C F Andrews: Friend of India

Author: Nicol Manicol, D Litt., DD
Publisher: Niyogi Books, New Delhi
(Pp 96, ISBN 978-93-81523-77-3, Rs 150)

Charles Freer Andrews, known affectionately to millions of Indians as ‘Deenbandhu Andrews’ was a true Christian in every sense of the term and a great humanitarian. He loved India with such intense love that though born an Englishman, he completely identified himself with the people of India and made their sorrows and aspirations his own.

C F Andrews – Friend of India, according to the author Nicol Manicol, is not intended to be a biography of Andrews, but was to have been written by Dr William Paton, whose knowledge of India and friendship with CF Andrews and provide a brief survey and estimate of Andrew’s life and work.

Originally written in 1944, this current edition of this little book published by the publisher is a survey and estimate of CF Andrews’ life and work in the nearly forty years he lived in India. It describes his human traits, his many abiding friendships and his relationship with India and Indians. Gandhi called him Dinabandhu ‘brother of the humble’ and according to Tagore, ‘his love for Indians was part of that love of all mankind which he accepted as the law of Christ’. This reprint is highly readable biography by an author who belonged to Andrews’ Christian tradition and who appreciated the role and contribution of a wise, erudite and morally upright individual.

– GS Jolly