The Beautiful Tree

"The Beautiful Tree" – this is the name of book authored by noted Gandhian Dharmpal on the indigenous education system in India. I am starting this post as a tribute to him who has passed away recently. I will further add to this from time to time as I get some more viewpoints.

Gandhiji, when he went to London for Round Table Conference in 1931, said in one of the speeches, “The beautiful tree of education was cut down by you British. Therefore today India is far more illiterate than it was 100 years ago.” Immediately Philip Hartog, who was a member of parliament stood up and said, “Mr. Gandhi, it is we who have educated the masses of India. And therefore you take back your statement and apologize, or prove it”. Gandhiji said he would prove it. But he could not do so for lack of time. Later one of his disciples, Dharmpal, went to the British Museum and went through the reports in the official archives of the British and published the book “The Beautiful Tree”. It is worth reading, for it completely and conclusively destructs many of the present day myths. It gives a survey report in detail along with the detailed information about the British education at that time, backed by lot of statistics, from the very own British records.

Further quoting from this article (http://www.indiatogether.org/education/opinions/btree.htm)

:))

QUOTE

The picture that emerges from the research work of recent years is only a resounding confirmation of what Gandhiji said in London. We now learn, with almost a sense of disbelief, that a large part of the country did have a sustainable education system, as late as even the early years of the 19th century, and that this was systematically demolished over the next 50 years or so. The present education system is, in effect, a legacy of the colonial rule. This system has perpetuated the notion that traditional societies were seeped in ignorance, superstition and rituals for thousands of years and lived a life of abject poverty, which was caused by an extreme form of social discrimination and exploitative socio-political systems.

So deep has this notion seeped into our collective consciousness that, it colours the belief of both, providers of education as well as of recipients and aspiring recipients in our society.

Factual records gleaned from the notes of British officials in Indian provinces testify contrary to the prevailing views among the educated classes in our country. The Indian education system at the end of the 18th century compared more than favourably with the system in England about the same time. In all respects, be it the number of schools and colleges proportionate to the population; the number of students; the quality of teachers; the financial support provided from public and private sources; the high percentage of students from the lower castes, and the range of subjects taught; the Indian system of the time was in a better position than the British. We need to appreciate these facts, not with the intent of glorifying the past or to condemn colonialism merely but to help us sort out our goals and strategies today.

In 1812-13, Thomas Munro reported that for areas of the Madras Presidency "every village had a school". Later as Governor of the Madras Presidency he reviewed reports to estimate that "there is one school for every 1000 of the population".

William Adam, a former Baptist missionary turned Journalist, in first report in 1835 observed that every village had at least one school; and that there seemed to be about 1,00,000 schools in Bengal and Bihar in the 1830s. G.L.Prendergast, Bombay Presidency council member stated in 1821 "that in the newly extended Presidency of Bombay "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."

The Madras Presidency and Bengal-Bihar data concerning the background of the taught and the teachers presents a kind of revelation. The data is in sharp contrast to the various scholarly pronouncements of the past 100 years or more, which give the impression that education of any sort in India, till very recently, was almost exclusively restricted to the twice born among the Hindus and, and among Muslims, to those of the ruling elite. The actual situation was different, if not contrary.

In the districts of Madras Presidency and two districts of Bihar for which data is available, it was found that children from communities termed 'Sudras' and the castes considered below them predominated in the thousands. In the Tamil-speaking areas of Madras Presidency, 'Sudras' and 'AtiSudras' comprised 70-80 per cent of all school going children. Among the Oriya-speaking areas of the same Presidency, the percentage of children belonging to these two castes was 62 per cent; in Malyalam-speaking areas it was 54 per cent; and in Telugu-speaking areas it was 35-40 per cent. There were 11,575 schools with 1,57,195 children in Madras Presidency and there were 1,094 colleges. Nearly 25 per cent of all children used to go to school and a large percentage of children studied at home. The number of children doing home schooling in Madras district alone was 26,446 while in the city 5,523 children were going to school.

The new schools began the process of alienation from one's culture, country and indigenous value systems, which had far reaching consequences. An alien system, which gets state and social recognition, serves two purposes. On the one hand, the people lose confidence and the will to sustain their own indigenous systems, as it is perceived to be an inferior system. On the other hand, they find themselves incapable of managing the new system perceived to be superior. They let the old system wither away and the state does not replace the old with the new. Hence they end up having no system at all.

A change has set in over the past two or three decades in India. People have once again become very aware of the need to educate their children, in particular the male child. But the reasons for this regeneration of interests are very different from the academic motivation of yore, monetisation of the economy being the primary cause. Education is considered important not only because the aspirations of the community here, as elsewhere, are being shaped by the market and urban middle-class values, but also because white collar jobs and 'education' have' got irrevocably linked.

Where once education had meant freedom and building of interlinkages in social relationships, now it has come to mean the one and only route to jobs. A migrant worker compares the gross income of Rs. 1,500 or Rs.2,000 that he can earn in a city with the potential income in his village and finds the latter to be a pathetic amount. He does not take into account the cost of living-the amount spent on rent, transport and entertainment in a city. The non-monetised economy of the village and its benefits are also ignored, such as the cost of buying the grain which is grown in his own fields, the advantages of living close to the family and the like.

Statistical data substantiate that migration has increased in areas where 'education' has spread. People are moving away from their traditional occupations and going away more and more in search of white collar Jobs. Village land lies fallow because the educated youth refuse to work in the field. Aspirations have changed and so have values. The present education system is largely responsible for this mindset and for moulding the thinking in a way that all worth is measured only in terms of money.

UNQUOTE

For more articles of similar nature, you can go to:

http://www.eshiusa.org/TheBeautifulTreeArticles.htm