COMMUNIST POLITICAL ACTIVITY - MISSIONARY MEDICAL WORK - INDIAN OFFICIALS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00423R000700880001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: November 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 13, 1998
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 1, 1953
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Rele
3-00423 R000700880001:
Subject: Communist Political Activity - Missionary Medical Work -
Indian Officials
Place acquired:
Date Acquired:
Date of Info: 19+8-1953
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1. Q. Do the Indians of your acquaintance take an active interest in Iiiianj
national politics? In international affairs?
A. The great majority of my Indian friends are too poverty stricken and
too uneducated to take an interest in national politics. During"the
war years (19+1-1945), they used to come to the mission to enquire for
news of what was happening, but normally they are even less interested
in international affairs than in national politics.
2. Q. Were the students in your mission school of an age to be interested?`
A. Our school went up only to the equivalent of a US fourth grade. However,
the ages of the pupils varied considerably. One Naga boy in the second
grade was about 15 years old. We also operated a hostel for students
not all of whom attended the mission school. Two were in the government
high school in Silchar. I cannot recall that any of the students in
either the school or the hostel were interested in politics.
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Q. Were you in India at the time of the last general election? If so
can you tell me anything of Communist party activity?
A. I was in India, and I know that the Communist party did very well at the
polls in the neighboring states of Manipur and Tripura. On one occasion
a Hindu widow in a village we were visiting permitted us to camp in
her courtyard and during our stay there the Communist candidate in the
area called on us twice. He was a well educated man, a B_% and friendly.
The widow told me that she was voting Communist because her friends told
her to do so. This was my only contact with Communist political activity.
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If there is a "grass roots" Communist organization in the Silchar
area, it did not come to my attention. At one time the mission had
occasion to consult an Indian lawyer regarding a land transfer. He told
me that his son and daughter were in college in Calcutta and both were
Communistically inclined. I do not recall the name(s) of the college(s)
concerned. The lawyer appeared to be distressed over this. Manipur
borders on Burma where Communism is strong, and possibly the Communist
influence has spread over the border.
.. Q. The Moslems make up a large minority group in your area., I believe, Is
Communal friction still in evidence?
A. The Moslem group in our area, are known as Panggali. They have intermarried
with Manipuri women and now are a Manipuri speaking group. Communal
trouble broke out at the time of the partition. It was instigated not
by local Hindus but by refugee Hindus who had been driven out of East
Pakistan. The relations between the Panggali and the local Hindus are
normally reasonably good and the communal tension has died down.
5. Q. Is there a difference in the attitudes of the Hindus and of the Moslems
toward your mission work?
A. Generally speaking the Moslems are more friendly; this on religious
grounds. They find the names of many prophets common to both
Christianity and Mohammedanism, and regard themselves as brothers in
a sea of atheists.
6. Q. Do caste problems cause trouble in your school or in the hostel?
A. In the school the children of all castes and religions play together. They
eat at home and so the food question does not arise. We have one or
two orthodox His in the hostel. One in particulars reluctant at
first to eat with non-Hindus. He overcame his scruples insofar as
eating in common goes but still does not eat meat. Incidentally a
number of our Hindu converts still do not eat meat not because of
religious scruples but because they do not like it.
7. Q. Does your mission carry on medical work in the area?
A. (a) The mission has carried on medical work for the lepers for many
years. The leper colony was formerly in cramped quarters at Banskandi.
Some two years ago bout 1957 we managed to acquire a tea estate
of approximately one thousand acres, which the British owner let us
have cheap, at Makunda and we have moved the leper colony there.
Each of the resident lepers has his own plot of ground and hut, and
they grow the major part of their own food. We have set up a 20
bed hospital for the colony but have no resident physician at Makunda
at present. The mission doctor who lives in Banskandi comes over to
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Makunda two or three times a month for a few days. During his absence
the Makunda hospital is in charge of a US nurse. We intend to install
a resident physician as soon as we can. We plan to set up a small
laboratory in the hospital and are trying to train two Indian laboratory
technicians at Banskandi. An Indian government civil physician is
stationed at Makunda, and has his office practilly at the gate of our
estate, but he is not popular and the residents in the area flocked
to the leper hospital for treatment in such numbers that we were forced
to build a separate out-patient clinic to attend to their needs. This
irritated the Indian doctor who made a formal complaint that the US
nurse in charge at Makunda was performing the functions of an MD in
the intervals between our mission doctor's visits. Eventually the
matter was settled amicably.
(b) After the leper colony was moved from Banskandi, the mission set
up the Burrows Memorial Hospital there. To begin with a temporary
nine bed unit was established in the fcMer dispensary of the leper
colony. It was next enlarged to 15 beds and moved into a larger
existing building, pending the completion of a new hospital building
now under construction. I do not know what the capacity of the new
building will be. The hospital has a small laboratory and has an
x-ray installation especially designed for the treatment of tubercular
patients.
(c) The government operates a civil hospital in Silchar. It occupies
three buildings and must have a capacity of at least 50 beds. I do
not know how large the staff is, nor have I any information on the
equipment.
$. Q. Is either of the mission hospitals or the government hospital used
for purposes of medical education?
A. None of the three is allied with a medical school. I mentioned above
that we are training two laboratory technicians. We have also
inaugurated a nurses' training course in the hospital at Banskandi.
None of the seven girls now taking the course has a sufficient
education to qualify as a registered nurse and the class is being
trained for hospital ayahs, that is nurses' helpers who assist in the
care of the patients but who are not qualified to administer drugs
or inoculations. The present ayahs' course lasts a year or 18
months. We plan to develop the course into a regular nurses training
school graduating registered nurses.
g. Q. Do your mission hospitals have any difficulty in obtaining anti-biotics
and sulfa drugs?
A. I am not well informed on this matter. So far as I know they had no
difficulty.
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10. Q. Do you know where these anti-biotics and sulfa drugs were manufactured?
ii. No, I do not. The hospitals bought many of their drugs locally from
a drug house in Silchar. They also bought drugs in Calcutta. Because
of the lack of dispensing druggists in Indian country districts and
small towns patients who obtain prescriptions from a hospital expect
to get them filled at the hospital pharmacy. The pharmacy in our
out-patient clinic at Makunda is regularly snowed under with work
after each of the mission doctor's visits.
11. Q. What is the government doing in the way of public health work? Is
the administration in the hands of the central government or of local
government?
A. The government sends vaccination and inoculation teams into the
villages but many of the villagers are opposed to the program. The
government is also sponsoring a BCG inoculation program to combat
tuberculosis. In our area this program is being administered by our
mission hospital at Banskandi on behalf of the government, which supplies
the serum. I assume that the public health work is carried out by
the central government. Kachar is not a state but a district. I am
not altogether clear on the governmental machinery but it is my impression
that the district is directly administered by the central government.
There is a district commissioner who is appointed by the central
government.
12. Q,.. Did you find the Indian officials with whom you had dealings, capable and
efficient?
A. (a) My own dealings with Indian officials were limited to routine
alien registration with the police. An alien must renew his police
registration yearly and obtain a residence permit. No special passes
are required or issued for journeys within India but these must be
reported in advance to the police at the place of residence, again
when reaching one's temporary destination, and again on return to one's
h(om:e. When leaving the country I turned my alien registration certificate
and my residence permit in to the police at Silchar, who issued me a
slip of paper authorizing my departure from Calcutta by such and such a
ship on such and such a date. The Silchar police told me that this was
all that was required in the way of formalities; that it was unnecessary
for me to report to the police in Calcutta. However to be on the safe
side I did report in Calcutta where the police confirmed what the
Silchar police had told me. For good measure the Caluutta police
stamped the Silchar slip. In my dealings with the police I found them
capable and courteous. Another member of our mission from another
area did not fare so well. Her local police office failed to handle
her papers properly and several telegrams had to be exchanged between
Calcutta and her local police office to clear the matter up.
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(b) One of the members of our mission had to see the District
Commissioner on a legal matter. Unfortunately our missionary came
in to town on the day that Nehru was passing through and the Commissioner
was extremely busy with arrangements for Nehru's reception. Nevertheless
he made time to see our representative, discussed the matter for half
an hour and made a satisfactory settlement. Our representative
reported the Commissioner as extremely courteous and helpful. The
Commissioner is not an ex-Indian Civil Service official but a young man
who entered government service after independence. He comes, I believe
from the Bombay area.
13. Q. Did your mission work take you into Manipur state?
A. We had to have special permission to visit Manipur and were not permitted
to engage in missionary work there. Another US missionary society has
had a mission station in Manipur for many years, but permission to
establish it was granted on the express stipulation that the mission's
work be confined to the Naga Hills tribes people and not to be extended
to the Hindu population of Manipur.
l4. Q. Is the Indian government well disposed toward missionary work?
A. The government does not look kindly at evangelical work. It is
more or less non-committal as regards educational work, and definitely
favors medical work. Two other members of my mission left at the
same time I did fRay 19537. We all applied for permission to re-enter
India after our fux3ough. One was a registered nurse and was given the
requested permission. In the cases of the other and of myself we were
not refused permission to re-enter but told to re-apply when we wished
to return; in other words the decision was deferred. In our two cases
we were engaged partly in evangelical and partly in educational work.
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Approved For Release 1999/09/10 : CIA-RDP83-00423R000700880001-7