Stamp to mark 200 years of Bible Society of India

The Indian government will be releasing a special stamp to honor 200 years of the Bible Society of India (BSI).

The stamp will be released on Feb. 21 at St. Paul's Cathedral by West Bengal Governor MK Narayanan. Apart from important parliamentarians, three members of British House of Commons as well will attend the function.

Established in Calcutta in 1811 AD, the Bible Society of India translates and distributes Bible in numerous native Indian languages. It has its headquarters at Bangalore with 15 Auxiliaries and corresponding office in Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Island.

Talking to Christian Today, Secretary of the Calcutta Auxiliary of the Society, Sajal Kumar Sarkar, said, "It is very commendable of the Indian Government to release a stamp in recognition of Bible Society's bicentenary celebration."

He pointed that "Bible Society of India is the second largest publishing house in Asia after the government of India." In addition to it, the BSI is also the second bible society to be established in the World, he said.

The Society is part of the United Bible Societies (UBS), which is a fellowship of 145 individual Bible Societies working in over 200 countries and territories.

The UBS is currently involved with close to 600 translation projects covering nearly 500 languages.

In India, the Bible movement received a running start with the pioneering and prolific translation works undertaken by the Serampore trio of missionaries led by William Carey.

This tradition was upheld and is carried on to the present by the BSI which began as The Calcutta Auxiliary Bible Society.

According to Sarkar, the Bible Society of India has covered about 176 Indian languages till date. Currently it is working on 12 new projects, mainly the translation of Bible to tribal indigenous languages of North East.

"One of the tribal language that we are translating the Bible is to Satri language spoken by a tribal group in west Bengal formed of tea garden workers," points Sarkar.

By the next ten years, he says the Bible Society of India will vie to translate the Bible in about 75 other languages "so the Word of God can reach to the unreached and lost".