In the Shadow of the Mahatma

by Harper, Susan Billington

• ISBN13: 9780700712328
• ISBN10: 0700712321
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-02-17
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This is a biography of Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah (1874-1945), bishop of the Anglican Church in India from 1912 until his death in 1945. His life sheds new light on the challenges and opportunities faced by religious minorities throughout the world today. As a Christian leader in a non-Christian culture, he negotiated complex cultural, social, political, and economic pressure with exceptional skill and diplomacy. As the first Indian bishop of an Anglican diocese, and as modern India's most successful leader of depressed class and non-Brahmin conversion movements to Christianity, Azariah was equally at home with the untouchables of rural India and the unreachables of the British Empire. From this platform Azariah inevitably came into contact - and, ironically, also into conflict - with the dominating presence of Mahatma Gandhi. Susan Billington Harper here reconstructs major events and issues of Azariah's public life, including a previously unstudied controversy with Gandhi over the issue of conversion and relgious freedom in the 1930s. Based on hitherto untapped primary sources, including diocesan records and vernacular oral histories expressed in both stories and songs, this fascinating volume not only provides the first critical study of Bishop Azariah's life but also offers important - at times challenging - insights for those interested in modern India and the place of Christianity within it.

Author Biography

Susan Billington Harper is currently program officer for religious scholarship at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was a lecturer at Harvard University in history and literature and in expository writing from 1992 to 1996. She earned a B.A. from Yale University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes scholar.

Table of Contents

Maps and Illustrations	p. ix
Abbreviations	p. xi
A Note on Transliteration	p. xiv
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
The Rise	p. 9
Local Background: Secure Roots and a Spiritual Core	p. 11
Pan-Asian Ecumenism: A Vision beyond Nations	p. 36
Indigenous National Base: A Nonpolitical Missionary	p. 67
The Reign	p. 91
Bishop in the British Empire: Church-State Conflict under the Raj	p. 93
Bishop in the Indian Church: Race and Identity Formation	p. 138
Bishop in Andhra: Local Transformation through Conversion	p. 176
The Resolutions	p. 221
Overcoming Divisions in Christendom	p. 223
Overcoming Caste and Culture in India	p. 244
The Rift	p. 289
The Conflict with Gandhi and Political Nationalism	p. 291
Conclusion	p. 353
Bibliography	p. 367
Primary Materials
Manuscripts	p. 367
Interviews	p. 373
Letters	p. 376
Azariah's Publications	p. 379
Henry Whitehead's Publications	p. 391
Printed Primary Sources	p. 393
Secondary Sources
Works about Azariah	p. 408
Printed Secondary Sources	p. 411
Index	p. 443
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