A mention of the word ‘education’ brings to mind images of books and pencils, green boards and chalk, and alphabets and numbers scribbled on ruled paper. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed us beyond this image. Education moved to phones and laptops, at least for a while. But the concept of education has been around much longer than phones, laptops, green boards – maybe even books. This article takes a historical perspective as we look at how education in India changed with the advent of the British.
“…that 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 cypher; in the last branch of learning, they are confessedly most proficient.”
— John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow, British India, Vol 1,1858, p62-3
In the early Indian system, education was imparted through gurukuls – where students lived with the guru, learnt from them, and helped them in their daily activities. The guru-shishya relationship was considered sacred, and primarily public donations funded gurukuls. Universities at Takshashila, Nalanda, Valabhi, Vikramshila, Odantapuri, Jagaddala, Benaras, Navadeep, Kanchi, and many more flourished, admitting students from across the globe. The objective of primary education was complete learning, to lead a disciplined life and realise one’s inner potential. The purpose of education was to enrich the various dimensions of one’s personality.
Invasions by Islamic rulers in the medieval period also brought forth madrassas and maktabs, which taught grammar, philosophy, mathematics, and law influenced by the Greek traditions of Persia and the Middle East. The Mughal emperor Akbar favoured medicine, agriculture, geography, and texts from other languages and religions in the curriculum.
Later in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the British strengthened the foundations of their rule in India, they also sought to change the education system that existed here. The first institution of higher learning set up by the British East India Company was the Calcutta Madrasa in 1781. This was followed by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, Benaras Sanskrit College in 1791 and Fort William College in 1800. Sir Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control of the British East India Company, sent his well-known ‘Wood’s Dispatch’ to the Governor-General of India, suggesting a shift to English language use within India. Primary education was to be administered in vernacular languages and higher education in English. Following this, the University of Mumbai, formerly the University of Bombay, one of India’s first modern universities, was established by the British in 1857. Then in July, Bombay University was established, and Madras University was established in September.
The East India Company didn’t care much for the education of those they ruled in India. The British taught Indians English because of the massive demand for clerks and other administrative roles in the Company’s functioning. Technical and scientific education was neglected, and literacy rates remained very low. It destroyed the pride of Indian culture, and it enslaved the Indians. Also, schooling in English crippled Indians and distanced them from their surroundings. There were many negative impacts of the British Government policies framed with political intent, disregarding the interests of education. In his famous Macaulay’s Minutes of 1835, Lord Macaulay introduced the downward filtration theory. This theory meant that schooling was restricted to the elite. According to Macaulay, educating the members of the higher classes would facilitate lower classes of the society, too, because the lower class people would tend to imitate and follow the model of the people of higher status in the community. This indifference created a lot of anger against the British government and played a vital role in the Indian freedom movement.
I say without the fear of my figures being challenged successfully, that today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or hundred years ago, because the British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root, and left the root like that, and the beautiful tree perished.
-Mahatma Gandhi, 1931
It took multiple governments and decades of educational reforms to lift Indian education from that stage, but we’re still far from being the ‘Beautiful Tree’ of learning. You can have a look at the blogs on <link to Revolution of Education in India post independence> and <link to NEP 2020> to know more about the steps taken in this direction. Till then, stay tuned!
NSS IIT Bombay 