Sowing Faith, Reaping Change: Christian Missionary Contributions to Education and Health Care in Sundargarh and Sambalpur, Western Odisha (C. 1900–1956)

Abstract

An ongoing process starting from late-1800s had Christianity missionary societies in Western Odisha (now the districts of Sundargarh and Sambalpur), which transformed the institutional scene of the region in the field of education and health. The article traces the missionary story of the vernacular and English-medium schools, teacher-training institutions, dispensaries and mission hospitals established by groups like the Roman Catholic missions and Protestant evangelical societies in tribal and rural areas of Sundargarh and Sambalpur from around 1900 to 1956. Qualitative-historical approach in the research method is used that combines descriptive and analytical research, using archival data, missionary reports, district gazetteers, and secondary sources, to trace the growth of institutions, interaction with colonial administration, and the reaction of communities, as well as resistance and accommodation of indigenous communities. The results suggest that the mission schools made a significant contribution to increasing the literacy rate of tribal groups that were previously largely literate, such as Oraon, Munda and Kharia, and that mission health care programs brought many aspects of western biomedicine to tribal life, slowly displacing and supplementing, but not necessarily eradicating, indigenous healing practices. The research also contextualises these developments in related discourses on caste, gender and colonial governance of Odisha. It shows that though proselytizing was the mission's intent, the mission has left a long lasting developmental legacy, continuing to shape the social infrastructure of western Odisha, which can and should be studied in greater detail across different disciplines in history.