Colonial Educational Policy: - Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma …



Name: Bethamehi Joy SyiemB.A. (Hons) History – IIAssignment submitted to Dr. Rohit Wanchoo Paper: History of India VI (c 1750 – 1857)Colonial Educational Policy: Approaches to the ‘Modern Education System’As colonial enterprise in India gained ground and the role of the British in India shifted from trader to coloniser, we see that a colonial policy of social reconstruction also began to take shape. Through ideas of racial superiority and economic doctrine, the colonial state exercised its power over the natives. But beyond ideas, it also undertook an education policy that would cement the ideological structure of colonial rule. However, the question remains, ‘Why would the British colonial state concern itself with the education of the natives?’ This very question is raised by Gauri Vishwanthan, in her book ‘Masks of Conquests’. Furthermore, the greater question of how they approached this ‘Modern Education System’ also remains to be answered. The following essay attempts to answer these questions and plot the trend of modern education in India and its impact on society. Early Colonial Policy (1770 – 1830)After the acquisition of Bengal through the 1757 the Battle of Plassey, the East India Company now had to play a role in governance. Thus, it realised that there was no real alternative to employing natives in the administration of the country. Furthermore, there was the desire to civilize them. Thus, the first objective for the colonial state to achieve through education would be to elicit the consent of the Indian elite to British rule. Colonial officials hoped education would mould Indians into ‘babus’ – loyal to the colonial regime. However, this was not the entire picture either.Cohn in his book, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge, cites the example of the Calcutta Madrasa and Sanskrit College in Benaras as the first indigenous institutions supported by Company funds. In viewing the history of the British experiments with these institutions, we note that the British conceived of education as taking place in institutions, as in buildings with teachers, students and professors. The end of the education process would be certification of a student’s command over a “specifiable body of knowledge.” This, therefore, was part of a political project of enhancing the Company and portraying the British nation as the keeper of indigenous knowledge. It would be this very same stream of thought that would culminate into what is called Orientalism. It was in this way that Lord Wellesley conceived of a plan for the education of young men appointed to the Company’s Civil Service in 1800. It led to the establishment of the Company’s Training College at Haileybury and Fort William College in Calcutta. However, it was only until the Charter Act of 1813. Section 43 of the Act, that the first systematic effort to force the East India Company’s government to provide education was seen. It was the stipulated that the East India Company would have to devote Rs. 1, 00,000 per annum to education. This allowed the missionaries to proceed to India for the purpose of dissemination of education among the Indians. The Charter Act of 1813 represented a delicate balancing act between many interests. On the one hand, the General Committee of Public Instruction (GCPI), founded in 1823 to implement the Charter act, was headed by H. H. Wilson, a very influential Orientalist. At the same time, the GCPI began introducing English literature into curricula at the Calcutta Madrasa and the Sanskrit College in Benares. This generated some opposition from the growing influence of Utilitarian school of thought in Britain. This went on to fuel what was to be known as the Orientalist-Anglicist controversy of the next few decades.The Utilitarians or Anglicists considered Indian society to be decadent and stagnant. Unlike the Orientals, they saw no good in Indian culture or values. Some prominent names who held that Western education in English was the only way to deliver “useful learning” were Thomas Babington Macaulay, Charles Trevelyan and William Wilberforce. Others who contributed to this Anglicist discourse were Jeremy Bentham, James Mill and John Stuart Mill. The purpose of English education to this group was the creation of a class “Indian in race and colour, but English in manners, morals and intellect”, who would adopt western values and attitudes and thereby, support British rule. Therefore, they emphasised on reform or even the total substitution of indigenous institutions. The second force of resistance to Clause 43 came from the evangelists who believed that English education was the prelude to conversions to Christianity in India. They felt that the immoral systems of Hinduism and Islam would collapse with the introduction of western education. Missionaries in India opened charity schools it with compulsory study of the Bible. These missionaries entered a more confrontational attitude explained by the evangelical revival in Britain in the latter eighteenth century and a newfound sense of confidence and reactionary conservatism in the wider British imperial system as an aftermath of success in the Napoleonic and Maratha wars in western and central India.Another simple reason was that missionaries were prohibited from officially working in Company territories until 1833. By painting Indians in the most degrading terms (‘heathens’, ‘idol worshippers’, etc.), domestic missionary lobbies mobilized public support in Britain to pressure Parliament – who in turn pressured the Company – to officially allow missionaries into India. Infused with a newfound evangelical purpose, coupled with imperial expansion, confidence, and a desire to be ‘let in’, missionaries were aggressive and unaccommodating during this pre-Mutiny period. At an ideological level, Christianity during this period was also closely intertwined with the expansion of British power and influence in the world. Missionaries aimed to win adherents to both their spiritual and, by extension, their worldly empires. Colonial education till 1854 – Imposing the English ClassroomDuring the first quarter of nineteenth century a great controversy was going on regarding the nature of education and medium of instruction in schools and colleges. The Orientalists led by Dr. H.H.Wilson and H.T. Princep advocated in favour of Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian as the medium of education. The Anglicists led by Charles Trevelyan, Elphinstone advocated the imparting of western education through the medium of English.In this regard, English triumphed as the main language, supported by the Anglicists and Evangelists. The turning point is the debate came from Macaulay’s minute of 2nd February 1835 in which he assertively stated, “It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the paltriest abridgments used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.”It became the prelude to the changes brought by William Bentinck about through the English Education Act 1835. It so happened that Macaulay's minute largely coincided with Bentinck's view and Bentinck's English Education Act closely matched Macaulay's recommendations. Thus, the system came to be popularly known as the Macaulayian system. Also important to note was the fact that the Anglicists were supported by most advanced Indians of the time, like Raja Ram Mohan Roy who advocated for the study of western education as the “key to the treasures of scientific and democratic thought of the modern west.”The powerful new symbol of state “imposition” was the adoption of the Western constructed “classroom”, and the teaching of English within it, began to unwind the earlier subtle and informal education alignment between the orientalists and the Company. A contrived policy of “filtration” was also adopted, predicated on the belief that Western knowledge would be eventually passed down to the general population by select groupings who were to be first educated in these new English‐medium schools. This borrowing from early English schooling practice was based on the surety of the superiority of Western knowledge, urged on, too, by the emerging power of the missionary lobby. Thus, there were two main points of emphasis- first, the idea that “the natives are desirous to be taught English...” and second, is the principle that education should be imparted only to this class of people. It would be their task, to transmit this knowledge further. Thereafter, from 1835-39, the Government had established twenty- three schools. In 1842 a Council of Education was established in place of the Committee of Public Instruction. During 1843-53, a comprehensive scheme of village education was introduced under which some villages were grouped in one unit and every zamindar of the unit had to pay one percent cess on the revenue for the maintenance of the schools in his jurisdiction. In 1835, Bentick had established a Medical College at Calcutta. Gradually similar colleges were founded in different parts of the country.However, the so‐called “victory” by the Anglicists was not so clear‐cut. Governor General Auckland’s 1840 declaration assumed that the disagreements were really about the distribution of the state's resources rather than actual principles. Thus, by saying that the state would not end patronage to Orientalist instruction, the controversy could be calmed even though the state continued to emphasize education in English. At the most basic level, by the 1840s, there was agreement about the fact that education ought to be directed towards transforming the consciousness of natives.The Education Despatch of 1854 and afterOne of the most pivotal developments in colonial education policy was the Education Despatch of 1854 or as popularly known, Wood’s Despatch. Charles Wood, Secretary of State for India, issued his pivotal Education Dispatch of 1854 from his remote vantage point at the India Office in London. The dispatch signalled a more general government attempt to bring education to what it now deemed to be “the masses” across India. It was a domestic political document that needed to satisfy important stakeholders (including the missionaries) who had a voice in Westminster, and as such it embraced superficially elements of both sides of the Anglicist/Orientalist controversy of 1835.One key shift that was necessary for a move towards widening access to education was a reassessment of the Filtration theory. Viswanathan points out that by this time, the image of Indian society as a unified whole – with each class connected to the next – was seen as mistaken. This was replaced by a vision of society as stratified. The connections between classes were not strong enough to ensure that knowledge would filter down. Wood's Despatch proposed to commit government funds to support higher education in English and primary education in the vernacular. At both of these levels, there were also efforts now made to centralize authorityA Department of Public Instruction was established in each of the five provinces. For the first time, the village pathshala was to teach a systematic curriculum. The key instrument for this was to be the textbook – it would ensure that there would be uniformity in the content of education. The first moves towards making the teacher in the village pathshala a paid employee were also envisaged. However, in order to be eligible for this, he would have to submit to a system of regular inspections. A system of Normal schools was established. These were intended to train teachers to instruct in the new curriculum.The dispatch gave rise to an impressive bureaucratic regulatory model of systemic state schooling in each province. This included a powerful integration of existing government schooling efforts and a more formulaic commitment by the state to institutional education across the raj. It introduced grant-in-aid regulation that mostly applied to mission schools and a formula for linking village school, district school, college, and university education by scholarships, school inspection and building grants. The dispatch also foreshadowed the founding of three universities with examination powers reaching those colleges already established in India. As well, it confirmed unitary education departments in each province that institutionalised and connected school inspection and teacher training via the normal school.The Mutiny: Changes in approach (1860s- 1920)The Wood’s Despatch was essentially an arrangement which was to bear irrevocably upon the ultimate diffusion of western knowledge via mission schools. However, just three years later, 1857 presented the greatest shock and upheaval to the colonial state: the sepoy mutiny. Irrespective of questions regarding the nature of the mutiny (or War of Independence), we will now explore the anxiety, influence and change that followed it with special reference to educational policy. The attitudes of missionaries involved in English education did react belligerently to the Mutiny. But it was, it must be stressed, comparatively short-lived. Missionaries were becoming more engaging, cognizant of, and involved with Indian religious tradition and knowledge. This was purely for their own selfish reasons. They were pragmatic and understood that confrontation and disparaging would not attract Indians to their message, and would furthermore undermine their own goals: influence and, ultimately, conversion. The dominant strain of thinking within Protestant missionary circles, by the 1880s, albeit in a non-codified form, was that of ‘Fulfilment theory’. It became a significant component of the missionary educational enterprise, and it came into its ultimate culmination in John Farquhar’s The Crown of Hinduism. Roughly put, Farquhar argued that Christianity had to complete the world’s remaining faiths in order to fall in accordance with the words of the Bible: ‘I have come not to destroy but to fulfil’. Thus educational institutions were sought out as a neutral conveyor of knowledge and religious instruction that would neither be agnostic nor fan the flames of Hindu-Muslim religious rivalry.Besides this, in post-Revolt India, and after the dissolution of the Company, the actions of education officers were placed under greater scrutiny by the ICS. This was important because the ICS did not share the academic interest of many education officers in “wasteful” experimentation nor were they strongly influenced by orientalist work and thought of previous decades. Instead, the ICS ethos was concerned promoting “efficient” and codified administrative procedure as the priority. ICS officers were not sympathetic to the building of a specialised understanding of indigenous schooling, especially after the breach of trust, as they saw it, represented by the Revolt of 1857.The Hunter Commission In many ways, the proposals of Wood's Despatch set a broad direction, without actually ensuring a wider spread of education. The Hunter Commission was set up to examine why the aims of Wood’s dispatch of 1854, to spread education to “the masses”, had not been fulfilled. Its structures conformed to the Royal Commission process of the Home Country where pro forma questions were formulated and petitions solicited to create new forms of Western constructed knowledge about what was wrong with education in India. His work was impressive in processing the information tendered to his commission without too much official selectivity and censorship and he recommended important reforms in a final 600-page report. The commission concluded that state primary schooling should be taught in the local languages and the skills taught ought to be suited to the future life of most children and not just as the first step to university. With this in mind it expressed support for subjects that taught Indian methods of arithmetic and accounting. It also recommended that state education embrace indigenous schools by training their teachers but interfering as little as possible with their curriculum so to preserve traditional cultural values. Rather than relying on obdurate state departments to do this, the commission suggested elected local bodies should be entrusted with the responsibility. However, not every recommendation was implemented simply for lack of funds. Primary education alone would have caused an increase in expenditure of 300-400%. But, instead, provincial departments in the next decade chose to divert the little extra money that was eventually granted to expand secondary and collegiate education in the cities.It was in the aftermath of the Hunter Commission that a large number of colleges and institutions of higher learning emerged. The Commission itself did not make specific recommendations about universities. The idea that the state could not be solely responsible for spreading education was maintained throughout the period of colonial rule. It was always recognized that private institutions run on market principles would have to play a key role in spreading education. After the introduction of diarchy in 1919, education became a transferred subject and all the expenses were now to be met by the provincial councils. This did make a tangible difference to the nature of schooling, particularly in the southern states, since the provincial councils were dominated by people who had been concerned about social reform and spreading nationalist ideas.ImpactThe education policy in the course of its development had an impact on Indian society and brought about changes in the social structure. While there was an attempt to ensure general literacy, the colonial bureaucracy succumbed to the pressures of conservatism and the education policy endorsed differentiation of Indian society. A result of this differentiation was that a very small proportion of the population actually received benefits of education. Those who were attracted to the English education system included mainly Hindu upper caste men belonging to either the middle or lower classes. Education became a means of achieving economic prosperity and getting power rather than just a path to ‘intellectual enlightenment’. When their expectations were not met, it was the knowledge of this group that challenged the authoritarian colonial rule. English education brought several Indians in contact with a body of ideas and allowed them to openly question several fundamental assumptions. They began to see their own society as through concepts of utility, reason, progress and justice. According to Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, there was a rise of a ‘civil society’ which was ‘articulate in defending its rights while locating its identity’. They began to question all prevalent social practices and religious notions and saw these as backward and decadent. Science became a sign of progress and scientific knowledge was further developed by the likes of Raja Rammohan Roy as they set up schools to promote the same. The attempt to translate this rational mentality into a social reform agenda resulted in the rise of groups and movements such as Young Bengal that posed a challenge to Hindu orthodoxy. European education gave rise to new intellectual stirrings which in turn created a need to reform Indian society without rejecting Indian tradition. This class of Indians supported the British officials in carrying out legalistic reforms such as abolition of sati and passing of the Widow Remarriage Act. Educated Indians like Raja Rammohan Roy and Dayanand Saraswati started reform movements like the Brahmo Samaj and the Arya Samaj to reform Hiduism. European education brought to the fore the status of women in Indian society. Welfare of women became a concern. Not only was education extended to women, several reforms were carried out to improve their social standing.ConclusionThrough the preceding sections, the essay has elucidated a framework of periodisation regarding colonial education in India. It has firstly explored the motivations behind the educational enterprise and has illustrated the different forces at work that created new phases of transformational interchange. And that these phases, in themselves, defined key educational stages in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By exploring the ideological stands of the orientalists, Anglicists and the Evangelists, we are able to gauge the changes in the strands of thought that would influence official policy on education in India. In the course of development of the educational policies, Indian society underwent great changes. A new class of Indian intellectuals emerged and they helped bring about reforms in the existing social structure. The impact of modern education, though not always positive, was profound and was felt by all sections of society.Bibliography & ReferencesCohn, Bernard S. (1996). Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge. Princeton University Press, New JerseyAllender, Tim (2009). Learning Abroad: the colonial educational experiment in India, 1813 – 1919. Paedagogica Historica, 45:6, 727-741, DOI: 10.1080/00309230903335645Viswanathan, Gauri (1998). Masks of Conquests: Literary Study and British Rule in India. Oxford University PressBellenoit, Hayden J.A. (2007). Missionary Education and Empire in Late Colonial India 1860-1920. Pickering & ChattoKochhar, Rajesh. (2008). Seductive Orientalism: English Education and Modern Science in Colonial India. Scientist, Vol. 36, No. 3/4 (Mar. - Apr., 2008), pp. 45-63Basu, Aparna (Sept 5, 1992). Education: The Colonial Legacy. Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 27, No. 36 pp. 1910-1911Vanaik, Anish. Colonial Education Policy and the Decline of Colonial Education. Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of DelhiBandyopadhyay, Sekhar (2009). From Plassey to Partition: A history of Modern India. Orient BlackSwan Private Limited ................
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