To the Brahmin priests who saw him as a defiler, and to the British officials who saw him as a troublemaker, Carey was a paradox. He refused to attack Hindu culture wholesale; he loved its people too much. Instead, he argued that the Gospel was not a European import to be imposed, but an answer to the deepest longings of the Indian heart. He lived on a simple missionary’s salary, never owning property, and when a fire destroyed his life’s work—his translations and polyglot dictionary—he simply began again.
The fruit of his labor was not mass conversion, but mass transformation. The modern missionary movement was born. Tens of thousands of schools were established. The caste system’s intellectual legitimacy was critically wounded. And a template was set for every missionary who followed: that to serve India, one must first love India, learn its languages, weep over its sorrows, and dignify its people. missionary to india
Arriving in Calcutta was a baptism of fire. The East India Company, hostile to missionaries for fear of disrupting trade, forced Carey into the remote, malaria-infested swamps of the Danish colony of Serampore. Here, he faced the "five giants" of India: poverty, caste oppression, suttee (the burning of widows), infanticide, and a bewildering plurality of languages. To the Brahmin priests who saw him as
Yet Carey understood that words alone were not enough. He joined forces with Ram Mohan Roy, the great Hindu reformer, to campaign against suttee, providing Governor-General William Bentinck with the data and moral force needed to outlaw the practice in 1829. He established Serampore College, opening its doors to Indians of all castes—including the "untouchable"—for an education in science, agriculture, and theology. He introduced the concept of savings banks, promoted forestry, and even founded India’s first newspaper in an Indian language. He lived on a simple missionary’s salary, never