to appear in Northern India. By 3,000 B.C., humans had developed a primitive village culture. The religion of these simple people was animistic. Ruins discovered at Mohenjo Daro and to the northeast, at Harappa, in the Indus Valley, reveal that quite a cultured race of people flourished from about 2,500 to 1,500 B.C.
Who were the people of this pre-Aryan culture? Some scholars see quite an essential similarity between them and the present-day tribals or Dravidians known as "Adivasis" - "Adi" meaning "origin or beginning" and "vasi" meaning "dweller". For all practical purposes, we may treat the Uraon and other tribes as the indigenous inhabitants of India.
Historians believe that the Aryan invasion took place around 1,000 years after the high peak in the Indus Valley period. This led to the first great cultural synthesis when the fair-skinned tribes from Central Asia fused with the indigenous groups of the Indus Valley civilization. It is believed that over a period of time, the vast majority of the indigenous tribes were merged, either by force or free choice, with these conquering nomads who called themselves "Aryans" - "The Noble Ones".
As they ravished the land, they put an end to a culture which many historians believe was higher their own. It was the Aryans who introduced a pattern of life which was to last for centuries and whose influence was to determine the course of traditional Hindu culture to the present day. Later, other ethnic groups contributed to the modern genetic make-up of the typical Indian of our time and these included Iranians, Greeks, Parthians, Bactrians, Scythians, Huns, pre-Islam Turks, with early Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian input. Each race came, made its contribution and was assimilated.
One of the historical characteristics of India is her astonishing capacity to absorb foreign races and cultures. It would almost seem that to be a true Indian, one must have the spirit of absorption - to absorb and to be absorbed. Conversely, to resist integration is to be "non-Indian". As in every situation where a culture is assimilated, there will be those, perhaps only a remnant, who will vehemently oppose any attempt to deprive them of what they would give even their very lives to preserve. I believe that of all the Adivasi tribes, the Uraons are perhaps the most determined to survive as a distinct ethnic group. The "Vedas", introduced by the Aryans and regarded by many Hindus as revealed scripture, has had no influence upon these proud aboriginal people. Similarly, the "Upanishads" and the "Bhagawagita" also have been rejected.
In our Surgapam area there are other tribal groups who, in varying degrees, have imbibed certain Hindu concepts, but not so the Uraons. I believe that, had our endeavours been spent on the non-Uraon tribals, those already caught up in the slow process of assimilation, we may not have experienced so much opposition. But these were not the ones who had called us. Laxshman was an Uraon. All our karmcharis were Uraons and the vast majority of our Christians over the border in Palamghat, Bihar, were Uraons.
Throughout the ages, there have been many such oppressed races, determined at all cost to preserve their ethnic identity - the Welsh, the Basques, the Nagas, the Palestinians, the Tibetans, the Kurds, to mention only a few - who have lain down their lives for what they hold dear. Many years later, our son, Robert, developed a very real concern for the Welsh people - victims of a form of cultural genocide. To empathise, he lived in a simple Welsh rural hut, learned the Welsh language and rose to the position of a top-ranking NUPE officer in the Welsh Labor Movement.
This gentle race has been exploited and culturally disadvantaged right up to the present time. Many Welsh Nationalists still remember the days when, as school children, they were beaten for letting a Welsh word of their own mother tongue slip out when English was the order of the day.
But those who demand assimilation, those who insist that all should conform to one culture, will often interpret social concern for such minority groups as political incitement. About 100 miles to the east, towards Ranitola, in the Chotakoela area of Bihar, it was mainly the Uraons who were leading the aboriginal freedom movement known as "Jharkand". This was a political organization that advocated a separate autonomous state for tribal people. Most of the leaders of "Jharkand" were either Christians, nominal Christians or those animists who had been influenced by the Christian ethic they had imbibed through studying in a Mission school.
It is not that Christ was a politician or that Christian missionaries, in a political way, champion the rights of oppressed people. We expatriates, in fact, remained completely aloof from politics and carefully avoided sharing even a semblance of political interest. But it is inevitable that, when one comes face to face with Jesus Christ, a concern is engendered for those oppressed in any way at all. Most of the great liberation movements, somewhere along the line, have been touched by Jesus Christ, perhaps not always in the way he would wish, which is non-violently - the way of the Cross.
Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, to whom India owes her freedom, were men who experienced some measure of the liberating Christ with whom they came in contact in college and university. The same applies to some leaders within the African nations who have struggled to throw off the yoke of foreign domination. Viewed through the eyes of orthodox Hindu government officials, we could have been misjudged as being political activists. However, this was not the main reason we were to suffer persecution. I believe that our very presence in Surgapam posed a threat to the power and economy of those extortionists who opposed us - the rich landlords, money-lenders, brewers & winery magnates, smugglers & bribe-hungry officials - who were growing fat by exploiting vulnerable minority groups, in particular, the non-Hindu tribals.
I had been in Surgapam only a short time when it became obvious that certain landlords in the Champapur area were conducting quite a lucrative rice-smuggling business. These racketeers operated in collusion with the border police, in particular, one Krishnadeo, who was in charge of the "Naka" customs check-post at Karchand, the last village on the Surgapam side of the border. Krishnadeo and his subordinates were responsible for examining all goods crossing the border, mainly to check for the illegal movement of rice into famine stricken Bihar.
We noticed rich and influential people blatantly transporting into the adjacent province, by ponies and porters, large quantities of rice and other food grains. Occasionally, an innocent poor man would be arrested and hauled off to the police station with only enough rice on his person to provide one meal for the journey, which it was actually permissible to carry, but he would be charged with smuggling illegal quantities. It was always the poor who were caught, because they could not afford the bribe.
The smuggled rice was released on the Bihar black markets through the Afghan families living on that side of the border. Naturally, our presence must have been a very great embarrassment to the three parties concerned - the landlords who were growing the rice, virtually with slave labour, the border police, reaping fat profits through extortion and the Afghan traders handling the distribution at exorbitant prices in a critical famine situation. We were really sitting on a hornets' nest and were beginning to fear the consequences.
Every new day brought with it further indication that real persecution was imminent. Today it was a very distraught woman, crying bitterly, "The Forest Department guard has confiscated my load of fire-wood. He also threatened to beat me if I bring you any more wood," she told James, in Hindi. It appeared that the real reason for her tears was the fear of her loss of pay because she had not been able to supply us with much-needed cooking fuel. When James paid her in spite of this, she was jubilant. "Nobody has ever treated me like this before," she said.
Rumours were circulating in the villages that we would not be allowed to purchase any more firewood. Also, we heard of a threat that, if anyone tried to help us cut a Jeep track from our camp near Champapur, to connect with the track on the other side of the border, ten miles to the north, there would be very serious trouble. Fortunately, the nights were warming up so really there was no further need for a campfire. That would save a lot of firewood but we still had to get at least enough for cooking. But how? It was becoming virtually impossible to carry in sufficient kerosene from Bhavnagar and Daulatapur to cook our food and boil our drinking water on a Primus stove.
But what really worried us was this new threat over the road. We had already come to believe that it would take a miracle to make even a simple Jeep track for ten miles through very difficult terrain, most of which was dense jungle. It would take a mighty miracle to make such a road without cutting down any trees, which was the gist of the final message from the Forest Department. As if to tantalize us, the guard had sent word through one of James' workers that he would permit us to make a road by cutting bushes only, but not a single tree!
This was like saying, "You can have your pound of flesh, but not one drop of blood"! Although I yearned to have a road from Bhavnagar to Karanja Camp, I knew it was just wishful thinking - an Impossible Dream - for which reason we tried to put from our minds all hopes of ever getting a road through to the border. Meanwhile, Lionel arrived back in Daulatapur by train from Nagpur. Loading the Dodge with essential supplies, he set off for Bhavnagar where James and I met him to confer about the immensity of our problems.
On another expedition, Lionel and Caroline succeeded in making some friendly contacts to the west of Champapur and not far from Baliganj on the road linking Aranchalganj, the capital of Surgapam, with Ramanupuri on the Bihar border. This site was not really suitable because our contacts - Laxshman and his relatives - were on the east side of the Kanahari River. This unbridged river was most treacherous and could only be crossed with 4 - wheel drive vehicles from March to early June and even then, with much apprehension. Lionel and Caroline thought they would attempt it. With the help of a large team of coolies who pegged down bamboo matting across the river and pushed the truck when it looked like bogging, they made it to the other side, but only just.
It now seemed that the dense Champapur jungle, the acrimonious Forest Dept. officials and the mighty Kanahari River would deprive our Surgapam program of all services by road vehicles. Porters and horses now appeared to be our only hope of maintaining communications with our established bases at Daulatapur and Bhavnagar. We had hoped that Lionel would give us a definite assurance that we would be free from further harassment, but what he found in Nagpur was anything but encouraging.
During the most crucial times of persecution, when we felt that our world would collapse around us, when nothing seemed to go right, I found it helpful to do something crazy, at least to help maintain a positive attitude. Something HAD to be done, if only to preserve our sanity. Could there be anything more stupid than to try cutting a road through the dense jungle from Bundi to Champapur without felling a single tree? This would be to tackle the impossible but I just had to do something that was at least potentially encouraging.
It was a full six weeks before Ruth, the children and I met together again as a family and during that period I spent with James in Surgapam, I was able to make several one-day return cycle trips from Champapur to Bundi. On each such ride, I searched for a possible track where we could squeeze a Jeep through without cutting a single tree. I figured that by taking a very circuitous route of about twenty miles in length, as against ten the crow would fly direct, we would somehow make our destination.
It was a completely idiotic venture but we desperately needed something to boost our morale. With the help of Bikram Babu, we managed to secure the permission of several farmers over whose private fields we would have to travel. We were now set to start blazing the trail. Assisted by about fifty men, we set out with very strict instructions to cut only bushes - not a single tree. The road could never be economically viable but it would be a beginning and Gordon Vincent Peale, the great Possibility Thinker, would have been proud of me!
Back and forth went the track, doubling upon itself numerous times. Round and round went the Jeep, in and out between the trees, the most serpentine road imaginable. Many of the bends were so sharp that it would never be possible for the Jeep to haul a trailer. In fact, short as a Jeep is, there were many bends, which had to be negotiated in several stages, using reverse and forward gears! Could anything be crazier? But we made it to Champapur without the loss of even one tree! We had penetrated this dark jungle with modern technology; we had made history! It was encouraging to believe that, what had been achieved on the physical level, was symbolic of what would eventually be accomplished in the moral and spiritual spheres.