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PROVINCIAL LEGISLATURE 339
is the extent of illiteracy prevalent in the country. No one can deny the existence of illiteracy among the masses of the country. But that this factor should have any bearing on the question of franchise is a view the correctness of which I am not prepared to admit. First of all, illiteracy of the illiterate is no fault of theirs. The Government of Bombay for a long time refused to take upon itself the most important function of educating the people, and, when it did, it deliberately confined the benefit of education to the classes and refused to extend it to the masses.*
It was not until 1854, that Government declared itself in favour of mass education as against class education. But the anxiety of Government for the spread of education among the masses has gone very little beyond the passing of a few resolutions. In the matter of financial support Government always treated education with a most niggardly provision. It is notorious, how Government, which is always in favour of taxation refused to consent to the proposal of the Honourable Mr. Gokhale for compulsory primary education, although it was accompanied by a measure of taxation. The introduction of the Reform has hardly improved matters. Beyond the passing of a Compulsory Primary Education Act in the Presidency there has not been any appreciable advance in the direction of mass education. On the contrary there has been a certain amount of deterioration owing to the transfer of education to local authorities which are manned, comparatively speaking, by people who being either indifferent or ignorant, are seldom keen for the advancement of education.*
In the case of the Depressed Classes the opportunity for acquiring literacy has in fact been denied to them. Untouchability has been an insuperable bar in their way to education. Even Government has bowed before it and has sacrificed the rights of the Depressed Classes to admission in public schools to the exigencies of the social system in India. In a resolution of the year 1856 the Government of Bombay in rejecting the petition of a Mahar boy to a school in Dharwar observed :
“The question discussed in the correspondence is one of very great practical difficulty…..
“1. There can be no doubt that the Mahar petitioner has abstract justice in his side; and Government trust that the prejudices which at present prevent him from availing himself of existing means of education in Dharwar may be are long removed.
“2. But Government are obliged to keep in mind that to interefere with the prejudices of ages in a summary manner, for the sake of one or few individuals, would probably do a great damage to the cause of education. The disadvantage under which the petitioner labours is not one which has originated with this Government, and it is one which
*Lest this fact should be regarded as a fiction, I invite attention to the extracts from the Report of the Board of Education of the Bombay Presidency for the year 1850-51. (These extracts are printed at the end of this report as Appendix at pages 402-06.— Editor )