Today we commemorate the arrival of Anna Ferrer and Vicente Ferrer to Anantapur and the beginning of a commitment to empower the most underserved on the planet which remains latent today. In 55 years, we celebrate the transformation and positive impact on over 3 million lives across rural India.

With a fragile appearance and a firm will, Vicente Ferrer landed in India in 1952 as a Jesuit missionary. Amidst the complex reality of the villages and in the extreme poverty and overcrowded streets of Bombay, he understood that his action, his challenge, had to be on the side of those forgotten and punished by the system. In that hostile environment, they lacked access to dispensaries or doctors. Standing with the farmers and fighting for the development of rural communities immediately became his mission. Naturally, purpose was not well accepted by the establishment.

Wait for Me, I Will Return

Thousands of farmers march through the streets of Bombay in solidarity with Vicente Ferrer’s vision: an empowered rural India. Ferrer, overwhelmed by the outpouring of support, smiles, searing an image of posterity into India’s collective consciousness. That same week he had been notified that he was being expelled from the country. “Wait for me, I’ll be back,” he said at the end of the path.

To truly understand this scene, you must go back in time.

Ferrer’s actions in favor of rural communities spread quickly. The wells built multiplied, two or three crops were harvested per year, crops were diversified. The trust for farmers had been created. He was keenly aware that the recipe for success lay in working closely with communities. Simultaneously, he contemplated the construction of a hospital-dispensary center, leaving an Indian doctor and a Spanish doctor in charge: “There is no progress without cooperation, without understanding the local part, without actively involving the communities.” Ferrer did not believe in miracles, he believed in this joint work, which reached 700 towns. At last, his dream was becoming realized.

With the guarantee of cultivation assured, life in those parts became possible. He turned his focus to education. Immediately, he chaired the construction of a large school was built, where twenty-eight classrooms awaited the talent of the future.

However, the rapid degree of change garnered the suspicions of local merchants, lenders and politicians, who saw their privileges threatened. His persona was one close to the people, and the people needed someone on their side. The Silent Revolution carried out by weak-looking man captured the attention of India’s most widely circulated weekly news, Illustrated Weekly. This was too much for the government. “You are informed that within thirty days you must leave the country, since your residence permit has been denied,” stated a laconic order issued by the police chief.

A Pact of Love: Meeting Anne Ferrer

The director of The Current, a Bombay newspaper, tossed and turned in his bed at night, unable to sleep after having lost over twenty thousand of the paper’s readers.

“What could I do to overcome the situation?” he thought in anguish. While eating breakfast, flipping through The Times of India, he became captivated by the news about the expulsion of Vicente Ferrer. He shot up from his chair like a spring, and began to plot the possibility that this man was the victim of a smear campaign.

He entrusted the follow-up to a young editor, Anne Perry. She had to interview the man whom the farmers idolized. Within mere moments, they agreed to an interview. Putting away the odds and ends of a room, Anne Ferrer asked questions to a man whose days were numbered in the country. Vicente Ferrer’s strength and humanity captivated Anne.

At the end of the interview, Vicente Ferrer left for Spain, where his exile would begin.

Destination: Anantapur

A looted and rusty iron structure on 4 wheels teetered on the road, tasked with taking Vicente Ferrer to his next step in India. His exile in Spain had lasted longer than expected.

Indira Gandhi, prime minister at that time of 1969, surprised that Ferrer’s “vacation” had lasted longer than necessary, ordered the consulate to urgently process his visa. Upon reaching the Hyderabad airport, a crowd of journalists surrounded him. “Where do you want to settle?” they asked. Vicente answered with a question: “Which is the poorest, most miserable land?” And so, he headed to the City of Infinity, Anantapur.

Ferrer set up his own company: a former banker, a young mechanic from Bangalore; a Catholic marriage; a child adopted from an Anglo-Indian family and, finally, the loyal journalist, Anne Perry, who abandoned everything to join Ferrer’s valiant efforts at rural development. Shortly after, they married and had three children. Moncho Ferrer, their middle child, has followed in his footsteps and is today, together with Anne, the head of the project.

Today marks 55 years since the arrival of that delegation. The enormous and powerful feeling of responsibility of Vicente Ferrer and his companions materialized in what we know today as the Rural Development Trust in India, Fundación Vicente Ferrer in Spain, and the Vicente Ferrer Foundation USA in the US, organizations that collectively today support more than 3 million people. Our programs span a wide range of sectors, working to guarantee access to health, education, water for self-consumption and irrigation, women empowerment through sustainable livelihoods, and the socioeconomic integration of people with disabilities. A project that has managed to establish a kind of mantra in nearly four thousand towns in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana: the protection and care of the India of the villages, the same India which Vicente spoke of the first time he set foot in the country.

Text: Josep Romaguera based on the book Vicente Ferrer: The silent revolution, by Alberto Oliveras.