Caste and chrishtianity: attitudes and policies on caste of anglo- saxon protestant missions in India.
- London Curzon Press. 1980
- 227p.
My attention was attracted to the subject of this book as a field of considerable interest and importance while I was myself teaching in Madras, the scene of so many of the controversies with which the study is concerned. I was not, however, able to begin my investigation until some time after my return to the United Kingdom in 1970. I then found myself to my delight within reach of the great and still largely unworked resources for the student of missions which are available in London. The first debt I must acknowledge, therefore, is to the custodians of the various missionary society archives and libraries, particularly the archivists and librarians of the Church Missionary Society, the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Methodist Missionary Society and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. I am also grateful to the India Office Library and Records, the National Library of Scotland, the Library of New College, Edinburgh, and the Sussex University Library for much willing help in obtaining materials which I required. The Arts Research Support Fund of the University of Sussex generously made possible a visit to India in the Spring of 1975 which enabled me, among the projects, to use the resources of libraries and archives in Madras and Bangalore as well as benefitting from discussion with various Indian scholars. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to more friends and colleagues in India, Britain, the United States and Australia than I can mention here, who have read, discussed and commented upon drafts of parts of this book. I have done my best to benefit from their suggestions and criticisms, and I owe much to their encouragement. In particular I may mention Dr. Pratima Bowes, Dr. Kenneth Cragg and Professor Eric Sharpe who have been outstandingly generous with advice and help. A more stimulating setting for the preparation of a work of this sort than the School of African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex, to which I was privileged to belong from 1970 to 1978, could hardly be imagined. I am indebted to the secretaries of the School for cheerfully typing successive versions of my chapters. The support, patience and encouragement of my wife and children in this, as in all that I do, is beyond calculation and deserves far more than a formal acknowledgement in a Preface. Here all I can say to them is a heartfelt ‘Thank You'. Much of the material in Chapter 4 has appeared as an article on “The Depressed Classes and Conversion to Christianity 1860-1960', in Religion in South Asia: Religious Conversion and Revival Movements in South Asia in Medieval and Modern Times. (New Delhi, 1977) edited by Dr. Geoffrey Oddie. Versions of chapters six and nine were published as articles in the Indian Church History Review in 1975. I am grateful to the editors for permission to use this material here.