Backgrder_history

"An impression appears to have gained ground, both here and in England, that enough has been done for the education of the higher classes and that attention should now be directed towards the education of the masses... An enquiry into the matter will, however, show a very different state of things. As the best, if not the only practicable means of promoting education in Bengal, the Government should, in my humble opinion, confine itself to the education of the higher classes on a comprehensive scale". [emphasis added by the author] Vidyasagar, who was the principal of Sanskrit College, Calcutta, was one of the five Indian fellows of the Calcutta University established two years ago in 1857. In that capacity he addressed the letter. One would be aghast to hear this brazen advocacy of a person, who has been hailed as the finest flower of Bengal renaissance in the nineteenth century.This, in effect, resulted in lopsided expansion of education and gave birth to vested interest in a country badly ridden by Caste. Skewed growth of education creates a privileged section in the society, Driven by self-interest, they then find it necessary to oppose others getting into the same privilege on various grounds, The privileged and vested interest groups ultimately become desperate to scuttle all well meaning schemes designed to benefit the underprivileged. With due respect to all his contribution to the society, we must not hesitate to state that the exhortation of Pandit Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar was fraught with serious danger for any nation and can hardly be viewed with equanimity of mind, Besides it was utterly putrid.

Lord Ripon, the Governor General of India in his convocation address to Calcutta University on the 1lth March 1882 underlined the grave and harmful consequences. "It is not desirable in any country to have a small highly educated class brought into contact with a large uneducated masses: what is wanted is, instruction should be more equally distributed, that the artisans and peasants of the land should have brought within their reach facilities as may be possible under the circumstances of their condition, and that there should be no sharp line drawn between the educated few and the ignorant and untrained many."

The educational agenda in the post-independence period did never visualise a comprehensive and integrated pedagogy for a viable solution to mass poverty, mass apathy and mass illiteracy. India's diverse and plural communities remain either under-represented like the women and minorities, or misrepresented or unrepresented like the tribals .

The elite nationalists too adopted a slightly reformed (anglicised) brahminical attitude towards the masses in India. There was some vigorous opposition, and radical proposals from figures like Gandhi, K.C. Bhattacharya, Gujubhai Badheka, B.R. Ambedkar, Phule, etc. Other prominent nationalist leaders in general reproduced the colonial discourse, which had constructed an identity of 'otherness' for the Indian masses. In this development, the masses remained at the receiving end of all state initiatives while those who took on the responsibility of leading and civilising the nation were privileged. The elite bothered about mass mobilisation only so far as it was necessary for the national movement in ousting and replacing the British. They had no larger public and cultural imagination for the emerging nationstate, which they were going to govern. In all sociocultural, educational and political spheres, the elites developed sectarian values, structures and institutions to safeguard their narrow class interests.

The emphasis on education that Japan placed in the last century has helped it reap rich benefits today...

When Japan set out in the 19th century to catch up with the Western nations, its Fundamental Code of Education, issued in 1872, expressed the public commitment to make sure that there must be “no community with an illiterate family, nor a family with an illiterate person.” Kido Takayoshi, one of the leaders of Japanese reform, explained the basic idea: “Our people are no different from the Americans or Europeans of today; it is all a matter of education or lack of education.”
By 1910 Japan was almost fully literate, at least for the young, and by 1913, though still very much poorer than Britain or America, Japan was publishing more books than Britain and more than twice as many as the United States. The concentration on education was responsible, to a large extent, for the nature and speed of Japan’s economic and social progress.

"Macaulay's minute of 1835 was in favour of English as the medium for European learning. This effectively destroyed the old indigenous system of education and put the new western one decisively beyond the reach of the masses..."

The India Act of "1813 was the first important landmark: in the East India Company's education policy", (Basu 1982: 91) for it included "a clause requiring the annual expenditure by the Directors of the East India Company of a lakh of rupees on education" (Report of the Com-mission on Christian Higher Education in India 1931: 63). Earlier the Company had refrained from such commitments, but now the earlier ban on private enterprise in education in its territories was lifted in 1815 (ibid). In 1833 the Company's allotment to education was increased to ten lakh rupees (Chamberlain 1899: 32). But the government's commit-ment was never adequate to the task. For it adopted a 'downward filtration' approach as first proposed by Lord Auckland in 1839, and described by Nurullah and Naik thus: "the Company was expected to give a good education (which then necessarily meant education through English) to only a few persons (these may or may not be from the upper classes) and leave it to these persons to educate the masses (through modern Indian languages)" (Nurullah and Naik 1951: 113). The implicit class and caste bias of such an elitist policy was inevitable. It was only strengthened further by the adoption of Macaulay's minute of 1835 in favour of English as the medium for European learning. This effectively destroyed the old indigenous system of education and put the new western one decisively beyond the reach of the masses. The Company's Education dispatch of 19th July 1854, called the Wood Dispatch, rejected this theory in principle, but "replaced it with the doctrine of state withdrawal in favour of a system of grants-in-aid to privately managed institutions...

- Persistence and Crisis in Indian Education, Rudolf C.Heredia, Social Action, 01/10/2000, /eldoc/n00_/01oct00SOA3.pdf

English education was introduced by the British with the twin purpose of impressing upon the natives the value of western thought and of preparing them for taking up jobs to assist in the administration of the country. The first proteges were Hindus and there developed a Hindu middle class which began to demand concessions from the government without offering subservience in return. The British then began to encourage the Muslims to adopt English education in order to develop a counterpoise to Hindu middle class assertiveness. But among both com-munities English education was strictly an upper class affair in which the lower castes had no role.

- English Education in India Hindu Anamnesis versus Muslim Torpor, R K Kochhar, Economic & Political Weekly, 28/11/1992, /eldoc/n00_/28nov92epw1.pdf

The influence of colonial rule and western ideas, which filtered through it, over the modern system of education in India, is well known. The reconstruction of the system of education in post-independent India was undertaken in the context of the legacy of colonialism, both in policy and infrastructure. Yet, the system that came into being, as a result of the deliberations in several education commissions, chaired by eminent educationists like Dr.S.Radhakrishnan and Dr.D.S. Kothari, was neither a continuation of the colonial nor a blind adoption of the western. The main concern was the formulation of a reformed system that would address the developmental needs of the nation and create a healthy social consciousness. The national policy on education laid down this perspective as follows: "a radical reconstruction of education" is essential for economic and cultural development of the country, for national integration and for realizing the ideal of a socialistic pattern of society. This will involve a transformation of a system to relate to more closely to the life of the people; a continuous effort to expand educational opportunity; a sustained and intensive effort to raise the quality of education at all stages; an emphasis on the development of science and technology; and the cultivation of moral and social values....

1. Fundamental Right to Education
- Compulsory Primary Education, Jayakumar Anagol, R.N21.20

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1. Policy on Education
- Kothari Commission, Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd, B.N00.B16, 4. History
- “Indian Education Commission” Ch 20
- “National Education Movement” Ch 21

2. Religious Schools History
- Lessons from Schools: The History of Education in Banaras, Kumar, Nita, Sage Publications, 01/01/2000, B.N00.K10

3. Politicization of Education
Political Agenda of Education: A Study of Colonialist and Nationalist Ideas, Kumar, Krishan, Sage Publications, 01/01/1991, B.N00.K7

4. Education For Social Change
Education For Social Change, Desrochers, John, Centre for Social Action, 01/01/1987, B.N00.D2,
- “The Historical Background” Ch1 pg 3-61

5. Education in Medieval India, Ray, Krishnalal, B R Publishing Corporation, 01/01/1984, B.N00.R9

6. History/Indigenous schools
Beautiful Tree, The: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century, Dharampal, 01/08/1983, B.N00.D5

8. Educational Policy of the East India Company in Bengal to 1954, The, Sinha, D.P, Punthi Pustak, 01/01/1964, B.N00.S3

9. Knowledge, Power & Politics: Educational Institutions in India, Hasan, Mushirul, Roli Books Pvt. Ltd., 01/01/1998, B.N23.H2

10. Education in Medieval India, Ray, Krishnalal, B R Publishing Corporation, 1984, B.N00.R9

11. Prejudice and Pride - School Histories of the Freedom Struggle in India and Pakistan, Kumar, Krishna, Penguin Books India (P) Ltd., 01/01/2002, B.M10.K19

12. Education and Democracy in India, Women's Education in India, A Historical Perspective, Aparna Basu, pg 27,Manohar, 2004, B.N00.V1

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