American Baptist Mission in Kangpokpi : A Short History
Introduction :
No Christian missionary was allowed in the State
of Manipur until 1894 when Rev. William Pettigrew, though forbidden to preach ,
was permitted to open a school. The central station was at Ukhrul, but in 1919
the mission center was transferred to Kangpokpi. Before the establishment of Central
station, the compound at Kangpokpi was a hill of untracked jungle rising
several hundred feet from the State motor road. A mile of winding road, carved
from the jungle- covered mountain side, was the first bold stroke in planning
for a mission compound. Then followed groves of citrus and banana trees, gardens,
mission bungalows, a school house, quarters for students, a church building, a
dispensary, a baby shelter, and to one side, a leper colony. In 1920, the Kangpokpi Christian Hospital was opened in Manipur by
Dr. G. G. Crozier and his wife. In 40 years, the Christian community had
grown to nearly 8000. The mission school was a central training institution
which has furnished leaders for a growing number of churches and village
schools throughout the hill region. The Swedish Baptist General Conference of
America had assumed the entire support of this station.
Some Noted Missionaries:
Dr J. A Ahlquist arrived at Kangpokpi
in 1939 and took charge of the general work from Mr Tanquist. Since then all the Government grant
for school were withdrawn and while Dr. Ahlquist was struggling to reconstruct
the school and Missions his effort was cut short by his untimely demise as he
passed away due to a motor accident in 1941 while travelling between Kohima and
Kangpokpi. After the tragic death of Dr. Ahlquist, Rev Earl E. Brock came and
took charge of Manipur field in 1941. He was in Manipur taking care of
Christians during the Second World War.
During the war of 1944, Japanese occupied
the Kangpokpi Mission compound and the Brocks and all other occupants were made
to move out of it. The houses in the Kangpokpi compound were greatly damaged in
the exchange of fire and there was huge material loss in the war and the people
have to leave their village and take shelter in the jungle in a such a
situation, the mission activities were also greatly hampered. The Brocks went
home on a brief furlough in 1945.
Rev. John S. Anderson who became
the last missionary in Manipur arrived in Kangpokpi in early 1946. He served in
a period of great political transition when India achieved her independence
from British Crown. Indeed, the wars slowed down the progress of education and
mission but the pace of growth was soon picked up again. Thus the Manipur
fields statistics of 1951 shows 456 churches
with a baptized membership of 26,747.
Rev
Earl E. Brock and wife Rosa
Pic Courtesy : CD Johnson and Brock’s family
The
annual report of American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, 1930 reports; “This
field in Kangpokpi includes a large section of the Naga Hills and also some
plains in the native State of Manipur. Four superintending pastors administer
the work. There are 32 churches and 30 branch churches with a membership of
3,775. The new converts who were baptized number 485. There are 34 mission
schools with an attendance of 1,009. Coeducation has been successfully tried in
the station school at Kangpokpi. The greatest advance has been in the Sadar
area, newly opened to mission work by Government order. Schools have increased
from 6 to 15 and church membership from 500 to 1,062. A man whom they tried to
kill in February baptized 54 converts in October. The medical work is mainly
conducted by three compounders who have had about 400 in-patients and 4,000
out-patients. Nine tubercular patients, 100 lepers, and more than 200 general
patients have been cared for. Mrs. Crozier has been responsible for the care of
ten motherless babies. The leper colony, which has a church of its own, is
being provided with good buildings”.
In
the annual report of American Baptist Foreign Mission Society 1933, Dr. W. R. Werelius writes for Kangpokpi: “We
took over the medical work at Kangpokpi in January 1932. In addition to
reconstructing a mile and a half of
water supply, doing 500 and some odd miles of touring, trying to learn a new
language, watching the construction of a new chapel out of the corner of our
medical or rather engineering eye, remodelling a so-called hospital, trying to
keep some of the jungle from encroaching on our cook shanty too closely, and
other things too numerous to mention, we have managed to treat 1,545 new
patients and 2,807 old patients. We do not want to close the gate of the
medical compound to anyone whom we can help so long as the cost of medicine can
be covered. We have discharged 21 lepers as cured. Until November the school
children were treated, but not at the expense of the medical appropriation.”
The
annual report of American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, 1945 reports; “In
Perilous Times'’ In the spring- of 1944, the Japanese penetrated Manipur and
the Naga Hills. When hostilities ended, the Kangpokpi mission bungalows were
badly damaged and 19 churches in the Manipur field had been destroyed
(estimated replacement value $20,000). In the Kohima field, four or five
churches, a mission bungalow, much office equipment, and all but 20 of the 900
houses in Kohima town were destroyed, and the second Kohima mission bungalow
and a number of other mission buildings were seriously damaged. Thousands were
homeless, starving, and in need of medical aid. Gifts by Assam Christians and
the World Emergency Forward Fund made possible the distribution of more than
$1,200 in relief. Clothing and blankets were donated; the Government provided
food for about 100,000 people and tarpaulins as a temporary substitute for the
10,000 houses destroyed. With the help of local pastors and Dr. Curzon Momin of
Jorhat Hospital, Missionary J. M. Forbes distributed medicine and clothing to
the needy in the Kohima field. In Manipur Rev. E. E. Brock gave out seven and a
half three-ton truck loads of clothing and blankets, and at Christmas time
dropped two planeloads of blankets, cloth, and garments in a remote and needy
area.
Kangpokpi Mission and 2nd World War
The Japanese set up their No. 1
Field Hospital inside the Kangpokpi Mission. On 19th June, the
casualties who were in No. 1 Field Hospital were shifted to Hill 5797 along with the units of 60
Infantry Regiment under Colonel Matsumura . The British 2nd Division
Tanks on 20th June 1944 pump shells into Hill 5797 south east of
‘Mission’, where it was known that Matsumura’s 60 regiment was concentrated.
During the occupation of the
Mission compound by the Japanese, the Royal Air Force made many sorties to bomb
and strafe the Japanese soldiers inside the campus.
As recorded in the war diary of 2nd
Bn, the Durham Light Infantry, on 22nd June 1944, 4 Japanese
soldiers were taken as prisoners of war and 6 more Japanese were killed in and
around the Kangpokpi Mission.
On 22nd June, the
Japanese were fleeing the Kangpokpi Mission and there was a brush with the 2nd
British Division coming from
Kohima.
Aerial Picture of Kangpokpi Mission, 1944
Bibliography :
Louis Allen, Burma the Longest
war, Phoenix Press, London, 2000
Annual report of American Baptist
Foreign Mission Society 1930, Foreign Mission Headquaters, New York, Printed by
The Judson Press, Philadelphia.
Annual report of American Baptist
Foreign Mission Society 1933, Foreign Mission Headquaters, New York, Printed by
Rumford Press, Concord, USA.
Annual report of American Baptist
Foreign Mission Society 1945, American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, New
York, Printed by The Judson Press, Philadelphia.
William Slim, Defeat into Victory,
Natraj Publishers, Dehradun, 1981
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