Charles Freer Andrews (1871-1940)

Born in 1871, C.F. Andrews came to India as an Anglican priest and lecturer at St. Stephens College, Delhi in 1904. A close friend of Gandhi and Rabindranath, Andrews championed the Indian cause for Independence, and, in a broader sense, the cause of all downtrodden people against oppression. Rabindranath met Andrews in 1912 at Rothenstein's home in England on the evening when W.B. Yeats gave the recitation of the Gitanjali poems. In the next few months they met frequently and Rabindranath invited Andrews to Santiniketan.

Andrews was not only a life-long friend of Rabindranath, he was a friend of Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati. It was through Andrews that Gandhi and Rabindranath met. On the one hand he took upon himself the task of interpreting Gandhi to the West and keeping open the possibility of a dialogue between Indian leaders and the British Government. On the other hand, he was working closely with Rabindranath in the making of Visva-Bharati and travelling with the Poet both in India and abroad.