Date: July 1911
Location: London
Speaker: Aga Khan III
Source: Speeches of Aga Khan III – K K Aziz
Full Text
Unrest in Serbia, Portugal, France, South America, South Mrica, Egypt and Great Britain – echoes in Asia – signs of conciliation – majority of the population engaged in agriculture – state of education – G. K Gokhale’s views -widespread illiteracy makes villagers vulnerable – temporary migrant workers – liberal exten sion of primary education needed – conditions in princely States – Gokhale’s bill for free primary education for boys and its impli cations – poor salaries of teachers – suggestions for educational changes- university education- encourage British administrators to learn local languages and customs – anticipated impact of edu cation on commerce and industry – potential for development is present – salvation of British rule rests on the enlightenment of the masses – provide for a capital outlay for education – India a pillar of the Empire – India’s strategic position – education will equip Indians for their future role in the British Empire.
The first decade of the twentieth century will be memorable in history for two great movements of thought, at first sight discor dant but in reality the concomitants of each other. The first of these has been a movement of discontented unrest, which, so far from being confined to a few countries, has been world-wide.
The waters have been deeply moved in Europe no less than in Asia, and in Mrica as markedly as in America, though of course the manifestations of discontent have differed with the varying conditions. To take but a few instances: In Servia [sic] and in Portugal the action of the malcontents was drastic and brutal. In France the unrest has been more industrial than political; the workers were enabled at least for a time to plunge Paris into darkness, to dislocate the means of communication, and, more recently, to commit wanton and wholesale destruction upon the vineyards of the south. In South America revolutions have been frequent, and often the downfall of presidents and parties has been accompanied by mutiny and civil war. When the century opened discontent and the conflict ofj arring political aspirations in South Mrica had issued in a great war, and though that unhappy chapter in history has long been closed and Union has been achieved the problem of the native population is far from solved. In Egypt unrest has been persistent. Even in Great Britain repeated electoral struggles and the proposal of drastic changes in the Constitution have vividly illustrated the restlessness of the age.
It was inevitable that in these days of quickened inter-communi cation this restlessness in Europe, America, and Mrica should find an echo among the vast populations of Asia. The East, though persistently stated to be somnolent and dreamy, has, indeed, outrivalled the West in the last few years as the scene of active movements of a momentous character. The Japanese have forced their way into that comity of Great Powers which has hitherto consisted of the larger European States and America; and their successful encounter with Russia has demonstrated to an astonished world that they have the courage and ability to support their claims. Persia, like Turkey, has been riven with discontent and is evolving Parliamentary institutions. The Arabs have been in rebellion; and, above all, under pressure from the educated classes, China is making use of her strength in unexpected ways, and is stirring with a new life. Finally, in India a spirit of restlessness has accompanied the great social and political changes of recent years. Nothing else could have been expected in view of the enlightenment ~?rought by British rule.
The concurrent movement to which I have referred is the strong and earnest effort of English, American, and other stat esmen to bring in a reign of Peace. In England the Liberal Government has renewed and extended the arbitration treaties negotiated by Lord Lansdowne during his successful tenure at the Foreign Office. It has sought to reduce the possibilities of war by international agreement for the reduction of European armaments; and it has, with the full support of public opinion, evinced an eager willingness to submit all causes of friction with the great sister nation of America to arbitration. The advance made in at least the first of these directions has been other than encouraging, but that does not diminish the credit due to the peaceful and noble aims of Liberal foreign policy. The Ministry are also to be praised for extending these pacific aims to the continent of Asia by making an agreement with the Russian Government whereby the Asiatic sources of friction between the two Powers are removed, or at least greatly mitigated. The same conciliatory attitude has been exhibited in Lord Morley’s control of Indian administration. He refused to be moved to drastic repressive measures by the extreme alarmists, and no doubt this was largely due to his realisation that the wave of unrest has been almost universal in its embrace, and that it would be folly to expect India, leavened by contact with the democracy of Great Britain, to remain unmoved and somnolent. To describe the evolution and manifestations of unrest would be to tread well-worn ground, and my purpose is to seek for the points of contact between the British Raj and the teeming millions of India rather than to diagnose discontent . . . the number of Indians who have Western experience of Western politics is infinitesimal. In the nature of the case this must be so: until the Indian educational system becomes more universal in its application there can be little expectation that the average Indian will gain the knowledge requisite to form opinions of any weight upon public questions. Ignorant prejudices inevitably abound; and it is most lamentable that many of those who pose as the friends of India in the House of Commons and elsewhere are not more guarded and circumspect in their utterances on Indian affairs. They forget that the ordinary Indian ryot cannot count beyond ten, and can only count up to ten because he has that number of digits. It will probably be some time before we know the distribution of population according to occupation as revealed by the census last March, but taking the figures of 1901, when the Indian population was 294 millions, we have these percentages (Statistical Abstract relating to British India):
Nos. supported Percentage Agriculture 191,691,731 65.16 Earthwork and general labour 17,953,261 6.10 Provision and care of animals 3,976,631 1.35 Totals 213,621,623 72.61 The “general labour” in these returns is classed as “not agricul tural,” but in many of the other classifications, such as provision of wood, cane, leaves, &c., and of forage, the work is so closely connected with agriculture as to be scarcely distinguishable there from. The village communities contain many members not returned as agriculturists whose employment depends on the cultivator, and who are therefore ordinarily supported from the produce of the village fields. Consequently the percentage of 72.61 is far below the actual mark; indeed, according to the Imperial Gazetteer of India ( 1907), “it has been estimated that nine tenths of the rural population of India live, directly or indirectly, by agriculture.” And it is important to bear in mind that only some 3P/ millions of the Indian people live in towns with a 2 population of 5000 or upwards. The difference between India and England in this respect is forcibly pointed out in Sir Theo dore Morison’s new book on The Economic Transition in India.
Obviously under Indian conditions the facilities for education must be smallest in the rural areas, where nearly nine-tenths of the people live. The cost of erecting schools in each area within reach of the children will be enormous, and it will be most difficult to obtain an adequate supply of efficient teachers. Need we be surprised, therefore, that in 1908-9, with a population going on to 315 millions, the total number of male and female scholars under instruction was less than six millions? The situ ation was commented on by Mr. Gokhale in his speech to the Supreme Legislative Council on March 18, 1910, as follows:
The statistics of school attendance in the different countries are, in this connection, deeply instructive. To understand these statistics it is necessary that we must remember that the·English standard of school-going population is 15 per cent., but that standard presupposes a school period of six to seven years. In England the period – the compulsory period – being from five to seven years, they estimate that about 15 per cent of the country must be at school. It follows therefore . that where the period is longer the proportion of the total population that will be at school will be greater, and where the period is shorter the proportion will be smaller. Now in the United States and in some of the Continental countries this period is eight years, whereas in Japan it is only four years, and in Italy it is now as low as three years. Remembering these things, I would ask the Council to note the statistics. In the United States of America 21 per cent. of the whole population is receiving elementary education; in Canada, in Australia, in Switzerland, and in Great Britain and Ireland the proportion ranges from 20 per cent. to 17 per cent.; in Germany, in Austria-Hungary, in Norway, and in the Netherlands the proportion is from 17 per cent. to 15 per cent.; in France it is slightly above 14 per cent.; in Sweden it is 14 per cent.; in Denmark it is 13 per cent.; in Belgium it is 12 per cent.; in Japan it is 11 per cent.; in Italy, Greece, and Spain it ranges between 8 per cent. and 9 per cent.; in Portugal and Russia it is between 4 per cent. and 5 per cent. I may mention in this connection that though elemen tary education is nominally compulsory in Portugal, the compulsion is not strictly enforced, and in Russia it is not compulsory, though for the most part it is gratuitous. In the Philippine Islands it is 5 per cent. of the total population; in Baroda it is 5 per cent. of the total population; and in British India it is only 1.9 per cent. of the total population. At the 1901 census there were seventy-five million boys and girls between the ages of five and fifteen, but there were consider ably less than six million persons, including those below and above those age limits, in receipt of school or college education.
Of the 294 million people in India no less than 2773 millions / 4 were absolutely illiterate, unable even to sign their names in t;heir vernaculars. Having regard to the slow but steady advance of educational facilities in the last ten years, it may be hoped that the figures of the recent census will show at least some improve ment in this respect. But while a vast preponderance of illiteracy prevails, the villagers must be at the mercy of any person who may play upon their ignorance and prejudice. These sentimental and sympathetic rustics are liable to be as clay in the hands of the potter when they listen to the heated rhetoric of the agitator who relies upon exciting prejudices and gives no proof for any statements he makes.
The state of affairs is the more serious as the large centres of population absorb, though often only temporarily, many of the rural dwellers to work in factories, to do domestic service, or to be office messengers. Being illiterate, they may be pardoned for listening open-mouthed in these centres to the utterances of those who pose as the learned of India, and for implicitly accepting their statements. They are thus brought into the ranks of the more or less disaffected; often they are fired with zeal, and on returning to their homes they become missionaries of disloyal and demoralising ideas. Most blameworthy have been the men who, knowing the state of affairs, have not hesitated to lead a seditious campaign. The poisonous seed they have sown can only be prevented from germinating and bearing fruit through a liberal extension of elementary education, giving the masses the capacity for unprejudiced judgment, and helping them to form individual opinions.
It is a mistake to suppose that great blame attaches to the Government of India, because only 1 out of every 171j persons 2 in India is able to read and write. As a matter of fact our British rulers have done magnificent educational work. Critics possessing little or no first-hand acquaintance with Indian problems do not realise the difficulties of the question in an area so vast and with a population so scattered and prejudiced. When we consider what the Indian Government have already accomplished, we can only regard with mingled gratitude and amazement their stead fast persistence and the record of their enterprise.
Of course that enterprise has been exhibited for the most part in British India. The Government have not the same powers in Native States as in the vast areas under British administration.
Let us not, therefore, make the mistake of confusing the issue by introducing into the considerations here set out the particular problems of education which the Indian Princes are called upon to solve. Speaking in London on November 21, 1910, the Gaekwar of Baroda said he had tried to introduce education, and even compulsory education, not merely for popularity’s sake, but because he believed the spread of education and of schools to be necessary for the progress of India. “Without education and intelligent appreciation of affairs,” he added, “no community could hope to progress, and it was the duty of every Government to educate the people as much as possible.” Other States may not be so far advanced in this matter as Baroda, but it is a significant fact that within the Native States, which now have an aggregate population of nearly seventy-one millions, manifes tations of disloyal unrest have been extremely rare. The replies of the Ruling Chiefs to the Earl of Minto’s circular letter asking for their advice and assistance show clearly enough the vigorous methods they would have pursued within the confines of their respective dominions had the same class of trouble and the same methods of agitation been pursued as were followed in British territory.
This aspect of the history of the recent unrest serves to empha sise the duty of the Indian Government to devise a policy of extended education and increased facilities for training students, male and female, for future careers. It is suggested that there should be close observance of two principles – equality in the standard of education and uniformity of practice within the various presidencies and other provinces. Such principles are followed in European countries with most beneficial effects.
Surely they might with equal profit be adopted in India. Insist ence on a minimum standard of efficiency would not involve any curtailment of the provincial autonomy so jealousy upheld by the local Governments. That the time for a general uniform advance has come is clearly indicated by the circumstance that ·a leading Indian citizen, Mr. Gokhale, has introduced into the Viceregal Legislature a Bill for compulsory and free primary education for boys. It is not the purpose of this article to take sides in the controversy aroused by this significant action, but an examination of the difficulties confronting Mr. Gokhale’s bold scheme may not be out of place. · Mr. H. W. Orange, the late Director-General of Education, in his quinquennial report for 1902-7, stated that there are in British India more than eighteen million boys of an age to attend primary schools, and that in 1907 the number of boys in such schools were 3,630,668 and the number of teachers 140,000. If Mr. Gokhale’s Bill were passed provision would have to be made for the primary education of from six to nine million more boys, and of course the number of teachers would have to be proportionately increased. Now it is well known that although there are training colleges for teachers, the standard of the primary teachers in all parts of the country leaves very much to be desired. The question is whether enough is being done or purposed to attract a better class of teachers. At an educational conference held under the chairmanship of Mr. Harcourt Butler, the Member for Education, at Allahabad last cold weather, it was suggested that the salary of the teacher in primary schools should be raised from Rs. 8 to Rs. 12 ( 16s.) per month. But has not the cost of living in India increased within the last few years in at least the same proportion? As that is so, the profession will continue to be grossly underpaid. Nowadays in India an ordinary groom draws nearly as much as the proposed enhanced scale of pay for teaching. It is not unreasonable to think that the members of a noble profession should be better remunerated than menial servants. If knowledge is to be diffused and the moral and intel lectual standard of the rising generation is to be generally improved greater attention will have to be devoted to the nur series and the nurses. It is in the primary school that the boy will receive many of his first and most lasting impressions; and a very great deal depends upon the example and culture of the master.
The tendency of the higher educational system in India has been to turn out year by year hundreds of persons sufficiently instructed to take up Government positions and public appoint ments, a large proportion of whom can find nothing to do, as the supply greatly exceeds the demand. Yet it is universally admitted that the crying need of India to-day is education. Why not, then, commence at the top and at the bottom at the same time? Why not raise the standard of degree, and make it uniform in each of the provinces? At the same time it should be insisted that every area should have the same facilities, proportionate, of course, to population, for education. Take, for example, the Bombay Presidency. The primary schools should be placed within easy reach of the people, or the means of reaching them should be improved. The Presidency should be divided into educational districts, regulated by the number of primary schools within the area. From these primary schools the best and most promising children should be selected to go to the secondary school or college; from thence, in due time, there should be selection of the promising youths to go forward to the university – the culminating-point of an educational course in India. Before a boy entered the secondary school his parents should be required to state their intentions as to his calling in life, and the remainder of his educational course should be devoted, as far as may be practicable, to fitting him, generally and specifically, for that calling. Care should be taken to point out to the parents, before they come to definite decision on the matter, that in view of the economic changes and developments of the day technical and practical knowledge of arts and manufactures is likely to offer far better scope for a career than the crowded professions of law and medicine. Should the youth go forward to the university his final studies there should be the avenue directly leading to the particular trade or profession selected.
It is most important that at the university the young Indian should be provided with accommodation on the lines adopted by Oxford and Cambridge from their institution. In the speeches and writings of educationists such as Dr. Garfield Williams and Dr. Ashutosh Mukerjee attention is again and again drawn to the regrettable fact that the growth in the size of Calcutta has placed the university in a densely populated portion of the town. The university should be some distance from the crowded metropolis, and residential hostels should be built in close proximity to the university buildings. The life of the student should be rendered more attractive arid healthy by the provision of gymnasia, racquet and tennis courts, and cricket and football grounds, and other outdoor pastimes should be organised. This policy would remove some of the temptations which now assail the students at a time when they are plastic and impressionable; and on the athletic field they would have opportunities for developing those charac teristics which make for a better type of manhood and a higher moral tone. As things are, there is ample evidence that many of the students are compelled by their poverty to resort to quarters where the surroundings are far from helpful. Very often they are fresh from country places and gain their first experience of life in a large town – a life with many hazards and trials – in these crowded and undesirable surroundings, where, removed from the eye of the university authorities, they may be the prey_ of the sedition-monger. In this way there is a great wastage of the noble potentialities of young manhood. Would it not be better, and far cheaper in the long run, to remove the university to a quiet suburb and plan the buildings and equipment upon more modern lines, with the accompaniment of hostels, gymnasia, and· playgrounds? The transfer may cost much; but will not dernoral ised and sedition-ridden students, the probable missionaries of disaffection, ultimately cost more?
The aphorism that education never ceases is true, or should be true, not only of the Indian student, but also of those English officials who do such excellent work throughout the Indian Dependency. I have written of the necessity for uniformity of standard and equality of opportunity in education throughout each province. Could it not also be arranged that upon entering the Indian Civil Service the young officer should be notified that, save in exceptional circumstances and cases, his life’s work will be confined not only to the particular province to which he is posted, but as far as possible to one section of the province? This will encourage and justify the civilian in studying local languages and customs in much more detail than is at present possible. A great deal would thus be done to promote that personal contact between the British administrators and the Indian people of their districts, on which the future progress and contentment of the country largely depends. There would flow from this closer knowledge greater sympathy, coupled with better understanding of the aims and objects which the more advanced Indians have in view. It is admittedly difficult to bring to the Western mind the fact that, notwithstanding the division of six years ago, Bengal Proper, as it is now termed, even when the great areas of the native States are excluded, is almost as large as the United Kingdom. But under the English system of local administration the idea is never entertained of transferring a junior official of, say, the Kent County Council to work within the area of Northumberland Council. Save when they successfully apply for some higher post elsewhere – and these cases are the exception, not the rule – the officials of the local government bodies in England remain in the same county or large borough through their working lifetimes, and gain their promotion there. It follows that they are closely acquainted with the aims and the objects, the hopes and the fears, of the people living within their adminis trative areas.
There can be no doubt that similar knowledge would be acquired in India if officials were kept not only in the same province, but also for a much longer period than is now usual in the same divisional area of the province. This should at least be done as regards the less important and district appointments, whilst the present practice might be continued, though with much less frequency of transfer, in respect to the higher posts.
In this way both in the realm of education and of administration the Government have it in their power to standardise and organise British India. Equality of education and uniformity of standard will have been combined with a most desirable system of keeping the civilian administrators in touch with the people and the problems best known to them.
It may be argued that with all this the problem of commercial and industrial expansion will remain not only unsolved, but almost untouched. My reply is that if, by the diffusion of elemen tary education, the standard of ideas of the average ryot is raised, and he is brought to understand the rudiments of business, he will be placed ·on a higher platform than he has ever before occupied. The truism that the luxuries of one generation are the necessities of the next simply means that the standard of life and its requirements are continually rising. The rise is most rapid where education is good and thorough. We may expect, there fore, that there will flow from the education of the Indian the same class of benefits as flow from that of the European. There may be considerable difference in the intensity of the two streams; but the main result of educating the Indian will be the increasing demand he will make upon Indian commerce, and the stimulation of industry such an increased demand will bring.
In my judgment it will be a mistake to attack this great problem of educational diffusion piecemeal. In the long run it will be best and cheapest to face the situation boldly now and to lay out a sufficient sum to meet the main requirements. Of course we shall be told once again that India is poor, and that her resources are not equal to an ambitious programme of educational diffusion.
This, no doubt, is true; but does any one believe that India must ever remain in this state? And, considering the great ends in view, is she not equal to carrying on her shoulders for this purpose the burden common to all civilised nations, namely, the burden of a National Debt? Each day the scope of India’s advancement is increasing. By scientific treatment land that has been lying fallow for generations is being brought under cultivation. As a con spicuous instance reference may be made to the great additions to the cultivated area in India through the medium of the Punjab canal colonies. New methods for improving the quality and pro ductiveness of the soil are being discovered at the experimental model farms; and the agriculturists are being taught how to turn their land to most profitable account. The co-operative credit societies are doing much to relieve the ryots from what has seemed the irremovable load of indebtedness to the money lender. Signs of real and steady, if slow, progress are discernible at every turn. The great need for their acceleration is a diffusion of education whereby India’s peoples will be enabled to develop and improve economic potentialities. A system of education working up from the bottom and down from the top concurrently must surely find the centre of its gravity and enormously promote the interests of India. Remunerative occupation goes to make a happy people; when they are actively engaged in developing and improving their economic condition they will find no time for devoting thought and energy to movements of doubtful profit to themselves and the country. In short, the salvation of India under British rule rests upon the enlightenment of the masses.
Speaking at the Bankers’ Institute in May last, Lord Morley stated that India’s indebtedness amounted to 290 millions ster ling, and that her assets in public works, &c., were 329 millions.
Thus India’s liabilities are far more than covered, and in one sense she has no Debt. Why not, then, treat the capital outlay I have suggested for education and the necessary machinery to bring it up to date as an investment on which interest will be paid in the future in the shape of a higher standard of comfort, a greater commercial and industrial skill? With her vast popu lation thus equipped and educated, India will not only offer ample securities for her Debt, but will be a fructifying asset within the Empire, offering to Britain and her dominions the second largest potential market in the world. And it will be a market whose goodwill is certain to be on the side of Britain’s sons, because of the boon Britain has conferred. The signs of a steady progress are already visible, and what is now required is to provide the means for acceleration of the progress. Indians will see that such provision, in the shape of a general system of education, is due to the foresight and sympathetic purposes of the British Government. Thus will be revived in the minds of myriads of Indians the feeling of affection for the British Raj against which the Indian agitator will thunder in vain when there is commercial content and an augmentation of knowledge.
Under these circumstances a community with something to lose will be evolved, and it will be naturally slow to risk the substance for the shadow the agitator places before its members.
If education has any meaning at all it should have the effect spoken of by Mr. Benson: “It seems to me that the whole progress of life and thought, of love and charity, depends upon our coming to understand each other.” Would that the idea under lying this sentence formed the central thought of all persons to whom there stands committed a share in the care and progress of India. We Indians wish for it, knowing how much both sides have to gain therefrom. The outcome of educational diffusion must be that India will find an increased hope from its ordered uniformity and from the progress following on educational devel opment. Method and reasoned organisation will at last be harnessed to the life of the people, for whom careers will be opened not only in law and medicine, but in commerce, trade, and Government service, both civil and military.
It is to this, and from this, development of India as part of an Imperial whole that we must look for the means of strengthening her and the Empire at one and the same time. For India must remain one of the pillars of the British Empire – and a most important pillar, because she is to-day the Empire’s largest poten tial market and the greatest reservoir of man-power within the limits of British heritage. That is why the education of her people is so vital: vital because of the future increase of her colJ)merce, vital because of the almost unlimited areas of cultivation within her boundaries, vital because of her defensive strength and as a half-way house to the great self-governing States of South Mrica, Australia, and New Zealand. By education there can be trained a people whose past history has proved that they can be fighters and can show a loyalty to their leaders unparalleled in history.
Therefore the motto to-day for British and Indian statesman must be, “Educate, educate, educate.”
Look for a passing moment at the question of man-power. The British Empire has perhaps fifty-six millions of white men; but these are scattered in four continents – strategically a bad posi tion. Canada could be absorbed by the United States, South Mrica overrun, and Australia attacked before sufficient help from the Mother Country could reach them. Yet India could put troops into South Mrica as quickly as they could be sent f:r;om England; she could land soldiers in Australia long before England could do so; and forces from India could reach Western Canada almost as soon as from England. Still more: India from her vast reservoir can supply thousands where England can only send hundreds.
In the noble speech in which he urged conciliation with America Burke said: “Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute necessity of keeping up the concord of this Empire by a unity of spirit, though in a diversity of operations.”
Never was this great conception more applicable than in this restless age. If by education the myriads of India can be taught that they are guardians and supporters of the Crown, just as are the white citizens of the Empire, then the realisation that India and the self-governing dominions stand and fall together, bound by a community of interests and a common cause to maintain, will have come. Britain and her sons will demonstrate to the world and to herself at the same time that the cement of self interest, the amalgam of an identity of fate, compels the con stituent portions of the Empire to work for the defence of all parts. It is only from the realisation of this identity of interests that Great Britain can remain the foremost of States, for by herself she has not sufficient population to defend her vast com merce and Empire. She can only retain her unique position by frankly securing the co-operation of all her dominions and dependencies in the commercial and perhaps ultimately the mili tary contest between herself and the modern military and naval European and American States. India supplies the men, while the self-governing dominions and the Mother Country supply the energy and directing force. Hence it is imperative to give Indians the education to fit them for their future role in the British Empire.
Source: National Review, London, July 1911, pp. 779-92. , )