History of education in

colonial India

Preliminaries
The mandate: to cover the history of
developments in the field of education
during the colonial period
Problems with periodization and scope
and types of education
Concerns we shall focus: black and white
narratives; false dichotomies; marshalling
evidences and history as entry into a
world that offered possibilities in the past
Ideas and positions and not events per
se.
Connected histories

Orientalist-Anglicist
Debate in the History
of Education in
Colonial India

Some remarks about the terms

Orient/Orientalism
The year of 1978.

Anglicist/Anglicism

The need to understand the debate

historically: Macaulay to our rescue
As it seems to be the opinion of some of the gentlemen who
compose the Committee of Public Instruction, that the course
which they have hitherto pursued was strictly prescribed by the
British Parliament in 1813..
It does not appear to me that the Act of Parliament can, by any
art of construction, be made to bear the meaning which has been
assigned to it. It contains nothing about the particular languages
or sciences which are to be studied. A sum is set apart 'for the
revival and promotion of literature and the encouragement of the
learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promotion
of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the
British territories.' It is argued, or rather taken for granted, that
by literature, the Parliament can have meant only Arabic and
Sanscrit literature, that they never would have given the
honorable appellation of 'a learned native' to a native who was
familiar with the poetry of Milton, the Metaphysics of Locke, and
the Physics of Newton; but that they meant to designate by that
name only such persons as might have studied in the sacred

The Beginnings of British Colonial

Rule
Eastward Ho! The presence of European powers in Asia
Portuguese, Dutch and French
The English as late entrants 1591, 1596, and 1599 (venture in
the pretended voyage to the East Indies
1600: The Royal Charter to establish Governor and Company of
Merchants of London trading with the East Indies; monopoly of
trade with the East Indies for a period of 15 years.
Renewal of charter in 1609.
1670s : James IIs charter: autonomous territorial acquisitions,
mint money, command fortresses and troops and form
alliances, make war and peace, and exercise both civil and
criminal jurisdiction over the acquired areas
1757: the Battle of Plassey
1857: the Mutiny or the First War of Independence

Nature of the Early Empire

Not outright conquest
Adaptation and manipulation of the existing
institutions, cultural symbols and social customs
Use of indigenous sources to keep costs low
Information exchange facilitated by local
intelligentsia; munshis
Winning and maintaining popular support
The Munshi PoV: educating the British and thus
sustaining the political order

Birth of Orientalism as a Policy

Warren Hastings (1773-1785)
Personal interests Islamic Art
Between compulsions and expectations
Acting like Indians; accommodate themselves
to cultural and social mores; But why?
The role of Munshis and interest in culture
(measures in the case of the latter);
Continued patronage of pre-colonial policies:
the case of the Madrasa in Calcutta

The Case of Calcutta Madrasa

Commingling of interests
1780 petition for an institution to study
Islamic law and theology
Availability of a scholar in Calcutta
Nawabs who supported two madrasas
Seat of the Great Empire
Creating a favorable impression on the wider
public
Need for well-trained individuals in
administration

Hastings Response
Minute of April 1781
Personal funds
Diversion of land revenue from villages
to create permanent endowment

Jonathan Duncan and the College in

Benares: 1791
Proposal for a Sanskrit College in Benares
Why?
Endearing our Government to the native
Hindoos (outdo Hindu predecessors)
preserving and disseminating a knowledge of
the Hindoo Law, and proving a Nursery of
future Doctors and Expounders thereof to
assist the European Judges.
a precious Library of the most ancient and
Valuable General Learning and Tradition now
perhaps existing in any part of the Globe.

Reconciliation View
Indians were to be reconciled to British
rule by finding that Englishmen respected
and admired their laws, their religion, and
their institutions. Englishmen in India
and, even more important, the British
public at home were to be reconciled to
Indians through a true understanding of
Indian law, religion, and institutions.

Peter Marshall, Warren Hastings

Counter voices at Home and in the

Colony
Evangelical voices
Utilitarians
Trade formations
General orientation:
Supremacy of the everything British
Import superior institutions, ideas and faith
from home
Critique of Hastings revivalism

The Evangelical Voice: The Case of

Charles Grant
Observations on the State of Society among Asiatic Subjects of
Great Britain (1792): initial failure.
Indian religions are depraved and hindrances to progress
Hastingss vision is complicit in the above; ignores the concerns
rulers should have in moral improvement of native subjects: Are
we bound for ever to preserve all the enormities in the Hindoo
system? Of course, NO!
The solution lies introducing Christianity and occidental learning;
opening territories to missionary activities.
Partial agreement with Hastings?
Reform not by force, but by argument and reason
English and learning available in the language would silently
undermine, and at length subvert, the fabric of error
Argument in favor of English, following the Mughal introduction of
Persian.

1800: The College of Fort William

Purpose was to train new arrived East India
Company officials
Steeped in Orientalist perspective
Scholarship encouraged at the college and scholars who
lived and taught there:
H. T. Colebrooke
John Borthwick Gilchrist
William Carey
John Marshman
H. H. Wilson

The Compromise in 1813 Charter Act

XLIII. And it be further enacted, that it shall be lawful
for the Governor-General to direct, that out of any
surplus which may remain of the rents, revenues, and
profits, arising from the said territorial acquisitions,
after defraying the expenses of the military, civil, and
commercial establishments, and paying the interest of
the debt, in manner herein-after provided, a sum of
not less than one lack [lakh/lac] of rupees in each year
shall be set apart and applied to the revival and
improvement of literature, and the encouragement of
the learned natives of India, and for the promotion of
a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of
the British

Charter Act of 1813

territories in India; and that any schools, public
lectures, or other institutions, for the purposes
aforesaid, which shall be founded at the
Presidencies of Fort William, Fort Saint George, or
Bombay, or in any other parts of the British
territories in India, in virtue of this Act, shall be
governed by such regulations as may from time to
time be made by the said Governor-General in
Council; subject nevertheless to such powers as
are herein vested in the said Board of
Commissioners for the affairs of India, respecting
colleges and seminaries; provided always, that all
appointments to offices in such schools,
lectureships and other institutions, shall be made

1813 Charter Act: A Mess or

Pluralism?

Hindu traditions and scholarship

Islamic traditions and scholarship
Imperial necessities
Oriental learning
Evangelical concerns

(1813 Charter Act predates a similar act in Great

Britain by about 20 years)

Orientalism in Educational Policy

Education a minor concern; whatever concern is
shown seems to have been within the Orientalist
framework.
The College of Fort William continues to obtain
support
Decisive: Lord Moiras governorship for ten
years (1813-1823)
Dispatch of 1814: consult the feelings, and
even yield to the prejudices ,of the natives
The policy of engraftment: contact between
native scholars and British officials would
gradually lead to former to adopt modern
improvements in [the] sciences.
Period of silence: 1814-1823

Empire of opinion
Maratha Wars and new provinces
Thomas Munro, John Malcolm and
Mountstuart Elphinstone: following
Hastings?
The British empire is one of opinion:
Ensuring that the Raj lasts
Friendly relations with Indians of all classes
Respecting local customs and traditional forms
and institutions of learning.
Work closely with munshis
Retain customs of patronage
Yet, reform is desirable

Interlude
Defense of Hastings vision
John Malcolm cites the case of Ahilyabai Holkar,
Regent of Malwa
Elphinstones defense:

Continuance of what the Marathas held dear

Either Brahmin learning or none at all
Patronage to encourage Brahmins to take up science
Improving and extending the existing the vernacular
system of village schools

Advocacy for slow reform and incentives for the

same.

Interlude
Francis Warden confronts Elphinstone
Societies are established in the Bombay
Presidency; climate of opinion
Elphinstones response

Interlude II
General Committee of Public Instruction (GCPI),
1823
H H Wilson (James Prinsep, H T Prinsep, and J C C
Sutherland)
Holt Mackenzie
Western learning would become an act of memory,
with little more of feeling or reflection than if
nonsense verses were the theme.
Encourage traditional education and introduce
European science without attempting to supersede
Oriental learning.

Back to Bengal Presidency

Between Needs and Indifference
Grants engraftment theory vindicated?
Natives' need: English education for the future
and to be part of the administration
Complicity, Resistance, or Schizophrenia?
Hindu College in 1816
Radhakant Deb
Ram Camul Sen
Paradoxes
Galore?

Rammohun Roy (1772 1833)

A curious mind in two senses of the term
Letter on Education (1823) to Lord Amherst
Why do we need another Sanskrit college?
Rationalism

Response to Roy

Not the representative of most Indians

Rationalism, to be guarded against
Critique of idolatry, persistence of Islamic influence
Sati, ambiguity among the Hindu community;
Dharma Sabha protests the ban on Sati

Western medicine and Ram Camul Sen

Voices from Different Quarters Come

Together
James Mill in England
At the examiners office, drafting responses to
correspondence
Association with Jeremy Bentham
The History of British India (1817)
Arguments against Hastingss legacy

Why rejuvenate a barbaric civilization?

Introduce improved institutions and attitudes: the liberal argument
Reconciliation implies complicity
Engraftment has been a failure
All for useful learning
GCPI is an organ that aims to teach a great deal of what was
frivolous, not a little of what was purely mischievous, and a small
remainder indeed in which utility was in any way concerned.

James Mill on what education should

be
Education for improving the lot of individuals and
society
Education alone will not do in colonies; need to
introduce institutions as correctional
Vernacular
Against oriental learning?
Against imposing English

GCPIs response to Mill:

Teach what the natives are disposed to learn
The merits of western learning is not apparent to Pandits
and Maulavis
Not enough teachers
The question of poetry: against H H Wilson and his national
imagery

The son turns against his fathers views: John Stuart

Mill.

Swords are drawn

Alexander Duffs zeal and Rammohun Roy: English medium
schools proliferate
Bentinck opens up administrative positions
1832,1833: Renewal of the Charter Act and the Reformers
campaign.
Arrival of C E Trevelyan; the new class of munshis; reforming the
Curriculum at Sanskrit

English
Roman script
With Duff
1834 Trevelyan confronts the orientalists; Bentinck and Macaulay support
reformers:
The legal member of the council, Macaulay pens his Minute on 2 February
1835.
A month later Bentincks resolution the promotion of European
literature and science among the natives of India; all the funds
appropriated for the purpose of education would be best employed on
English education alone.
Staged managed?
Some members of the GCPI resign in protest. Macaulay is the new
president.
Differences across presidencies: Bengal, Agra and Bombay

The battle begins

Bentincks resolution provokes protest
On behalf of the Calcutta Madrasa: promote conversion
to Christianity?
Response from the Sanskrit College, Calcutta: the
question of priority

Response from the administration: caution

Macaulays weapons:
Growing demand
Failure of engraftment
Unemployment, Trevelyans trick?
Krishnamohan Banerji and Rasik Krishna Mallick
anticpate Macaulay?
Unsold books
Neutrality in matters of religion

Orientalist response to TBM

Legal dimension
In alignment with the South Asian tradition: waqf
Endowment as a universal gesture
Use of stipends and competition in the Calcutta madrasa
Difficulties in introducing western education
Case for English and western education largely built on
exaggeration
The case of Luther and Bacon
Relevance of engraftment, result in increase in the
number of individuals interested in western learning
Classical languages needed to rejuvenate vernaculars

Trevelyans tract (1838)

Funds hijacked by individuals with vested
interests: scholars, British and India. (hint:
debate back home)
Classical language and the vernacular
The case of Bacon and Luther
The path to independence

Lord Aucklands Moves

Financial aid, stipends and scholarships
Bifurcation of funds
1838 Mills Despatch: Hobhouse and Auckland
begin to worry
Ram Camul Sen and the cause of the vernacular:
GCPIs response,
Adams Report,
Oriental publications

Future of the Anglicist program

GCPI vs. Bengal Government
Aucklands Minute of 1839:
Money as much as about principles
For the Anglicists: Consolidation of funds
For the orientalists: engraftment again. English
classes only after primary education
Scholarships at all institutions under the Bengal
government

Adams report
New information the reports makes available
TBM and GCPIs unease with the findings of the
report: expensive and target select few
Ambiguous response from Auckland to Adams
report
Lancelot Wilkinson and Brian Hodgson
Experiment in Bhopal
Hints relative to native schools (1816)
Hogdsons argument for mass education through
vernacular, popular culture and the rest

 1841 Dispatch from the Court of Directors

Towards vernacular!!!!

The Silent Years of Educational Policy

Making

The mess of the turbulent years:

Various articulations of content and medium
Disagreements between presidencies
Lack of coordination between agencies
Time to rethink and redesign: the Despatch of 1854 (19 July
1854)
A much longer document:
School education
Content
Medium
Boards for coordination
Inspection
Teacher training
University education
Technical education

What does Woods Despatch aim for?

Moral and material blessings from her connection with England
Material progress are implicated in the advance of education, in
the spread of European knowledge employment and labor and
capital
rouse them to emulate us in the development of the vast
resources of their country, guide them in their efforts, and
gradually, but certainly, confer upon them all the advantages
which accompany the healthy increase of wealth and commerce;
and, at the same time, secure to us large and more certain
supply of many articles necessary for our manufactures and
extensively consumed by all classes of our population, as well as
an almost inexhaustible demand for the produce of British
labour.

Aim for?
Orientalist position worth pursuing, with a caveat of course
Historical and antiquarian interest
Hindoo law and Mohamedan law
Strengthening the vernaculars
Yet the system of science and philosophy which forms the learning of
the East abound with grave errors, and Eastern literature is at best very
deficient as regards all modern discovery and improvement.

The question of medium

English was a necessity in the beginning, because of the lack of
translations
Neglect of vernaculars
Affects reaching out to large numbers
Whats involved in using the vernaculars: what should one know
Enriching the vernaculars

What else?

Department of Public Instruction for each of the five provinces

Universities
Graded schools: three tiered system
Grants-in-aid school
Secular education
Local management
Willing to submit itself to be inspected by the Department of Public
Instruction
Levy a small fee from pupils or generate income of some scale

Lift for mission schools

Teacher training

Period of consolidation
Charles Woods Despatch of 1854, immediately followed by the
events of 1857
The transfer of power from the company to the Crown
Consolidation of power and establishment of systems of
administration
Calcutta as the locus of decision making in most matters
Keener interest in matters concerning education:
Several despatches
Commissions
Committees
New institutions being established across provinces and
presidencies
Financial problems
Deficit budgets
Lack of industrial growth and no increase in tax revenue

Lord Ellenboroughs Despatch, April

1858

Against mass education

Against womens education
Against grants-in-aid for mission schools
Endorsement of downward filtration theory

Lord Stanleys despatch of 1859 reverses all of Lord

Ellenboroughs recommendations and argues for the continuance
of educational policy and interventions along Woods despatch of
1854.

The Education Commission of 188182

No more charters to be renewed and hence no more periodic
reviews
Missionaries raise a storm about the neglect of certain provisions
in the Woods despatch.

The Education Department

Decision making and monitoring is now the job of the provincial
departments
New province, new department. All provinces to report to the
Director of Public Instruction.
Functions
Advise the provincial government on educational matters
Administer funds allocated by the provincial government and the
central government
Monitor certain institutions directly under the provincial governments
Inspect and report on institutions that applied for grants in aid
Create and report on the functioning of educational institutions on an
annual basis.
Creation of the Indian Educational Service in 1896.

Spread of players in the field of

education

Missionaries
Officials running institutions as individuals
Institutions run by Indians
Institutions under the Education Department
Indigenous institutions

Missionaries at work
Claims and strictures on neutrality back home
Queens Proclamation of 1858
Missionaries complain:

Promises not kept

Officials are indifferent to religion
Problems in obtaining grants
Textbooks prescribed

Two questions
Should the government withdraw and handover the educational activities
to the missionaries?
Secondary role
What should the governments policy be in matters of religious education?
Religious education in the interests of the people
True education is inspirable from religious education
Teaching of Bible to made compulsory
The matter turns complex in time. The possibility of a conscience clause.

The Missions Disappointments

A few institutions, but run well
1882 Reports recommendations
Spread of education, especially English education, did not lead to
proselytization
The dilemma is posed: Christian education for whom?
What should the missions be happy with?

Institutions under the Department

Private agencies and no expansion of institutions directly run by the
department. the time when any general system of education entirely
provided by the Government may be discontinued, with the gradual
advance of the system of grants-in-aid, and when many of the existing
Government institutions, especially those of a higher order, may be safely
closed, or transferred to the management of local bodies under the
control of, and aided by, the State. Woods Despatch.
On the ground: rapid expansion
Fear of protests if the missionaries were to be allowed to take over
Absence of private Indian enterprise on a large scale
The need to ensure efficiency and quality
Missionaries protest

The questions to be decided upon

Should the state withdraw from the field of education?
Is this a good measure for education
If yes, how should this policy be implemented?

The Indian Education Commission to

Decide
Quite sound:
Funds at its disposal were quite low. Any agency that can contribute could be
called upon
A suitable agency or a number of agencies
Government not in favor of the missions
Transfer of conduct and funding to local bodies
Complete withdrawal in primary education
Gradual withdrawal in favor of private Indian enterprises

The government accepts the first and not the second

The language recommending withdrawal is couched in another way

Private Indian enterprises

Government and missionary decisions open up space for Indian
enterprises
Revival and renaissance of a national sentiment
The ground reality of actually running the institutions
European knowledge
Who can teach English?
Societies emerge, clubbed with religious and social groups
Internal re-ordering of the system within these institutions