Education - 2: Nation, Caste, Religion and Gender: Colonial State and Ideology

Education--2: Nation, Caste, Religion and Gender
Subject: History
Unit: Colonial State and Ideology
Lesson: Education--2: Nation, Caste, Religion and Gender

Lesson Developer : Anish Vanaik
College/Department : PhD scholar, Oxford University
Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Table of contents
Chapter 3: Colonial state and ideology

• 3.3.2: Education II: nation, caste, religion and gender
• Summary
• Exercises
• Glossary
• Further readings

3.3.2 Education II: nation, caste, religion and gender
School transformed
As we had seen earlier, the indigenous education system was decentralized. In its
curriculum and organization, it was guided by village needs and custom. The new policies
implemented after 1854 transformed this.
A new structure
The colonial curriculum brought with it a new concept of literacy. The everyday rhythm of
the school was now detached from the rhythm of village life. School was to proceed at a
prescribed time according to a fixed schedule in every village and town. The time in which
the stages of academic advance happened were also fixed. The school year was built up
around the examinations that would be held at the end of it. Students too were now
grouped according to their ages and, in the normal course of things, they advanced at the
same time.
The space of the school had so far been a flexible affair – there was no fixed place for the
school or fixed manner for the students to be seated vis-à-vis the teacher. With colonial
control, a notion of the school as a building with a set of classrooms, each with the teacher
at its head, was developed. This was a setting within which the student could be kept in one
place and watched over by the teacher. As Nita Kumar points out, the school building also
became a marker of the quality of education that was being imparted. The backwardness or
otherwise of knowledge came to be judged as much from the quality of its infrastructure as
from the manner of teaching (Kumar, 2007).
Ideas about what should be learnt were also transformed. Kazi Shahidullah suggests that
the orientation of education was turned away from knowledge useful to the community,
towards the acquisition of education for its own sake (Crook, 1996). Literacy was now the
only clear sign of knowledge and certification the only clear sign of literacy. Appropriate
knowledge and appropriate certification were now linked with employment. Other skills
necessary for work – manual skills for crafts and traditional business knowledge for trading
communities-- had to form alternative institutions to pass on this knowledge.

Figure 3.3.2.1: Notice the organisation of space, the materials being used in
the classroom and the skills being imparted. How would these differ from the pathshala?
Source: Forbes, G. H. 1996. Women in Modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 45.
The meek dictator
In his history of education in the colonial period, Krishna Kumar describes the school
teacher as a 'meek dictator' (Kumar, 1990). By this, Kumar is pointing to the role and
personality of the school teacher in the colonial period. First, the teacher was made an
employee of the state. This severed his links with the village community. Instead, he was
incorporated as the lowest rung in a highly bureaucratic setup of the education
administration. He earned a meager and insufficient salary and was subject to inspection
and examination. Second, the teacher's control over the knowledge that he was in charge of
imparting, was very restricted. The textbook clearly laid out the portions that had to be
covered. Examinations set both a time limit within which this must be done and dictated a
particular form in which learning was to take place. As a result, rather than deal creatively
with their subjects, or teach according to the individual needs of students, teachers
restricted their classroom activities to giving students competence in answering questions
based on the texts and rote learning.
Thus, for those above him in the hierarchies of the educational administration, the teacher
was merely a meek underling. His task was not considered crucial to the process of
learning. Salaries were extremely low and so were the qualifications required to get the job.
Normal schools concentrated on imparting classroom management skills – ways to maintain
order and discipline in class. With respect to students, however, the power of the teacher
was still absolute. He was the master of the classroom and over the fate of those who had
to sit for exams. This was his dictatorial face. As Krishna Kumar points out, this represented

the only remaining continuation of the old role of the guru: the complete control over the
life of the student.
The pliant student?
What about the student in all this? This was the person whose thoughts and personality
were to be moulded by this educational structure and curriculum. As Nita Kumar points out,
relatively little has been written about the manner in which children in the colonial period
actually learnt. This is an extremely difficult exercise which requires historians to use
innovative and unconventional tools to reconstruct a history that is erased from the official
archives.
From the colonial archive, however, there are hints that the agenda of transformation of the
receiver of education was not an unqualified success. For instance, colonial officials
commonly complained that Indian students were prone to learn up their portions by rote for
reproduction during the exams. Historian Sanjay Seth argues that this complaint reflected a
frustration at the inability to achieve the full ideological agenda that the colonial state
established for Indian students.
Western education was to transform knowledge and the recipient of

it... [but] the Indian student had bent the system to his own
strengths... the pedagogic process being shaped by Indian
students... rather than the students being shaped by the pedagogy.
(Seth, 2008)
This does not imply that the student was in any way 'free', or that the process of learning
was engaging, or indeed that power did not operate through it. It simply marks the fact that
the outcomes of the learning process were not exactly those that were intended by the
colonial authorities. It is some of the other contestations and outcomes of education to
which we will now turn.
Education and the public sphere: the Hindi-Urdu controversy
In later chapters you will read about the ways in which the public sphere came to be created
over the course of the colonial period. It emerged out of the coming together of new
technologies – like printing, and contestations over nationalism, religion, caste, gender, race
and social reform. Education could not help but be thrown into the creation of this public
sphere in a variety of ways.
One of the more important instances of this relates to the conflicts in north India over Hindi
and Urdu in the 20th century. A number of historians have pointed out that school
textbooks were crucial to this communally polarized battle over language. According to
Krishna Kumar, shaping the kind of Hindi language that was taught in schools across north
India, was one of the important ways in which an elite leadership of politics was asserted.
By organizing syntax, grammar and vocabulary in a particular fashion, Hindi emerged as a
Hindu language– divorced from Urdu. He also points out that the separation of a
Sanskritized Khari Boli Hindi from other dialects like Braj, Awadhi, etc. became a marker of
the dominance of upper castes: “Only children of upper-caste background could feel at
home in a school culture where the language was so restrictive.” (Kumar, 1990) The
increasingly complex syntax and vocabulary of Hindi was justified on grounds of its claims
to be a language for educational and scholarly discourse.
Kumar also points to the economic links between the literary and educational press. The
crucial importance of the textbook market after the introduction of Hindi as a subject in
intermediate exams in 1924, affected the styles of writing – which became increasingly
didactic. Through such texts, schools could become an important site for the production and
propagation of revivalist Hindu meanings and images. Colonial principles of secular
instruction missed the undertones that the teaching of the language was able to carry for
the purpose of the formation of a religio-political community.
Value addition: from the sources
Schools and Khari Boli
“The goddess Sarasvati is fortunate, for shedwellslike aswanin the blissful and profound
lakeof the mind of such great souls and experiences the joy of being in contact with
their lotus-like faces.
The Ganges is unique. It has no place for great desires or passions: tumultuous
thoughts cannot enter here.
Brahmins are the leaders of the Hindu community; undoubtedly many of them have
stopped studying, but this is a consequence of the times. Their authority is
undiminished.”
This is an excerpt from an examination conducted in Allahabad by the Hindi Sahitya

Sabha. The highlighted words are instances of infusing Sanskritized language into Hindi.
What do you think about the content of the question?
Source: Orsini, Francesca. 1999. What Did They Mean by 'Public'? Language,
Literature and the Politics of Nationalism. Economic and Political Weekly Vol.
34 No. 7.
Religion and education
Mission schools after 1857

In the aftermath of 1857, the colonial state became increasingly keen to separate religion
and education. At the same time, as has been mentioned, the colonial state was not
prepared to put in the funds required to widen the coverage of education. Thus, post-1857,
there was a tremendous expansion in the number of mission schools. In the United
Provinces missions schools formed a large proportion of the aided schools and very quickly
displaced the pathshalasand maktabs(Bellenoit, 2007).
While the number of mission schools was increasing, missionaries often felt restricted by the
needs of the curriculum established by the state and its regular inspections. According to
historian Hayden Bellenoit, missionaries from the 1870s onwards were less and less
convinced about their ability to re-mould students' beliefs based only on a curriculum of
English literature, language and biblical studies. Students tended to be very flexible in their
beliefs – agreeing to certain propositions about religion that were suggested, while never
giving up their belief systems. Bellenoit suggests that as missionaries reconciled themselves
to this, they also became less dismissive than colonial officials of the growing political
consciousness of Indians. Many missionaries,
defended students from charges of sedition and disloyalty and

criticized... particular British colonial policies. Schools and hostels
undertook micro-exercises in self-government and management,
propagated civic ethos and engendered a form of religious plurality.
(Bellenoit, 2007)
Thus, Bellenoit argues that mission education must be placed within the broader narrative
of the development of Indian nationalism, more than the carrying out of an imperial agenda.
The dilemmas of Islam
Concerns about the fate of Islam in India shaped the outlook of a generation of reformers
after 1857. Ensuring the health of religious tradition and relating to the colonial state were
two major concerns for Muslim thinkers in the late 19th century.
The Dar ul-Ulum madrasa established at Deoband in 1867 represented one kind of effort at
dealing with the new situation through a new way of linking Islam and education. According
to Barbara Metcalf, at a philosophical level, the madrasa at Deoband represented a turn
away from rational inquiry and towards greater emphasis on the hadith(traditions about the
life of the Prophet). Western sciences were ignored in the curriculum. This was out of an
opposition to western forms of knowledge or English. It was, rather, rooted in the conviction
that the traditions were the most important form of knowledge. Interpretation of the hadith
were the key to good religious practice. The madrasa was designed to create ulama who
were learned in scriptures and would spread its word accurately across the country.
Along with this self conscious adoption of tradition, however, the organization of the
madrasa itself was unlike any before it. The school had a separate set of buildings rather
than being attached to a mosque. Classes were held in classrooms rather than in informal
settings. Students had to take regular exams and were instructed by a professional staff. It
had a carefully maintained library. It even worked out a system of affiliating a network of
madrasas, in very much the way imagined by the Wood's despatch or the universities act
(Metcalf, 1982). This combination reflects the engagement of its founders with the colonial
context. It was a decidedly modern institution that actively sought out tradition.
The other major school founded in the late 19th century was the Muslim Anglo-Oriental
College (MAOC) at Aligarh. You will read more about the relationship between the Aligarh
movement and separatism elsewhere. At the level of education, the Aligarh movement
represented an almost opposite response to the one seen at Deoband. If the Deobandis
were concerned about the purity of Islamic traditions, Sayyid Ahmad Khan's major concern
was the relations between the colonial state and the Muslim community. In particular, he
was worried by the allegation that Muslims had been disloyal to the British in 1857. Through
the establishment of the MAOC in 1875 he was trying to bridge the gap between Islam and
the colonial state.
Since it was aided by the government, the MAOC followed the curriculum laid down by
colonial authorities. To this was added Islamic theology. The key agenda for MAOC,
however, was to foster individuals who would be comfortable in working with Europeans.
The students who would study at MAOC, were to be government servants, clerks or lawyers.
Thus, there was much emphasis placed on debating, ways of behaving and conversational
skills.
Both the institutions – at Aligarh and Deoband – underwent numerous changes over the 20th
century and had complicated relationships with nationalist and communalist tendencies.
However, we can see how important education could become in the effort to preserve
'tradition' and also become 'modern'.
Tradition and modernity: women and education
We can see this contradictory struggle between tradition and modernity in the way in which
the question of women's education was posed. On one hand, the colonial state, from the

Hunter Commission Report and before, highlighted the reluctance to educate women as an
instance of the backwardness of Indians. At the same time, there was no systematic effort
on the part of the colonial state to rectify this situation. The state considered this the
domain of Indian men.
Even as women's education was seen as a gauge of modernity, the opposite was also
happening. Partha Chatterjee has argued that in the colonial period, the public realm was
described as male, materialistic and modern while the private realm emerged as a place of
tradition and spirituality embodied in the woman of the house. This explains the fear that
the figure of the modern educated woman provoked in most circles. She was usually
portrayed as one who violated or mocked traditions. This led to many questions about
whether women should be educated, how much education they should receive and what the
content of it should be. One kind of response was to persuade families that traditional roles
would not be affected (Samita Sen in Bhattacharya, 2002). Mataji Tapaswini, in 1893
established The Mahakali Pathshala in Calcutta which taught a curriculum in traditional rites,
beliefs and practical instruction in sewing and cooking.
While these might have been more conservative reactions to the questions posed by
modernity, the efforts of social reformers too must be carefully understood. Part of the
effort at social reform, and its constant circulation in the public sphere, was a result of the
public-private dichotomy that we have spoken of earlier. Indian men who were prevented
from entering public politics, tried to do so by demonstrating their control over the private
realm.
Gail Minault studies the efforts by Muslim reformers to tackle the question of women's
education. A new genre of novels emerged – like Maulana Thanawi's Bihishti Zevar or Nazir
Ahmad's Mirat ul-Arus – which outlined the qualities of the educated woman. She was
virtuous in being able to manage the house perfectly, but also best equipped to pass on a
correct understanding of Islam to children of the family. Provision of education to women
and the regeneration of Islam as a religion after 1857, came to be seen as linked. A large
number of journalistic and literary forms emerged to reinforce this message (Minault,
1998).

Figure 3.3.2.2: Tahzib un-Niswan, Cover 2 July 1932
Source: Minault, G. 1998. Secluded scholars: Women's Education and Muslim

Social Reform in Colonial India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 117.
From the late 19th century onwards, the idea of a companionate wife took root among
Muslim and Hindu elites. Women were now to be sympathetic and able to contribute to the
lives and careers of their husbands, rather than be simply in charge of the household.
Particularly for Indian civil servants keen to climb the bureaucratic ladder, it was important
that their wives were well educated and able to socialize with British officials on quasi-public

occasions. This became another kind of impulse that contributed to the spread of formal
education among women.
There were also some remarkable and courageous efforts to impart education which were
organized by women. Pandita Ramabai opened schools for widows in Bombay and Poona. In
1911 Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, despite opposition by her relatives opened a school
in Calcutta. This was intended for Muslim women who observed purdah, even though
Begum Rokeya herself was a public and vocal opponent of the practice. Sister Subbalakshmi
in Madras established a school for high-caste widows which would train them to become
teachers. When she was widowed at 11 her parents decided to educate her. The opposition
to this was so strong that they had to shift to Madras from their home in Tanjore district. As
each of their stories demonstrates, the education of women remained a dangerous idea.
Even by the end of the colonial period, female literacy rate stood at only 6 per cent. This is
a low figure even if it was a huge leap from the 1.8 per cent according to the 1921 census.
Value addition: from the sources
Struggle for women's education
“I was so immersed in the sea of housework that I was not conscious of what I was
going through day and night. After some time the desire to learn how to read
properly grew very strong in me. I was angry with myself for wanting to read books.
Girls did not read... That was one of the bad aspects of the old system. The other
aspects were not so bad. People used to despise women of learning... In fact, older
women used to show a great deal of displeasure if they saw a piece of paper in the
hands of a woman. But somehow I could not accept this.”
- Rasasundari Dasi'sautobiography Amar Jiban. (Forbes 1996).
“Do you seriously hope, are you really earnest that our women will do anything in the
direction of original literature for centuries to come? I know of very few female names
who have added perceptibly to the stock of human knowledge or have modified by
their brain production the current of human thought.”
- letter to the Mahratta in 1880s cited in Rao, Parimala, 'Educating Women – How and
How Much? Women in the Concept of Tilak's Swaraj'. (Bhattacharya 2002)
Source: Forbes, G. H. 1996. Women in modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press; Bhattacharya, S. 2002. Education and the disprivileged:
nineteenth and twentieth century India. New Delhi: Orient Longman.
Caste and education

It might appear that as colonial education detached knowledge from the village community,
it was making it more distant from caste prejudices. Pathshalas, for all their connection to
the village community, were not attended by untouchables and had very few students from
the lower castes. Did the secular curriculum offered through the new school system change
this? Did the colonial state's idea of providing mass education extend it to the lower castes?
'Modern' education and community-based knowledge
In some ways, the new curriculum did detach education from some of its links with caste.
For one, occupation-related skills that were once imparted at pathshalas – commercial or
agricultural accounts, knowledge of sacred texts – were no longer offered at mainstream
schools. Nita Kumar points out that this became a dilemma for the caste associations that
were springing up through the 19th century. Groups like the Khatris and Agrawalas, which
were consolidating their caste identities at around the same time, reacted by calling upon
the community to carry out vocational and ethical training in the home (in addition to
schools). One alternative that was often adopted was to set up institutions of their own that
enshrined combinations of Western curriculum (for certification) and indigenous
socialization. But these were inherently tense balancing acts between the stipulations of the
colonial state and the traditions of the community (Kumar, 2000).
Lower caste assertion
The relationship of lower-caste movements to 'western', and 'modern' curriculum was also
complicated. Shahidullah suggests that the reorganization of the pathshala in the 1870s
resulted in a drop in the numbers of lower caste students attending schools. Nita Kumar
finds something similar for low status Muslim weavers in Benares. The influence of a
completely literacy-based instruction was seen as taking children away from their traditional
work and religion. Educated children, it was felt, would not be prepared to engage in
manual work. Thus, weavers relied on ways of instructing their children that lay outside the
formal school system. Krishna Kumar points out that the exclusion of physical and manual
exertion from education had a very specific effect in the Indian context. The hierarchy of
intellectual work over manual labour translated was a reinforcement of caste prejudices
even in a seemingly neutral curriculum.
Having said this, it cannot be doubted that modern curriculum in its very humanist content
– literature, philosophy, etc. – was seen to be a liberating force by many of the leaders of
caste movements. Indeed, there is evidence of a tireless and often lonely efforts being
made by individual figures to establish schools and hostels for lower caste students. Eleanor
Zelliot for Maharashtra and A Satyanarayana for Andhra trace some of the institutions that
were established. Jotiba Phule, who established schools from 1852 to 1858. Bhaurao Patil
(himself not even a matriculate) created a system of schools and hostels in Satara in the
1920s (Bhattacharya, 2002). In Andhra Pradesh, it was only after dyarchy and the coming
to power of the Justice Party in Madras Presidency that a significant widening of educational
opportunities for lower castes emerged. Even so, the efforts of the Adi Andhra Mahasabha
were crucial in pressing for expansion.

Most studies agree that these effort did not result in widespread education among lower
castes. Nevertheless, they did aid the emergence of a leadership within lower caste
communities which could begin to articulate the oppression of lower castes and begin to
organize them in future struggles. The modern, humanist education curriculum was a critical
source for their visions of emancipation. Nevertheless, Krishna Kumar points out that by
restricting their horizons to questions of employment, these movements often ignored
struggles within the sphere of education per se. Alternative criteria, such as, the treatment
of lower-caste children by teachers or the share of symbols representing the lower castes in
curriculum were usually overlooked.
Nationalism and education
As we have seen, there were many contestations on the terrain of education that did not fit
into an overarching story of nationalists pitted against the colonial state. Education was a
ground upon which religious, caste and gender identities were all being reshaped. In some
of these cases, caste for instance, there was an antagonism to the Congress which was seen
as dominated by upper castes. In other cases, as with religious revivalism and gender, there
was a more complicated relationship with nationalism and the colonial state. Here, we will
consider the relationship between nationalism and education on two plains. First, we will
examine how modern education might have been related to the emergence of nationalist
thought. The second question is about the ways in which nationalists thought about
education.
Education and the emergence of nationalism
Both nationalists and colonialists felt that there was a relationship between the education
being imparted to Indians and their nationalist aspirations. A traditional historiography, e.g.,
the work of Bruce McCully, views nationalism as emerging out of the exposure to
western/modern ideas that education in English provided. This assumes that a modern
education would automatically lead to the emergence of ideas of liberty and nationalism.
Viswanathan disputes such a view in the Indian context. She highlights the fact that a
humanist curriculum in India – with English literature and western philosophy, was created
precisely in order to meet the needs of social control. Nationalism, she argues, did not arise
out of such a curriculum. Rather, it arose out of the gap between the promise of upward
mobility through education and the limited opportunities that were on offer.
It is certainly true that 'early nationalism' was located among the educated elite. However,
to reduce the emergence of nationalism simply to the frustrations of an elite that was
educated but unemployed, oddly enough is very similar the argument made by Anil Seal
which is often thought to be within the same tradition as that of McCully.
We must take note of a paradox here as well. Krishna Kumar argues that in their own
efforts the elite came to place the classes below them in much the same way as they were
placed below the British. Their discourse about the other castes and classes was posed in
the language of uplift and reform much as the British saw themselves as uplifting and

reforming elite Indians. This was often opposed, by caste groups who would call upon
western ideas of equality for very different purposes. Revivalist groups might portray
different narratives of nationalism – rooted, e.g., in civilizational greatness. These too can
be seen as emerging out of engagement with legacies of Western Romanticism. Perhaps
nationalism is best viewed as an ideology that emerged to cope with these cracks and
convergences.
Nationalist educational experiments
A landmark nationalist initiative was the National Council of Education (NCE), set up during
the Swadeshi agitation in early 20th century Bengal. This was a series of schools, inspired by
the ideals of that movement, that chose to link up and create a system of schooling that
was not controlled by the colonial state. The curriculum offered in these schools, however,
was not very different from that of Calcutta University. The same subjects were taught, but
slightly greater emphasis was placed upon nationalist symbols and the development of
physical strength and technical ability (the lack of these was often an accusation made by
nationalists). However, the success of these 'national' schools tended to vary. Affiliations to
the NCE would rise during times of agitation and popular movements. However, the number
of affiliated schools would often drop soon after.
There were many nationalist leaders who were concerned about the question of education.
Most significant, perhaps was G. K. Gokhale. He was an early voice in support of education
for women and lower castes. In 1910, he unsuccessfully introduced a resolution in the
Imperial Legislative Council that elementary education should be made free and
compulsory. Maharaja Sayaji Rao of Baroda had already made this a law in his princely
state. Lajpat Rai was another figure who was involved with university education and broader
questions of the spread of knowledge.
These were all important struggles. However, Krishna Kumar suggests that their key
limitation was that they were unable to articulate an alternative pedagogical framework. At
the root of this inability was an acceptance of the principles upon which British-prescribed
curriculum was based. There was a widespread idea that it was the superior scientific
advancement of the West that had led to its conquest of India. Nationalist criticism, as a
result tended to be related to the lack of Indian content in courses, or the medium of
instruction, rather than the pedagogical principles upon which the school was constructed.
Other educational experiments: Tagore and Gandhi
As we have seen, scholars have argued that nationalist educational efforts rarely went
beyond the framework of colonial pedagogy. We can quickly take note of two interventions
that did see education in a radically different perspective: the interventions of Gandhi and
Tagore. Though both came up with different models, they were each trying to search for
ways in which education could be connected meaningfully to questions of equality, self-
identity and progress.

Tagore’s project at Santiniketan and Sriniketan, Krishna Kumar argues, was based on a
particular notion of childhood. For Tagore, childhood represented the pure urge to explore.
Tagore was also personally fascinated by science as a pursuit of truth for its own sake. The
unique curriculum at these schools wove together tribal and folk traditions with knowledge
of the sciences. The idea was to self-consciously nurture a universal impulse among
students – an appreciation of a variety of cultures and knowledge systems. Rather than
viewing it as an attempt at the revival of Indian culture, Krishna Kumar suggests that it had
more to do with a modernist project of a search for a universal model of civilized man.
Gandhi’s ideas on the question of education underwent numerous shifts. His early appeal,
during the Non-Cooperation Movement, was for the introduction of religion into curriculum.
By the late 1930s, he had a more comprehensive vision which was enshrined in the plan for
what came to be called Basic Education. This plan was based on a model of the self-
sufficient community. Gandhi envisaged students having to take up a craft and producing
goods that would enable the financial (and consequently intellectual) autonomy of the
school. This programme of productive handicrafts was to become the core axis for
instruction. Uneasy about the elimination of religion from education, Gandhi reposed faith in
the moral example of the teacher, who would embody true religious principles.
Kumar, in his analysis of Gandhi’s pedagogical programme, suggests that the introduction of
productive handicrafts was a unique and innovative way to address caste inequality. He
points out that all handicrafts were traditionally made only by lower castes. In transforming
what constituted useful/appropriate knowledge in this fashion Gandhi aimed to alter the
meaning of education. With the parameters of success so re-defined, children from the
lower castes could ‘succeed’ more easily. With respect to the teacher too, Gandhi’s
framework was the first to recognize the degradation of the status of the teacher in the
colonial period and chalk out a mechanism, outside the textbook-examination nexus for the
initiative of the teacher.
Neither of these projects, though both invoke the image of the ashram, can easily be seen
as traditionalist. Indeed, the dominating concern was an attempt to re-negotiate some of
the central conflicts thrown up by colonial rule and create a different way of being modern.
Conclusion: modernity, tradition and pedagogy
We had begun by suggesting that education was a terrain of many contestations. Most of
these revolved around the questions posed by modernity. The systems of standardization
and accreditation that the colonial state introduced wiped out a traditional form of
education. Exams, prescribed curricula and inspections were attempts to control what was
taught in schools. However, this was not always successful. Students would cram for exams
rather than internalize the ethos of empire.
But modernity, nevertheless, posed difficult questions about what their own culture and
tradition should be. Thinking about the content and form of education was one of the ways
in which these questions were answered. Struggles over various kinds of identity – caste,
religion, gender and nation – were fought through education. We have also seen, that with
rare exceptions, thinking about education didn't necessarily translate into thinking about

pedagogy – how instruction should be put imparted. Nita Kumar argues that many of the
failures in the realm of education can be traced back to this neglect of pedagogy and the
related failure “[that] adults did not discover the child at the appropriate time” (Kumar,
2000).
3.3.2 Summary
• The pathshalawas a traditional form of imparting education to children. It was a very
flexible and variable institution that was closely tied to the means and needs of the
village community.
• The home was also an important site for the passing on of values and skills. If
historians wish to incorporate histories of women and lower castes, the home is a
particularly important site.
• Orientalists, Anglicists and Evangelists were the three major schools of thought that
influenced colonial education policy until the 1850s.
• Their main difference was over the language of instruction to be used in government
aided schools. However, there were also many important convergences – e.g., the
filtration theory and the idea that Indians had to learn and internalize western ideals.
• The Wood's Despatch was notable for promoting a centralization of curriculum and
teaching staff at the level of both university and primary education. It also claimed
to end the filtration theory. This set the basic track for the education system.
• Schools under the new system had a very different structure of space, time and
technique of instruction. Teachers could be described as ‘meek dictators’. The
student, however, was not as easily transformed.
• Contestations over caste, gender and religion often did not coincide with the agendas
of nationalists.
• Nationalist efforts at education tended to resemble the efforts of the colonial state in
pedagogical terms.

3.3.2: Exercises
Essay question
1) Can we understand the course of education over the colonial period in terms of a
confrontation between the colonial state and nationalist resistance?
Objective questions
Question Number Type of question LOD
1 True or False 1
Question
State whether true or false:
Wood's Despatch of 1854 established English as the language of instruction.
Correct Answer /
False
Option(s)
Justification/ Feedback for the correct answer
The idea that English ought to be the language of instruction was established in Lord
Bentinck's declaration of 1835. Wood's Despatch suggested that primary education
should be carried out in vernacular languages while higher education should be in
English.
Resource/Hints/Feedback for the wrong answer
The idea that English ought to be the language of instruction was established in Lord
Bentinck's declaration of 1835. Wood's Despatch suggested that primary education
should be carried out in vernacular languages while higher education should be in
English.
Reviewer’s Comment:
2 True or False 1
Question
Pathshalas in the pre-modern period were a uniform system of education that could
be found across the country.
Correct Answer /
False
Option(s)
Pathshalas were traditional schools that operated in villages. They had no uniform
curriculum or manner of fee payment, or examinations. Indeed, they varied from
village to village.
Pathshalas were traditional schools that operated in villages. They had no uniform
curriculum or manner of fee payment, or examinations. Indeed, they varied from
village to village.
3 True or False 1
Question
English Literature emerged as a school subject in India before it did in England.
Correct Answer /
True
Option(s)
According to literary critic Gauri Viswanathan, English Literature emerged early in

India because it suited the needs of Evangelists, Orientalists and Anglicists. It could

transmit an idea of the British ethos without being religious. At the same time, it was
seen as encouraging a correct understanding of the Bible.
According to literary critic Gauri Viswanathan, English Literature emerged early in

India because it suited the needs of Evangelists, Orientalists and Anglicists. It could
transmit an idea of the British ethos without being religious. At the same time, it was
seen as encouraging correct understanding of the Bible.
4 Match the following 2
Question
Match the developments in educational policy with the year they were formulated:
Education-related development Year
a) Wood's Despatch i) 1882
b) Charter Act ii) 1904
c) Hunter Commission iii) 1854
d) Curzon's Universities Act iv) 1813
Correct Answer / a) and iii), b) and iv), c) and i), d) and ii)
Option(s)
Question
Match the founders with the institutions they helped to establish:
Founder Institution
a) Raja Rammohan Roy i) Sriniketan
b) Pandita Ramabai ii) General Assembly Institution
c) Rabindranath Tagore iii) Sharada Ashram
d) Alexander Duff iv) Hindu College
Correct Answer /
a) and iv), b) and iii), c) and i), d) and ii)
Option(s)
Question
Match the social reformer with the region in which they were active:
Reformer Area of operation

a) Sister Subbalakshmi i) Aligarh
b) Sayyid Ahmad Khan ii) Madras
c) Jotiba Phule iii) Calcutta
d) Henry Derozio iv) Maharashtra
Correct Answer /
a) and ii), b) and i), c) and iv), d) and iii)
Option(s)
7 Multiple choice question 3
Question
Which of the following features of schools was established as a norm through
changes introduced after 1854:
I Instruction in English
II Prescribed curriculum and textbooks
III Examinations
IV Teacher Training
Options
a) I, II and III

b) II, III and IV
c) III, IV and I
d) IV, II and I
Correct Answer /
b)
Option(s)
Yes. After 1854, schools which wanted government aid were standardized in various
ways. These were three of the most important changes.
After 1854, the broad thrust of policy was towards encouraging instruction in
vernacular languages at school level. The idea of English as the language of
instruction was already accepted since the 1830s.
3.3.2 Glossary
Curriculum, Curricular: the actual course of study and its content

Enlightenment: it refers to an 18th century philosophical and literary movement. It was a
reaction against the orthodoxies of the ancien regimebased on the church and monarchy. It
placed faith, instead, in the ability of reason to improve the condition of humanity.
Hegemony: taken literally, this refers to the power exercised by one state or class over
another. However, it also carries a more specific meaning in the present context. It refers to
the element of consent by the ruled for those who rule – the ability of the rulers to make
aspects of their practice the agreed common sense of the ruled. In this sense, it is quite
different from the elements of force (or coercion) that sustain the powerful. This second,
more narrow meaning is derived from the work of the Italian Marxist activist-philosopher
Antonio Gramsci.
Humanism, Humanist: a stream of thought that suggests that human beings, rather than
supernatural powers, were most important.
Literacy: very specifically, the ability to read and write. It should be distinguished from the
word 'education' which has a more expansive meaning which includes the dimension of

experience and the ability to act, think and articulate.

Pedagogy: refers to the science, or theory of teaching. In other words, trying to
understand and innovate in the methods of instruction.
Romanticism: a set of late 18th century early 19th century literary movements that
emphasized emotion, beauty and experience over rational thought and technical progress.
It is often seen as a reaction to the Enlightenment. Romantic nationalism, usually
associated with German authors, refers to an emphasis on a shared historically-rooted
culture as the basis of community.
3.3.2 Further readings

Bellenoit, H. J. A. 2007. Missionary education and empire in late colonial India, 1860-1920.
London: Pickering & Chatto.
Bhattacharya, S. 1998. The contested terrain: perspectives on education in India. New

Delhi: Orient Longman.
Bhattacharya, S. 2002. Education and the disprivileged : nineteenth and twentieth century
India. New Delhi: Orient Longman.
Cohn, B. S. 1996. Colonialism and its forms of knowledge : the British in India. Princeton,
Chichester: Princeton University Press.
Crook, N. 1996. The transmission of knowledge in South Asia: essays on education, religion,
history, and politics. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Forbes, G. H. 1996. Women in modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ghosh, S. C. 1995. The History of Education in Modern India 1757-1986. Hyderabad: Orient
Longman.
Kumar, K. 1990. Quest for Self-Identity: Cultural Consciousness and Education in the Hindi
Region, 1880-1950. Economic and Political Weekly 8.
Kumar, N. 2000. Lessons from schools: the history of education in Banaras. New Delhi,
London: Sage Publication.
Kumar, N. 2007. The Politics of Gender, Community, and Modernity: Essays on Education in
India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Metcalf, B. D. 1982. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900. Princeton:

Princeton University Press.
Minault, G. 1998. Secluded scholars: women's education and Muslim social reform in
colonial India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Seth, S. 2008. Subject lessons: the Western education of colonial India. New Delhi, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Shahidullah, K. 1987. Patshalas into schools: the development of indigenous elementary

education in Bengal, 1854-1905. Calcutta: Firma KLM.
Viswanathan, G. 1990. Masks of conquest: literary study and British rule in India. London:
Faber.
Zastoupil, L. and M. Moir eds. 1999. The Great Indian Educational Debate: Documents
Relating to the Orientalist-Anglicist Controversy, 1781-1843. Surrey: Curzon Press.

Education - 2: Nation, Caste, Religion and Gender: Colonial State and Ideology

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Education--2: Nation, Caste, Religion and Gender

Lesson: Education--2: Nation, Caste, Religion and Gender

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Chapter 3: Colonial state and ideology

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

3.3.2 Education II: nation, caste, religion and gender

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

The meek dictator

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

The pliant student?

Western education was to transform knowledge and the recipient of

Education and the public sphere: the Hindi-Urdu controversy

Value addition: from the sources

Schools and Khari Boli

This is an excerpt from an examination conducted in Allahabad by the Hindi Sahitya

Religion and education

Mission schools after 1857

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

defended students from charges of sedition and disloyalty and

The dilemmas of Islam

Tradition and modernity: women and education

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Figure 3.3.2.2: Tahzib un-Niswan, Cover 2 July 1932

Source: Minault, G. 1998. Secluded scholars: Women's Education and Muslim

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Value addition: from the sources

Struggle for women's education

- Rasasundari Dasi'sautobiography Amar Jiban. (Forbes 1996).

Source: Forbes, G. H. 1996. Women in modern India. Cambridge: Cambridge

Caste and education

'Modern' education and community-based knowledge

Lower caste assertion

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Nationalism and education

Education and the emergence of nationalism

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Nationalist educational experiments

Other educational experiments: Tagore and Gandhi

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Conclusion: modernity, tradition and pedagogy

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Question Number Type of question LOD

Justification/ Feedback for the correct answer

Resource/Hints/Feedback for the wrong answer

Question Number Type of question LOD

State whether true or false:

Justification/ Feedback for the correct answer

Resource/Hints/Feedback for the wrong answer

Question Number Type of question LOD

English Literature emerged as a school subject in India before it did in England.

Justification/ Feedback for the correct answer

According to literary critic Gauri Viswanathan, English Literature emerged early in

Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

Resource/Hints/Feedback for the wrong answer

According to literary critic Gauri Viswanathan, English Literature emerged early in

Question Number Type of question LOD

4 Match the following 2

Education-related development Year

a) Wood's Despatch i) 1882

b) Charter Act ii) 1904