IMPRESSIONS OF INDIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 290, 11 May 1914, Page 6

IMPRESSIONS OF INDIA.

A MISSIONARY S EXPERIENCES. SUJKLII.KT.i AND INCIDENTS. India, to the average New Zoalander is a large and somewhat sultry land, populated with Hindus and missionaries, governed moiv or by lung Ueorge and his minions, and occasionally agitated by t.liv p-tvegrinaiious of Mr. Kier llardie.' Date!.* he i:\.\y have gathered from the ci.be- news the imnrcsion that his dark-sinned brother is not always as grateful as he migiit be for the guiding hand of the British (loverninent. and formed the consequent opinion that "something ought real!)' to be done about India." A News reporter vestc.rdav had an interesting chat with the Rev. W. V. White, a Baptist missionary just- returned from the Indian field. In the course of a very interesting conversation several common delusions were dispelled, and some, interesting sidelights thrown on life in India.

NO OVER-LAPPINti. Mr. White, who is an Australian, and who has had seven years' work with Dr. Pettit, of the New Zealand Baptist Mission, had naturally something to say on mission work in India. "There is," he remarked, "no over-lapping at all in our work. It is practically a co-opera-tive system of mission work." He went on to explain that in his district he was the only .missionary, except a Roman Catholic priest, and of course, Dr. Pettit. For mission purposes, India is divided into districts, and these are allotted to missionaries of various churches, so that there is, as he .said, no over-lapping. All the missionaries work in a fine spirit of co-operation, and questions of creed and differences of sect are not in any way allowed to make themselves felt. The Baptist Mission said Mr, White, has two stations, one at Bralimin-bari, and. the other at Ohandpur. The station at Brahmin-bari is used by a missionary and his wife and four o or ladies. At Chandpur are Dr. and Mrs. Pettit and Mr. and Mrs. White. There is also is a hospital erected by Dr. Pciitt's | predecessor. This includes a dispensary where 'out patients" ccng'-egate cve:j day. Last year some 7,500 outpatients" visited the : nslitution, and about 10,200 visits were paid by Dr. Pettit. During the previous year patients treated in the hospital and 'outpatients" totalled 15,000. Most of Dr. Pctitt's time is occupied with hospital work. He has a stall' of native assistants, and a native doctor under iiim, but the latter cannot be trusted with operations. "There is,' said Mr. White, "not a large Christian community, probably not more than thirty all told, but the work is in its infancy, and is necessarily slow from the fact that we. are working amongst the Mahommedans id Eastern Bengal, whose religious preju- ' dices are very strong. The missio j station at Chandpur includes two primary schools for Tipperah children, .irppe'rah is a hill district to tlie east of Bengal. \ NO NATIONAL CONSCIENCE.

''They have no national conscience,' said Mr. White, in answer to n question as to the nature of the people, and m particular as to whether Indian conversions were lasting. "There was," h continued, "always a difficulty in dis tinguishing between a genuine penitent and one who merely had an eye on tile main chance. He himself had a'native assistant whose knowledge of the. peop was invaluable in "dividing the sheep from the goats." Oenerally speaking, the converts were satisfactory. The trouble was, he continued, that the Mahomincdan reeogn.sed as a sin notlurwhich did not infringe the canons of his creed, which, Mr. White explained, were elastic and not at all fragile.. One Mahommedan had cheerfully informed him that he had not sinned for two years! The Hindus, on the other liana. recognised no sins at all. The missionaries are well received, however, anil are not hindered in their work. In the independent kingdoms there is no difficulty in getting a footing, out it is very hard to obtain land for a mission station, all sorts of formalities being imposed. THE CREDIT SYSTEM. The much-maligned credit system has as firm a hold on the natives of certain parts of India as it has on New Zealanders. 'ln Eastern Bengal," said Mr. ; White, "I should hardly say that the ; people are poverty-stricken, but they are living continually on the verge of it. Their credit is always good, and they can always get money from •'•». money-lenders. ' Tims they' manage to live without worrying much." CURIOUS CUSTOMS. India is essentially a land of custom, and the natives are creatures ol traI dition, bound chiefly by the rules of | their caste,, which in some cases mean I the difference between life and death. ! The Hindus are as strict in this rej spect as any tribe, but the rules I their caste allow of a lax moral code, and are not materially concerned witu the ethics of humanitv. A Hindu wo-

man, for instance, is never divorced. Her husband's codt; of morals may be us lax at lie likes, but she lias no redress. ]n one ease a Hindu woman committed suicide because of the infidelity of her husband. Certain castes look with scorn oh any of their number who baa crossed the sea. If a member of the caste ha taken a sea voyage, he lias, according to the old law, to do penance on 1113 return by drinking a most disgusting concoction whose very ingredients cause a shudder. Then there is a system of "dedicating a girl to the gods,' or, ill other words, condemning her to a life of prostitution at the. hands of priests. The saddest case of all Mr. White's re miniscences was that of a young girl who sacrificed her life for the sake of caste law. The creed of the Brahmin caste makes it unlawful for a father to riagoablo age. Moreover, the fntlu/i must pay to the bridegroom a dowry commensurate with the bridegroom's station in life. This girl was of a marriageable age, and her father was forced to And her a husband and to pay with her a dowry of £IOO. This he was unable to do without mortgaging his property, and the girl, rather than- ruin her father, committed suicide. G-liOWINO KN U(HITKNMKNT. There is, in Mr. White's opinion, a more enlightened age in front of India, but the progress in. this direction is naturally slow. Tradition is so deeprooted, caste law so supreme, that reformation must light every inch of the way. "As one native put it to me," said Mr. White, "before some of the ancient customs die out, the sages who wrote the books will have to come back and re-write them." The natives themselves, however, appeared to be striving after better things. There are in all 01 India's three hundred and thirteen millions of people, only live per cent, who are not illiterate. Even this small number, however, are endeavouring to aid the reform for which the Church missionaries are laying the foundations. The more enlightened among them are beginning to throw off the yoke ol caste law. A young man from Mysore recently went to Knglund, and on his return refused to pay the disgusting penance to his caste. He was severely persecuted in consequence, but a native court actually upheld him, and penalised his persecutors. The re-marriage of widows is now allowed in certain districts. The educated Hindus are supporting social reform and female education. There is even a movement for compulsory education, but Mr. White i.rioulited whether India was ready far it. The people were, he said, striving a littie after Western ideals. Since lhe suicide of the young girl previously mentioned, there had been large meetings in protest against the custom of forcing young girls into marriage and mulcting" fathers in dowries. The only drawback was, he remarked, that the Indians were rather unstable, and would pass any amount of resolutions witnout bothering ,to carry Ithemi out. T,We I mission work in India was only in its infancy, and would have to be pushed on constructive "iues. The difficulty of reform lay in the fact that the only religions which the natives knew, while they were, taken quite seriously, really comprised the lowest of ideate, and had no morality whatever. •'INDIA FOR THE INIDANS." Mr. AVhite was questioned as to what he had seen of the sedition which was said to exist in India. In his own opinion there is not much in it, but he felt bound to admit that others who had had Indian experience felt differently. Mr. White's ministry began just about the time of the sedition scarce, and he saw something of the temper of the j people then. He thought that Mr. Kier Hardie had rather misled the British pubiic. He had given himself entirely into the hands of the natives, and had presented only one side of the question. One thing he had said was that in the Hajbari bazaar, in the district of Fun-id-pore, one could not buy anything except of Indian make, "whereas," Raid Mr. White, "I could buy anything from a needle to an anchor in the same place." In Mr. White's opinion the agitation against British rule had practically died out. The educated classes in Chandpur were satisfied, or nearly so. There was, of course, a section of extremists, whose one cry was, "India for the Indians." He thought that the visit of the King and Queen had done much good. He had heard that the King had gone among the people unattended, and that they had received him with open arms. He had been told, however, by a superintendent of police, while on the way here, that there was a great deal of unrest under the surface of seeming satisfaction. India was a great responsibility on the British Government, and a dillicult one to handle. Mr. White expects to return to India about October next.