Vol. 12 · pages 116–120

95THE UNTOUCHABLES AND THE PAX BRITANNICA 4. The British were for a long time silent on the question of promoting education among the native population. Although individuals of high official rank in the administration of India were not altogether oblivious of the moral duty and administrative necessity of spreading knowledge among the people of India, no public declaration of the responsibility of the State in that behalf was made till the year 1813, when by section 43 of the Statute 53 George IV, chap. 155 Parliament laid down that” out of the surplus revenues of India, a sum of not less than one lakh 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 introduction and promotion of a knowledge of sciences among the inhabitants of British territories in India etc. “This statutory provision, however, did not result in any systematic effort, to place the education of the natives upon a firm and organised footing till 1823. For, the Court of Directors in their despatch dated 3rd June 1814 to the Governor General in Council, in prescribing the mode of giving effect to section 43 of the statute of 1813, directed that the promotion of Sanskrit learning among the Hindus would fulfil the purposes which Parliament had in mind. But what a disappointment to the Depressed classes, there was, when systematic efforts to place the education of the natives upon a firm and organized footing came to be made !! For, the British Government deliberately ruled that education was to be a preserve for the higher classes. Lest this fact should be regarded as a fiction, attention is invited to the following extracts from the Report of the Board of Education of the Bombay Presidency for the year 1850-51 :— “Paragraph 5th.— System adopted by the Board based on the views of Court of Directors .—Thus the Board of Education at this Presidency having laid down a scheme of education, in accordance with the leading injunctions of Despatches from the Honourable Court, and founded not more on the opinions of men who had been attentively considering the progress of education in India such as the Earl of Auckland, Major Candy and others, than on the openly declared wants of the most intelligent of the natives themselves, the Board, we repeat, were informed by your Lordships predecessor in Council that the process must be reversed.”

96 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES “Paragraph 8.—Views of Court on the expediency of educating the upper classes .—Equally wise, if we may be permitted, to use the expression, do the indications of the Hon. Court appear to us to be as to the quarters to which Government education should be directed, and specially with the very limited funds which are available for this branch of expenditure. The Hon. Court write to Madras in 1830 as follows: “The improvements in education, however, which most effectively contribute to elevate the moral and intellectual condition of a people, are those which concern the education of the higher classes—of the persons possessing leisure and natural influence over the minds of their countrymen. By raising the standard of instruction amongst these classes, you would eventually produce a much greater and more beneficial change in the ideas and the feelings of the community than you can hope to produce by acting directly on the more numerous class. You are, moreover, acquainted with our anxious desire to have at our disposal a body of natives qualified by their habits and acquirements to take a larger share and occupy higher situations, in the civil administration of their country than has been hitherto the practice under our Indian Government; ‘ Neverthe-less, we hear on so many sides, even from those who ought to know better of the necessity and facility for educating the masses for diffusing the arts and sciences of Europe amongst the hundred or the hundred and forty millions (for numbers count for next to nothing) in India, and other like generalities indicating cloudy notions on the subject, that a bystander might almost be tempted to suppose the whole resources of the State were at the command of Educational Boards, instead of a modest pittance inferior in amount to sums devoted to a single establishment in England. “Paragraph 9.—Retrospect of principal Educational facts during the last ten years necessary .—The arguments adduced in the few last paragraphs appear to show that a careful examination of the real facts, and an analysis of the principal phenomena which have displayed themselves in the course of educational proceedings in die Presidency, would not be without their uses, if made with sufficient industry and impartiality to ensure confidence, and with a firm determination to steer clear of bootless controversy and all speculative inquiries. The present epoch, also, appears especially to commend itself for such a retrospect, as in 1850 the second decennial period commenced, during which the Schools of the Presidency have come under exclusive control of a Government Board ; and it is obvious that as a considerable body of information ought now to have been accumulated, and as the majority of the present members have had seats at the Board during the greater portion of that time, they would fain hope that by recording their experience, they may shed some light on certain obscure but highly interesting questions, which are certain to arise from time to time before their successors at this Board.

97THE UNTOUCHABLES AND THE PAX BRITANNICA “Paragraph 10.—A uniform system developing itself spontaneously both in Bengal and Bombay. —We now proceed to give as minute a detail as comports with our limits, of the principal educational facts which have forced themselves upon our notice, and we think it will clearly appear, when those facts are duly appreciated, that many of the disputed questions, which arise in the Indian field of education, will be seen to solve themselves and that a system is generally evolving itself in other Presidencies as well as in Bombay, which is well suited to the circumstances of the country, and which, as the growth of spontaneous development, denotes that general causes are at work to call it forth. “Paragraph 11.—Statistics of education in Bombay .—In the return on the following page, a comparative view is given of the number of schools and of pupils receiving education under Government at the period when the Establishments first came under the control of the Board, in 1840 and in April 1850. It shows, in the latter period, an addition of four English and 83 vernacular schools and a general increase in pupils of above a hundred per cent. The total number receiving Government education at present is 12,712 in die following proportion :— English Education .. .. .. 1,699 Vernacular Education .. .. .. 10,730 Sanskrit Education .. .. .. 283 (comparison from tables: in 1840 there were 97 schools, number of pupils 5,491 ;. number of schools 185 and number of pupils 12,712). “Paragraph 12. — Same Subject. —But the population of the Bombay Presidency is now calculated by the most competent authorities to amount to ten millions. Now on applying the rule of statistics deduced from the Prussian census as noticed in a former Report (1842-43 page 26) a population of this amount will be found to contain no fewer man 900,000 male children between the ages of seven and fourteen years and of course, fit subjects for school. It follows, therefore, that Government at this Presidency has not been able to afford an opportunity for obtaining education to more than one out of every sixty nine boys of me proper school going age. “Paragraph 13.—Same Subject .—Further, it is admitted that education afforded in the Vernacular School is far from efficient. A great portion of the strictures of Mr. Willoughby’s Minute is directed against the defective character and insignificant results of these schools. The Board, not only acknowledge this fact, but they have been studious to point it out prominently for many years past, and indeed, in the opinion of some competent observers, have drawn too unfavourable a picture of the vernacular schools. But what are the obvious remedies for the defects indicated ? Mr. Willoughby describes them very correctly :—“a superior class of school masters, normal schools, more efficient supervision, additions to the vernacular literature.” These are all subjects

98 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES however, which have occupied the attention of the Board for many years past, and as to which not a step can be made in advance without additional expenditure. But we are given to understand from the letter of your Lordship in council that “ it is not probable that the Government will have the power, for a considerable time to come, to afford the Board additional pecuniary assistance.” “Paragraph 14.—Conclusion that no means exist for educating the masses : It results most clearly from these facts that if sufficient funds are not available to put 175 Vernacular schools into a due state of organisation, and to give a sound elementary education to 10,730 boys, all question as to educating “the masses” the “hundred and forty millions” the 900,000 boys in the Bombay Presidency disappears. The object is not one that can be attained or approximated to by Government ; and Educational Boards ought not to allow themselves to be distracted from a more limited practical field of benevolence. “Paragraph 15.— Views of Court of Directors as to the best method of operation with limited means.—The Hon’ble Court appear to have always kept the conclusion which has been arrived at in the last paragraph very distinctly in view. Perceiving that their educational efforts to improve the people could only be attempted on a very small scale, they have deemed it necessary to point out to their different Governments the true method of producing the greatest results with limited means. We have already cited their injunctions to the Madras Government on the head, (Para 7) and their despatch to the Government on the same date enforce sentiment of exactly the same import:— “It is our anxious desire to afford to the higher classes of the Natives of India the means of instruction in European sciences and of access to the literature of civilised Europe. The character which may be given to the classes possessed of leisure and natural influence ultimately determines that of the whole people.” “Paragraph 16.—Inquiry as to upper classes of India. — It being then demonstrated that only a small section of the population can be brought under the influence of Government education in India, and the Hon’ble Court having in effect decided that this section should consist of the “upper classes” it is essential to ascertain who these latter consist of. Here it is absolutely necessary for the European inquirer to divest his mind of European analogies which so often insinuate themselves almost involuntarily into Anglo-Indian speculations. Circumstances in Europe, especially in England have drawn a marked line, perceptible in manners, wealth, political and social influence, between the upper and lower classes. No such line is to be found in India, where, as under all despotisms the will of the Price was all mat was requisite to raise men from the humblest condition in life to the highest station, and where consequently great uniformity in manners has always prevailed.

99THE UNTOUCHABLES AND THE PAX BRITANNICA A begger, according to English notions, is fit only for the stocks or compulsory labour in the workhouse ; in India he is a respectable character and worthy indeed of veneration according to the Brahminical theory, which considers him as one who has renounced all the pleasures and temptations of life for the cultivation of learning and undisturbed meditation of the Deity. “Paragraph 17.—Upper classes in India .—The classes who may be deemed to be influential and in so far the upper classes in India may be ranked as follows:— 1st.—The landowners and Jaghirdars, representatives of the former feudatories and persons in authorities under Native powers and who may be termed the Soldier class. 2nd.—Those who have acquired wealth in trade or commerce or the commercial class. 3rd.—The higher employees of Government. 4th.—Brahmins, with whom may be associated, though at long interval, those of higher castes of writers who live by the pen such as Parbhus and Shenvis in Bombay, Kayasthas in Bengal provided they acquire a position either in learning or station. “Paragraph 18.—Brahmins, the most influencial .—Of these four classes, incomparably the most influencial, the most numerous, and on the whole easiest to be worked on by the Government, are the latter. It is a well-recognized fact throughout India that the ancient Jaghirdars or Soldier class are daily deteriorating under our rule. Their old occupation is gone, and they have shown no disposition or capacity to adopt new one, or to cultivate the art of peace. In the Presidency, the attempts of Mr. Elphinstone and his successors to bolster up a landed aristocracy have lamentably failed ;. and complete disconfiture has hitherto attended all endeavours to open up a path to distinction through civil honours and education, to a race to whom nothing appears to excite but vain pomp and extravagance, of the reminiscences of their ancestors’ successful raids in the plains of Hindusthan”. Nor among commercial classes, with a few exceptions, is mere much greater opening for the influences of superior education. As in all countries, but more in India than in the higher civilized ones of Europe, the young merchant or trader must quit his school at an early period in order to obtain the special education needful for his vocation in the market or the counting house. Lastly, the employees of the State, though they possess a great influence over the large numbers, who come in contact with Government, have no influence, whatever, with the still larger numbers who are independent of Government ; and, indeed, they appear to inspire the same sort of distrust with me public as Government functionaries in England, who are often considered by the vulgar as mere hacks of the State.