1885: Bombay to Sussex
I must confess that my patience grows thin with the endless meddling of the missionary ladies who have taken it upon themselves to improve the morals of India. They have become, to my mind, the great spoilers of happiness, disturbing what was once a world content in its own fashion. The maharanis, in their palaces, were perfectly at ease within the only system they had ever known—rich in ceremony and quiet pleasure—and yet these earnest, sermonising women descend upon them as though the very grace of their existence were some moral offence to be scrubbed away.
The missionaries, I believe, mistake restlessness for virtue. They cannot endure a society that does not mirror their own. Their talk is all of salvation and enlightenment but what they bring instead is confusion—uprooting what has grown organically here over many centuries. Yes, hospitals and schools may be useful things and I will grant them that; they bring comfort to the body and some light to the mind. But in their zeal to teach “truth”, they demand that every act of charity come shackled to the British catechism and the English conscience.
Surely, if education and faith are to be shared, ought not the Indians be taught from within their own grand traditions—of philosophy, devotion and art—instead of being moulded to suit the sensibilities of a damp northern isle? India’s civilisation, with its temples, poetry and splendour of faith, has long flourished in ways that climate and temperament have shaped. What sense is there in transplanting a religion born of rain, restraint and grey constraint into a country that thrives on sun and ceremony?
The trouble, dear cousin, is that these well-meaning women cannot imagine goodness expressed in any form but their own. They confuse moral fervour with mastery and piety with possession. They bring Christianity, yes—but mixed so thoroughly with English sewing circles and cold baths that even heaven would feel like a boarding school.
I continue to find my life here contented enough, though it is increasingly overshadowed by lectures and leaflets. Were the missionaries only to permit others to live as they themselves wish to live, we might all breathe more freely beneath this generous Indian sky.
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