Vinoba Gladis
Ph.D. Research Scholar, Department of History, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli.
The Salvation Army is a Christian international religious and charitable movement, organized and operated on a military model.1 It is a Church as well as a social agency with its international headquarters in London. It is the largest organization for the eradication of poverty, and the uplifting of the poor in existence.2
Favourable Factors
The origin of the Salvation Army formed a unique event in the nineteenth century religious life of Great Britain. Several favourable factors contributed to its rise. The Victorian England of the nineteenth century maked a new phase, full of tension fears, anxieties and uncertainties. The British Victory at Waterloo in 1815 confronted it with dangers and difficulties such as the country had not hitherto experienced. 3 As the reaction of the French Revoulation all the evils of unemployment, indiscipline, riots and revolts prevailed throughout Europe.
The new conditions created by the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions plunged the people in untold shame and degradation. The Industrial Revolution led to the development of new industrial centres without any civilized amenity and reduced the nation to the depths of dirt, disease and squalor. The lot of the factory workers and farm labourers was so disastrous. They were ill-fed, ill-housed and underpaid, and in general, the human wretchedness existed in Great Britain was worst than that of the free Negroes of America. The existing religious denominations of Great Britain and her social, political and cultural organizations focused their concern only with the privileged section of the society and not the unprivileged. The ritualist movement, often called Anglo-Catholicism became a professional affair and alien to protestant standards. It did not attract the mass in large numbers due to its costly and unnecessary rituals. The clergy of the Anglo- Catholic Church made the Churches distasteful to the congregations by denying them to take active part in the services. The Protestant Church was also not free from flaws. The competition among the Protestant clergy for power and honour showed the symptoms of division in the Church. Yet the existing Churches turned to the worldly pleasures without caring for the widows, the destitutes, the sick and the needy.
The high class mingled with the politics of the country and the religious and governmental affairs on various accounts, while this was denied to the depressed classes. They lived under most insanitary and half starving conditions. Many of them were found dead in the gutter or on the roadside because of starvation. They lost confidence in life and sang, ‘My home is in Heaven’.4 To forget the misery and overcome the difficulties they found shelter in the liquor shops kept opened throughout. No one felt the seriousness of the situation including the established Churches, which acknowledged no responsibility. The oppressed and the uneducated mass of the East end were not allowed to worship in the Church. Even if they were allowed, they could not understand the sermon of the educated priests. To them the Church was nothing. Under such a state of affairs and as a reaction against the nineteenth century Victorian Society, William Booth 5 started a new religious movement, later came to be called the Salvation Army.
Formation of the Salvation Army
William Booth started the Salvation Army in 1865 to preach the gospel to the uncared and untouched people and provide upliftment to them in the material and spiritual life. He wanted to start his work with a stated body of doctrine, a trained leadership and a disciplined world membership on a military pattern. His soldiers were expected to go wherever they were sent and had to endure hardship as in the case of the regular military soldiers.
The Salvation Army aimed at preaching the gospel and to share the people’s thoughts so as to get the tormented souls consolation and peace.6 The condition of the poor forced the Salvation Army to accept the object of changing the character of the people, transform the home, rescue the society and save the people’s life. Now it is universally recognized as one of the greatest religious and philanthropic forces of our age. The sincerity of its leaders, the self sacrifice of its soldiers and the splendid purpose and rich variety of its work received the attention of the people.
Rules and Regulations
William Booth laid down certain rules and regulations to be strictly observed by his followers. These did not want to constitute a congregation around him but to send his soldiers abroad to form congregations through sacrifice and hard work. Some of these rules are the following:-
- The member must give his whole time to work and should not have any other occupation. If he engaged himself in other business of profit like writing books or newspaper articles the profits belong to the organization and not to him.
- He should not possess a permanent home, but should be prepared to move from place to place and from country to country based upon the need.
- Salvationists must surrender themselves to the guidance of the most capable, devoted and best trained persons among them and willingly obey their commands and orders.
- He must unquestionably accept the religious basis of the Army, which may be summarized as the strictly orthodox evangelical position. He must refrain from consuming intoxicating drinks and drugs, should lead a simple life and avoid worldly attire and amusements, and
- He must devote not less than nine hours a day to the Active Service of the Army.7
With complete submission one is enlisted in the Army, and once he is enlisted, the Army looks after his needs and affairs. From his entry into the Army till his exit from the world the Army takes measures to satisfy his demands and fulfill his needs.
The steady growth of the Salvation Army kindles the jealousy of other Christian Churches particularly the Catholic and the other established Protestant Churches. They tried to check the growth of the Army in anticipation of their personal ends. The sophisticated British society was criticizing the mission of Booth among the wretcheds and the destitute, as it would instigate them against the factory owners and the established order. The parish of the clergy, the prejudice of the aristocrats and the inactivity of the British government made the Army to face oppositions and criticisms from different quarters. Despite all these, the work of the Army spread quickly over England, Scotland and Wales.8
Booth then took the policy of overseas expansion and sent pioneering parties in different directions. The first reached the U.S.A. in 1880 and another battalion of the Army consisting of Commissioner Booth Tucker, Caption Henry Bullard, Lieutenant Norman and Mary Thompson landed in Bombay on 19 September 1882.
Tucker9 was the founder of the Salvation Army in India. Even before the advent of Tucker and his companion to establish the Army’s work in India, the sub-continant was brought under the political sway of the English. The British administration helped the Catholic and Protestant Missionaries in preaching the gospel and undertaking socio-economic developmental activities from different centres. Yet their welfare activities did not reach the poor and the downtrodden in their remote huts. The Salvation Army took up these unfinished welfare works left out by other churches. The earnest efforts of Tucker and his companions and the efficient care of the Army’s Generals.10 made the expansion of the Army’s work in India possible.
Reaction of the Authorities
Information of their arrival and their military terms and phraseology created consternation in the minds of the authorities. They expected the landing of a great army and a fanatical war with rioting and bloodshed everywhere. A large police force was sent to arrest the progress of the Salvation Army. To their great surprise the Inspector in charge inquired, when the other members of the Army were to land. “We are the whole Army” was the reply of Booth Tucker. The inspector got astonished and said “why, we thought you are coining a thousand strong.”11
After landing in Bombay they made arrangements for a public meeting preceded by a march from the quarters to the tent. The Police Commissioner objected to this programme and warned them not to hold open-air meetings and prcessions except in their tent and building. Frederick Tucker was very much familiar with Indian laws. He studied, practiced and administered the same as a civil servant before joining the Salvation Army. He therefore, argued with the Police Commissioner pointing out that the Muhammadans and Hindus could march in procession blowing their trumpets and beating their drums at any time and everywhere. So he insisted that they should also be entitled to the same privileges. But the Commissioner of Police became angry and asserted his idea not to allow him to go.
When Tucker and his comrades violated the ban orders, the Police Commissioner arrested them. However the action of the Imperial authorities and the support they gained from the native reformers like Babu Keshab Chandrasen, the leader of the Brahmo Samaj, the Army was allowed to function in its regular way.12 Yet their arrival aroused considerable uneasiness in the official circles. It was felt that for British people to live in native quarters and wearing native clothes world degrade the prestige of the white men. For an English man, to sell the little books in the streets like a beggar, for the English girl to beat the tambourines in the street and the English man to play the cornet like a member of a circus party, roused the official wrath to the maximum. It was feared that these fanatics would stir up native rioting and strife.
Tucker and the method of his work
Frederick Tucker called India the most wonderful Missionary field in the World. He knew the Missionary work from childhood. When he reached to India he found that the people of India were not one nation but many, and spoke not one language but hundreds of diverse languages. Caste was another problem, dividing the people into over a thousand sections, shut apart from each other by almost impassible, but visible barriers. In the midst of innumerable, difficulties based on caste, customs, tongues and the like, the Army had to spread the gospel and bring the mass in the line of Salvation. To achieve the above said and the Army adopted the principle of adaptation. They left their bungalows to live in native huts. They threw off their shoes and walked bare footed. They started to eat and live as the natives did. These tactics enabled the Army to have easy access with the people. For strengthening the access they devised the method of taking Indian names. Frederick took an Indian name Fakir Singh which means a religious beggar and dressed like an Indian Fakir.13 He often drugged with a begging bowl in hand and preached the gospel, from village to village until his feet bled. He slept under the tress without any comforts, bathed at the road side well in open air and cleaned his teeth with the twigs of a tree just as the Indians did and travelled in third class railway compartments. They wore Indian caste marks on their foreheads pretending that they had a liking for Indian customs. Some of them even married Indian women to get a close relation with the Indians. Frederick Tucker desired to preach an Eastern Christ to the Indians in Indian dress and appearance. He gave up his English clothes, that finally become a saving. It also found suitable to the cilmate and necessary to please the natives and reach their hearts. Hymns were also composed in Indian languages.14
Tucker and his comrades approached the untouchables of Bombay and its neighbouring places with their message of Salvation. As the message alone could not give upliftment to the untouchables, Tucker began to think in terms of providing relief from their economic deterioration and social degradation. With this end in view he started the Indian Village Welfare Association. The Association undertook several activities like providing drinking water facilities to the poor untouchables in their villages and distributing better seeds and improved agricultural equipments for their development in the villages. The Association also taught them to start cottage industries like sericulture and took efforts to solve their problems of fuel, communication, health and sanitation.
Frederick Tucker’s methods of work made the Hindus to listen the message of the Salvation Army. It is true that the converts were often ill-treated and assaulted but they succeeded in strengthening their faith and increasing their number by thousands before the end of another year. Bombay became the first centre of the Salvation Army’s work in India, from where it spread in spectacular manner to the North, the East and the West.
Being a Church as well as a social agency the Salvation Army did a meritorious service among the poor untouchables since its formation in England in 1865. It was formed out of the conditions existed in the Victorian England and extended to the other parts of the world to serve the poor and the needy. The industrial relations of the age and the twilight found in the religious life of Great Britain led the origin and growth of the Salvation Army in England and accelerated its overseas expansion. The Salvation Army’s advent in India was first met with official opposition and next the caste people’s entanglements. These oppositions could not arrest the Army’s progress in India. The various methods of Tucker and his comrades and the manifold activities of the Army in India quickened its growth in different directions particularly in South India by 1892.
References
- Edger Rowan, The Church Army, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., London, 1905, p.140.
- F.A. Mackenzie, Booth Tucker Sadhu and Saint, Hodder and Stoughtoon Ltd., London, 1936, p.1.
- R.J. Evans, The Victorian Age 1815-1914, Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd., London, 150, p.1.
- Cyril Barnes, God’s Army, William Clow and sons Ltd., London, 1978, pp.13-15.
- William Booth was the founder of the Salvation Army. He was born on 10th April 189 at Notintone palace. He started his career as an ordained pastor in the Methodist Church. In 1861 he left the Church to become an independent evangelist. In 1865 he started the Christian Mission to serve the poverty stricken, untouched and uncared mass. Very soon his mission got a lot of converts and spread beyond London. In 1878 it was named as the Salvation Army.
- James Hastings, Religion and Ethics, Charles Scribner’s Sons Ltd., New York, 1920. p.150.
- William Booth, Rules and Regulations of the Salvation Army, London, 1900. P.12.
- Kenneth Scott Latourtte, A History of Christianity, Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1953. p.58.
- Frederick St.Geroge De Lautour Tucker was born on 21stMarch 1853 at Monghyr in Bengal. His father was in the Indian Civil Service. On completion of his studies Tucker also joined the Indian Civil Services. In 1880 Frederick Tucker knew the activities of the Army from the army magazine War Cry. Impressed by the activities of the Army he also joined the Army in August 1881. In 1882 with the permission of William Booth, Tucker and his comrades reached Bombay to start the Army’s work in India. In 1888 he married Emma, the daughter of William Booth and assumed the new name Frederick Booth Tucker.
- General is the supreme head of the Salvation Army.
- Henry Bullard, Reminisciences of Early Day Fighting, A Golden jubilee Commemoration Volume-I, Bombay, 1932, p.413.
- Robert Sandal, History of the Salvation Army, Vol.I, Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd., London, 1947. P.275.
- Booth Tucker, Forty Years with the Salvation Army in India, The Royal Temperance Association Press, Simla, 1910, p.42.
- J.N. Frquhar, Modern Religious Movements in India, Macmillan Company, New York, 1915, p.429.