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Baháʼí Faith in India

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During the lifetime of its founder, Baháʼu'lláh, several Baháʼís settled in Mumbai, and the community in India remained relatively small but active for its first 100 years. Baháʼís in India were mostly urban and of an Islamic or Zoroastrian background until teaching efforts in the 1960s gained numerous enrollments in rural areas, initially in the state of Madhya Pradesh. By the mid-1990s the Baháʼí community of India claimed a membership of 2 million, the highest of any country, though the active participation was only about 5% (100,000) in 2001, the lowest of any region. According to the Annual Report of the Baháʼí community, there were 61,650 Baháʼí core activities taking place in July 2020, with 406,000 participants.

New Delhi's Lotus Temple is a Baháʼí House of Worship that opened in 1986 and has become a major tourist attraction that draws over 2.5 million visitors a year and over 100,000 visitors a day on some Hindu holy days, making it one of the most visited attractions in the world. In 2021, construction began on a local House of Worship in Bihar Sharif.

The Indian Baháʼí community is overseen by a national Spiritual Assembly, a nine-member body elected annually at a convention of delegates. There are also elected regional and local councils that run teaching and consolidation at the state and local levels, and four appointed Baháʼí Continental Counsellors have jurisdiction over India. Baháʼí community life in India is similar to that of Baháʼís elsewhere in the world. Communal study of Baháʼí scripture is done in classes designed for children, youth, or adults. Prayer meetings, along with celebrations of Baháʼí Feasts and Holy Days, the observance of the fast and other social behavior, are all practiced to varying degrees. Baháʼí teachers in India generally approach Baháʼí practices gradually and do not require converts to abandon traditional patterns of behavior, though no distinctions based on caste are recognized.

Baháʼís in India have developed a number of educational institutions, some organized by the national Baháʼí organization, and others run by individual Baháʼís, which are known as "Baháʼí-inspired". The New Era High School is an example of the former, and the Barli Development Institute for Rural Women is an example of the latter. Other educational institutions in India are designed to teach the Baháʼí Faith directly, such as Indore Teaching Institute, which was established in 1962 during mass-teaching to help consolidate and train new Baháʼís in remote villages.

History

Although the religion originated in Iran, the Baháʼí Faith recognises the Buddha and Krishna as the Manifestations of God.

Bábí period

The roots of the Baháʼí Faith in India go back to the time of the Báb in 1844. Four Babís are known from India in this earliest period. The first was Sa'id Hindi, one of the Letters of the Living. When the Báb planned to go to Hajj, he instructed Sa’id Hindi to go to the Indian subcontinent and preach the message to the people of India. The second was only known as Qahru'llah. Two other very early Bábís were Sa'in Hindi and Sayyid Basir Hindi. Additionally, four other Indians are listed among the 318 Bábís who fought at the Battle of Fort Tabarsi. There is little evidence of any contact from these early Indian Bábís back to their homeland.

Early Baháʼí period (1863-1892)

During Baháʼu'lláh's lifetime, as founder of the religion, he encouraged some of his followers to move to India, which Hájí Sayyid Mírzá and Sayyid Muhammad did. Hájí Sayyid Mahmúd also traded in Mumbai. These individuals were very successful as general merchants and commission agents but it wasn't until the 1870s that the religion spread beyond the small network of mostly Iranian expatriates in Mumbai and northern India.

Jamál Effendi, also known as Sulayman Khan, was sent by Baháʼu'lláh to India approximately 1875. He became the leading figure of teaching efforts across the subcontinent, lasting over a decade, that brought in hundreds of new Baha'is, changing the community to a more diverse and widespread group. Jamál Effendi was trained as a Sufi mystic and dressed accordingly, giving him prestige among Indian Muslims. It was during this period of travel teaching that Jamál Effendi met with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who, after hearing of the teachings of Baháʼu'lláh and studying Baháʼí literature made his own claim to prophethood and founded the Ahmadiyya sect. Effendi eventually settled in Burma and established a community of Baháʼís there.

Around 1882 Mírzá Ibrahím, a relative of the Báb, helped establish the world's first Baháʼí printing and publishing company in Mumbai, the Násirí Press. The Book of Certitude and The Secret of Divine Civilization were both published in 1882 using lithography. As the first place to print Baháʼí materials, India was instrumental in the distribution of key texts during this period.

Ministry of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (1892-1921)

During the leadership of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, the Baháʼí groups around India were active and received frequent travel teachers from the Middle East and America. The 1900s saw the conversion of several Indians outside of the predominantly Muslim and Zoroastrian backgrounds that had made up the community to that point. By 1908, there were high-functioning Baháʼí communities in Mumbai, Calcutta, Aligarh and Lahore.

During this period the community started producing literature in Urdu, in addition to English, and another effort of nationally coordinated teaching projects advanced in 1910–11.

Two notable converts during this period were Professor Pritam Singh and Narayanrao Vakil, both of whom went on to play significant leadership roles in the Indian Baháʼí community. Pritam Singh was possibly the first Sikh in India to accept the Baháʼí Faith, and the first to publish a Baháʼí weekly magazine in India. He learned of the religion from Mírzá Mahmúd soon after his graduation from the University of Calcutta in 1904. Narayenrao Vakil (aka Narayenrao Rangnath Shethji) was a high-caste Hindu, possibly the first to accept the Baháʼí Faith. Vakil was born in Nawsari and became a Baháʼí in 1909 after learning of it from Mirzá Mahram.

In December 1920 the first All-India Baháʼí convention was held in Mumbai for three days. Representatives from India's major religious communities were present as well as Baha'i delegates from throughout the country. The resolutions arrived at included the collection of funds to build a Baha'i temple, the establishment of a Baha'i school and the growth of teaching and translation work—goals reached before the end of the century (see below).

Shoghi Effendi (1921-1959)

Following the passing of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in 1921, Shoghi Effendi was appointed head of the religion and he soon set about organizing Baháʼí communities around the world. In 1923, the first National Spiritual Assembly of India and Burma was elected. In 1930 notable Baháʼí and world traveler Martha Root made an extensive teaching trip through India, organized teaching plans were implemented from 1938 to 1953, and the expansion of Baháʼí literature into most of the major Indian languages continued to advance.

The first Baháʼí summer school was able to be held in Simla in 1938 and in 1941 three new local communities with functioning Local Spiritual Assemblies had been established: Hyderabad, Kota and Bangalore. These activities gained occasional awareness from social leaders in India like Mahatma Gandhi.

In 1944, there were twenty-nine Local Spiritual Assemblies in India, and by 1945, there were around 2,000 Baháʼís in all of South Asia.

Through the first half of the twentieth century, the Baháʼís continued to grow with a focus away from the large cities and remained very active, but their numbers remained relatively small. By 1960 they had around 900 Baháʼís in India, with very few from Hindu backgrounds, but that changed dramatically in the 1960s.

The Baháʼí Faith had the notable achievement of the conversion of Kishan Lal Malviya, a scheduled caste leader from Shajapur (a district northeast of Ujjain), and of Dayaram Malviya, another scheduled caste leader, setting the stage for a rural dynamic of growth called "mass teaching." Shirin Fozdar also rose to prominence and served as a member of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼís of India from 1936 to 1951. Her main area of work from 1925 to 1950 was in a large community of Untouchables or Harijans in Ahmedabad.

Mass-teaching (1960-1991)

Baháʼís in South Asia were predominantly urban and of an Islamic or Zoroastrian background until the 1960s. In 1961, there were 850 Baháʼís in India, mostly urban. Various social and religious forces encouraged a broader outreach and a time of intensive missionary work, or mass teaching. The Baháʼí teachings were adapted for presentation to a clearly Hindu context familiar to the people of the countryside, using principles and language familiar to them:

  • The presentation of Baháʼu'lláh as the Kalki Avatar who according to the Vishnu Purana will appear at the end of the Kali Yuga for the purpose of reestablishing an era of righteousness
  • Emphasizing the figures of Buddha and Krishna as past Manifestations of God or Avatars
  • References to Hindu scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita
  • The substitution of Sanskrit-based terminology for Arabic and Persian where possible (i.e., Bhagavan Baha for Baháʼu'lláh), and the incorporation in both song (bhajan) and literature of Hindu holy places, hero-figures and poetic images
  • Hindi translations of Baháʼí scriptures and prayers that appeared during this period which are so heavily Sanskritized as to make it difficult to recognize their non-Hindu antecedents

Together with the teaching of the unity of humanity these approaches attracted many of the lower castes. Also, in contrast to the case of the Neo-Buddhist movement, no effort was made to denounce Hinduism. In short order most of a tiny village of some 200 people converted to the Baháʼí Faith en masse. The following year hundreds of people adopted the religion thanks to an open air conference where speeches could be heard. In two more years almost as many people converted as had been Baháʼís through regions of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.

During this period of growth, six conferences held in October 1967 around the world presented a viewing of a copy of the photograph of Baháʼu'lláh as part of the commemoration of the centenary of Baháʼu'lláh's writing of the Suriy-i-Mulúk (Tablet to the Kings). After a meeting in Edirne (Adrianople), Turkey, the Hands of the Cause travelled to the conferences, "each bearing the precious trust of a photograph of the Blessed Beauty [Baháʼu'lláh], which it will be the privilege of those attending the Conferences to view." Hand of the Cause Abul-Qasim Faizi conveyed this photograph to the Conference for Asia in India.

In 1986 the Baháʼís in India opened the Lotus Temple in New Delhi and pioneered regional (state) Baháʼí councils to devolve administrative work to more manageable levels.

Modern India (1992-present)

1992 was the 100th anniversary of Baha'u'llah's death, and was commemorated by the second Baháʼí World Congress in New York. The event was attended by about 30,000 Baháʼís, the largest ever gathering of Baháʼís up to that time. The event was broadcast live to eight notable centers of Baháʼís around the world, one of which was New Delhi.

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