463 - Between Birmingham and India

Between Birmingham and India
By Roger Hooker

FROM 1965 until l978, I served as a missionary with the Church Missionary Society (Anglican) in North India. During that period a social revolution took place in Britain, the consequences of which we are only slowly beginning to assimilate. Considerable numbers of immigrants from the West Indies and from the Indian sub-continent came and settled in this country. So, for the first time, white British Christians can find themselves living literally next door to people of different race, culture, or religion.

The presence of flourishing black independent churches, so very different in ethos from white mainline churches, makes us newly aware of the fact that our own faith is closely-perhaps too closely tied to our own culture. Many people still assume that to be white, British, and Christian are all part of the same package.

Most searching of all, we are now being compelled to work out a theology of religions. What do we say to the white Christian whose Sikh neighbors get up at 5 a.m. every morning, whatever the weather or the temperature and walk to the temple for two hours of meditation before they begin the day's work? This whole issue affects me personally for I am still a CMS missionary. But now we live in a house provided by the Anglican Diocese of Birmingham with our home in Smethwick, one of the main areas of Asian settlement in central England. Our next-door neighbors are a Sikh family who at the last school half-term flew to Miami, taking two of their children's white school friends with them.

An essential part of my ministry is keeping in touch with India to which I make regular return visits. What follows is the account of the last one, made in February 1984.

I

I spent five weeks in India, from the end of January, 1984, until the beginning of March, and I stayed in five different places. On this journey, my aim was to deepen and enrich my own experience by

Roger Hooker served for nearly fifteen years as a missionary in India with the Church (Anglican) Missionary Society. He is still associated with the Church of England, now on mission to the growing Asian and West Indian population in the British midlands, living in Smethwick just outside industrial Birmingham. On a recent return visit to India, he found many things changed and many still the same. His companion and co-worker these many years, Pat Warren Hooker, is the daughter of the late Max A.C. Warren, past GeneraI Secretary of the CMS, known and respected in his day throughout the world. This theological travelogue, by the way, comes to us from F.W. Dillistone of Oxford, who, among other things, has written a biography of his good friend, Into All the World: A Biography of Max Warren (1980).

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meeting Hindus and Sikhs, to explore some of the new movements, mainly based on gurus, which have a considerable influence on Asians in Britain, and to discover more about the current situation in the Punjab which impinges very closely on the lives of many of our friends in Smethwick.

On the way to Amritsar, the capital of the Punjab, we flew over the western Himalayas. Their stark magnificence always takes my breath away, and this time I looked down on them with more than usual attention, for much of my stay in India was to be spent under their shadow. Over the previous six months, I had also seen three TV programs in which they figured in different ways. The first of these was one of David Attenborough's new series on the different environments of the earth. The second, The Fragile Mountain, was an award-winning film about Nepal's ecological crisis which is also the crisis of most of the Indian side of the mountains. Population pressures are leading to rapid deforestation of the hills, and so the monsoon rains wash away the topsoil. This has two disastrous effects. The hill dwellers can no longer grow enough food, and there is nothing to restrain the waters as they rush down to the plains where the flooding is therefore more devastating every year. The third film was very different, a most sensitive and beautiful documentary about a group of pilgrims from Gujarat in Western India. The cameras followed them from Hardwar to Rishikesh (where I was to spend some time) and then up into the mountains along the ancient pilgrim trail to Badrinath and Gangotri, the source of the river Ganges. The pilgrims' outer journey is the enactment in symbolic terms of a journey within, to the source of their own being.

II

My first stop was in Rajpur at the Christian Retreat and Shidy Center. Rajpur is a settlement on a spur of the hills, about 4,000 feet above sea level. It has not made up its mind whether to be a large village or a small town. Many of its houses are derelict and in ruins-the homes and shops of Muslims who fled to Pakistan, or who failed to make it, in 1947. Some of these and some newer houses are now occupied by Tibetan refugees and their children. They fled from the Chinese invasion in 1959. So this little place, with its sleepy fly-brown main street, winding untidily up the bill, is a vivid symbol of some of those great shifts in population which are so much a feature of our contemporary world, and which lie at the root of so many of our current perplexities and opportunities.

The Director of the Study Center is a remarkable Christian from Hyderabad in South India. He is a Christian convert from Hinduism. Many Christian converts reject their own background, but Shyam Rao has not done this and so is able to enjoy good relationships with the Hindu ashrams in the neighborhood. Recently, some newly arrived missionaries came to the Center for a week's orientation course. Shyam

465 - Between Birmingham and India

Rao asked a scholar from one of the ashrams, a man called Kaka Hari Om, to come and speak to them about Hinduism. After his address, one of the missionaries said to him "Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation." To this he received the characteristic Hindu reply: "I am glad to know that you have experienced salvation through Jesus Christ, and I would not dream of asking you to change your religion, but I have had the same experience through Hinduism."

Shyam Rao commented that he can share neither the "absolutism" of the missionaries with its implication that nothing of God is to be found outside Christianity, nor the "relativism" of the Hindu with the implication that all religions are of equal worth. He thus finds himself in the same position as a great number of thoughtful and sensitive Christians today as they meet people of other faiths. He holds to the distinctiveness of Christ and of the Christian faith, and yet feels he must welcome and affirm all that is good in the other traditions.

A second ashram stands on a mound just behind the Study Center. Shyam Rao has won the confidence of the people there and has in fact written a brief biography of the founder which the ashram has itself published as a pamphlet.

When I first visited Rajpur, fifteen years ago, there was nothing to disturb the idyllic calm of the place, but now that has all changed. The quiet has been changed into incessant grinding noises and large tracts of the mountainside are scarred and bare. Stone quarrying is now big business in the mountains because of the building boom which is one of the byproducts of the population explosion. Happily, the government has now imposed strict limits on the quarrying, but it still goes on. The locals dislike it, but the quarry owner is ruthless and has all the local officials, including the police, in his pocket. A man who dared to put his name to a petition of protest was quietly warned one day: "These quarry lorries can be very dangerous on the roads."

When those with no spiritual values have control of modern technology the results can be devastating. There seems to be an intimate link between inward barrenness of spirit and acts of outward vandalism against nature--a kind of parody of pilgrimage where the world within and the world without are both sacred.

Shyam Rao is in touch with two groups of Gandhian Hindus who are doing what they can to save the mountains and their environment. I sensed here the poverty of my own and of so much contemporary Christianity which is deeply concerned with people and yet neglects the rest of God's creation.

It is easy to get sentimental about Hindu ashrams, but the one just mentioned happens to own the land where the quarries are. The quarry owner is on the ashram's board of governors and has plenty of money to keep everyone happy. The ashram leader is quite content with this state of affairs. All he wants to do is keep the ashram going and so maintain his own position.

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III

I took leave of Shyam Rao and his remarkable family after my first two weeks and travelled by bus to Rishikesh. The town is built along the banks of the Ganges a few miles before it finally emerges from the hill onto the plains of India. It is a place of breathtaking natural beauty-no stone quarries here, but dozens of ashrams, for it has for centuries been a place of pilgrimage. I had hoped to stay at one of these, the headquarters of The Divine Life Society, a modern reformist group. But I was informed, very courteously, that I should have written a month in advance, instead of a mere ten days. So I retired instead to the government tourist facility, consoling myself with the thought that at least there would be more creature comforts there.

This proved a good move in other ways for just next door was the Kailash Ashram, a very orthodox outfit, devoted to the study and propagation of Sanskrit and of the works of the great Shankaracharya (a Hindu monk and thinker of the ninth century A.D. whose intellectual power and impact on Hinduism have often been compared to that of Thomas Aquinas in the Catholic tradition). This place has the reputation of being more than a little cool toward foreigners, but this foreigner who can speak Hindi and who knows Sanskrit was welcomed with open arms.

A friendly monk from the deep south took me under his wing. He showed me a new hostel for Sanskrit students which is being built-the entire cost being born by one man, who is also paying the entire running costs of the ashram for a whole year.

The monk took me to see the boss of the outfit and his deputy. Before both men, he touched the ground with his head. This was a bit much for me, so I bowed deeply and hoped this was not considered too disrespectful.

The following day was the ashram's annual jamboree-lots of speeches in Hindi, and I was invited to make one, too, which I did. Here was a Hinduism vigorous, deep-rooted, and self-confident, and as far as I could make out, untouched in any way by Christianity. It would be a first-class place to come for Sanskrit study.

After three days I was able to leave the tourist bungalow for the Divine Life Society which kindly allowed me, and one or two other stray Westerners, to stay for two days. The pilgrim route up into the mountains is closed by snow from October to May, so this was the closed season. I had a room to myself. It contained three wooden beds, three Indian style duvets, and, quite literally, nothing else. In the dining room, one sat on the floor in line with everyone else, eating tasteless South Indian food (rice, watery lentils, damp cabbage, and more rice) with one's fingers. Meals were silent, so one was able to meditate on the improving texts written on the walls: "Do good." "Be good." "Do not waste food." "Silence please." "No Admission" (over a doorway). After my first meal, I meekly followed the crowd to the washing-up place that was through the doorway marked "No admission."

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I sat in on several devotional sessions and browsed in the large library. There were many books in English and in all the main Indian languages and some books by Christian authors-St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich. There must have been fifty or sixty Hindu monks in residence. I was greeted again and again by a friendly and joyful smile. "You are most welcome," they said, and I felt they meant it. It was an impressive atmosphere-serious, relaxed, and happy. I had a talk with a splendid old man called Swami Brahmananda. His radiant, warm, and deeply simple personality will live with me for a long time.

There was less scholarship but probably more devotion here than at the Kailash Ashram. At each place were numbers of lay, people Who had come more or less on retreat. In their very different ways both places had a great deal to offer for anyone exploring Hinduism. With hindsight I can see that I could have done better to spend one week at Rajpur and at least two here.

IV

Leaving Rishikesh, I took a two-hour bus journey down-stream to Hardwar. Here the Ganges finally meets the plains. This is the place where the great pilgrim route begins. It is also the place where many Hindus come to immerse the bones of their recently cremated family in the Ganges. I watched many of them performing this ceremony under the instruction of the priests. After they have done so, they are supposed to take a bath in the river. Many did so, but one young man in a lounge suit just rolled up his trousers and paddled around a bit.

In Hardwar, I stayed in a rest house for pilgrims run by a splendid and venerable Sikh, aged, so he told me, ninety-one. He is the uncle of some friends in Smethwick. A man of great simplicity and devotion, he is equally at home in the Sikh or Hindu scriptures. He has no children of his own, and his wife died in l937. But several families live at the rest house: "These are my children," he says, "why should I want any of my own?" He is a refugee from Pakistan, and the entire costs of the ashram are borne by a refugee business man in Delhi. Every day about forty monks troop in solemnly for a free meal.

A fine young Sikh took me for a walk along the river's edge. We visited an astonishing array of vast, expensive, and glarish new temples and ashrams. One of these was devoted to "Mother India." Mrs. Gandhi came to its dedication. It is seven stories high and from a distance looks like a Hilton hotel. The impression is not diminished when one goes inside. Each floor has a gallery of images, some of modern leaders, including Gandhi. My Sikh guide commented: "I do not think Gandhi would like to be here. He was a friend of the poor." Today the monks or sadhus wear drip-dry saffron robes, many of them speak English and travel to America and other places. The ashrams are equipped with all modern conveniences, and there is a place reserved for Western enquirers called "Seekers' Trust."

Religion is big business in Hardwar, but one young Hindu said to me:

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"I think these big new temples are only for show." It is easy to make superficial judgments on a short visit. One remarkable place we looked at was a school for the blind, run by a formidable, but most courteous Hindu nun. The place was clean, efficient, and happy. Christian missionaries brought the ideal of social service to India, but Hindus now in many ways oustrip the church.

V

I stayed in Hardwar for three days and then took yet another bus to Muzaffarnagar, which has the highest per capita income of any city in India. Here I stayed with a Sikh doctor and his family. He happens to be the father-in-law of Pat's friend Porbinder at the Smethwick temple. Now I was able to enjoy some middle-class comforts-the first hot water-, and it was good to enjoy meat and eggs, for both Hardwar and Rishikesh are strictly vegetarian zones. Whiskey before supper was a nice extra touch.

Dr. Ratra is a splendid old patriarch. He begins the day with two hours in the family prayer room. "I used to get up at 3:45 a.m., but since I have developed angina, I get up an hour later." He then walks to the nearby -gurdwara- where he spends an hour. He comes home for breakfast at nine and then goes to his clinic.

VI

My final long bus trip took me to Delhi where I stayed for nine days at the Brotherhood of the Ascended Christ. It was a relief to be on familiar territory and above all to live according to a familiar routine. Delhi is expanding at a fantastic rate. The noise is incessant, and "getting about" is a hazardous business. According to statistics, it is the most dangerous city in the world in which to travel. More than 1200 people are killed in road accidents every year.

Where I now live, in Smethwick, the Sant Nirankari Mandal are very active. I was able to visit their headquarters in Delhi and was given half a dozen Hindi booklets (they refused to accept payment) about them. There is considerable tension between this group and the Sikhs. Indeed, the brother of the leader in Smethwick was shot in India last year by a Sikh extremist.

I spent a night out at Shahidnagar, one of Delhi's vast new suburbs where a member of the Brotherhood, Fr. Amos Rajanomey has started a remarkable and courageous new project. When he first arrived, the local Hindus and Muslims thought he was only interested in converting them, but now he is beginning to build up relations of trust and friendship. He has started a number of projects, but all of them at the request of and run by the local people themselves. These include a school, a creche for working mothers to leave their children, a dispensary, and a community health project. He has just built a small chapel but given it no Christian symbols. When people ask about conversion he replies: "I want to convert the life of this area." They like that.