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

therefore, that when Indians think of village republics, what occurs to them is not what the word ‘republic’ implies in substance; but, instead, the visual images of its shell, the elected assembly, the system of voting, etc. What Charles Metcalfe, and especially Henry Maine wrote on this point was primarily on the basis of the earlier British information, i.e. what had been derived from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century British travellers, administrators, etc., as well as from the writings of other Europeans before them. It implied (and, quite naturally, the British had no particular reason to spell it out for us Indians) that the ‘village’ (it is immaterial how they defined it), to an extent, had all the semblance of the State: it controlled revenue and exercised authority within its sphere. How this ‘village’ State was constituted, (whether in the manner of an oligarchy, or by the representation of the various castes, crafts, or other groups within it, or by representation of all families, or in some other manner), while important in itself as a subject for exploration, was not its basic element. The basic element of this ‘village republic’ was the authority it wielded, the resources it controlled and dispensed, and the manner of such resource utilisation. Notwithstanding all that has been written about empires— Ashokan, Vijayanagar, Mughal, etc., and of ‘oriental despotism’ it is beyond any doubt that throughout its history, Indian society and polity has basically been organised according to non- centralist concepts. This fact is not only brought out in recent research. The eighteenth and early nineteenth century European reports, manuscript as well as published writings also bear evidence to it. That the annual exchequer receipts of Jahangir did not amount to more than 5% of the computed revenue of his empire, and that of Aurangzeb (with all his zeal for maximising such receipts), did not ever exceed 20% is symptomatic of the concepts and arrangements which governed Indian polity. It can be argued of course that such a non-centralist polity made India politically weak; or, rather, soft in the military sense—given that only hierarchical and centralist states are politically and militarily strong and viable. This may all be true and is worthy of serious consideration. Nonetheless, the first requisite is to understand the nature of Indian society and polity especially as it functioned two or three centuries ago. Further, its various dimensions and contours, strengths and weaknesses need to be known, and not only from European writings but much more so from Indian sources; that is from sources rooted 74

in the traditions and beliefs of various areas, communities, groups, etc.,—with special attention being paid to their own images of the society of which they were a part. It is suggested here—and there is voluminous data scattered in the British records themselves which confirm the view—that in terms of the basic expenses, both education and medical care, like the expenses of the local police, and the maintenance of irrigation facilities, had primary claims on revenue. It was primarily this revenue which not only maintained higher education, but also—as was sometimes admitted in the British records—the system of elementary education.⁸⁰ It is quite probable that, in addition to this basic provision, the parents and guardians of the scholars also contributed a little according to their varying capacities by way of presents, occasional feeding of the unprovided scholars, etc., towards the maintenance of the system. But to suppose that such a deep rooted and extensive system which really catered to all sections of society could be maintained on the basis of tuition fees, or through not only gratuitous teaching but also feeding of the pupils by the teachers, is to be grossly ignorant of the actual functioning of the Indian social arrangements of the time. According to the Bengal-Bihar data of the 1770s and 1780s, the revenues of these areas were divided into various categories in addition to what was called the Khalsa, i.e., the sources whose revenue was received in the exchequer of the ruling authority of the province, or some larger unit. These categories together (excluding the Khalsa), seem to have been allocated or assigned the major proportion of the revenue sources (perhaps around 80% of the computed revenue of any area). Two of these categories were termed Chakeran Zemin, and Bazee Zemin in the Bengal and Bihar records of this period. The former, Chakeran Zemin, referred to recipients of revenue who were engaged in administrative, economic, accounting activities, etc., and were remunerated by assignments of revenue. The latter, Bazee Zemin, referred to those who—according to the British—were in receipt of what were termed ‘religious and charitable allowances’. A substantial portion of these religious allowances was obviously 75

assigned for the maintenance of religious places: largely temples of all sizes and celebrity, but also mosques, dargahs, chatrams, maths, etc. Another part was assigned to the agraharams, or what perhaps were also termed Brahmdeya in South India as well as in Bengal. Yet, other assignments were given over to a variety of persons: to great and other pundits, to poets, to joshis, to medical practitioners, to jesters and even for such purposes as defraying the expenses of carrying Ganga water in areas of Uttar Pradesh to certain religious shrines on certain festivals.⁸¹ Regarding the extent of such assignments from Hedgelee in Bengal, it was stated in 1770 that ‘almost one-half of the province is held upon free tenure’ under the Bazee Zemin category.⁸² The number of these Bazee Zemin (one may reasonably assume the term included individuals, groups as well as institutions) in many districts of Bengal and Bihar was as high as 30,000 to 36,000 recipients for the district. According to H.T. Prinsep,⁸³ in one district of Bengal around 1780, the applications for the registration of Bazee Zemin numbered 72,000. The position in the Madras Presidency was not very different, even after all the disorganisation, dispossession and demolition of the period 1750-1800, during which the British made themselves masters of the whole area. As late as 1801, over 35% of the total cultivated land in the Ceded Districts (the present Rayalseema area and the Kannada District of Bellary) came under the category of revenue free assignments, and it was the task of Thomas Munro to somehow reduce this quantity to a mere 5% of the total cultivated land. The reduction intended in the Ceded Districts was also carried out in all other districts, earlier in some, and later in others, and in some, the dispossession of such vast numbers of assignees of revenue took a long time. The returns from the various districts of the Madras Presidency, especially during the years 1805-1820, provide much information on the varied nature of these revenue assignments 76

(or grain, or money allowances). In some measure, these had till then continued to be permitted, or disbursed to a variety of institutions and to individuals in the several districts. Such information usually got collected whenever the government was contemplating some new policy, or some further steps concerning one, or more categories of such assignees, or those to whom any sort of allowances were being paid. As illustrative of such information, a return from the district of Tanjore of April 1813, relating to the money assignments received by 1,013 big and small temples,⁸⁴—which by this time were mostly minute— and between 350-400 individuals is reproduced at the end of this book (Annexures G and H). These payments amounted at this time to a total of Star Pagodas 43,037 for the temples, and Star Pagodas 5,929 to the individuals, annually. A Star Pagoda was valued at about three and one-half rupee. What was true of Bengal, Bihar and the Madras Presidency applied equally to other areas: whether of the Bombay Presidency, Panjab, or in the Rajasthan States. The proportions of revenue allocated to particular categories—as far as the British record indicates—also seem fairly similar. It will not be far wrong to assume that about a quarter to one-third of the revenue paying sources (not only land, but also sea ports, etc.) were, according to ancient practice, assigned for the requirements of the social and cultural infrastructure till the British overturned it all. Further still, the rate of assessment which was paid by cultivators of the revenue assigned lands was fairly low. According to the supervisors of the Bengal Districts in the 1770s and early 1780s, the rate of assessment charged by the Bazee Zemin revenue assignees was around one-quarter to one-third of the rate which the British had begun to demand from the lands which were treated as Khalsa,⁸⁵ a category which was now just swallowing up practically all the other categories. A more or less similar phenomenon obtained in the various districts of the Madras Presidency—even as late as the 1820s.⁸⁶ Moreover, though it may seem unbelievable, the area which constituted Malabar had, till 77

about 1750, never been subject to a land tax.⁸⁷ It had a variety of other mercantile and judicial taxes, but land in Malabar— according to British investigators themselves—never paid revenue of any kind till the peace was wholly shattered by the Europeans, Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan. Even during Tipu's period, the actual receipts from Malabar were fairly small. The major dispossession of the various categories of revenue assignees (starting from those who had assignment for the performance of military duties, and who formed the local militias, and going on to those who performed police duties, etc.) started as soon as the British took over de facto control of any area, (i.e. in Bengal and Bihar from 1757-58 onwards). The turn of the Chakeran Zemin and the Bazee Zemin came slightly later. By about 1770, the latter had also begun to be seriously affected. By about 1800, through various means, a very large proportion of these had been altogether dispossessed; and, most of the remaining had their assignments greatly reduced through various devices. Among the devices used was the application of the newly established enhanced rate of assessment even to the sources from which the assignees had received the revenue. This device, to begin with, implied a reduction of the quantity of the assigned source in accordance with the increased rate of assessment. The next step was to reduce—in most cases—the money value itself. The result was that the assignee—whether an individual or an institution—even when allowed a fraction of the previous assignment, was no longer able (because of such steep reduction) to perform the accompanying functions in the manner they had been performed only some decades previously. Those whose assignments were completely abrogated were of course reduced to penury and beggary, if not to a worse fate. Naturally, many of the old functions 78

dependent on such assignments (like teaching, medicine, feeding of pilgrims, etc.), had to be given up because of want of fiscal support, as also due to state ridicule and prohibitions. There are references (see the annexed reports from some of the Madras Presidency collectors) to certain revenue assignments here and there, and to daily cash or grain allowances received by some of those who were occupied in imparting Sanskritic learning, or Persian, and in some instances even education at the elementary level. A few other collectors also made reference to certain revenue assignments which used to exist in the area (but were said to have been appropriated by Tipu, and that, when the British took over these areas, they formally added such revenue to the total State revenue). The various area reports of the period 1792 to about 1806 make much mention of dispossession of revenue assignees by orders of Tipu in the area over which he had control. But, at the same time, it is also stated that through the connivance of the revenue officers, etc., such dispossession during Tipu’s reign was, in most cases, not operative at all. What Tipu might have intended merely as a threat to opponents, became a de facto reality when these areas came under formal British administration. But in most areas which the British had conquered (either on behalf of the Nabob of Arcot, or on behalf of the Nizam of Hyderabad, or administered in the name of the various Rajas of Tanjore), most such dispossession was pre-1800. The process started soon after 1750, when the British domination of South India began gathering momentum in the early 1780s and the revenues of the areas claimed by the British to be under the nominal rulership of the Nabob of Arcot were formally assigned over to the British. One major method used to ensure dispossession was to slash down what were termed the ‘District charges’, i.e., the amounts traditionally utilised within the districts, but which, for purposes of accounting, were shown in the records of the Nabob. The slashing down in certain districts like Trichnopoly was up to 93% of the ‘District charges’ allowed until then: a mere 19,143 Star Pagodas now allowed in place of the earlier 2,82,148 Star Pagodas. The report of the collector of Bellary is best known and most mentioned in the published records on indigenous educa- tion.⁸⁸ It is long and fairly comprehensive, though the data he 79

actually sent was much less detailed. In it, he actually—to the extent a collector could—came out with the statement that the degeneration of education ‘is ascribable to the gradual but general impoverishment of the country’; that ‘the means of the manufacturing classes have been greatly diminished by the introduction of our own European manufactures’; that ‘the transfer of the capital of the country from the native government and their officers, who liberally expanded it in India, to Europeans, restricted by law from employing it even temporarily in India, and daily draining it from the land, has likewise tended to this effect’; that ‘in many villages where formerly there were schools, there are now none; and that ‘learning, though it may proudly decline to sell its stores, had never flourished in any country except under the encouragement of the ruling power, and the countenance and support once given to science in this part of India has long been withheld.’ In elaboration, he added that ‘of the 533 institutions for education now existing in this district, I am ashamed to say not one now derives any support from the State’; but that ‘there is no doubt, that in former times, especially under the Hindoo Governments very large grants, both in money and in land, were issued for the support of learning’; that the ‘considerable yeomiahs or grants of money, now paid to brahmins in this district...may, I think, be traced to this source’. He concluded with the observation that: Though it did not consist with the dignity of learning to re- ceive from her votaries hire, it has always in India been deemed the duty of government to evince to her the highest respect, and to grant to her those emoluments which she could not, consistently with her character, receive from other sources; the grants issued by former governments, on such occasions, contained therefore no unbecoming stipulations or conditions. They all purport to flow from the free bounty of the ruling power, merely to aid the maintenance of some holy or learned man, or to secure his prayers for the State. But they were almost universally granted to learned or religious persons, who maintained a school for one or more of the sciences, and taught therein gratuitously; and though not expressed in the deed itself, the duty of continuing such gratuitous instruction was certainly implied in all such grants.⁸⁹ 80

The Collector of Bellary, A.D. Campbell, was an experienced and perceptive officer, previously having held the post of Secretary of the Board of Revenue, and was perhaps one of Thomas Munro’s favourites. It may be said to Munro’s credit that in his review of 10 March 1826, he did admit in his oblique way that indigenous education ‘has, no doubt, been better in earlier times.’ The fact that it got disrupted, reduced and well- nigh destroyed from the time the British took over de facto control and centralised the revenue, was obviously not possible even for a Governor as powerful as Thomas Munro to state in formal government records. Illustrations such as the above can be multiplied ad infinitum. It only requires searching the records pertaining to the early period of British rule in different areas of India. With much industry and in a fairly objective manner, Leitner tried to do this for the Panjab. For Gandhiji, an intuitive understanding of what could have happened was enough. He could, therefore, with confidence, reply to Hartog that, ‘my prejudice or presentiment still makes me cling to the statement I made at Chatham House.’ IX This brings us finally to an assessment of the content of the indigenous system of education. The long letter of the much- quoted A.D. Campbell, collector of Bellary, had been used a century earlier by London to establish that in India reading and writing 81

were acquired ‘solely with a view to the transaction of business’, that ‘nothing whatever is learnt except reading, and with the exception of writing and a little arithmetic, the education of the great majority goes no farther.’ The question of content is crucial. It is the evaluation of content which led to indigenous education being termed ‘bad’ and hence to its dismissal; and, in Gandhiji's phrase, to its uprooting. Yet it was not ‘the mere reading and writing and a little arithmetic’ which was of any consequence in such a decision. For, school education in contemporary England, except in the sphere of religious teaching, covered the same ground, and probably, much less thoroughly. As mentioned earlier, the average period of schooling in 1835 England was just about one year, and even in 1851, only two. Further, as stated by A.E. Dobbs, ‘in some country schools, writing was excluded for fear of evil consequences.’ While the limitless British hunger for revenue—so forcefully described by Campbell—starved the Indian system of the very re- sources which it required to survive, its cultural and religious content and structure provoked deliberate attempts aimed at its total extermination. It was imperative to somehow uproot the Indian indigenous system for the relatively undisturbed maintenance and continuance of British rule. It is the same imperative which decided Macaulay, Bentinck, etc., to deliberately neglect large-scale school education—proposed by men like Adam—till a viable system of Anglicised higher education had first been established in the country. In 1813, this bold intention was publicly and powerfully expressed by William Wilberforce when he depicted Indians as being ‘deeply sunk, and by their religious superstitions fast bound, in the lowest depths of moral and social wretchedness.’⁹⁰ T.B. Macaulay expressed similar views, merely using different imagery. He commented that the totality of Indian knowledge and scholarship did not even equal the contents of ‘a single shelf of a good European library’, and that all the historical information contained in books written in Sanskrit was ‘less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridge- ment used at preparatory schools in England.’⁹¹ To Macaulay, all Indian knowledge, if not despicable, was at least absurd: absurd history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd theology. 82

A little later, Karl Marx seems to have had similar impressions of India—this, despite his great study of British state papers and other extensive material relating to India. Writing in the New York Daily Tribune on 25 June 1853, he shared the view of the perennial nature of Indian misery, and approvingly quoted an ancient Indian text which according to him placed ‘the commencement of Indian misery in an epoch even more remote than the Christian creation of the world.’ According to him, Indian life had always been undignified, stagnatory, vegetative, and passive, given to a brutalising worship of nature instead of man being the ‘sovereign of nature’—as contemplated in contemporary European thought. And, thus Karl Marx concluded: ‘Whatever may have been the crimes of England’ in India, ‘she was the unconscious tool of history’ in bringing about—what Marx so anxiously looked forward to—India’s westernisation. The complete denunciation and rejection of Indian culture and civilisation was, however, left to the powerful pen of James Mill. This he did in his monumental three volume History of British India, first published in 1817. Thenceforth, Mill’s History became an essential reading and reference book for those entrusted with administering the British Indian Empire. From the time of its publication till recently, the History in fact provided the framework for the writing of most histories of India. For this reason, the impact of his judgments on India and its people should never be underestimated. According to Mill, ‘the same insincerity, mendacity, and perfidy; the same indifference to the feelings of others; the same prostitution and venality’ were the conspicuous characteristics of both the Hindoos and the Muslims. The Muslims, however, were perfuse, when possessed of wealth, and devoted to pleasure; the Hindoos almost always penurious and ascetic; and ‘in truth, the Hindoo like the eunuch, excels in the qualities of a slave.’ Furthermore, similar to the Chinese, the Hindoos were ‘dissembling, treacherous, mendacious, to an excess which surpasses even the usual measure of uncultivated society.’ Both the Chinese and the Hindoos were ‘disposed to excessive exaggeration with regard to everything relating to themselves.’ Both were ‘cowardly and unfeeling.’ Both were ‘in the highest degree conceited of themselves, and full of affected contempt for others.’ And, above all, both were ‘in physical sense, disgustingly unclean in their persons and houses.’ Compared to the people of India, according to Mill, the people of Europe even during the feudal ages, (and 83

notwithstanding the vices of the Roman Church and the defects of the schoolmen), were superior in philosophy. Further, the Europeans ‘were greatly superior, notwithstanding the defects of the feudal system, in the institutions of Government and in laws.’ Even their poetry was ‘beyond all comparison preferable to the poetry of the Hindoos.’ Mill felt that it was hardly necessary to assert that in the art of war ‘the Hindoos have always been greatly inferior to the warlike nations of Europe.’ The agriculture of the Europeans ‘surpassed exceedingly that of the Hindoos’, and in India the roads were little better than paths, and the rivers without bridges; there was not one original treatise on medicine, considered as a science, and surgery was unknown among the Hindoos. Further still, ‘compared with the slavish and dastardly spirit of the Hindoos’, the Europeans were to be placed in an elevated rank with regard to manners and character, and their manliness and courage. Where the Hindoos surpassed the Europeans was in delicate manufactures, ‘particularly in spinning, weaving, and dyeing’; in the fabrication of trinkets; and probably in the art of polishing and setting the precious stones; and more so in effeminate gentleness, and the winning arts of address. However, in the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture the Hindoos in no way excelled Europeans. Further, ‘the Hindoo loom, with all its appurtenances, is coarse and ill-fashioned, to a degree hardly less surprising than the fineness of the commodity which it is the instrument of producing.’ The very dexterity in the use of their tools and implements became a point against the Indians. For as James Mill proclaimed: ‘A dexterity in the use of its own imperfect tools is a common attribute of rude society.’ These reflections and judgments led to the obvious conclusion, and Mill wrote: Our ancestors, however, though rough, were sincere; but under the glossing exterior of the Hindoo lies a general disposition to deceit and perfidy. In fine, it cannot be doubted that, upon the whole, the gothic nations, as soon as they became a settled people, exhibit the marks of a superior character and civilisation to those of the Hindoos.92 As to James Mill, so also to Wilberforce, Macaulay, and Karl Marx and the thought and approaches they represented (for it is more as spokesmen of such thinking and approaches that 84

they are important in the context of India rather than as outstanding individuals), the manners, customs and civilisation of India were intrinsically barbarous. And to each of them, India could become civilised only by discarding its Indianness, and by adopting ‘utility as the object of every pursuit’⁹³ according to Mill; by embracing his peculiar brand of Christianity for Wilberforce; by becoming anglicised, according to Macaulay; and for Marx by becoming western. Prior to them, for Henry Dundas, the man who governed India from London for twenty long years, Indians not only had to become subservient to British authority but also had to feel ‘indebted to our beneficence and wisdom for advantages they are to receive’; and, in like manner, ‘feel solely indebted to our protection for the countenance and enjoyment of them’⁹⁴ before they could even qualify for being considered as civilised. Given such complete agreement on the nature of Indian culture and institutions, it was inevitable that because of its crucial social and cultural role, Indian education fared as it did. To speed up its demise, it not only had to be ridiculed and despised, but steps also had to be taken so that it was starved out of its resource base. True, as far as the known record can tell, no direct dismantling or shutting up of each and every institution was resorted to, or any other more drastic physical measures taken to achieve this demise. Such steps were unnecessary; the reason being that the fiscal steps together with ridicule, performed the task far more effectively. An official indication of what was to come was conveyed by London to the Madras Presidency when it acknowledged receipt of the information that a survey of indigenous education had been initiated there, much before the papers of the survey were actually sent to London. The London authorities expressed their appreciation of this initiative. They also approved of the collectors having been cautioned against ‘exciting any fears in the people that their freedom of choice in matters of education would be interfered with.’ However, this approval was followed by the observation: ‘But it would be equally wrong to do anything to fortify them (i.e. the people of the Madras Presidency) in the absurd opinion that their own rude institutions of education are so perfect as not to admit of improvement.’ The very expression of such a view in the most diplomatically and cautiously worded of official instructions was a clear signal. Operatively, it implied 85

not only greater ridicule and denunciation of the Indian system; but further, that any residual fiscal and state support still available to the educational institutions was no longer to be tolerated. Not surprisingly, the indigenous system was doomed to stagnate and die. The neglect and deliberate uprooting of Indian education, the measures which were employed to this end, and its replacement by an alien and rootless system—whose products were so graphically described later by Ananda Coomaraswamy— had several consequences for India. To begin with, it led to an obliteration of literacy and knowledge of such dimensions amongst the Indian people that recent attempts at universal literacy and education have so far been unable to make an appreciable dent in it. Next, it destroyed the Indian social balance in which, traditionally, persons from all sections of society appear to have been able to receive fairly competent schooling. The pathshalas and madrassahs had enabled them to participate openly and appropriately and with dignity not only in the social and cultural life of their locality but, if they wished, ensured participation at the more extended levels. It is this destruction along with similar damage in the economic sphere which led to great deterioration in the status and socio-economic conditions and personal dignity of those who are now known as the scheduled castes; and to only a slightly lesser extent to that of the vast peasant majority encompassed by the term ‘backward castes’. The recent movements embracing these sections, to a great extent, seem to be aimed at restoring this basic Indian social balance. And most importantly, till today it has kept most educated Indians ignorant of the society they live in, the culture which sustains this society, and their fellow beings; and more tragically, yet, for over a century it has induced a lack of con- fidence, and loss of bearing amongst the people of India in general. What India possessed in the sphere of education two centuries ago and the factors which led to its decay and replacement are indeed a part of history. Even if the former could be brought back to life, in the context of today, or of the immediate future, many aspects of it would no longer be apposite. Yet what exists today has little relevance either. An understanding of what existed and of the processes which created the irrelevance India is burdened with today, in time, could help generate what best suits India’s requirements and the ethos of her people.

Notes

1. See Annexures, especially A(i)-(xxx), C, and D(i), (iii)-(iv)h.
2. A. E. Dobbs: Education and Social Movements 1700-1850, London, 1919, p.80, quoting Oxford Commission, 1852, Report, p.19.
3. Ibid, p.83.
4. Ibid, p.104, f.n.l. quoting 7 Henry IV, c.17.

86

5. Ibid, p.105, quoting 34 & 35 Henry VIII, c.l. This statute dating to 1542-43 A.D., consisting of just one Article after a preamble read, ‘...The Bible shall not be read in English in any church. No women or artificers, prentices, journeymen, servingmen of the degree of yeomen or under, husbandmen, nor labourers, shall read the New Testament in English. Nothing shall be taught or maintained contrary to the King’s instructions. And if any spiritual person preach, teach, or maintain any thing contrary to the King’s instructions or determinations, made or to be made, and shall be thereof convict, he shall for his first offence recant, for his second abjure and bear a fagot, and for his third shall be adjudged an heretic, and be burned and lose all his goods and chattels.’ The statute was entitled ‘An Act for the Advancement of True Knowledge’. This restriction, however, may have completely been lifted by the time the ‘authorised version’ of the Bible (King James’s translation) was published in England in 1611.
6. Ibid, p.104, f.n.3, quoting Strype, Cranmer, i.127
7. Ibid, p.33, f.n.l.
8. Ibid, p.139
9. Ibid, p.139
10. Ibid, p.140
11. Ibid, p.158
12. J.W. Adamson: A Short History of Education, Cambridge, 1919, p.243.
13. Ibid, p.243
14. See Annexure C: Alexander Walker, Note on Indian Education; also Ibid, p.246
15. House of Commons Papers, 1852-53, volume 79, p.718, for the number of schools and pupils in them in 1818 and 1851.
16. Adamson: op.cit., 232
17. Dobbs, op.cit., pp. 157-8 also f.n.1, p.158.
18. Adamson : op.cit., p.266
19. Ibid, p.226
20. Ibid, p.226
21. Writing to the second Earl Spencer on 21 August 1787 William Jones described a serpentine river ‘which meets the Ganges opposite the celebrated University of Brahmans at Navadwipa, or Nuddea, as Rennel writes it. This is the third University of which I have been a member.’ The Letters of Sir William Jones, by G. Cannon. 2 volumes, 1970, p.754.
22. The fourth British University, that of London was established in
24. The above information is abstracted from The Historical Register of the University of Oxford 1220-1888, Oxford, 1888, mostly from pp.45-65.
25. The foregoing four paragraphs are based on information supplied by the University of Oxford in November 1980 on request from the author.
26. For instance according to her doctoral thesis presented in April 1980 at the Sorbonne, Paris, Gita Dharampal: Etude sur le role des missionaries europeens dans la formation premiers des idees sur l’Inde, an early eighteenth century manuscript still has several copies extant. The manuscript is titled Traite de la Religion des Malabars, and its first copy was completed in 1709 by Tessier de Queraly, procurator of the Paris Foreign Mission in Pondicherry from 1699 to 1720, nominated Apostolic Vicar of Siam in 1727. Copies of this Ms. are to be found in the following archives: Paris (Bibliotheque Nationale 3 copies, Bibliotheque de L’Arsenal 1 copy, Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve 1 copy, Archives 87

Nationales 1 copy); Chartres (Bibliotheque Municipale 1 copy, formerly belonging to the Governor Benoit Dumas), London (India Office Libr. 2 copies in Col Mackenzie’s and John Leyden’s collections respectively); Rome 1 copy (Biblioteca Casanatesa, containing Vatican collection). Published as La Religion Des Malabars, Immense, 1982. 26. See the author’s Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts. Other India Press, 2000, for Prof John Playfair’s long article on Indian astronomy, pp.48-93. 27. Edinburgh University: Dc.177: letters from Adam Ferguson to John Macpherson, letter dated 9.4.1775. 28. Edinburgh: Scottish Record Office: Melville Papers: GD 51/3/617/1- 2, Prof A. Maconochie to Henry Dundas. 29. Edinburgh: National Library of Scotland: Ms.546, Alex Abercomby forwarding a further memorandum from Prof Maconochie to Henry Dundas, March 1788. The memorandum was communicated to Lord Cornwallis by Henry Dundas on 7.4.1788. 30. HANSARD: June 22, 1813; columns 832, 833. 31. HANSARD: June 22 and July 1, 1813: Debate on Clause No.13 of the India Charter Bill, titled in HANSARD as ‘Propagation of Christianity in India’. 32. Report on the state of Education in Bengal, 1835. p.6. 33. House of Commons Papers, 1812-13, volume 7, evidence of Thomas Munro, p.127. 34. House of Commons Papers, 1831-32, volume 9, p.468. Prendergast’s statement may be treated with some caution as it was made in the context of his stand that any expenditure on the opening of any schools by the British was undesirable. As a general impression of a senior British official, however, corroborated by similar observations relating to other parts of India, its validity appears beyond doubt. 35. See, for instance, the discussion on relative Indian and British agricultural wages in the Edinburgh Review, volume 4, July 1804. 36. Philip Hartog, Ibid, p.74. 37. This, however, may have resulted more from a relatively easier Indian climate than from any physical and institutional arrangements. 38. That is those belonging to the Brahman, Kshetriya and Vaisya varnas, but excluding the Soodras and castes outside the four varna division. 39. It may fairly be assumed that the term ‘other castes’ used in the Madras Presidency survey in the main included those who today are categorised amongst the scheduled castes, and many of whom were better known as ‘Panchamas’ some 70-80 years ago. 40. Annexure A (viii) 41. Given at Annexures B and C. Further, in the Public Despatch to Bengal from London dated 3 June 1814, it was observed: ‘The mode of instruction that from time immemorial has been practised under these masters has received the highest tributes of praise by its adoption in this country, under the direction of the Reverend Dr. Bell, formerly chaplain at Madras; and it has now become the mode by which education is conducted in our national establishments, from a conviction of the facility it affords in the acquisition of language by simplifying the process of instruction.’ 42. Annexure A (xxii) 43. Annexure A (xxiii) 88

44. These surveys began to be made from 1812 onwards, and their main purpose was to find out what number of such medical men were in receipt of assignments of revenue. Some details of the castes of these practitioners may be found in Madras Board of Revenue Proceedings of 17 September 1821, and of 9 March 1837, and other proceedings referred to therein.
45. Annexure A (xx) a.
46. Annexure A (xi).
47. Annexure A (x)
48. Annexure A (xxvii).
49. This observation of the Collector of Guntoor is corroborated by W. Adam wherein he mentions that at Nadia many scholars came from ‘remote parts of India, especially from the South’ (W. Adam, p.78, 1941 edition)
50. Annexure A (xix)
51. Annexure A (xxiii)
52. It may be mentioned that Persian schools (in all about 145 in the Presidency) were predominantly attended by Muslims, and only a few Hindoos seem to have attended them (North Arcot: Hindoos 2, Muslims 396). However, quite a number of Muslim girls were reported to be attending these schools.
53. Annexure A (xx)
54. Annexure A (xxviii)
55. As in many other instances, it was unthinkable for the British that India could have had a proportionately larger number receiving education than those in England itself. Such views and judgements in fact were applied to every sphere and even the rights of the Indian peasantry were tailored accordingly. On the rights of the cultivator of land in India, the Fifth Report of the House of Commons stated: ‘It was accordingly decided, “that the occupants of land in India could establish no more right, in respect to the soil, than tenantry upon an estate in England can establish a right to the land, by hereditary residence:” and the meerassee of a village was therefore defined to be, a preference of cultivation derived from hereditary residence, but subject to the right of government as the superior lord of the soil, in what way it chooses, for the cultivation of its own lands.’ (House of Commons Papers, 1812, Volume VII, p.105)
56. Annexures A (xx) and (xiv)
57. While the caste-wise break up of the Madras Presidency school and college scholars has hitherto not been published, the separate figures for Hindoos and Muslims and those respectively divided into males and females were published as early as 1832 in the House of Commons Papers. Since then, it may be presumed that this data regarding the number of girls and boys in Malabar schools has been seen by a large number of scholars studying the question of education in India in the early nineteenth century. Curiously, however, there does not seem to be even a passing reference to this Malabar data in any of the published works. It seems to have been overlooked by Sir Philip Hartog also.
58. Adam’s Reports were first published in 1835, 1836 and 1838. The three, together with some omissions, and a 60-page rather depressing and patronising introduction were published by Rev. J. Long from Calcutta in 1868. Still another edition of the whole (reintroducing the omissions made by Long and including Long’s own introduction) with a further new 42-page introduction by Anathnath Basu was published by the University of Calcutta, in 1941. It is this last edition which is used in 89

the present work. The reports, while never sufficiently analysed, have often been quoted in most works on the history of education in India. 59. W. Adam: Ibid, pp.6-7. Incidentally the observation that every village had a school was nothing peculiar to Adam. As mentioned earlier, many others before him had made similar observations, including Thomas Munro in his evidence to a House of Commons committee. Munro had then observed that 'if civilization is to become an article of trade' between England and India, the former 'will gain by the import cargo.' As symptomatic of this high state of Indian civilisation, he also referred to 'schools established in every village for teaching, reading, writing and arithmetic.' When Thomas Munro made this statement he already had had 30 years of intensive Indian experience. (House of Commons Papers: 1812-13, Vol .7, p.131). 60. See Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: some contemporary European accounts, pp.143-63, for an account of this old method. 61. This, as may be noticed, was quite at variance with the Madras Presidency districts where Persian was not only studied little, but the students of it were mainly Muslims. Interestingly, Adam mentions (p.149) that amongst the Muslims 'when a child...is four years, four months, and four days old', he, or she is on that day usually admitted to school. 62. History of Indigenous Education in the Panjab since Annexation and in 1882 (Published 1883, Reprinted, Patiala, 1973). 63. The idea of their being divinely ordained was really a much older English assumption. In A Brief Description of New York Formerly called New-Netherlands, published in 1670, referring to the indigenous people in that part of North America, Daniel Denton observes: 'It is to be admired, how strangely they have decreast by the Hand of God, since the English first settling of those parts; for since my time, where there were six towns, they are reduced to two small villages, and it hath been generally observed, that where the English come to settle, a Divine Hand makes way for them, by removing or cutting off the Indians either by wars one with the other, or by some raging mortal Disease.' (Reprint 1902 p.45) 64. See letter of Dr H. Scott to Sir Joseph Banks, President, Royal Society, London, dated 7.1.1790 in Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century, p.265. 65. First published in New York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853; also recently quoted by Iu.I. Semenov 'Socio-economic Formations and World History,' in Soviet and Western Anthropology, edited by Ernest Gellner, 1980. 66. Current Anthropology, Volume 7, No. 4, October 1966, pp.395-449, Estimating Aboriginal American Population, by Henry F. Dobyns. 67. Writing as early as 1804, William Bentinck, the young Governor of the Madras Presidency, wrote to the President of the Board of Control, Lord Castlereagh, that 'we have rode the country too hard, and the consequence is that it is in the most lamentable poverty.' (Nottingham University: Bentinck Papers: Pw Jb 722). In 1857-58 a military officer wrote to Governor General Canning, 'it may be truly said that the revenue of India has hitherto been levied at the point of the bayonet' and considered this to be the major cause of the Mutiny. (Leeds: Canning Papers: Military Secretary's Papers: Misc. No.289). 68. International Affairs, London, November 1931, pp.721-739; also Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol.48, pp.193-206. 90

69. See origins of the School of Oriental Studies, London Institution, by P.J. Hartog, C.I.E., M.A., 1917.
70. A graphic image of the more privileged products of this British initiated education was given by Ananda K Coomaraswamy as early as
71. Coomaraswamy then wrote: ‘Speak to the ordinary graduate of an Indian University, or a student from Ceylon, of the ideals of the Mahabharata—he will hasten to display his knowledge of Shakespeare; talk to him of religious philosophy—you find that he is an atheist of the crude type common in Europe a generation ago, and that not only has he no religion, but is as lacking in philosophy as the average Englishman; talk to him of Indian music—he will produce a gramophone or a harmonium and inflict upon you one or both; talk to him of Indian dress or jewellery—he will tell you that they are uncivilised and barbaric; talk to him of Indian art—it is news to him that such a thing exists; ask him to translate for you a letter written in his own mother-tongue—he does not know it. He is indeed a stranger in his own land.’ (Modern Review, Calcutta, vol 4, Oct. 1908 p.338).
72. January 1932, pp.151-82.
73. Also in House of Commons Papers: 1831-32, vol. 9, p.468.
74. Clarendon Press, 1917, p.394.
75. In Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, 1917, pp.815-25.
76. Philip Hartog’s lectures were announced in the London Times, (March 1,4,6,1935) and two of them reported in it on March 2 and 5. On 2 March the Times reported that Sir Philip Hartog, ‘submitted that under successive Governor Generals, from Warren Hastings to Lord Chelmsford, an educational policy was evolved as part of a general policy to govern India in the interest of India, and to develop her intellectual resources to the utmost for her own benefit.’ It is interesting, however, to note that the Times, while it gave fairly constant though brief notices to Gandhiji’s 1931 visit to England, and some of the public meetings he addressed and the celebration of his birthday, the meeting at Chatham House did not reach its pages. It was not only not reported the next day, October 21, 1931, but was also not announced along with various other notices of various other meetings, etc., on the morning of October 20. Possibly it was a convention not to report any meetings at Chatham House in newspapers.
77. The Book of Lectures was reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement under the caption ‘Mr Gandhi Refuted’. Complimenting Hartog, the review stated: ‘There are many deserved criticisms of past British administrators in this particular field, but other charges dissolve into thin air when exposed to the searching analysis Sir Philip Hartog has applied to a statement of Mr Gandhi...Sir Philip took up the challenge at once...he shows how facts were distorted to fit an educational theory.’
78. The text of Hartog-Gandhi correspondence is given at Annexures F (i)-(xxv).
79. The available material on the survey of indigenous education in the Presidency of Bombay has been brought out in a valuable book Survey of Indigenous Education in the Province of Bombay 1820-30 by R.V. Parulekar in 1951. This survey, however, appears to have covered only certain parts of the Bombay Presidency.
80. Judging from their products, in a certain sense, this may apply even more to the writings on India by most non-Indians. Their writings on various aspects of Indian society and polity will obviously be influenced, if not wholly conditioned, by their respective cultural and educational ethos. Even when some of them—Alexander Walker in the early 19th century and Prof. Burton Stein today—appear to understand India 91

better, it is not really for them to map out how Indians should end up perceiving themselves or their own society. Such a task can legitimately only be undertaken by India itself. 80. Public Despatch to Bengal, 3 June 1814: ‘We refer with particular satisfaction upon this occasion to that distinguished feature of internal polity which prevails in some parts of India, and by which the instruction of the people is provided for by a certain charge upon the produce of the soil, and other endowments in favour of the village teachers, who are thereby rendered public servants of the community.’ 81. The revenue records of all areas, especially of the years 1770-90 for the Bengal Presidency, and of 1801-20 for the Madras Presidency provide very extensive information regarding such assignments. The information regarding assignments for the purpose of carrying Ganga water to religious shrines is taken from Mafee Register for 1847 for the district of Hamirpur and Kalpi in the Uttar Pradesh State Archives at Allahabad. 82. I.O.R. Factory Records: G/27/1, Supervisor Houghly to Murshe- dabad Council, 10.10.1770, p.88. 83. In a note dated circa 1830. 84. The total number of maths and temples in Tanjore about this time was around 4,000. 85. I.O.R. Factory Records: G/6/4. Proceedings of Burdwan Council on Beerbhoom, 24.5.1775. 86. The problem of peasants deserting sirkar lands (i.e. lands paying revenue to government) because of the exhorbitant rate of government assessment even in the 1820s was of such frequency that it was deliberated upon by Thomas Munro as Governor of Madras in November 1822. At that time Munro observed that ‘it would be most satisfactory if the sirkar ryots were induced to give a voluntary preference to the sirkar land’ and felt that the rest of the village community paying revenue to government should not ‘allow a ryot to throw up sirkar land liable to adjustment merely that he may occupy Enam land which is liable to none.’ But if such ‘inducement’ did not work Munro was of the view, that ‘if necessary, measures for the protection of the rights of government may be directed more immediately to the Enamdars, either by taking their Enams or by resuming them.’ (Tamil Nadu state Archives: Board of Revenue Proceedings: volume 930, Proceedings 7.11.1822, pp.10292- 96). 87. For fairly detailed information on Malabar, see the voluminous Report of Commissioner Graeme, 16.7.1822 in TNSA: Revenue Consultations, especially volume 277A. 88. Annexure A (xxi), Philip Hartog, who made much play of this reply, as mentioned earlier, used it to throw doubt on the educational data from the other districts. It is possible that because of his contrary concerns, he was not able to comprehend this report fully. 89. Bellary was part of the Ceded Districts and was administered from 1800-7 by Thomas Munro. As mentioned earlier, it was here that Munro seemed outraged by the fact that 35% of the total cultivated land was still being assigned for various local purposes, and expressed his determination to reduce it to as low as 5% of the total revenue of the Ceded Districts. Munro at that time also advocated the imposition of an income-tax of about 15% on all those (revenue assignees, as well as merchants, artisans, labourers and the rest) who did not pay land revenue. The Madras Government accepted his recommendation and this tax, under various names, (Veesabuddy, Mohtarpha, etc.) was imposed 92

not only in the Ceded Districts but also in many other districts of the Madras Presidency. It is this background of exhorbitant taxation and the cutting down of all expenses, even on the repair of irrigation sources that largely led to the conversion of Bellary and Cuddapah into the latter day arid and impoverished areas. Quite naturally, then, the educational returns from Bellary were low. 90. Hansard: June 22, 1813. 91. Minute on Indian Education: March 1835. 92. J.S. Mill, History of British India, 1817, vol. I, pp.344, 351-2, 466-7, 472, 646. 93. Ibid, p.428. 94. Revenue Despatch to Madras: 11.2.1801. 93