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Abstract
In 1920 and 1922, an Indian Christian called Sadhu Sundar Singh toured Britain. Widely renowned in the global Christian community in the interwar period, Singh was notorious for certain stories of miracles, for his appearance and for the ways in which he epitomised Eastern Christianity. Using Singh’s correspondence and a range of newspapers, this article argues that British audiences were attracted to Singh because of his appearance and ethnicity and because he conformed to stereotypes of essentialised Indian spirituality despite his Christian faith. It argues that the reception to Singh in Britain must be understood in relation to the perpetuation of Orientalist understandings of Indians and Indian religions in the interwar period.
Acknowledgment
I am most grateful to the anonymous reviewers, and also Mary Ellis Gibson and Christine Ferguson who helped me crystallise some of the ideas on reception to Indian religious figures which informed this article, which was first written when I was employed by the University of Glasgow.
Notes
1. Kinnaird, My Adopted Country, 23. Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) was the first person in the world to demonstrate wireless transmission of electromagnetic waves and a renowned botanist who demonstrated the electric nature of plant responses to stimuli.
2. The Rev. James Kelso put Singh in the top three most influential Indians, alongside Gandhi and Tagore, in his piece “Sadhu Sundar Singh: The Apostle of the East and West,” 75.
3. Rev. E. Schwab to Dr. E. E. Fife, 18 August 1927. Box 2, Folder 1. Sheldon and Fife Family Papers. University of Oregon Libraries.
4. Aravamudan, “Guru English”; Guru English.
5. Pennington, Was Hinduism Invented?
6. King, Orientalism and Religion, 123.
7. Iwamura, Virtual Orientalism, 6.
8. For more on the definition of ‘costume’, and the context of clothing in India, see Tarlo, Clothing Matters and Belfanti, “Was Fashion a European Invention?”
9. See Burton, At the Heart of the Empire; Hall and Rose, At Home with the Empire; Fisher, Counterflows to Colonialism; Visram, Asians in Britain among others.
10. Green and Viaene, “Introduction: Rethinking Religion and Globalization.”
11. See Dobe, “Flaunting the Secret,” for his own interpretation and for bibliographical information on further relevant works on Indian Christian figures.
12. For more on the Brahmo Samaj see Kopf, The Brahmo Samaj.
13. Collet, Life and Letters, 184, and Bristol Mercury, 14 September 1833.
14. Zastoupil, Rammohun Roy, 1, 49.
15. Ibid., 215–6.
16. Fisher, Counterflows to Colonialism, 252.
17. Midgley, “Transoceanic Commemoration and Connections.”
18. “Welcome Soiree to a Hindu Reformer,” The Standard, 13 April 1870, 6.
19. Müller, “My Indian Friends,” 348.
20. Schouten, Jesus as Guru, 93, 136; Hay, Asian Ideas of East and West, 22. For more on Hindu reformers discussing Christ in this period see Sharma, Neo-Hindu Views of Christianity.
21. Harris, Private Lives, 174.
22. Sen, Migrant Races, 3.
23. Mukherjee, Nationalism, Education and Migrant Identities, 65–78.
24. Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man,” 128.
25. Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 23–4.
26. Lynch-Watson, The Saffron Robe, 35–6.
27. Kelso, “Sadhu Sundar Singh,” 77.
28. Emmet, “Miracles,” 310–1.
29. Parker, Sadhu Sundar Singh, 85.
30. Emmet, “Miracles,” 314–5.
31. Parker, Sadhu Sundar Singh, xiv.
32. Ibid., 1–3.
33. For example, Burton, Burdens of History; Ramusack, “Cultural Missionaries”; and Jayawardena, The White Woman’s Other Burden.
34. Singh to Parker, 26 December 1919, Singh Papers.
35. Singh to Parker, 12 January 1920, Singh Papers.
36. Thompson, Sadhu Sundar Singh, 159.
37. Heiler, The Gospel of Sâdhu Sundar Singh, 15.
38. Streeter and Appasamy, The Sadhu, 42.
39. Lynch-Watson, Saffron Robe, 117; Goodwin, Sadhu Sundar Singh in Switzerland, 5.
40. Sharpe, “Sadhu Sundar Singh and his Critics,” 63.
41. Singh to Parker, 1 March 1920; 4 April 1920, Singh Papers.
42. “Indian Ascetic’s Visit,” Scotsman, 19 April 1920, 10.
43. ”Sadhu Sundar Singh in a London Pulpit,” Madras Mail, 9 April 1920, 6.
44. “In Britain and India,” Britain and India, 1, 4 (April 1920), 142.
45. “Sadhu Sundar Singh: A Remarkable Visitor to London,” Westminster Gazette, 10 March 1920, 2.
46. “Our London Correspondence,” Manchester Guardian, 30 April 1920, 8.
47. Home, “An Indian Mystic,” Spectator, 27 March 1920, 416–7.
48. P. M. Drury to Singh, 15 February 1920; L. V. Turner to Singh, 15 February 1920, Singh Papers.
49. Turner, “India’s Apostle to the West: Sadhu Sundar Singh,” Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, (April 1920), 82.
50. C. Turner to Singh, 12 Feb 1920, Singh Papers.
51. Edwin Spring, a pastor in Gloucester, had also heard of Singh through a friend in India and wrote admiringly to Singh; E. H. Spring to Singh, 9 March 1920, Singh Papers.
52. Urbanus, “Round-about Papers: The Sadhu Sundar Singh,” Church Times, 12 March 1920, 267.
53. L., “Sadhu Sunder Singh in Dr. Jowett’s Pulpit,” and M. A. S., “Christian Endeavourers at the Metropolitan Tabernacle,” British Weekly, 8 April 1920, 29.
54. Appasamy, “A Biographical Introduction,” in Goodwin, Sadhu Sundar Singh in Switzerland, xv.
55. Heiler, The Gospel, 87.
56. Quoted in “Sadhu Sundar Singh in England,” United India, 10 March 1920, 382–3.
57. Streeter and Appasamy, The Sadhu was reprinted in 1922, 1923 and 1926. A new edition was published in 1987 by Delhi publishers, Mittal. For a brief review, see “A Christian Indian Mystic,” Saturday Review, 18 June 1921, 508.
58. Goodwin, Sadhu Singh in Switzerland, 2.
59. “Sadhu Sundar Singh,” Manchester Guardian, 20 July 1922, 11.
60. Singh, Meditations, v.
61. See Cox, “From the Empire of Christ to the Third World.”
62. Singh, With and Without Christ, 50–1.
63. Zahir, A Lover of the Cross; Oskar Pfister, “Sadhu Sundar Singh’s Evident Untruths. A Warning and Appeal” in Sheldon & Fife Family Papers. The papers include correspondence between Fife and Heiler seeking information in India to dispute some of Pfister’s claims. See also Sharpe, “Singh and his Critics.”
64. “Sadhu Sundar Singh in a London Pulpit,” Madras Mail, 9 April 1920, 6.
65. “Religion and Theology,” Times Literary Supplement, 2 August 1934, 543.
66. Andrews, Sadhu Sundar Singh, 13–4.
67. Ibid., 122.
68. Thompson, “Life of a Saint,” Observer, 5 August 1934, 4.
69. Thompson, “Three Books on India,” Bookman, September 1927, 323.
70. Goodwin, Sadhu Sundar Singh in Switzerland, 29, 36.
71. “An Ambassador of the Indian Church: Sadhu Singh,” Chronicle of the London Missionary Society, September 1922, 205.
72. British Weekly, 10 October 1929; Daily News, 16 October 1929, CBMS Archives.
73. Christian World, 27 March 1930; New Chronicle, 20 March 1930, CBMS Archives.
74. “An Indian Christian Mystic,” Manchester Guardian, 26 April 1933, 8; “Sadhu Sundar Singh,” The Times, 25 April 1933, 9; press cutting with no title or date, presumably Daily Mail, April 1933, Bishop E. Curtis collection; CBMS Archives, April 1933 and May 1934.
75. Angus, “University Sermon,” Cambridge Review, 19 February 1949, 413–4.
76. Lindskoog, Surprised by C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald & Dante, Chapter 12.
77. For example, Sharpe, The Riddle of Sadhu Sundar Singh; and Dobe, “Faqirs in the Colony: Rama Tirtha, Sundar Singh and Comparative Sainthood in the Punjab (1849–1929),” unpublished PhD thesis, Harvard University, May 2007.
78. Powell, “Processes of Conversion,” 51.
79. Söderblom, “Christian Mysticism in an Indian Soul.”
80. Goodwin, Sadhu Sundar Singh in Switzerland, 36.