Replies submitted by Shri R. K. Deshpande, Pleader, Jashpurnagar

1. Answer: We have no figures for the years 1947 and 1954 for the districts.  As regards 1951 we have census figures for both the districts � Raigarh and Surguja.  For 1941 we possess figures only for Jashpur Sub-Division.

Total Population � 223,632
Christians � 56,188
Non-Christians � 167,444
Scheduled Tribes � 168,811
Scheduled Castes � 13,256

Total Population � 919,520
Christians � 13,873
Non-Christians � 905,647
Scheduled Tribes � 228,193
Scheduled Castes � 56,880

Total Population - 822,041.
Christians - 545.
Non-Christians - 821,496.
Scheduled Tribes - 379,980.
Scheduled Castes - 47,884.

NOTE. - With regard to the population of Christians in 1951 in Jashpur Sub-Division attention is invited to our reply to question No. 2.

2. Answer: While there is a general rise of population on account of the common causes that have led to the general rise in the whole of this country, the population of the scheduled tribes has been reduced to a large extent due to conversions to Christianity brought about by the Christian missions.

The Christian population has increased by leaps and bounds.  The intensive activities of the Christian missions have practically begun as late as about 1951 in Surguja and parts of the Raigarh, district except Jashpur sub-division.  The statistical study would, therefore, naturally depend on Jashpur sub-division alone, as the present figures of other areas could not be covered up in the Census of 1951, being the later development.  However, Jashpur sub-division can well be taken as a measuring rod to understand, the implications involved in the problems of the Christian missionary activities in Surguja and the said other parts of the Raigarh district also.

The figure of the population of Christians in Jashpur sub-division as shown in the Census Report of 1951 is a surprise.  Irrespective of the fact that the figure of the 1951 Census shows a fall in the population of Christians, the actual position is that there has been large increase in their population since after the year 1941.  The total population of Roman Catholic Christians according to their own statement in the Catholic Directory of the year 1954 is 80,440 for the year 1953.  This figure is for Raigarh and Surguja districts.  We may roughly estimate the population of.  Roman Catholic Christians in Surguja and other parts of Raigarh district except Jashpur sub-division as about 12,000.  Substracting this figure of 12,000 we get the approximate population of Roman Catholic Christians in Jashpur sub-division 68,440.  According to the Census of 1941 the population or Lutheran Christians in Jashpur sub-division was 6,165.  It can be roughly estimated that the population of the Lutheran Christians had increased up to about 8,000.  Totalling up the figures of Roman Catholic and Lutheran Christians we get the total population of Christians in the Jashpur sub-division 76,440 as against the population of Christians shown in the Census Report of 1951-9,692.

This rapid increase in the population of Christians is due to the intensive and extensive activities of proselytisation on the part of the Christians Missions.

3. Answer: The district authorities or the Missions could alone be in a position to furnish right information in this respect.  But it will be evident from the statistical study of the Christians population at each of the census years that the rise in the population of the Christians was due only in a negligible proportion on account of increase in the birth-rate as compared to the huge rise on account of the newly brought about Christians.

4. Answer: The figures can be supplied by the District authorities or the Missions.  It can only be asserted here that almost all the conversions have taken place amongst the scheduled tribes in tribal areas of these districts.

5. Answer: The Missions maintain registers in which the names of the persons supposed to be newly converted are entered.  Before all other things the top-knots of such persons are cut off.  They are required to attend church prayers on each Sunday.  The pracharaks have to keep a vigilant eye on these persons and mark the progress of their disassociation from their traditional ways of living and customs.  New patterns of social life are tried to be instilled in them.  Such persons qualify themselves for baptism as soon as they have convinced the mission authorities about their complete isolation from the old community life of the village in so far as such life is regarded against the interests of the mission.

People are converted individually as well as in groups.  Yes, in the case of a family, it is only the head of the family who is usually converted.

6. Answers: (1) Roman Catholic Mission of Ginabahar in Raigarh district.

(2) National Missionary Society of South India, H. Q. Guntur (Madras).

(3) British Mission of Nawa Bhandaria, district Palamu (Bihar).

(4) Elim Missionary Society, H. Q. Dehri district, Shahabad (Bihar).

(5) General Conference of Mennonite Mission of North America H. Q. Champa Bilaspur.

(6) Church of Christ Mission of America, H. Q. Bilaspur.

(7) Swedish Lutheran Church, H. Q. Sagar.

(1) Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ranchi (Bihar).
(2) American Evangelical Mission, H. Q. Gass Memorial, Raipur.
(3) Roman Catholic Mission of Ginabahar.

All the above Missions are under the control of their respective Home-Boards in foreign countries.

The agents of these organisations approach people individually.

7. Answer: All the organisations have an established machinery through which contacts with the people are maintained.  In suitable areas, mission centres are working with their respective areas of operation.  Under the heads of these mission centres, personnel up to the Pracharak of the village work.  Each of the activities has a separate department under the charge of trained hierarchy of the personnel.  The popularly known departments are-Ecclesiastical, Educational, Medical, Banking and Moneylending, including Grain Banks and Co-operative Societies, Labour Unions, Labour Recruitment for Tea Gardens in Assam and Bhutan, etc., Students� Unions Women Organisations, Agricultural Department, Handicrafts, Finance, Propaganda, Publications, including Press, etc., Orphanages, Mission Stores, err...

All the above departments work with the spirit of proselytisation.  In places, where this incentive is absent, the missions have not cared to render their so-called humanitarian services.  J. Waskon Pickett, who has tried to justify even the most ignoble acts at mass conversions by the missionaries in India, in his Survey Book "Christian Mass Movements in India�, has recorded:

�In one area several highly qualified missionaries tried to lift a group of outcastes from social degradation, poverty, and illiteracy as a preliminary to ministering their spiritual needs.  Schools were opened, co-operative societies organised, and medical work inaugurated.  Many became literate, economic conditions were improved and many diseases were cured.  But when the missionaries then began to preach Christ, the response of those whom they had helped was: �You are experts in running schools, co-operative societies, and hospitals.  What do you know about religion? For advice on religion we will go to the priests who make that their business�.  At length, the missionaries left the area in discouragement and their beneficiaries slipped back into debt and in-sanitary living conditions.  They only abiding result of years of work was that a number of those whom they had served were able to read.�