Influencing Culture – Engineering, Economics and Health Care

We’ve already seen how 19th century missionary William Carey, rather than being a culture-destroyer, actually sought to strengthen and build the nation of India.

We saw how he sought to instill a ‘basic scientific presupposition’ into Indian thinking and how he even helped develop Botanical research in India.

In this post we are continuing Vishal Mangalwadi’s imaginary quiz amongst modern Indian university students about Carey’s identity.

So, in answer to the question ‘Who was William Carey?’ a student of Mechanical Engineering suggests:

Locally produced steam engines and locally made paper
‘William Carey was the first Englishman to introduce the steam engine to India!

‘Carey encouraged Indian blacksmiths to make copies of his engine using local materials and skills.’

He was also the first person to make indigenous paper for the publishing industry. (Mangalwadi, William Carey and the Regeneration of India, Good Books, Mussourie, p.1)

Fair and Honest Banking
‘William Carey was a missionary,’ announces an Economics Major, ‘who introduced the idea of Savings Banks to India, to fight the all pervasive social evil of usury.

‘Carey believed that God, being righteous, hated usury, and thought that lending at the interest of 36-72% made investment, industry, commerce and the economic development of India impossible.’ (ibid. p.2)

Compassionate Medical Care
Next a Medical student raises his hand: ‘William Carey was the first man who led the campaign for a humane treatment of leprosy patients.

Until his time they were sometimes buried of burned alive in India because of the belief that a violent end purified the body and ensured transmigration into a healthy new existence.

‘Natural death by disease was believed to result in four successive births, and a fifth as a leper.

‘Carey believed that Jesus’ love touches leprosy patients, so they should be cared for.’ (ibid. p.2-3)

The more we read about Carey the less he sounds like the caricature of a blundering insensitive colonial missionary, and the more he sounds like a man bringing the authentic love of God into peoples’ lives.

In the next post we’ll examine Carey’s commitment to developing printing technologies and a free press in India.

We’ll continue to examine Carey’s breathtaking efforts here

To see the first part of the William Carey story click here

© 2011 Church History Blog / Lex Loizides

Influencing Culture – Language and Science

William Carey, the so-called Father of Modern Missions gave his allegiance first to Jesus Christ. Then he gave his allegiance to Jesus’ Mission. Finally, he gave his allegiance to the peoples of India.

The somewhat outdated and negative view of the missionary has at least got one thing right: the missionary was indeed trying to influence culture.

Missionaries – the spoilers of Culture
The negative view has them destroying local culture and manipulating the indigenous population, making them dress and behave like foreigners in order to make them passively submit to a Western colonial agenda. The idea of ‘God’ was the most powerful tool in their manipulative process.

At best these Victorian missionaries are viewed as naïve and under the spell of the ‘Empire’ themselves – at worst, deliberately undermining and destroying the innocent culture of an unspoilt people.

Preserving and Promoting Local Languages
In the last post we saw how one brilliant Indian intellectual viewed the missionary work of William Carey, particularly as it related to Carey’s desire to put the Bible into the hands of Indian people. We saw how the careful translation work of the Bible actually helped preserve local languages in India.

Mangalwadi notes how Bengali, the language Carey worked so hard to formalise for the purpose of translating the Bible, is, today, the only Indian language which ‘has the pride of earning a Nobel Prize for literature, for Rabinda Nath Tagore’s ‘Gitanjali’. (Mangalwadi, William Carey and the Regeneration of India, p.81)

Quoting SK De, he adds, ‘it was Carey and his missionary colleagues who ‘raised the language from the debased condition of an unsettled dialect to the character of a regular and permanent form of speech.’’ (SK De, Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century, quoted by Mangalwadi, ibid. p.81)

Carey’s Quiz – What Did Carey Do?
Mangalwadi proposes a quiz to the best-informed Indian students at an All-India Universities Competition. The simple question is: ‘Who was William Carey?’

Carey – the Scientist, the Botanist
‘William Carey was the botanist after whom Careya herbacea is named. It is one of the three varieties of Eucalyptus, found only in India.

‘Carey brought the English daisy to India and introduced the Linnaean system to gardening. He also published the first books on science and natural history in India such as ‘Flora Indica’…Carey believed that nature is declared ‘good’ by its Creator; it is not ‘maya’ (illusion), to be shunned, but a subject worthy of human study.

He frequently lectured on science and tried to inject a basic scientific presupposition into the Indian mind that even lowly insects are not souls in bondage, but creatures worthy of our attention.’ (ibid. p.1)

We’ll continue Carey’s Quiz next time. Click here for the next post

For the first part of the William Carey story click here

© 2011 Church History Blog / Lex Loizides