So, quite often, reformatory discussions around education have largely been reduced to illiteracy and unemployment– the biggest hurdles in the way of the nation’s development- that the government is striving to eradicate. In this light, we often see preachy films being made about the lack of infrastructure in schools, the lack of teachers for instruction, free education for the needy, etc. Dissecting this scenario with scrutiny, do we exactly stumble upon some of the predominant hand-cuffing norms that the British strategised to strangulate the Indigenous system? Which eventually led to colonial mental slavery and made us all fall for the ways of the metropole. That the enslaved mind, till this day, is still being lost in the frills of the problem- which perhaps itself was part of the larger deliberation!
Whilst core questioning the system itself, the many emerging ‘alternate’ models are keenly addressing how differently the rote-learning problem can be dealt with. Then there are the many ‘holistic’ approach parallels, increasingly popping up, promising to explore deeper dimensions. But have they managed to hit the roots of the problem? Or are we, perhaps being swayed by a storm towards the West, like a tree with shallow roots, in search of answers? When Holism is, by nature, an intrinsic Indian philosophy, how can holistic education lack Indianness? Doesn’t the tree need to grow deep, strong roots to bear fruits? Or does ‘rooting’ now become just an alternative? Is reviving the Indigenous system, the complete Bharatiyata of the system, merely a matter of choice?
As Sri Dharmpal ji puts it down elegantly (Dharampal,1993):
“But in the unbounded flow of modernity almost every Indian seems to have lost the ability to express his innate consciousness even in small ways. Even his festivals, that in a way reminded him of his Kala, and gave him till recently some little pleasure in his otherwise impoverished drab life, and even the most vital of his rituals, those of birth, marriage and death, that gave him a sense of belonging to the universe of his Chitta and Kala, have fallen by the wayside. Most Indians, of course, still perform these festivals and rituals, but these have been so reviled, that there is little grace left in their mechanical and often unbelieving performance. Not surprisingly the festivals give him little pleasure and the rituals provide no solace. We have lost our identity, our anchorage in our civilisation.”
I will use the three main dimensions that Indumati Katadre Ji highlights in her book in light of Freeing Indian Education from Westernization as the base fabric of this article interwoven with historical continuities of the colonial (-intentioned) facets of the existing system. I emphasise here that only for better comprehension of the primal steps towards this ‘decolonising’ journey that Indumati Ji has beautifully enunciated, have the snippets of the ‘colonising’ journey been added.
- ‘De-governmentalisation’ of Education
Autonomy – this almost leaves us all startled by thoughts of impracticality. For years, we have become so accustomed to looking to the government for the slightest of changes and the smallest of reforms. This reliance on external authorities is a relic of years of submission, deeply ingrained in us – a perfect example of how the British’s powerful ‘education’ weapon is still working on us. Hence, it is hard to fathom this, even. Almost inconceivable.
However, it is important to realise that the responsibility for education was never meant to lie solely with the government. It has always been, and ideally should always be, with the teachers. Teachers are the ones who understand the unique needs of their students and the dynamics of learning, which positions them as the natural custodians of educational policy. Yet, this is only scratching the surface of the deeper meanings embedded in the many ‘paramparas’ of learning in our indigenous system.
Acquiring Knowledge was a Holy Path in Ancient India
The Guru-Shishya parampara, where the Guru, known as the dispeller of darkness, and the Shishya, an absolute surrendering seeker, share a relationship that is sacred and extends far beyond mere academic instruction. “Matha, Pitha, Guru, Deivam,” an inherent saying of our land, loudly speaks of the place of a Guru in society and in the life of a child. There also existed the tradition of Acharya parampara. The Acharya is expected to live according to the principles of the Shastras. His own life serves as a model for others (the word ‘Acharan’ means ‘code of conduct’), showing how to align one’s actions, thoughts, and character with the timeless values taught in the sacred texts. While students ardently traversed their chosen holy path that their enlightener illuminated for them, they also made significant breakthroughs in the fields of sciences, mathematics and applied medicine.7
Likewise, the tradition of the Gurukul, where ‘Gurukul’ itself means the ‘clan’ or ‘family’ of the Guru, clearly exemplifies the teacher’s profound responsibility towards his disciples. There existed an elaborate decentralised ecosystem of learning across our country- from the smallest to the largest scale of departments and institutions, at all levels – it was Gurus and Acharyas who would come together and guide the process. It was their duty to ‘own’ the cause and to ‘uphold’ the clan. It was always theirs in Bharat, and it ought to be so in the coming future as well.
Tragically, in today’s age, their already reduced role as a ‘teacher’ is only further diminished to mere ’employees’. The story of how someone went from being the ‘dispeller of darkness’ to a ‘blind follower’ needs a bit of inspection here.
The ‘Craft of Teaching’ Makes its way to the Colony
Research published by the International Journal of Advanced Educational Research explains that with the introduction of the Despatch on Indian Education in the mid-19th century, the East India Company, in collaboration with European missionaries, started several schools for English education in various parts of the country, aiming to anglicise the native children. The increasing need for more teachers in schools paved the way for the inception of systematic teacher training (Rehma Khatun, Nasir Ahmed, 2018):
“Wood’s Despatch in 1854 brought about a revolutionary change in the educational policy of British India. Education was accepted to be the responsibility of the Government. The recommendations of this document ushered a new era of organized educational administration, mass education, University education and teacher education. Wood’s Despatch recommended to start sufficient number of training schools in every province of India. In 1856, the Government Normal School was started in Madras. The Hunter commission 1882, recommended the establishment of Normal Schools, whether government or private, to provide for the local requirements of all primary schools. This commission recommended a pass in the examination in the principles and practice of teaching for permanent employment as a teacher in any secondary schools.”
The native economy of the country, self-sustained upon agriculture and local village-based craft industries, was crushed under the pressure of heavy taxation and the forced influx of foreign goods by the British. Previously, teachers who were supported by the local community were suddenly left grappling for the middleman positions between the English colonisers and the native populace. They became state functionaries, working solely for a salary, stranded with no other option. Teaching was incorporated into government service, and this shift introduced significant clerical responsibilities, such as maintaining records of admissions, attendance, examinations, and expenditures.3 Slowly, they started enrolling into the ‘normal schools’, which were nothing but institutions exclusively built for teacher training.
So the teacher training programme cleverly designed by the Company, did not try to instil in the natives a deep grasp of fundamental principles and concepts of economics, technology, science and politics; rather they were content to force their trainees to mimic and recite English literature, philosophy, and sciences in the most slavish imitative fashion. Their goal as a teacher was to dictate to students the vocabulary used in bureaucratic jobs like law and administration. More importantly, it implanted in them a respect and awe for the imperialistic virtues of the majestic English language and culture, and a corresponding contempt and disdain for their own background.4 The craft of teaching, primarily centred around classroom ‘management’, was a key component of the training curriculum. This approach, which relied on a set of techniques to maintain students’ attention on the teacher, was simple to teach as it required little intellectual effort.3 This model is a replication of the actual model architected for the docile children by the Company, foundationally based on the ‘Monitorial system'(which will be discussed extensively in the following part of the article). Hence, the Company used the ingenious ‘mass education/training’ machinery, to shape the kind of adults it required. So the candidates go through this manufacturing process to end up one day being an end product that is very much qualified to be a ‘manager’ in the same factory.
However, what ties the teacher to the top power? What holds him accountable to the government? That is where Jeremy Bentham’s (founder of modern utilitarianism), ‘concept of accountability’ worked waves. They introduced rational, standardized, and statistical techniques to ensure accountability. They provided uniform materials and standardized curricula. This also meant that teachers and parents had less control over the content and methods of instruction, as compared to private arrangements.8
(Figure 1: Pictures from the 1830 book, The British System of Instruction: As Adopted to Native Schools in India, by British official J D Pearson. A substantial part of the school teacher’s daily routine consisted of fulfilling official requirements such as maintenance of accurate records of admissions, tests and money in British India.)
Teachers were clutched onto the authority through ‘textbooks’! Textbooks were assigned by the highest bureaucratic authority overseeing all schools in the state, traditionally known as the Director of Public Instruction. This authority also holds the power to appoint, promote, penalise, and transfer teachers to any school. While such actions occur infrequently, the textbook remains a constant presence in the school, symbolising bureaucratic control. It serves as a convenient measure to evaluate a teacher’s pace and proficiency, which in turn dictates their daily routine. They have no say in how the curriculum is organised, the pacing, or the method of final assessment. Their only responsibility is to dictate the content of the textbook, lesson by lesson, in the prescribed order- a ‘meek dictator’ as Krishna Kumar expresses it.5 The government prescribed the textbook, and teacher training institutions worked hard to ensure that teachers were thoroughly familiar with it. The syllabus and textbook obscure the teacher’s lack of real authority; they are the fixed elements of the situation. The students are unaware that their teacher is essentially a powerless figure, bound by the rules set by those who decide what knowledge must be taught. Instead, they view him as the person with ultimate power, able to command them and impose his will. They don’t realise that the teacher conceals his own powerlessness by presenting himself as all-powerful.3
(Figure 2: Excerpt from a column in Mahatma Gandhi’s weekly newspaper Harijan, September 9, 1939 issue.)
Adding to the misery, neither was the salary very rewarding for the teacher’s profession, which completely rendered them feeble. When the teacher started receiving a government salary, his additional earnings began to disappear. He was squeezed from both ends—his government wage was low, and his community earnings shrank once he joined the payroll. The measly salary assigned to the job ensured that only the neediest, and among them the most helpless, would go for it.3 Between 1854 and the early 20th century following the despatch on education, primary school teachers in India earned between Rs 5 and 15 per month, with many earning less than Rs 5, especially in non-government schools. In most regions, salaries rarely exceeded Rs 10 per month, and they were lower in northern India, particularly the United Provinces, where teachers earned around Rs 4 per month—less than a labourer’s daily wage of 4 annas.6 The teacher’s salary could hardly be described as a living wage. This situation is quite similar to what we experience today. No wonder there are many government schools that still face the problem of a lack of teachers for instruction. Again, to deal with this problem in terms of pay rise, is going back to looking at teachers as mere employees. This is a systemic problem where teachers are seeking external motivation through an administrative ‘management’ and external validation through a ‘salary’. India had a long-standing educational tradition based on the gurukula or pathashala system, which was primarily patronised by society and led by teachers, with minimal or no interference from the government. Hence, let us put forth our questions right, to make education more meaningful and educators more influential.
(Figure 3: Excerpt from Wood’s despatch of 1854, highlighting the salary fixings.)
“Engineering or Medicine?… Or Civil Services?”- a question asked to date in many Indian households
For the English administration, examinations, much like textbooks, served as a tool for maintaining norms. The exams served to standardize promotions, scholarships, and employment, projecting an image of impartiality and fairness in colonial rule. The secrecy surrounding the process, from setting papers to announcing results, reinforced the perception of the colonial government as a trusted authority. It instilled this belief by appearing impersonal and therefore unbiased while being shrouded in secrecy.5 Whereas the school curriculum and the impersonal examinations became disconnected from the everyday lives of Indian children. It reflected the values of the colonial administration, with no representation of local community life. By the 20th century, proficiency in English, eligibility for government employment, and social status became key elements of the educated Indian’s new identity. Now, what is this government employment? Amongst the many ‘middleman’ positions between the ruler and the ruled, that the natives were left stranded to grope for, the British government shrewdly opened new streams of ‘professions’.
With the consolidation of colonial rule by the British Crown replacing the Company post the 1857 revolt, new professions like law, engineering and medicine started emerging popular. Previously, the Charter Act of 1833 opened civil services to Indians, making it expected that every student aspired to join the civil service, with Indian civil servants seen as the core of the small civil society. But, ideally, it meant to channelise the native labour to the bureaucratic administrative job positions to fulfil the clerical work for the empire.
Similarly, the Court of Directors, which wrote the 1854 dispatch talked of an expansive setup of specialised institutions in the fields of law, medicine and engineering.3 Aside from their practical purpose, the symbolic goal of these specialized training was to demonstrate that ‘industry and ability’ were rewarded under English rule. However, in actuality, they too concealed other motives.
Let us look at this state-intervention, specifically at the Madras Presidency. The establishment of the engineering profession in colonial Madras was largely shaped by the requirements of managing the British Empire. To address the needs of the Public Works Department, the Civil Engineering College at Guindy was founded in 1859. Key infrastructure projects like railways, roads, and irrigation systems were integral to the colonial administration’s strategy to dominate resources, create systems of extraction, and solidify its control over the colony. Additionally, these projects provided employment opportunities for numerous casual laborers, especially during times of famine, serving as a means of offering aid to the struggling population.11 Also, on the basis of merit; engineering graduates were guaranteed the execution of these government projects, along with a promising salary package. However, by the 1930s, unemployment among engineering graduates was evidently on the rise, leading to the formation of the Madras Unemployment Committee to address the issue.10
In a similar way, medical education became institutionalized with the establishment of a Medical School in 1835. From there, medical instruction grew in the Madras presidency and became one of the most sought-after professions, alongside law. As more students pursued medicine, stricter admission requirements were introduced, leading to unemployment among graduates. By the 1930s, unemployment among medical students had become increasingly apparent, prompting the formation of a committee to investigate the issue. 12
Also with the standardisation of examination and merit certification norms, many Indic institutions died an eventual death. Research published by the Indian Journal of History of Science quotes from the Unemployment Committee reports of 1926 (Gautham Chandra, 2022):
“The Ayurvedic and Unani doctors who do not hold certificates, but nevertheless have hereditary skill in the profession, form its depressed classes. The lack of authoritative vernacular books on the subject, the absence of training institutions for these branches of medicine, the withholding of Government patronage and recognition, the want of enterprising firms for the preparation of drugs and tinctures, the absence of good advertisement, have made the Ayurvedic and Unani practice continues in a disorganised condition. Though the bulk of the people still depends on these…, and still there are many unemployed”
So was meritocracy a clever facade of the aristocracy? Under the garb of fair rewarding on the basis of merit, were we rendered with a new rampant problem of unemployment, that persists till date. Proposing to enable more social mobility, have they actually created and widened the gaps. On one hand, this government interference, catapulted unemployment rates by narrowing the band of employment-opportunity channels to a few coveted government ‘professions’ only, and on the other it covertly broke down the self-sustaining traditional institutions. Hence, in one respect it choked up the newly created channels and the other, it parched out the traditional ones. Which way, wealth began to concentrate in the hands of the aristocracy.
As Raj Vedam, Director of Indian History Awareness and Research, describes it:
“For the longest time, India’s economic prosperity was built on its farmer’s agricultural wealth and the artisans who produced all items necessary for daily life. Contrary to the stereotypes prevalent in the present discourse on Indian history, the richest people in Indian society were the farmers and artisans, followed by the business guilds and the landlords. M K Gandhi beseeched Indians to produce ‘khaadi'(domestically produced clothes) and reject foreign goods. It sounds a little strange in this unprecedented era of globalisation, but there was a strong rationale to it. The British did not have any manufacturing expertise worth mentioning. They learnt manufacturing skills, textiles and metallurgy from Indian artisans and plumbed the Indian texts for their knowledge in sciences, medicine and math. This knowledge coupled with the money extracted from India was used to fund and fuel the Industrial Revolution back in England. The finished goods from Lancashire and Manchester were shipped off back to Indians who were forced to buy these, thereby outcompeting the artisans’ products. This resulted in widespread poverty all over India. The ruling classes and the landlords were disenfranchised by the British power grab. The farmers and the artisans were taxed beyond their means and could no longer support the village temples leading to a collapse of the Indian education system, impoverishing the village teachers and priests in addition.”
Even if the employment problem can be amended at post-university level, tracing the issue back to the school examinations, do we spot a structural fault? The official function of exams was to evolve uniform standards for scholarship and employment. The design of the examination system required students to rehearse endlessly the skills of reproduction from memory, summarising, essay-type writing on any topic. Students were examined on their memorisation of specific texts and not on conceptual understanding. By 1850, the requirements for scholarships and certificates further restricted the curriculum, limiting it to not just fixing the particular textbooks, but also the exact portion of each chapter that needed to be studied for the next examination. Maybe that is why it is called an ‘examination’ and not ‘evaluation’? Anything not testable was excluded, leading to the dominance of theoretical, rather, literary study in Indian schools. As it conveniently fits the framework of the textbook and written-examination design. Practical or vocational skills and subjects dependent on them, were a misfit in the frame, hence kept out of curriculum or made extra-curricular.
This still sounds so familiar, even after one and a half centuries! The skeleton remains the exact same, with only the flesh and skin having been mildly modified over the years. We have failed to declutch ourselves from the obsolete relic of the foreign rule- the ‘structure’ of the system itself. Mere rewriting of textbooks won’t help too much. The rich, sustainable educational model that once made India the ‘Vishwaguru’, needs to be revived not in parts and parcels, but in entirety.
In the coming parts, we will examine Indianisation and detaching from materialism, as the following (primal) steps towards the resurrection journey of the Bharatiya education system.
References
- Dharampal, G. (1993). Bharatiya Chitta, Manas and Kala. Centre for Policy Studies, Madras.
- Khatun, R., & Ahmed, N. (2018). Teacher education in India: A historical perspective. Teacher education, 3(2), 594-597.
- Kumar, K. (2005). Political agenda of education: A study of colonialist and nationalist ideas. Sage.
- Drysdale, R. S. (1975). Education as Cultural Imperialism.
- Kumar, K. (1988). Origins of India’s” textbook culture”. Comparative Education Review, 32(4), 452-464.
- (1962a). Vividh Prasang, Allahabad, India: Hans Prakashan.
- Singh, S. (2022). Revisiting the educational heritage of India. Revisiting the Educational Heritage of India, 1-308.
- Tschurenev, J. (2019). Empire, civil society, and the beginnings of colonial education in India. Cambridge University Press.
- Pearson, J. D. (1830). The British System of Instruction: As Adopted to Native Schools in India. Baptist Mission Press.
- Chandra, G., & Pranjali. (2024). The Profession of Engineering and Unemployment in Colonial Madras (1859–1935). Indian Historical Review, 51(1), 23-38.
- Shahid, A. The Political Economy of Casual Labour: Work, Famine and Public Works in the North-Western Provinces of Colonial India, c. 1840-1914.
- Chandra, G. (2022). Medical profession and unemployment in colonial Madras (1835–1930). Indian Journal of History of Science, 57(2), 91-101.
- Vedam, R. (2019). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYchTQIjhTY.
- Kāṭadare, I. (1995). पश्चिमीकरण से भारतीय शिक्षा की मुक्ति
Feature Image Credit: British Library
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