Schooling the Gospel: Village School Teachers as Agents of Mission in the Early Mizo Church

Introduction

There has been considerable research dealing with and emphasising the contributions of missionaries towards education as well as on the education system which they had introduced in Mizoram. ¹ Mizoram was known as the Lushai Hills District till September 1954 when it was changed to ‘Mizo Districts’. In 1972 it was made a Union Territory and in 1987 it was granted full statehood. Therefore the term Lushai and Mizo will be interchangeably used. In the past few years there has been a growing interest in and a recognition of the need to give emphasis on the Mizo's contributions and their role in terms of the transformation they and their society had undergone during the past hundred odd years with the advent of the British and along with that of Christianity. There have been efforts to reclaim the story of the early Mizo Christians as active agents participating in the journey towards the Christianisation of the region and the transformation they underwent. The life and witness of the early Mizo pastors, the evangelists, the Church elders and the ‘Bible Women’ have been given more prominence nowadays in writings and researches dealing with the history of Christianity and the Church in Mizoram. However, there have been mainly some passing comments about the contribution and role played by the teachers in the early mission schools, but these have never really been the focus of the research. Almost all the writings emphasise the ministry of the ordained Mizo pastors and to a certain extent the evangelists and the itinerant preachers. ² A pointer to this neglected story is the fact that for most of the evidence for the teacher's activities and contributions one is still highly dependent on the writings of the missionaries.

This article attempts to paint a picture of the early schools in Mizoram and the role they played in the swift shift of the Mizo from their traditional beliefs and practices to Christianity. It will focus more specifically on the role of the village primary school teachers ³ during this early period of the history of Christianity in Mizoram. The article will show that the village school teachers were the foundations of the churches in Mizoram before there were any ordained Mizo pastors and elders among the early Mizo faith community. It will specifically deal with the period from 1894 (the year the foreign missionaries started work in Mizoram) to 1934. This was the period in which the number of schools run by the churches in the village grew. Even after 1913 when the first Mizo pastor was ordained, they were still few in number and so the school teachers continued to play an important role through their multifarious activities in consolidating the place of Christianity in Mizo society. They continued to witness to the Gospel message through education in partnership with the ordained pastors and church elders. They were subsequently able to build on the foundations of their earlier work of proclaiming the Gospel until the Church in Mizoram was in a better position to look after these churches with more people getting ordained. The article deals mainly with North Mizoram though there is no clear demarcation between the village school teachers’ role and contribution in North and South Mizoram.

Mission Schools (Primary and Middle Schools)

The first school in Mizoram was opened by J. Herbert Lorrain and F.W. Savidge in Aizawl and devised a script for the Mizo language in 1894 following the Duhlian dialect. Even though Duhlian was the dialect of the dominant clan of the Sailo chiefs and thus involved some power issues, this choice later proved to be a crucial step in forging a pan-Mizo Christian identity which transcended clan and tribal boundaries. ⁴ The school had to be closed for some time but was reopened on 15^th February 1898 by D.E. Jones. Prior to this a small school had been opened in Aizawl and another one by the Government where the Bengali script was being used and taught which the Mizo found very difficult. ⁵ The missionaries Jones and Rowlands could provide food and lodging for about thirty pupils whereas the others had to find their own way of coping with the problems of schooling. Many Mizo boys started working as unskilled labourer in the kitchen and the canteens in the Assam Rifles’ camp to support themselves in school. The subjects taught in the Aizawl school were the basic ones needed up to Primary, and, later up to Middle School standards. Lloyd rightly remarks that, ‘The interest in education was usually two-fold. It was not merely a desire to learn, but also a spontaneous desire to share with others what had been acquired’. ⁶ It is from the school that the early leaders of the Mizo Church received their education and emerged as leaders of their community.

The Mizo's passion for education was clearly evident from their eagerness to learn how to read and write right from the earliest years. Jones giving a report of their first year's work states:

We gathered a few children and young men together, teaching them to read and write…. It is from four or five villages that most of them come, but occasionally some come from villages several days’ distance. They carry enough rice to last for some time, and when they have had a head start they return again to their villages, and teach their fellows. In this way the number of readers increases even among those that have never been to school. ⁷

Soon other schools were started by both the government and the missionaries. In 1901 schools were set up in three villages – Khawrihnim, Phulpui and Chhingchhip – on an experimental basis. These schools were combined and set up permanently in Changzawl village with Hranga as the teacher. ⁸ By 1902 apart from the Mission school at Aizawl there were two other schools – one in Aizawl for the children of non-Mizo, mainly the Nagas, and the other in Dokhama's village about two miles from Aizawl for Mizo children. These two schools were conducted and kept by unpaid Mizo students of the Mission school. Another school was also kept and conducted at Lalhrima's village (Sesawng), about twenty miles from Aizawl by Rowlands and two Mizo boys. ⁹ In 1903 three more schools were set up at Hriangmual, Thakthing and Chaprasis, which were for the girls and three women who were studying in the Mission School taught in these schools. ¹⁰ It was only in 1903 that nine regular schools were started in the villages – the first one was opened at Khandaih in July and the other eight in the month of October. ¹¹ An examination of the first report of the schools in Mizoram in Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Bu, a monthly magazine officially published by the Superintendent of Lushai Hills will show that 15 schools were listed in this report. ¹²

In 1904 the Chief Commissioner of Assam visited Mizoram and was impressed with the Mission schools in Aizawl and Lunglei. He therefore put the entire educational work in North Mizoram under the Presbyterian Mission and the education of the whole of South Mizoram under the Baptist Mission. Government schools at both stations were closed and incorporated with the Missions schools. ¹³ Since then for the next fifty years, until the Indian Government took over the schools in 1952, all education was in the hands of the Mizo Church.

Several primary schools were started as a result of the growing desire among the Mizo to have their own schools in their villages. The school buildings were built by the Mizo themselves. Schools were set up even in villages where there were no or few Christians. Very soon there were about more than 200 primary schools just in Mizoram. ¹⁴ The first English Middle School Examination took place in 1909 and six students – Saitawna, Khianga, Ngaihthangvunga, Saptea, Kawlkhuma and Lianhmingthanga – passed the examination. ¹⁵ By 1973 Nair could state, ‘No other part of the country can boast so many primary schools, middle schools, and high schools in relation to the size of its population’. ¹⁶

Hminga discussing the growth of Christianity during the first decade of the twentieth century states:

The growth during the first half (1904–1909) then was mainly through the mission school at Aizawl and Serkawn. About half of the Christian community was likely to be in and around the two mission compounds and the rest were perhaps, one by one conversion here and there in the villages through the work of the itinerant evangelists and those converted in the mission schools, and [who] had gone back to their villages. ¹⁷

This shows the contributions of the Mizo and their mission schools in the evangelisation of the Mizo. Evidently many people became Christians receiving their education in these schools. Examining the studies and research done by Hminga of the period 1915–1924, it is evident that the Church in South Mizoram was comparatively smaller than that of North Mizoram. Hminga attributed the difference in growth to the number of schools: ‘The outstanding difference, I noticed, was the number of schools in the North…. Since these early missions school teachers were all preachers, church planters and church leaders, North Mizoram had a much larger number of workers to gather the harvest’. ¹⁸

Saiaithanga had listed out eight major impacts and influences of the schools among the Mizo which cannot really be considered or separated from the impact and influence of Christianity namely – change in the manner of socialising as well as in the venue where such socialising would take place; giving up of what the missionaries considered to be bad habits; promoting solidarity among the Mizo; rendering help to neighbours during festivities and in times of bereavement; end ‘superstitions’; encouraging acts of love among the people, promoting selflessness and humility and the overall development of the people. ¹⁹ It is quite obvious then, that education and the spread of the Gospel went together.

The Mizo Teachers

According to J. Herbert Kane, ‘Education has always been an integral part of the missionary movement…. Teaching held an important place in the public ministry of Christ… and played a large role in the development of the early church’. ²⁰ As shown, this was especially true in Mizoram. The whole system of school education during the early period which was under the missionaries had a great impact in the Christianisation of the people.

Commenting on the growth of education in Mizoram, Enoch Lewis Mendus (1888–1982) emphasised the role of his predecessors while acknowledging the role played by the Mizo school teachers:

…it surprises one that such progress in education has been achieved within so short a time. Such progress would not have been possible apart from the sacrificial devotion and effort of my predecessors, Rev. D.E. Jones and Rev. Edwin Rowlands who founded this schools, also Rev. and Mrs. Sandy, who, with the help of their Lushai assistants, were responsible from bringing this school, together with village school education in general, to the present standard. ²¹

Saiaithanga while commenting on how the missionaries would as soon as possible open schools, send out evangelists and start some medical work, also pointed out how the missionaries took care of several poor young men, mostly victims of the famine of 1911, who were provided food and lodging and were also given education. ²² The homes that were set up for them were known as ‘Chawm In’ (sponsored homes). These homes produced some important early Mizo Christian leaders: pastors such as Hranga; itinerant preachers such as Thangupaa and Vanzika and school teachers like Vaikhawla and Dohleia. Saaithanga, however, added that these homes were more important and significant in terms of taking care of the poor rather than as centres for the spread of the Gospel. ²³

Lalnghinglova has grouped the native teachers into three groups:

Travelling teachers who were sent by the missionaries to tour the villages and teach the villagers how to read and write. They were not paid by the mission and had to accept and live on the hospitality of the villagers they visited during their stay in those particular villages. Even non-Christians were involved in this kind of teaching.

This picture changes if one looks at how education in Mizoram did not begin in a formal western manner. It began initially in small groups sitting on the floor following the tribal style of informal learning. As Lorrain stated:

Should a boy be doing simple words only, one who can read better than himself has to help him along, so as a rule they are allotted off two and two, and they do not learn in silence, but the hum of their voices the whole of the time is a strange feature of their mode of grasping knowledge: it greatly increases their ability to receive instruction, and so such a thing as silence in the school is unknown. ²⁶

Jones was probably referring to the three schools that were opened in three villages in 1901. ²⁷ Highlighting again the role of the missionaries, he describes in his report of 1901–1902 how for the first time Mizo teachers were sent out to conduct schools in other parts of the country for a short period:

Thanga, Chonga, and Toka were the first teachers to start elementary schools in the villages. They, with five others, are supported by us personally, so that they went without salaries, on trial. While they are out in the villages they get their food by public subscriptions of so many tinful of rice, & c. schools have been built at those villages by the villagers some months ago. ²⁸

These teachers were the first group of teachers as grouped by Lalnghinglova. They were the ones who had taught in the temporary schools which have been mentioned earlier in this article. Rowlands expresses how their Mizo students especially those in the higher classes have proved very useful, both in preaching and teaching saying, ‘The school could not be carried on without paid teachers were it not for their aid – they make excellent teachers’. ²⁹

The second group of teachers – those employed by the Mission and appointed to certain villages in 1903 – were Dorikhuma, Chhunruma and Hrangsaipuia. After them Viakhawla, Lianhnuna, Chalkunga, Tumbila and Dohnuna were appointed. Their work, apart from teaching, consisted of preaching the Gospel, planting churches as well as looking after these churches. ³⁰ Often they would be travelling, preaching the Gospel in far off places. These first mission teachers were one of the most important foundations of the Church in Mizoram as well of the slowly changing society.

By 1927 Mizo mission teachers received training at the Mission station in Aizawl. ³¹ The training was a one-year course. The first of those trained Mizo teacher was Pasena. ³² Williams gives us a picture on how the Mission teachers were trained in his report, which reads:

Besides studying the Theory and Method of teaching they had an opportunity of doing practical teaching in a vacant school near here which can be visited day by day…. They received some theological training in the Theological School here, so that they might be able to lead with the Sunday School and other meetings. ³³

This article will look specifically at three of the important roles that these teachers played in early Mizo Christian society, namely evangelization, church planting and administration as well as their contribution as village leaders.

1. Evangelisation

Only two or three Western missionary families were in each half of Mizoram at any one time. Jones and Rowlands first took teenage boys with them on evangelistic tours. When village schools were started, Mizo Christian teacher-evangelists were left in charge of these. ³⁶ Apart from these foreign missionaries and the few itinerant evangelists, the school teachers were the ones who preached the Gospel. Through education they managed to rouse the interest of the people to become Christians. Teachers at the end of the school term would go off on their own, travelling to distant places to communicate the Gospel. As early as 1901 we have a report of Toka, one of the first three Mizo teachers sending to the missionaries the kelmei ³⁷ of a man, which signified that the owner had discontinued his belief in the protection of the spirits, and that he wished to become a Christian. ³⁸

Zairema writing in 1978 asserted that ‘It is not possible to talk about the work in the Lushai hills [Mizoram] without considering the contribution made by primary school teachers’. ³⁹ Mendus, describing his visit to villages on the Mizoram Chin Hills border in 1939, believed that ‘pagan superstitions’ still existed in the region because of the lack of sufficient schools and Christian teachers. He later found out that there were many who were willing to become Christians but were still not because they did not have teachers. Additionally, the mission stations were nine or ten days journey away from these villages and the pastor of the district could only pay them occasional visits. He had also expressed his hope that the very next year a teacher would be placed there. ⁴⁰

2. Church Planting and Administration

The school teachers had the responsibility of planting a church in the villages where they had their school. Wherever a Christian congregation came into existence, they were the natural leaders. The teachers were given the status of Church elders by the foreign missionaries and were given membership to the presbytery. ⁴¹ They served as Chairman, Secretary, Preacher and Sunday School teacher of the churches. After the ordination of Elders was introduced in 1910, most of the Mission teachers were ordained. Though there were still a considerable number of teachers who were not ordained, they were usually looked up to as leaders. Lalhmuaka comments, ‘We would not be wrong in saying that the Pastors and the Evangelists ministered the Churches which the teachers have planted’ ⁴² and thus makes clear the position of the Mission teachers.

The schools under the care of the Mission encouraged the spread of the Gospel because the teachers were like pastors though they were not ordained. In villages where there were no Christians, there were soon believers because of the schools and subsequently a congregation soon grew. The teachers did not confine their teaching to basic education but were also religious teachers. They played the multiple roles of school teacher, preacher as well as evangelist. ⁴³

For a long time, these schools were the main agents for the growth of the Church and the Christians in Mizo society. Even after the emergence of ordained pastors from 1913, such pastors were still very few in number and their pastorates were very large. The pastors had to spend most of their time travelling from one village pastorate to another. They would be responsible for a district of roughly 30–50 square miles, and often had to undertake a day's journey through the jungle between each village. ⁴⁴ Therefore they did not have enough time to even look after the church in the area where they were residing. It fell on the Mission teachers to look after these churches. Their position was somewhat like the position of modern days Probationary Pastors or Assistant Pastors. ⁴⁵ Mendus writing about new village school teachers being sent by the Mission commented on their usefulness saying, ‘This is a great help for the Church. If the mission can put a teacher in every village, it will be very good for the Church’. ⁴⁶

Even after the Presbyterian system of Church administration was introduced in North Mizoram the school teachers continued to play an important role and position in the Church administration. According to the minutes of the first presbytery held in North Mizoram in 22 April 1910 at Aizawl, one of the decisions taken (listed as decision no. 10), was the inclusion of the teachers as members in the Presbytery meetings. ⁴⁷

3. Village Leaders

According to Lalchhinga as told to him by his father who was one of the advisers to a chief, the chief would often seek the advice of the teachers in the administration of his village. ⁵⁰ Village chiefs would even want to have school teachers as their elders to help rule the villages. Not all accepted this position but those who did were often invited to attend the village meetings called by the chiefs. If the teachers accepted the invitation, they were treated almost like the chief's prime minister. ⁵¹ Lalnghinglova has given us a description of one such meeting in which the village elders of five villages: Phulpui, Sateek, Sumsuih, Hmuifang and Tachhip, which was under one chief, Kamliana, met together. The Mission teacher Dorikhuma led the meeting. The issues he raised were:

No one should drink liquor, including the chief and his elders, in such meetings.

This influential role of the mission teachers was recognised as shown by Lloyd's comment that they ‘usually raised the moral tone of a village, guided people away from superstition and provided for many an access to the wider world’. ⁵⁶ The missionaries emphasised the role the teachers had in the transformation of morals they considered necessary for an uplifting of the tribal communities, and in spirituality. According to Mendus, ‘A good teacher is more than a teacher. He is a leader. If he is a strong spiritual personality he may transform a whole village’. ⁵⁷ The teachers were leaders in both the religious and the social spheres of the villages. They were members of different committees such as the Church, the Young Lushai Association, the Sunday School, etc. A course in First-Aid was also given to the teachers ⁵⁸ and so they played an important role in the emerging health care in the community and emphasised how to lead more hygienic lifestyles. They would visit the sick – giving medical advice as best as they could and offering prayers.

Conclusion

This article confirms the important connection between education and the transformation it can bring about in society. It has shown again the impact education has not only for social change but also for spiritual change. This brief study of the role of the Mission school teachers in the spread of the Gospel in Mizoram in the early days of Christianity has attempted to put into perspective the vital and largely unsung role that they had played. Therefore, the names of some of them are mentioned.

Even though the missionaries’ writing and narratives often underplay the leading role of the local people and often depicts them as their helpers in their mission, they acknowledged the role of the teachers. A closer look at the system of mission schools spreading out even to remote Mizo villages reveals that the few missionaries never had the resources to guide all the teachers in their activities, daily decisions and leadership, which makes it evident that the teachers were the main agents of change and transformation in the society in this period. A critical examination of the missionaries’ accounts of the life and work of the Mizo school teachers shows that they not only ran the schools but were involved in many other activities in the villages and were given an influential role in their leadership.

In addition to being very small in numbers, as foreigners and outsiders, the missionaries never would have had this deep and far-reaching influence in the villages. This article offers new avenues for studying in more detail how the new faith was accepted and appropriated from within the tradition of the Mizo clans, a fact that also should be acknowledged by the Mizo church. Looking at the villages and the role of the village school teachers, they emerge as key figures in the development and changes that took place in Mizo society during the period of church formation before a more formal training was introduced to produce ordained ministers for the Mizo Church through other educational structure and system. The village school teachers embraced the new religion and the literacy it brought and taught and shared it with others in their community. After a period of hostility towards the first converts, during which they were punished and driven out of the villages by the chiefs, the Mizo village school teachers along with the itinerant preachers and evangelists and later on with the pastors, had as indigenous Christians in the period between 1913 and 1934 a privileged access to the tribal societies in the villages. This changed the angle from which they approached evangelism, as they were able to develop from within the structures of the villages the Mizo church, the character of which is not fully characterised if seen only from the perspective of the influence of Western missionaries in the colonial period.