First published in 1980, Quakers in India is an account of the Quaker encounter with India from the day the first Quaker-owned ship sailed from Liverpool for Calcutta in 1815, until more than a century later. Quakers, both Indian and expatriate, shared the joys and the sufferings of the final struggle which brought two new nations to birth in 1947. It is a book about people, many of them forgotten, who have been rediscovered and brought back to life with their vision, courage, and blind spots, by a piece of historical detective work contagious in its enthusiasm.
The author, British by birth, writes out of a lifetime spent in India and from an Indian standpoint. The fact that she herself first met Quakers in India, in the context of the religious and cultural dialogue stimulated by their contact with the Indian ferment of the twenties and thirties of the 1900s, gives her book a unique flavour. An objective historical study, it will be a beneficial read for students and researchers of History, and general readers interested in the topic.
Foreword 1. Prologue 1659 2. Two Centuries of Change 1659–1859 3. The British India Society 1815–1843 4. Some ‘Honest Englishmen’ 1843–1885 5. Indian Initiatives: Quaker Responses 1861–1864 6. Benares and Beyond 1864–1872 7. Quaker Missionaries 1873–1901 8. The Might-Have-Beens 1880–1900 9. The Triple Stream 10. Cross Currents 11. ‘Quakers Embassies’ 12. Points of View
Biography
Marjorie Sykes was British-born Indian educator who went to live in India in the 1920s and joined the Indian independence movement. She wrote many books and became acquainted with leading figures in Indian politics and culture, including Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi.
Review of the first publication:
‘The book gathers together material that is nowhere else gathered together, and marshals it in a form that can be readily assimilated by the non-specialist. It sets in their historical perspective issues, cultural as well as religious, that are perennial and contemporary.’
— Edward Milligan, Quaker historian
