It is unusual for priests to write novels, but is there a better way of “helping the heart of man to know itself?” (Henry James). As a journalist, I found reading this novel, a first by a Jesuit priest, a refreshing experience. I wish there were more like it.

Mission to Sabarkantha, is an intensely written fictionalized account of a religious sister, Rinaben, and her work among the Bhil women in Sabarkantha, North Gujarat.

Rinaben is both an outsider and an insider. Here lies the crux of the story. With her Adivasi women she is completely at home. She is one of them, even though she comes from a totally different culture. With her own sisters, however, she is not. Though like them in her religious profession, she is way ahead of them in her thinking and her missionary outlook. The source of the tension lies here.

The author explores his characters’ feelings and anxieties through his liberal use of ‘dramatic soliloquy’ – the character speaking, arguing with himself/herself.

This makes the novel not so much a fast-paced narrative as a rare depiction of character.

The present scenario in Gujarat creates its own difficulties. There are the fundamentalist Hindu groups who endanger the socio-political fabric of Adivasi society. They hit out at the Christians, considering them ‘outsiders’ who deserve to be expelled. A climate of fear is created, and so the future of Rinaben’s mission comes under threat.

It is sad but true that many things taking place today are not written about due to apathy or fear. There has been persecution and hostility against the Christians in the Dangs (Gujarat), and in Kandhamal (Odisha). But little has been written about it, and fewer films made. We see endless films on the travails of the Jews in Nazi concentration camps, even though that ended seventy years ago. But we are told nothing about the ongoing persecution of the Palestinians by the Israelis, or of the depredations by the Daesh against Syrian Christians.

Nothing has been written either about the situation of Christian missionaries in India, and the hazards they face. Nothing of the plight of ordinary rural Christians under attack from the Hindu Right finds mention anywhere. The author is to be complimented for his courage in writing about an area which everyone is aware of but few like to talk about publicly.

This is where this novel captures the socio-political situation so accurately. Mission to Sabarkantha becomes a form of literary historiography, and a very valuable contribution to the genre of ethno-religious literature, which is only just beginning in our country. One wishes that it were translated into other Indian languages, so that its story becomes more widely known, and encourages others to write similar narratives.

• Maria P. Abraham

Title: Mission to Sabarkantha
Author: Myron Pereira
Publication: Joy Burke Foundation, 105 Aakruti Heights, Satellite, Ahmedabad 380 015
Price: Rs 325 | Pages: 264
To order copies: [email protected]