In one district the Hindus themselves bore striking testimony to the effect of Christian teaching on the pariahs, "Before they became Christians," one of them said, "we had always to lock up our storehouses, and were always having things stolen.

But now all that is changed, We can leave our houses open and never lose anything." In the heyday of the Hindu Social Reform Movement, before it was checked by the inrush of political agitation, the question of the elevation of the depressed castes was often and earnestly discussed by progressive Hindus themselves, but it is only recently that it has again been taken up seriously by some of the Hindu leaders, and notably by Mr.Gokhale.
One of the utterances that has produced the greatest impression in Hindu circles is a speech made last year by the Gaekwar of Baroda, a Hindu Prince who not only professes advanced Liberal views, but whose heart naturally goes out to the depressed castes, as the fortunes of his own house were made in the turmoil of the eighteenth century by a Mahratta of humble extraction, if not actually of low-caste origin.

His Highness does not attempt to minimize the evils of the system.
The same principles which impel us to ask for political Justice for ourselves should actuate us to show social justice to each other....

By the sincerity of our efforts to uplift the depressed classes we shall be judged fit to achieve the objects of our national desire....

The system which divides us into innumerable castes claiming to rise by minutely graduated steps from the pariah to the Brahman is a whole tissue of injustice, splitting men equal by nature into divisions high and low, based not on the natural standard of personal qualities but on accidents of birth.