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

and quotes extensively from various British authorities. These span almost a century: from the Dispatch from England of 3rd June 1814 to the Governor General in India, to the observations of Max Mueller; and the 1909 remarks of the British labour leader, Keir Hardie. However, given the period in which the book was written and the inaccessibility of the detailed manuscript records, it was inevitable that the author had to base his work entirely on existing printed sources. Nevertheless, as an introduction, this chapter of Bharat men Angreji Raj is a landmark on the subject of indigenous Indian education in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Very little, however, has been written on the history, or state of education during this period, starting with the thirteenth century and up until the early nineteenth century. Undoubtedly, there are a few works like that of S.M. Jaffar⁶ pertaining to Muslim education. There are a chapter or two, or some cursory references in most educational histories pertaining to the period of British rule, and to the decayed state of indigenous Indian education in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Nurullah and Naik’s book⁷ devotes the first 43 pages (out of 643 pages) to discussing the state of indigenous education in the early nineteenth century, and in challenging certain later British views about the nature and extent of it. Most of the discussion on the state of indigenous Indian education in the early nineteenth century, and the differing view- points which give rise to it, use as their source material (a) the much talked about reports by William Adam, a former Christian missionary, on indigenous education in some of the districts of Bengal and Bihar 1835-8,⁸ (b) published extracts of a survey made by the British authorities regarding indigenous education in the Bombay Presidency during the 1820s,⁹ and (c) published extracts from another wider survey of indigenous education made 2

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

years later delivered a series of three lectures at the University of London Institute of Education with the aim of countering Gandhiji’s statement. After adding three memoranda and necessary references, Hartog got these published in book form in 1939.15 Countering Gandhiji and the earlier sources in this manner, Sir Philip Hartog was really not being original. He was merely following a well-trodden British path in defence of British acts and policies in India; a path which had been charted some 125 years earlier by William Wilberforce, later considered as the father of Victorian England, in the British House of Commons.16 Hartog had been preceded in his own time in a similar enterprise by W.H. Moreland, who could not accept Vincent Smith’s observation that ‘the hired labourer in the time of Akbar and Jahangir probably had more to eat in ordinary years than he has now.’17 Smith’s challenge appears to have led Moreland from the life of a retired senior revenue settlement officer into the role of an economic historian of India.18 Quite understandably, at least till the 1940s, and burdened as they were with a sense of mission, the British could not accept any criticism of their actions, deliberate, or otherwise, in India (or elsewhere) during the two centuries of their rule. A major part of the documents reproduced in this book pertain to the Madras Presidency Indigenous Education Survey. These were first seen by this writer in 1966. As mentioned above, an abstract of this survey was included in the House of Commons Papers as early as 1831-32. Yet, while many scholars must have come across the detailed material in the Madras Presidency District Records, as well as the Presidency Revenue Records (the latter incidentally exist in Madras as well as in London), for some unexplained reasons this material seems to have escaped academic attention. The recent Madras University doctoral thesis pertaining to the various Madras Presidency districts covering this period also does not seem to have made any use of this data, despite the fact that some of it does contain some occasional reference to matters of education. The Beautiful Tree is not being presented with a view to decry British rule. Rather, it is the continuation of an effort to 4

comprehend, to the extent it is possible for this author, through material of this kind relating to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the reality of the India of this period: its society, its infra-structure, its manners and institutions, their strengths and weaknesses. The book touches on another aspect of this India in more or less the same manner as the author's two earlier books in this field, Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century,$^{19}$ and Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition.$^{20}$ Furthermore, an attempt has been made in the Introduction to situate the information on the indigenous Indian education of the period in its temporal context and, with that in view, brief mention is made of the state of education in England until the beginning of the nineteenth century. A number of friends have taken interest in this material and offered me their valuable advice and opinion during the past several years. I am grateful to all of them. Without their support and encouragement, this work may never have been completed. Even more so, I am greatly indebted to the University of Oxford for being kind enough to consult their University archives in order to answer some of my queries pertaining to the academic courses, etc., at Oxford at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Similarly, I am much obliged to the India Office Library & Records (I.O.R.), and to Mr Martin Moir in particular, for supplying me with copies of the Hartog-Gandhi correspondence. I am also obliged to the A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna, for offering me a senior fellowship of the institute during 1972-73 and to the Gandhian Institute of Studies, Varanasi, the Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi, the Gandhi Seva Sangh, Sevagram, and the Association of Voluntary Agencies for Rural Development, New Delhi, for interest in and support to this venture, as occasion demanded. The text of the Madras Presidency material (included in the Annexures), though first consulted in the India Office Library, is taken from the records in the Tamilnadu State Archives (pre- viously the Madras Record Office). For this facility, and for much kindness and consideration shown to me, my thanks go to the fairly over-worked staff of the Archives. The note by Alexander Walker, also reproduced here, is from the Walker of Bowland 5

Papers in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. My sincere thanks go to the National Library for permission and facilities to consult these and other papers, as also to the Scottish Record Office, the University of Edinburgh, and the Uttar Pradesh State Archives, Allahabad, for similar permission and facilities. Finally, I am honoured by the Ashram Pratishthan, Sevagram, for extending me an invitation to write this book in the Ashram, and for providing me the necessary facilities and for treating me as one of their own. Completing this work living near Gandhiji’s hut has indeed been a great privilege.

The title of this book has been taken from the speech which Mahatma Gandhi had made at Chatham House, London, on 20 October, 1931. He had said: ...the British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root, and left the root like that, and the beautiful tree per- ished. The subtitle has also been chosen accordingly. Although the Madras Presidency data which forms the bulk of this book was collected during 1822-25, the educational system to which the data pertained was much older. It was still the dominant system during the 18th century, after which it started decaying very rapidly. The Adam Reports reflect that decline in the fourth decade of the 19th century. February 19, 1981. DHARAMPAL Ashram Pratishthan, Sevagram. Notes

1. A.S. Altekar: Education in Ancient India, 2nd Ed., Benares, 1944.
2. National Archives of India: Selections from the Educational Records, I:1781-1839, II:1840-1859 by H.Sharp and J.A. Richey 1920, 1922 (reprinted 1965).
3. Syed Nurullah and J.P. Naik: History of Education in India during the British Period, Bombay, 1943.
4. Ibid, Preface.
5. Bharat mein Angreji Raj (in Hindi). While its first edition in 1929 was immediately banned by the British, it was again published in 1939 in three volumes (1780 pages), and has not only been republished again, but has become a classic of its kind, providing a detailed account (pri
6. S.M. Jaffar: Education in Muslim India, Peshawar, 1936.
7. History of Education in India during the British period, 1943.
8. W. Adam: Reports on the State of Education in Bengal 1835 and 1838, edited by Anathnath Basu and reprinted, Calcutta, 1941. 6

9. House of Commons Papers, 1831-32, Vol.9.
10. Ibid., pp.413-417, 500-507.
11. G.W. Leitner: History of Indigenous Education in the Punjab since Annexation, and in 1882, 1883; (Reprint: Languages Dept., Punjab, Patiala, 1973).
12. See reports of Madras Collectors reproduced in Annexures A(i)-(xxx).
13. Philip Hartog: Some Aspects of Indian Education Past and Present, OUP, 1939. Preface, viii.
14. India Office Library: MSS EUR D 551, Hartog to Mahatma Gandhi 21.10.1931.
15. Hartog: op. cit.
16. Hansard: June 22 and July 1, 1813.
17. V.A. Smith: Akbar: The Great Mogul, Clarendon Press, 1917, p.394.
18. London: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1917, pp.815-825.
19. Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts, Other India Press, Goa, 2000.
20. Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition: With some Early Nineteenth Century Documents, Other India Press, Goa, 2000.

7

Introduction Indian historical knowledge, by and large, has been derived, at least until recent decades, from the writings and accounts left by foreigners. This applies equally to our knowledge about the status of Indian education over the past five centuries. The universities of Taxila and Nalanda, and a few others until recently have been better known and written about primarily because they had been described centuries ago by some Greek or Chinese traveller, who happened to keep a journal which had survived, or had communicated such information to his compatriots who passed it down to our times. Travellers and adventurers of a new kind began to wander around parts of India from about 1500 A.D., and more so from about the close of the 16th century. Since for centuries the areas they came from had had no direct links with India, and as they had come from wholly different climates and societies, to them most aspects of India—its manners, religions, philosophies, ancient and contemporary architecture, wealth, learning, and even its educational methods—were something quite different from their own backgrounds, assumptions and experience. Prior to 1770, (by which time they had become actual rulers of large areas), the British, on whose writings and reports this book is primarily based,¹ had rather a different set of interests. These interests, as in the subsequent period too, were largely mercantile, technological, or were concerned with comprehending, and evaluating Indian statecraft; and, thereby, extending their influence and dominion in India. Indian religions, philosophies, scholarship and the extent of education—notwithstanding what a few of them may have written on the Parsis, or the Banias of Surat—had scarcely interested them until then. Such a lack of interest was due partly to their different expectations from India. The main reason for this, however, lay in 7

the fact that the British society of this period—from the mid- sixteenth to about the later part of the eighteenth century—had few such interests. In matters like religion, philosophy, learning and education, the British were introverted by nature. It is not that Britain had no tradition of education, or scholarship, or philosophy during the 16th, 17th, or early 18th centuries. This period produced figures like Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, Milton, Newton, etc. It had the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh which had their beginnings in the 13th and 14th centuries A.D. By the later part of the 18th century, Britain also had around 500 Grammar Schools. However, this considerable learning and scholarship were limited to a very select elite. This became especially marked after the mid-sixteenth century, when the Protestant revolution led to the closing of most of the monasteries; while the state sequestered their incomes and properties. Before the Protestant revolution, according to A.E. Dobbs, ‘the University of Oxford might be described as the “chief Charity School of the poor and the chief Grammar School in England, as well as the great place of education for students of theology, of law and medicine”’²; and ‘where instruction was not gratuitous throughout the school, some arrangement was made, by means of a graduated scale of admission fees and quarterages and a system of maintenance to bring the benefits of the institution within the reach of the poorest.’³ Further, while a very early statute of England specified: ‘No one shall put their child apprentice within any city or borough, unless they have land or rent of 20 shillings per annum: but they shall be put to such labour as their fathers or mothers use, or as their estates require;’ it nonetheless also stated that ‘any person may send their children to school to learn literature.’⁴ From about the mid-16th century, however, a contrary trend set in. It even led to the enactment of a law ‘that the English Bible should not be read in churches. The right of private reading was granted to nobles, gentry and merchants that were householders. It was expressly denied to artificers’ prentices, to journeymen and serving men “of the degree of yeomen or under”, to husbandmen and labourers’ so as ‘to allay certain symptoms 8

of disorder occasioned by a free use of the Scriptures.’⁵ According to this new trend, it was ‘meet for the ploughman’s son to go to the plough, and the artificer’s son to apply the trade of his parent’s vocation: and the gentlemen’s children are meet to have the knowledge of Government and rule in the commonwealth. For we have as much need of ploughmen as any other State: and all sorts of men may not go to school.’⁶ A century and a half later (that is, from about the end of the 17th century), there is a slow reversal of the above trend, leading to the setting up of some Charity Schools for the common people. These schools are mainly conceived to provide ‘some leverage in the way of general education to raise the labouring class to the level of religious instruction’; and, more so in Wales, ‘with the object of preparing the poor by reading and Bible study for the Sunday worship and catechetical instruction.’⁷ After a short start, however, the Charity School movement became rather dormant. Around 1780, it was succeeded by the Sunday school movement.⁸ ‘Popular education’, even at this period, ‘was still approached as a missionary enterprise.’ The maxim was ‘that every child should learn to read the Bible.’⁹ The hope of securing a decent observance of Sunday’¹⁰ led to a concentrated effort on the promotion of Sunday schools. After some years, this attention focussed on the necessity of day schools. From then on, school education grew apace. Nevertheless, even 9

as late as 1834, ‘the curriculum in the better class of national schools was limited in the main to religious instruction, reading, writing and arithmetic: in some country schools writing was excluded for fear of evil consequences.’¹¹ The major impetus to the Day school movement came from what was termed the ‘Peel’s Act of 1802’. This Act required the employer of young children ‘to provide, during the first four years of the seven years of apprenticeship, competent instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic, and to secure the presence of his apprentice at religious teaching for one hour every Sunday and attendance at a place of worship on that day.’¹² ‘But the Act was unpopular’, and its ‘practical effect...was not great.’¹³ At about the same time, however, the monitorial method of teaching used by Joseph Lancaster (and also by Andrew Bell, supposedly borrowed from India)¹⁴ came into practice and greatly helped advance the cause of popular education. The number of those attending school was estimated at around 40,000 in 1792, at 6,74,883 in 1818, and 21,44,377 in 1851. The total number of schools, public as well as private in 1801 was stated to be 3,363. By stages, it reached a total of 46,114 in 1851.¹⁵ In the beginning, ‘the teachers were seldom competent’, and ‘Lancaster insinuates that the men were not only ignorant but drunken.’¹⁶ As regards the number of years of schooling, Dobbs writes that ‘allowing for irregularity of attendance, the average length of school life rises on a favourable estimate from about one year in 1835 to about two years in 1851.’¹⁷ The fortunes of English Public schools are said to have fallen strikingly during the eighteenth century. In January 1797, the famous school at Shrewsbury, for instance, did not have ‘above three or four boys.’ After some major reorganisation, it had about 20 pupils a year later.¹⁸ In public schools like Eton, teaching consisted of writing and arithmetic (a number of English and 10

Latin books were studied); while those in the fifth form also learnt ancient Geography, or Algebra. Those who stayed at Eton long enough’ also ‘went through part of Euclid.’¹⁹ However it was ‘not till 1851 that Mathematics became a part of the regular school work and even at that date those who taught the subject were not regarded as persons of full standing on the staff of masters.’²⁰ School education, especially elementary education at the people’s level, remained an uncommon commodity till around 1800. Nonetheless, the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh were perhaps as important for Britain as Taxila and Nalanda were in ancient India; or places like Navadweep were as late as the later part of the 18th century.²¹ Since many of those who began to come to India from Britain especially after 1773 as travellers, scholars, or judges had had their education in one of these three universities,²² it may be relevant to provide here a brief account of the courses studied together with the number of students, in one of these universities around 1800. The university chosen here is that of Oxford, and it is assumed that this information is also fairly representative of studies at Cambridge and Edinburgh at this period. The growth of the University of Oxford (following England’s rupture with Rome) may be indicated with the following chronological list of professorships created there from 1546 onwards:²³ 1546 5 Professorships founded by Henry VIII:

1. Divinity, 2. Civil Law, 3. Medicine, 4. Hebrew,
2. Greek 1619 Geometry, and Astronomy 11

1621 Natural Philosophy 1621 Moral Philosophy (but break between 1707- 1829) 1622 Ancient History (i.e. Hebrew, and Europe) 1624 Grammar, Rhetoric, Metaphysics (fell into disuse, replaced by Logic in 1839) 1624 Anatomy 1626 Music 1636 Arabic 1669 Botany 1708 Poetry 1724 Modern History and Modern Languages 1749 Experimental Philosophy 1758 Common Law 1780 Clinical Instruction 1795 Anglo-Saxon (i.e. language, literature, etc.) 1803 Chemistry In the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were nineteen colleges and five halls in Oxford. There were about 500 fellows in the colleges, a few of whom were engaged in teaching in each college. In addition, there were nineteen professors in 1800. This total had increased to 25 by 1854. Theology and classics were the main subjects which were studied at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Examinations were set in classics known as Literae Humaniores. These included Greek and Latin language and literature, moral philosophy, rhetoric and logic, and the elements of the mathematical sciences and physics. Lectures were also available on other topics, e.g. law, medicine and geology. After 1805, there was an increase in the number of students entering the University. The number of students on the rolls rose from about 760 in the early nineteenth century to about 1300 in 1820-24. The main sources of financial support of the colleges in Oxford were their endowments, mainly in land, and income from students. The proportion of income from each source varied from 12

college to college. Taking a wider view of all the expenses of a university course (including clothing and travelling), a parent who clothed his son and supported him at university as well as during the vacation could expect to pay from £600-800 for his four year course around 1850.²⁴ While the British, as well as the Dutch, the Portuguese, and the French, directly or in the name of the various East India Companies they had set up in the late 16th and early 17th centuries were busy extending their bases, factories, fortifications and the like, and wherever possible occupying whole territories in the Indian Ocean area, European scholars on their part were trying to understand various aspects of the civilizations existing in this area. Prominent amongst these were members of several Christian monastic orders, the most well known being the Jesuits, who were specialising in the fields of the sciences, customs, manners, philosophies and religions. There were some others with interests of a more political, his- torical or economic nature. Many of them took to narrating their own adventures, and occasionally, misfortunes in the ‘fabulous’ and ‘exotic’ East. Due to the widespread interest of the European elite, much of this writing was published in one or more European languages soon after. Accounts and discussions which happened to be of a limited, but great scholarly or religious interest, were copied by hand many times over.²⁵ 13

II This great accumulation of material, from about the mid-18th century, led to serious scholarly attention and debate on India, and areas of South East Asia, particularly with regard to their politics, laws, philosophies and sciences, especially Indian astronomy. This contemporary European interest, (especially amongst men like Voltaire, Abbe Raynal and Jean Sylvain Bailly) aroused a similar interest in Britain. This was more so amongst those connected with the University of Edinburgh, like Adam Ferguson, William Robertson, John Playfair²⁶ and A. Maco- nochie. In 1775, Adam Ferguson recommended to his former student, John Macpherson (temporarily to be Governor General of Bengal during 1784-85) ‘to collect the fullest details you can of every circumstance relating to the state and operation of policy in India...That you may the better apprehend what I mean by the detail...select some town and its district. Procure if possible an account of its extent and number of people. The different classes of that people, the occupations, the resources, the way of life of each. How they are related and their mutual dependencies. What contributions Government, or subordinate masters draw from the labourer of any denomination and how it is drawn. But I beg pardon for saying so much of an object which you must know so much better than I do. The man who can bring light from India (i.e. of its material resources, etc.) into this country and who has address to make his light be followed may in a few years hence make himself of great consequence and here I shall conclude my letter...’²⁷ A. Maconochie advocated, on the other hand (first in 1783²⁸ and then again in 1788), the taking of such measures by ‘our monarch, the sovereign of the banks of the Ganges...as may be necessary for discovering, collecting and translating whatever is extent of the ancient works of the Hindoos.’ He thought that if the British ‘procured these works to Europe, astronomy and 14

antiquities, and the sciences connected with them would be advanced in a still great proportion.’ He observed further that ‘the antiquities of the religion and Government of the Hindoos are not less interesting than those of their sciences’; and felt that ‘the history, the poems, the traditions, the very fables of the Hindoos might therefore throw light upon the history of the ancient world and in particular upon the institutions of that celebrated people from whom Moses received his learning and Greece her religion and her arts.’ Prof. Maconochie also stated that the centre of most of this learning was Benares, where ‘all the sciences are still taught’ and where ‘very ancient works in astronomy are still extant.’²⁹ Around the same time, a similar vein of thought and some corresponding action had started amongst those who had been entrusted with the exercise of political power and the carrying out of the policies and instructions from London, within India. The more practical and immediate purposes of governance (following Adam Ferguson) led to the writing of works on Hindu and Muslim law, investigations into the rights of property and the revenues of various areas, and to assist all this, to a cultivation of Sanskrit and Persian amongst some of the British themselves. Acquaintance with these languages was felt necessary so as to enable the British to discover better, or to discard, choose, or select what suited their purpose most. In the process some of them also developed a personal interest in Sanskrit and other Indian literature for its own sake, or for the sort of reasons which Prof. Maconochie had in view. Charles Wilkins, William Jones, F.W. Ellis in Madras, and Lt Wilford (the latter got engaged in some very exotic research at Varanasi) were amongst the more well known men of this category. Three approaches (seemingly different but in reality complementary to one another) began to operate in the British held areas of India regarding Indian knowledge, scholarship and centres of learning from about the 1770s. The first resulted from growing British power and administrative requirements which (in addition to such undertakings that men like Adam Ferguson had recommended) also needed to provide a garb of legitimacy and a background of previous indigenous precedents (however 15

farfetched) to the new concepts, laws and procedures which were being created by the British state. It is primarily this requirement which gave birth to British Indology. The second approach was a product of the mind of the Edinburgh enlightenment (dating back to around 1750) which men like Maconochie represented. They had a fear, born out of historical experience, philosophical observation and reflection (the uprooting of entire civilizations in the Americas), that the conquest and defeat of a civilisation generally led not only to its disintegration, but the disappearance of precious knowledge associated with it. They advocated, therefore, the preparation of a written record of what existed, and what could be got from the learned in places like Varanasi. The third approach was a projection of what was then being attempted in Great Britain itself: to bring people to an institutionalised, formal, law-abiding Christianity and, for that some literacy and teaching became essential. To achieve such a purpose in India, and to assist evangelical exhortation and propaganda for extending Christian ‘light’ and ‘knowledge’ to the people, preparation of the grammars of various Indian languages became urgent. The task according to William Wilberforce, called for ‘the circulation of the holy scriptures in the native languages’ with a view to the general diffusion of Christianity, so that the Indians ‘would, in short become Christians, if I may so express myself, without knowing it.’30 All these efforts, joined together, also led to the founding of a few British sponsored Sanskrit and Persian colleges as well as to the publication of some Indian texts or selections from them which suited the purpose of governance. From now on, Christian missionaries also began to open schools. Occasionally, they wrote about the state and extent of indigenous education in the parts of India in which they functioned. However, British interest was not centered on the people, their knowledge, or education, or the lack of it. Rather, their interest in ancient texts served their purpose: that of making the people conform to what was chosen for them from such texts and their new interpretations. Their other interest (till 1813, this was only amongst a section of the British) was in the christianisation of those who were considered ready for such conversions (or, in the British phraseology of the period, for receiving ‘the blessings of Christian light and moral improvements’). These conversions were also expected to serve a more political purpose, in as much as it was felt that it could establish some affinity of outlook and belief 16

between the rulers and the ruled. A primary consideration in all British decisions from the very beginning, continued to be the aim of maximising the revenue receipts of Government and of discovering any possible new source which had remained exempt from paying any revenue to Government. III Instructions regarding the collection of information about the extent and nature of indigenous Indian education (including its contemporary state) were largely the consequence of the long debate in the House of Commons in 1813. This debate focussed on the clause relating to the promotion of ‘religious and moral improvement’ in India.³¹ Before any new policy could be devised, the existing position needed to be better known. But the quality and coverage of these surveys varied from Presidency to Presidency, and even from district to district. (This generally happens in the gathering of any such information, and more so when such collection of data was a fairly new thing.) The information which is thus available today, whether published, or still in manuscript form in the government records—as is true of the details of the Madras Presidency indigenous education survey—largely belongs to the 1820’s and 1830’s period. An unofficial survey made by G.W. Leitner in 1882 for the Punjab compared the situation there for the years before 1850, with that in 1882. Before highlighting the main points of information given by the surveys and then proceeding with its analysis, some preliminary observations about the data as a whole are in order. The first observation concerns the largely quantitative nature of the data presented and the fact that it concentrates largely on the institution of the school as we know it today. This, however, may help propagate wrong impressions. It is important to emphasize that indigenous education was carried out through pathshalas, madrassahs and gurukulas. Education in these traditional institutions—which were actually kept alive by revenue contributions by the community including 17

illiterate peasants—was called shiksha (and included the ideas of prajna, shil and samadhi). These institutions were, in fact, the watering holes of the culture of traditional communities. Therefore, the term ‘school’ is a weak translation of the roles these institutions really played in Indian society. For this reason, the quantitative nature of the data presented should be read with great caution. The increase in the numbers of schools in England may not necessarily have been a good thing, as it merely signified the arrival of factory schooling. On the other hand, the decline in the numbers of traditional educational institutions is to be intensely deplored, since this meant quality education was being replaced by a substandard substitute. These aspects must always be kept at the back of our minds when we commence analysing the data for significance. Before we do that, the highlights first. The most well-known and controversial point which emerged from the educational surveys lies in an observation made by William Adam. In his first report, he observed that there exist about 1,00,000 village schools in Bengal and Bihar around the 1830s.³² This statement appears to have been founded on the impressions of various high British officials and others who had known the different areas rather intimately and over long periods; it had no known backing of official records. Similar statements had been made, much before W. Adam, for areas of the Madras Presidency. Men like Thomas Munro, had observed that ‘every village had a school.’³³ For areas of the newly extended Presidency of Bombay around 1820, senior officials like G.L. Prendergast noted ‘that there is hardly a village, great or small, throughout our territories, in which there is not at least one school, and in larger villages more.’³⁴ Observations made by Dr G.W. Leitner in 1882 show that the spread of education in the Punjab around 1850 was of a similar extent. 18

Since these observations were made, they have been treated very differently: by some, with the sanctity reserved for divine utterances; and by others, as blasphemous. Naturally, the first view was linked with the growth of a vocal Indian nationalism. Its exponents, besides prominent Indians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, have also included many illustrious Englishmen, like Keir Hardie, and academics like Max Mueller. The second, the blasphemous view of them, was obviously held by those who were in the later period, in one capacity or another, concerned with the administration of India; or those who felt impelled, sometimes because of their commitment to certain theoretical formulations on the development of societies, to treat all such impressions as unreal. Especially after 1860, it had become necessary to ensure that men who had had a long period of service in the British Indian administration or its ancillary branches and who also had the ability to write, should engage in the defence of British rule, especially its beginnings, and consequently attempt to refute any statements which implied that the British had damaged India in any significant manner. While much ink has been spilt on such a controversy, little attempt is known to have been made for placing these state- ments or observations in their contextual perspective. Leaving Leitner’s work, most of these statements belong to the early decades of the nineteenth century. For the later British administrator, the difficulty of appreciating the substance of the controversy is quite understandable. For England had few schools for the children of ordinary people till about 1800. Even many of the older Grammar Schools were in poor shape at the time. Moreover, the men who wrote about India (whether concerning its education, or its industry and crafts, or the somewhat higher real wages of Indian agricultural labourers compared to such wages in England)³⁵ belonged to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century society of Great Britain. Naturally, when they wrote about a school in every village in India—whether that may or may not have been literally true—in contrast to the British situation, it must have appeared to them so. And though they did not much mention this contrast in so many words, it may reasonably be assumed that, as perceptive observers, it was the very contrast which led them to make such judgements. These surveys, based not on mere impressions but on hard data, reveal a great deal: the nature of Indian education; its 19

content; the duration for which it ordinarily lasted; the numbers actually receiving institutional education in particular areas; and, most importantly, detailed information on the background of those benefiting from these institutions. The idea of a school existing in every village, dramatic and picturesque in itself, attracted great notice and eclipsed the equally important details. The more detailed and hard facts have received hardly any notice or analysis. This is both natural and unfortunate. For these latter facts provide an insight into the nature of Indian society at that time. Deeper analysis of this data and adequate reflection on the results followed by required further research may help solve even the riddle of what has been termed ‘the legend of the 1,00,000 schools’.³⁶ According to this hard data, in terms of the content, the and proportion of those attending institutional school education, the situation in India in 1800 is certainly not inferior to what obtained in England then; and in many respects Indian schooling seems to have been much more extensive (and, it should be remembered, that it is a greatly damaged and disorganised India that one is referring to). The content of studies was better than what was then studied in England. The duration of study was more prolonged. The method of school teaching was superior and it is this very method which is said to have greatly helped the introduction of popular education in England but which had prevailed in India for centuries. School attendance, especially in the districts of the Madras Presidency, even in the decayed state of the period 1822-25, was proportionately far higher than the numbers in all variety of schools in England in 1800. The conditions under which teaching took place in the Indian schools were less dingy and more natural;³⁷ and, it was observed, the teachers in the Indian schools were generally more dedicated and sober than in the English versions. The only aspect, and certainly a very important one, where Indian institutional education seems to have lagged behind was with regard to the education of girls. Quite possibly, girl schooling may have been proportionately more extensive in England in 1800, and was definitely the case, a few decades later. Accounts of education in India do often state (though it is difficult to judge their substantive accuracy from the data which is so far known), that 20