India has become ‘second home’ to Eric Baigent

Press, 11 July 1980, Page 13

India has become ‘second home’ to Eric Baigent

Bv

KARREN BEANLAND

“India is like a wayward child,’’ says Mr Eric Baigent, who left his job in a Manchester Street bookshop 14 years ago to become a missionary in India.

He is the only European resident in Vijayawada, a South Indian city of nearly 500,000 people. He is visiting New Zealand until September to report on his mission.

Explaining his attachment to the country, Mr Baigent says: “You see so many things that are wrong with the place. Yet I don’t know of any other country that draws people back in the same way that India does.”

Mr Baigent went to India after hearing that the Church Missionary Society was looking for somebody to open a bookshop in Vijayawada because the only other bookshops were communistrun.

“There was a need for something a bit more secular that would provide Christian books as well,” he says.

After being accepted by C.M.S. he had some theological training and attended an orientation course in Melbourne. He arrived in India in 1966.

Mr Baigent says his work has taken him into many facets of life in India. Being part of the “wall-paper” in Vijayawayda he also gets a new perspective on Western culture.

As the city is on a major railway junction between Madras and Calcutta, and is only 12 miles from one of the oldest centres of Buddhism, many y.oung Westerners on the search for drugs and “guru chasers” pass through. Many of them end up on Mr Baigent’s doorstep. He believes that many people who travel to India in search of a better way of life make a fundamental mistake.

“Young people see things around them in society they think are wrong. They think the faults are an off-shoot of the system here and think the Eastern way may be better,” he says. “They are seeing the ideologies of the East in comparison with the realities of the West. When they get to the East they find the reality is filth and squalor. The thing is, you have to compare two realities.”

Mr Baigent says that when they come to see the realities, they are often on the way to “finding” themselves. He meets many who are ready to return to the West to try again.

He has kept in touch with some of those who have returned home, and says they are better off for their experience. Several years ago he answered their invitations to go to Europe to see them — the trip cost him only £l2O because his friends insisted on paying for him.

Less happily, the young Western tourists have tainted Indian opinions of Westerners. In Indian films, to mark any woman out as a harlot, she is simply dressed in Western clothes. Mr Baigent says that New Zealanders do not

have a good idea of what life is like in India. The media gives an inaccurate view of events. Indian family life and society are both very stable. Where problems occur, it is in the urban areas, not in the country. Eighty per cent of the people live in rural areas, yet it is always the problems of the urban areas that are reported. Mr Baigent admits he has always been an “avid” supporter of Mrs Indira

Ghandi, even though as a missionary he is not supposed to have political opinions. “India is a very politically aware country, so you can’t help but have opinions,” he adds. The Western press, he says, did not report that the 1975 state of emergency resulted in a great deal more freedom for the major part of the Indian population. He is critical that while measures such as the state of emergency were featured in the press, events such as Mrs Ghandi’s land-slide victory earlier this year only ranked a mention.

Mr Baigent is also critical of American interference in Indian affairs. The campaign of the opposition party in 1977 was too “well-oiled” for Indian politics. “America is fond of saying that Mrs Ghandi leans towards the left, but they don’t add that America has pushed her to the left.” As an example, he quotes how President Nixon refused aid for Indian refugees. Mrs Gandhi was forced to go to Russia to find the help. Mr Baigent’s support for Mrs Gandhi comes from his belief that she understands her country. “I have heard criticism of her here because the rate of progress in India is not fast enough. But I think

she is right to keep the rate of progress at a manageable level.” “A coolie is not as efficient as a fork lift, but the coolie would never be i able to cope with modern , equipment. If modern equipment was introduced, he would be put out to grass but in a grassless field because he would have no way to support himself. So you would also have to supply aid to support him. i “Mrs Gandhi under-

stands her country. A political system has to evolve for the nation and fit in with the values of its culture.”

Mr ■ Baigent says that democracy as we know it is alien to the thought patterns of Indian society. There is no word in India for our concept of a political opponent — the nearest word is enemy. Another misconception about life in India is that the people are wretched with poverty. Mr Baigent says they are a happy people. He believes that, with its stability in social and family life, the Western world could have much to learn from India. India’s stability stems from is attitude to women. “In India, women are unchanging — children are secure because their mothers are laways there: the--- cook the same food and always wear the same clothes, the type of clothes they have worn for thousands of years.

“It is the men in India who change their fashions.”

Yet Mr Baigent believes that Indian women are probably more “liberated” than Western women. “The family system in India is matriarchal. Though a woman will never contradict or argue with her husband when she is out, the husband

willl always come to her for approval before a decision is made.”

Mr Baigent says that meetings always break up overnight so the men can go home to discuss the matter with their wives before coming to a decision. “There is a wonderful blend between the husband and wife in Indian families.”

His bookshop, library, and reading room are very popular, even though the literacy rate is only about 31 per cent. The city has only a small Christian population, but the library has 2800 members and is visited by 500 people a day.

An interesting note is that 300 New Zealanders are members of the library, Needing $3OOO for a new room, Mr Baigent persuaded them that it would be “very useful” to belong to a library in India at a cost of $lO each. Nine of the members have since visited Vijayawada.

Mr Baigent says the bookshop attracts all sorts of people — wealthy Hindus who like to read Christian books, poor Christian Indians, school children who like to practice their English on him, and people who want to have their photograph taken with a book. Books are a status symbol in India.