William Carey, 1993 - Stamp, First Day Cover and Brochure

Carey and Serampore College

William Carey has been called a social reformer and illustrious Christian missionary, as well as a colonial ideologue with prejudice, hyperbole and concealed racism. (Wp) 

Like many other missionaries, Carey too was a fundamental Christian. The statement released though the brochure depicts Carey as a person "who adopted India as his country and strived to serve her people." This need to be questioned as he was a person appointed to propagate Christian theology. He started achieving his missionary goal through conversions, the first one to undergo baptism was Krishna Pal, a Bengali on 28th December, 2000. It is said that he could successfully convert 700 of this sacred land.

There was lot of criticism against William Carey.  To quote (Wp) --

"William Carey recommended that British people in India must learn and interpret Sanskrit in a manner "compatible with colonial aims". Carey wrote, "To gain the ear of those who are thus deceived, it is necessary for them to believe that the speaker has a superior knowledge of the subject. In these circumstances, knowledge of Sanskrit is valuable." Carey lacked understanding and respect for Indian culture, writes Rao, describing Indian music as "disgusting" and bringing to mind practices dishonorable to God. Such prejudices affected the literature authored by Carey and colleagues."

One of the major jobs he selected was translating the Bible into various languages and spreading it. In this process he has translated the New Testament into Sanskrit too in the year 1808. 

India Post released a stamp, an FDC and a brochure in his honour, on 9.1.1993.