DEVELOPMENT OF INDIA

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27064, 12 June 1953, Page 10

DEVELOPMENT OF INDIA

COMMUNIST GAINS FEARED MISSIONARY’S ACCOUNT OF PROBLEMS Economic conditions in India made it a fertile field for communism, said the Rev. M. R. Robinson, a Christ-church-born missionary and teacher who has been working in northern India since 1937, in an interview in Christchurch yesterday. There was marked inflation in India, he said. Wheat was four to five times dearer than pre-war, and grain was the staple diet of North India. The economic condition of the masses in India, and in fact throughout the East, constituted the world’s greatest threat to peace, said Mr Robinson. There was very definitely a need for widespread industrialisation to absorb labour, which “supersaturated” agriculture; but to ensure that people would not just be transferred to the cities to live in hovels, there would need be proper labour laws and wage provisions.

People in northern India had told him that communism was not very strong there, said Mr Robinson. At the last elections the Communists had had some successes, particularly in the south of India. Communism had its main following, not among the labouring classes, but among the intelligentsia and university students. However, the rural and industrial labourers were being awakened to their poor position. Mr Robinsori thought that before the next election there would be a swing to the Left. Opponents of Government The only groups at present offering political opposition to the Indian Goemment were the Communists and the Socialists, Mr Robinson said. The Socialists, who were anti-Communist, were the stronger, and if there was unity among the Socialist grouns, they might provide effective opposition at the next. elections.

Mr Robinson described thte present Indian administration as “moderate, non-sectarian and non-tommunal, in that they show no preference, for instance, in Government appointments, to any community.” In the Hindu State of India, there were still 30,000,000 Moslems, and though some of these did not feel nappy to be in India, the Constitution guaranteed all the human rights and freedoms, and to the extent of its ability, he believed that the present government was doing its best to carry out the aims of the constitution, said Mr Robinson. There were Hindu, Moslem, Sikh Ministers in the Government, and even a Christian Minister (a woman who was Minister of Health). An interesting thing about the constitution was that the chairman of the committee that had so much to do with its framing was Dr. Ambedkar, an outcast, said Mr Robinson. Decline of Caste System The Indian Government had made real progress in eliminating the caste system, Mr Robinson said. It was now’ teefial to Ptece anyone under a disability because of caste, and people had been prosecuted for such offences. “It still has to seep down into the rural areas,” he said, “but it says much for the Government that it has got as far as it has.” It appeared also that the authorities were getting somewhere with industrialisation, Mr Robinson- said. Five big hydro-electric schemes were being built. These would provide water for irrigation, in addition to power. One of the major problems confronting the Government was the widespread corruption which, if anything, had increased since the partition of the country, Mr Robinson said. An anticorruption bureau had been set up. As a result of partition, there had been a great influx of refugees into all the cities of northern India, he said. In the bazaars the streets were lined with little refugee shops, for many of the Hindu refugees had been shopkeepers and merchants before they left Pakistan. There had been an aftermath of bitterness among the refugees, who had been dispossessed of property and had lost relatives. In the Punjab, a fertile and highlydeveloped wheatgrowing area had been lost to Pakistan. Sikh farmers who had farmed scientifically had been driven out. Those who succeeded them had not been trained in agriculture, and Pakistan had not been able to make the maximum use of the land. Mr Robinson said partition had also

been accompanied by an increase in crime.

During these troubles the Christian Church had been able to render great service by virtue of its neutrality, said Mr Robinson. Help had been given to groups, irrespective of religion, through the Christian hospitals anc L sending semi-medical and medical teams to work in refugee camps.

The big movement that was now taking place in Protestant circles in India was toward an independent, indigenous church, responsible for the whole programme of Christian activity in India, Mr Robinson said. In a few years it was hoped that all foreign missions would be absorbed into the Indian church. A few months ago the Punjab Mission of the Presbyterian Church Of New Zealand, for which he had formerly worked, had handed its work over to the Indian church.

“I think the expansion of the Indian church will be largely dependent on its own invigoration when it feels its evangelistic responsibilities,” said Mr Robinson. In the past that had been left to. the foreign missionaries, who were in a sense professional evangelists.

Training of New Leaders Mr Robinson’s present task is to help to train the new Christian leaders of India at the North India United Theological College, Saharanpiir. Mr Robinson was born in Christchurch and was educated at the Christchurch Boys’ High School, the Christchurch Teachers’ Training College, and Canterbury University College, where he took an arts degree. From Knox Theological College, Dunedin, he went to India in 1937 to join the Punjab Mission of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. In order to undertake theological teaching, he joined the North India Mission of the Presbyterian Church of the United States in 1948.

Mr Robinson has been in the United States recently to study at the Princeton Theological Seminary. With his wife and family, he is now on furlough in New Zealand. Yesterday he arrived in Christchurch to visit his parents, Mr and Mrs W. M. Robinson.