Vol. 2 · pages 441–445

422 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES from the following extracts from the Quinquennial Reports on Education. With regard to the treatment of the Mahomedans in the matter of education the following observations in the third Quinquennial Report (1892-96) are noteworthy : “Concerning the figures for Mahomedan Education in Bombay,..... the Director remarks that the increase would have been larger ‘ but for adverse circumstances’. It has long been recognized in Bombay that Mahomedans make a larger use of Public Institutions than the rest of the population...... On the general question of what has been done to encourage Mahomedan education, the Director writes : ‘In the first place, a Mahomedan officer is appointed to every District, either as Deputy or Assistant Deputy Inspector; and we have three Mahomedan graduates as Deputies, at Kaira, Sholapur and Hyderabad, while a fourth has been drafted into the higher grades of the Revenue Department. There is thus not a District where the staff is out of touch with the Mahomedan population. Again at Bombay, Karachi and Junagadh [a Muhammadan State in Kathiawar], special efforts have been made to provide High Schools for Muhammadans with low fee rates, and smaller schools have been opened by other Anjumans (Muhammadan associations) elsewhere. The Department also provides for their benefit special standards and maintains special schools in certain localities, and reserves for them one-third of the Provincial and Local Boards scholarships. Then, there are the special scholarships founded by Khan Bahadur Kazi Shahbuddin [at one time Diwan of Baroda]; and in Sindh a certain number of food scholarships have been given by the heir of the Native State of Khairpur for students attending in Arts College. (I had great difficulty in filling these up last year, though they are of the value of Rs. 25 a month). In Primary schools, Muhammadans are very leniently treated in the matter of fees. They are encouraged to come to the Training Colleges by special rules which require from them an easier test than from Hindus ;..... The Joint Schools Committee at Bombay has lately made special efforts to encourage Muhammadan education by the appointment of a Muhammadan Deputy Inspector.....’ ” 19. Compare with this the observations regarding the education of the Depressed classes in the fifth Quinquennial Report (1902-07) : “959. Bombay—In the Central division of Bombay the low caste children are admitted free into schools and receive presents in the form of books, slates etc...... In Kathiawar only three children of the Depressed castes are receiving education. In the Southern division there are 72 special schools or classes of them, most of which are under unqualified teachers.” 20. This unequal treatment has its origin in the recommendations of the Hunter Commission. How partial was the Hunter Commission to the Mahomedans will be evident if we compare the recommendations it made

423EDUCATION OF DEPRESSED CLASSES in their behalf to those it made in the interests of the Depressed classes. With respect to the Mahomedans the Commission made seventeen recommendations of which the following are worthy of note : — (1) that the special encouragement of Mahomedan education be regarded as a ligitimate charge on local, on Municipal, and on Provincial funds. (7) that higher English education for Mahomedans, being the kind of education in which that community needs special help, be liberally encouraged. (8) that where necessary graduated system of special scholarships for Mahomedans be established to be awarded (a) in primary schools and tenable in middle schools ; ( b) in middle schools, and tenable in high schools; (c) on the results of Matriculation and. First Arts examinations, and tenable in colleges also. (9) that in all classes of schools maintained from public funds a certain proportion of free studentship be expressly reserved for Mahomedan students. (10) that in places where educational endowments for the benefit of Mahomedans exist and are under the management of Government the funds arising from each endowment be devoted to the advancement of education among the Mahomedans exclusively. (11) that where Mahomedans exist, and are under the management of private individuals or bodies, inducements by liberal grants-in-aid be offered to them to establish English teaching schools or colleges on the grant-in-aid system. (12) that, where necessary, the Normal Schools or classes for the training of Mahomedan teachers be established. (14) that Mahomedan inspecting officers be employed more largely than hitherto for the inspection of primary schools for Mahomedans. (17) that the attention of Local Governments be invited to the question of the proportion in which patronage is distributed among educated Mahomedans and others. 21. Everyone of these recommendations made by the Hunter Commission was necessary in the interests of the Depressed classes also. But when we come to analyse the recommendations made by the Commission in the interests of the Backward classes we do not find them directing that education of the Backward classes be regarded a legitimate change on Government funds, that scholarships and proceedings be reserved for them, that special inspecting staff be kept to look after their educational needs or that public patronage be given to them by way of encouraging the growth of education amongst them. All that we find the Commission saying is that (1) the principle that “no boy be refused admission to a Government College or School merely on the ground of caste,” be now reaffirmed as a principle and be applied with due caution to every institution, not reserved for special

424 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES races, which is wholly maintained at the cost of public funds, whether provincial, municipal or local, (2) that the establishment of special schools or classes for children of low castes be liberally encouraged in places where there are a sufficient number of such children to form separate schools or classes and where the schools already maintained from public funds do not sufficiently provide for their education. As a matter of fact the recommendations made by the Commission for the Mahomedans were far more necessary in the interests of the Backward classes than in the interests of the Mahomedans. For even the Hunter Commission, presided as it was by a chairman of pronounced sympathies for the Mahomedans, had to admit that “the inquiries made in 1871-73 went to prove that except in the matter of the higher education there had been a tendency to exaggerate the backwardness of the Mahomedans.” Notwithstanding this the only recommendations made by the Hunter Commission were the two mentioned above. Even these two recommendations made by the Commission regarding the Depressed classes were not calculated to do much good. They were bound to be futile. The reaffirmation of the principle even if it be for the fifth time was useless. For under the proviso inserted by the Commission the enforcement was to be avoided in practice. Similarly the opening of the separate schools for the Depressed classes was hardly possible which again was bound to be sterile. Separate schools involving additional expense could hardly be acceptable to a Government to which primary education was a task. Besides the proviso that such schools should be opened where Backward classes were in large numbers was sufficient to negative the recommendations simply because in rural parts the Backward classes can seldom be found to be living in one locality in large numbers. 22. It is difficult to understand why the Hunter Commission paid such a scan attention to the educational needs of the Backward classes. If it felt necessary to be generous towards the Mahomedans, it should have at least seen that it was just to the Backward classes who were far behind the Mahomedans in education, wealth and social status. Once the Hunter Commission had thrown the Depressed classes into the background they remained there and the Government never paid any attention to them. As an example of this neglect, attention may be drawn to the Resolution of the Government of India in the Department of Education dated Delhi the 21st February 1913. It was one of the most important resolutions ever issued by the Government of India in which they decided “to assist local Government by means of large grants from imperial revenues as funds became available, to extend comprehensive systems of education in the several provinces “. In that Resolution they were particular to point out to the Provincial Government the educational needs of “ Domiciled community” and the Mahomedan community. But they had not a word to say in the whole Resolution about the Backward classes. The Bombay Government readily accepted the suggestion and appointed in 1913 a Mahomedan on Education Committee to make recommendations for the promotion of

425EDUCATION OF DEPRESSED CLASSES education among the Mahomadans. One feels righteous indignation against such criminal neglect on the part of the Government particularly when it is realized that the large grants given by the Government of India after 1913 were given by way of fulfilment of the declaration made by His most Gracious Imperial Majesty the King Emperor in replying to the address of the Calcutta University on the 6th January 1912 in which he said : “It is my wish that there may be spread over the land a network of schools and Colleges, from which will go forth loyal and manly and useful citizens, able to hold their own in industries and agriculture and all the vocations in life. And it is my wish too, that the homes of my Indian subjects may be brightened and their labour sweetened by the spread of knowledge with all that follows in its train, a higher level of thought, of comfort and health. It is through education that my wish will be fulfilled, and the cause of education in India will ever be very close to my heart.” IV. From 1923 and after 23. The Reforms Act came into force in 1921. Education was made a transferred subject in charge of a minister and a rapid advance in education was naturally expected at his hands. The Backward classes had, however, their doubts as to whether any benefit would accrue to them from the transfer of education to the control of the ministers. Already they had suffered in the matter of education at the hand of the bureaucracy. In the first period of existence the bureaucracy did not permit them to receive the benefits of education. In the second period the bureaucracy did not help them to get education. All the same the bureaucracy was too much enlightened to deny the principle that the Backward classes had a right to education. The Backward classes were not prepared to predicate the same enlightenment of the Indian intelligentsia which was struggling to replace the bureaucracy. As the Indian intelligentsia had its roots in the part in which the Backward class had no recognized rights, the latter were apprehensive that the past may again be made to live in the present. 24. Unfortunately their doubts came true and it may be truly said that under the Reforms the Backward classes in the Bombay Presidency have fallen from purgatory to hell. This may appear to be a very strong commentary on the existing situation. But the situation for in Backward classes of the Bombay Presidency created by the Compulsory Primary Education Act (Bombay Act No. IV of 1923) can hardly be described in any other words. The Compulsory Primary Education Act is in a very important sense a “fraud”. It was claimed for the Act, it was calculated to change the character of the primary education from being voluntary to compulsory. The Act does nothing of the kind. A reference to section 10 of the Act is sufficient to expose the “fraud”. The system is as voluntary as it was before and will remain so indefinitely. For, not only there is no obligation to make it compulsory, but there is even no time limit fixed within which to fulfil the obligation. Apart from this the Compulsory Primary Education Act has

426 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES made a most extravagant change in the administrative machinery for the control of Primary Education. Hitherto the control and management of Primary Education was entrusted to the Provincial Government and the whole of the expenditure on primary education was defrayed out of Provincial revenues except a small grant by the Local Boards amounting to one-third of their revenue from certain defined sources. Under the Compulsory Primary Education Act the position is reversed. The control and management of Primary Education is now entrusted to District School Boards (which are committees of District Local Boards) and instead of the Local Boards giving grants to the Provincial Government the Provincial Government is required to give a grant to the District School Board. Such extravagant and wild was the spirit in which this change was conceived that the Act gives to these School Boards power to appoint its own executive officer—a privilege which is denied even to such an advanced Corporation as the Municipality of Bombay. 25. The Sabha think that this change is a most revoluntionary change and is bound to be detrimental to the best interest of the Presidency and particularly of the Backward classes. It must be borne in mind that the vital necessity of education has not been realized by all the classes of the population. The popular belief is that education is nobody’s concern except that of the Brahmins. It is only a few, who have taken to politics, that care for the spread of education. The School Board must be drawn from the many uniformed villagers who being brought up in the tradition that education is the concern of the Brahmins only must be indifferent to it and are bound to be opposed to make it compulsory. Education if it is to be efficiently administered must for some time to come, remain with the Provincial Government under the direct control of the Legislative Council where the few politicals who know the necessity of education are likely to be. The transfer of education from the Education Department to the School Boards, therefore, means transfer from well-trusted quarters to unworthy hands. But if the transfer is harmful to the progress of education in general, it is detrimental to the interests of the Backward classes in particular. It must be borne in mind that although there may be some doubts as to whether the generality of the people do or do not believe in education, one thing is certain that they do not believe in the education of the Backward classes. As to the attitude of the higher classes towards the extension of elementary education to the lower classes of the community the Hunter Commission observed : “ Several witnesses have replied that positive hostility is shown to the admission of low caste boys to school. A Madras witness mentions the case of a school for Cherumans, the ancient slave caste, being established at Calicut, but the Nayars and Tiyas used to waylay the boys as they went to school and snatch their books out of their hands...... In our discussion on this subject it was brought to our notice that in some parts of the Central Provinces and of Bombay special objections were