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ENFORCED WIDOWHOOD
Sir Ganga Ram has published a valuable table giving
the number of widows throughout India with subsidiary
tables for each province. The tables should be in the hands
of every reformer.
Not many will agree with Sir Ganga Ram about the
order in which, according to him, reform should proceed.
He gives the order thus :
1st, Social Reformation *
2nd, Economic Reformation
3rd, Swaraj or political emancipation.
Not so thought Sir Ganga Ram's predecessors, every
whit as keen social reformers as himself. Ranade, Gokhale
and Chandavarkar considered Swaraj to be as important
as social reform. Lokamanya Tilak felt no less for social
reform. But he and his predecessors recognized and rea-
lized the necessity of all branches of reform proceeding
side by side. Indeed, Lokamanya and Gokhale considered
political reform to be of greater urgency than the others.
They held that our political serfdom incapacitated us for
any other work.
The fact is that political emancipation means the rise
of mass consciousness. It cannot come without affecting
all the branches of national activity. Every reform means
an awakening. Once truly awakened the nation will
not be satisfied with reform only in one department of life.
All movements must therefore proceed, every one
proceeding simultaneously.
But one need not quarrel with Sir Ganga Ram about
his arrangement of the order of the needed reform. One
cannot but acknowledge his zeal for social reform even
though one may not agree with his political or economic
pknaceas. The figures he has given us are truly appalling.
*' Who will not weep," he asks, " over the figures which
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