Colonial Education and India 1781-1945

Volume I

Pramod K. Nayar, Pramod K. Nayar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351212106
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This 5-volume set tracks the various legal, administrative and social documentation on the progress of Indian education from 1780 to 1947. This first volume features commentaries, reports, policy documents from the period1781-1853.

The documents not only map a cultural history of English education in India but capture the debates in and around each of these domains through coverage of English (language, literature, pedagogy), the journey from school-to-university, and technical and vocational education. Produced by statesmen, educationists, administrators, teachers, Vice Chancellors and native national leaders, the documents testify to the complex processes through which colleges were set up, syllabi formed, the language of instruction determined, and infrastructure built. The sources vary from official Minutes to orders, petitions to pleas, speeches to opinion pieces.

The collection contributes, through the mostly unmediated documents, to our understanding of the British Empire, of the local responses to the Empire and imperial policy and of the complex negotiations within and without the administrative structures that set about establishing the college, the training institute and the teaching profession itself.

1
Warren Hastings, ‘Minute on Madrasas, 17th April 1781’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781–1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920), 7–9

Minute by the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, dated the 17th April 1781.¹

In the month of September 1780 a petition was presented to me by a considerable number of Mussulmen of credit and learning, who attended in a body for that purpose praying that I would use my influence with a stranger of the name of Mudgid O’din who was then lately arrived at the Presidency to persuade him to remain there for the instruction of young students in the Mahomedan law, and in such other sciences as are taught in the Mahomedan schools for which he was represented to be uncommonly qualified. They represented that this was a favourable occasion to establish a Madressa or College, and Mudgid O’din the fittest person to form and preside in it, that Calcutta was already become the seat of a great empire, and the resort of persons from all parts of Hindoostan and Deccan, that it had been the pride of every polished court and the wisdom of every well regulated Government both in India and in Persia to promote by such institutions the growth and extention of liberal knowledge, that in India only the traces of them now remain, the decline of learning having accompanied that of the Mogul Empire, that the numerous offices of our Government which required men of improved abilities to fill and the care which had been occasionally observed to select men of the first eminence in the science of jurisprudence to officiate as judges in the criminal and assessors in the Civil Courts of Judicature, and (I hope this addition will not be imputed to me as ostentation on an occasion in which the sincerity of what I shall hereafter propose for the public patronage will be best evident by my own example) the belief which generally prevailed that men so accomplished usually met with a distinguished reception from myself [which] afforded them particular encouragement, to hope that a proposal of this nature would prove acceptable to the actual Government.

This was the substance of the Petition which I can only repeat from my memory, having mislaid the original.

I dismissed them with a promise of complying with their wishes to the utmost of my power. I sent for the man on whom they had bestowed such encomiums and prevailed upon him to accept of the office designed for him. He opened his school about the beginning of October and has bestowed an unremitted attention on it to this time, with a success and reputation which have justified the expectation which has been formed of it. Many students have already finished their education under his instructions and have received their dismission in form and many dismissed unknown to me. The master supposing himself limited to a fixed monthly sum which would not admit a larger number besides day scholars, he has at this time forty boarders mostly natives of these Provinces, but some sojourners from other parts of India. Among them I had the satisfaction of seeing on the last new year’s day, some who had come from the districts of Cashmeer, Guzarat, and one from the Carnatic.

I am assured that the want of suitable accommodation alone prevents an increase of the number. For this reason I have lately made a purchase of a convenient piece of ground near the Boita Connah in a quarter of the town called Podpoker and have laid the foundation of a square building for a madrissa constructed on the plan of similar edifices in other parts of India.

Thus far I have prosecuted the undertaking on my own means and with no very liberal supplies I am now constrained to recommend it to the Board, and through that channel to the Hon’ble Court of Directors for a more adequate and permanent endowment.

By an estimate of the building which with a plan and elevation of it shall accompany this minute the whole cost of it will be 51,000 Arcot Rupees, to which I shall beg leave to add the price of the ground being 6,280 Sa Rupees. The amount of both is Arcot rupees 57,745·2·11. It shall be my care to prevent an excess of this sum which I request may be placed to the Company’s accounts, and a bond allowed me for the amount and that I may be enabled by the sanction of the Board to execute this work.

I must likewise propose that a parcel of land may be assigned for the growing charge of this foundation.

The present expense is as follows:–

	Sicca. Rs.
The Preceptor per month	300
40 Scholars from 7 to 6 per month	222
A Sweeper	3
House rent	100
TOTAL	625

The day scholars pay nothing. In the proportion of the above expense an establishment of 109 Scholars may be estimated at 10,000 Rupees per month at the utmost. I would recommend that the rents of one or more Mousa or villages in the neighbourhood of the place be assigned for the monthly expence of the proposed Madressa and that it be referred to the Committee of Revenue to provide and make the endowment and to regulate the mode of collection and payment in such a manner as to fix and ascertain the amount and periods of both and prevent any future abuses of one or misapplication of the other. For the present an assignment of half the estimated sum will be sufficient.

(Sd.) WARREN HASTINGS.

FORT WILLIAM;

The 17th April 1781.

Agreed. E. WHEELER.

Note

1 Printed in Bengal: Past and Present, VIII, 1914, p. 105 f.

2
J. Duncan, ‘Letter, 1st January 1792’, in H. Sharp (ed.), Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781–1839 (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1920), 10–11

Letter from J. Duncan, Resident, Benares, No. 17, dated 1st January 1792, to the Earl of Cornwallis, K.G., Governor-General in Council.¹

MY LORD,

HAVING in view to the surplus Revenue expected to be derived from the permanent settlement (as reported in my address of the 25th November 1789) and of the instructions thereon passed by your Lordship in Council in February last to transmit for the consideration of Government my sentiments regarding its appropriation reflected frequently on the subject; it appeared to me that a part of those funds could not be applied to more general advantage or with more local propriety than by the Institution of a Hindoo College or Academy for the preservation and cultivation of the Laws, Literature and Religion of that nation, at this centre of their faith, and the common resort of all their tribes.

Two important advantages seemed derivable from such an establishment, the first to the British name and nation in its tendency towards endearing our Government to the native Hindoos; by our exceeding in our attention towards them and their systems, the care shewn even by their own native princes; for although learning has ever been cultivated at Benares, in numerous private seminaries, yet no public Institution of the kind here proposed ever appears to have existed; to which may, in a considerable degree, be attributed the great difficulty of now collecting complete treatises (although such are well known to have existed) on the Hindoo religion, laws, arts, or sciences; a defect and loss, which the permanency of a college at Benares must be peculiarly well adapted to correct, and recover by a gradual collection and correction of the books still to be met (though in a very dispersed and imperfect state) so as with care and attention and by the assistance and exertions of the possessors and students to accumulate at only a small and comparative expence to Government, a precious library of the most ancient and valuable general learning and tradition now perhaps existing on any part of the globe.

The 2nd principal advantage that may be derived from this Institution will be felt in its effects more immediately by the natives, though not without being participated in by the British subjects, who are to rule over them, by preserving and disseminating a knowledge of the Hindoo Law and proving a nursery of future doctors and expounders thereof, to assist the European judges in the due, regular, and uniform administration of its genuine letter and spirit to the body of the people.

* * * * *

The Extract of my proceedings already referred to contains the few rules which have already been thought of for this Institution, and they are respectfully submitted to Government for such correction or addition as may be thought expedient.

JONATHAN DUNCAN.

BENARES;

The 1st January 1792.

Note

1 Printed in Bengal: Past and Present, VIII, 1914, pp. 130–133; and in G. NICHOLLS’ Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Benares Patshalla or Sanskrit College. Allahabad, 1907, p. 1 f.