Punjab Hindu Conference

THE Punjab Hindu Conference, which meets at Amritsar this week under the presidentship of Lala Lajpat Rai, promises to be a momentous function. The Hindu community of the province is passing through a serious crisis, and issues of supreme importance to the community will come up for discussion before the conference. The tentative agenda issued by the Reception Committee includes subjects like the position of the Hindus in the Punjab municipalities, the education policy of the Local Government, the differences between the Arya Samajic and Sanatanist Hindus, the completion of the programme for Hindu Sangathan and so on. All these matters are of vital importance to the Hindus of this province, and it is to be expected that a large number of representative delegates will assemble at the conference from all parts of the province because without that the deliberations and conclusions of the conference cannot be effective or of much practical value. The conference is a professedly communal organisation, and howsoever one may dislike the idea of encouraging purely communal and sectarian movements, the hard facts of our present public life cannot be ignored. For many years, the more thoughtful section of the Hindus of this province, as of others, has discountenanced the idea of organising their public life on a purely communal basis, and that was the only course consistent with the development of India as a nation. But some of the other major communities refused to merge what they rightly or wrongly regarded as the peculiar or special interests of the country as a whole.

Advertisement