HINDU ORGANISATION

ONE of the most hopeful signs of the times is the earnestness and zeal that is being displayed in so many Hindu quarters for organising that great and ancient community. To the superficial observer it may appear somewhat strange that the Hindus who in politics were the first among all the several Indian communities to catch the modern spirit should have been the last to seriously undertake the task of communal organisation. It is not meant, of course, that the question of social and religious reform has only just begun to engage the attention of the community. In both respects, quite as much as in politics, they were the first to move forward. The Brahmo Samaj, and Arya Samaj, the Prarthana Samaj, the movement for the remarriage of widows and especially girls widows, are standing monuments of the zeal and devotion with which the Hindus addressed themselves to this important branch of the national work many years ago; and it must be said to the credit of those associated with these great movements that they have allowed no obstacles, however heavy or serious, to impede their onward march. But taking India as a whole these movements, which were mostly religious or semi-religious, affected only a comparatively small portion of the Hindu community. The same was the case with the more secular Hindu Sabha movement of a later day, which was, in the first instance and for many years, confined only to one or two Provinces, and it is a matter of common knowledge that having been started with great vigour and enthusiasm it had for years led a sort of moribund existence even in the Province of their birth.