HISTORY
OF CHRISTINITY UP TO 20 CENTURY AND ITS IMPACT, IN MEGHALAYA
1. INTRODUCTION
In
this assignment on ‘History of Christianity’ firstly, will bring out the brief general
background of Meghalaya. Secondly, it will follow up discussing on History of Christianity,
under the sub-points which will see Roman Catholic Mission, Serampore Mission, and
Welsh Presbyterian Mission. Thirdly,
brings the impacts on how this Meghalaya’s were been riches in many ways and
finally it ends up with conclusion.
2. BRIEF BACKGROUND OF MEGHALAYA
Meghalaya is a small state in
North-eastern India. The word “Meghalaya” literally means “The Abode of Clouds”
in Sanskrit and other India language. On the historic day of April 2, 1970, the
New State of Meghalaya was officially inaugurated. It
is a unique state not only in India but in the whole world for it being a home
to Khasi-Jaintia and Garo people of matrilineal descent. It
is a hilly strip in the eastern part of the country; the state is bounded on
the north by Assam and by Bangladesh on the South. The Capital is Shillong also
known as the Scotland of the East, which has a population of 260,000.
Meghalaya covers a total area of just
22,429km. It was originally part of Assam, but on 21 January 1972, the
districts of Khasi, Garo and Jaintia hills became the new state of Meghalaya.
The important crops of the state are potato, rice, maize, pineapple, banana
etc.
3. HISTORY OF CHRISTINITY
3.1 Roman Catholic
Mission
The earliest Christian contact with
NEI was made by the Roman Catholic missionaries in the 17th and the
18th centuries. They worked in Shillong and Garo hills in 1933.
Catholics have increased from 5,000 to 50,000. Today Catholic has established
their centers in all the North Eastern States.
Roman Catholic Mission began working in India in the fifteen century, but there
was only occasional contact with the North East prior to the nineteenth
century. Prior to 1890 there was only limited Roman Catholic contact with the
Khasi-Jaintia Hills. Shilling was contested between different Catholic orders
and jurisdictions, but the primary interest in it was as a health resort rather
than a mission field. After
established mission centres the Salesians began to undertake missionary
activities in new areas of both the hills and plains. In the Khasi hills they
began to give attention to the rural people, in addition to the previously
begun education work and in result it expanded. They also introduced technical
courses in various trades like handicrafts, tailoring, carpentry, shoe-making,
printing, composing, motor mechanics, book binding and electricity. Their
work began to show positive results so that after an intensive course of
instruction, the first Khasi were
received into the church on the 8th of December 1891. This was a
memorial and joyful for day for the Roman Catholic Mission. A small school was
also established in Shillong followed by a house for the sisters and orphanage
in a large mission compound. Apparently, everything was growing steadily in
spite of some difficulties and hindrances. But in1897, an unexpected setback
came with the great earthquake.
3.2
Serampore Mission
The Serampore mission was the first
to take the gospel to the Khasi people. William Carey through his teaching at
Fortt William College made acquaintance with many officials. The
first protestant missionaries to preach the Gospel in NEI were an India
Christian of the Baptist denomination, by the name Khrisna Pal who was sent by
the Serampore Mission. He preaches for several months at Pandua at the foot of
the Khasis Hills. He also converted seven persons and baptized them.
Also the decision made by Serampore to translate the Bible into the Khasi
language which started in 1813 itself. Since they didn’t have the alphabet,
they used the translation of Shella dialect and the Bengali script to
retranslate in Khasi. And it becomes an important milestone in the history of
the Khasi-Jaintia people for it was their first literature.
3.3
Welsh Presbyterian Mission
The beginning of Christian work among the
Khasi-Jaintia hill people go back to 1813 when Rev. K.C. Pal of the Serampore
Baptist Mission spent several months in the foothill of Khasi Hills. The
Christian work begins again in Khasi Hills when the first Welsh missionaries
entered Khasi-Jainttia Hills in 1841. Their work continued till the year 1969
when the last missionary left these hills.
The coming the Welsh mark the
history of the spread of Christianity in Khasi-Jainta Hills, in 1841 Thomas
Jones arrived as first missionary. By
1843, the residence of the Thomas Jones was shifted from Cherrapunji to
Nongsawlia hill, midway between the cantonment and the village. It was here,
that the first Khasi converts of the Welsh mission U Amor and U Rujon was
baptized on 8th March 18. That event marked the beginning of a permanently
established church in the Khasi-Jaintia hills, but other was slow to follow. By
early 1842, Jones decided to open three schools at Mawsmai, Mawmluh and
Cherrapunji. At the same time, he gathered a number of youths for instructions
in the mission house. The first teachers for the schools were selected from
among the young men, for Jones felt that the people needed to be educated and
then only, could the process of evangelization start as the people lived under
the influence of fear, superstition, ignorance and, sluggishness. In order to
feel the pulse, Jones accompanied by Captain Lewis visited the area south of
Cherrapunji where the Wars (one of the group belonging to the Khasi tribe) live
and also visited a market place in the Jaintia Hills; one year later, Jowai
turned out to be one of the main mission stations in Jaintia Hills. Eighteen
months after the arrival of the Jones, they were joined by Reverend and Mrs.
William Lewis and Dr. Owen Richards. Reverend and Mrs. Lewis undertook a few
translations which were to serve as texts in schools. For his preparation of
the First Khasi Reader a translation of the Welsh Catechism and Rhodd Mam or
Mother’s Gift into Khasi and its publication in 1842, may rightly be regarded
as the beginning of Khasi literature.
Jones known as the first missionary to be sent abroad, he replaced the Bengali
scrip with the Roman script. Using these he created the Khasi alphabet based on
the Sohara dialect, whom he known as “Father of the Khasi Alphabet.” By
the end of 19th century and early parts of the 20th
century the Welsh Presbyterian Mission had strongly established both church
structure and educational systems among the Khasis
and Jaintia.
In the years that followed the Khasi-Jaintia Presbyterian Church has been an
indigenous church and mission properties were being transferred to the church
and administration is absolutely in the hands of the Khasi leaders. Hence there
was a clear understanding by the missionaries that the more responsibility they
were giving to the indigenous leaders the more beneficial it would be for
strengthening the churches in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills.
Although the Welsh Mission, had laid
the foundations for the strategy to reach the Khasis with the Gospel, the years
between 1841-1845, could be said to be “fruitless years” in the sense that
there was not a single person baptized during the period. It was only on 8th
March 1846, that two Khasis U Amor and U Rujon were baptized. In 1850, the
first Christian marriage in the Khasi Hills was solemnized when ka Phuh married
U Luh, another convert. One of the main reasons for the slow pace of
proselytisation was due to the high standard of church membership expected of
converts.
3.4 Baptist Mission
In the 1860s the American Baptists also began their
work among the Garos. A School was started by a Political officer among the
Garos at Goalpara in 1847. Though the school didn’t last for very long, there
was a brighter side to it as the first two converts namely Omed and Ramkhe of
Watrepara village, were baptized in 1863. On 15th April 1867, Omed
was ordained as the first NEI miister and Rajasimla Christian were organized as
a church. Within a year the number of believers increased to 150 and by 1875
there were 400 members of the church. When
the American Baptist Mission was unable to find missionaries, the two resigned
their job, proceeded to Garo Hills, and began evangelistic work among the
people.
There was an attempt was made by the Baptist mission when Alexander B. Lish
only 18 years old, was sent to operate from Cherrapunji. The Headquarter of the
British government of the Khasi Hills, during that period was Cherrapunji. With
the help of a Khasi scholar U Laithat, Lish opened three schools, at Sohra,
Mawsmai and Mawmluh. The school at Cherrapunji, initially made great progress
with an average daily attendance being thirty-six but slowly dwindled. Lish’s
efforts to evangelize the Khasis did not apparently meet with any possible
success, except that two of his pupils U Duwan Rai and U Jungkha served as
language pundits for the first Presbyterian missionary Thomas Jones. Lish found
the Khasi people so steeped in ignorance as to make it almost impossible to
convert any religious ideas to them.
Furthermore, the organization of a Garo
Baptist Church was followed by the adoption of Garo Hills as the Mission field
of the American Baptist Mission.
The coming of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist mission and Baptist have built up
large churches and communities of the Garos, Khasi, Jaintia,
and marks the history of the spread of Christianity in Khasi and Jaintia Hills.
4. IMPACTS OF CHRISTIANITY ON KHASI CULTURE
History
of Christianity in India brings out that Orthodox Churches, Catholic Churches,
and Protestant Churches made greater impact on the growth of Christianity of
today,
however there are some specific of the impacts are mentioned in below:
4.1
Education, Language and Literature
Welsh mission has contributed to the
preservation of the Khasi langue and set the foundation for the Khasi
literature.
Before they didn’t have any written records or any type of formal education and
literature, for what they do was they had to use other written language such as
Bengali, Assamese, Persian and Devanagari. With the help of Thomas Jones of the
Welsh Presbyterian Mission it effects their contribution to tribal people of
Meghalaya until now. On 22nd June 1841, Thomas Jones arrived at
Cherrapunji as the first missionary to Khasi Hills. As he preached the gospel,
he found difficult to introduce primary education so that they can read and
sing hymns. He trained young men to be teachers and send them to different
places. The new alphabets were taught to the people.
4.2 Hygiene and Living
Condition
The
Welsh missionaries in the Khasi-Jaintia region encouraged Christian in
Meghalaya to establish such model village where better standards of hygiene
could be maintained. Therefore with the coming of Christianity in Meghalaya and
through various mission works, they were so profited to live healthy in many
ways; like building houses in distance to protect from fire, animals to keep in
a separate building, also have a separate latrine, most importantly to drink
only boiled water.
However, most importantly feature to be noted is that the rapid growth of the
Church and the transformation of people’s life is due mainly to the effectively
role played by the native leaders.
4.3 Intoxicants
M.C.
Manson pointed that in the village there were always a quarrel with one another
because for Garos tribe the drinking of rice beer was closely associated with
traditional religious festival and life style. Reporting
on the condition of the Churches in the Garo hills, M.C. Manson continues to
say that one Church has practically died from opium eating and lack of
teaching.
But with the coming of the missionaries in Meghalaya involving in them brought
a great impact to those people by transforming their life with the power of the
Gospel. So, giving it up was, therefore, as a sign of their faith commitment.
4.4.
Inheritance
According
to the tradition for Khasi, all poverties belong to the last female in the
family, but that was the problem faced by the early Khasi Christian. The issue is if an individual become a Christian
they will not received any inheritance. However, in 1850 Lord Dalhousie passed
an act to safeguard the rights of inheritance of those who became Christian in Khasi Jaintia Hills and in the whole of
India. This brought great relief to Khasi
Christians. Due to this a large number of Khasi
became Christians.
5. CONCLUSION
From
the above discussion it is clearly seen that the contribution of languages, and
various activities in the field of education and health care was another
contributed to the society as a whole. As we see from the beginning, Meghalaya is
beautiful state with sum of population but they were unknown to Christianity.
By 19th centuries they accepted the Christianity from well known Thomas
Jones and Welsh, they get attention and were influenced by those foreign
missionaries who introduced Christianity in Meghalaya which they could contact
in many ways generally education, included living moral life according to
Christian values, abstaining from using of alcoholic beverages and opium,
keeping one’s persons and living quarters clean, as well as living friendly
relationship in society.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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