This week in Texas Methodist History September 4 SMU Pastor’s School Hosts Sir Eddy Asirvatham, Noted Indian Political Scientist, September 1948 India was one of the most important mission fields of Methodism in the 19th and 20th centuries. More properly stated, the area now encompassed by India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh was an important focus of Methodist missions. The ruling power, Great Britain had created a patchwork of poltical jurisdictions in the subcontinent and created an English speaking bureaucracy to carry out the colonial exploitation of Indian resources. It also constructed rail lines allowing for easy transportation throughout the subcontinent. Naturally British missionaries had an advantage but Americans also answered the call to the mission field. The best known American missionary was E. Stanley Jones whose 1925 book, the Christ of the Indian Road was a hugely influential best seller. Jones had gone to India in 1907 and in 1910 invited his Texas-born fellow student from Asbury Seminary to join him. Both Jones and Pickett were among the most articulate interpreters of the Indian Methodist church. After World War II, the long movement for Indian independence culminated in the declaration of Pakistan as an independent nation on August 14, 1947 and India on August 15. The nations had been designed to reflect the two majority religions, Hinduism and Islam, and the result was one of the largest migrations in world history as Hindus living in what was note Pakistan relocated to India and vice versa. Of course there were also Sikhs, Jains, Parsees, and Christians, both Catholic and Protestant who did not identify as either of the majority religions. The turmoil and violence associated with partition grabbed headlines and also the interest of American Christians. One year after independence, SMU hosted one of the most prominent Indian political scientists to speak at Pastor’s School. In September 1948 Pastor’s School was in its heyday. Sessions were held in McFarlin Auditorium where there were usually standing room only crowds. Asirvatham was well known through his scholarly publications including the textbook, Poltical Theory (1944) which has gone through 14 editions, the latest in 1995. He had also published Forces in Modern Poltics in 1936, and in 1953 was to publish a non-scholarly What the Bible Means to Me. Asirvatham was gentle but firm in his lectues on the subject of race. In 1948 Indian was still dealing with the caste system and the United States was dealing with its Jim Crow racism. Asirvatham denounced both racism against African Americans in the U. S. and the caste system in India. Both, he claimed hurt the cause of Christianity. In his lectures he said, “Christianity must be raceless, nationless, and casteless.” He also stressed that Christianity could not be superimposed upon Inda must must take into accounty the culture in which it operated.