Dharampal's Writings

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http://www.hvk.org/articles/1204/59.html

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Dharampal (The Beautiful Tree) has effectively debunked the myth that  Dalits had no place in the indigenous system of education. Sir Thomas Munro,  Governor of Madras, ordered a mammoth survey in June 1822, whereby the district  collectors furnished the caste-wise division of students in four categories, viz., Brahmins, Vysyas (Vaishyas), Shoodras (Shudras) and other castes  (broadly the modern scheduled castes). While the percentages of the different castes  varied in each district, the results were revealing to the extent that they  showed an impressive presence of the so-called lower castes in the school system.

Thus, in Vizagapatam, Brahmins and Vaishyas together accounted for 47%  of the students, Shudras comprised 21% and the other castes (scheduled) were  20%; the remaining 12% were Muslims. In Tinnevelly, Brahmins were 21.8% of the  total number of students, Shudras were 31.2% and other castes 38.4% (by no  means a low figure). In South Arcot, Shudras and other castes together comprised  more than 84% of the students!

In the realm of higher education as well, there were  regional variations. Brahmins appear to have dominated in the Andhra and Tamil  Nadu regions, but in the Malabar area, theology and law were Brahmin  preserves, but astronomy and medicine were dominated by Shudras and other castes. Thus,  of a total of 808 students in astronomy, only 78 were Brahmins, while 195  were Shudras and 510 belonged to the other castes (scheduled). In medicine,  out of a total of 194 students, only 31 were Brahmins, 59 were Shudras and 100  belonged to the other castes. Even subjects like metaphysics and ethics that we generally associate with Brahmin supremacy, were dominated by the other  castes (62) as opposed to merely 56 Brahmin students. It bears mentioning that  this higher education was in the form of private tuition (or education at  home), and to that extent also reflects the near equal economic power of the  concerned groups.

As a concerned reader informed me, the 'Survey of Indigenous Education in the Province of Bombay (1820-1830)' showed that Brahmins  were only 30% of the total students there. What is more, when William Adam  surveyed Bengal and Bihar, he found that Brahmins and Kayasthas together  comprised less than 40% of the total students, and that forty castes like Tanti, Teli,  Napit, Sadgop, Tamli etc. were well represented in the student body. The Adam  report mentions that in Burdwan district, while native schools had 674 students  from the lowest thirty castes, the 13 missionary schools in the district  together had only 86 students from those castes. Coming to teachers, Kayasthas  triumphed with about 50% of the jobs and there were only six Chandal teachers; but Rajputs, Kshatriyas and Chattris (Khatris) together had only five  teachers.

Even Dalit intellectuals have questioned what the British  meant when they spoke of 'education' and 'learning'. Dr. D.R. Nagaraj, a leading  Dalit leader of Karnataka, wrote that it was the British, particularly Lord Wellesley, who declared the Vedantic Hinduism of the Brahmins of Benares  and Navadweep as "the standard Hinduism," because they realized that the  vitality of the Hindu dharma of the lower castes was a threat to the empire. Fort William College, founded by Wellesley in 1800, played a major role in  investing Vedantic learning with a prominence it probably hadn't had for  centuries. In the process, the cultural heritage of the lower castes was successfully marginalized, and this remains an enduring legacy of colonialism.

Examining Dharampal's "Indian science and technology in the eighteenth  century," Nagaraj observed that most of the native skills and technologies that  perished as a result of British policies were those of the Dalit and artisan  castes. This effectively debunks the fiction of Hindu-hating secularists that  the so-called lower castes made no contribution to India's cultural heritage  and needed deliverance from wily Brahmins.

Indeed, given the desperate manner in which the British vilified the  Brahmin, it is worth examining what so annoyed them. As early as 1871-72, Sir John  Campbell objected to Brahmins facilitating upward mobility: ".the Brahmans are  always ready to receive all who will submit to them. The process of  manufacturing Rajputs from ambitious aborigines (tribals) goes on before our eyes."

Sir Alfred Lyall was unhappy that ".more persons in India become every  year Brahmanists than all the converts to all the other religions in India  put together... these teachers address themselves to every one without  distinction of caste or of creed; they preach to low-caste men and to the aboriginal tribes. in fact, they succeed largely in those ranks of the population  which would lean towards Christianity and Mohammedanism if they were not drawn  into Brahmanism." So much for the British public denunciation of the  exclusion practiced by Brahmins!<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

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http://www.esamskriti.com/html/new_inside....id=1062&sid=174

Cool compilation by Website admin of eSamskriti (Thanks Boss)..

http://www.esamskriti.com/html/new_inside....id=174&count1=1

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bullet points summary where I have tried to capture keypoints made by the author.

    * In October 1931 Gandhiji was invited to address the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London where he made two observations. One 'that today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or hundred years ago'. Two that 'the British administrators instead of looking after education and other matters which had existed began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root, and left the root like that and the beautiful tree perished'.
    * Sir Philip Hartog, a founder of the School of Oriental Studies, London and former vice-chancellor of the University of Dacca questioned Gandhiji and a long correspondence between them took place. In a way this book seeks to substantiate Gandhiji's remarks with reports of surveys undertaken by the British in the early 19th century.
    * Today Christian missionaries and some Indian Christians (converts) keep on reminding Hindus of the pioneering role played by the Christian community in the field of education. I wondered! If it is the Christians whom we have to credit with educating us, how did numerous schools of Indian thought come into being and importantly survive for thousands of years.
    * In England at the end of the 17th century there are Charity Schools whose main purpose was that every child was to learn to read the Bible. Around 1802, the monitorial method of teaching used by Joseph Lancaster (and also by Andrew Bell, supposedly borrowed from India, Ibid pg 246, Note on Indian Education by Alexander Walker quote 'The children were instructed without violence and by a process peculiarly simple. The system was borrowed from the Bramans and brought from India to Europe.
    * Three approaches (seemingly different but in reality complementary to one another) began to operate in the British held areas of India regarding Indian knowledge, scholarship and centers of learning from about the 1770s. One they needed to provide a background of previous precedents to the new concepts being introduced by them. It was this requirement which gave birth to British Indology. Two the conquest of the American civilization led to the disappearance of all written records that existed. They did not want a repeat. Three they wanted to spread Christianity. '
    * For England had few schools for the children of ordinary people till about 1800. In his first report, Adam observed that there exist about 1,00,000 village schools in Bengal and Bihar around the 1830s, not to talk of the rest of India. The content of studies was better than what was then studied in England. The duration of study was more prolonged. The method of school teaching was superior and it is this very method which is said to have greatly helped the introduction of popular education in England but which had prevailed in India for centuries. The only aspect, and certainly a very important one, where Indian institutional education seems to have lagged behind was with regard to the education of girls.
    * It was unthinkable for the British that India could have had a proportionately larger number receiving education than those in England itself.
    * The British asked its Collectors to collect district wise data on number of schools and type of education that I have reproduced excerpts below.
    * The actual situation, which is revealed, was different, if not quite contrary, for at least amongst the Hindoos, in the districts of the Madras Presidency (and dramatically so in the Tamil-speaking areas) as well as the two districts of Bihar. It was the groups termed Soodras, and the castes considered below them who predominated in the thousands of the then still-existing schools in practically each of the areas.'

Madras Presidency 1822-25 (Collectors Reports)

Details of Schools & Colleges

Caste Division of Male school students

Brahmins + Chettris = 30211
Vysee = 13459
Soodra = 75943 (50%) <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Other = 22925
Muslims = 10644
Total = 153182

· Adam's 1st Report on Bengal. Survey of Post 1800 material. His conclusions, one every village had atleast one school and in all probability in Bengal and Bihar with 1,50,748 villages, there will still be 1,00,000 villages that have these schools. Two on the basis of personal observation & evidence collected he inferred there were app 100 institutions of higher learning in each district meaning app 1,800 such institutions and 10,800 scholars in them.

·        Adam said that he found a number of genuine, qualified medical practioners in Bengal who analyzed the symptoms of the disease before suggesting a cure.

·        In Punjab there were 3,30,000 pupils in 1850 as compared to 1,90,000 in 1882 as per Leitner's Report.

·        Schools were classified in Sikh, Muslim, Hindu using current descriptions.

·        Sanskrit books were used to teach grammar, lexicology, mathematics, medical science, logic, law and vedant.

England - population 95,43,610 (1811) Nos attending school App 75,000 (note below)
Madras Presidency - population 1,28,50,941 (1823) Nos att school 1,57,195 (ref chapter 2)

    * About one third of the total revenue (from agriculture & sea ports) were according to ancient practice assigned for the requirements of the social & cultural infrastructure till the British overturned it all. The British increased the quantum of land revenue, made it payable twice a year at fixed timed (irrespective of weather conditions), had to be paid in cash not produce meaning the farmer had to sell his produce in the market to pay revenue exposing himself to the vagaries of market pricing. These moves towards centralization of revenue ensured that there was hardly any revenue to pay for social & cultural infrastructure resulting in its death.
    * It was imperative to somehow uproot the Indian indigenous system for the relatively undisturbed maintenance and continuance of British rule. It is the same imperative which decided Macaulay, Bertinck, etc., to deliberately neglect large-scale school education-proposed by men like Adam - till a viable system of Anglicized higher education had first been established in the country.
    * Consequences of Killing Indigenous Education System.     One, it led to an obliteration of literacy and knowledge of such dimensions amongst the Indian people. Two, it destroyed the Indian social balance in which, traditionally, persons from all sections of society appear to have been able to receive fairly competent schooling. Three it is this destruction along with similar damage in the economic sphere, which led to great deterioration in the status and socio-economic conditions and personal dignity of those who are now known as the scheduled castes; and to only a slightly lesser extent to that of the vast peasant majority encompassed by the term 'backward castes'. The recent movements embracing these sections to a great extent seem to be aimed at restoring this basic Indian social balance. Four & most importantly, till today it has kept most educated Indians ignorant of the society they live in, the culture which sustains this society, and their fellow beings; and more tragically, yet, for over a century it has induced a lack of confidence, and loss and bearing amongst the people of Indian in general.

    * Number of Native Schools/Colleges in Madras Presidency &Number of Scholars. This table is an attachment to a report by J Dent, Secretary, Fort St George, 21/2/1825. Number of Schools 574 Colleges 0, Population 4,54,754, includes male & female. Students are male + female i.e. male 184100 balance is female.

# of schools = 12500
Brahmin = 42502 (23%)
Vysea = 19669
Soodra = 85400 (45%) <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Other  = 27548
Muslims = 13561
Total = 188680

    * Sudras made up 45% of the scholars as compared to Brahmins 23%, today is probably the reverse.
    * High number of Muslim scholars in Malabar 4318.
    * Only 7 % of the total number of scholars were Muslims. Meaning then & today it the Muslims continue to pay less attention to education. Be it England or India does not matter.
    * 12500 schools & colleges. The British first killed these institutions, then brought in Anglicized education into India through the missionaries.

<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

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http://www.swaraj.org/multiversity/paran...nglish.htm

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->With these preliminary qualifications in mind, let me straightaway go to what is so obviously the central question before us as scholars, teachers, and members of the academy. Simply put, the question is this: how are we going to go about decolonizing the academy? Political independence, at least a semblance of it, we may have attained, but, clearly, the intellectual and cultural independence that accompanies it is still only a distant possibility on the horizons. I think one definite way of proceeding in that direction, a way that has been tried and known to work in the past is that of recovering our own indigenous and native and traditional knowledge systems and strengthening them. Now this work is being done in many different ways, in many different parts of India. For example, Dhvanyaloka itself, as its name suggests, is dedicated to the task of recovering and using Indian traditions of criticism and poetics. Let me cite another example. There is an organization called PPST, short for Patriotic Peoples Science and Technology. What they have been trying to do is to look at indigenous science and technology, some of which survives to this day and was available before the British conquest. A lot of very useful and groundbreaking research has already been done on this subject.

One of the people who inspired it, who has been connected with it is, Dharampalji. I would suggest that all of us should read a book called The Beautiful Tree. “The Beautiful Tree” is, of course, a quotation taken from Mahatma Gandhi. I believe that he used it as a metaphor to describe the totality of Indian society. When you destroy its root, the whole of the beautiful tree perishes. Dharampalji’s book is called The Beautiful Tree because he wanted to show how strong the roots of our culture and civilization were before the British tried to destroy them. What this book does is to look at education in 18th century India from British records. Note that unfortunately our own native records are usually not available. So Dharampalji looks at colonial records and the results are astonishing. <b>We are used to thinking that before British rule, we were totally uneducated. In fact, the paradox is that literacy was higher in the 18th century, in certain parts of the country, than it is today. So in this survey of several villages in Tamil Nadu where records were maintained, we find that the populace in general was fairly well educated, regardless of caste. </b>

Similarly, Dharampalji and others have looked at the state of science and technology in 18th century India, before British paramountcy or the consolidation of the Empire. The question is what was the state of India? The British would like us to believe that it was very, very backward, but their own records show that this was far from the case. Dharampalji’s Collected Writings, should you be interested, are now available from The Other India Press in Goa.

Claude Alvarez has published them. Claude’s work is also very important when we talk about indigenous science and technology. He did a Ph.D. on Indian science and technology in the Netherlands. When he was researching on this topic, he found very little material. At last, he came across one of Dharampalji’s articles, which he read like thirsty man drinks a glass of cool water. Claude’s book was republished in 1997 by the Other India Press under the title, Decolonizing History. Let me give you just one or two examples of our indigenous science and technology. One is the advanced metallurgical traditions of India. Nowadays we talk about the need to cut down on the high energy expended to make steel. In India, we had a tradition of small furnaces in which we made pretty high quality steel in villages. This skill was known and recorded in the 18th century and still continues today. Another example is inoculation. In Bengal there were people who toured the countryside inoculating adults and children against small pox. In the early 18th century, the British were learning from them. The latter made records, some of which are still available. Yet another example is plastic surgery. In Pune, for instance, barbers were expert plastic surgeons. There are detailed British records of how a person whose nose was cut off had a new nose grafted on to his face. Now, nose surgery is very sophisticated. Even today not everybody can do it. So also the case of artificial limbs, especially the world-famous Jaipur foot. These were made, and continue to be made, extremely effectively in India. These knowledge systems-and many more-were available in India in the 18th century and some of them survive to this day. So the point is that one way of decolonization is certainly by looking at traditional knowledge systems in whichever field they are. Whether they are in science and technology, whether they are in humanities, whether they are in social sciences, and what Professor C. D. Narasimhaiah has done is to help this process of recovery and renovation of traditional knowledge systems in our literary, aesthetic, and philosophical traditions. Because there has been a rupture in our own mind, that is to say that the continuity is broken, a lot of such work of recovery needs to be done before we can feel reconnected with ourselves. For example, when we read Aristotle we hardly realize that a lot of work had to be done on the Poetics before it could be applied to texts. To make the past contemporary is the great task of the archaeologist of knowledge. Similarly, a lot of work has to be done on our ancient texts, whether it’s the Natyashastra or Kavyamimansa or whatever. We need to make these texts not just available, but current; we need to make them applicable to our own lives and also to the literary texts that we read. So this is one important way of decolonizing ourselves, and this is something that Professor Narasimhaiah and Professor Kapoor, to name two examples, have been doing.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

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http://www.indianscience.org/essays/t_es_a...dharampal.shtml

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Dharampal, the Great Gandhian and Historian of Indian Science

by D.P. Agrawal

Individuals who worry that mainstream western historians of science have completely ignored the great contributions that India has made in the fields of science and technology acutely realize the importance of the path-breaking work of Dharampal. Despite his modest means, he spent several years in unraveling the position of Indian science and industry before the arrival of the British. �And the irony behind his discoveries lies in the fact that Dharampal used the writings of the British themselves to prove his points.

Recently, The Other India Press published the Collected Writings of Dharampal. �These are elegantly published paperbacks which cost less than $30/- for the whole set of six volumes.

Claude Alvares, who has also played a significant role in bringing out the importance of Traditional Knowledge Systems in India, met Dharampal quite by accident. It is Alvares who brought the world these valuable volumes at such an affordable price. �In the first volume of the Collected Writings, Alvares has written the Preface entitled Making History. �It brings out, not only the significance of Dharampal's momentous contributions to history of Indian science, but also an intimate glimpse into the life of this great Gandhian. �It's a very illuminating piece of writing and I cant resist the temptation of giving it almost verbatim.

Below is a biographical sketch of Dharampal in Alvares' powerful words:

<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->My encounter with the amazing historical work of Dharampal came about in 1976 in a most unexpected place: a library in Holland. �I was at that time investigating material for a PhD dissertation, part of which dealt with the history of Indian and Chinese science and technology. �While there was certainly no dearth of historical material and scholarly books as far as Chinese science and technology were concerned - largely due to the work of Joseph Needham, reflected in his multi-volume Science, and Civilisation in China - in contrast, scholarly work on Indian science and technology seemed to be almost non-existent. �What was available seemed rudimentary, poor, unimaginative, wooden, more filled with philosophy and legend than fact.

Desperate and depressed, I wandered through the portals of every possible library in Holland trying to lay my hands on anything I could find. �The irony of looking for material on Indian science and technology in Holland should not be missed.
However, I was doing a PhD there and had very little choice.

Then one morning, I walked into the South East Asia Institute on an Amsterdam street and found a book called Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century on the shelf. �I took it down, curious. �It was by a person named Dharampal whom I had not heard of before as a person or scholar active in that area of research. �I took the book home and devoured it the same day. �It altered my perception of India forever.

Now, more than twenty years later, I know that the book appears to have had a similarly electrifying effect on thousands of others who were fortunate to get a copy of it. �It spawned a generation of Indians, which was happy to see India thereafter quite differently from the images with which it had been brought up in school, particularly English medium school.

The book also provided a firm anchor for the section of my dissertation dealing with Indian science and technology. The dissertation was eventually published in 1979 with the rather academic title: Homo Faber: Technology and Culture in India. China and the West: 1500 to the Present Day.

The same year (1976), a friend of mine from Orissa dropped in at our flat in Amsterdam. I mentioned Dharampal to him. �Astonishing to relate, he turned out to be a friend of Dharampal and even told me where he lived. �Next door, he said, in London. �He also had Dharampal's telephone number. �The following week we took a flight to London and I met Dharampal for the first time in my life. �His family was with him at the time: his wife, Phyllis his two daughters, Gita and Roswita, and his son, David. �The meeting initiated a relationship that has persisted the present moment. �Today I am happy to head a publishing house that is bringing out his Collected Writings. �I myself returned to India in 1977. �Stranger events followed, thereafter.

In 1980, I was called to Chennai to join a civil liberties team probing the killing of political activists in fake police encounters in North Arcot district in Tamilnadu. Predictably, the team was beaten up by a mob set up by the police. �On our turn to Chennai, where we decided to hold a press conference, we were put up at the MLA hostel. �While passing by one of the rooms, whom should I see sitting there but Dharampal himself. �I had to rush to the press meeting thereafter.

Before the press could arrive, however, two or three young strangers arrived to meet me. They said they were from the Patriotic and People-Oriented Science and Technology (PPST) group, which had members and sympathisers in both Kanpur and Madras IITs. They wanted to sit with me and discuss my Homo Faber (the Indian edition had just been brought by Allied Publishers then). �They also wanted more information on Dharampal, whose work they were coming across for the first time in Homo Faber. �Why do you want to talk to me, I asked them, when you can very well meet Dharampal himself. �They were astonished. �Dharampal? �Here in Madras? �When I told them where I had found him, they made a beeline for the MLA hostel. �That encounter initiated a long, fruitful and creative association between Dharampal and the PPST, which has also persisted, with some ups and downs, to the present day. �For a few years, the PPST brought out a journal called the PPST Bulletin. �In it, Dharampal and his work occupied pride of place. �During this period, in fact, members of the PPST Group produced some of the finest articles ever written and published on the subjects of Indian science, culture, technology, and the relevance of Western science and technology to Indian society. �Some members of the PPST later spent a considerable amount of time and energy working on the Chengalpattu data, which often recurs in Dharampal's writings.

Today, Dharampal's work is quite extensively known, far beyond the PPST Group, not just among intellectuals and university professors, but also among religious leaders including swamis and Jain monks, politicians and activists. �One of the most impressive off-shoots of his research has been the organization of the bi-annual Congress on Traditional Sciences and Technologies. �Three such Congresses, organized by the PPST and institutions like the IlTs, have so far been held, generating an impressive wealth of primary material. �Dharampal himself has been invited to deliver lectures at several institutions within India and abroad. (Some of these lectures can be found in Volume V of the Collected Writings.).

The general effect of Dharampal's work among the public at large has been intensely liberating. �However, conventional Indian historians, particularly the class that has passed out of Oxbridge, have seen his work as a clear threat to doctrines blindly and mechanically propagated and taught by them for decades. �Dharampal never trained to be a historian. �If he had, he would have, like them, missed the wood for the trees. Despite having worked in the area now for more than four decades, he remains the quintessential layman, always tentative about his findings, rarely writing with any flourish. �Certainly, he does not manifest the kind of certainty that is readily available to individuals who have drunk unquestioningly at the feet of English historians, gulping down not only their 'facts' but their assumptions as well. �But to him goes the formidable achievement of asking well entrenched historians probing questions they are hard put to answer, like how come they arrived so readily, with so little evidence, at the conclusion that Indians were technologically primitive or, more generally, how were they unable to discover the historical documents that he, without similar training, had stumbled on so easily.

Dharampal's unmaking of the English-generated history of Indian society has in fact created a serious enough gap today in the discipline. �The legitimacy of English or colonial dominated perceptions and biases about Indian society has been grievously undermined, but the academic tradition has been unable to take up the challenge of generating an organized indigenous view to take its place. �The materials for a far more authentic history of science and technology in India are indeed now available as a result of his pioneering work, but the competent scholar who can handle it all in one neat canvas has yet to arrive. �One recent new work that should be mentioned in this connection is Helaine Selin's Encyclopaedia of Non-Western Science, Technology and Medicine (Kluwer, Holland), which indeed takes note of Dharampal's findings. �Till such time as the challenge is taken up, however, we will continue to replicate, uncritically, in the minds of generation after generation, the British or European sponsored view of Indian society and its institutions. �How can any society survive, let alone create, on the basis of its borrowed images?

Dharampal's own description of his initiation into Indian historiography is so fascinating it must be recounted in some detail. �Soon after he got associated with the Quit India movement in 1942, he became attracted to the idea of the village community. �Perhaps this was partly due to his being with Mirabehn in a small ashram community in a rural area in the Roorkee-Haridwar region from 1944 onwards. �But when in 1948, he heard of the Jewish Kibbutzim in Palestine, this interest was evoked again and he visited them in late 1949 for some two weeks. �He came away from the visit, however, with the feeling that the Kibbutzim model was not something that could be replicated in India. �Later, along with other friends, he did attempt to launch a small village near Rishikesh in which all families had an equal share of the land, etc. �The village, however, could not mould itself into a community: it lacked homogeneity. �It also had practically no resources at all when it began. �Later, in 1960 Dharampal got to know of village communities in Rajasthan which had Bees Biswa village panchayats, and some Sasana villages near Jagannath Puri in Orissa, which were established some 700 years earlier and were still prosperous and functional in the early 1960s.

An encounter, which affected Dharampal greatly in this context, is best recounted here in his own words:

Around 1960, I was traveling from Gwalior to Delhi by a day train, a 6 or 7 hour journey in a 3rd class compartment when I met a group of people and I think in a way, that meeting gave me a view of India, the larger India. �The train was crowded. �Some people however made a place for me. �And there was this group of people, about twelve of them, some three or four women and seven or eight men. �I asked them where they were coming from. �They said that they had been on a pilgrimage, three months long, up to Rameshwaram, among other places. �They came from two different villages north of Lucknow. �They had various bundles of things and some earthen pots with them.

I asked, what did they have in those pots. �They said that they had taken their own food from home. �They had taken all the necessities for their food-atta, ghee, sugar - with them, and some amounts of these were still left over. �The women didn't seem to mind much people trampling over them in the crowded compartment, but they did feel unhappy if someone touched their bundles and pots of food with their feet.

And then I said they must all be from one jati, from a single caste group. �They said, 'No, no! We are not from one jati, we are from several jatis.' �I said, how could that be? �They said that there was no jati on a yatra-not on a pilgrimage. �I didn't know that. �I was around 38 years old, and like many others in this country who know little about the ways of the ordinary Indian-the peasants, artisans and other village folks.

And then I said, 'Did you go to Madras? Did you go to Bombay?' 'Yes! We passed through those places,' 'Did you see anything there?' 'No, we did not have any time!' It went on like that. �I mentioned various important places of modern India. �They had passed through most, but had not cared to visit any.

Then I said, 'You are going to Delhi now?' 'Yes!' 'You will stop in Delhi?' 'No, we only have to change trains there. We're going to Haridwar!' �I said, 'This is the capital of free India. Won't you see it?' I meant it. �I was not joking. �They said, 'No! We don't have time. �May be some other day. �Not now. �We have to go to Haridwar. �And then we have to get back home.'

We talked perhaps 5 or 6 hours. �At the end of it I began to wonder, who is going to look after this India? , India are we talking about? This India, the glorious of the modem age, built by Jawaharlal Nehru and c people, these modem temples, universities, places of scholarship! For whom are we building them? �Those people their pilgrimage were not interested in any of this. �And were representative of India. �More representative of II than Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru ever was. �Or I and most us could ever be.

The encounter shook Dharampal then, as much as memory of it bothers him even today. This particular experience more than any other, drove him to look for the causes of the profound alienation of India's new leaders from the preoccupations of the common people and to investigate whether this had always been so.

Similarly, fascinated by the largely intact and functioning Bees Biswa and Sasana village communities, he wished to know what it was that had kept these aspects of Indian civilization so far alive and ticking (in contrast to some of the disintegrated and pauperised communities we encounter in the present), assumed that if the basis of these hitherto vibrant communities were understood, it might assist Indian society - particularly its intellectuals and political leaders - to divest itself of its present state of depression and disinterest with its surroundings and perhaps become lively again. �The inquiry had to focus on how India had functioned before the onset of the debilitating British and European dominance. �When he began, he had no clear direction in which to look. �Even after he had found what he was looking for, the utter significance of it would dawn on him only late

It is important for the reader to know that till about 1964 Dharampal merely had a layman's knowledge of archives and the records and material they generally held. �His first acquaintance with the archival record on India began at Chennai (previously Madras) during 1964-65 but expanded and deepened over the years. �He discovered that most of the material dated from around 1700 AD and owed its creation largely to British needs, even when these archives held some Indian language materials on paper or palm leaves. �(The Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, and the various European Christian as well as commercial institutions which began to come to India from the mid-16th century also maintained similar archives relating to their encounter with India but these were smaller.)

All this British archival material (most of which is presented or referred to in the Collected Writings) mostly dwells on certain aspects of India as seen and understood then by the British. �The material falls broadly within three areas:

The first relates to descriptions of India, its physical landscape, the manners of its people in certain regions, their public life, festivals, cultural life and institutions, the nature and extent of Indian agricultural and industrial production, and Indian sciences and technologies.

The second pertains to the continuing British-Indian encounter, especially from around the British occupation of Arcot in 1748 to about 1858. �Then the encounter is again visible from about 1875, and with its high and low spots, continues till 1947 when India got divided into India and Pakistan, and the British-created institutions and functions were taken over by their own governments.

The third begins with the unfolding of British designs and policy pertaining to India in Britain in the 1680s and thereafter, and their visible implementation and imposition on India from around 1750. �The origins of these designs and policies remain mainly in Britain till the very end, while their implementation is in India, and in the areas governed in India's name from the China seas in the East to St. Helena in the West.

It would be helpful at this stage to know how this huge and very detailed archival record was indeed created. �For this purpose, a little background relating to the governance of India during English colonial rule is absolutely necessary.

It is conventional doctrine (taught in most history books) that from 1600 to around 1748 the British East India Company (E.I.Co.) established itself largely in the coastal towns and cities of India, declared these places as fort towns and called them factories, i.e. store houses for trade, with the requisite military establishments. �From 1748, the E.I.Co. is said to have gradually involved itself in the conquering of India and till 1858 at least was considered to be solely responsible for the plunder and violence associated with the conquest. �We are further told that it is only because the British were disturbed by the company's misrule, which resulted in the great Indian Mutiny of 1857-58 - that they decided to establish direct rule in India and though governance of India was placed under the charge of a cabinet minister, named the secretary of state for India, an arrangement that eventually continued till 1947.

It is true that an E.I.Co. was established in Britain through the grant of a charter in 1600, and that it had adventurer plunderers in its ranks. But, according to Dharampal, it altogether functioned on its own. �From the beginning, company had the full support of British naval forces expansion drive, and often of British state military forces as well. Also, from the beginning, the E.I.Co. contributed substantial sums (in millions of pounds sterling) to the British government treasury and also advanced amounts at low interest to the British state. �From time to time, it received directions from state authorities and at times certain of its affairs were under the charge of British naval commanders who received instructions directly from the British King or the British Admiralty. �It is these directions and communications that comprise the earlier archival records.

One such major case involving official supervision was the final British encounter with Admiral Kanohji Angrey of Maharashtra around 1754. �The British state felt that he was a great challenge to British expansion and had to be somehow eliminated. �There would have been scores of such instances between when the E.I.Co. originated and 1750, when it began to assume the role of a conqueror and sovereign.

From 1750 onwards, more and more instructions from the British were conveyed through various channels to the E.I.Co. �After the British domination of Bengal from 1757 onwards, Robert Clive - a 'heaven born General' according to Lord Chatham, virtual ruler of the British then - wrote to Britain that India could only be governed directly by the British state and not any company. �This and other similar advice was deliberated up some years leading to the Regulating Act of 1773 by which British state appointed the Governor General and his Council, and 11 years later, to the 1784 Act, which established a Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, with a President and 6 members, one of whom in the early stages was none other than the British Prime Minister. �The Commissioners then were the rulers of India. �All instructions of any kind to any department of state in India, or to its three Presidencies, were cleared by them in detail (word by word, comma by comma).

Once these were final, the job of the Court of the E.I. Co. was to send these to India under the signature of their Chairman and members. �Besides, a separate channel of communication was opened between the President of the Board of Commissioners and the British Governor General in India (as also with the Governors of the Presidencies), which at times even over-rode certain formal instructions conveyed through the company. �The instructions in certain departments were prepared by the Board of Commissioners themselves, the signature of the Chairman of the Company obtained, and the matter sent to India from the Board's office itself. �It is this arrangement, which prevailed till 1858. �The change in 1858 was in fact only a change in nomenclature: the President of the Board was now the Secretary of State for India. (Thus, the E.I.Co. as such became wholly redundant in the ruling of India, or areas in its vicinity i.e., from the China seas to St. Helena, from 1813 onwards, if not from much earlier. �According to Dharampal, this clarification needs to sink deep not only into Indian minds, but, into the minds of the world historical community too).

Thus, details of every occurrence in India, which came to the notice of British authority had to be communicated, at least till 1858, to London in order to obtain instructions or the approval of London on the individual issue. �The British archival record therefore informs us of each and every such event.

So, if one wanted to have knowledge in any detail of the society and life of India before British dominance, the obvious thing to do was to carefully peruse these British-generated archives. �This Dharampal now did. �He did not have much of an income. There was also a family to support. But notwithstanding all this, he became a regular visitor to the India Office and the British Museum. �Photocopying required money. �Oftentimes, old manuscripts could not be photocopied. �So he copied them in long hand, page after page, millions of words, day after day. �Thereafter, he would have the copied notes typed. �He thus retrieved and accumulated thousands of pages of information from the archival record. �When he returned to India, his most prized possession was these notes, which filled several large trunks and suitcases.

It is not that others had not consulted these very records before. �Dozens had. �They missed the overall picture largely because they saw the material in fragments, for a particular piece of research, over a month or a year or two. �Dharampal, in contrast, gave it the benefit of decades. �His mind retained ever detail of what he read with uncanny sharpness. �That is how eventually he got the whole picture.

This picture that emerged from the total archival record was nothing short of stunning. Contrary to what millions of us were taught in our school text-books, it indicated the existence functioning society, extremely competent in the arts and science of its day. �Its interactive grasp over its immediate natural environment was undisputed; in fact, it demanded praise. �This reflected in both agricultural and industrial production. �We know today that till around 1750, together with the Chinese, our areas were producing some 73% of the total world industrial production, and even till 1830, what both these economies produced still amounted to 60% of world industrial production. �Even a moderately fertile area like that of Chengalpattu (Tamilnadu) our paddy production in a substantial area of its lands around 1760-70 amounted to some 5-6 tons per hectare, which equals the production of paddy per hectare in present day Japan - the current world high. �A vast educational set-up -- based on a school in every village - looked after the requirements of learning of masses of young people.

The most impressive feature of the set-up was the elaborate fiscal arrangements made for its upkeep in perpetuity, if inquired. �From the gross produce, amounts were allocated by tradition for the upkeep of the system, from the engineers looked after the irrigation tanks and channels to the police school teachers. In technology, we produced steel that was superior to Sheffield steel. �We also produced dyes, ships are literally hundreds of commodities.

As he recorded all this, Dharampal also saw how it was being undermined, how the British in fact went about pulverising the Indian economy and society.

As he studied the sometimes fascinating, sometimes cruel record, practically every day, it held him as if bewitched. �He found that the British successfully initiated an intricate system of widespread control and extortion, taking away as tax most of what the land produced, as well as the products of manufactures. �He found it horrifying that this was often done at the point of the bayonet.

According to Dharampal, the British purpose in India, perhaps after long deliberation during the 17th century was never to attempt on any scale the settlement of the people of Britain or Europe in India. �It was felt that in most regions of India, because of its climate, temperature range, gifted, industrious and dense population, the settling of the people of Europe would serve little purpose.

Therefore the purpose was defined as bringing to Britain and Europe, surplus products of the varied industry of the people of India, and the taxes imposed on this industry. �Such a proposal, in fact, was very clearly put forward around 1780 by Prof. Adam Ferguson of Edinburgh. �Ferguson was a professor of moral philosophy. (Interestingly. he is also regarded as the founder of British sociology.)

While discussing the mode of governing India, Ferguson raised the question of the purpose of this governance. �According to him, the aim was to transfer as much as possible of the wealth of India to Europe. �And this task, according to him, could not directly be conducted by servants and institutions of the British state. �They would be too bound by rules and state discipline to do justice to the task. �The transfer of wealth to Europe, he felt, would generally require the bending and breaking of rules as no major extraction or extortion from the ruled could be effectively done through instruments of the state. �He therefore felt that the direct governance of India should be in the hands of the servants of a body like the E.I. Co., where the servants could when needed disobey orders and rules. �But the company should be controlled and supervised by a high-power body constituted by the state. �It is this logic and arguments that eventually led to the formation of the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India in 1784.

Dharampal found that for long periods in the late 18th and the 19th centuries, the tax on land in many areas exceeded the total agricultural production of very fertile land. �This was particularly so in the areas of the Madras Presidency (comprising current Tamilnadu, districts of coastal Andhra. some districts of Karnataka and Malabar). �The consequences of the policy were easy to predict: in the Madras Presidency, one third of the most fertile land went out of cultivation between the period 1800-1850. �In fact, as early as 1804, the Governor of the Madras Presidency wrote to his masters (the President of the Board of Commissioners) in London:

We have paid a great deal of attention to the revenue management in this country...the general tenor of my opinion is, that we have rode the country too hard, and the sequence is, that it is in a state of the most lamentable poverty. �Great oppression is I fear exercised too generally in the collection of the Revenues.

Of course, Dharampal also found within the same archives information about the Indian civil resistance in various regions of India in the early stages of British rule, like the one in Varanasi region around 1810-11 and in Canara around1830 and how they were contained. �But such events are not taken note of in the formal record as deliberate policy. �Even petitions against grievances, though invited, would not be office recorded unless the wording of the petition conveyed a sense of the petitioner's humility and of his (or her) limitless respect for authority.

Excerpts from one such rejected petition against the tax imposed in Varanasi highlight this:

...former sooltauns never extended the rights of Government (commonly called malgoozaree) to the habitations of their subjects acquired by them by descent or transfer. �It is this account that in selling estates the habitations proprietors are excepted from the sales. �Therefore, the operation of this tax infringes upon the rights of the community, which is contrary to the first principles justice...

...It is difficult to find means of subsistence and the duties, court fees, transit and town duties which have increased tenfold, afflict and affect everyone rich all and this tax, like salt scattered on a wound, is a cause of pain and depression to everyone both Hindoo and Musulman: let it be taken into consideration that as a consequence of these imposts the price of provisions within these ten years increased sixteen fold. �In such case how is it possible for us who have no means of earning a livelihood to subsist?

By their methods of extortion and other similar means the British were able to smash Indian rural life and society by about 1820-1830. �Around the same period, the extensive Indian manufactures met a similar fate. �Because of deliberate British policy, the famed Indian village communities so eloquently described by Thomas Metcalfe around 1830, and by Karl Marx in the 1850s, had mostly ceased to exist.

Similar comments could be made about the narratives on Indian science and technology. �Initially they were desired for their contemporary relevance and usefulness to the advancement or correction of their British counterparts. �But soon after the British began to rule and control Indian life and society, the continuity of Indian knowledge and practice seemed to them a threat. �Therefore it was something to be put aside so that it crumbled or decayed. �Dharampal found that such a programme of 'making extinct' was contrived in practically every sphere of human activity, including the manufactures of cotton textiles, the production of Indian steel, and even the Indian practice of inoculation against small pox as early as A.D. 1800.

A similar fate awaited the extensive network of Indian schools and institutions of higher learning when they began to be surveyed in the 1820s and 1830s. �Ironically, it is mainly through the British archival records that one becomes aware of the extensive nature of the education network, as well as its speedy decay in the Madras and Bengal Presidency, and somewhat later in the Presidencies of Bombay and in the Punjab. �Of course, the view, which we get from such archival material is splintered and not integrated. �But the indicators in themselves are of great value. �They also provide us glimpses of pre-British life and of aspects of India's society of which we had lost track from about A.D. 1850 when society was broken up and sup- pressed, and an imposed alien system of education made us ignore and forget the innumerable accomplishments of our people.

Dharampal is quite clear and explicit on the uses of history. He writes:

If we investigate these records on similar aspects further, on the basis of what is available in our archaeological, inscriptional and other historical sources, and what is still retained in the memory and consciousness of our people, we ought to be able to reconstruct our social and cultural past, and hopefully to mould our state and society accordingly.

Since Independence in 1947, it is this question of reconstruction of self and society on the foundation of our priorities, values, tradition and culture that seems to have completely eluded us, particularly our scholars, administrators and politicians. �We appear to have forgotten that we can look back and learn from our own past. �And based on that experience, construct our own unique identity within the context of our own affairs as well as that of the rest of the world. �What do we as a nation - without leaning on others' ideological and material crutches - want? �Do we have ingenuity or not? �Can we make our points-as against aligning with one sort or another? �I have a point to make as Indians?

When Dharampal started on this monumental work around 1965-66, he had felt then that whatever these British accounts might tell us, and howsoever incompletely, they would help us if we followed them up with further detailed and intensive explorations of such material as exists in India. �Further, with the association of our own people in the exploration - in most things still linked with their past and with much more vivid men of it - we should, within a generation or so, begin to reconstruct our earlier life and society, linking this with our present circumstances and needs. �It is distressing to note, though, that we are yet to undertake this task. �Dharampal writes further:

Today, we feel encircled by hostility - much of it is in fact generated by our own ineptitude and actions. �From around 1947, we have treated ourselves as cousins of the West. �Dominated by the West, it may be necessary at the moment to rely on Western knowledge and products. �But this can be only a short-term proposal. �Very soon, whatever Western know-how or products seem essential to us, we must learn to produce them in our own way, with our own material, variations and modifications.

In the meanwhile, however, we must set our ordinary people free; remove the obstacles in their path relating to use of their local physical and material resources, encourage them to use their talents to rebuild there own shattered worlds in their own various ways (even, if required, by withdrawing those laws and rules which tend to block whatever they attempt, and keeping our advice and criticism to ourselves). �Only then can other local relationships and linkages begin to come alive; societal manners and memory pertaining to specific activities to get awakened; and the rebuilding does not remain a mere copy of the past. �By taking account of the world around Indian society will begin to integrate such elements of Western or other technologies that seem to it as relevant and stimulating for its own base.

For all this to happen, a profound alteration in our attitudes towards our people and our past has to take place. �We must enable our people to feel more self-assured, confident, hopeful, proud of their talents and capacities, and encourage them to regain their individual and societal dignity.

To achieve this state, they need to acquire a better aware ness - especially as children and youth - of the human past of their localities, and to establish friendly relations with other beings including all kinds of animal life, bees, bushes and plants, rivers, lakes, ponds, hills, forests, soil, etc. which coexist with man. �Similarly, we should begin to be aware of the linkage of each and every locality with the immediate region, of the region with the country, and of our country with other countries on this earth, and the earth's linkage with the cosmos.

These efforts would require new texts of well-told stories of localities, regions, countries, the world, and the various ideas about the beginning or non-beginning of the universe. �Such knowledge and awareness would make our people feel confident and well informed and also enable them to partake of the Indian understanding of life and of natural phenomena.

It would also ground them in the elements of various sciences and technologies in agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry and crafts, as well as history, philosophy, grammar and language. �Thus, by about the age of fourteen, our children - boys as well as girls - would have become competent citizens of their respective areas.

All histories are elaborate efforts at mythmaking. �Therefore, when we submit to histories about us written by others, we submit to their myths about us as well. �Mythmaking, like naming, is a token of having power. �Submitting to others' myths about us is a sign that we are without power. �After the historical work of Dharampal, the scope for mythmaking about the past of Indian society is now considerably reduced.

If we must continue to live by myths, however, it is far better we choose to live by those of our own making rather than by those invented by others for their own purposes, whether English or Japanese. �That much at least we owe ourselves as an independent society and nation.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

http://www.geocities.com/ifihhome/articles/sk003.html

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Beautiful Tree

Subhash Kak

As a young boy raised in small towns of Jammu and Kashmir, I often came across people who could not read or write. The school books said that literacy in all of India was low, perhaps 30 percent or so, and this was despite the introduction of the British education system more than 100 years earlier. The books implied that before the arrival of the British the country was practically illiterate. This thought was very depressing. Perhaps I shouldn't have believed the story of India's near total illiteracy in the 18th century so readily. India was rich 250 years ago when the British started knocking at the door for a share of its trade. Paul Kennedy, in his highly regarded book, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers : Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 estimates that in 1750 India's share of the world trade was nearly 25 percent.

To understand this figure of 25 percent, consider that this is USA's present share of the world trade, while India's share is now only about half a percent. India was obviously a very prosperous country then, and this wealth must have been mirrored in the state of society, including the literacy of the general population.

Unfortunately, education in medieval India is not a subject that has been well researched. But thanks to the pioneering book, The Beautiful Tree by Dharampal, we now have an idea of it before the coming of the British. The book uses British documents from the early 1800s to make the case that education was fairly universal at that time. Each village had a school attached to its temple and mosque and the children of all communities attended these schools.

W. Adam, writing in 1835, estimated that there were 100,000 schools in Bengal, one school for about 500 boys. He also described the local medical system that included inoculation against small-pox. Sir Thomas Munro (1826), writing about schools in Madras, found similar statistics. The education system in the Punjab during the Ranjit Singh kingdom was equally extensive.

These figures suggest that the literary rate could have approached 50 percent at that time. From that figure to the low teens by the time the British consolidated their power in India must have been a period of continuing disaster.

Amongst Dharampal's documents is a note from a Minute of Dissent by Sir Nair showing how the British education policy led to the illiteratization of India: "Efforts were made by the Government to confine higher education and secondary education, leading to higher education, to boys in affluent circumstances... Rules were made calculated to restrict the diffusion of education generally and among the poorer boys in particular... Fees were raised to a degree, which, considering the circumstances of the classes that resort to schools, were abnormal. When it was objected that minimum fee would be a great hardship to poor students, the answer was such students had no business to receive that kind of education... Primary education for the masses, and higher education for the higher classes are discouraged for political reasons."

According to Dr Leitner, an English college principal at Lahore, "By the actions of the British the true education of the Punjab was crippled, checked and is nearly destroyed; opportunities for its healthy revival and development were either neglected or perverted."

Dharampal's sources appear unimpeachable and the only conclusion is that 250 years ago the Indian basic education system was functional. Indeed, it may have been more universal than what existed in Europe at that time.

One might, with hindsight, complain that the curriculum in the pathshalas was not satisfactory. Dharampal's book lists the texts used and they appear to have provided excellent training in mathematics, literature, and philosophy. Perhaps the curriculum could have had more of sciences and history. I think the school curriculum was not all that bad in itself. Judging by the standards of its times, it did a good job of providing basic education.

What was missing was a system of colleges to provide post-school education. After the destruction of ancient universities like Taxila and Nalanda, nothing emerged to fill that role. Without institutions of higher learning, the Indian ruling classes did not possess the tools to deal with the challenges ushered in by rapid scientific and technological growth.

The phrase ‘the beautiful tree’ was used by Mahatma Gandhi in a speech in England to describe traditional Indian education. Gandhi claimed that this tree had been destroyed by the British. Dharampal's book provides the data in support of Gandhi's charge.

The Macaulayite education system, put in place by the British, almost succeeded in erasing the collective Indian memory of vital, progressive scientific, industrial and social processes. But not all records of the earlier history were lost. Dharampal has authored another important book, Indian Science and Technology in Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts which describes the vitality of Indian technology 250 years ago in several areas.

It is not just colonialist ideas that are responsible for the loss of cultural history. The need to pick and choose in today's information age is also leading to an erosion of cultural memory. The scholar and mathematician C. Muses from Canada did his bit to counter it by writing about Ramchundra (born 1821 in Panipat), a brilliant Indian mathematician, whose book on Maxima and Minima was promoted by the prominent mathematician Augustus de Morgan in London in 1859. Muses's work appeared in the respected journal The Mathematical Intelligencer in 1998. Ramchundra had been completely forgotten until Muses chanced across a rare copy of his book.

Muses called me over a year ago, just before he died, to tell me how he got interested in India. He said that he wanted to make sense of why Indians had not developed science, as colonialist and Marxist historians have long alleged. But the deeper he got into the original source materials, he found an outstanding scientific tradition that had been misrepresented by historians who were either biased or plain incompetent.

Although Muses did not so speculate, one might ask if de Morgan's own fundamental work on symbolic logic owed in part to the Indian school of Navya Nyaya. De Morgan, in his introduction to Ramchundra's work, indicates that he knew of the Indian tradition of logic, "There exists in India, under circumstances which prove a very high antiquity, a philosophical language (Sanskrit) which is one of the wonders of the world, and which is a near collateral of the Greek, if not its parent form. From those who wrote in this language we derive our system of arithmetic, and the algebra which is the most powerful instrument of modern analysis. In this language we find a system of logic and metaphysics."

Finally, there is the loss of memory taking place due to the carelessness with which we are preserving our heritage. This is a process of permanent loss, although on a few lucky occasions long-forgotten documents are found. One example of this latter event is the recovery of the lost notebooks of Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), who may have been the greatest mathematical genius of all time. Ramanujan had been called a second Newton in his own lifetime, yet the full magnitude of his achievements was appreciated only when his [lost] notebooks, full of unpublished results, were discovered in the eighties.

You can read a fine biography of Ramanjuan by Robert Kanigel titled The Man Who Knew Infinity. I also recommend Ramanujan: Letters and Commentary, edited by Bruce Berndt and Robert Rankin. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/...v_dhara_cow.htm

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Review: The British Origin of Cow-Slaughter in India
With Some British Documents on the Anti-Kine-Killing Movement 1880-1894, Dharampal & T. M. Mukundan, Published by SIDH, Price Rs. 495 (PB)

Dharampal's works have consistently challenged the prevalent mainstream understanding and belief about the nature and functioning of Indian society and polity before the arrival of the British. His work has stimulated a radically fresh perspective on the nature, design, functioning and organisation of Indian society. It shows that the system bequeathed by the British must be seen as an alien imposition and India cannot revive and renew herself unless she rediscovers her own genius, talents and traditions. Some of his well-known works include: The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century; Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century; Civil Disobedience and Indian Tradition, etc.

This latest book by Dharampal is about one of the most significant movements in India, against kine-killing by the British, during the nineteenth century. The enormity of this movement and the threat it posed to the British may be gauged by the statement of Viceroy Lansdowne when he said that: "I doubt whether, since the Mutiny, any movement containing in it a greater amount of potential mischief has engaged the attention of the Government of India."

While it may be generally known that a very large number of the cow and its progeny were daily slaughtered by the British for their army and civilian personnel in India from about 1750 onwards, very little is known, even to most scholars and historical researchers on India, about this India-wide anti-kine-killing movement against the British during 1880-1894. Even those among the few scholars who have taken some note of this movement have treated it as a Hindu-Muslim conflict. But such was not the case, as the documents presented in this book show that many prominent Muslims as well as the Parsis and Sikhs actively participated in the movement. The fact that the movement was directed against the British and not against the Muslims, as commonly believed, was very clear to Queen Victoria and her high-ranking officers. Queen Victoria says in a letter to Viceroy Lord Lansdowne, "Though the Muhammadan's cow killing is made the pretext for the agitation, it is, in fact, directed against us, who kill far more cows for our army, etc., than the Muhammadans."

This book counters the general impression that Muslims in India eat the flesh of cow, which is perhaps a myth perpetuated by the British. Though the Muslim community was encouraged to take up the slaughter of cattle, as the large number slaughterhouses set up by the British required professional butchers, but a majority of the immigrant Muslims, as well as the converted, seldom did take to eating of cow flesh. This is borne out by many clippings from the Urdu press as well as from the correspondence between British officials of that period, as documented in this book. The British tried their best, and largely succeeded in projecting this movement, which was in the words of Lansdowne himself 'political' in nature, to one which now appears to the educated Indian as a conflict between Hindus and Muslims.

This book, based on British documents, unfolds the story of this momentous movement.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/...l_education.htm

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Education in Pre-British India
by Pankaj Goyal

Posted 7/9/03

Dharampal, the well known Gandhian and historian of Indian Science, has given a detailed accounts of the extensive indigenous system of education that was thriving in India before the British came in his famous book, The Beautiful Tree. We give below a brief summary of his report. Dharampal's account is based on the British Collector's reports when the came to India and were asked to report on sate of the indigenous education.

Indian historical knowledge has been derived from the writings and some other valuable accounts left by the foreigners. For example, the universities of Nalanda and Taxila have been better known as some Greek or Chinese travellers had written about them centuries ago, which had survived in the form of some journals. Thus these journals provide us very useful information about indigenous education.

The information about indigenous education, which is available today, whether published, or still in manuscript form in the government records, largely belongs to the 1820's and 1830's period. It is significant to emphasize that indigenous education was carried out through pathshalas, madrassahs and gurukulas. These three institutions were the source of traditional knowledge systems in India and played a very significant role in the Indian education. These institutions were in fact the watering holes of the culture of traditional communities. Therefore the term school is a weak translation of the roles these institutions really played in Indian society.

The most well-known and decisive point, which emerged from the educational surveys, lies in an examination made by William Adam. He, in his observations found that there existed about 1,00,000 village schools in Bengal and Bihar around the 1830s. Men like Thomas Munro, had observed that 'every village had a school'. Observations made by Dr. G.W.Leitner in 1882 show that the spread of education in the Punjab around 1850 was of a similar extent. At about the same time, England had very few schools for the children of ordinary people till about 1800, and many of the older grammar school were in poor shape. According to A.E. Dobbs, the University of Oxford might be described as the chief Charity School of the poor as well as the chief Grammar School in England. It was also one of the greatest places of the education for students of theology, law and medicine.

The men who wrote about India belonged to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century of Great Britain. These surveys, based on hard data reveal a great deal about the nature of Indian education and detailed information on the background of those benefiting from these institutions.

According to this hard data, in terms of the content, the proportion of those attending institutional school education in India in 1800 is certainly not inferior to what obtained in England then; and in many respects Indian schooling seems to have been much more extensive. The content of studies was better in India than in England. The method of school teaching was superior in India at that time. The school attendance, especially in the district of Madras Presidency, even in the decayed state of the period 1822-25, was proportionately far higher than the numbers in all variety of schools in England in 1800. The only aspect in which India was behind was the education of girls. Girl schooling may have been proportionately more extensive in England in 1800.

However, the Madras Presidency and Bengal-Bihar data presents a kind of revelation. According to this data, the education of any sort in India, till very recant decades, was mostly limited to the twice born amongst the Hindus, and amongst the Muslims to those from the ruling elite.

Two of the collectors sent detailed information pertain-ing to those who were being educated at home, or in some other private manner. The collector of Malabar sent details of 1,594 scholars who were receiving education in Theology, Law, Astrono-my, Metaphysics, Ethics and Medical Science in his district from private tutors. The collector of Madras, on the other hand, report-ed in his letter of February 1826 that 26,963 school-level schol-ars were then receiving tuition at their homes in the area under his jurisdiction.

The government of Madras presidency completed a survey of Indian educational institutions in 1823-24. After that it came to be known that despite the poverty and disturbance, there were about 13,000 schools and 740 colleges under the presidency. According to this survey the original number of students in school and colleges were 1,88,650 out of which 42,502 were Brahmans and 85,400 were from the castes known as Shudras. The remaining were Vaishya, Mohammedan and from other Hindu castes. The numbers of girls were only 4540, but according to the report this lesser number of girls as alleged was mainly due to the prevalence of home education of girls. But the number of Mohammedan girl students in Malabar district was very large. The number of girl students there was 1,122 and for boy students 3196. How these institutions of education were destroyed is known to some extent by what Gandhiji said.

The Government of the Presidency of Madras on 10 March 1826 ultimately reviewed the reports of the collectors. The Governor, Sir Thomas Munro, was of the view that while the institutional education of females seemed negligible, that of the boys between the ages of 5 to 10 years appeared to be a 'little more than one-fourth' of the boys of that age in the Presidency as a whole. Taking into consideration those who were estimated as being taught at home, he was inclined 'to estimate the por-tion of the male population who receive school education to be nearer to one-third than one-fourth of the whole.

The caste-wise division of students provides the more interesting and historically more relevant information. This is true not only as regards boys, but also with respect to the rather small number of girls who, according to the survey, were receiving education in schools. Furthermore, the information be-comes all the more curious and pertinent when the data is grouped into the five main language areas -- Oriya, Telugu, Kannada. Malayalam and Tamil. These constituted the Presidency of Madras at this period, and throughout the nineteenth century.

In the Tamil speaking areas where the twice-born ranged between 13% in the south Arcot to some 23% in Madras, the Muslims were less than 3% in South Arcot and Chingleput to 10% in Salem, while the Soodras and the other castes ranged from about 70% in Salem and Tinnevelly, to over 84% in South Arcot.

In Malayalam-speaking Malabar, the proportion of the twice born was still below 20% of the total. Because of a larger Muslim population, however, the number of Muslim school stu-dents went up to nearly 27%, while the Soodras and the other castes accounted for some 54% of the school going students.

In the largely Kannada-speaking Bellary, the proportion of the twice-born (the Brahmins and the Vysees) went up to 33%, while the Soodras, and the other castes still accounted for some 63%.

The position in the Oriya-speaking Ganjam was similar: the twice-born accounting for some 35.6%, and the Soodras and other castes being around 63.5%.

It is only in the Telugu-speaking districts that the twice born formed the major proportion of the school going students. Here, the proportion of Brahmin boys varied from 24% in Cuddapah to 46% in Vizagapatam; of the Vysees from 10.5% in Vizagapatam to 29% in Cuddapah; of the Muslims from 1 % in Vizagapatam to 8% in Nellore; and of the Soodras and other castes from 35% in Guntoor to over 41% in Cuddapah and Vizagapatam.

The main subjects, which were reported to be taught in the schools of Bellary and also in Rajahmundry, were reading, writing and arithmetic. Ramayanum, Maha Bharata, Bhagvata, were some other books which were reported to be taught in these schools.

While several of the collectors observed that no institutions of higher learning were then known to exist in their districts, the rest reported a total of 1,094 such places. These were enumer-ated under the term 'colleges' (as mentioned in the prescribed form). The largest number of these, 279, were in the district of Rajahmundry with a total of 1.454 scholars; Coimbatore came next with 173 such places (724 scholars); Guntoor had 171 (with 939 scholars); Tanjore 109 (with 769 scholars); Nellore 107; North Arcot 69 (with 418 scholars); Salem 53 (with 324 scholars); Chingleput 51 (with 398 scholars); Masulipatarn 49 (with 199 scholers); Bellary 23; Trichnopoly (with 131 scholars) and Malabar with one old institution with 75 scholars.

The books used in these institutions probably were the Vedas, the various Sastras, the Purans, the more well known books on Ganeeta, and Jyotish-sastras and epic literature.

Several collectors, especially the collector of Canara, who did not send any statistical returns at all, mentioned the fact that many of the boys and especially the girls received education at home from their parents, or relatives, or from privately engaged tutors. The data from Madras regarding the number of boys and girls receiving tuition at their home is equally pertinent. In comparison to those being educated in schools in Madras, this number is 4.7 times.

The number of girls attending the school was very small. Leaving aside the districts of Malabar and the Jeypoor divison of Vizagapatam district, the girls from Brahmin, Chettri, and Vysee castes were practically non-existent in schools. However, there were some Muslim girls receiving school educations: 56 in Trichnopoly, and 27 in Salem.

Thirteen years later, a more limited semi-official survey of indigenous education was taken up in the Presidency of Bengal, which is known as the Adam's Reports. In spite of the controversies, Adam's Reports have mentioned that there were perhaps 1,00,000 village schools in Bengal and Bihar in some form till the 1830.

Adam divided the period spent in elementary schools into 4 stages, which were: The first stage was a period of about ten days, during which the young scholar was taught to form the letters of the alphabet; the second stage, extending two and a half to 4 years, was distinguished by the use of palm leaf as the material on which writing was performed and the scholar was taught to read and write and also learn the Cowrie table, the Numeration table, the katha table and the Ser table; the third stage extended from 2 to 3 years, which were employed in writing on the plantain leaf and addition, subtraction and other arithmetical operations were taught during this period; and finally in the fourth stage, which extended up to 2 years, the writing was done on the paper and the scholar was expected to read the Ramayana, Manas mangal etc.

About 45 years after Adam, Dr. G. W. Leitner prepared an even more voluminous survey of indigenous education. This survey was more direct and much less complementary to British rule. Leitner's researches showed that at the time of the annexation of the Punjab, the lowest computation gave 3,30,000 pupils in the schools of the various denominations who were acquainted with reading, writing and some methods of computation.

There is a sense of widespread neglect and decay in the field of indigenous education within a few decades after the onset of British rule. This is the major common impression, which emerges from the (1822-25) Madras Presidency data, the report of W. Adam on Bengal and Bihar (1835-38), and the Punjab survey by G.W. Leitner.

Gandhiji was very disappointed at the condition of Indian education during the British period. Gandhiji observed two main points in Indian education: (1) Today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or hundred years ago; and (2) the British administrators instead of looking after education and other matters which had existed, began to root them out.
Source:

Dharampal, 2000. Introduction in The Beautiful Tree, Volume III. Pp. 07-86. Mapusa: Other India Press.

Note: The archaic spellings have not been changed.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

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http://www.samanvaya.com/frames/ecourse/1st-dindia.htm

http://www.samanvaya.com/frames/knowledge/.../census1881.htm

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http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/resour...ampal.html

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Not sure how long this link is going to last so archiving in full.

http://dahd.nic.in/ch1/notechair.htm

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->NOTE OF SHRI DHARAMPAL, CHAIRMAN
(Introductory Note by Acting Chairman, Justice Guman Mal Lodha)

I have received on 24.7.2002 – last, but not of least importance – a Note from Chairman’s DESK at Sevagram. Though many ideas and points are covered more than once earlier, yet coming from Chairman’s Desk, they deserve much more respect and importance. Hence, I am appending them, as such, without editing. This is so, because I believe “No one can be more pious than the Pope himself”. Shri Dharampal is N.C.C.’s “POPE” and his last word would never go in vain, as the famous saying is that “He laughs best –who laughs last”.

2. With the above, I also express my gratefulness to him for approving the report prepared by me, by and large, without getting opportunity to fully read the 1100 pages in four volumes. I take this opportunity to apologise for many unpleasant frank expressions of Commission’s Members, which are critical. While doing so, I have expressed the “Consensus” feelings of about 12 active Members, who have worked with me day and night and shouldered the high responsibility of having public hearings throughout India and analyzing the questionnaires and providing me inputs. The Member Secretary also prepared two Chapters, on inputs of the Sub Committees. But for the active cooperation of all, I could not have succeeded in completing this onerous task in record time of less than one year, even with handicap of not having regular office and infrastructure, with Chairman’s illness keeping him away and under resignation for major part of the year. Even then, “all is well that ends well” and I believe in the saying ‘Better late than never’. Therefore, the Chairman has now, during printing process of the report joined by sending his note as “last word”. Thanks to him and all.

3. I have already expressed my gratefulness to all Conveners, Members (including Member Secretary) and Consultants, for helping me in preparing almost 1100 to 1200 pages Report. May I hope that Chairman’s views would be respected by all and acted upon.

sd/-
(Justice Guman Mal Lodha)
Acting Chairman

E-mail from Shri Dharampal

Subject: A supplementary note
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 06:41:05 +0500
From: dot dixitp@nagpur.dot.net.in
To: awbi@del3.vsnl.net.in

Dear Shri Lodhaji,

Though I have not yet seen the report of the Commission, I think I should say something about how I have perceived the place of the cow in India, and how in my view we could effectively stop all cow slaughter within some 10-20 years. I have therefore written the enclosed supplementary note and would much like to have your views on it, when you come to Sevagram on July 26th. The note is just a draft at present.

With kindest regards,
Yours sincerely,
Dharampal


To
Justice Sri Guman Mal Lodha
Acting Chairman, NCC

A SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE BY SHRI DHARAMPAL

(Appended to the Report of the National Commission on Cattle)

The molestation, ill treatment and ultimately slaughter of the cow has been a matter of great distress and sorrow to most Indians for the past two centuries, and more. The occasional killing of the cow was now and then done by Islamic invaders, who began to come to India from about 10-11th century AD. By AD 1200, several groups of them plundered and conquered various territories, especially in Northern and Western India, and established Islamic states in which, to begin with, the state encouraged cow slaughter on Islamic feasts and other days of Islamic celebration. Such Islamic domination, with its own rise and decline continued in many regions of India till about AD 1700. But even during these 500 years of the Islamic intrusion many of the Muslim rulers did not encourage cow slaughter in fact several of them prohibited it altogether for short or fairly long periods. A mid 20th century major advocate of the banning of cow slaughter, Lala Hardev Sahai of Haryana has estimated, in his biography, that the largest number of cows killed in any one year of Islamic rule in India would not have numbered more than 20,000 cows. Sri Prabhu Datt Brahmachari around the same time thought similarly. More work needs to be done on such estimates. It seems that the far larger killing of cows on their own festivals by many followers of Islam during the 19th and early 20th century originated through imitation of the British to exercise their right of slaughter especially after 1893. A growing number of the Muslims had also begun to be professional killers of the cow under British patronage, with the building of more and more slaughter houses by the British and managed by the commissariat wings of the three British armies from around 1800 AD.

II
The incessant daily killing of the cow, from about 1760 onwards, when the British were expanding their control both in the Bengal region and in the larger region around Madras had however been carried on by the British on instructions from the highest level. After over a 100 years of this beginning, Queen Victoria stated to her Viceroy Lansdowne, on 8th December, 1893, “though the Muhammadans cow killing is made the pretext for the agitation, it is, in fact, directed against us, who kill far more cows for our army & c, than the Muhammadans.” The Queen was writing in the context of the Indian anti-kine-killing agitation, then going on in large parts of India for the previous 13-14 years.

Some 24 years later in 1917 Mahatma Gandhi speaking on the cow in Bihar, stated that around 30,000 cows were being slaughtered by the British every day. Gandhiji, perhaps, had obtained this number from the British slaughter authorities.

The primary question, however, is why do Indians consider that the cow must not be killed at all. A variety of answers are given to this question. Firstly, many refer to the ancient tents of India and illustrate the veneration for the cow since those times. Secondly, in recent times emphasis is laid on the great contribution which the cow, and her sons, the bullocks, make to the Indian economy. The bullocks maintain, or rather used to wholly maintain till recently, Indian agriculture by ploughing the land and performing other agricultural operations. Further, they were the major transporters of persons and goods from place to place. The cow provided Indians with milk, calves and, far more importantly, bulls. All of them gave cow-dung and cow-urine, both of which have immense value as manure as well as medicine. The dung is also used as constituent of mud plaster in house building, and in plastering walls, floors, sacred places, etc. It is claimed these days that much more can be obtained from cow-dung and urine with the aid of modern science. There are also claims that the bullocks can be made to run faster and even plough, one hopes without injuring themselves, with specially made tractors.

For about two centuries, one of the products of the cow after it has been slaughtered, and cut into pieces of flesh etc, has been the cow’s hide, which is converted into leather. Curiously for certain Indian writers of the 1940s, the British mainly slaughtered the cow for its hide and not for its flesh to feed themselves. Gandhiji however did not subscribe to this view and knew that the slaughtering by the British from the beginning was for cow flesh.•

Instead of there being improvement in the well-being of the cow and reduction in the cow’s slaughter, as was expected after the departure of the British from India in 1947, the suffering, decline and ill-treatment of the cow are on the increase. A large responsibility for this increase falls on the Animal Husbandry authorities of India and on the post-1950 policies of the Government of India.

Till recently, I had not paid much attention to the objectives and functions of the Animal Husbandry Department under whose auspices this Commission has been set up. I had just assumed that the Animal Husbandry Department must largely be for the welfare and well-being of Indian cattle, buffaloes, and other Indian domestic animals.

It was only some months after joining the National Commission on Cattle that I began to realize that I had been wrong in the above assumption. The idea of Animal Husbandry must have been developed in Britain and the West for increasing the number of domestic animals, for keeping them well and flourishing, and finally in arranging for their slaughter to be consumed as animal food by human beings. That some animals, during certain durations, also provided milk etc, for human consumption, or draught power (as by horses, camels, bullocks, etc. for agriculture or transport, was useful), was not the main function of Western Animal Husbandry. The Animal Husbandry, which we have had for about a century, seems to be basically stamped with this Western view.

If I am right in the above view, then I assume that the care, the well-being, and banning the slaughter of the cow and its progeny are not the primary functions of the present Indian Animal Husbandry set up. If we wanted the Animal Husbandry set-up to fully support the above task, we had first to get its priorities changed from those of helping in the larger production of slaughtered meat and other animal products, to make it take steps to gradually reduce such meat production etc. and then as a first step to start with the care of the cow and its progeny and moving speedily towards a complete banning of cow slaughter. Considering the current role of the Animal Husbandry Department, it was an error on the part of the Government of India to constitute the National Commission on Cattle under the auspices of the Department of Animal Husbandry.

The independence of India, however, seems to have brought up a major propagation of meat eating, this time by committees and officers of the Indian State, and not, as in the 19th century, just by the Christian missionaries. Scores of committees, since around 1947, have worked on how to provide Indians a more animal-rich protein diet, how to modify the breed of cattle, especially of buffaloes, so that they not only give milk, but through sophisticated slaughtering devices also provide succulent animal flesh.

Our contributions as a relatively non-violent people has thus become, not only to make meat available to some more of our already well-fed middle classes - the administrators, the managerial classes, the defence services, the politicians and the rest, but to also export it to other lands. Rumours of course are in plenty. For instance, it is stated by some academics in Calcutta that some 22% of the Hindus there are thought to eat cow flesh, and that, in Kerala, this proportion may be somewhat higher. These, however, could be inflated rumours to discourage those who advocate the banning of cow slaughter.

Mentioning that you or your family could not even think of having any tiny bit of the flesh of the cow, even as medicine, is no longer taken as a serious statement. Such statements have now become quite out of place in the India we have made. Even the desire to really find the truth of the situation has become ever more meaningless. The credit for this transformation, or its being propagated through government blue books, can certainly be taken by the Indian State and those who have headed it for some 50 years, and lakhs and lakhs of others who have served the state in relevant professional capacities. These seem to include practically every Indian who appears to be keen on the westernization of Indian society and economy.

III
How did we actually arrive at the present state? One may take an early beginning in 1950. Here it may be stated that all the decisions of Government mentioned below need not be the result of some deliberate policy. These could have been random decisions which put together became a jumble and did far more harm to the people of India than any deliberate decisions would have done .

Soon after the adoption of the Indian Constitution, it was left to the 15 or so constituting states to enact their own laws on the welfare of the cow and its progeny and for the banning of their slaughter. Just when the states were in the process of taking decisions on the subject, the Government of India sent a letter dated 20th December 1950 to all state governments. The letter said –

“Hides from slaughtered cattle are much superior to hides from fallen cattle and fetch a higher price. In the absence of slaughter the best type of hide which fetches good price in the export market will no longer be available. A total ban on slaughter is thus detrimental to the export trade and work against the tanning industry in the country”

In 1954, the Government of India (Ministry of Food and Agriculture) appointed an “Expert Committee on the Prevention of Slaughter of Cattle in India”, which gave its report in Jan 1955. In the very middle of the report the committee began to say that, as we do not have enough fodder, we can not maintain more than 40% of our cattle. According to it, 60% of the rest had to be culled from the Indian cattle stock whenever possible.

In the 1970s the Government of India appointed the National Commission on Agriculture. Some of its suggestions regarding buffaloes were:

“The buffalo should be developed not only for enhancement of milk production but also for making it a source of production of quality meat.
“A deliberate and energetic drive should be made to develop for export trade in buffalo meat.
“ Modernization of slaughter houses should be undertaken immediately.
“Massive programmes for improving the reproductive and productive efficiency of cattle and buffaloes should be undertaken. Low producing stock should be progressively eliminated so that the limited feed and fodder resources are available for proper feeding of high producing animals.”

This last passage very clearly advocates the breeding and culling of animals, including cattle, so as to produce more meat.

A last point, much nearer our time, in July 1995, may be noticed here. This was a statement made before the Supreme Court by the Government of India. The statement was:

“It is obvious, that the Central Government as a whole is encouraging scientific and sustainable development of livestock resources and their efficient utilisation which inter-alia includes production of quality meat for export as well as for domestic market. This is being done with a view of increase in the national wealth as well as better return to the farmer.”

Thus our agriculture and cattle and animal rearing have been ruined during the past 50 years; in fact, the beginning of this ruin started around 1760 and spread to the whole of India during the 19th century. We, as a relatively non-violent people, recently seem strangely to have started taking pride that we now slaughter around 2.6 crores cattle and buffaloes annually. Of these the buffaloes may be around 40-45%. The number of animals whose flesh is exported through this vast dedicated state effort maybe around 30% of the whole. It is possible that most of this export is of buffalo meat.

This National Commission was constituted to bring about the well-being of the cow and of the cow’s numerous breeds, to enable better use of the cow’s productive capacities without making its life a drudgery and strain, and to bring about, within a reasonable period, the complete prohibition of the slaughter of the cow in India with the willing support of practically all of India’s people. The recommendations of the Commission, when implemented, should be of value with regard to some of these objectives.

IV
However, the slaughter of cow has lasted so long and in such high proportion of our cattle wealth that the present report along cannot have any great impact on the problem we face. The need is of a well thought out intensive effort, which may have to continue in certain regions of India for some 15-20 years before the occurrence of cow slaughter is completely ended.

The fact that the cow and its progeny also has economic utility for man does not, however, have to be proved. Every part of creation, including human beings, insects, animals, plants, rivers, mountains, all have economic utility. The special regard for the cow in India, she being considered auspicious and a symbol of sanctity are the characteristics, which make Indian desist from ill-treating the cow and being shocked if some one were to kill her. This feeling of auspiciousness and sanctity has prevailed in India from very ancient times and one may assume that the vast majority of the Indian people deep down still retain this feeling. Even when a cow, bull, bullock, etc, dies this auspiciousness and sanctity still apply to the dead body, as such attributes apply to the dead body of a man or woman. We may therefore, assume that before cow slaughter got started in India there was no skinning of the cow, bull, etc, and their dead bodies were invariably buried. Buying of bulls and cows is still the practice in many regions of India.

If India is serious about restoring honour and well-being to the cow and ending cow slaughter altogether, we should, decide to set up, after the present Commission’s report is made, a long-term body, with adequate power, authority, and vision, of four to five persons, say for 5-10 years, who will have a thorough look into the question of how the cow became what it has become today and how she and her progeny can be restored back to her earlier well-being and honoured place in Indian society. This body should initiate various enquiries and studies and establish contact with the villages as well as the traditional cattle keepers in every region of India. It should also go in detail into the past background of how the cow has been treated, say from about AD 1200-1700 and then from AD 1750-1947, and go into the history of cow slaughter during these periods. It should also examine the relationship between cattle and agriculture and the ecological and environmental Indian background, which has been seriously endangered during the past 150-200 years. As it is perhaps now accepted by many, the largest daily continuous slaughter of the cow happened from the beginning of British rule in India till the British left, and then it was taken over under the patronage of the present Indian State. A similar, it not more pronounced, deterioration occurred in our soil, and agricultural practices during the same period.

Once we have looked at and thought about the multiple aspects concerning the present state of the cow, we may then know how to restore to the cow its place of regard and honour. When we start work seriously it may be quite possible that, say in about half of India, the well-being of the cow can be restored in about 5 years, and the slaughter, as well as the transportation of cattle to distant places can be stopped during the same time. Other regions may take longer. But it should not take more than 15 –20 years before the cow and its progeny can again begin to live without molestation and with honour and esteem all over India.

V
Till the necessary law or constitutional change is brought about to prohibit cow slaughter – as we proposed during 1948-49 at the time of the framing of the constitution – we need to take certain steps from now on to bring about some immediate relief and well-being to the cow. Some of these steps would be:

1. Once the major occurrences, which greatly harm the cow, is the transfer in large numbers of the cow and its progeny from one region to another distant region. The purpose is said to be the slaughter of the cow in the new place. Two of the areas in which such transfers take place on a vast scale are said to be i) Bihar to Bangladesh, and ii) Tamil Nadu to Kerala. There are scores of other such places and regions, especially around the huge newly set-up slaughter houses like those in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, where such transfers and gathering of cattle from all around also take place for large-scale slaughter. Local people for years have tried to stop such movement but with small success. The need is for a body like the BSF or like a Provincial Armed Constabulary, of say some 10,000 persons, a part of which can be moved to wherever it is needed. New persons who are enrolled in such a body should also include such go-sevaks who have already performed such tasks over long periods. Initially, the body may be constituted for five years, and it should have good relations and support of the people of such areas where they are moved to for controlling such illicit traffic in cattle.

2. On the pretext of their being physically disabled, or they being no longer economically useful, a large number of cattle of various ages and conditions are driven to some of the major slaughter houses in various parts of India. This carting of cattle to such slaughter houses must be completely stopped.

3. The breeding of cattle, perhaps even of buffaloes, should be taken out of the hands of the Animal Husbandry institutions, or military farms, etc. Given the present emphasis on the primacy of meat production all these bodies can no longer be reasonably trusted with regard to their views on the kind of cows or bulls to be bred. The Agricultural Commission of the mid 1970s was quite clear that, “the buffalo should be developed not only for enhancement of milk production but also for making it a source of production of quality meat”. If this was the Agricultural Commission’s policy with regard to the breeding of buffaloes, the basic policy with regard to the development of the different breeds of the cow could not have been any different. The whole question of the development of the cow through artificial insemination, cross-breeding and through the various other methods which are more and more employed these days, must all be treated as suspect till every aspect of the breeding policy is explained in details to those who keep cows and look after them, and are asked to decide what to keep and what to reject. A competent expert body, at least half of whose members are actual peasants and herdsmen, needs to look into the various aspects of the development and breeding of the cow today.

sd/-
(Dharampal)
Sevagram, July 25, 2002<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

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http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/aug/22kak.htm<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India's technology was flourishing before the British. It has been estimated that India's share of world trade in 1800 was about 20 percent (equal to America's share of world trade in 2000). The historian Ruttonjee Wadia says that ships built at Mumbai in its heyday were 'vastly superior to anything built anywhere else in the world.' According to Dharampal, there were 10,000 iron and steel furnaces operating in the eighteenth century India.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

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http://www.geocities.com/ifihhome/articles/kbn001.html<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In the Round- table conference in 1931, Mahatma Gandhi in one of his speeches said, "The beautiful tree of education was cut down by you British. Therefore today India is far more illiterate than it was 100 years ago." Immediately, Philip Hartog, who was a parliamentarian stood up and said, "Mr.Gandhi, it is we who have educated the masses of India. And therefore you must take back your statement and apologise or prove it." Gandhiji said he would prove it. But the debate did not continue for lack of time. Later one of his followers, Shri Dharampal, went to the British museum and examined the reports and archives. He published a book "The Beautiful Tree" where this matter has been discussed in great detail. By 1820, the British had already destroyed the financial resources that supported our educational system- a destruction that they had been carrying out for nearly twenty years. But still the Indians persisted in continuing with their system of education. So, the British decided to find out the intricacies of this system. Therefore a survey was ordered in 1822 and was conducted by the British district collectors. In the survey it was found that the Bengal presidency had 1 lakh village schools, in Madras there was not a single village without a school, in Bombay, if the village population was near 100, the village had a school. Teachers as well as students of all castes were in these schools. The Brahmins accounted 7% to 48% of the teachers, and the rest of the teachers in any district, came from other castes. Further all children had their education in their mother tongue.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

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http://esamskriti.com/html/new_inside.asp?...nt1=0&cid=1039#

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bullet Points

For the first time am presenting a summary of key points in bullet point format. Let me know how you like it.

    *
      To the British darkness and ignorance had wholly different meanings and to the majority of them, these terms conveyed not any ignorance of arts and crafts or technology, or aesthetics but rather the absence of the knowledge of Christianity and its scriptural heritage.

    *
      Peasants, artisans, those engaged in the manufacture of iron and steel, or in the various processes of its flourishing indigenous textile industry, or its surgeons and medical men, even many of its astronomers and astrologers belonged to this predominant section i.e. Sudras is unquestionable.

    *
      Some of the important changes brought about the British were (i) revenue enhancement and centralization, (ii) attempts at breaking the sense of community (geographical, or based on occupation or kinship) amongst the people of India, (iii) reducing their consumption to the minimum through higher taxation and lowering of wage rates, and (iv) an imposition of newer concepts of property rights and laws.
    *
      They created a system of landlordism, ryotwari and peasant indebtedness.
    *
      Deliberate & planned lowering of the wages of Indians.

Caste

    *
      When the British began to conquer India, the majority of the rajas in different parts of India had also been from amongst such castes which have been placed in the sudra varna.
    *
      Yet it can, perhaps also be argued that the existence of caste has added to the tenacity of Indian society, to its capacity to survive and after lying low to be able to stand up again.
    *
      The British demonized caste because it stood in the way of their breaking Indian society, hindered the process of atomization, and made the task of conquest and governance more difficult.
    *
      Today's backward classes or Sudras cultural and economic backwardness is post 1800 due to impact of British economic policies.
    *
      Madras Presidency 1822 survey showed sudras and castes below formed 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the total students in the Tamil speaking areas.
    *
      Some of today's Bihar's notified tribes were whose ancestors were warriors and gave unceasing battle to the British till they got exhausted and succumbed to the overwhelming British power. Besides being warriors, their main occupations are said to have been of ironsmith (Iuhar) etc.

Agriculture

    *
      In 1804 according to The Edinburgh Review wages of the Indian agricultural laborer were also much more than British counter part.
    *
      There is a paper by Capt. Halcott on the drill plough employed in south India. He has said that he never imagined a drill plough considered as a modern European invention, at work in remote village in India
    *
      High Yields were on account of the variety of seeds available to the Indian peasant, the sophistication and simplicity of his tools, and the extreme care and labor he expended in tending to his fields and crops.

Industry

    *
      Around 1800 India had 15-20 lakh weavers with mining being major industrial activity. Due to British policies by 1820 Indian industry was on its knees.
    *
      There are accounts of the Indian process of making steel which was called 'wootz'. The British experts who examined samples of 'wootz' sent to them by one Dr. Helenus Scott have commented that it is decidedly superior compared in any other steel they have seen.
    *
      Incidentally, modern plastic surgery in Britain is stated by its inventor to have been derived from and developed after the observation and study of the Indian practice from 1790 onwards.
    *
      Because of the British desire to invest newly acquired British capital, a new structure of industrialization began to be established in various parts of India, especially round Calcutta and Bombay, by about 1880.
    *
      The larger proportion of the historical and traditional professionals of Indian Industry however, even today, work outside the modern industrial complex, and mostly work individually and on their own. In the idiom of today they would form a fairly large proportion of the 'Backward' and 'Other Backward' castes.
    *
      According to current findings the India-China region produced around 73 per cent of the industrial manufactures of the world around 1750.
    *
      Cloth was manufactured in practically all the 400 districts. Many districts of south India had 10,000 to 20,000 looms in each district even around 1810. Also India had some 10,000 furnaces for the manufacture of iron and steel. Indian steel was considered of very high quality and in the early decades of the nineteenth century, it was being used by the British for the making of surgical instruments.

    *
      In 1763 smallpox was consciously and deliberately introduced in North America by the British military commander to kill local population.

    *
      One of the major characteristics of India has been its emphasis on communities based on shared localities as well as relations of kinship termed as jatis, in contrast to the preference for individuation in non-Slav Europe. It was complementarities and relatedness amongst groups within localities, and more so within regions, which has shaped India's polity for the past two thousand years and more. This interrelatedness and the consensus, which grew out of it, seem to be the major elements that define the Indian concept of dharma.

    *
      India needs to focus on agriculture, education, forging close relations with the Buddhist countries of South East Asia & Far East but an important priority should be to re-establish self esteem, courage, community feeling, and collective freedom<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->K: I think your forthcoming book on education in pre-British India has some interesting facts*.

D: Yes, For instance, a detailed survey of the surviving indigenous system of education was carried out in the Madras Presidency during 1922-1925. The survey indicated that 11,575 schools and 1,094 colleges were still then in existence in the Presidency and that the number of students were 1,57,195 and 5,431 respectively. The much more surprising information this survey provided is with regard to the broader caste composition of the students in the schools. According to it those belonging to the sudras and castes below them formed 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the total students in Tamil-speaking areas; 62 per cent in the Oriya areas; 54 per cent in the Malayalam speaking areas; and 35 per cent to 40 per cent in Telugu-speaking areas. The Governor of Madras further estimated that over 25 per cent of the boys of the school-going age were attending these schools and that a substantial proportion were receiving education at home. In Madras about 26,000 boys were receiving their education at home and about 5,500 were attending schools. In Malabar, the number of those engaged in college level studies at home was about 1,600 as compared to a mere 75 in a college run by the family of the then impoverished Samudrin Raja. Again, in the district of Malabar the number of Muslim girls attending schools was surprisingly large 1,122 girls as compared to 3,196 Muslim boys. Incidentally, the number of Muslim girls attending school there 60 years, in 1884-1885, was just 700 or so. I have reproduced must of the documents in my book. A number of our notions about education in per-British Indian society have to be discarded in the light of these British reports and surveys.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->K: What do you say about the caste system? I suppose you would not say that the problem of caste is only a post-1800 one. I feel caste poses a lot of problems when we begin defending our tradition.

D: You are right. Caste seems to be the major symbol of India's backwardness. But how have we arrived at such a conclusion? Like village, castes have been invariable constituents of Indian society throughout history. It is true that according to Manusmriti etc., society in India was at a certain stage divided into four varnas. But while castes and tribes have existed in India and continue to exist today, never before in history do they seem to have posed a major problem.

Historically they have existed side by side, they have interacted among themselves, groups of them have had ritual or real fights with each other and so on. Contrary to accepted assumptions and perhaps to Mansumritic law, when the British began to conquer India, the majority of Rajas had been from the Sudra Varna. It is possible that the existence of separate castes and tribes have historically been responsible for the relative weakness of Indian polity. On the other hand it can also be argued that the existence of caste added to the tenacity of Indian society, to its capacity to survive, and to be able to stand up again. Under what circumstances and what arrangements castes are divisive of Indian society or lead to its cohesion are questions which still have no conclusive answer.

For the British, caste was a great obstacle, an unmitigated evil not because they believed in castelessness or a non-hierarchical system but because it stood in the way of their breaking Indian society. I think caste did hinder the process of atomization of Indian society and made the task of conquest and governance more difficult. The present fury and theoretical formulation against the organization of Indian society into caste, whatever the justification or otherwise of caste today, thus begins with British rule.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Misconception Sudras

Friends this chapter tells you about the actual status of the Sudras & below varnas meaning they were peasants, artisans, employed by the textile industry, astrologers and the primary steps initiated by the British political system like centralization etc.

For the past century, or more, and perhaps from the beginning of British indological scholarship, it has generally been assumed, naturally on the analogy of pre-1800 European development that except for the Brahmins and the twice born and those belonging to the Muslim aristocracy, the rest of the Indian population i.e. some 80 to 85 per cent of it was more or less in some state of serfdom, lived at the sufferance of those termed as the "brahmanical" or "feudal" orders, and were immersed in darkness and ignorance. Here, it may be mentioned that for the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century British orator and writer, darkness and ignorance had wholly different meanings and to the majority of them, these terms conveyed not any ignorance of arts and crafts or technology, or aesthetics but rather the absence of the knowledge of Christianity and its scriptural heritage. According to such usage, it is not only the Hindu who fell into these categories of the morally depraved but also the ancient Greeks-men like Horner, Socrates and Plato-and the Romans before Rome embraced Christianity?

But if India was not immersed in darkness and ignorance and if it was not primarily organized on principles and precepts laid down in the Manu Samhita or some other dharma sastras the question arises as to how it actually did function and what the social and economic roles were of its predominant non-elitist population. That its peasants, its artisans, those engaged in the manufacture of iron and steel, or in the various processes of its flourishing indigenous textile industry, or its surgeons and medical men, even many of its astronomers and astrologers belonged to this predominant section i.e. Sudras is unquestionable.

Further, that in most areas the predominant proportion of those receiving non-sanskritic education came from this 80 per cent (in the Tamil areas as many as 75 to 80 per cent of the total in educational institutions) is also confirmed by early nineteenth century data. Further, according to an 1820 survey of the customs of castes in areas of the Bombay Presidency the prevailing view according to British researches then was that the sastras themselves recognized the primacy of caste customs and these were to be considered as the final authority. Similar information may emerge about other areas if sufficient investigation in depth were undertaken into the contemporary records pertaining to them. Such an investigation may also disclose that the majority of the Hindu kings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in most parts of India were not from amongst the twice-born but from amongst the groups which were not included in the twice-born categories.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Backwardness like the term "barbarians" is an imagery which one applies to others, to aliens who prove weaker and who do not subscribe to one's own cultural norms. To morally justify the conquest, or subjection, or annihilation of others, recourse is then taken to terms like "backwardness", and when the people so termed, themselves begin mentally to subscribe to such imagery it implies that the process of subjugation of such people has been completed and that they have lost dignity in their own eyes. While there can be some controversy about the prosperity or poverty of the Indian people, or any segments of them during the sixteen, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the term backwardness does not in any sense apply to them then.

Rather, it was the newly arrived Europeans in India who felt that the Indians applied such an appellation to them (the Europeans) for their manners and greed which were considered barbaric and uncouth, about the color of their skin which was thought to be diseased, or even the system of dowry which is said to have originated in eighteenth century England, but to have been looked askance in eighteenth century India. By the end of the eighteenth century when large parts of India had effectively been conquered and subdued the tide obviously changed and instead the term "backwardness" or images of similar nature began to be deliberately and extensively applied to Indian society.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Why you can't read these stars of India. (Indian writers wanting publication of their work to be made solely in India)

New Statesman (1996); 2/7/1997; Sardar, Ziauddin

<b>Claude Alvares, Dharampal and Ashis Nandy are the first three Indian writers who refuse western publication for most of their works</b>. Although publication in the UK or the US was once deemed as a sure route to literary success in India, s<b>ome Indian writers have come to view the practice as imperialistic.</b>

You have probably never heard of them. But Claude Alvares, Dharampal and Ashis Nandy are big names in India. Any Indian version of Waterstone's "Top 100 Books of the Century" would certainly include works by these writers. <b>What they have in common, apart from being self-proclaimed radical intellectuals who write in English, is their refusal to have most of their works published in the west. </b>

Yet until recently publication in the west was the conventional route to fame and recognition in India. Aspiring scholars and writers sought to have their books published first by an American or British publisher and then tried to bring out a local edition through an Indian publisher. The assumption was that if one desired to be heard in India, one had first to be published in the west.
<b>
All that has changed. Alvares regards the western publishing industry as a totally "imperialistic enterprise". It works on the same principle as technology transfer.</b> Technology always flows from the west to India and the west frequently dumps its obsolete, irrelevant and off-the-shelf consumer goods on the third world. Similarly the flow of books is almost exclusively one way. "We are being drowned in this incredible stream of garbage," Alvares asserts, "which has hijacked our minds and made Indian thinkers strangers in their own land."

Alvares has established his own publishing house, The Other Indian Press, which publishes more than 50 titles a year. Others have followed Alvares' lead. The past few years have seen the emergence of a host of new publishers, such as Stree, Kali for Women and Seagull Press, all aiming to promote indigenous writing.

The issue is in essence about the politics of knowledge. Where one publishes often determines whom one writes for and what one has to say. <b>Dharampal's work, for example, is all about rescuing Indian history from the clutches of western historians. </b>His classical studies, Indian Science and Technology in the 18th Century (Delhi, 1971), and The Beautiful Tree (Delhi, 1983), which have transformed the Indian intellectual landscape, painstakingly demonstrate that India had highly developed science and technology and a sophisticated, elaborate educational structure before the British arrived. Since Indian publishers took their cue from their western colleagues, Dharampal had to rely on small, obscure publishers. But he paved the way for Ashis Nandy.

Nandy, whose The Intimate Enemy (OUP, Delhi, 1988) is perhaps the most influential Indian book of contemporary times, is eagerly sought by mainstream publishers. He is director of a Delhi-based centre which has pioneered work on alternatives to dominant western modes of thinking and doing things. He has a following bigger than most pop stars. This year OUP, Delhi, will publish two omnibus editions of his books. Indian publishers are now forced to allow greater latitude to public intellectuals and are more willing to take risks on books for and by Indians. As a result Nandy, too, has mellowed and is willing to allow some of his books to be published in the west, provided they have first been published in India.

This, then, will be the future trend. As Vinay Lal has shown in his survey of South Asian Cultural Studies (Manohar, Delhi, 1996), more and more Indian writers want their books to be published primarily in India. Editions of Indian books will appear in the west, but only by arrangement with Indian publishers. Even western scholars of India must be prepared to publish first in India, without their "haloes" of western expertise, if they are to be taken seriously by the Indian scholarly community.

COPYRIGHT 1997 New Statesman, Ltd.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

Thanks Meera-ji for the link..

Folks,

Please find all of Dharampal's on the multiversity website..

http://multiversitylibrary.com/rules.jsp?a...tring=Dharampal

[acharya]

Rajesh bhai , This is a great thread. This is a must read for every Indian- the new generation

[Guest]

Acharya,

I think so too. I am not aware of any other work by anybody else that compares to this. Its low awareness is sad indeed.