British Educational Policy and the Responses of Colonial Subjects in India, 1880-1890
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Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2017 Patriots and Practical Men: British Educational Policy and the Responses of Colonial Subjects in India, 1880-1890 David Thomas Boven Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Boven, David Thomas, "Patriots and Practical Men: British Educational Policy and the Responses of Colonial Subjects in India, 1880-1890" (2017). Dissertations. 2581. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2581 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2016 David Thomas Boven LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO PATRIOTS AND PRACTICAL MEN: BRITISH EDUCATIONAL POLICY AND THE RESPONSES OF COLONIAL SUBJECTS IN INDIA, 1880-1890 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL POLICY STUDIES BY DAVID THOMAS BOVEN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS MAY 2017 Copyright by David Thomas Boven, 2017 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are certainly many people to thank in the production of this dissertation. I am very grateful to my dissertation advisor, Noah W. Sobe, for his guidance, insights, and recommendations. Tavis D. Jules and John R. Pincince also provided valuable and thoughtful advice throughout the process. My graduate student colleagues in the Cultural and Educational Policy Studies Program at Loyola did not provide as much direct feedback on my dissertation project, but were integral in helping to maintain my sanity. My family and friends also provided great support along the way. My parents and siblings have always been encouraging to me in my educational exploits. The communities at places that I have worked and worshipped have done the same. Most importantly my wife and my children have provided me with more support and encouragement than I could possibly deserve. Molly, Greta, and Everett have endured time away from daddy with grace and understanding. My beloved Beth has allowed me to spend weeks in India sitting in musty archives collecting information, given me uninterrupted time at home putting it all down on paper, and done so much more than I could possibly thank her for. And, as the Jesuits would say, this work has all been done Ad maiorem Dei gloriam. Likewise, it was done Deo juvante. iii For Beth, Molly, Greta, and Everett I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. — Thomas Babington Macauley TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................................... iii CHAPTER ONE: RELIGIOUS EDUCATIONAL POLICY AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF COLONIAL SUBJECTS IN BRITISH INDIA ................................................................................................. 1 Historical Background ..................................................................................................................................... 5 Research Methodology ..................................................................................................................................12 Dissertation Outline .......................................................................................................................................16 CHAPTER TWO: REVIEWING EXISTING SCHOLARSHIP ON RELIGIOUS, COLONIAL EDUCATION IN NORTHERN INDIA ..........................................................................................................17 Western Colonial Education ........................................................................................................................18 Historiography of Colonial Education .....................................................................................................22 Hinduism and Education ..............................................................................................................................25 Islam and Education .......................................................................................................................................30 Other Religious Groups .................................................................................................................................35 Religion and Education .................................................................................................................................37 News Media as Historical Sources ............................................................................................................38 CHAPTER THREE: EDUCATIONAL POLICIES DISCUSSED AND IMPLEMENTED BY THE BRITISH COLONIAL AUTHORITIES IN INDIA.......................................................................................45 Formulating Educational Policy in 1835 ................................................................................................53 Indian Educational Policy from 1835 to 1854 .....................................................................................60 The Educational Despatch of 1854 ...........................................................................................................63 The Educational Commission of 1882 .....................................................................................................69 Intercommunal Relations in Colonial India ..........................................................................................74 CHAPTER FOUR: REACTIONS TO BRITISH EDUCATIONAL POLICY IN COLONIAL INDIAN RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES ..........................................................................................................................78 History of the Popular Press in India .......................................................................................................79 Support for Colonial Educational Policy .................................................................................................87 Opposition to Colonial Educational Policy ............................................................................................93 Educational Policy and Its Relation to Linguistic and Religious Communities .................... 107 Summary of Reactions to Educational Policies ................................................................................. 118 CHAPTER FIVE: EDUCATIONAL POLICY AND COLONIAL SUBJECTS .......................................... 123 A Policy of Divide and Conquer ............................................................................................................... 124 Colonial Successes and Failures.............................................................................................................. 138 CHAPTER SIX: FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE AND BRITISH EDUCATIONAL POLICY ................... 146 Investigating Forms of Knowledge in Colonial India ...................................................................... 147 Media and Forms of Knowledge in Northern India ......................................................................... 150 REFERENCE LIST ............................................................................................................................................. 158 Periodicals ....................................................................................................................................................... 158 Entries in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ........................................................................ 158 Entries in A Source Book of Modern Indian Education .................................................................... 159 Other Secondary Sources .......................................................................................................................... 159 VITA ....................................................................................................................................................................... 170 CHAPTER ONE RELIGIOUS EDUCATIONAL POLICY AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF COLONIAL SUBJECTS IN BRITISH INDIA As a process, the colonization of the Indian subcontinent by European powers— most notably and enduringly the British—took hundreds of years. Throughout this period, education played an integral part in helping the British to complete their colonial project. This dissertation focuses broadly on the interplay between educational policy implemented by the British colonial authorities in India and the religious and ethnic communities impacted by these policies. It considers educational policies promulgated from the earliest days of rule by the British East India Company until the Hunter Commission of 1882. Following this survey, the dissertation considers Indian reactions to these systems and colonial structures of education from the period 1880 to 1890. Those colonizing India had planned to use education as a means of stabilizing and strengthening their own rule on the subcontinent. As the British colonizers steadily overran the subcontinent, however, the colonial education system that developed over