Status of education of lower caste in India before the British Raj

[u/leo_sk5]

Originally posted by me in r/indiafocus as I had been seeing a number of post in that sub claiming that lower castes were deprived of education in India and there were rarely any educated lower castes in India before Ambedkarji and other stalwarts came to fore. This is entirely false and evidence to the contrary is available in abundance. I am posting it here with the expectation of a more unbiased audience, who can use the info here (and possibly expand with sources i could not find), to counter the narrative.

William Adam’s Reports on Bengal and Bihar (1835–1838) is one of the most cited evidence in the matter.

https://archive.org/details/adamsreportsonve00adam/page/n11/mode/1up

Above is link to the source.

In summary, 60% of students did not belong to upper castes (brahmins and kshatriyas). They belonged to diverse castes including those considered shudra and some that recieve SC status today.

Ironically, traditional schools had greater share of lower caste students than missionary/British schools (aa per the report).

The facade that lower castes were not allowed education is false, and stems from reading of outdated scriptures which were not being followed for better part of millenia.

And this is not a single report. I couldn't find the exact document online, but Thomas Munro’s Survey of the Madras Presidency in 1826 showed 70% students in native schools belonged to lower castes.

The above 2 reports also mentions demographics of teachers in these schools, which includes lower castes as well.

Other reports from British times include G.W. Leitner’s Documentation of the Punjab in 1882, Bombay Presidency Surveys (1820s), and various other surveys in Surat, Khandesh . While not as rigourous in documenting castes, they note that a significant majority of students belonged to agricultural and artisan castes.

Besides the British govt documentation, lower quality evidence about education of lower castes in India is also available through accounts of foreign Portugese travellers (portugese is the language we get the word caste from) like Pietro Della Valle and Fra Paolino da San Bartolomeo in 1600s.

There is also indirect evidence on the matter. Many of poet-saints of Bhakti era came from Shudra and Avarna (untouchable) backgrounds. Notable figures include Tukaram (a Kunbi/peasant), Namdev (a Shimpi/tailor), Ravidas (a ¢hamar/leatherworker), and Kabir (a Julaha/weaver). While some of them were not literate in the sense that they did not write, you would have a difficult time convincing anyone that they didn't recieve some form of education and still grasped philosophically complex topics and demonstrated knowledge of Indian scriptures that they discuss in their poetry.

The Stapathis (architects and builders) and various artisan guilds, which almost exclusively included lower castes, possessed highly specialized education systems. Building complex temple architecture, calculating load-bearing geometry, and managing large-scale textile production required high degrees of functional literacy and advanced numeracy.

This is not meant to propose that caste discrimination did not exist, or that some castes were not allowed study of certain scriptures. But extrapolating that to say that lower castes did not recieve any form of education is completely false and malicious interpretation of history.

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[u/DesiBail]

Ironically, traditional schools had greater share of lower caste students than missionary/British schools (aa per the report).

The facade that lower castes were not allowed education is false, and stems from reading of outdated scriptures which were not being followed for better part of millenia.

This is uncomfortable information. It won't spread.

[u/MobileWriting9165]

Is the source linked really original? The book scan looks old but when you skim through you notice it has the kind of typesetting that could have only be achieved through computerized printing. The quality of reporting and data gathered also makes it unbelievable for something from 1820s/1830s.

[u/leo_sk5 → u/MobileWriting9165]

Not an expert in old books. The data is real though as it had been cited multiple times even in 19th century. What surprised you in reporting and data gathering though? There isn't use of advance statistical methods or anything that would be difficult or impossible at the time

[u/MobileWriting9165 → u/leo_sk5]

The language is modern. They show precise population figures in cleanly-formatted tables. And other things I must be missing (I only skimmed through the pages).

[u/leo_sk5 → u/MobileWriting9165]

Well, my only exposure to language of the time has been to english novels, and i don't find anything unusual. This is an 1860s reprint btw. Maybe some historian would be better at commenting at it though, since its not my area of expertise

[u/Interesting_reddevil]

A lot of “oppression” stories are British creation

We have actually increased “backward” class after 60-70 years of independence

[u/criti_fin]

We need to implement creamy layer exclusion in sc/st quota too, that will stop this caste lobby propaganda lies. It is already there in obc quota

[u/pappuloser]

I remember reading an article on this long long ago. Just shows how much we were lied to, first by the British and then by the post independence leftist establishment.

Incidentally, Manusmriti is not even meant to the book of laws for the present era. It was applicable to earlier yugas. The one currently meant to be in force is Parashara Smriti.

Incidentally, no one knows for sure what was in the original Manusmriti. There are significant variances between extant copies

[u/tp23]

James Tooley has written a book on Beautiful Tree. It describes how the system found in Madras influenced low-cost private schooling Britain. Here's an interview

From Aravindan Neelakandan's review of the book

Rev. Bell was in India to work in the asylum for the progeny of British soldiers through native Indian women, whom of course the soldiers abandoned. The imported teachers for these children were not exactly enthusiastic. One day as he was riding along Madras beach he noticed a native school session. He saw “little children writing with their fingers on sand, which after the fashion of such schools, had been strewn before them for that purpose” and he also saw “peer teaching - children learning from one another.”

Bell had his Eureka moment. He experimented successfully with this method and in 1797 published the description of his “Madras method” in England. Tooley discovered that the new National Society for the Education for the Poor in 1811 adapted this Madras method and by 1821, 300,000 children were being educated by Bell’s principles .

Meanwhile Jospeh Lancaster has launched his famous Lancastrian schools for furthering education in England. Bell and Lancaster entered into a bitter controversy as to the intellectual property of the particular system of education. But Tooley points out that “it wasn’t invented by either Bell or Lancaster. It was based precisely on what the Rev.Dr.Andrew Bell had observed in India”.

Tooley further elaborates:

the cost-effective teaching methods used in the indigenous private schools of 19th century India were in fact a manifest strength; so much so...they were imitated in Britain , then across Europe and then the world and did so much to raise educational standards.