An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India

by Shashi Tharoor

A bill for universal compulsory primary education was indeed tabled by the ‘moderate’ Congress leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale in the legislative council of the Governor General in 1911 and another by Vithalbhai Patel in the same body in 1916, but both were defeated by the votes of the British and government-appointed members. What is less known, however, is that the bills were also opposed by the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Surendra Nath Banerjea, staunch nationalists both. Gandhiji wrote in Hind Swaraj : ‘The ordinary meaning of education is knowledge of letters. To teach boys reading, writing and arithmetic is called primary education. A peasant earns his bread honestly. He has ordinary knowledge of the world. But he cannot write his own name. What do you propose to do by giving him a knowledge of letters? Will you add an inch to his happiness? It is not necessary to make this education compulsory. Our ancient school system is enough. We consider your modern school to be useless’. Fortunately, on this issue, Gandhiji’s somewhat eccentric views did not prevail. But perhaps his real objection was not to literacy and education as such, but to British education in particular. In 1937, when Congress ministries were elected in eight provinces and for the first time enjoyed control over education, Gandhi put forward a plan called the Wardha Scheme for Education, which envisaged seven years of basic education for rural children, including vocational training in village handicrafts...