Want the latest news from Swansea sent straight to your inbox? Don't miss anything from your city! Sign up for regular updates Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

LESS than a decade after the British conquered the Khasi Hills in Assam, India, in 1833 dozens of missionaries from Welsh chapels headed there by sea.

After trekking across India they used perilous Khoh Kit Briew rope baskets to be pulled 4,500ft to the Khasia and Jaintia hills, officially the wettest inhabited place on earth.

It was here that zealous Welsh chapel goers like Dr Griffith Griffith from Montgomeryshire set up stalls in the middle of bustling market towns and insisted that locals give up liquor and drink tea instead.

A census in 1901 showed that remarkably, out of a population of around 100,000 Khasi, there were almost 20,000 converts who worshipped in Welsh-style chapels.

And more than 100 years ago, the area’s culture is still characterised by Welsh hymns.

Next week, one of India’s leading poets and writers, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, will be at Swansea’s Dylan Thomas Centre for a discussion on the evangelisation of his native Khasi Hills by Welsh missionaries.

Co-host for the evening discussion at the Dylan Thomas Centre will be Mumbles-based poet Nigel Jenkins, whose travel book Gwalia in Khasi, which tells the little-known story of the Welsh in north-east India, won the Arts Council for Wales Book of the Year award in 1995.

The last of the Welsh missionaries did not leave the Khasi hills until 1966.

They came from the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church – later known as the Presbyterian Church of Wales – and left a rich legacy.

The Welsh started hundreds of schools, introduced female education and ran the best hospitals in north-eastern India.

“The Welsh … made us what we are. They gave us everything,” one Khasi lady said to Nigel Jenkins on his visit to the area.

Presbyterianism thrives there still, and expresses itself often in heartfelt renderings of old Welsh hymns.

The national anthem of the Khasis is a local adaptation of Land of my Fathers, and when the Mazo sub-tribe rebelled against Indian rule in the 1990s it did so on St David’s Day.

A series of cultural mementos, including lace curtains, scones, souvenir tea-towels from Aberystwyth and phrases from the Welsh language remain as parts of the Welsh legacy in the area.

Mr Jenkins said: “The Welsh missionary work in the Khasi hills was the biggest overseas venture ever sustained by the Welsh.

“Kynpham’s visit is celebrating an intimate association which has existed between Wales and the Khasis since 1841, when the first Welsh missionary, Thomas Jones, arrived in Cherrapunjee.”

The anniversary of Thomas Jones’ death was commemorated by a quarter of a million celebrants – more than had turned out to greet the Pope when he visited the region.

One of the best known of the Welsh Khasi missionaries, Jones travelled with his young wife Anne to Cherrapunjee from Calcutta down the Hoogly river, and later carried in Khoh Kit to the Khasi hills.

Jones, a carpenter’s son from Mid Wales, made himself useful to the Khasis through instructions in agriculture, mechanical arts, introducing use of coal in limestone kilns, introducing written Khasi using the Roman alphabet and endearing himself to the Khasis.

He began translating the Bible into the Khasi language, a task which was completed by William Lewis and his successors.

Kynpham, who writes in both Khasi and English, and lectures at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, has published about 20 volumes of poetry and prose.