I used to write a fortnightly column for The Indian Express, where I was in charge of the editorial page. One of my regular readers was my relative and theologian, the late Dr John K John, who lived in Dehradun. He often told me about a "Christian apologist," Vishal Mangalwadi, and advised me to read his books. However, I did not pay much attention to his suggestion at the time.

One day, Dr John gifted me a book by Mangalwadi, which attempted to counter Arun Shourie's arguments that Christians were loyal to the British rather than to India.

I had previously heard from some Catholic priests about how the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India had invited Shourie to address a conference. He had sought information about the Church, but little did they know that he would use the data to raise alarm about alleged religious conversions in India.

I was greatly impressed by the letters he wrote to Shourie, in which he argued that the British came to India for business and profit, whereas missionaries came to uplift the people from ignorance—in the process, making significant contributions to Indian society.

Reading the book opened my eyes to the many facets of Christianity in India. Until then, I had taken pride mainly in the fact that Christians pioneered education and public health in the country. I had not realised that the Press, of which I was a part, emerged from the rise of the Puritans in the 16th century, who first questioned the Church and later the state.

This was how I learned about the prophetic tradition of journalism, which empowered Puritans to speak truth to power. It also emboldened those who migrated to the New World to establish schools and newspapers. In India, the emergence of the Press took longer until William Carey founded The Friend of India, which later became The Statesman.

By this time, Mangalwadi had become my favourite author, and I had read all his books available on the market. Eventually, I met him while attending a conference in Barcelona, Spain. During a 45-km bus journey to Montserrat, where we visited the Benedictine Monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat, we shared a seat.

This gave me the chance to know him better. I was startled when he told me that he was neither a researcher nor a bookworm. I wondered how he managed to pack so much information into his books.

Later, he asked for my help in distributing copies of his new book, beautifully printed at Thomson Press, to newspapers and magazines. India Today reviewed the book—though negatively—as did many other publications. I also wrote about it in Indian Currents.

Around that time, Fr Xavier Vadakkekara, the late editor of Indian Currents, organised a meeting in Delhi, inviting Mangalwadi and Swami Agnivesh. Though Swamiji was asked to speak first, he gave the honour to Mangalwadi.

In his speech, Mangalwadi argued that the Bible was a blessing for India. He cited figures like William Wilberforce, dubbed "God's politician." His speech was searing, emphasising that India should be grateful to missionaries for preserving and strengthening vernacular languages.
When it was Agnivesh's turn to speak, rather than responding to Mangalwadi's thesis, he admitted that he had never heard of the names Mangalwadi mentioned. Though Agnivesh was a powerful speaker, his speech did not directly address Mangalwadi's arguments.

A few years later, at the request of my friend Prof Ashish Alexander, I interviewed Mangalwadi on stage at Faith Academy. Now, after many years, I have been invited to a dialogue with him at the Church of Redemption, near Rashtrapati Bhavan, on April 1.

The occasion is the release of his book, The Bible and the Making of Modern India (Sought After Media, 190 pages, Rs 750). The book is unique—it is the result of a collaborative effort by over three dozen scholars, who came together to honour Mangalwadi on his 75th birthday.
Drawing from their pioneering work, Mangalwadi has compiled this book as a preview of a larger series that will be published in the near future. His core argument remains the same: it was the Bible that transformed the world and introduced concepts that are now integral to South Asian civilisation.

For instance, when Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize in 1913 for his Bengali work Gitanjali, it seemed natural, given his stature as a poet, educationist, and thinker. Yet, few realise that Bengali was once considered the language of the lowly, while Sanskrit was the language of the elite. William Carey's contribution to promoting Indian languages and dialects is second to none.

Mangalwadi raises provocative questions: Why did Muslim rulers, despite ruling India for 700 years, not establish a single world-class educational institution? Why did Hindu rulers, despite building grand temples like the Sun Temple in Odisha and the Brihadeeswara Temple in Tamil Nadu, not create learning centres? Why were Indians historically barred from travelling abroad, fearing they might discover that Buddhism was flourishing elsewhere in the continent?

He highlights how missionaries gave many tribal languages their written form, using Roman and Devanagari alphabets to translate not only the Bible but also Hindu texts. Even Hindi and Urdu owe their development to missionaries who assisted the British in creating a court language that people could understand.

While the Mughals used Persian as the court language, it remained accessible only to the elite. Similarly, while Sanskrit scholars existed, they restricted learning to the upper castes, even denying their own women access to the language.

It took a European scholar, Max Müller, who never visited India, to translate the Vedas and make them accessible worldwide. Even today, Sanskrit translations are discouraged, and most Indians do not understand the national anthem (Jana Gana Mana) or the national song (Vande Mataram).

I live close to a "world class" school, and every day, I hear children reciting the Gayatri Mantra in the morning. They do not know its meaning. Instead, they are taught to recite it 108 times to gain its full benefit.

Nature is worshipped, and people are encouraged to take a dip in certain rivers on specific occasions, but why did no Hindu or Mughal ruler ever think of building a dam across these rivers for irrigation? In Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, it was British engineers who built the first dams and canal systems that survive to this day.

When the British built the hanging bridge at Punalur in Kerala, people refused to use it, fearing that it might collapse. This forced the British officer in charge to stand in a boat beneath the bridge while elephants were made to walk across it—a dramatic demonstration to convince the people of its safety.

Consider the case of American missionary Sam Higginbottom. He came to India to spread the word of God, but upon seeing faulty agricultural practices in Uttar Pradesh, he decided to return to America to study agriculture. He then came back and established India's first agricultural and animal husbandry institute in Allahabad (now Prayagraj). Recently, its vice-chancellor was accused of converting a staff member.

Similarly, modern engineering education in India began when the British built the first engineering college at Roorkee, which today is one of the preeminent IITs. In those times, the whims and fancies of rulers determined policies, as there were no written laws governing the country. People may hate Thomas Babington Macaulay, but it was he who drafted the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which remained in force until just two years ago. Kapil Sibal, a legal luminary, even remarked that the new Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita is nothing but a rewritten IPC.

Incidentally, while the Indian Constitution has been amended 106 times, the IPC remained one of the least amended laws.

India had great Ayurvedic physicians, but they guarded their knowledge within their families. As a result, medical education never spread widely. The injunction against touching a dead body prevented doctors from dissecting corpses to learn surgery. Likewise, the prohibition against crossing the seas destroyed India's once-thriving seafaring tradition.

Take the iron pillar at Qutub Minar—it does not rust, despite being exposed to the elements day and night. This was built when metallurgy was largely unknown to Europeans. How did India lose this technology? Because those who created it never received the respect they deserved. Anyone who could recite a few shlokas was considered great, while a blacksmith was deemed lowly and denied social status.

William Carey was a cobbler, yet his contribution to India's education and linguistic development is comparable, if not greater, than that of Mahatma Gandhi.

Monogamy was not endemic to India. If you ask any woman what empowers her the most, she will likely say her husband's legal inability to marry another woman while she is alive. Hindu religious texts rarely prescribed monogamy, yet today, with the Bible losing its influence, even MPs and MLAs take companions—who are not necessarily their spouses—on official trips via flights and trains. Earlier, only spouses were allowed such travel privileges. Today, abandoning one's wife does not disqualify anyone from holding high office.

Similarly, democracy was once rejected in the West, but the Bible's influence revived it in Europe. Ironically, in India, democracy is losing its appeal. Many believe that China's economic success is due to its autocratic governance, and India is gradually eroding its democratic credentials. Reports of High Court judges accepting bribes for favourable judgments only reinforce these concerns.

The Bible expects people to live by their own labour. God did not simply give Noah an ark; instead, He instructed him to build one from a particular kind of wood. Noah's obedience saved humanity and the animal kingdom from the Great Flood.

Instead of promoting the scientific temper, those in power are reviving long-abandoned and forgotten rituals.

Even as ritualism is regaining ground, needless controversies are being created in the name of rulers like Aurangzeb and Rana Sanga. Where else but India would people fight over historical figures from 300 years ago—while at the same time, the private and public sectors in the US work together to rescue astronauts stranded in space for months?

Yet, Mangalwadi does not despair. He suggests a way forward—to make the ideals of the Bible a blessing for India through an educational revolution. This is possible if all good people collaborate and use technology to turn every citizen into an instrument of national progress. Mangalwadi's book presents a powerful perspective on history, challenging conventional narratives and urging readers to reexamine the Bible's impact on India's development.

India stands at a crossroads, where the choice between scientific progress and regressive traditionalism will shape its future. History has shown that knowledge flourishes in an environment of openness and critical thinking, yet today, ritualism and divisive debates over historical figures dominate public discourse.

While ancient India had great minds in medicine, metallurgy, and philosophy, their knowledge remained restricted within castes and families, stunting widespread progress. The Bible's emphasis on education, equality, and social reform played a crucial role in shaping modern democracies, yet India is gradually eroding its democratic values in favour of authoritarian tendencies.

If India truly wishes to emerge as a global leader, it must embrace an educational revolution—one that promotes inquiry over blind faith, innovation over dogma, and inclusion over exclusion. Only through collective wisdom, ethical governance, and technological advancement can the nation realise its full potential and ensure that progress benefits all.