Caste and the Politics of the Early ‘Public’ in Schooling: Dalit Struggle for an Equitable Education

Schooling in the Early Decades: A Segregated ‘Public’

In the mid-1850s, the colonial state accepted its responsibility for mass education within a framework of equality and individual rights before law. Though state-funded schools were theoretically open to children from all communities by law, there is enough official documentation to show that this was belied in practice. Entry of the Untouchables was fiercely opposed by caste Hindus in multiple ways ranging from denial of their admission and entry into schools, physical violence against ‘low caste’ pupils and their families, and threats of school boycott and emptying of classrooms even if a single Untouchable was admitted (GoI, 1882; see also Constable, 2000; Rao, 2010). The emerging public sphere at the time was dominated by the higher castes. Constable points to the ‘substantial opposition to Untouchable education not only from caste Hindu parents’ but also ‘an outraged Indian press’ (2000, p. 386). Organisations such as the Sarvajanik Sabha also came out against the colonial policy of mass education (ibid.).

The colonial state and its administrators largely failed to stand by their own laws and evolved ambivalent policies that led to denial of equality of access to Untouchable children in what were called common or mixed schools. The famously cited petition in 1856 of a Mahar student who was denied admission to a Dharwar government school because he belonged to an Untouchable caste is reflective of the struggle of the Depressed Classes (as the Untouchables were officially known subsequently) to access formal education in publicly funded schools which were ostensibly open to all. In this specific case, a complaint was lodged with the Bombay government indicating that there were formal channels to appeal to the state. The Bombay Board of Education stated that:

It would not be right for the sake of a single individual, the only Mahar who has ever yet come forward to beg for admission into a school attended only by pupils of caste, to force him into association with them at the probable risk of making the institution practically useless to the great mass of Natives. ³ (cited in Constable, 2000, p. 399)

Rao observes that ‘Caste Hindu’s right to exclusive education was thus reinterpreted as the colonial administration’s respect for the religious sentiment of the majority’ (2010 p. 71). When they were permitted to enter schools, the treatment meted out to Untouchables was discriminatory as seen in an incident mentioned in a government report in the late 1850s:

When Reverend Adam White asked the Brahman teacher who made liberal use of a cane why there were some ‘clods’ in the room, the ‘Pantoji’ (teacher) replied: ‘I use my cane in the case of caste boys. If I struck the Mahar, pollution from the outcaste boy would come with the stick and my whole body would be polluted. So when the Mahar boy is stupid, I just take a clod and let fly at him, and when I miss I take another’. ⁴

To address dominant caste opposition to the entry of Untouchables in schools, the colonial state created an ingenious new institutional structure. This was the ‘separate school’, a government-funded and managed institution but one that would cater only to the Untouchables provided that there were sufficient number of pupils. The first such school was established in Ahmadnagar in 1855 (GoB, 1930). Separate schools were the predominant official segregated institutional arrangements for the Untouchables through the latter half of the nineteenth century. Missionaries were also encouraged to undertake the schooling of ‘non caste’ (Untouchable) children by relaxing rules of grants-in-aid (GoI, 1882). These official practices may have normalised untouchability and practices of segregation in schooling, but they were contested by the Untouchables and radical reformers.

By 1881, Untouchable students comprised barely 0.87 per cent of those in primary school, 0.14 per cent in secondary school and were not present in high school or college (Ambedkar, 1928). Their abysmal situation was forcefully placed by Phule before the first Indian Education Commission, popularly known as the Hunter Commission appointed in 1882. Phule was a radical reformer who by 1854 had established the first schools for girls, for the Untouchable Mahars and Mangs and for widows. Phule’s educational initiatives were met with a backlash from caste Hindus as it confronted Brahminical and patriarchal values. He brought his imagination of education into the institutions he established. The curriculum was relatively broad based and education was envisioned revolutionarily as the ‘third eye’ that would ‘conscientise’ (in the Freirean sense) the Untouchables and lower castes and enable them to recognise oppressive Brahminical practices (Keer, 2013).

In his ‘memorial’ (written submission) to the Hunter Commission in 1882, Phule presented the educational situation of the Untouchables locating their exclusion from schooling within the larger socio-political context of caste oppression as well as failures of the colonial state. He laid threadbare the segregated nature of the system of state education and emphasised that ‘the Mahars, Mangs and other lower classes are practically excluded from all schools owing to caste prejudices as they are not allowed to sit by children of higher castes’ (Phule, 1882, p. 3). Given the opposition to the schooling of the Untouchables by the higher castes (often using the term higher classes) and the treatment meted out to them, Phule settled for the ‘separate school’. However, he points to the grossly inadequate provision and dismal quality of separate schools as there were neither resources nor teachers who were willing to teach the Untouchables except from the Muslim community. Given the social distance that the poorly trained Brahmin teachers maintained from their ‘low caste’ students, Phule emphasised the recruitment and training of teachers from within their own communities and monitoring and supervision of schools (ibid.).

Though aware of the failings of the colonial state, Phule emphasised that it must take responsibility for mass and higher education, using public funds levied through a special cess. He urged the state to be ‘equitable’ and favour those who had been hitherto denied education, including higher education. Private initiative was seen as sectarian and inefficient. He also stressed on the need to facilitate entry of the lower castes into public services which were monopolised by the Brahmins at the time. His conviction was that with education, the lower classes/Untouchables would be as good, if not better, than the Brahmins in morals and manners in which the former were seen as lacking (ibid.). What needs to be highlighted is that Phule’s submission to the Commission is couched in the language of citizenship, rights and equity in view of the reality of the state and society of the time.

The deliberations of the Hunter Commission on the schooling of the Untouchables are contained in the section on ‘Low Caste Education’ in its Report of 1882 (GoI, 1882). A careful reading reveals that the Commission was well aware of the ‘positive hostility’ of ‘higher caste’ Hindus to the ‘admission of low-caste boys to school’ (ibid., p. 519). While it observes that this is ‘partly due to religious feeling and partly due to fear of physical and moral contagion’, the Commission also draws attention to ‘special objections to the instruction of the lower castes in that education would advance them in life and induce them to seek emancipation from their present servile condition’ (ibid.). However, while the Commission acknowledges principles of equality in education and that ‘low castes’ had a right to schools maintained by the government, it compromises with the exclusionary practices of dominant caste Hindus. Thus, it recommends that ‘the principle that no boy be refused admission to government school merely on the grounds of caste … be now reaffirmed in principle ….’ Yet it goes on to say that ‘… even in the case of government schools the principle affirmed by us be applied with due caution…It is not desirable for masters or inspectors to endeavour to force on a social change which with judicious treatment will be accepted by society’ (GoI, 1882, p. 517). While admitting that ‘this class of society needs special help’ in relation to ‘instruction’, it recommends separate schools ⁵ for them, maintaining that ‘… such help can often be best afforded without giving offence to other castes by the establishment of special schools’ (ibid., emphasis mine).

Efforts by the Untouchables to enter schools, including those run by missionaries, continued and so did incidents of ‘violence and intimidation’ against them (Rao, 2010, p. 71). Mahar students were ‘not allowed to be seated with other boys’; they were ‘seated in the blazing sun outside … apparently entirely neglected’ and so on (ibid.). Rao lists several such incidents that were officially documented through the 1880s and 1890s (ibid.; see also Constable, 2000). However, what is significant is the struggle for ‘civic inclusion’ through petitioning by the Untouchables. As Rao notes:

Increasingly, the colonial government faced a spate of petitions as Untouchable students—who faced informal boycott by caste Hindus or active enforcement of segregated education by colonial officials—petitioned for civic inclusion, while the parents of caste Hindu students wished to exclude Untouchables from classrooms. (2010, pp. 71–72)

While the separate schools were an innovation to ensure the segregation of Untouchables in spatially different locations, there were other arrangements which were evolved for those who insisted on entering regular schools but were confronted by the opposition of caste Hindus. Untouchable students were placed on the verandah, in separate classrooms and even on a ‘scaffold’ from where they were expected to carry on their lessons (Constable, 2000; Rao, 2010). This was segregation, but within the same premises, outside the physical space of the classroom. In other words, while we do see the colonial state condone and sanction new practices of exclusion in schools, there is no doubt that they were a result of concerted efforts by Untouchable parents for the education of their children in common schools.

In 1892, Mahar and Chambhar army pensioners in the small town of Dapoli in Bombay Presidency refused to accept the options of either a separate school for their children or a separate class/seating on the verandah. They felt ‘it would lead to an inferior education for their children by huddling together different standards in one class, not to mention the emphasis that separate education gave to their untouchability’ ⁶ (Constable, 2000, p. 405). What they wanted was the entry of their children into the regular classroom of the government primary school. The Dapoli case to which both Constable (2000) and Rao (2010) refer to at length is a landmark because of the persistence for equal education by Untouchable parents. The pensioners repeatedly petitioned the authorities to allow their children to let them sit in the same classroom as caste Hindus. Finally, after two years in 1894, the state ordered that the children be allowed to enter the school, but be seated separately from caste Hindu students. What is revealing is that the parents belonging to Untouchable communities were satisfied with the outcome, stating that what they wanted was their children to sit in the same classroom as caste Hindus (Rao, 2010, p. 73). In other words, they were seeking equal access to instruction within a common classroom which could happen even if there was separate seating within it. They demanded school entry and equality in relation to instruction. ⁷

The collusion of the local school board with practices of segregation and exclusion was visible in Dapoli and other instances given the nexus between caste interests and the municipal and school authorities. This compounded the vulnerability of the Untouchables as the dominant castes had it in their power to bring to bear physical and symbolic coercion on them including social boycott. Many colonial administrators were either sympathetic to caste Hindus’ objections or preferred to turn a blind eye to the violation of the civic rights of the Untouchables. What is clear is the chasm between equality before law and the practice of separateness within the public space of schools where there was opposition to the entry of the Untouchable student.

Organising for Change

By the late 1880s, we see initial attempts to spread education within the community by the first generation of Untouchables who had entered the army as well as those in trade and business. Zelliot (2014) highlights in particular the efforts of the Depressed Classes in the Vidharbha area, including those with little or no formal education to establish schools, hostels and night schools. Teltumbde (2016) emphasises that the new occupations, especially the army, business and trade, created a class among the Untouchables that was ‘rid of obligations, was economically well of, educated … which acutely sensed the disabilities the caste system heaped on it. They now had the wherewithal to rise and remove these disabilities. This was the germination of the Dalit movement’ (ibid., p. 44).

In 1890, the first organisation of the Depressed Classes, the Anarya Doshpariharak Mandal ⁸ (ADM), was established in Pune by Gopal Baba Walagankar who was one of the petitioners in the Dapoli government school case as well as for the re-entry of Mahars into the army. There were more organised efforts for education, employment in public services and community awareness. ⁹ Schools, including for girls, were established leading to the first generation of women who were educated and who came into the Dalit movement in the 1920s ¹⁰ (Pawar & Moon, 2014).

Dominant community organisations that were established by the 1880s were active not merely in lobbying the colonial state for their own educational and economic interests but were also actively engaged in creating a public discourse that opposed mass education. Rao (2013) points to the opposition to compulsory education that played out in the print media, for instance in Tilak’s Maratha and the Amrita Bazaar Patrika. The Untouchables did not have their own newspaper to intervene in the larger public discourse nor the necessary cultural and social capital to do so. Walagankar and Shivram Janba Kamble found some space in Marathi newspapers and periodicals towards the last decade of the century. Walagankar for instance wrote in the Vidhushak, Deenabandu and Sudharak against untouchability and Brahmanism (Paik, 2014). The need for a journal from within the Untouchable community was felt by Kamble who started the Somwanshiya Mitra (SM) ¹¹ (Friends of the Depressed Classes) in 1908 in Pune. The journal attempted to create a new space for the Depressed Classes to articulate a discourse to enable the transformation of the community. From the contributors to this journal, we see their realisation of the need for mobilisation of the community, spreading awareness about regressive rituals and practices especially in relation to women, highlighting the importance of the education of children and to create a reading Dalit public. Significantly, the SM engaged with the debates on compulsory education at the time contesting the grounds on which the Government rejected Ghokale’s 1911 Bill—that the ‘time is not ripe for compulsory education’ (SM, 1910, p. 83). It draws attention to the princely state of Baroda where Sayajirao Gaekwad had already implemented compulsory education as well as to other countries of the world that had done so. ¹² Another writer draws attention to the need to reflect on what kind of education was necessary for farmers and artisans. Issues discussed included recruitment of Untouchables in the lower services, the police department and army and building a corpus of funds to facilitate the spread of education. Mention is made of a modest scholarship instituted to support a student in college.

Kamble also writes about the discriminatory treatment that Dalit children faced in regular schools. He was forced to establish a school for Untouchable children when they were denied admission by a school in Pune. He writes in the SM that his school would be impartial and open to all (1909). Kamble was also perceptive in giving voice to the Dalit children’s lack of ‘cultural capital’ that the school required for success and thinking about how this could be addressed. He points to tutoring as important and began attempts do so, emphasising that if such inputs were given to Untouchable children they could perform as well as students belonging to caste Hindus (from SM, 1909). Though the SM ran only for two years (1908–1909), it was a remarkable attempt to mobilise opinion and share the position of the Untouchables on matters that were seen as crucial for the advancement of the community.

Material, Moral and Educational Development

In 1916, the Bombay government sought the views of a range of administrators and non-state organisations working for social reform as well as the missionaries on measures ‘for the amelioration of the material, moral and educational (MME) condition of the Depressed Classes’ (GoB, 1917). ¹³ It is important to note the insertion of the word ‘moral’ which was repeatedly invoked post-1850 to suggest that this was a sphere in which the Untouchables were severely wanting and was the basis of prejudice by the caste Hindus. A look at the responses submitted to the Government of Bombay (GoB) suggests that other than for a couple of administrators who flagged exclusionary caste practices as a major impediment to the material and educational advancement of Depressed Classes and acknowledged their poverty, it was the need for improvement in the moral domain (hygiene, good habits and so on) that was repeatedly highlighted. Literacy, primary schooling and technical training were seen as the key to the advancement of the Untouchables (ibid.).

At the time when the MME exercise was carried out, as many as 53 per cent of Depressed Class students were still in separate schools, the majority (69 per cent) of which were maintained by the state through district local boards and municipalities. ¹⁴ The MME responses acknowledged the existence of separate schools and segregation of Untouchable students within common schools. However, recommendations that emerged from the exercise reflected a continued refusal to squarely address caste-based exclusion in education with a firmness that was necessary if the state was serious about equality before law and the ‘public’ character of the institutions it maintained. As did the Hunter Commission more than two decades earlier, the GoB reiterated that ‘no pupil (non-caste) shall be excluded from schools for caste reasons’ (GoB, 1917). Like the Commission, the GoB goes on to recommend that

when objections are raised to the admission of children into the school room on account of their caste, suitable arrangement for their accommodation must be made. Further … low caste children should not be excluded from municipal and local board schools unless separate schools are opened for them by the local bodies … the practice of compelling boys and girls of the Depressed Classes to sit in the school verandahs should be abolished wherever it exists, … arrangements should be made, when local feeling required it, to give them accommodation inside the school rooms apart from other children.15 (ibid., pp. 2–3; emphasis mine)

Depressed Class leaders or their organisations were not asked for their views on the development of their own communities. It was the social reformer V. R. Shinde whose Depressed Classes Mission (DCM) Society of India was well regarded for its work among the Untouchables who were invited to respond to the MME query. Shinde conveyed his known position that what was urgently required for the Depressed Classes was free and compulsory primary education. He emphasised the importance of technical training for the Depressed Classes. This was mainly manual training in primary schools in the cities and technical schools for the few who advanced beyond this stage (GoB, 2016). He also saw hostels as important for their ‘moral welfare’. Shinde suggested that the interests of the Depressed Classes could be best safeguarded by the ‘devoted advocates from the higher classes whenever qualified representatives from their own class may not be available’ ¹⁶ (ibid., 13). The GoB was quick to approve a grant to the DCM for central boarding schools for the Depressed Classes with the observation that that ‘it has been universally admitted that no permanent moral or social improvement can be expected in children of Depressed Classes unless they are taken away from their hereditary surroundings and brought up in well-managed hostels …’ (GoB, 1917, p. 3).

Scattered observations in official reports and fragmentary recollections of Dalits underscore the difficult and abysmal conditions under which the separate school functioned ¹⁷ as well as struggles of the Depressed Classes to enter regular schools. We also have Ramachandra Babaji More (one of the organisers of the Mahad Satyagraha in 1928), who recalled in 1913, that he had been denied entry into the Dasgaon high school ¹⁸ despite having cleared a competitive exam for a scholarship which also entitled him to a seat in the school. More left the school, but on the advice of those active in the Dalit movement, he wrote a letter to a local newspaper about being denied admission which was then published. Following this, he was allowed entry into the school, but made to sit on a stool outside the classroom. We find that the act of public protest ensured a space for him even though it was outside the classroom (Teltumbde, 2016). The persistence of Dalit families, as well as community efforts in the spread of education hence must be acknowledged.

By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the Depressed Classes had positioned themselves politically as a community that was distinctly different from the Hindus because of the structure of untouchability that shaped their lives. They were clear that only with the recognition of their Untouchable status and self-representation as a distinct minority could they protect their own interests. This was forcefully argued by Ambedkar as he entered public life and made his political position the driving force of the Dalit movement for civic equality and equal rights. Appearing before the Southborough Committee in 1919, he emphasised that Untouchability constitutes ‘a definite set of interests which the Untouchables alone can speak for’ (Ambedkar, 1919, p. 280). Further, he points to the critical role that the Dalits themselves had to play in relation to education and emancipation, an understanding that informed the Depressed Classes’ struggle for equitable education in the coming decades. He says:

The growth of education if it is confined to one class, … may lead to the justification and conservation of class interest; and instead of creating the liberators of the down-trodden, it may create champions of the past and the supporters of the status quo. Isn’t this the effect of education so far?

Claiming the ‘Public’ in Education: Efforts at Civic Inclusion

From Southborough through the decade of the 1920s, we find a range of efforts by the Dalits, in the institutional and legislative domain linked with organisational and community-level mobilisation that have been particularly significant for the idea of equality and justice in education. They have been critical in shaping the notions of a public in education that is inclusive. Repeatedly, the public purpose of education was highlighted as it would lead to individual advancement, building of leadership and transformation of the community which would then enable them to ‘take their place as citizens who would contribute to the nation’ (Ambedkar, 2019). Here it is important to recall Ambedkar’s much cited statement that ‘Schools are the workshops to manufacture the best citizens’ (1982[1927], cited by Paik, 2014, p. 74).

Conferences and meetings (sabhas) were key spaces where matters of community advancement including in and through education were discussed. Various resolutions were passed in these meetings. The Akhil Bharatiya Bahishkrit Parishad (The All India Conference of the Excluded) held in Nagpur in 1920 was a major landmark in the organisation of the Dalit movement. The conference which was attended by 10,000 people including women reiterated the importance of education for the community. The political position of the Dalits in relation to untouchability and the need for their own representation were also strongly articulated (for details see Paik, 2014, p. 55). The 1920s saw the emergence of organisations thorough which the Dalit movement took ahead the fight for social and political equality and focused on a range of issues among which education was most important. The Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha (BHS) was established in Bombay by Ambedkar in 1924 and the spread of education amongst Dalits was laid down as a primary function of the organisation. Its activities included the establishment of hostels to enable access to education especially at the secondary and higher levels, scholarships for the Depressed Class students and meeting of expenses as poverty was a major obstacle to further education. There were efforts towards a broader cultural development of the community as well. The BHS saw as one of its tasks the establishment of libraries, sports facilities and social centres. ²⁰ The setting up of hostels was undertaken in a campaign mode and efforts were made to collect funds from within the community as well. In his mass meetings, Ambedkar exhorted those gathered to contribute so that many more could go to school. In 1928, he established the Depressed Classes Education Society (DCES) to specifically focus on education as the BHS became increasingly engaged in political activities. Hostels for Untouchable students now were managed by DCES (see Keer, 2018).

Mook Nayak was the first newspaper started by Ambedkar in early 1920. Subsequently, he ran the Bahiskrit Bharat from 1927 and later the Janata in 1930. The Bahishkrit Bharat reported on the activities of the Dalit movement, and as its editor, Ambedkar engaged in public debates presenting the position of the Untouchables on a range of issues that concerned them. Mook Nayak also provided space for voices from within the community to present the educational and other concerns of the Depressed Classes. For instance in 1921, Mook Nayak published two letters from Dalit students who complained against the DCM. In one, students expressed their dissatisfaction with Shinde’s DCM hostels stating that they faced unequal treatment within them. In another letter, they critiqued the failure of the Mission to produce even one graduate, thereby thwarting aspirations for higher education among the Untouchable youth. ²¹

The presence of nominated legislators from the Depressed Classes such as D. D. Gholap, P. G. Solanki and Ambedkar himself as well as those sympathetic to their cause especially S. K. Bole saw the use of legislative space to claim civic rights to public space and services for the Untouchables. In 1923, Gholap moved a resolution in the Bombay Legislative Council (BLC) recommending compulsory primary education ‘in order to bring it within the reach of the Depressed Classes’. He also raised questions relating to ‘provision of new primary schools’ and ‘especially hostels for Depressed Class girls’ (Keer, 2018, p. 52). The idea of the public space as inclusive and to which they had the right of entry received repeated attention as the Depressed Classes sought access and equitable treatment within institutions and services maintained and administered by the state. The landmark Bole resolution was also moved in the BLC in 1923 and adopted that year. The resolution stated in no uncertain terms that Untouchables must be given free access to public services and institutions (schools were specifically mentioned) that were maintained by public funds or administered by the state. It read as follows:

The Council recommends that the Untouchable Classes be allowed to use all public watering places, wells and dharmashalas which are built and maintained out of public funds or administered by bodies appointed by Government or created by statute, as well as public schools, courts …. (cited in Keer, 2018[1954], p. 53)

A specific ‘press note’ was also issued by the government in 1923 to see that ‘that no disabilities were imposed on Depressed Class children in any school conducted by public authority in its own or hired building’ (GoB, 1930, p. 13). The struggle for civic inclusion and claiming of their rights provided within the framework of colonial law and policy was, as earlier discussed, raised since Phule’s time, by individuals and subsequently by associations and organisations of Dalits by petitioning the government. The use of the legislative space by the leaders of the Dalit movement was a distinct feature of the post-1920s in the Presidency and their efforts enabled the struggle for equal and substantive access to diverse common/public sites that they had been excluded from by religion and custom.

When the Compulsory Primary Education Act (Bombay Act No. IV of 1923) was passed, it came in for sharp criticism from the Dalits. Ambedkar denounced the Act as a ‘fraud’ by the state as in effect ‘there is no obligation to make it compulsory’ and that there was ‘even no time limit fixed within which to fulfil this obligation’ (Ambedkar, 1982[1928a], p. 425). Further, the transfer of primary education from the control of the provincial government/education department to the local Board, he said, was ‘detrimental to the best interests … particularly of the Backward Classes’ (ibid., p. 14) as they were vulnerable to caste-based exclusion at the village level and the complicity of local authorities (ibid.). Almost 50 years earlier, Phule had underscored that education must be supervised by the department of education and not local authorities for precisely the same reason (1882). Despite the legislation on the use of public space and services that was passed in 1923, the Untouchables were not permitted to use public facilities especially water even when the tanks were maintained with public funds. This led to the Mahad struggle of 1928 (Teltumbde, 2016). Water was also a site of contention in schools as reflected in the ‘drinking lotas’ (pots) controversy which was reported in the Bombay Chronicle (1927). This relates to a resolution passed by the Bombay municipality in 1927 that said ‘we cannot recognise untouchability in our own schools’ and a circular was issued to the effect that ‘that there should be no distinction as to drinking pots (for Dalit children and caste Hindu students) in their schools’. The circular evoked protest from caste Hindus which was reported in the newspapers ²² (Ambedkar, 1982[1928b], pp. 457–458). What is more significant is the resistance to separate pots in a school in Bombay in 1929 when Dalit students insisted on drinking water from a pot meant for caste Hindu students. They mobilised other Depressed Class students to insist that their demand for equal access to water in the school be met, which was subsequently agreed to (incident cited in Paik, 2014, p. 57).

In May 1928, a detailed statement ‘concerning the state of education of the Depressed Classes in the Bombay Presidency’ was submitted by Ambedkar on behalf of the BHS (Depressed Classes Institute of Bombay) to the Indian Statutory Commission, also known as the Simon Commission (Ambedkar, 1982[1928a], pp. 408–428). Towards late 1928, the BLC set up a Committee under O. H. B. Starte to enquire into ‘the educational, economic and social conditions of the Depressed Classes (Untouchables) and of the Aboriginal Tribes’. ²³ This was in response to a resolution moved by Solanki, Depressed Class member of the BLC. Ambedkar and Solanki were members of this Committee whose report was published in 1930 and whose report was published in 1930 (GoB, 1930). The Committee met key people across the Presidency for a better understanding of the situation of the Depressed Classes and Aboriginal Tribes. The Starte Committee Report (SCR) reflects the serious deliberations by the Committee, and insightful analysis of the educational concerns of the Depressed Classes within the larger context of their economic and social conditions and the intersection of structures and institutions. Ambedkar’s own writings and interventions in the decade before can be seen to inform the Report, especially the section on the Depressed Classes.

The Committee flags untouchability as ‘a problem of the highest political importance that affects the fundamental question of the civic rights of the subjects of the state’ as well as the disastrous effects of segregation and isolation of the Depressed Classes for society at large (GoB, 1930, p. 3). It added, ‘[t]here is very little interrelationship of that praiseworthy unity of purpose and welfare or mutuality or loyalty to public ends’ (GoB, 1930, p. 3). The committee underscores that while the separate school was seen to have helped in the education of the Depressed Classes when they were entirely excluded from regular schools, it was ‘inefficient’ from the ‘standpoint of standard of education’. ²⁴ More importantly, it was viewed by the Committee as socially divisive since ‘the existence of such schools perpetuates the difference between the Depressed Classes and the rest of the community instead of helping to remove it’ (ibid., p. 15). Enrolments in common schools had significantly increased ²⁵ though instances of denial of entry of Depressed Classes into regular schools and their placement outside the classroom were reported to the Committee. The case of one Mahar student who had to sit on a scaffold is mentioned in the SCR. In another instance as a ‘result of local opposition the School Board passed a resolution the result being that 25 Depressed Class boys were made to sit altogether in a separate building in the same compound’ (ibid., p. 15).

The Report acknowledges the harsh social and economic conditions in which Depressed Classes lived that made it difficult for them to exercise the right to common schooling that Government orders theoretically gave them:

If the caste Hindus object and they can, and in fact do, put pressure on the Depressed Classes not to send their children to the common school. The Depressed Classes are the village servants and have very little chances of standing against a village boycott. (ibid., p. 16)

The Committee does highlight that firmness on the part of the school administrators and state officials was crucial and that ‘we have heard of no instance wherein firm action by the Educational Authorities has not been successful’ (ibid., p. 14). One of the suggestions made in this regard was that the government order in the 1923 press note referred to earlier, include a qualification ‘stating definitely that “admission” of the Depressed Class children to a school implies that the children are allowed to sit jointly with the others and not made to sit separately’ (GoB, 1930, p. 1, emphasis in the original).

It is significant that the SCR draws attention to the exclusionary practices within the classroom and says that ‘even if admitted, an orthodox schoolmaster can and sometimes does, make it very hard for the Depressed Class pupils in his Class’ (ibid., p. 16). Mention is made of the caste Hindu teacher’s ‘lack of awareness in teaching pupils from these classes’, the ‘feelings of aversion’ shown towards them and hence to exclude and neglect them within the classroom. This, it is underscored, ‘must also react against giving them even an equal chance with the other children’ (ibid., p. 26). It is pointed out that Untouchable children came from homes where parents were ‘uneducated’ and this was a reason for poor performance. This is why these children in fact need ‘more attention than the children of the more advanced classes’ (ibid.). The Report addresses ways in which the state and policy could intervene to bring about more inclusive and equitable school spaces and institutional practices. One of the important and far-reaching recommendations was that relating to teachers and training, specifically keeping in mind the rights of children belonging to Untouchable castes and other backward classes. The exchange of Depressed Classes and caste Hindu teachers between common and separate schools and to increase the number of Depressed Class teachers in regular schools was recommended. More importantly, it suggested that ‘Practicing Schools’ for trainee teachers should have more Depressed Class students (at the time they had none or barely 1 or 2) and at least one Depressed Class teacher. This would enable future teachers to be oriented to teaching Depressed Class students in their classes. Otherwise, ‘they will not learn in the Training College how to mingle Depressed Class children with the other children and insist on equality of treatment for them’ (ibid., p. 37). Further, it is even suggested that trainee teachers be exposed to single teacher schools in a poor locality (where pupils were likely to be mainly from Depressed Classes) so that they ‘learn how to deal with the real problems of poor attendance, lack of cleanliness, absence of educated parents etc.’ (ibid., p. 38). In other words, the Starte Committee was looking towards building a new generation of teachers who would be oriented to the social context of discrimination, exclusion and privilege and be equipped to bring equitable practices into their classrooms. The attempt was to thus to make schools more inclusive spaces imbued with new meanings of the public. ²⁶

The SCR was a defining document far ahead of its time. It presents with clarity, the vision of a socially just public education that enables the most excluded communities to participate more fully in educational institutions while recognising that the roots of social exclusion are structural and have to be addressed as well. The Report is rarely referred to but it is still relevant today not merely for the education of specific marginalised communities but also for an equitable and inclusive public education for all.

Higher Education: The Organic Intellectual and Leadership

The systematic thrust towards higher education for the Untouchables came with Ambedkar who saw it as critical to his larger vision of individual mobility and emancipation, transformation of the community and social democracy. While opportunities for employment in government services that it opened were important, it was the building of the Dalit organic intellectual (in Gramsci’s words) and leadership which was his concern. Ambedkar’s clarion call—educate, agitate and organise—required leadership which he believed would emerge only among those with higher education. He says, ‘From the standpoint of leadership, from the standpoint of filling in high administrative posts, higher education is to the Untouchables a great necessity’ (Ambedkar, 2013[1942]). He emphasises that:

the backward classes have come to realise that after all education is the greatest material benefit for which they can fight. We may forego material benefits of civilisation, but we cannot forego our right and opportunity to reap the benefit of the highest education to the fullest extent. That is the importance of this question from the point of view of the backward classes who have just realised that without education their existence is not safe. (Ambedkar, 1982[1927], p. 62) ²⁷

Ambedkar made critical interventions in the BLC to argue against inadequate provision of higher education and what he squarely calls its ‘commercialisation’ as 36 per cent of funds for arts colleges were met by student fees. He underscores this in an intervention he made in the BLC in 1927 that has resonance on university campuses in contemporary times:

Education ought to be cheapened in all possible ways and to the greatest possible extent. I urge this plea because I feel that we are arriving at a stage when the lower orders of society are just getting into the high schools, middle schools and colleges, and the policy of this department therefore ought to be to make higher education as cheap to the lower classes as it can possibly be made …. (Ambedkar, 1982[1927], p. 41)

With the judicious use of appropriate evidence (enrolments figures showing ‘comparative disparities’ in education across castes for instance) and citing earlier reports, his was a well-argued case for access with equity in education. He foregrounds that to be socially just, there is need for ‘favoured treatment’ for some:

I must here emphasize that this country is composed of different communities. All the communities are unequal in their status and progress. If they are to be brought to the level of equality then the only remedy is to adopt the principle of inequality and to give favoured treatment to those who are below the level …. For I honestly believe that equality of treatment to people who are unequal is simply another name for indifferentism (sic) and neglect. (ibid., p. 42)

Democratic participation and representation on institutional decision-making bodies was also seen as critical. Intervening in the BLC debates on the University Senate Bill, Ambedkar emphasises the need for increasing the representation of the Depressed/Backward Classes in the Senate. Further, opportunities in higher education needed to be viewed within the context of poverty and the compulsion to work that was a reality for students from these classes. For instance, Ambedkar cautions against an obsession with examinations and that students from the Depressed Classes should be allowed to take them at their own pace. ‘Surely, if the University was mindful of the economic condition of the backward communities, it certainly would not have persisted in a system of simultaneous examinations which in my opinion is absolutely unjustifiable and absurd’ (ibid., p. 51).

We need to be clear that Ambedkar’s untiring efforts were to increase access to education, and he was engaged in systematic and multi-pronged attempts to make existing institutions more inclusive to the extent that it was possible. However, his understanding of education and knowledge was broad and envisions the larger public purpose of education. At a conference of the Dalits in 1935, Ambedkar dwells on what ‘true education’ really was and points both to the individual and larger purposes of education:

True education is one that helps an individual realize the faults within, gives intellect and strength to correct it, to be able to develop into a complete human being. However, it is worth reflecting how much of this has been achieved by contemporary education. It has now become a collective question of the entire nation and it will be resolved at the right time. That’s why our community cannot afford to waste a single opportunity available today. ²⁸

Ambedkar envisioned education as critical for resistance and the struggle for emancipation by the Untouchables. He says:

No resistance to power is possible while the sanctioning lies, which justify that power are accepted as valid …. Before any injustice, any abuse or oppression can be resisted, the lie upon which it is founded must be unmasked, must be clearly recognized for what it is. This can happen only with education. (Moon, 2014, p. 399)

For the Untouchables who had faced oppression and humiliation over generations, knowledge and understanding was needed to bring about ‘a re-orientation of the self and radicalize individual consciousness’ (Paik, 2014, p. 73). Paik observes that Ambedkar differed from Gandhi who viewed change more in relation to a ‘moralistic, gradual change of heart’ (ibid., p. 72). Ambedkar ‘sought to imagine Dalits as political subjects and create new Dalit citizens who had a key role to play in the life of the nation’ (ibid.). He says, ‘Unless Bahujans (low caste majority population) are educated on a wider scale, our nation will not change on social, religious or political lines’ (ibid.).

In the mid-1940s, Ambedkar established the People’s Education Society that states as its Mission: ‘… not only to give education but to give education in such a manner as to promote intellectual, moral and social democracy. This is what modern India needs and this is what all well-wishers of India must promote’ (cited in Kadam & Ambedkar, 1993, p. 210). We see again broad objectives around education and the larger public purpose envisioned of it. In 1946, Ambedkar established the Sidharth College in Bombay which was open to all but with attention to the special needs of the Dalits. In its early years, the Sidharth College presents the vision of an institution of higher education that brought together principles of inclusion and excellence. With this, we come to the end of the century-long struggle for equitable education by the Dalits.

Reflections

The foregoing discussion has crucial lessons for building an inclusive and equitable public education. Yet it is surprising that post-independence education policy chose to completely ignore the efforts of Ambedkar and other Dalit leaders and radicals’ contributions to debates on education, policy interventions of the time and institutional practices that were crucial for the spread of education among the Depressed Classes. In GoB’s Review of Education of Bombay State (1855–1955), the education of the Scheduled Castes ²⁹ appears as largesse by the colonial state and the efforts of the missionaries and social reformers (GoB, 1958). Whereas Gandhi is mentioned in relation to the fight against untouchability, there is no reference to Ambedkar or the contribution of Dalit leaders and activists as well as the educational aspirations and struggles in the context of oppressive caste relations. Except for an occasional reference to caste prejudice, the Review (ibid.) will have us believe in the linear spread of education enabled by policies of the state and gradual change of heart of dominant caste groups.

All education commissions and policies in post-independent India have a chapter on the Scheduled Castes (SC) clubbed with that of the Scheduled Tribes (ST). They have highlighted equality of educational opportunity (NPE, 1968), ³⁰ equalisation of education of SC with non-SC (including retention and completion) at all stages (NPE, 1986) ³¹ and inclusion in relation to diversity (post-1990). However, there is no mention of caste and untouchability as key structures of exclusion in education and the diverse ways in which they impede access to and equitable participation within institutions. In fact in the Kothari Commission Report, which is seen as the most important educational document in post independent India, this is the only reference to untouchability: ‘In so far as the Scheduled Castes are concerned, the problem has become a little easier because of the diminution in the rigour of untouchability’ (GoI, 1966, p. 242). Policy recommendations have largely been limited to enabling access in relation to greater provision, incentives that address costs of education, and community mobilisation to spread awareness about the importance of schooling. Reservations within institutions for the SC and remedial teaching are usually the equity dimension in policy. There has been no effort to understand the quality of the ‘public’ that is made available in education and the experiences of discrimination of ex-Untouchable Dalit students within schools and other institutions. It is only post-1990 that fragmentary research on school processes as well as the life histories of Dalits began to point to inequality in education that stemmed from caste relations, specifically untouchability, in the post-independence decades as well.

That the building of an inclusive and equitable public education is an ongoing task and needs systematic working upon as pointed out by Starte Committee in its Report and detailed recommendations was ignored. In fact the sphere of teacher education, crucial for marginalised students’ experiences within schools and the firmness in relation to injustice within institutions that was necessary on the part of school authorities, both of which were highlighted in the Report, has received negligible attention in the post-independence decades. Studies that have researched caste within institutions, as well as the life histories of educated Dalits have revealed that discrimination and exclusion continues to mark schools as institutions in complex ways (Krishna, 2012; Nambissan, 2010; Valmiki, 2008). Serious attention to the institution of education from the perspective of an inclusive and equitable public space would have also brought into focus other marginalities (and intersections within them) that are becoming increasing evident within society and education.

By the 1990s, the education system in India had become distinctly segregated into government and private English-medium institutions divided on the basis of class (intersecting with caste, gender and other identities). Government schooling had also morphed into a deeply stratified system where an increasingly large proportion of schools came to resemble the segregated separate spaces of learning in the colonial era. These were the primary/upper primary schools that catered to the poor among whom Dalit and other marginal groups predominate. These schools had poor infrastructure, less than adequate number of teachers and an abysmal quality of learning making them a caricature of the public in schooling (Kumar, 2006).

Rather than squarely confronting inequalities and exclusions in the institution of schooling, the major strategy for reforms in education post-1990 has been privatisation of government schools and adopting practices of managerialism, new regimes of accountability and standardisation as well as de-professionalising of teachers (Nambissan, 2014). In the last two decades, we have seen corporate foundations and other private organisations involved in improvement and adoption programmes in government schools that cater to poor and marginal groups (ibid.). Given their growing aspirations for private schooling, there has also been increasing advocacy for edu-business targeted at low-income families, incorporating discourses of equality and equity in education, as parents are offered ‘equal opportunity’ to ‘choose’ the schools they wish for their children. The thrust is primarily on individual families as consumers and equity is projected as parity in narrow-learner outcomes based on repeated testing of students oblivious to structures of exclusion in which they are located. As the landscape of state-run/government schools are seeing increasing inroads by the private sector which is now into edu-business targeting the poor, notions around the ‘public’ and ‘private’ are getting blurred. Increasingly, the private/corporate sector is projecting itself as ‘doing well’ (making profits) and ‘doing good’ in education especially in relation to the poor (Ball, 2019, p. 33). This is flagged as ‘soft capitalism’, socially responsible markets and neo-social accountability (Hogan et al, 2016, p. 243). There is a ‘revisioning of the “education space” as a space of profit, and a re-envisioning of profit as a means to address social inequality and social exclusion’ (Ball, 2019, p. 35). In other words, what we are told is that a new kind of public is emerging in education—one that can include for-profit, private interests as well.

The challenges that publicly funded institutions—schools, colleges and universities—are facing today are a lethal combination of neoliberal forces, communal ideology, privatisation of policy and larger discourses that denigrate state-run institutions. We return again to calls to reaffirm our faith in public education (schools/universities) and to defend them as what is at stake is the very survival of democratic India and constitutional values of social justice and secularism.

In this context, I believe it is important to not merely yearn for what was but to also reflect on what we mean by the ‘public’ in schooling and higher education and what are the characteristics of this ‘publicness’. It is here I believe that we must learn from the histories of publicly funded education in India and especially revisit the early ‘public’ where the most marginalised and excluded communities sought to claim, create and shape public spaces through a complex range of efforts which attempted to make these sites relatively more inclusive. They also evolved discourses and practices to make the ‘public’ in education within them equitable and socially just. To be called ‘public’ they have shown that institutions must be inclusive and informed by social justice, give children meaningful instruction enabling their development as individuals who will be active citizens and leaders in a democratic society (a public purpose) as well as give them abilities and competencies to access opportunities for higher education and work. The role of the Depressed Classes/former ‘Untouchables’ in shaping the ‘public’ in education was particularly important at a time when these ideas needed social and political acceptance and as we have seen they were repeatedly confronted by powerful private/caste interests and colonial state policy.

The defence of publicly funded institutions is important as they have the potential for ‘publicness’—being inclusive, democratic and socially just, which in my view are non-negotiable conditions for equality in education. Today, it is important for us to critically re-visit the understanding of ‘publicness’ and the norms and practices in our schools and universities. ‘Publicness’ must be envisioned and institutionalised, struggled for and protected and strengthened. As we come out in defence of the public institution today, we must be clear about what we are defending, what we must not accept and what we need to change. For that, we must start with understanding the ‘public’ in education and the politics around it.