Question

What was the basic aim of the Christian missionaries in opening educational institutions in India?

Answer 1

Christian missionaries hoped to make schools the spiritual and religious centers. Through education they hoped to eradicate the practices and behaviors of natives like Idol worship, polytheism, bigotry, polygamy and many superstitions which were considered by them to be much uncivilized. Their ultimate aim was to proselytize the native population and prove the falsehood of the native religions. Regular Bible lessons were supposed to become the norm in the schools of Christian missionaries whereas the reality at the ground level for Christian Educational missionaries in India turned out to be otherwise. Bellinoit says that the examination preparation was given priority at the expense of the time needed to engage in spiritual and religious lessons. During the colonial period, government was the only source of the employment for the educated. Administration, governance and military were the only sectors where the employment was generated. These sectors reached the saturation very soon.
Getting employment under colonial government was the only major motive for Indians to so zealously pursue the education prescribed by the government. Colonial government realized that the increasing educated masses staying unemployed would eventually give rise to the social unrest. To check this from happening, the failure rate was kept very high. The reputation of the school solely depended on the success rate of the students in the examination. Any drop in the success rate would tremendously bring down the enrollment numbers. This forced the Christian missionary schools to devote major part of their school time towards exam preparation rather than in spiritual or religious engagement. Apart from this Christian missionaries had to largely depend on the government funds to run the schools. To receive the government funds it was mandatory on the part of the schools to follow the prescribed curriculum. Colonial government also did not encourage conversion since that would disturb the social harmony and hence their trade. Any missionary school getting government funds could not force students to take religious lessons. They had to go through regular inspections by the government agencies with regard to compliance with the government rules and regulations. Another bottleneck for Christian missionaries in the way towards achieving their goals was the teaching staff. The number of teachers belonging to Hindu and Islamic religion was far greater than the number of Christian teachers in Christian missionary schools. Getting enough number of qualified Christian teachers was very difficult. Number of qualified Christian teachers recruited could not meet the demands of large pupil strength. This hampered the efforts of Christian missionary schools in influencing their students with Christian ethos and practices. This excerpt given below from Bellinoit’s “Missionary Education, Religion and Knowledge in India” article clearly captures the plight of Christian missionaries with regard to their religious instruction.

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Answer 2

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