The Beautiful Tree #4 - Data, Girls' Education and College in 18th Century India
Indian schools were free and diverse
We’ve been reading the book The Beautiful Tree - Indian Indigenous Education In The 18th Century for the past four weeks, and going in detail about the information contained in it, and looking at historical context the book might not fully provide to understand it better.
The first article went into what British education was like in the 18th century, and how that would have affected how the British perceived Indian education
The second article went into the Scottish Enlightenment and how that led to hordes of Scots coming to India as soldiers and officials of the East India Company and the British government. We see how the Scots were worried about the British destroying Indian culture just as they had destroyed Scottish Highland culture and clans, and were motivated to preserve Indian knowledge before it was destroyed. This was helped by the goals that administrators and missionaries had, of selectively picking Indian knowledge and culture to elevate so as to make Indians more British and more Christian.
The third article went into the qualitative conclusions of the data gathered by British administrators in the 19th century, and painted a picture of what the Indian schoolboy studied and how big of a role school played in his life.
In this article, we’re going into the details of the data collected, higher education, and girls’ education.
Conclusions From The Data
Here are the conclusions Dharampal draws from this data:
The material studied in Indian schools was not dissimilar to the contents of schools in Britain at the same time.
Indian students spent more time in school, both over the course of a day, as well as the number of years they spent at school, when compared to British students.
School attendance, even in the decayed state of the 1820s, was much higher than the numbers in all varieties of schools in England in 1800.
Indian schools had better conditions in comparison, and were much less dingy and more airy and bright.
The teachers in Indian schools were “generally more dedicated and sober” than those in England.
The methods of teaching included the ‘monitor method’ where quicker students were assigned to help their classmates. This was adopted in Britain, which allowed them to scale their education over the 19th century.
Fewer girls were in Indian schools when compared to England, but girls seem to have been educated privately at home in India.
But most importantly:
In contrast to popular perception in much of the 20th century, education in India was not restricted to the “twice-born” among the Hindus and the ruling elite among the Muslims. Instead, in most schools in India, the students were overwhelmingly from the “Soodra” castes or “Other castes” which Dharampal, with his research, concludes mapped roughly to SC/ST groups today.
How The Data Was Collected
The need for collecting data came from a debate in the House Of Commons about “promoting religious and moral improvements in India”. Thomas Munro, the Governor of Madras Presidency, gave an order to all the Collectors (the head of a district’s executive administration was called a Collector because the main job seems to have been collecting taxes. The name survives to this day, sadly).
There were 21 districts in the Madras presidency, and all the collector sent back reports. They would have asked those below them to collect data at the taluk level, which would have been much more expansive and detailed, but the author Dharampal does not seem to have found this data.
The data requested was:
The number of schools and colleges in the districts, and the number of male and female scholars in them. The number of scholars, male as well as female, were further to be provided under the categories of (1) Brahmin scholars, (ii) Vysee scholars, (111) Soodra scholars, (iv) scholars of all other castes and (v) Musalman scholars. The numbers under (1) to (iv) were to be totalled separately, And to these were to be added those under (v) thus arriving at the total number of Hindoo and Musalman scholars, in the district, or some part of it. The category ‘all other castes’ as mentioned earlier evidently seems to have implied all such castes who may have then been considered somewhat below what may be termed the sat-soodra category, and included most such groupings which today are listed among the scheduled castes.
20 districts sent back data. The Collector of Canara district (which included Mangalore, Udupi and Kasargod) sent back no numbers, saying people in his district only received ‘private education’ - parents in an area would get together and engage a teacher to teach their children, and he said ‘there are no colleges in Canara’.
This possibly was such because this area was the center of many peasant revolts against the British and it was an extremely uncertain time in that district. It should also be noted that today, this area has a high number of notable homegrown educational institutions and one of the highest literacy rates in Karnataka.
Though, the real issue seems to have been “the preparation of the necessary information would take up a considerable time”. Each district sent back data differently, depending on the enthusiasm and skill of the Collector and those under him. Another aspect was there was a lot of churn in British officials in the administration, which meant a lot of people collecting this data didn’t know the district too well.
Two of the collectors also sent detailed information pertaining to those who were being educated at home, or in some other private manner. The collector of Malabar sent details of 1,594 scholars who were receiving education in Theology, Law, Astronomy, Metaphysics, Ethics and Medical Science in his district from private tutors. The collector of Madras, on the other hand, reported in his letter of February 1826 that 26,963 school-level scholars were then receiving tuition at their homes in the area under his jurisdiction.
In Bengal, William Adam, the former missionary, tried to conduct surveys. He conducted a pilot survey in Nattore Thana and then extended it to 5 districts. He wanted to personally visit each village, but he gave up that idea as he found that “the sudden appearance of a European in a village often inspired terror, which it was always difficult, and sometimes impossible, to subdue.”
The Data Shows The Diversity Of Indian Schools
The data makes more sense when grouped by the predominant language in the district groups, because then, different kinds of patterns emerge.
Dharampal has taken the raw data and converted it into percentages so we can see the diversity of schools.
Through the 20th century, it was assumed that in previous generations, education was limited to Upper castes among Hindus, and the ruling classes among the Muslims. But this data completely disagrees with that, especially in the Tamil speaking areas.
Upper caste proportion in the schools ranged between 13% in South Arcot to 23% in Madras. ‘Soodras’ and ‘Other castes’, which Dharampal deduces to mean castes currently designated as SC/ST, ranged from 70% in Salem and Tinnelveli to over 84% in South Arcot.
In Malabar, 27% of the students were Muslim, while ‘Soodras’ and ‘other castes’ were 54%.
In Bellary, ‘Soodras’ and ‘other castes’ were at 63%, while ‘Brahmins’ were at 33%. In Ganjam, the same were at 35% and 63%.
Telugu-speaking areas had higher proportions of Brahmins, ranging from 24% in Cuddapah to 46% in Vizagapatnam. Here too, ‘Soodras’ and ‘other castes’ ranged from 35% in Guntoor to 41% in Cuddapah and Vizagapatnam.
In Bengal, while most of the teachers came from Kayasth, Brahmin, Sadgop and Aguri castes, quite a significant numebr came from 30 other groups, including the Chandals who numbered 6 teachers. In Burdwan district, there were 61 Dom and 61 Chandal students, almost equal to the number of Vaidya students who numbered 126. There were 13 Missionary schools in Burdwan as well, but those in all had only 4 Dom and Chandal scholars, and only 86 of the scholars in those schools belonged to the ‘16 of the lowest castes’, while the native schools had 674 such scholars.
So, the population being educated can be assumed to match the demographics of the of the Presidency. Each village school catered to the children in the village, who might be of whatever demographic lived in the village. When I look at current censuses of villages, in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka (e.g. Hebri village in Karkala Taluk), the populations seem quite diverse. Seeing as villages generally have seen an outflow of people rather than an inflow of new people, I think it’s reasonable to assume that this type of demographic structure existed 300 years ago as well.
I wonder if the decay and death of these village schools in the 19th century was what led to society getting fragmented on identitarian lines. If you went to school with people from diverse backgrounds, that ought to give you a feeling of solidarity and brotherhood beyond identitarian lines. If this got destroyed, then you would end up relying on your family and other connections to educate you, and probably only learn with your siblings and cousins than all other children in your village.
Education Of Girls
There was a small number of girls going to school in Madras presidency. Girls seem to have been educated at home. This survey doesn’t have very good data on private instruction, so the nature of the education girls received in this era is not known in this book.
Governor Sir Thomas Munro was of the view that while the institutional education of females seemed negligible that of the boys between the ages of 5 to 10 years appeared to be “‘a little more than one-fourth” of the boys of that age in the Presidency as a whole. Taking into consideration those who were estimated as being taught at home he was inclined “‘to estimate the portion of the male population who receive school education to be nearer to one-third than one-fourth of the whole.”
Looking at the data, in Malabar and Joypoor division of Vizagapatnam, for which data are available, girls from upper castes attend the schools in negligible numbers. However, girls from the ‘Soodra’ and ‘other castes’ are in larger numbers, as well as Muslim girls. In the districts of Masulipatnam, Madura, Tinevelly and Coimbatore, the collectors opined that the girls in schools were mostly going to be devadasis in temples.
I don’t know much about devadasis, but it’s interesting to know they were given education on par with the boys.
I’m interested to know what girls did all day at home. While housework back in the day could be backbreaking, in my experience, no one expects, in my family’s experience, all that much from children under 13 in terms of housework.
An accurate anecdotal account of girls’ lives back in the day comes from RK Narayan’s book Grandmother’s Tale, which is a story of his great-grandmother. His great-grandfather worked in the court of the Peshwa in Pune. The last year a Peshwa ruled was 1818, so let’s account for a decade prior, because nothing in the tale indicates the Anglo-Maratha wars, so it can be dated between the second and third wars, i.e. 1805 - 1817. Estimating him to be 20 when he started working, we can work backwards to a childhood in the 1780s.
In the book, his great-grandmother is married at the age of 12. Prior to that, she was going to school. When she was married, she stopped going to school to assist her mother. She was only supposed to move to her husband’s home a good chunk of time after she matured (which doesn’t happen in the story because her husband runs away, and she follows in his trail to find him and bring him back). The vibe I got was a lot of this was to ensure the safety of the girls, given the widespread political and social instability at this time.
Higher Education
Many collectors said there were no institutes of higher learning in their district, but several others sent data about colleges. The collector of Rajahmundry seems to have been quite thorough (he sent data about what books were used in schools as well) and said there were 279 colleges with 1454 scholars. Coimbatore had 173 colleges with 724 scholars. Guntoor had 171 with 939 scholars, Tanjore 109 with 769, Nellore had 107, North Arcot 69 with 418, Salem 53 with 324, Chingleput 51 with 398, Masulipatnam 49 with 199, Bellary 23, Trichinopoly 9 with 131, and Malabar had one institution with 75 scholars that was funded by the Samudrin Raja.
In other districts, collectors reported that specialized learning the the Vedas, Sastras (law), Astronomy, Mathematics, Ethics etc was taught in Agraharams or at home.
As higher education is an area of specialization, it was less diverse. Theology, Metaphysics, Ethics, and most of Law was dominated by Brahmins. But Astronomy and Medicine had more diversity. In Malabar, for instance, 808 scholars were studying astronomy, of whom only 78 were Brahmin, and of the 194 studying medicine, only 31 were Brahmins.
Medicine was probably also taught at home to a great extent, in the form of apprenticeships under a village doctor. In Nattore in Bengal, 485 villages had 123 native medicine practitioners, 205 village doctors, 21 smallpox inoculators practicing traditional inoculation, 297 women-midwives and… 722 ‘snake conjurors’. I hope the last of these was more about saving people from snakebites.
There is not much data on how crafts, arts and music and dance were taught. The missionaries and administrators didn’t seem to be interested in how these were imparted. But also they were taught heavily at home or as apprenticeships. Music and dance would have been taken care of by temple institutions.
Dharampal quotes a comment,
it is extremely difficult to learn the arts of the Indians, for the same cast, from father to son exercises the same trade and the punishment of being excluded from the cast on doing anything injurious to its interests is so dreadful that it is often impossible to find an inducement to make them communicate anything’’
Given how the cotton industry was destroyed, it is understandable for crafts and trades to be taught like they were trade secrets and protected in an organized fashion.
Some of the trades identified by the British so they could levy taxes are as follows, to give an idea of the level of specialization:
Cotton cleaners, Cotton beaters, Cotton carders, Cotton weavers, Indigo makers, Dyers in indigo, Iron ore collectors, Iron forge operators, Iron furnace operators, Iron smiths, Horseshoe makers, Workers of smelted metals into bars, Lead washers.
Was education expensive?
In Malabar, the Samudrin Raja supported the college financially, which I imagine means it didn’t cost you to study if you earned a place there.
The collector of Madras says:
Astronomy, Astrology, etc. are in some instances taught to the children of the poorer class of Brahmins gratis, and in certain few cases an allowance is given proportionate to the circumstances of the parents or guardians
The collector of Madura says:
In agraharam villages inhabited by Brahmins, it has been usual from time immemorial to allot for the enjoyment of those who study the Vaidams and Pooranams (religion and historical traditions) an extent of maunium land yielding from 20 to 50 fanams per annum and in a few but rare instances to the extent of 100 fanams and they gratuitously and generally instruct such pupils as may voluntarily be brought to them.”
The collector of Cuddapah says:
Although there are no schools or colleges supported by public contribution, I ought not to omit that amongst Brahmins, instruction is in many places gratuitously afforded and the poorer class obtain all their education in this way. At the age of from 10 to 16 years, if he has not the means of obtaining instruction otherwise, a young Brahmin leaves his home, and proceeds to the residence of a man of his own caste who is willing to afford instruction without recompence to all those resorting to him for the purpose. They do not however derive subsistence from him for as he is generally poor himself, his means could not of course give support to others, and even if he has the means his giving food and clothing to his pupils would attract so many as to defeat that object itself which is professed.
The Board would naturally enquire how these children who are so destitute as not to be able to procure instruction in their own villages, could subsist in those to which they are strangers, and to which they travel from 10 to 100 miles, with no intention of returning for several years. They are supported entirely by charity, daily repeated, not received from the instructor for the reasons above mentioned, but from the inhabitants of the villages generally. They receive some portion of alms daily at the door of every Brahmin in the village, and this is conceded to them with a cheerfulness which considering the object in view must be esteemed as a most honourable trait in the native character, and its unobtrusiveness ought to enhance the value of it. We are undoubtedly indebted to this benevolent custom for the general spread of education amongst a class of persons whose poverty would otherwise be an insurmountable obstacle to advancement in knowledge, and it will be easily inferred that it requires only the liberal and fostering care of Government to bring it to perfection”. |
So if I understand this right, people in general didn’t believe in making money off of education, and offered it for free, and even gave their students stipends when they could.
In agraharams, land revenue was set aside for the expenses of the teachers and their families, and students would seek out these specialists to learn from.
But when that wasn’t possible, these students would just go stay with the teachers’ families, and live off of charity of the people around. There are a lot of events even today where part of the rituals involve feeding brahmins - because they were usually poor students subsisting off of charity, and our traditions made this offering of charity formal.
The collector of Guntoor further adds:
it appears that there are 171 places where theology, laws and astronomy etc are taught privately, and the number of disciples in them is 939. The readers of these sciences cannot generally get teachers in their respective villages and are therefore obliged to go to others. In which case if the reader belong to a family that can afford to support him he gets what is required for his expenses from his home and which is estimated at three rupees per month, but which is only sufficient to supply him with his victuals; and if on the other hand, his family is in too indigent circumstances to make such allowance, the student procures his daily subsistence from the houses in the village where taught which willingly furnish such by turns.
Should people be desirous of studying deeper in theology etc than is taught in these parts, they travel to Benares, Navadweepum etc where they remain for years to take instruction under the learned pundits of those places.
So people sought teachers in specialist subjects and did what they could to pursue the knowledge, and the system supported them with charity for their subsistence. And there were larger centers of learning in Varanasi and Navadweep, even though big universities had been destroyed.
Overall, you had free school education for everyone, and then specialist education for which you went to specialists spread around the land, or if you had learned all you could in your geography, you went to centers of learning that were bigger and much farther away. This education could take years.
In the weddings of some communities, there is a ‘Kashi yatra’ ceremony where the groom has to throw a tantrum saying he wants to go to Kashi/Varanasi to study, and the bride’s family is supposed to convince him to stay. Children were in school until about age 15, and then they’d learn more locally from specialists in subsequent years. So going to Kashi was like grad school, which probably took a lot of your 20s. In my own life, I have seen a lot of people dissuaded by family and partners from pursuing a PhD because it made it harder, if not impossible, to get married. Good to know this is not a new struggle.
Next week
I think the next will be the last reading of The Beautiful Tree, though if it gets too long, I’ll post the rest the following week.
Next week, we’ll go through how education was funded in India in the 18th century, and how and why the British dismantled this funding, which led to decay and death of the traditional education system. We’ll see the thinkers who worked on dismantling this educational system, including Marx and Macaulay. We’ll see what wide-ranging effects this had on society.
Thank you for reading this. It takes time and effort to do deep dives into history books and data, and it would be a great encouragement if you were to support my work with a paid subscription.