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Eternal India
encyclopedia
EDUCATION
EDUCATION
AN OVERVIEW
Though modern education in India has its origins in the
establishment of three universities - Calcutta, Bombay and Madras in
1857 - Indian education has a hoary past. Ancient Indian education with
the
Rig Veda
and the other three
Vedas
as the basic knowledge sources
was conducted in the
Ashrams
(forest abodes) of eminent sages for their
own sons as well as for disciples coming from different homes in
society. That education, to start with, was mostly religious and ethical.
Though other mundane subjects like Mathematics, Statecraft,
Ayurveda, Astronomy etc., were added later, nothing like a big centre
comparable in any way to the modern college or a university, existed.
It was in Buddhist times that the old Brahmanical education
system was modified and great centres of religious and secular
education were established on a big scale. University-type centres like
Nalanda and Taxila or Nagarjunakonda and Kanchipuram developed
between 300 B.C. and 5th century A.D. It was said that nearly 10,000
students stayed at Nalanda studying different subjects under hundreds
of eminent scholars. Nalanda attracted students from not only other
parts of India but even from far off lands. But with the revival of
Brahmanism by the 5th century A.D., Buddhist centres slowly decayed
and great Buddhist scholars left India for other countries.
In about 1000 A.D. Muslims from the West invaded India and
established their rule. They brought with them Islamic learning and
other secular arts like music, painting, architecture etc. They
established thousands of centres of learning called
madrasas
in places
like Delhi, Agra, Lucknow and Lahore in the north. Muslim rulers in the
South - the Bahamani Kings and Adilshah of Bijapur-established well-
known
madrasas
in Bidar, Gulbarga, Bijapur and Honavar. The
madrasa
established by Muhammad Gawan in the Bahamani kingdom
rose to great heights becoming what could be called a University of
Islamic Learning.
The advent of British rule, especially in the first half of the 19th
century, really marks the beginning of modem Indian education. In the
stormy controversy between the Orientalists and the Anglicists about
the nature and medium of education in India, the Anglicists won the
battle after Lord William Bentinck accepted the now famous
Macaulay's Minute on Education in 1835. Accordingly Western
Education with English as the medium of instruction became the basis
of future education in India.
With the acceptance and implementation of Sir Charles Wood's
Despatch of 1854 which is called the Magna Carta of Indian education,
the way to the establishment of the Calcutta, Bombay and Madras
Universities in 1857 was cleared. Two more universities viz. Lahore
and Allahabad, were added in the 1880s. Later with the support and
encouragement of Lord Curzon and the recommendations of the
University Commission of 1902-04, a further impetus was given to the
establishment of colleges in various parts of India. All the universities
till then established in India were based on the model of London
University in the United Kingdom which was an affiliating university.
A new line was struck by Ashutosh Mukneijee, the Vice-Chancellor of
Calcutta University, who introduced the concept of teaching at the post-
graduate level in the university departments and introducing the mother
tongue, Bengali, as an additional medium of education. Another
deviation from the affiliating model was the starting of Benares Hindu
University in 1916 as a unitary, residential type of university.
In Karnataka, the first University to come up was Mysore
University which became possible on account of the efforts and
reputation of Sir M. Visvesvaraya, then Dewan of Mysore. Though it
was intended to be a unitary type like that of Benares, subsequent events
in Karnataka resulted in the Mysore University becoming only an
affiliating university with teaching and research added to it later.
On the model of Benares Hindu University also came up the
Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh which was also a unitary,
teaching and residential university. A different type of innovation was
introduced in the Princely State of Hyderabad where a University was
established in 1918 with Urdu as medium of higher education,
including medical and engineering education. This was a revolutionary
step and was made possible by translating a large number of books from
English into Urdu for various courses. On the dawn of Independence of
India in 1947, there were 19 universities in India.
ATTEMPTS AT INDIANISATION
The Western education introduced and developed by the British
in India was vehemently criticised as an education preparing only loyal
servants for the British Government and an educated class of people
who "were Indians by birth and blood but Western and Anglicised in
tastes and behaviour." The idea of Indians becoming "hewers of wood
and drawers of water" for the alien masters was insulting. Secondly, the
system uprooted Indian culture and was in no way compatible with the
aspirations of the Indians for national development. As a matter of fact,
the National Schools had been started in 1920-21 itself. But many of
them could not survive. In the face of extreme odds and difficulties, a
few shining examples at Indianisation of education stand out. Swami
Dayananda Saraswati revived ancient learning and synthesised it with
useful elements of Western education. He started a number of schools
and colleges which are now run under the name of D.A. V. educational
institutions. Swami Vivekananda spiritualised the concept of education
by defining education as "manifestation of the perfection already in
man." He inspired the followers of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, as a
result of which a number of Ramakrishna Mission educational and
spiritual centres were established all over India. Following
Vivekananda's footsteps is the radiant example of Annie Besant who
founded a number of institutions under the Theosophical Society and
started the Central Hindu College at Benares and initiated the
movement together with Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, for the
setting up of the Benares Hindu University.
Sri Aurobindo, Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi
developed their own individual Indianised models of education. Sri
Aurobindo enunciated the preliminary ideas for a national system of
education in India which he called "integral education". It laid emphasis
on the psychological, logical, practical and spiritual aspects of
education. The experiment was conducted in the school at Pondicherry
and later the International University at Auroville. It is also practised in
the Mother School, Delhi and a number of schools in Orissa.
Rabindranath Tagore worked hard throughout his life not only for
the establishment and development of Santiniketan where he
attempted to revive the ancient system of education in what became
famous as Sriniketan. Tagore's experiment remained isolated in
Santiniketan now known as the International University of
Vishwabharathi. The same thing is true of the Auroville International
University of Sri Aurobindo. Gandhiji's scheme of craft-centred basic