31 Nationalist responses to colonial education

Ganesha Somayaji

INTRODUCTION

This module discusses some of the responses of nationalists towards the intervention of colonial masters in the field of education in India. It is pertinent to note at the outset that the formation of the very ideology of nationalism aimed at national unity of the Indian subcontinent as a whole is one of the latent consequences of the introduction of modern education by the European rulers. While analysing the history of the rise of nationalism in India, Desai (1976) had argued that it was a product of the action and interaction of various objectives and subjective social forces and factors which evolved in the historical processes during the British period. The economic environment and socio-cultural climate of pre-British India could not give birth to national consciousness of the modern type. The economic transformation of the Indian subcontinent during the British period along with such other factors as modern transport, new education and the press contributed towards the unification of the Indian people and emergence of nationalist consciousness among them (Ibid: 432). The idea of building nation-states for governance on the basis of several commonalities was a novel political development of modernity and it entered India through colonial education. Introduction of modern education by the colonial rulers in India evoked varieties of responses which we will attempt to analyse

Colonial Education and Emergence of Indian Nationalism

In his historical materialist analysis of the emergence and development of Indian nationalism, Desai (1976: 432-441) conceives five chief phases of its development. As and when it advanced its social base broadened. Though the widening of the social base of Indian nationalism during the later phases of freedom struggle was due to a number of other factors and forces, its narrow social base during the first phase consisted of the intelligentsia who were the product of modern education imparted in the new educational institutions established by the British in India during the first decades of the 19 th century. This phase extended till 1885 and culminated in the rise of the Indian National Congress (INA) in that year. The emergence and growth of western type of nationalism itself is one of the latent consequences of the introduction of modern western education by the colonisers.

The introduction of modern education in India was primarily motivated by the political-administrative and economic needs of Britain in India. The expanding Empire in India and the expanding trade in India necessitated a large pool of educated manpower well versed in English. Considered as ‘instrumentalist version’ by later analysts like Kumar (2005: 26), we also find such views in Desai’s analysis of the reasons for the introduction of English education for Indians. “These educational institutions provided clerks for the government and commercial offices, lawyers versed in the structure and processes of the new legal system, doctors trained in modern medical science, technicians, and teachers”.

Desai (1976: 140-141) recognises another motive for the introduction of English education in India which is the “anglicising” programme suggested by some enlightened Britishers. As against those who advocated education in oriental knowledge in Sanskrit and Persian, the Anglicists were convinced that the British culture was the best and the most liberal in the world and if and when India and other colonies and later on the entire world were “anglicised” culturally it would pave for the political unification of the world. To get an idea of such a sentiment we may refer to the views of Macaulay in his famous ‘Minutes dated 2nd February 1835 “We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, – a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.”

While the idea that the British introduced modern education to train clerks has wide currency, Kumar (1985: PE 45 and 2005: 26-27) considers it as theoretically feeble and historically untenable. Its theoretical weakness lies in the fact that it does not help us to distinguish between the ideas underlying the educational system and its practical purposes. A plain view of colonial education as a factory producing clerks is a purely instrumentalist view point which cannot be supported by facts. Along with producing clerks colonial education also produced the nationalist leaders and many professionals and intellectuals not just office clerks. Kumar (1985: PE 45) succinctly summarises the complex and multifaceted influence of colonial education on Indian society. “No simple model or statement will help us understand why colonial education had the kinds of effects it had. It socialised many into colonial values; at the same time, it turned many of its products against those values. The rejection of colonial education may not have been sustained for long periods, but the broader rejection of colonial rule was sustained and we cannot ignore the role of education in inspiring this rejection.”

Indian nationalism emerged under conditions of political subjection of Indian people by the British. Introduction of modern education is one among several other radical changes such as centralised administration and modern means of transport and communication that the British introduced in India. A complex mix of all these factors and processes together facilitated the emergence and growth of nationalism in India.

Nationalist Responses to Colonial Education

During the vast span of colonial rule in India, there were multiple responses by nationalists to colonial education. Different types of nationalisms emerged and developed during this period. Nationalist attempt to politically unite the Indian people to demand for independence was just the latest version of nationalism. Soon after the introduction of colonial education, various leaders attempted to unite Indians and build a new India on the basis of their conceptions of the essence of Indian culture and requirements of their time. Reform, revival, social wellbeing, and achieving political freedom from colonial rule were some of the ideologies that guided formation of associations and activities of national leaders from time to time. Let us discuss the responses of various nationalist leaders to colonial education. We will discern their critic of colonial education and programmes of action.

Introduction of Modern Education and Early Socio-Religious Reform Movements

In the early decades of the 19th century the responses to western education were in the form of reform movements in India. They were religious-reform movements which preceded the emergence of nationalism in India. Such movements were harbingers of national awakening even in the West. Medieval feudal religion was not suited to the new modern living conditions. Therefore, anti-religious revolt preceded the secular national political revolt against feudal religion. In India also the first national awakening expressed itself in the form of a series of religious-reform moments. Some movements aimed at reforming the traditional religion in the spirit of liberal principles and other movements aimed at reviving the pure forms of socio-religious conditions existed in ancient times (Desai 1976: 286-287).

The first of such movements is the Brahmo Samaj established in 1928 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) who is considered as the Father of Indian Nationalism. He was a democrat and a humanist. The Brahmo Samaj was not merely a religious reform movement. It included in its programmes items of social and political reform. The Raja advocated English education for Indians. He stood for the freedom of the press. By advocating liberal western education and by supporting socially relevant legislation such as the ban on Sati, Ram Mohan Roy inaugurated the Modern Age in India. This movement was the precursor of other social reform movements such as the Prarthana Samaj founded by M. G. Ranade in 1867 in Mumbai and the initial secular programmes of the Indian National Congress. Desai (1976: 290) succinctly summarises the contributions of the Brahmo Samaj thus- “The Brahmo Samaj inaugurated a new era for the Indian people by proclaiming the principles of individual freedom, national unity, solidarity and collaboration, and democratisation of all social institutions and social relations. It was the first organised expression of their national awakening.”

Revivalist-Nationalist Responses to Colonial Education

During the later decades of the 19th century western educated Indians became a separate category of Indians who started to gather together and discuss the reasons for backwardness of India which they started to conceive as one national entity. The formation of the Indian National Congress by these educated Indians was a major historical event in the history of Indian nationalism. The first phase of the growth of Indian nationalism corresponds to this event. The period from 1885 to 1905 constitutes the second phase which saw the expansion of the social base of Indian nationalism with the inclusion of the educated middle class which had grown in size due to the expansion of educational facilities. These initial nationalists were not against the colonial rule but facilitated the educated Indians to form a class by themselves to urge the rulers to introduce reforms in governance. They voiced such demands as Indianisation of services, associating the Indians in administration, and stopping economic drain.

According to Kumar (1989 and 2005) the views of early Indian nationalists on the role of colonial education show some homonymy between the early nationalist and the colonial perspective. Except Gandhi who rejected English education, even Swamy Dayanand Saraswati who founded the revivalist movement Arya Samaj and B. G. Tilik who represented the extremist nationalist group in their earlier career accepted the need for English education in India. In the schools started by the Arya Samaj English education was included in the curriculum. Referring to the biographies of Dayanand Saraswati and Tilak, Kumar (2005: 160) observes that “In the case of Dayanand and Tilak, the initial acknowledgement of the advantages of English education later turned into a radical opposition to it. In the first edition of Dayanand’s Satyartha Prakash, English education was appreciated for the opportunities it offered for employment.”

Similar views were held by Tilak in the initial years of his political career. He preferred secular English education to religious education imparted in traditional schools. He was instrumental in naming a famous school in Pune as “New English School”. His views underwent a drastic change in his later career. Later on, he adopted an extremely critical stand against English education. Following the efforts of Madan Mohan Malaviya to establish a Hindu university at Banaras, Tilak’s vision of education as an agency for cultural revival became an important ingredient of his political aims (Kumar 2005: 160)”.

Gokhale and Lajpat Rai on Colonial Education

While comparatively examining the views of Gokhale and Lajpat Rai on the role of British education on the progress of India, Kumar (2005: 161-165) finds a clear position taken by Gokhale and an ambivalent one by Lajpat Rai. Considering English education as necessary for the progress of Indians, Gokhale criticised the colonial government for restricted expansion of education, especially primary education. He wanted to expand free and compulsory primary education for all children and attempted to bring about legislation in the Imperial Legislative Council. His fervent plea for expansion of modern education in India shows his recognition of the positive impact of the colonial education though he was aware of the negative impact of the same.

Lajpat Rai was Gokhale’s contemporary in Lahore who pursed his interest in education throughout his political career and wrote a book entitled The Problem of National Education in India (Rai 1966) which was published in 1920 as a commentary on the efforts made since the Swadeshi movement to develop a ‘national’ model of education. During his visit to America in 1905 he studied the American educational system and was influenced by the Spenserian ideas of evolution and progress. He was associated with the formation of Arya Samaj educational institutions and at the same time believed that India needed modern education. The ambivalence and lack of clarity notwithstanding, Lajpat Rai was concerned with educational reforms in India. Sometimes he even criticised the British for not expanding modern educational facilities in India.

Responses of Tagore and Gandhi to Colonial Education

The views and pedagogic programmes of Tagore and Gandhi were in consonance with their contrasting positions in response to advancement of science and technology in modern Europe. Tagore was fascinated by the epistemology of science and achievements of science and technology in solving the problems of mankind. This view he continued almost till the fag end of his life and he only changed it after witnessing the devastating effects of World War II (Kumar 2005: 168-175). Both his Shanti Niketan and Shri Niketan experiments need to be looked at from Tagore’s orientation to the western liberal scientific education.

Tagore criticised and rejected the western educational model only towards the end of his life. But Gandhi’s rejection was more pronounced and consistent throughout. Gandhi’s rejection of colonial education was much stronger than that of Tagore. Gandhi rejected not only western education but the western civilisation in its entirety. Quoting Gandhi, Kumar (2005: 175) writes: “The fact that western men had spent ‘all their energy, industry and enterprise in plundering and destroying other races’ was evidence enough for Gandhi that western civilization was in a state of ‘sorry mess ’. Therefore, it could not possibly be a symbol of ‘progress’, or something worth imitating or transplanting in India.”

Analysing further Kumar (2005: 175-176) states that such a reaction is neither a type of xenophobia nor a symptom of a revivalist dogma. Both anti-westernism and a version of militant nationalism are missing in Gandhi’s educational ideology and programme. Gandhi wanted India to move away from the western concept of progress. He wanted an education that would lead India on an alternate path of development more suitable to its geography and culture.

In Hind Swaraj he developed dialectic between ‘man’ versus ‘machine’. Here ‘man’ represented the whole of mankind and the ‘ machine’ represented the industrial system of production. The scathing criticism of modernity which Gandhi explicated in Hind Swaraj, was a commentary on the ‘tragic affliction’ (Kumar (2005: 177). The idea of ‘Basic Education’ which Gandhi attempted to experiment in later decades of his life stems from his idea of making the whole of humanity less dependent on machines.

Concluding Remarks

Desai (1976) has succinctly articulated the nationalist critique of colonial education. He has also analysed why attempts made by nationalists at organising a parallel education system on nationalist lines were unsuccessful. Since modern education was introduced in India to primarily meet the needs of the colonial administration, its scope and effectiveness, from the standpoint of Indian masses, had been extremely limited. The focus of the colonial education policy has been more towards providing the British with English speaking and modern educated personnel. Given this agenda, mass education was severely neglected. Even as late as 1931, 92 percent of the Indian population remained illiterate. The number of students studying in higher education in 1942 was just 0.5 percent of the population. The shortage was even more acute in the area of technical education.

The Indian nationalists also criticised the expensive nature of colonial education which made it out of bounds for a large section of Indians. One reason for this could be the fear of the British that a larger number of educated Indians would make governance more difficult for them. The nationalists also critiqued the colonial Government for not making education a priority in their budgetary provisions.

There were various other socio-cultural grounds on which the nationalists opposed colonial education. They alleged that this education did not give a true picture of Indian life, but it gave a distorted account of India’s past and glorified British rule. Further as this education was transmitted in English, a foreign language, to suit the needs of the British, it restarted the rapid assimilation of knowledge and created a chasm between the educated Indians and common people of India (Desai 1976: 154).

In order to overcome the inadequacies of the colonial education system, the nationalists made many attempts at organising a parallel education system on national lines. But for a variety of reasons, these did not succeed. As private as well as government services gave employment to those holding degrees and diplomas from state run universities, not many students went to independent universities. There was also no consensus among the nationalists on the preferential scheme of national education. While Malaviya, Gandhi and the Arya Samajists advocated religious instruction, leaders like Nehru, emphasising the rational nature of education preferred a purely secular education. Despite the differences in their approaches, the nationalists were unanimous in stressing the need for mass education. “It is obvious that an ignorant and illiterate nation can never make any solid progress and must fall in the race of life (Desai 1976: 156).”

REFERENCES

• Bhat, B. D. 1995. Modern Indian Education: Planning and Development. New Delhi: Kanishka Publications.
• Desai, A. R. (1976 Fifth Edition 1993 Reprint). Social Background of Indian Nationalism. Bombay: Porpular
• Prakashan.
• Dwivedi, Bhanwar Lal. 1994. Evolution of Educational thought in India. New Delhi: Northern Book Centre.
• Kaur, Kuldeep. 1985. Education in India (1781-1985): Policies, Planning and Implementation.
• Chandigarh: Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development.
• Kumar, Krishna. (2005 Second Edition). Political Agenda of Education: A Study of Colonialist and Nationalist
• Ideas. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
• Kumar, Krishna. 1989. “Colonial Citizen as an Educational Ideal”, in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 24, No.
• 4 (Jan. 28, 1989), pp. PE45-PE51.
• Sing, Ravi, and Sing, Sohan, Rawat. 2013. “Ravindranath Tagore’s contribution in Education”, in VSRD
• International Journal of Technical & Non-Technical Research, Vol. IV Issue VIII August 2013.

Web Resources

• http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/naitalem.pdf
• http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/31750/7/07_chapter%201.pdf
• http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/31750/9/09_chapter%203.pdf
• www.vsrdjournals.com
• http://inflibnet.ac.in/ojs/index.php/SHSS/article/viewFile/3951/3101