Down the ages India
has been the target for invasions: the Persians, Greeks, Parthians, Bactrians,
Scythians, Huns, Turks and Arabs, but never was there a more bizarre invasion
than the one which took place on 19 September 1882. An army of four making its way to
Bombay on the P & O SS Ancona, Major Frederick de Lautour Tucker,
Captain Henry Bullard, Lieutenants Arthur Norman and Mary Ann Thompson. Other
armies had come to conquer, this Army came to serve, but the English and
vernacular newspapers had it that ‘The Salvation Army was attacking India!’
When they started out from London
there were six of them, but it was found necessary for Mrs Louisa Tucker to
accompany one young woman-officer back to England for personal reasons and
they disembarked at Port Said,
Mrs Tucker sailing again for India
on the next available ship.
The authorities in India,
being unfamiliar with The Salvation Army’s military jargon, visualized the
landing of a formidable force which might cause communal riots resulting in
violence and bloodshed, consequently the Bombay
police were lined up on the quayside at Apollo Bunder for the Army’s arrival.
After the four had stepped ashore the superintendent of police approached them
asking, ‘When will the rest of your army land?’ Major Tucker replied, ‘We are
the whole Army,’ at which the police officer in evident amazement and, one may
assume, with a grin, said, ‘We were expecting you to arrive 1,000 strong!’
Major Tucker knew that strength lay not in numbers, and in high spirits he and his
little band started marching down the crowded streets of Bombay. Carrying the Army banner he was
followed by Captain Bullard playing the cornet, Lieutenant Norman beating the
drum and Mary Thompson jingling a tambourine. No wonder they caused a stir! Never
before had the proud Britons been seen on the streets of India in such a
guise. Not only was the music a novelty, but the party was dressed in a blend
of Indian-European dress. The men wore turbans with a red band on which Muktifauj
(The Salvation Army) was inscribed, long yellow coats similar in cut to the
Indian achkhan and white trousers. Mary Ann Thompson, brave woman, wore
a yellow dress set off by a hat with the Salvation Army band of red ribbon. All
four wore boots.
A procession with drum and trumpet was no unusual sight to the people of Bombay. Processions of all kinds, wedding, funeral and religious were part of the daily street scene. It was the contrast between the dress and the white skin which caused curiosity. If it had been Tucker’s intention to arouse interest he certainly succeeded, but the ‘uniform’ had a more important aim. It was an attempt to identify the Salvation Army missionary officers with the people of India, the yellow colour being used by India’s ‘holy men’.
The Founder of The Salvation Army, when sending out his very first missionary force to India had instructed them:
With the apostle, to become all things to all men, in order that you may win them to your Master. This must mean, if anything at all, that to the Indians you must be Indians.
The ring leader of the Muktifauj pioneer officers to India - Commissioner Frederick St. George de Lautour Booth-Tucker, OF (21 March 1853 – 17 July 1929) was born in Monghyr in India, the son of William Thornhill Tucker, a Deputy Commissioner in the Indian Civil Service and author of an English-Persian dictionary. He was educated at Cheltenham College from 1866 until 1873, leaving when he was 20 years old. During his time at the college he was known as a keen scholar and athlete. He joined the Indian Civil Service (now IAS) as an Assistant Commissioner in 1874, being posted to Amritsar, Simla and later to Dharamsala, where in addition to being Assistant Commissioner he was also Assistant Magistrate. In 1875, he was converted during the Moody and Sankey campaigns in London. Against the wishes of his wife and parents, Tucker joined The Salvation Army in 1881 while on leave in England from the Indian Civil Service and came to work in the Army's legal department at International Headquarters in London. He was posted to the Camberwell Corps in July 1882.
Tucker saw the Indian caste system as his main obstacle, and so he decided to work among India's sixty million outcasts. He and his fellow Salvationists adopted the way of life of the outcasts. Their Salvation Army uniforms were replaced with the saffron robes of the Indian fakir, and they assumed Indian names, Tucker being known as "Fakir Singh", meaning the "Lion of God".
Tucker's preaching of equality and salvation proved popular with the members of outcast society, many of whom were converted. Following this success in India, Tucker was promoted to the rank of Commissioner. His first wife, Louisa Tucker, died in India on 27 February 1887 during a cholera epidemic, and on 10 April 1888 he married Emma Booth, the daughter of William and Catherine Booth at Clapton Congress Hall. As was the usual practice in the Booth family at that time, Tucker added his wife's maiden name to his own, becoming Booth-Tucker.
In
1913, Frederick Booth-Tucker was invested with the gold Kaiser-i-Hind Medal (First Class) by the Viceroy of
India, Lord Hardinge,
in recognition of the many years of service he had given to the poor of India.
In 1920, he was admitted to the Order of the Founder, The Salvation Army's highest accolade.
‘The Army did not spread abroad by the determination of its leaders,’ wrote St John Ervine, ‘it spread by the force of its own energy and strength.’ General Frederick Coutts adds in No Discharge in this War: ‘The notion of William Booth as a religious Alexander sighing for fresh worlds to conquer is as wide of the mark as can be. New shoots began to grow in unexpected places seemingly of their own accord. The wind blew where it listed.’ And the wind of the Spirit blew also over India.
As we celebrated Muktifauj 141th Anniversary, there are now 6 Territories in India with a National Secretariat in Kolkatta. There are a number of schools from Primary to College, Nursing Schools, Hospitals
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