द ब्यूटीफुल ट्री: १८वीं सदी में भारत की स्वदेशी गुरुकुल शिक्षा (धर्मपाल)

Punjab Report would deal with such a subject. If you find
therefore that your reference was made in error, may I suggest
that you should now withdraw your statement in accordance
with the undertaking given in the last paragraph of your letter to
me of October 23rd?
Yours sincerely,
Sd/-Philip Hartog
P.S.: May I ask from what Report Sir Sankaran Nair’s Note of
Dissent referred to in Mr Gupta’s first article, is quoted? No
reference is given in the article itself.
Sd/- P.H.
M.K. Gandhi, Esq,.
88, Knightsbridge, W.
. . .
88, Knightsbridge
London, S.W. 1,
November 19, 1931
Sir Philip Hartog, K.B.E.
5 Inverness Gardens, W.8.
Dear Sir Philip,
I am much obliged to you for your letter of the 17th inst.
I do not propose just now to withdraw the statement I
made at the meeting at Chatham House. At the present moment
I have not got any time for searching the records to which you
are making reference. I, however, promise not to forget the
matter, and if I find that I cannot support the statement made by
me at Chatham House, I will give my retraction much wider
publicity than the Chatham House speech could ever attain.
Meanwhile I am endeavouring to find out the references
you want.
Yours sincerely,
Sd/- M.K. Gandhi
Sir Philip Hartog, K.B.E.
5 Inverness Gardens, W.8
. . .
361

5,Inverness Gardens,W.8.
20 November 1931
Dear Mr Gandhi,
I am much obliged by your letter of yesterday’s date.
I think it might help matters if you could spare me a few
moments of your valuable time; and I should be glad to call on
you if would suggest a day and hour.
I am,
Yours sincerely,
Sd/- Philip Hartog
M.K. Gandhi, Esq,.
88, Knightsbridge, W.
. . .
5, Inverness
Gardens,W.8.
22nd November 1931
Dear Mrs Naidu,
In accordance with your kind suggestion today I send you
enclosed copies of my letters to Mr Gandhi of 27th October and
17th November. The other letters from me do not contain any
detailed information. Would you kindly return the enclosures at
your convenience?
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
Sd/-Philip Hartog
Mrs Sarojini Naidu,
7, Park Place,
St. James’, S.W.I.
. . .
Scar Top,
Boars Hill, Oxford.
November 23, 1931
Dear Sir Philip Hartog,
I probably under-rate the indigenous system of Indian
education; at any rate, I have never thought it amounted to
much. My statement is not the usual extravagant claim of the
Nationalist, but a pretty mild one.
362

However, you will get the evidence in F.E. Keay, Ancient
Indian Education, Oxford University Press 1918—esp. pp.51, 57,
107 and passim.
Dr Leitner, History of Indigenous Education in the Punjab,
pp.14, 21 passim.
A Report for the Punjab Government issued in 1882.
A.P. Howell, Education in British India Prior to 1854. And
Ludlow, British India.
The Madras Presidency made an enquiry, 1822-6, and
calculated that rather less than one-sixth of the boys of school-
going age received education of some sort. Bombay Presidency,
1823-8, estimated it as one in eight, Bengal, 13.2 percent
(Adam’s enquiry 1835). William Ward supposed that about one-
fifth of the male population of Bengal could read.
I know the difficulties. But I feel more and more that in this
matter, of general education, we did precious little to congratu-
late ourselves on—until the last dozen years. Don’t you agree?
Calcutta University was damned bad. And the Middle Vernacular
schools—
Yours sincerely,
Sd/- Edward Thompson
P.S. I do not believe we destroyed indigenous schools and indige-
nous industries out of malice (which is what is stated, in Ameri-
ca as well as India). It was inevitable.
. . .
363

INTERVIEW WITH MR GANDHI ON DECEMBER 2, 1931
In my last letter to Mr G. relating to his statement at the Royal
Institute of International Affairs on October 20th that literacy in
India had diminished during the last 50 or 100 years (see
Journal of International Affairs November 1931, pp.727, 728,
734, 735). I had asked him for an interview. I received no reply
in writing, but Mrs Sarojini Naidu, to whom I had spoken on the
matter, arranged for an interview today, by telephone, and I went
to see Mr G. at 88, Knightsbridge at 4 p.m. and stayed till five.
He was lying on a sofa covered with his shawl in front of a big
fire, obviously tired, though he insisted on rising both when I
came and when I went. He told me that he had thought his
strength was equal to anything but that he was now saturated. I
suggested that he might be too tired to discuss matters but he
said that it was a pleasure to meet me and he apologised
sincerely for not having written to offer me an appointment.
He admitted at once that he had at present no facts to
substantiate his statements and did not attempt to answer my
argument that the articles in Young India for December 8th and
29th 1920 by Daulat Ram Gupta of which he had furnished me
with typed copies, contained no literacy figures and that the
most recent official report in them, Dr G.W. Leitner’s History of
Indigenous Education in the Punjab was written in 1882 and
could therefore furnish no evidence with regard to the progress
or decline of literacy in India during the last 50 years. He told me
that Mr Mahadeo Desai who was present had been investigating
the matter in the British Museum. Mr Desai admitted that he
had found nothing fresh up to the present. Mr G. said that he
would question the writer of the articles in Young India and that
on his return he would get competent friends to investigate the
matter for him over there and that he would send me a
cablegram with regard to the result, and that in it he would say
whether he had found material that would convince me that he
was right, or that he would apologise handsomely for his
mistake, and would make his withdrawal in such a way as to
reach a much wider audience than his original statement.
I showed him Leitner’s Book and pointed out the statement
on p.3 in which Leitner had pointed out that the Punjab was not
typical but far behind the Central Provinces and Lower Bengal in
the proportion of pupils to population, a statement not referred
to by Mr Gupta though he had quoted figures in regard to
Hushiarpur from p.2. I told Mr G. that the population of British
364

India in 1882 was roughly speaking 210 millions and that it had
increased in 1931 to about 270 millions, i.e. about 30 percent in
round figures, and that during that period the number of pupils
under instruction in British India had increased from about 2½
millions to over 11 millions, i.e. more than 4 times, and that it
would be surprising therefore if literacy had diminished during
these 50 years.
I also pointed out that it was impossible to draw any
accurate conclusions on the other hand in regard to literacy
from the numbers of pupils under instruction. Howell in his
Education in British India had pointed out that for many
reasons, including the early age at which the children are
withdrawn it was almost worthless (loc. cit. p.7). I also
mentioned that during the years 1917-1927 in Bengal with an
increased enrolment of over 3,00,000 pupils (the actual figure is
about 370,000) there had been a decline of about 30,000 pupils
in the number that reached Class IV where under present
conditions, literacy was first attained.
I also showed Mr G. certain figures of literacy for Bengal
from Adam's Report on Vernacular Education of 1835-38 and
compared them with the census figures for 1921 Vol.5, p.302. I
further showed him census figures for 1911 and 1901 taken
from the same volume, p.285, showing considerable increases in
literacy in Burma, Bengal and Madras, though the Punjab,
Bihar, Bombay and United Provinces had made little or no
progress during those years. Mr Gandhi said, 'I know very little
about these things' in a tone of apology, to which I rejoined that
he had no doubt many other things to occupy his attention.
Towards the end of the interview I said that I hoped that he
was now on the side of peace. He replied that he had meant
exactly what he had said on the previous day, that he would
read the Prime Minister's declaration over again and again, and
that he felt the immense personal responsibility that rested on
his shoulders in advising Congress. He said that he had
postponed his departure in order to see Sir Samuel Hoare on the
following Friday as Sir Samuel had said that he would have no
free time during the debate in Parliament (on the Wednesday
and Thursday). I said, 'I am sure you must be convinced that
Englishmen are in earnest in wishing to give India everything
possible at the present moment.' He said, 'Yes, but there is one
thing that the English sincerely believe, but which I cannot
understand. They think us incapable of managing our own
affairs even with the help of experts. When I was a young man
and my father
365

was Prime Minister of an Indian State, I knew the Prime Minister
of another Indian State (Junagarh), who could hardly sign his
own name but who was a very remarkable man and managed
the state wonderfully. He knew just who were the right people to
advise him and took their advice. When I spoke to your own
Prime Minister about the exchange value of the rupee, he said to
me, that he knew nothing about exchange values, that the Prime
Minister had of course to do things in his own name but had
really to depend on experts. We have had experience in
governing in the past and we could do equally well.’
I did not think it worthwhile to pursue the political topic or
to point out the political chaos of India when the British entered
on the scene, as my main object was to secure from Mr Gandhi
the withdrawal of his statement about literacy. I ended up the
interview by saying that I was a man of peace, and had no desire
to enter on a controversy but that I must state the facts in the
Journal of International Affairs, and to this I understood Mr
Gandhi to assent. I wished him a pleasant journey back to India
and said I hoped I had not tired him. He replied that it had been
a real pleasure to see me, and that he hoped to keep in touch
with me.
There were present during the conversation Mr Desai, a tall
young man whose name I did not know, Miss Slade to whom I
was introduced, but who was in a kind of back drawing room for
most of the time, and another young Englishwoman, who
brought Mr Gandhi some fruit at the end of the interview. No one
intervened in the conversation, but once or twice Mr Gandhi
asked Mr Desai for information. It appeared that Mr Desai had
been asked by Mr Gandhi to try to get information from the
British Museum, but that he had been unable to get the books
he had wanted and had not been able to find any facts to
support Mr Gandhi’s statements. Mr Desai accompanied me
downstairs and showed me his British Museum slips for one
book dated 1859, another book of 1867-8, and a book by Wilmot
on “he Indigenous System of Education in India’, of which he
had not the date.
I find I have omitted one statement of some importance. Mr
Gandhi said that he had not accused the British Government of
having destroyed the indigenous schools, but they had let them
die for want of encouragement. I said that they had probably let
them die because they were so bad that they were not worth
keeping up. In the United Provinces Mahomedan witnesses had
told my Committee that the Mahomedan schools not organised
by Government were not an aid but a hindrance to Mahomedan
progress and I knew there were many voluntary schools in other
366

parts of the country of which this might be said. I told Mr
Gandhi that my interest in primary education in India was no
new thing; and that when as a member of the Sadler
Commission I had seen Mr Montagu and Lord Chelmsford in
1918 I had told them both that although university reform was
perhaps the most urgent matter, the problem of primary
education was the fundamental one for India, although I could
not advise on it then. I said that India had probably not yet
found the solution of the problem of giving the agricultural
labourer an education that would make him a more efficient
cultivator without making him want to be a clerk, but that the
Punjab, under the inspiration of the late Mr Richey whose work
had been carried on by Sir George Anderson, had made great
strides in the last ten or fifteen years. I described the system
adopted in Punjab and Mr Gandhi said he had heard of recent
progress in that province. I then told him that Bombay had
probably the most efficient schools in some ways under the
system initiated by Dr Paranjpye, but that the complete transfer
of control to local bodies by his successor had unfortunate
results, as so many district boards were more interested in
politics than in education of which they knew very little.
I next told Mr Gandhi that I could not accept his
suggestion that universal primary education must necessarily be
very remote, and that my Committee had estimated than an
additional recurring expenditure of about 19 crores would bring
about 80 percent of boys and girls into the primary school
system. Mr Gandhi then asked me if I thought that primary
education would be much use unless the children went on to
middle schools. I said that was the next step that would follow,
and that I regarded the encouragement of vernacular middle
schools as of the greatest importance not only for the sake of the
children, but because they produce the primary teachers. I said
that I was sorry that Bengal despised vernacular middle schools
and insisted on English teaching middle schools.
We then spoke of girls’ education and I quoted the opinion
of my Committee that in all schemes of expansion priority
should be given to the claims of girls. Mr Gandhi said that he
entirely agreed, but he asked himself whether primary education
would make girls better mothers. Mr Gandhi said that he had
not read the Report of my Committee. I asked him if he would
like to do so on his journey back to which he said yes and I
promised to send him a copy.
(These notes were dictated on December 2nd and December 4th)
367

5,Inverness Gardens,W.8.
2 December 1931
Dear Mr Thompson,
My apologies for not having acknowledged your kind letter
of November 23rd with its references earlier. I was familiar with
Adam’s Reports and Leitner, and with Howell from quotations. I
have looked at Keay, and I’m afraid he doesn’t impress me. I will
ask F.W. Thomas what he thinks of the book, but it all seems to
me second-hand.
After going through your reference I am still in doubt as to
whether the statement on p.255 of the ‘Reconstruction of India’
‘Nevertheless there was more literacy if of a low kind, than until
the last ten years’ is justifiable. You mention figures for Bombay
schools and Bengal schools. But from my experience of Indian
schools it is a far cry from attendance to literacy.
In the ten years 1917-27 with an increased enrolment of
nearly 370,000 pupils in Bengal, the number in Class IV, where
first you may expect permanent literacy, declined by 30,000.
(See EDn Comtee of Simon Commission Report, p.59, including
Table xxxiv).
I imagine from my reading of Adam, and Howell and
Leitner—all pressing the claims of indigenous education—that
this kind of thing is not new.
Did you notice in Long’s edition of Adam p.268 a quotation
from a report of Mountstuart Elphinstone dated 25 October
1819 in which he says:
‘There are already schools (in the Deccan) in all towns and
in many villages, but reading is confined to Brahmans, Banyans,
and such of the agricultural classes as have to do with
accounts.’
And Howell, p.7, in referring to Adam’s estimate that there
were 100,000 schools in Bengal in 1835 and similar estimates in
Madras and Bombay says ‘although all authorities were agreed
that the existence of these schools was a satisfactory evidence of
a general desire for education, there was equal unanimity that
the instruction actually imparted in them was, owing partly to
the utter incompetence of the teachers, the absence of all school
books and appliances, and the early age at which the children
were withdrawn, almost worthless.’
All the people I have quoted wanted Government to build
up a system on the basis of the village schools.
368

Adam gives some literacy figures which are worth
examining in detail. I will look up the Census returns for the
actual districts for which Adam has given figures.
Yours sincerely,
Sd/- P.J. Hartog
. . .
Scar Top,
Boars Hill, Oxford.
December 5, 1931
Dear Sir Philip Hartog,
I am really not clear as to what we are disputing about.
My statement is mild enough, moderate enough and its
purpose is plain. I was obviously trying to go to the limits of
concession that truth permitted, as to claims that I consider
entirely wrong. That seems to me the only way to get a
controversy forward. I never did believe in the method of
belittling whatever case my opponent, whether British
imperialist or Indian nationalist, may have. The context makes it
clear that I have never thought that Indian schools amounted to
much. It makes equally clear what I remember quite well was in
my mind when I wrote that passage—this was that I do not agree
with the steady crabbing of the last dozen years but to
emphasise that on the whole they have been years far more
progressive than any previous decade.
Of course—literacy and school attendance are not the same
thing. They are not the same even now. But that is the realm of
the imponderable and not worth arguing. If it comes to that, just
now I rank mere literacy low enough. It seems to me we are in
for a rotten ten years of struggle to keep any sort of decency
alive. I may be overdepressed; but I saw the utter wash that the
‘literate’ populace of the United States read as their only gain
from education, and I come back to this country to find that the
weeklies are dying or recently dead, and that Daily Mail, Daily
Express, and the infamous Sunday popular papers are about all
the reading that Demos does. I believe the most popular weekly
is ‘Competitions’, which guides the huge mob whose sole
intellectual recreation (an absorbing and costly one) is making
‘bullets’ or cross-word puzzles (sending up six-pence a time). On
the other hand, Akbar was ‘illiterate’.
There are in India poor folk who never went to any sort of
school who have learnt to read. But these of course are few. They
369

pay a few pice to be coached by some student. There must be
more literacy in the sense of reading the vernaculars, than the
numbers in schools indicate, or else how could every Bengal
bazaar swarm with these frightfully printed (but cheap) texts of
Ramprasad, Chandidas, Krittibas's Ramayana (before the War,
according to Dinesh Sen, two hundred thousand sold every
year), even of Bhadu songs (which are sung only in two
divisions)? Sarat Chatterjee told me that in 1921 the twelve
annas edition of his fiction had brought him in twelve thousand
rupees in royalties, which I estimate to be a sale of two hundred
thousand. But the semi-religious texts swarm and always have
done, irrespectively of the number in schools.
I will go into the matter when in India next spring. But my
impression has steadily deepened that the first real advance we
made—in most things—began about 1917. I do not think you
will believe how stagnant officialdom was before the War. When I
started in educational work in Bengal, the M.V. Schools used to
pour an indescribably turbid stream into the fourth class of our
high school—literate, if you like, but it would have been almost
better if they were not. And the Education department was
shocking. The acting Lieut. Governor was the notoriously
inefficient Slack, and the D.P.I. the notoriously lazy Kuchler. I do
not believe that a century ago there was widespread literacy. But
neither do I believe that anything we ever did for education
before about 1917 made any serious difference or improvement.
We give ourselves many unjustified chits. But I will stand up for
what we have done since the unfairly abused Montagu-
Chelmsford Reforms.
Previous to 1917, what were the figures of literacy? Four or
five per cent of the population? I believe they were higher a
century ago. But the only way of proving this would be by
finding out what sales in the very much smaller population of
that day (though the first census was 1871, was it not?) were
achieved for the popular classics.
Yours sincerely,
Sd/- Edward Thompson
(IN HAND FOLLOWING TYPED LETTER)
P.S. ‘Banyan’ is a usual way of referring to ‘Banias’, in East India
Company documents.
I have again read carefully through your letter. It seems to
me that we are in agreement. Obviously we both think that (a)
370

the literacy of a century ago amounted to very little to justify a
song about it (b) that the average M.E. or M.C. schools of prewar
days was a farce. We used to be asked continually to take over
village ‘M.V.’ schools, with a failed Inter Arts or even failed
Matric, as their head, and their students appalled me. Our own
high school boys were bad enough but...I tell you what it is. The
prewar administration of India in many ways was appalling. I
know the difficulties. But tell me—what is it that has been wrong
with Indian administration? I am reading old records by pre-
Mutiny residents. They teem with information that makes you
hope the Congresswalla will never get hold of it. Oxford swarms
with ex-I.C.S. I like and respect them very much indeed. But
what has happened to the often first class record of intellect they
had before entering the I.C.S.? It seems to me the very
hopelessness of...huge Indian job used to oppress and...us. We
did not do anything like as much as Englishmen should have
done.
I scandalously ran on to the back of this—which I never do
hurriedly—to keep it short. You see, I sail December 24, and I
am shockingly overworked until I get off.
· · ·
TO THE EDITOR, ‘INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS’ (Extract from
‘International Affairs’, the journal of the Royal Institute for
International Affairs, for January, 1932. p. 151.)
Sir,
At a very largely attended meeting at Chatham House on
October 20th last, Mr Gandhi said:
‘I say without fear of my figures being challenged
successfully that today India is more illiterate than it was
fifty or a hundred years ago, and so is Burma, because the
British administrators, when they came to India, instead of
taking hold of things as they were, began to root them
out.’¹
It will be seen from the report of the meeting that Mr
Gandhi did not at the time quote the figures to which he
referred. I therefore asked him if he would give his authority for
the statement that literacy had diminished during the last fifty
years and he replied:
371

‘that his authority was the Punjab Administration Reports,
and said that he had published in Young India a study of
the Punjab educational statistics.’²
I wrote at once to Mr Gandhi asking him for precise
references. In response to my request he has been good enough
to furnish me with typed copies of two articles on the ‘Decline of
Mass Education’ by Mr Daulat Ram Gupta, published in ‘Young
India’ for December 8th and December 29th, 1920. These
articles do not, however, contain a single literacy percentage
either for the Punjab or Burma or for India generally, nor do they
contain any direct reference to Punjab Administration Reports.
They do, however, refer to the ‘History of Indigenous Education
in the Punjab’ by Dr G.W. Leitner, an educational official in the
Punjab, which refers to some of these reports. But Dr Leitner’s
Report was published forty-nine years ago, in 1882, and I have
been unable to discover in it any literacy percentages.
I have drawn Mr Gandhi’s attention to, these facts. The
present position is that Mr Gandhi has so far been unable to
substantiate his statement in any way. I have to add that in the
course of a friendly correspondence, and also at an interview
which 1 had with him on December 2nd, he has undertaken to
retract that statement if he cannot support it. I think it best to
postpone any further comment on the question until I receive his
promised communication.
Yours faithfully,
Sd/- P. J. Hartog
5 Inverness Gardens,
Vicarage Gate, W. 8.
December 14, 1931
. . .
372

LETTER OF MR M.K. GANDHI TO SIR PHILIP HARTOG
(COPY)
Dear Friend,
I am sorry I was unable, owing to circumstances beyond
my control, to fulfill the promise I gave you about my statement
on the condition of Primary education in India during the pre-
British time. Immediately on my landing I entrusted the research
to Advocate Munshi, a member of the Bombay University senate,
and two other educationist friends. But they too like me find
themselves civil resistance prisoners. I had asked Advocate
Munshi to put himself in direct touch with you. But his arrest
came so soon after mine that I hardly think he could have
corresponded with you. As I am permitted to carry on non-
political correspondence, I have now asked Prof Shah to test my
statement and give you the result of his test. As I found in you a
fellow seeker after truth, I was most anxious to give you
satisfaction either by confirming my statement or withdrawing it
as publicly as I had made it. I thought that I would tell you what
I had done in pursuance of my promise.
As I have not your private address by me, I am sending this
to you under care India Office.
Yours Sincerely,
Sd/-M. K. Gandhi.
Yeravda Central Prison,
Poona. 15.2.32.
. . .
45, Chowpatty Road, Bombay (7)
20th February, 1932
Dear Sir Philip,
I have been informed by Mahatma Gandhi that during his
stay in London recently, and while speaking at some public
meeting about the state of education in British India before the
advent of the British in this country, he remarked that the
extent of literacy was greater in those days than at the present
time. He adds that you had questioned the accuracy of that
statement, and called upon Mr Gandhi to furnish proof in
support of the same. Mahatmaji has, I understand, referred you
to some writings in the Young India; but you do not consider
373

that sufficient proof; and so has asked me if I could find any
more acceptable substantiation for that observation. I am,
therefore, addressing you this letter to try and offer that
substantiation, as far as the records available could permit of my
doing so. If you care to acknowledge this letter to Mahatmaji,
would you at the same time send me a copy of the same?
To begin with, I need hardly point out to you that, at the
time under reference, no country in the world had anything like
definite, authoritative, statistical information of the type one
would now recognise as proper proof in such discussions. In
India particularly, thanks to the distracted state of the country,
it was impossible to provide any such material on a nation-wide
basis, even supposing it had been customary to compile such
information from time to time. The elaborate ‘directory’, if I may
so describe it, of the territories under his rule, compiled by the
indefatigable Minister of the great Akbar known as the Ayeen-i-
Akbari, was prepared so long before the advent of the British
that I feel a hesitation even in referring to it, apart from the
further fact that authoritative work suffers from other blemishes
in the eyes of a too critical reader. All, therefore, that one can
expect by way of proof in such matters, and at such a time, can
only be in the form of impressions of people in a position to form
ideas a little better and more scientific than those of less
fortunately situated, or less well endowed, observers. Such
official investigations as were ordered in connection with the
periodical parliamentary enquiries before the renewal of the
Company’s Charter in 1793, 1813, 1833, and 1853 also afford
some data, though these have their own defect as is pointed out
below. Other official enquiries, reports, or obiter dicta of qualified
officers, were originally for a purpose different from the one
under reference here; and, therefore, discussion or observation
on educational matters therein must needs be taken as
incidental rather than as the immediate subject of their concern,
and consequently open to such defects as all such incidental ob-
servation suffers from.
For the immediate purpose of this letter, will you permit me
to begin by referring you to the reports of certain provincial
enquiries conducted about the time when the British rule first
began in those provinces? Let me, however, add a remark as ap-
plied to the country, at large, on the authority of Max Mueller,
and another on the authority of the historian Ludlow,—both
mentioned in Keir Hardie’s work on India. ‘Max Mueller, on the
strength of official documents and missionary reports,
374

concerning education in Bengal prior to the British occupation,
asserts that there were then 80,000 schools in Bengal, or one for
every 400 of the population. Ludlow, in his History of British
India, says that “in every village, which has retained its old form,
I am assured that the children generally are able to read, write
and cipher; but where we have swept away the village system,
there the village school has also disappeared.” (Cp. B.D. Basu,
Education in India under the E.1. Co., p18).
In Bombay, which came under British rule after the fall of
the Peshwas in 1818, a Report of the Bombay Education Society
for 1819 observes:— ‘There is probably as great a proportion of
persons in India who can read, write, and keep simple accounts,
as are to be found in European countries.’ The same Report for
the following year notes:— ‘Schools are frequent among the na-
tives, and abound everywhere.’ In April, 1821, Mr Prendergast,
member of the Executive Council of the then Government of
Bombay, notes in a Minute on an application for 2 English
schools in Thana or Panwell Talukas:— ‘I need hardly mention
what every member of the Board knows as well as I do that there
is hardly a village, great or small, throughout our territories, in
which there is not at least one school, and in larger villages
more; many in every town and in large cities in every division
where young natives are taught reading, writing and arithmetic,
upon a system so economical, from a handful or two of grain, to
perhaps a rupee per month to the schoolmaster, according to the
ability of the parents, and at the same time so simple and
effectual, that there is hardly a cultivator or petty dealer who is
not competent to keep his own accounts with a degree of
accuracy, in my opinion, beyond what we meet with among the
lower orders in our own country; whilst the more splendid
dealers and bankers keep their books with a degree of ease,
conciseness, and clearness I rather think fully equal to those of
any British merchants.’ (Cp. Commons Report, 1832, p.468).
I shall come to Madras in a moment, and revert to
statistical proof such as I can find,—thereafter. Let me here refer
you to the classic case of Dr Leitner’s Report on the system of
Indigenous Education in the Punjab, based on an investigation
carried out by the learned Doctor,—principal of a Government
College, because of a surprising difference between his figures of
the people educated in indigenous schools, and those supplied
by the Director of Public Instruction for the province, to the
Indian Education Committee of 1882. Dr Leitner remarks, in his
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introduction to his Report,—'In short the lowest computation
gives us 330,000 pupils (against little more than 190,000 at
present) in the schools of the various denominations, who were
acquainted with reading, writing and some method of
computation; whilst thousands of them belonged to Arabic and
Sanskrit colleges, in which oriental literature and systems of
Oriental Law, Logic, Philosophy and Medicine, were taught to the
highest standards.' I would particularly commend to your
attention this classic document of 650 odd pages (folio), the
more so as Dr Sir Wm. Hunter, president of the Indian
Education Committee, made a special Minute to the Report of
that Committee (pp.621-2) in which he found that Dr Leitner's
estimate of 120,000 pupils in the Punjab was actually an
underestimate by some 15,000, while the official figure supplied
by the D.P.I. of the province was below the actual figure by some
80,000 pupils. Incidentally, this will suffice to show how
imperfect, inaccurate, undependable, was the official statistical
information for these early days, when the people viewed with
easily intelligible suspicion enquiries of this nature, and so
passively refused to afford the correct information wherever and
whenever they could help it. Without minimising in the least
degree the value of statistical evidence, I cannot but add that
such evidence is worse than useless, when we recall the
conditions under which it was compiled, as also the
temperament and training of the officials who helped in
compiling the same in those primitive times of British rule in
India.
Let me now speak of Madras, that earliest settlement of
British rule in India, and even now said to be the best educated
province in the Empire. Sir T. Munro, in a Minute dated
10.3.1826 (Commons Report, 1832, p.506) observes that, taking
the male part of the population only, and taking children of
between 5-10 years of age only, as school going population,
(assumed to be one-ninth of the total population) there were
713,000 male pupils that would be at school. The actual number
of pupils in recognised schools was found by him to be 184,110
which works out to be a little over a fourth of the total school-
going population. Sir Thomas, however, was of opinion that the
actual proportion was nearer one-third than one-fourth, owing to
a large number of children receiving instruction privately, and so
not included in the above calculation.
In Bengal, (Cp. Adam's Report, 1838) the total number of
children between 5-14 years of age is taken at 87,629. Of these,
6,786 were returned as receiving instruction in the recognised
schools, or 7.7%. This includes both men and women, girls as
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well as boys, while in Madras only the male population was
considered. On that basis, this figure could be easily raised to at
least 15% of the total. There is reason to prefer this basis for
calculation, since, under the conditions and ideas of the time,
women could not go for education to schools publicly recognised;
and so a proper index for judging of the real state of literacy is
rather the male population than the total. Again, the percentage
of population receiving instruction, compared to the total of
school-going age, would be still higher, if we would bear in mind
the fact that the so called untouchables formed part of the total,
but could not, necessarily, be included in the people receiving
instruction as these were not admitted into public institutions.
In the Bombay Presidency, the total population was
returned in 1829 at 4,681,735. The total number of scholars in
schools was 35,153. If we take, with Sir T. Munro, one-ninth of
the population to be of school-going age, the total figure of
school-going age would be 520,190. This gives a percentage of 7
to the total of school-going age; while if we confine ourselves only
to males, the percentage of scholars to the total population
(male) of school-going age would be 14. This proportion is more
than borne out by the later Report of 1841, relating to only 9
selected districts in the Presidency.
The following comparative position, between the state of
things now and a hundred years ago, would be instructive, if not
conclusive. Percentages of population of school-going age
receiving primary education in 1921 (males only) and a 100
years ago (roughly):
Madras 42.5 33
Bombay 45.1 14 (highest 28 in some parts)
Bengal 37.2 16 (highest 32 in some parts)
I have already pointed out that these statistical data for the
earlier period are undependable, because (1) the figures for
privately educated children are not available; (2) the people were
averse to disclosing what they thought to be unwarrantable bits
of information; (3) the compilers of this information were not of
requisite efficiency or intelligence; (4) certain large sections of the
population were necessarily excluded, and had to be excluded
from these calculations, if they were to be at all reliable; and so
the mere percentages, uncorrected, are of no use. The closer
enquiry of this type conducted by Leitner is far more reliable,
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and so also the obiter dicta of people in the position to have clear
impressions. These people, also, generally obtained their
impressions of the state of education in the area under their
charge, only incidentally, while collecting information for Land
Revenue Settlement of their districts; and the primary object was
not to discover the real state of education in the country, but
something quite different. Hence even those impressions must
be held to give rather an underestimate than otherwise of the
true state of affairs in this behalf, in view of the considerations
mentioned already.
Yours truly,
Sd/-K.T. Shah
. . .
5 Inverness Gardens,
Vicarage Gate, London, W.8.
9 March, 1932
M.K. Gandhi, Esq.,
Yervada Central Prison,
Poona,
India.
Dear Mr Gandhi,
Many thanks for your kind letter of February 15, which
reached me last night. I fully understand your difficulties in
carrying out your promise. I received by the same post as your
own a long letter from Professor K.T. Shah dated February 20,
which he has no doubt sent to you, but the letter contains
absolutely no data which would enable one to judge whether
literacy had advanced or declined during the last fifty years; it
contains not a single literacy percentage. I have been very much
pressed by other work, but I have in a rough state material for
two or three articles on the progress of literacy in Bengal during
the last hundred years, of which I will send copies both to
yourself and Professor Shah when they are completed. The
position is still that you are unable to supply the figure to which
you referred in your address at the Royal Institute of
International Affairs on October 20. I feel sure that you will be
convinced by the facts as stated in my articles, which are not in
any way converted by the statements in Professor Shah's letter. I
enclose a copy of my reply to Professor Shah and also a copy of a
letter dated
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December 14th which appeared in the Journal of the Royal
Institute for January.
With every good wish, I am,
Yours sincerely,
Sd/- Philip Hartog
· · ·
5 Inverness Gardens,
London, W.8.
March 10, 1932
Professor K.T. Shah
45 Chowpatty Road,
Bombay (7).
Dear Professor Shah,
I am much obliged for your letter of February 20, and for
the great trouble, you have taken in this matter. I received a
letter dated February 15 from Mahatma Gandhi by the same
post, and am sending to him a copy of this reply to you. I enclose
copies of my reply to him, and of a letter from me which
appeared in ‘International Affairs’, (the Journal of the Royal
Institute of International Affairs) for January, 1932.
When you have read these documents you will realise that
your letter does not touch the main question which I put to Mr
Gandhi, viz., what authority he had for the statement that
literacy had diminished during the last 50 years in India. The
latest authority that you quote is Leitner, whose History of
Indigenous Education in the Punjab was published in 1882—50
years ago—and throughout your letter you do not give any
literacy percentages at all.
On the other hand, you appear to think that the number of
schools is a guide to literacy percentages. I agree that that would
be a natural conclusion, but, on the other hand, as has been
pointed out in the census, a number of Indian schools in the
past did not aim at literacy, and more recently the Education
Committee of the Indian Statutory Commission, of which I was
Chairman, pointed out that in the ten years 1917 to 1927 the
number of primary schools in Bengal was increased by nearly
eleven thousand, and the number of pupils by nearly 370,000
whereas in Class IV, the lowest class in which permanent
literacy is likely to be attained under existing conditions, the
number of pupils had actually diminished by nearly 30,000. I
am afraid
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that I am altogether unable to accept your conclusions with
regard to the history of literacy in Bengal during the past 100
years, of which there remains a good deal to be said.
This is only a preliminary reply to your letter; I hope to be
able to write shortly again, both to Mr Gandhi and yourself.
Yours sincerely,
Sd/- P.J. Hartog
. . .
20 March 1939
Dear Mr Gandhi,
You will, I think, remember that when you were in England
for the Round Table Conference, now more than seven years ago,
we had a friendly discussion on the subject of literacy in India,
which arose out of a statement made by yourself at the Royal
Institute of International Affairs to the effect that literacy had
diminished in British India in the last fifty or hundred years.
You will perhaps also remember that I had an interview with you
on the subject at your rooms in Knightsbridge in December
1931, and that you willingly undertook publicly to retract your
statement if you were convinced that there was no basis for it in
fact; and that you very kindly wrote to me about it later when
you were in Yervada Gaol. The file of correspondence of which I
enclose a copy will show you exactly how the matter rested after
your last letter of 15 February 1932 and my reply of 9 March
following.
I had to put the subject aside, owing to other and urgent
demands on my time, but I have recently concluded an
investigation of the authorities to which you and Professor Shah
referred me and have published the results in three memoranda
included, in the book entitled Some Aspects of Indian Education,
Past and Present, of which I enclose a copy for your acceptance.
You will see that in the Preface I have referred not only to our
controversy but to your Wardha scheme, in which I take the
deepest interest. If you will read through the Memoranda, I have
little doubt that you will find that a close analysis of the facts
reveals no evidence to support the statement which you made at
the Royal Institute of International Affairs on October 20, 1931,
and that you will therefore feel justified now in withdrawing that
statement. As you implied in your letter of 15 February 1932 we
are both concerned only with ascertaining the truth, and, I
380