Krishna Kumar - Political Agenda of Education

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POLITICALAGENDAOFEDUCATION


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SAGE PublicationsNew Delhi Thousand Oaks London

POLITICALAGENDA

OFEDUCATION

A study of colonialistand nationalist ideas

SECONDEDITION

KRISHNAKUMAR


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Copyright Krishna Kumar, 1991, 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system,without permission in writing from the publisher.

First published in 1991

This second edition published in 2005 by

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Krishna Kumar, 1951Political agenda of education: a study of colonialist and nationalist ideas/

Krishna Kumar.2nd ed.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. EducationPolitical aspectsIndiaHistory. 2. EducationSocialaspectsIndiaHistory. 3. IndiaHistoryBritish occupation, 17651947 I. Title

LC94.I4K75 379.54dc22 2005 2004028975

ISBN:ISBN:ISBN:ISBN:ISBN: 0-7619-3316-6 (Hb) 81-7829-446-X (India-Hb)

0-7619-3317-4 (Pb) 81-7829-447-8 (India-Pb)

Sage PrSage PrSage PrSage PrSage Production Toduction Toduction Toduction Toduction Team:eam:eam:eam:eam: Shinjini Chatterjee, Rajib Chatterjee and Santosh Rawat


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To the memory of J.P. Naik


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Still more important than Wordsworth, or the eminent

authors, Burke and Hare, was the art and science of

mensuration. A boy who had passed his examination in

these branchesfor which, by the way, there were no

cram bookscould, by merely marching over a country

with a compass and a level and a straight eye, carry away

a picture of that country which might be sold for largesums in coined silver.

Rudyard Kipling inKim


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CONTENTS

Preface to the Second Edition 9Preface to the First Edition 11

I Introduction 13

Part I: Dynamics of Colonization

II Colonial Citizen as an Educational Ideal 25III Appropriate Knowledge: Conflict of

Curriculum and Culture 49

IV Meek Dictator: The Paradox of

Teachers Personality 73

Part II: Dynamics of the Freedom Struggle

V Pursuit of Equality 97

VI Quest for Self-Identity 123VII Meanings of Progress 156

VIII Conclusion 195

Bibliography 204Index 212About the Author 224


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PREFACETOTHESECONDEDITION

A lot seems to have changed since the early 1990s when this book

was first published. Considerable policy-level interest has been in

evidence on the matter of universalization of elementary educa-

tion. An amendment in the Constitution has been made in order to

make elementary education a fundamental, justiciable right of every

child. This is no small measure, even though the precise meaning of

this measure will only emerge when suitable laws and proceduresare put in place in every state, enabling citizen groups to seek justice

when children are deprived of their fundamental right to education.

This book concludes by arguing that the utilitarian doctrine of

the colonial state kept India divided between elites and masses.

Liberal democratic procedures were set in motion in the late colo-

nial period, but liberalism as a political and social perspective failed

to develop, especially in the context of education. And now, in the

early twenty-first century, India finds itself facing the onslaught of a

harsh, neo-liberal doctrine. Implicit in it is the idea that the process

of building the state is no longer necessary, that the market would

serve better where the state has failed. At a time when the state

seemed to have developed at least the urge, if not a plausible plan

and credible commitment, to universalize elementary education,

the popularity of neo-liberal ideas does not augur well. And these

ideas are already influencing policy quite negatively. Privatization

is rampant and spreading further at great speed; teachers are losing

what little status they had; and the humanities are losing out in

competition with high-income-oriented forms of knowledge. As the

second edition ofPolitical Agenda of Educationgoes to press, one

does wonder what the changes mentioned in the first paragraph of

this preface mean.

In the book itself there are many changes. The most important

one is the inclusion of a section on girls education in the discussion

on equality in Chapter V. The absence of this topic in the last edition

was a major lacuna, reflecting both a limitation in my awareness

and in the discourse of the 1980s. Rarely does one know the precise

source and moment of awareness: in my case it was a visit to the


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Part I

Dynamics of Colonization


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II

COLONIALCITIZENASANEDUCATIONALIDEAL

We owe the concept of an educational ideal as a means of historical

inquiry to Mannheim. He defined it as a residue of attitudes, prin-

ciples and forms of behaviour which shapes educational aims and

arrangements in a period of history (Mannheim and Stewart 1962).

This concept enabled him to debunk the notionwhich still prevails

that education has certain universal and eternal aims. He was able

to demonstrate that educational aims have a historical character,

that they change as much as the guiding ideals of other cultural

activities change over time. The concept of an educational idealalso served Mannheim as a method of analysis. He used it both for

historical investigations and for participating in the discussion of

educational aims in his own day. I intend to use the concept as a

means to identify an organizing principle in Indian colonial educa-

tion during the nineteenth century.

The customary statement that colonial education was aimed at

producing clerks is both theoretically feeble and historically unten-

able. Its theoretical weakness lies in the fact that it does not help usdistinguish between the ideas underlying the educational system

and its practical purposes. But even if one saw it as a statement

about the immediate outcomes of colonial education, one finds little

evidence to support it. Colonial education produced political lead-

ers, professional men and intellectuals, not just office clerks. No

simple model or statement will help us understand why colonial

education had the kinds of effects it had. It socialized many into

colonial values; at the same time, it turned many of its productsagainst those values. The rejection of colonial education may not

have been sustained for long periods, but the broader rejection of

colonial rule was sustained and we cannot ignore the role of education


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of the education system, and the other representing a literate,

traditionally revered member of the local community. If my thesis

is correct, it answers the problem I had posed in the introductory

chapter, namely, why the teacher accompanying a group of chil-

dren to the zoo remains indifferent to the experience and knowl-

edge children are supposed to gain there.

The only change that has come about in this matter since the

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days of colonial rule is that now bureaucratic authority is assisted by

quasi-bureaucratic experts in curriculum and text selection. An in-

ternational study (Morris 1977) of the teachers role in curriculum

planning revealed that the Indian situation presented the clearest

and most negative picture in the whole inquiry, indicating the ab-

sence of any meaningful role for the teacher. This conclusion is

consistent with our understanding that in India the teachers appro-

priate job continues to be regarded as that of delivering the pre-scribed content of textbooks. The students duty is to ingest this

prescribed content. There is no room in this process for genuine

inquiry, for it is assumed that all necessary inquiry has already

been made; and that the results of the inquiry have been packaged

in the syllabus and the textbook. Questions can only be asked to

clarify ones understanding of this packaged knowledge. As we have

argued in this chapter, this perception of knowledge arose under the

specific historial circumstances created by colonization and it be-

came a part of the culture of education in India in association with

the older traditions of teacherlearner relationship.


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V

PURSUITOFEQUALITY


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The freedom struggle can be seen as a social process involving the

pursuit of several different ideals or values.1The Indian subcontinentwas much too vast a geographical territory and much too varied acultural territory for a single dominant construct of ideals to be sus-

tained for any length of time. Such a development was also pre-vented by the fact that political leadership never took the form of aunified elite. Cultural, ideological and personality-related factorskept the leadership a loosely strung group at the national level.Elitesin the proper sense of the termemerged and held swayonly in local spheres, and that too only in certain parts of the coun-

try. Between the local and national spaces lay the substantial dis-tances of cultural aspiration and perception of the desirable. These

distances invariably diluted the tenacity and passion with whichlocal or regional spokesmen could hold on to their value-premiseswhen they engaged in national-level deliberations. When the de-liberations led to a resolution, it was hardly ever a crystallization;rather, it was a map of the uncontroversial space available betweenthe assertions of different value-premises.2What lay in this spacewere temporally useful clusters of values. Politics meant finding

room in this space, and the contest was hard. Significant voices

were often left out, and as the freedom struggle advanced, some ofthese voices formed a cluster outside the political space.

We can place the value orientations expressed in the context ofeducation during the freedom struggle into three major categories:equality, self-identity and progress. These are not mutually exclusive

categories, and that is why they are somewhat difficult to work with.

1I was first inspired to look at the freedom struggle in this way by Manoranjan

Mohantys paper, Value Movement and Development Models in ContemporaryIndia (1979).

2Many examples illustrating this point are given in Johnson (1973).


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About the Author

Krishna KumarKrishna KumarKrishna KumarKrishna KumarKrishna Kumar is Director of the National Council of Educational

Research and Training (NCERT). In his distinguished career, he has

also been Professor of Education at the University of Delhi and Head

of the Central Institute of Education (198891), besides having been

a UGC National Lecturer and a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow. His literary

contributions includeRaj, Samaj aur Shiksha;Vichaar Ka Dar;School

ki Hindi;Learning from Conflict; What is Worth Teaching;The Childs

Language and the Teacher; The Social Character of Learning; andPreju-

dice and Pride:School Histories of the Freedom Struggle in India andPakistan. A columnist and a short story writer in Hindi, Professor

Kumar also writes for children.


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Krishna Kumar - Political Agenda of Education

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