Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha

The Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (Hindustani: सनातन धर्म महासभा) is the major Sanātanī (Orthodox Hindu) organisation in Trinidad and Tobago. It operates 150 mandirs, over 50 schools And has it very own radio station, Radio Jaagriti 102.7 FM, and TV channel, TV Jaagriti Trinidad and Tobago. It was formed in 1952 when Bhadase Sagan Maraj engineered the merger of the Satanan Dharma Association and the Sanatan Dharma Board of Control. An affiliated group, the Pundits' Parishad, has 200 affiliated pundits. The organisation's headquarters are located in St. Augustine.

The President General of the Maha Sabha is Pt. Utham Maharaj and the Secretary General is Satnarayan Maharaj, son-in-law of the founder, Bhadase Sagan Maraj.

In 1881, a Sanatan Dharma Association was founded in Trinidad and Tobago in an attempt to consolidate Hindus and lobby on their behalf. This Association, however, was not known for any significant advances in Hindu organizational development. Other groups existed by the 1920s including the Trinidad Hindu Maha Sabha, San Feranado Hindu Sabha, and the Sanatan Dharma Prabartakh Sabha. But these, too, were not especially dynamic in shaping the course of Hindu history. The most significant advances in Hindu organizational development of these Sabhas came as a response to the Arya Samaj and its missionaries.

The controversies stirred by the Arya Samaj spokesmen acted as a kind of catalyst for the leaders of the Sanatan Dharma community to make greater strides towards effective organization.The Sanatan Dharma Association was incorporated by an act of Legislature in 1932. A conservative group of Hindus established a rival organization, the Sanatan Dharma Board of Control which was also incorporated in 1932. Each of these served to represent the interests of the Hindu community with regard to social action or issues surrounding the orthodoxy; they also served to liaise with colonial or parliamentary authorities. In 1935, in a move to demonstrate greater legitimacy, the Board became formally affiliated with the Sanatan Dharma Pratindhi Sabha based in Lahore, British India (present day Pakistan). Pundits and laymen throughout the island became affiliated with one or the other of the two national Hindu bodies. The Sanatan Dharma Board of Control, for example had branches in 32 villages by the late 1930s.

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