A New Era for India’s Outcastes

The Outcastes, or Dalits as they are now known, are excluded from the Hindu caste system. The terms “Untouchable” and “Scheduled Castes”  refer to the same people group. This book describes the work of God among the Dalits that has swept thousands of them into the Kingdom of God.

W.S. Hunt, India’s Outcastes: A New Era. London: Church Missionary Society, 1924. Pbk. pp.113. [Click to download complete book in PDF]

Reproduced by kind permission of the Church Missionary Society.

Contents

1 – Mass Movements
2 – The Untouchables
3 – How They Look, Live, Work, and Worship
4 – What Kind of Christians are They?
5 – The Pin of the Wheel
6 – The New Era

Appendix. “Mass Movements” in the Middle Ages.

Preface

This book is concerned with one aspect of the coming of the Kingdom of God in India-namely, that presented by the mass movements among the outcastes. The poor have had the Gospel preached to them, and are now “besieging” the Kingdom. While Christ is known and admired, reverenced and loved by many among India’s intelligentsia, it is still the “babes ” who are flocking into His Church. This book is an attempt to sketch the beginning of the reign of God in these Indian souls.

The only excuse for such a book, when we have in “The Outcastes’ Hope ” one that has become a classic on the subject, is that thirteen years have passed since that book was written, and new developments have arisen in connexion with mass movements. These are noted in the following pages. But it has seemed good to go over part of the ground covered in the earlier book, as probably this book will come into the hands of some who have not studied the other.

This book has been written (by request) by a missionary of the Church Missionary Society in Travancore, and for that reason the mass movement in that part of India will seem to many to loom unduly large in it; most of the illustrations have, indeed, been taken from that region and from personal observation. But it will be found that reference (not indeed adequate) is made from time to time to the other areas in which mass movements are taking place. The book does not pretend to be more than a sketch-many points are untouched or merely glanced at. Such as it is, it is sent forth in the hope, and with the prayer, that it may be used to stimulate interest in these movements wherever they occur throughout India, and that it may deepen the conviction that they are in truth works of the Holy Spirit. [Continue reading]