(88) வெள்ளைக்காரன் & மெக்காலே கல்வி வருமுன்பான இந்தியா

இந்தியாவின் வளம், இந்தியர்களின் முன்னேறிய சிந்தனை, வாழ்க்கைமுறை இவைகளைக் கேள்விப்பட்டு இந்தியாவைத் தேடித் தேடி அலைந்த பயணங்கள் மேற்கத்திய ஐரோப்பிய நாடுகளான இங்கிலாந்து ஃப்ரான்ஸ், டென்மார்க், போர்ச்சுக்கல் என்று பெரும்பான்மையான நாடுகள் அவர்களது மிக முக்கியமான நோக்கமாக மூன்று நூற்றாண்டுகளுக்கு முன்பாக இருந்தது. இன்றைக்கு உலகின் வல்லரசாக இருக்கும் அமெரிக்காவுக்கு அன்றைக்கு பெயர்கூட இல்லவே இல்லை!



இன்றைய இந்தியாவின் பிரச்சினைகளுக்கு மிக முக்கியமான காரணங்கள் பல இருந்தாலும் பிரதானமானது வெள்ளைக்காரனான மெக்காலேயினால் அடிமைத்தனத்தை வாழையடி வாழையாக இந்தியமக்களிடையே அவர்கள் சிந்தனையில் தொடர்வதற்காக அமைக்கப்பட்ட மெக்காலே முறையிலான அடிமைக் கல்விமுறைத்திட்டம் முதன்மையானது என்பது எனது கருத்து.

மூலக் கட்டுரை முழுதும் ஆங்கிலத்தில் இருக்கிறதை அப்படியே தந்திருக்கிறேன்.

What is it that keeps the country down", asked the speaker. A young
man in the audience replied unhesitatingly: "Undoubtedly the
institution of caste that kept the majority low castes and the
society backward" and added "it continues".

The speaker replied, "May be". But, pausing for a moment, he
added, "May not be". Shocked, the young man angrily asked him to
explain his "may-not-be" theory.

The speaker calmly mentioned just one fact that clinched the debate.
He said, "Before the British rule in India, over two-thirds - yes,
two-thirds - of the Indian kings belonged to what is today known as
the Other Backward Castes (OBCs).

"It is the British," he said, "who robbed the OBCs - the ruling class
running all socio-economic institutions - of their power, wealth and
status." So it was not the upper caste which usurped the OBCs of
their due position in the society?

The speaker's assertion that it was not so was founded on his study -
unbelievably painstaking study for years and decades in the archives
in India , England and Germany. He could not be maligned as
a 'saffron' ideologue and what he said could not be dismissed thus.
He was Dharampal, a Gandhian in ceaseless search of truth like his
preceptor Gandhi himself was, but a Gandhian with a difference. He
ran no ashram on state aid to do 'Gandhigiri' .

Admitting that "he and those like him do not know much about our own
society", the young man who questioned Dharampal - Banwari is his
name - became his student. By meticulous research of the British
sources over decades, Dharampal demolished the myth that India was
backward educationally or economically when the British entered.
Citing the Christian missionary William Adam's report on indigenous
education in Bengal and Bihar in 1835 and 1838, Dharampal established
that at that time there were 100,000 schools in Bengal, one school
for about 500 boys; that the indigenous medical system that included
inoculation against small-pox.

He also proved by reference to other materials that Adam's record
was 'no legend'. He relied on Sir Thomas Munroe's report to the
Governor at about the same time to prove similar statistics about
schools in Madras. He also found that the education system in the
Punjab during the Maharaja Ranjit Singh's rule was equally extensive.
He estimated that the literary rate in India before the British was
higher than that in England.

Citing British public records he established, on the contrary,
that 'British had no tradition of education or scholarship or
philosophy from 16th to early 18th century, despite Shakespeare,
Bacon, Milton, Newton, etc'. Till then education and scholarship in
the UK was limited to select elite. He cited Alexander Walker's Note
on Indian education to assert that it was the monitorial system of
education borrowed from India that helped Britain to improve, in
later years, school attendance which was just 40, 000, yes just that,
in 1792. He then compared the educated people's levels in India and
England around 1800. The population of Madras Presidency then was 125
lakhs and that of England in 1811 was 95 lakhs. Dharampal found that
during 1822-25 the number of those in ordinary schools in Madras
Presidency was around 1.5 lakhs and this was after great decay under
a century of British intervention.

As against this, the number attending schools in England was half -
yes just half - of Madras Presidency's, namely a mere 75,000. And
here to with more than half of it attending only Sunday schools for 2-
3 hours! Dharampal also established that in Britain 'elementary
system of education at people's level remained unknown commodity'
till about 1800! Again he exploded the popularly held belief that
most of those attending schools must have belonged to the upper
castes particularly Brahmins and, again with reference to the British
records, proved that the truth was the other way round.

During 1822-25 the share of the Brahmin students in the indigenous
schools in Tamil-speaking areas accounted for 13 per cent in South
Arcot to some 23 per cent in Madras while the backward castes
accounted for 70 per cent in Salem and Tirunelveli and 84 per cent in
South Arcot .

The situation was almost similar in Malayalam, Oriya and Kannada-
speaking areas, with the backward castes dominating the schools in
absolute numbers. Only in the Telugu-speaking areas the share of the
Brahmins was higher and varied from 24 to 46 per cent. Dharampal's
work proved Mahatma Gandhi's statement at Chatham House in London on
October 20, 1931 that " India today is more illiterate than it was
fifty or hundred years ago" completely right.

Not many know of Dharampal or of his work because they have still not
heard of the Indian past he had discovered. After, long after,
Dharampal had established that pre-British India was not backward a
Harvard University Research in the year 2005 (India's
Deindustrialisation in the 18th and 19th Centuries by David
Clingingsmith and Jeffrey G Williamson) among others affirmed
that "while India produced about 25 percent of world industrial
output in 1750, this figure had fallen to only 2 percent by 1900."
The Harvard University Economic Research also established that the
Industrial employment in India also declined from about 30 to 8.5 per
cent between 1809-13 and 1900, thus turning the Indian society
backward.

PS: This great warrior who established the truth - the truth that was
least known - that India was not backward when the British came, but
became backward only after they came, is no more. He passed away two
weeks ago on October 26, 2006, at Sevagram at Warda.

எப்படி இருந்த நாம் மெக்காலே அடிமைக்கல்விச் சிந்தனையால் என்று இப்படி ஆகிவிட்டோம்?
நமது இந்தியப் பாரம்பரியம் முந்நூறு ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன்னமே மனித வாழ்வு முறைக்கு எடுத்துக்காட்டாக இருக்க வாழ்ந்த பெருமை அறியாமல் சுயமரியாதை, பகுத்தறிவு என்று இன்று பேசுபவர்களை மெக்காலேயின் கைக்கூலிகளாக குதூகலத்துடன் கலகம் செய்பவர்களை சமூகநீதிக்காவலர்கள் என்று வர்ணிக்கும் இன்றைய தலைமுறை பொய்யையும் புரட்டையும் வரலாறு என்று படித்து முட்டாள் இந்தியா என்கிற வரலாறு எழுதிக்கொண்டிருப்பவர்களை என்ன செய்யலாம்?

அன்புடன்,

ஹரிஹரன்