TEACHERS, CURRICULA AND THE SOCIETY: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF IN COLONIAL

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

LALHLIMPUII PACHUAU MZU REGISTRATION NO: 5948 PH.D. REGISTRATION NO: MZU/ PH.D./ 545 OF 22.04.2013

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY & ETHNOGRAPHY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES JUNE 2020

TEACHERS, CURRICULA AND THE SOCIETY: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN COLONIAL MIZORAM

BY

LALHLIMPUII PACHUAU

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY & ETHNOGRAPHY

SUPERVISOR: PROF. LALNGURLIANA SAILO

CO- SUPERVISOR: PROF. J.L. DAWAR

SUBMITTED

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY

MIZORAM UNIVERSITY,

i DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY & ETHNOGRAPHY MIZORAM UNIVERSITY AIZAWL: MIZORAM Phone: 0389-2330531/0389-2330410

Mizoram University A Central university established by an Act of Parliament Accredited ‘A’ Grade by NAAC in 2019 Ph : +919436151192 / +919774099163 Prof.. Lalngurliana Sailo Email : [email protected]

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the thesis entitled ‘Teachers, Curricula And The Society: A Social History Of Education In Colonial Mizoram’ submitted by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau in fulfillment of Doctor of Philosophy in history is an original work and has not been submitted elsewhere for other degree. It is recommended that this thesis be placed before examiners for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Dated: 23rd June, 2020 Place: Aizawl

Supervisor

(PROF. LALNGURLIANA SAILO)

Joint Supervisor

(PROF. J.L DAWAR) ii

DECLARATION

I, Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, hereby declare that the subject matter of the thesis entitled ‘Teachers, Curricula and the Society: A Social History of Education in Colonial Mizoram’ is the record of work done by me, that the contents of this thesis did not form the basis for the award of any previous degree to me or to the best of my knowledge to anybody else, and that the thesis has not been submitted by me for any research degree in other universities or institutions. This is being submitted to Mizoram University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in history.

Dated: 23 June, 2020 Place: Aizawl

(Lalhlimpuii Pachuau) Candidate Department of History & Ethnography Mizoram University

(Prof. LALNGURLIANA SAILO) Supervisor Department of History & Ethnography Mizoram University

(Prof. K. ROBIN) Head of Department Department of History & Ethnography Mizoram University

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This thesis took a winding road but for the patience and consistent guidance of my supervisor Prof. Lalngurliana Sailo, it has come to fruition and I am sincerely grateful. I would like to thank my co- supervisor Prof. J.L. Dawar for giving me the space to explore my area of interests right at the beginning. To the faculty, non- teaching staff and my classmates at the Dept. of History & Ethnography, MZU, thank you for all your input and encouragement. This research is also made possible because of the financial assistance under University Grants Commission’s NET/ JRF and Indian Council of Social Science Research’s Data Collection Abroad schemes. I’m grateful to Angus Library and Archive, Regents’ Park College, Oxford, Welsh National Library, Aberystwyth, J.M. Lloyd Archives, Aizawl Theological College, Baptist Archives, , Mizoram State Archives, Synod Archives, P.C. Girls’ School Library, Aizawl,J.N.U. Library, Ratan Tata Library, Delhi School of Economics, National Archives Delhi and MZU Library. I deeply appreciate Albert, Charlotte, Chhana, Eiryls, Helen, Joseph, Joy, Kuki, Nu Sangi, Pari, Rohan, Sentei, Sree, Vari, Zomuani and the faculty at the Dept. of Sociology Govt. Aizawl College for lending me their ears, sharing their ideas and their generous support in various ways. I thank my parents Joseph Lalrova Pachuau and Rozami for giving me the freedom to find my niche in academic research and to my brothers Joshua, Krosa and my niece Kyrie, thank you for accompanying me in this journey.

Here by His great help I’ve come.

Dated: 23rdJune, 2020 (LALHLIMPUII PACHUAU)

Place: Aizawl. iv

CONTENTS

Certificate i

Declaration ii

Acknowledgement iii

Abbreviations iv

Chapter 1 : Introduction 1- 37

Chapter 2 : Lushai Curricula and the Creation of Knowledge 38- 69

Chapter 3 : Learning To Be Students 70- 103

Chapter 4 :Mission Teachers and the Mizo Society 104- 135

Chapter 5 : Conclusion 136- 149

Appendices 150- 162

Glossary 163- 165

Bibliography 166- 191

1

Chapter-1 Introduction

1.0 Locating the Land

Maps were drawn and redrawn by the British colonial government as it consolidated its power by stages, and in the nineteenth century, its policy of expansion covered the Himalayan offshoots to the east of Bengal including what today has become the state of Mizoram. This process began earlier with the signing of the Treaty of Yandaboo in 1826 that reorganised what we now call North East under a single government, which hitherto was fragmented. Economic, social and cultural change therefore ensued in this region. 1 Meanwhile, the Indian independence movement was also beginning to gain momentum in various forms in the entire Indian sub-continent. The colonial experience was varied for Indians living in different parts of the country, affecting societies in diverse ways depending on the level and nature of interactions.

The North East India’s experience of colonialism was brief in comparison to other parts of India and the engagements had strong Christian undertones too including in the then . The peculiar nature of the relationship between the colonial enterprise and the Mizos merits a serious enquiry from different perspectives as that played an enormous role in shaping the Mizo society of today. This thesis takes up the educational front for in-depth analysis and the study is done by way of examining students, teachers and curriculum: the interaction between structures and the human subjects.

The 19th century saw the introduction of public education and schooling in the colonies controlled by the British Colonial Government. Other European colonialists

1 Frederick S. Downs, in North East India, ISPCK, Delhi, 1983, p.2. 2

in their respective colonies followed this too. In Britain, The Elementary Education Act 1870, also known as Forster's Education Act, recognised a framework of education for children between five and thirteen. An 1880 Act made education compulsory until the age of ten, following a campaign by the National Education League. This was founded on the need to improve the skills of the British workforce, maintaining competitiveness, and also preparing them for their newfound voting rights.2 These Acts passed by the British Parliament influenced the colonies they governed although the rationales for education in the colonies were no doubt different from those they practised at home.

Hayden J.A. Bellenoit argues that, in India, education was to fill the lower ties of the rapidly spawning out colonial bureaucracy. 3 The desire to create cultural intermediaries between the native Indians and the colonial government was behind the introduction of western education system in India while the orientalists wanted to educate the Indians in their native language. The 1813 renewal of 's charter carried a duty to educate and assist previously excluded Christian missionaries to educate the population, in addition to the Company's corporate activities.4 Prior to this, other European powers had introduced some form of schooling and education in the areas they occupied. The English Education Act of 1835 was a turning point as it consolidated the education system within British India. It also led to a decision in 1835 by Lord William Bentinck, the then Governor- General of British India, to reallocate funds of the East India Company, which was required by the British Parliament to spend on education and literature in India. This Act required them to support institutions teaching western curriculum with English

2 Education Leaving Age [website], 2012, https://www.politics.co.uk/reference/education-leaving-age (accessed 23 March 2019). 3 Hayden J.A. Bellenoit, Missionary Education and Empire in the Late Colonial India 1860 -1920, London, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 1. 4 Simran, S., The Charter Act of 1813 / Education, [website] http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/india- 2/education-india-2/the-charter-act-of-1813-education/89638, (accessed 23 March 2019). 3

as a medium of instruction.5 Therefore, when the Lushai Hills was annexed and became part of British India the educational policies were duly followed.

The Mizo experience of education was monopolised by Christian missionaries and the colonial government and their educational philosophies. The colonial government, the mission agencies and the Mizos themselves had numerous points of divergences and conflict in their educational ideals. Though it was the Mizos who were the learners and education was aimed for them, they had the least say in the educational enterprise. This was intensified and made possible with very little resistance from the Mizos due to the paternalistic attitude of the colonial government, supported by the Christian missionaries, which in turn was easily accepted by the common man. Like in all other spheres, the dominating and imposing nature of colonial rule and authority against the Mizos were evident in education too. This took on the form of cultural domination and it continues even till today as the Mizos struggles to break free from the colonial era’s educational system and practices. This makes us question few things; firstly, can a society that was once colonised be really decolonised, what would that process be, secondly, does it want to completely do away with colonial trappings or thirdly can we really demarcate what is indigenous and what is foreign? The answers to these questions could not be found in a straight line, for cultural interactions and exchanges are never black or white. So, this thesis hopes to offer the fourth path by changing the trajectories of our enquiry by moving beyond the domination of binaries of colonial and post-colonial, thereby offering a more nuanced and complex enquiry and understanding of the subject in question. This is done through the studying of important stakeholders like teachers, students and the Mizo society on a platform provided by the British colonial government. And much as the weight of colonial and missionary educational ideals were strong and still are, but to fail to recognise the agency and voice of the Mizos would be a fallacy, not just by way of a resistance narrative but in other ways too.

5 H. C. Verma, Macaulay's Minute on Education February 2, 1835 [website] http://home.iitk.ac.in/~hcverma/Article/Macaulay-Minutes.pdf, (accessed 23 March 2019). 4

1.1 The Issue of Naming

The title of the thesis uses ‘Colonial Mizoram’, which refers to the Lushai Hills during the colonial times. The Lushai Hills was divided into the North Lushai Hills with Aizawl as its headquarters and the South Lushai Hills with as its headquarters. ‘Aizawl’ was spelled ‘Aijal’ and ‘Lunglei’ as ‘Lungleh’ during that period too. There can also be confusion with the term ‘Lushai’ and ‘Mizo’. ‘Lushai’ or ‘Lusei’ was the dominant clan ruling over majority of the present day Mizoram although there were numerous non- Lushai chiefs like the Fanais, Pawis, Maras etc. Throughout this thesis, the term ‘Lushai Hills’, ‘North Lushai Hills’, ‘South Lushai Hills’ are used to refer to the district, ‘Mizo’ to refer to the people, and ‘Aizawl’ and ‘Lunglei’ to refer to the colonial towns unless in direct quotations where they are mentioned otherwise. The reason for using the terms in the ways mentioned above is an attempt to retain the historical sensibilities of the period under study and the way people perceived themselves. Especially with the usage of the name of the district demarcation, there are no alternate terms that would do justice to the places in question. But the changing of the mentioned names merits an explanation here. The process of the consolidation of the British administration in tribal dominated area in started in 1919 when the Lushai Hills along with some other hill districts was declared a Backward Tract under government of India Act. The tribal districts of Assam including Lushai Hills were declared Excluded Area in 1935. After India became an independent state, following the Bordoloi Sub-Committee's suggestion, a certain amount of autonomy was accepted by the government of India and enshrined it in the Six Schedule of the constitution. The Lushai Hills Autonomous District Council came into being in 1952, followed by the formation of these bodies led to the abolition of chieftainship in the Mizo society.6 By an Act of Parliament called

6 Ministry of Communication & Information Technology, National Informatics Centre, Mizoram State Centre, Historical Backdrop of Mizoram, [website] http://www.mizoram.nic.in/about/history.htm, (accessed 1 August 2019). 5

The Lushai Hills District (Change of Name) Act, 1954, dated 29th April 1954, The Lushai Hills District was renamed as The Mizo District and it came into force from 1st September 1954.7 The term ‘Mizo’ is an umbrella term and it became popular around the middle of the 20th century and it is more inclusive as it included non- Lushai tribes inhabiting present day Mizoram. The colonial government and missionaries in most cases use the term ‘Lushai’ as they were the dominant tribe. However, in this thesis, unless non- Lushai tribes are specifically mentioned by their tribe name in the sources eg; pawi etc., the term ‘Mizo’ is used rather than using the exclusive term ‘Lushai’ while referring to the people inhabiting the ‘Lushai Hills’. ‘Aijal’ and ‘Lungleh’ however seem to be more of the Europeans inability to pronounce them correctly and therefore ‘Aizawl’ and ‘Lunglei’ are used throughout unless in direct quotations where they are mentioned otherwise in the sources.

1.2 Background

Missionaries were originally banned from the territories of the East India Company ‘for fears of upsetting Indian religious sensibilities and they were allowed to operate after 1843 in parallel with a rising utilitarian and evangelist fervour in Britain and with particular company circles; the latter often blurred the distinction between “moral improvement”, civilisation and Christianity’.8 It was at the political centres that mission schools were also established first in India, like in the Bombay presidency, Madras, Punjab and Bengal. So, political centres too had become centres of learning with engagements in various forms of knowledge systems. The spread of the mission run schools also brought with it a space for religious interactions between Christianity and different religions professed by the Indians. While this was happening at the political and religious centres of British India, what we now understand as North East India did not partake in cultural and religious exchanges

7 The Lushai Hills District (Change Of Name) Act, 1954 Act No.18 of 1954, 29th April, 1954, [Website] https://indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/1395/3/A1954-18.pdf. 8 Hayden J. A. Bellenoit, ‘Missionary Education, Religion and Knowledge in India, c. 1880-1915’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 41, No. 2, March 2007, p. 369. 6

like in other parts of India. The Hill tribes of the North East were isolated from the rest of British India for a long time and among the Assam mountain tribes, the Garos were the first to have come in contact with the British, which began in 1765 from the sides of Goalpara and Mymensing. 9 The late 18th century to the early 19th century was interposed with erratic contacts between the British and various Hill tribes. As for the Mizos, it was in 1872 with the Second Lushai Expedition that the British Colonial government made its entry into the territory and had gradually consolidated its power, which ultimately led to the annexation of the Lushai Hills in 1890.10 This brought numerous changes in the Lushai Hills and it ushered in a long and complicated process of colonization. It was soon after the setting up of colonial government outposts that the Christian missionaries entered Mizoram too. Rev. William Williams, a missionary under the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission in the arrived in the Lushai Hills for a short visit with an intention of working with the Lushais in the future. However, on his return to the Khasi Hills, he died in 1892 at Mawphlang.11 But it was not until 1894 that Christian missionaries had regular access and settled in the Lushai Hills with the coming of Rev. J.H. Lorrain and Rev. F.W. Savidge under the Arthington Aborigines Mission. But unlike in the plains and other parts of the Hills of Assam, a stable mission station was set up only in 1897 with the arrival of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission that already had established a mission station in the Khasi Hills.

When J.H. Lorrain and F.W. Savidge arrived at Aizawl in January 1894 as the Arthington Aborigines missionaries, one of their first tasks was to learn the local language in order to communicate with the local inhabitants and preach the Gospel. They aimed to translate the Bible in local language and gave the locals direct access

9 Alexander Mackenzie, The North-East Frontier of India - Prefatory Introduction by B.K. Roy Burman, Mittal Publications, 2004 (reproduced), New Delhi, p. 245. 10 H. Thangtungnung, ‘Administrative Changes in the Lushai Hills Under the British Rule’, The Tribal Tribune, [website] 2018, para 1, https://www.etribaltribune.com/index.php/volume- 5/mv5i4/administrative-changes-in-the-lushai-hills-under-the-british-rule, (accessed 14 January 2019). 11 D. Ben Rees (ed.), Vehicles of Grace and Hope: Welsh Missionaries in India, 1800-1970, William Carey Library, 2002, pp. 244-246. 7

to the Holy Scripture.12 On the 1st of April 1894, at Mc Donald Hill in Aizawl, there began the first day of schooling.13 Thangphunga and Suaka were the first primary school students and they mastered the alphabets and words of one syllable in one week.14 Prior to this, there were few schools set up by the colonial government, catering to the needs of the children of those serving in the army.15 Lorrain and Savidge ‘reduced’ into a written form by introducing the Roman script. There already was an attempt to use Bengali script, which however never really took off.16 Within a span of few years, education was introduced in different villages throughout the Lushai Hills. The early schools were primarily meant to impart the skills of reading, writing and numbering. Since the aim of the early schools focused on the basics of reading and writing along with Christianity, the level of qualification throughout Mizoram till 1944 was only up to middle standard and a middle vernacular course was introduced in 1937 as well. A high school, Mizo High School was opened in 1944 and prior to this, higher qualifications were possible only for students who could afford to study outside Mizoram. In 1901, seven years since the introduction of formal schooling, the first batch of Mizo teachers were appointed on a trial basis and were sent out to villages close to Aizawl to conduct elementary schools for a period of three months.17

For administrative purposes, Mizoram was divided into the North and the South Lushai Hills and the missionaries followed this colonial demarcation whereby the Northern Hills was under the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists Mission, which later on became the Welsh Presbyterian Mission and the Southern Hills was under the London Baptist Missionary Society who arrived there in 1903. After initiating schooling in 1894 in Aizawl under the Arthington Aborigines Missionaries, Rev.

12 Joy L.K. Pachuau and Willem Van Schendel, The Camera as Witness, New Delhi, Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 88. 13 J.V. Hluna, Education and Missionaries in Mizoram, Spectrum Publications, Guwahati, 1992, p. 53. 14 Pachuau and Schendel, The Camera as Witness, p.90. 15 Hluna, Education and Missionaries, pp. 57-58. 16 Hluna, pp. 51-52. 17 Hluna, p. 54. 8

F.W. Savidge and Rev. J.H. Lorrain again started school in 1903 at Serkawn in the South Lushai Hills as London Baptist Missionary Society’s missionaries. This accelerated the spread of Christianity and . Education was introduced side by side with Christian teachings and the school curriculum leaned heavily on morality based on Christian teachings. Krishna Kumar argues that the colonial government perceived the uneducated Indian population as an object of moral improvement.18 This argument finds validation, which is most complete in the way Mizos were educated under British colonial government through the missionaries who were the official educationists. Bellenoit argues:

…in northern India, missionaries came to be relied upon by a cash-strapped Education Department. They came to dominate education and were credited with doing much to push the frontiers of western pedagogy in their efforts to propagate their faith. 19

We see similar case replicated in the Lushai Hills too especially when the economic lucrativeness for the colonial government in the Lushai Hills was highly questionable. It was through the Christian mission agencies that the government could get maximum output using minimum resources and therefore the monopolies of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission and the London Baptist Mission Societies in education within Mizoram were not comparable to the rest of British India. Mizoram had become a model and a place of experimenting to their hearts content. Though the colonial government’s power in dictating school curriculum could not be diminished along with the need to fulfil Calcutta University exam requirements, the core of the syllabus was also towards Christianising. It was in accordance with the administration’s aversion to considerable involvement in the hills (including the Lushai Hills) that education in the hills was almost entirely left to the church, subsidised by the government.20 The government justified subsidies for mission schools on the ground that it provided a secular service; it was simply more

18 Krishna Kumar, ‘Colonial Citizen as an Educational Ideal’ in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 24, No. 24, Jan 28, 1989, p. PE 45. 19 Bellenoit, Modern Asian Studies, p. 370. 20 Downs, Christianity, p. 72. 9

convenient for the mission rather than the government to do it.21 School was the primary agency of evangelism in the Hills but the colonial government vindicated itself by saying that the Khasis and other tribals of the Northeast were ‘without religion and that it was not inconsistent with London’s policy of religious neutrality to support missionary education among them’.22 The condescending attitude of the colonial government towards the tribal religions and the absence of writing amongst them permitted both the colonial government and inhabitants of the Indian plains to view and treat the Hill tribes as ‘uncivilized, primitive and savage’.23 By handing over the running of the entire educational system, the colonial government gave the mission the most potent and effective instrument for Christianising Mizoram and it was a cheap and effective way for the government to perform its responsibility of ‘civilising’ them. So, for both the mission and the colonial government, it was a convenient partnership. This takes us to the question, out of their convenience, what was taught in the schools and how did that affect the Mizos?

The moralising venture was strong in the earliest school lessons. This was crucial for the educational authorities as the Mizos were considered to be ‘savage tribes’ needing moral uplifting and to be delivered from their plight of ignorance. An extract from a textbook entitled the Mizo Zir Tir Bu, printed in 1899 at the Assam Secretariat Press in Shillong reads as follows:

Misual ka ni. Ama mi sual ani. Nangma mi sual I ni. Kan zain mi sual kan ni. Sual a tha lo em em. Thil ti sual shuh. Sual kan thukru theilo. Pathian in a hmu thei ani. Sual konga kal shuh. Sual kong hreh om tak a ni. 24

This passage translates: I am a sinner. That is a sinner. You are a sinner. We are all sinners. Sin is very bad. Do not commit any sin. We cannot hide sin. God can see it all. Do not walk in a sinful path. The path of sin is painful.

21 Downs, p. 73. 22 Downs, p. 64. 23 Pachuau and Schendel, p. 87. 24 Author unknown, Mizo Zir Tir Bu, The Assam Secretariat Print Office, 1889. 10

The passage is a stark example of the introduction of Christian moral concepts to the Mizos by the missionaries through school curriculum and curriculum continued to be dominated by Victorian Christian moralistic teaching and even till today, the Mizo textbooks published by the Mizoram Board of School Education for different levels are interspersed with Christian moral teachings through songs and Bible verses. At this juncture, it is interesting to note two things: firstly, that the conditions in the Lushai Hills could not be compared with what had happened in the plains in terms of legitimate knowledge - the curriculum and secondly, there were severe contrasts in pedagogical aims and practices too. This raises the question of the presence of contestations of such knowledge from the Mizos.

Hayden J.A. Bellenoit, in his study of the Church Mission Society’s educational work in Northern India argues that in the northern plains of India, from the outset, mission schools could not be as spiritual as they wished as Indians sought general moral benefits and supplements to their existing moralities. 25 The missionary teachers were extremely cautious of conversion in schools for fear of not having students to attend their schools and being shunned by the Indians26 as cultural and religious contestations were strong among many other things. This seemed to move in a completely opposite direction in the case of Mizoram as discussed in the succeeding paragraph. Though the philosophy of education had similar roots throughout British India and the British colonies elsewhere, praxis was diversified even within India. At the heart of the colonial enterprise was an adult-child relationship27 and we see this extended to the realm of education. Paternalism, the need to create civil society and the quest for moral improvement were the ideological roots of colonial education 28 and the recommendations of Macaulay’s Minute Upon Indian Education (1835), Wood’s Despatch (1854), Hunter Commission (1882) all hinged on it. As we talk about the aims of the colonial government’s educational

25 Bellenoit, Modern Asian Studies, p. 372. 26 Bellenoit, Modern Asian Studies, p. 373. 27 Kumar, ‘Colonial Citizen’, p. PE 45. 28 Kumar, PE 46. 11

policies in the whole of India, we see regional variations in the way education was practiced. In the case of Mizoram, the missionaries were clear about their aim of Christianizing the Mizos and the instrumentality of education - as a means to achieve that end - was never subtle or vaguely implied. The missionaries were unapologetic about it and they were steadfast in achieving their aim of Christianizing the Mizos. Katie Jones (one of the first Welsh missionaries in Mizoram) stated that ‘the aim of education in the Lushai Hills was to enable the whole of Lushai read the Bible’.29 So, within the British colonial educational ideology, this could be located within the larger idea of moral improvement of the natives.

1.3 The Problems

This takes us to various problems that the thesis aims to engage with and in order to do that with efficacy, it is extremely crucial to see education as an integral part of the larger process of political, economic, cultural and religious change during the colonial times. The trend of studying education in the colonial times go hand in hand with the study of Christianity especially in Mizoram and its neighbouring areas and it is rooted in the philosophical understanding of western centric evolutionism where Christianity is considered to be the most evolved state of human religious experiences. Another way of studying is what Frederick Downs explained as the historical writing process that is often employed by the West - ‘an eastward extension of western ecclesiastical history’30- where education is also included.

The experience of colonial and missionary education in India was diverse and this thesis aims to focus on the educational experience of ‘ordinary people’ and their engagements with knowledge and education. Even within the trend of writing social history of education (as education especially in Mizoram was completely

29 K.E. Jones, Letter: March 1905, [CMA 27, 285] Calvinistic Methodist Archives, Welsh National Library, Aberystwyth. 30 Downs, p. ix. 12

monopolised by Christian missionaries) the dominant narrative focuses on the binary views as empowering, liberating, or of exploiting cultures, traditional knowledge and structures. The problem with seeing education during the colonial times in this narrow model is constricting and dismissive of real experiences of the people and society in question. The empowering narrative or the exploitation and resistance narrative both undermine the agency of people and culture’s ability for accommodation and reinvention. The tradition of social history writing gives enormous space and instrument for the kind of enquiry and examination this thesis aspires, for social history aims at studying the experiences of ordinary people in the past. It touches on and arguably helps to focus major issues of public debate, it mobilises popular enthusiasm and engages popular passions. As outlined by J.R. Green in his Short History of the English People, social history is directed against ‘Great Man’ theories of history, championing the peaceful arts against the bellicose preoccupations of ‘drum-and-trumpet’ history.31 In the tradition of writing social history, the educational processes among the Mizos since 1894 needs to be enquired. Education among the Mizos has often been studied mainly in the light of Christianity and how it uplifts a society, which again is in the philosophical tradition of ‘moral upliftment’ as was desired by the colonial government and mission agencies. It would be a high fallacy attempting an outright debunking of the development/ improvement/ uplifting model of education. It is not the desire or aim of this thesis to ignore the changes brought about in the Mizo society through colonial education. But the question that interests one is to ask who gets to dictate and define ‘improvement’ /‘development’/ ‘upliftment’? Were there changes in the definition and understanding of such concepts and who holds the fulcrum of such change if there was one? Apart from proselytization, what were the other aims of colonial and missionary education in the Lushai Hills also remains an important question. This could not be simply answered with ‘the customary statement that colonial education was aimed at producing clerks’32 and also Mizoram was only a sparsely populated

31 Raphael Samuel, ‘What is Social History?’, History Today, Vol. 35, no. 3, March 1985, para.3, https://www.historytoday.com/archive/what-social-history (accessed 20 January 2012). 32 Kumar, p. PE 45. 13

colonial frontier territory with limited economic potential to need many staff. Pachuau and Schendel argued that in the Lushai Hills ‘the demand for local support staff was small, however, and does not explain the spread of literacy, nor does the mere fact that Mizos chose to become Christians’.33 So, if the need for support staff was meagre thereby education not opening flood gates of employment opportunities and the Lushai Hills’ potential for economic contributions to the larger was scant, it poses the question of why had the Mizos taken to education at such a speed and also the reason for rapid conversion to Christianity, the likes of which were absent in the plains. And on the part of the British was the driving force in the annexation of the Lushai Hills a sheer need to ‘civilise’ the Mizos, a ‘moral obligation’ or a perpetual ‘white men’s burden’? The answers to these questions could be many and various political, cultural, economic and religious factors were at work. Exploring the Mizo responses to modern education with all its paraphernalia at various levels - as learners, as illiterate parents, as teachers, as ruling elites, as religious leaders, as marginalised section, as women - may enrich our understanding and provide answers to the questions raised above. This is crucial as the study and understanding of Mizos’ response to education is hugely narrowed down to either resistance or embrace model and there has been a failure to recognize the multiplicity of educational experiences for different sections of the society and for people living in different parts of the Hills. Multiple curricula, separate mission agencies in the North and South Lushai Hills and geographical location played enormous role in diversifying Mizo educational experience at a structural level. Therefore, it is an important task to go beyond a structural functionalist view of seeing education as a pre-ordained cosmic plan of the Christian god for the collective good.

1.4 Layers of Exchanges

The knowledge that gets formalised and legitimised in the school textbooks is telling of the society’s condition and its future. The way it is taught or the

33 Pachuau and Schendel, p. 87. 14

pedagogical practice defines how and what society understands and believes. Individuals, who do the act of teaching hold in their hands the ability to control the learners, have an enormous space for negotiating the overt text and recreate the official knowledge printed in the textbooks for classroom purposes. The learners have incredible agency by way of sifting which knowledge gets into them and by reproducing those that were taught in schools in different ways at different times. The school curricula under the Christian missionaries were not static and it was often revised. It was not the missionaries alone who had a say in drafting school curriculum. The colonial government played a huge role in identifying what gets formalised in school textbooks. Calcutta University’s exam requirement was also another deciding factor in textbooks development. There was no uniform curriculum between the North and the South Lushai Hills, the problem of orthography34 and there was also a difference in curriculum between girls and boys schools. So, even with the core of educational philosophy being Christianising the Mizos, there was space for traditional and secular knowledge to get formalised in the textbooks. We see a lot of attempts to recreate Mizo manhood and womanhood throughout. The attempts and processes of recreating Mizo womanhood through education has grabbed the attention of researchers with certain tenacity, resulting in laxness for an enquiry on the relationship between education and the idea of a new Mizo manhood. In a traditional patriarchal society, where the status of women was defined by the society in a rigid manner, the idea of womanhood being more susceptible to change is nothing short of an oxymoron. Education brought with it the creation of new identities for both men and women. The journey of creating a modern Mizo Christian manhood was slow and subtle except under Rev. F.W. Savidge with his seven special boys which later added with another five at Serkawn in the South Lushai Hills.35 He trained these young men meticulously in all spheres to become the new modern Mizo Christian gentlemen in knowledge, speech, dress, theology and thought and to be the leaders of the Mizo church and the society. They were created as ideals to be

34 J.H. Lorrain, Personal Letter: January 1936 [BMS IN/ 113] Baptist Missionary Society Archives, Regents Park College, Oxford. 35 K.L. Rokhuma, Mizoram Zirna a Mission leh Kohhran Rawngbawlna, Communications Department, Baptist Church of Mizoram, Aizawl, 2000, pp. 79-80. 15

followed along the lines of the famous British public schools. Since the highest qualification that Mizos could get in the Lushai Hills was Middle School certificate, Savidge was on a mission to train his special boys to be as qualified as any B.A. from a British University.36 In the case of women, the focus was dominated by practicalities of daily living. The most important idea that was at the heart of girls’ education was ‘useful knowledge’, usefulness in relation first to their families and then to the larger society. The idea of a new Mizo womanhood was also recreated by the girls’ schools curricula both in the North and the South Mizoram. They included a lot of what girls and women more or less had already done at home. But the school curriculum offered an improved and efficient version of it. A new idea of Mizo womanhood was based on their traditional roles and identities and it lacked new explorations. It was in a way a reorganisation and reintroduction of what was already practised unlike the boys’ school curriculum, which focused predominantly on book knowledge. However, the boys and girls’ schools both leaned heavily on religious instructions and ideals drawn from the Bible. Within the larger enterprise of ‘civilising mission’, education was one of the most powerful instruments and it constructed a new way of understanding oneself and society. The educational process had covered the aspects of personal conduct, clothing, economy, socialisation and social life, reallocation of roles and responsibilities and religion. So, schools became factories of recreating a new version of Mizo man and woman. The goal of education at all times is to create, improve, and explore the abilities of the human subject based on the dominant philosophy. So, we see the continuation of this process even till today.

Comparing the school textbooks in Mizoram during colonial times and after India’s independence, we find the educational ideologies have found no marked change. The cultural domination remains and seems to ever increase and we do not see real paradigm shift. There is a recreation and perpetuation of what Sartre calls ‘walking lies’37 in his preface to The Wretched of the Earth. This seems to be so

36 F.W. Savidge, Personal Letter: circa 1910 [BMS: IN/114]. 37 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, New York, Grove Press, 1963, p 17. 16

much stronger and stark in contemporary times as more and more traditional knowledge got left out. Primary school children now begin by singing nursery rhymes like Baba Black Sheep, Incy Wincy Spider, Little Miss Muffet etc. when those are so far removed from Mizo social reality and yet are the first rhymes school going children learnt. A lot of it is blamed on cultural interactions and connections but that too of course began with colonisation. Cultural reproduction seems to be much more damaging in the post-colonial times. During the colonial times, the education that the Mizos received though overtly western in many ways also had lessons that were very close to the social reality of the Mizos. There was a space for bringing it home to the Mizos and making it alive in their social reality. We also see the formalisation of traditional Mizo knowledge in school textbooks strongly especially in girls’ school curriculum as mentioned earlier. This seems to decline in contemporary school textbooks. The concept of tlawmngaihna38, aia upa zahna 39, huaisenna (bravery), genealogy of the Mizo chiefs, clans, localised non-Mizo names were part of the written text they studied and life-skills required for a daily Mizo living were taught vigorously alongside Christian and other western conception of discipline and success and secular knowledge of geography, arithmetic, reading and writing. But the examples for these concepts were heavily laden with ‘racial supremacy of the whites’ and glorification of the British Empire. So, what kind of men and women or citizens 40 did it try to create and what kind of people did the Mizos become through such learning? This is one of the most important questions this thesis engages with.

38 Tlawmngaihna means to be self-sacrificing, unselfish, self- denying, stoical, stout hearted, brave, firm, independent i.e., refusing all help, to be loath to lose one’s reputation, prestige, to be too proud to give - J.H. Lorrain’s Dictionary of the Lushai Language, Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1940, p. 514. 39 Aia Upa Zah means respect and reverence for elders. 40 ‘For the English officers of early nineteenth century in India, the concept of “citizen” symbolised a new way of life and a new social order. It encapsulated the visions and tasks that post-reformation social thought, science, and literature had placed before the emerging urban bourgeoisie of England’. Krishna Kumar, Political Agenda of Education: A Study of Colonialist and Nationalist Ideas, New Delhi, Sage, 2005 (2nd Edition), p. 27. 17

Moving on from the school curriculum, another important strand that comes in is the role of the mission teachers or mission zirtir. They were the earliest sets of teachers in Mizoram and they held an important position in the Mizo society especially during the colonial times. One of the best descriptions of their roles is given as follows:

In that initial stage as the teacher may assume in himself nearly five fold leadership, as educator, administrator, philosopher, physician and spiritual leader and a scripture teacher. The teacher taught, preached the gospel in the church and advocated among the people. The public honoured and respected his position and he was the second rank citizen of the village, the chief being the first.41

With such a position occupied by the teachers, traditional power structures that already saw a reorganisation with the advent of the British colonial government would see its consolidation at village levels too. This no doubt caused confusion and fear among the Mizos especially among the ruling elites. The opening up of teaching profession changed the hopes that parents had for their children. We see a creation of a new group of professionals, cash earning workers not dependent on manual work and their income not dependent on the mercy of nature. This changed the way the society perceived life experiences and expectations. Did the coming of the professional class lead to social mobility among all sections of the Mizo society? The Mission agencies were in perpetual shortage of manpower and funding was never sufficient. This led to the educational enterprise co-dependent on the Mizos themselves throughout the time when education was under the missionaries. As much as missionaries were often the only ones getting credit for their educational enterprise, it is pertinent to give the same to the Mizos themselves in the educational venture. Their contributions were enormous and during times of material scarcity, their contributions sustained educational work and it was their continual pressure, which led to the opening of a high school in 1944. The missionaries did not dictate the process of the educational expansion in Mizoram as much as the Europeans alone did not dominate in British India towards the end of the nineteenth century. The

41 H.L., Malsawma, Sociology of the Mizos, Spectrum, Guwahati, 2002, p 172. 18

Mizos were relentless in their demand for high school and opening of more schools in rural areas. In the rest of India too, Indians persuaded hesitant and under-funded missionaries to open new schools and courses.42 So, in practice, educational venture never belonged to the colonial government and the missions alone. The Mizos had the space for negotiation and the early-educated Mizos were instrumental in charting the course of education in the Lushai Hills, narrow as it was. This was also partly due to the missions’ desire to give responsibilities to the Mizos themselves, as that seemed to be the trend if we look at mission education in British India at large, due to financial constraints as is evident from the following passage:

The intricacies of missionary finance not only ensured that the subject to the secularising and examination pressures of Education Department, but that they would also be unable to afford teachers necessary for their original intentions. Missionary desires to make education more the purview of Indians, thus, ironically turn out to be true. They were dependent upon Hindus and Muslims to run schools and serve as the 'Christian' influence, which was to be their schools' raison d'tre. U.S. Rawat, an Indian convert, noted that 'it goes without saying that a mission school where almost all of the lecturers are [either Muslim or Hindu] cannot fulfil its chief object.43

However, in the case of the Lushai Hills, they managed to do that without compromising on their original intentions. This was due to various reasons among which it could be considered traditional belief system and religion of the Mizos being accommodating, largely enough. But why were the Mizos so susceptible to change in terms of their beliefs and knowledge system remains an important question this thesis aims to tackle. Pachuau and Schendel also argue that this is also due to the fact that the specific type of Christianity espoused by the missionaries in the Lushai Hills, which gives tremendous ‘inspiration and guidance from Bible study rather than from church ritual and liturgy’.44 So, this created immense opportunity and freedom to indigenised the new faith and the new religion did not seem too foreign.

42 Bellenoit, Modern Asian Studies, p. 388. 43 Bellenoit, Modern Asian Studies,p. 386. 44 Pachuau and Schendel, p. 87. 19

As education created social and economic mobility for the Mizos, that was never equal. In the case of teaching position, both male and female did not have equivalent options, though education was open to both genders more or less since the beginning of the introduction of education. Teaching was predominantly a male domain though there were lots of women, qualified to teach. Educated men had various other choices under colonial government too as some form of clerks and could be further trained under the missions as pastors. For majority of women, higher education was a far cry, teaching as a career entailed numerous problems for them and it was not until the introduction of nursing that their job opportunity was broadened. Here we see the extension of traditional patriarchal domination in the realm of economic activities.

With the development of the colonial education system, more and more Mizos enrolled in schools. This led to the creation of a new stratum of elites in the society, leading to realignment of social relationships with new forms of mobility both vertically and horizontally. But this mobility should not be subsumed to what sociologists would like to consider as upward mobility pervasive in the society against the traditional systems.45 Although education was opened to all section of Mizo society, it was the family of the chiefs who benefited the most along with the most dispossessed. The colonial government was keen on developing the education of the traditional elites like children of the chiefs. This continued to go on to a large extent and we see a kind of cultural reproduction that manifested ever so greatly. From the agriculturalists came out a new set of educated lot, who moved away from the traditional economic activity of cultivation. The colonial government never failed to stress the importance of educating the chiefs and their children including a female child for they were the ones ruling the society and would continue to do so even atleast remotely. They were in enormous ways the major influence on the people and like in all colonies of the British Empire; they were conditioned in becoming more like the British, falling between the native and the whites. They were made to ‘echo’ and become ‘whitewashed’ and ‘walking lies’.46 But there was the other side of the

45 Kumar, p. PE 48. 46 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 17. 20

story too, as there always is. The very education the colonial government and the missionaries introduced not only resulted in the subjugation of the old Mizo ways but also a way to subversion and challenge. It culminated in the creation and consolidation of the educated class, politically conscious, resisting the colonial rule in various forms and held the fulcrum of political power when the British left Mizoram in 1947. This new class was not based on ascriptive unlike traditional elites but a loose category and comprised of people with formal education.

Numerous questions therefore arise in the educational experiences of the Mizos in the Lushai Hills from the closing of the nineteenth century and it leaves us to ascertain the impact it had on the society. The actual complex and nuanced engagement between various stakeholders in the educational enterprise will give us rich and multi-faceted views of the Mizo experience of education.

1.5 Review of literature

1. Mizo Leh Vai Chanchinbu a monthly journal published by the office of the Superintendent of the Lushai Hills, which began towards the end of 1902 echo best the social reality and especially the reactions of the Mizos towards education and especially how the Mizo/student agency worked. Regular reports about the schools were given and plenty of views on education could be found as well. The Mizos were rather apprehensive about schooling that the missionaries introduced for the general public, especially when the novelty wore off. In 1903 December issue, one could reconstruct the on-going debate about education. There was a deep-seated fear of education making people lazy and detest manual labour. The writer wrote in defence of education stating that education may lead to white collar jobs in the government but the ultimate advantage of being educated would be to read the Bible and therefore urged the readers to send their children to school. So in 1904 September issue, we find writings on similar lines, stressing the importance of spending school holidays to do manual labour even for the children of the Mizo chiefs. There were debates whether an educated or uneducated individual be happier. Education was 21

linked to various aspects of the Mizo world and the fact that the Mizos made the connection and how they grasped the idea that knowledge entails power is noteworthy. This realisation gave them an agency to negotiate with the foreign item being introduced to them. By 1926, education had gained much ground among the Mizos and respect was attached to being educated. So we see writings in the same journal where the chiefs were urged to send their children more and more to schools not just to enable them to get respectable jobs even though they would be chiefs without education, but for the sake of gaining respect, it was considered very worthy. Knowledge of English was held in high esteem. On the other hand, education was also understood as being a foreign invention and not owned by the Mizos. The writers often said that such a thing like free education should be seized while it was possible.

2. Education and Missionaries in Mizoram- J.V. Hluna (1992). This book is a basic introduction to the history of education in Mizoram. The author started off by telling the story of the Mizos and moved on to the British occupation of Mizoram and narrowed it down to the missionaries and their activities, focusing on the educational front. The style of the narration is evolutionary; therefore he discussed events related to education in details. He also dealt with school curriculum in brief and also examination records during the colonial period. Half a chapter was devoted to the study of the development of women’s education. Writing from a church centric perspective, the social consequences of these curricula were missing and the focus of the book was mainly on how education enabled a society towards development and progress. Structures and systems were dealt with, though focus on the human subject was lacking.

3. Mizoram Zirnaa Mission leh Kohhran Rawngbawlna – K.L. Rokhuma (1997) is a more detailed study of the social background in which a novel concept like formal education was introduced. The book discussed at great length the background to which schooling was introduced in Mizoram. It was a church centric narrative like most of the writings on the history of education in Mizoram. The social background of the Mizos was shown in a progressive manner, travelling towards one goal. The 22

Mizos’ contributions to the spread and development of education were dealt with briefly with a focus more on the Baptist mission.

4. Zoram Politic Inlumlet dan- Bel keh phuar khawm-tui pai thei lo- A.Thanglura (1999) This book captured the issues of politics in three phases: towards the end of the colonial period, The Mizo District Council years (1952-1972) and the years (1972- 1987). The author was brutally honest in his writings and his book acted more like a memoir of the district council politics with himself as the protagonist. He gave a rich insight into the lives of Mizo students studying in Shillong and Guwahati in the 1950s who were the products of the schools in Mizoram. They were part of the developing educated elites that had started taking shape in colonial times and was consolidated in the early years of free India. The social climate of the district council years was well portrayed and the public view on higher education.

5. Zofate Zinkawngah Zalenna Mei a Mit tur ani lo - R.Zamawia (2007) is one of the most detailed work on the independence movement of the Mizos from the Indian movement since 1966. R. Zamawia gave an insightful account of the story of the insurgents and the background to which it all began. From his writing, it is interesting to note the role of educated Mizos in the political development after the British left Mizoram. We also see juxtaposition of the elite groups from the colonial times and the newly educated in the post British period and clash in ideas and ideals that ultimately led to a violent struggle against the Indian union. Even during the armed rebellion, the issue of educated and uneducated continued to be an underlying issue in terms of leadership and performance.

6. Diary of a Jungle Missionary - E.L. Mendus (1956) gave an interesting view of the life of the Mizos from an outsider perspective. Mendus served as a schoolmaster at the Boys’ M.E. School from April 1922 –April 1923 and stayed on in Mizoram till 1944. The humour he inserted in his writings was honest and refreshing which has given us more than a regular missionary insight into the society he worked with. He showed us the life of the early-educated Christians and his encounters during his 23

village tours. He seemed to have a deep understanding and knew the importance of anthropology, which is evident from his writing. He did not romanticise nor exoticize the people and the land. The book is significant in that it dwelt on the nature and geography of the land, which not many other writers seemed to do. His vivid description of the topography, the housings and nature, forest, foliage and animals was refreshing and his writing was very close to the people.

7. On Every High Hill by J.M. Lloyd (1984). In this book, the author described the life of the Mizos and their environments both cultural and physical in every possible way. He too dwelt on the geography, the animals and plants of the forests, the inhabitants and their social life, customs and the religious practices and the climatic conditions too. Although he wrote from a church perspective, his book served as basic introduction to different aspects of Mizo life, especially under the colonial government. Chapter 8 of the book talked about primary school teachers and their engagements with their students and this formed one of the bases of the discussion on teachers in this thesis.

8. Christianity in North East India- Frederick Downs (1983) Downs examined the methodology of writing the history of Christianity in the context of India and discussed two dominant ways of writing; (a) History of Christianity in India as an integral part of the socio- cultural history of the Indian people rather than as a separate entity, (b) a western centric method, looking at an eastward extension of western ecclesiastical history. By focusing on the history of Christianity in the North East, he touched upon an area that is not very often written about. He enquired the tribal experiences of the Christianising mission and how that has been frequently considered to destroy native culture. However, he argued that it acted as an instrument of preservation of their identities and promotion of their culture and interests ‘in the face of powerful forces of change which threatened their autonomy’.47 He talked about the British annexation as ending the isolation of the region and ushering in a whole new world. Different regions and communities in the

47 Downs, p. 2. 24

northeast responded to this new exposure in different ways; ‘some acquiesce to the dominance of new comers, accommodate themselves to the new situation or rebel’.48 He also argued that education was a means of acquiring social capital in the new system introduced by the British colonial administration, it was a skill required to master the process of modernisation.49 There were two types of threats for the people in this region: erosion of traditional socio- political structures due to the imposition of alien governing structure and increasing contacts with plainsmen through trade, colonial administration and attendance of educational institutions in the plain areas.50 With education and exposure, we saw the creation and development of the tribal elite who were educated Christians and they played enormous role in the political leadership.51 In defence of the missionaries, he wrote that they were not one with the colonial government and both the colonial government and the missionaries used each other for mutual benefit and education was the principal area in which such was found.

9. Missionary Education and Empire in Late Colonial India (1860-1929) - Hayden J.A. Bellenoit (2007). This book is an extensive exploratory study of missionary education in India from 1860- 1929 as the title suggests. So, it covered the educational experience after India was handed over by the British East India Company to the British monarch. It examined the impact of colonial and modern education on Indian society. What makes Bellenoit an interesting author is he explored the pedagogy and the experiences of the Indians and the missionaries on the spot52. He located the educational enterprise in the larger context of economy, intellectual debates, social realities and practices, religion, spirituality, Indian nationalism etc. He offered a holistic understanding of educational experience along with other forms of interactions like knowledge engagements, contestation and production along with the growing Indian nationalism. He acknowledged the need to

48 Downs, p. 11. 49 Downs, p. 12. 50 Downs, p. 14 51 Downs, pp. 45- 46. 52 Bellenoit, Missionary Education, p.1. 25

fill in lower level clerk by the colonial government as the main reason behind the introduction of modern education. He argued that it contributed greatly for the growth and development of modern India. He also discussed about the theoretical mobility ushered in by schooling where children of different religion, caste and class were offered to learn similar lesson which hitherto was open only to the upper caste children like the Brahmins. Prior to modern education, children’s education was dictated largely by their religious affiliations in Pathshalas, Vidyalayas and Madrassas. There was a widening of the scope of their studies in school as various knowledge systems interacted. The book also highlighted the need to see beyond the transforming effects of English and modern education in India as this was the existing character of educational historiography in South Asia. He argued that there’s an urgent need to look at the sociological aspect of education; how social factors like religion, caste affiliations and communities shaped education system. This book also wanted to integrate missionaries in the historiography of South Asia and to see them beyond their religious and institutional roles as their actions contributed hugely in the formation of modern India too. He wanted the readers to be able to see beyond the conflict of opposing systems, religions but the discussion, engagements that were there.

10. The Camera as Witness, A Social , North East India - Joy L.K. Pachuau & Willem Van Schendel (2015). This book is a visual representation of the social history of Mizoram. It explored people’s experiences in Mizoram from a historical perspective through visuals. The book is divided into four main themes: Becoming Mizo, Mizoram In New India, Visions of Independence and Mizo Modernities. These four themes could be understood roughly as the first one being focusing on identity formation of the Mizos during colonial times through the introduction of new religion, modern formal schooling, geographical connectivity, administration and politics, economy and interactions with the outer world. ‘Mizoram in New India’ discussed how Mizo society fared under independent India; the end of an era and a beginning of a new chapter for the Mizos. The next theme ‘Visions of Independence’ focused on the 20 years when the Mizos fought for complete independence from the Indian union. This theme took up the socio- 26

political and economic background from which the movement arose. The last theme explores the cultural life of the Mizos in modern times through music, dresses and photography. It traced the various stages of changes in these cultural representations and expressions of the Mizos. It examined various influences behind these cultural expressions. One of the sub themes - Getting Educated - gave a rich insight into educational enterprise during the colonial times. It focused on the educational experience of the Mizos within Mizoram and outside. It discussed the desires of the colonial government to give a balanced education in collaboration with the Christian missionaries whose aim was to impart Christianity. The kind of education imparted to the Mizos stressed on ‘literacy and numeracy, on Christian culture and literature and on British understandings of the world’ rather than on critical thinking. It also offered an answer to the pertinent question on the attractiveness of education to the Mizos. By extending its area of discussion to Mizo students in different parts of the India and the few who got to study in different parts of the world, it widened our understanding of the Mizo educational experience. The experience of modern education for different sections of the Mizo society at different times were also discussed and not only through formal schooling but connected it with Sunday school, theological training and teachers’ training school.

11. Pedagogy of the Oppressed- Paolo Freire, (1970). In this book, Friere dealt with philosophical, political and educational theories. The main theme that ran through this book was oppression, the reproduction of this oppression and the road to liberation. He looked at oppression as a philosophical and political problem that got reproduced by means of modern schooling. He argued that in modern schooling, the relationship between the teacher and the student was oppressive in nature where the teacher was the oppressor and the student was expected to be a passive follower. He called this traditional relationship between teacher and students as ‘banking education’ and in this system the metaphor of students was seen as containers where the educators deposited knowledge. The book argued for liberation of this oppression but there was a fear of freedom in the oppressed. The oppressed people needed to step outside themselves and understand the situation. This could happen through a space of dialogue in education with willingness to embrace change. For this all to 27

happen, a new type of education was required, the kind that created and promoted partnership between leaners and teachers. He encouraged the kind of education, based on critical thinking in order to develop critical consciousness. Friere has drawn heavily from Marxist theory and the idea of a transition from class in itself to class for itself.

12. Sociology of Education in India - N. Jayaram (2015). Jayram discussed the idea of cultural independence,53 a useful concept in understanding the attempts of both the Mizos and other tribal societies in their search for identity beginning around the mid 20th century, especially after political independence from the colonialists. His idea of ‘invisible jury’54 offered a tool for analysing the seemingly insatiable desire to be ‘educated’ and ‘schooled’ on the lines of the western education system. This raised the question: was the education system offered to the Mizos truly oriented towards the Mizo society? Was there an idea for the emancipation of education system from colonial bondage or was it transformed into a complex network of neo colonial dependency with grave implications for the future development of the country/ community.55 He also argued that English or modern system grew on the ruins of indigenous system destroyed by the same policies. He discussed the concept of socialisation, continuation of society and culture. He explained formal and informal agencies, which directly or indirectly contributed to the process of socialisation56 and went on to state that in simple society, process and agencies of socialisation are less complex, few, simple and informal. He saw educational institutions as imparting knowledge of a variety of types and training people in various skills so that they could fill the manifold adult roles in the society and education as an institution is firmly entrenched in society and inseparably linked to other institutions like family, religion, economy, polity etc.57

53 N. Jayaram, Sociology of Education in India, Jaipur, Rawat, 2015, p. 73. 54 Jayaram, Sociology of Education in India, p. 74. 55 Jayaram, p. 75. 56 Jayaram, p. 26. 57 Jayaram, p. 33. 28

1.6 Importance of the Study

The study of the history of education in the Lushai Hills during colonial times is an important subject that merits a thorough study. This is not a new area of study; in fact, it is an area touched upon by numerous researchers in the past. However, earlier studies were dominated by narratives of development and social upliftment, there is marginalisation of the agency of the people involved. Structures were focused upon and weak enquiry on the experience of the Mizos as learners, teachers and society. We also see an overbearing theological narrative in most writings on colonial education just by virtue of it being under Christian missionaries. So, this thesis aims to listen to the often-neglected voice of Mizo boys and girls’ and their experiences of education too.

1.7 Objectives of the study

• To examine the life and culture of the Mizos during the colonial times • To examine how the Mizos responded to education at its inception • To critically analyse the roles of the mission teachers (zirtir) • To trace the evolution of school curricula and analyse its influence on the Mizo society • How education with all its components affected or changed the power structure of the Mizo society

1. 8 Area and limitations of the Study

This thesis focuses on the social history of education in colonial Mizoram. It started with the opening of school by the missionaries in 1894 in Aizawl. There were some schools opened by the colonial government prior to this and teaching was done 29

in Bengali. Even after the opening of mission schools, there continued to be colonial government schools in the Lushai Hills. But, it is outside the purview of this thesis and those schools are intentionally left out in this study for the education of the Mizos happened almost solely in the mission run schools. This study also leaves out most of education enterprise under Lakher Pioneer Mission and other mission agencies like the Roman Catholics, Salvation Army and Seventh Day Adventists. This is because of the fact that only the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists and the Baptists were considered official educationists by the colonial government and therefore this thesis focuses on their work in the Lushai Hills, which they monopolised for half a century. This thesis also stresses mainly on primary and middle school education as that was the most accessible to the masses. High school was opened towards the close of the colonial period and there were other institutions dedicated to nursing, teachers’ training and theology but those are not included in this study because of the same reason stated above. Education under the Baptist Mission has taken up slightly more space in this thesis mainly due to the fact that there are better records on them, while numerous important documents on education under the Welsh mission got lost during Mizo insurgency or Rambuai. Secondly, since the area covered by the Baptist missionaries was way smaller than the Welsh missionaries, they had the opportunity of investing in education in an intense manner than their counterparts in the North Lushai Hills.

1.9 Methodology

The research work is based on extensive use of archival sources, both official and non-official. The official archival sources consulted are: Mizoram State Archives, Aizawl, The British Library, London, The National Archives, New Delhi, The Welsh National Library, Aberystwyth. 30

The non-official archival sources includes Mission Archives such as: Baptist Archives, Serkawn, Synod Archives, Aizawl, J.M. Lloyd Library & Archives, Aizawl Theological College, Durtlang, The Angus Library and Archive, Regents Park College, Oxford University. Newspapers, journals, private diaries of political officers of the Lushai Hills, Mission Teachers, Church leaders, politicians etc. proved informative too.

Archival sources are supplemented by oral sources, which were gathered by conducting interview of persons especially those who served as missionaries, mission teachers and their immediate families.

Visual sources like photographs are also used as they provide wealth of information especially to the study of the mission teachers. Personal and family collections and archives like that of the Mission Station at Serkawr also prove highly useful.

Libraries such as: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Ratan Tata Library, Jawaharlal Nehru University Library, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration all situated in New Delhi are invaluable for the thesis.

The traditions and practices of sociology of education and social history are important tools for exploring different themes in this thesis. The sociology of education does not have a niche theoretical area: it takes a lot from politics, psychology, philosophy, as it is not a direct sub-discipline of Sociology. It is a complex relationship, and has a very marginal place within the larger scheme of Sociology though Durkheim, Bourdieu and Althusser have all worked in this field. There is no one theoretical launching pad and the fact that it has no home; that it is not embedded makes it really enabling. The British Indian Educational philosophies were deeply entrenched in the traditions from which writers and philosophers like Rousseau, Durkheim, Bourdieu, Bernstein and others drew inspirations.

31

The idea of education for a good society can be seen in the works of Rousseau, Martha Nussbaum, etc. and in the education system dominated by the Christian missionaries in Mizoram during the colonial times, a new kind of society was also one of the goals of education; a healthy, ordered, literate, Christian society. This idea of ‘good society’ was envisaged for the Mizos and the missionaries felt it was gradually realised through education as ‘there is order developing out of chaos from the Lushai mind which is a mixture of disorder and untidiness’.58

Looking at students in schools, Menaakshi Thapan argues that ‘… it is the students’ engagement with the regulation through an expression of agency that matters’.59 The agency of children or learners is one of the themes lacking in educational history that we have seen so far, especially in the case of Mizoram. By focusing on the child’s experience and examining the kind of classroom interactions between students, between students and teachers, curricula and the society, we recognise the agency of the student and we move away from the structure dominated narrative and we hear human voice in educational narrative. This is crucial as it is the human subject that education aims at changing.

In Durkheim’s theory of education, we see an attempt to combine both individualism and the good of society as its philosophy. He looked at the science of society and the science of education as being equally important. Behind this, there is an idea of what the child should be. Therefore, to understand education is to understand what socialization is about, what constitutes legitimate (curriculum- based) knowledge, how it is transmitted and evaluated. Both the teacher and the child are important in understanding these processes. Durkheim also wrote:

58 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1910, [BMS IN/112]. 59 Menaakshi Thapan, ‘ School Experience: An Autobiographical Approach’ in Menaakshi Thapan (ed.), Ethnographies of Schooling in Contemporary India, New Delhi, Sage, 2014, pp. 351-352. 32

The man which education is obliged to make of us is not the man that nature has made him but as society wishes him to be; and it wishes him to be such as its internal economy calls for.60

These words raise numerous questions about the nature and practise of education but what truly jumps out is the role and power of society in fashioning children through education. And that also leaves us to enquire about the dynamics of the Mizo society in the colonial times and how far did the dominant group influence educational endeavours.

But, education is not just about what Durkheim claims it to be, but it is also challenged in many ways through individual aspirations and collective endeavours. The given limits of knowledge can be pushed and redrawn by teachers and students – the human subjects. Dissenting citizens arise even though schools teach discipline and obedience.

Durkheim’s philosophy on education is interesting and a useful tool for analysing education in Mizoram during colonial times. It highlights the euro-centric nature of educational theories and philosophies and how we need to move beyond the scales and moulds that the west produces. However, this is no suggestion that all is redundant. His idea of the individual as a repository of the collective human past is telling of the complexity of the human subject. However conservative legitimate knowledge (curriculum) is, there is always space for negotiation to internalise however much a learner wants. If individuals are repository of the collective human past, it suggests an intermingling with the present legitimate knowledge for the Mizo students and what would be the result of such? This gives us the frame to acknowledge, understand and examine the traditional Mizo knowledge system that which was taught and passed on to younger generations through various means including methodological socialisation and how that happens through institutions

60 Emile Durkheim, Education and Sociology, trans. S. D. Fox, Glencoe The Free Press, I961, cited in A. K. C. Ottaway, ‘Durkheim on Education’, British Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, February 1968, p. 8. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 12 October 2015). 33

other than modern education. It also raises the question whether it implies Mizo students had in them more traditional knowledge than the educational narrative that focuses on change alone would want to give credit to. Durkheim’s idea of systematic socialisation or what Bourdieu calls habitus is what colonial schooling did. It was an enterprise to create a new generation of Mizos’ socialisation in new settings. But here, it is important to reiterate that these were not necessarily the goals of colonial education. It needs to be seen as a process and that process could be examined and read from these perspectives.

The crucial thing about education in the colonial times for the Mizos is that it not only accrued social capital but economic capital as well and teaching position became a place where symbolic capital was vested in maximum than any others. Education became a site where cultural reproduction 61 took place and that resulted in social reproduction where certain aspects of the society were transferred from one generation to the next. This is what we see in the case of the teachers whose social position and standing in the society was consolidated at a great speed during the colonial times. For Bourdieu, a capital is any resource effective in a given social arena that enables one to appropriate the specific profits arising out of participation and contest in it. Capital comes in three principal species: economic (material and financial assets), cultural (scarce symbolic goods, skills, and titles), and social (resources accrued by virtue of membership in a group). A fourth species, symbolic capital, designates the effects of any form of capital when people do not perceive them as such (as when we attribute lofty moral qualities to members of the upper class as a result of their “donating” time and money to charities). 62Bourdieu’s Social capital helps us in understanding education became a new way of gaining this cultural capital during the colonial times in the Lushai Hills.

61 Tristan Ivory and Prudence L. Carter, Cultural Reproduction, [website] https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/diversityineducation/n169.xml, (accessed 13 March 2018). 62 Tristan Claridge, ‘Bourdieu on social capital – theory of capital’, Social Capital: Research and Training, [website], 2015, https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/bourdieu-on-social-capital-theory- of-capital/, (accessed 19 January 2016). 34

The colonial education system was defined and rooted by three important legislations like Macaulay’s minutes 1835, Wood’s Despatch 1854, Hunter Commission 1883. Macaulay’s minute was critical of orientalist education and a critic of almost anything Indian in the realm of history, astronomy, culture, religion, and philosophy. He wanted to establish western scientific knowledge system and his aim was to establish a system of education that would be most beneficial for the British Empire. His minute was the cornerstone educational programmes in British India. He stated, ‘we must at present do our best to form a class of persons Indian in blood and colour and English in taste, opinions in morals and in intellect’.63

Wood’s Despatch of 1854 carried the minute forward by sending a despatch to Lord Dalhousie, the then Governor general of India. The despatch recommended the language of instructions at various levels of education: primary in vernacular, high school in vernacular and college level in English language. It also highlighted on the need for promoting women’s education and vocational learning. The despatch resulted in opening of universities on the lines of English universities, spread of education among the masses as it recommended the opening of at least one government school in every district and grant-in- aid to be made available for affiliated private institutions. Each province was to have an education department and the government was to support women’s education. All these were outlined in the hope of increasing the moral character of the native’s mind and supply the colonial government with the kind of civil servants that could be trusted. This was the formal acceptance of the British government the responsibility of educating Indians with the setting up of the post of Director of Public Instruction to look after the educational enterprise in different parts of British India. ‘The Despatch is indeed a very important document. It was considered to be the “Magna Carta of English Education in India”’. 64 But the non-implementation of the Wood’s despatch led to

63 Minute by the Hon'ble T. B. Macaulay, dated the 2nd February 1835, [website], http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.ht ml, (accessed 22 august 2018). 64 Shikher Goyal, ‘Wood’s Despatch of 1854 or Magna-Carta of English Education’, Digitally Learn [website], 2018, https://digitallylearn.com/woods-dispatch/ (accessed 16 May 2019). 35

Hunter Commission 1882 with members consisting of missionaries and Indians. It reviewed the Wood’s Despatch and made new recommendations regarding Primary and Middle level education. Primary education was for the masses and it should focus on the practical aspects of life of the masses and this was to be done in their native language. The British Indian government was to increase its patronage on education at this level. Indians with the skills of reading and writing were to be given preference for lower order of government posts. The government was to extend liberal grant-in- aid to backward districts for running of schools. District and Municipal Boards were to be responsible for looking after primary education and should deal with the whole system related to primary education. Indigenous schools were to be encouraged and given assistance and their performance should dictate the grants they receive. There should not be one standard exam for the whole state. It also focused on simplifying schoolhouses and furniture and the managers be given the freedom to develop their curriculum. They had autonomy to decide school hours; holidays and indigenous knowledge and games were to be encouraged. Wherever required, night schools should be set up and teachers were to be trained and a separate fund for primary education was to be maintained by every district and municipal board and it should be employed for most of the financial needs of primary education. However, one third of the financial need should come from provincial fund. On secondary education, it recommended that:

The administrative responsibility on Secondary education should be handed over to the efficient and educated people. English should remain as medium of instruction in the Secondary stage and the fees charged in aided secondary schools should be considerably lower than the fees charged Government schools… It also leaves the expansion of secondary education to efficient private bodies, gradual withdrawal of the Government from direct enterprise, maintenance of some secondary schools by the Govt. as model to aided schools, charging lower rate of fees in the aided school, introduction to commercial and non-literary courses in the curriculum, sanctioning grant-in-aid to improve secondary education etc. are the basic recommendations which were made by Hunter Commission in 1882 regarding the Secondary Education in India.65

65 Education (Hunter) Commission [website], 2016 http://kkhsou.in/main/education/hunter.html (accessed 22 august 2018).

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It was the Hunter Commission’s recommendations, which had a stronger bearing on education in the Lushai Hills in terms of structural development and defined the content of curriculum. To have a broad understanding on the three main educational recommendations in British India gives a clearer perspective to the educational practices in the then Lushai Hills and it also locates the Mizo educational experience during the colonial times in the wider spectrum of the entire country.

1. 10 Content of the Thesis

Chapter 1: This is a general introduction of the entire thesis, introducing the main themes that are discussed in the thesis and the theoretical framework on which the study hinges.

Chapter 2: This chapter deals with the Mission Zirtir or Mission Teachers, how they were formed and fashioned by the mission, the colonial government and the Mizo Society. It looks at how they see themselves, engaged with new knowledge systems and the way the society perceived them and their contributions towards modernisation of the society.

Chapter 3: Schools’ curricula during the colonial times are examined in this chapter. It is the study into the subject content of the school textbooks, pedagogical practices and the engagement between traditional knowledge with Christian belief and the secular knowledge. It also examines the kind of educated Mizos it produced.

Chapter 4: This chapter explores the experiences of the students and how they embraced, appropriated and engaged with schooling and all that it carried with it. It examines the agency of the students in the classroom and without and the way new social capital was introduced to them.

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Chapter 5: In this concluding chapter, major conceptual findings and conclusions of the thesis are discussed. The concluding chapter consolidates the social reception of the whole educational experience and the process of the creation of a Modern Mizo Christian Society.

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Chapter 2 Lushai Curricula and the Creation of Knowledge

The main task of school textbooks is to construct a continuous national narrative or collective memories in order to consolidate a national identity for all citizens or at least for those who constitute the dominant group.66

2. 0 Introduction

It was towards the end of the British Colonial regime in India that the first British missionaries arrived in the Lushai Hills. Though part of British India, the Lushai Hills occupied a peculiar position due to its geographical location, social conditions and cultural practices. The British Indian Government’s attitude towards education in the country especially those run by mission agencies took a major shift after the Revolt of 1857. If we look at the whole of India, there was a general aim to provide a more secular curriculum with an active engagement with local knowledge systems and religions. The Hunter Commission of 1882 among many other things recommended on developing indigenous knowledge systems and practical life lessons at primary level of education for the masses. Though the Lushai Hills was isolated geographically and also from the mainstream Indian politics in the plains, the educational policies followed by the rest of India had strong implications on the principles governing Mizo education. When the first missionaries Rev. F.W. Savidge and Rev. J.H Lorrain introduced education, it was a daunting task for various reasons including limited funding from the government and lack of motivation among the Mizos to attend school. But the first few pupils of Lorrain and Savidge in 1894 like Suaka, who later on became chief of Durtlang, Thangphunga chief of Chaltlang would have eased the apprehensions of many people towards the new introduction and their social status would have played important roles in changing the way the Mizos perceived education too. In the beginning, it was unorganised and the aim

66 James V. Werstch, Voices of Collective Remembering, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,

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was to provide basic reading and writing skills. The missionaries devoted their time familiarising themselves with the Mizo way of life and learning the language. The writing of dictionary and translation work took up most of their time along with preaching the gospel and touring the district. Right from the very beginning, spreading the gospel to a non- Christian society was no doubt the goal of the missionaries. Savidge and Lorrain had to leave the Lushai Hills in December 1897, only after staying for a few years during which they had managed to complete books like Mizo Zir Tîr Bu (Lushai Primer), Gospels of Luke, John, Acts and a large portion of Grammar and Dictionary of the Lushai Language. D.E. Jones of the Welsh Calvinistic Mission continued from where they had left and started new ventures too and educational work soon resumed in 1898. It was impossible for a lone missionary to run a formal school and did the work of proselytization hand in hand. So it was more or less an informal school with basic reading and writing skills that were taught in Aizawl. With the arrival of Rev. Edwin Rowlands, there was a gradual formalisation of education and the entire educational administration was handed over to the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission Society on 1st April 1904 and he became the first honorary inspector of schools. With the formalisation of educational administration, a new site of political, religious and cultural contestation was opened in the area of curriculum development and a constant need to moderate between the ideas of the Christian missionaries, the colonial government, and the Mizos themselves. Since they were in- charge of education, the missionaries had to negotiate between the desires of the government, their mission directorates or headquarters and the Mizos in the running of the education system. The missionaries had a free hand in spreading education and the gospel and they covered the district unchecked. The Welsh Calvinistic Mission was in charge of the northern part of the district that covered two thirds of the entire area with eight to nine missionaries while the Baptist Mission covered one third of the district in the southern part with eight missionaries.67

67 A.G. Mc Call, Lushai Chrysalis, London, Luzac & Co., 1949, p. 200.

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2.1 Aims of School Curriculum in the Lushai Hills

Hayden J.A. Bellenoit in his book Missionary Education and Empire in the Late Colonial India, 1860 -1920 argues:

Education was politically and imperially speaking crucial for the British during the generation of Macaulay and after to fill the lower ties of the rapidly spawning out colonial bureaucracy. Most of these clerk jobs were undesired by the British or could have been only filled by Indians with bilingual abilities. In part, this was needed to serve the needs of the East India Company, which by the 1850s had moved significantly towards statistical compendiums, voluminous cartographic surveys and ethnographic studies as a way of knowing their subjects.68

Although this was considered by many to be the raison d’être of the British colonial education in India, it does not seem fit for the Mizo case and also of other neighbouring Hill tribes. Pachuau and Schendel also argue that, ‘The demand for local support staff was small, however and does not explain the spread of literacy’.69

Krishna Kumar takes it further and gives an alternate argument:

The customary statement that colonial education was 'aimed' at producing clerks is both theoretically feeble and historically untenable. Its theoretical weakness lies in the fact that it does not help us distinguish between the ideas underlying an educational system and its practical purposes. But even if one saw it as a statement about the immediate outcomes of colonial education, one finds little evidence to support it. Colonial education produced political leaders, professional men, and intellectuals, not just office clerks… it socialised many into colonial values; at the same time, it turned many of its products against those value.70

Even Kumar’s argument still does not fit snugly with the case of education in the Lushai Hills.

Education in the Lushai Hills was carried out with the main objective of Christianising and civilising the wild tribes and to usher in modernity using education as one of its

68 Bellenoit, Missionary Education, p. 1. 69 Pachuau and Schendel, p. 87 70 Kumar, PE. 45.

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mediums. While writing to her friends, Katie Jones, wife of Rev. D.E Jones mentions: ‘the main aim of village education provided through the mission is to enable the villagers to read and write so that they could get on reading the bible’.71 From what Katie Jones wrote, education for the masses was aimed at providing basic skills required for spiritual growth through Bible reading. The aim and the scope of education widened and Basil Jones, Inspector of Schools also wrote as late as in 1948 that the main task of education in the Lushai Hills had also been that children have reasonable chance of a primary and middle education and for better children to have the chance to enter high school.72 It is no surprise that the aim of Christian missionaries would be proselytization above everything else.

The forces the missionaries encountered in their educational ventures among the Mizos were nothing like those seen in other parts of British India. In traditional Mizo society, there was no separate institution devoted to learning like formal schooling. Knowledge reproduction and dissemination went together with other forms of daily socialisation. The closest to modern schooling was Zawlbuk 73 or traditional boys’ dormitory and it was just one of the many functions and roles of Zawlbuk to teach and pass on traditional knowledge and skills to younger generation and that was reserved for the male members of the society. Since it was the missionaries who worked on reducing oral language into a written one, the point where they started educational work was extremely different from their colleagues in other parts of British India where majority Hindus and Muslims had long tradition of formal learning in their pathshalas, and madrasas. By developing scripts for writing and the colonial government handing them over the responsibility of looking after education in the Lushai Hills, the missionaries had unsurpassed influence over the building of a new body of legitimate and formal knowledge to be introduced in school. Organisation of school curriculum was guided by civilizing agenda, moral upliftment, Christianisation, utility/usefulness and indigenous practices. While the missionaries had their educational priority set on spiritual growth, the government had their own agenda of creating a society composed of the highest

71 K.E. Jones, Circulating Letter: March 1905, [CMA 27, 285]. 72 Basil Jones, ‘Lushai Education Report’: February 1948, [CMA: 27, 419]. 73 A large house in a Mizo village where all the unmarried young men of the community sleep at night; traditional Mizo dormitory for boys.

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standard of citizens throughout the Lushai Hills through Middle English education.74 There were points of disagreements often, although there was enormous stress on developing and teaching of useful knowledge, what was thought to be useful by the missionaries, the Mizos and the colonial government had seemed to differ as Maj. A.G. Mc Call argues:

…no curriculum has ever been devised specially to suit the peculiar need of the Lushai or similar people, agricultural people living in an agricultural land, economically poor, geographically remote. The curriculum up to the middle standard has perforce been subject to the influence of Calcutta University’s conception of what a matriculation course should be to solve the intricate problem of the educational fashioning of young Bengal. Such a curriculum cannot fully meet the needs of a backward people, destined to live out their lives in a hard land amid an agricultural setting.75

The traditional knowledge system of the Mizos was based on their community and revolved around the village and the surrounding forests where they lived. Dissemination of knowledge happened within the family and Zawlbuk was a space for male members to learn about manhood, traditional values and skills. It acted as a place of learning, discipline and interaction. They understood themselves as part of the larger whole and social solidarity was of utmost importance. Learning, socialisation, recreation, religious practices, economic activities were performed within the structures and systems of the village. Interactions outside the confines of their villages were limited. The Mizos also understood, read and marked time in ways that was completely different from the European system. For instance, in the village of Sailianpuia, Edwin Rowlands, a Welsh missionary stayed at an old man's house who lived with his two granddaughters and when he enquired about their age, he recalled all the areas where they had cultivated rice and identified the year his granddaughters were born with farming activities and places rather than numbers.76 This was the way the Mizos marked birth years; by recalling and connecting it to places where they did cultivation. The Mizo concept of work was also different which is evident from the old man’s comment as is found in Rev. Edwin Rowlands’ letter that Sahebs did not work in their own country, did not cultivate rice, all

74 A.G. Mc Call (Superintendent Lushai Hills), ‘Objective of Middle English School’: June 1934, [CMA 27, 397]. 75 McCall, Lushai Chrysalis, p. 205. 76 Edwin Rowlands, Letter: February 1900, [CMA: 27, 300].

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they had to do to get food is to order it and it came on their table.77 For the Mizos, manual agricultural work was the main one considered as work and work implied struggle and suffering. Manual work and food were directly linked and that was the only way they knew of feeding themselves. The primary meaning of work was simply a way to getting food; a way of life without an alternative and the Mizo philosophy towards work did not have a wider and complex meaning than that. This understanding dominated the world they lived in and the highest goal that they desired was to be able to perform thangchhuah78, which after death will enable them to live in pialral79, which is akin to the concept of paradise and feeding on faisa (milled rice). The core content of the concept of is to have the utmost without having to work which means manual work. This in no way suggests that the Mizos were against manual labour but it shows the struggle and the elements that had to be conquered in order to have enough to eat. The road to performing thangchhuah was not open for everyone. One’s social status, gender and economic conditions defined who gets to perform thangchhuah. Children and older people were completely left out from the chance of performing and women could take part only by virtue of their husbands.

Based on their understanding of the Mizo life, the missionaries developed curriculum for the Mizos, which they thought would best suit their conditions and would give them the most advantaged positions to share the gospel. What the missionaries saw was a community untouched by modernity and therefore full of opportunity for development and fashioning. Due to its geographical isolation from the power centres of British India, it drew limited attention of the colonial rulers, the Indian politicians and other mission societies. The unimportant position that the Lushai Hills held even within Assam was an enormous scope for the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists and London Baptist Missionaries. It became a place where they could sow their seeds and reap the harvest with minimum interventions from other mission agencies. So, the Lushai Hills provided to the missionaries an opportunity to exert their power and influence in a significant way unlike

77 Rowlands, Letter: February 1900. 78 A ceremonial feast performed by the Mizos in order to get to Pialral. 79 Pialral- the Lushai (Mizo) Paradise—lit. the further side of the Pial River. Ref. J. Herbert Lorrain, Dictionary of the Lushai Language, P. 364. Also available at https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/cgi- bin/app/lorrain_query.py?page=365.

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those in the plains. At that historical point, there hardly would have been a place in British India where missionaries had such hold among the people they worked with. Their influence and possibilities of having power over the people were such that Maj. Mc Call who was the superintendent of the Lushai Hills wrote:

The only hope for any administration towards exercising some influence to ensure that the suitable idea gets in first lies in the ability to secure the cooperation of the mission in applying any influence the administration would wish to apply...even before 1900, they became official educationists.80

In the plains, missionaries hoped to make their schools centres of religious dialogue. They were interested in engaging and impartment of two things- Christian knowledge and useful knowledge, which was based on utilitarian world view spilling over into the sphere of education but it was Christian knowledge which was to make their schools stand out from the rest. They were interested in creating a space for religious enquiry and engagement with other belief systems of India, with the aim of proving that Christianity is the fulfilment and perfection of other religions; the most evolved state in the linear line of evolution, as was explicitly propounded by John Farquhar.81 But in the Lushai Hills, the scope for inter-religious interaction and deliberations was limited unlike in the plains and it became an important laboratory for social and religious experimentations and engineering. On the educational front, this was done through school curriculum and pedagogy.

How far did schooling experience and curriculum in particular influence or mould a student is a critical question. There could be no definite answer for that as the influence of curriculum on the learners is but varied and there is a wide range of how it is internalised and reproduced. The field of curriculum is always riddled with politics and agendas from various powerful sources. But how it is incorporated, used, internalised, interacted and rejected by the teachers and students is always interesting too.

80 McCall, p. 200. 81 Bellenoit, Modern Asian Studies, p. 371.

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In the case of colonial education under Christian missionaries in the plains of North India, Bellenoit also argues:

Internally, schools' curricula had little influence upon students and their religious convictions. Externally, these schools also failed due to the palpable pressures enforced upon them by the Education Department. Institutional finances were tenuous and dependent upon Government for their livelihood; they would be subjected to secularizing and examination forces to which they, as recipient government money, were bound.82

The case of North India was in stark contrast to that of the Lushai Hills where the missionaries had enormous influence on the people and their schools occupied a pedestal in the village social and physical topography. Though education was made available to the Mizos, there was an issue of what it would entail at the job front. The avenues of employment, which the Superintendent of the Lushai Hills considered available are salaried posts in the government or mission, like mission church service, military police, trading with Silchar and the plains and formation of cooperative societies. Supply of daily needs, unpaid teacher with a view of paid job ultimately, dak (postal) service, transport department etc. He also argued that boys passing middle English with no chance to pursue higher education should be trained towards practical skills, and those students to join Middle-English course should have a clear view on their aims after passing and this should be read out by the boys and discuss it with their own ideas with their masters in the class. He also suggested that schoolboys should cultivate gardens and lands so that they appreciate manual work and give them nutritious and wholesome food.83 However the goal of female curriculum was never really aimed at money earning jobs but to increase efficacy in their traditional roles at home and in the community. The subjects taught to girls were to give them maximum benefit in the said areas. There were bible women, teachers and nurses but those who took up these vocations were only in extreme minority.

But the District Superintendent’s job options for the Mizos was easier said than done,

82 Bellenoit, Modern Asian Studies, pp. 384-385. 83 McCall, Objective: June 1934.

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an ideal type, as the Mizos faced the problem of unemployment very early on. For the Mizos, education was a way to changkanna84 and rualpawlna.85 Many parents sent their children to school even with utmost difficulty in the hope for a better future so they may not lag behind from their peers but be rualpawl. The desire to be changkang grew very rapidly as more schools was opened in different parts of the Lushai Hills. Those who made it to the kind of jobs mentioned above were few and with the rapid spread of education all over the Lushai Hills, the job market got saturated very soon. Some girls attended school in the hope that it would end poverty and their families were willing to pay any price for that.86 The limitations and problems caused by the obsession with book learning became very strong that by 1936, there was a proposal for middle vocational school with small scale industries for making of axes, soap, rugs and daos, and this would mean in the words of Mc Call ‘a strategy to save these people from wholesale exploitation’.87 But this realisation from the government and the mission came only after three decades of giving education to the Mizos and much damage was already done especially in boys’ education. The obsession of civilizing and Christianisation process led to the neglect on social reality and economic future of the Mizos. The lack of sufficient funding from the government and the missions, unavailability of experts on education especially in the beginning and shortage of human resources were some real problems facing the educational enterprise.

2.2 Lushai Textbooks

The best place to understand and find answers to what a society considers ‘knowledge’ and ‘non- knowledge’ is the curriculum used in the classrooms. It also gives us a glimpse of socially approved knowledge and the legitimising ideologies that lie behind.88 So, by

84 The concept of changkanna can be roughly explained as development, improvement from a previous condition in social, economic and all aspects of life. 85Rualpawl is a concept where an individual could be part of the larger whole or community by doing similar things that the rest of the community members are doing. It has a strong presence among the Mizos whose lives revolve around the village community. 86 Kitty Lewis, Letter: February 1923, [CMA: 27, 356]. 87 David Edwards, Letter: October 1936, [CMA: 27, 397]. 88 John Eggleson, The Sociology of the School Curriculum, London, Henley & Boston, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977, p.1.

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analysing the curriculum used in the classrooms in the Lushai Hills, we can have an understanding of what was considered as knowledge. To have an understanding of what a society considers knowledge is crucial as that helps us to further enquire the standard for knowledge and who has the power to decide. The development of curriculum is a process and does not happen overnight. Numerous factors have to be taken into account. In the case of Lushai Hills, though the missionaries had the responsibility of developing curriculum and textbooks, as mentioned earlier, apart from their interest in spreading Christian knowledge, they were guided by the political rulers, by the larger educational policy of colonial India and the amount of funds available for education.

The task of writing school textbooks was the direct responsibility of the missionaries and it was one of the most powerful instruments they had on influencing the entire Mizo community, much of which had limited and sporadic access with the centre in Aizawl. Textbooks were interesting as they created a standard knowledge for people living in different parts of the district. Along with the standardisation of knowledge through textbooks, the language in which the textbooks were written had stronger bearings than one would have imagined. It led to the growth, development and consolidation of duhlian dialect spoken by the dominant Lusei (Lushai) tribe. For instance, in Serkawn Girls’ Boarding, there were some Lai dialect-speaking girls who were taught along with the other girls in common duhlian dialect. 89 So it was imperative for the Lai girls to understand duhlian in order to study in the school and they sure took it back to their villages. The idea of the village republic was ended by the colonial power in the first place, and the introduction of schooling and the availability of standard school textbooks united and gave somewhat uniform life expectations to a large extent to their students. The school textbooks contested multiplicity of knowledge, experience and practices among various tribes.

The first missionaries, Savidge and Lorrain were keen on translation and literary works for the Mizos early on. It was one of their first tasks upon their arrival in the Lushai Hills. However, this was not approved and encouraged by the Arthington

89 A name given to the upper classes or clans in the Lushai Hills and to the dialect they speak-which is regarded as the purest form of the Lushai language.

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Aborigines Mission, the mission agency who had sent them.90 The first school textbook Mizo Zir tir Bu (A Lushai Primer) by missionaries Lorrain and Savidge was published on 22 October 1895 91 and it became the first book in Mizo language. The first Lushai Primer copy that could be located is one printed in 1899, which seems likely a revised edition. The book as the name suggested had beginner lessons on alphabets, simple words, spellings and sentences. It also included some moral education and an introduction to the concept of a Christian god, religion and Christian teaching. There were passages on creation and the authority of god. It was a reading exercise book and dealt with good conduct. Short lessons on the sun, moon, earth, Lushai Hills, farming, genealogy of the Mizo chiefs, Christian songs and verses, prayers, extracts from the epistles of Paul, punctuation, calendar months and weeks, numbers and counting money, simple arithmetic were included.

This first textbook was of utmost interest because for the first time, oral knowledge/tradition was reproduced in a written form, leading gradually to contestations of different forms of knowledge. A brief analysis shows the fusion of the west (foreign) and the east (local) but dominated by western knowledge and understanding. A new concept of monotheistic religion was introduced with a stress on the power of god as creator and ultimate authority. A western scientific base knowledge and understanding of the universe was introduced. This changed the conception of nature for the Mizos, which would ultimately affect their relationships with nature too. With the introduction of lessons on the Lushai Hills, the way people perceived their surroundings was standardised. Among the local knowledge, genealogy of the Mizo chiefs was included in school textbooks and this re-legitimised the traditional ruling elites’ position under the new British colonial regime. The introduction of Christian teachings was done through songs, moral education and bible verses. The whole concept of time was also reframed for the Mizos by the introduction of western way of reading and marking time using calendar. The addition of numeracy and basic arithmetic in the first textbook was interesting as it changed and regularised the process of quantification of objects,

90 D.E. Jones, Letter: September 1898, [CMA: 27, 290]. 91 L. Khiangte, ‘The origin and development of ’, in Bhagat Oinam and Dhiren A. Sadokpam (eds.), : A Reader, New York, Taylor & Francis, 2018, p. 280. 4

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experiences. In reality, it was a survival kit/ guidebook to the slowly developing modern Mizo society brought about by the new colonial power. So, rather than being what the Mizos needed for themselves, it was a book that they needed in order to adjust to the colonial governance and the developed, modern society that was coming with it. The 1926-revised edition of Mizo Zir tir Bu saw changes again with the idea of white racial supremacy no longer tacit as was in the previous editions. For instance, there were passages that included sentences like Mingo an fing ber a, an lal ber bawk a, 92 and how colour was defined by climatic conditions.93 From the side of the colonial government, as early as 1898, Maj. Shakespear planned to publish Lushai fables in vernacular and this seemed to be the result of the need for elementary books to be used in the school as the previous one had been sold out. 94 He also brought out a Lushai- English textbook prepared by the mission. 95 Rev. Edwin Rowlands took over the running of the educational side of the mission in 1900 and we see corresponding growth in school textbooks too as both the Calvinistic Methodist Mission and the London Baptist Mission grew both in the North and the South Lushai Hills. Some of the school textbooks under Christian Missions were:

1. Mizo Zir tir Bu (Mizo Primer) by Rev. J.H. Lorrain & Rev. F.W. Savidge, (1896) (Revised by Rev. D.E. Jones 1921, 1926) 2. English First Reader by Rev. Edwin Rowlands (1907) 3. Bu Lai (Middle Reader) by Rev. Edwin Rowlands (1909) 4. Khawvel Thu: India and Continents by Rev. Edwin Rowlands (1909) 5. Khawvel Thu Geography: India and Continents prepared by Rev. Edwin Rowlands and revised and enlarged by Rev. D.E. Jones (1909) 6. Khawmualpui Thu (Continent of Asia) by Rev. Edwin Rowlands & Rev. D.E. Jones (1910) 7. Assam: Eastern Bengal & Assam prepared by Rev. Edwin Rowlands & second edition revised by Rev. D.E. Jones (1912) 8. English Primer by Rev. D.E. Jones (1914)

92 The passage translates, White skinned are the most intelligent and powerful. 93 J.H. Lorrain and F.W. Savidge, Mizo Zir Tir Bu (Mizo Primer), 1926. 94 D.E. Jones, Letter: August 1898, [CMA: 27, 290]. 95 D.E. Jones, Letter: July 1902, [CMA: 27, 290].

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9. In Zir Fin Na by Rev. F.W. Savidge and C.S. Murray, (1919) 10. Introduction to Geometry in Lushai compiled by Ch. Pasena and printed at Madras (1922) 11. Zir Tan Bu (Sunday School Primer) by Rev. D.E. Jones (1923, 5th edition)96 12. Geography of India - India Ram Thu by Ch. Pasena, Endiktu Zosaphluia (1924) 13. Outline Geography of Assam- India Ram Thu prepared by Ch. Pasena, Endiktu Rev. D.E. Jones (1924) 3rd edition 14. India Ram Thu by Ch. Pasena 1924 (2nd edition.) 15. Assam Ram Thu by Ch. Pasena 1924 (3rdedition.) 16. Grammatical Primer Hrilhfiahna by Rev. Edwin Rowlands (1926 3rdedition.) 17. Hriselna Bu by Rev W.H. Williams & Ch. Pasena, (1939) for middle school 18. Hma Bu (Year Unknown- 6th edition) preface written by Rev. D.E. Jones 19. Pre- Reader (English Zirna) by Ch. Pasena, C.Z. Huala, Pi Zaii (Katie Hughes) (1947) 20. Zirna Bul Bu 9 (1949, 9th edition) 21. Serkawn Graded Readers primer (Mizo Thawnthu) (1960, 9th edition), Lunglei 22. Pi Pu Nun by Pastor Challiana, (1969) 23. Serkawn Graded Reader Book 2 (Mizo Thawnthu) (1974, 11th edition) 24. Serkawn Graded Reader Book 1 (Mizo Thawnthu) (1978, 14th edition) 25. Serkawn Graded Reader Book 3 (Mizo Thawnthu) (1979, 12th edition) - E.M. Chapman and Nuchhungi School children studied these textbooks at different times during their school years, which stretched up to Middle English level. These textbooks dealt with numbers and basic arithmetic, sentence formation, Lushai and English Grammatical rules, punctuations, cleanliness, hygiene, geography - World, Asia, India, Assam, Lushai Hills - physical features, places, rivers, continents, countries, people, reading and writing exercise, concept of the Christian God as a loving father, just and holy god. The idea of sin, love, grace, kindness, truthfulness, and respect for all living things were introduced. Western concept of success and discipline were stressed upon and there were lessons on

96 Note: I’ve included this Sunday school primer as part of textbooks because it included lessons on alphabets, numbers and words and were used to teach reading and writing in villages that did not have schools and those were in high number.

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Christian choruses, Bible knowledge, Greek gods and world religion. They also incorporated local knowledge such as genealogy of Mizo chiefs, different clans and localised non-Mizo names. Through the geography lessons in the textbooks, the Mizo experience of the world and culture was widened beyond the confines of the hills, beyond the colonial authorities and the neighbouring societies. The school textbooks were most instrumental in framing the minds of the young learners towards western philosophy and understanding of the world. This did not happen overnight, but with the gradual addition of subjects and through seemingly inconsequential reading and writing exercises, western communal and individual ideals were implanted in the young learners. All these were tied up to the introduction of the Christian concept of a monotheistic, omnipotent God and an inherently sinful human being in need of salvation. They were also introduced with other world religions and belief systems. Mizo traditional knowledge were also incorporated in the textbooks, those which could be linked with the Christianizing, civilizing and utilitarian enterprise. The later textbooks had incorporation of Mizo knowledge much more than the previous ones. For instance, Zir Tan Bu Thar, a revised edition of Zir Tan Bu that was published in 1929 had songs and rhymes sung by children while playing traditional games (Infiam Hla), Mizo lullabies and short stories.

It is crucial to note that textbook knowledge and content were of utmost importance in shaping the minds of Mizo children. On the other hand it is also important to remember that school textbooks containing official knowledge were just the tips of icebergs in mission education. It was heavily complimented and supplemented by pedagogy and Sunday school in different parts of the district as is evident from the correspondences between the missionaries who were the official educationists. And in many villages, in the absence of schools, Sunday school acted as a place of spreading literacy.97

97 Mizoram Sunday School Union, [website], 2019, https://www.mizoramsynod.org/page/1243 (accessed 19 August 2019).

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2.3 Differences in Curriculum

The division of the Lushai Hills - a tiny district under the province of Assam- for administrative purposes as the North and the South Lushai Hills had enormous bearing on the people especially in terms of education. As political and administrative boundaries were drawn between the north and the south, the mission agencies followed the same demarcation for their operations. The curriculum followed in the North and the South Lushai Hills were not uniform until the mid-1930s. S.C. Roy, Inspector of School wrote in 1929 that there was no uniform exam system in the Lushai Hills and the courses were slightly different too. Middle English School Exam at Lunglei (South Lushai Hills) was held at class VI where as in Aizawl (North Lushai Hills), it was at Class VIII. So, this led to a proposal to follow the nomenclature of the plain areas of Assam regarding class divisions and exams as follows:

Lower Primary- Classes A, B, I, II, III, Middle English- Classes IV, V, VI (VII & VIII only in Aizawl) Classes VII & VIII in Aizawl should be turned to corresponding classes of High School and should act as a basis for High School too. It was also proposed that there should be board of moderators to look after Lower Primary and Middle English with representatives from both districts who will meet annually in Aizawl. They would be entrusted to send in any proposal for modification of curriculum to the Director of Public Instructions, Assam.98

Both the Baptists and the Welsh mission agencies were guided by their desire to create a strong self-sustaining Christian community in the midst of an otherwise heathen India and their denominational affiliations had no doubt influenced the nature of their teaching and their national identity as English and Welsh could have more significance than we would like to imagine. The missionaries too had their educational ideals based on their own understanding and experiences of education in their homeland. This played enormous role in curriculum development and pedagogy for the Mizos.

In the South Lushai Hills, education was under the charge of Rev. F.W. Savidge who was an educationist and a learned man. He was keen on creating a coterie of educated

98 S.C. Roy (Inspector of Schools), Official Letter to DPI Assam: January 1929, [BMS: IN/ 112].

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men to replicate the educational ideals of the British public schools that would in turn saturate the villages and laid the educational foundation in the southern hills. The missionaries were successful in making Serkawn mission station in the South Lushai Hills- a focal point and educational centre and did not spread far out into the rural areas for many years to come. Apart from the formal learning in classroom, special eleven boys were groomed by Rev. F.W. Savidge in English cultural practices and mannerisms apart from the regular school textbooks both in Mizo and English and trained them along the lines of English public school system with the likes of Rugby, Winchester, Charterhouse schools as their models. Savidge wrote that some of the boys enjoyed reading Wonderlands, children’s newspapers from England and Spurgeon’s sermon. He also mentioned that the students devoured Encyclopaedia and Atlas with so much hunger for knowledge.99 Savidge was extremely focused on engaging their minds and introducing them to the debates and thoughts that were common in the world outside the Lushai Hills. He wanted to raise these special boys to be the leaders of the Mizos in the future and even wanted them to attend university. However it was out of reach for them, so he made sure he brought it to them instead. These boys continued to be the mission’s main instruments in spreading education and also models of educated Mizos and trophies for the Baptist Mission Society in the Lushai Hills. The mission school in Serkawn continued to run along this line under the supervision of Rev. F.W. Savidge until his retirement in 1925. Though, younger missionaries and the Mizos themselves shared the responsibility of running the school and framing of curriculum early on, he laid an educational foundation for them to follow. Obedience, discipline, diligence and physical fitness, hygiene and reading were stressed upon. The creation of a new group of Mizo gentlemen was underway. A new form of masculinity was developed which was based upon punctuality, cleanliness and good conduct as signifiers and it was encouraged by a system of marks and prizes and the failure of it was met with fines.100 St John’s ambulance course was also introduced as part of the boys’ school curriculum by 1912 for the older boys and schoolmasters.101 By anchoring itself on hard work, the school strived for excellence for

99 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1919, [BMS: IN/ B14]. 100 F.J. Raper, Boys’ Education Report: 1932, [BMS: IN/ 113]. 101 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1912, [BMS: IN/ 112]. 5

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it believed that only the best is good enough for God. Students and teachers were constantly reminded of the brevity of life through the school motto too.

When Herbert Anderson, Secretary of Baptist Mission Society in India visited Serkawn in 1913, he was so impressed with the school and went on to approximating it to British public schools due to the outstanding work of Savidge.102 The industrial side of curriculum among the boys was not as developed as in the girls’ school though there was an awareness of this lacking but they were not able to hit the right note. There was a suggestion that when a new Mizo headmaster was found for the boys’ school, he should be sent for training where the Moga method or equivalent could be learnt.103 This suggestion was given in the hope that boys’ school curriculum might move towards practicality. In addition to the school courses, elementary physiology was also added with a stress on outdoor activities for the boys and this helped them in keeping good health and hockey became a popular game. 104 Hindi was introduced, as part of the curriculum for it was crucial for getting government jobs. Tonic sol-fa was also taught and there were developments to be seen.105 This ultimately led to an annual cultural event of Serkawn Concert and this became an important event in the social and cultural calendar of the students.

Around this time there was a great desire and thirst for knowledge that twenty men translating could not fulfil the requirements of their reading propensities of the Mizos.106 By 1919, algebra was introduced in the curriculum as that was compulsory paper for boys who wished to proceed to the matriculation of Calcutta University.107 In 1920, the principal subject lectured on was history of the Mizos, orally collected from oldest living inhabitants.108 Students also read classic Christian historical novels like Qua Vadis during the rainy seasons of 1921 at Serkawn Boys’ school. 109 In 1922, the headmaster

102 Herbert Anderson, ‘Lushai Visit Report’: 1913, [BMS: IN/ B14]. 103 John Reid, ‘Lushai Visit Report’: 1926, [BMS: IN/ 112]. 104 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1914, [BMS: IN/ 112]. 105 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1916, [BMS: IN/ 112]. 106 Savidge, Station Report: 1916. 107 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1919, [BMS: IN/ B14]. 108 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1920, [BMS: IN/ B14]. 109 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1921, [BMS: IN/ B14]. 5

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and second master of the school resigned from their positions to work as missionaries elsewhere and they were the ones who were there right from the beginning.110 This shows the influence of a Christian curriculum that encouraged the Mizos to become missionaries too. To complement the existing school curriculum, South Lushai Troops (Scouts) was formed in May 1931 by missionary Rev. F.J. Raper with the help of his colleague, Rev. H.W. Carter 111 and it spread rapidly across different villages. Scouts Magazine was published and sent to different villages. 112 The Mizo concept and practise of tlawmngaihna was incorporated into the school official knowledge system. When Rev. & Mrs. H.M. Angus and Mr. D.S. Wells visited Serkawn in 1932, they were most impressed with the scouts under Raper and good discipline among the boys in general. So, during this time, Carter began to introduce teachers’ training and carpentry class.113 Around this time, it was evident that industrial side of learning in school began to get the attention of the framers of curriculum of boys school as late as 1930s but the reception from the Mizo students was altogether another story.

The year 1935 was a turning point in curriculum development in the Lushai Hills when H.W. Carter became aware of the scarcity of salaried posts, which he heard from the Deputy Commissioner in Shillong. While Middle English course had been chiefly a stepping-stone for the high school and prepared the boys for salaried jobs but completely unfit for village life. One matriculate post was available once in five years in the Hill Districts and fifty Mizo boys were studying in high school at that very moment and the danger of having disgruntled, unemployed matriculate class which hitherto avoided was now at their door. He argued for the need to emphasize middle vernacular course, which would train the boys to live a normal yet enlightened village life.114 This was a late realisation as education in the South Lushai Hills under the Baptist Mission had already completed three decades by then. However, just three years prior to this, the 1932 Angus Deputation Report stated that there was no danger of having more boys passing from

110 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1923, [BMS: IN/ B14]. 111 F.J. Raper, Station Report: 1931-32, [BMS: IN/ 113]. 112 F.J. Raper, Station Report: Jan- May 1933, [BMS: IN/ 113]. 113 H.M. Angus and D.S. Wells, ‘Lushai Visit Report’: Oct- Nov 1932, [BMS: IN/ B14]. 114 H.W. Carter, Boys’ Education Report: 1935 [BMS: IN/113]. 5

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Middle School than could find useful employment.115 So, that was quite an irony that the situation at hand was misunderstood, as three years was just a short period for drastic change to happen in education. There began to appear discontentment among the Mizos regarding the courses taught in school. There were people like Pastor Rohmingliana who graduated from Serkawn Boys’ School, who felt that Serkawn School produced more government clerks than preachers and this he mentioned with regret. He also felt that Mizos working in the government were stingy with their offerings to the church. He also mentioned that young bright students were keen mostly on joining high school in the hope of government services rather than mission work. He spoke about spiritual crises in the Lushai Hills and he feared that people were going back to old heathen tradition. He felt that there was too much stress on education as compared to building up the church and equipping the natives.116 This showed his discontentment with the way schools were run and how it increasingly became secular.117 Around this time, the newly introduced middle vernacular course was not popular in its first year of introduction as it was considered to be lowly. In 1935-36, there were eleven boys enrolled in the vernacular course but two boys who were chiefs’ sons dropped out, sacrificing their scholarships as they felt carpentry was degrading.118

The problem of following separate curriculum in the North and South Lushai Hills posed a real problem for the students and the mission agencies. A plan to unify education work throughout the Lushai Hills was deliberated on by Rev. David Edwards of the North Lushai Hills, H.W. Carter from the South Lushai Hills and A.G. Mc Call, Superintendent of the Lushai Hills. It was decided that, from 1936 onwards, common exam and curriculum was to be followed between the North and the South Lushai Hills.119

A new Indian Constitution came into effect on the 1st April 1935 and the Indian element in the new Assam government did not favour the existing system of placing

115 Angus and Wells, ‘Lushai Visit Report’: 1932. 116 Rohmingliana, Letter: June 1937, [BMS: IN/113]. 117 RH Liana, Letter: June 1934, [BMS: IN/113]. 118 H.W. Carter, Boys’ Education Report: 1935-36, [BMS: IN/113]. 119 Carter, Boys’ Education Report: 1935. 5

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public money in the hands of Christian missionaries for educational purposes. There was a possibility of putting an end to the practice of giving large grants-in-aid to missionary bodies especially in the hills. The missions feared that if the government took over the schools, religious instructions would have to be removed from the curriculum and the passing over of teachers trained in education by missionaries in preference for men untouched by mission influence. 120 At this point it is interesting to note that the government did not increase education funding over fifteen years and curriculum and school maintenance was done at minimal cost keeping in mind the continuing pressure from the Mizos to open more schools in the villages. There was also fear of the coming of other mission societies like the Roman Catholics who would willingly open schools wherever the locals asked for it.121

In the North Lushai Hills, schooling atmosphere was not the same with the south. With Aizawl being the centre of colonial government in the district, there was cosmopolitan vibes in comparison to other places in the Lushai Hills. Aizawl had more people than Lunglei and people were exposed to other cultures and schooling tradition was few years older and had almost double the students than the South Lushai Hills. According to the Welsh Mission Report, by 1906, schoolbooks for different subjects were at various stages of preparation and issue. The superintendent secured a sum of Rs. 500 for these publications and there probably was no other hill tribe supplied with better books in vernacular.122 The literature of the Lushai Hills was altogether in the hands of the mission who published and sold all the books and periodicals in Mizo language including the government magazine and the Bible and the hymnbooks, which were the chief books of the people.123 By the mid-1930s, the aim of school curriculum had to be expanded and we began to see some reorganisation and enormous pressure to open as many village schools as possible, as was demanded by the Mizos. This was due to the fear of losing monopoly over educational enterprise by both the Welsh Calvinistic and London Baptist missions. Besides this, they also felt the danger of syncretism between

120 H.W. Carter, Boys’ Education Report: 1937, [BMS: IN/113]. 121 Carter, Boys’ Education Report: 1935. 122 Edwin Rowlands, Welsh Mission Report, Lushai Hills: 1906, [CMA: 27, 291]. 123 F. J. Sandy, ‘Unparalleled Opportunity in the Lushai’: 1920s, [CMA: 27, 292]. 5

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Christianity and local animistic practices in the villages.124 The 1930s began to see changes in the way education was viewed and this was due to the coming of new generation of missionaries, exposure of the Mizos to the wars in different parts of the world like the First World War, the Abor expedition, the Mesopotamian campaign, the growing nationalist fervour in India, Mizo students studying outside the Hills and stagnation of job market for the educated. In the North Lushai Hills, when Rev. David Edwards took over the management of education shortly after his arrival in 1933, he keenly focused on self-help and even made a plan for the building of school farm.125 This did not happen in isolation in the Lushai Hills and we see the same trend emerging in Africa as well with various Christian mission agencies in the 20th century.126 Like in the other parts of the world with other missions, Rev. David Edwards’ aim was to develop a self-sustaining individual and society. He found the social atmosphere of the Mizos to be at a confusing juncture. In the school curriculum, he wanted to incorporate folk songs, folk tales and Mizo cultural items that could fit well with the wider Christian philosophy. He felt this was an urgent requirement for an alternative to the opposing extremes of hymns and ‘pagan’ songs. He often found it alarming that among the Middle English pupils ‘there’s a certain priggishness that is goring and at the same time superstitious ignorance on the other.127 He regretted the lack of space for the development of crafts, which the government was keen on promoting. This, according to him was a major drawback in education and the extant curriculum disappointing from his view. For instance, Tipping’s English reader with lots of plain’s references and pigeon expressions were not helpful for the Mizos and therefore, requested a new classical English reader like a Beacon Reader by Ginn and company which would help to incentivise the Mizos to produce their own literature. He feared that unless the educational authorities did something to introduce the ideas of culture through the Middle English school, there would accumulate problems later.128 He also felt that there was a need to encourage science and explore the possibilities of scientific development. With the growth of Christianity by leaps and bounds, he felt that school curriculum should encourage the

124 David Edwards, ‘Programme of Educational Reorganisation in the Lushai’: 1934, [CMA: 27, 397]. 125 Edwards, ‘Programme’: 1934. 126 Edward H. Berman, ‘African Responses to Christian Mission Education’, African Studies Review, Vol. 17, No. 3, Dec 1974, pp. 527-540. 127 David Edwards, Letter: April 1934, [CMA: 27, 397]. 128 David Edwards, Letter: May 1934, [CMA: 27, 397]. 5

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development and sustenance of . Due to the strong reaction against animistic practices, he felt the need to create a new culture to channel the strong emotions of the Mizos lest they went back to their old pagan ways. A new sense of beauty, songs, and humour needed to be created and he tried to encourage art and drama too but the church was scared of anything secular.129 To put an end to opening Mizo education dependent on the possible idiosyncrasies of particular individual in the future, a suggestion was made from the mission headquarters in the U.K. to create a body of educational visionaries who would create a good standard education system for the Mizos.130 Edwards too was keen on building a national system of education in cooperation with the Baptist Mission in the South Lushai Hills. He felt this to be an urgent need as the issue of unemployment became more real and with people spending fortune on their children’s education hoping for a good return were highly disappointed. Due to all these problems, Edward himself felt that he and the mission failed as God’s representatives in the Lushai Hills. So, finally in January 1937, Middle Vernacular was started with 25 pupils and it was hoped that this would address the issues that Middle English curriculum failed to address.131

During the Second World War, the Lushai Hills found itself at the forefront with the Japanese forces threatening to enter British India from the east. This led to an enormous increase in the price of rice, the staple diet of the Mizos and living expenditure in Aizawl that resulted in the returning of some boys to their own villages. However, this did not stop the expansion of educational enterprise as Basil Jones opened a new school at Sialsuk in the North Lushai Hills 132 to reduce the burden of some students with the curriculum focusing on the practical side of education.133 Teachers’ training school was also proposed to include agricultural training in the hope of binding education with the needs of the people and open their eyes to the real advantage of education. Basil Jones felt that there was a need for peoples’ voice in the education committee so that education equipped the general masses.134 Till then, there was hardly any voice of the Mizos in framing of curriculum in the North Lushai Hills and the mission felt the disjunction

129 David Edwards, Letter: April 1935, [CMA: 27, 397]. 130 David Edwards, Letter: June 1935, [CMA: 27, 397]. 131 David Edwards, Letter: August 1935, [CMA: 27, 397]. 132 A village approximately 67 kms south of Aizawl. 133 Basil Jones, Letter: July 1943 [CMA: 27, 419]. 134 Welsh Mission Headquarters, Letter to Basil Jones: May 1945, [CMA: 27, 419].

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between the people and their education. This was also a time when India was going through enormous changes with the vision of independence. There was an air of uncertainty and changes and realignment of power and relationships. So, the main concern of the missions at that time was to have a lasting Christian impact on curriculum and knowledge development. For this to succeed, they wanted strong Christians to be placed at key positions.135 In 1952, for the first time since the inception of education in the Lushai Hills, a Mizo church elder from the South Lushai Hills was appointed as a new Deputy Inspector of School and the mission had high hopes in his ability to maintain a good standard as was under the missions. And thus was the end of the missionary monopoly over school curriculum under the new Indian government, which stopped all religious instructions in all government run Middle English schools.

2.4 What the Girls were taught

Education has always been considered as the single most empowering institution for women in different parts of the world. When schooling was introduced in the Lushai Hills, girls promptly joined the schools and studied alongside the boys from the earliest times and they fared well too. But the missionaries worked on opening separate schools for the girls for various reasons and the most crucial one being the difference in the needs of girls education from that of boys. It took some years to run full-fledged girls school in both Aizawl and Serkawn, in the North and South Lushai Hills, while the boys schools were already well established. Both the boys and girls had to face the same qualifying exams, hence the need for similar curriculum. But apart from the basic textbooks, the focus of girls’ education was always that which would be useful for them to perform their traditional roles better. School curriculum for the girls was created to mould them into good and industrious women, ultimately to become enlightened wives and mothers.136 The missionaries understood the importance of women upliftment in order for the Mizo society to develop and move forward. And for Christianity to take inroads into the Mizo life, Christian mothers were required. It was with these goals that girls’ curriculum was framed. The focus was on a girl’s individual development, contribution towards her

135 Jones, ‘Lushai Education Report’: February 1948. 136 K.E. Jones, Letter to Superintendent of Lushai Hills: April 1916, [CMA: 29, 285].

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family and the society. This sort of curriculum was the result of an attitude that the Mizo society had on girls’ education; considering it to be an excess and unnecessary.

Katie Jones taught girls separately in Aizawl since 1904 but the rhythm and rhyme could not be like the boys’ school. Mizo girls and their parents did not see the need for education and the women felt they had no propensity to learn and that it was useless for them. Young girls attended schools when they were inclined to learn. For the women, the only reason they agreed to attend school once a week was to listen to stories from the Life of Christ and it developed into talks on cleanliness and care of babies.137 So, making the school attractive for women and girls to attend was an important part of curriculum framing. The number of girls gradually grew and in 1911, forty-five girls were enrolled in the Aizawl School138 and increased to sixty-one by 1916 though regular attendance was altogether another story.139

Since there were no designated lady missionaries to look after girls’ education, Katie Jones took it upon herself to provide for the needs of girls and women’s side of mission work where education was one of the most important components. After working with Mizo girls and women, she felt that the best kind of education for them would be a good foundation of book knowledge and develop on useful lines like cookery, cutting out, sewing, hygiene and management of children.140 With minimal financial assistance provided by the mission and private contributors, the basic needs of the school was barely met. At the primary level, girls were taught scripture, singing, needle work like plain sewing by needle and machine, cutting out and making up of garments, which was highly appreciated by the Mizos. Practical cookery was taught for few months but it had to stop due to lack of funds. In a discussion with Mr. Hezellet on girls’ education, Katie Jones suggested that the curriculum should cover scripture, singing, hygiene, infant and young children care, cleanliness, practical cooking lessons which included teaching the value of locally produced food stuffs and how to use them in the most efficient manner, cooking

137 K.E. Jones, ‘The Women of Lushais’: 1904, [CMA: 29, 285]. 138 K.E. Jones, Letter: March 1911, [CMA: 29, 285]. 139 Jones, Letter to Superintendent of Lushai Hills: April 1916. 140 K.E. Jones, Letter: December 1915, [CMA: 29, 285].

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for the sick, needle work, garment cutting, hand and machine sewing.141 This was the foundation laid down by the Katie Jones and girls’ education and curriculum continued from this.

In the North Lushai Hills, in the beginning, the all girls’ school was only up till lower primary standard and once they cleared the exam they had to join Boys’ school for Middle English exam. So, there was no sense of continuity in the curriculum for girls who wished to study beyond lower primary. By 1923, there were seventy girls studying in the mission school, which was a very slow growth in the number of students enrolled, ten bible women and six teachers. The fact that there were ten bible women while only six teachers who were all inexperienced except for Zawni who taught with Katie Jones is telling of the studies prioritized by the mission education and the aim of curriculum till then.142 In 1923, Kitty Lewis who was in-charge of the girls’ school wrote to her friends that the girls and their families’ understanding of education began to shift and now recognised that it was more than just learning how to read and write, they had to be neater, cleaner and more careful with their lives because they were school children.143 As of 14th January 1936, Girls’ School lessons under the Welsh Mission included the following:

1) Reading Cards: a. Arpuisen - The Little Red Hen b. Beram leh Ui - The Sheep and the Dog c. Bawngpui leh Savawm - The Cow and the Bear d. Pitarte Thawnthu - The Little Old Woman e. Parvate Thawnthu - The Little Pigeon 2) Zirtan Bu - Reading Primer 3) Zirtirh Bu Thar - First Reader 4) Assam Ram Thu - Geography of Assam

141 Jones, Letter to Superintendent of Lushai Hills: April 1916. 142 K.E. Jones, Letter: February 1923, [CMA: 29, 285]. 143 Kitty Lewis, Letter: March 1923, [CMA: 27, 356]. 6

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5) India Ram Thu - Geography of India 6) Asia Khawmualpui Thu - Geography of Asia 7) Khawvel Thu - Geography of the World 8) India Chanchin - 9) Chhiarkhawp Bu Khatna - Arithmetic Part 1 11) Chhiarkawp Bu Hnihna - Arithmetic Part 2 12) Chhiarkawp Bu Thumna - Arithmetic Part 3 13) Hmabu - A Lushai English Primer 14) Saptawng Zirna Bu Khatna - A Lushai English Primer 15) Lushai Grammar - The Lushai Grammar 16) Grammar Hrilfiahna - Grammatical Primer 17) Lushai Double Adverb - The Lushai Double Adverbs 18) Legends of Old Lushai - Legends of Old Lushai 19) Lushai English Dictionary - In preparation 20) The Link - The Link newspaper 21) Geometry 22) Hriselna Bu - Hygiene 23) Thawnthu Fing - Aesop’s Fable 24) Hliam leh Naunei Enkawl Dan - First Aid 25) Naunei Enkawl Dan - First Aid

In the South Lushai Hills, girls’ education was under the care of Edith Chapman and very soon joined by Marjorie Clark. Academic session lasted only for seven to eight months in a year so as to make the girls available at home during the busiest season to help their families. The aim of girls’ curriculum was:

To give education that shall not unfit the girls from their strenuous jungle lives but prepare to give a good deal of time to practical lessons like gardening, handwork, cookery, weaving, washing.144

Girls’ curriculum right from the beginning had always taken into consideration the areas where the girls would have to go back and therefore, focused on equipping them.

144 E.M. Chapman, Letter: March 1920, [BMS: IN/112]. 6

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The aim was on learning to develop more of the resources of the Lushai country as was said by Mrs. Savidge who worked with the girls before the arrival of Chapman and Clark.145 By 1926, the school had 130 girls on the roll, including girls from across the border from Burma. Farming was part of the curriculum and the girls’ hostel managed a thriving farm with indigo plantation, chicken and goats were reared too. Traditional weaving was also part of the school curriculum. Both Chapman and Clark lived with the boarders and dined with the rest of the girls. Their house was always referred to as a hostel unlike other missionaries’ houses that were referred to as sahibs’ houses. By doing this, they hoped to set an example and a standard for Mizo household. This was at the heart of curriculum and pedagogy of girls’ education in South Lushai Hills; to set a new standard of Mizo Christian household, which they hoped would change the society. 146 Just few years into the running of the girls boarding, there was a sense of anxiety that the government was deliberating on an enquiry into the existing educational system. There was a suggestion that an inspector and deputy inspector of schools would be placed in Aizawl and Lunglei, the establishment of teachers’ training centre in Aizawl and whether new secular schools would be opened.147 All these were a great source of discomfort for the mission as their monopoly over education and influence over curriculum could be lost overnight and they felt that they had not bound their students strong enough in the Christian traditions. However, the influence of the school and the lessons taught were stronger than they anticipated that it was even a surprise for Chapman when nineteen old Serkawn girls returned for an old girls’ weekend (where girls who had passed out from the school had come back for fellowship) and that she commented:

These girls were a revelation even to me; they seemed so utterly different from the ordinary Lushai girls. I have never before realised what a difference the school has made to their lives.148

The fact that they managed to organise and had some girls back for old girls’ reunion itself showed the kind of hold that the school had over the students. The influence of the school was still woven strongly over them in their conduct, which Chapman was proud

145 E.M. Chapman, Letter: September 1920, [BMS: IN/112]. 146 E.M. Chapman, Letter: May 1926, [BMS: IN/112]. 147 E.M. Chapman, Letter: August 1928, [BMS: IN/112]. 148 E.M. Chapman, Letter: November 1928, [BMS: IN/112]. 6

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of. Not only this, some of the students who had the propensity to teach were encouraged and trained to be teachers which was quite a revolutionary move, keeping in mind the status of women in the society. Chhumi was sent out among the Pawis, the first to be sent from the school to teach. According to Chapman, school life was a preparation to the king’s work and that curriculum was always woven with that in mind, to fulfil a higher calling.149 While this was the Baptist missions’ agenda behind the girls’ curriculum, the Mizo men had their agenda of opening higher education that would ultimately led to a higher paid job and they felt that the existing curriculum was not inclined towards that.150 The irony of it all is that, Mizo women and girls’ voice was completely silenced in all the deliberations about their curriculum development. The mission, the government and the men decided what would be good for them.

In June 1936, school camp was organised at Darzo village, about 89 kms from the mission station in Serkawn. One hundred and thirty five hostellers and boarders consisting of Lushais, Fanais and Pawis attended the camp. This was Chapman’s attempt to protect the girls from alienation due to education in Serkawn, and an attempt to keep things real for the girls, which was her philosophy behind the curriculum she developed.151 The efficacy of the camp towards achieving the desired goal might not be quantifiable but the act of moving the centre to the periphery here was symbolic of the movement of traditional and modern western knowledge and also that it helped in eradicating the antagonisms between the Lushais, Fanais and Pawis. The mission was unapologetic about its goals and we see this strongly reflected in the school curriculum and in their statements too. In response to the Director of Public Instructions’ comment on South Lushai Hills education, the mission made it clear to him that their purpose was to Christianise, besides encompassing spiritual, physical and emotional development.152 The focus of learning for the boys and girls did not rest on the same ground. Girls’ curriculum focused more on the practical side of learning and less directly on matric exam, which was often objected strongly by Mizo men.153

149 E.M. Chapman, Letter: June 1929, [BMS: IN/112]. 150 E.M. Chapman, Letter: February 1923, [BMS: IN/112]. 151 E.M. Chapman, Letter: June 1936, [BMS: IN/112]. 152 E.M. Chapman, Letter: April 1939, [BMS: IN/112]. 153 Chapman, Letter: May 1939. 6

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At Serkawn School, the curriculum was thoroughly practical and it included weaving, spinning of cotton, needlework, housewifery, baby welfare, hygiene, bandaging, gardening and goat keeping.154 The girls’ school curriculum also included arithmetic, accounts, reading, writing, history, geography, English, hygiene, physiology, composition, dictation, recitation, general knowledge, religious instructions, weaving (including all processes in preparation from seeds and some dyeing), needle work including simple cut out, basket work in , cane, simple pottery using local clay, baby welfare, infant care, first aid, home care including invalid cookery, knitting, crochet work with home-grown cotton, bamboo implements made by the girls themselves, gardening including experiments with new seeds and plants, farm work including care, breeding of cows, goats, pigs, fowl, duck, pigeons, household management, cookery, laundry, clay modelling, maps, drawing, painting, crayon work and inset filling, singing, tonic solfa, dramatization, drill, games and simple dances. All these were taught in practical with minimum theory. Moral hygiene was also part of the series of talk done by the boarders. The school worked partly on Dalton plan and project system and project was done during the fine weather where they did lots of farming and outside activities and Dalton plan during the rainy season.155 The school curriculum set up a new ideal of a Mizo Christian womanhood. This new ideal based itself on the symbiosis of the biblical idea of womanhood and some of the traditional Mizo understanding of a good woman/ wife. So, at the core of this new ideal, we see usefulness as having one of the most important places; usefulness in one’s family, community and God’s kingdom. Apart from this the theme of women as nurturer and carer of oneself and others run deeply and creativity was focused upon. Student-teachers course was a key part of the school. It included evangelist training, village preaching and religious instructions in schools and worship and Chapman also wrote to the Inspector of School, Surma Valley & Hill District:

154 Savidge, Station Report: 1922, [BMS: IN/113]. 155 E.M. Chapman, ‘An educational experiment 1920- 1930’: 1930, [BMS: IN/112]. 6

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Only in so far as their education equips them to serve their fellows and to help in making their country a true part of the kingdom of god is it a justifiable charge on mission funds.156

In retrospect, Winifred Baker in 1947 talked about the aim of Mizo women’s education had been to make them fit to be good wives. However, she felt that most Mizo men still preferred uneducated women whom they could treat as servants or those with purely book knowledge. On this light, the missionaries in 1942 commented that ‘our educated girls have many of them decidedly strong personalities’. 157 Though the missionaries were keen and adamant about not dislocating the Mizos from their surroundings, a new form of learning and values could not but create a new culture. The way the school going girls related to the physical and social structures were changed due to the new form of learning and it was not always easy for the society to embrace it whole heartedly and without conflict. There was a general discontentment and disillusionment among the Mizos on the curriculum that was offered to them.

2.5 Conclusion

Both the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists and the London Baptist Mission Societies were responsible for curriculum development and implementation for about half a century in the Lushai Hills with limited interventions from other parties. During their tenure as in charge of educational endeavour in the Lushai Hills, their primary objective was to Christianise the land through spreading education. It was a huge success for both missions in general because by the time they handed over school education to the government in 1952, the Lushai Hills had already more than 90% of its population professing Christianity, which in 1901, just three years after schooling began was only 0.05%.158 However, in the politics of curriculum, there could never be just one aim and goal of the curriculum and the interaction with learners never produced one standard result anyway. In the case of the Lushai Hills, as much as the missionaries felt they were

156 Chapman, ‘An educational experiment’: 1930. 157 Chapman : 1930. 158 Centre for Policy Studies, Religion Data of Census 2011: XXVIII Northeast [website], 2016, https://blog.cpsindia.org/2016/08/religion-data-of-census-2011-xxviii.html, (accessed February 2017). 6

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successful in Christianising the Mizos, there was a sense of discontentment and discomfort voiced by many of them in the way schooling was conducted and the content of curriculum. H.W. Carter of the South Lushai Hills in the mid-1930s wrote that boys’ school curriculum in the South Lushai Hills emphasised the wrong subjects especially among older boys and it did not at all prepare them to a life in the Lushai Hills especially to the villages where they were going home. It prepared them only for salaried jobs that were in extreme scarcity. 159 The same was felt in the North Lushai Hills too as Rev. David Edwards, Honorary inspector of schools, regretted the losing of indigenous culture and practices by the Mizos and he even questioned whether he was failing as a representative of God and he felt that the school curriculum was not doing enough to feed the needs of the Mizos.160

The low level of qualification and lack of training among the Mizos was a disadvantage when it comes to the framing of curriculum and their voices mostly silenced. This was the case with the missionaries too, especially in the North Lushai Hills and regarding girls’ education too. People like Ch. Pasena, Nuchhungi, Chhuahkhama contributed in the writing of school textbooks but it was the British missionaries who did the most work on curriculum. The irony is that it took close to half a century for the Mizos to have a high school. Colonial and mission educational policy was more focused on horizontal expansion but lacking in vertical growth simultaneously.

The extreme difference in the curriculum aims of the boys and girls school has stronger bearings than one might anticipate. The girls were taught self-care and care for others from the lowest class whereas boys neglected manual and practical works but with a focus on qualifying exams. This resulted in fewer girls with higher qualifications but with enormous practical knowledge for survival. The boys, however, had better chance of continuing their studies with higher qualifications but there was a lag with the world and society they lived in and this continued to be a problem for many years to come. The curriculum of the girls’ school was meant for empowering women and it seemed to have

159 Carter, Lushai Boys’ Education Report: 1935. 160 David Edwards, Letter: August, 1935, [CMA: 27, 397].

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done that. It provided mobility too but a limited one. There seemed to be a lack of organic growth, development and change in curriculum during half a century of the missions’ work. Various reasons, especially lack of funding, political unrest in British India and the constant wanting in manpower did stand in the way of producing a better- rounded curriculum. Most of the missionaries were not educationists and the ones who successfully completed teachers’ training course were very few and the colonial government had hardly anything to lend it to them. It was a trial and error process for the mission agencies and a lot of it was dependent on luck. The Mizos response to such curriculum was remarkable, to say the least, as it was a venture into a new knowledge system.

If we look at its impact at the broader view we also see that with the coming of the colonial government and the culture that it brought like education for the masses, people began to understand it as the opening of an alternative to their ‘work’, a new way of getting food the Saheb’s way but it also entailed new ways of earning social capital and respect in the society. Since education was opened to both male and female irrespective of one’s social status and age, it offered them mobility to a certain extent. It was believed that a new form of thangchhuah was available for everyone through education. So, this introduction of modern schooling under the aegis of the Christian missionaries and the colonial government brought paradigm shift in the Mizo epistemology, about the perception of their life experience, knowledge production and dissemination. This shift reverberated in all aspects of the village life.

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Chapter 3

Learning To Be Students

If you have children of a school- going age you must sent them to school without inhibitions, and you will not regret it.161

3.0 Locating Children

When we study a society, there are different ways of analysing the subject and various channels through which we can do our enquiry. In recent times, looking at the conditions of different sections of the society have become increasingly trendy for the obvious reasons that society is comprised of different people and people could be classed in different sections based on gender, economic activities, wealth, race, religion etc. This chapter draws its technique from such practise of attempting to understand Mizo society and the process of education and social change by looking at children and childhood in the Mizo society, especially in the early days when schooling was first introduced. The way they engaged with the new institution of learning could enrich our understanding of Mizo society and the changes it has been going through.

Children along with women were often muted players in traditional Mizo society. Having said that, it is worth qualifying that it does not imply they played no important role in the sustenance of the society and its culture. Their roles were crucial for the smooth functioning of the society and their voices were often heard and paid heed too but still insufficient. Since the traditional Mizo society was

161 Pachuau and Schendel, p. 88. Also available in ‘Skul Thu’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu, December 1903, p. 10.

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strongly patriarchal, women and children’s roles and contributions to their families and communities were considered to be secondary to those of adult men. The place of children in Mizo society was functional, a stage and a means to an end and hence they were not given much importance and therefore till today, there is a gap in writing on childhood in traditional Mizo society. However, some old Mizo sayings on children are telling of the condition of childhood like Naupang tete uite rim in nam, which translates-you children smell (stink) like puppies. Their importance in the family and in the society was secondary though the birth of a child was marked as a happy occasion. Children’s roles in the village community were also functional and different stages of childhood were marked by their ability and roles in their families and in the village community by using terms that described their ability like thingnawi fawm rual162, tui um hnih khirh rual163 etc., showing children’s utility in the family or society. There is no denying that children would have been understood and looked at beyond their sheer utility but there are various reasons, like the terms and sayings mentioned above, that give us a small peek into a society that was not extremely accommodating of the younger lot. It is also helpful to understand that in the 19th century and well into 20th century, societies across the world largely had dismissive attitude towards children and childhood. When we talk about childhood in the Mizo context, although we often but generalise, the multiplicity of experiences for different sections of the society is also worth mentioning at this stage. For the orphans in particular, Mizo society was nothing but rough and there are many stories and phrases that would support that claim. For instance, there are terms like fahrah ben, where fahrah translates – a child bereft of a mother, or a father or both and ben meaning to slap. So fahran ben is a slap with the palm of the hand flattened out so as to hurt as much as possible—as one slaps an orphan.164 The reason why a child became an orphan had strong implications on the society’s attitude and behaviour towards them. Due to lack of health care facilities and the constant danger faced by the villages through the practise of inter-village war and the low life expectancy, it is not difficult to imagine a high rate of orphans. So, when Christian missionaries

162 Old enough to gather firewood. 163 Old enough to carry two bamboo water tubes on the back using cords and not baskets. 164 J.H. Lorrain, Dictionary of the Lushai Language, Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, pg. 130. Available from https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/lorrain_query.py?page=131.

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entered the Lushai Hills, destitute orphans became one of the groups that strongly drew their attention and their mission was extended towards them. Kitty Lewis adopted some Mizo girls including Sapkungi in Aizawl and E.M. Chapman also adopted Lalziki Sailo in Lunglei.165 The girls’ school both in Aizawl and Serkawn served as unofficial orphanages too as they looked after and cared for orphans until separate homes were built for them.

With the growth of Aizawl as a colonial town and becoming urbanised, we also see two new categories of children arose which was not present in the pre-colonial times. Khawpui naupang, which means children from the urban area and thingtlang naupang, children from the village were terms with loaded meaning and the latter became a common and derogatory term frequently used in the schools in Aizawl and Serkawn. V.L. Siama remembered being a poor student attending Middle English School in Aizawl and being bullied by his classmates who were local Aizawl residents.166 This is extremely interesting because it shows how quickly the urban areas grew and the forging of identities which hitherto was village based alone was rapidly disintegrating. It also showcases the way Mizos quickly and readily adapted to new ways of understanding themselves and places. This urban and rural divide is not something exclusive to the Lushai Hills during the colonial times but it continued to be a subtle means of stratification and hierarchy, both imagined and otherwise, way into the present time.

The status of women and children in the traditional Mizo society is also telling of the way life was envisaged by the Mizos in general. The society revolved around the agrarian economic activities where men’s responsibilities were heavy and dangerous as compared to the rest of the society. They not only had the responsibility of leading their families and provide enough for them, living close to nature posed safety problems from wild animals. Inter- village wars were not rare and hence the protection required by a Mizo village was at different levels and the men folks were the primary protectors. With such heavy and numerous responsibilities to fulfil in the

165 Vanlalchhandama, interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, June 2013, Chanmari West, Aizawl. 166 V.L. Siama, Personal Diary, no date entry.

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society and at home, their powers and status also increased simultaneously. Women and children’s lives were considered to be less dangerous and therefore did not call for as much respect as the men’s lives. This was crucial as Mizo society revolved around the concept of respect and honour. There were some ways of earning respect in the society; by virtue of age, gender and contributions to the society. But the age and contributions of men had the heaviest weight and influence in the society. The introduction of schooling changed the way life was perceived leading to gradual reorganisation of the society, its beliefs and values. Responsibilities shouldered by the men for the sustenance and protection of the society gradually shifted too. This was because the colonial government introduced new system of governance, which eliminated inter-village wars and feuds. Education began to provide economic, intellectual and social capital in the new social order ushered in by colonialism. The coming of the new social order in the Lushai Hills created a platform and space for the rapid spread of education as people began to desire that which would give them the most advantageous position and best equipped them to live their best lives in the new times. School was a place where stringent gender roles collapsed as both boys and girls had to sit for similar exams. When the same girls who thought that they were inferior and could learn nothing passed the same exams as they boys, a new note was struck. So, what was considered a traditional role gradually became less important. School opened new opportunities for the mixing up of gender roles, which ultimately led to social change and change in role allocations. This was extremely important for the Mizo society at different levels; firstly, childhood was given a new importance as schools primarily focused on educating young learners, secondly, it led to role mobility between male and female and thirdly, there was a professionalization of roles and responsibilities through specialised school curriculum. It is therefore not surprising that when all these changes started to unfold in the Lushai Hills, it was confusing and looked at with suspect by a lot of people and those in authority also introduced new institutions with caution. So, schools provided to children a new way of being trained into entering adulthood with new sets of skills to navigate life, which hitherto was in the hands of the village community alone run by the traditional elites on highly patriarchal values.

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According to E.J. Thomas, Mizo children had unlimited freedom and parental control was minimal.167 Boys were seen as assets and the training they got was mainly from Zawlbuk where they learnt the value of tlawmngaihna, societal norms and customs. According to J.V. Hluna, Zawlbuk had three fold functions: sleeping quarter and recreational centre for all unmarried men, a place of training and discipline for young boys and an inn for male visitors from other villages.168 There were two distinct groups in Zawlbuk, those who had attained puberty were called tlangval 169 and those younger were called thingnawi fawm (gatherer of firewood). Zawlbuk was also considered the best indigenous institution in early Mizo society functioning like a boarding house of modern day public schools. Hence, Zawlbuk has always been considered as the first place of semi-structured learning and often likened it to school in modern Mizo writings. While there was formal structured space of training for the boys, recognised and respected by the society, including the chief, it was a different story for the girls. On the other hand, in traditional Mizo society, there was no separate institution to train young girls. Throughout her life, she was barred from entering Zawlbuk and the alternative that the society gave her was to be trained at home by her mother in household chores and practice of caring for her younger siblings. Girls were expected to be enterprising, hardworking and hands-on from a very young age. From childhood, there was a clear-cut division of labour and a gender based training170 and in all of these, the society was the examiner.

The life of Mizo children revolved around their families, villages and the surrounding forests. Childhood was training for adult life in every sense, therefore a stepping-stone to a more useful life for their families and village community. They were given roles and duties not just at home but there were important roles played by them within the village structure. As schools had set-learning expectation for different age groups, the similar system and structure worked for Mizo children and

167 E.J. Thomas, Mizo Bamboo Hills Murmur Change (Mizo Society Before and After Independence), Intellectual Publishing House, 1993, p. 14. 168 Hluna, p. 12. 169 Youngmen. 170 Thomas, Mizo Bamboo Hills Murmur Change, p. 14.

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it was the society that decided what was to be expected of the children. It maintained discipline and control and its power over children was stronger than what individual families could question. Children were subjects to be trained and initiated into the community life so that they would become useful members of the society. E.J. Thomas stated that, at a certain age, Mizo boys were placed under the protection of the chief 171 and in a sense a village property. The ideals for Mizo children in the traditional society was that the boys would grow up to be brave and tlawmngai which implied self sacrifice for the welfare of the community whereas girls would grow up to be enterprising, hardworking, good wives, pure, kind and gentle. But education had changed many of these traditional aspirations.

3.1 Who goes to school?

With the introduction of schooling from the year 1894 under the aegis of the Christian missionaries, many children and few adults took up a new identity of being zirlai (students) in schools. It was a temporary, loaded and novel identity with new role expectations. They took pride in being students and had hoped it would give them a pass for a better life in the future. Those children who had loitered around in the villages and nearby forests with carefree spirits (thawveng) and shaped by the social norms and customs were suddenly expected to be part of an organised group (association) with new authorities and rules to follow. Prior to the introduction, the children roamed around without a lot of care and they were thawveng and when education was introduced, they were encouraged to join schools and study hard so that they might have a future that would be thawveng in a new way because of the of the potential that education had in equipping them. Life was perceived as hard and toilsome; education was seen as a way out lead to a life free of many cares (mainly implying the worry of having enough to feed oneself and family).

171 Thomas, p.13. 7

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In the early phase of the introduction of education in colonial Mizoram, it was not just children who had joined schools. The first students under Rev. J.H. Lorrain and Rev. F.W. Savidge in Aizawl were adults: M. Suaka and Thangphunga. They were the first ones to have mastered the Mizo alphabets prepared by the missionaries. Later on, Khamliana joined them and he became the first Mizo who could read and write.172 Lorrain and Savidge started primary school on April 2, 1894 in Aizawl, which ran successfully but was closed before they left the Lushai Hills.173 Rev. D.E. Jones of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission to mark his 28th birthday re- opened the school started by the pioneer missionaries in 1898. 174 He had about fifteen students in the beginning but gradually increased to above thirty.175 These students were mostly Aizawl boys and from some four or five nearby villages. Few boys too came from villages of several days journey.176 According to the statistical report of D.E. Jones, year ending 1899, there were fifty-six students in the mission school in Aizawl where six were girls.177 In his January 1900 letter to Rev. Josiah Thomas (Mission Secretary, Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Mission), D.E. Jones wrote that there were fifty students and some of them were girls too. Aizawl remained the only place where education was accessible to the public till 1901 when experimental schools were opened in Khawrihnim, Phulpui and Chhingchhip for a period of three months under the first three Mizo teachers Thanga, Chawnga and Tawka.178 Some of the students who studied in the mission school in Aizawl started two voluntary temporary schools in 1902; one in the morning in Aizawl and the other one at Maubawk, about two miles from Aizawl.179 The morning school targeted Naga180 boys and girls and were taught in Mizo. During this time, there were government run

172 Lalhmuaka, Zoram Zirna Lam Chhinchhiahna (The Records of Zoram Education), Tribal Research Institute, Education Department, Aizawl, Mizoram, 1981, p.15. 173 J.M. Lloyd, On Every High Hill, Foreign Mission Office, Liverpool, 1957, p.34. 174 Lloyd, On Every High Hill, p.34. 175 D.E. Jones, Report of 1898 cited in J.V. Hluna, Education and Missionaries in Mizoram, Guwahati, Spectrum Publications, 1992, p.53. 176 Lalhmuaka, Zoram Zirna, p.15. 177 D. E. Jones, Report of 1899, cited in J.V. Hluna, Education and Missionaries in Mizoram, Guwahati, Spectrum Publications, 1992, p.53. 178 C. Lianzawna, Mizoram Education Chanchin, Aizawl, H. Rokhumi, 1996, pp.4-5. 179 Hluna, p. 54. 180 Nagas are a group of hill people predominantly living in the mountainous region of the Naga Hills, which today is known as . Some Nagas lived in the Lushai Hills during the colonial times. 7

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Bengali medium schools in Aizawl, Lunglei and Demagiri.181 The first Lower Primary Exam was held in 1901 where out of twenty-five candidates, nineteen students including two girls passed the exam. By 1903, there were fifteen mission schools both in Aizawl and in rural areas where three schools; Thakthing, Hriangmual and Rahsi Veng had lady teachers: Saii, Nui and Pawngi respectively. There were twenty students on the roll and they were mostly girls.182 Katie Jones wrote to her friends in Wales about how girls’ school began in Aizawl. She remembered soon after her arrival in Aizawl in 1904, her four rooms thatched house was packed with Lushai (Mizo) women smoking pipes and squatting on the floor, who before long became her friends and told her of their troubles and sicknesses. The young girls had nothing to do, so they often came to her to learn though women were more reluctant as they felt they would not be able to learn anything, as they were not used to learning. They also could not see what good it would do them but finally agreed to come to her once a week as they enjoyed listening to her stories.183

Prior to the arrival of the colonial government in Mizoram, the Mizos had a semi nomadic living with each village functioning like a little republic and every village was a separate state, ruled over by its own Lal or chief.184 The village was a well- organised unit and more or less self-sufficient. The life of an individual and his or her life happened within the precincts of the village. For a child, his or her childhood therefore revolved around family, friends, village and surrounding forests. One child’s experience of childhood could not be much further away from the other children in the village. In the absence of organised learning, whatever the child learnt was defined by what was taught in the family and in the village community. There was a marked difference between what boys and girls learnt at home and outside due to the gender based division of labour in adulthood. 185 When schooling was

181 Lianzawna, Mizoram Education, pp.16-17, 29. Also Lalzuia Kawlni, Mizoram Education. Chapter V in Mizoram Kum 100- Kum 100 Chhunga Mizote Awmdan, Published by SLPB for Zoram Writers Club, 1996. 182 Hluna, p. 56. 183 Jones, ‘The Women of Lushais’: 1904. 184 Lt. Col. J. Shakepeare, The Lushei Kuki Clans, Aizawl, Tribal Research Institute, 2008 (3rd Reprint), p. 42. 185 Thomas, pp. 13-14. 7

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introduced in the Lushai Hills, the traditional village organisation had enormous influence on the way education was made available to the people. The Christian ideals of the missionaries had also defined the way education was received by the Mizo children and one of their goals was reaching out to every section of the society.

Once in the classroom, the actual practise of education was complex for both the students and the teachers. Therefore, it is difficult to discern which section of the society gets more advantage over the others in terms of access to education in the early phase of schooling but what we do know is the advantage of geography or location. There were two types of schools: mission and government schools (that barely functioned until India’s independence). Government schools were less interested in opening education to the general public due to lack of keenness in educating the masses and limited funding. The mission schools targeted a larger audience of the general public, attempting to reach out as far and wide as possible with their primary goal of spreading the gospel. Despite this, those who live in the administrative centres or in close proximity to the centres were the first ones to receive education. They were the first to have benefitted from the mission education. Except for the government run schools in Lunglei and that were Bengali medium, education was confined to the North Lushai Hills till 1903 when Lorrain and Savidge returned to Lushai Hills and started a mission station at Serkawn, just outside Lunglei in the South Lushai Hills.

For an understanding on who actually took the most advantage of education, the Centre-periphery theory is highly relevant in the Mizo case. The centre–periphery (or core–periphery) model is a spatial metaphor, which describes and attempts to explain the structural relationship between the advanced or metropolitan ‘centre’ and a less developed ‘periphery’. Schools were set up on this basis of centre and periphery and this was more pronounced in the case of the Lushai Hills. The district itself was in the periphery both in terms of geography and in educational development in the context of the whole of colonial India. Roads were not well developed, absence of public transport and poor connectivity between villages and towns made it all the more difficult to have an efficient system of networks. Bell Hooks, in her Centre- 7

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Margin theory looks at the consolidation of power and knowledge in the centre and suggested that it is the responsibility of the centre to move out into the margins.186 There was a limit to which the periphery could move to the centre. This theory works at different levels in the way education in the Lushai Hills could be understood. The introduction of education first and foremost may not bring the centre in the colonial Indian periphery of the Lushai Hills, but it opened doors of connection with the centre by means of exchange of knowledge and language. A connection was built and this bringing in of education enabled students to join educational centres in other parts of India like Shillong, Guwahati, Jorhat, Syhlet, Allahabad, Silchar and Calcutta to pursue further studies and they brought home what they had learned at the centre. Although, the number of students who got to pursue further studies outside the Lushai Hills was extremely small, but their influence was no doubt far from minuscule. In a photo described as taken in 1906, there were eight Mizo students studying in Shillong.187 Two female students, Nui and Lili also went to Calcutta to study ‘medicine’ in December 1905 and later in 1919, Kaithuami and Laii also went to Shillong to study nursing188 and this is noteworthy as it was not only men who pursued education beyond the hills. Although the exact numbers of students who went outside Mizoram for further studies are not known, there was a steady increase in their numbers, especially in the 1920s, which is evident from the numerous photos taken by them.189 So, we see exchanges happening between the centre and the periphery. Even within the Lushai Hills itself, numerous attempts were made to bridge the gap between the centre and periphery by opening schools in rural areas too. But the quality of education and school experiences could not be the same with the towns and mission centres. This was mainly due to shortage of better- qualified teachers and resources for sustaining quality education. One of the radical attempts to bridge the centre-periphery divide was seen in girls’ education in the South Lushai Hills. We see a literal geographical and ideological shift and extension

186 Hazel T. Biana, ‘Extending Bell Hooks’ Feminist Theory’, Journal of International Women’s Studies, vol. 21, no. 1, February 2020, p. 12, https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2207&context=jiws, (accessed 10 September 2010). 187 Pachuau and Schendel, p. 97. 188 Pachuau and Schendel, p. 98. 189 Pachuau and Schendel, pp. 99- 102.

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of a learning space from the centre into the margins at Darzo village with E.M. Chapman’s experimentation.190 Not only in terms of geography, but also in the knowledge that was taught in the schools, we also see a shift in the official knowledge from time to time. This was done to be in sync with the colonial Indian centre, and official knowledge too needed to adjust itself with the changing needs of the people. This makes it clear that the centre needs to be dynamic and it never always sits quiet and calm. There is a dynamic sustenance of its place and position. The shift from the centre to the margin is always a radical act and it is never without opposition. The margin does not always wholly appreciate the shift either. For instance, the shifting of girls’ school from Serkawn to Darzo was not all a smooth sail for Chapman and her girls. It was not a shift that could be sustained for long due to various reasons and majorly for lack of resources.191 How far did this centre shift happened beyond the physical space is also another strand worthy of consideration. The setting up of temporary schools and the opening of village schools in rural areas by Mizo teachers were attempts made by the Welsh Mission to move out into the margins too. Due to financial constraints and scant resources, the attempts were thwarted many times. In villages where opening of school was not possible, Sunday schools were made use of and acted as a place of learning especially for women.192 So, this suggested that the missions’ movement further out into the periphery was their attempt to make basic reading and writing skills available to the general public as fast as possible and in that attempt the sacred space of religion - Sunday school- was used for the development of the profane realm of education.

Boys, girls and adults enrolled in mission schools right from the early phase of the introduction of education in the Lushai Hills, though the rate of girls enrolment was not as high given the nature of their position in the society and their usefulness at home. Learning in school was not confined to the Mizo children alone as we see from Edwin Rowlands Report of 1902 suggesting that it was inclusive as Nagas were

190 E.M. Chapman, Letter: May 1935, [BMS: IN/112]. 191 Chapman, Letter: May 1935. 192 Anderson, ‘Lushai Visit Report’: 1913.

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taught too193 and this inclusiveness continued even well into the 1940s. We read that Kawnpui village had Gorkha students as well.194 But the colonial government did prioritise the education of the children of Mizo chiefs. In 1898, Maj. John Shakespear, superintendent of Lushai Hills built small houses near the Fort in Aizawl and every chief who came in to study was provided with free boards and lodging for three months.195 The government showed more interest in educating the sons of the chiefs because they were the future leaders of the villages and wanted to give them proper training. In Kalijoy’s report of 1898, we also see that ‘rations were issued to twelve students, ten were sons of Lals (chiefs) and two were commoners’.196

Though the colonial government showed greater interest in the education of the traditional elites and offered them incentives to study, the mission schools with their goal of educating and evangelising the masses did not show favouritism as to who should attend schools. With their Christian ideals and missionary zeal, it was the lowest rung of the society that benefitted greatly from the mission education too. They also extend their work of education with the opening of orphanages and the missionaries also welcomed motherless babies in their fold even before opening of these homes. Though some girls had joined in the pursuit of education from its inception in the Lushai Hills, due to the society’s aversion towards female education in the early days, the number of girl students in comparison to boys was always quite small. This ultimately led to the opening of girls’ school with separate curriculum both in Aizawl and Serkawn Mission schools but they all sat for similar qualifying exams. In lower primary and class six exam, apart from the regular exam based on book knowledge, girls’ exam in Aizawl and Durtlang included sewing flannel patch, calico patch, sewing buttons and buttonholes, tucks and baby coats.197 Prior to the opening of

193 Hluna, p. 54. 194 J.M. Lloyd Library & Archives, Aizawl Theological College Archive, North Lushai Hills Welsh Mission School Inspection Report, 1941. 195 Thomas Herbert Lewin, A fly on the Wheel: or, How I helped to govern India, London, Constable & Company Ltd., p. 317. Also available from https://archive.org/details/flyonwheelorhowi00lewiiala/page/316. 196Hluna, p. 6. 197 Pu Dia Sap (Rev. F.J. Sandy), ‘Hmarchan Mission Committee Hriattirna (Skul Examnate)’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Bu, April, 1926, p. 74.

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Serkawn Girls School in the South Lushai Hills, the mission school in Serkawn catered to the needs of the boys alone. The school focused on training bright young boys who would be the future leaders while Mrs. Lorrain and Mrs. Savidge informally taught girls mainly domestic science.

In the 1901 census, there were 82,434 people in the whole of the Lushai Hills with 0.92% literacy rate (732 persons). But this figure soon rose to 4.41% in 1911 and to 6.28 in 1921. The biggest jump during the colonial times happened between 1931 and 1941 where it jumped from 10.54% to 19.50.198 This showed the gradual growth of interest among Mizo parents to send their children to school. This quick jump in the rate of literacy among the Mizos could be accorded with the spread of Christianity as ‘the rate of conversion closely followed the rate of the spread of education among the people’.199 C. Nunthara also argues:

Non- Christians in the beginning were inhibited to attend mission schools because they considered Christianity to be a challenge of the Mizo traditional way of life. Mainly as a result of this, the traditional elites, comprising of the chiefs and their close followers to the new religion and the new education. As such, members of the commoners were the first to be attracted to the Western type of education decidedly because they were the early converts.200

So, this suggests that the non- elites in traditional Mizo Society easily added to the literacy rate en masse and also explains the colonial government’s enthusiasm in promoting and supporting the education of the traditional elites. This argument further opens up the possibility of the influence that an educated or a Christian chief would have had in the spread of both education and Christianity in their villages.

198 K.L. Rokhuma, ‘Mizoram Malsawmna- Chanchintha leh Zirna Zar’, Serkawn Sikulpui 100 yrs Centenary Souvenir, Serkawn, Souvenir Committee, 2003, p. 125. 199 C. Nunthara, Mizoram Society and Polity, Delhi, Indus Publishing Company, 1996, p.37. 200 Nunthara, Mizoram Society, p.37.

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3.2 Educating the mind and training the body

People’s first experience of a new system is often profoundly alienating. For Mizo students who had no prior experience of an organized and disciplined learning, it was but a struggle to conform to the needs of schooling practices. The Mizo society did not organize around book learning and written knowledge system but more on the experiential daily reality. Information and knowledge were passed on through oral tradition and alphabets and reading and writing were but strange for them. The way they experienced their daily lives and the way to deal with it were passed on from one generation to the next and the required skills to earn their livelihood and social capital, to some extent was hereditary. Those that could be acquired were done within the village unit through a system of traditional learning where family and village community played crucial roles. Largely, the village community shouldered the responsibility of training young people in its culture and customs and that was not professionalized. The coming of schooling system ushered in a new era of professionalization of learning and the missionaries and colonial authorities held the fulcrum. Soon, the missionaries were given the rein over education in the Lushai Hills and this was done in the hope to spread western ‘light and knowledge’.201

The training ground for young Mizo minds was shifted gradually into the school classrooms and Sunday schools. In the absence of a village school, Sunday school played a crucial role in this training and in the spread of reading and writing skills. The Mizos did not have much problem being enrolled in the school, but they struggled to be good students, which entailed obeying the teachers, read and write as instructed and be on time. In their enthusiasm, some students wanted to study rapidly and did not want to follow the pace of their teachers and classmates and were mischievous in the school.202 This showed the problems Mizo students had in adjusting to the school system which was all alien to them. Students were seen as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge and that it was deemed equally important

201 Hluna, p. 67. 202 K.K. Leta, ‘Skul Naupang Thu’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha. VI, April 1903, pp. 9- 10.

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to remove the information that was already registered in their minds.203 J.N. Sarma in Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, 1904 wrote that the Mizo mind has always been so easily satisfied by just knowing how to read and write and did not strive to acquire more knowledge and excellence and hence needed to be rigorously trained.204 In a society that had always favoured co-operative or collective work, which is evident from practices of lawmrawih 205, the idea of personal excellence and achievement was a concept that might have been difficult to absorb readily. The desire to be at par with others and the idea of tlawmngaihna might have stood in the way of desiring excellence in their schoolwork. Because of the communal nature of the social structure, the Mizos were often reminded that each student could learn only for himself/ herself and not for the whole community.206 Not only were the Mizo students taught in the modern education system, attempts were made to reorient their perception of knowledge. And this could not be achieved easily as it entailed a paradigm shift in the way life was envisaged. However, it is crucial at this juncture to note that though the minds of Mizo children were the first site of struggle, it was the site that needed to be cleared for the nurturing of a modern Mizo Christian identity. This was done through pedagogy, socialization in school, discipline and school curriculum, however, the need for the development and nurturing of the minds of female students was subtly unrecognized. This was evident from the kind of courses that were taught to women. For female students, from the very early days of the introduction of education, nurturing the minds was never given as much attention as it was for the boys. Girls were trained in cookery, garment making, scripture, singing, and hygiene. It was always thought that the aim of girls’ education should be to make enlightened wives and mothers.207 It was not that there was a complete lack of book knowledge as they had to sit for the same exam as boys but getting

203 No Author, ‘Zirtirna Thu’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha. I, January 1905, pp. 5-7. 204 J.N. Sarma, ‘Hmantlaktiti (mizo zawng zawng en bik tur)’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha. II, January 1904, pp. 12-14. 205 lâwm,(v. tr). to assist a person in any kind of work or occupation in exchange for similar assistance received or to be received and ruai, (rawih),(v). to employ, to hire, to use, to make use of, to resort to the use of. So, lawmrawih is a part of a typical Mizo farming practice where people exchange labour in times when there was a need for intensive labour. 206 Chawnga ‘Tunlai dan lo awm, Skul Thu’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha. II, January1904, p. 3. 207 Jones, Letter to Superintendent of Lushai Hills: April 1916. 8

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qualifications to find jobs was not of utmost importance for the girls as it was for the boys who would grow up to be bread earners for their families. On the part of the missionaries and the colonial government, they were cautious about how girls were educated. Introducing education was radical enough and some girls joined schools along with the boys. So, they followed the existing trajectory of traditional society and offered to train the girls to be as useful as could be. It is also helpful to look back on the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century and see that the lives of female and children in different parts of the world were more attached to home and it is therefore not strange that it was replicated in education in the Lushai Hills.

It is also important to recognise that education was not the top priority of the Christian mission agencies in the Lushai Hills, it was a means to an end. It was only after they had arrived in the Lushai Hills that they were given the responsibility of looking after the educational side of the Mizos. Most of the missionaries were not trained teachers and had no experience of teaching or having worked in educational enterprise prior to their arrival in the Lushai Hills. Besides that, the amount of money that could be earmarked for education was always wanting and the sum that was available from the colonial government who was first responsible for educating the Mizos was limited too. So, the problem of funding always stood in the way especially for the girls both in the North and South Lushai Hills. For preparation of land and construction of mission school for girls in Aizawl, for instance, Kitty Lewis, a Welsh missionary who was in charge of girls’ education paid a huge sum from her own pocket. The question of education for the development of career for women was extremely far away from the aim of those in charge of maintaining education. This greatly showcases the views of Mizo society towards female in general and female education in particular. It is as good as explicitly stating that developing female’s intellect was secondary. This idea was not confined to the Lushai Hills but also visible in colonial experiences elsewhere. For instance, the case of the Botswana women in southern Africa informs us that although important inroads were already made towards the integration of women into formal schooling by the end of the 19th 8

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century, their education was confined to the domestic arena too.208 In the case of the Botswana women, the main concern of training women was to become Christian ‘partners’ for the men, to be able to set up a Christian household based on civilized principles and practices. With the spread of Christian education and Christianity taking hold of their communities, there was a growth of women’s education too but that was channeled with care towards the promotion of Victorian ideals. 209 We find the same case playing out among the Mizo Christians, which sometimes resulted in hostile confrontations and encounters too. But it is also important to note here that, the perpetrators of violence were never women themselves but educated Mizo men not so much for the demand of improving the quality of girls’ education but unsatisfied with women’s authority in education. For instance, during a teachers’ conference in Serkawn, some of the Mizo teachers (men) showed displeasure towards the existing female education in the South Lushai Hills 210 and there were cases of the girls’ school in-charge missionaries E.M. Chapman and M. Clark’s house pelted at night and threatening letters sent to them, demanding they cleared out of Serkawn as soon as possible.211 The female students in their own right did not show displeasure towards the way female education was handled. So it is hard to know what really was the issue for the girl students. Did they need the men to speak for them, to stand up for them and raise their issue in their place? On the other hand, we also need to ask if that was really what the female students wanted or was it just the educated Mizo men’s struggle for power to control education of the girls. Either way, their struggle was real at various levels, we see the fight against the authority of female missionaries who were considered to be unsympathetic to the Mizos, a clash of egos and gender roles. It also shows the empowered nature of the teachers in having the courage to speak out about it during teachers’ conference.

208 Lily Mafela, ‘The Basis for Missionary Education of Batswana Women to the End of the 19th Century’, Botswana Notes and Records, Vol. 26, 1994, p. 87. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 5 August 2019). 209 Mafela, Botswana Notes and Records, p. 89. 210 Chapman, Letter: November 1928. 211 Lalhlimpuii Pachuau and Lalngurliana Sailo, ‘E.M. Chapman’s Contribution towards Female Education in the South Lushai Hills’, Mizoram University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol. V, Issue 1, June 2019, p.126. 8

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On the other hand, the desire to develop the mental faculties of male students and the focus that it got is interesting. The most rigorous example we see is one practiced by Savidge and Lorrain for their schoolboys at Serkawn where boys were trained to become a new breed of Mizo Christian gentlemen following the path of elite public school system as was practised in England. Obedience, diligence and physical fitness, hygiene and reading were enormously stressed upon. A new form of masculinity was developed where punctuality, cleanliness and good conduct were encouraged. This was different from the way traditional masculinity was organised based on qualities of bravery, hunting skills and tlawmngaihna. In later years, St John’s ambulance course was also introduced in Serkawn Boys School. The school based itself on the motto deeply immersed in hard work and excellence:

Do your work everyday as if you were going to live forever, live everyday as if you were going to die tomorrow. Remember only our best is good enough for God.212

This could be viewed as an important social experiment for the missionaries to prove it to the world and to the colonial administration what their work could achieve. There was a sense of resilience and the ability to create something out of almost nothing especially with Savidge’s aim to bring to his boys what he thought would be the best kind of education possible even if the government was not providing higher education for the Mizos due to scarcity of funds and lack of willingness. If we look at the whole educational enterprise in the Lushai Hills, some part of funding was available from the government but it was always minimal. In 1901, Col. J. Shakespear proposed to make an annual grant of Rs. 1080 to the Welsh mission in aid of school at Aizawl and Rs. 200 for the construction of school building, this was declined by the Chief Commissioner and sanctioned only Rs. 50 per mensem and Rs. 200 for building school house.213 So, financial matter was always at the heart of the education system in the Lushai Hills throughout the colonial period and this was the very reason why education was at the hands of the Christian missionaries with limited funding from the colonial government. This,

212 Savidge, Station Report: 1923. 213 Hluna, p. 68. 8

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therefore stood in the way of spreading education in the periphery as quickly as the Mizos and the missionaries wanted, and the desire for higher education was at a standstill for half a century although there could be other arguments for the slow growth of higher qualifications.

Educating the mind was only half work and it came to full circle with the training of the young Mizo body. There were numerous written records where we find the importance given to the disciplining of the body in order to dominate and fashion Mizo children in a new way. This is not just about teaching people how to read and write and give them a new knowledge but also about how their bodily conduct would shape them into a new identity; a creation of new personhood. Disciplining of the body was important in sustaining the new identity and it was an outward representation of the changes that happened within. So, it was an important symbolism and a visible sign for all to see. The process of bodily training started with registering their names on a roll sheet. For the first time in their lives, their names were written and recorded. They were primarily addressed as individuals not as someone’s son, daughter, sister or brother. Their daily attendance was recorded and this created a system wherein their presence and absence made a difference. They were known for themselves, they were subjects of school system; they were to be taught as individuals and were reoriented to work both as individuals and as groups within the classroom. This gave them a new sense of self-worth and identity. By putting it in a written form, their names were crystallised and given a new meaning, a new importance was created for groups of students. A space for sameness of children from different background was created. They were taught similar textbooks; they were barred by school timings. Unlike in Aizawl and Serkawn, where boys and girl’s education were well demarcated, in village primary schools, both boys and girls were taught in the same space and they shared similar school experiences. We could see this from students roll sheet of different villages from school inspection reports.214 This began the narrowing of traditional gender based learning within the school classroom, leading to equalisation of knowledge for both

214 Inspectors, ‘North Lushai Hills Welsh Mission School Inspection Report : 1929-1945’, J.M. Lloyd Library & Archives, Aizawl Theological College Archive. 8

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male and female to a certain extend. But at Serkawn and Aizawl Mission Schools, some features of traditional identities were re-established by the very system that offered them mobility. For instance, girls and boys’ learning spaces were demarcated by separate school buildings and designated curriculum based on gender. However, once they moved out of the school classroom, the traditional gender based division of labour continued. Because tradition was so strong, as education developed in the Lushai Hills, in mission headquarters in Serkawn and Aizawl, separate Girls’ school were opened in 1910 and 1914 respectively. This was also done in the hope that more girls would come to school and be trained in a new Mizo Christian womanhood which was chalked out and in line with their traditional roles in the family and society. At this point, it is worth noting that education and socialisation were often seen as going hand in hand. Truly, education is an agent of socialisation but all education is not socialisation. Some forms of learning are not relevant or necessary for participation in given social roles. However, missionary education in the Lushai Hills was aimed at better role performances especially for women folks.215

Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu of April 1905 stressed the importance of keeping the minds of the students engaged with activities during school hour. Their minds should be kept occupied in the class room even if the teacher cannot teach them directly at all times. This was considered crucial, as there was a deep fear of their minds going towards other things and that children were to be taught and to be filled with knowledge.216 Rigorous time table and instructions in reality might not have been followed as is evident from school inspections report where some teachers were reported to miss class and found lazy and un-enterprising. But this was one of the ideals of the mission school system and having this sort of ideal reflects the system though praxis might have been different. Be it arithmetic, reading, writing, geography, a student’s whole day was to be regimented in this new system. Schools were opened in the villages on experimental basis and some young educated Mizos were sent out as temporary or probationary teachers. But the mission was also

215 C. Hermana, Mizoram Zirna Pa (Pu Chawnga Chanchin), Aizawl: Standard Press 2002, p. 4. 216 Zosapthara, ‘Skul Hotute Chan (Pawl Thu)’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha.IV, April 1905, pp.1-3.

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worried they wouldn’t know or lack the art of disciplining. So, in the South Lushai Hills, they decided to concentrate in and around Lunglei.217 In this way, it was easier for the missionaries to keep an eye and check on the teachers and the schools. It also meant the scant resources used for education would not go to waste. The Mizos were considered wild and unruly; the need for control and discipline was extremely strong when new knowledge system was introduced. Rev. Dr. C.L. Hminga when writing about Serkawn School also wrote that discipline was at the mind and heart of Serkawn School.218 But it was always a struggle to connect the ideal discipline of the schooling system and the students who had trouble adjusting to a western concept of discipline in schools. One such example is evident from a letter by Katie Jones, a lady missionary of the North Lushai Hills where she wrote that the girls moved in herd and attendance to her informal school was good or nothing at all.219 This suggests how attached the girls were to their groups and the need for doing things together as a group. This idea that Mizos fare very well in groups or community is what we will keep on seeing as the chapter progresses. Being comfortable in a group and not wanting to be left out is no doubt one of the reasons for the rapid growth of education among the Mizos towards the mid-20th century. The entertaining value of being in close proximity to the white missionaries who for the Mizos were as exotic as they were for them, their queer lifestyle, conduct and language and the many foreign articles they brought with them too were an attraction for the Mizos.

However, the nature in which changes came and the intensity of it is often beyond the control of those in power. In the case of the Lushai Hills, the government showed very little interest in educating the people as is evident from the Political Officer of the North Lushai Hills, A. Porteous’ dispatch written in 1897:

I desire to point out that, although it is now seven years since Aijal was occupied, nothing whatever has yet been done by the Government in way of the commencing to educate the Lushais.220

217 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1905, [BMS: IN/ 113]. 218 Rev. Dr. C.L. Hminga, ‘Sikulpui leh Discipline’, Serkawn Sikulpui 100 yrs Centenary Souvenir, Serkawn, Souvenir Committee, p. 119. 219 Jones, ‘The Women of Lushais’: 1904. 220 Hluna, p. 57.

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In the same year he submitted a proposal to the Secretary of the Chief Commissioner of Assam for sanctioning a grant for the establishment of one school for the benefit of the Mizo Children.221 It was not until the government took the initiative to open a school and funds were allocated that education could not make headway to change society though the missionaries started an informal education in 1894. Even then, the missionaries could do what they did only in conjunction with the colonial government’s desire and approval. So, it fell on the missionaries to work with what was available in their hands and to make the best of the scant resources available to them and working on the minds of the young students and disciplining the body was the area they attempted to excel in. At the heart of education of Mizo children, we see the call for obedience to the teachers and authority and this in turn could be connected with the colonial government’s desire for complete submission of the subjects they ruled. The idea of submission to the new authority was taught through the children as well. Leta also highlighted this theme in Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu where he wrote that even Sailos, the most popular ruling clan needed to obey the new authority. 222 Seemingly inconsequential and minute details were instructed to maintain discipline in school, which would turn them into better citizens. So, how all these had bearings on the Mizo society is important to consider, even if it may be extremely limited at this stage as showcased in the following passages.

3.3. The quest for change and the new order

There is a complex relationship between education and society resulting in numerous changes in social structure and daily practices. Education brings about this

221 Hluna, p. 57. 222 Leta, Khiangte Khupchhung, ‘Mahni Malchunga Sachan Thu’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha. I, March 1903, pp. 1-3.

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change in a peaceful manner through the socialisation of the younger generation.223 This is the most important reason why understanding children and childhood is crucial to have meaningful insight into education and how that changed societies. The Mizo society saw tremendous changes beginning at the end of the 19th century with the coming of colonisation. The introduction of education to the masses with the arrival of the Christian missionaries accelerated social change. According to B.V. Shah, there are three ways in which the relationship between education and social change can be studied:

1) Education as a conserver of traditions: According to this view, education functions as a means of conserving tradition by training the intellect, transmitting worthwhile cultural heritage and adjusting young people to society as it is. This view regards education only as an institution of learning and is against turning it into an agency of reform.

2) Education as an agent of social change: This view highlights the positive and transforming nature of education and its capacity to rebuild society through young learners. It also criticizes the view that change is universal and inevitable but has to be planned and firmly executed

3) Education as a cooperative force in social change: This view sees education as a supporting actor in the process of social change, not purely as a conserver of tradition nor prime mover in social change. Ottaway argues that education can produce changes in culture and society only under orders from those in power. It is a force, which supports and develops the changes in social aims already decided by those in power, but it does not initiate the changes.224

From Shah’s model, education in the Lushai Hills under the Christian missionaries acted as a cooperative force in social change and was also a way of

223 B.V. Shah, ‘Education and Social Change Among Tribals in India’, Sociological Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 1 / 2, March and September 1979, p. 25. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 16 May 2018). 224 Andrew Kenneth Cosway Ottaway, Education and Society: An Introduction to the Sociology of Education, 1953, cited in B.V. Shah,‘Education and Social Change Among Tribals in India’, Sociological Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 1/2 (March and September 1979), Indian Sociological Society, p.28. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 16 May 2018).

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conserving tradition. This requires qualification as it raises the question of who decides what to conserve. Physical and intellectual structures have been studied extensively and they are the ones dominating the space of enquiry. But we need to look at beyond these structures and see the nitty-gritties of everyday practices. The human subject is critical to the study of education, but it has been greatly neglected in the study of education. The child and the young adult who are part of the education system need to be understood. How is the child affected and being constituted by education should be a question raised? Both educational practice (the structure) and the living, experiencing, embodied human subject’s relation to it needs to be studied. Education is about how a particular kind of social self comes into being. The identity is played out in an institutional setting through the process of education. The school has physical and intellectual, as well as moral and symbolic (the hidden curriculum) spaces. This is where socialization takes place and identities are constructed and differentiated. These spaces are constituted differently in different schools, but every single school has a moral and symbolic space, and not just Christian mission schools or madrasas but also modern secular institutions. As we retrospect, it is worth mentioning here that religious run schools are considered to have hidden agendas whereas non-religious schools are often portrayed as neutral grounds. But the case in reality seem to be not that simple as all schools are deeply embedded in certain ideologies which are communicated and propagated through overt and covert practices in the schools and through socialisation within schools. This became a space of forging new ideals, identities and values. So, we can put to rest the struggle to prove whether mission schools in the Lushai Hills had hidden agenda or not. It is a recurring theme in this thesis that the missionaries had agenda beyond spreading literacy and that is not even a hidden one but they were open about it. To study mission education just to point out that they had cultural or religious agenda is an impotent attempt. But to look at the process of engagements seem more beneficial.

Taking on from there, looking at the case of the Mizos, we see realignment of values, roles and relationships in various aspects of the traditional life. Mizo children were at the forefront of receiving and internalizing this new way of life on a daily

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basis in their schools. How the Mizos perceived the world they lived in and their very culture and social structure were bound to face enormous reorganization not only because of the kind of education introduced to them, but also due to the introduction of Christianity, both of which went hand in hand. This was in the face of an encounter with British colonialism resulting in the opening of the floodgates of modernity with all its paraphernalia with education being one of its most potent tools. Children were not given prime spots in the traditional Mizo society and hence the intricacies of the creation of their identity as students, the ways in which that was formed, the process of how they negotiated with the new education system has not drawn attention strongly enough.

This is the case not only with the Mizos in the early 20th century but other tribal groups in Asia and Africa. It is so crucial to look at the human subject, especially a young student as he/ she receives and reproduces knowledge, practices and culture for the future generation. The school going child is the one who comes in closest contact to instruments of change like education and internalizes it. A child’s whole being is immersed in what education offered. However, to assume that a child responds with passivity would be completely preposterous. A child’s agency in the context of classroom, in interactions with legitimate knowledge and with hidden curriculum needs to be recognized as well. A human child is never a passive recipient of knowledge offered to him/her. A child is more complex than that. The dominating narrative of change fails to address a child’s ability to think for himself/ herself and the complex practices that it has already learned at home and in the community. In her study of education system in Swaziland in Southern Africa, Margareth Zoller Booth argues:

…(home) environment has by far the greatest influence on the child’s ability and desire to attend school, to progress at the appropriate rate and to use the knowledge acquired in the classroom to best advantage.225

225 Margaret Zoller Booth, ‘Western Schooling and Traditional Society in Swaziland’, Comparative Education, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Nov., 1997), Taylor & Francis, Ltd., p. 443. Available from: JSTOR, (accessed 3 September 2019). 9

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This suggests the strong influence of home environment on a child’s development and his/her relationship with school and the knowledge it produces. Booth continues to argue that in post colonial Africa, there is a disjunction between the school and home and a child had to cross between these two spaces and make connections despite the lack there of. She calls this the cross between two cultures, which the African students had to do on a daily basis.226

The Mizo case towards the end of the colonial period and in the post-colonial set up was not alien to the African case as the traditional home continued to have the strongest influence on a child. This is evident from the fact that many students became hardworking and strived towards success not only for individual benefit, but also for his/her family primarily, for the village where he/she belongs, for the whole Mizo society and lastly for him/ herself. The achievement of a student became the achievement of the parents, the village and the whole Mizo community. Lalkailuia Sailo, S/o Lalluaia Sailo, Chief of was the first Mizo to obtain a B.A. degree in 1926. It was a milestone for the Mizos in education and during the celebration function, Lalkailuia Sailo stressed that it was because of the joint effort of his village, their contributions that allowed him to study in Shillong and Calcutta and his degree was possible only because of them and if he had got a job, it would not be for his own benefit and comfort but for ‘our land and tribe’.227

The human subject therefore primarily understood himself/ herself mainly in relation to the community where the village unit played a dominant role. Before the coming of colonial government, villages functioned like what Sir Charles Metcalfe called little republics and a village’s hold on one’s life was extremely strong. With the change in the administration system of the Lushai Hills and with the consolidation of power under the British government, tribal identity began to take shape and grew stronger as Mizos were exposed to the larger world outside their hills. So, the achievement of an individual became the achievement of one’s village and also the whole Mizo community. This could have encouraged Mizo parents to

226 Booth, Comparative Education, p. 433. 227 Suakkunga, ‘Lalkailuia B.A. Pass Lawmna’, Mizo lehVaiChanchinbu, Bu. 8 na, August 1926, p. 172. 9

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send their children to school and it could be the reason why they were willing to go great lengths and sacrificed themselves because by educating their children, they not only attempted to secure a good and prosperous future for the children, but for the larger community of Mizos at the village or district level. So, the goal that parents set out for children became the main aim for children too.

Obedience and submission to authority has always been part of the core qualities that the Mizos admire and strived for. Obedience towards parents and elders and submission to the authority of the chiefs was something that a Mizo child grew up with. It was a quality that was celebrated and held in high esteem and this very quality is considered to be the reason for success along with hard work. They banked on the universal good sense of those in authority and what was taught in schools.228 While commenting on Lalkailuia’s success, his old teacher remembered him as the most obedient pupil and that led him to success.229 The quality of obedience reverberated again and again as a student was expected to be obedient in order to succeed. Obedience and submission towards the teachers and authority was what the schools stressed on. The Baptist missionaries in Lunglei also commented that

…a splendid character of a Lushai is obedience and this is something he learnt at a very young age. At this time round, seven Lushais are in the Government High School in Shillong and the headmaster commended on their obedience and diligence…Some of the boys at Serkawn has also left school during the year to take government jobs and their reports are exemplary.230

3.4 The road to modernity

There is a recurring question of the reason for the Mizos to readily send their children to school and the answer for this could be because the Mizos tried to achieve changkanna and hmasawnna. They are both more or less synonymous and they entail the idea of progress, development, modernity and moving forward and

228 Note: Throughout Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu, obedience and respect for elders are recurring themes, considered to be an intrinsic quality of the Mizo society. 229 Suakkunga, ‘Lalkailuia B.A. Pass Lawmna’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu, Bu. 8 na, August 1926, pp. 171-173. 230 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1908, [BMS: IN/ 112]. 9

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ahead in life. And for the Mizos, achieving the state of being changkang and hmasawn was at the heart of their desire for education and they considered the colonial government and the culture that it brought as one capable of helping them reach those states.

The desire for education grew rapidly both in the North and the South Lushai Hills. By 1934, in the South Lushai Hills there was a marked increase in the number of students applying to school. Some boys were even willing to pay not just the tuition fees but also boarding fees.231 In the race for modernity, development and progress, Mizo children were the first group to have encountered and interacted with the new modern education system. Their world was completely realigned with new experiences and life expectations that education promised. But the desire for education was aimed mainly for the Mizo boys and the girls were more like an after- thought. Mizo students became the vehicle of change in the society; their body became a site of cultural conflict and contestations between traditional Mizo practices and beliefs and modernity brought by education at some instances but at the same time, a shrine that preserves tradition.

At this point, it is inevitable to ask the question, why was the race for modernity so rapid and strong? There is no easy answer to this question and numerous factors would have been at work among which one that stands out is the concept of thangchhuah and a future in pialral and the place that it occupied in Mizo life experiences and expectations. Thangchhuah was the highest possible social achievement for the Mizos with direct spiritual consequences. There were two kinds of Thangchhuah: In lama Thangchhuah (performed at home) and Ram lama Thangchhuah (performed in the forest). There were six sacrificial feasts that one had to perform in order to complete In lama Thangchhuah. These six feasts were Sakung, Chawng, Sedawi Chhun, Mitthi Rawphan and Khuangchawi. Sakung is performed to establish religion for the family who were aiming for thangchhuah title. A Sadawt 232 would perform sacrifice asking for blessings and protection for the family. Here, castrated pig is the required animal for sacrifice. Chawng is another sacrifice

231 F.J. Raper, Station Report: 1934, [BMS: IN/ 113]. 232 A private exorcist or priest, especially such as are employed by ruling chiefs. 9

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performed by the Sadawt and it is followed by four days of feasting and feeding the entire village. Sedawi Chhun also lasts for four days, the first day for repairing of the house, the second for drinking rice beer, the third days for community feast and the final day for slaughtering sacrificial animal. Mitthi Rawphan is done to honour ancestors and it lasts for four days and it required the killing of sacrificial animal, which was used for feasting at the end of the ceremony. Khuangchawi is the final requirement and it also lasts for four days. It involved the worship of sakhua233 or spirits by slaughtering three mithuns, two pigs and two boars and a cow, which is reserved for children and distribution of gifts to the community. Sacrifice is offered to ‘khuanu’ 234 who could bless the community with health and wealth. The performer of Thangchhuah was given recognition by the community on the third day. Once, he finishes all the performances, sacrifices and feasts required, he is given the title, zawhzazo, which means the one who has completed all the prescribed activities and he becomes thangchhuahpa and his wife shares in his achievement so they both are given a place in pialral after they die. The other type of thangchhuah called Ram lama thangchhuah was the domain of brave hunters. There were prescribed animals that he has to kill in order to get the thangchhuah title. If he could kill all the animals prescribed like sai (elephant), tumpang (a kind of wild bison/wild buffalo), savawm (Himalayan black bear), zukchal (sambar), sanghal (wild boar) and vahluk (common flying squirrel).235 There are some authors like John Shakespear who writes that killing of man, rulngan (snake), muvanlai (a hawk which eats snakes) are in the prescribed list for achieving ram lama thangchhuah status.236

In both cases, the process for fulfilling the prescribed lists to achieve thangchhuah status was possible only for men and only very few people could perform all the requirements. Either a brave warrior or a wealthy man could only fulfill all the prescriptions and only those who achieve a thangchhuah status could have a place in pialral. If such was the case, Christianity offered mobility to a new pialral and

233 An object of worship, a god; ancient ancestors who are worshipped by the Mizos; the spirit who presides over the house or household; religion, religious rites and ceremonies. 234 A poetic name for God or Pathian. 235 K. Zawla, Mizo Pi Pute Leh An Thlah Te Chanchin, (5th Edition), Aizawl, Lalnipuii, 2011, pg. 42. 236 Lt. Col. J. Shakespeare, The Lushai Kuki Clans, (Third Reprint), Aizawl, Tribal Research Institute, 2008, pg. 63. 9

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education offered a new form of thangchhuah achievable for all sections of the society and for females too. Therefore, education and Christianity became extremely appealing for the Mizos as it offered them a better station in life and a grander place in death. So, the race for modernity and development had a spiritual undertone and touched upon the metaphysical map of the Mizos.

The race towards changkanna and hmasawnna was not without contestations and resistance, which sometimes played out in violence and aggression. But majority of it was passive and quiet resistance and a result of non-alignment with traditional ideals. According to Rev. Savidge of the South Lushai Hills, migration was a major problem that stood in the way of setting up schools in some villages. Though children wanted to learn in schools, it was difficult for their parents to remain in one place and let them go to school. They had to migrate in search of better livelihoods and food crops. Parents understood the advantages of learning but often could not make sacrifices.237 Traditional culture and economic practices did not always stand in binaries and oppositions. They often went hand in hand especially when the educational authorities appropriated a lot of traditional knowledge and values in the modern schooling system. However, there also were frequent instances like the one mentioned above when they just could not go together, but with the passage of time, the desire for progress and development gradually outweighed traditional practices. According to the mission report of South Lushai in 1910, this idea of modernity brought ‘order’ in the otherwise ‘chaotic’ existence of the Mizos where the mind is ‘a mixture of disorder and untidiness’.238 This is what the schools ‘tackled’ to tame to bring ‘order’ out of it through discipline. At Serkawn Boys’ School, the day started with manual work, a prayer service was compulsory part of their daily lives. The character and nature of keenness and diligence on the part of the boys was often commented upon and this made teaching interesting. During an inspection visit from the government, the orderliness, neatness and gentlemanliness of the students were noticed and appreciated and that was a sign of success for the mission in education. There was humility among the students, which included respect for authorities

237 Savidge, Station Report: 1908. 238 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1910, [BMS/ IN 112].

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without snobbery unlike in other places. 239

The process of education had many challenges for all parties involved but the challenges and struggles of the students are the least to be acknowledged and highlighted. The alienating experience of modern schooling for children brought up in traditional Mizo homes would have immense psychological effect. Apart from that, the physical struggles were real too. For instance, due to acute scarcity of rice, the entire school had to shift from Lunglei to Demagiri/Tlabung in 1912 for about two months where the weather was oppressive and it was a struggle with sandflies, mosquitoes and malarial fever. It would not have been surprising if the boys wanted to quit school but that was not to be the case. In fact, eleven students passed Upper Primary and nine students passed Lower Primary.240 ‘There’s a growing desire among the children to learn in schools and parents had come to sell their vegetables to buy books for their children’.241

The desire for education by then had become so strong that it was worth all the pain, the troubles and dangers that they had to face, for education was considered the only passage into modernity for the young Mizos in colonial Mizoram. A number of the chiefs are Serkawn old boys and that also greatly influenced and increased the desire for education.242 The thirst for knowledge was so great that the mission found it impossible to keep pace with them in translation work and twenty men engaged in translation work could not fulfill the requirements of their reading propensities. Middle English was the highest qualification in 1916 but that had to be stretched to Upper English where all the subjects were in English to enable them to read in English.243 All these thirst for knowledge and rigorous training paid off, as it was evident from the fact that the Mizos themselves could maintain the dispensary and the education front splendidly during the absence of Rev. Savidge on a furlough.244 It was not only the boys who grew in leaps and bounds but the girls too. There were

239 Savidge, Station Report: 1910. 240 Savidge, Station Report: 1912. 241 Savidge, Station Report: 1914. 242 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1924, [BMS: IN/ 112]. 243 Savidge, Station Report: 1916. 244 Savidge, Station Report: 1922.

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thirty-eight day scholars and twenty-nine boarders in 1922 at Serkawn Girls’ school. 245 The number of sons of chiefs who joined school increased to fourteen and this seemed to have helped in creating a keener desire among the children to learn and the hindrance was mainly from the parents. There was also an increase in boarders than ever whose conducts were exemplary.246 As the process of education was underway, it was not without suspicion as many instances like the one recorded in 1924 where Mizo parents thought that

…the missionaries trained their sons to be sent to the plains as slaves and it took a lot of effort to dispel that and the introduction of vaccination was for them a seal to their ideas and as a mark on their arms for identification.247

But despite such struggles, with the passage of time, what we see is only a growing intensity in the desire to be educated all across the Lushai Hills and this was not limited for the boys.

3.5 Conclusion

Gauri Viswanathan puts it in the pan-Indian context:

English education came to be criticised for its imitativeness and superficiality and for having produced an uprooted elite who were at once apostates to their own national tradition and imperfect imitators of the West.248

In the light of Vishwanathan’s statement, it is important to ask where education for the Mizos stood in the colonial times and how it has changed in the post-colonial context or if there is a marked difference between the two. How much do the political conditions affect the way education was organized in the Lushai Hills? There might not have been much change for the Mizos till quite late as education continued to be under the supervision of the church directly or indirectly even after

245 Savidge, 1922. 246 Savidge, Station Report: 1923. 247 Savidge, Station Report: 1924. 248 Gauri Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest, Columbia University Press, New York, 1989, p. 41.

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Mizoram became part of the free Indian union. Those who were appointed by the government to look after education department in the early part of free India were deeply entrenched in the church system of education and the missionaries remained in the Hills till the mid-1960s.

For the Mizos in the 20th century, the main driving force for education among them was the desire to be changkang and hmasawn. These two concepts were important because of the way society was knitted together and the fear of not being part of the larger whole or left behind (rualpawl lo) pushed parents to educate their children no matter what the costs were. Education offered social mobility but delving deeper we see that the real reason lies in the metaphysical realm of the Mizo belief in the concept of Pialral. A society’s paradise just does not go away in few decades and the route to that place was replaced by education, which was more accommodating/inclusive than the traditional thangchhuah.

Any discussion about social change usually begins with those in power in the society but when we talk about social change among the Mizos, it began with children going to school. Although there were numerous structural and intangible changes in the Mizo society with the coming of the colonial government, which were mainly inorganic, an organic change happened through the Mizo children by means of their education. The education received by them as much as open to criticisms due to its foreign-ness in nature actually holds within it a seed for a hybridized development, which the society created it to be its very own.

The contributions of Sunday school in educating the Mizo children have to be highlighted. In times of extreme scarcity and society’s lukewarm attitude towards education especially for female, Sunday school provided a space of learning. The fact that it is a sacred space, within the margins of the church made a lot of people warming towards an alien concept of learning. Many women and girls received basic reading and writing skills through Sunday school, which was more widespread than schools in rural Mizoram. And for those who were to attend regular schools later, it was also an introduction to organized system of learning.

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Unlike in many Indian societies where education favoured the upper classes/ castes, the case of the Mizos was different. The colonial government did make special provisions for the advantage of the traditional ruling elites; however, geography and means of connectivity or the lack of it played a stronger role in determining who got educated. So, those who were close to the centers of learning became the ones who got the best education along with the most disposed who fell under the patronage of the missionaries.

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Chapter 4 Mission Teachers and the Mizo Society

‘In that initial stage as the teacher may assume in himself nearly five fold leadership, as educator, administrator, philosopher, physician and spiritual leader and a scripture teacher. The teacher taught, preached the gospel in the church and advocated among the people. The public honoured and respected his position and he was the second rank citizen of the village, the chief being the first.’249

4.0 Introduction: Locating Zirtîr (Mizo Mission Teachers)

The roles of mission teachers are well encapsulated by the above passage. Where there was school in a village, the schoolmaster acted as a pastor, as well as a teacher. He was generally the superintendent of the Sunday and weekday services. As soon as a new school was opened in a village, the number of Christians showed marked increase.250 This shows how important teachers were and the non-negligible ways in which they occupied a pedestal in the Mizo social set up during colonial times, which continued well after Mizoram became part of independent India. How could such a novel job that propagated new form of learning and lifestyle that was almost close to complete opposite of the traditional Mizo life earned such a position and consolidated its hold in the society in such a short period of time? How did teaching profession earn its respectability to a point of being a sought after profession in an agrarian society and the process by which such position and strength of influence consolidated? In order to enquire and asks such questions, teaching profession or the mission teachers need to be seen as a class (in the loose sense of the term) and examine the development of such class and the mechanisms by which it was sustained. This chapter also examines the day-to-day struggles of the teachers in

249 Malsawma, Sociology of the Mizos, p. 172. 250 F.W. Savidge, Station Report: 1919, [BMS: IN/113].

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performing the roles created for them by foreign agents and how the Mizo society responded. It also looks at the ways in which they negotiated their modern roles as teachers in a very traditional setting.

The mission teachers were a new class of professional people, a product of the conglomeration of colonial political and educational policy and Christian missionaries’ endeavour of proselytization and they were the harbinger of Mizo modernity in the 20th century. However, in the initial years, they occupied an ambiguous position in the traditional Mizo social set up which over the years consolidated into an extremely respectable position. In the beginning when teaching profession was introduced with the opening of village schools, in many villages they were treated with suspicion. The traditional Mizo society had well defined strata and roles for various people in the village. The positions of the chief, his council of elders, the blacksmith, the village crier, the priest and medicine men were all neatly arranged. But a place for a teacher neither existed nor was considered and it took some negotiation for the Mizos especially the chiefs in accepting and accommodating teachers and their positions in the social hierarchy. So, structurally, teachers occupied a vague area in the traditional Mizo society and they shifted between the identities of a native and a colonial agent, hence in a way ‘sap’251. They were mission agents too and therefore, were part of the Christian missionary group. This fluid identity of neither here nor there was no mean issue Mizo teachers had to negotiate with.

There were mission centres at Aizawl, Serkawn and later on at Serkawr. These three religious centres became hubs of learning too but the number of Christian missionaries was small and it was not possible for them to access interior villages to give education on a regular basis. During their tours, they saw the urgent need of education, especially if they expected them to read the Bible. The missionary agencies fully understood their scant resources and the surest way of saturating every

251Sap initially was a term used by the Mizos to refer to non-Mizos. But later on, its meaning gradually changed and according to the Dictionary of the Lushai Language by J.H. Lorrain, it means a sahib, a white-man, a government or other official.

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part of Mizoram was to employ the Mizos at the earliest possible, even if that meant minimal qualifications and training. It was also the desire of both the Baptist and Welsh missions to train the Mizos to take up the responsibility of looking after their own education and church as quickly as possible.

The Welsh Calvinistic Mission Society and the London Baptist Mission Society had different philosophy and approach to spreading education in Mizoram. According to Rev. Aneurin Owens, the Circulating School Movement in Wales in the 18th - 19th century must have influenced the Welsh Mission education system in the North Lushai Hills.252 The Circulating School Movement started with Rev. Griffith Jones in Llanddowror, Wales in the early 18th century. It was an age when schooling was not compulsory and a vast majority of the working class people could neither read nor write. He created series of schools that would rotate or circulate around the rural parishes of Wales mainly in the winter months when farm work was relatively slack. The schools would stay in one place for approximately three months and then moved on to another location. Dozens of men, women and children flocked to the schools where they used the Bible both as a means of instruction and as a training manual or reading book. By 1737, just six years after they began, there were thirty-seven such schools in existence with over two thousand five hundred pupils or scholars attending the classes. For those who had to work during the day, evening classes were set up and Jones himself, from his base in Llanddowror, was instrumental in training the teachers.253

In the North Lushai Hills too, the Welsh Calvinistic missionaries gave the Mizos few years of education, some passed only lower primary and were sent out as teachers or apprentice. Experimental schools were set up in Khawrihnim, Chhingchhip and Phulpui in 1901 for a period of three months and three Mizo teachers Thanga, Chawnga and Tawka were hired on a trial basis to teach in these experimental schools. The following year, the Mizo students on voluntary basis in

252 Rev. Anuerin Owens (Zolawma), interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, March 2016, Aizawl. 253 Phil Carradice, ‘Griffith Jones and the Circulating Schools’, BBC Blogs, [web blog], 19 July 2010, https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wales/entries/687b3cfb-779d-3885-9610-652c384b6f06, (accessed 20 March, 2016). 10 7

and around Aizawl started some more experimental schools.254 Sunday school also served as a place of teaching basic reading and writing.255 When experimental schools became a success, schools were opened in different parts of the Lushai Hills and Mizos served as teachers and apprentices in different villages often without much understanding of their roles in many places. Though the mission gave them trainings and equipped them within their very limited means, it merits an enquiry on how problematic it would have been for them to suddenly occupy a very formal position, legitimised by the mission and the colonial government that is all too foreign for them and treated with either suspect or glorified by their fellow Mizos. Especially for the first batch of Mizo teachers, the only models and understanding of the concept and practice of teaching were from the missionaries who were taught in British schools, or in rural schools in Wales. Before long, Mizo teachers themselves produced a number of new teachers and therefore, had become a reference point for them too. An educated Mizo Christian tradition developed and that became the ideal of the teachers too.

4.1 Becoming Zirtîr

In the first half of the 20th century, the process of creating Zirtîr or teacher was most intense. Formation of new identity or a group of new elites was underway with the creation of the profession. They were celebrated, but burdened with numerous responsibilities and expectations from both their employers and the Mizo society. They were responsible to the church and to the society and they lived a life of being a role model and therefore, constantly watched. With the spread of education, very soon they were given covetous social status but their struggles and ways of negotiating choppy unfamiliar waters were hardly the focus of serious analysis. In a predominantly agrarian society, they were the first groups to have wrestled and embraced changes brought about by colonialism, modernity and education. They

254 Hluna, p. 54. 255 Mizo Sunday School Union (MSSU), [website], 2019, https://www.mizoramsynod.org/page/1243, (accessed 5 July 2019). 10 8

were the first fruits of the missionary endeavour in the Lushai Hills. Their roles as teachers were not limited to disseminating secular knowledge based on western scientific ideals, but first and foremost entailed responsibility, like that of a full- fledged missionary was to make every Mizo read the Bible.256 Mizo teachers were employed at minimum wage, much lower than their counterparts in the Khasi Hills,257 due to scarcity of resources from the educational authorities. It was barely enough for their survival but within a short span of time, they received respect and enviable status in the society. Within the precincts of a village, a teacher was the authority on Christian teachings and knowledge, discipline, cleanliness and public health. They were the eyes and ears of the church and they were also the voice of the village. As such, they occupied an important place and they acted as the medium between what was considered traditional and modern.

This takes us to the next issue of identifying if there was a separate class or groups of people from where Mizo teachers come and that will help us in understanding them as a class of people in a traditional Mizo society. There was minimal division in the social structure of the Mizo society and the few that existed were predominantly ascribed. In Mizoram, education, right from its inception was opened to boys and girls and was made available for everyone.258 It was not exclusive for the elite section of the society and whoever wanted to study was given the opportunity to study basic knowledge: reading and writing. In the initial years, it was a struggle to find children to attend school due to poverty and lack of interest from their parents. The colonial government did make attempts to encourage the chiefs to send their children to school, which is evident from the opening of hostels and offering of scholarships.259 This is suggestive of some of the ways in which the colonial government was hoping to maintain the traditional elites. Access to education was made easier once schools were opened in the villages and for those families, who could not spare their children to go to school, Sunday school became a place of learning A AW B in villages where it was available and by 1909, in more

256 Jones, Letter: March 1905. 257 Sandy, ‘Unparalleled Opportunity in the Lushai’: 1920s. 258 Pachuau and Sailo, ‘Humanities and Social Sciences, p.120. 259 D.E. Jones, Letter: February 1909, [CMA: 27, 290]. 10 9

than twenty villages, Sunday school were run.260 Not every village had a school and the Sunday school in many villages bridged this gap where basic reading and writing was taught. Since education was opened for all and it was not confined to the traditional elites like the chiefs and his circle of advisers, there was not a separate class from whom teachers come but after becoming teachers, they became a class in themselves. This provided opportunity for a new form of social mobility and led to a creation of new educated elites that was sustained, among many other things by the nature of their job, their self-conduct, training and numerous instructions written for them in Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu. It fell on the missionaries to identify and recruit teachers to work with the missions. In the beginning, teaching was not necessarily seen as a career option and a means of achieving respectable status in the society. However, over the years it grew into a sought after vocation though that might not have been the intention of the educational authorities in the initial years. It became an alternate route from the drudgery of manual labour in the forest, relief from forced Kuli 261 and a sure way to earn respect in the society. Apart from teaching jobs, there were jobs available in the colonial government but were far and few. Teaching profession for the Mizos was important due to the need of the time and lack of manpower and resources from the government and mission agencies. The missionaries also felt that it was more desirable for the Mizos to develop themselves and teach their own kind for ‘no one understands a Lushai mind better than his own kind’262 and they could act as evangelists too 263 and the way they could access the society was like no one else could.

In a society where there was a clear role allocation, locating teachers became extremely important. The traditional Mizo society was hardly based on meritocracy. Chieftainship was hereditary and the village economy was based on agriculture. Size

260 Mizo Sunday School Union (MSSU) [website], 2019, https://www.mizoramsynod.org/page/1243. (accessed August 2019) 261 Bobby Beingachhi ‘Spread of Education and Levels of Literacy in Mizoram: A Spatio Temporal Analysis’, PhD Thesis, North Eastern Hill University, 2002, p.121. Available from: https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/60807/13/13_chapter%205.pdf (accessed 12 July 2017) 262 Sandy, ‘Unparalleled Opportunity in the Lushai’: 1920s 263 D.E. Jones, Letter: April 1902, [CMA: 27, 291]. 1 10

of the family mattered as it had direct effect on how much a family had in its granary. Social status was highly dependent on a person’s age and gender with preferential treatment and respect given to older members and men. One’s clan affiliation had strong bearings on social status too. Before the coming of the teaching profession, every adult in the village primarily earned their livelihood solely through agricultural activity. Few men like tlangau (village crier), bawlpu, (exorcist or traditional priest), sadawt (private exorcist or priest, especially such as are employed by ruling chiefs), thirdeng (blacksmith) however had their incomes supplemented by the contributions of the villagers by means of grain and occasional meat. Because of their service for the village community, teachers too were provided with food grains and other basic needs like firewood etc. When schools were opened in the villages, villagers continued their tradition of providing resources required by them in order to survive in exchange for the service rendered to the community. The colonial government laid down guidelines for the amount of rice to be given to each teacher in a village in a year. Apart from this, the educational authorities gave them nominal pay for their upkeep, which was Rs. 8/- per month in 1921.264 In 1929, as a result of reorganisation of school management, the salary of trained teachers was fixed at Rs. 18/- to Rs. 20/- per month and in some cases they were paid only Rs. 15/- per month due to lower educational qualifications. Apprentice teachers were paid Rs. 5/- per month whereas matriculate teachers were paid Rs. 22/- per month with an increment of Re. 1 in the second year. Teachers’ salary was paid mostly from the educational grant received from the government.265 So, teachers formed a small section of the Mizo society who drew salary in the form of money on a monthly basis.

In the village, the chief and the villagers shouldered the responsibility of building schoolhouse in the villages. So, right from the inception of schooling, the village community played an important role in the setting up and functioning of school. It became the enterprise of the village community at large and in a way the teacher belonged to the village too and teaching profession had the community involvement

264 D.E. Jones, Letter: April 1921, [CMA: 27, 291]. 265 Beingachhi, ‘Spread of Education’, p.135. 1 11

in great measure. The role and responsibility of a teacher was a new area that was not there in a traditional Mizo social structure. The closest model would have been the chiefs, his advisors, parents and val upa 266 who played crucial roles in leading the tribes and sustaining its ideals both in times of war and peace. Teachers were the extension of these actors and as much as they were the embodiment of modernity and Christianity, they were also keeper of traditional practices and ideals too. For instance, certain Mizo knowledge and practices got formalised in school textbooks like tlawmngaihna and aia upa zahna and it was teach it to their students.267 So they were the conserver of traditional knowledge and harbinger of change.268

Up until the introduction of schooling, everyone in the village earned their livelihoods through manual labour. Even those who were not actively engaged in agricultural work, all forms of works were related to using physical force. Teaching profession changed the use of physical strength to mental agility. A teacher earned his livelihood for himself and his family by dispersing knowledge without sweat on his brow. For the Mizos, the only group of people who earned livelihood through such work were the Europeans and Indians who served under the colonial government and the European missionaries. So, to see their fellow Mizos doing work similar to their colonisers lifted the status of teachers in the society. They were the connecting point with the colonial authority due to their ability to read and write. However, not every village welcomed teachers or schooling in the first few years of its introduction. Some chiefs understood the power of knowledge and its capacity to subvert the existing social order and status quo. Two chiefs - Dokhama and Liannawla- refused the government and the mission’s attempt to set up a school in their villages for fear of their power being subverted. It is for this reason that in some villages, schools and teachers were not entertained for a long time.269

266 An oldish young man, a middle-aged man. 267 Respect and reverence for elders. 268 Note: The term conserver is used here as used by BV Shah in ‘Education and Social Change Among Tribals in India’, Sociological Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 1/2 (March and September 1979), pp. 25- 45, Indian Sociological Society. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23619351, (Accessed: 16 May 2018). 269 Chhunthangvunga, ‘Skul Thu’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha II, February,1905, pp.6- 7. 1 12

The Mizo teachers’ training and schooling was minimal but they tried to emulate their teachers in the mission schools of Serkawn and Aizawl with limited resources and support as the missionaries in-charge of education in the Lushai Hills had also the responsibility of sharing Christian teaching which was their priority and the burden of setting up churches in different parts of Mizoram weighed heavily on their shoulders. The number of missionaries was always wanting for both the Baptists and the Presbyterians. Katie Jones, in December 1915, wrote to Mr. Williams at the Welsh Calvinistic mission headquarters that there was a dire need for a lady missionary in the Lushai Hills 270 and much earlier in 1911, her husband, D.E. Jones had already commented on how his request for a trained lady missionary teacher for the girls’ school had gone unnoticed.271 Subsequently she also wrote that there were eight thousand Christians in the North Lushai Hills and there were not enough missionaries to look after them.272 With scant manpower and resources, it was always a struggle to manage the educational system for the mission. For instance, in 1922, colonial Mizoram had nearly half of the Christians within the whole Welsh mission in India where £10,294 was spent on education, out of which only £600 was spent on education in the Lushai Hills and the Mizos paid their own pastors, evangelists, Bible women and for the training of Bible women. F.J. Sandy tried to reason the allocation of money in India saying that there was a danger of an illiterate church.273 J.H. Lorrain in the South Lushai Hills also wrote in 1916 that they received a lot of ‘help’ from the Mizos, who did most of the work while the missionaries helped.274 The Mizos were in a very critical position where they had to contribute as much as they could in spreading literacy, knowledge and Christianity. Scarcity in manpower and resources were not just a problem in the beginning of the setting up of the schools but even after decades, it continued to be a problem as was evident from the writings of H.W. Carter, a Baptist missionary stationed in Serkawn. He wrote that there were twenty-eight schools in the one hundred and fifty villages

270 Jones, Letter: December 1915. 271 D.E. Jones, Letter: 1911, [CMA: 27, 291]. 272 K.E. Jones, Letter: May 1916, [CMA: 27,285]. 273 Sandy, ‘Unparalleled Opportunity in the Lushai’: 1920s. 274 J.H. Lorrain, Letter: December 1916, [BMS: IN/56]. 1 13

of South Lushai Hills and twelve chiefs were asking for schools to be opened in their villages. In a couple of years, the mission managed to increase the number of schools to thirty five using probationary teachers who were not paid by the mission,275 as the mission and the colonial government could not afford them. So, it may be inferred that the upkeep and reward for the probationary teachers who run these newly opened schools were coming from the contributions of the villagers themselves.

First and foremost, the missionaries were employed to spread the teachings of Christianity and therefore were not really equipped to look after the educational needs of the Mizos. Some of the Welsh missionaries argued that a theologian trained to be a missionary could not be rightfully expected to do justice to the educational needs of the Mizos and hence, an educationist was required even if he was not a theologian, a good experience in teaching with high Christian value was required. A perfect match would be found in someone with an English public school background rather than someone from Welsh county school, which most of the missionaries were and no trouble should be spared to get a well-qualified man to look after the boys’ school in Aizawl. This continued to be the cry of the missionaries for many years to come. They also felt that Mizos themselves would be best suited to teach and train new teachers. They desired that such a man should receive the best training possible in England.276 This dream got materialised when Ch. Pasena, a Mizo man became the first teacher to have received a proper training and became a trainer with other Welsh missionaries in Aizawl for many years. When Sir Herbert Lewis, father of Kitty Lewis (headmistress of Welsh Mission School at Aizawl) visited Aizawl in 1924, he took with him Ch. Pasena to study at Goldsmiths in London and he returned in 1926.277 This enlarged the capacity for teachers’ training in the Welsh Mission areas of Mizoram.

The urgent desire of the Mizos, the insufficient number of missionaries to teach especially in the villages and the struggle to be mi ang or rualpawl (the desire to be

275 Carter, Station Report: 1935. 276 Sandy, ‘Unparalleled Opportunity in the Lushai’: 1920s. 277 Lalhmuaka, p. 49. 1 14

like others, not left behind and at par with the masses) in being educated and knowing how to read and write, compelled the educated Mizo men to take up teaching positions wherever needed. It was not always easy to have Mizo teachers in the villages especially in the early days. Savidge in 1905 wrote that in the South Lushai Hills, experimental schools were opened and some young Mizos were sent out but some of them did not know the art of disciplining, hence, the mission decided to concentrate schooling in and around Lunglei.278 In spite of this, due to the needs of the time, the mission had no option but to increase the number of teachers. There was a steady increase in the number of Mizo children enrolled in schools. This changed the ideals and goals that parents had for their children. For many parents, their visions for their children shifted due to the change they saw in the society. They strived to get their children educated in order to be able to get jobs like teaching, pastor or some sort of clerk in the colonial government set up. Of all the non-agrarian job options available for the Mizos, which was very limited, teaching became one of the easiest avenues. Although their salary was minimal but their social status and social capital made up for the lack of money.

4.2 Seeing Mission Zirtir (Teacher)

It is worth mentioning that some mission teachers were considered crème de la crème of the Mizo educated Christians in the first half of the twentieth century. Teachers as a professional community had one of the strongest influence in the Mizo society in all aspect of life. Ch. Pasena could be considered as the father of teachers’ education among the Mizos. He was the first trained teacher and he took his training from a prestigious Goldsmiths’ college in London during 1925-26.279 He was born in 1893 and lived till 1961. He was the son of Lal upa min (a trusted adviser to the chief) from Lungleng village. He was D.E. Jones’ (Zosaphluia) protégé for 7-9 years and continued to live with him till he got married in 1915. He finished Upper Primary from Welsh Mission School in Aizawl and went on to Shillong to continue

278 Savidge, Station Report: 1905. 279 Lalhmuaka, p. 49. 1 15

higher studies. However, due to his rheumatism, he moved to Silchar. After completing his studies in Silchar, he returned home and taught at Boys’ Middle English School at Aizawl. In 1943, he moved to Sialsuk village to look after a new mission vernacular school and remained there till Dec 1946. It is interesting to note that Ch. Pasena was a teacher for both the Mizos and the European missionaries. Though his position would not have been at equal footing on both sides, nevertheless, it was an important and peculiar one. We see the intermingling of traditional male Mizo mannerisms and the influence of colonialism and Christianity in his character. He had quite a temper, talkative with very sharp voice and authoritarian and an avid reader. He was a church elder at Mission Veng Presbyterian Church. For Ch. Pasena and the other mission teachers in different parts of the Hills, teaching, mission and Sunday schools were synonymous and this set precedence for many generations of teachers to come.280

In the father and son duo of Lianhruaia and V.L. Siama, we see a story of poverty ridden village schoolteachers, quite unlike the story of Ch. Pasena but who also passed on the new tradition of learning. Lianhruaia had passed Lower Primary Exam and became a village schoolteacher in Kelsih near Aizawl. Although his qualification was low, he had all the qualities expected of a mission schoolteacher. He was industrious and enterprising as the salary of a village schoolteacher really was a pittance. He maintained an orchard where he planted mangoes, oranges and he was also one of the first ones to own a sugarcane juicer machine in his village. He wrote in a beautiful handwriting, taken his teaching job with utmost sincerity and a man of self-discipline, which is also evident from the way in which he exercised daily and ate fish fats to combat his lifelong struggle with weak lungs. During this time, he used to attend teachers’ refresher courses run by Rev. Edwin Rowlands (Zosapthara) every three months to maintain the standard of the teaching profession and to be better equipped to the task of educating village children. He was devoted to his teaching till he died at a young age in 1925.

280 Hnunliana (son of Ch. Pasena), interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, May 2013, Mission Veng, Aizawl. 1 16

Despite many troubles, due his poor health and financial problems, Lianhruaia made it his goal to send his son V.L. Siama to study at Boys’ Middle English School in Aizawl. He did this as he understood education as offering life opportunities like nothing else and because he saw the limitations of village schools. He took his son to Aizawl for Primary Scholarship Examination and he was the first one to appear and passed that exam from Hualngohmun village. V.L. Siama wrote in his diary that he did not even remember whether the scholarship exam was tough or not. He joined Boys Middle English School in 1924 and there were about 200-300 boys in total. He remembered some of his teachers like Chawnga (Middle passed), Laia (Middle passed), Rostosingh Lyngdoh (Matric passed), Chawngphira (Matric passed). He remembered each teacher with different qualities and discipline by which they conducted their lives. For instance, Chawnga was a hardworking man and he used to go to his farm after school and worked there till sun down. The importance of manual work was taught to the students from the example of their teachers and Chawnga in particular.281 Laia was an avid reader and read widely. He encouraged his students that even if they could not get higher qualifications, they must read widely beyond their courses and he set an example with his own practice.282 V.L. Siama became one of the most celebrated teachers in Mizoram after receiving rigorous training from such teachers at Aizawl. His father’s example as a teacher also helped him in the way he conducted his own life and run a school in Sialhawk village and his contributions in the church as an elder were immense. His student Lalkunga, who retired as a Primary School Head Teacher in Aizawl and a church elder too also remembered him as the most disciplined, hardworking, gentle and kind teacher and his idea of a school teacher was formed by V.L. Siama’s character. 283 So, we see the idea, character and value given to education by an ideal teacher was passed on both in vertical and horizontal manner; from Lianhruaia to his son V.L. Siama and on to his student Lalkunga with influences from their own teachers. This is one example of the many similar stories that were encountered among the Mizos from early 20th century, which reverberated throughout the century.

281 V.L. Siama’s diary, date unknown. 282 V.L. Siama’s diary, date unknown. 283 Lalkunga, interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, October 2013, Chanmari West, Aizawl. 11 7

4.3 Moulding the teacher

So, with basic training and support from both the missions and the colonial government, many Mizo men ventured to villages to open schools. For majority of the teachers, especially in the earliest days, the task ahead was extremely daunting. The expectations of the villages and the mission agencies that employed them often clashed. To make up for the lack of training, there were numerous suggestions and guidelines for the mission teachers issued by the colonial government and both the Baptist and Welsh Calvinistic Mission. Zosapthara (Rev. Edwin Rowlands), inspector of schools and a Welsh missionary in the North Lushai Hills frequently used the Mizo and Vai Chanchinbu as a medium to encourage and remind Mizo teachers living in different villages as to the proper conduct for a mission teacher. The fact that it was published in the journal, which was accessible for the general public, also suggests that it could be a way of the trying to consolidate the status and influence of teachers in the society. These instructions were detailed and covered numerous aspects of self-conduct and behaviour. This helped in the way of creating an image of the ideal teacher for the society to internalise and also create a certain expectations of the teachers by the Mizos. Since travelling and communication between the villages and the mission stations were difficult, the journal was an effective and efficient instrument through which information and knowledge was disbursed. In March 1905, Zosapthara wrote on conduct and behaviour expected of a mission teacher as follows:

A teacher should keep himself healthy so that he will be able to attend school regularly and maintain discipline and would be tolerant and patient. He should discipline himself and keen on exercise so that even if he is weak, it will help improve his health. He should speak clearly so that his students hear him well and have no excuse of not being able to make out what he says. Even if he has a good voice, he should not raise his voice but only enough to be heard clearly. He should have keen eyes and ears that he may have control over the classroom and the students will understand that. He should choose where he stands carefully so that he could keep watch over the classroom. He should know the subject he teaches thoroughly so that his students have faith in him. 11 8

He should know how to teach. Some people know a lot of things but could not teach, like a pot full of stuffs but cannot go out. Some people do not know quite a lot but could teach and explain very well. He himself should have a thirst for learning and knowledge. He should be keen to learn new things. His students would benefit a lot from it.284

From this passage, it is evident how teaching as a profession was in the process of being built up. We see one of the ways in which the status and identity of a mission teacher was developed. A teacher’s mannerisms, body language and personal conduct were focused upon. This was done so that students would respect and acknowledge him as a teacher and authority within the classroom and outside too. This was of great importance for the mission as it was the time when the blueprint of a Mizo mission teacher was being established and would have a long term consequence not only in the educational life of the Mizos but also in the society as well. The mission teachers were also considered to be the representatives of the missions, the colonial government, Christianity and modernity and hence extreme care was taken to mould the teachers who were the ambassadors, living and interacting with the villagers at grassroot level.

If we look at the given passage closely, a teacher’s entire being and his conduct both visible and invisible was under close scrutiny. Physical health of the teacher was important, as he was the carrier of the idea of a strong nation, of a powerful colonial government and an enlightened and modern culture with Christian ideology creating a perfect society. Regularity of the teacher was of utmost importance as consistency was at the heart of consolidating a power worthy of respect. In a society where semi nomadism was a way of life, the idea of being rooted in one place with a set pattern was crucial and this idea could be introduced most effectively by the regularity of the teachers at school. The problem of having regular set of students was very real, for the idea of learning in a school on a daily basis was a new thing. In some villages especially in the western part of the Lushai Hills, village population was fleeting due to economic factors and therefore, students could not stay on for the

284 Zosapthara, ‘Zirtirtu Hnathawh’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, February 1905, p. 8. 11 9

entire term.285 The regularity and consistency required in attending a school for getting educated could be imparted to the villagers with efficacy by an example set by the teacher. Not only that, the presence of a teacher in a school within a set time with regularity assured the villagers of the trustworthiness and stability of the education system. Some students could only attend school at different intervals, some far apart and with the presence of the teacher on a regular basis in the school; it gave them a sense of grounding that they lacked otherwise in their lives. It was clearly understood that the voice of the teacher could command authority in the classroom and was crucial for maintaining discipline. How loud should he raise or not raise his voice, his gaze and the keenness of his eyes and alertness of his ears were all instruments for the smooth functioning of a classroom. His posture and where he stood in the class while teaching was to be orchestrated with utmost care. He was the eye and the ears of knowledge and his position within the classroom could command respect or worked otherwise. So, the body of the teacher and his control over his own conduct or lack of it, how he used his faculties determined where he would be located within the life of the village.

The way teachers and mission education was perceived and experienced by the students and the village hinged on his performance. His physical performance was not alone important but the real test came with how much he really knew. A thorough knowledge of what he taught everyday would help students have faith in him, in education and again the mission and the British colonial government too. The art of effective teaching that could hold the interest of the students was something that was beneficial and desirable in a teacher. Deep knowledge alone was not sufficient as teaching involved having the skill to share what one possessed and this was a skill that required improvement at all times. Village teachers were lacking in training and knowledge when sent to villages to start school due to the extreme need of the hour. The mission teachers were, therefore, to strive for excellence in their teaching and remember self-maintenance.

285 J.M. Lloyd Library & Archives, Aizawl Theological College Archive, North Lushai Hills Welsh Mission School Inspection Report (1929- 1945). 1 20

Zosapthara wrote again in April 1905 where he focused his writing on the relationship between the teacher, students, their families and the philosophy of being a Christian mission teacher:

Teaching is not just about imparting knowledge but also to guide and lead a child on the right path. Some parents do not tell them good conduct and let them be. A disobedient child can disrupt the entire class. A student should be gradually and gently controlled by the teacher and there should be punishment if need be. How should a teacher look after his class? Above all grace is the most important thing. He should show grace to his pupils and the pupils will reciprocate if he does that. Students should obey their teachers. A teacher should not make many promises. If he does, he should keep it. He should not make promises without thinking through. A teacher should sometimes visits the parents of his students and tells them about their children. If the parents really care for the well being of their children, they will listen to him and pay heed to his words. They both should work for the good of the children. He should set a good example for his students. A wise teacher produces wise students and if he is kind and gentle, his students would be too. A teacher should also understand that all children are not the same. Some students don’t do what is asked of them because they are naughty and some because they are shy. He should know how to help the shy student able to complete the task while a naughty student should be punished. We should care for the students and their actions.286

In the above passage we see the role of a teacher as a mentor and a guru, a master to enlighten and guide the path of his students. This was not a concept alien to the traditional Mizo society. Prior to the opening of schools, zawlbuk played this role for the young boys in the village under the aegis of pasaltha287 and val upa. This also suggested the impending clash of roles between the zawlbuk and school as institutions and those who held authority in both institutions like the teacher and the tlangval and val upa. So the question of whose right path was to be followed and under whose guidance would become problematic. Moving on from controlling oneself (teacher) in the previous article (March issue of Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu), the focus here was on controlling the students, giving them proper guidance, which was considered befitting by the educational authorities. A teacher therefore had an enormous responsibility to live up to; being a guide to the right path, which was

286 Zosapthara, ‘Skul Hotute Chan (Zirtirna Thu): Thunun Thu’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lekhabu, March 1905, p. 9. 287 Brave man or warrior of the village. 1 21

framed by the colonial government and the school authorities. Teachers were expected to control their students and taught them good conduct as some students were found extremely lacking without any support from their parents at home. Obedience was expected of the students and it was only in disciplining the body and the mind of the students that an ideal Mizo child would be developed. The tactical move that a teacher should follow be slow, steady and gentle, winning the hearts of his students but also punish and tell them off if required, for their own good. The relationship a teacher had to work on went beyond just his students but their families too. This was done to build a relationship of trust and respect between the teacher who was often an outsider and the students and their families. As previously mentioned, since schoolteacher was a new entity to the Mizo village life, every care was taken to have him accepted within the village community. He was required to understand the needs of his students especially those who were shy or weak. But most of all, he should be a living example for his students as they would learn more from his person and character than what he taught in the classroom. As his physical performance in the classroom was orchestrated so was his attitude and interaction with his students and their families. Though these instructions were issued as guidelines and it set a high standard for a teacher, it could be seen as double entendre; to guide and encourage the teachers in the villages and for the villagers to know what was to be expected of him, which was crucial for the educational authorities, in the absence of any form of checks on a regular basis.

In the following issues of Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu, Zosapthara continued to write on the technical side of teaching. Instructions were written on reading, writing, mathematics and health education. He dealt with what would normally be considered very basic teaching skills and practices. He stressed that the importance of reading well began with knowing the alphabets very well and a good teacher should begin by explaining and making the students familiar with letters, words, and sentences till children would be able to identify the differences. Strict rule of punctuation should be followed, and sometimes the teacher should read out a passage before the entire 1 22

class could read together.288 In the next few months, in another article of the same journal, he gave instructions about writing and the way students should be taught to have clear, neat and beautiful handwriting with a good speed. In order to attain this goal, it should start with the way pens were held by the students, their sitting position while writing and the direction that the alphabets should face. Even while they work on arithmetic, teachers should make sure that the figures are neat and beautiful.289 On teaching mathematics, teachers were to know numbers very well and should be able to read and write without any difficulty. Before children were taught to add figures, they should be given an example with adding articles/objects. Mathematics should be taught slowly. Before they learn multiplication, they should know times (memorize multiplication tables) by heart. Sometimes they should do oral mathematics. They should know and understand all the signs. All the figures should be neat and straight.290 This article stresses on fluency and excellence in figures and alphabets and the way they are written. Sureness and confidence was important part of the pedagogy and was to be imparted to the students too.

In June 1906, there was an article on health education issues aiming at the teachers. The article stressed on the importance of drinking clean water, breathing fresh air and eating healthy food, the importance of physical exercise and how to treat certain illnesses.291 These instructions attempted to mould the teacher as a person in charge of health and sanitation in the village. Modern medicines had barely made an inroad in the village community and healing practices were closely tied to the traditional religion. Fear of illness and fear of spirits went hand in hand. Therefore, when the Christian God was introduced to the Mizos as someone who had power over diseases and evil spirits, it had a strong appeal for them. In order to tackle effectively with the traditional healing practices and do away with the

288 Zosapthara (Edwin Rowlands), ‘Skul HotuTe Chan: - Zirtir- Na Thu- Lehkhachhiar’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha VI, June 1905, pp. 6-7. 289 Zosapthara (Edwin Rowlands), ‘SkulHotuTe Chan- Ziak Thu’ Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu, Lehkha. IX, September 1905, pp. 8-9. 290 Zosapthara (Edwin Rowlands), ‘Chhiarkawpna Thu’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha. X, October 1905, pp. 9-10. 291 No Author, ‘SikulHotu Chan: Thil Hrang Te’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha.VI, June 1906, pp. 83- 85. 1 23

common illnesses, basic hygiene and cleanliness was the first step and the right person to set an example and supervise the villagers was no other than the teacher again. Through these instructions, order would be created and a new system along the lines of modernity would also develop in the society. Although these instructions for the teachers were issued on a regular basis in Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu, the reality of the village life could be exceptionally different. The struggles and everyday practices of the village schoolteachers in the North Lushai Hills are evident from the Mission school inspection report (1929-1945), which will be dealt with later in the chapter and it provides a useful consolidated source dealing with the actual daily business and struggles of the teachers written not by themselves but by the school inspectors who in this case were mostly Mizos.

4.4 Classroom as a stage

With such focus on moulding the teachers, the classroom became a stage where both the learners and the teachers performed. They took on new roles and the mission and the government orchestrated their performance and also by the teachers themselves with numerous rooms for negotiations and compromise as village teachers worked far away from the centre of power. Just as examination was important for the students to test their ability and knowledge so was school inspection for the teachers. Within the classroom, the teacher was endowed with authority and power over the students. His relationship with the village children was formalised to a hierarchical one the moment they stepped into the school compound. He no longer was part of the village in a sense and became an external agent. This was made easy by the fact that a person’s identity was deeply entrenched in his ancestral village and in a way, mission teachers often were posted in villages away from their ancestral homes. The British colonial government made regulations that helped in countering a sense of alienation when a teacher started in a new village. It decided that every village should contribute Rs. 2/- worth of paddy as a contingency 1 24

towards the service rendered.292 The government believed that this would help the villagers feel as being part of the new school system and the sense of ownership and up-keep of the school and the teacher and his family would be their responsibility. This also relieved financial responsibility on the part of the colonial government and the missions. Since the idea of schooling was a novel concept for the Mizos, it fell on the teachers to make learning attractive to both parents and children. So, the role of capturing the attention and interests of the students within a classroom fell heavily on the teacher. The whole interaction in the classroom and outside it too was also a performance in a sense that the teacher was first and foremost a role model for the students. So, the question that arises is how the teachers asserted their position, power and authority in the classroom? This was done through body politics, pedagogy, curriculum and discipline. a. Dressing the teacher - The way teachers dressed up was what made them stand apart from the rest of the society. Although clear instructions for teachers’ dress might not have been laid down, photographic evidence suggests that teachers dressed sharply. We see them wearing blazers, shorts and long socks/stockings and shoes and their hair was neatly done in a bun or cut like the Europeans which was not a traditional Mizo way and this made them stand out from the common man in the village. This is in contrast with the colonial government encouraging the Mizos to dress in Mizo ways. In an article titled published in Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, April 1903 issue, matters of dressing was discussed at great length encouraging the Mizos to stick to their traditional dress but were expected to be clean at all times. It was also argued that embracing the ways of the vais like wearing vai trousers, dhoti and shoes were inappropriate and too expensive.293 There was a close connection between education and dressing. This was applicable not only to the teachers but their children as well. An interview with Hnunliana, son of Ch. Pasena, reveals that being the son of a teacher entailed many things including the way they dressed. They were expected to wear certain clothes which were formal shirts and

292 A.G. McCall, The Lushai Hills District Cover, (1938-39) Tribal Research Institute, Aizawl, 1980, p.223. 293 S. CH. V, ‘Kammanding Sap Duhzawng’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha. VI, April 1903, p.8. 1 25

trousers and when they moved to Sialsuk, the village children made fun of them saying they wore female clothing. Chhingpuii who studied in PC Girls School in Aizawl and taught there from 1947 on the other hand said that Mizo teachers were not allowed to wear shoes in the school. She suggested that this might be because most girls could not afford footwear and it was felt to be improper for the lady teachers to wear what their students could not afford. It is interesting to note that this was towards the end of the colonial regime in the Lushai Hills and when the school was under the headship of Saptawni.294 In Aizawl Middle English School, V.L. Siama recalled that one of their teachers, Mr.Rostosingh was extremely careful with his dressing. He never took the stairs to school but took a longer route lest his trousers would crease.295 b. Teacher as a timekeeper - Time had a new meaning and power for the Mizos in the school compound. School day was divided into periods with each period lasting 45-60 minutes. Bells were rung to mark time and periods. Both the teacher and students were under time. Teachers were expected to be extremely punctual as they were to set an example for their students. The traditional understanding of time shifted and the schoolteacher became the regulator of this new timing and the master timekeeper. However, this did not mean that the schoolmasters were all punctual and kept strict timings in the schools. Right from the time inspection reports began in 1929, the issue of punctuality was raised but never really resolved till the end of the report in 1945. 296 This also showed the way in which even the teachers themselves tried to adjust their traditional understanding of time. The new concept of time controlled and regulated their action not just on a seasonal but daily basis. For students and teachers, the traditional way of marking time like, tukthuan eikham297, ni tlangsan298, fehreh san lai299 etc. were either replaced or substituted by school

294 Chhingpuii, interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, July 2016, Khatla, Aizawl. 295 V.L. Siama’s personal diary, no date entry. 296 J.M. Lloyd Archives, Aizawl Theological College, Mission Inspection Report North Lushai Hills, 1929- 1945. 297 lit. translation- after the morning meal 298 ni ' tlâng-sân, (n). the time in the morning when the sun is well up in the heavens. Available from Dictionary of the Lushai Language by J.H. Lorrain, p. 343. https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/lorrain/ 1 26

timings and periods regulated by modern watch and school bells. This does not suggest that the Mizo understanding of time had completely changed but we see a new and alterative way of reading time based on modern clock being introduced. However, traditional and modern system required negotiation on a daily basis especially within the cultural landscape of village schools. We see that schools were also arranged to fit within the traditional understanding of time and seasons and the agrarian economic activities of the Mizos. For instance, when the Baptists first opened girls’ school in the South Lushai Hills, Chapman suggested that schools should be opened only for 7/8 months so that the girls got to help their families during peak agricultural season and she highlighted how ‘education given shall not unfit the girls from their strenuous jungle lives but prepared them to give a good deal of time to practicals like gardening, handwork, cookery, weaving, washing’.300

4.5 The Mizo Response

How did the Mizo respond to education and teaching are important questions that needs to be dealt with and something that has to be analysed together? If we look at the status of teachers in Mizo community it has always occupied a privilege position in the society, though the initial stage was turbulent in many villages. What we have seen in the Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu shows that many chiefs were afraid of the subversion of their power through teachers. They were looked at with suspicion and therefore, were not welcomed in many villages. Some chiefs did not care enough to provide good housing to their schoolmasters and because they knew an ‘art’, of which the chief had no clue (reading and writing), they were an exotic item, either feared or celebrated. In February issue of 1905, Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu published an article that was written on 17th November 1904 where Dokhama and Liannawla did not want schools in their villages and refused to build a schoolhouse. They claimed that a teacher was going to be a new ruler and would one day replace the

299 feh reh sân, (n). the time in the forenoon between fehreh and naurilṭâm—about 9 o'clock, Available from Dictionary of the Lushai Language by J.H. Lorrain, p. 135. https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/lorrain/ 300 Chapman, Letter: March 1920. 12 7

chief (lal aia lal tur a ni e).301 Though such fear was present, in most places, teachers and education was welcomed with wide-open arms. This was due to the hope of a better future that education could give to their children. The attitude of the Mizos towards education was mainly positive and this was because they saw education as a powerful tool that would enable them to have a better life. In the traditional Mizo society, the highest a person could achieve was Thangchhuah. They believed that same status could be achieved through education. So, education gave mobility to the Mizos that they had never had and it was a tool that could make them changkang. Changkang became an important concept for the Mizos with the introduction of education and it became an ideal, which the Mizos strived for. Education was a means to achieve the changkang status.

4.6 Women and teaching

It is interesting to note that some of the earliest Mizo teachers included female teachers like Pawngi, Saii and Nui.302 This clearly is the result of an education that was accessible to both boys and girls. However, the percentage of female teachers to male was too small for a comparison. There were numerous reasons why it was problematic for women to be teachers in a patriarchal traditional society. First of all, when experimental schools were opened in the villages, it was next to impossible for a female teacher to move to a new village, as it would be socially inappropriate for an unmarried woman to live away from her family in a new village. Even for a married woman, it would be socially frowned upon to be a working wife unless it was in the forest along with her husband. So, the idea of a female Mizo village schoolteacher was just out of question in the early years of the introduction of schooling. However, there were female Mizo teachers in mission stations like Serkawn and Aizawl when girls schools were opened and even before that, there were a couple of female teachers in and around Aizawl who opened temporary

301Chhunthangvunga, ‘Skul Thu’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha. II, Febuary, 1905, p.6. 302Hluna, p. 153. 12 8

schools.303 But apart from the few outliers, teaching became predominantly a space dominated by men for a very long time. This indicates that gender inequality in the pre-colonial Mizo society continued to remain intact in a society that gradually embraced modernity through education. So, from these arguments, one could deduce that majority of the mission teachers during the colonial times were men, especially those who went out to become village school masters.

Education and teaching was predominantly a male dominated area. There was a huge difference between rural and urban scenario. However, this does not mean that only men and boys performed in educational enterprise. Women and girls too played important roles alongside men throughout educational history in the colonial Mizoram. Their activities and contributions might have differed but they did enrich the work of educating the Mizos. In the year 1899, there were fifty- six students on the roll in the Mission school in Aizawl, which was the only school in Aizawl. Out of those fifty- six students, six were girls.304 By the year 1902-03, three temporary schools for girls were set up at Hriangmual, Thakthing and Rahsi Veng, all within and around Aizawl where Nui, Saii and Pawngi run the schools. They were the first Mizo female teachers and they run the schools without receiving any aid. They had thirty- eight girls in total.305 What the Mizo women had pioneered was taken over by the wives of the missionaries and lady missionaries in the succeeding years. Katie Jones, wife of a missionary D.E. Jones was the first European woman to have worked with Mizo girls and women. She herself was a missionary in her own right for seven years in Syhlet before marrying D.E. Jones. She started teaching a small group of Mizo girls in 1904 and this was the beginning of formal girls’ education in Mizoram under the aegis of the mission. She narrated her early experience of teaching Mizo women as:

When I first arrived in 1904, my four rooms thatched house was packed with women smoking pipes and squatting on the floor. I became friends with them and visited them and they told me of their troubles and sickness. The young

303Hluna, p. 153. 304Hluna, p. 151. 305Hluna, p. 153. 12 9

girls did not really have anything to do, so they came to be taught when they were inclined. Since the Lushais moved in herds so there was generally good attendance or no attendance at all. But it was more difficult to get consent to teach the women, they argued that they have never learnt and would not be able to and what use would it be for them. They had endless objections and asking them to clean and comb their hair is absurd too. They finally agreed to come once a week to listen to 'stories' from the Life of Christ and it developed into talks on cleanliness and care of babies. Our Bible women came out from mother's meetings.306

This was the beginning of what would later turn into a girls’ school, which she formally started in 1904 in Aizawl. She had twelve girls and the mission school was converted to solely boys’ school. It was not until 1909 that she had helpers in the school when two Mizo girls joined her. In the same year, girls’ hostel that could accommodate twenty girls was built with the help of Maj. Loch, commandant of the Lushai Hills Military Police and the mission grant. There were about seventy girls on the roll. Col. Cole, Superintendent of the Lushai Hills supported six boarders, which included Mizo chiefs’ daughters and the rest of the girls and other needs of the school was taken care by private contributions sent by her friends from home. This helped her to be able to bear the pay of the Mizo teachers. It is recorded that in 1915, she paid her Lushai teachers Rs.20/- each per month and an extra Rs.9/-. Right from the beginning of her time in Aizawl, she had asked for a lady missionary to look after girls’ education but her requests were denied until the coming of Catherine Mostyn Lewis in November 1922. It took this long for a lady missionary teacher to come, as the colonial Government did not approve of the fast growth of education of girls in Mizoram. And also, female education in Mizoram had only received a passing interest.

It was only in 1916 that the colonial government gave permission for the entry of lady missionaries to teach the girls in colonial Mizoram. The first batch arrived in 1919; Edith M. Chapman of Catford, a trained teacher and Oliver E. Dicks of Chaltenham, a trained nurse and midwife under the Baptist Mission in the South Lushai Hills and Alice Catherine Mostyn Lewis in 1922. Miss Lewis took up girls’

306 Jones, ‘The Women of Lushais’: 1904. 1 30

education and consolidated the hold of Welsh Mission Girls’ School in Aizawl which in 1960 was renamed as Presbyterian Girls’ School (P.C. Girls’ School). This became the centre of learning for the Mizo girls in the North Lushai Hills and served as a centre for teachers’ training before a separate teachers’ training institute could be opened. The responsibility of headship in the Welsh Mission Girls’ School was carried on by the Welsh missionaries till the first Mizo headmistress Saptawni took over in 1968. Katie Hughes (1925-1927, 1930-1944), Katherine Morfydd Davies (1929-1930), Gwen Rees Roberts (1945-1965) Angharad Roberts (1965-68) were the headmistresses.307 During Catherine Morfydd Davies’ time, as she was young and nearer in age to the Mizo teachers, a new spirit was felt at the school.308 Mizo women worked alongside the lady missionaries in teaching and running of the mission school in Aizawl. Wives of the missionaries also helped out whenever needed. During school hours, teachers were expected to stand and walk up and down the class and were not allowed to sit. Since there was not much disciplining done at home apart from church manners, this was done at school too. During this time, teachers’ training happened simultaneously in the school. Students were expected to speak in English only in the English classes. Mizo teachers were deeply respectful of the missionary teachers, almost to the point of fear. The missionaries encouraged Mizo women to quit teaching once they got married and have children as they were expected to look after their families.309 This is possibly one of the biggest reasons why there was a lack of female teachers especially in the village schools.

With manpower and funds for education always in wanting, the wives of the missionaries filled in the gap and contributed for the growth of female education. An interview with Rini who was Mrs. Eluned Jones Owens’ helper from 1953 in Mission Vengthlang in Aizawl gives us some glimpse into roles played by missionary wives in educational enterprise. Prior to this, her father, Taia, a church elder worked with the Owens. Mrs. Owens was a shy and fragile woman, who

307 P.C. Girls' School [website] 2019 http://www.mizoramsynod.org/index.php/page/1244 (accessed 5th July 2019 ). 308 D. Ben Rees (ed.), Vehicles of Grace and Hope: Welsh Missionaries in India, 1800-1970, William Carey Library, 2002, p. 16. 309 Chhingpuii, interview, 2016. 1 31

supported her husband and followed him wherever possible. She went to the villages with him during his tours and taught the women folks how to stitch, cut and sew. She was never in the leadership position in the church but was a quiet supporter of the mission in the background.310 Mrs. Owens though never was in the limelight but her contribution to education is telling of many missionary wives as well. She helped out in PC Girls’ School often without remuneration.311 By teaching their helpers and letting them do Bible reading and prayers in their household, missionary wives helped fostered a strong bond with the Mizos who came in close touch with them. They often taught basic life skills to their helpers through their daily conduct and such things stayed deep and long often than those taught at school. Mrs. Margaret Jones, the wife of school inspector Rev. Basil Jones was good in drawing and often took drawing classes and taught them children songs and rhymes.312

While this was happening in the North Lushai Hills, in the South Lushai Hills, E.M. Chapman remained in-charge of girls’ education till 1952 when she returned to England. Female education in the South Lushai Hills was initiated by Mrs. Lorrain in between her tours where she taught them sewing twice a week in addition to other general subjects.313 Assistance was rendered to Miss Chapman in her teaching by Thangchhumi, a Mizo girl, who passed her Teacher’s Examination in 1921. Mrs. Lorrain, Miss Dicks, Miss Burton, Mrs. Wenger, and Lalsiami who passed nurse training also helped at the school when needed.314 In 1931, after twelve years’ work against opposition to girls’ education, the first Girls’ Middle English School in the South was opened and was staffed with Mizo women teachers. The numbers of girls who attended the school was one hundred and twelve.315 During 1935-37, Lalziki opened the second Girls’ Middle English School at Darzo village and taught there.316 By 1939, Chawnhu, Cheural and Thingsai villages had women

310 Rini, interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, March 2016, Aizawl. 311 Rev. Anuerin Owens (Zolawma) interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, March 2016, Aizawl. 312 Mrs. Margaret Jones (Pi Zawni), interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, Aberystwyth, October 2016. 313 Savidge, Station Report: 1908. 314 Savidge, Station Report: 1922. 315 E.M. Chapman, Girls’ School Report: 1932-36, [BMS/ IN 113]. 316 Chapman, Girls’ School Report: 1932-36. 1 32

teachers. Each school had two teachers, about thirty boarders, fifty to seventy day scholars.317

4.7 Conclusion

Teaching was predominantly a male domain despite education was made accessible for both boys and girls. However, there always were more boys than girls in schools as girls were considered to be too useful at home. The boys and girls’ curriculum were never at par and girls’ education focused more on training them to be enterprising women and better wives than having a career in a very narrow and conservative job market. Some women became teachers, but they were few and far. They usually held positions in mission and administrative centres like Aizawl, Serkawn and Lunglei. By 1919, Chhumi was the first female teacher 318 in the South Lushai Hills, Lalziki Sailo also helped as a teacher in Darzo when girls’ school was opened there for two years in 1935 – 1936 319 and was later sent out among the Pawis,320 and in 1935, under the Baptist Mission in the South Lushai Hills, there were only eleven women teachers.321 It was mainly the men who ultimately filled teaching positions especially those in the rural areas. Even towards the end of the colonial period, in Aizawl, women were encouraged to teach in schools only as long as they remained unmarried and once they got married, they were asked to leave their jobs to look after their household.322 The traditional female roles were never really relinquished even by the education that was supposed to liberate them, which is an irony. Patriarchy, no doubt stood in the way of educated women having a career outside their homes and beyond their towns. Since teachers were endowed with much authority and their roles as a guide for the village, it was clear that such roles done by Mizo women would never have been accepted and it was just unthinkable

317 Chapman, Letter: May 1939. 318 E.M. Chapman, Letter: December 1919 [BMS/ IN 112]. 319 Rokhuma, p. 130. 320 Chapman, Letter: June 1929. 321 Chapman, Letter: May 1935. 322 Chhingpuii, interview, 2016. 1 33

for the Mizos to be led and guided by a woman in the process of modernisation through education.

Taking the argument further, was it only traditional Mizo patriarchy that stopped women from participating in teaching profession in the rural areas? And the answer is not simple and the reason could not just be Mizo patriarchy. It is crucial to note that the colonial government and the missionary enterprise carried with them a lot of Victorian sensibilities in role allocation, which they often consciously or unconsciously passed on to the Mizos too. It was the colonial government that felt that girls’ education grew too fast and needed to be checked. 323 And it was not the desire of the colonial government and the mission agencies to ruffle too many feathers and upset traditional social order. On the other hand, one could also argue that teaching jobs in the villages were not practical for women. This is keeping in view the economic activities of the Mizos, which was mainly agrarian. Physical labour and exertion were required and men were favoured in such an economy because of their biology and physical make up. When teaching jobs became available, it became an alternative for the hard manual labour in the forest but still earn more respect, provides status and livelihood. In the traditional society, division of labour was based on age and gender that entails biology. When village schools were opened, teachers had to travel great distances in the jungle under numerous hardships and had to live in villages where they might not know anyone nor had relatives. So, looking at the situation from the lenses of practicalities, and functionalities, it was the society’s attempt to maintain status quo in not accepting or embracing female village teachers. As much as it is easy to critique patriarchy alone, it is also important to have historical and societal sensibility and sensitivity and also to acknowledge that social change is a process that happened either at a swift pace or relatively slow, which the latter is in this case.

The development of teaching profession as a means of earning livelihood changed many parents’ expectations towards their children’s future. Education

323 Hluna, p. 277. 1 34

gradually brought with it the idea of modernity in every sphere of life. Very quickly, traditional means of earning one’s living through agrarian activities was detested especially among the educated class. This became an alarming issue in the 1930s, as there weren’t enough jobs to be filled by the educated Mizos under the colonial government or under the Christian mission agencies leading to a lot of discontentment.324 The Mizos were dissatisfied with the absence of institutions for higher education in colonial Mizoram also added to the discontentment.325 The ambitions of the Mizos towards getting higher qualifications, knowledge and jobs in the secular world was another cause of concern for some Mizo Christians too who saw education as only a means of equipping themselves for the spread of Christianity.326

The contributions of the wives of the missionaries towards education are something worth giving a serious consideration. Most of them did not have prior formal training to teach and some of them had shy demeanour. But because of the need of the times, they often step up to fill the gap. Especially before the arrival of women missionaries, wives of missionaries like Katie Jones and Mrs. Lorraine contributed hugely for the setting up of female education and they were the forerunners of girls’ curriculum in later years. Without their contributions, female education would have lacked behind for many years. Even after the coming of female missionary teachers and nurses, their numbers were always in wanting and in such cases, these missionary wives filled in the places where there were not enough teachers. Many missionary wives accompanied their husbands in their tour of villages and while travelling, they took the opportunity to teach village women how to read and write, hygiene, baby care and cutting and sewing of clothes, which were part of the girls’ curriculum. They usually had local helpers in their homes and they taught them household maintenance, cooking and hygiene, reading and writing and scriptures. A lot of Mizo women and men who helped with the missionaries went on to become enterprising and successful people in different areas.

324 Carter, Lushai Boys’ Education Report: 1935. 325 E.M. Chapman, Letter: February 1930, [BMS: IN/112]. 326 Rohmingliana, Letter: June 1934. 1 35

Lastly, it is important to see the human subject of teachers as a site of agency and conflict during the colonial times. They are often seen as occupying elite position, privileged and highly romanticised role. But through the analysis of the mission inspection reports, we see the daily struggles and majority of the teachers’ failure to live up to the mark of the mission requirements. They became a site of conflict between tradition and modernity and they had to negotiate between the tripartite ideals of the Mizos, mission and colonial authority whenever conflict arose between them.

So, the questions that we asked in the beginning merit an answer here to conclude the chapter. The speed at which the Mizos accepted and raised the status of teachers in the society was simply because it could give them what they wanted and could get rid of what they hated. Teaching jobs entailed freedom from forced Kuli, freedom from the hardship of manual labour, it provided money, and was a sure way to earn social status.327 Some of the important momentary needs and desires of the Mizos found its answer in teaching jobs. This was possible because of the working together of many factors like the presence of colonial government, the mission and through body politics, domination of curriculum, lack of other educated jobs etc.

327 Bobby Beingachhi ‘Spread of Education and Levels of Literacy in Mizoram’, p.121. 136

Chapter 5

Conclusion

The educational past of the Mizos beginning with the language reduced to a written form in 1894, the journey from Lower Primary to Middle English, the inclusion of girls’ education and their success in opening a high school in 1944 was a winding journey that had happened in years long gone. Majority of zirlai (students) who had studied in mission schools during the colonial times are no more and there is hardly anyone left of those who were zirtir (teachers) in mission schools. But the few survivors remember with pride the education they received in mission school and reminiscing their school days with nostalgia. Few years shy of half a century determined the path that Mizo education would take in the present times. So, by 2011 census of India, Mizoram recorded a literacy rate of 91.33% with the males hitting a 93.35% and female literacy stands at 89.27% against the national literacy rate of 74.04%.328 In development parlance, this would be nothing less than a success story, and this is the dominant narrative of the educational story of the Mizos too. But in the preceding chapters, a conscious path was taken to develop an alternate narrative beyond the dualistic model of agency versus structure and functionalist versus post- colonial readings. During the course of the four chapters of enquiry and exploratory study of education during the colonial times in Mizoram, many aspects of the engagements between the people and education at various levels were looked at. The interaction between education and boys and girls, with adult men and women, with the traditional elites, with the missionaries and colonial agents were discussed at length.

The first important theme was on the school curriculum, which has always been a site of domination, contestation and conflict. In the Mizo case, the curriculum development and implementation was under the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists and

328Census of India, Mizoram Population, [website], 2011, https://www.census2011.co.in/census/state/mizoram.html., (accessed 1 August 2019).

137

the London Baptist Mission Societies. Being Christian mission societies, it was their primary goal to give as much Christian teachings as possible in the curriculum they developed. So, from the very beginning, educational goals in Mizoram had strong religious and moral tones. Their dream of making a Christian nation was realised by the time educational administration was handed over to the government in various phases in independent India starting in 1952 with more than 90% of the population already professing Christianity, which in 1901 census was only 0.05%.329But in the politics of curriculum, there is always multiplicity of aims and goals and again in the Mizo case, the civilizing agenda was also strong especially with the Mizos being a tribal group. The aims of curriculum in Mizoram went through different stages and there were different layers to it. In the initial years, it was to enable them to read the bible,330 but with the passing of years, the aims became more complex and varied. When girls’ education was introduced, the curriculum framers had to put into consideration the usefulness of girls at home and they had to come up with lots of practical lessons that would be attractive enough for parents to sent their daughters to school. 331 In 1935, it was realised that the Middle English course was mainly a stepping-stone for high school when most of the students would not get the chance for higher education, so they were aiming at revising the course to emphasize middle vernacular course, which will train especially the boys to live ‘a normal yet enlightened village life’. What the schools had offered the boys was a preparation for salaried jobs that were not forthcoming.332

Though the missionaries felt they were successful in realising their primary aim of Christianising the Mizos, there was continued discontentment and discomfort voiced by many Mizos and some missionaries too in the way schooling was conducted and also in the content of curriculum. People like Pastor Rohmingliana wrote in 1936 about his desire for the mission to open a Bible school and his regret towards students’ obsession with getting employment only in the government and he felt the need for more Christian teachings in school curriculum. He went on to argue that

329 Centre for Policy Studies, Religion Data of Census 2011: XXVIII Northeast [website], 2016 https://blog.cpsindia.org/2016/08/religion-data-of-census-2011-xxviii.html (accessed February 2017). 330Jones, Letter: 1905. 331 Savidge, Station Report: 1913. 332 Carter, Boys’ Education Report: 1935. 138

English speaking Mizos were naturally at an advantage while there were many Mizos who were amazing speakers in the church and were strongly led by the holy spirit but had limited knowledge of the bible because that was not easily available for them in their language.333 Rev H. W. Carter also admitted that curriculum for the boys did not prepare them to a life in the Lushai Hills and especially to the villages where they were going home.334 Rev. David Edwards, Honorary Inspector of Schools in Aizawl wrote that he regretted the losing of indigenous culture and practices by the Mizos and he even questioned whether he was failing as a representative of God. He talked about the issue of unemployment and with people spending fortune on their children's education hoping for a good return but was highly disappointed. He felt that the school curriculum was not doing enough to feed the needs of the Mizos.335 Both the Mizos and the Europeans had faced the problem of having low qualifications and insufficient training in educational administration, management and teaching. This was a major problem for all and especially for the Mizos, as it put them at a real disadvantage while framing curriculum with their voices mostly silenced. People like Ch. Pasena, Nuchhungi and Chhuahkhama contributed in the writing of school textbooks but it was the British missionaries who did most work on curriculum.

The goals of the boys and girls education differed enormously and this seemed to have stronger bearings than one might anticipate. Girls were given numerous practical and survival skills. From the lowest class, they were taught self-care and care for others covering topics that touched upon all aspects of Mizo life both in rural areas and in the towns. So, Mizo girls had enormous practical knowledge for survival and only a few of them had the opportunity to pursue higher studies as that entailed leaving the Lushai Hills which was too expensive for majority of them. This resulted in fewer girls with higher qualifications. The curriculum of the girls’ school was meant for empowering women and it seemed to have done that. It provided mobility too but a limited one. But there was also lack of organic growth, development and only limited change in curriculum during half a century of the missions’ educational work.

333 Rohmingliana, Letter: June 1936. 334 Carter, Report: 1935. 335 Edwards, Letter: August 1935. 139

For a long time, boys’ curriculum neglected manual and practical works but with a focus on qualifying exams. The boys however had better chance of continuing their studies with higher qualifications and had lots more career options than their female counterpart, though that too was still limited. They could get a job as low- level clerks in the government, teach in the schools, train in theology and work under the mission agencies etc. But the highest qualifying exams in the Lushai Hills were not enough to pursue many of the careers available to them. This created a lag in the world and society they lived in and it continued to be a problem for many years to come. For almost fifty years, educational development did not go beyond middle school education in the Lushai Hills because colonial and mission educational policy was more focused on horizontal expansion than a vertical one. On the other hand, we also need to keep into consideration the struggles of providing education too. Factors like lack of sufficient funding, political unrest in British India and lack of manpower within mission agencies had adverse effect on the growth and development of education at large. As mentioned earlier, the missionaries were not educationists and the ones who successfully completed teachers’ training course were very few to look after the need of the entire Lushai Hills. What the colonial government could contribute in the educational process was limited mainly to providing funds and that too was meagre. A lot of the educational enterprise was a trial and error for the mission agencies and dependent often on luck. The Mizos response to such curriculum and their engagement with it was remarkable to say the least, as it was a venture into a new knowledge system. Overall, for the Mizos, it was a paradigm shift with the introduction of modern education for the masses. It provided for some people an alternative to their understanding of the concept of work, it also gave them a new way of getting food the saheb’s way. Beyond this, it offered new ways of earning social capital and respect in the society. It deconstructed a gender-based division of labour and offered some mobility for both men and women and a new form of thangchhuah was available for everyone through education. So, the introduction of modern schooling under the aegis of the Christian missionaries and the colonial government reshuffle Mizo epistemology, how life was perceived, experiences understood and the production and dissemination of knowledge and it percolated to every strata of the Mizo life. 140

Gauri Viswanathan made a strong statement when looking at education in the pan Indian context:

English education came to be criticised for its imitativeness and superficiality and for having produced an uprooted elite who were at once apostates to their own national tradition and imperfect imitators of the West.336

English education in colonial India was criticized heavily for the reasons as stated above by Vishwanathan. Imitation and superficiality are the keywords of post- colonial critique of the British colonial education system. A creation of a new hybrid identity, Indian but British in their taste is seen as an epitome of the skewedness of the education system under the colonial government in India. But, having stated such problems, immediately we come to understand the limitations and exclusiveness of such arguments too. In this increasingly dominant narrative of post-colonial critique of colonial education in India, where does education of smaller people group like the Mizos feature and are they even considered? Being clustered in tribal studies or tribal education does not do justice to it. So, in the light of Vishwanathan’s statement above, it is therefore pertinent to ask where education for the Mizos stood in the colonial times and how it has changed in the post colonial context or is there a marked difference between the two? Since education is an area heavily influenced by politics and governance, how much change have we witnessed in the way education is organized today? The answer seems to be not too drastic because till quite late, education continued to be under the supervision of the church directly or indirectly even after the government took back the responsibility of educational administration since 1952. Those who were appointed by the government to look after education department in the early part of free India were deeply entrenched in the mission system of education though religious instructions had been stopped in all government middle schools. 337 By then other mission agencies had started their works in Mizoram; Seventh Day Adventists started Helen Lowry School in 1950,338Montfort

336Gauri Vishwanathan, p, 41. 337Jones, Letter: May 1952. 338 Office of Archives, Statistics and Research, Seventh day Adventist, Year Book, [website], https://www.adventistyearbook.org/entity?EntityID=30374, ( accessed 19 November 2019) 141

Brothers of St. Gabriel started St. Pauls High School in 1954.339 On 15th August 1958, Aijal College was also set up to become the first institution of higher education in Mizoram. Pachhunga, a Mizo businessman was the main benefactor and was supported by a group of elders who wanted to see higher education developed in Mizoram. Rev Alwyn Roberts of the Welsh Presbyterian Mission was the first regular principal and served from 1960-1967 and other missionaries from different denominations like G.R. Roberts, Brother Godfrey, Rev. J.M. Lloyd, Father O’ Brien, Helen Lowry and early Mizo graduates like Rita Neihpuii, Sangliana and Malsawma also served as volunteer faculty. 340 So, the thirst for knowledge and higher qualifications drove the Mizos into opening higher educational institutions with support from the missionaries who were no longer the official educationists.

In the early 20th century, the desire to be changkang and hmasawn were the main driving force for education and this continued to be so till today. In a close knitted society like that of the Mizos, the fear of not being part of the larger whole or left behind (rualpawl lo) spurred parents to educate their children even if they had to pay a high cost. Education provided them social mobility for the masses but a deeper enquiry also reveals a traditional belief in the concept of thangchhuah and pialral also remained one of the key reasons for the desire for education. A society’s understanding of its eternal resting place for the lucky souls or paradise just does not go away in few decades and the route to that place was replaced by education, which was more accommodating and inclusive than the traditional thangchhuah and so, it was traditional belief system that helped in ushering and embracing modernity and this also showcases that they don’t necessarily exist at opposing ends.

Education of the masses entails social change and that change usually begins with those in power in the society. However, there is another side of the story in the case of the Mizos, where social change began at the grassroots with children going to school. An organic change happened in Mizo society through the children by means of mass education. We also see numerous structural and intangible changes in the

339St. Paul’s Higher Secondary School, [website], https://stpaulsaizawl.net/historical-milestones/, (accessed 19 November 2019) 340Rev. Alywn Roberts, Interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, November 2016, Aberystwyth. 142

Mizo society with the coming of the colonial government, which were mainly inorganic. The education offered to the Mizos was not definitely without criticisms, very often due to its foreign-ness in nature. We also need to see that it holds within it a seed for a hybridized development, which the society created it to be its very own. It was not only the daily schooling that provided education to the Mizos but we also need to take into consideration the contributions of Sunday school in educating the Mizo children especially for the girls. It provided a space for girls and women to learn basic reading and writing when there was extreme scarcity and lack of desire to open schools for girls. The Mizo society’s attitude towards female education especially in the early years were tepid and difficult and Sunday school being a sacred space within the margins of the larger church warmed the society towards the concept of learning for girls which hitherto was alien to them. Sunday school was also more widespread than village schools for a long time and it succeeded in reaching out areas that were too far removed from schools. And for those who were to attend regular schools later, it was also an introduction to organized system of learning. The mixing of the sacred and profane spaces for the spread of literacy and education made it easy for the general population to embrace modern education much quicker.

In other parts of India, education usually favoured the upper classes/ castes but the Mizo case was different. Despite the colonial government’s attempts to maintain traditional elite groups by prioritizing their education, geography and connectivity with the educational centres or the lack of it played a role that seems stronger in determining the groups of people who got educated first. People living close to educational centres were most advantaged in getting schooling opportunities followed with the most dispossessed section of the society who fell under the missions’ patronages. This led to the development and growth of a new social class; the educated elites that was made up of different sections of the traditional social groups. These groups of elites went on to become the leaders of the Mizos in culture, politics and in the church and therefore replacing most of the traditional elites and this was intensified by the abolition of the hereditary rights chiefs by Acquisition of Chief's Rights Act, 1954 and the campaign for the abolition of chiefs was let by the 143

educated elites under the banner of Mizo Union Party.341

With the spread of education from the early 20th century, teaching became a sought after job and it was predominantly a male domain. Although, education was accessible for boys and girls, enrolment rates was always higher among boys than girls. In a Mizo home, girls have always been too useful to be spared to go to school. The way boys and girls’ were trained differently at home crawled over in the realm of schools too where the curriculum of girls’ education focused more on training them to be enterprising women and better wives than having a career in a very narrow and conservative job market. There were some women teachers but very few and for instance in 1935, there were only 11 women teachers in the whole of the then South Lushai Hills. 342 Female teachers were mainly confined to mission and administrative centres like Aizawl, Serkawn and Lunglei. Chhumi, Lalziki Sailo, and Nuchhungi were some of the popular female teachers under Baptist Mission. By 1919, Chhumi was the first female teacher343 in the then South Lushai Hills area, Lalziki Sailo also helped as a teacher in Darzo when girls’ school was opened there for two years in 1935 – 1936 344 and was later on sent out among the Pawis,345 Kaichhingi, Chhingpuii, Thangvungi, Chawngbuangi and Rochhungi were some of the female Mizo teachers who taught at the Welsh Mission Girls’ school in Aizawl in the 1930s.346 It was mainly the men who ventured in the rural areas to open schools. Even towards the end of the colonial period, in Aizawl, women were encouraged to teach in schools only as long as they remained single and once they got married, they were asked to leave their jobs to look after their household.347 It is highly ironic that traditional female roles were never really relinquished even with their new educational qualifications, which was expected to liberate them. The possibility of educated women having a career outside their homes and beyond their towns was marred by patriarchy. The status and role of teachers were that of a leader and guide

341 Suhas, Chatterjee, Mizo Chiefs and the Chiefdoms, New Delhi, M.D. Publications,1995, pp. 1-3. 342 Chapman, Letter: May 1935. 343 Chapman, Letter: December 1919. 344Rokhuma, p. 130. 345 Chapman, Letter: June 1929. 346Chhingpuii Interview 347Chhingpuii Interview 144

endowed with some authority and Mizo society could never have accepted women in such position. When there were men to do the job, it was unthinkable for the Mizos to be led and guided by women even in the process of modernisation through education. But patriarchy alone did not stop women from participating in teaching position especially in the villages. The mission agencies were also still deeply embedded in Victorian sensibilities in role allocation and they often consciously or unconsciously passed this on to the Mizos. For instance, it was the colonial government that felt that girls’ education grew too fast and needed to be checked.348 Apart from this, the colonial government and the mission agencies were trying their best to ruffle the feathers as little as possible. There also was the side of safety and practical issues for women to teach in the villages which involved a lot of travelling in the forests infested with wild animals and setting up their own homes in a new place away from their families. In the traditional agrarian economy, physical labour and strength was required and men were favoured in such economy because of their biological make up. Teaching job offered an alternative from the hard manual labour in the forest but still earn more respect, provides status and livelihood and it was no accident that men would want to dominate the new sphere to maintain status quo by not accepting or embracing female village teachers. To have a historical and societal sensibility and sensitivity and also to acknowledge that social change is a process that happened either at a swift pace or relatively slow is equally important as to be able to critique patriarchy in this case.

For many parents, the expectations and dreams they had for their children was changed by education. The possibility of doing clerical job in government offices and the development of teaching profession or other jobs under the Christian missions as a means of earning livelihoods opened up new avenues for the society to enlarge their economic territory which hitherto was confined to agricultural base. The ideas and practises of modernity were ushered in too along with education and through the colonial government. There was a growing detestation of manual work and farming very soon, especially among school going boys. The obsession to be

348 Hluna, p. 277. 145

lekhathiam349 grew rapidly but there was also a great fear of producing more than the job market could take. In the 1930s, as there were not enough jobs to be filled by the educated Mizos under the colonial government or under the Christian mission agencies leading to a lot of discontentment.350 In his letter to the Baptist Mission headquarters in England, Rohmingliana wrote the fear that many of the Mizo Christians had of the growing fervour of materialism and the race to get higher qualification and jobs in the colonial government.351 This also shows that for many of the earlier educated Mizos, education was seen primarily as the road to become better Christians and they had high expectations towards Mizo Christians employed in the government to give more to the church and not be stingy with their money.352 So, for a lot of people, teaching job was a mid-way, a way to remain in the Christian fold and a way to earn money though the salary was minimal. Teachers not only occupied an elite position with privileged status and highly romanticised roles too. The human subject of teachers can also be seen as a site of conflict and agency. Their real daily struggles to fit the bill of a teacher in their conduct and engagements with their students and authority are evident from mission school inspection reports where it can be seen that majority of the teachers failed to live up to the mark of all the mission requirements. They had to negotiate between the tripartite ideals of the Mizo society, mission agencies and colonial authority whenever conflict arose between them. They were a site of conflict between modernity and tradition. The speed at which the Mizos accepted and raised the status of teachers in the society was simply because it could give them what they wanted and could get rid of what they hated as well. Apart from providing money, teaching jobs also entailed freedom from forced Kuli, freedom from the hardship of manual labour, and was a sure way to earn social status.353 Some of the important momentary needs and desires of the Mizos found its answer in teaching jobs. This was possible because of the working together of many

349It translates educated. But in the early Mizo society, it was a loaded meaning, accompanied with social status and respect in the society. In his diary, Chalthianga, who was a mission zirtir at Lailak wrote that when he went home during his school holidays to his village Khawruhlian, many young men were sent by the chief to welcome him and carry him home. 350Carter, Letter: 1935. 351Rohmingliana, Letter: June 1934. 352Rohmingliana, Letter: June 1934. 353 Bobby Beingachhi ‘Spread of Education’, p.121. 146

factors like the presence of colonial government, the mission and through body politics, domination of curriculum, lack of other jobs for the educated.

We also see opposition of education in various pockets in the first few years of its introduction especially in girls’ education. But if we compare it with societies in different parts of India, opposition and resistance were largely mild. This was due to the largely paternalistic relationships that the society had with the missionaries who were incharge of education. When we see critique and resistance in education, rather than the education itself, what was opposed was the dwindling of traditional values, which they felt was brought about by the presence of non Mizos in authority and their culture and practises emulated by some of the educated Mizos. The masses see the disjunction between education and farming or any other manual work. For instance Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu, of December 1909 writes that older generation sees that education is for lazy and selfish people.354 People also started to question if education was good for the Mizo society as they feel it disintegrates the unity and social fabric, which they took pride in. It raises the question of its utility for the general masses and how business would be able to create more jobs for them. Respect was attached to education and Thangtea wrote in the February 1913 issue of Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu that the same respect could be earned by getting money through hard work.355 A debate was held in Aijal Mission School in 1915 where they debated on whether education really brings happiness. Some of them felt that there is more freedom in not being educated and the simple pleasures of a Mizo village life was looked at with nostalgia while for the educated ones, it was material things that brought them happiness along with the new knowledge they have. 356 As much as they embraced new form of knowledge and modernity with the spread of education, the Mizos understood that their traditional life that was close to nature and the values that surrounded it was dwindling and many people viewed that with regret.

354 Unknown, ‘Skul Thu’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha XII, December 1909, p.239.

355Thangtea ‘Fuihna Tlemte’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha. II, February 1913.

356 Unknown, ‘Lehkhathiam Nge Hlim Ang Lehkhathiamlo’, Mizo leh Vai Chanchin Lehkhabu, Lehkha VII, July, 1915.

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Another aspect of missionary education in Mizoram that does not get ready attention was the contributions of the wives of the missionaries in running schools and helping teachers wherever and whenever required. Though the wives of the missionaries were also missionaries, they were primarily expected to fulfil their roles as housewives and had enormous responsibilities of supporting their husbands’ work and caring for their young children. 357 E.M. Chapman arrived in Serkawn under Baptist Mission in 1919 and Alice Catherine Mostyn Lewis arrived in Aizawl to run Welsh Mission Girls’ School in 1922 and until then the care of education for girls were shared between Mrs. Katie Jones and Mrs. Sandy in the then North Lushai Hills and Mrs. Eleanor Lorrain and Mrs. Savidge in the South were the fore runners of girls’ education. Except for Mrs. Margaret Sandy, none of them had prior formal training in the field of teaching and some of them had shy demeanour. They often had to fill the gap due to the needs of the time but they usually remained in the shadow of their missionary husbands. Gender inequality also seeped through the structure of the missionary enterprise from early on. Female education would have lacked behind for many years without the active involvement of the wives of the missionaries. When lady missionaries started to arrive to work as nurses and teachers, they were the ones who familiarised them into the workings of the mission station and they continued supporting roles till the very end. They also accompanied their husbands in their village tours and that often was an opportunity to reach out village women by teaching them how to read and write, hygiene, baby care and cutting and sewing of clothes, which continued to be part of the girls’ curriculum. At their homes in Aizawl and Serkawn, they usually had helpers to whom they taught household maintenance, cooking, hygiene, reading, writing and scriptures. A lot of Mizo women and men who had helped the missionaries went on to become enterprising and successful people in different areas and the hearth became an informal place of teaching for them too.

When we discuss education, social change is also an important theme that also have to surface. Durkheim argues that,

357Rini Interview, March 2006. 148

Social change occurs through the contact and clash of individuals, in periods of heightened social intensity, when a new type of social consensus or a new moral code is achieved.358

So, in the Mizo case too, social change was brought about by means of introduction of education, which was a site of conflict, contestations of ideas and individuals. A new consensus on the desire to be hmasawn and changkang sustained the process of change even till today. Education provided a space for a new way of socialisation for the young people where collective knowledge and experience was passed on. It served as a medium for what Durkheim called ‘transmission of culture’359 and it had created a new Mizo Christian lekhathiam culture and the transmission of it continues till today.

358Ottaway, pp.6-7 359Ottaway, p. 8. 150

APPENDIX

A. Images

1. Maps

Figure 1: Map of Mizoram, 2011.

Source:Census of India,https://www.censusindia.gov.in/DigitalLibrary/MapResult.aspx

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Figure 2: The Lushai Hills.

Source:A.G. McCall, LushaiChrysallis.

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2. Some Textbooks

Figure 3: Zir- Tan- Bu (1923): Reading exercise book used in Sunday schools.

Source: J.M. Lloyd Memorial Library & Archives, Aizawl Theological College.

Figure 4: Khawvel Thu: Geography- India and Continents.

Source: J.M. Lloyd Memorial Library & Archives, Aizawl Theological College.

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3. Zirlai

Figure 5: Girls’ School, Aijal, 1922 with 3 Mizo teachers.

Source: Pi Teii Collection, J.M. Lloyd Memorial Library & Archives,

Aizawl Theological College.

Figure 6: Inside the classroom at Serkawn Girls’ School, Circa 1920s.

Source: BMS IN/ B14 Angus tour photos, Angus Library & Archive, Regent’s Park College, Oxford University.

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Figure 7: Boys’ Middle English School, Aizawl, Class VI with Headmaster 1941.

Source:LalkailuiaSailo Collection, Shillong.

Figure 8: Rev. F.W. Savidge and young Mizo pastors who were his students (Circa 1920s). Source:Hmingliani Murray Collection, Shillong

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4. Zirtîr

Figure 9: Châni, Chhûmi, Zaii. Girls’ School Teachers, Serkawn.

Source: BMS IN/ B14 Angus tour photos, Angus Library & Archive, Regent’s Park College, Oxford University.

Figure 10: Chalthianga, LailakZirtîr.

Source:Chalthianga Collection, Aizawl.

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5. MizoLehkhathiam

Figure 11: Middle English Leaving Certificate.

Source:Dr.Lukira Collection, Lunglei.

Figure 12: Educated Mizo gentlemen.

Source: R. Buchhawna Collection, Aizawl.

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6. Schools

Figure 13: Boy’s School, Aizawl.

Source:Pi Teii Collection, J.M. Lloyd Memorial Library & Archives, Aizawl Theological College.

Figure 14: Girls’ School and hostel buildings, Serkawn.

Source: BMS IN/ B14 Angus tour photos, Angus Library & Archive, Regent’s Park College, Oxford University.

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B. Interviews

Unstructured interviews and discussions were carried out throughout the course of my research. This was done mainly to understand the times in which Mizos and

Europeans engaged themselves with the educational enterprise in Mizoram and to be able to have historical sensitivity apart from the facts, figures and images provided by them.

1.Ashley Smith is the grandson of Rev. J.M. Lloyd and Mrs. Joan Lloyd. He provided me with his grandfather’s writings and photo collection.Interviewed by

LalhlimpuiiPachuau, November 2016, Derby.

2. Chhingpuiiwas born in 1926 and studied at the Presbyterian Girls’ School in the

1930s. She joined the school as a teacher in 1948 and worked there till her retirement in 1988. Her entire life revolved in and around the girls’ school and therefore provided rich insight. Interviewed by LalhlimpuiiPachuau, July 2016, Khatla.

3. Eiryls Smith also known as Zohmangaihi is the daughter of Rev. J.M. Lloyd and

Mrs. Joan Lloyd. She had lived in Aizawl with her parents and shared the things she witnessed at the times when higher education in Mizoram was under the care of her father.Interviewed by LalhlimpuiiPachuau, November 2016, Derby.

4. Hnunliana is the youngest son of Ch. Pasena, the first Mizo to have completed teachers’ training course. He shared valuable stories of growing up being a son of

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Zirtir in Aizawl and his father’s experiences as told to him. Interviewed by

LalhlimpuiiPachuau, May 2013, Aizawl.

5. Lalhminglianais the son of Lalmama -teacher and headmaster at Serkawn Boys’

School- and he has a photographic memory of studying at Serkawn School and seeing the way his father and his friends conducted themselves as teachers and church leaders.Interviewed by LalhlimpuiiPachuau, November 2017, Aizawl.

6. Lalkunga was a teacher and church elder in the Presbyterian Church. He studied under V.L. Siama, one of the most well known mission teachers in eastern Mizoram.

Interviewed by LalhlimpuiiPachuau, October 2013, Aizawl.

7. Margaret Jones is the wife of Rev. Basil Jones, who served as an Inspector of

Schools in Mizoram from early 1940s till July 1954. She did art classes at girls’ school in Aizawl and also helped with dramatics. Interviewed by

LalhlimpuiiPachuau, October 2016, Aberystwyth.

8. Rev. Alwyn Roberts served as the first regular principal at Aijal College, which is now known as Pachhunga University College from 1960- 1967.Interviewed by

LalhlimpuiiPachuau, October 2016, Aberystwyth.

9. Rev. Aneurin Owens, also known as Zolawma is the younger son of the Welsh missionaries Rev. & Mrs. Owens. He was born in Aizawl in 1956 and has come back

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to Mizoram at regular intervals and continues to work closely with the Presbyterian youth fellowship. Interviewed by LalhlimpuiiPachuau, 18th March 2016, Aizawl.

10. Rini was a student of Welsh Mission Girls’ School in Aizawl and worked closely with the Owens at home as did her father before her. Interviewed by

LalhlimpuiiPachuau, March 2016, Aizawl.

11. Vanlalchhandamais the only child of Sapkungi, who was adopted by missionary

Kitty Lewis in the mid 1920s in Aizawl. Interviewed by LalhlimpuiiPachuau, June

2013, Aizawl.

12. Vanlalruati is the daughter of Nuchhungi who contributed hugely in curriculum development in the then South Lushai Hills girls’ curriculum through her writing of

Serkawn Graded reader with E.M. Chapman. She shared her mothers’ writings and her photo collection. Interviewed by LalhlimpuiiPachuau, March 2013, Lunglei.

12. V.L. Zaikima is the son of V.L. Siama and he is a valuable source of information of his father’s work as a teacher and church elder. Interviewed by

LalhlimpuiiPachuau, April 2015, Aizawl.

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C. Some Female Teachers at Welsh Mission Girls’ School (later known as P.C.

Girls’ School)Aizawl.(As told by Chingpuii, former student and teacher ).

1. Biaksiami 2. Chawngbuangi 3. Chhingpuii, 4. Chuauliani 5. Kaichhingi 6. Hluii 7. Chalteii 8. Nuhliri 9. Rochhungi 10. Saptawni 11. Thangvungi 12. Vanlalchhuangi 13. Vanrumi 14. Varhlunchhungi 15. Zolawmi

D. Decadal Literacy rate of Mizoram

Year Literacy Rate

1901 0.92

1911 3.98

1921 6.28

1931 10.70

1941 19.48

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1951 31.13

1961 44.01

1971 53.79

1981 59.88

1991 82.03

2001 88.08

2011 91.33

Source:http://www.mospi.gov.in/sites/default/files/reports_and_publication/statistical_publication/soc ial_statistics/Chapter_3.pdf

iv

ABBREVIATIONS

ATC Aizawl Theological College BMS Baptist Mission Society CMA Calvinistic Methodist Archives ISPCK Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge P.C. Presbyterian Church

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GLOSSARY

Bawlpu, exorcist or traditional priest. Changkanna development, improvement from a previous condition in social, economic and all aspects of life. Chawng the name of a sacrifice and three days' feast and dancing given by a single individual or a family—the first of a series of sacrifices and feasts to ensure entrance to the Pialral Duhlian A name given to the upper classes or clans in the Lushai Hills and to the dialect they speak-which is regarded as the purest form of the Lushai language Fahrah orphan Hmasawn moving forward, also develop and improve Huaisen (na) brave, bravery Khawpui town, city, urban area Khuangchawi public feast Khuanu a poetic name for God or Pathian Kuli an impressed labourer or the act of performing an impressed labour Lal chief Lâwm to assist a person in any kind of work or occupation in exchange for similar assistance received or to be received. Lehkhathiam educated Madrasas secondary school for muslims Muvanlai a hawk which eats snakes Naupang child/ children Pasaltha refers to braveman of the village, warrior Pathshalas school Pialral paradise, the further side of pial river 164

Rualpawl a concept where an individual could be part of the larger whole or community by doing similar things that the rest of the community members are doing. Rulngan king cobra Sadawt a private exorcist or priest, especially such as are employed by ruling chiefs. Sai elephant Sahib master: a term of respect used, especially during the colonial period, when addressing or referring to a European Sakhua an object of worship, a god; ancient ancestors who are worshipped by the Mizos; the spirit who presides over the house or household; religion, religious rites and ceremonies. Sakung a feast performed to establish religion for the family who were aiming for thangchhuah title. Sanghal wild boar Sap a sahib, a white-man, a government or other official. Savawm Himalayan black bear Thangchhuah a ceremonial feast performed by the Mizos in order to get to pialral Thangchhuahpa a man who has achieved thangchhuah status

Thingtlang mountainous country, hill country, the hills, rural area Thirdeng blacksmith Tlangau village crier Tlangval youngman Tlawmngaihna to be self-sacrificing, unselfish, self- denying, stoical, stout hearted, brave, independent i.e., refusing all help, to be loath to lose one’s reputation, prestige, to be too proud to give in Tumpang a kind of wild bison/ wild buffalo Vahluk common flying squirrel Vai a foreigner, foreigners (excluding Europeans, and latterly the better known neighbouring tribes as well); the foreign 165

settlement or bazar, or the place where the foreigners live, foreign Valupa a youth Commander elected by the elders and the chief Zawhzazo the one who has completed all the prescribed activities and becomes thangchhuahpa Zawlbuk a large house in a Mizo village where all the unmarried young men of the community sleep at night Zirlai student/ learner Zirtîr teacher Zukchal sambar

166

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Interviews

Ashley Smith, grandson of Rev. J.M. Lloyd and Mrs. Joan Lloyd, interviewed in

November 2016, Derby.

Chhingpuii was born in 1926 and taught at P.C. Girls’ School, Aizawl, interviewed in July 2016, Khatla.

Eiryls Smith also known as Zohmangaihi is the daughter of Rev. J.M. Lloyd interviewed in November 2016, Derby.

Hnunliana is the youngest son of Ch. Pasena, interviewed in May 2013, Aizawl.

Lalhmingliana is the son of Lalmama - teacher and headmaster at Serkawn Boys’ 191

School- , interviewed in November 2017, Aizawl.

Lalkunga was a student of V.L. Siama, interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, October

2013, Aizawl.

Mrs. Margaret Jones is the wife of Rev. Basil Jones, who served as an Inspector of

Schools in Mizoram, interviewed in October 2016, Aberystwyth.

Rev. Alwyn Roberts served as the first regular principal at Aijal College interviewed in October 2016, Aberystwyth.

Rev. Aneurin Owens, also known as Zolawma is the younger son of the Welsh missionaries Rev. & Mrs. Owens, interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, March 2016,

Aizawl.

Rini was a student of Welsh Mission Girls’ School in Aizawl and worked closely with the Owens interviewed in March 2016, Aizawl.

Vanlalchhandama is the only child of Sapkungi, who was adopted by missionary

Kitty Lewis, interviewed by Lalhlimpuii Pachuau, June 2013, Aizawl.

Vanlalruati is the daughter of Nuchhungi who wrote Serkawn Graded Reader with

E.M. Chapman, interviewed in March 2013, Lunglei. 192

V.L. Zaikima is the son of a teacher V.L. Siama, interviewed April 2015, Aizawl.

PARTICULARS OF THE CANDIDATE

NAME OF THE CANDIDATE: LALHLIMPUII PACHUAU DEGREE: Ph.D. DEPARTMENT: HISTORY & ETHNOGRAPHY

TITLE OF THE THESIS: TEACHERS, CURRICULA AND THE SOCIETY: A SOCIAL HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN COLONIAL MIZORAM

DATE OF ADMISSION: 26TH JULY 2012 APPROVAL OF RESEARCH PROPOSAL:

1. DRC: 2. BOS: 3. SCHOOL BOARD:

MZU REGISTRATION NO: 5948 of 2012 Ph.D. REGISTRATION NO. & DATE: MZU/ Ph.D./ 545 of 22.04.2013 EXTENSION (IF ANY):

Head of Department of Dept. of History & Ethnography MZU

BRIEF BIO- DATA

Lalhlimpuii Pachuau

V-1/A; Chanmari West, Aizawl- 796007

Date Of Birth: 1stAugust, 1986

Email: [email protected]

Education

M.A. (Sociology), Delhi School Of Economics, Delhi University

B.A. (English), Lady Shri Ram College For Women, Delhi University

Class- XII (ISC), Girls’ High School& College, Allahabad

Class- X (MBSE), Govt. Higher Secondary School, Aizawl

Publishing history

Book Pachuau, L &Ralte, R. (eds.), Revisiting Rambuai,Guwahati: LBS, 2019 (ISBN: 978-81-85921-95-2).

Journal Article:

With Cindy Lalfakawmi& Dr. LalngurlianaSailo, ‘The 27th LushaiLabour Corps In France’, Contemporary Social Scientist, MZU, Spring 2019

With Dr. LalngurlianaSailo, ‘E.M. Chapman’s Contribution towards Female Education in the South Lushai Hills’, MZU Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, June 2019

Research Papers Presented in Seminars & Conferences

School Curriculum: The Creation of Gendered Identities in Colonial Mizoram, Seminar on Gender Sensitization in Contemporary Mizo Society organised Govt. Aizawl College in collaboration with RUSA, 1stNovember, 2019.

Re-reading Lushai Textbooks at an International Seminar on Writing History on Highlanders of North- East India, Mizoram University, 5 & 6th March, 2019.

A Glimpse of Village School Life through the Mission School Inspection Reports (1930-1945) at The 36th North East India History Association Annual Conference, Mizoram University, November 2015.

A Critical Analysis of the 27th Lushai Labour Corps at Mizo History Association Annual Conference, Pachhunga University College, Aizawl, November, 2014.

Suffering and Social Justice: Reflections on HIV Aids in a Modern Tribal Society at a UGC sponsored National Seminartitled, Social Justice, Development and Secularism: Philosophical Reflections on Contemporary National and Northeast Indian Scenario organised by the Dept. of Philosophy, Pachhunga University College, November, 2012.

1

I. Introduction

The North East India’s experience of colonialism was brief as compared to the rest of India and the engagements had strong Christian undertones too including in the then Lushai Hills, which today is known as the state of Mizoram. The peculiar nature of the relationship between the colonial enterprise and the Mizos merits a serious enquiry from various perspectives as that played an enormous role in shaping the Mizo society of today. This thesis takes up the educational front for in-depth analysis and the study is done by way of examining students, teachers and curricula; the interaction between structures and the human subject.

Hayden J.A. Bellenoit argues that, in India, education was to fill the lower ties of the rapidly spawning out colonial bureaucracy. 1 The desire to create cultural intermediaries between the native Indians and the colonial government was behind the introduction of western education system in India while the orientalists wanted to educate the Indians in their native language. The English Education Act of 1835 was the turning point as it consolidated the education system within British India and also led to a reallocation of funds of the East India Company to spend on education and literature in India. This Act required them to support institutions teaching western curriculum with English as a medium of instruction.2 So when the Lushai Hills was annexed and became part of British India the educational policies were duly followed.

The Mizo experience of education was monopolised by Christian missionaries and the colonial government and their educational philosophies. The colonial government, the mission agencies and the Mizos themselves had numerous points of

1Hayden J.A. Bellenoit, Missionary Education and Empire in the Late Colonial India, 1860 -1920, London, Pickering & Chatto, 2007, p. 1. 2Macaulay's Minute on EducationFebruary 2, 1835 [website] http://home.iitk.ac.in/~hcverma/Article/Macaulay-Minutes.pdf. 2

divergences and conflict in their educational ideals. Though it was the Mizos who were the learners and education was for them, they had the least say in the educational enterprise. The heavy hand of colonialism was strong and imposing and this was true not only during the colonial times, but even till today as the influence of the colonial era is still present in the educational system and practices. This makes us question few things; firstly, can a society that was once colonised be really decolonised, secondly, does it want to do away with colonial trappings or thirdly can we really demarcate what is indigenous and what is foreign? The answers to these questions could not be found in a straight line, for cultural interactions and exchanges are never black or white. So, this thesis hopes to explore the intricacies and complexities of the educational enterprise through important stakeholders like teachers, students and the Mizo society on a platform created by the British colonial government in collaboration with the Christian missionaries and that is a slippery slope. And much as the weight of colonial and missionary educational ideals were strong and still are, but to fail to recognise the agencies and voices of the Mizos would be a fallacy, not just by way of a resistance narrative but in other ways too.

II. Review of Literature

Mizo and Vai Chanchinbu a monthly journal published by the office of the superintendent of the Lushai Hills seems to echo best the social reality and especially the reactions of the Mizos towards education and especially how the Mizo/student agency worked. Regular reports about the schools were given and plenty of views on education could be found as well. The Mizos were rather apprehensive about schooling that the missionaries introduced for the general public, especially when the novelty wore off. In 1903 December issue, one could reconstruct the on-going debate about education. There was a deep-seated fear of education making people lazy and detest manual labour. The writer wrote in defence of education stating that education may lead to white collar jobs in the government but the ultimate advantage of being educated would be to read the Bible and therefore urged the readers to send their children to school. So in 1904 September issue, we find writings on similar lines 3

stressing the importance of spending school holidays to do manual labour even for the children of the chiefs. There were debates whether an educated or uneducated individual be happy. Education was linked to various aspects of the Mizo world and the fact that the Mizos made the connection and how they grasped the idea that knowledge entails power is noteworthy. This realisation gave them an agency to negotiate with the foreign items being introduced to them. By 1926, it is evident that education gained much ground among the Mizos and respect was attached to being educated. So we see writings in the same journal where the chiefs are urged to send their children to schools not just to enable them to get respectable jobs even though they would be chiefs without education, but for the sake of gaining respect and that was considered very worthy. Knowledge of English was held in high esteem. We also see a sense of education being a foreign invention and not owned by the Mizos. The writers often said that such a thing like free education should be seized while it was possible. We also see how education was treated with suspect at the same time and the clash between modernity and traditional ways are also evident from some writings.

Education and Missionaries in Mizoram- J.V. Hluna (1992). This book is a basic introduction to the history of education in Mizoram. The author started off by telling the story of the Mizos and moved on to the British occupation of Mizoram and narrowed it down to the missionaries and their activities, focusing on the educational front. The style of the narration is evolutionary; therefore he discussed events related to education in details. He also dealt with school curriculum in brief and also examination records during the colonial period. Half a chapter was devoted to the study of the development of women’s education. Writing from a church centric perspective, the social consequences of these curricula were missing and the focus of the book was mainly on how education enabled a society towards development and progress. Structures and systems were dealt with, though focus on the human subject was lacking.

Mizoram Zirnaa Mission leh Kohhran Rawngbawlna – K.L. Rokhuma (1997) is a more detailed study of the social background in which a novel concept like formal 4

education was introduced. The book discussed at great length the background to which schooling was introduced in Mizoram. It was a church centric narrative like most of the writings on the history of education in Mizoram. The social background of the Mizos was shown in a progressive manner, travelling towards one goal. The Mizos’ contributions to the spread and development of education were dealt with briefly with a focus more on the Baptist mission.

Zoram Politic Inlumlet dan-Bel keh phuar khawm-tui pai thei lo- A.Thanglura (1999) This book captured the issues of politics in three phases: towards the end of the colonial period, The Mizo District Council years (1952-1972) and the Union Territory years (1972- 1987). The author was brutally honest in his writings and his book acted more like a memoir of the district council politics with himself as the protagonist. He gave a rich insight into the lives of Mizo students studying in Shillong and Guwahati in the 1950s who were the products of the schools in Mizoram. They were part of the developing educated elites that had started taking shape in colonial times and was consolidated in the early years of free India. The social climate of the district council years was well portrayed and the public view on higher education.

Zofate Zinkawngah Zalenna Mei a Mit tur ani lo - R.Zamawia (2007) is one of the most detailed work on the independence movement of the Mizos from the Indian movement since 1966. R. Zamawia gave an insightful account of the story of the insurgents and the background to which it all began. From his writing, it is interesting to note the role of educated Mizos in the political development after the British left Mizoram. We also see juxtaposition of the elite groups from the colonial times and the newly educated in the post British period and clash in ideas and ideals that ultimately led to a violent struggle against the Indian union. Even during the armed rebellion, the issue of educated and uneducated continued to be an underlying issue in terms of leadership and performance.

Diary of a Jungle Missionary - E.L. Mendus (1956) gave an interesting view of the life of the Mizos from an outsider perspective. Mendus served as a schoolmaster 5

at the Boys’ M.E. School from April 1922 –April 1923 and stayed on in Mizoram till 1944. The humour he inserted in his writings was honest and refreshing which has given us more than a regular missionary insight into the society he worked with. He showed us the life of the early-educated Christians and his encounters during his village tours. He seemed to have a deep understanding and knew the importance of anthropology, which is evident from his writing. He did not romanticise nor exoticize the people and the land. The book is significant in that it dwelt on the nature and geography of the land, which not many other writers seemed to do. His vivid description of the topography, the housings and nature, forest, foliage and animals was refreshing and his writing was very close to the people.

On every high hill by J.M. Lloyd (1984) In this book, the author described the life of the Mizos and their environments both cultural and physical in every possible way. He too dwelt on the geography, the animals and plants of the forests, the inhabitants and their social life, customs and the religious practices and the climatic conditions too. Although he wrote from a church perspective, his book served as basic introduction to different aspects of Mizo life, especially under the colonial government. Chapter 8 of the book talked about primary school teachers and their engagements with their students and this formed one of the bases of the discussion on teachers in this thesis.

Christianity in North East India by Frederick Downs (ISPCK, Delhi, 1983) Downs examined the methodology of writing the history of Christianity in the context of India and discussed two dominant ways of writing; (a) History of Christianity in India as an integral part of the socio- cultural history of the Indian people rather than as a separate entity, (b) a western centric method, looking at an eastward extension of western ecclesiastical history. By focusing on the history of Christianity in the North East, he touched upon an area that is not very often written about. He enquired the tribal experiences of the Christianising mission and how that has been frequently considered to destroy native culture. However, he argued that it acted as an instrument of preservation of their identities and promotion of their 6

culture and interests ‘in the face of powerful forces of change which threatened their autonomy’.3 He talked about the British annexation as ending the isolation of the region and ushering in a whole new world. Different regions and communities in the northeast responded to this new exposure in different ways; ‘some acquiesce to the dominance of new comers, accommodate themselves to the new situation or rebel’.4 He also argued that education was a means of acquiring social capital in the new system introduced by the British colonial administration, it was a skill required to master the process of modernisation.5 There were two types of threats for the people in this region: erosion of traditional socio- political structures due to the imposition of alien governing structure and increasing contacts with plainsmen through trade, colonial administration and attendance of educational institutions in the plain areas.6 With education and exposure, we saw the creation and development of the tribal elite who were educated Christians and they played enormous role in the political leadership.7 In defence of the missionaries, he wrote that they were not one with the colonial government and both the colonial government and the missionaries used each other for mutual benefit and education was the principal area in which such was found.

Missionary Education and Empire in Late Colonial India (1860-1929) -Hayden J.A. Bellenoit (2007). This book is an extensive exploratory study of missionary education in India from 1860- 1929 as the title suggests. So, it covered the educational experience after India was handed over by the British East India Company to the British monarch. It examined the impact of colonial and modern education on Indian society. What makes Bellenoit an interesting author is he explored the pedagogy and the experiences of the Indians and the missionaries on the spot 8 . He located the educational enterprise in the larger context of economy,

3Downs, p. 2. 4Downs, p. 11. 5Downs, p. 12. 6Downs, p. 14 7Downs, pp. 45- 46. 8 Bellenoit, Missionary Education, p.1. 7

intellectual debates, social realities and practices, religion, spirituality, Indian nationalism etc. He offered a holistic understanding of educational experience along with other forms of interactions like knowledge engagements, contestation and production along with the growing Indian nationalism. He acknowledged the need to fill in lower level clerk by the colonial government as the main reason behind the introduction of modern education. He argued that it contributed greatly for the growth and development of modern India. He also discussed about the theoretical mobility ushered in by schooling where children of different religion, caste and class were offered to learn similar lesson which hitherto was open only to the upper caste children like the Brahmins. Prior to modern education, children’s education was dictated largely by their religious affiliations in Pathshalas, Vidyalayas and Madrassas. There was a widening of the scope of their studies in school as various knowledge systems interacted. The book also highlighted the need to see beyond the transforming effects of English and modern education in India as this was the existing character of educational historiography in South Asia. He argued that there’s an urgent need to look at the sociological aspect of education; how social factors like religion, caste affiliations and communities shaped education system. This book also wanted to integrate missionaries in the historiography of South Asia and to see them beyond their religious and institutional roles as their actions contributed hugely in the formation of modern India too. He wanted the readers to be able to see beyond the conflict of opposing systems, religions but the discussion, engagements that were there.

The Camera as Witness, A Social History of Mizoram, North East India - Joy L.K. Pachuau & Willem Van Schendel (2015). This book is a visual representation of the social history of Mizoram. It explored people’s experiences in Mizoram from a historical perspective through visuals. The book is divided into four main themes: Becoming Mizo, Mizoram In New India, Visions of Independence and Mizo Modernities. These four themes could be understood roughly as the first one being focusing on identity formation of the Mizos during colonial times through the introduction of new religion, modern formal schooling, geographical connectivity, administration and politics, economy and interactions with the outer world. 8

‘Mizoram in New India’ discussed how Mizo society fared under independent India; the end of an era and a beginning of a new chapter for the Mizos. The next theme ‘Visions of Independence’ focused on the 20 years when the Mizos fought for complete independence from the Indian union. This theme took up the socio- political and economic background from which the movement arose. The last theme explores the cultural life of the Mizos in modern times through music, dresses and photography. It traced the various stages of changes in these cultural representations and expressions of the Mizos. It examined various influences behind these cultural expressions. One of the sub themes - Getting Educated - gave a rich insight into educational enterprise during the colonial times. It focused on the educational experience of the Mizos within Mizoram and outside. It discussed the desires of the colonial government to give a balanced education in collaboration with the Christian missionaries whose aim was to impart Christianity. The kind of education imparted to the Mizos stressed on ‘literacy and numeracy, on Christian culture and literature and on British understandings of the world’ rather than on critical thinking. It also offered an answer to the pertinent question on the attractiveness of education to the Mizos. By extending its area of discussion to Mizo students in different parts of the India and the few who got to study in different parts of the world, it widened our understanding of the Mizo educational experience. The experience of modern education for different sections of the Mizo society at different times were also discussed and not only through formal schooling but connected it with Sunday school, theological training and teachers’ training school.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed- Paolo Freire, (1970). In this book,Friere dealt with philosophical, political and educational theories. The main theme that ran through this book was oppression, the reproduction of this oppression and the road to liberation. He looked at oppression as a philosophical and political problem that got reproduced by means of modern schooling. He argued that in modern schooling, the relationship between the teacher and the student was oppressive in nature where the teacher was the oppressor and the student was expected to be a passive follower. He called this traditional relationship between teacher and students as ‘banking education’ and in this system the metaphor of students was seen as containers where 9

the educators deposited knowledge. The book argued for liberation of this oppression but there was a fear of freedom in the oppressed. The oppressed people needed to step outside themselves and understand the situation. This could happen through a space of dialogue in education with willingness to embrace change. For this all to happen, a new type of education was required, the kind that created and promoted partnership between leaners and teachers. He encouraged the kind of education, based on critical thinking in order to develop critical consciousness. Friere has drawn heavily from Marxist theory and the idea of a transition from class in itself to class for itself.

12. Sociology of Education in India - N. Jayaram (2015). Jayram discussed the idea of cultural independence, 9 a useful concept in understanding the attempts of both the Mizos and other tribal societies in their search for identity beginning around the mid 20th century, especially after political independence from the colonialists. His idea of ‘invisible jury’10 offered a tool for analysing the seemingly insatiable desire to be ‘educated’ and ‘schooled’ on the lines of the western education system. This raised the question: was the education system offered to the Mizos truly oriented towards the Mizo society? Was there an idea for the emancipation of education system from colonial bondage or was it transformed into a complex network of neo colonial dependency with grave implications for the future development of the country/ community.11 He also argued that English or modern system grew on the ruins of indigenous system destroyed by the same policies. He discussed the concept of socialisation, continuation of society and culture. He explained formal and informal agencies, which directly or indirectly contributed to the process of socialisation12 and went on to state that in simple society, process and agencies of socialisation are less complex, few, simple and informal. He saw educational institutions as imparting knowledge of a variety of types and training people in various skills so that they could fill the manifold adult roles in the society

9N. Jayaram, Sociology of Education in India, Jaipur, Rawat, 2015,p. 73. 10Jayaram, Sociology of Education in India, p. 74. 11Jayaram, p. 75. 12Jayaram, p. 26. 10

and education as an institution is firmly entrenched in society and inseparably linked to other institutions like family, religion, economy, polity etc.13

Statement of the problem

Social history as a subfield of history that has a long and distinguished tradition and it was in the latter part of the twentieth century that social historical approaches proliferated in Europe and the United States. In its development as a new paradigm of approaching the past, there were variations in the subjects of study: firstly, there was the focus on the history of social problems such as poverty, ignorance, insanity; secondly, the history of everyday life in the home, the workplace and the community; and thirdly, there was the history of the common people, or working classes, who were almost entirely absent from political history.This tradition of social history was revived and expanded during the 1960s under the banner of history from below. What happened in the 1960s and 1970s was that its subject matter was redefined in a much more ambitious manner. 14To quote one of the best known ‘classic’ exponents of social history G.M. TrevelaynEnglish Social History (1944): ‘Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out’. Social history involved, in effect, turning the image of society upside down and, in the phrase current at the time, writing history 'from the bottom up' - from the point of view, not of political elites, but of ordinary people in all their variety. A second challenge of social history was to restore a sense of agency to social groups which had been regarded as passive receptors of social change, such as peasants, women, non-unionised workers and even slaves, in order to demonstrate that they had 'lives of their own' that they partially shaped through their own actions. A powerful influence, and a model of how this kind of history might be written, came from the work of E. P. Thompson, especially The Makingof the English

13Jayaram, p. 33. 14Tosh, John, The Pursuit of History, Fifth edition, Pearson, 2010.pp.70-71. 11

Working Class (1963), which was probably cited more often by American social historians than any historical work published on their own side of the Atlantic. 15

In the light and the tradition of this social history, the educational processes and its development among the Mizos since 1894 need to be enquired. Education among the Mizos has often been studied mainly in the light of Christianity and how it uplifts a society. This calls for a need to look at the structure and components of the educational institutions as they are and how it moulds and fashions a society. Looking at the church archives in Mizoram and also of the church centric writings about the development of education in Mizoram, the chorus that echoes is the feeling of indebtedness of Mizo society on the British missionaries for giving them education and making them into a civilised society. There is a deep sense of regret on the actions of the chiefs who frequently raided the tea gardens of Assam and the inhumane killings. But it has been forgotten that those chiefs were protecting what they understood as their land from the colonial policy of expansion. These groups of writers see the history of Mizos especially the educational front from a structural functionalist view, a pre-ordained cosmic plan of the Christian god and all for a collective good. They acknowledge the heterogeneity of the Mizo society and how the missionaries and the colonial rule actually made them into a much more homogenised group or even as a nation. So education is seen not only as a means of spreading religion but also works in consolidating the larger Mizo identity and a power generating force, a dominating fulcrum which the whites held and continue to do so indirectly till today. The cultural domination remains and seems to ever increase and more damaging in the post-colonial times. During the colonial times, the education that the Mizo received though overtly pro west was very close to the social reality of the Mizo. There was a space for bringing it home to the Mizos and making it alive in their social reality. Education was more of learning of the social life and to enable themselves to be at par with the world outside which does not seem to be so in the

15Harrison, Robert, “The New Social History in America”, in Peter Lambert and Phillipp Schofield (eds.), Making History: An Introduction to the History and Practices of a Discipline, Routledge, Oxon, 2004. p. 171. 12

present time. So, school curricula at different historical times need to be examined and compared and see the cultural consequences among those who read the same. Moving on from the school curricula another important strand that comes in is the role of the mission teachers or ‘mission zirtir’. They are the earliest sets of teachers in Mizoram and they held an important position in the Mizo society especially during the colonial times. One of the best descriptions of their roles is given as follows: ‘In that initial stage as the teacher may assume in himself nearly five fold leadership, as educator, administrator, philosopher, physician and spiritual leader and a scripture teacher. The teacher taught, preached the gospel in the church and advocated among the people. The public honoured and respected his position and he was the second rank citizen of the village, the chief being the first’.16With such a position occupied by the teachers, some Chiefs were anxious about their future. There are evidences of the fears of subversion of the chiefs by the teachers. Chhungthangvunga wrote that Dokhama and Liannawla refused to give permission to open schools in their villages for they felt that people would respect the teachers more than them and that their power and authority would be reduced. 17 This shows the kind of power that education entails and the reception that the Mizo society gave to the educational enterprise. With the development of the education system, more and more Mizo enrolled in schools. This led to the creation of elitist strata in the society. Although education was opened to all section of Mizo society, the colonial government was espousing it for thebenefit of the traditional elites like chiefs and their children. The missionaries were working towards the upliftment of the most dispossessed at the other end. But ultimately what came out was that geography and space had given most advantage. This all let to the coming out a new set of educated lot who moved away from the traditional economic activity of agricultural cultivation. But what we also witnessis the process of them becoming more like the sap, falling between the native and the whites. Education therefore made them to ‘echo’ and become ‘whitewashed’ and

16 Malsawma, HL. Sociology of the Mizos, Spectrum, Guwahati, 2002, p172. 17Mizo leh Vai Chanchinbu Nov, 1904. 13

‘walking lies’.18 But the very education they received subverted this process in many ways and challenged it and culminated in the creation and consolidation of the educated class, politically conscious and held the fulcrum of political power as the British left Mizoram in 1947.

IV. Area of Study

This thesis focuses on the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist and London Baptist Mission society’s work for the fact that they were the official educationists under colonial government in the then Lushai Hills and Lushai speaking areas. Apart from the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist and London Baptist Mission Society, the Lakher Pioneer Mission also established themselves and did numerous educational work in the Mara speaking area of the South Lushai Hills. The Roman Catholics, the Salvation Army and the Seventh Day Adventists also have marked influence on the development of education in Mizoram. But since the focus of this thesis is colonial era and due to language limitations, the two dominant mission agencies are focused upon. There are problems with names and terms like Mizo and Lushai, Aizawl and Aijal, Lunglei and Lungleh, Lushai Hills and Mizoram are used interchangeably. Colonial/ old names are used in places where the sources mentioned them as such.

V. Objectives

The objectives of the thesis are:

• To examine the Mizo world in colonial times. • To examine how the Mizos responded to education at its inception. • To analyse the roles of the mission teachers (zirtir).

18Franz Fanon, (Richard Philcox trans.) The Wretched of the Earth, New York, Grove Press,2004,p. 17. 14

• To trace the evolution of school curricula and examine its influence on the Mizo society. • To examine how education with all its components affected or changed the power structure of the Mizo society.

VI. Sources and Methodology

Primary Sources: a) Archival sources - J.M. Lloyd Archives (ATC), Baptist Church of Mizoram Archives (Serkawn), Synod Archives (Aizawl), Mizoram State Archives (Aizawl), Assam Archives & Records Office (Dispur), Mizoram State Archives (Aizawl), P.C. Girls’ School Library (Aizawl), Boys’ M.E. School Library (Aizawl), Record Room (D.C. Office Aizawl), Mizoram Assembly Secretariat Library (Aizawl), National Archives of India (Delhi), National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (Delhi), Angus Library & Archives (Regents Park College, Oxford University), The National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth), The British Library (London). b) Unstructured interviews. c) Visual sources: Photographs from personal collections, short films and slides. d) Personal diaries, notes and manuscripts.

- Secondary Literature: PhD theses, published works on social history of education, sociology of education, historical sociology.

- Web references: 15

Digital Library of India, Digital Dictionaries of South Asia (The University of Chicago), archive.org, JSTOR, SHODHGANGA(INFLIBNET), etheses.bham.ac.uk, livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk, etheses.lse.ac.uk

Using the above stated sources, qualitative research methods such as personal interviews, case studies, book reviews, critical text and visual analysis are employed.

VII. Chapterisation

This thesis is divided into five chapters.

Chapter 1: This is a general introduction of the entire thesis, introducing the main themes that are discussed in the thesis and the theoretical framework on which the study hinges.

Chapter 2: This chapter deals with the Mission Zirtir or Mission Teachers, how they were formed and fashioned by the mission, the colonial government and the Mizo Society. It looks at how they see themselves, engaged with new knowledge systems and the way the society perceived them and their contributions towards modernisation of the society.

Chapter 3: Schools’ curricula during the colonial times are examined in this chapter. It is the study into the subject content of the school textbooks, pedagogical practices and the engagement between traditional knowledge with Christian belief and the secular knowledge. It also examines the kind of educated Mizos it produced.

Chapter 4: This chapter explores the experiences of the students and how they embraced, appropriated and engaged with schooling and all that it carried with it. It examines the agency of the students in the classroom and without and the way new social capital was introduced to them.

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Chapter 5: In this concluding chapter, major conceptual findings and conclusions of the thesis are discussed. The concluding chapter consolidates the social reception of the whole educational experience and the process of the creation of a Modern Mizo Christian Society.

VIII. Findings of the Research Works

Gauri Viswanathan puts it in the pan-Indian context:

English education came to be criticised for its imitativeness and superficiality and for having produced an uprooted elite who were at once apostates to their own national tradition and imperfect imitators of the West.19

In the light of Vishwanathan’s statement, it is important to ask where education for the Mizos stood in the colonial times and how it has changed in the post colonial context or is there a marked difference between the two. How much does the political conditions affect the way education was organized in the Lushai Hills? There may not be much change for the Mizos till quite late as education continued to under the supervision of the church directly or indirectly even after Mizoram became part of the a free Indian union. Those who were appointed by the government to look after education department in the early part of free India were deeply entrenched in the church system of education and the missionaries remained in the Hills till the mid 1960s.

For the Mizos in the 20th century, the main driving force for education among the Mizos was the desire to be changkang and hmasawn. These two concepts were important because of the way society was knitted together and the fear of not being part of the larger whole or left behind (rualpawl lo) pushed parents to educate their children no matter what the costs were. Education offered social mobility but delving

19Gauri Vishwanathan, p, 41. 17

deeper we see that the real reason lies in the metaphysical realm of the Mizo belief in the concept of Pialral. A society’s Eldorado or paradise just does not go away in few decades and the route to that place was replaced by education, which was more accommodating/inclusive than the traditional thangchhuah.

Any discussion about social change usually begins with those in power in the society but when we talk about social change among the Mizos, it began with children going to school. Although there were numerous structural and intangible changes in the Mizo society with the coming of the colonial government, which were mainly inorganic, an organic changed happened through the Mizo children through their education. The education received by them as much as open to criticisms due to its foreign-ness in nature actually holds within it a seed for a hybridized development, which the society created it to be its very own.

The contributions of Sunday school in educating the Mizo children have to be highlighted. In times of extreme scarcity and society’s lukewarm attitude towards education especially for female, Sunday school provided a space of learning. The fact that it is a sacred space, within the margins of the church made a lot of people warming towards an alien concept of learning. Many women and girls received basic reading and writing skills through Sunday school, which was more widespread than schools in rural Mizoram. And for those who were to attend regular schools later, it was also an introduction to organized system of learning.

Unlike in many Indian societies where education favoured the upper classes/ castes, the case of the Mizos was different. The colonial government did make special provisions for the advantage of the traditional ruling elites; however, geography and means of connectivity or the lack of it played a stronger role in determining who got educated. So, those who were close to the centres of learning became the ones who got the best education along with the most disposed and fell under the patronage of the missionaries.

Teaching was predominantly a male domain despite education was made accessible for both boys and girls. However, there always were more boys than girls 18

in schools as girls were considered to be too useful at home. The boys and girls curriculum were never at par and girls’ education focused more on training them to be enterprising women and better wives than having a career in a very narrow and conservation job market. Some women became teachers, but they were few and far. They usually held positions in mission and administrative centres like Aizawl, Serkawn and Lunglei. Lalziki Sailo and Nuchhungi were among the few female teachers who ventured to villages to start schools but that too did not last very long. It was the men mainly who ultimately filled teaching positions especially those in the rural areas. Even towards the end of the colonial period, in Aizawl, women were encouraged to teach in schools only as long as they remained single and once they got married, they were asked to leave their jobs to look after their household.20 The traditional female roles were never really relinquished even by the education that was supposed to liberate them, which is an irony. Patriarchy, no doubt stood in the way of educated women having a career outside their homes and beyond their towns. Since teachers were endowed with much authority and their roles as a guide for the village, it was more than clear that such roles done by Mizo women would never have been accepted and it was just unthinkable for the Mizos to be led and guided by a woman in the process of modernisation through education. Taking the argument further, was it only traditional Mizo patriarchy that stopped women from participating in teaching profession in the rural areas? And the answer is not simple and the reason could not just be Mizo patriarchy. It’s crucial to note here that the colonial government and the missionary enterprise carried with them a lot of Victorian sensibilities in role allocation, which they often consciously or unconsciously passed on to the Mizos too. It was the colonial government that felt that girls’ education grew too fast and needed to be checked. 21 And it was not the desire of the colonial government and the mission agencies to ruffle too many feathers and upset traditional orders. On the other hand, one could also argue that teaching jobs in the villages were not practical for women. This is keeping in view the economic activities of the mizos, which was mainly agrarian. Physical labour and exertion were required and men were favoured in such an economy because of their biology and physical make up. When teaching

20add reference here 21 J.V. Hluna, p. 277. 19

jobs became available, it became an alternative for the hard manual labour in the forest but still earn more respect, provides status and livelihood. In the traditional society, division of labour was based on age and gender that entails biology. When village schools were opened, teachers were expected to travel great distances in the jungle under numerous hardships and had to live in villages where they might not know anyone nor had relatives. So, looking at the situation from the lenses of practicalities, and functionalities, it was the society’s attempt to maintain status quo in not accepting or embracing female village teachers. As much as it is easy to critique patriarchy, it is also important to have historical and societal sensibility and sensitivity and also to acknowledge that social change is a process that happened either at a swift pace or relatively slow, which the latter is in this case. The development of teaching profession as a means of earning livelihood changed many parents’ expectations towards their children’s future. Education gradually brought with it the idea of modernity in every sphere of life. Very quickly, traditional means of earning one’s living through agrarian activities was detested especially among the educated class. This became an alarming issue in the 1930s, as there weren’t enough jobs to be filled by the educated Mizos under the colonial government or under the Christian mission agencies leading to a lot of discontentment.22 The Mizos were dissatisfied with the absence of institutions for higher education in the Lushai Hills also added to the discontentment. 23 The ambitions of the Mizo towards getting higher qualifications, knowledge and jobs in the secular world was another cause of concern for some Mizo Christians too who saw education as only a means of equipping themselves for the spread of Christianity.24 The contributions of the wives of the missionaries towards education are something worth giving a serious consideration. Most of them did not have prior formal training to teach and some of them had shy demeanour. But because of the need of the times, they often step up to fill the gap. Especially before the arrival of women missionaries, wives of missionaries like DE Jones and Mrs Lorraine

22BMS: IN/ Carter’s letter 1935 23 BMS: IN/ Chapman’s letter. 24 BMS: IN/ Rohmingliana’s letter. 20

contributed hugely for the development of education and they were the fore runners of girls’ curriculum to have come later. Without their contributions, female education would have lacked behind for many years. Even after the coming of female missionary teachers and nurses, their numbers were always in wanting and in such cases, these missionary wives filled in the places where there were not enough teachers. Many missionary wives accompanied their husbands in their tour of villages and while travelling, they took the opportunity to teach village women how to read and write, hygiene, baby care and cutting and sewing of clothes which were part of the girls’ curriculum. They usually had local helpers in their homes and they taught them household maintenance, cooking and hygiene, reading and writing and scriptures. A lot of Mizo women and men who helped with the missionaries went on to become enterprising and successful people in different areas. Lastly, it is important to see the human subject of teachers as a site of agency and conflict during the colonial times. They are often seen as occupying elite position, privileged and highly romanticised role. But through the analysis of the mission inspection reports, we see the daily struggles and majority of the teachers’ failure to live up to the mark of the mission requirements. They became a site of conflict between tradition and modernity and they had to negotiate between the tripartite ideals of the Mizos, mission and colonial authority whenever conflict arose between these. So, the questions that we asked in the beginning merit an answer here to conclude the chapter. The speed at which the Mizos accepted and raised the status of teachers in the society was simply because it could give them what they wanted and could get rid of what they hated. Teaching jobs entailed freedom from forced Kuli, freedom from the hardship of manual labour, it provided money, and was a sure way to earn social status.25 Some of the important momentary needs and desires of the Mizos found its answer in teaching jobs. This was possible because of the working together of many factors like the presence of colonial government, the mission and through body politics, domination of curriculum, lack of other educated jobs etc.

25 Bobby Beingachhi ‘Spread of Education and Levels of Literacy in Mizoram’, p.121. 21

Both the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists and the London Baptist Mission Societies were responsible for curriculum development and implementation for about half a century in the Lushai Hills with limited interventions from other parties. During their tenure as in charge of educational endeavour in the Lushai Hills, their primary objective was to Christianise the land through spreading education. It was a huge success for both missions in general because by the time they handed over school education to the government in 1952, the Lushai Hills had already more than 90 % of its population professing Christianity, which in 1901, just three years after schooling began was only 0.05%. 26 However, in the politics of curriculum, there could never be just one aim and goal of the curriculum and the interaction with learners never produced just one standard result anyways. In the case of the Lushai Hills, as much as the missionaries felt they were successful in Christianising the Mizos, there was a sense of discontentment and discomfort voiced by many of them in the way schooling was conducted and the content of curriculum. Rev. H.W. Carter of the South Lushai Hills in the mid 1930s wrote that boys’ school curriculum in the South Lushai Hills emphasised the wrong subjects especially among older boys and it did not at all prepare them to life in the Lushai Hills especially to the villages where they were going home. It prepared them only for salaried jobs that were in extreme scarcity. 27 The same was felt in the North Lushai Hills too as Rev. David Edwards, Honorary inspector of schools regretted the losing of indigenous culture and practices by the Mizos and he even questioned whether he was failing as a representative of God and he felt that the school curriculum was not doing enough to feed the need of the Mizos.28 The low level of qualification and lack of training among the Mizos was a disadvantage when it comes to the framing of curriculum and their voices most silenced. This was the case with the missionaries too, especially in the North Lushai Hills and regarding girls’ education too. People like Ch. Pasena, Nuchhungi, Chhuahkhama contributed in the writing of school textbooks but it was the British

26 Centre for Policy Studies, Religion Data of Census 2011: XXVIII Northeast [website], 2016 https://blog.cpsindia.org/2016/08/religion-data-of-census-2011-xxviii.html (accessed February 2017). 27 BMS: IN/ 113 Lushai Report: Boys' Education. 28 CMA: Letter to Rev. Edwards 1 August 1935.

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missionaries who did the most work on curriculum. The irony is that it took close to half a century for the Mizos to have a high school. Colonial and mission educational policy was more focused on horizontal expansion than a vertical one. The extreme difference in the curriculum aims of the boys and girls school has been having stronger bearings than one might anticipated. The girls were taught self care and care for others from the lowest class whereas boys neglected manual and practical works but with a focus on qualifying exams. This resulted in fewer girls with high qualifications but with enormous practical knowledge for survival. The boys however had better chance of continuing their studies with higher qualifications but there was a lag with the world and society they lived in and this continued to be a problem for many years to come. The curriculum of the girls’ school was meant for empowering women and it seemed to have done that. It provided mobility too but a limited one. There seemed to be a lack of organic growth, development and change in curriculum during half a century of the missions’ work. Various reasons, especially lack of funding, political unrest in British India and the constant wanting in manpower did stand in the way of producing a better-rounded curriculum. Most of the missionaries were not educationists and the ones who passed teachers’ training course were very few and the colonial government had hardly anything to lend it to them. It was a trial and error process for the mission agencies and a lot of it was dependent on luck. The Mizos response to such curriculum was remarkable to say the least, as it was a venture into a new knowledge system.

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