Canons Galore

As Lord Tennyson put it....'Canon to the right of them, Canon to the left of them', in his celebrated Charge of the Light Brigade.....there are Canons to the right and left of my ancestry, both my paternal and maternal grandfathers were Canons with the Anglican Church! I had written some time ago in 'A Precious Legacy' about my paternal grandfather Canon Dr. A.P. Das and this time I want to remember my maternal grandfather Canon A.B. Chandu Lall and his wife, my grandmother Sushila Chandu Lall. They lived in exciting times in India.

Anandswaroop Benjamin Chandu Lall was born in 1885 to Emily & Lala Chandu Lall. Emily's father was a British chaplain to the army - Rev. Ralph Abel - of Jewish descent who had become a chaplain in the Church of England. Emily was Chandu Lall's second wife and bore him thirteen children of whom Anandswaroop Benjamin was the eleventh. Although Lala Chandu Lall was very Indian in his lifestyle and outlook, his children were much influenced by the British. 1885 was also the year when the Indian National Congress was formed and nationalism was gaining momentum in British India. Lala Chandu Lall's sons studied at the Baring School in Batala and the daughters studied at the Kinnaird High School in Lahore. My grandfather went on to study his B.Sc. from Forman Christian College in Lahore and after that taught for some time at the Baring School in Batala and thereafter he joined the Church of England and went on to England for his theological education.


Through the Church Missionary Society he was sent as the assistant to Rev. Redman, in charge of the Punjab Hill Mission based in Simla. His task was to strengthen the local Indian Christians apart from the British who worshipped at the Christ Church as Simla was the Viceregal summer capital.

Assisting Rev. Redman, he helped the St. Thomas Church and school be started around 1912, meant for the local Christians to worship. It was here that he became nationalist minded especially after his encounter with Sundar Singh whom Rev. Redman and he baptized. Sundar Singh Indianized his faith in Christ and became known as Sadhu Sundar Singh, the apostle in north India who took the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Tibet and the higher Himalayan ranges. After Rev. Redman left, Canon Chandulal kept up the work and travelled the length and breadth of the Punjab Hill Mission of the area allotted to him and even travelled to other parts of India. He was a friend of C.F. Andrews, Principal Rudra of St. Stephens' College and of the Cambridge Mission in Delhi. He travelled to Calcutta, with his message of giving the Gospel to the Indian people in the way that they would receive it and understand it. He was involved with the Ashram Movement in Pune, Maharashtra where he also went. These were crucial times for India, the capital had shifted in 1912 to Delhi from Calcutta and Simla too had gained prominence; there was the tragic Jallianwalla Bagh massacre of 1919 and soon after that the Non-cooperation Movement was launched and thereafter the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930. Nationalism was the cry of the hour and my grandfather identified with it completely.

In the Project Cantebury archives of the Church of England there are articles which mention: "But it was Canon Chandu Lal on our first mission who really encouraged us to think seriously on the matter. He met us in a khaki cassock (the obvious dress for the dusty plains of the Punjab). He wore a saffron cape when attending the Offices. He celebrated Holy Communion on an out-of-door altar, with rose bushes planted at the corners, and we looked out over the waving corn as the sun rose behind it. He copied his Sikh neighbours in bringing in his congregations from the villages to a central point on a Festival, singing bhajans as they came. Ours had a cross at its head wrapped in purple paper." War & Peace by Ralph Peacey MA Principal.
"There was Canon Chandu Lal, who gave me my first love for the Indian Church when we were in Simla and Paul, our catechist. There was Sadhu Sundar Singh, whom we met on Canon Chandu Lal's verandah and who spoke of the great number of sadhus who were only waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves as the Christians that they were."

It was around 1928 or so that Canon Chandu Lal met the young Sushila Mukherji who was at that time at the Lady Reading Hospital in Simla and he was visiting the sick for prayer. Their friendship blossomed to a romance and they were married in the parish church of Stoke Neckington in London on March 16, 1929.

 They had a happy married life and had three children, Shuniela Rubra (b1930), Jangbahadur Anandswaroop (b1932) and Asanand Allahyar (b1934). At around 1934 the Chandu Lals left Simla and were transferred to Narowal under the Lahore Diocese of west Punjab. Both my grandparents were happy identifying with the simple village people of that area. Tragedy struck when Canon Chandu Lal died in a tonga accident in Narowal leaving behind his young widow of 31 years and three children and his mother in law Shoshi Mukherji.

In the October 1937 edition of the Ashram Review, one Umrao Singh Giani gave this telling eulogy in memory of Canon Chandu Lal...'People loved him. Poor village Christians were proud of him. they were reminded of the Man from Nazareth on seeing him. A Sikh friend of mine who had been to the States and England, came to visit me in Narowal while I was living with Fr. Ben. On the eve of his departure he came into my room and said, "I have been to the Christian countries and I have lived with Christians in their homes. I am well acquainted with the bible, yet I could not believe that one could follow Christ and live up to the Sermon on the Mount. Hence I could not be converted inspite of the efforts of some Christian friends of mine. but during this brief stay of mine I have seen Christ living in this man, and he has brought home to me that the Christ is the Living God. Not that he had been preaching Him to me. I want to become a Christian." He was converted, not because he was taught Christianity but because he caught it from Fr. Ben.'

Sushila then qualified the Community Health Care course specifically in the area of mother and child care. She worked with the CMS in Narowal and when the partition of India took place, she was uprooted from her home in Narowal and came almost pennyless to Tarn Taran in eastern Punjab to start life afresh. She gave the best of education to her children, her sons went to the Bishop Cotton School in Simla and her daughter to Kinnaird High School in Lahore and then to the Isabella Thoburne College. Jangbahadur got a scholarship to the prestigious Christian Medical College in Vellore and retired as the Chief Psychiatrist at Kingston Hospital in Ontario, Canada. Asanand followed his father's footsteps and joined the Church and became the Bishop of Amritsar with the Church of North India and also was the Moderator for the CNI. Shuniela married Eric Das of Tarn Taran who was with the Indian Forest Service and was herself a teacher with St. Edwards School, Simla and then with St. John's School, Chandigarh.

Sushila Chandu Lal left the CMS and she joined the newly formed government of Himachal Pradesh and was with the World Health Organzation project of healthcare in Simla and the inner parts of Himachal Pradesh. On retirement she bought land in the outer Seraj area of Kulu, near Anni and planted apple trees. Her mother was with her who died in 1960 and Sushila herself was having health issues. She was operated for breast cancer but by 1965 it had spread to the lungs and she died in Ambala where her younger son Asanand was the priest of the St. Paul's Cathedral.

Sushila Chandu Lal was a courageous person who lived in amazing times in the history of India. Her life is a testimony of how God prepares His people to lead extraordinary lives when they put their trust in Him.

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