v. 62

Gospel, Raj and Swaraj

by Daniel O'Connor

Published 1 August 1990
C.F. Andrews, Gandhi's closest friend and the best-known missionary of modern India, first went to India in 1904 as a member of an Anglican missionary society, the Cambridge Mission, to Delhi. It was the high noon of the raj, British imperial rule in India. Ten years later, he left formal missionary work in order to involve himself more fully, with Gandhi and Tagore, in the struggle for swaraj, Indian self-rule. This study traces the development of his profound and original theological reflection through this formative decade, his deepening identification with the nationalist cause, his contribution to the making of an Indian Church, and his friendship with people of other faiths. In all of this, we see the emergence of what Gandhi called the pattern of the ideal missionary, in an intercultural context, between raj and swaraj.