The dreaded evangelist of Andhra Pradesh; even Gandhi found this man dangerous
We are aware of the fact that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi opposed conversion, but do you know that the peace loving Gandhi himself was so petrified that he called him Post Colonial India’s enemy number one. The story of Bishop Vedanayagam Samuel Azhariah, whose conversion activities in Tamil Nadu & Andhra Pradesh made Gandhi shiver.
Samuel was born at Tootukudi district. His father was a church priest, Thomas Vedanayagam, who had got converted while studying at a church School. Thomas died in 1889, but his devout mother Ellen raised Samuel, sending him at age 10 to be educated at Christian missionary boarding schools & finally for graduation at Madras Christian College. Here, Samuel made friends with K. T. Paul & Sherwood Eddy. He failed in getting his degree and joined the YMCA.
From here, there was no stopping for conversion activities
Please read where all he travelled in such a short span of time. At the age of 19, he started rice bag offerings. By 1895, he led YMCA spiritual meetings. In 1902, Azariah traveled to Jaffna in Sri Lanka to evangelize among the Tamils. Later his church sent him to Warangal. Samuel’s star was growing within the church & his ambition was maximum conversion, for this he established Indian Missionary Society at Tirunelveli, and gave an approval for a proposal. A proposal that would train Tamil Christians to evangelize among their brethren. This is the reason why Gandhi was terrified.
While the freedom fighters were struggling for liberty, here was Samuel with a rice bag and silently converting villages after villages, often badmouthing Hinduism.
Susan Billington Harper studied him and published a book on his life, “In the Shadow of the Mahatma”. On December 29, 1912, V. S. Azariah was the first Indian to be consecrated as Bishop of the Anglican Communion. Azariah traveled throughout Asia and met many important Christian leaders. his interests returned increasingly back toward India and the need for Indian Christians to convert fellow Indians,
Individual and group conversions
Azariah “helped to lead the Anglican church into its first union with non-episcopal churches since the Reformation” (source). His primary concern, however, was always with his local community, so that he “brilliantly adapted Christianity to the local culture — providing a classic model for the Third World of how to mix Christian essentials with the particularities of indigenous culture” (source).
By 1936, Samuel Azhariah had covered all of today’s Andhra and Telangana. I am almost certain that “Samuel” in Y S R is the same Samuel on whom this article is about. The biographer & other sources say he had converted nearly 5 lakh Hindus in 40 years. Rashekhar Reddy & Jagan followed in his footsteps and added more numbers. Andhra Pradesh is now 25% Christian thanks to the efforts started by Samuel Azharia.
As we usually believe that Karma hits you back & you won’t have time to realize, same happened to Samuel too. He was murdered by racist Christians on January 01, 1945. It was passed off as an accident. There is mention of suspicion of foul play in his biography, and evidence being erased though.
Samuel, who spoke against repressiveness in Hinduism, all his filthy life did was rice bag conversion, adapting with Hindu culture and tradition. His hypocrisy gets exposed when we come to know that he was also writing in support of Christian Unity. Which never happened but instead ended with a murder and his perpetrator getting away.
For 50 years he hoped Jesus will bring light and bring unity among Christians. Alas, Jesus never did.
He let Azariah get punished for his misdeeds.
