Vol. 2 · pages 426–430

B STATEMENT concerning the state of education of the Depressed Classes in the Bombay Presidency submitted by Dr. Bhimrao R. Ambedkar, M.A., PH.D. . D.SC, BAR-AT-LAW Member of the Legislative Council, Bombay on behalf of the Bahishkrita Hitakarini Sabha (Depressed Classes Institute of Bombay) to the Indian Statutory Commission 29th May 1928 Damodar Hall Parel, Bombay-12 INDIA N.B.—In this statement the expressions Backward Classes and Depressed Classes are used interchangeably.

408 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES I. From 1813 to 1854 1. Education under the British Rule in the Bombay Presidency must be said to have begun with the foundation of the Bombay Education Society in 1815. That Society did not continue its efforts to the education of European children. Native boys were encouraged to attend its schools at Surat and Thana and at the beginning of 1820 four separate schools for natives had been opened in Bombay and were attended by nearly 250 pupils. In August of the same year further measures were taken to extend native education. A special committee was appointed by the Society to prepare school-books in the Vernacular Languages and to aid or establish vernacular schools. But the wide scope of the undertaking was soon seen to be beyond the aims of a society established mainly for the education of the poor; and in 1822 the committee became a separate corporation, thenceforth known as the Bombay Native School-book and School Society which name was in 1827 changed into the Bombay Native Education Society. The Honourable Mount Stuart Elphinstone was the new Society’s first President. The Vice-Presidents were the Chief Justice and the three members of the Executive Council of the Bombay Government; and the managing committee consisted of twelve European and twelve native gentlemen, with Captain George Jervis R.E., and Mr. Sadashiv Kashinath Chhatre as Secretaries. The Society started its work with a grant of Rs. 600 per mensem from the Government. As early as 1825 the Government of Bombay had along side begun to establish primary schools at its own expense in district towns and had placed them under the control of the Collectors. To co-ordinate the activities of these two independent bodies there was established in 1840 a Board of Education composed of six members, 3 appointed by Government and 3 appointed by the Native Education Society. This Board was in charge of the Education Department till the appointment of the Director of Public Instruction in 1855. 2. On the 1st March 1855 when the Board was dissolved there were in the Presidency of Bombay under the charge of the Board 15 English Colleges and schools having 2,850 students on the Register and 256 vernacular schools having 18,888 students on the Register. In the same report it is stated by the Board : “24. In August [1855] we received a petition from certain inhabitants of Ahmednagar, praying for the establishment of a school for the education of low castes and engaging to defray one-half the teacher’s salary, in accordance with the terms of the late rules. A school room had been built by the petitioners and the attendance of boys was calculated at thirty. The establishment of such a school was opposed to the prejudices of the richer and higher castes, and there was some difficulty in procuring a teacher on a moderate salary, but as the application was made in strict accordance with the conditions stated in the late notification on the subject, we readily complied with the request, and the school was opened in November. We merely mention the subject, as it is the first occasion on which we have established a school for these castes.” (Italics not in the original).

409EDUCATION OF DEPRESSED CLASSES 3.The statement by the Board that this was the first occasion when a school for the low castes was established in this Presidency naturally raises the question what was the policy of the British Government in the matter of the education of the Depressed classes before 1855 ? To answer this question it is necessary to have a peep into the history of the educational policy of the British Government in this Presidency from 1813 to 1854. It must be admitted that under the Peshwa’s Government the Depressed classes were entirely out of the pale of education. They did not find a place in any idea of state education, for the simple reason that the Peshwa’s Government was a theocracy based upon the canons of Manu, according to which the Shudras and Atishudras (classes corresponding to the Backward classes of the Education Department), if they had any right to life, liberty and property, had certainly no right to education. The Depressed classes who were labouring under such disabilities naturally breathed a sigh of relief at the downfall of this hated theocracy. Great hopes were raised among the Depressed classes by the advent of the British Rule. Firstly because it; was a democracy which they thought believed in the principle of one man one value, be that man high or low. If it remained true to its tenets, such a democracy was a complete contrast to the theocracy of the Peshwa. Secondly the Depressed classes had helped the British to conquer the country and naturally believed that the British would in their turn help them, if not in a special degree, at least equally with the rest. 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 “ one 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 organized 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 amongst 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

410 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES invited to the following extracts from the Report of the Board of Education of the Bombay Presidency for the year 1850-51 : “Paragraph 5th. 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 Pearl 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. “Paragraph 8th. 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.’ 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 number 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 single establishment in England. “Paragraph 9th. 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 the 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 System adopted by the Board based on the views of Court of Directors. Views of Court on the expediency of educating the upper classes. Retrospect of Principal Educational facts during the last ten years necessary.

411EDUCATION OF DEPRESSED CLASSES especially to command itself for such a retrospect, as in 1850 the second decenial 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 bad 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. “Paragraph 10th. 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 11th. 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 the following proportions : — 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. In 1850, number of schools 185 and number of pupils 12,712.] “Paragraph 12th. 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 containing fewer than 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 the proper school going age. A uniform system developing itself spontaneously both in Bengal and Bombay. Statistics of education in Bombay. Same subject.