TO INDIA

In 1929 we attended an assembly of Jehovah’s people in London. A Bible student from India, Percy Barnes, told about the need for full-time ministers in that country. Next morning, after a night of many prayers, Ron and I presented ourselves before the Society’s president, J. F. Rutherford. His large frame and stentorian voice contrasted with his gentle and kindly attitude, as he explained that it would be a one-way ticket. That is how, two months later, we found ourselves on a ship bound for Bombay.

When I entered the full-time ministry, it was with no assets beyond a good conscience over newly settled debts. But that step was minor compared with going to India. We arrived in Bombay with a few dollars, which were soon spent on tropical clothing and bedding rolls.

To carry out my ministry, I had to employ various forms of transportation: afoot, pedal cycle, motorbike, house car, taxi, passenger train, freight train, oxcart, camel, horseback, horse cart, plane, sampan, rowboat, paddle steamer, bus, truck, rickshaw, even a private train. Sleeping was as varied: lush hotels, raja’s palace, railway waiting rooms, jungle grass and cattle shed. Our “home” was wherever Ron and I could spread our bedding rolls.

Our objective was to spread Bible literature as widely and prolifically as we could, trusting in Jehovah to get it into appreciative hands. Because no vernacular literature was available, our witnessing then was to be restricted to those speaking English. Our stay in each town thus was very short.

Our first assignment was Karachi, now in Pakistan, where our literature was readily accepted. It helped our finances when we were invited to be the guests of the best hotel in town. Quite a change from the 50-cent-a-day room where we had been staying!

We traveled on by train to Hyderabad, Sind. I tried to get some sleep on a jolting wooden-bench bunk. After Hyderabad, Ron and I separated; he went toward the cool Himalaya mountains and I went by freight train toward the hot center. Here at Murree, I met and walked with and talked the Bible’s truth to Hindu nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi. I made arrangements for him to read some Bible literature.

For the rest of that year my pattern of life was similar: Sleeping in snatches on trains, platforms and waiting rooms; eating at Indian food stalls along with coolies; walking dusty roads all day witnessing in palatial bungalows. Ron and I reunited at Lahore, from where we traveled to nearby villages by camels.

Calcutta! Vast city of millions of illiterates living in homeless squalor. We secured a low-cost unfurnished room and used cartons for our chairs, another for our table, and our bedding we spread on the floor. It was here in Calcutta that we distributed the booklet The Kingdom the Hope of the World. We left copies with businessmen, politicians and clergymen. How some of the clergy fumed!

To cover the large city, we bought two low-priced motorcycles and used them also to travel the 1,500 miles to an assembly in Bombay. After that assembly in 1932, we went again to Ceylon, using our motorcycles for those mountain roads. But a bad bout of malaria put an end to my stay in Ceylon. The Watch Tower Society invited us back to India to take charge of a new house car.

SOUND-CAR WORK

A new style of life opened now for us. We were able to comb every village, often far from railways or roads. Unbridged rivers were our chief concern, but we became experts at fording these. We would disconnect the engine exhaust at the manifold and, with water often over the floorboards, roar our way across.

In 1934 the Society sent us sound equipment with recorded Bible lectures in the vernacular. Now we were able to contact the masses direct. We would set up the sound system wherever people congregated. Attendances at the recorded Bible talks were often large.

This continued until 1938, when a brother from Australia visited as zone overseer. At his request, Ewart Francis and I tested the suitability of a lake for a baptism. It must have been contaminated water, for twenty-one days later Ewart was dead, and I was on a sickbed from which I arose after two months of unconsciousness​—and only then because of the skilled nursing by a Christian sister in the full-time preaching work, Maude Mulgrove. On leaving that hospital in Agra, I was able to give a talk to the assembled staff, and one of these, Edith Newland, left nursing to become a full-time preacher of God’s truth, and she continues as such even until now.

SERVING AT THE SOCIETY’S BRANCH OFFICE

This sickness, typhoid fever, left me so infirm that it was thought unwise to send me back to the house car, so I was invited to aid Brother Skinner, overseer at the Society’s branch office. It was then the war year of 1939. The Society’s literature came under ban. The branch was raided many times, but only twice without our being forewarned. Some friendly disposed person would drop us a hint; we prepared for the raid, and an hour afterward we would be busy as ever duplicating The Watchtower.

Brother Skinner and I were arrested and charged with spreading banned literature. We consulted a lawyer noted for his not fearing the British “Raj,” but the fee was beyond our means. Dejected, we returned home. On the steps of the branch building was a Norwegian Witness, a sailor exiled from home. Upon leaving, he slipped something into Brother Skinner’s hands​—exactly the amount that the lawyer had quoted as his fee! The gift was repeated, when, after losing in the lower court, we wanted to appeal to a higher court, except that this time the amount given was in excess of our needs.

In the early war years, the Australian branch office shipped us a treadle printing press, and I was sent to Kotayam, Kerala, there to print the Malayalam Watchtower. I knew nothing of printing and less of Malayalam. Further, the Witness sent to help me knew no English. But with the aid of books on printing and many gestures, we assembled the machine and set up fonts of English and Malayalam type. How thrilled we were when our first copy of The Watchtower went out!

With the end of the war and the removal of bans, new hazards arose. The Indian people had helped Britain during the war and now demanded home rule. Intensely anti-British demonstrations followed. Violent attacks on persons wearing European-style dress became common. Yet our witnessing intensified even in the most troubled areas. Then came the news that Brother Skinner was invited to go to the United States to attend the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead. I was asked to care for the branch during his two-year absence. I surely needed to continue trusting in Jehovah.

One morning when the anti-British demonstrations were exceptionally active, I received news that the long-awaited first postwar shipment of Bible literature had arrived at the docks. Elated and excited, I set off on my bicycle, only to find the road ahead blocked by an angry crowd. I thought of escaping down a side street, but found that blocked as well. I had no alternative but to go through the crowd. So with a brief prayer to Jehovah, I cycled straight toward them, and on reaching them started to shout and wave my arms vigorously. What they thought, I do not know, but they fell back, and a path opened before me. Some even cheered me! After signing for the literature I returned by a more discreet route.

In 1947, India was granted independence. This was followed by one of the greatest massacres in history, Muslims versus Hindus. Neighbors who had lived side by side for generations rose to slay one another. Jehovah’s witnesses who were doing street witnessing saw persons stabbed alongside them.