z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-06.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 417
EDUCATION OF DEPRESSED CLASSES 417
What do these figures show ? They show that although mass education was the policy of the Government the masses were as outside the pale of education as they were before the year 1854 and that the lowest and aboriginal classes of the Hindus still remained lowest in order of education; so much so that in 1881-82 there was no student from that community either in the High Schools or in the Colleges of this Presidency. What can this failure to bring the Depressed classes to the level of the rest in the matter of education be due to ? To answer this question it is necessary again to go into the history of the educational policy of the Government of this Presidency.
The Despatch of the Court of Directors of the year 1854, for the first time recognized after a lapse of full 40 years that the duty of the state was to undertake the education of the great mass of the people. But there were still die-hards who had great misgivings as to the wisdom of the principle laid down in that Despatch and who were agitating for a reversal of that policy. The fears of dire consequences to the British Rule arising from elevating the Backward classes above their station in life still haunted men like Lord Ellenborough, President of the Board of Control who in a letter to the Chairman of the Court of Directors dated 28th of April 1858 did not hesitate to strike the following note of caution :
“Gentlemen : Many letters have been lately before me reviewing the state of education in different parts of India under the instructions sent by the Court of Directors in 1854, and I confess that they have not given me the impression that the expected good has been derived from the system which was then established, while all the increase of charge which might have been expected appears to be in progress of realization.
“Paragraph 11. I believe we rarely, if ever induce parents of the lower class to send their children to our schools, and we should practically, if we succeeded in extending education as we desire, give a high degree of mental cultivation to the labouring class, while we left the more wealthy in ignorance.
“Paragraph 12. This result would not tend to create a healthy state of society. Our Government could not offer to the most educated of the lower class the means of gratifying the ambition we should excite.
“Paragraph 13. We should create a very discontented body of poor persons, having, through the superior education we had given to them, a great power over the mass of the people.
“Paragraph 14. Education and civilization may descend from the higher to the inferior classes, and so communicated may impart new vigour to the community, but they will never ascend from the lower classes to those above them; they can only, if imparted solely to the lower classes, lead to general convulsion, of which foreigners would be the first victims.
“Paragraph 15. If we desire to diffuse education, let us endeavour to give it to the higher classes first.