By Jose Kavi
New Delhi: Jesuits in India plan to shift the mortal remains of Father Camille Bulcke to Ranchi, eastern India, to keep alive the memory of a Belgium missionary who had contributed immensely to Hindi language and Indian culture.
“Father Bulcke’s presence in Ranchi will inspire the people of Chotanagpur region where he had spent his entire life,” Jesuit Father Ranjit Tigga, who has been assigned to take the missionary’s mortal remains to Ranchi, told Matters India on March 8.
Father Bulcke, who had become an Indian citizen in 1951, died in New Delhi’s Holy Family Hospital on August 18, 1982, just 13 days before his 73rd birthday. He was buried the following day at Nicholson Cemetery, one of Delhi’s oldest British cemeteries, near Kashmiri Gate.
The Hindi savant’s grave was opened on March 5 in the presence of some 25 people, including Delhi Jesuit provincial Father Sebastian Jeerakassery. The remains are now kept in a casket at the Indian Socials Institute in New Delhi, said Father Tigga, who heads the institute’s tribal department.
Father Joseph Marianus Kujur, Jesuit provincial of Ranchi, says they have been discussing the plan to bring Bulcke’s mortal remains for the past two years. The missionary was buried in Delhi since “some practical problems” prevented his body to be taken to Ranchi, the provincial said in a press release on March 8.
“More than 35 years after his death, the dream of bringing Bulcke to where he belongs, is going to be fulfilled,” the provincial said.
The provincial’s note says he will receive from Father Tigga the casket when it arrives in Ranchi. It will then be taken in a caravan with the provincial and other Jesuit leaders to Manresa House, the headquarters of the Ranchi province and where Father Bulcke worked for many years. Two busloads of students of St Xavier’s School Doranda and Old students of St Xavier’s College will accompany the caravan.
Father Tigga says the renowned missionary was forgotten in Delhi “as few people knew where he was buried or visited his grave.” The missionary “has thousands of admirers in Jharkhand,” he added.
He noted that the Ranchi administration has renamed Purulia Road that passes in front the college as the Camille Bulcke Path.
Father Bulcke’s Hindi translation of the Bible is the best available and his English-Hindi dictionary continues to be quite popular, Father Tigga said. Father Bulcke’s doctoral thesis on Ramayana published as “Ram Katha Utpatti aur Vikas (The Genesis and Development of the tale of Rama) is considered one of the most authoritative works on the Hindu epic. It was used as a textbook in some universities.
Recognizing Father Bulcke’s work in the field of literature and education, the Indian government in 1974 conferred on him the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in the country. The government also made him a member of the National commission for the promotion of Hindi as the national language.
Camille Bulcke was born in Ramschapelle, a village in Knokke-Heist municipality in the Belgian province of West Flanders
He became a Jesuit in 1930 after obtaining a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering from Louvain University. After philosophical training in Valkenburg, Netherlands, he came to India in 1934. After a brief stay in Darjeeling, he came to Gumla, a town in present Jharkhand state, to teach Mathematics at St. Ignatius School in Gumla for five years. He later recalled that he developed his lifelong passion for learning Hindi in Gumla.
“When I arrived in India in 1935, I was surprised and pained when I realized that many educated people were unaware of their cultural traditions and considered it a matter of pride to speak in English. I resolved my duty would be to master the language of the people,” he wrote in an article, “The Faith of A Christian—Devotion To Hindi And To Tulsi.”
He studied theology at St Mary’s College Kurseong, near Darjeeling, and was ordained a priest in 1941. He did master’s degree in Sanksrit from Calcutta University and doctorate in Hindi literature at Allahabad University. His doctoral thesis on Ramayana was later
Hearing problems forced him to become a scholar. He was drawn by the 17th century’s Hindi poet Tulsidas, who wrote the most popular narration of Ramayana, Ramcharitmanas (Lake of the deeds of Rama), a devotional book that has influenced Hindus for the past three centuries.
Father Bulcke was credited with helping people rediscover the values of their own spiritual traditions. He found Tulsidas an excellent introduction to the Gospel values. He also prepared a life of Christ in Hindi based on the four Gospels, Muktidata (The Redeemer).
People recall the missionary with an imposing appearance and flowing white beard as a person who was ever willing to help students and scholars and to listen to the simple and the distressed people.