Deenabandhu Charles Freer Andrews was A Christian missionary, educator and social reformer in India, he became a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi and identified with the cause of India's independence. He was instrumental in convincing Gandhi to return to India from South Africa, where Gandhi had been a leading light in the Indian civil rights struggle.
Charles Freer Andrews was born on 12 February 1871 at 14 Brunel Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, United Kingdom; his father was the "Angel" (bishop) of the Catholic Apostolic Church in Birmingham. The family had suffered financial misfortune because of the duplicity of a friend, and had to work hard to make ends meet.
Andrews was a pupil at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and afterwards read Classics at Pembroke College, Cambridge. During this period he moved away from his family's church and was accepted for ordination in the Church of England.
In 1896 Andrews became a deacon, and took over the Pembroke College Mission in south London. A year later he was made priest, and became Vice-Principal of Westcott House Theological college in Cambridge.
Andrews came to India as a missionary in 1904 and began teaching at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. Shocked by the racism that he found in British India, Andrews sought out friendships with Indians and immersed himself in the study of Hindu and Buddhist traditions and literature. Through his acquaintance with Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a social reformer and nationalist,
Andrews became aware of the maltreatment and exploitation suffered by Indian indentured labourers throughout the British Empire. In 1914 Andrews traveled to South Africa at Gokhale’s urging to participate in the campaign for Indian rights there. In Durban Andrews met Mahatma Gandhiand was impressed by his nonviolent resistance movement; the two remained close friends afterward.
When he returned to India, Andrews left his teaching position at St. Stephens and settled at the experimental school at Shantiniketan founded by the poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore, whom Andrews had met in London in 1912. Tagore’s calls for social justice and his ideas about the synthesis of Eastern and Western culture strongly shaped Andrews’s spiritual and political views.
Andrews spent the rest of his career campaigning for Indian independence and Indian workers’ rights. He visited Fiji, Kenya, and Sri Lanka to report on the treatment of Indian labourers, and he often acted as an intermediary between the British administration and Indian communities in British colonies. He became the president of the All-India Trade Union Congress in 1925. In his later years Andrews was a leading member of the India Conciliation Group, which lobbied British politicians and members of the press for Indian independence.
Gandhi reasoned with Andrews that it was probably best for sympathetic Britons like himself to leave the freedom struggle to Indians. So from 1935 onwards Andrews began to spend more time in Britain, teaching young people all over the country about Christ’s call to radical discipleship. Gandhi's affectionate nickname for Andrews was Christ’s Faithful Apostle, based on the initials of his name, "C.F.A". He was widely known as Gandhi's closest friend and was perhaps the only major figure to address Gandhi by his first name, Mohan.
Charlie Andrews lost his breath on 5 April 1940, during a visit to Calcutta, and is buried in the 'Christian Burial ground' of Lower Circular Road cemetery, Calcutta.
Department of Posts issued Commemorative postage stamps on ( Missionary )- Birth Centenary of Charles Freer Andrews
Issued Date 12. 02. 1971
Denomination : 20 Paise
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