Himachal’s miracle man

Raj Kanwar

MOST of us in India may not today recall the name of Samuel Evans Stokes, the American Quaker missionary who had come to India in 1904, at the age of 22. His objective was to serve at a leper home in Sabathu, Solan. However, finding his inability to speak the local language as a deterrent in reaching out to his patients, Stokes soon picked up pidgin Hindustani in its Pahari dialect.

His mentor, Dr Carleton, then sent him to Kotgarh — a pretty hamlet 50 miles uphill from Simla. He walked all the way since there was no motorable road at that time. For him, it was love at first sight for the captivating cluster of villages that is immortalised by Rudyard Kipling as the ‘Mistress of the Northern Hills’.

Kotgarh became his karmabhoomi. Even though the locals had extended to him the due respect as a ‘gora saab’, there was no empathy. It was then that he took a life-changing decision, gave up his western lifestyle and decided to live a life of abnegation. But a strange thing happened. After converting quite a few of the Pahari Hindus to Christianity, Stokes himself became a Hindu, and married a local girl, Agnes, whom he had baptised earlier. The Stokes’ became the proud parents of four sons and three daughters. The eldest daughter, Champawati, married my eldest brother Manmohan Nath in 1936; he was a lawyer in the post-earthquake Quetta. The marriage was solemnised in Lahore.

In the mid-1940s, I had the privilege of spending a few days with Stokes at his residence in Barubagh. Numerous letters from Gandhi to Stokes were strewn about on various side tables. Unfortunately, I had no inclination to be a journalist or a writer then otherwise I would have collected a large number of those letters. A special feature about Gandhi’s handwriting was its illegibility.

We all sat barefooted in the kitchen and partook of our meals with kaali dal as a daily lunch delicacy.

Stokes spent at least two-three winters with us in Lahore. Even though he and my father were poles apart in their habits and nature, they were able to hit it off as great chums. He would invariably gift us bottles of homemade honey. One of his greatest contributions towards eliminating poverty of the hill folks was the introduction of the Apple Revolution, which changed the very face of the hills. He had imported apple saplings from the US, and even distributed them free of cost to the villagers. He also taught them how to plant and nurture the saplings.

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