But even with such dynamic leadership and a new sense of being an active part of an expanding international organization, at the time of Shoghi Effendi's death in November, 1957, there were still less than a thousand Bahá'ís in the entire country.
(The Bahá'í Faith in India: A Developmental Stage Approach by William Garlington, published in Occasional Papers in Shaykhi, Babi and Bahá'í Studies, 2, 1997-06)
https://bahai-library.com/garlington_bahai_faith_india
Two members of the Afnan clan who were resident in Bombay, Haji Sayyid Mirza and Sayyid Muhammad, became Bahá'ís in the 1860s, and they wrote to Bahá'u'lláh requesting that a Bahá'í teacher be sent to India. Bahá'u'lláh asked Sulayman Khan Tunukabani (known as Jamal Effendi), who was both a Sufi and a learned scholar of Arabic and Persian, if he would take on the task, and his arrival in Bombay in 1872 can be rightly said to signal the beginning of organized missionary activity in the subcontinent.
After a short stay in Bombay Jamal Effendi began a teaching tour that took him across the entire country and was highlighted by his attending the ceremony in Delhi at which Queen Victoria was proclaimed The Empress of India. The proselytizing style he employed can be gleaned from an account penned by one of his Indian converts, Sayyid Mustafa Rumi of Madras:
It was his custom to notify his arrival to the Governor or highest official of the place in British India and the ruling prince in an Indian state. He would then pay a visit to them and deliver the message. His list of those to whom he delivered the Message contains names of almost all the high officials and princes of the land.
Thus Jamal Effendi established an elitist approach to teaching the Bahá'í Faith in India, and it was this style of teaching that would dominate Bahá'í missionary activity in India for decades.
It seems that for the most part Jamal Effendi's efforts were met with courteous interest if not overt enthusiasm. The progressive character of many of the Bahá'í principles spoke well to reformers, and the universality inherent in many of the religion's teachings was welcomed by those who feared communalism. There were, however, exceptions. Both in Bombay and Calcutta Jamal Effendi raised the ire of conservative religious leaders. What the liberal wing of Indian intellectual leadership saw as forward looking, traditionalists viewed as dangerous. These conservative Muslim and Hindu anti-Bahá'í polemics were muted by the relatively small number of converts Jamal Effendi was able to attract by the time of his departure in 1878.
Jamal Effendi left behind him three prominent converts (Rafi u'd-Din Khan of Hasanpur, Haji Ramadan of Rampur and Sayyid Mustafa Rumi), who would begin the slow process of building the Indian community. During this time the Afnan's printing press in Bombay produced the first ever Bahá'í books to be printed. The Book of Certitude and the Secret of Divine Civilization were both published in1882. In order to further the publishing work, prominent Bahá'í calligraphers such as Mishkin-Qalam and Mirza Muhammad Ali came to Bombay.
After the death of Bahá'u'lláh and the inauguration of the ministry of Abdu'l-Bahá, the Bahá'í community in Bombay was split as a consequence of the activities of the followers of Mirza Muhammad Ali who had challenged his half-brother's right to legitimate leadership. As a result, Abdu'l-Bahá directed a number of prominent emissaries to India, both Persian and Western, to guide the community and encourage teaching. Among these were Mirza Mahmud Zarqani, Aqa Mirza Mahram, Mirza Hasan Adib, Ibin-i-Asdaq, Lua Getsinger, Mrs. H. Stanndard, Sidney Sprague, Hooper Harris and Harlan Ober. By 1908 the work of these individuals along with a small group of local converts had produced functioning communities in Bombay, Calcutta, Aligarh and Lahore. Of these, the Bombay community took the forefront in both teaching and translation work. Its advancements in the area of translation marked the first time any of Bahá'u'lláh's writings had been translated into one of the native languages of India. Bombay also managed to acquire the first Bahá'í cemetery in India, and Abdu'l-Bahá designed the layout of the sight. The activities of the Bombay community were commented upon by Sydney Sprague who in 1908 reported: "There are three meetings a week held in Bombay and there are as a rule eighty to a hundred men present." He also noted that it was not easy to become a Bahá'í: "It often means a great sacrifice on the part of a believer, a loss of friends, money and position."
During this period, a number of Indian Zoroastrians ("Parsis") were converted to the Bahá'í Faith, thereby forming a nucleus of future Bahá'í leadership in India. The conversions came about as a result of the work of agents who had originally been sent abroad by the Indian Zoroastrian community to help their coreligionists in Iran. There they came into contact with the Bahá'í Faith and supported its activities. Later, several Iranian Zoroastrian converts to the Faith traveled to Bombay (notably Mulla Bahram Akhtar-Khavari) and actively promulgated their new religion among local Zoroastrians. Although they were met with opposition by some of the conservative dasturs, these missionary converts were quite successful in opening the Zoroastrian community to Bahá'í concepts and teachings.
(The Bahá'í Faith in India: A Developmental Stage Approach by William Garlington, published in Occasional Papers in Shaykhi, Babi and Bahá'í Studies, 2, 1997-06)
https://bahai-library.com/garlington_bahai_faith_india
A third significant convert during this time was a blind Sayyid, Jinab-i-Basir. Nabil states that he was the above mentioned Sayyid converted by Shaykh Sa'id-i Hindi. In contrast the Tarikh-i-Jadid claims that Jinab-i-Basir heard of the Bab's appearance in Bombay from where he traveled to Mecca and met him in person. After the Bab's death Jinab-i-Basir, along with several other Babis, made extravagant claims, but he was eventually "faced-down" by Bahá'u'lláh who made his own claim to divinity.* Jinab-i-Basir was later executed for his beliefs in Luristan.
*Juan R. Cole, ""Baha'-Allah, Mirza Hosain `Ali Nuri." Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983-), vol. 3, pp. 422-429.
(The Bahá'í Faith in India: A Developmental Stage Approach by William Garlington, published in Occasional Papers in Shaykhi, Babi and Bahá'í Studies, 2, 1997-06)
https://bahai-library.com/garlington_bahai_faith_india
Converting People, Independent Investigation of Truth, Personal Observations
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The Babi movement, the predecessor to the Bahá'í faith, had some connections with India. Two of the most important Babi histories make mention of several prominent Indian believers. The major Bahá'í historian for this period, Muhammad-i Zarandi, Nabil-i Azam, informs us that one of the Bab's original disciples (Letters of the Living) was an Indian known as Shaykh Sa'id-i-Hindi. Following instructions he took the Bab's claims throughout several provinces of Iran and into his own homeland. The fruits of this latter venture, however, were far from productive, as his only success was the conversion of a certain Sayyid in the town of Multan. After this the Shaykh's activities are not recorded.
Another Indian who was ordered by the Bab to journey to India was a dervish referred to in Mirza Husayn of Hamadan's history Tarikh-i-Jadid as "the Indian believer." He came to the prison of Chihriq where the Bab was being held and managed to meet him, receiving from him the title "Qahru'llah." After several encounters with local religious authorities, including a brief arrest in the city of Khuy, he set out for India on foot. Whether or not he completed his journey is unknown.
A third significant convert during this time was a blind Sayyid, Jinab-i-Basir. Nabil states that he was the above mentioned Sayyid converted by Shaykh Sa'id-i Hindi. In contrast the Tarikh-i-Jadid claims that Jinab-i-Basir heard of the Bab's appearance in Bombay from where he traveled to Mecca and met him in person. After the Bab's death Jinab-i-Basir, along with several other Babis, made extravagant claims, but he was eventually "faced-down" by Bahá'u'lláh who made his own claim to divinity. Jinab-i-Basir was later executed for his beliefs in Luristan.
That there were other Indian believers is made evident by Mahjur's monograph on the Babi insurrection in Mazandaran. He lists four Indians as being among the 318 Babis who fought at Fort Shaykh Tabarsi. Moreover, in the 1850s the Afnan clan, relatives of the Bab, established a trading center in Bombay. Although some knowledge of the Bab's claims had thus penetrated into South Asia and fired certain local millenialist expectations, there was lacking the needed doctrinal and ritual coherence that is required of community. Both the physical distance from the sources of inspiration, as well as the disruption and turmoil evident amongst the Babi communities in Iran, especially following the Bab's execution, made community virtually impossible. Thus it would not be until the movement came under the influence of Bahá'u'lláh and, later, of Abdu'l-Bahá, that a true community would begin to develop.
(The Bahá'í Faith in India: A Developmental Stage Approach by William Garlington, published in Occasional Papers in Shaykhi, Babi and Bahá'í Studies, 2, 1997-06)
https://bahai-library.com/garlington_bahai_faith_india
Independent Investigation of Truth, Personal Observations
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The Bahá'í Faith is a contemporary religious movement active nowadays in over three hundred countries and dependencies throughout the world. Evolving from the Babi movement, which spread throughout Iran and Iraq in the mid-nineteenth century, the Bahá'í Faith has slowly moved beyond the pale of Shi`ite Islam and thereby established itself as an independent religion. The movement's founder, Mirza Husayn 'Ali of Nur, Bahá'u'lláh (1817-1892), is considered by adherents to be a messenger of God equal in station to, among others, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha and the Hindu avatars. Banished from Iran in 1853 by the order of Nasiru'd-Din Shah, he lived in exile, being sent to Baghdad, Istanbul (Constantinople), Edirne (Adrianople), and, finally, the prison city of Acre (Akka or now Akko) located in the bay near Haifa in what was then Ottoman Syria and is now Israel. After Bahá'u'lláh's death the leadership of the community passed to his eldest son, Abbas Effendi, Abdu'l-Bahá (1844-1921), who following his release from captivity in 1908 visited both Europe and North America. In 1921 Abdu'l-Bahá's grandson, Shoghi Effendi, succeeded to the head of the Faith, having been named Guardian of the movement in Abdu'l-Bahá's will. During the Guardianship (1921-1957) the Bahá'í Faith increased both in size and administrative capabilities by establishing communities in over 130 countries and developing local, national and international administrative institutions. From 1957 to 1963 the Bahá'í Faith was guided by The Hands of the Cause, a group of initially 27 individuals (22 men and 5 women) who had been personally appointed by Shoghi Effendi to help him oversee the international activities of the movement. Since 1963 the affairs of the Faith have been directed by the Universal House of Justice, a body of nine men (women are currently prohibited from serving on this body) elected every five years by national representatives, whose headquarters is located in Haifa.
(The Bahá'í Faith in India: A Developmental Stage Approach by William Garlington, published in Occasional Papers in Shaykhi, Babi and Bahá'í Studies, 2, 1997-06)
https://bahai-library.com/garlington_bahai_faith_india