Missionary, pioneering translator, linguist and educator William Carey, who began life as a shoemaker, passed away on this day in Serampore. A Baptist pastor in England, he had written a pamphlet titled An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens in 1792, which led to the formation of the English Baptist Missionary Society.
Carey reached Kolkata with his young family in 1793. Not allowed on British Indian territory, he settled in the Danish colony of Frederiksnagar, now Serampore, where he, Joshua Marshman and William Ward founded the Serampore Mission. The trio also established Serampore College. Carey came to be known as the “father of modern missions”. Appointed a teacher at Fort William College in Kolkata, Carey translated the Bible into Bengali, Oriya, Marathi, Hindi, Assamese, Sanskrit, and parts of it in several other Indian languages. He wrote dictionaries in Bengali, Sanskrit and Marathi with Marshman and they also translated three volumes of The Ramayana. Carey established a press at Serampore. His missionary work continued alongside. He contributed to the formation of the Agricultural Society of India in 1820.
Some of his ideas about Indian life and culture appear racist and stereotypical. But his work needs to be examined in the light of his missionary aims and the colonial project. His life was one of extreme hardship. He lost one of his sons soon after arriving in India.
His wife never recovered from the tragedy. He fell out with the mission he had founded and at the end lived in the college premises, where he died.