Macaulayian demise

Before we go onto analyse the Macaulayan education system which is still deeply rooted in our
education system. Firstly, we need to understand what was not there in the earlier Indian
education system and why British bought Macaulay at the very first place.

To put indigenous education system in perspective in terms its reach, it had an estimated 100,000
indigenous elementary schools in Bengal and Bihar i n 1835, Sir William Adam correlated these
schools with the number of villages: ‘Their number has been officially estimated at 150,748, of which,
not all, but most have each a school there will still be 100,000 that have them.’ Based on the estimate
that the population of Bengal and Bihar was about 40 million people, ‘there would be a village school for
every 400 persons’.52
These schools used to open and close as per local needs. Based on the calculation that children between the
ages of five and ten constituted one-ninth of the population (altogether 12 million), and that only half of
them, the boys, were schooled, he concluded that at least 25 per cent (one in four) of the male children
of school-going age received formal instruction in Madras presidency.

But this sheer coverage had large pitfalls in terms of large exclusion especially for women, who were, were
largely excluded from literacy instruction, except for devadasis (female temple dancers). Only a few of
them received formal education that too in their homes due to supportive, liberal husband and parents.

The Shudra section of society (present day OBCs and lower castes) were lowest in the caste pyramid and
in general there is no indication that Shudra caste status children were prevented from instruction in
vernacular schools. Untouchable students (in Munro’s words, ‘impure castes’, which are the modern-day
Dalits and majority of SC/ST category people), however, could not access the schools due to their caste
status. Which clearly highlights the issue of exclusion and untouchability at its core.

The above point is also put more succinctly by Ludlow, a British India official in 1858 who says
“In every Indian village which has retained anything of its form. The rudiments of
knowledge
are sought to be imparted, there is not a child, except those of the outcasts (who form no
part of the community) and women , who is not able to read, to write, to cipher, in the last
branch of learning, they are confessedly most proficient.”

This statement explains the virtues of the traditional education system in India, with most kids
except the untouchables(they formed a substantiable part of population) and women being able to
read, write, and cipher. But this system was to be dismantled by a series of legislations of which
the most important one is English Education Policy 1835.
Where Macaulay in his Minutes of 1835 instituted an education policy in support of the British Raj
which denigrated Indian languages and knowledge, established the hegemonic influence of English
as medium of colonial ‘instruction’ (not education) and used the ploy of limitation of resources to
“form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern - a class of
persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect”.

This quote by Macaulay is normally equated with teaching of English and intended output of the
education system. If 74 years after Independence, the education system still churns out clerks who
cannot think, it seems odd to blame a man who died in 1859. As for teaching English, there is a Dalit
group that celebrates Macaulay’s birthday (October 25), because access to English reduced
asymmetry in access to education that older forms of education possessed and has acted as a great
leveller. The barriers of caste, conservatism and religious orthodoxy which had blocked the progress
of the country were done away with and new vistas were opened through the study of English for
those persons ‘Indian in blood and colour but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in
intellect’. But it was not without its pitfalls.

As British began expanding their influence, seemingly political reasons the new system of
education that went on to decimate the traditional structures of education in the sub-continent. 4
This was brought about by an institutional push towards English systems of learning where the
quality, quantity, and content of learning were primarily decided by the colonial masters. The
second rung of the nobility and ruling class were given the privilege of education under this
system. Centralized planning led to the introduction of a common timetable for examinations that
did not consider local harvesting seasons when there was an increased need for labour.

This caused a great inconvenience to students from peasant communities. Instruments like grants
were given only to schools that kept the minimum fee above a certain level prescribed by the
government. The schools which refused to comply were harassed through various means and
those that complied were given various grants and concessions by the government. This was done
to ensure that affordability enabled only a select few among the elite communities to enrol and
receive education in these schools. Systems like a uniform timetable, books that were centrally
printed prevented the incorporation of local customs and practices into the education. This was
especially inconvenient to peasant communities that traditionally used all members of a
household as periodic labour during certain seasons of intense agricultural activity. The kids of
these communities were now forced to forego their education to lend a helping hand at their
farms. These inconveniences were dismissed as the British considered education in these
communities as unnecessary as they served no utilitarian value to the British establishment.

The English education which was the only way in the new order was thus received only by a
select few, which the British thought would help prevent mass mobilization against their rule.
When the Indian National Congress tried to break this system in 1920 by introducing a system of
‘national’ schools, it failed because of the simple reason that the affected people were not the
ones required to make the sacrifice. While the existing system was repressive for the common
masses, the elite communities which were permitted to receive education had a lot to lose by
siding with the INC. This was ensured by the British as their appointments to government
positions and subsequent promotions were all linked to the level of English education that they
had received.

The current Public Education System was inherited from the one run by the British colonial
masters. Various policies have been formulated and reforms introduced, particularly in the
last 30 odd years. However, many problems still plague our public education system. One
particularly alarming fact is the marked movement of kids outside the public education
system, by all guardians who can afford to do so, and seemingly poor quality of education
imparted.

In the next blog series, we will see how education was shaped specially in the 1 st 30 years of
independent, the missed bus of primary education universalization and creations of islands of
education like IITs and IIMs.

https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/04/30/a-dalit-temple-to-goddess-english/

KEY POINTERS
 Women, they say, were largely excluded from literacy instruction, except for
 devadasis (female temple dancers).

Reference :-

Ibid., 127–128. Thomas Munro observes that ‘to the women of Brahmins and of Hindoos in
general [reading and writing] are unknown, because the knowledge
of them is prohibited and regarded as unbecoming the modesty of the sex, and
fit only for public dancers’. However, he also writes that ‘the prohibition against
women learning to read is probably, from various causes, much less attended to in
some districts than in others; and it is possible that in every district a few females
may be found in the reading schools’. Thomas Munro, ‘Minute of Sir Thomas
Munro, Governor of Madras, June 25, 1822’, in A.N. Basu (ed.), Indian Education
in Parliamentary Papers, Part 1 (1832) (Bombay, Calcutta: Asia Publishing House,
1952), 176–177.
 While higher learning among the Hindu population was the domain of Brahmin men,33 there was
a wide network of common vernacular schools for boys from the upper and middle castes
K.N. Pannikar, Culture, Ideology, Hegemony: Intellectuals and Social Consciousness in
Colonial India (London: Anthem Press, 1995), 34–53; Joseph Bara, ‘Colonialism
and Educational Fragmentation in India’, in Sabyasachi Bhattacharya (ed.), The
Contested Terrain: Perspectives on Education in India (Hyderabad: Orient Longman
1998), 125–170.

Vernacular schools provided basic literacy in one of the popular languages,

which in Madras meant Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, or, sometimes, Kannada.35
Different terms are used to describe vernacular schools, with important regional
differences. In the Bengal-focused literature, they are called pathshalas, which
literally means ‘recitation hall’;36 sometimes this term is used for describing precolonial
vernacular education on a pan-Indian level. In Maharashtra, however,
it was the higher learning institutions that were called pathshalas

Moreover, the number of vernacular schools fluctuated quickly,

since they were opening and closing according to the local needs.49 The
report undertaken by the order of Munro counted 12,498 schools containing
188,650 students, all male, for the Madras Presidency. This shows that the
average number of students per school was about 15. Based on the calculation
that children between the ages of five and ten constituted one-ninth of the
population (altogether 12 million), and that only half of them, the boys,
were schooled, he concluded that at least 25 per cent (one in four) of the
male children of school-going age received formal instruction.

There is no indication that

a Shudra status in general prevented children from instruction in vernacular
schools. Untouchable students (in Munro’s words, ‘impure castes’), however,
could not access the schools.43
In towns, vernacular schools catered to the demands of the ‘commercial’ and
‘manufacturing classes’.44
Munro, ‘Minute’, 25 June 1822, 177; for Bombay, Parulekar, Survey of Indigenous
Education, xxviii–xxix.
44 Campbell, ‘On the State of Education’, 355.

In 1835, William Adam estimated 100,000 indigenous elementary schools in Bengal and Bihar, which he
correlated with the number of villages: ‘Their number has been officially
estimated at 150,748, of which, not all, but most have each a school
there will still be 100,000 that have them.’ Based on the estimate
that the population of Bengal and Bihar was about 40 million people, ‘there
would be a village school for every 400 persons’.52
Sarkar, Futurism of Young Asia, 145.

“In every Indian village which has retained anything of its form. The rudiments of
knowledge
are sought to be imparted, there is not a child, except those of the outcasts (who form no
part
of the community), who is not able to read, to write, to cipher, in the last branch of learning,
they are confessedly most proficient.”
— Ludlow, British India, 1858 --CITE here
This statement by the son of a British East Indian Company official brought up in India
explains the virtues of the traditional education system in India, with most kids being able to
read, write, and cipher. As British began expanding their influence, seemingly political
reasons led them to set up a new system of education that would go on to decimate the
traditional structures of education in the sub-continent. 4 This was brought about by an
institutional push towards English systems of learning where the quality, quantity, and content
of learning were primarily decided by the colonial masters. The second rung of the nobility
and ruling class were given the privilege of education under this system. Centralized planning
led to the introduction of a common timetable for examinations that did not consider local
harvesting seasons when there was an increased need for labour. This caused a great
inconvenience to students from peasant communities. Instruments like grants were given only
to schools that kept the minimum fee above a certain level prescribed by the government. The
schools which refused to comply were harassed through various means and those that
complied were given various grants and concessions by the government. This was done to
ensure that affordability enabled only a select few among the elite communities to enrol and
receive education in these schools. Systems like a uniform timetable, books that were
centrally printed prevented the incorporation of local customs and practices into the
education. This was especially inconvenient to peasant communities that traditionally used all
members of a household as periodic labour during certain seasons of intense agricultural
activity. The kids of these communities were now forced to forego their education to
lend a helping hand at their farms. These inconveniences were dismissed as the British
considered education in these communities as unnecessary as they served no utilitarian value
to the British establishment.

The English education which was the only way in the new order was thus received only by a
select few, which the British thought would help prevent mass mobilization against their rule.
When the Indian National Congress tried to break this system in 1920 by introducing a system of
‘national’ schools, it failed because of the simple reason that the affected people were not the
ones required to make the sacrifice. While the existing system was repressive for the common
masses, the elite communities which were permitted to receive education had a lot to lose by
siding with the INC. This was ensured by the British as their appointments to government
positions and subsequent promotions were all linked to the level of English education that they
had received.

This does not cast missionaries or the imperial educational movement

of the early nineteenth century in the role of social liberators. Their idea of
universal education needs to be disentangled from the progressive ideas of
educational equity and social mobility of the twentieth century. Building on
earlier conversations on education, social reproduction, and inequality, my book
explores the fundamental tension of expansion and control in modern public
elementary education.105 To most nineteenth-century reformers in England and
India, education for all did not mean equal education for all. Social mobility
was feared, not endorsed. Separate schools and differentiated curricula were
considered instrumental in producing moral subjects, who knew their place in
the social hierarchy. They were meant to ensure that people willingly performed
the social roles that the educational reformers and school providers found
appropriate. A pattern emerged in the first decades of the nineteenth century
– even before the state became the major actor of educational provision and
reform – that can be summarized as universal education for inequality. This
pattern not only characterized colonial education but also many proposals within
the Indian national education movement.106 And one could argue that under
the aegis of the Right to Education Act (2009), market forces and informal
mechanisms ensure what nineteenth-century programmes explicitly aimed
for: a differentiation and segregation of education, based on gender, caste, and
economic position.