Vol. 2 · pages 421–425

APPENDIX (Refer footnote on page 339) Extracts from the Report of the Board of Education of the Bombay Presidency for the year 1850-51 System adopted by the Board based on the views of Court of Directors “Paragraph 5. 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 Lordship’s predecessor in Council that the process must be reversed.” ***** Views of Court on the expediency of educating the upper classes “Paragraph 8. Equally wise, if we may be permitted to use the expression, do the indications of the Honourable 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 Honourable 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.’ Nevertheless, 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.” ***** Conclusion that no means exist for educating the masses “Paragraph 14. It results most clearly from these facts, that if sufficient funds are not available to put 175 vernacular schools into due state of organisation, and to give a sound elementary education to 10,730 boys, all 402 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

403APPENDIX TO THE REPORT 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 action by the visionary speculations of uninformed benevolence.” Views of Court of Directors as to the best method of operation with limited means “Paragraph 15. The Honourable 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 this head (paragraph 7), and their despatch to the Government on the same date enforces 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.’ ” Inquiry as to Upper Classes of India “Paragraph 16. 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 Honourable 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 Prince was all that 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. A beggar, 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 on the Deity.” Upper Classes in India “Paragraph 17. 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

404 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES 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.” Brahmins the most Influential “Paragraph 18. Of these four classes incomparably the most influential, the most numerous and on the whole easiest to be worked on by the Government, are the latter. It is a well-recognised 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 a 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 discomfiture 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 the commercial classes, with a few exceptions, is there 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 merchants 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 the public as Government functionaries in England, who are often considered by the vulgar as mere hacks of the state.” Poverty of Brahmins “Paragraph 19. The above analysis, though it may appear lengthy, is nevertheless, indispensable, for certain important conclusions deducible from it. First, it demonstrates that the influential class whom the Government are able to avail themselves of in diffusing the seeds of education are the Brahmins and other high castes Brahmannis proximi. But the Brahmins and these high castes are for the most part wretchedly poor; and in many parts of India the term Brahmin is synonymous with ‘beggar’ ” Wealthy classes will not at present support superior education “Paragraph 20. We may see, then, how hopeless it is to enforce what your Lordship in Council so strongly enjoined upon us in your letter of the 24th April, 1850,— what appears, prima facie, so plausible and proper in

405APPENDIX TO THE REPORT itself — what in fact, the Board themselves have very often attempted, viz., the strict limitation of superior education ‘ to the wealthy, who can afford to pay for it, and to youths of unusual intelligence.’ The invariable answer the Board has received when attempting to enforce a view like this, has been, that the wealthy are wholly indifferent to superior education and that no means for ascertaining unusual intelligence amongst the poor exist until their faculties have been tested and developed by school training. A small section from among the wealthier classes is no doubt displaying itself, by whom the advantages of superior education are recognised, it appears larger in Bengal, where education has been longer fostered by Government, than in Bombay, and we think it inevitable that such class must increase, with the experience that superior attainments lead to distinction, and to close intercourse with Europeans on the footing of social equality ; but as a general proposition at the present moment, we are satisfied that the academical instruction in the arts and sciences of Europe cannot be based on the contributions either of students or of funds from the opulent classes of India.” Question as to educating low castes “Paragraph 21. The practical conclusion to be drawn from these facts which years of experience have forced upon our notice, is that a very wide door should be opened to the children of the poor higher castes, who are willing to receive education at our hands. But here, again, another embarrassing question arises, which it is right to notice : If the children of the poor are admitted freely to Government Institutions what is there to prevent all the despised castes — the Dheds, Mhars, etc., from flocking in numbers to their walls ?” Social Prejudices of the Hindus “Paragraph 22. There is little doubt that if a class of these latter were to be formed in Bombay they might be trained, under the guiding influence of such Professors and masters as are in the service of the Board, into men of superior intelligence to any in the community ; and with such qualifications, as they would then possess, there would be nothing to prevent their aspiring to the highest offices open to Native talent — to Judgeships, the Grand Jury, Her Majesty’s Commission of the Peace. Many benevolent men think it is the height of illiberality and weakness in the British Government to succumb to the prejudices which such appointments would excite into disgust amongst the Hindu community, and that an open attack should be made upon the barriers of caste.” Wise observations of the Honourable Mount Stuart Elphinstone cited “Paragraph 23. But here the wise reflections of Mr. Elphinstone, the most liberal and large minded administrator who has appeared on this side of India, point out the true rule of action. ‘It is observed,’ he says, ‘that the missionaries find the lowest caste the best pupils ; but we must be careful how we offer any special encouragement to men of that description ; they are not only the most despised but among the least numerous of the

406 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES great divisions of society and it is to be feared that if our system of education first took root among them, it would never spread further, and we might find ourselves at the head of a new class, superior to the rest in useful knowledge, but hated and despised by the castes to whom these new attainments would always induce us to prefer them. Such a state of things would be desirable, if we were contented to rest our power on our army or on the attachment of a part of the population but is inconsistent with every attempt to found it on a more extended basis.’ ”