z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-06.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 419
EDUCATION OF DEPRESSED CLASSES 419
who had ever come forward to beg for admission into a school attended only by the pupils of castes and to force him into association with them, at the probable risk of making the institution practically useless for the great mass of natives.”
The proceedings of the Government of Bombay in this matter were noticed in the following terms by the Government of India, in a letter No. 111 dated
23rd January 1857 :
“Governor-General in Council thinks it very probable that the Bombay Government has acted wisely in the matter; but it desires me (i.e. Secretary to the Government of India) to say that the boy would not have been refused admission to any Government school in the Presidency of Bengal.”*
On receipt of this letter it was resolved that Government of India should be assured that this Government would be most unwilling to neglect any means of rendering the schools throughout the country less exclusive than they practically are in the matter of caste; provided this could be effected without bringing the Government school into general disrepute, and thus destroying their efficiency and defeating the object for which they were intended. It was also determined that an enquiry should be made as to the practical working of the principle which was said to prevail in Bengal as affecting the general usefulness of the Government schools.
Inquiries as to the practice prevalent in Bengal revealed that the Bengal authorities contrary to the supposition of the Government of India had left it to the District Committees of Instructions to grant or refuse admittance to candidates of inferior castes, with reference to the state of local native feeling in each case. The result of this was that the Depressed classes were left in the cold because the touchable classes would not let them sit at the fire of knowledge which the Government had lit up in the interest of all its subjects.
Under these circumstances mass education as contemplated by the Despatch of 1854 was in practice available to all except the Depressed classes. The lifting of the ban on the education of the Depressed classes in
1854 was a nominal affair only. For, although the principle of non-exclusion was affirmed by the Government its practical operation was very carefully avoided; so that we can say that the ban was continued in practice as before.
The only agency which could take charge of the education of the Depressed classes was that of Christian missionaries. In the words of Mount Stuart Elphinstone they “found the lowest classes the best peoples”. But the
*In a Despatch No. 58 dated April 28th, 1858 the Court of Directors passed the following order on this subject: “The educational institutions of Government are intended by us to be open to all classes, and we cannot depart from a principle which is essentially sound, and the maintenance of which is of first importance. It is not impossible that, in some cases, the enforcement of the principle may be followed by a withdrawal of a portion of the scholars; but it is sufficient to remark that those persons who object to its practical enforcement will be at liberty to withhold their contributions and apply their funds to the formation of schools on a different basis.”