CASTE – MISSIONARIES, CONVERSIONS & SOME INTERESTING INSIGHTS.

ABBE J.A DUBOIS  had been in India, as a missionary under the guidance of the Missions Etrangeres, Paris, from 1792 to 1823. He was ordained in the diocese of Viviers in 1792, at the  age of twentyseven, and left  France in the same year. On reaching India in 1792 he was attached to the Pondicherry Mission; and for the first few years he seems to have laboured in what are now the Southern Districts of the Madras Presidency.

The Abbe in a letter dated Aug 7, 1815 to W.J.Esq Mysore, states that Christianity of the Catholic  persuasion  was first introduced into India a little more than threehundred years ago; at the epoch of the Portugese invasions. ie. early 1500’s. One of the first missionaries was the famous St.Francis Xavier, a Spanish  Jesuit, known under the appellation of the Apostle of India .The Abbe says  that Xavier  ‘is said to have made  many thousand converts,’ which includes the ‘caste of fishermen at Cape Comorin’.After  him, ‘jesuits  were sent from every catholic country to India, to forward the interests of the gospel’.

The Abbe says that these Jesuits ‘insinuated’ themselves into the Hindu society , and ‘made a great number of converts  among ALL CASTES of Hindoos. The Abbe claims that he had seen ‘authentic lists’ made up about seventy years ago, ie lists compiled around 1745, showing the number of native Christians region-wise. In the Marawa region it is about 30,000, in the Madura region  above 1,00,000, in the Carnatic 80,000, and in Mysore 35,000. He informs the readers that by 1815, ‘hardly a third of this number is to be found in these districts respectively’.He further states that (quote)‘ I have heard that the number of converts was still much more  considerable  on the other coast, from Goa to Cape Comorin; but of these I never saw authentic lists.’ From the figures provided by the Abbe, after the first wave of conversions beginning with the  early part of  year 1500, though the Missionaries could win over a sizeable number of converts, all such natives who got converted  subsequently apostatized  and went back to their old faith. Thus the FIRST PHASE of Missionary Enterprise from 1500 to 1800 ended in abject failure.

A note about the word ‘insinuation’. In another letter written on 16^th Nov. 1816, the Abbe has mentioned that like the Jesuit missionaries before him , he himself adopted the tactic of  ‘insinuating’ himself amongst the Hindus. (p.87, 130)“An insinuation is a sly way of saying something, usually something insulting. It can also be a way of worming your way into a group or situation. "You're dumb!" is an insult. An insinuation is different: it's a way of indirectly saying something. Insinuation evolved from the Latin insinuationem, meaning "entrance through a narrow way.” So an insinuation is like an insult that sneaks in the back door. Mentioning that your cousin could try harder in school could be an insinuation that your cousin’s lazy. Another kind of insinuation is when someone, often through flattery, gets herself accepted by others. Both kinds of insinuations are sneaky.” https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/insinuation

In spite of the worming his way into the society of Hindus, and winning their confidence, he could make only a few INFERIOR converts. Amongst the Hindus in S.India , he was like

a Trojan horse. (Trojan horse -( b ) fig. a person, device, etc., deliberately set to bring about an enemy's downfall or to undermine from within.-Oxford Dict.) But, ultimately  his efforts got thwarted, and he came to the conclusion that it is futile attempting to convert the Hindus, and those who got converted and embraced Christianity, had done so not because of any conviction regarding the tenets of that religion, but did so out of ‘material and marriage’ considerations, and such individuals were mostly Pariahs or the scum of society. The Abbe’s own confessional  words are given in the following quote.

  Quote from the book "Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore ":- “The Abbé Dubois makes the following remarks: "During the long period I have lived in India, in the capacity of a missionary, I have made with the assistance of a native missionary, in all between two and three hundred converts of both sexes. Of this number two-thirds were Pariahs or beggars, and the rest were composed of Sûdras, vagrants, and outcasts of several tribes, who, being without resource, turned Christians in order to form new connections, chiefly for the purpose of marriage, or with some other interested views. Among them are  to be found some also who believed themselves to be possessed by the devil, and who turned Christians after having been assured that on their  receiving baptism the unclean spirits would leave them, never to return; and I will declare it, with shame and confusion, that I do not remember any one who may be said to have embraced Christianity from conviction, and through quite disinterested motives. Among these new converts many apostatized, and relapsed into Paganism, finding that the Christian religion did not afford them the temporal advantages they had looked for in embracing it; and I am verily  ashamed, that the resolution I have taken to declare the whole truth on this subject forces me to make the humiliating avowal, that those who continued Christians are the very worst among my flock."—DR. ALLEN'S India, p. 522.

EXCERPT FROM

Robert H. Elliot. “Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore.” iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Robert H.Elliot had  cited  the above paragraph (as a footnote), in the chapter titled ‘Caste’ of his book  ‘Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore.”. He informs us that it appeared in Dr.Allen’s book ,India. Originally these words of Abbe is from his book “Letters on the State of Christianity  in India”  first published at London in 1823. (p.134) . (This resource at present is freely available on the net.)

These men, ie.the missionaries, who consider themselves as  agents of God, if we care to notice, are not of pure heart and they do not profess any unconditional love. The word ‘insinuation’ used  by the Abbe, numerous times in his writings and correspondences , constantly reminds us of this fact.

Abbe J.A Dubois - A Missionary's Account of CASTE.

Excerpts from a book written in 1820 before caste consciousness became polarized to the extent we see now :-

“ For my part, having been in a situation to observe the character of the Hindus and having lived amongst them for many years, as a friend, I have formed an opinion upon this subject(about caste) altogether opposite. I consider the institution of castes amongst the Hindu nations as the happiest effort of their legislation; and I am well convinced that if the people of India never sunk into a state of barbarism, and if, when almost all Europe was plunged in that dreary gulf, India kept up her head, preserved and extended the sciences, the arts and civilization; it is wholly to the distinction of castes that she is indebted for that high celebrity.

We have it in our power to form some judgment of what the Hindus would degenerate to, if the restraint of the division , the rules and the police of castes were abolished, by considering what the Pariahs of India are; who, being exempt from all restrictions of honour and shame, which so strongly influence the other castes, can freely and without reserve abandon themselves to their natural propensities.

 

Every man who carefully considers the character and conduct of such a class of men as this, being the most numerous of all, I think will agree with me, that a state consisting entirely of such members could not long endure, and could not fail to decline very quickly into the worst degree of barbarism. For my own part, who know the inclinations and sentiments of this species of men, I am persuaded that a nation of Pariahs, left to themselves, would speedily become worse than the hordes of cannibals that wander in the deserts of Africa, and would soon fall to the devouring of each other. (Comment here of Rev.G.U.Pope who had translated this book from the French original –“ I do not imagine that Pariahs will, on the whole, be found to be more immoral in their habits than any other tribe of  Hindus”)

I am no less convinced, that the Hindus if they were not restrained within the bounds of decorum and of subordination by means of the castes, which assign to every man his employment, and by regulations of police suited to each individual; but were without any curb  fit to check them, or any motive for applying one, would soon become what the Pariahs are, or worse; and the whole nation sinking of course into the most fearful anarchy, India, from the most polished of all countries, would become the most barbarous of any upon earth. (Comment by G.U.Pope here – “Some of the Abbe’s statements, ( and the general experience of Europeans confirms them) seem to shew that the Hindus are far from being among the most polished nations of the earth.”)

The legislators of India set out from that grand principle which  has been recognized by all the ancient legislators , that no man is to be permitted to be useless to the commonwealth. But they saw, at the same time, that the people for whom they acted were naturally so indolent,(aversion to work or exertion) and that this propensity was so greatly aggravated by the climate, that unless every individual  had a profession or employment rigidly imposed, the state could not exist, but must quickly tumble into the most deplorable anarchy, and end in savage barbarism.

Those legislators, being also well aware of the danger of all innovations in matters political or spiritual, and being desirous to establish durable and inviolable rules for the different castes into which they divided the Hindu people, could find no surer basis of an orderly government than the two grand foundations of religion and policy.” (pages 10 & 11, of the book  ‘Character, Manners & Customs of the People of India and of their institutions Religious & Civil’   written in 1820 in French by the Abbe J.A. Dubois, Missionary in the Mysore, With Notes, Corrections and Additions by Rev.G.U.Pope)