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Perspectief 62 Sergio Targa sj. Rishi and move to the North of Bengal where tribal populations were apparently promising a new and more rewarding field of evangelisation. Fr. Costa, the last PIME father to leave the mission of Shimulia, summed up in one of his letters the feeling of dismay and of failure of the PIME Rishi mission: “I really do need to go back home for a while to boost my morale; I had too many disillusions during these years among these Christians of mine, and I do feel really tired.” 8 The PIME mission among the Rishi had been marked by disillu- sionment and dissatisfaction. Missionaries often complained about the Rishi being too “hypocritical, selfish and sensual to accept Catholicism for pure motives.” 9 They often re- gretted that the Rishi people were ready to become Christian only “for money’s sake.” 10 Unfaithfulness was apparently the characteristic of these people, who were ready to be- come Christians for a piece of bread and move back to Hinduism when bread was no longer on offer. Salesian fathers took up the Rishi mission in the area of Jessore and Shim- ulia up until 1952. Their brief experience, however, did not change the fate of the mission very much. The Salesians started up where the PIME had left off. They gave importance to education and religious instruction in particular. Perhaps they accentuated the spiritual line in their dealings with the Rishi and this did not help the Rishi gain confidence. Appar- ently, the Rishi were responsive to Christianity only when the missionary was responsive to their request for help and human dignity. The comments made by Mgr. Scuderi, the Apostolic Administrator, on the occasion of his pastoral visit to the Shimulia mission in 1937, are quite telling: “I think we should be more interested in the social and civil life of the people. The contact with the Father in matters not pertaining to religion is lacking. If I am not wrong, I see the need for us to be interested in them, their difficulties, quarrels, cleanliness, illnesses etc.” 11 The Salesian fathers were eventually relieved of their work by the Xaverian fathers, another young Italian missionary institute. 2. Jesuit Mission in the 20 th century Around the same time of the PIME and Salesian missionary enterprises, the Jesuits were trying their luck with the Rishi of Satkhira and Borodol. These places depended canonically on the Calcutta Catholic diocese, while Jessore and Shimulia were juridically linked to the diocese of Krishnanagar. The Jesuit mission went through difficult phases. In 1925 first, and definitely in 1930, it actually collapsed and started up again only in 1937. Without