“TALKING. 
 ‘POINTS — 
 
 MINIATURE | 
 
 encyclopedia of infor- 
 mation in regard to India. 
 Intended for pastors, Cen- 
 
 tenary workers and others 
 who have use for a compact 
 reference work from which 
 may be quickly obtained sig- 
 nificant facts for incorporation 
 into missionary addresses. 
 
 FILE THIS WHERE YOU 
 CAN FIND IT 
 
IN?D ae 
 
 Talking Points 
 
 Y5 
 
 @> 
 This is indeed India; the land of fabulous 
 wealth and fabulous poverty, of palaces and 
 hovels, the country of a hundred nations and a — 
 hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two 
 million gods. The one land that all men desire 
 to see, and having seen once, would not give up 
 that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the 
 
 globe.—Mark Twain. 
 El &) 
 
 THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE 
 
 India, about one-half as large as the United 
 States, has three times as many people, 315,- 
 000,000. (3) 
 
 ‘hese people are of many races and religions. 
 ‘There are a score of languages, each of which is 
 spoken by ten to twenty million people. In 
 addition there are several hundred dialects. In 
 ' the order of numerical strength religiously they 
 are: Hindus, Mohammedan, Buddhists, Animists, 
 Christians, and many other cults. 
 
 [=] 
 
 Eighty per cent of the people are farmers, who 
 live in little villages for protection. They scratch 
 the top of the soil with antiquated wooden plows, 
 and millions are always hungry in a rich land 
 which will raise two crops a year. 
 
 2 
 
The crops depend largely upon the monsoons, 
 or rain-bringing winds,. When these fail, the 
 crops fail, and there is famine. 
 
 Modern methods of transportation and distri- 
 bution and the irrigation schemes of the British 
 government are doing much to lessen the danger 
 
 of famine. 
 Eo) 
 
 THE OLD RELIGIONS 
 
 India is essentially a religious land. 
 E] 
 
 There are 66,000,000 Mohammedans in India, 
 but India is the only country the Moslems ever 
 conquered without converting, and the mass of 
 the people are Hindus. 
 
 [=] 
 
 The Hindus have more than 30,000,000 gods. 
 Devotees wear upon their foreheads distinctive 
 “god marks” to show which of the deities they 
 follow. 
 
 [3] 
 
 In India there are more than five million “‘holy 
 
 men,” or religious mendicants, who live entirely 
 
 by begging. m 
 
 Religion and the social order are inextricably 
 mixed, for out of religion has grown caste, the 
 governing principle of Hindu life. 
 
 [s) 
 
 Originally there were four castes, Brahmans 
 ot priests, warriors, merchants and servants. 
 
 isj 
 
 Now castes have multiplied and divided until 
 there are more than 3,000 castes and an infinity 
 
 3 
 
of sub-castes whose members cannot eat together, 
 drink together, or intermarry. 
 & 
 
 Below all castes are the 60,000,000 outcastes 
 who have no religious privileges, are forbidden 
 to enter the temples or to speak the name of 
 God. Their touch or even their shadow is pol- 
 lution to a caste man. 
 
 i) 
 
 Caste restrictions and the desire for favorable 
 family connections have led to the custom of 
 early marriage. Half of the Hindu girls are mar- 
 ried before they are fifteen, and hundreds of 
 thousands before they are twelve. 
 
 G) 
 
 The position of women is low. “There be many 
 sects in India,” says an ancient proverb, “but 
 upon two main points they be all agreed—the 
 sacredness of the cow and the depravity of 
 woman.” 
 
 8 
 
 SANITATION 
 
 The people of India know little of sanitation. 
 
 ma ) 
 
 The most pious act of Hinduism is a pilgrim- 
 age to one of the sacred rivers where thousands 
 of people crowd into the impure waters to bathe 
 and drink. 
 
 Cholera and the plague have been regarded as 
 inevitable and have killed thousands every year. 
 Ignorance and superstition make it hard for 
 modern medicine to heal India. In one village, 
 for instance, the Hindus died of the plague rather 
 
 4 
 
than be inoculated, for the serum was made of 
 the blood of cows, and the cow is sacred to 
 Hindus. a 
 
 Missionaries introduced modern medicine into 
 India. The British government has done much 
 to aid the work and has built many hospitals, 
 but still half a million towns and villages are 
 without an educated resident physician. 
 
 Women have had a large part in medical work 
 in India, for they alone can reach the women 
 secluded in the zenanas. 
 
 C 
 
 In 1870 there were no women physicians in 
 the entire East, and many people regarded the 
 idea of sending them as unpractical and danger- 
 ous. The first to go out was Dr. Clara Swain of 
 the Methodist Woman’s Foreign Missionary 
 Society. Now more women than men go to 
 India as medical missionaries. 
 
 8 
 EDUCATION 
 
 India is a land of illiterates. Throughout the 
 land only six persons out of a hundred can read. 
 
 The government is establishing many schools, 
 but the task of educating India would require a 
 million and a half teachers. Caste further com- 
 plicates the school problem, for no caste man 
 will teach outcaste children. 
 
 & 
 
 Native Christians have a higher percentage of 
 literates than either Hindus or Mohammedans, 
 but they are in danger of losing this distinction, 
 
 5 
 
for the number of Christians is increasing faster 
 than the number of mission schools, and Chris- 
 tian children are now growing up almost as ig- 
 norant as the children around them. 
 
 i} 
 
 Our Isabella Thoburn College at Lucknow was 
 the first college for women in the East. 
 
 f=) 
 
 Methodism has 40,000 pupils in its 1,500 
 schools of all grades, but this does not begin to 
 meet the need, for there are in India 60,000 
 Methodist children with no schools at all. To 
 educate them would require 1,500 additional 
 teachers. a 
 MODERN CHANGES 
 
 Under modern conditions the old India of caste 
 and superstition is changing. 
 
 ‘ol 
 
 When the Bombay street railway was pro- 
 jected, everyone predicted failure. ‘You can 
 never get high caste people to ride. They are 
 too afraid of pollution.” But the railway adver- 
 tised free rides for the first two weeks. Curiosity 
 overcame caste, and everybody rode. Once they 
 got the habit they have kept it up, and trains 
 and street cars succeed in spite of caste. 
 
 [2] 
 
 Low caste men, who in the old days could not 
 even draw water from the same well as the Brah- 
 mans, now daily sell them such modern products 
 as crackers, patent medicine, ice and soda water. 
 
 i) 
 
 The world war had a great influence in over- 
 coming prejudice. Men found that they could 
 cross the “black water’ without displeasing the 
 
 6 
 
gods, and from daily contact with Europeans they 
 learned much. Nothing in Europe impressed one 
 Sikh soldier as much as the cows. “Two buckets 
 full of milk at a time,” he said, “and it is rich 
 and yellow and full of cream. We must have the 
 same kind of cows in India.” 
 E & 
 THE MASS MOVEMENT 
 
 One of the most significant changes in modern 
 India is the religious change. 
 
 fe] 
 People by the thousands are becoming dis- 
 satished with their old religions and are turning 
 to Christianity in a great “mass movement.” 
 
 i} 
 
 Among the outcastes, where the Methodist 
 Church doe: most of its work, whole villages are 
 asking for baptism. 
 
 O) 
 
 Last year 35,000 were taken into the church, 
 but 150,000 otherswere refused admission because 
 of the lack of Christian pastors and leaders. 
 
 1) 
 
 Hindu reform societies are becoming alarmed 
 over this movement toward Christianity and are 
 promising the outcastes social and religious recog- 
 nition if they will not give up Hinduism. 
 
 fz] 
 
 If the churches do not take advantage of their 
 great opportunity in India, some other religion 
 will, and the mass movement will be turned away 
 from Christianity. 
 
 {] 
 
 India is the “now or never land” for the 
 
 church. 
 
. Published by 
 ‘The Centenary Commission 
 of the Board of Foreign Missions 
 Methodist Episcopal Church 
 
 150 Fifth Avenue 
 New York 
 
 1919