द ब्यूटीफुल ट्री: १८वीं सदी में भारत की स्वदेशी गुरुकुल शिक्षा (धर्मपाल)

in the Madras Presidency (from Ganjam in the north to Tinnevelly in the south, and Malabar in the west) during 1822- 25.¹⁰ A much later work on the subject, but more or less of a similar nature is that of G.W. Leitner pertaining to indigenous education in the Punjab.¹¹ Amongst the above-mentioned sources, G.W. Leitner’s work, based on earlier governmental documents and on his own survey, is the most explicitly critical of British policies. It holds the British authorities responsible for the decay, and even the destruction of indigenous education in the Punjab—the area with which his book is concerned. The reports of Adam, as well as the reports of some of the collectors in the Madras Presidency¹² refer likewise to the decay of indigenous education in the areas of India with which they were concerned. Of course, they do so much less explicitly—and in language more suited to British officers and gentlemen—(Leitner, though a British official, was ‘not an Englishman’).¹³ Mahatma Gandhi’s long address at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London on 20 October, 1931, stated that literacy had declined in India in the past 50-100 years and held the British responsible for it. The statement provided a real edge to the observations of Adam, Leitner, and others and to the view which Indians had held for decades. It was then that all the above sources relating to indigenous education in the earlier part of the nineteenth century assumed their great importance. The person who, perhaps not only as an individual, but also as a representative of British rule in India, contested what Gandhiji had said was Sir Philip Hartog, one time vice-chancellor of Dacca University, and chairman of the ‘auxiliary committee of the Indian Statutory Commission’. He asked Gandhiji for ‘precise references to the printed documents on which’ Gandhiji’s ‘state- ments were based.’¹⁴ Not finding satisfaction (during much of this period Gandhiji and his colleagues were in prison) Hartog, four 3