Pandita Ramabai – Founder of Mukti Mission



Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922)

“A life committed to Christ has

Nothing to Fear

Nothing to Loose

Nothing to regret” – Pandita Ramabai

Pandita Ramabai was a Great Servant of jesus christ (she was from pandit bramhin family),scholar, poet, visionary and an eminent social reformer.



The first edition of Pandita Ramabai‟s Marathi New Testament was published in 1913. The entire Bible was completed in March 1922. On April 5th, 1922, Pandita Ramabai breathed her last breath. She had become the first woman Bible translator in the world.



Pandita Ramabai Saraswati was a woman of very high spiritual commitment. In her testimony, she had written “A life totally committed to God has nothing to fear, nothing to lose, nothing to regret.” Her dependence on the Holy Spirit for teaching and guidance was most unusual and again she wrote, “I have found it a great blessing to realize the personal presence of the Holy Spirit in me, and to be guided and taught by Him. I have experienced the sweet pleasure promised by the Lord in psalm 32:8, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye” The Holy Spirit taught me how to appropriate every promise of God in the right way, and obey his voice. I am sorry to say that I have failed to obey Him many times, but He tenderly rebukes and shows me my faults.” Yet, she was also a great social reformer and made a tremendous difference to the Indian society of her times. In 1919, she received the royal Kaiser-I-Hind medal from the Governor of Maharashtra, bestowed on her by the British Government in recognition for her pioneering services to women and to the community at large. She was the first Indian woman ever to receive this award. Speaking at the Mukti Mission, C.F. Andrews had this to say: “the history of this mission has been one of the triumphs of faith and prayer, somewhat similar to the work of George Muller in Bristol”. Even today, the Mukti Mission has started many community development programs in villages and towns. It also has a wonderful child adoption program. Today, the Mission takes care of 683 girls and 225 widows with a total staff of 80 people. In 1977, I had visited Pune University to deliver some lectures there. At one end of the chancellory I noticed a huge painting of Mahatma Gandhiji. But on the opposite wall was another huge painting of Pandita Ramabai Saraswati. Then I thought that this must be a very significant woman and so I commenced a journey to discover the greatness behind this woman. Before we were married, my wife Ruth had considered working at the Ramabai Mukti Mission in Pune and had visited there in 1982. In June 2005, an Indian author Santosh Kumar had done a splendid task in documenting her life and work and drawn on previous biographies and papers. As a consequence I am quite indebted to his work for the historical details. In his book, he gives the clear impression that Pandita Ramabai‟s amazing contribution to the Indian society went largely unrecognized and basically forgotten or overlooked by Indian historians today. His concluding chapter at the end of the book is entitled, “THE FORGOTTEN HEROINE.”

Santosh Kumar makes an extraordinary statement on page 94 of his book, “her conversion to Christianity from an upper-caste background seems to be the pivotal point in sidelining her from history.” He does not comment on whether this was a good or bad consequence. Most Christians would generally see this “sidelining” as the price she paid for becoming a Christian. My own sense is that Jesus does not want to take us out of this world, but

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rather take the world out of us. Note John 17:15-19. Verse 15 states, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.” Let me retrace her spiritual journey and see if we can learn any lessons from this remarkable woman as she interfaced with Christianity and with the institutional church. These are my own observations and as such do not reflect the intentions of Mr. Santosh Kumar or any of the other authors recording her life story. These observations are given for your consideration as you reflect on your ministry involving insiders in your context. Whether these observations are entirely correct or not is for you to evaluate. However, if they give reason for reflection, then my purpose is achieved. Pandita Ramabai describes how her parents most religiously avoided coming in contact with Christians and foreigners. However, she recalls how as a child a Christian had visited her father. After the man left, Ramabai could only remember two words of the conversation: Yeshu Krista (Jesus Christ). She repeated these two words many times much to the alarm of her sister and mother, who warned her not to say that name ever again. But she never forgot that name. It is interesting to notice the appeal of the name of Jesus Christ to the unbeliever, but often there is resistance to Christianity and proponents of Christianity because of the unseen agenda that becomes obvious in due course. Her next encounter with Christianity was when she was invited to a Christian meeting in Calcutta She and her brother were curious about the strange behavior that took place there. She noted, “They knelt down before their chairs and said something with closed eyes.” She was surprised to see no image to which they said their prayers and thought they were paying homage to their chairs. Naturally this western form of Christian worship made no sense to her. Then she was given a copy of the Holy Bible in Sanskrit. But she could not understand it as the language was so different from the Sanskrit literature of the Hindus. This latter point highlights the dilemma of translation not done by insiders and therefore often turns out to be almost unintelligible. Today we still print thousands of King James‟ bibles which are quite difficult to understand by the man in the street and who probably has no idea who King James was anyway.

Pandita Ramabai‟s next encounter with Christianity was with the Baptist missionary, the Rev. Isaac Allen who lived in Silchar, Assam where Pandita Ramabai and her husband lived after they were married. The Rev. Isaac Allen used to visit them often to explain the Bengali gospel of Luke that Pandita Ramabai had found in her husband‟s library. Apparently he was also very persistent on her becoming a Christian leaving her Hindu culture and taking a public baptism to indicate that she had now joined the despised Christian community. Her husband, a Bengali Hindu was very angry with this proslytization process that Mr. Allen was pursuing. Pandita Ramabai wrote of her husband Bipin at this time, “My husband, who had studied in a mission school, was pretty well acquainted with the Bible, but did not like to be called a Christian. Much less did he like the idea of his wife being publically baptized and joining the despised Christian community. He was very angry and said he would tell Mr. Allen not to come

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to our house any more. I do not know just what would have happened had he lived much longer.” Indeed it would seem that Bipin understood far more clearly than the Rev. Isaac Allen, the meaning of 1 Cor 7:17-24, where Paul exhorts the new believers to „remain in the situation which you were in when God called you” and not to change their religious identify. Paul clearly states “if you were circumcised, don‟t become uncircumcised and if you are uncircumcised don‟t become circumcised.” It is not your religious identity (which was given you at birth) that is the key, but obedience to Christ. Often the insider understands the truth far better than the person engaged in making converts to Christianity and who uses baptism as the indication of joining this new religious community. After her husband‟s death, Pandita Ramabai went to Pune and started learning English from a missionary, Miss. Hurford. They also had discussions in the Marathi New Testament. Also at that time she met the Rev. Father Nehemiah Nilakanth Goreh who explained to her the difference between Hinduism and Christianity. He himself had converted to Christianity and was from a Chitpawan Brahmin family. He met Pandita Ramabai in England where he was doing a comparative study of Hinduism and Christianity. Apparently he was able to clarify some of her intellectual difficulties and led her to baptism in 1883. Since the Rev Father was himself a Christian convert from Hinduism, his focus appeared to be strongly on joining the Christian community and confirming that with public baptism. Pandita Ramabai and her two year old daughter Manoramabai were publicly baptized on 29 September 1883 and she became a Christian. She was given a new name “Mary Rama” and her daughter “Manoramabai Mary.” While she was in England, Pandita Ramabai‟s movements were closely watched by the people of Maharashtra. When she was baptized in England, the news reached India and “a storm broke out in Poona and Bombay.” Her new birth (second birth) was taking place around this time. However, the uproar that was taking place in India was over her baptism and had everything to do with her joining a foreign religion and forsaking her own culture and community. Her own Indian people were greatly disappointed with this turn of events. It seemed as if Christ and his redeeming walk were drowned out with the uproar of her joining Christianity, the religion of the foreigners. Pandita Ramabai an amazing insider had now become a despised outsider to her own people. When Pandita Ramabai returned to Bombay, she proposed a home (oikos) for widows. Justice M.G Ranade, himself a social reformer and a thinker of high caliber supported the cause by getting 40 people to serve on the directing body. He withdrew support to her efforts when inmates started getting baptized.

She was still perceived as an insider by her people because of her insider proposal. However, as soon as she introduced proselyting tactics, reaction came. Of course, in Pandita

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Ramabai‟s mind, she was doing what she had been taught to do and therefore in her mind was doing the right thing. But her people perceived it differently. It would therefore seem critical to lay the right foundations with the first generation. Otherwise succeeding generations will be perceived even more as outsiders and not part of the mainstreams of the society. To Pandita Ramabai‟s credit, she did not adopt her western name given at baptism, but appears to have maintained her given name (from her first birth) and titles bestowed on her, right up to her death. It appears that she did modify her dress and hairstyle after the western fashion, which brought its own consequences. Although Pandita Ramabai lost many valuable friends, she did receive support from Mahatma Jotiba Phule who himself campaigned for widow remarriage and adopted the son of a Brahmin widow. Although he did not favor conversion as a means of emancipation he still accepted Pandita Ramabai‟s conversion to Christianity. Most likely he was attracted to the Christ in her and tolerated her religious conversion to Christianity. So often people assume we can only have Christ if we also embrace Christianity. E. Stanley Jones once said, “We must unravel Christ out of the Christianity” or as the apostle Paul said, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 1:23). Even after Mukti Mission started functioning, Pandita Ramabai made time to go out of the Mission to deliver lectures as before. However, bitter criticism came and it made her rethink her role in society. She began to confine herself to the Mukti Mission developmental works. She was changing the way she related with the political and social world which she had been closely moving with until then. Her influence with the mainstreams of society had now significantly dwindled and her writings for the mainstream now stopped. It would seem as if she was suffering (being ostracized) more for the offence of the community than for the offense of the cross. In reality, Pandita Ramabai‟s embracing of Christianity was well as of Christ was inevitable given the influences brought to bear on her by the Christian community. If the 1 Cor 7:17-24 concepts had been introduced to her early in her spiritual journey, there would have been no hesitancy in my mind, that she would have walked that pathway. However, she did resist the teaching of the Church leaders and did not submit to the yoke of Churchianity and its human leadership. Her personal commitment to Christ meant all other authorities were secondary.

Her spiritual mother, Sister Geraldine was very insistent that she obey the bishops and priests but Pandita Ramabai was not persuaded by “spiritual” arguments, when it contradicted

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what God was showing her to do. The church leaders were unhappy that she was teaching both boys and men, but she disagreed. Also there were arguments over doctrine and the authority that the Church leaders were exercising. Pandita Ramabai felt that they Church leaders were also under the authority of Christ just as she was. After Pandita Ramabai‟s death at a memorial meeting in Bombay in 1922, Mrs. Sarojini Naidu said that Pandita Ramabai was “the first Christian to be enrolled in the calendar of Hindu Saints.” She was a legend and venerated in her lifetime. Dr. D.K Karve (1858-1962), the widower and college professor who married Godubai, the first widow admitted into Sharada Sadan spoke at the Pandita Ramabai Centenary Celebration and said, “Her ardent desire for service to women later drove her into the arms of Christianity, because of the unparalleled opposition of Hindu orthodoxy.” Whether that statement is true is debatable in my mind. He then said, “It was our own fault that this great woman, like the late Dr. Ambedkar, was lost to the Hindu religion.” This statement in my mind contains considerable truth, but rather than say “lost to the Hindu religion”, I would substitute, “lost to the Hindu people.” Two days after Pandita Ramabai breathed her last, the Times of India (7 April 1922) gave a fascinating report on her life. The report indicated her considerable influence in the mainstreams of society until she became a Christian. The Pandita, “indeed deliberately chose to narrow and concentrate her influence.” She was perceived as pursing a deep devotion to God and intensively giving herself to those gathered in her home, which at that time was around 1500 people. The report continued, “it has been an apostolic life, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, yet possessing all things.” Pandita Ramabai was perceived as a woman of remarkable gifts and yet even more remarkable courage and strength of character. As a result of the famine of 1896, she devoted great effort to help many needy sisters. The article concludes that her story is “one to uplift everyone, whether he be Hindu or Christian.” She was mourned by members of all castes, men and women, as the differences of religion disintegrated at her death. Despite her attachment to Christianity, God used this remarkable woman in a most unusual way. Her Christlike character, her commitment to the marginalized, her social reforms and linguistic contributions make her one the greatest heroines of the faith that the world has ever seen.

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