SALVATION ARMY IN INDIA

Press, Volume C, Issue 29501, 1 May 1961, Page 22

SALVATION ARMY IN INDIA

Outside Opposition To Proselytising The established Indian religions did not oppose the Salvation Army as a religion, but were not in favour of it proselytising. The Hindu religious leaders, in particular, had expressed the view that the Salvation Army should try to get converts from other Christian religions, not from Hinduism, said Lieutenant Commissioner J, Dahya, territorial commander of the Salvation Army in northern India, last evening in Christchurch. India was a very religious country, and all forms of religion were considered to have some merit but its religions were not evangelical like Christianity. • “However we feel evan geli- t cal work is of major import-' ance and we should preach to whoever we can to try and • propagate Christianity," he said. Commissioner Dahya entered the training college for officers in 1926 after serving) as a nursing orderly in the Salvation Army’s Emery Hospital in Annand. In 1951 he became chief secretary of the western India territory, and was appointed to his present position in 1956. Nearly all the work in India was carried out by Indians who had been converted, he said. In Calcutta, where his headquarters were, there were 400 officers, of whom only 30 were not Indians, he said. In India there were 4000 centres where medical, social, educational and evangelical programmes were carried out.

These centres, virtually selfcontained communities, were at present trying to consolidate rather than aim at a continual expansion, he said.