This is a complete and accurate transcript of the tape of the oral history interview of Bradford Ezra Steiner (CN 258, T1). No spoken words have been omitted, except for any non-English phrases which could not be understood by the transcribers. Foreign terms which are not commonly understood appear in italics. In very few cases words were too unclear to be distinguished. If the transcriber was not completely sure of having gotten what the speaker said, "[?]" was inserted after the word or phrase in question. If the speech was inaudible or indistinguishable, "[unclear]" was inserted. Grunts and verbal hesitations such as "ah" or "um" were usually omitted.
Readers should remember that this is a transcript of spoken English, which follows a different rhythm and rule than written English.
... Three dots indicate an interruption or break in the train of thought within the sentence on the part of the speaker.
.... Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of an incomplete sentence.
( ) Words in parentheses are asides made by the speaker.
[ ] Words in brackets are comments by the transcriber.
This transcript was completed by Evan Kuehn and Christian Sawyer in September 2004.
Collection 258, T1. Interview of Bradford Ezra Steiner by Ted Reihmer on December 2, 1983, at Steiner's home in Elmhurst, IL.
REIHMER: [Tape starts very slowly] Okay. Could you just say something for me here so I can get the volume again?
STEINER: Oh....
REIHMER: That’s good. [Tape stops and starts very slowly again]
STEINER: [coughs] In India one finds [pauses] many of the diseases that are present here in...in the USA, together with numerous tropical diseases. Tuberculosis is very common in India, extremely common, in fact. And one finds advanced disease not only in the lungs, but on the intestines and diseased and other organs. And this used to be the situation in this country, but as a result of public health measures, one seldom sees these advanced forms of tuberculosis here in the United States. And then in addition to tuberculosis there, many other tropical diseases such as intestinal parasites, malaria, leprosy is...(or Hanson’s disease)...is quite common in India. And through the years, most of the work among patients with leprosy or Hanson’s disease has been done by missionary organizations. And I believe that the majority of the work is still being done by missionary organizations. [pauses] And then a...and then one finds cataracts to be very common there. Bladder stones are very common. I mentioned cataracts. And cataracts is [sic] so common that there is a...almost a caste of cataract surgeons who have been doing cataract surgery for a long time in India. Their methods have been primitive, but this is just an indication of what the situation is. [train whistles] And then as a result of poor public health, many of the diseases...many of the infectious diseases, such as polio, are still extremely common in India. In fact, on Channel Seven [ABC7-Chicago (WLS-TV)] last night it was mentioned that there are hundreds of thousands of cases of polio in India even now every year. And then because of...of poor nutrition and other reasons, there are many obstetrical complications in India. And a large percentage of obstetrical work that’s done in mission hospitals is complicated.
REIHMER: What, specifically, type of work would you be referring to Doctor?
STEINER: Obstetrical, which type of...?
REIHMER: I know of what obstet...obstetrical work is....
STEINER: Uh-huh.
REIHMER: ...but what type of complications, the baby turned around or...?
STEINER: Well, one of the...one of the complications that’s very common is to have a...to have a presentation where the arm of the baby is...is...has been delivered and...and it’s impossible for the delivery to be completed unless something is done about it to alter the situation. And this can be a fatal situation too, both mother and the child.
REIHMER: You mentioned nutrition as one of the main factors for that....
STEINER: Well, not, well, it...it can result in rickets and other diseases of that type.
REIHMER: Being in the area of a school like that of Woodstock at Landour [in India],...
STEINER: Uh-huh.
REIHMER: ...what type of diseases would that community have prevented...or presented itself to you?
STEINER: Well, in [coughs] the conditions that we found among the Woodstock children were very similar to the diseases that we find among children in this country, such as chicken pox and measles and whooping cough. Or these were the diseases that we found at that time. Since...since that time, there’s immunization against measles, which...which prevents the disease now. But then there was the flu and the other diseases that children have. And then we...we also had fractures and other conditions of that kind, appendicitis. And...and then there would be...that time we had outbreaks of polio among the children. And then there were intestinal parasites that the children would pick up. [pauses] These...these were among the children of Woodstock school. When the children...in...in the other schools over there, we found diseases that were common to the Indian people in general.
REIHMER: What type of medical supplies, medication, were you able to get to help you in your mission work while at Landour?
STEINER: Well, over there we...we had good access to...to [background noise] most of the medicines that were available at that time. And we obtained our medicines from manufacturers in India and also wholesalers in...in India. And these were shipped either by mail or by parcel...by...[pauses]...by freight to us. We also had oxygen there. [plane flies overhead] And the Red Cross in India had a blood bank and so we were able to get blood from the Red Cross for use in the hospitals.
REIHMER: [pauses] Now that you mention the Red Cross, what kind of work would the Red Cross have had in the area where you were other than the assistance that you were able to get from them?
STEINER: Well, this was...this was about the only work that I was aware of that...that was being done at that time over there. At the time when we were there, the aid programs such as Medical Assistance Program [MAP International] weren’t available. And so all the...all the medical supplies that...that we used were supplies that we had to purchase. And [pauses]...and our...our supply was limited by...by our budget, what we were able to afford.
REIHMER: What type of staff did the hospital have, the numbers of doctors, nurses, even nationals? Doctors, nurses, and [unclear]....
STEINER: Well, our...our hospital was a little unusual because we were located in the town where the language school for missionaries was located. [plane flies overhead] And some of these missionaries who were attending language school were spe...who were medical specialists in different fields. And so we would often call upon them for consultation. And...and a number of them assisted us in our work in the hospital [taps microphone], with surgery and in other procedures and as a result of this we were able to [taps microphone] do a fairly wide type of surgical work. We also had several American [dryer runs in background] physicians on our staff. We had...we had a few western nurses on our staff. And as a result of this, we were able to give a high quality of nursing care to the [taps microphone] patients. Then we also had national physicians and national nurses and national technicians. In some cases, we trained some of these technicians ourselves. We trained x-ray technicians and...and gave some training to [taps microphone] laboratory technicians. There are schools for laboratory and x-ray technicians in India that are operated by...by some of the mission hospitals. And so some of our technicians received their training in these schools. This was one area that...that the mission hospitals were pioneering and...and areas that weren’t provided in other medical institutions in India, such as schools for technicians. And the mission hospitals have very good nurses’ training programs out there.
REIHMER: Did Landour itself have one of these nursing...?
STEINER: No, we didn’t have a nursing training program there.
REIHMER: What type of medical practice or traditions were filed...(excuse me)...were followed by the nationals in the area pertaining to obste...obstetrics again? Did they use a midwife or were...were all the pregnancies brought to a hospital?
STEINER: Well, as far as medical practice there are two main systems of...of ancient medicine in India. One is [taps microphone] Vedic system or...Vedic system which is a Hindu system and dates back centuries. And then there’s [taps microphone] the Unani system of medicine which is Arabic in origin and dates back several centuries. And both of these systems have been...have been (and they still are) practiced by a large number of practitioners and their services are used by the people. In fact, one of the presidents of India had a western medical physician or a physician trained in western medicine on his...on his personal staff and then he also had a...a Vedic physician and a Unanic physician on his staff. [taps microphone] But India itself has many medical schools and many of them are very fine. And every state has...has at least one medical school and some of them have three or four medical schools or even more than that. And...so that...and...and...and these, as I mentioned, these...these schools are...are...are very fine. And many of the professors have been trained either in Europe or the United States. [taps microphone] And many of the...many of the physicians who have come to this country and taken postgraduate work here or residency work here have gone back...have gone back to teaching positions in medical schools there, India, so that as a result [taps microphone] the quality of medicine is very...is very high. Getting to your question about obstetrics and midwifery, there are many midwifery schools [taps microphone] where nurses are taught midwifery and they do a large amount of the obstetrical work in India. In fact, in some of the hospitals they...they do a...a large percentage of the midwifery work. And then, in the villages there are...(there were, I don’t know if the situation still exists), but there were many untrained midwives, who picked up the work from...from an older midwife and...and their methods weren’t always the best. And sometimes complications would result from procedures that they tried unsuccessfully. And then...then, there...there also...there...there’s a lot of homeopathy there, which is another system of medicine. And then, there is...there’s quite a bit of folk medicine that’s practiced (I think that’s what you’d call it, folk medicine), especially in the villages [coughs].
REIHMER: Speaking of [taps microphone] folk medicine, what type of practices would this entail?
STEINER: Well, this...this depends on...on the area in which one would be observing this. Way up in the mountains, I know of cases where...where...where they have sometimes applied hot needles to people...joints in trying to...in treating. And measures that (for other conditions) that were somewhat similar.
REIHMER: Pertaining to the Vedic and Unani systems of medicine, how would they differ from western medicine as we know it, if any?
STEINER: In the...in the pure system, say, that didn’t use western medicines such as antibiotics. They would...they would use herbs [taps microphone] and then they used other methods which I’m not too aware about.
REIHMER: But mainly they tried to use natural extracts?
STEINER: They...and they use na...they used natural medicines or natural herbs. Natural herbs were used to a great extent, also in folk medicine.
REIHMER: What would you say was the biggest hindrance to your work, if any, as a doctor in India?
STEINER: Well, the biggest hindrance was...was probably the...[pauses]...was probably the [pauses] lack of income among the people. In many cases, the income was...was...was such that they weren’t able to feed their families properly. And so...[coughs]...so this would result in malnutrition and other problems resulting from...from inadequate diets. And sometimes when you’d be...when you’d [coughs] tell a patient that he should eat...he should include this and that and other things in his diet he would say, “How can I afford...how can I afford to buy these things? My income is so much a month and I can’t afford to buy these different foods.” And because of the...of the low income, the people were unable to afford...afford medicines. And so in many cases, the medicine costs...the medicines had to be subsidized by the hospital. And at that time, we didn’t have any organizations that provided us with...with medicines such as Medical Assistance Programs [MAP International] is providing at the present time.
REIHMER: Okay. Speaking on the diet of the Indians that would...would be in the area of Landour, what would that diet consist of?
STEINER: The...The people up in our area were...were largely wheat eaters, so that wheat and bread was their major staple. And this was true of a large part of India. Wheat was a staple and they had...and bread constituted a large part of their diet. And in other parts of India, rice was the main staple and constituted the main part of the diet. And...and among the common people the...the diet was very monotonous if one can use that term because they ate the same thing day in and day out, and had very little variation. And even when variation was provided, such as vegetables or...or some other food substance, if they weren’t accustomed to it they wouldn’t eat it. For instance, vegetables like carrots and peas and beans and things like this that...that we commonly use, if you’d provide village people with these type of foods, often they wouldn’t...they wouldn’t use them because they weren’t accustomed to them. It wasn’t part of their diet.
REIHMER: Were these people who...were the main bulk of these people agrarian, were they farmers, themselves?
STEINER: Well, the people back in the...in the mountains were primarily farmers...
REIHMER: Okay.
STEINER: ...and lived in villages and farmed the land around. India has...has many large cities, and some of these cities are growing very rapidly so that numbers of people that are living in the cities is...is really increasing very rapidly. But they’re still many people living in the villages. And I understand that there are about six hundred thousand villages in India. And many of the people that...that are in the cities, still have their home in the villages and they still farm the...the land in their villages. Many of them will...will farm this land and during the planting and harvest time and then when they’re freed of those duties then they’ll go and work in the cities. And many of the...many of the workers will...that are in the cities will leave their families back on the farm and then go to the city to do work or they’ll engage in some other occupation such as...as road work or construction work or work of that type.
REIHMER: [pauses] While in India, did you see any agricultural advantages, advancements made by the people or with government help or did you see that since they were locked into a certain monotonous (as you used the word) routine of eating, that they would not try a new strain of vegetables or even grains?
STEINER: [coughs] There was quite a bit of mechanization that was introduced in certain parts of India, and the government also had started f...farms that were similar to collective farms in areas where there hadn’t been any farming. In fact, one of the largest collective farms in the world is...is located in India in...in one of the areas that...that hadn’t been farmed. But...but by and large, the people are still up in the...or people in the villages are sill farming very similar to what they have through the centuries. And [pauses] the need...the need in the villages is not so much the need of having mechanization as it is to improve the productivity of the...of the farms because...because there’s plenty of manpower over there and if you introduce a machine, it takes away the livelihood of...of...of the people. So that this is...this is an important...important factor that has to be kept in mind, not to...not to supplant the...the jobs of the...of the farmers over there.
REIHMER: What would the location have been of that large collective farm?
STEINER: This was in [pauses]...in the Tehri, which is an area at the foot hills of the Himalaya mountains, up in north India. In the...in the United Province...or what the...it’s called Uttar Predash now. It used to be called the United Provinces. But now it’s called Utter Predash. And...and this is possible now as a result of work that the UN [United Nations] had done in eradicating malaria in large parts of India. In this...in this Tehri which was at the foothills of the Himalayas, malaria had been so...so bad that people had abandoned the...the area. And it was only after World War II when...when the...when the United Nations organization came in to help with...with controlling leprosy, that it was possible to reclaim this land and resettle people in this area which was very productive. [pauses] And...and...so the...the area’s quite well populated at the present time.
REIHMER: Was the UN able to help India in any other way that you might have been aware of?
STEINER: Well, they...they’ve helped in...in other...in control of other diseases also, in other public health measures [phone rings] over there. [women talking in background, pauses] But malaria was a...was a very good example of what...[coughs]...what...one of the things that had been accomplished. Because malaria prevented not only...resulted in people dying from the disease, but it...but it made a large number of the people chronically ill so that they were non-productive and somebody else had to take care of them. If you have one person that’s...that’s chronically ill, it often takes another person to take care of them so that you have two people involved. And if you can make this one person healthy and productive, then you’re releasing two people to produce or to be productive.
REIHMER: You mentioned that there were roads and communication networks in India. Could you elaborate on that any more, as well as public works?
STEINER: Well, as far as roads, there’s been a continuing road building program in India in different areas. I’m most acquainted with...with the roads up there in the...in the mountains, in...in north India. And the government has...has done extensive road building up there. And...and now there’s a road that...that goes all the way up to Jaru La [?] where we had been stationed, border road. And Jaru La [?] has become developed into a...into a small city as a result of access resulting from the road being...that had been built up there. And they’ve also built...built roads into...into other areas throughout the mountains there, and...and this has improved the communications and it’s improved the quality of life for the people up in the...in these different areas. And...for instance in...we were (as I’ve mentioned before) we were...[talking in background] our hospital’s located in Mussoorie. At the time when...when we first [pauses] started to work there, the motor road [plane flies overhead] came up to the outskirts of the city. And then we have a hike from the bus terminal for about five miles, all uphill, to where a hospital was. And subsequently, the road that...road was built all the way through the city and as a result one is able to travel by...by vehicle, mostly jeep [shuffles microphone], from one end of Mussoorie to the other at the present time. And the road, in fact, has been...has been built beyond Mussoorie back into the mountains to...way back into the mountains. And as a result of this, it’s...it’s now possible to...for...for our mission to conduct clinics back up in the mountains, which...which wasn’t possible to do before on the same scale. When I was out there, we, from time to time, would...would go way back up into the mountains by...by a long route, first traveling down to the plains of India, and then traveling for a distance in the plains, and then taking another one of these roads up into the mountains. And we’d get back into...into the villages from which some of our patients came and would hold clinics and...and have medical evangelistic ministry back there. Spend a...spend a day or two nights there, and not only hold clinic, but have a gospel ministry among the people there. But now it’s possible for...for the missionaries to visit villages [coughs twice] surrounding...surrounding Mussoorie on a weekly basis. And one of the team’s missionaries is...is engaged full-time in this type of work at the present time (one of TEAM’s positions) and has quite a program outlined for developing this, this village work...rural work and...and is thinking of...of establishing clinics on a...on a...that would be permanently based there with a [taps microphone] nurse being stationed on a full-time basis there and then the doctor visiting the clinic once a week with a...with a...a team, a medical team. So that this is possible as a result of...of the improvement in communication.
REIHMER: You’ve mentioned the hilly terrain and everything in the area that you were stationed. Could you just give me a...a brief outline of the geography of the area and some of the main features?
STEINER: Well, the Himalayas are...Himalayas are located in north India and are composed of a number of...of ranges with a...the primary range being located between India and Nepal on the...the south and Tibet on the north. And this range has some of the world’s highest mountains in it, such as Mount Everest and Nanda Devi and Kanchenjunga, some of the other peaks. But all of these ranges are...are....are high and they’re quite steep. And an indication of...of this would be from the fact that...that the altitude in...in Mussoorie ranged from five thousand feet to about eight thousand feet. And the town was sprawled over the...over a mountain range, and down the sides of the mountain. And as a result of this, a lot of the walking was up and down hill. [pauses] And it was because of the terrain being this...this rugged that...that....that motor roads had not been built inside of...inside of the city itself until recently. And all of travel was done either on foot or horseback or being carried in a...in a chair by...by porters.
REIHMER: You had mentioned that you were in an evangelical medical work.
STEINER: Uh-huh.
REIHMER: What would have been your function with the mission while you were in India? Was it to any administrative extent?
STEINER: I was with The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM), and each of the fields of the mission has a field council which administers and coordinates the work of the...the field. And for part of my time, I was the chairman of this field committee and this entailed the responsibility for coordinating the work and also being in communication with headquarters, here in the USA, and being...being responsible to the headquarters for the work out there. [taps microphone] And then this also involved visits to the different areas in which the...in which the mission was working...working in. [pauses] And then, as far as...as far as evangelistic work, in our hospital we had a...a spiritual ministry to the people. And we had a chaplain there or we called him an evangelist who...who would minister to the people there. And we also had others who came in...in to the hospital and minister to the people, we used Gospel Recordings [presentation of the Gospel in indigenous tongues on records and tapes, BGC Archives Collection 36] quite frequently. And these were very helpful in ministering to the village people because once they play...played some of these records that were in...in their own language, and then [pauses] an evangelist or bible woman could...could continue on from there. Then, we...we also had services, Sunday services inside the hospital. One of...one of my privileges was to...was to serve missionaries. And this involved not only taking care of their physical needs, their medical needs, but often this involved pastoral ministry among them. Many of them [door shuts] were working alone down in the plains or on their station and had problems and didn’t have anybody that they could share them with. And so when they came up there on vacation, they had the opportunity of...of sharing their problems with...with us and...and so we had...we had this type of ministry among them. And...and I felt that...that in...ministering to the missionaries and keeping them healthy, that I had a part in their ministry.
REIHMER: Sure.
STEINER: And...[coughs]...and this was...and I felt that I had a ministry throughout India as a result of this. [pauses] This has been...this has been true of...of other missionary physicians who have been on the field.
REIHMER: How effective did you feel that your chaplain was able to be with the nationals that came in. Where they Christians themselves or did they adhere to a different belief?
STEINER: Well, [coughs] many of the patients that...that came were...were Hindus and...(especially those from back in the villages), and...and there was an effective ministry among them. And...and medicine has been used by the Lord as...as a means of reaching people with the Gospel in India and has been one of the primary means of contacting people and...and having an entrance into their culture and into their villages. And this has been...through the...through the years this has been the case.
REIHMER: What was the reaction of a Hindu family when they found out that one of their members had converted to Christianity?
STEINER: Well, this...this varied with the area in which they lived and it varied with...with the families. In...[coughs] in many cases in India, when a person became a Christian, he was disowned by his family, he was driven out of his village, and he lost everything that he had. And it was...and in some cases...in some areas [pauses] many of them...or a number of people who did become Christians lost their lives. [plane flies overhead] In fact, we had...we had one male nurse who...who came from a Muslim area where there weren’t any Christians. And on one occasion when he went home, his...his family tried to poison him or they did...they did poison him and he escaped and recovered from that. And then about the time when we left India, he had received a message from the folks that...that his father was very ill and they wanted him to come home. And there was a big question in our minds whether this was a bogus message or whether it was a true message. And...and we were very prayerful of...of what might happen if he did return home. And I believe he actually did go and I never heard what happened to him, whether he returned or not. He was a fine...fine young man. But this...this often happened in India. And because of this...this situation where...where people were thrown out of their villages, it was...it had been necessary through the years for...for the missions to provide some means of livelihood for the people who do...do become Christians. Provide them with land on which they can work or provide them with an occupation that they can follow or provide them with jobs that they can engage in. In some parts of India, [pauses] there was...there was a situation where there were mass movements, where you had whole villages becoming Christians. And in a situation like this where you had this occur, it was a lot...it was a lot easier for the people because the whole village became Christians and..., including the leaders of the village, and it...it made it possible for the missionary organizations to...to send in teachers and start schools among the children and station a pastor in the village, and...and have a real effective ministry in the whole village. And have a real effective ministry among the children. And in...in many cases the...the...the...[coughs] these children who have...who have grown up in...in the schools have...have [pauses] become...become leaders in India, Christian leaders.
REIHMER: Other than in the families, did you see conflict among Christians and Hindus or Christians and Muslims on any scale?
STEINER: [pauses] Are you referring to...in the communities? [taps microphone] I never saw too much...too much conflict between the Christians and...and...and the Hindus or...on a community basis. There was a lot of conflict between the Hindus and the Muslims and there were often riots and...that took place as a result of this. And sometimes these riots were very extensive. But...but there weren’t any that I...that I can think of right now that...between the...between the Christian communities and the...and the Hindu communities. In some cases, the...there was persecutions of Christians, but at the moment I can’t think of any sp...any specific instances.
REIHMER: That’s fine. What would a typical [pauses] Indian service happen like?
STEINER: Well, the services were...were very similar to...to the services that one finds in other parts of the world. To...that one finds in Europe and here in the United States. And this would be the thing that one would expect with...missionaries would establish services that they were accustomed to. And...and, in forms of worship, in fact, the mainline denominations had different liturgies and forms of service, just like they do in this country. Like a baptismal service or communion service or some other type of service they had...they had a regular sort of standard form that...just like they do in this country and...or that they have in...in Europe. Some of the...the first missionaries in India were British, and as a result of that English forms of...of worship were established over there. First...first among the...(or not the first, but)...they were established for the...the English people that were in India. And then, these were...these forms of service were...were copied (if I can use that term) [taps microphone] by the nationals when the national churches were established.
REIHMER: [pauses] Having been in Africa, I couldn’t help but notice the difference in the length of the service between that of what I was accustomed to and what I found there. It seemed to be a...an all day affair, or at least taking up a good portion of the afternoon as well as the morning. Was that also the case in India?
STEINER: As a rule, it wasn’t. As a rule, the services were shorter. And in many cases they...they...especially among the American missions or the churches that were established by American missions [taps microphone] they had...they had the Sunday School and church service format that one has here in this country. And...and, the services were...were usually about the same length as they are in this country, maybe a little longer. As a rule, they don’t...they don’t watch the clocks as closely as we do in this country and...[taps microphone]...and services don’t always start promptly as we do in this country because people don’t...don’t live by the clock to the same extent. But then they’re...they have...they have sometimes...they have conferences out there which will last all day or last several days. So that’s a little different situation.
REIHMER: Would you like to elaborate on some conferences that were there?
STEINER: Well, the Evangelical Fellowship of India, (which was formed I believe in the Fifties), has established All-India Conferences, which are attended by...by Christians from all over India. And...and they have often had leading speakers at these conferences from England or from the United States, such as Billy Graham. And...and these conferences have been well attended and have...and have really been a great help to the...to the people because in many cases some of them have been quite isolated, especially Christian leaders [taps microphone] and pastors have been very isolated in their ministry. And sometimes they have felt that...that they’re alone and nobody else is...there are no other Christians. And when they can get together with...with hundreds or even thousands of...of Christians at a large gathering [plane flies overhead] and hear what’s happening in other parts of the country, it...it is a great encouragement to them. And then the Evangelical Fellowship of India has also had a radio program. They’ve had a program of translating [taps microphone] theological works in the Indian languages, program of...of having pastoral helps, sermon helps, of having Sunday School material. In fact, my brother-in-law, Charles Warren, was involved in...in the preparation of Sunday School material for India. He...he prepared it in English for the Indians and...or adapting it to the Indians. And then this...this was translated into a number of the different languages out there. And...and then there are other...other activities like this. I think that Evangelical Fellowship has involved...has been involved in...in having a missionary program, or at least encouraging it. And as a result of this, [coughs] there have been missionaries that have been sent out by...by churches in India and supported by churches in India into...going into areas that...that are unevangelized, going into...into a cultural situation that’s completely different than...than themselves. And the...the country is so complex that...that you...that...it’s even more complex with differences in religion and language and other cultural differences. It’s more different [taps microphone] than...than all of Europe is. So that there’s a real cross-cultural involvement when...when a person goes into another area of India from one part.
REIHMER: Is there a national language for all of India to sort of unite their nation?
STEINER: Well, at the time when the...when the British were in India, English was...was a common language in India and was the language of the universities and the language of the army and the language of the government. And...and Urdu was used as...as more or less the vernacular. Well since India has got its independence, it has made Hindi the national language. Although English is still the language at the universities. But they have made Hindi the national language. Hindi happened to be the...the language that was spoken by the largest number of...of people in India. And...so they were able to...those who were Hindi speaking people were able to...to make Hindi the national language. And this has caused a lot of trouble in India, similar to the situation in Canada with English and French. And because of this, there have been riots in India over this language situation, serious riots. And...well, now it’s necessary for...for a student in India who...he studies his own provincial language in the primary school. And then he...then he’s required to...to learn Hindi as...as a...as another language. And...and then he’ll...if he’s planning to go on to university, he learns English as a third language. So that...so that university students all...they’ll know their own provincial language and they’ll know Hindi and they’ll know English.
REIHMER: Going back to the Evangelical kind of things....
STEINER: Yes.
REIHMER: [taps microphone] What would you say was the biggest conflict that the Indians came in contact to that they could not accept the Gospel?
STEINER: [pauses] Well, the...the...in India there’s a large Muslim population. [pauses] And...Muslims, of course, are...they...they believe in Allah and...and they cannot accept Jesus Christ as being the Son of God. And...so this...this is...as far as the Muslims are concerned, this is probably the...the primary...primary thing that they cannot accept Christianity. And this would...and also because they’d be accepting for...different religion. As far as Hinduism is concerned, Hinduism is more a way of life rather than a system of theology or system of doctrine. And a Hindu can believe almost anything he wants to and believe any god he wants to as long as he accepts the social customs of Hinduism and will observe the holidays, Hindu holidays, and will not...will not consider his religious views to be exclusive. For instance the Hindus took in Buddhists as one of their schools of philosophy. And so the Buddhists in India are considered to be...to be Hindus. They would...they would do the same thing with Muslims if the Muslims would accept it. Let them believe in anything they want to. I mean, you don’t have to believe in a God. You could be an atheist [taps microphone] and still be a Hindu. And some of the...the leaders were considered [taps microphone]...considered themselves atheist, but they...they participated in the...in the different Hindu festivals and holidays and...and...and so there was no problem there. And this is one of the things that...that Hinduism would want to do with Christianity. They would like to have Christianity come in and just become part of Hinduism. And they would equate Jesus Christ with one of the Hindu gods, like Krishna or Ram. “And just come in and join us. You can do anything you want to, believe anything you want to. Just come and we can have our different festivals, just come in and join us and just join our different holidays, participate in our different holidays and...and we’ll just be one big happy family.” And this is...this is...this is essentially the gospel that...that Hinduism is...is...pro...proclaiming to the rest of the world and the philosophy that they’re teaching. You can...like the men that are coming over this country, the swamis [Hindu religious leaders], they’ve had...this is one of the things that they’ve been teaching over here. So that this is one of the big dangers to the church in India is just this...this...this one...this one idea. And...and it’s a big temptation to...to some of the Christians. [pauses] And...and if it were not for the fact that...that they realize that you can’t...that you can only serve one master, that you can only s...only follow Christ and trust Him and have Him as your savior, if it were not for that fact, and that He is the one through whom there is salvation, if it were not for that fact, then for them realizing that, it would be very simple for a Christian to go ba....go into Hinduism.
REIHMER: Along that line, speaking of Hinduism, what type of caste of people would you have come in contact with?
STEINER: Well, we came in contact with all...all of the different groups out there. In fact, Mussoorie, the town where we were in, as I had mentioned before, it was a hill station and...and missionaries came up there from different parts of India during their vacations to get out of the heat. And it was also...it was also a holiday spot for people from...for nationals. And some of the native...or some of the rajahs or the...the rulers of the...of the native states at the time when those were in existence, some of them had their summer palaces up there. And we had some of them among our patients. And...and there were some interesting insta...instances that resulted from taking care of some of these people. For instance, there was...there was one...one patient of mine that I had who...well, I actually took care of a number of members of the family of one of the rul...one of these prince families. And...and the son...one of the sons had been in Europe and married a French girl. And she...she was out there and she was one of my obstetrical patients. And during the time that...that she was pregnant her...her mother-in-law, the queen mother, wouldn’t let her live in the palace because she was unclean, being pregnant. And the French girl’s mother had to come out there and she was really upset about...about this aspect of it. And then, when the baby was born, according to the custom of the...the...this ruling...this rajah group, they didn’t name the child for a number of days after the baby was born. And so in trying to send the birth certificate in to the...to the city government, we had trouble. We were supposed to send the certificate in within a limited number of days. So all we could put down “baby” with the...with the name of the...of the...of the rajah group and this was upsetting to the...to the mother of the child because the child was registered without a name. And there were other insta...instances like that that were a little interesting.
REIHMER: Would you care to share any of those?
STEINER: Well, there was a [coughs] there was another rajah...rajah’s child that I...I took the tonsils out...out of. And the prime minister stood outside the operating room and...and as soon as...as I had taken the tonsils out and went and...went and talked to him and told him that everything was alright, he ran down to the telephone and we heard him say, “The royal tonsils have been removed!” And the doctor that was giving the anesthesia said, “Just imagine, I have royal blood on my hands!” [laughs] Little instance like that.
REIHMER: Alright. You were mentioning that the Mussoorie area was a vacation spot.
STEINER: Uh-huh.
REIHMER: While you were there, a mission by the name of the Hill Villages Mission...?
STEINER: Uh-huh.
REIHMER: ...came about. Could you tell me the programs of that mission as well as it’s origin?
STEINER: Well, [pauses] there was...there was actually no...no missionary work being done for quite some time in the villages around Mussoorie and back in the mountains. And so the missionaries who came up there for their vacations thought that something should be done about this so they established the Hill Villages Mission. And ...and they...and they took on the support themselves for...for a number of national evangelists. And...and they...they operated this as a...as a sort of a cooperative undertaking. And during the times we were there, our missionaries were...were in charge of...or...or were responsible for the supervision of...of the work of...of this work that was back in the hills. And...and these...and these national workers were working in areas that...that...that were never visited by missionaries. And they were working...they were working in...also in the state of Tehri, which was a state right next to Mussoorie, and extended for a...a distance. And prior to [pauses], well, let’s say, prior...prior to independence at least, prior to independence of India [in 1947], when...when these kingdoms were amalgamated into India, this state was...was completely opposed to the Gospel. And any Christian going in there was at risk, in effect [?]. In fact, one of these evangelists went in there doing evangelistic work and was...was put in jail for a period of time. So that this was an area that...and this was an area that quite a few of our patients came...came from. And so even though it was tightly closed, it was...it was possible to reach the people with the...with the Gospel. Then subsequently, one of my patients turned out to be the king of this country...the king of this state of...of Tehri. And so it was a little interesting. He had a palace there, in Mussoorie, and he had wanted me to...to come and do...do an operation in...in his palace there. And this was one of the common procedures among these kings, that if they had some...if they had an operation or other work done, they...they would have the doctors set up an operating room inside the palace and do the surgery there. But...but I always had the people...had them come over to our hospital instead of...instead of setting up an operating room there. And one of the reasons for that was not only that we were able to provide better medical service, but it also provided a means for reaching them with the Gospel, when they were not on their own turf and in our own environment.
REIHMER: Was this contact with the king a plus for your ministry?
STEINER: Yes, it was...it was a plus, it was a plus and all of these medical contacts were a plus from the standpoint of making them more favorable to the Gospel and they often resulted in a friendship. And then it also made it easier for...for other Christian workers to point to their areas. And some of the...for instance, the Hill Villages Mission, they would often, if they’d go into an area, a new village, they’d...because of their connection with us in the hospital, they would say, “I’m from Landour Community Hospital and I’ve come to see how you are.” And we would often have them follow up on the patients that...that came from the villages. We tried to keep a...keep a file of the patients from different villages and...and when these evangelists would....
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