Bengaluru: Historian and Basel Mission scholar Dr Peter Wilson Prabhakar on Monday said that the historic role played by the Basel Mission in shaping the educational, literary and industrial landscape of coastal Karnataka has not received due recognition in public discourse. Delivering a lecture organised by the Centre for Religion and Culture at St Joseph’s University here, Dr Prabhakar said this neglect stems from what he described as a “mission compound culture”, a tendency among Christian institutions to confine their achievements within institutional boundaries. “We should always try to take the achievements of Christian institutions and organisations to the people,” he said, adding that such self-imposed isolation has led to public indifference.
Tracing the origins of the Basel Mission, Dr Prabhakar said it emerged from a vow taken by eight seminary students in war-torn Basel in 1815 and later took institutional shape as the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society in 1816. The mission arrived on the shores of Mangalore on October 30, 1834, and soon began initiatives that would leave a lasting imprint on the region. Education was its first priority, resulting in the establishment of the coastal belt’s first Anglo-vernacular (English-Kannada) school in 1837. The institution, now known as the Mission BM School at Car Street in Mangalore, continues to function from primary to pre-university level nearly two centuries later.
He said the mission closely linked education with printing by setting up the region’s first printing press in Mangalore in February 1841. The first book printed there was Tulu Kirtane, a religious text in the Tulu language. For nearly 50 years, the press remained the only one in the region and went on to print most textbooks for the Madras and Bombay governments between 1840 and 1940. The press continues today as the Balmatta Institute of Printing Technology.
Dr Prabhakar highlighted that the Basel Mission’s most transformative contribution lay in its literary and linguistic engagement with local communities. Missionaries learned Kannada, Tulu and Malayalam to work alongside people rather than impose external traditions. German linguist Dr Hermann Mögling launched Mangaluru Samachara in 1843, the region’s first newspaper, and played a key role in simplifying Kannada script to make literacy more accessible. His contributions were recognised internationally when Tübingen University awarded him a doctorate in Kannada literature in 1858. This work was later expanded by Rev Ferdinand Kittel, whose Kannada–English Dictionary, published in 1894, remains a standard reference. Basel missionaries also produced the first comprehensive dictionaries and grammars for Tulu and Malayalam.
The lecture also drew attention to the mission’s industrial initiatives, undertaken to provide livelihoods to Christian converts who faced social ostracism. In 1844, the mission established the region’s first modern weaving factory. In 1852, missionary John Hebler developed a dye from cashew nut shells that became the world’s first true khaki. After being recommended by the Madras Governor to the British government, khaki became the standard uniform of the British military and later armies across the world. Similarly, modern manufacturing techniques introduced in Jeppu by missionary engineer Georg Plebst led to the rise of “Mangalore tiles” as a globally recognised brand.
Dr Prabhakar also noted the Basel Mission’s contributions to healthcare and agriculture, including the establishment of hospitals in Calicut in 1886, Gadag-Betigeri in 1903 and Udupi in 1923, and the development of a model farm in Mudabidre specialising in pineapple and coconut cultivation. Concluding his lecture, he said that while the evangelical objectives of the Basel Mission may have faded from public memory, its cultural, educational and industrial imprint on Karnataka remains enduring, and taking these achievements to the wider public is essential for a more inclusive understanding of the State’s development.
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