For much of the nineteenth century urban India was abuzz with the rhetoric of reconstruction. The notion that the country was in a civilisational trough between past glory and a revived future was the theme upon which a panoply of established and emerging reform organisations—from amongst Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, women, low-castes, and including a number of Christian missions—set about creating their own variations. They produced diverse practical programs focusing on basic education, social welfare, the status of women, and the pruning of what they regarded as undesirable aspects of local or national socio-religious culture, in individuals’ daily lives and occasionally through legislation. All sought a metamorphosis in social attitudes and practices; some extended this to a promotion of their particular brand of religion.