KALI CHARAN BANURJI sometimes suggested, with a poignant sense of disappointment, that Indian Christians as a body have not brought themselves into full accord with national aspirations and ideals. But if we analyse this statement we shall discover how superficial it is. In the first place, no Indian community as such has, in its entirety, subscribed to the political ideals that are being formulated and asserted in the India of to-day with an increasing degree of dignity and self-consciousness. In fact, political thinkers and leaders have found it an uphill task, even among Hindus and Moslems, the two dominant sister com munities, to swell the number of those that have broken away from petty, parochial, communal ideas and from the pursuit of self-interest. The conversion of the All-India Moslem League to the ideals of the Congress party, in itself the happiest augury of the times, is only a matter of recent growth. Even among the Hindus, who have contri buted the ablest and most outstanding leaders to the national cause, it would be inaccurate to say that every educated member is in full agreement with the ideal of Home Rule, for instance.
All that might be legitimately pointed out is that Indian Christians have not given to the national cause the number of thinkers and leaders, as might have been expected from a community that has publicly repudiated the evils that hamper national unification and which, therefore, ought, in consist ency, to be politically progressive. But when we remember that an overwhelmingly large percentage of the converts consists of men and women that have been kept under, through the centuries, denied opportunities for education and culture and are to-day in economic dependence on foreign missionary enterprise, we shall have formed some idea of the difficulties that beset their path. Besides, even in the most progressive countries in the West, the politicians have, in the past, almost invariably sprung from the leisured classes, or the go-ahead middle class. So that it is hardly reasonable to point the finger of scorn at the converted pariahs in India, that they do not keep abreast of the most progressive movements, just as it would scarcely be reasonable to pour ridicule on honest, hard-working chimney-sweepers or green-grocers that they do not take sufficiently intelligent interest in Mr. Fisher's
Education Bill. How can they with their hands full of the immediate needs of the hour and the grim struggles for mere existence ? As Mr. Justice Abdur Rahim rightly points out in his Minority Report—appended to the Report of the Royal Islington Commission—that as many of the Indian Christian community as are politically arti culate are in the fullest sympathy with the ideals of their fellow-countrymen, it is obvious that among them there is no paucity of men with vision and ideals : only such men are mainly recruited from the better classes, conventionally so-called ; men, moreover, with education and capacity for thinking and with their status in life secure and guaranteed against financial dependence on people that may be critical of Indian views. It has been the writer's privilege to see on the Congress platform, from year to year, a large number of lawyers, doctors, professors, and men belonging to other walks of life, and to the Christian Community, sent as delegates by their Hindu and Muhammadan brethren, especially from Madras and Bengal.
Among the politicals that the Christian community has produced, Kali Charan is the most prominent, not only because of his complete identification with and life-long loyalty to the Indian cause, but also by reason of his persistent refusal to allow Westernisation in manners to stand in the way of unhindered social intercourse with his friends. An Indian to the back bone, Kali Charan always strove to raise the general tone of public life in Calcutta, and his intense spiritual earnestness, combined with suave manners and an unimpeachable character, lent especial weight to his advocacy of Indian demands. He even strove to the best of his ability to nationalise the Indian Church and rid it of financial and intellectual depend ence on the West, and his short-lived Christo-Samaj (Church of Christ) was a brilliant experiment along placing corporate religious life on Indian founda tions. From its very inception Kali Charan was the chief guiding spirit of the National Missionary Society, which sprang up under the impetus of the Nationalist spirit, as the community was overborne with the conviction that spiritual autonomy and control of religious organisations under Indian auspices was just as important as asserting right ful political claims.