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Education and Politics in India
Contributors

Paul R. Brass, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Wash¬

ington, Seattle, Washington
Carolyn M. Elliott, Assistant Professor of Politics, University of California,
Santa Cruz, California
Joan Landy Erdman, Hanover, New Hampshire
Irene A. Gilbert, Assistant Professor, Department of Government, Sim¬
mons College, Boston, Massachusetts
Harold Gould, Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Cham-
paign-Urbana, Illinois
Janet Guthrie, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Chicago,
Illinois
B. G. Halbar, Lecturer in Social Anthropology, Karnatak University, My¬
sore
T. N. Madan, Senior Fellow (Sociology) and Head of the Asian Research
Centre at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi University, Delhi
Iqbal Narain, Professor of Political Science, University of Rajasthan, Jai¬
pur, Rajasthan
Lloyd I. Rudolph, Professor of Political Science, and the Social Sciences,
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Professor of Political Science and the Social Sci¬
ences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
Education and Politics in India
Studies in Organization, Society, and Policy

Edited by Susanne Hoeber Rudolph

and Lloyd I. Rudolph

Harvard University Press

Cambridge, Massachusetts
1972
 U 5/

© Copyright 1972 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 71-186675
SBN 674-23865-6
Printed in the United States of America
To J. P. Naik and David Riesman,
unconventional educators
Contents

Part I The Political System and the Educational System:

An Analysis of Their Interaction
1 / Studying Education and Politics 3
2 / Historical Legacies: The Genetic Imprint in Education 13
3 / The Public Interest and Politicization under Conditions of
Popular Higher Education 25
4 / Outputs: “Standards” in Democratized Higher Education 35
5 / Regional Patterns of Education 51
6 / National Educational Policy in a Federal Context: A
Proximate Goal 68

Part II Educational Institutions in Their Social and

Political Environment
Introduction to Part II 83
7 / Educational Structures and Political Processes in Faizabad
District, Uttar Pradesh 94
Harold Gould
8 / Caste and Community in the Private and Public Education of
Mysore State 121
T. N. Madan
B. G. Halbar
9 / Rural Local Politics and Primary School Management 148
Iqbal Narain

Part III Political Dimensions of University Government

Introduction to Part III 167
10 / Autonomy and Consensus under the Raj: Presidency
(Calcutta); Muir (Allahabad); M. A.-O. (Aligarh) 172
Irene A. Gilbert
11 / Parochialism and Cosmopolitanism in University Government:
The Environments of Baroda University 207
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph
Lloyd I. Rudolph
Assisted by Joan Landy Erdman Janet Guthrie
Contents vii

12 / The Problem of Autonomy: The Osmania University Case 273

Carolyn M. Elliott

Part IV Professional Constraints on Politicization

of Education
Introduction to Part IV 313
13 / The Organization of the Academic Profession in India:
The Indian Educational Services, 1864-1924 319
Irene A. Gilbert
14 / The Politics of Ayurvedic Education: A Case Study of
Revivalism and Modernization in India 342
Paul R. Brass

Notes 375
Index 461
Preface

Our concern in studying the politics of education is to identify and

analyze the institutions and processes that shape educational policy and
performance. The rapid and dramatic expansion of higher education in
India and elsewhere has helped to generate research in educational so¬
ciology, economics, finance, manpower planning, and administration. The
politics of education, however, remains a relatively neglected field. So
talented and comprehensive a survey as the Indian Report of the Educa¬
tion Commission, 1964-1966, although evidently written with sensitivity to
political constraints, neither specifies nor confronts them. With a few re¬
cent exceptions, the same is true of the burgeoning literature on the public
responsibilities and internal government of universities in America and
Europe.
This volume makes two contributions to the study of the politics of
education. The first is to identify critical problems in the relationship be¬
tween politics and education generally and to explore concepts and meth¬
ods for their investigation. The second is to make a specific contribution to
our understanding of the relationship between politics and education in
India.
Governments are relying increasingly on the educational system to pro¬
mote economic and political development and, more generally, to approach
the moving frontier of modernity. Politicians are responding increasingly
to the demands of their constituents that education be made available so
that they can improve their economic and social circumstances. One result
of these processes is the concentration of ever larger resources and per¬
sonnel in the educational system. Another result is heightened competition
between politicians and educators for control of the people, resources, and
goals involved.
It is difficult to assess abstractly the kinds of demands public authorities,
including politicians, can legitimately make on education in the name of
social needs and how much autonomy educational institutions should have
to choose and implement their policies. At the extreme, the appropriation
of educational resources for primarily political purposes threatens or de¬
stroys educational effectiveness. At the same time, the political system must
have sufficient influence in the educational system to shape educational
policy and the use of educational resources in ways that are socially re¬
sponsive. Also, educators must have political influence to command neces¬
sary resources and to make and implement educational policy. Informed
Preface ix

judgments about the proper relationship between politics and education

must rely on detailed studies that clarify the values and interests involved
as politics and education contend for influence in particular settings. The
studies developed in this volume provide some basis for such judgments.
Since September 1966, a number of Indian and American scholars of
various social science disciplines have been corresponding and conferring
on methods of investigating the relationship between the educational and
political systems in India. The concerns of the various participants in these
discussions crystallized in a conference held at the India International
Centre in New Delhi, June 28-30, 1967. The conference was supported by
the American Institute of Indian Studies.
Since then, most of the participants in the conference have continued to
work on the papers circulated and discussed at the New Delhi conference.
Five of them participated in a panel at the Association for Asian Studies
in Philadelphia on March 24, 1968, and several more in a similar panel in
San Francisco, April 3-5, 1970. Their combined effort is represented in
this volume.
The book sets the educational system in its environment, particularly its
political environment. Education is treated aggregatively and disaggrega-
tively, as the educational system on the one hand and as educational in¬
stitutions on the other. In analyzing educational institutions, more attention
is devoted to higher education than to school and primary education, al¬
though Part II is largely devoted to the latter two levels. The educational
system is disaggregated not only by educational institutions and levels of
education, but also by regions.
In the six chapters of Part I, “The Political System and the Educational
System; An Analysis of Their Interaction,” we provide a general framework
for the eight chapters of Parts II, III, and IV, which explore various facets
of the relationship between education and politics in India. The framework
presented in Part I has three principal dimensions; conceptual, methodo¬
logical, and informational. Complementing Part I are the introductions to
Parts II, III, and IV. They highlight each author’s findings and methods,
relate them to other chapters in the Part and connect them to the general
themes of the book.
The editors are grateful to the American Institute of Indian Studies
(A.I.I.S.) for making possible our research in India in 1966 and 1967 and
to the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, the Social Sciences Research
Committee, and the College, all of the University of Chicago, for their sup¬
port of the editorial work. We owe a great debt to J. P. Naik, member¬
secretary of the Education Commission, 1964-1966, member-secretary of
the Indian Council for Social Science Research and educational advisor in
the ministry of education, for facilitating access to the materials relevant
to this study, and for making available his wise counsel on the evaluation
and judgment of policy issues. Needless to say, he is not responsible for the
views we express. John Simon, formerly director of the A.I.I.S. in India,
X Preface

and D. D. Karve, formerly its executive officer, were most helpful in sup¬
porting the conference which launched this work. P. R. Mehendiratta, who
managed most of the logistics of the conference, assured it a fruitful setting.
We appreciate the interest taken in this book by Harold Howe II and Fred
Harrington of the Ford Foundation.
Mrs. Suzanne W. Ronneau, our secretary and research assistant through¬
out most of the course of this book, was a model of care, efficiency, and
tact.
L.I.R.
S.H.R.
Part I / The Political System and the Educational System:
An Analysis of Their Interaction

Susanne Hoeher Rudolph / Lloyd I. Rudolph

»
1 / Studying Education and Politics

Institutional Transfer: The University in an Indian Environment1

Modern universities in India began in 1858 as institutional transplants

from Great Britain. Since then they have undergone a steady process of
adaptation to their indigenous environment. In the last twenty years, this
process has accelerated considerably. Until independence in 1947, Indian
universities were relatively insulated from the influence of their Indian
setting by the effects of British rule and an educational policy which pro¬
tected their elite standing and the exotic quality of their alien culture.
The functions of universities under British rule were intellectual, cul¬
tural, and political: to connect Indian education to European knowledge;
to transmit the cultural values specific to Britain and Europe; and to make
available to the raj a class of clerks, bureaucrats, and political collabora¬
tors. These functions were so tightly interwoven that it is difficult to dis¬
entangle the university’s role as an institution for modernizing intellectual
activity from its role as an instrument of British cultural and political
domination. Until 1828, the English tended to prize Indian learning and
attempted to master it through Indian languages and thought forms; to
rationalize and modernize it; and to introduce modern scientific ideas within
its framework. Indians in turn revived, revitalized, and modernized their
traditional learning and literary expression, while taking account of Euro¬
pean knowledge. The consequence of Thomas Macaulay’s cultural Lud-
ditism was to ignore and destroy these developments, and to preempt a his¬
tory that might have been. The cultural hubris that insisted that “a single
shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of
India and Arabia” marked the onset of an educational policy that replaced
Oriental with English learning. The resources of the raj were placed pri¬
marily at the disposal of English language educational institutions. As long
as Indians could stand within the framework of their traditional culture,
they were free to choose, reject, or selectively emulate what British learning
had to offer. Macaulay’s policy symbolized the rise of radical asymmetry in
British-Indian cultural relations, and made copying the dominator a com¬
pulsory condition of higher education. Indian universities were shaped and
limited by the fundamental cultural decision expressed in Macaulay’s
minute of 1835.2
Universities and colleges modernized Indian intellectual life by introduc¬
ing European versions of the organization of knowledge and the academic
specialization and disciplines associated with such knowledge. Specializa-
4 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

tion of knowledge was not new to India, but both the content and organi¬
zation of knowledge associated with English higher education were dif¬
ferent from and went beyond traditional Hindu and Muslim scholarship.
English higher education encouraged scientific thinking by stressing the
relationship of theory and “truth” to empirical and experimental methods.
It encouraged the use of “rational” principles in nonscientific fields. (In
retrospect, the rationality invoked is difficult to disentangle from the spe¬
cific cultural assumptions and preferences of eighteenth and nineteenth
century European civilization.) It routinized the canons of scholarly
craftsmanship in line with nineteenth century ideas of research and estab¬
lished in a rudimentary fashion disciplinary professionalism. It created
bureaucratic structures to administer the examination system and to assure
compliance with the newly imported standards in curriculum and appoint¬
ments. Mastery of the cultural aspects of English education — a good
command of the language and literature and the right manners and style
— was a condition for access to opportunities in the public services and
private firms of the raj even as a Persian education had been a condition
for access to opportunities under Moghul rule. English education intro¬
duced yet another civilizational element into the multicivilizational syncre¬
tism that is Indian culture.
British efforts to protect the cultural purity and political usefulness of
the transplant checked the modernizing potentialities of the university in
certain crucial areas. University attention and energies were directed away
from problems in the immediate environment and toward those in an
alien, distant, and often unknown environment. Englishmen and assimi¬
lated Indians often mistook Anglicization for the development and trans¬
mission of modern knowledge and skills. The university’s elite bias (at
the time, characteristic of universities elsewhere) and its English cultural
bias not only insulated it from its Indian environment but also limited its
impact on that environment. At the same time, the university’s class and
cultural insulation from its immediate environment shielded it from certain
challenges that might have been overwhelming. Although university ad¬
ministrators already complained in the 1880’s of too rapid expansion, the
problems of scale remained in human and resource terms within manage¬
able proportions. Colleges were small and teachers had time to teach, as
well as to converse and reflect (conditions which may or may not be con¬
ducive to scholarly productivity, depending on whether one takes a nine¬
teenth century English or a twentieth century American view of the mat¬
ter). And within the confines of the exotic transplant’s cultural definition,
insulation not infrequently produced the learning, character, and style of
expression that counted as high standards in nineteenth century British
university circles.
Independence in 1947 marked something of a watershed in the develop¬
ment of higher education in India, as Indian school and higher education
lost its elite character and took on an increasingly popular one. The es-
Studying Education and Politics 5

tablishment of political democracy after independence legitimized and

accelerated demands that higher education be available to all who could
qualify for it. This commitment to equality of opportunity has put tremen¬
dous pressure on government to allocate resources in sufficient measure
to meet the growing demand and upon educational authorities to adjust
standards for admission and the granting of degrees. State governments,
which have primary constitutional responsibility for education, are closer
and more responsive to popular pressures. They have continuously widened
educational opportunity by sanctioning the creation of new universities
and colleges and, to a lesser extent, by allocating resources. The central
government is more removed from demands for education and less re¬
sponsible for it because of the effects of federalism on the electoral process
and the distribution of constitutional authority for education. It has used the
authority it does have to try to maintain standards, and has allocated re¬
sources in ways that have had a restraining but hardly a governing effect
on the size and shape of higher education in India. The escalating demand
by citizens and voters for school and higher education has been intensified
by the activities of territorial and social communities who found new edu¬
cational institutions that qualify for university recognition or government
subventions or both.
- The ascendency of nationalism and democracy has increasingly deprived
higher education of the exotic and elite qualities that helped to insulate it
from popular and indigenous influences. Since independence educational
policy and educational institutions have been increasingly forced to con¬
front and adjust to their social and political environment. As universities
have become more socially and culturally representative, they have been
penetrated and shaped by democratic as against elite, by indigenous as
against anglicized, norms and behavior. The many universities founded
since independence have been less emulative of British ways than the few
existing before it. They know less and care less about imported definitions
of curriculum, university government, and educational goals. In these ways
education in India has become more indigenous, that is, more like its en¬
vironment and less like an exotic transplant from an alien culture. This
does not mean that the structure of higher education has changed sub¬
stantially. The affiliating university and the examination system adapted
from the University of London in 1858 remain largely intact. But the sub¬
stance of education has changed both in form — language and in content.
Although all the consequences of this transformation are difficult to assess,
one is clear enough: in their constituencies and in their modes of com¬
munication, if not necessarily in their formal structures or curriculum con¬
tent, Indian universities have become more connected with and relevant to
their environment.
Because of these processes of change, a somewhat paradoxical situation
has arisen. Universities as modern structures are becoming more parochial
at the same time that traditional structures such as villages and castes are
6 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

becoming more cosmopolitan. And the two processes of change seem to

be interrelated. Villages and castes are experiencing an expansion of ter¬
ritorial and reference group boundaries that connects them to structures,
roles, and values that arise out of industrial, urban, and international con¬
texts. Those who still live within the framework of the village and the
caste community are experiencing a dispersal of affect, a broadening of
economic options, and an enlargement of imagination that connects them
with groups, experiences, and aspirations that transcend the formal bounda¬
ries of their social settings.
As universities become more socially and culturally representative, as
they are penetrated and shaped by indigenous democratic forces, their
territorial and reference group boundaries also expand, but in the opposite
direction from that of the boundary expansion being experienced by castes
and villages. They move from reference groups and relevancies in inter¬
national, industrial, and urban environments to those in rural and agricul¬
tural environments. As they do so their attention is increasingly diverted,
whether they like it or not, from their international commitments and col¬
leagues to their commitments and colleagues at home, in India, in their
region, and in their university and to those leaders of organized political
and social forces that affect the well-being and policies of their university.
The university’s expansion of reference groups, then, is in a direction which
draws its attention away from the world of scholarship and learning and
toward the interests and preoccupations of the mofussil (or locality). At
the same time, villagers brought within the ambit of the university experi¬
ence ideas and symbols that transcend their locality and primary group.
It is in this qualified sense of a two-way flow that we speak of the
“parochialization” of the university. Parochialization is part of the price
that is being paid for the cosmopolitanization and decompression of vil¬
lages, castes, and other traditional structures. The demand for higher edu¬
cation from those whose horizons until recently have been bounded by
the village and the primary group has fostered university parochialization,
the drawing in of the university’s symbolic and physical boundaries. It is
difficult at this stage, when the curve of indigenous demand for higher edu¬
cation has yet to peak, to judge what the longer run consequences of
parochialization will be for universities in India. Will universities be so
overwhelmed by the effects of becoming more socially and culturally repre¬
sentative that they will lose their cosmopolitan dimension and their ca¬
pacity to be connected with and to contribute to world knowledge? Or can
they, as they are penetrated by new constituencies, induct those constitu¬
encies into world knowledge while making that knowledge relevant to
local needs?

The Public Interest, Politicization, and Political Influence

During the nineteenth century education became one of the recognized

responsibilities of most modern states. On the one hand, children were
Studying Education and Politics 7

compelled to attend school; on the other, education became what T. H.

Marshall has called a “social right.” 3
In the industrial and postindustrial experiences of various countries, edu¬
cation came to replace military prowess, land ownership, and ownership
of the means of industrial production as a key determinant of wealth,
status, and power. Today, in the more advanced countries particularly
but also to an increasing degree in developing countries, those who have
higher educational degrees can expect to help exercise a controlling influ¬
ence in society and the polity.
Education became a matter of primary concern to the state not only
because educated citizens could provide better manpower for conscript
armies (a leading concern in Napoleonic France, which provided a model
for European countries)4 but also because, after a time, it became clear
that education could lead, as in France,5 to national integration of the
elite, and because education was seen as the best available means to “civi¬
lize” and to rule the industrial classes.6
For a considerable time, economists failed to take into account the
contributions that education could and did make to economic (as well as
social and political) development by conceptualizing it as a consumer
good or a welfare function. Of late, however, education has increasingly
been conceptualized as a factor that promotes economic growth and, in
this sense, as an important area for investment.7 As more nations have
recognized the responsibility of the state for economic growth (as well as
for stability and employment), the importance of education for the col¬
lective good has grown accordingly. In industrial and industrializing econo¬
mies alike investment in education is increasingly seen as investment for
economic growth, as a means to improve “human quality,” to enhance
human resources, and to create new knowledge, new technologies, and new
ways of managing the environment.
As a result of these cumulating concerns for education on the part of
the state and the citizen, education receives an ever larger share of public
resources. In many countries it is the single largest expenditure and in
others it is second only to defense.8 For these good, substantial reasons
education today is deeply involved with the articulation and realization of
the public interest.

In the face of limited resources and intense public competition for them,
the idea that school and higher education is a social right to be provided
or at least paid for in part by the state has become widespread and has
achieved a certain legitimacy. Simultaneously, the demand for education
has preceded and outpaced rather than followed and lagged behind the
ability of the economy to generate resources to meet this demand. The
concurrent growth of demand for school and higher education, the use
of public authority and resources to meet most of this demand, and the
considerable influence of democratic politics on public policy for education
has multiplied the points of interaction between the political and educa-
8 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

tional systems. To assist in the analysis of the boundaries and interdigi-

tations of these systems we have distinguished three relationships between
them: politicization of educational structures; political influence exercised
by educational structures; and assertion by the state of a public interest in
education. These three relationships are not always easy to distinguish in
concrete empirical situations but distinguishing between them has proved
extremely useful in analyzing such situations. The propensity we encoun¬
tered in India among those concerned with education to believe that the
politics of education meant only politicization provides another, and quite
different, reason for making and using these distinctions.
Politicization, as we use the term, involves the appropriation of educa¬
tional structures and resources and the displacement of educational goals
by organized political and community (religion, caste, locality) interests.
The effect of politicization is to subsume the educational goals and proc¬
esses of particular educational institutions to those of organized extraedu-
cational interests.
The politicization of educational institutions is part of a larger process
of politicization in India in which an increasing number of actors in various
political arenas attempt to maximize political resources and through them
political influence and power. The result threatens not only to raise the
level of political participation and mobilization to pathological levels (that
is, levels that burden the institutions and processes of the political system
with more demands and conflicts than they can effectively handle) but
also to bring into the competition and decision-making of the political sys¬
tem institutions (such as schools, colleges, and universities) that are not
appropriate to it.
For example, as Harold Gould suggests below, in Uttar Pradesh, a
state with relatively low levels of economic development and governmental
performance, decision-making in schools, colleges, and universities is
closely linked to intramural and extramural political connections and con¬
flicts.9 For the past fifteen years, the pervasive local, district, and state
level factionalism within the ruling (until 1967) Congress party in Uttar
Pradesh10 and that party’s competition with other parties has penetrated
deeply into the state’s educational system. Factions and parties, as well as
social and territorial paracommunities that use and are used by them,
find it to their advantage to control the resources and patronage of educa¬
tional structures. At the higher education level, vice-chancellor appoint¬
ments are merely the most important visible prizes; academic posts (pro¬
fessorships and readerships, as well as lesser academic posts, of which
there are a large number under looser controls) are often also drawn into
the vortex of political and community competition.11 Iqbal Narain’s ac¬
count of the politicization of primary education in Rajasthan re-enforces
the general picture Gould offers for secondary and higher education.
We distinguish between politicization and the use of political influence
by universities and colleges. Educational institutions, particularly higher
Studying Education and Politics 9

educational institutions, whether private or public, need political influence

to pursue their goals and to protect and enhance their interests and inde¬
pendence. They live in particular political and social environments from
which they require sustenance and sympathetic understanding. Without
political influence they cannot command the resources and the autonomy
essential for their intellectual and material well-being.
Political influence in the context of the relationship between the edu¬
cational and political systems refers, in a sense, to the reverse of the process
of politicization; it is the use of political skills, influence, and strategies to
insure public decisions and allocations that are favorable to education
generally and to the needs and interests of particular institutions.
Many Indian vice-chancellors have been politically influential. In this
volume Irene Gilbert examines some of the accomplishments of Sir Asutosh
Mukherji, perhaps the most successful among Indian vice-chancellors in
the preindependence period. Two of India’s four presidents, Dr. S. Radha-
krishna and Dr. Zakir Husain, were eminent educators and vice-chancel¬
lors. Triguna Sen built an outstanding university at Jadavpur and was at¬
tempting the thankless task of restoring Banaras Hindu University at the
time of his appointment as minister for education. In the postindependence
period Hansa Mehta (discussed in our Baroda study, below); D. C. Pavate
(Karnatak); J. C. Joshi (Punjab); and P. N. Thapar (Punjab Agricultural
University) stand out among the vice-chancellors who quickly built newly
founded institutions into outstanding universities.12 They each used their
special skills, connections, and political resources to great advantage in
the state and national environments that facilitated or constrained their
particular activities.
A striking example of building a new university in the postindependence
period is the work at the University of Rajasthan of Mohan Sinha Mehta,
a former princely state bureaucrat, educator, and postindependence diplo¬
mat. Situated in the heart of princely India, the University of Rajasthan
was hindered in its growth by the limited level of educational development
that characterized princely India, but at the same time was aided by the
lack of vested interests and bureaucratic rigidities that often hampered
educational innovation in former British India. Imaginative, skillful, and
open to advice, Mehta used his position as a native and notable of Rajas¬
than, and more specifically of the former princely state of Udaipur, to
gain a sympathetic hearing from the state chief minister (an Udaipurian),
the state chief secretary (an Udaipurian), the union government educa¬
tion minister (an Udaipurian) and the head of the University Grants Com¬
mission (an Udaipurian) for his plans to build the University of Rajasthan
(founded in 1947) into one of India’s stronger institutions.
It is difficult to define the public interest in education, or to identify its
articulation and assertion by public authorities. Asserting the public inter¬
est in higher education has always posed a more delicate problem than
doing so in primary and even secondary education. Intellectuals believe,
10 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

and most publics share their belief to a greater or lesser extent, that judg¬
ing scholarly work and controlling its transmission are functions requiring
expertise beyond the reach of lay opinion, and must be vested in a com¬
munity of professional scholars. However, where state and federal govern¬
ments, particularly democratic ones, finance education, the expenditure
of public money becomes increasingly subject to public opinion and must
be justified against the claims of competing expenditure. Under these cir¬
cumstances, the legitimate assertion of the public interest in higher edu¬
cation by state and federal governments is not always easy to distinguish
from politicization. The ambiguities of the distinction are highlighted in
Carolyn Elliott’s study. The government of Andhra considered its attempt
to strengthen government control over the Andhra universities and their
vice-chancellors an assertion of the public interest, a way of controlling
nepotism in one university and advancing the regional language in another.
Osmania’s vice-chancellor and faculty saw it as an attempt to subvert uni¬
versity autonomy and annex the university to the political interests of the
state’s chief minister by assuring the appointment of compliant vice-chan¬
cellors.
Largely because the distinctions between politicization, political influ¬
ence, and government assertion of public interest involve differences of
degree that become differences of kind only at the extremes, it may be
difficult to classify particular actions and processes in these terms. These
concepts do however help to organize and clarify the evidence that is be¬
coming available about the relationship between the educational and politi¬
cal systems.

Notes on Method: Comparison and Disaggregation •

Accounts of higher education in India, whether or not they intend to,

perforce assume comparative standards. Identifying relevant comparisons,
both of institutions and of their contexts, is perhaps the most difficult
aspect of a study of education. Comparisons must be specific if one hopes
to avoid judging educational developments in India against some gen¬
eralized, quasi-platonic idea of an educational system. Imaginative con¬
structs of qualities one believes should characterize educational systems
are only marginally useful; the constraints of particular contexts, whether
Indian, American, or European, have never allowed institutions to become
more than approximations of such ideas. It is the approximations, not
metaphysical or metaempirical constructs, that must serve as our standard.
Specifying comparative referents may be essential; yet deciding which
comparisons are relevant is by no means easy. History, culture, and society
deny us perfect simulations. Our comparisons arise from at least three con¬
texts: comparing India with herself over time; comparing India with other
countries at the present moment; and comparing India with other countries
at other historical moments that, for one specific reason or another, appear
Studying Education and Politics 11

more relevant than the present. In each case, our criterion for selecting
comparative situations has been to throw light on what other nations have
done under comparable historical conditions. Such comparative self-con¬
sciousness obliges us to specify rather than assume standards, and obliges
our readers to consider what the range of empirical possibilities has been
in concrete historical instances.
Comparing India with herself over time, as she was rather than as she
was presumed to be, sheds light on the propensity of both Indian and
foreign observers to characterize the present as a decline from some pos¬
tulated golden age. The belief in such a golden age, captured in the uni¬
versal but unexamined use of the verb “deteriorate,” (as in “standards
have deteriorated,” “education has deteriorated”) is indeed metaempirical.
It is essential to investigate the past concretely and to ask not only what
it achieved in terms of its own goals — for example, did elite education
achieve as much as romantic reconstruction claims? — but also whether
these goals are relevant in the light of contemporary conditions and needs
— how elite can higher education be in a democracy? Comparing India
with other countries synchronically provides some sense of the possible
range of goals, arrangements, and achievements, and is relevant because
world standards in education are both known and taken into account by
Indian educational policy makers. And finally, comparing India with other
countries at other historical moments allows for India’s embodiment of
social and technological conditions of multiple historical periods, those
which other countries have left behind and those which other countries
are now experiencing.
A mark of the development of new nations is the skipping of “stages”
which characterized the political, economic, or educational “developing”
of old nations. New nations can and do directly import advanced institu¬
tional structures which elsewhere emerged only after a long period of sci¬
entific or social invention and experimentation. Insofar as new nations can
and do benefit from such institutional transfer, their institutional develop¬
ment becomes subject to comparison with the most recent institutional
developments of the west. On the other hand, to the extent that institutional
development in new nations also takes place under technological, eco¬
nomic, or cultural circumstances characteristic of western history at an
earlier stage, their institutional development is properly subject to com¬
parisons with institutional developments at an earlier stage of western
history. We have tried throughout to keep such a dual standard in mind.
Finally, it has not seemed wise to treat India or other countries, notably
America, as a single unit for comparative purposes. It is now generally
appreciated that a leading fault of aggregative comparison among coun¬
tries has been that “global” measures severely understate the internal dif¬
ferences within categories, producing misleading comparisons. This is strik¬
ingly true in the realm of education. Leading metropolitan universities in
America represent a different reality, professionally, intellectually, and
12 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

politically, from small, rural, denominational colleges. The same is true

in India, where there are not only differences among institutions, but also
among regions, a fact which we shall have more occasion to discuss below.
It becomes important, therefore, to disaggregate the Indian educational
scene, to specify whether one is talking about the Indian Institutes of
Technology with their good financing, their strong protection against re¬
gional politics, and their exceptionally severe entrance standards, or a
small private college founded by a local philanthropist and political entre¬
preneur, catering to rural first generation B.A. aspirants. The phrase
“Indian education” misleads by making homogeneous what is heterogene¬
ous, and by overemphasizing the mean, which may cloud the understand¬
ing of future possibilities by obscuring the difference between leading
sectors and lagging (or “dragging”) ones.
2 / Historical Legacies:
The Genetic Imprint in Education

Universities everywhere are increasingly affected by certain common

forces. The democratic demand for access to higher education, the post¬
industrial demand that universities meet the requirements of technological
society, and the consequences of dependence on public finance are reduc¬
ing the differences that once distinguished higher education within and
among national environments. If all education is becoming in certain sig¬
nificant respects more alike, is there any point in investigating the historical
origins of various educational systems? A positive answer depends on the
assumption that historical traditions and experience create values, cul¬
turally defined norms, and modes of behavior that survive even when the
original conditions that give rise to them fade into the past. The origins
of educational institutions impress upon them certain forms and traditions
that function rather like a genetic imprint, which dictates the further
evolution of their institutional arrangement, not with the exactitude it ex¬
ercises in a biological organism, but with a certain dependability.
The varied origins of educational institutions in Europe, America, and
India have had differential effects on traditions of self-government and
patterns of politicization. In Europe, the original agencies for founding
institutions of higher learning were typically autonomous self-governing
guilds; in America, private, usually sectarian, boards; in India, govern¬
ment and private boards made up of European or Indian sectarians and
philanthropists.
The European guilds, the legal core of the university, were autonomous
corporate bodies either of students — as at Bologna, where they employed
masters — or of masters, as at Paris. Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese
universities came to follow the pattern of Bologna, while the German and
English frequently followed Paris. Still others represented some mixture of
the two types.1 Like other medieval guilds, the universities were self-gov¬
erning bodies that elected officers and set rules. Each faculty was a de¬
liberative body that elected its own head and participated in the govern¬
ment of the university as a whole.
The genetic imprint of the guild founding has affected traditions of
university autonomy, just as medieval political institutions have affected
the traditions of liberty and constitutional government.2 The self-govern¬
ment of European universities (often now exercised, to be sure, within
a framework of state supervision) is a residue of medieval liberty.- De¬
tached from its original setting in medieval Europe, the idea of guild
14 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

autonomy has traveled abroad and contributed to the model that has
influenced university development everywhere.
The distinguishing characteristic of the founding of higher education in
the United States has been what Richard Hofstadter has called “lay gov¬
ernment,” a government not by the faculty of colleges and universities, but
by lay boards of trustees. They have the legal power to operate institutions
of higher learning, including the power to hire and fire faculty and to de¬
termine issues of educational policy.4 The term “lay government” suggests
that Americans, coming out of the institutional traditions and political
experiences of dissenting Protestant Christianity, brought with them a
belief in lay or community control of church institutions and extended
this principle to colleges and universities. (This distinguishing feature of
American educational institutions, however, is often more formal than
real. The conventional constitution of American colleges and universities
usually diverged from the formal one, as faculties increasingly grasped
control of their own affairs.)5
The Indian pattern differs significantly from both the European and the
American. Four characteristics contributed to the special quality of the
genetic imprint on Indian higher education: government from the begin¬
ning played a powerful role in the creation and government of universities;
a bureaucratic culture markedly influenced university procedures; private
management was preponderant in higher education; cooperation rather
than conflict characterized relations between private and public sectors of
education.

The Role of Government and the Effect of Bureaucratic Culture

Government initiative has been responsible for the founding of almost

all universities and many colleges in India. A strong assertion of govern¬
ment influence in the management of higher education flowed from this
initiative, and from the concern to protect the political interests of the
raj. The basic distinction in American educational culture and policy be¬
tween private and public founding and support had little historical mean¬
ing in India, where public financing of private institutions began early.6
The earliest institutions relevant for present higher education were semi¬
naries, sometimes called colleges but, like American institutions of the
early nineteenth century, resembling preparatory institutions.7 Some of
these illustrate the permeable boundaries between public and private
auspices that have remained characteristic of the higher educational scene.
Elphinstone College and Presidency College are examples. In 1824
Mountstuart Elphinstone, then governor of Bombay, authorized the Bom¬
bay Native School Book and School Society, a semiautonomous commit¬
tee founded and dominated by the government, to open an English school
in Bombay.8 This was the origin of the Elphinstone Native Education In¬
stitution out of which Elphinstone College grew in 1834. The opening of
Historical Legacies 15

the college was made possible to a great extent by the Rs. 200,000 raised
in 1827 by the people of Bombay to commemorate Elphinstone’s service.
The college was administered under the general superintendence of the
government, and located in the town hall. At Calcutta, the Indian reformer
Raja Ram Mohan Roy and an English businessman, David Hare, with the
support of Sir Edward Hyde East, chief justice of the supreme court of
Bengal, in 1816 persuaded prosperous Bengalis to form themselves into
an association that would found a seminary for their sons. The seminary
subsequently became Hindu College, and eventually the government-oper¬
ated Presidency College in the University of Calcutta. Though the original
school was a private endeavor, and privately financed, East’s correspond¬
ence makes it plain that in the imperial capital signs of government ap¬
proval, such as his sponsorship, were essential to open private purses. In
1823, the manager’s appeal for government assistance brought govern¬
ment influence as well.9
These early foundings reveal a blurring between private and public
auspices. Elphinstone College had considerable private funds, though it
was quickly placed under government supervision; the society responsible
for its founding was itself founded with government money, though it
was intended to be autonomous. Similar collaboration marked the Hindu
College effort, the first private venture by Indians in modern higher edu¬
cation. This alliance of public and private effort, notably in financing, be¬
came a firm part of government policy at midcentury with the adoption
of grant-in-aid procedures. In nineteenth century England, secondary edu¬
cation was the responsibility of private bodies aided by state grants. This
pattern provided the model for both secondary and higher education in
India. In 1854, the directors of the East India Company wrote: “The most
effectual method of providing for the wants of India . . . will be to com¬
bine with the agency of the government the aid which may be derived
from the exertions and liberality of the educated and wealthy natives of
India. ... We have, therefore, resolved to adopt in India the system
of grants-in-aid which have been carried out in this country [England]
with very great success.” 10 This policy produced an enormous flowering
of private venture schools after 1854, schools which became colleges
toward the end of the century.11
The significance of these developments is that they led to a large private
sector in Indian higher education (whose size and role is not always ap¬
preciated) and to a lack of faith in the notion that private and govern¬
ment interests in higher education ought to be kept separate. On the
contrary, collaborative arrangements between the two sectors have been
broadly accepted. This collaboration accounts for the expectations of pri¬
vate educational entrepreneurs that government will aid them, and the
expectation of government that it will invariably have a voice in the affairs
of private institutions. Because of these relationships, the context for judg¬
ing the politicization of education in India differs from the context in a
16 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

system in which private and public sectors have been separated by his¬
torical experience, interest, and ideology.
The educational objectives of the early schools and colleges that thrived
under the grant-in-aid policy were in part instrumental and in part cultural
and characterological. The government of Bombay aimed at a purpose
of higher education from the middle ages onward, to meet manpower
requirements — then for priests, jurists, clercs — of the occupational
structure of the time. It hoped that Elphinstone College would raise “a
class of persons qualified by their intelligence and morality for high em¬
ployment in the civil administration of India.”12 Private institutions
founded by Indians intended to qualify young men similarly. But focusing
solely on the intention to train clercs would slight the strongly moralistic
aspirations Englishmen had for education. Englishmen governing India
were deeply concerned with the development of character, a function dear
to many nineteenth century educators in Anglo-Saxon countries. If the
English public school and “Oxbridge” intended to create Christian gentle¬
men, and if American sectarian institutions hoped to produce at least
Christians if not gentlemen, the government of India was deeply concerned
to produce Christian virtues, if not Christians. It considered the transfer
of English culture and learning indispensable to this objective.13
The first Indian universities, created in 1857 at Calcutta, Madras, and
Bombay, were mainly bureaucratic devices for controlling the quality of
collegiate education. They were not, nor were they meant to be, com¬
munities of scholars, graduate departments, or physical agglomerations
containing museums, libraries, laboratories, and other real estate normally
associated with the continental idea of a university. Like the University of
London, which served as the model, the Indian university was, as Abraham
Flexner put it, “a line drawn about an enormous number of different
institutions,” and designed to establish and maintain minimum standards
for faculties and in teaching and examining.14 Like London, the first uni¬
versities introduced a new administrative layer to control and coordinate
already established institutions. Unlike the unified German university after
Humboldt, they were the central core of a federal structure. Nor did they,
like Humboldt’s university, pursue and impart advanced learning.15 Post¬
graduate departments and the advancement of learning developed only
in the twentieth century. The Education Act of 1904 empowered uni¬
versities to set up postgraduate teaching departments, but these powers
were not used until 1916. At that time, Sir Asutosh Mukherji, India’s
first great university builder, and comparable to Daniel Coit Gilman at
Johns Hopkins University or William Raney Harper at the University
of Chicago, created postgraduate teaching departments and research pro¬
grams, giving Calcutta University a new definition and function.16
In India government not only founded universities but maintained a
strong voice in their affairs. The basis for government influence was laid
at the time of founding. At the University of London, the senate, although
Historical Legacies 17

initially appointed by the Crown, was empowered to fill vacancies by

election. Sir Charles Wood, president of the Board of Control of the East
India Company, whose dispatch of 1854 justified the creation of universi¬
ties, was inclined initially to follow the London model in this respect. Fears
that such independence might in time “introduce a body apart from & in¬
dependent of the government” led the Board of Directors to question the
suitability of an independent senate in India. “Should not,” one educational
policy maker inquired, “a majority of the Senate be for the present at
least appointed by Govt.? Otherwise may you not have Religious and
Political feuds?” 17
In the event, official influence in the new universities was assured. At
the University of Calcutta, the governor general served as chancellor; the
governor general and council (that is, government) nominated the vice-
chancellor and appointed and could dismiss all but the ex officio fellows
of the university senate. The governor general and council approved the
making of by-laws and regulations, controlled the fee fund, and received
annual statements of accounts. Provincial governors at Bombay and
Madras had similar powers.18
After a period in which government relaxed its control of universities,
Lord Curzon as governor general moved boldly in the Indian Universities
Act of 1904 to stop what he believed to be the degeneration of Indian uni¬
versities. The act, which strongly reasserted government influence, pre¬
scribed that up to four-fifths of the senate should be nominees of the
chancellor (the governor general in Calcutta and the governors in Bombay
and Madras), and that the government could not only approve but also
add to or alter the body of regulations which the university was required
to submit.19 Curzon’s reforms would have been, as Sir Eric Ashby ob¬
serves, “anathema to British civic universities, which by that time had es¬
tablished robust traditions of autonomy and freedom from state interven¬
tion.” 20
Lord Curzon and his secretariat did not see themselves invading uni¬
versity autonomy. Quite the reverse. They believed they were protecting
the educational role of the university against the baleful influence of am¬
bitious and politically interested Indians. By the end of the century, the
senate and syndicate of the University of Calcutta were beginning to be
strongly dominated by Indians, a large number of them lawyers. In 1890
the elective principle had been introduced into the Calcutta University
senate, and Bengalis had responded to this opportunity with great en¬
thusiasm and political skill, as Curzon noted. Lists are kept up by the
Vakils [lawyers] of the electors who, having taken their degrees, have
dispersed throughout India. Agents are employed to hunt them out and
canvass them; and very considerable expense is incurred. No candidate
has a chance of being returned who does not resort to these methods
and who is not supported by the Vakil party.” 21
The reasons which led persons to aspire to senate membership were
18 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

probably the same then as now. The Indians hoped to open university ad¬
mission to a greater number than English administrators thought wise and
prudent. The university had the power to affiliate not only colleges, as it
does today, but also schools. The ability to affect affiliation was of con¬
siderable interest to those seeking local influence. A man who could soften
administrative stringency in admissions or in affiliation thought himself a
good servant of his constituency.22
By 1900, 110 of the fellows on the senate were Indians and 77 were
Europeans, a circumstance that made it possible for the senate of the Uni¬
versity of Calcutta to serve, along with the Calcutta municipal corporation,
as the first significant representative body for Indian opinion.23 Because
the senate did so, Curzon’s move to reduce the role of independent Indian
opinion on it exacerbated Bengali nationalist sentiment. The origin of an
active political interest in Indian universities is probably to be found in
this struggle between Indians (Bengalis, in this case) who sought to en¬
hance the representation of Indian opinion and interests in the Calcutta
University senate and the government of India (Curzon, as viceroy and
governor general) which sought to curtail it.
Curzon viewed his use of public authority as nonpolitical, dedicated
solely to realizing educational goals. His strengthening of government con¬
trol was based on the view that Indian influence in education did not serve
public purposes, while government policy did. But that policy was the
assertion of a contrary political interest, that of the raj, and in this sense
by no means free of “politics.” 24
The existence of a powerful official voice in university affairs was an
important part of the raj's genetic imprint on Indian higher education. It
is an imprint that facilitates politicization by not establishing a clear
demarcation between educational and governmental spheres. Yet it would
be wrong to say that strong government influence in higher education is
necessarily asserted at the expense of university autonomy. If autonomy is
understood as the freedom to determine and to realize educational goals,
it may also on occasion be threatened from within the institution by ad¬
ministrators, faculty members, or students, and from without by organized
political forces that appropriate what should be educational goals and re¬
sources to serve partisan, self-interested, or ideological ends.25 When the
threat to university autonomy comes from these sources, the assertion of
government influence may strengthen educational goals. Autonomy must
be judged in its social and political contexts as well as in terms of in¬
stitutional arrangements and relationships.26

If the medieval guild served as a sort of template, a guide to molding

the materials, for European university organization, and the lay con¬
gregation did the same for American collegiate government, the idea of
administrative rationality molded the culture of higher education in India.
Historical Legacies 19

The concern for uniform and regular procedures, predictability, and or¬
derliness, as well as the emphasis on hierarchy and official career ladders,
exercised a disproportionate effect. The needs of the administrative services
increased the influence of administrative culture on higher education. Dis¬
cussions of university programs and problems were carried on simultane¬
ously with discussions of training and testing for the services. Dr. F. J.
Mouat, secretary for the council of education in Bengal, welcomed the
idea of an examining university because it “would meet the difficulty of
devising a suitable examination for entry into government service and
provide a superior type of public servant.” 27
The administrative system shaped higher education by analogy. The
organization of the Indian Educational Service, formed to provide a pre¬
dictable supply of teachers in government colleges, was conceived along
the lines of a merit system of hierarchy and qualification corresponding
to that of the civil bureaucracy. The universities approved degree programs
and set uniform syllabi and examinations not in some general fashion but
quite specifically, designating the books required to meet standards. The
concern for uniformity and specificity was increased by the intellectual
problems attending cultural transfer. This concern arose from the percep¬
tion that many college principals and teachers neither appreciated nor
comprehended the cultural assumptions underlying the syllabi and the
degree programs. The virtue of such specificity, as in other instances of
bureaucratic precision, was to assure minimal standards through uniform
requirements. Its vice was to suppress that openness and leeway which can
facilitate creativity and innovation in higher education and which should
characterize intellectual communities.

Private Foundings: Nationalist, Sectarian, and Caste

Private entrepreneurship, which was responsible for the founding of the

majority of Indian schools and colleges and continues to be responsible
for the management of 69 percent of the schools and 65 percent of the
colleges,28 has been important in shaping Indian higher education. Three
types of private entrepreneurship have played a role in Indian educational
history — nationalist, sectarian movement, and caste community. In ad¬
dition, scores of individual philanthropists and local notables have helped
establish or maintain private educational institutions.
The nationalist Deccan Education Society, formed and led by such
eminent Bombay nationalists as B. G. Tilak and G. K. Gokhale, founded
several educational institutions. The first, Fergusson College, was estab¬
lished in 1885 and grew out of a desire to educate young men who would
serve India.29 In the first decade of the century, Shri Aurobindo, while
vice-chancellor of Baroda College, was instrumental in founding a nation¬
alist institution, the Ganganath Vidyalaya at Baroda.o0
20 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

In Bengal, the swadeshi (literally, “own country”) movement’s na¬

tionalist institutions became gathering points for students involved in
Bengal oppositional politics. Shri Aurobindo acted as principal of Ben¬
gal National College, established by the National Council of Education
in 1906 “to impart education, literary and scientific, as well as techni¬
cal and professional on national lines and exclusively under national con¬
trol, designed to incorporate with the best oriental ideals of life and
thought the best assimilable ideals of the West.” 31
A series of “national universities” were founded after Gandhi assumed
leadership of the nationalist movement in the early 1920’s. They included
Gujarat Vidyapith, Kashi Vidyapith in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar Vidyapith,
and Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapith.32 The Muslim leaders who joined with
Gandhi in the early 1920’s encouraged Muslim students at Aligarh to
leave that university and establish a new one, Jamia Millia Islamia. Gandhi
himself was closely associated with and acted as chancellor for the “na¬
tional university” in Gujarat. A number of major Uttar Pradesh national¬
ists came out of Kashi Vidyapith. Sampurnanand, former chief minister of
Uttar Pradesh, was a professor of philosophy there. Among the teachers
or graduates who held powerful political posts subsequently were Acharya
Narendra Dev, a socialist leader; Sri Prakasa, a state governor; Lai
Bahadur Shastri, former prime minister of India; Dr. B. V. Keskar, former
central minister for information; T. N. Singh, former planning commission
member; and Kamalapathi Tripathi, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.33
Zakir Husain, former vice-president and president of India, was principal
of Jamia Millia.
Gandhi’s advocacy of sarvodaya, service to society, led many of his fol¬
lowers, who were in any case inclined in a schoolmasterly direction by
caste culture and occupation, to spend their time out of jail in founding
primary and secondary educational institutions.34 Some of the educational
institutions founded under nationalist auspices, such as those founded by
the moderate Deccan Education Society, put intellectual concerns upper¬
most, but in many others staff and students were more concerned with
building the nationalist movement and fighting the raj than with cultivating
the intellect. As Harold Gould makes clear, when political goals changed
from the achievement of independence to the competitive pursuit of
power, the previous connection between politicians and educational institu¬
tions remained intact but the motives of postindependence politicians
changed. Motives shifted from the pursuit of ideal goals — imparting a
nationalist perspective and a national life style — to the pursuit of politics
as a profession more oriented toward material rewards, power, and
prestige. Under these changed circumstances, founding and managing edu¬
cational institutions took on a more narrow and partisan meaning.35
The two other types of private entrepreneurship, that of sects and that
of caste communities, were part of the cultural reform and group social
mobility movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Hindus and
Historical Legacies 27

Muslims responded to each other and to the western and Christian impact
in part by founding educational institutions that propagated their cultural
message and identity. Caste communities too found that they could main¬
tain group solidarity and preserve or improve their social status and eco¬
nomic opportunities by founding educational institutions. Vaishya (mer¬
chant caste), Kayasth (scribe caste), Rajput and Nair (warrior castes)
institutions helped these castes maintain their traditional high status by
facilitating access to modern educational opportunities. Mobile castes
entered the field as well. Jat and Ahir colleges in Uttar Pradesh and Pun¬
jab, Ezhava colleges in Kerala, Nadar colleges in Madras, Mahar colleges
in Maharasthra, and Lingayat colleges in Mysore, bear witness to the
capacity of peasant and untouchable communities for self-mobilization and
organization.36
The educational activities of the Arya Samaj, a militant Hindu reform
organization, illustrate how social reform movements within Hinduism
used education to express their cultural norms and identity. The Arya
Samaj sought to strengthen Hinduism against its Christian and Muslim
competitors by emphasizing the unity of Hinduism found in early Vedic
materials. Both the “college section” and the “gurukula section” — which
differ in their orientation to modern values and life styles — have been
significant in the founding of educational institutions in Punjab, Uttar
Pradesh, and Gujarat.37 The gurukula section confined itself initially to
opening gurukulas patterned on the ancient educational institutions of the
same name, and laid great stress on the study of ancient Hindu literature.
Recently it has founded more conventional colleges. The college section
founded Dayanand Anglo-Vedic (DAV) College, a leading college formerly
in Lahore and now in Jullundur.38 Other DAV colleges have been
founded in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi. In 1947, the Arya Samaj
operated forty gurukulas and fifteen DAV colleges.39 The Arya Samaj
maintains close liaisons with its institutions. In 1967, the piesident of
the college section’s supreme body, Mr. Behai, was also principal of the
DAV college in Jullundur. The Samaj’s great social and political influence
in the Punjab has given it a significant voice in educational bodies outside
its organizational sphere. The appointment of Suraj Bhan as vice-chancel¬
lor of Kurukshetra University, now in Pipli, Haryana, may have been due
to efforts by the late Punjab chief minister, Sardar Kairon Singh, to over¬
come Hindu-Sikh rivalries by conciliating the Arya Samaj, the most articu¬
late and organized section of the Hindu community in the Punjab. Subse¬
quently, Suraj Bhan was appointed vice-chancellor of the larger and more
prestigious Punjab University, Chandigarh. A prominent leader of the
gurukula section, Professor Sher Singh, became minister of state for edu¬
cation in the union (national) government after the 1967 election, an ap¬
pointment which suggested that sympathy for Vedic education (based on
ancient Hindu texts) continues to be entertained in the union government.
The Sanathan Dharma movement too has created a substantial number
22 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

of educational institutions in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. The Sanathanists

originally intended to protect Hinduism against the reforming zeal of the
Arya Samaj and others, but moved closer to the Arya Samaj as the latter
grew more conservative; both found common ground in opposing secu¬
larism and Islam.40 Among the most prominent institutions to emerge from
the various nineteenth century reform movements was the Mohammedan
Anglo-Oriental College, later the Muslim University at Aligarh.41 Christian
colleges, which benefited from the imperial presence, also reflected the
tendency of social and religious movements to express themselves in edu¬
cational terms. (Indeed, many nationalist and sectarian institutions were
meant to be “answers” to them.) Today they constitute 5 percent of all
arts and science colleges in India.42
A macroaggregative picture of sectarian and caste community educa¬
tional institutions would reflect the varied and complex social structure
and history of India’s regional cultures. The distribution of management
among colleges affiliated with the Universities of Punjab, Agra (Uttar
Pradesh), and Kerala suggests this complexity and variety.43 Of 139 col¬
leges in Punjab University, 43 were identifiable as being associated with
organized caste or sectarian communities. Of these, 10 were associated
with castes, notably peasant communities such as the Jats and Ahirs,
and 33 were associated with sectarian groups, including Sikhs (13 col¬
leges), Arya Samaj (11 colleges), and Sanathan Dharma (4 colleges).
Of the 127 colleges in Agra University, 36 could be associated with a
caste or sect. Thirteen were founded by caste communities (again, as in
Punjab, mostly by Jats). Twelve of the 23 sectarian colleges were founded
by the Arya Samaj. In Kerala the pattern shifts, reflecting the characteris¬
tic social segmentation of that state, in which Christians, mobile lower
caste Ezhavas, dominant caste Nairs, and Muslims almost exhaust the
social spectrum. In the University of Kerala, 42 of 89 colleges can be as¬
sociated with one or another of these communities: 28 Christian colleges;
5 Ezhava colleges; and 4 Muslim colleges.

The genetic imprint on Indian education has endowed it with certain

features that affect the interaction between politics and education. Indian
universities were created by the state (the British raj) and subsequently
continued to be subject to its legislation and supported in considerable
measure by public funds. Their historical evolution in close relationship
with government created certain presumptions in favor of a strong official
interest in university affairs. The state’s assertion of the public interest in
education can range from fostering educational goals to subverting them;
in India the legacy of state influence has tended to strengthen the presump¬
tion in favor of the government’s view of the public interest in education
and to create somewhat precarious conditions for the university’s ability to
define its autonomy. Since independence, higher education has been in-
Historical Legacies 23

creasingly regarded as a social right and the effectiveness of political

demand for higher education has increased. These two elements in the
university’s political environment have also affected its ability to define
the meaning of autonomy.
The private character and management of a high proportion of colleges
in India is apt to create the misleading impression that colleges, unlike
universities, are at a sufficient distance from public authority and political
arenas to be insulated from them. Behind the private managing boards,
however, he the grant-in-aid relationships with government and the con¬
trols over curriculum and faculties that university affiliation entails. The
consequences of these relationships are by no means clear. The public in¬
terest in private education may not be articulated in public policy or, if it
is, it may not be effectively administered. Glynn Wood’s work on educa¬
tion in Mysore makes clear that arts colleges multiplied at the expense of
technical ones despite an explicit policy commitment on the part of the
state government to favor technical over arts education at the college level.
The failure to articulate a public policy may have desirable results, for
example when generalized support for private colleges protects high stand¬
ard elite colleges against the consequences of a democratic demand for
virtually open admissions. Articulating a policy may also have undesirable
consequences, such as the exaggerated priority given to engineering col¬
lege “seats” by manpower planners in the national government and in
many state governments which, in 1968—69, produced a glut of engineer
graduates.
If the grant-in-aid relationship places private colleges within reach
of public authority and its definition of the public interest, it also creates
conditions under which private interests may capture public resources for
private ends. Privately managed colleges reflect the sectarian and partisan
organization of their localities. Some have produced the best education in
India; others have been vehicles for the politicization of education. Both
directly, as a political resource for party cadres, supporters, and patron¬
age, and indirectly, as an instrument of partisan prestige, benefaction, and
influence, private colleges have played an important role in local politics.
This is not surprising when competitive politics are carried on in an en¬
vironment in which there is a severe scarcity of means for expressing
political preferences and for mobilizing political resources and support.
Private colleges may provide, as Gould’s analysis makes clear, the frame¬
work for a district party organization. They may, as Madan and Halbar’s
study indicates, provide an institutionalized means for strengthening pri
vate community organizations by channeling grant-in-aid funds to private
educational institutions and associations. Grants to a Lingayat college or
a Nair school, even when admission is open to all, the contents of educa¬
tion is secular and modern, and students are not obliged to participate in
or to honor the rituals and symbolism of the sect or community that man-
24 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

ages the school, allocate resources to sects and communities as well as to

education. By doing so they raise certain classical questions about public
support of “private” and sectarian education that continue to agitate the
political life of American and European nations.44
3 / The Public Interest and Politicization under
Conditions of Popular Higher Education

The most obvious and dramatic change in Indian higher education since
independence in 1947 has been the transformation from a relatively small,
elite system to a large, popular one. The mutually reinforcing consequences
of this shift from elite to popular higher education have been massive and
profound. They include a strengthening of the conditions favorable to the
politicization of educational institutions, a reordering of the symbols and
distribution of authority within educational institutions in favor of ad¬
ministration, and a probable decline in standards in the middle and lower
reaches of the educational pyramid (to be examined in the next chapter).

The Expansion of Higher Education

The expansion of higher education accelerated markedly after inde¬

pendence in 1947. Starting with a base of 423,000 enrolled students in
1950-51, the number increased over 400 percent to 2,218,972 in 1966—
67, an average annual increase of approximately 11 percent.1 The number
of universities increased from 20 at independence (1947) to 82 (including
10 agricultural universities), 91, or 100 in 1970, depending on how they are
counted.2 Some sense of distribution over time of the rate of growth can
be gained from figure 1; in the nine decades prior to independence 19 uni¬
versities were established, while in the twenty-three years since independ¬
ence 63 were established.3 The number of university and affiliated colleges
grew at an even faster rate between 1947 and 1968 than did the number
of universities, 663 percent as against 270 percent. In 1947, there were
437 university and affiliated colleges and 20 universities; in 1967-68 the
figures were 2899 and 74.4
There is every reason to believe that under the present political circum¬
stances the expansion of higher education will proceed, although perhaps
at a somewhat slower rate.5 Political democracy in India has intensified the
powerful demand for modern education evident during the last century
of British rule; for over a century colleges, despite rapid expansion, have
had an excess of applicants.6 Today, collegiate education is no longer con¬
fined to those sons of the rich and wellborn who choose to broaden their
minds, improve their manners or enhance their opportunities.1 With the
exception of a few highly selective prestige institutions, Indian college stu¬
dents today not only come from modest social and economic backgrounds
but also are not likely to improve them radically. In 1961, Kerala Uni-
26 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

versity drew almost 60 percent of its students from families whose incomes
were less than Rs. 200 per month — about $43 per month at the 1961
official exchange rates (but considerably more than that in buying power
if the consumer “basket” is filled with Indian produced goods purchased
to satisfy “Indian” wants).8 Most of those receiving a first degree become
white collar workers at modest salaries.9
In the context of this burgeoning popular demand, the prospect of
various official efforts to stem the tide of expansion of school and higher
education appears dim. In June 1967, just a few months after the Educa¬
tion Commission, 1964-1966, had asked that an “open door access” policy
for admissions to colleges be replaced by a “selective” one, a working
group of the ministry of education called for the opening of seven addi¬
tional colleges under the University of Delhi to accommodate at least 5,000
of the 14,279 applicants without “seats” for the academic year beginning
in July;10 by 1970, the number of colleges “needed” had risen to fourteen.
In the south, the Hindu observed editorially that “the demand for admis¬
sion is at least five times the available number of seats in the schools and
in the reputed ones the proportion is larger.” 11

(six decades) (projected)

Figure 1. Indian university foundings, by decades.

N = 82*
Source: Inter University Board of India and Ceylon, Universities Handbook; India
and Ceylon (New Delhi, 1971).
* In the three years 1967-1970, 15 universities were founded. At the rate of 5 per
year, the decade 1967-76 could experience 50 foundings.
Politicization under Higher Education 27

The expansion of the educational system in India, particularly the growth

of secondary and higher education, is as much a response to political de¬
mands on all levels of government as it is a result of policy decisions taken
on grounds independent of political representation and pressure, such as
economic growth or welfare. Political participation has climbed from 45
to over 61 percent over the four general elections held between 1952 and
1967, and now compares favorably with recent levels in U.S. presidential
and congressional elections.12 The views and demands of organized po¬
litical forces are represented in the national parliament, state legislative
assemblies, and local governments, through access to legislative and ad¬
ministrative decision-making processes, and by various forms of symbolic,
agitational, and coercive politics such as fasts, strikes and gheraos (en¬
circlements). Popular demands are heard and acted upon, not least with
respect to education. The Congress party government of Gujarat nearly fell
in 1967 because of its reluctance to found two universities rather than one.
Those who have benefitted from the expansion and democratization of
power and status since independence have found that access to education
is vital if their children are to build on their achievements. Their pressures
have strengthened the position of education in the political competition
for symbolic and material resources.
The demand for higher education is also related to the failure of the
educational system to provide effective and attractive terminal vocational
and technical education.13 At present, high cost vocational and technical
training (about five times costlier than general education at comparable
levels)14 is characterized by low status, high levels of wastage, and too
limited a relationship to job requirements and employment opportunities.
Perhaps most significantly, such training is being widely used as a “back
door” to higher levels of education.15 The relative failure of vocational and
technical education to lead to jobs and status has heightened pressure on
higher education and led to mounting “overqualification” of employees.
Forty-three percent of the bachelor of commerce graduates in an all-India
sample of degree holders were working in clerical or related jobs and
many graduate engineers work as technicians.16
College degrees may overqualify their recipients for some jobs but for
many jobs it may be a fallacy of misplaced concreteness to believe that
they do. Many of those working as senior “clerks” in government hold
what in America would be considered administrative or executive posts,
supervising contracts, work flows, and numerous personnel. Nor should
expectations of Indian students be confused with those held by Americans
with nominally similar degrees. Indian students with a bachelor of com¬
merce expect to take clerical positions, not something more elevated, and
graduate engineers from many colleges expect to be technicians.
The drive for college admission and college degrees is heightened by the
rational propensity of employers, notably government, to value educational
qualifications independently of job qualifications narrowly defined. Even
if education does not add specific qualifications, it is a rough screening
process. Its latent aspects insure that those who finish higher levels are
28 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

disciplined and motivated in ways that are job-relevant. A degree is an

indicator of job qualifications and skill.17 Therefore, socially mobile young
men and women seek B.A.’s to qualify for government jobs which offer
them the status, income, and security that most of them prize highly. Al¬
most 70 percent of the degree holders in an all-India sample were working
in the public sector (central government, 17.2 percent; state government,
32.6 percent; quasi-government, 10.9 percent; local bodies, 5.2 percent).18
Contrary to some conventional wisdom, the propensity of Indians to
seek degrees so that they can enter white collar occupations is not merely
a result of an unfortunate flaw in the nation’s character a lack of ambi¬
tion or a status-connected disdain for technical or agricultural work. Given
the prevailing opportunities, the decision to seek a degree is mainly eco¬
nomically rational rather than culturally constrained. Most of those whose
education was made possible by family saving and sacrifice continue to
recognize joint family responsibilities. If they have been unable to qualify
for professional education or a job in a modern business bureaucracy, if
they lack “capital” beyond their degrees, or if agriculture is not a profitable
investment sector, the income and security of government service gen¬
erally represent an optimum economic choice. There is reason to believe
that if the opportunity structure shifted, individuals would shift their
choices from white collar to technical and agricultural employment.19

The Public Interest and Politicization

Expansion has prepared the ground for a more forceful assertion of the
public interest in education and for politicization of the education system.
It has greatly increased the proportion of national resQurces absorbed in
this sector, making education both more visible and more vulnerable. Over
the fifteen years between 1950-51 and 1965-66, per capita expenditure
on education almost quadrupled. Education’s proportion of national in¬
come rose from 1.2 percent to 2.9 percent in the same period,20 and the
education ministry in 1968 was trying — unsuccessfully — to double edu¬
cation’s share to 6 percent.21 Education was the single largest revenue item
in all but three of sixteen states, representing 20 percent of aggregated
state revenue budgets (in Kerala, 35 percent).22 As education’s share of
national income has grown, higher education has captured an increasingly
large proportion of it. Between 1950-51 and 1965-66, higher education’s
share of direct and indirect23 expenditure on education grew from 24.5
to 32.6 percent.24 India in 1961 may have spent a higher proportion of
total educational expenditure on higher education than any other country.25
Not only has the increased expenditure made education more visible,
but also the movement toward public financing has made it more vulnerable
to political pressures. The percentage of educational expenditure ac¬
counted for by public funds (state and union government) increased from
57 percent in 1950-51 to 71 percent in 1965-66.26 (These proportions
Politicization under Higher Education 29

do not take account of what is undoubtedly a large but at present un¬

estimated — much less measured — dimension of educational expendi¬
ture, the private tuitions [discussed in chapter 11] that are so pervasive a
feature of Indian education.) Although the trend toward higher propor¬
tions of public funds supporting higher education parallels contemporary
developments in all countries intent on strengthening their educational
systems,27 in India, which lacks the British and American experience with
substantial private funding of higher education, this trend has built on and
reinforced already established high levels of financial dependence on gov¬
ernment.
From at least the middle of the nineteenth century, when (in 1857) the
first three universities were founded by government initiative and at gov¬
ernment expense, Indian higher education has had substantial public finan¬
cial support even though most of the colleges affiliated to universities are
(and were) privately founded and managed. As we have already sug¬
gested, the distinction between and separation of private and public edu¬
cational institutions and finance, for so long central to the ideological and
policy controversies that marked the history of education in America,28
never developed in India. The British, willing to encourage education but
reluctant to play a significant entrepreneurial role and eager to generate
some financial support from the classes clamoring for western education,
adopted the system of grants-in-aid already prevalent in England.29
The grants-in-aid policy, which was continued after independence by
the governments of the various states, had resulted by 1960-61 in a one-
third to two-thirds ratio of private- to government-managed educational
institutions (taking all types of educational institutions together, from
preprimary through higher education). The variation among states and
levels was extremely wide. The percentage of privately managed educa¬
tional institutions in the state of Kerala was 65.3, while in Rajasthan and
in Jammu and Kashmir the percentages were 3.5 and 1.7. Twenty-two
percent of lower primary schools (by far the most numerous educational
institutions), 69.2 percent of secondary schools and 65 percent of affiliated
colleges were managed by nongovernment voluntary organizations.30 It is
also relevant to the question of dependence on government that approxi¬
mately 45 percent of the income of privately managed affiliated colleges
comes from government sources.31 Universities and government-managed
colleges are even more dependent on government funds.
Increased financial dependence on government and the historical legacy
of government influence have combined to make universities vulnerable to
political pressure, penetration, and intervention. Politicians have noticed
these developments and adjusted their behavior accordingly. Powerful men
and those wishing to be powerful have been attracted to education ministry
portfolios. Ten years ago the position of education minister in a state gov¬
ernment was unimportant; today it is a position of considerable prestige,
influence, and power commanding the means to serve important political
30 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

interests. For example, in the (non-Congress) coalition government formed

in Bihar after the 1967 general elections, Kapuri Thakur, leader of the
Samyukta Socialist party (SSP), the largest party in that government, be¬
came education minister and deputy chief minister. In Madras State V. R.
Nedunchezhian, who ranked number two in the ruling DMK (Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam) party hierarchy, became minister for education (and
industries).
The interest of politicians is related, on the one hand, to the prospect of
helping define and realize the public interest in education, and, on the
other, to the prospect for politicization, that is, the conversion of material,
human, and symbolic educational resources into political resources that
can be used in political competition for power. Defining the public interest
is an immediate task in connection with government colleges, whose staffs
are under the ministry of education of each state, a somewhat less imme¬
diate task with respect to universities, which are more or less autonomously
governed but which are financed largely by public funds, and a more
remote, though still real, responsibility with regard to private colleges,
which are managed by private boards but receive large government sub¬
ventions. In Bihar, where Kapuri Thakur was education minister, constitu¬
ents pressed him to define the public interest in a way that would further
ease the admission requirements laid down by the University of Bihar, as
well as the standards for the B.A. In Madras, more Tamil-language edu¬
cation in government colleges was part of the DMK’s definition of the
public interest.
Politicization has been particularly significant in connection with private
secondary and higher education. Managed by private boards operating
largely beyond the scrutiny of government, private high schools and col¬
leges have lent themselves to use as political resources by members of
their managements.32 But government too can influence employees of gov¬
ernment colleges — principals and faculty — either to strengthen its view
of the public interest or for politicization — subsuming educational insti¬
tutions to its partisan and factional interests. Principals of government
colleges may be under an obligation to respond to directives from the state
director of education not only with respect to policy in their colleges but
also with respect to their role in formulating university policy. This obli¬
gation may be variously used or exploited. One Madhya Pradesh univer¬
sity’s senate consists of 120 persons, 88 of whom are principals of gov¬
ernment colleges. These persons make decisions which are politically as
well as academically relevant, such as whether a newly founded college
will be affiliated by the university. The affiliation of colleges that do not
meet the minimum conditions laid down by the university has been man¬
aged through these bureaucratic channels. According to J. P. Naik, its
member-secretary, the Education Commission, 1964-1966, found that
when the question of affiliation of a new Government college comes up,
the Director of Education sends a circular to those principals that they
Politicization under Higher Education 31

must vote for the affiliation.” 33 In 1967 the government of Gujarat used
its statutory authority to veto a decision of the Gujarat University senate
refusing affiliation to Shri Prabhudas Thakkar Commerce and Science Col¬
lege (which planned to teach courses leading to the first year B.Sc. exam¬
ination in the faculty of science). All six Gujarat vice-chancellors joined
in a statement asking the government of Gujarat to respect the decision of
the Gujarat University senate and to amend the various university acts to
vest the right of affiliation exclusively with the universities. Vice-Chancel¬
lor Umashanker Joshi of Gujarat University declared that “the most fun¬
damental issue involved in this matter is the autonomy of the university
[which is] one of the most important bedrocks of a democracy.” 34
Delhi University too has become increasingly wary of the effect of af¬
filiated colleges on its autonomy. In September 1970 it refused to accept
the nominations influenced by the Jan Sangh party-controlled Delhi Met¬
ropolitan Council to fill seats on governing bodies of five colleges for whom
the Delhi government acts as a trust. (There are now over twelve such
colleges in the Delhi area.) The formal reason for the university’s action
was that too many officials had been nominated. Whether official or non¬
official, those nominated for partisan sympathies or purposes are more
likely to support partisan than academic interests and values. In Delhi
in 1970, they were likely to favor Jan Sangh policies with respect to lan¬
guage of instruction (pro-Hindi, anti-English) and admissions (more
“open” admissions). Vice-chancellor Swarup Singh and his immediate
predecessor, K. N. Raj, recognized the threat such appointments and pol¬
icies posed for the university’s colleges, first-rank postgraduate depart¬
ments, and governing bodies. By May 1971, amendments to the university
statutes empowered the Executive Council to dismiss any member of a
college governing body if it felt his presence there was not in the best in¬
terests of the institution.35 Control over college managing bodies is an
important path to influence over university policies. For the moment, Delhi
University seemed to have preserved the form and perhaps the substance of
university autonomy.
At the same time that politicians and the public generally have become
more interested in higher education, its capacity to defend itself against
incursions has declined. The enormous demand for higher education has
removed the limited seclusion that characterized such education in less
democratic times. Requests for public funds required by expansion make
higher education vulnerable to political demands, and the lower average
quality of staff, facilities, and students weakens the case for higher educa¬
tion’s claim to special intellectual standing and the independent decision¬
making authority such standing gives to universities. These developments
have been exacerbated by the fact that approximately 40 percent of the
Indian university student population consists of Pre-University Course
(PUC) and intermediate students, functional equivalents of American high
school students. This high percentage tends to place Indian colleges in the
32 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

political status of high schools, which have been legitimately regarded as

more subject than colleges and universities to lay (including public) de¬
cisions about goals, programs, and personnel.36
The logistical and personnel needs of expansion have another conse¬
quence favoring politicization. Expansion requires entrepreneurial and
administrative talent of a sort that may not be compatible with intellectual
and academic values. The capacity to deal with legislators, ministers, and
civil servants, to arrange for funding and real estate, and to negotiate with
the communities at the forefront of the expansion demand is crucial to the
leadership of universities during periods of rapid expansion and democ¬
ratization. The skills associated with these activities are exercised by ad¬
ministrators, who are likely to increase their authority at the expense of
academics. (Such developments are not confined to India. The advent of
open admissions in City University of New York system means that New
York colleges will also perform quasi-high school functions while expand¬
ing rapidly — conditions that foster the growth of administrative authority
at the expense of academic.)37

Indian educators have been alive to the problems of politicization and

the assertion of the public interest in education. At the first conference of
vice-chancellors, convened by the union (national) government in 1957,
Sir C. P. Ramaswami Aiyer, formerly vice-chancellor of Banaras Hindu
University observed: “The main problems in some of our universities . . .
are those of autonomy and the intrusion of politics. . . . Political and
public pressure is brought to bear directly on the Vice-Chancellor and in¬
directly upon . . . university bodies. . . . The way the fundamental fea¬
tures of education should be organised and developed are, within the juris¬
diction of the legislatures. Nevertheless, there is a great deal more than this
which is sought to be done, not so much by the legislatures, as by those
who are their spearpoints, viz., the executives of the ministries of the vari¬
ous governments.” 38 Most of the educators at the conference recognized
that, given the legal position of universities, political interest in them was
inevitable. As K. G. Saiyidain, then education secretary to the government
of India, noted: “There is not the remotest likelihood of an edict being
issued one fine morning that henceforward politics will not be allowed to
intrude into the universities.” B. N. Jha, former vice-chancellor of Allaha¬
bad University (Uttar Pradesh) agreed: “In this democratic age, the uni¬
versities cannot exist in isolation and politics must have its impact on
university life. . . . There will be political parties and they will even be
influencing the [student] Union elections . . . there will be [teachers]
with different ideologies. . . . Political parties are represented among
teachers and students.”
The educators worried about where the limits on political direction
should be placed. Jha feared that “government [can interfere] to such
extent that it is impossible for the Vice-Chancellor to function independ-
Politicization under Higher Education 33

ently.” And D. C. Pavate, then vice-chancellor of Karnatak University

(Mysore) reminded his fellow vice-chancellors that “if a person [were]
nominated by the chancellor [usually the governor of the state], which
effectively means the State Government . . . the inevitable result would
be for the Vice-Chancellor to look to the government concerned for in¬
spiration; and, as such, the political pressure of which there has been so
much talk [would] persist.”
Although the educators inquired into the limits on political direction,
they conceded to the government a significant role in defending and as¬
serting the public interest. “We have heard something of the interference
of the Government in university matters,” H. N. Kunzru told the vice-
chancellors at their second meeting in June, 1960. “But we have to see
whether that interference is justified or not. . . . The Government itself,
whatever irregularity it may commit, is in theory [electorally] responsible.
. . . If the Government does not intervene to control universities, the
universities become helpless. Then there is no one to control. . . . The
interference of the Government may be justified in some cases. I do not
think, Sir, that this is contrary to the theory of democracy.” 39
Within the plurality of internal and external interests and of priorities
attached to the allocation of funds by the states and various agencies of
the union government,40 particularly the University Grants Commission
(UGC), university administrators and faculties can maneuver to strengthen
educational as against more manifestly political goals. For example, on the
one hand the UGC was concerned to foster professional excellence through
a major development program in support of Centers of Advanced Study;41
the Education Commission, 1964-1966, proposed to establish “major uni¬
versities” “comparable to the best institutions of their type in any part of
the world”; and the 1967 conference of vice-chancellors endorsed “the
suggestion of the [Education] Commission that the support of post-gradu¬
ate education and research should become a central responsibility.” 42 On
the other hand, the state governments are concerned to satisfy demands
for increased enrollments, to provide seats for state residents and “back¬
ward classes” and to have teaching conducted in the regional language
(rather than in English). A talented vice-chancellor, dean, principal or
department head intent on strengthening his institution educationally must
operate within the field of force created by the conflicting pressures of
state and national government and contradictory political forces, winning
his victories as often in the interstices as in the open ground of institutional
decision-making. If he is to win victories on behalf of educational goals
and values, he will have to influence not only the academic bodies of the
university but also the University Grants Commission, his professional col¬
leagues, other intellectuals, and the state secretariat and legislature.

The conditions conducive to continued, even accelerating, politicization

increase with the satisfaction of the rising demand for higher education
34 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

and the shift in the center of power in the Indian federal system (particu¬
larly marked after the 1967 general elections) from the union to the state
governments. Colleges and universities have become the object of massive
popular attention and concern. Territorial, caste, and religious communi¬
ties want colleges (and found them), and regions within states want uni¬
versities (and get them).43 Those whose role it is to represent (as well as
govern) the people know that their political fate rests in part on satisfying
the desires for status, wealth, and power that much of the demand for
higher education expresses. The ordinary legislator, even the ordinary min¬
ister, is not inclined to examine too closely how the demand for higher
education is satisfied or to examine the quality and consequences of what
is provided if doing so will hinder the generation of political resources, in¬
fluence, and support. The shift in the balance of power toward the states
enhances these developments: not only is education constitutionally sub¬
ject to state authority, but also the union government’s constitutional re¬
sponsibility for the maintenance and coordination of educational standards
becomes more formal than efficient as the states play a larger role in policy
formation and decision-making at the center.
At the same time that expanding resources, attention, and energy create
conditions conducive to politicization and to an assertion of the public
interest potentially in conflict with academic goals, they also create condi¬
tions conducive to educational improvement. More means are not neces¬
sarily or always subject to the laws of distributive justice. They can, and
have, contributed to leveling up, to continued differentiation and variety,
and to experiments that succeed (as well as fail). And there are adminis¬
trators and politicians who see that education has a meaning beyond its
contribution to national development, important as that is. In the very
process of demanding and getting education for strictly instrumental rea¬
sons, the public, or at least a critical minority of it, comes to understand,
to appreciate, and to protect educational values and interests.
4 / Outputs:
“Standards” in Democratized Higher Education

A major consequence of the vast expansion in education since inde¬

pendence, according to most commentators on the Indian educational scene,
has been a decline in standards. The decline has been loudly and frequently
lamented but less frequently analyzed empirically. The conventional argu¬
ment, and it is a persuasive one, goes as follows. The universities are ex¬
panding faster than adequate secondary education, with the result that
those who enter colleges are increasingly ill-prepared. The poor quality of
secondary education is compounded by the increasing proportion of first
generation literates who enter college each year. As a result, higher edu¬
cation in India is being swamped by a flood of what in America are called
the culturally underprivileged. Their number is expanding faster than the
supply of properly trained college and postgraduate teachers and scholars.
Old, much less new, universities and colleges cannot fill sanctioned posts
at all, or can do so only by lowering standards for faculty recruitment and
selection. The logistical burdens caused by the large number of classes
dilute the attention and resources even of good teachers and well-admin¬
istered institutions. The lack of adequate facilities — books, laboratories,
study space, hostels, extracurricular facilities — aggravates the unsatisfac¬
tory learning environment and helps breed the discontents that eventuate
in “student unrest.” 1 The remedial and custodial aspects of “higher educa¬
tion” in India have increased at an alarming rate.
Although there is a great deal in this line of argument, it is at best one¬
sided, and at worst inadequately informed about either the past or the
present. To those who were excluded from higher education in the pre¬
independence period by the limited number of seats in colleges and by
high fees and admission standards, the present, whatever its inadequacies,
appears as a net improvement, although the mounting levels of student
unrest suggest that many sense they are getting inferior educations.
Second, research on the quality of higher education in the “old days”
suggests that there has been a nostalgic distortion of the past by more
senior generations. More precise criteria or measures are needed to shape
judgements about a “decline” in Indian higher education. In this volume
Irene Gilbert discusses the high quality elite education that was offered by
Presidency College, Calcutta; Muir Central College, Allahabad; and the
Muslim Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh. In an era of limited enrollments,
they represented the best, not an average. The Calcutta University Com¬
mission of 1917-1919 indicated that university admission processes then
36 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

were not notably discriminating. It found that “more than three-quarters of

the successful matriculates [under the university’s area of jurisdiction] . . .
proceed to the university course,” 2 and an Indian headmaster testifying
before the commission thought “the majority . . . unfit to receive uni¬
versity training.” 3 Intermediate students (those in programs preparatory
for first degree courses) were, according to the commission, unable to un¬
derstand the simplest spoken English” or to “write four or five simple sen¬
tences in coherent English” 4 — a finding similar to those heard often in
the 1950’s and 1960’s.
The problem of comparison is further complicated by the rapid obso¬
lescence of many established curricula as the knowledge explosion accel¬
erates. The standards reasonable for many subjects in 1947 may no longer
be so today. Access to new subjects, as well as to new knowledge in old
subjects, can make an enormous difference in the quality of education.
Yet such considerations are seldom in the minds of writers who deplore a
decline in standards. Instead, they deplore the failure of later generations to
acquire the skills or knowledge they themselves acquired, even when such
skills or knowledge may have been rendered obsolete by the knowledge
explosion and changing times.
These observations about the changes in access to higher education, the
actual quality of education in a putative golden age, and the meaning of
quality given the knowledge explosion must be considered in evaluating
standards in postindependence India. A careful examination of the avail¬
able educational statistics makes such evaluation even more difficult. The
statistics suggest that standards have improved in some sectors and de¬
clined in others. In still other areas, conclusions are impossible because
of the inadequacy of the data. The confidence with which it has become
fashionable to speak of a decline in standards is most certainly misplaced.
Although the statistics that we cite and analyze below introduce an em¬
pirical dimension into a public policy and social science controversy hith¬
erto characterized by not altogether reliable impressions or by logical de¬
ductions from doubtful premises, our “hard data” may also introduce a
spurious precision into these discussions. As our cautionary notes suggest,
the statistics raise almost as many problems as they solve; each table has
to be received with the level of skepticism appropriate to its source and
difficulties.

Disaggregating Growth by Level and Subject

One way to judge what is happening to standards in India is to examine

changes in the structure of higher education, notably changes in the rela¬
tive significance of more and less demanding degree programs by level
and subject. One might anticipate that the increase of less qualified stu¬
dents would result in the swamping of advanced higher education (second
and third degrees) by enrollments at the entering (first) degree level
Outputs 37

(B.A., B.Sc., B. Comm., etc.). If, as the Education Commission, 1964-

1966, argues, the second degree (postgraduate master’s) level in India
often corresponds to a European or American first degree (bachelor’s)
level, such a development would imply a kind of Gresham’s law in which
school education drives out higher education.5 The data, however, indicate
that the postgraduate sector, in the face of a 250 percent expansion of all
higher education since 1952,° has held its own, not only maintaining its
proportion of total enrollment in the last few years but increasing it
slightly. As table 1 demonstrates, postgraduate and research levels have

Table 1. Changing structure of Indian education — level.

Students enrolled in all

higher education (percent)
Level 1952-53 1964-65 Net change

Preuniversity and intermediate 58.0 37.0 -21.0a

Graduate (bachelor’s degrees) 35.4 54.7 + 19.3
Postgraduate and research 4.9 6.0 + l.lb
Diploma, certificate and
preprofessional 1.7 2.3 +0.6

100.0 100.0

Sources: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development

in India; Basic Facts and Figures, 1962-63 (New Delhi, 1963), p. 74; idem, University De¬
velopment in India; Basic Facts and Figures, 1964-65 (New Delhi, 1966), table 21(a), p. 63.
a In part an artifact of the structural reform that substituted a one year preuniversity
program for the two year intermediate qualification.
b In 1963-64, the percent was 5.9, suggesting a rising trend to 6.0 percent in 1963-64,
but this measure has to be laid against a measure of 6.3 percent in 1961-62. For the latter
figure see University Grants Commission, University Development in India; Basic Facts
and Figures (New Delhi, 1966), p. 21. The figures for 1966—67 and 1967-68 were 5.7 and 5.8
respectively. University Grants Commission, University Development in India; Basic Facts
and Figures (Delhi, 1971), p. 145.

gained 1.1 percent. This modest proportionate increase represents a great

absolute increase, from approximately 30,000 to approximately 91,000
students.7
The importance of the increase in enrollment at the first degree level
and the decline in enrollment at the PUC (Pre-University Course)-inter¬
mediate level is difficult to assess.8 In large part, these changes are ac¬
counted for by the consequences of reorganization of the educational struc¬
ture (generally effective in all states except Uttar Pradesh and in the
Bombay area of Maharashtra) from a two-year intermediate course and
a two-year B.A. course to a one-year preuniversity course and a three-year
B.A. course.9 The preuniversity courses still occupy a large proportion of
college enrollments (about 40 percent) and their effect is to strengthen
the high school, remedial, and administrative orientations of “higher” ed¬
ucation. The placing of intermediate or PUC levels in colleges, by con¬
trast with the previous separation, may be a mixed blessing.
38 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

That the postgraduate and research level has maintained its share of
enrollment in a rapidly expanding system of higher education suggests that
Indian universities have at least formally recognized and mean to pursue
under democratic conditions that function of the university which they
took up in the second decade of the present century — research and the
advancement of knowledge. There has been a growth in Ph.D.’s awarded
(table 2). During a recent four-year period for which data was available
(1960-61 through 1963-64), the annual number of Ph.D.’s awarded rose
from 796 to 975, an 18 percent rise over four years. During this four-year
period, twelve universities (17 percent of the total number of universities)
produced a substantial number of Ph.D.’s (100 or more each), and over
half produced a significant number (40 to 99). Quantity, however, tells
nothing about quality. One would need to examine with some care, for
example, the 412 Ph.D.’s granted in these four years at Agra (the second
highest Ph.D. producer). Eighty-eight of these Ph.D.’s (21 percent) were
in Hindi,10 a subject that does not ordinarily attract top flight faculty or
students. That Agra produces more Ph.D.’s in economics than the Uni¬
versity of Delhi does not prove that its standards are higher or its academic
culture livelier. (Delhi economics professors have taught at, and had offers
from, leading foreign universities. Former faculty and graduates hold
professorships at London, M.I.T., and Harvard.) Many of the Agra
Ph.D.’s were produced at affiliated colleges. The Education Commission,
1964-1966, took a dim view of most advanced work completed at colleges
because they rarely have staff or facilities adequate for advanced re¬
search.11 Some universities, including a few older ones such as Mysore,
Nagpur, Annamalai, and Kerala, as well as many recently founded ones,
have given few or no Ph.D.’s. This indicates that those universities are not
making the contributions to knowledge that would qualify them to be
counted among India’s “modern” universities.12 (See table 6.)
Another structural change relevant to standards is the movement from
arts degrees to scientific, professional, and agricultural degrees. Table 3
shows that, since 1952, arts degrees have declined by 6 percent, while
degrees granted in science, professional, and agricultural subjects have
gained by 3, 1, and 1 percent each. Observers were wont to believe that
Indian students and educational authorities were unsympathetic to scien¬
tific and professional education and indifferent to India’s need for more
education in such subjects. Table 3 gives some basis for that view, notably
the long-term secular rise in the proportion of arts degrees granted from
1916 to the early 1950’s, and the accompanying modest decline in the
proportion of science and professional degrees. The pattern may not, how¬
ever, reflect what student or official preferences were. The relatively mod¬
est costs associated with establishing and maintaining B.A. colleges by
comparison with professional and scientific education, even at the first de¬
gree level, have always made arts colleges the cheapest way of responding
to expanding demands for higher education. Data over the last ten years,
 Outputs 39

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40 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

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Outputs 41

however, suggest a decline of such resistance to professional and scientific

education as there may have been. Differential applications for B.A. and
B.Sc. seats suggest that student choices were (and are) primarily a result
of perceived occupational opportunities and the costs associated with
qualifying for them. In recent times the mushrooming of capitation-fee-
based private medical and engineering institutions indicate that many more
would have studied these subjects if the less costly seats in government in¬
stitutions had been available.
In fact, by 1970 overproduction of engineers and doctors (relative to
employment opportunities) was considered a major problem. Applications
at the five Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT’s), prime producers of
engineers, showed great sensitivity to the professional opportunities of en¬
gineers, rising from 17,995 in 1963 to 35,216 in 1966 — at the height
of the demand for engineers — and declining to 12,641 after a glut be¬
came apparent.13
Trends at the Ph.D. level confirm the drift away from arts degrees. Be¬
tween 1960-61 and 1963-64, arts Ph.D.’s dropped from 41 to 36 percent
of all Ph.D.’s while Ph.D.’s in science rose from 47 to 49 percent and in
agriculture from 5 to 7 percent.14
The structural proportions reported in table 3 do not reveal the absolute
increases in the scientific and professional fields. When Britain departed
the subcontinent, approximately 5,000 students were studying engineering
and technology, 9,000 medicine, and 4,000 agriculture. The number of
students studying these subjects has increased ten-fold, four-fold, and six¬
fold, respectively, over fifteen years.15 Such trends reflect government ef¬
forts not only to train domestically in high quality institutions those who
were previously trained abroad but also to increase substantially the qual¬
ity and quantity of scientific and technical education. The five IIT’s (de¬
veloped in collaboration with outstanding institutions in Russia, Germany,
Britain, and America), which recruit and select students on the basis of
all-India competitive examinations, and the regional engineering colleges,
upgraded by special grants from the ministry of education, represent such
efforts in technology and science. The All-India Institute of Medical Sci¬
ence and postgraduate training and research programs in a few medical
colleges contribute to India’s increasing self-sufficiency in the training of
doctors and medical specialists. (Indeed, India has become a major ex¬
porter of them.) _
Of the two nationwide meritocratic competitions, that conducted by the
IjY’g ranks with or above that for the national civil services as a pres¬
tigious competition attracting the talented and ambitious. The old Indian
Civil Service exams gave intellectual prestige to the humanist generalist
and the subjects that he cultivated. The IIT exams have helped give science
and math subjects a similar prestige.16 . .
The effect of the increase in professional training on standards, notably
in technology and medicine, is ambiguous. On the one hand, these fields
 42 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

are highly competitive and have, until recently, paid high rewards, thereby
recruiting good students and being able to press them rather hard. On the
other hand, the applied professions everywhere tend to take an instru¬
mental view of knowledge, viewing with skepticism the ornamental or ab¬
stract nature of studies that are not “useful.” An institution such as the
University of Baroda (see chapter 11), which has high standing in part
because of its good professional schools, may not necessarily provide a
hospitable environment for the standards and concerns of postgraduate
education that aims to make additions to knowledge and is pursued for its
own sake.

Differentiation and the Growth of blew Disciplines

The graduate and postgraduate shift since the mid-1950’s to science and
technology represents an emphasis which is surely in line with India’s so¬
cial and economic requirements. But the declining prestige of arts degrees,
their failure to attract the best students, and their identification with low
paying clerical jobs raise other problems. The education of those who can
provide the cultural formulations and social science knowledge and skills
that give direction, purpose, and meaning to the uses of science and tech¬
nology within the framework of Indian society and government is im¬
portant. There is evidence of developments in the higher (postgraduate)
levels of the arts field that can help India to meet its needs for such edu¬
cation.
Arts as well as science categories are being internally differentiated by
the emergence and growth of new postgraduate fields. The first Ph.D.’s
in such subjects as veterinary science, oriental studies, Chinese, interna¬
tional relations, mathematical physics, spectroscopy, marine biology, and

Table 4. Doctoral theses accepted by faculties other than arts or science,

1960-61 through 1963-64.

Universities accepting
Subject theses Theses accepted Rank order

Agriculture 12 185 1
Engineering/technology 12 78 2
Commerce 14 69 3
Medicine 13 57 4
Education 14 40 5
Oriental studies 2 3 6
Law 3 3 6
Veterinary science 1 2 7
Fine Arts 1 2 7

439
Source: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development
in India; Basic Facts and Figures (New Delhi, 1966).
Outputs 43

Table 5. Doctoral theses accepted by arts (social sciences and allied subjects)
faculties, 1960-61 through 1963-64.

Subject Number Rank order

Economics 165 1
Political science 112 2
History 96 3
Sociology 50 4
Psychology 45 5
Geography 28 6
Mathematics'1 24 7
Archaeologya 21 8
Linguistics’1 15 9
Statistics’1 5 10
Anthropology 4 11
International relations 2 12
Social worka 2 12
Applied mathematics 1 13
Public administration 1 13

571

Source: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development

in India; Basic Facts and Figures (New Delhi, 1966).
a Allied subjects.

a number of Indian languages and literatures were recently completed.17

(See tables 4 and 5.)
Within arts, the social science category is probably becoming stronger
and more differentiated, again notably at the postgraduate level. Although

Table 6. Pre-1959 universities accepting less than forty Ph.D theses in arts
and science, 1960-61 through 1963-64.
Year Year
Name founded Name founded

Mysore (Mysore) 1916 Sri Venkateswara (Andhra) 1954

Nagpur (Maharashtra) 1923 S. V. Vidyapith (Gujarat) 1955
Annamalai (Madras) 1929 Kurukshetra (Haryana) 1956
Kerala (Kerala) 1937 Indira Kala Sangit
Utkal (Orissa) 1943 Vishvavidyalaya
Gauhati (Assam) 1948 (Madhya Pradesh) 1956
Jammu and Kashmir 1948 Vikram (Madhya Pradesh) 1957
Roorkee (Uttar Pradesh) 1949 Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) 1957
Karnatak (Mysore) 1949 Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh) 1957
S.N.D.T. Women’s Varanaseya Sanskrit
(Maharashtra) 1951 Vishvavidyalaya
Viswa-Bharati (Uttar Pradesh) 1958
1951 Marathwada (Maharashtra) 1958
(West Bengal)
Source: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development
in India; Basic Facts and Figures (New Delhi, 1966).
44 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

we have no time series data to support this observation, certain historical

developments suggest it. Today, social science Ph.D.’s represent 14 percent
of all Ph.D.’s and 36 percent of those in the arts.18 Social science educa¬
tion under the raj was probably more modest in size and certainly poorer
in comprehensiveness. India has had a tradition of creativity in economics
(Dadabhai Naoroji and R. C. Dutt are two of the most prominent, if not
necessarily the most durable, of India’s outstanding economists), but to¬
day she has substantial economics and economic history professions
whose leaders command international reputations. Economics heads the
social sciences in Ph.D. production, with 165 Ph.D.’s in the 1960-61 to
1963-64 period. Political science, also a respectable subject under the
raj, now has outstanding practitioners with both domestic and interna¬
tional reputations, although some of the best are, to the detriment of post¬
graduate education, situated in independent research institutions.19
Sociology under the raj suffered from British biases against the social
sciences, but began to develop after independence. “Academic tradition
generally in Britain and especially in such ancient centers of learning as
Oxford and Cambridge,” a committee of Indian sociologists observed,
“has not been friendly until recently to sociology . . . [which has been]
associated with French (and foreign) radical thought.” 20 The University
of Bombay was a conspicuous exception to such unfriendliness, thanks to
the maverick creativity and leadership of Patrick Geddes. He founded the
sociology department in 1919 and remained its chairman until 1924, when
G. S. Ghurye began a long tenure noted for its originality and produc¬
tivity. Mysore University began sociology in 1928-29, but in the phi¬
losophy department. Most sociology departments were established after
independence.21 Although in the period from 1960-6] to 1963-64 so¬
ciology produced 50 Ph.D.’s and ranked fourth — after history — among
the social sciences in Ph.D. production, it had not yet fully overcome the
cleavages and parochialisms associated with the domination of the field
by a few professors, their “schools,” and their students. The UGC designa¬
tion of the Delhi University sociology department as a center for advanced
study and the sanctioning in 1968 of three additional professors, however,
marked sociology’s new significance in India.22
Preindependence anthropology suffered from British and Indian biases.
Educated nationalists distrusted it as a discipline that served the purposes
of British rule and portrayed the country as primitive.23 Despite these
biases, anthropological research (primarily ethnology and archaeology)
under the raj was often of a high standard, carried on by British or Indian
administrators who tended to practice it on the side as an avocation. The
bias against anthropology declined after independence as social and cul¬
tural anthropology, often in close conjunction with sociology, came into
their own as academic disciplines.
The propensity, noted by Edward Shils in 1961,24 for Indian intel¬
lectuals, including social scientists, to orient themselves to the foreign
Outputs 45

professional reference groups of the metropole (London, New York, etc.)

is now less in evidence. Indian reference groups have gained in competence
and stature in the decades since independence, and foreign reference
groups, particularly American ones, have become suspect in some circles
as carriers of “academic colonialism.” 25
The humanities side of the arts at the postgraduate level is accounted
for mainly by Indian languages and literatures. Of the 742 humanities de¬
grees granted between 1960-61 and 1963-64, 613 were in these subjects.
This latter figure represented 45 percent of all arts degrees. (See table 7.)
Hindi and Sanskrit degrees alone account for 34 percent of all arts Ph.D.’s.
A frequent view in India is that many of these language and literature
Ph.D.’s represent “cheap” degrees which require a minimum of new con¬
cepts, skills, or imagination. Since independence, however, new creativity
and new levels of excellence in some regional languages and literatures
have been achieved (beyond the considerable growth that already ac¬
companied nationalism). At least some of the language and literature
Ph.D.’s reflect this pattern.26

Indicators of Resource Allocation and Performance

Student-staff ratios, which are another index of the fate of standards,

have predictably risen, but the rise has been moderate. (See tables 8 and

Table 7. Doctoral theses accepted by arts (humanities) faculties, 1960-61

through 1963-64.
Rank Rank
Subject Number order Subject Number order

329 1 Punjabi 5 14
Hindi
Sanskrit 143 2 Comparative
76 3 philology 3 15
Philosophy
61 4 Oriya 3 15
English
Bengali 40 5 Philology and
linguistics 3 15
Ancient Indian
Ardhmagadhi 2 16
history and
culture 18 6 Art and
7 architecture 2 16
Urdu 17
16 8 Arabian culture
Gujarati
9 and civilization 2 16
Marathi 13
12 10 Indian philology
Telugu
11 and religion 2 16
Arabic 10
Prakit/Pali 2 16
Arabic/Persian/
11 Tamil 2 16
Urdu 10
12 Assamese 1 17
Kannada 7
13 Chinese 1 17
Persian 6
Malayalam 1 17
Islamic studies 5 14
Source: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development
in India/ Basic Facts and Figures (New Delhi, 1966).
46 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

Table 8. Staffa — student ratio.15

Year Mean Median

1960-61 c 1:17.5 1:16.3

1961-62 d 1:17.9 1:16.5
1962-63 e 1:19.1 1:17.6
1963-64 1 1:19.7 1:18.2
1964-65 s 1:20.3 1:19.5
Sources: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development
in India, 1961-62 (New Delhi, 1962), pp. 21-22; idem, University Development in India,
1962-63 (New Delhi, 1963), pp. 36-37; idem, University Development in India, 1963-64
(New Delhi, 1964), pp. 45-46; and idem, University Development in India, 1964-65 (New
Delhi, 1966), pp. 139-140.
a Excludes tutors and demonstrators.
b Affiliated colleges only.
0 Forty-two of forty-six universities reported.
d Forty-seven of fifty-four universities reported.
6 Fifty-four of fifty-five universities reported.
f The number of universities reporting in 1963-64 not available,
e Forty-three of sixty-two universities reported.

9.) Table 8 shows only slightly less favorable student-staff ratios in 1964-
65 than in 1961-62. A more extended time series than that in table 8,
however, might show a steeper increase in the ratios. The staffing patterns
reported in table 10 suggest the broad differences in quality between low
cost arts, science, and commerce colleges on the one hand (twenty-to-one
student-staff ratios) and high cost professional colleges on the other
(eleven-to-one student-staff ratios). However, the ratio in law (a relatively
low cost and low opportunity professional field) is worse than in any other
subject except commerce at the B.A. level (table 11, both columns). Law,
commerce, and arts have much higher ratios than new or high opportunity

Table 9. Staff— student ratio.a

Colleges (percent)

Less than Between 1:10 Between 1:20 More than

Year 1:10 and 1:20 and 1:30 1:30

1961-62 24.8 42.7 20.8 11.7

1962-63 22.7 38.2 24.7 14.4
1963-64 19.2 40.8 24.6 15.4
1964-65 17.5 39.5 28.0 15.0

Net Change -7.3 -3.2 +7.2 + 3.3

61-62/64-65
Sources: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development
in India, for 1961-62 (New Delhi, 1962), p. 22; idem, University Development in India,
1962-63 (New Delhi, 1963), p. 38; idem, University Development in India, 1963-64 (New
Delhi, 1964), p. 47; and idem, University Development in India, 1964-65 (New Delhi, 1966),
p. 92.
a Affiliated colleges only.
Outputs 47

Table 10. Staff—student ratio, arts/science/commerce colleges and pro¬

fessional colleges, 1962-63 and 1964-65.

Net change
Type of college 1962-63 1964-65 over three years

Arts/Science,/Commercea 1:22.5 b 1:19.8 0 -2.7

Professional 1:11.4 d 1:11.5 e +0.1

Sources: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development

in India, 1962-63 (New Delhi, 1963), p. 38; and idem, University Development in India,
1964-65 (New Delhi, 1966), p. 93.
a Does not include staff and students of university departments.
b Number of students was 781,981.
0 Number of students was 948,966.
d Number of students was 137,192.
e Number of students was 178,772.

fields such as veterinary science and medicine. Since the arts, science,
and commerce colleges have by far the largest part of total enrollment
(781,981 students as against 137,192 students for the professional col¬
leges), most students in Indian higher education experience the higher
ratios. A low student-staff ratio, however, is not always indicative of high
standards. Many new colleges, notably in rural areas, have few students
(less than 100) and low student-staff ratios but are, according to the Edu¬
cation Commission, 1964-1966, usually of limited or poor quality.27
The figures in table 12, without bearing directly on the question of
standards, suggest a trend in one ancillary facility, hostels. Between 1960-

Table 11. Staff — student ratio, university departments and affiliated colleges
(by subject), 1964-65.

University Rank Affiliated Rank

Subject departments'1 order colleges11 order

Other 1:4.7 1 1:8.8 3

Veterinary science 1:6.9 2 1:7.1 1
Agriculture 1:8.2 3 1:12.5 4
Medicine 1:9.6 4 1:8.0 2
Education 1:11.0 5 1:13.6 5
Science 1:11.2 6 1:19.2 8
Engineering/technology 1:13.7 7 1:13.7 6
All departments 1:14.0 —

All colleges - — 1:17.8 -

1:16.1 8 1:18.2 7
Arts
Commerce 1:29.4 9 1:35.4 10
1:43.9 10 1:32.5 9
Law
Source: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development
in India, 1964-65 (New Delhi, 1966), table 26, p. 87. ^ „
a Total enrollment in university departments was 190,489 and the total staff available,
including tutors and demonstrators, was 13,637. .
b Total enrollment in affiliated colleges was 1,127,738 and the total staff available, in¬
cluding tutors and demonstrators, was 63,483.
48 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

Table 12. Students resident in hostels.

Year Number Percentage

(thousands)

1960-61a n.a. 17.6

1961-62b 178 18.2
1962-63 0 196 18.1
1963-64d 219 18.5
1964-65e 250 19.0

Sources: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development

in India, 1961-62 (New Delhi, 1962), pp. 23-25; idem, University Development in India,
1962-63 (New Delhi, 1963), pp. 41-42; idem. University Development in India, 1963-64
(New Delhi, 1964), pp. 49-50; and idem, University Development in India, 1964-65 (New
Delhi, 1966), pp. 96-97.
a Forty-two of forty-six universities reported.
b Forty-seven of fifty-four universities reported.
0 Fifty-two of fifty-five universities reported.
d Fifty-three of fifty-five universities reported.
6 Fifty-nine of sixty-two universities reported.

61 and 1964-65, in the face of a rapidly expanding number of students,

the proportion of students accommodated in hostels increased. Because
the impact of hostels is unclear — sometimes bad hostel facilities are
worse than none, concentrating discontented students and adding new
dimensions to their sense of grievance, injustice, or alienation28 — this in¬
crease is not necessarily an indication of improvement in standards. How¬
ever, the data do suggest that educational authorities are somehow keep¬
ing up with the increased demand for hostels that follows from the influx
of new students, particularly from rural areas.
Finally, there are some data on student performance,, data which are
subject to so many caveats and cautions that it is tempting not to use
them at all. The main purpose in using them is to suggest that the data
on performance neither confirm nor deny any assertions about trends in
standards. Table 13 gives the percentages of first, second, and third class

Table 13. First, second, and third class degrees, 1959 and 1962.

First class degrees Second class degrees Third class degrees

1959 1962 Net 1959 1962 Net 1959 1962 Net

Degree (%) (%) change (%) (%) change (%) (%) change

B.A. 1.8 1.1 -0.7 21.2 28.4 +7.2 77.0 70.5 -6.5
B.Sc. 13.3 15.0 + 1.7 43.8 42.5 -1.3 42.9 42.5 -0.4
B.Comm. 0.7 0.9 +0.2 16.2 22.5 +6.3 83.1 76.6 -6.5
M.A. 4.5 4.4 -0.1 41.9 45.3 + 3.4 53.6 50.3 -3.3
M.Sc. 26.7 26.7 0.0 54.7 57.8 + 3.1 18.6 15.5 -3.1
M.Comm. 7.4 5.4 -2.0 45.7 53.9 + 8.2 46.9 40.7 -6.2
Source: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development
in India, 1963-64 (New Delhi, 1964), p. 94.
Outputs 49

degrees in 1959 and 1962. Table 14, which reports the percentage passing
various degree examinations in 1949 and 1962, shows a decline in passes
in ten of fourteen degrees, the exceptions being M.A., B.Sc., Engineering,
and M.B.B.S. (medical). If, for the moment, we assume that a pass in
1962 measures approximately the same performance as it did in 1949,
we may conclude that the quality of students has declined in the ordinary
fields (where larger proportions are failing) but has improved in some
high opportunity fields (where larger proportions are passing), a con-

Table 14. Students passing, 1949-1962.

1949 1962
Net change,
Per¬ Num¬ Per¬ Num¬ 1949-1962,
Subject centage ber centage ber (%)

B.A. 50.8 17,228 46.1 65,004 -4.7

B.A. (Honors) 77.2 2,157 57.7 3,690 -19.5
M.A. 78.0 3,632 83.3 21,003 +5.3
B.Sc. 44.0 7,002 45.6 25,563 + 1.6
B.Sc. (Honors) 64.7 652 60.3 1,367 -4.4
B. Comm./B. Comm.
50.3 2,549 48.2 14,358 -2.1
(Honors)
M.Comm. 95.8 361 74.9 2,229 -20.9
B.Sc. (Engineering) 71.4 1,277 75.0 6,459 + 3.6
B.Sc. (Agriculture) 88.8 947 69.4 2,609 — 19.4
71.1 59 64.5 774 — 6.6
B.V.Sc.
68.2 3,367 55.9 6,999 -12.3
B.L./LL.B.
85.4 2,262 80.8 16,310 —4.6
B.Ed.
89.2 74 76.1 501 -13.1
M.Ed.
45.9 1,601 57.9 3,567 + 12.0
M.B.B.S.
Source: Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Development
in India, 1963-64 (New Delhi, 1964), Appendix 7, “Examination Results (All-India Figures)
1948-49 to 1961-62,” and “University Examination Results (All Universities Combined),
pp. 81-93.

elusion which corresponds to the view that the high opportunity fields at¬
tract high quality students and can afford to exclude others. Such an in¬
terpretation implies that the canons of judgment are being held steady
(“standards are being upheld”) in the face of a growing and less qualified
constituency. But can we assume that a 1962 pass is equivalent to a 1949
pass? That the “traditional” failure rate of 50 percent at the B.A. level
has been exceeded by five percentage points in the face of massive ex¬
passion may or may not mean that standards have declined. Both in¬
terpretations must remain tentative.29

Our analysis has stressed the importance of disaggregating the field of

education regionally and sectorally as a preliminary to higher level gen¬
eralizations. This method yields a differentiated view of the fate of stand-
50 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

ards. It suggests that, statistically speaking at least, the expansion of higher

education has not resulted in a swamping of the postgraduate sector by
the first degree or preuniversity levels. On the contrary, the structure of
higher education has been somewhat upgraded: the proportion of students
at the B.A. level has increased at the expense of the proportion at the in¬
termediate and PUC levels, and the postgraduate level has made a modest
proportionate advance. The statistics also suggest a shift from arts to sci¬
ence, technology, and the professions, while the founding of new tech¬
nological and scientific institutions of high quality suggests the upgrading
of leading sectors for economic development. In the social sciences, new
fields have been added and old ones strengthened since independence,
and a few outstanding men in a variety of fields are, and are perceived to
be, peers of internationally outstanding professionals.
Although postgraduate education has improved since independence, the
ordinary B.A.-B.Sc. education has probably suffered in the aggregate.
Prior to independence, when the B.A. was still the route to membership
in a national elite, arts education, particularly at premier colleges, received
considerable special attention and recruited a relatively limited number of
well-trained students. B.A. education has now for the most part lost what
elite qualities it may have had; the special attention it used to attract has
been increasingly diverted to professional and postgraduate (second and es¬
pecially third degree) education. First degree student-staff ratios compare
badly with those in most professional and engineering colleges (law col¬
leges excepted). It is probably safe to conclude that the head of the
academic procession has improved over its counterpart at independence,
while its much larger tail has suffered from the enormous expansion in
education. But even here, the statistical indexes do not permit a confident
assertion of “decline.” The evidence concerning standards remains am¬
biguous.30
5 / Regional Patterns of Education

The propensity to see Indian education as a whole and to analyze and

evaluate it in global terms must be tempered by an appreciation and un¬
derstanding of state and regional differences. Because primary responsi¬
bility for education in the federal system lies with the states and because
Indian states differ as much or more than European nations do with re¬
spect to language, historical legacies, economic development, administra¬
tive capability, and political effectiveness, their educational systems vary
in a number of important dimensions. British rule in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, particularly in its differential effects on the coastal
rimland as against the interior heartland, accentuated existing differences
and introduced new ones that were highly salient for education. The in¬
troduction of English education was especially important in sharpening
regional differences.1
We begin our examination of regional differences by aggregating the
states into two large subnational categories, which we term “rimland” and
“heartland.” We then examine indicators of their differences and analyze
some explanations and consequences of such differences. Disaggregating
education further, we analyze variations in state resource allocation and
in enrollment patterns to further underscore the importance of viewing
Indian education as a series of educational systems with varying capabili¬
ties, policies, and outputs.

Education and Development in Rimland and Heartland

The two areal aggregates, rimland and heartland, are differentiated by

the degree of their exposure to external cultural, political, and economic
influences and by their responses to such influences. Table 15 identifies the
states of the areal aggregates and uses regional language and English lan¬
guage literacy as intercorrelated indicators of the differences between rim¬
land and heartland.
The rimland includes the three former presidencies where the British
impact was most marked, Bombay, Tamil Nadu (formerly called Madras),
and West Bengal. Bengal and Bombay experienced higher rates of eco¬
nomic development in the nineteenth century than Tamil Nadu (with its
lower levels of industrial investment and commercial modernization) but
in all three presidencies the levels of education early pulled ahead of levels
in their respective hinterlands. In Calcutta in 1886-87 10 percent of school-
52 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

Table 15. Rimland — Heartland differences: literacy.

Literates (1961) English literates (1951)a

State (%) (%)

Rimland
Kerala 46.2 1.75
Bombay (Maharashtra, Gujarat)b 30.0 1.27
Madras0 30.0 1.00d
West Bengal 29.1 2.41
Punjab 23.7 2.56

Heartland
Bihar 18.2 0.65
Uttar Pradesh 17.5 0.82
Madhya Pradesh 16.9 0.66
Rajasthan 14.7 0.44

Source: Government of India, Ministry of Information, India, 1962 (Delhi, 1962), p. 78;
and Government of India, Report of the Official Language Commission (Delhi, 1956),
appendix 12, p. 468. Grouping by present authors.
a These figures were computed by taking the numbers receiving the School Leaving
Certificate or equivalent.
b The 1961 literacy figure includes the figure for Maharashtra (29.7 percent) and Gujarat
(30 percent); the figure for 1951 is for pre-reorganization Bombay.
0 The figure for English literates in 1951 combines Madras and Andhra because Andhra
was still part of Madras; the figure was almost certainly much higher — approaching
2 percent — for Madras alone.
d This rate was mistakenly given as .1 percent instead of 1 percent in the Report of the
Official Language Commission, a “mistake” not unhelpful to the commission’s conclusions.

age males were receiving collegiate and secondary education; in the adja¬
cent Bengal districts the figure was 5 to 9 percent; but in Bihar and Orissa,
then part of Bengal presidency, the figure was only 2.5 percent or less.2
The Tamil districts that now make up the present state; of Tamil Nadu
were well ahead of the Telugu districts, now the present state of Andhra
but then (1886-87) the hinterland of Madras presidency.3
Kerala’s high literacy rates cannot be attributed to the effect of British
educational policy since this state, unlike others in the rimland, is made
up primarily of the former princely states of Tranvancore and Cochin
(plus Malabar in the north, an area formerly under the Madras presi¬
dency). These rates are related, rather, to the effect of a variety of earlier
influences going back to the pre-Christian era. Not least among these in¬
fluences is that of Christianity, which claims almost a fourth of Kerala’s
population as adherents. Punjab lies inland, but it is on the “rim” between
India and the northwest invasion routes. From Alexander to Babar and
Nadir Shah the Punjab has been penetrated by cultural and commercial as
well as by military forces. The need for writers and clerks in Delhi, im¬
perial capital not only of the Moghuls but also, after 1922, of the British,
helps account for the Punjab’s high literacy rates.
The heartland areas coincide with areas where Hindi is spoken —
Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar. These areas were less
Regional Patterns 53

penetrated than the coastal presidencies by British or earlier extraconti¬

nental influences (although merchant and associated communities in Gu¬
jarat and Rajasthan, which lie on traditional trade routes, were exposed
and affected). Their gross educational situation is considerably inferior to
that of the rimland.
Not all cases fit into the rimland-heartland distinction. Mysore, a pro¬
gressive former princely state which lies inland, “fits” statistically with the
rimland states (25.3 percent; 1.44 percent on the two indicators); Assam
does not fall neatly into either rim or heartland, straddling the indicators;
Orissa, on the rim geographically but functionally inland because of its
historical isolation and low level of exposure to external influences, fits
with the heartland. So does Jammu and Kashmir and, to a lesser extent
Andhra. (We have excluded them from tables 15 and 16, but see table 23.)
The rimland-heartland distinction with respect to education runs paral¬
lel to the distinction between the states with respect to gross indicators of
development. The top five states with respect to per capita income (Maha¬
rashtra, West Bengal, Punjab, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu) comprise the high
literacy rimland group except for Kerala — which is seventh — while the
four states with the lowest per capita income, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya
Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, make up the low literacy heartland. A similar
relationship holds for level of development. These differences are summa¬
rized in table 16.
These data indicate that education and development are closely related,
although it is unclear which is the dependent and which the independent
variable. Below we examine efforts by several states to break out of this
relationship between low developmental and low educational levels by acts

Table 16. Rimland — Heartland differences: development, income.

Proportion of population living in

districts falling in the top two Annual per
quartiles of levels of development capita income
State (%) (Rs.)

Rimland
Madras 100 334
Kerala 89 314
Gujarat 88 393
Punjab 86 451
Maharashtra 73 469
West Bengal 62 465

Heartland
Rajasthan 45 267
Uttar Pradesh 41 297
Madhya Pradesh 33 285
Bihar 22 221

Sources: tables 20 and 23.

54 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

of public policy and purposeful resource allocation. These efforts deserve

special emphasis because they represent attempts to transcend the cumu¬
lative effects of historical and socioeconomic variables.

The Language of Instruction: Differential Legacies

and National Trends

The educational situations of different states are the result of the inter¬
section of certain common national trends by features specific to the par¬
ticular states. Different historical legacies, administrative capabilities, and
political effectiveness shape educational policy and implementation in each
state. We may illustrate this generalization by reference to a particular
aspect of education, the language of instruction.4 Two competing national
trends are at work here. On the one hand, regional nationalism and the
decline in the quality of English teaching with the expansion of secondary
enrollments are strengthening the demand for regional languages in higher
education. On the other hand, increasing interest in access to the oppor¬
tunity occupations, based mainly on professional, scientific, and postgrad¬
uate education in which English is still required or desirable, have sus¬
tained a continued demand for English. (Professional and postgraduate
education have expanded their share of an expanding enrollment — see
tables 1 and 3 in chapter 4.) Table 17, based on a special study we con¬
ducted in 1967 of a 10 percent stratified random sample of all affiliated
colleges, shows the relation of language of instruction to type of degree
program and level of education, with regional languages more represented
among preuniversity and B.A. programs than among B.Sc., professional,
and postgraduate programs.
These competing national trends are crosscut by the historical legacies
of different states and regions. As the rimland-heartland discussion sug¬
gested, English education began to affect the Indian states at different
points in time, and penetrated them with different rates of intensity. To
use Weber s suggestive analogy, the dice of educational history have been
cumulatively loaded in the direction of the original throw. What this means
specifically is that in those areas which have had a strong basis of English
education, cultural predilections and specific vested interests in that edu¬
cation have tended to press for its perpetuation. In areas possessing a
weaker English educational heritage, both the cultural predispositions and
the structure of vested interests are different.
Tamil Nadu’s strong continuing emphasis on English language educa¬
tion is explained at least in part by the earlier strength of such education,
especially in the Tamil districts5 but also in the entire province previously
comprised of the areas that have now become Tamil Nadu and Andhra.
In the 1880 s, Tamil Nadu had a higher level of literacy than any other
piovince. Between 1864 and 1886, 61,124 candidates in Tamil Nadu sat
or university entrance exams, which were in English, compared to 37,790
Regional Patterns 55

CO
^ os oo
tJJ
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cd ^

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cd <N r- © r-
© Tt vo o <u 3 -£
VO r-H H o
3>i2 S
B "S ^
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«u c -
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v> r- J C o u
5- 03 3 3
o % II as
VO
VO CO o
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P< d C r ,,
^ .2 <D
§ g? o«S
Table 17. Percentage of different types of college courses offered in English, regional language, or both

|c|i
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Wp „• d o
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Type of course

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 56 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

in Bengal and 24,857 in Bombay.6 This early history is reflected in the

contemporary interest structure of Tamil Nadu. The English teachers in
the colleges under Madras University have been, until recently at least, a
significant force in the syndicate (governing body) of the university, and
have helped produce one of Tamil Nadu’s most important exports, the
well-educated English speakers who play a disproportionate role in the
nationally recruited Indian Administrative Service (IAS) (in which Tamil
Nadu represented 24 percent of the total among competitively recruited
entrants between 1951 and 1961),7 in the modern professions, and in the
upper, highly skilled levels of clerical and stenographic occupations in
major commercial centers like Bombay, Calcutta, and Delhi. The exist¬
ence of this particular occupational opportunity structure continues to
influence the aspirations of new groups and classes seeking to enter higher
education in Tamil Nadu. Among such classes, the regionalist demand for
Tamil language education is strong (a symbolic, collective good), but it
is crosscut by the demand for English language opportunity-oriented edu¬
cation (an instrumental, individual good). There is reason to suppose that
students and parents who, as regional nationalists, call for Tamil language,
as education consumers call for English language.8 Both Congress and
DMK governments in Tamil Nadu have been caught in this dilemma. Tamil
Nadu’s success as an exporter of English speakers has powerfully affected
regional (Maharashtrian) and national politics. The Shiv Sena movement
in Bombay, which seeks, inter alia, to substitute Maharashtrians for Tamils
in the occupational system of the city, as well as those demanding that
Hindi be placed on an equal or superior footing with English in the an¬
nual Indian Administrative Service examination, are motivated in part by
a desire to prevent Tamil Nadu from capitalizing on her English language
advantage.9
In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, by contrast, historical legacies have pro¬
duced a different demand structure. English education came to these states
relatively late and with lower intensity than to the presidencies. Muir Cen¬
tral College (1872), the premier college of the northwest provinces, was
not founded until well after the other premier colleges, Elphinstone at
Bombay (1834), Presidency at Calcutta (1817), and Presidency at Ma¬
dras (1840). As Irene Gilbert’s account suggests (chapter 10), after its
founding Muir produced scholars at a more modest rate than Presidency,
Calcutta. Universities in the heartland came even later than the colleges.
The first, the University of Allahabad, was founded in 1888, thirty years
after the three presidency universities established in 1857. In the 1920’s,
Uttar Pradesh still lagged behind Tamil Nadu in the absolute numbers of
enrolled students at all levels of education, although it had a larger popu¬
lation. By 1939-40 Uttar Pradesh had moved ahead in the number of
enrolled scholars in arts colleges and in secondary schools, but at the pri¬
mary level Tamil Nadu continued to enroll more than twice as manv pupils
as Uttar Pradesh.10 r r
Regional Patterns 57

At independence, the role of English was much less important in the

heartland than in the rest of the country. In the heartland in the 1950’s
English was usually an optional subject for study at the middle school
stage, classes V-VIII, while in non-Hindi areas it was compulsory.11 In
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar English was an optional subject at the high school
stage, while everywhere else it was compulsory.12 In Uttar Pradesh Eng¬
lish was an optional subject even at the intermediate level (equivalent to
the first two years of college).
These disparities in regional histories are strikingly reflected in the pres¬
ent differences in language of instruction. Table 18 suggests these differ-

Table 18. Rimland — Heartland differences: percentage of colleges using

English, regional language, or both.

Language of instruction

English and English, regional,

Region English regional Regional and Hindi Total

Heartland a 15.2 45.7 34.8 4.3 100

(N = 46)
Otherb 68.6 16.4 7.1 8.2 100
(N = 159)

Note: For the basis of this table, see table 19, note.
a Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan.
b We have included all states other than those in the heartland in this category. The
English figures for this category would be higher if Orissa, Assam, Andhra, and Jammu
were excluded from the “Other” category.

ences. Fifteen percent of colleges in the heartland area taught in English

only, while 68.9 percent of colleges in all other areas taught in English
only. This percentage is higher in the south, where 91 percent of colleges
in 1967 were still using English only. (See table 19.) These figures suggest
that common national trends are filtered through quite different regional
legacies and cultures, producing a considerable variety of patterns in so
critical an area as language of instruction.

The Impact of Administrative and Political Differentials

State government policy-making in higher education is not merely a

reflection of demands coming from below. It is also a product of the
government’s own formulations in which the constraints of existing institu¬
tional structures, expert bureaucratic assessments, and the government’s
capability to implement its own formulations are all elements. Adminis¬
trative traditions differ among states. States that have a history of good
administration not only have greater administrative capabilities but also
tend to give greater weight in policy formulation and implementation to
expert and administrative authority than states with weak administrative
58 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

Table 19. Regional differences: percentage of colleges using English, regional

language, or both.

Medium of instruction

English and English, regional

^ Region English regional Regional and Hindi Total

Central 15.2 45.7 34.8 4.3 100

(N = 46)
South 91.7 — 8.3 100
(N = 48)
West 55.6 20.0 15.6 8.9 100
(N = 45)
East 64.3 35.7 100
(N = 42)
North 54.2 8.3 37.5 100
(N = 24)
All regions 56.6 22.9 13.2 7.3 100
(N = 205)

Note: This table is based on a special study conducted by us in 1967 to determine actual
practice with respect to language of instruction. We formulated a special questionnaire
to colleges, which was sent out with the cooperation of the ministry of education. We
acknowledge the interest and help of Mr. J. P. Naik, who had been member-secretary
of the Education Commission, 1964-66 and was in 1966-67 adviser to government in the
education ministry. The questionnaire was sent to 246 colleges, which we selected by a
stratified random sample of India’s 2,500 affiliated colleges. Two hundred and five colleges
responded. The questionnaire inquired about language of instruction and language of
examination. It requested colleges to specify what language was used in different subjects
and at different levels, that is, for each degree program. We grouped the colleges by region:
central (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan), south (Madras, Andhra,
Mysore, Kerala), west (Gujarat, Maharashtra), east (Bengal, Orissa, Assam), and north
(Punjab, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir). Mrs. Karuna Ahmad prepared this table and table 17
from the questionnaires.

legacies. As the member-secretary of the Education Commission, 1964-

1966, noted: “When the [Education] Commission was in Madhya Pradesh,
we found that Government Colleges did not even satisfy the minimum
conditions for affiliation laid down by the University! In Bombay or in
Madras if the Government starts a college which does not fulfil the mini¬
mum condition, it will never get affiliation. The University will have the
courage to say we will not affiliate, and the State Government will fulfil
the conditions.” 13
Governments with stable legislative majorities are in a better position
to balance immediate popular demands against more long range consid¬
erations concerning the educational structure than are governments based
on precarious legislative majorities or dependent on uncertain coalition
arrangements. The latter are more likely to yield to demands that jeop¬
ardize educational goals and resources. Conversely, politically secure state
governments are in a better position to effectuate policy, enforce rules,
Regional Patterns 59

and maintain boundaries between politics and education than those that
are politically insecure.

Education and Development in the States

The most striking finding of a systematic state-by-state comparison of

education is the great range of difference between particular states already
anticipated in the rimland-heartland comparison. This range underscores
the importance of viewing Indian education as a series of educational sys¬
tems. Table 20 reports several indicators of resource allocation to education
by states. The range of difference for each is quite striking. There is a 112
percent difference between the per capita income of Maharashtra (Rs.
469) and Bihar (Rs. 221), the first and the last ranked states. Kerala,
which stands first in the percentage of state income spent on education
(3.64) and in the percentage of state revenue spent on education (34.88)
leads Orissa (1.54 percent of state income) and Uttar Pradesh (12.49
percent of state revenue), the low states on these indicators, by 136 per¬
cent and 183 percent respectively. The range of differences between Maha¬
rashtra, which spends Rs. 12.4 per capita on education, and Orissa, which
spends Rs. 4.3 per capita, is even larger— 188 percent.
Kerala and Tamil Nadu, located in the middle third of the per capita
income range, allocated the highest proportion of their state incomes to
education, while Orissa and Uttar Pradesh, ninth and tenth in per capita
income, allocated the lowest proportions. Kerala allocated almost 16 per¬
cent more than the national average (18.96 percent) of its state revenue to
education, while Uttar Pradesh, with the lowest proportion, allocated 6.47
percent less than the national average.
Column 10 of Table 20, which shows the difference between a state’s
rank order for per capita income and for per capita expenditure on educa¬
tion, gives a rough index of educational concern and effort. Kerala and
Rajasthan show the largest positive differences (+5 and +4 respectively),
indicating energetic effort; Uttar Pradesh shows the largest negative dif¬
ference (—4) indicating little effort.
Some explanations for these varying levels of effort can be suggested. In
Kerala, more than in any other state, educational institutions are the ex¬
pression of powerful private vested interests and communities (the Nair
Service Society or N.S.S.; the Shree Narayana Paripalna Yogam — an as¬
sociation of the Ezhava community — and the Syrian Christian Church).11
Kerala is notable for having the highest percentage of all education in the
private sector, 65.3 percent.15 These organized educational interests by
themselves or under the direction of organized communities help account
for Kerala devoting over one-third of its revenue budget (see table 20,
column 6), a proportion more than 11 percent above the next highest state,
Maharashtra. Kerala’s high literacy rate — at 46.2 percent it ranks higher
60 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

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Table 20. State allocation of resources to education, 1960-61.

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6 India’s per capita expenditure on education in 1960-61 was Rs. 7.8. Median state per capita expenditure was Rs. 7.5. The highest state per capita
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62 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

than any other state — is both a result of previous educational effort and
an explanation of the continuing high level of effort.16 In Kerala, it seems
that the historical dice, having been loaded positively, are likely to con¬
tinue falling in the direction of the original throw.
Rajasthan represents an opposite instance of a state historically weak in
education that has made an explicit public policy effort to overcome its
historical disadvantage. Ranking fourteenth of fifteen states with respect to
per capita income, it has been able to improve its relative standing with
respect to per capita expenditure on education (tenth of fifteen) by spend¬
ing a high proportion of its “national income” (sixth of fifteen) and of its
state revenue (third of fifteen) on education. With the conspicuous excep¬
tion of Kerala and perhaps of Mysore, much of princely India, of which
Rajasthan was a part, was markedly behind British India in the number of
educational institutions established before independence and in the alloca¬
tion of resources to education through provincial and local governments,
fees, and endowments. Thus Rajasthan’s relatively high rank with respect
to percentage of income spent on education and per capita expenditure on
education reflects, presumably, not only governmental effort as expressed
in the proportion of state revenue spent on education, but also considerable
recent effort on the part of local authorities or private allocations (via fees,
endowments, etc.) or both. Other states that have improved their rank
order over that established by their level of per capita income include
Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh (another predominately princely
state area), and Bihar.
There are problems in interpreting efforts such as Rajasthan’s to break
out of the close relationship between low developmental and low educa¬
tional levels. For example, Rajasthan’s investment in education may repre¬
sent government effort to promote economic development by improving
the quality and capabilities of the work force and to improve the quality of
life by raising cultural levels (public or collective goods). Yet we do not
know enough about the policy process for education in Rajasthan to be
sure either that these considerations were among the intentions of policy
makers; that the educational outputs coincided with intentions; or that edu¬
cation will under some or all circumstances positively influence economic
indicators. Educational policy in Rajasthan is affected by, among other
things, the demands on politicians from those constituents who see educa¬
tion as a personal benefit, and the demands of those politicians who may
view additional educational institutions as potential political resources
(private and individual goods).
The difficulty of interpreting the data on output parallels the difficulty
in unraveling policy intentions. Rajasthan’s substantial allocation of re¬
sources to education has not been reflected in an improvement in the
state’s enrollment ranking but has raised significantly its position with
respect to per capita expenditure (tables 21 and 22). We are left with a
variety of options in interpreting its high rank with respect to per capita
Regional Patterns 63

expenditure on education (Table 20, column 9). Such expenditure may be

accounted for by high quality and high cost education, at least in some
areas or in some respects; by high cost education (such as technological)
that may or may not be high quality; or, at least partially, by “hidden”
transfers from the educational to the political system.
Despite these various caveats and qualifications, it is of considerable
significance that, for a time at least, the investment in education was
paralleled by economic growth: between 1949-50 and 1958-59 Rajas¬
than’s rate of growth in total and in per capita income was the highest in
India, and between 1960-61 and 1967-68, it ranked fifth in percentage
gain in per capita income.17
An opposite pattern seems to characterize Uttar Pradesh, where the nega¬
tive load on the historical dice has not been challenged by policy efforts in
an opposite direction. Ninth in per capita income, it is fifteenth in per¬
centage of state revenue spent on education, fourteenth in percentage of
state income spent in education, and thirteenth in per capita expenditure
on education. At the heart of the heartland, Uttar Pradesh experienced
relatively less penetration by modern forces than the presidencies. But the
rankings just cited suggest that Uttar Pradesh has not mounted a policy
effort to improve its position comparable to the effort mounted by Rajas¬
than (and reflected in its rankings).
Resource expenditure provides one measure of state education efforts,
enrollment provides another. Columns 2, 4, 6, and 10 in table 21 describe
the range and distribution of students enrolled in primary, middle, and
high schools and in higher education, showing enrollment as a percentage
of state population. Column 8 relates technical school to high school en¬
rollment by showing the first as a percentage of the second. The sum of
each state’s rank orders (columns 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11), given in column 12,
provides another rough overall indicator (column 13) of state concern for
and effort in education. The results in column 13 (table 21) are grouped
in table 22.
Table 21 not only shows enrollment, but also disaggregates the supply of
education by comparing differences between and within each state with
respect to levels and types of education provided. Because of history, policy,
and the incidence and effectiveness of group pressures, the educational
pyramids of various states differ greatly. Some are relatively large at the
bottom, others at the top, and still others in the middle ranges, depending
upon the degree to which primary, school, or higher education has estab¬
lished priority in private and public allocations to education.
The states that ranked “very high” in overall enrollment, Kerala and
Maharashtra, exhibit markedly different patterns in producing a similar
aggregate outcome. Kerala leads in enrollment at the primary, secondary,
and middle school levels and is third in higher education, but it drops
to seventh in the percentage of school pupils enrolled in technical or voca¬
tional programs. Maharashtra’s pattern is more uniform: second in pri-
64 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

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Table 21. Level and type of enrollment, by state.

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Regional Patterns 65

Table 22. Aggregate state enrollment performance, 1960-61.

Rank State

Very high (1) Kerala

Maharashtra
High (2) Gujarat
Madras
West Bengal
Middle range (3) Assam
Mysore
Low (4) Andhra Pradesh
Bihar
Very low (5) Madhya Pradesh
Orissa
Rajasthan
Uttar Pradesh

Source: Table 21. Punjab omitted. See table 21, note.

mary, secondary, and higher education enrollment, third in technical or vo¬

cational, and fourth in middle school.
Again, among the states ranked “high” in aggregate enrollments, there
are marked differences. Gujarat and Tamil Nadu exhibit a fairly uniform
effort, their “lows” being technical or vocational, where Gujarat ranks
sixth, and higher education, where Tamil Nadu ranks sixth. Punjab drops
from second in higher education enrollment to seventh in primary school
enrollment, while West Bengal ranks first in technical or vocational and
higher education but slips to fifth, seventh, and fifth in primary, middle, and
high school enrollment respectively.
Although it is not surprising to find highly industrialized states such as
West Bengal and Maharashtra, with their great cities of Calcutta and
Bombay, first and third on a measure of technical or vocational enroll¬
ment, it may be surprising to find Mysore second, Tamil Nadu fourth, and
Orissa fifth. Tamil Nadu under Industries Minister R. Venkataraman pur¬
sued a self-conscious policy during the second and third plan periods of
making industrial investment and location in Tamil Nadu attractive and
worthwhile by trying to insure adequate supplies of trained manpower
along with electricity and other overheads and amenities. Mysore, par¬
ticularly the Bangalore area, has attracted a substantial number of large
central industrial projects in the public sector, only partly because of the
attractive climate. Here, as elsewhere, industrial needs can generate a
demand which may be reflected in enrollments.18 Most surprising, perhaps,
in the rank order of enrollment in technical or vocational education is
Orissa’s position at fifth. This is remarkable for a state that ranks thirteenth
in per capita income (table 20, col. 1) and fifteenth in level of develop¬
ment (table 23). The explanation of Orissa’s high ranking lies to a con¬
siderable extent in the policy pursued by former Congress chief minister
Biju Patnaik, who believed that technical and vocational training was a
66 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

Table 23. Rank order of states by proportion of their districts and of their
populations falling within the top two quartiles of levels of development.

Proportion of Proportion of population

districts falling living in districts
in top two falling within the
quartiles Rank top two quartiles Rank
State (%) order (%) order

Rimland
Madras 100 1 100 1
Kerala 89 2 89 2
Gujarat 82 3 88 3
Punjab 79 4 86 4
(Mysore)a 72 5 65 6
Maharashtra 68 6 73 5
(Andhra)a 55 7 56 9
West Bengal 53 8 62 7

Heartland
(Assam)8 45 9 58 8
Rajasthan 38 10 45 10
Uttar Pradesh 37 11 41 11
Madhya Pradesh 32 12 33 12
Bihar 29 13 22 13
(Jammu and
Kashmir)a 11 14 15 14
(Orissa)8 8 15 4 15

Source: Government of India, Census of India 1961, “Levels of Regional Development

in India (Being Part I of General Report on India),” vol. 1, pt. l-A(i), Text [Prepared
under the supervision of A. Mitra, Indian Civil Service, Registrar General and ex-officio
Census Commissioner for India], chap. 2, The Ranking Device, pp. 9-49, and Appendix
22, pp. 46-49.
Mitra advances a number of caveats: “The degree of reliability of the data varies not
only from one item to another but from one geographical area to another for any particular
item. [The technique used] . . . oversimplifies the scoring and loads the dice in favour
of those indicators which are positively associated.
a State does not “fit” the Heartland — Rimland distinction advanced in the text.

“leading sector” and could spur industrialization in the face of the state’s
overall backwardness. Also, this high ranking is explained to a lesser ex¬
tent by the biases of Orissa’s leading civil servants, who, like their counter¬
parts elsewhere, show a marked preference for “modern” industry-related
programs and a marked dislike for programs related to agriculture, villages,
and their needs.19
Some of the more backward states as measured by per capita income
(table 20, column 1) and level of development (table 23) rank quite high
with respect to secondary school enrollment. For example, Uttar Pradesh
and Bihar, which rank ninth and fifteenth in per capita income and eleventh
and thirteenth with respect to level of development, tie for fourth place in
secondary school enrollment. It is likely that this pattern is related to
Harold Gould’s finding (below, chapter 7) that secondary schools are a
Regional Patterns 67

favorite object of educational entrepreneurs interested in building up po¬

litical resources.

The existence of large differentials in past educational history and present

educational policy and performance between rimland and heartland on the
one hand and among states on the other suggests that education in India
can usefully and productively be conceptualized in terms of disaggregated
systems. At the same time, some measure of uniformity is created by na¬
tional trends — sometimes contradictory — such as the populist pressure
for regional language teaching and the demand by economic planners and
the socially mobile for professional and technical education. Another source
of uniformity, the effort to create and implement national educational
policy, has to make its uncertain way through the tangle of competing and
varying state systems and to cope with the national spokesmen for political
demands that affect educational policy.
6 / National Educational Policy in a Federal Context:
A Proximate Goal

The Indian Central Government finds it very difficult to formulate, co¬

ordinate, or implement national educational policy. Among the principal
reasons for this difficulty are a federal system that places authority for
educational matters in the hands of the states, and marked differentials
among the states with respect to the nature and level of their educational
development.
Among levels of education, the central government’s authority over and
resource allocations to education are most marked in the field of higher
education (and research). This chapter looks to the central government’s
efforts to establish national policies for higher education and examines the
nature and effectiveness of higher education programs in the national (as
opposed to the state) sector.
The government of India has not been markedly more successful in cre¬
ating or stimulating uniform national policies in education than it has been
in other policy areas where formal authority and the command of re¬
sources he in state hands. In some respects this is regrettable. Uniformity
for its own sake, however, may not be desirable. On the contrary, academic
values and interests often can be better and more efficiently realized
through variety and diversity, sometimes constrained by uniform general
rules, sometimes not, depending on needs and circumstances. It should
be clear from our analysis of particular policies which values and interests
are being served by uniformity and which by diversity.
National policy is shaped by three types of instrumentalities. First, there
are national coordinating bodies that bring together representatives of the
states or universities or both (and rely on those units for the implementa¬
tion of their “decisions”). These include the Central Advisory Board of
Education, conferences of state chief ministers or education ministers,
conferences of vice-chancellors, the planning commission, national com¬
missions, committees that report to the cabinet or parliament or both, and,
at an unofficial level, the Inter-University Board. Second, there are agencies
of the federal government armed with direct executive or financial powers
to affect education in the states. These include the University Grants Com¬
mission, the ministry of education, the ministry of agriculture, and the
ministry of health. Third, there is a “central sector” in education, consist¬
ing of educational and research institutions directly controlled and financed
by federal agencies. We shall explore these instrumentalities in turn.
The constitutional framework assigning responsibility for education pro-
 Educational Policy in a Federal Context 69

vides the parameters within which national policy is formulated and im¬
plemented. Under the Indian Constitution, the states have primary re¬
sponsibility for education. Article 246 divides legislative authority between
the states and the national government by creating lists of powers to be
exercised by the union, the states, or both concurrently.1 Item 11 of the
state list gives the states legislative responsibility for “education including
universities,” subject to certain exceptions provided for in the union and
concurrent lists. These exceptions include exclusive central authority over
national universities (Banaras, Aligarh, Delhi, and Visva-Bharati) and
other institutions “declared by Parliament by law to be institutions of na¬
tional importance.” 2 The union (national) government also has exclu¬
sive responsibility for “institutions for scientific or technical education
financed by the Government of India wholly or in part and declared by
Parliament by law to be institutions of national importance.” 3 Under
this provision the education ministry of the central government, by an
Act of Parliament in 1961, took responsibility for the five Indian Institutes
of Technology, at Kharagpur (West Bengal), Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh),
Madras, Delhi, and Bombay.4 The union government also has constitu¬
tional responsibility for “professional, vocational or technical training”;
“the promotion of special studies or research”; and “coordination and
determination of standards in institutions for higher education or research
and scientific and technical institutions.” 5 These responsibilities are carried
out by the Indian Council of Medical Research, the Indian Council of
Agricultural Research, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research,
the All-India Council for Technical Education, and the Atomic Energy
Commission, together with their various research and teaching institutes
and laboratories.6
Entry 66 of the Union List, Seventh Schedule, which empowers the
union government to coordinate and determine standards in institutions
of higher education, is potentially important to the government’s role in
education. In State of Gujarat v. Shri Krishna the Indian supreme court
interpreted the entry to mean that under the Gujarat University Act of
1949 as amended Gujarat University could not compel its affiliated col¬
leges to replace English with Gujarati or Hindi as the language of instruc¬
tion because it would prejudicially affect the national government’s re¬
sponsibility for standards.7 This leading case suggests that despite the
general authority over education vested in the states, the union govern¬
ment can exercise considerable control of state action in the area of higher
education.8 The court’s opinion in State of Gujarat v. Shri Krishna not
only found state legislation that affected standards to be ultra vires, but
also made clear that only the central government could act legislatively to
coordinate and determine standards in institutions of higher education.9
Some educational leaders have pressed for an educational amendment
to increase national government authority over education. A parliamentary
committee on higher education (Sapru Committee) argued that responsi-
 70 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

bility for higher education be shifted from the state list of powers to the
list conferring powers concurrently on the state and the center.10 M. C.
Chagla, a former minister for education, and two dissenting members of
the Education Commission, 1964-1966, Dr. V. S. Joshi and Mr. P. Kirpal,
the latter for many years secretary of the education ministry, have argued
that unless the whole of education were put on the concurrent list the
central government would continue to lack adequate authority to imple¬
ment national policy. (One of the means favored to strengthen national
policy was a revived all-India Indian Educational Service.)
The Education Commission, 1964-1966, rejected these arguments, opting
instead for more effective use of the powers presently available to the
central government, more vigorous central leadership, and the marked
expansion of the central and central-sponsored sectors. “We are not in
favour,” the commission argued in response to the Sapru Committee
recommendation concerning higher education, “of fragmenting education
and putting one part in the concurrent and the other in the State list —
education should, under any circumstances, be treated as a whole.” In “a
vast country like ours, the present constitutional allocations of functions
and powers is probably best because it provides for a Central leadership
of a stimulating but non-coercive character.” To put education on the
concurrent list would be to risk “undesirable centralization and greater
rigidity in a situation where the greatest need is for elasticity and freedom
to experiment.” The commission then went on to call for a “workable”
center-state “partnership within the present constitutional framework” and
for “an intensive effort ... to exploit fully existing provisions of the
Constitution for the development of education and evolution of a national
educational policy.” 11
«

Coordination in the Federal System

The proximate nature of central government efforts to formulate and

implement national educational policy by coordinating federal units can
be illustrated by the activities of Central Advisory Board on Education
(CABE) in a few notable policy areas. CABE, which was founded under
the raj in 1921 to bring about union-state coordination in education,12 is
made up of the union minister for education, the state ministers for edu¬
cation, a few experts nominated by the union government, and represent¬
atives of educational interests. It is the principal federal forum for formulat¬
ing and reviewing on a continuous basis national educational policy. The
recommendations of the Sargent Plan of 1944, the report of the University
Education Commission of 1948, and the report of the Education Com¬
mission, 1964-1966 (the most comprehensive effort to date to articulate
and effect national educational policy), all came before CABE’s commit¬
tee on higher education.13
CABE lacks legislative authority and financial means. But, like the ad
Educational Policy in a Federal Context 71

hoc conferences of state ministers for education, chief ministers, and vice-
chancellors, it provides a context in which the national government can
persuade and be persuaded by the state governments and by the uni¬
versities. CABE recommendations are circulated to state education minis¬
tries and to universities for information, and, hopefully, compliance. The
responses to CABE recommendations, both compliant and resistant, are
recorded in reports of CABE proceedings.
The fate of a major federal policy endeavor such as the three-language
formula for secondary schools can be traced in CABE proceedings and
records. The formula was “agreed upon” by a conference of state chief
ministers and rhetorically consented to by all the states, but not imple¬
mented or even partially implemented by most state governments. CABE
called for reports on the degree of compliance. The state education sec¬
retaries’ equivocal responses to CABE injunctions suggest that rhetorical
agreements among state chief ministers, or state ministers for education,
while possibly productive of a feeling of national consensus — and the
importance of such a feeling is not to be underestimated — are not neces¬
sarily productive of action, much less of uniform action.14
In other policy areas — for example, the adoption of a three-year first
degree university course or a five-year engineering degree — national
policy has been somewhat easier to formulate than in the highly contro¬
versial area of language. But here too, even though the issues are less
charged with potentially explosive and divisive political implications, com¬
pliance has fallen short of the goal of creating uniform national frame¬
works for first degrees.15
Another important instrument for coordination in the federal system is
the Inter-University Board of India and Ceylon (IUB), an unofficial body
that operates outside the realm of public authority and resources. A “club”
for vice-chancellors, it provides a convenient context for them to exchange
views, canvass problems, and, on occasion, take common positions. The
IUB is the main national forum for university opinion and the representa¬
tion of university interests. Its conferences and its publications provide the
ministries and agencies of the government of India, particularly the Uni¬
versity Grants Commission, with an identifiable organization for purposes
of mutual persuasion and bargaining. The IUB’s public intervention on
the side of the Osmania University vice-chancellor, D. S. Reddi, in his
struggle with the Government of Andhra over the “autonomy” of the uni¬
versity (see chapter 12) is a recent, important example of the IUB’s ac¬
tivity. Unlike the University Grants Commission, which feels obliged to
provide material support for all universities, the IUB is selective, with¬
holding honorific resources (recognition and membership) from universi¬
ties that do not meet its academic standards.16
 72 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

Agencies of the Union: The University Grants Commission

The agencies of the federal government which have the power or the
finances (or both) to affect higher education include (but are not ex¬
hausted by) the University Grants Commission, the ministry of education,
the ministry of agriculture, and the ministry of health. The University
Grants Commission, an autonomous, statutory body with primary re¬
sponsibility for standards and innovation in higher education, is by far the
most important influence at the national level on higher education. In
1966 its policies and programs affected sixty-four universities and nine
institutions deemed universities, the 2565 colleges affiliated with universi¬
ties, and approximately 90,000 teachers and 1.8 million students.17 The
UGC complains that much of the financing and control of higher education
escapes it, being vested in the other ministries just cited.18 Each of these
ministries, through corresponding research advisory bodies (the All-India
Council of Technical Education; the Indian Council of Agricultural Re¬
search; the Indian Council of Medical Research), finance technical, medi¬
cal, and agricultural education — the first two fields comprising the most
prestigious sectors of higher professional education. The resulting dispersal
of authority and resources makes the formulation, coordination, and imple¬
mentation of national policies for education difficult. The University Edu¬
cation Commission of 1948 (Radhakrishna Report) and the Education
Commission, 1964-1966, deplored this dispersal. The latter observed that
“fragmentation unaccompanied by any effort at effective coordination [was]
a serious weakness in [the] present pattern of higher education” and
recommended that the “entire spectrum” of higher education be brought
under the aegis of the UGC. The commission also expressed apprehension
that university autonomy might be adversely affected when ministries have
too close and direct a relationship to university teaching and research. “It
is not desirable that Government should deal directly with the universities.
It is always a great advantage to interpose, between the Government and
the university, a committee of persons selected for their knowledge and
study rather than for their political affiliation or official status.” 19
This may be a correct reading. On the other hand, it may be that dis¬
persal of authority advances standards and innovation by allowing the de¬
velopment of different approaches to education. The technical orientation
of the substantive ministries that have responsibility for education may
encourage a more professional concern for university programs.
The UGC’s developmental (as contrasted to maintenance) expenditures
in 1960-61 represented 27 percent of the union government’s expendi¬
ture on higher education and 9.7 percent of the total (union, state, local,
and private) expenditure on higher education that year.20 However, be¬
cause UGC resources, although proportionately significant, are in absolute
terms quite small — about seven million dollars in 1961 —and because
the UGC relies on persuasion rather than on its financial sanctions, its
Educational Policy in a Federal Context 73

potential to effect policy for higher education has not been fully realized.
The original UGC act of 1956 was amended in 1968 to expand the com¬
mission from nine to twelve persons — two officers of the central govern¬
ment, five university teachers, five others representing industry, commerce,
agriculture, and the learned professions (in recognition of the more techni¬
cal nature of higher education) — plus a chairman who plays a leading
role in policy formulation and day-to-day administration.21 University
officers — including sitting vice-chancellors and principals of colleges —
were excluded under the 1968 legislation out of a concern that they could
use the office to benefit their home institutions. (It is not clear why pro¬
fessors, who may sit, are presumed to be less partial to their institutions.)
The commission functions “in close collaboration with” the ministry of
education which “invariably” accepts advice on matters of academic in¬
terest relating to universities.22 The UGC has been, in the main, independent
of government. As William Richter has pointed out elsewhere,21 it has
resembled American independent regulatory commissions in regarding it¬
self responsible especially to its clientele — the universities. It discharges
its responsibility to coordinate and determine standards mainly through
visiting committees that examine the present status and needs of particular
universities and report their findings to the commission. The UGC also
appoints expert committees from time to time to look into particular prob¬
lems, such as the creation of new programs and departments and to advise
the commission on the feasibility of and the resources required for such
projects.
The UGC controls universities through use of negative sanctions and
positive incentives. The possible sanctions — a negative verdict on found¬
ing, the denial of funds, and the withdrawal of funds — are either in¬
effectual or not used. The incentives, mainly financial, on the other hand,
have more significance, but they can only be used within certain limits.
Until 1968, the University Grants Commission was unable to control
the establishment of new universities, in part because it lacked statutory
power to do so. Then, in 1968, new legislation stipulated that the com¬
mission henceforth refuse grants to any university established without its
previous approval and the approval of the central government. Prior to
1968, it could merely “advise any authority, if such advice was asked for,
on the establishment of a new university.” 24 State governments did not
always consult the UGC with respect to university foundings, and even
when they did, they did not always pay attention to the advice proffered.
At least seventeen of the forty-seven universities founded or recognized
by being deemed universities between 1947 and 1966 were established
without or against UGC advice.25
In the sixties, the commission began to press state governments to pre¬
pare, in consultation with it, prospective plans for a five- or ten-year period
before they attempted to establish any new universities.20 However, a com¬
bination of political interests — towns and districts striving for the prestige
 74 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

and trade a university brings; college faculties and administrators hoping

for university status and pay; students and parents demanding a “neighbor¬
hood university” to reduce the travel and boarding costs of higher degrees;
cabinet ministers seeking universities located in their districts — often
persuade state governments, closer to popular pressures than the Uni¬
versity Grants Commission, to ignore these prudent warnings.27
UGC and education ministry officials do not think the new legislation
is likely to make much difference. It does not prevent states from found¬
ing universities. It will strengthen the UGC slightly in that it can now insist
that the universities meet certain criteria before they qualify for grants.
But UGC officials feel it would be unwise to use the power vigorously.
If a new university were to affiliate some colleges of an older one, it
would not be fair, they believe, to penalize the students by virtue of the
new affiliation, as withholding of funds would do.
Once universities came into existence, even against UGC advice, the
commission rarely withheld funds even though it has always had the au¬
thority to do so.28 As a commission spokesman told the Estimates Com¬
mittee of parliament: “If they are establishing universities under the Act,
they can ask for grants from the University Grants Commission because
they are established by the state legislature. To that extent we have to give
grants, because we have to think of the students. They should not be at
a disadvantage compared with students of other universities, so we have
to think of the teachers, and salaries, and standards.” 29
The University Grants Commission has power to inspect grant receiving
universities and withhold funds if any university fails to comply within a
reasonable time with its recommendations. But this authority, like the
authority to deny grants to unsanctioned universities, has not been used.
The UGC representative told the estimates committee: “We consider that
it is an extreme step and it will cause quite a lot of flutter and heart burn¬
ing among the students and teachers.” The UGC only once threatened to
withhold funds. “In only one case so far the Commission told the Uni¬
versity that if their University’s certificates on the progress was not forth¬
coming regularly, it would be difficult for us to give the further install¬
ments of the grant. They were willing to send whatever material they had
and so no further action was taken.” 30
The Estimates Committee of the third lok sabha (parliament), which
examined the functioning of the UGC, noted the following. “The Uni¬
versity Grants Commission has neither so far carried out any inspection
of any department ... of any university ... nor has the power con¬
ferred on the University Grants Commission for withholding of grants
. . . been exercised so far. The Committee are surprised to note the lenient
attitude of the University Grants Commission in this matter.” 31 The lack
of vigor in UGC inspection is part of a general reluctance on the part of
public authorities that deal with higher education to use inspection, recog¬
nition, or funding as means to gain compliance with standards and direc-
 Educational Policy in a Federal Context 75

tives. A similar lack of vigor characterizes the way universities enforce

minimum standards in affiliating colleges. In 1966-67, 8 of more than
2500 colleges were disaffiliated, a modest number considering conditions
in many institutions.32 The reluctance to use negative sanctions is not a
new development that postdates independence. In 1917 the Calcutta Uni¬
versity Commission noted that the university syndicate was reluctant to
withdraw recognition from secondary schools (at that time under the
jurisdiction of the university) that failed to comply with school inspectors’
recommendations to increase expenditures substantially.33
The Education Commission, 1964-1966, which had a close relationship
with the UGC — D. S. Kothari, chairman of the UGC, also chaired the
commission — supported the UGC’s restrained interpretation of its role.
It did not “think [the Estimates Committee’s comment] to be entirely a
fair criticism” but went on to suggest more frequent and more probing
visitations. The power to withhold grants, the commission report observed,
“is an extreme power which is not to be lightly exercised.” 34 The views
of the UGC and the Education Commission, 1964-1966, are in accord¬
ance with a more general pattern of policy formation by the Indian gov¬
ernment, most of whose ministries prefer to rely on incentives and per¬
suasion rather than sanctions to achieve administrative and policy com¬
pliance. Whether this preference reflects weakness in the face of pressures
or a prudent apprehension of the limits of the Indian government’s au¬
thority in the context of Indian federalism is a larger question which is
only skirted here. The Education Commission, 1964—1966, observed on
this point that “. . . the relationship between universities and the U.G.C.
is a very delicate one . . . the U.G.C. can become an effective instrument
for upgrading the standards only if it follows the method of persuasion
rather than coercion.” 35
The UGC’s positive incentives have been exercised on behalf of de¬
veloping new departments, staff, libraries, laboratories, and other facilities
in a manner resembling the “seed money” programs of American founda¬
tions. The comparison suggests both the strengths and weaknesses of UGC
incentives. Under succeeding five-year plans, the UGC has made grants
to meet the new needs of universities on the basis of discussions between
university authorities and visiting committees of professionals appointed
by the commission. The process by which leading American universities
formulate a consolidated foundation proposal, and foundations vet them,
is similar. Like some foundations, until 1968 the UGC has not been em¬
powered to grant moneys beyond a limited “developmental” period, usually
the five years of a five-year plan (except to the four central universities
which come under its special care). Thereafter, the university has had to
find the means to finance the activity;36 ordinarily this has meant that the
state government has to pick up most of the tab. Such state support has
not always been forthcoming. States have sometimes simply allowed a
UGC initiated activity to expire. When the UGC recommended enhanced
 76 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

pay scales for university and college faculties under the third five-year
plan, and offered to cover 80 percent of the increase, universities and
states were not always willing to raise salaries. In the short run the salary
increases would have cost them little; in the long run the full amount.
Some took the proffered money for this and other UGC programs, but
failed to continue them once the UGC left the field. The Estimates Com¬
mittee urged the UGC to counter this practice by eliciting assurances
from the state governments as well as from the universities.37 The disad¬
vantage of this system is that it would cancel the freedoms universities
gain from having a source of support other than the states.
Since 1968, the UGC had had authority to give “maintenance” grants
— recurring rather than “seed money” payments — in special cases to
universities other than the four central ones. The UGC sought this legisla¬
tion mainly to allow it to fund for more than the five year developmental
period the special centers for advanced studies which it has supported in
many universities.
Most UGC programs involve matching funds, which again makes UGC
initiatives dependent on a fiscal response from the state. The procedure
has been sufficiently unsatisfactory that a conference of state education
ministers in 1964 suggested that matching-fund arrangements be dropped
in favor of a system that divided expenditures on higher education into
central and state supported programs.38 The UGC’s new power to make
maintenance grants is a small step in this direction. The five-year develop¬
mental grant and matching-fund arrangements, which are disliked by the
universities (if not by the states), are also not clearly in the interests of
the UGC either. UGC dependence on the states for matching funds and
for the permanent maintenance of its initial experiments constrains its
options and influence with universities by making the stafe a key bargain-
ing partner and limits the effectiveness with which it can employ incentives
to further the realization of its policy objectives.
It is tempting to suggest that the UGC use its negative sanctions more
energetically. The suggestion, however, encounters two difficulties: the
realities of the federal system and the requirements of university autonomy.
So long as education remains a state subject; so long as the UGC’s activities
are mainly developmental and matching; and so long as universities are
mainly dependent on state governments for their funds, the universities will
always take the demands of state governments more seriously than UGC
programs and advice. The UGC may well be right in believing that per¬
suasion and incentives, which educate and lure on universities and state
governments and strengthen the professional and intellectual elements
within both, are more durable instruments of upgrading than abrupt
punitive measures. Universities that care only for the ceremonial name
“university” can in any case negate punitive measures by relying exclusively
on the state government.
Too energetic a use of UGC authority also raises problems of university
 Educational Policy in a Federal Context 77

autonomy. As the discussion of historical legacies in Indian education

suggested, it was partly in the name of “autonomy” and “standards” that
Curzon justified strong government control over Indian universities. Strong
official control in the guise of governmental effort to realize a policy it
defines as in the public interest (such as “social integration” by substitut¬
ing regional language for English) can be a means of politicization. A min¬
ister for education may serve the interests of certain deserving regions and
classes, just as Curzon served the interests of the raj. UGC authority and
resources probably can best be used to support education and scholarship
within the universities. Given these qualifications and caveats, more em¬
phatic enforcement of minimum standards still remains a viable strategy
for the UGC.39

The National Sector in Education

In contrast to the states, which must respond more directly to democratic

pressures, the central government has been able to act more effectively to
foster quality as against quantity and national as against regional recruit¬
ment. There is no guarantee, however, that all national sector institutions
are of a high quality or have a national composition. Some institutions
have been placed under central authority because of special claims that
arise out of their relationship to the nationalist movement. As a group,
the four central universities, Delhi, Aligarh, Banaras, and Visva-Bharati,
are no better or more “national” than other universities. Ecology and his¬
tory are more important than jurisdiction, management, and source of
funds in determining the quality and the composition of student body and
faculty of these four universities. Delhi University has been a strong na¬
tional university in part because its location in the capital city with its
cosmopolitan population helped able vice-chancellors to build strong in¬
tellectual and professional communities by attracting a diverse student
body and a talented faculty. Recent changes in its environment may alter
those conditions. In contrast, even able vice-chancellors have found it
difficult to overcome the regional parochialism and erosion of standards
that arise from Banaras’ location in the most backward area of a back¬
ward state. Of the nine institutions that qualify for central support by being
“deemed” universities, four are legacies of the nationalist period and have
been given such recognition as much for their historical contributions as
for their educational merit. The four are: Gujarat Vidyapith (Ahmedabad),
established by Gandhi; the Arya Samaj’s Gurukul at Hardwar; Kashi
Vidyapith (Banaras); and Jamia Millia Islamia (Delhi) —the latter two
established like their Gujarat counterpart to give a national education
outside the confines of “imperialist universities.”
With these qualifications in mind, it is possible to observe that the na¬
tional sector institutions are notable for their ability to provide advanced
professional training and quality research. The Indian School of Interna-
 78 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

tional Studies, the Indian Institute of Science, the Indian Agricultural Re¬
search Institute, the Birla Institute of Science and Technology, the Tata
Institute of Social Science, the All-India Institute of Medical Science, the
Indian Statistical Institute, and the Calcutta and Ahmedabad Institutes of
Management are all notable for the high quality of their students, staff,
and research.
The national government’s most significant achievements in establish¬
ing academic excellence have been the five Indian Institutes of Technology
and the centers for advanced study. Developed in collaboration with tech¬
nology institutes from a variety of countries, well equipped and ably staffed,
the IIT’s are eagerly sought after by young men of talent. They recruit
and select students through a common national examination that attracts
a large number of able and highly qualified candidates. The creation of
the centers for advanced study is the UGC’s principal program for
strengthening postgraduate teaching and research. A limited number of
departments (twenty-seven in 1968) whose work already meets “interna¬
tional standards” or is within striking distance of doing so were selected
for special financial support under this program.40 The centers represent
a democratic and distributive alternative to a bolder idea, that the union
government should take responsibility for and support the growth of a few
universities whose standards could become a model of excellence not
only in all or most departments, but also as a community of scholars
and students. This idea has been mooted on and off since the fifties. The
most recent version is the scheme for six “major universities” proposed in
1966 by the Education Commission, 1964—1966. Such universities were
conceived of as places to concentrate scarce human and other resources
in order to create a “critical mass” of faculty and students that would
make possible “first class post graduate work and research.” The uni¬
versities would be “comparable to the best institutions of their type in
any part of the world.” 41
The idea has encountered resistance from all quarters (except those
few universities who suspect that they might be brought into the scheme)
on the grounds that resources allocated to such institutions would be at
the expense of those available for all higher education and that it would
create, by fiat rather than achievement, a formal elite among universities
by designating some as “major” and others, by implication, as “minor.”
In rejecting the “major university” idea, the parliamentary committee on
education of 1967 took a distributive view: “We believe that better re¬
sults can be obtained if we strive to maintain at least the minimum stand¬
ards in all institutions.” 42
India s vice-chancellors, at their conference in 1967, also recommended
rejection of the “major universities” scheme. They preferred, they said,
more advanced centers and exclusive national government responsibility
(particularly financial responsibility) for postgraduate education. In reject¬
ing one policy option and advocating others they were in their own way
 Educational Policy in a Federal Context 79

being political on behalf of the interests with which they were associated,
the universities and states from which they came. The vice-chancellors
were convinced that the “major universities” scheme would expand and
upgrade the national sector at the expense of their universities and of state
jurisdiction over higher education. These concerns were made explicit in
recommendation 46 of the 1967 conference: “It would be better to pro¬
vide liberal assistance to the State universities rather than to set up new
central universities.’ 43 The sixty-seven vice-chancellors of state universi¬
ties felt that national government assistance in the form of exclusive finan¬
cial responsibility for postgraduate education was preferable to national
government participation in higher education through centrally supervised
and financed “major universities.” The first policy option leaves most of
the authority and resources for higher education in the hands of the uni¬
versities and state governments, the second shifts a substantial increment
of both to the national sector and does so in a way that is designed to
make that sector into a “vanguard” of quality and elite (as against quantity
and popular) higher education.
The “advanced centers” scheme benefits more institutions than the
“major universities” scheme would have and is a less conspicuous target
for equalizing pressure, although even here the Estimates Committee sug¬
gested that distributive rather than merit considerations should be used
when it warned that “as far as possible one university should not initially
have more than two centers of advanced study.” 44
Although the advanced centers represent a step in the direction of ex¬
cellence, they also represent democratic and bureaucratic rather than in¬
tellectual conceptions of academic organization. Scientific and scholarly
advances might come from isolated high quality departments, but they are
more likely where enough good departments are concentrated to facilitate
professional and interdisciplinary communication. Where good biology,
good chemistry, and good physics exist side by side and influence one an¬
other, biophysical or biochemical theory may grow. Where good depart¬
ments are “equitably” distributed to meet the democratic pressures of the
federal system, such innovation on the boundaries of disciplines may be
inhibited. However, it may be that the advanced centers will become a
more gradual and less vulnerable vehicle for the “major university” idea.
The Education Commission, 1964-1966, suggested, and the parliamentary
committee on education of 1967 accepted, the idea that “clusters” of ad¬
vanced centers be established which would strengthen and support one
another.45

The formulation and implementation of national policy for higher edu¬

cation in a federal system that places primary responsibility for education
in the hands of the states, in the face of very limited resources, and in the
context of traditions and laws that protect academic freedom and uni¬
versity autonomy, has been difficult, extremely complex, and tenuous in
80 Interaction of the Political and Educational Systems

its result. Bargaining and persuasion within and between levels of public
authority and between public authorities and educational authorities has
given some direction and coherence to higher education. At the same time
it must be recognized that the growth and content of higher education
have been more the result of a massive set of political demands and private
initiatives than of authoritative decisions and allocations from government
based on clear priorities and strategies. It is in this sense that we speak of
national educational policy as at best a constant approximation, a struggle
to insure that the number and size of the increments that promote national
goals and serve national needs outweigh those that seem to detract from
them.
Part II / Educational Institutions in Their Social
and Political Environment
 Introduction to Part II

The chapters in this section relate educational institutions to specific

social and political environments located at various governmental levels
and comprehending educational undertakings that range from primary
school through college. Two of the chapters provide ethnographic accounts
of the respective environments and thus of actors and their motives. Each
highlights crucial processes that involve conflicting values and interests:
politicians capturing educational resources to advance personal or partisan
fortunes (Gould); communities appropriating educational resources to
advance the fortunes of castes and religions (Madan and Halbar); the
advocates of decentralized, popular control and the advocates of more
centralized, professional control of primary education attempting to or¬
ganize public authority in ways that favor their respective views (Narain).
Such problems affect democratic educational systems in many countries.
The study of the management of these problems in the Indian context helps
to generate concepts and insights that can be used in relevant and com¬
parable settings elsewhere.
Harold Gould’s study of the politicization of secondary institutions and
intermediate colleges (inter-colleges) in Faizabad District, Uttar Pradesh,
provides a striking illustration of the extent to which the political system
is capable of converting educational institutions into political resources.
Secondary and intermediate institutions, characterized as they are by less
professional educational standards, are more vulnerable to politicization
than are colleges and universities. But the account of the method of institu¬
tional takeover by politicians is useful for understanding a similar process
when it does affect colleges or universities.
It is not accidental that all the institutions in Gould’s study are privately
controlled. Education under private management as a whole has been more
vulnerable to politicization than has education managed by government.
Although government-managed education lies nearer the hand of the
politician — and in some states such control may be used to subject ad¬
ministrators and professionals to political manipulation — government-
managed educational institutions are under closer supervision and scrutiny
by administrators and professional educators. Such professional and bureau¬
cratic controls, which make innovation and imaginative education less
likely, also inhibit government-managed colleges and schools from declin¬
ing below a modest minimum in their standards and place some limits on
politicization.
Private institutions, which constitute 69 percent of all secondary insti¬
tutions,3 offer some of the best and some of the worst education in India.
The best secondary schools are mostly private, embodying legacies of the
84 Introduction to Part II

English public school tradition and of missionary efforts. On the other

hand, the tremendous demand for education has encouraged a wave of
private entrepreneurs to create institutions for profit and power. Many of
these are physically and intellectually jerry-built structures, Indian equiva¬
lents of the deplorable private institutions that were extensively chronicled
in dour English memoirs of sordid nineteenth-century education.2 Condi¬
tions in many private schools — terms of service, conditions of teachers,
facilities, and adherence to bureaucratic norms — are well below the
modest level in government schools and colleges.
Harold Gould did not come to Faizabad district to study education. As
an anthropologist interested in political processes at the village, tehsil
(subdistrict), and district level, he soon found that secondary schools and
inter-colleges were among the resources Uttar Pradesh politicians utilize
to build the political organizations and to generate the influence and sup¬
port required to affect policy and to win elections. He collected informa¬
tion on the forty-four private schools and fifty-four higher secondary
schools and inter-colleges located in the district. The managing committees
of forty-one of these institutions are “politicized and attempt to use the
institutions they control to support a specific political philosophy, party
or faction.” Half of the managing committees are controlled by the Con¬
gress party and the other half by other partisan interests. Gould establishes
a relationship between areas of the district controlled by a party or faction
and that party’s domination of managing committees. He sees the private
educational institutions as both an input and an output of the political sys¬
tem; as a force, on the one hand, for gaining and consolidating political
control and as a reflection, on the other hand, of control already achieved.
Politicization of education in Uttar Pradesh has to be seen in the context
of social, economic, and educational backwardness. As tables 20 and 21 of
chapter 5 suggest, Uttar Pradesh ranks low with respegt to most criteria
of educational and economic development. Faizabad district, the location
of Gould’s study, is a backward district in a backward state, falling in the
bottom quartile of districts ranked by level of development.3 Although we
have not established that the economic, political, and historical context of
educational institutions influences levels of politicization, it seems a plausi¬
ble hypothesis that high indicators of development, administrative strength,
and political stability would measure conditions under which politicization
is more difficult and less likely.4
The reputation of Uttar Pradesh’s administration is not as high among
administrative professionals as is the reputation of the administrations of
such states as Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Weak administration means
that in Uttar Pradesh it is difficult to protect educational institutions against
political penetration and appropriation. Gould’s account suggests that
minimal legal conditions for foundings and grants-in-aid are not very
stringent, and are laxly enforced. Although more evidence would be needed
to substantiate their view, knowledgeable educationalists consider legisla¬
tive constraints in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra to be more severe, and
enforcement more effectual. In addition, Uttar Pradesh’s high level of
 Introduction to Part II 85

factional politics not only weakens the effectiveness of government but also,
as Gould shows, provides incentives to use institutions as ploys in factional
infighting. Educational conditions in Faizabad district probably represent
one end of a continuum measuring the vulnerability of educational institu¬
tions to political penetration and appropriation.
Secondary education in Uttar Pradesh has a number of problematic
features. It has retained the inter-college, which is responsible for the
eleventh and twelfth year of education. Like the preuniversity course in
colleges, the intermediate curriculum (and the age and maturity of the
students) more closely approximates high school than college education.
The report of the Education Commission, 1964—1966, reaffirmed the rec¬
ommendations of the Secondary Education Commission, 1953, that inter¬
mediate colleges be dropped in favor of upgraded high schools (classes IX,
X and XI) and a three-year first degree course in the universities. When
the Education Commission, 1964-1966, reported in 1966, only five states
had implemented the higher secondary school proposal (relying for the
most part on a preuniversity year at the university or college for the
eleventh class), but all universities except those under the authority of the
Uttar Pradesh government and the University of Bombay had complied
with the three-year first degree policy.5
The reluctance of Uttar Pradesh to fall into line with these national
policies is a result not only of the resistance of teachers reluctant to sur¬
render the status and perquisites of being college teachers, a factor that
was operative in other states, but also to the more strongly entrenched
connection between education and politics in that state. The state of Uttar
Pradesh likes to count its inter-colleges as “higher education,” even though
national authorities such as the Education Commission, 1964-1966, and
the University Grants Commission do not always do so.6 Gould has, quite
rightly, chosen to group inter-colleges with secondary schools.
Some of the problems connected with secondary education in Uttar
Pradesh probably arise from the disproportionate number of schools rela¬
tive to other levels of education in its educational system. Compared to
the educational pyramids in other states, that in Uttar Pradesh is top-heavy.
Uttar Pradesh has stressed primary education less than secondary and
higher, providing a smaller pool of prepared students from which higher
levels may draw. Although the state ranks eleventh with respect to primary
and tenth with respect to middle school enrollments, it ranks fourth in
secondary and higher secondary, including inter-college enrollments. As in
Mysore and Bihar, where the rank order position of enrollments for high
and higher secondary is also conspicuously above the positions for lower
levels of education, this relationship may well be related to a strong surge
of private entrepreneurship in secondary education, unrestrained by legis¬
lative specification of criteria or by administrative enforcement of those
criteria. Such entrepreneurship may be due to sectarian and community
energy, as Madan and Halbar suggest is the case in Mysore; or it may be
due to the hope of constructing a political organization and generating po¬
litical support — the motive which Gould finds significant in Uttar Pradesh.
86 Introduction to Part II

There is, in any case, some question whether such a relationship between
the secondary sector and primary and lower schools is as good for educa¬
tion and for economic growth as it is for politics.
Gould suggests that private entrepreneurship provides the administrative
energy and local support that lead to new foundings in a state in which
the supply of secondary education does not yet correspond to demand.
This defense raises the more general question of the justification for private
entrepreneurship in secondary education. As Madan and Halbar suggest,
private entrepreneurship generates only marginal financial resources for
education. The Education Commission, 1964—1966, estimated that govern¬
ment grants supplied 48 percent and fees 36 percent of the expenditure of
privately managed schools. “Voluntary organization contributed only a
little more than one-eighth of the total expenditure of the private institu¬
tions.” 7
Is an eighth worth it? Private talent and local community enthusiasm
can and do supplement the limited pool of administrative and financial
resources. Privately founded or managed institutions, like those under
close community control, may connect education to the interests and
culture of publics that need or want it, a result to be weighed against the
educational performance engendered (under somewhat different condi¬
tions) by more centralized bureaucratic management or trade union
domination, or both (as in New York City or other large metropolitan
centers in the United States). According to the Education Commission,
1964—1966, most of the expenditure of privately managed educational
institutions comes from government grants and fees; and where fees
have been abolished, they depend almost exclusively on government funds.
Their main assets are: strong ties with the local community on whom they
depend for support; a fair measure of freedom, although this is disappear¬
ing rapidly under increasing departmental control; and the loyalty of teach¬
ers who are recruited, unlike in government or local authority service, to
the individual institutions. Their main weaknesses are two: a precarious
financial position, due partly to the uncertainty of government grants, and
partly to their own increasing incapacity to raise funds; and very often, a
bad and even unscrupulous management.” 8 To these putative benefits and
their associated costs has to be added the further cost of the laxity of
private schools in conforming to minimum standards; the potential use of
public authority and resources for private goods (individual and collec¬
tive) , the problematic nature of the relationship of private education to
universalistic values, as the Madan and Halbar chapter and the trends in
the United States toward white separatism in the south and black separa¬
tism in the north remind us; and the susceptibility of private schools to
appropriation for political purposes.
The Education Commission, 1964-1966, confronted this benefit-cost
syndrome by recommending the imposition of certain general administra¬
te controls which would assure adherence to minimum criteria, even
while proposing that governments discriminate among private schools and
colleges identifying and providing more freedom for those private insti¬
tutions that have high standards and educational traditions that can help
Introduction to Part II 87

sustain them. The proposal to strengthen administrative controls does not,

however, confront the circular relationship between the educational and
political sectors. Men who, as politicians, value the private school as a
political resource that supports their power may not, as cabinet ministers,
be inclined to subject privately managed educational institutions to strin¬
gent controls.
Sometimes, however, rather than being potential or actual political re¬
sources, privately managed educational institutions may be arrayed against
a party and its government, as in Kerala during the first Namboodiripad-
led Communist government of 1957—1959. The government’s educational
bill, ostensibly designed to correct a variety of broadly recognized abuses
in some privately managed schools, fell afoul of the constitutional guarantee
expressed in Article 30(1) that “all minorities, whether based on religion
or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational
institutions of their choice.” It also aroused widespread opposition from
politically powerful organized communities (for example, Nairs and
Christians) which operated extensive school systems, from school managers
and staffs, and from a broad spectrum of opposition parties. The bill,
which gave the government sweeping regulatory and takeover powers, was
referred by the governor to the president of India under constitutionally
prescribed procedures designed to protect fundamental rights from legisla¬
tive encroachments. The president, in turn, failed to give his assent after
utilizing his constitutional prerogative to consult the supreme court. Article
30(1), the court held, while allowing for “reasonable regulations” (for
example, concerning health, minimum qualifications for teachers, and the
content and standard of instruction) “to ensure the excellence of the in¬
stitution to be aided” by government, did not permit direct interference
with the management of educational institutions or their replacement by
government, nor was government permitted to do indirectly or under
cover of the interest of education what it could not do directly.9 The con¬
stitutional guarantee embodied in Article 30(1) together with the supreme
court’s interpretation of it stand as a considerable barrier to (or protection
from) government action with respect to privately managed educational
institutions.
Even after the state governments assume virtually the entire bill for
secondary education, as they will if present proposals in many states to
abolish all fees are realized, privately managed secondary education will
probably survive because of the strength of the historical traditions and
community interests that he behind it; because of the vested interests of
private management; because of the (often related) vested interests of
politicians; and because of the effective learning that can result from com¬
munity involvement and commitment, which lowers the level of alienation
and conflict between teachers and administrators on the one hand and
pupils and parents on the other.

We have defined politicization of education as the propensity to sub¬

ordinate educational goals to those of political groups on the one hand
and to those of private and community groups on the other. Harold
 88 Introduction to Part II

Gould’s account illustrates the first aspect of politicization; Madan and

Halbar’s study of sectarian and caste control of education in the state of
Mysore focuses on the second possibility. Although private foundings may
supplement public effort and further the public interest, they may also,
through grants-in-aid, divert public resources to narrow private goals and
interests. Madan and Halbar raise two questions relevant to this problem:
whether sectarian and caste institutions foster modernization, and whether
they ought to be supported by state subsidy.
The authors, both sociologists at Karnatak University in Mysore at the
time the research for the study was done, collected data on the social
composition, notably caste and religion, of management, staff, and students
of 210 private and public institutions at all levels of education in three
districts of Mysore. Among private institutions, those of the Brahmans,
Christians, Lingayats, and Muslims are the most conspicuous. The au¬
thors enquiry into whether private educational bodies are modernizing
structures rests less on an examination of the content of education than
on whether the social composition of the schools is such as to provide a
heterogeneous social experience for their students. Their findings contrast
the social composition of management, staff, and students in private and
public institutions. They show that in private institutions, the social com¬
position of all three categories reflects the community of the controlling
group, except in the case of small or underprivileged communities whose
size or social backwardness may limit the supply of available teachers and
students. In public institutions, management, faculty, and students more
nearly reflect the social composition of the territorially defined community
of the school district, though this reflection usually is modified by a stronger
representation for socially and economically advanced castes and com¬
munities. On the basis of this data, the authors conclude that public edu¬
cation, due to its greater demographic representativeness, is more con¬
ducive to the promotion of universalistic values and equality, while the
particularistic “favoritism” of private institutions detracts from both.
The study assumes that students will learn as much or more from the
human situation in which they find themselves as from the formal learn¬
ing that is transmitted to them, and that the “modern” value of egalitarian
behavior will be transmitted more by socially heterogeneous institutions
than by the curriculum. Although the first assumption is probably true
the second would require further investigation to be accepted. And it may
be that what students learn from their human situation with respect to
umversahsm and equality may be counterproductive; familiarity can
breed contempt as well as affection. Heterogeneous education both in
America and India has sometimes led to intra-institutional segregation-
the regional, religious, or caste groups in heterogeneous Indian colleges;
the ethnic and color groups in American high schools. The difficulties,
often failures, of desegregation (integration) in urban America suggest
that extreme class and cultural differences cannot easily be bridged
Because sectarian and caste-founded education is important for minor¬
ity interests underrepresented in the state-managed school system, and
because private education provides important financial and management
resources, the authors do not favor abolition of the government grants-ta-
Introduction to Part II 89

aid program. However, they believe that the allocation of government

resources should be dependent on more representative managing commit¬
tees, teaching staffs, and student populations in sectarian and caste-man-
aged institutions.

Popular control of primary education in the state of Rajasthan, analyzed

in chapter 9 by Iqbal Narain, is associated with the neo-Gandhian move¬
ment for the reform of local government in India. Panchayati raj (gov¬
ernment by locally elected councils) was inaugurated first in Rajasthan
in 1959 soon after the release of the Balvantray Mehta Report on com¬
munity projects and national extension services, and took its lead from
the political ideas and practical suggestions of that document.10 The ob¬
jective of panchayati raj is to radically decentralize and democratize con¬
trol of many local government functions, including primary education. It
was expected that popular participation and leadership at the local level
would make education more meaningful and effective, release energies and
resources, and reduce the self-serving behavior and indifference to local
needs and conditions that seem to plague centralized educational (and
other) bureaucracies.11 Iqbal Narain found that in practice these benefits
have been unevenly and differentially realized and that the mounting cost
to education of the political appropriation of educational resources and
processes outweigh the benefits.
In 1954, five years before Rajasthan became the first state in India to
introduce panchayati raj, a committee of the ministry of education went
well beyond the Sargent Committee report of 1948 favoring the establish¬
ment of school boards on a more decentralized and local basis. It did not,
however, recommend that authority over the appointment, promotion,
transfer, and dismissal of teachers be vested in rural local authorities, that
is, village panchayats (elected councils), although it was prepared to have
major municipalities and district boards given authority (subject to spe¬
cific procedures) to recruit and control teaching staffs.12
Panchayati raj changed this system of authority by establishing demo¬
cratic political control over staff and a wide range of functions at the
block level (the block is an administrative creation of an earlier commu¬
nity development program) and over a narrower range of functions at the
village level. Inaugurated on a selective and experimental basis in 1952,
the community development program had become by 1959 a national
scheme that provided for a new level of administration, the block, between
the district (of which there are 352, distributed over sixteen states) and
the village.13 At the village level the school, the panchayat, and the co¬
operative became the basic institutions for carrying out development pro¬
grams. In 1954, the ministry of education committee had left control in
administrative and professional hands by preserving state education de¬
partment control of recruitment, appointment, and transfer; in 1959,
panchayati raj began a radical change, at least in Rajasthan, by leaving
the education department with authority over “technical matters” only.
Primary schools in Rajasthan are now managed by 232 autonomous
panchayat samitis (block level political bodies) with authority aggrega-
90 Introduction to Part II

tively over 42,000 teachers and 1,860,000 students (1966 figures), a

system roughly comparable in size to New York City’s, where over
1,000,000 students (between kindergarten and high school) are taught by
about 50,000 teachers.
Panchayati raj control of primary education in Rajasthan is a more
radical form of popular decentralization than that realized in New York
City in 1970 when the state legislature, following in some measure the
recommendations of the Bundy Report to Mayor Lindsay, created 30 units
controlled by school committees elected from specially qualified local elec¬
torates. With almost twice as many students and almost as many teachers,
the Rajasthan system has 232 units; gives more authority to the local
bodies to recruit, discipline, and post teachers than does the New York
arrangement; and vests the choice of local educational authorities (albeit
indirectly) in all voters rather than in a specially qualified electorate. This
degree of decentralized, lay control has been established in Rajasthan in
the context of much more weakly established professional standards and
more limited bargaining capacity on the part of the organized teachers.
The situation of the teacher in Rajasthan seems in some respects to be the
opposite of that of his counterpart in New York City: teachers in Rajas¬
than are subject to being used or appropriated by community or partisan
interests, while teachers in New York, often drawn from the city’s large
and politically effective Jewish population, seem to have appropriated the
educational system for their own benefit.
These developments in Rajasthan and New York City may be viewed
as variations in the world-wide experience with educational populism. The
extensive history of that experience ranges from the original expression,
that of Jacobins of the Mountain in France, to later ones such as the
common school movement in pre-Civil War America and the contempo¬
rary efforts of Mao Tse-tung in China and McGeorge Bundy in New York
City.14 Like Mao Tse-tung and Bundy, the architects of popular control
of education in India believe that putting power and resources in the hands
of the people of local communities will promote responsible and informed
participation, and that bringing the curriculum and teachers closer to the
needs, interests, and knowledge of the people will promote useful learning
and citizenship. Iqbal Narain argues, as have several other recent reporters
on education in Rajasthan, that the present arrangements, by being unable
to prevent politicians from abusing popular community control for partisan
and personal advantage, have gone too far and need corrective amend¬
ments in the direction of restoring some professional and administrative
authority.15
There are substantial and instructive American analogies for the de¬
velopments in Rajasthan that Iqbal Narain analyzes. The pre-Civil War
movement in America for universal public education in common schools
(associated with the name of Horace Mann and the leadership of Massa¬
chusetts), also sought to make universal education a reality and to vest
the management of the institutions involved in the hands of the people
In state legislatures and local boards of education, popularly elected rep¬
resentatives were to set the goals, provide the resources, and recruit and
Introduction to Part II 91

supervise the personnel required. By 1860, a majority of the states had

established public school systems, perhaps half of the nation’s children
were getting some formal education (somewhere between two-thirds and
three-fourths are doing so in India today), and in a few states (Massa¬
chusetts, New York, Pennsylvania) free public education was beginning
to include secondary schools (about 20 percent of the fourteen- to seven¬
teen-year-old age group is attending high school in India today).
The corruption of this system — its capture by local politicians who
bought and sold teaching and administrative posts, dabbled in the assign¬
ment of text book contracts and the appointments of school superintend¬
ents, and used kickbacks from school building construction to finance
political activities and line their own pockets — contributed to the rise of
the progressive education movement. It was antipopulist in its attempt to
isolate education from politics but propopulist in its effort to replace the
formalism of academic education with a diverse range of practical sub¬
jects and motivationally oriented teaching suitable to the ethnic and oc¬
cupational diversity of an increasingly urban and industrial America.
At the end of World War II the stage was set for two new waves of
reform, one attacking the life-adjustment, philistinism, or misguided prag¬
matism of progressive education, the other attacking the domination of
education by bureaucratic professionals cut off from their students’ culture
and aspirations, from knowledge (as opposed to “method”), and from the
communities they ostensibly served.16 By the mid-sixties, after sputnik,
American education seemed to have come full circle. The muckraking of
the progessives in education cured local popular control of political cor¬
ruption but at the price of turning education over to self-serving bureau¬
cratic professionals.
Rajasthan has not experienced a politically effective reaction against
popular control of primary education, nor is it attempting as yet to
strengthen the hand of the professional educational bureaucracy. Such
a reaction or attempt may not be advantageous, however, because neither
centralized professionalism nor decentralized populism necessarily offers
lasting solutions. America’s experience suggests that educational policy will
alternate in response to changing historical conditions and needs, including
the impact of national security and international emulation. The persist¬
ence of the dialectic in the relationship of centralized professionalism and
decentralized populism was being illustrated in the mid- and late-sixties
by the struggle against centralized and professional control of primary and
secondary education in America’s big cities where the poor, particularly
the black, Puerto Rican and chicano poor, are alienated from public school
systems. Marilyn Gittell, one of a group of policy-oriented scholars at¬
tacking the structure and performance of the New York City school sys¬
tem, sees the problem as domination of the schools by self-serving
bureaucratic professionals incapable of educating underprivileged urban
populations.17 Another reformer has observed, in a vein reminiscent of the
Balvantray Mehta Report, that “once upon a time, the people created the
public schools, and the schools belonged to them.” Today, “control of
public education in our large cities has passed over almost exclusively to
92 Introduction to Part II

management . . . increasingly distant from the public. From . . . parent

groups in middle class suburbs to angry rump boards of education in New
York City’s ghettos, the public is seeking to repossess its schools. . . . For
a long time, a few thoughtful educators have argued that education can be
strengthened by linking schools intimately to a system of political account¬
ability.” 18
It is difficult to say precisely how representative of India the politiciza¬
tion of primary education control that Iqbal Narain analyzes is. As chapter
5 (tables 15, 16, and 20) suggests, Rajasthan is one of India’s more back¬
ward states (tenth of fifteen) in terms of the indicators used to measure
level of development. At the same time, it was first among India’s states
in rate of economic growth between 1949-50 and 1958-59.19 Its relative
backwardness is related to its history. Made up of twenty-two former
princely states, only a few of which had governments able and willing to
foster even a modest amount of social change and economic growth,
Rajasthan had an educational record prior to independence and the inte¬
gration of the princely states that lagged well behind the record in British
India or that in some other princely states such as Baroda. The princely
states of Rajasthan were relatively free of the kind of ethic and perform¬
ance that the Indian Civil Service brought to British India. Nor did they
share in British India’s experience of the nationalist movement or provin¬
cial self government. New to modern administration and popular, com¬
petitive politics in 1947, Rajasthan’s political life adapted remarkably
quickly to the radically changed circumstances that followed the introduc¬
tion of democratic rule. Today it shares some qualities of preindustrial
rural America, where localities (townships and their school districts) hired
and fired locally recruited and modestly qualified teachers who could be
put out the door by the bigger boys if they could not command them.20
These circumstances have contributed in some measure to the Jackso-
nian-like populism that has characterized Rajasthan’s politics since the
first general election of 1951—52. The politics have been Jacksonian in
their emphasis on spoils, on decentralization, and on the pragmatic virtues
and capabilities of the common man. Rajasthan’s political leadership has
shown great energy in building up educational institutions. Iqbal Narain
argues that the association of local bodies with primary education has
been a significant force in popularizing it. It is likely that the rapid build-up
of educational institutions in Rajasthan took place in part because the
administrators and the politicians were less constrained than those in some
of the states of former British India by a too fastidious regard for the pro¬
prieties of public law and administration.21
In Rajasthan, the panchayat samiti (block-level council), acting through
the Block Development Officer (BDO) and the pradhan (chairman and
political executive of the samiti) appoint, transfer, and discipline teachers.
It is these arrangements that have, in many instances, been politicized, as
the Narain chapter demonstrates (partly through the use of survey data
partly through the use of legislative debates and administrative reports).22
At the same time, the politicization has been accompanied by some use
of political influence to strengthen educational resources and processes.
Introduction to Part II 93

As Iqbal Narain observes in chapter 9, “it may not be correct to say that
teachers are dragged into politics; in the view of officials, they are, more
often than not, drawn into it on their own.” The attempted mass transfer
of primary school teachers by the Akali Dal (Sikh nationalist) government
in the Punjab soon after Mrs. Gandhi’s Congress party victory in the 1971
parliamentary election (the Congress party won eight of nine seats in the
Punjab) suggests that teachers can act independently of the governments
they serve.
If some teachers enter the political arena for partisan purposes or to
secure personal advantages or to cover irregularities, others do so to pur¬
sue policies or secure resources that they believe will promote educational
goals or enhance the educational experience. Thus, teacher-initiated par¬
ticipation in the political process is not limited to pursuing personal or
partisan goals. Such participation can also strengthen local community
control and management if the result is to encourage the use of adminis¬
trative discretion in ways that defend or benefit particular local educational
authorities. Table 45, chapter 9, “Effect of Political Involvement on Teach¬
ers’ Performance,” indicates that the second most frequently mentioned
effect of political involvement was on grants of money and equipment by
the samitis to primary schools. If, as Narain observes “once a teacher
enters the arena [of local politics], he is constantly taken as a participant,
sharing in the political rewards and the punishments, at times even in spite
of himself,” it is also difficult, as the Gould and the Madan and Halbar
chapters suggest, to distinguish between politicization that appropriates
educational resources and goals to the political sector, and the use of po¬
litical influence by actors within educational institutions to strengthen edu¬
cational performance.
7 / Educational Structures and Political Processes
in Faizabad District, Uttar Pradesh

Harold Gould

In Uttar Pradesh they have a phrase, “The Congress has abolished the
Zamindari in land and has created a Zamindari in education.” Such Zamin-
dars [land owners] are managers of colleges, who are well fed, well clothed,
and maintain their own cars, all on the profits from the institutions which
they run. It is now recognised that running an educational institution can
be an important means of economic and political power.
J. P. Naik, Member-Secretary, Education Commission, 1964-1966 1

The general relationship between education and politics in India has

been discussed and analyzed at great length over the years by both Indian
and foreign scholars. The manner in which schools are used by working
politicians to abet their efforts to gain and hold public office, however, has
received less scholarly attention. The following is an attempt to get at this
important and interesting dimension of political behavior. The data are
drawn from the district of Faizabad in eastern Uttar Pradesh, where I
have conducted a variety of anthropological investigations over the past
several years.
The premise from which this study proceeds is that political penetration
of the educational system has gone far in Uttar Pradesh. In this respect
the province is probably not unique in India, but it stands out when com¬
pared with many others. The high degree of political penetration helps
account for certain patterns of educational investment and features of the
distribution of student populations which are otherwise difficult to under¬
stand. The data suggest that, within limits, faculties and student bodies

. mY fieId work in India began in 1954, on a Fulbright Scholarship and continued

in the summer of 1959 with a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Science
Foundation. From 1960 to 1962, I remained in India under concurrent postdoctoral
fellowships from the National Institute of Mental Health, returning in 1966-67 as a
faculty research fellow of the American Institute of Indian Studies. There are many
persons and institutions I wish to thank for making this essay possible: At Faizabad,
Mr. Brij Nandan Prasad, currently principal of K.P. Intercollege at Allahabad; Mr'.
Ram Harsh Singh, teacher (now retired), Government Intercollege in Faizabad^
whose help and friendship have extended over thirteen years; Mr. Ram Krishna
Pandey, teacher at R.D. Intercollege (Sohowal) and journalist; Mr. S. P. Arren,
I A S. (Indian Administrative Service), district magistrate and deputy commissioner
(now transferred); Mr. Avadhesh Pratap Singh, president (adhyaksha) of the
Faizabad district board (zila parishad) and former member of the legislative as¬
sembly; Mr. B. S. Shukla, I.A.S., city magistrate and election officer of Faizabad
district; and Mr. K. N. Shukla, district inspector of schools and religous scholar.
Faizabad District 95

have frequently been created in order to generate political resources rather

than for the primary purpose of fostering education and modernization
per se.
Such a state of affairs seems loathsome to professional educators and
idealistic laymen who ordinarily see an inverse relationship between politi¬
cization and quality in an educational system. There is another side to the
question, however. In a country with India’s specific complex of historical
experiences, the instrumental role of politicians in establishing educational
institutions may well have a positive value even in those instances where
their motives for doing so are largely self-aggrandizing. An important con¬
sequence of their enterprise is that schools have been brought into being in
places where, given the poverty and apathy of local populations, their ex¬
istence would otherwise have been unlikely.
In a general sense, major political involvement in educational processes
is inevitable in India. The cynicism and despair Indians so often manifest
over the ethical conduct of their politicians make it hard for many to ac¬
cept the premise that in all modern, complex societies the establishment,
perpetuation, expansion, and regulation of educational systems has to be
primarily the responsibility of the state acting through its political leader¬
ship. A mass service of these proportions cannot be left to haphazard in¬
dividual decision-making, for too much of the society’s resources and cul¬
tural goals are invested in it. But the fact that education is a vast commit¬
ment of a country’s organizational energies, whose purpose ultimately af¬
fects the uses to which the human mind itself can be put, makes its man¬
agement and control a political prize as well as a responsibility. In all
modern societies, therefore, continuous debate and competition occurs over
who shall control education and for what purposes. The question, in other
words, is not whether politics and politicians shall influence educational
processes, but how and to what degree they will do so. This is the real
issue in India today. Susanne Rudolph has stated the matter in a way which
aptly sets the keynote for what follows here: “We do not assume, as is
often assumed [in India], that there is such a thing as an educational sys¬
tem free of political intervention; nor do we assume that such a thing would
be good. In a democratic society and in educational institutions which re¬
ceive government funds, there will be political influence. . . . The real
questions focus on distinguishing what type of political pressure and politi¬
cization is benign and what not, . . . whether educational purposes are
subsumed by the political system, or whether politics become a means for
strengthening or redefining educational goals.” 2
The conditions in Faizabad district are by no means benign, as has al¬
ready been suggested. They reveal a clear need for a profound upgrading
of the professional quality of the Uttar Pradesh educational system. Criti¬
cisms and proposed reforms such as those contained in the recent Report
of the Educational Commission, 1964-66,3 reveal that Indian leaders are
96 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

aware of the problems and dangers inherent in the present course. That
improvements are slow should surprise no one who is aware of how diffi¬
cult it is to root out old habits and institutions in any human society.4

The Rise of Educational Entrepreneurship

The conditions prevailing in India prior to independence have had a

bearing on the contemporary relationship between politics and education
in Uttar Pradesh. Western contact and the achievement of British para-
mountcy in the subcontinent were generally most responsible for what fol¬
lowed. The new culture and technology which the English spread had a
profound, often shattering, impact on the traditional societies of India.
Eventually the shock and confusion began giving way to a conviction that
one of the chief ways out of the humiliation of colonial servitude was
modern education; that the westerner’s knowledge would have to be mas¬
tered and, to some extent, turned against him. The shock and confusion also
gave way to a realization that the quest for modernity had a political
dimension. Indian society mobilized for the purpose of terminating British
rule and supplanting it with some kind of popular government.
The names of men like Raja Ram Mohun Roy and Dwarkanath Tagore
are synonymous with early Indian efforts to gain access to the new knowl¬
edge and to promulgate it among their own people. These efforts began
in Bengal because British administration and culture struck its deepest
roots there in the early days of East India Company suzerainty. But as
British administration spread across the subcontinent in the wake of suc¬
cessful British arms, the passion to spread western education followed.
Both Indians and Europeans began founding educational institutions.
Whereas originally the British responded to Indian demands for western
education with efforts to provide it, the raj backed away from promulgating
such education officially on a large scale when it discovered that the effort
would prove expensive. Educational policy was then rationalized in terms
of “nineteenth century orthodoxy,” to quote Anil Seal.5 The Indian Educa¬
tional Commission of 1882 argued “the merits of private enterprise in
public education, recommending that government aid to higher education
should be cut down, and private education encouraged to take its place.”
In 1888, that policy went into effect with the declaration that the govern¬
ment “pioneers the way, but having shown the way, it recognizes no
responsibility to do for the people what they can do for themselves.” 6
Animated by the challenge which this new government policy helped
create, over the decades “educational entrepreneurs” established schools
of every variety, in the remote recesses of India as well as in the more
accessible cities and towns. As Seal has so aptly put it, “If the aim of the
policy was to discourage the growth of higher education, it was a flat
failure; but if government meant what it said about wanting to stimulate
private Indian enterprise, the policy was successful beyond all expecta-
Faizabad District 97

tions.” 7 As one travels about Faizabad district today he frequently en¬

counters the modest-sized brick structures, in adulterated Victorian style,
which these early benefactors of knowledge erected. In many cases the
buildings are still doing the job for which their founders intended them,
though under different management and operating in a considerably
changed socio-political environment.
It is doubtful that the educational entrepreneurs of that period (the
century before independence) were primarily politically inspired. The
Kayastha Pathshala Intercollege of Allahabad is a good illustration of the
kind of socially conscious educational entrepreneurship that gave rise to
a host of schools and colleges throughout India in an era when the govern¬
ment did not see mass education as one of its chief responsibilities. Its
founder was a highly successful Kayastha (traditionally a caste of scribes)
lawyer of Allahabad who invested most of his wealth in basic education for
the youth of his own community and for worthy Indians of all classes. The
creation of the Kayastha Pathshala Intercollege was his crowning achieve¬
ment, for he not only provided an impressive physical plant but saw to it
that the school obtained consistently good administrators and faculty.
Through a trust which its founder established for this purpose, the school
carries on in that tradition today, still successfully recruiting managing
committees that are remarkably free of political, caste, or communal par¬
tisanship.
The founder of schools whose purpose was the propagation of learning
on the western model, the “educational entrepreneur,” had become an
important public man in India by the second half of the nineteenth century.
The educational entrepreneur might be the benefactor of strictly local
institutions that served to spread his fame no farther than a tehsil 8 or a
district, or he might be a man of the stature of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan,
famed as the founder of Aligarh Muslim University. Whatever his fame, he
was honored and enjoyed public gratitude and respect.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, another type of public man
had emerged — the nationalist politician, who was committed to freeing his
country from colonial servitude, to introducing parliamentary government,
and to giving India modern institutions through national planning. Gandhi
and Nehru symbolized different facets of the nationalist politician. Gandhi
symbolized the method (satyagraha, withholding participation in political
evil) of getting free of British control, while Nehru symbolized the way
(the secular, democratic society with economic planning) of bringing India
to the level of prosperity enjoyed by the great industrial nations. Thus, the
ideal politician, like the ideal educational entrepreneur, was a benefactor
of society, one who proposed to liberate India from foreign domination
and endow her with the institutions and the will required to become
modern.
Both types of men converged in the freedom movement, and in many
instances their identities dissolved into each other. The techniques of re-
98 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

sistance to British domination adopted by the Indian nationalists in many

ways strongly abetted this process. The Congress party decisively com¬
mitted itself to the promotion of mass education as the means by which
the individual Indian could take advantage of the new opportunities that
independent India would offer to its citizens. This commitment struck a
responsive chord in the popular imagination, and has become one of the
touchstones of the revolution of expectations which the government must
in some measure satisfy.
Other factors were contributing to the fusion of political ambition with
educational entrepreneurship. Prime among these was the nature of the
Congress movement as it had been shaped by the influence of Mahatma
Gandhi. The Gandhian style was a politics of renunciation, noncoopera¬
tion with established authority, and service designed to bring about changes
within the man, in the character structure of both self and adversary. And
although it cannot be said that Gandhi succeeded in transforming every
Congress party member, or even a majority of them, he set examples
which most Congress party workers endeavored to follow at least in some
measure. Thus Congress party workers sought ways in their home districts
to be of service to their fellow Indians. Many became educational entre¬
preneurs. Congress party leaders of every stature became identified with
the work of founding, administering, or teaching in schools in their local
area as a response to Gandhi’s concept of a politician as a man who
renders service to others. In Faizabad district the leaders of both of the
Congress party factions had become identified with educational entre¬
preneurship early in their political careers, one as a teacher who eventually
founded a school of good quality in his ancestral village, and the other as
the benefactor of several schools in his home city of Faizabad.
Courting arrest and spending long periods in prison as political detenus
also played a role in the Congressman’s attitude toward the relationship
between politics and education. As a special class of prisoner, the political
offender was kept apart from the ordinary criminal, exempted from menial
labor, and allowed time to commiserate with his fellow political detenus.
Congress leaders in the jails took advantage of this idle time to formulate
the party’s ideology, to educate its workers to enable them to be more
effective and dedicated revolutionaries when they gained their release.
This education not only maintained the political prisoners’ morale during
months and sometimes years of incarceration, but also supplemented the
education of young prisoners who had been expelled from school for po¬
litical activities or who had simply ceased attending in obedience to the
boycott of educational institutions which the Congress party periodically
enjoined on its members as part of a general policy of withholding partici¬
pation in the legal, political, and educational life of the country. The
experience of losing years of formal education and receiving some ex
officio education through classes organized in jail sharpened many Congress
party members’ awareness of the value of education. Their experiences
Faizabad District 99

also provided a vivid demonstration of how potent a political weapon the

control of educational institutions could be.
The founding of Kashi Vidyapith at Banaras in the early years of the
freedom struggle was a direct by-product of these experiences and com¬
mitments. The idea of a university which would both serve the educational
requirements of political prisoners and propagate a socialist version of
nationalism was conceived by Acharya Narendra Deo, Sampurnanand, and
other leaders of the old Congress Socialist party, while they were in prison.
They organized classes in political philosophy and in the major European
languages. This degree of academic scope and organization was facilitated
by the scholarly and pedagogical qualifications of men like Acharya Na¬
rendra Deo and Sampurnanand (the former, it is said, enjoyed fluency in
as many as a dozen languages). Kashi Vidyapith was, therefore, an insti¬
tutionalized manifestation of experiences garnered from years spent in
Agra prison for political crimes.9
In these ways the educational entrepreneur and the nationalist politician
in many instances became one. As they did, numerous primary, secondary,
and higher educational institutions were brought into being throughout the
country whose aims were simultaneously pedagogical and ideological.
Educationists became politicians, politicians became educationists, and
students became political. The vast bulk of educationists and politicians
in Uttar Pradesh was affected by this trend, grew together, and formed a
highly complex set of interrelationships.

Postindependence Transformation

After India achieved independence from Great Britain, she embarked

upon the task of erecting institutions of popular government. Her consti¬
tutional democracy, resting upon universal franchise, revealed and mobi¬
lized the complex groupings of Indian social organization, divided verti¬
cally and horizontally into myriad caste, communal, and cultural-linguistic
segments. These segments became the basis for elaborate and intense po¬
litical competition in every state and national assembly constituency and
within and among political parties. This competitive quality in the Indian
body politic was further heightened by the pattern of political dominance
achieved by the Congress party, which enjoyed the overwhelming prestige
and public favor of having been not only the political party of Gandhi,
Nehru, and Patel, the great architects of India’s successful revolt against
British imperialism, but also the embodiment of the freedom movement
itself. The aggregate strength of the other political parties was incapable
of matching and challenging the power of Congress, which for a time de¬
veloped into an organizational behemoth preoccupied with perpetuating its
dominance. With its dominance established, Congress became absorbed in
internal strife, probably disproportionately so in Uttar Pradesh. The lack
of any outside threat to Congress dominance meant that the real struggle
100 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

for power would occur among the segments that had formed within the
organization. These segments had their roots in the personal antagonisms,
ideological divergences, and social differences spawned by Congress’ long
history of being an omnibus coalition held together by little beyond com¬
mon opposition to the British.
As the focus of political competition shifted from nationalist revolution
to factional warfare among segments of the dominant political party (and,
reflexively, to a similar type of warfare within the minority parties of both
the right and the left), each district, each constituency, each municipal
and town area board, and each new political body which came into being
(such as zila parishads, kshettra samitis, gram pancliayats, cooperative
societies) became an arena for the expression of these personally, socially,
and ideologically motivated enmities. Provinces like Uttar Pradesh became
veritable jungles of ethnic style politics. The great turning point came with
the advent of the first general election in 1952, when all the simmering
rivalries within Congress and the other organized parties at last had a
chance to come out into the open.
A statistical comparison of the 1946 and 1952 elections illustrates the
shift from superficial unanimity to pervasive political competition. In
Faizabad district there were six constituencies with a total of ten candi¬
dates in 1946. In four of the six, Congressmen were unopposed. In 1952,
the number of constituencies had been increased to ten, eight for the legis¬
lative assembly and two for parliament. The number of candidates for the
ten constituencies was sixty-eight. There were no unopposed candidates.
With the change in the spirit and goals of political behavior, all the or¬
ganizational talents of the politicians and all of the resources at their com¬
mand were turned in the new directions.
Politics became highly personalistic and “ethnic” in character. That is,
the political party, and most particularly Congress, which monopolized the
sources of real power became an avenue through which men of certain
temperaments and degrees of ambition sought access to the scarce supplies
of jobs, commodities, and social recognition which the inadequate re¬
sources of an underdeveloped society could provide. The competition for
these scarce but prized objects grew increasingly intense, bitter, and ruth¬
less, and shaped itself around caste, religion, language and culture, and
differentials in wealth and education. (In this sense the political rivalry
was ethnic in style, reminiscent in many respects — though certainly not
in all — of the melting pot politics of America, especially from the turn
of the century to the end of World War II.) Ideology, by contrast, became
less important. It occupied an important place on the political stage pro¬
vided by Congress only when a man of Mr. Nehru’s stature chose to make
it do so (as with the declaration at Nagpur of a “Socialist pattern of so¬
ciety”).
Gradually, then, new kinds of politics and politicians emerged in the
arenas of power. The politicians utilized the old forms and idioms evolved
Faizabad District 101

in the halcyon days of nationalist struggle, but they applied them to new
ends and filled them with new contents. The opponents were far less often
oppressors of the downtrodden and far more often competitors for control
of the party apparatus or officials who refused to be as pliant as a local
politician or labor leader might desire. And what was occurring in the
political realm was also occurring in the realm of education. Educational
entrepreneurship, which had fused in an earlier period with political am¬
bition, became an aspect of the intense political competition for position
and advantage.

The Politics of Education

Because modern education had become a universal aspiration in inde¬

pendent India, the amount of resources invested in it, and the vested in¬
terests which could be established in it, increased greatly. Since I propose
to deal with empirical data from only a single district in a single province,
I shall confine my measurement of the magnitude of public investment in
education to statistics compiled for Uttar Pradesh. Tables 24 and 25 show

Table 24. Growth of educational institutions in Uttar Pradesh, 1945 to 1965.

Increase,
1945 to 1965
Type of institution 1945-46 1964-65 (%)

Government 1,512 2,626 73.7

District board 24,161 53,083 120.0
Municipal board 1,332 4,275 296.0
Private aided 3,956 6,003 51.8
Private unaided accredited 505 1,808 256.0
Private unaccredited 1,387 249 -457.0
Source: Government of Uttar Pradesh, Ministry of Education, Department of Educa¬
tional Statistics, Shiksha Ki Pravti, 1965-66 [Education statistics, 1965-66] (Allahabad,
1967), statistical appendix.

that between 1945-46 and 1964-65 there was a large increase in the num¬
ber of educational institutions and in the numbers attending school. In
1966, Faizabad district, which had a population of around 1.5 million,
had 1,173 lower primary schools (I-IV), 50 higher primary schools (V-
VII) and 54 higher secondary schools (VIII-X) and intercolleges (XI-
XII) (the latter teach up to the equivalent of junior college in the U.S.).
Since independence, two kinds of educational entrepreneurship have
been at work in Uttar Pradesh. On the one hand, the Congress government
has directly and through local bodies fostered the widespread establish¬
ment of all types of schools in response to public demand for them. On
the other hand, private individuals and groups have continued to found
102 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

Table 25. Growth of student populations in Uttar Pradesh, 1945 to 1965.

Increase,
1945 to 1965
Level 1945-46 1964-65 (%)

Higher primary (V-VII) 1,370,694 8,130,245 493.0

Lower secondary (VIII-X) 232,081 868,645 274.6
Intermediate (XI-XII) 179,443 1,385,475 670.0

Source: Government of Uttar Pradesh, Ministry of Education, Department of Educa¬

tional Statistics, Shiksha Ki Pravti, 1965-66 [Educational statistics, 1965-66] (Allahabad,
1967), statistical appendix.

educational institutions which receive accreditation and grants-in-aid of

various kinds from the department of education when they fulfill certain
criteria of performance. It is among the private institutions that groups
and individuals with political aspirations have found the most fertile
ground for exploiting the resources of mass education.
Why these institutions provide a congenial context for political entre¬
preneurs is better understood when it is realized how these private institu¬
tions are constituted, what sort of links they establish with the government,
and at what level of education they are most inclined to operate.
A private educational institution comes into being after it forms a “gen¬
eral body” of subscribers who raise sufficient capital to establish the kind
of school they want. The general body elects a managing committee (usu¬
ally ten persons), a president, a manager (often the president and manager
are the same person), and a secretary. This managing committee is the
de facto authority in the institution; it is responsible for hiring the principal
and the teaching and maintenance staff, for purchasing necessary equip¬
ment, and for administration. Private educational institutions can receive
grants-in-aid of various kinds from the department of education if they
prove they have the capacity to perform their purported educational
functions. An institution of this kind is made to order for educational
entrepreneurship, and the relationship of the institution to sources of gov¬
ernment assistance is made to order for the encouragement of political
bargaining.
Most private educational institutions are secondary schools (higher sec¬
ondary schools and intercolleges), which is very nearly the ideal educa¬
tional unit to be employed as a base for political operations. The number
of secondary schools in Uttar Pradesh is high in relation to the levels of
literacy and economic well-being in the province.10 Table 25 shows that
the greatest increase in student enrollments (670 percent) in the years
since independence has been at the intermediate level.11 An editorial in the
National Herald of Lucknow, 12 December 1966, raised questions about
the surprisingly large number of students who go on to university, and
the proportionately large number of universities in backward, largely illit¬
erate provinces like Uttar Pradesh.
Faizabad District 103

Among factors which contribute to unrest and violence, one interesting

point has been brought out by a study of figures of admission to universi¬
ties. It is noted that in few countries does such a high percentage of sec¬
ondary school boys go up to universities as in some states in India. While
in the United Kingdom only ZV2 percent of secondary school boys move
up to universities, in Japan only IV2 percent, and France 1IV2 percent,
the percentage is 13 in West Bengal and 21 in U.P. . . .
The number of universities too seem to bear no relation to general
literacy standards. States like Madras, Kerala, Mysore, Andhra Pradesh
which account for 30 percent of the country’s total literate population,
had between them only a sixth of the total number of universities in the
country in 1961. On the other hand, U.P., Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and
West Bengal which together had about the same 30 percent of the total
literate population had in their territory half the total number of uni¬
versities.

The Natiorial Herald called for remedies to this anomaly, pointing out
that “uncontrolled proliferation of universities and indiscriminate enroll¬
ment for higher education exist in parts of the country where student un¬
rest seems specially virulent.”
The politicization of educational institutions make the maintenance of
academic standards and promotions based on merit very difficult because
institutions that use their facilities and students for political ends owe
these students and their patrons something in exchange for the political
services they have rendered. Because the purpose of modern mass educa¬
tion is primarily social mobility, attested by certificates of graduation, the
politicized educational institution is obliged to promote its students as a
kind of reimbursement for their political services. Educational entrepre¬
neurship wedded to political entrepreneurship produces the raw material
for political action. There is, so to speak, a conveyer belt which com¬
mences with secondary school membership. The successful products of
the secondary school move up to the universities for more professional
exploitation by higher echelon politicians. From the universities come the
successors to the older political elites themselves. The real costs of such
a system are the sacrifice of academic standards and the violence and
chaos sometimes produced by attempts to discipline student bodies or,
notably in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, to compel honesty in examinations.
Why should a student who is conditioned to believe that the political serv¬
ices he renders are his most important academic contribution accept the
verdict of such a nonpolitical criterion of performance as marks?

Faizabad District

Faizabad district provides a substantive case of the relationship between

politics and education. I discuss Faizabad district not because it typifies that
relationship but because I know that district best. Nevertheless, it is of value
104 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

that Faizabad has a rich and complex history of involvement in the politics
of Uttar Pradesh and that all the major trials and crises that have marked
the contemporary Uttar Pradesh political scene have been faithfully re¬
flected in the district’s political life. For example, one-fifth of the legislators
who in 1967 crossed the floor with Charan Singh (the former Congress
faction leader who twice headed Uttar Pradesh governments after the 1967
general election)12 to form the Jan Congress party (later the Bhartiya
Kranti Dal or BKD) and bring to an end twenty years of Congress party
rule in Uttar Pradesh were elected from Faizabad constituencies.
Of the fifty-four higher secondary schools and intercolleges in Faizabad,
forty-four are private institutions run by managing committees elected by
general bodies. The remainder are managed by the government, the dis¬
trict board, municipal boards, and missionary organizations. To under¬
stand how they play political roles, it is necessary to describe their nature
and operation in greater detail.
Politicians of all parties attempt to found as many secondary institutions
as they can, and where they cannot found them they try to join the man¬
aging committees of as many as possible. In either case, the motive is the
same: to develop a majority in their favor among the general body of any
institution so that they can in turn get a majority of their supporters
elected to the managing committee. When the latter majority is achieved,
the resources of the institution are henceforth available to the politician
for use in enhancing his political ambitions in the district. The group con¬
trolling the majority on the managing committee is ordinarily in a position
to engage a principal of its choosing and to pursue policies with respect to
hiring, firing, and promotion of the teaching staff which assure a substan¬
tial number of teachers loyal to its interests. The groqp in the majority
controls the purse strings of the institution; it decides whom to patronize
in the purchase of supplies and equipment for the school — a decision
often conditioned by how much commission various suppliers are willing to
pay influential members of the managing committee.
An educational entrepreneur prefers to found his own educational insti¬
tution in an area where he has political ambitions, rather than gain control
of an already extant one because in his own institution he can develop a
general body, managing committee, and teaching staff that is overwhelm¬
ingly loyal to him. The western observer, accustomed to large and costly
institutions, has difficulty imagining an obscure district politician with lim¬
ited means becoming the founder of a higher secondary school. The diffi¬
culty vanishes, however, when it is realized what order of investment is
actually required to establish such an enterprise in Uttar Pradesh.
It is usually possible to find space to erect a school on land owned by
one’s kin group. If that is not possible, one can usually find a philanthrop-
ically inclined follower who is willing to make the necessary donation.
Forming a “general body” is usually easy, as is raising from among them
Faizabad District 105

the small amount of capital (Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 3,000)13 necessary to con¬
struct a four room building with kuchha (clay) walls and thatched roof.
Getting authorization to operate a school can be done by anyone who has
good political contacts. Because of high white-collar unemployment, there
is always an abundance of young university students or graduates who are
willing to accept employment as teachers. And once the school begins op¬
erating, fees paid by the students are a basic source of revenue which is
augmented by the grants-in-aid supplied by the Uttar Pradesh government
to private institutions to encourage their operation. These grants-in-aid are
technically conditional upon the maintenance of certain academic and ad¬
ministrative standards, but in reality an educational entrepreneur who
enjoys political favor has little difficulty establishing his institution’s quali¬
fications.14
To illustrate how the Uttar Pradesh educational entrepreneur makes his
calculations, I present an excerpt from my field notes. “ ‘X’ has often
said that he awaits the day when his constituency will no longer be a
Scheduled Caste constituency so that he can run for the Legislative As¬
sembly from there. Meanwhile, he plans to begin enhancing his public
image in the constituency by founding a higher secondary school within
the year. He will erect it on some vacant land near his village which will
be donated by an admirer. He says that founding a school is not such an
expensive proposition, really. You start with a kuchha or pukka building
of about four rooms; you put up the four walls and for the time being lay
a thatched roof over them. You are principal and you go and hire yourself
a teaching staff. This immediately puts under your control and obligation
a small group of educated young men who are willing to work for you. By
establishing a higher secondary school you get as students young men who
are old enough to be converted to your political philosophy and who can
then be enlisted to function as political workers at election time. What you
aim for is a ‘politically conscious’ school which can be ‘turned into a po¬
litically active organization.’ ” 15
In the same constituency is the Sri Ram Ballabha Bhagwant Vidyapith
Intercollege. A brahman lawyer who has for years been active in Faizabad
politics founded this institution in his natal village. As his political ambi¬
tions have grown, he has been thinking of someday obtaining a position
on the Congress ticket for the legislative assembly. He has spread his in¬
fluence through several constituencies of the district by his law practice
and his fraternization with the religious personalities of the holy city of
Ayodhya. As this scheduled caste constituency is the site of his ancestral
home, the “pandit,” as he is called, understandably dreams of running for
election from there someday. Like “X,” however, the pandit has no chance
of doing this until the constituency is declared a general constituency.
Meanwhile, like “X,” the pandit has invested in the future by establishing
himself as a benefactor of education.
106 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

His problems, however, have been rather different from those of “X.”
“X’' is a young man with a political science degree. A teacher and a
journalist, he has been active for several years in the non-Communist left
of the district. He joined the Congress party prior to the 1967 general
election and won recognition as a capable field worker by enabling tire
Congress parliamentary candidate to carry the scheduled caste constitu¬
ency (one of five comprising the parliamentary constituency) against for¬
midable odds.
The pandit, on the other hand, is getting on in years and has had to
overcome the stigma of alleged misdeeds in his home community which
led to his ostracism and which could prove a fatal liability to his political
aspirations. To regain the respect and acceptance of his kinsmen and caste
brethren, the pandit has held a very large Brahman Bhoj (feast for Brah¬
mans) every' year for the last several years. In order to redeem himself in
the eyes of the wider public, he founded the Ram Ballabha Bhagwant
Vidyapith Intercollege, which provides education and jobs to the local cit¬
izenry. These gestures have borne the desired fruit up to a point, although
political observers feel that he still lacks sufficient political stature to ob¬
tain a ticket and undertake a successful campaign for the legislative as¬
sembly.
The proliferation of political parties and rival factions or segments
within the parties has become one of the most significant features of post¬
independence Indian politics. This phenomenon has quite naturally been
reflected in the forms political behavior has assumed within educational
institutions. It is rare today to find a single party or faction incontestably
in control of the managing committee of an educational institution. Such
control usually exists only in the early stages of the fife of a managing
committee. As time passes and institutions grow' in size'and complexity,
factions form within the general body or outside political forces infiltrate
it. When a school is small, it provides a maximally efficient political base
which is easy to discipline and control. As the school's founder succeeds
politically, and gets funds to expand his school, the problem of internal
control grows more difficult until at some point, instead of sitting atop a
monolithic political organization ’ he finds himself maneuvering to main¬
tain a dominant faction among the staff and administration of the school
through which he can utilize the lion’s share of its human and economic
resources. But at the point where the school becomes big enough to con¬
tain multiple factions, it becomes penetrable by his political opponents.
They can seize control of an opposing faction and start maneuvering to
erode the dominance of the founder’s faction in the hope of achieving
enough power to deny him the use of the institution’s resources.
In Faizabad district, Congress has been the dominant political party
since independence, but it has been beset by the internal dissension char¬
acteristic of the Uttar Pradesh Congress party. The old cleavages of the
state Congress party have always been reflected in Faizabad as in most
Faizabad District 107

other districts in the province. Since 1952, the internecine rivalries have
tended to polarize the party into two camps. One group, more or less
rooted in the two eastern tehsils of the district, has been led by Jai Ram
Verma, Kurrni10 by caste, and has been allied with the Kamlapati Tri-
pathi17 group at the state level. The other, concentrated in the two western
tehsils and the municipality of Faizabad-cum-Ayodhya was led by the for¬
mer speaker of the Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly, the late Madan
Mohan Varma, Khatri18 by caste, and has been allied at the state level with
the C. B. Gupta group.10 These groups have been rivals for every political
position of consequence in Faizabad for the past fifteen years; their rivalry
has been bitter and ruthless and has not changed its basic complexion even
though Jai Ram Varma’s group has become the local arm of the BKD
party led by Charan Singh. This rivalry runs through the general bodies
and managing committees of several educational institutions in Faizabad.
A perhaps classic instance of the involvement of an educational institu¬
tion in a political rivalry can be found in the Baldeo Vidyapith Higher
Secondary School in the small town of Milkipur. Milkipur is the center of
the Milkipur legislative assembly constituency, situated near the western
border of Faizabad district. (See figure 2.) The Congress candidate there
in the 1967 election was Ram Lai Mishra (known as Ram Lai Bai), a
member of the Madan Mohan Varma-C. B. Gupta group and an energetic
founder of public institutions. Officially, therefore, it was the duty of all
Congress party members in Milkipur constituency to work for Ram Lai
Bai’s candidacy.
The Congress party’s position in private education in Milkipur is not as
strong as it could be. The constituency has two intercolleges and two
higher secondary schools, but one of each is controlled by the Communist
party. Of the remaining two, one is in the hands of the Gupta faction while

Figure 2. Faizabad district, legislative assembly constituencies.

 108 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

the other, Baldeo Vidyapith, is allied with the opposing Jai Ram Varma
faction. Its principal is Dhorey Ram Yadav,20 an able educator with strong
political ambitions of his own.
Because Jai Ram Varma was a member of the Congress party at the
time of the 1967 general elections, he was bound by party discipline to
support its candidates. On the surface, therefore, Jai Ram’s supporters in
Milkipur endorsed and worked for Ram Lai Bai. But covertly, Dhorey
Ram Yadav worked against the official party candidate. In doing so, he
revealed how in many instances factional loyalties, rooted in personalistic
ethnic ties, take precedence over loyalty to the party.
The immediate train of events which led to Ram Lai Bai’s loss of the
political use of Baldeo Vidyapith was set in motion by the District Con¬
gress Committee (DCC) when it nominated principal Dhorey Ram as the
candidate for the Milkipur legislative assembly seat for the 1967 general
elections. This was possible because the Jai Ram Varma group enjoyed
overwhelming dominance in the DCC and used that dominance to recom¬
mend an entire slate of its own members for all ten legislative assembly
and parliamentary constituencies. This was essentially a bargaining device,
employed in the full knowledge that at least half of these nominations
would be overturned at the Provincial Congress Committee level where
the C. B. Gupta faction, to which Madan Mohan Varma and his followers
were allied locally, was predominant, or at the All-India Congress Com¬
mittee level, where the most intractable factional impasses are ultimately
resolved by men removed from and therefore less influenced by the subtle¬
ties of local political antipathies.21
Dhorey Ram’s candidacy was one of the casualties in this higher level
political bargaining. Ram Lai Bai, a C. B. Gupta faction member, had to
be accepted by the Jai Ram group in exchange for the retention of their
nominees in other constituencies more crucial to their general political
survival in the district. However, principal Dhorey Ram simply formed a
fifth column within the Milkipur Congress organization, using Baldeo
Vidyapith as its base, and worked to defeat the official party candidate
both because this was what Jai Ram Varma desired him to do and because
the defeat of Ram Lai Bai in 1967 might pave the way for Dhorey Ram’s
candidacy in 1972.
In this instance the strategy failed. Ram Lai Bai won the election de¬
spite his inability to use Baldeo Vidyapith facilities and despite much other
internal sabotage. His success was due partly to the influence he enjoys in
the Gandhi Ashram movement, which provided him with alternative bases
in the Gandhi Ashram stores that dot the district. This indicates that the
capacity to utilize the resources of educational institutions or to neutralize
another’s capacity to use such resources does not in itself guarantee victory
or defeat. The resources of educational institutions must be combined with
a host of others to be effective. But they are valuable resources, and both
Faizabad District 109

Dhorey Ram and Ram Lai Bai sought to put Baldeo Vidyapith to work
for their political ambitions.
Another illustration of factional rivalry for control of educational insti¬
tutions is the case of R.B.N. Intercollege situated at Goshainganj, a town
in the eastern part of Faizabad district, where Jai Ram Varma’s power is
greatest. Jai Ram founded this institution many years ago with money ob¬
tained from supporters of the Backward Classes Movement in Kanpur. He
is president of the managing committee, and one of his chief proteges,
fellow-Kurmi Mahadeo Prasad Varma, a two-term MLA (member of the
legislative assembly) until defeated in 1967, is principal. Three other
Kurmis are members of the thirteen-member managing committee, as is
Hira Singh, MLC (member of the legislative council),22 Jai Ram’s ally
among the important Thakur (landowner caste) party of Faizabad district.
The town of Goshainganj is in the constituency of Maya but has the
special value of being situated near the juncture of three legislative assem¬
bly constituencies: Maya, Jalalpur, and Bikapur. In the 1952, 1957, and
1962 general elections, Jalalpur constituency was contested by another
important Faizabad area politician, Ram Narain Tripathi. A member of
the old Congress Socialist party, he resigned from the Congress party in
1948 when the Socialists separated from the parent organization, and was
awarded a place on the Socialist ticket from Jalalpur in 1952.23 He won
the election and won re-election in 1957. During his second term, Tripathi
was elected deputy speaker of the Uttar Pradesh state legislature. By 1962,
Tripathi had rejoined Congress and received that party’s nomination for
Jalalpur. But as a Congress party member, Tripathi now constituted a
threat to Jai Ram Varma’s control over the eastern half of the district and
has dominance of the DCC. Tripathi was a threat not only because he
was politically active in Jai Ram Varma’s stronghold but also because
his previous affiliation with the Socialist group made him the natural an¬
tagonist of Jai Ram Varma, who had been identified with the Gandhians.24
Furthermore, Tripathi had political magnetism and could possibly have
risen higher than Jai Ram Varma in the Congress organization once suc¬
cessfully ensconced in the legislative assembly. Finally, Tripathi was a
highly independent man who would not readily subordinate himself to any¬
one else’s interests.
For these reasons, Jai Ram Varma surreptitiously engineered Tripathi’s
defeat in the 1962 election by encouraging one of his fellow Kurmis, Ram
Aseray Varma, to run on the Socialist (Lohia) ticket. This drew Kurmi
votes away from Tripathi, votes that would have normally gone to a Con¬
gress candidate; and the loss of these votes was decisive, given the other
forces that were at work in the constituency. The election results show the
closeness of Jai Ram Varma’s political calculations. Jagdamba Prasad
Singh (Ind.), allied with the Thakur party, received 11,959 votes; Bhag-
wati Prasad Singh (PSP), a Lohia opponent, received 11,712, Ram Narain
 110 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

Tripathi (Congress), allied with the ex-Congress socialist group, received

11,153; and Ram Aseray Varma (Socialist), a Jai Ram supporter pretend¬
ing to be pro-Lohia, received 6,939.
As a defeated MLA who wished to regain his seat in the next election,
Tripathi cast about for new means of sustaining his power and public im¬
age in the constituency for five years. He turned to educational entrepre¬
neurship. R.B.N. Intercollege had been the key base from which Jai Ram
Varma s organization had quietly aided Ram Aseray’s “spoiling operation”
against Tripathi in 1962. Consequently, Tripathi set himself the task of
penetrating the institution. His technique was, and is, to turn sentiment
against the principal, Mahadeo Prasad Varma. A Jai Ram Varma lieu¬
tenant and former legislator, Mahadeo Prasad Varma is aging. Tripathi’s
strategy has been to convince people in the general body and on the man¬
aging committee that the “old man” should retire. Tripathi has hoped to
precipitate and capitalize on a crisis over this issue.
Similarly, he sought to infiltrate a college in which socialist influence
dominated. Following the withdrawal of the Socialists from the Congress
party in 1948, the Socialist leaders in Faizabad chose Jalalpur town as the
site of their major venture in educational entrepreneurship. They founded
the Acharya Narendra Deo Intercollege and began to develop organiza¬
tional and philosophical roots in the southeastern quadrant of the district
Their basic strategy, which was to use the school as a base for gaining
control of the town area board and then the town area board as a base for
gaining control of the constituency, was sound. When Tripathi was de¬
feated m 1962 he sought to perpetuate his influence through Acharya
Narendra Deo Intercollege at Jalalpur. For a time his efforts there bore
fruit.
When Jagdamba Prasad Singh, taluqdar and symbol of tfie old landown¬
ing order, defeated Tripathi in 1962, Tripathi moved a petition against him
in the courts charging election malpractices. Tripathi’s attempt to take con-
,rol °f ^rcharya Narendra Deo Intercollege was given an unexpected boost
by the decision of Babu Sarvjit Lai Varma, one of the “old socialists” of
Faizabad district, to choose professional over ideological interests by
agreeing to be Jagdamba Prasad’s legal counsel in the election malpractices
suit. As founder of the Acharya Narendra Deo Intercollege, Sarvjit Lai
had always dominated its affairs. Sarvjit Lai’s legal defense of a man who
m socialist eyes epitomized reaction and feudalism infuriated many of his
supporters among the general body of Acharaya Narendra Deo Intercol-
lege^ Seizing advantage of this situation, Tripathi sought to exploit a clause
in the school s constitution which declared that persons of public eminence
can be made members of the general body without paying the Rs. 250 fee
and following the other formalities stipulated for the attainment of such
status. Tripathi appeared at a meeting of the general body at which the
manager was to be chosen and claimed to be an “eminent person” entit ed
to membership and, therefore, to be a candidate for manager. Sarvjit Ld
 Faizabad District
111

and his followers were able to block this maneuver. The following year
Tnpathi appeared again as a candidate, this time after a friend had paid
the Rs. 250 in his behalf and had him made a regular member in the
usual way. But the effort again failed. The third year, however, Tripathi
achieved success when his supporters lulled Sarvjit Lai into believing his
own candidacy was so secure that he need not attend the meeting. In
Sarvjit Lai s absence, Tripathi was able to defeat him and become manager
of the institution. Once its dominance was established, Tripathi’s group se¬
cured the appointment of a principal who belonged to the Tripathi group.
For a time Tripathi had a key base for sustaining his political image and
conducting his campaign for the legislative assembly seat in 1967.
Sarvjit Lai, however, proved to be far from politically dead. He legally
challenged the qualifications of several of Tripathi’s followers in the gen¬
eral body, had them disqualified, and restored his majority on the manag¬
ing committee. Tripathi fought back by endeavoring to have his disquali¬
fied followers reinstated. Sarvjit Lai tried to dismiss the principal installed
during Tripathi’s regime. However, this maneuver was overruled by the
district inspector of schools. When Sarvjit Lai appealed the decision, it was
upheld by the deputy director of education. The result is that the manag¬
ing committee is once more under Sarvjit Lai’s control while the principal
remains loyal to Tripathi.
At Subhash Rashtriya Intercollege in another part of Jalalpur constitu¬
ency, Tripathi’s entrepreneurship has been a more unqualified success. He
has been able to achieve a stable regime by maintaining strong support
within its general body. Thus, his educational entrepreneurship has yielded
him only one secure operational base in the district’s network of secondary
schools and junior colleges.

The Communists and Educational Entrepreneurship

The Communists in Faizabad district have also made extensive efforts

to establish and gain control of secondary educational institutions. A driv¬
ing force behind Communist educational entrepreneurship is Mata Prasad
Singh, a lawyer. At one time or another Mata Prasad has stood for almost
every elective office in the district as an overt or covert candidate of the
Communist Party of India. Deciding long ago that the propagation of
Communism required points of entry into the minds of the young, he em¬
barked upon an extensive program of founding private secondary institu¬
tions, called Vidya Mandirs (Temples of Wisdom), throughout the district.
As these institutions have flourished, they have provided the Communist
movement in Faizabad with numerous organizational focuses replete with
platoons of students and teachers available for canvassing during elections.
Not all Communist-controlled institutions are equally effective as polit¬
ical instruments, but in two constituencies, Maya and Milkipur (both in
the western half of the district), there does appear to be some measure of
112 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

correlation between Communist strength and their operation of higher sec¬

ondary schools and intercolleges.
In Maya, there has been a steady growth of Communist voting strength
since the first general election, culminating in 1967 in the first Communist
victory ever in Faizabad district in a legislative assembly election. The
Communist candidate in 1957 received 40 percent as many votes as the
winner (Congress); in 1962, the Communist candidate received 79 percent
as many votes as the winner (Congress); and in 1967, the Communist
candidate, Rajbali Yadav, defeated the Congress candidate by more than
8,000 votes. In Milkipur, the Communists have not done as spectacularly,
but their candidates have consistently received 40 percent as many votes
as the winning candidates. (There was every possibility that the Commu¬
nists would have done far better in Milkipur in 1967 had their leaders
there not been implicated in an ugly murder case which diminished their
public image and resulted in the imprisonment of some of their key field
workers.)
In Maya and Milkipur together there are three politically active Com¬
munist institutions — two of them Vidya Mandirs. The third, Indrabali
Adarsh Higher Secondary School, is located in Maya, in the strategic town
of Goshainganj, site of Jai Ram Varma’s institution, the R.B.N. Intercol¬
lege. The head of the school’s managing committee is Shambhoo Narain
Singh, one of Faizabad’s original Communists and the Communist candi¬
date for MLA in 1962, when he gained 79 percent as many votes as the
winning Congress party candidate. The principal is R. D. Tiwari, who is
also principal of the two institutions under Communist control in Milkipur.
This degree of operational integration among several schools appears to
be a hallmark of Communist organization. No other political group prac¬
tices it.
The two private institutions in Milkipur where the Communists have a
majority on the managing committees are the Deo Vidyalaya Intercollege
at Tarauli and the Vidya Mandir Higher Secondary School in Milkipur
proper. The manager of the latter school is Bindhyachal Singh, the Com¬
munist candidate for MLA in 1967. Mata Prasad Singh and a number of
Communist notables from the Milkipur area are also on the managing
committee. The Deo Vidyalaya is controlled by Mata Prasad Singh, and
both institutions, as we noted, have the same principal, R. D. Tiwari.
Mata Prasad Singh also controls the M.L.M.L. Vidya Mandir Higher
Secondary School in Faizabad city, which was helpful to Mata Prasad in
1957 when he stood for MLA from the city constituency and in 1967
when the constituency was a component of the parliamentary constituency
which Mata Prasad contested. Near Mata Prasad’s ancestral home (in
Jalalpur constituency) is the M.L.V. Higher Secondary School. He also
has considerable influence here, influence which came in handy in 1967
when the Communists achieved a great coup by inducing a former PSP
(Praja Socialist Party) leader there, Bhagwati Prasad Singh, to join the
Communist party and run for MLA on its ticket.
Faizabad District 113

The Faizabad general constituency in which Mata Prasad Singh ran for
parliament in 1967 includes the five legislative assembly constituencies
comprising the western half of the district. It is interesting to compare his
performance in each. He compiled his largest vote in Maya, where Rajbali
Yadav, the Communist candidate for MLA, won and where the Indrabali
Adarsh Higher Secondary School is located. Mata Prasad’s second highest
total came from Ayodhya constituency, containing the city of Faizabad,
where he controlled one school, the M.L.M.L. Vidya Mandir Higher Sec¬
ondary School, and where he was the beneficiary of much Muslim sup¬
port.20 His third greatest total was in Bikapur, a constituency south of the
city, which is heavily populated by thakurs, ex-taluqdars, and ex-zamin-
dars. Here Mata Prasad had no educational institutions under his wing,
but he is a thakur and the thakurs of the constituency generally tend to
oppose Congress unless one of their own is on the Congress ticket. Mata
Prasad’s fourth highest total was in Milkipur, where he had control of two
private institutions, the Deo Vidyalaya Intercollege and the Vidya Mandir
Higher Secondary School. Most significant about Mata Prasad’s perform¬
ance in Milkipur is that he recorded 2,000 votes more than Bindhyachal
Singh, the Communist’s MLA candidate, who was more directly associated
in the public’s mind with the local scandal surrounding the party. Mata
Prasad’s poorest performance was in Sohowal, where, as in Bikapur (but
without the compensating factors), he had no influence in educational insti¬
tutions.
From the evidence presently at hand we cannot establish a certain cor¬
relation between Mata Prasad’s educational entrepreneurship and his
electoral performance. Bikapur constituency clearly shows that variables
of many kinds can and do operate and that controlling the managing com¬
mittees of educational institutions may have little bearing on an election’s
outcome. Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that sometimes there is a
relationship between the two. Perhaps the number of managing commit¬
tees under a politician’s control is less significant than the quality of politi¬
cal organization that managers and principals are able to achieve in behalf
of their patron. The two Communist institutions in Milkipur and the one
in Maya are effectively organized for political support activities and seem
to have an impact on the outcome of elections. The M.L.M.L. Vidya
Mandir Higher Secondary School in Faizabad city, on the other hand, is
much less skillfully organized and consequently plays a far weaker role in
the political life of Ayodhya constituency. More research is clearly called
for in this matter.

Political Allegiances Among Managing Committees

Table 26 contains a summary of the pattern of political control of man¬

aging committees in Faizabad by parliamentary and legislative assembly
constituencies. Of the forty-four private institutions with managing com¬
mittees in the district, only two are definitely not identified with any po-
 114 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

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 Faizabad District
115

litical group. One other may not be, but the data do not permit a positive
judgment about it. The remaining forty-one managing committees are
politicized and attempt to utilize the institutions they control to support a
specific political philosophy, party, or faction. More than half (twenty-
one) of the politicized managing committees are dominated by the Con¬
gress party, a legacy of its long organizational history reaching back to the
twenties. But it is significant, on the other hand, that despite that long
history nearly half of the politicized institutions are under the control of
other parties and groups. In addition, because of the dissension within
Congress, the allegiance of the Congress-oriented managing committees is
divided virtually equally between the two rival factions in the party.
There is a distinct relationship between areas of the district where a
party or faction enjoys general political predominance and the ability to
dominate the managing committees of private secondary institutions. The
Kamlapati Tripathi-Jai Ram Varma faction of Congress controls six of
ten Congress-dominated managing committees in the Akbarpur Scheduled
Caste parliamentary constituency embracing the eastern half of Faizabad
district, where that group has always been dominant. The C. B. Gupta-
Madan Mohan Varma group, on the other hand, controls seven of eleven
Congress-dominated managing committees in the Faizabad general parlia¬
mentary constituency, which lies in the western half of the district, where
they have always been uppermost organizationally. The Communists have
power over managing committees in legislative assembly constituencies
where they have shown the greatest strength at the polls and have a his¬
tory of organizational success. The socialist parties and factions have
always shown their greatest vitality in the Jalalpur, Kateri, and Akbarpur
constituencies lying in the southeast corner of Faizabad but rarely else¬
where in the district.
The pattern for the so-called Thakur party, which table 26 indicates has
control of five managing committees, is the same. Even though they do
not really comprise an official party, the ex-zamindars and taluqdars of
Faizabad, who are mainly of the Rajput caste, have formed an interest
group which seeks as much political and economic advantage for the
thakurs and their supporters as can be garnered by bargaining and com¬
peting with the other political groups in the district. Three of the five
managing committees in thakur hands are in Bikapur legislative assembly
constituency, which is the political base of Avadhesh Pratap Singh, the
leader of this political bloc. He is the ex-raja of a former taluqa (landed
estate) called Khajurahat, which had been a major force in the affairs of
the area now embraced by Bikapur constituency. In the first two general
elections, Raja Singh ran for the provincial assembly from Bikapur and
won in the face of determined Congress opposition. When in the third
general election Congress finally succeeded in besting him (by casting a
rival ex-raja from the same area against him), Raja Singh, through alli¬
ance with the Gupta-Varma faction of Congress, was elected president
116 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

(adhyaksha) of the Faizabad district board (zila parishad) and thus

gained control of one of the most lucrative patronage structures in the
district.
Although, for the time being, Raja Avadesh Pratap’s political activities
are largely focused outside Bikapur, the constituency where his traditional
ties are strongest, he continues to work hard maintaining his ties there. He
does everything possible to preserve his control of two of the four man¬
aging committees running private institutions near his ancestral taluqa
because he considers the area the locus of his strength in the district,
which he can fall back upon whenever his political fortunes ebb elsewhere.
Essentially, this is the logic governing the organizational thinking of all
political groups in Faizabad and is revealed in the distribution of their
power over educational institutions.
An important question which these observations raise, however, is the
causal relationship between control of managing committees and political
power. Does such control facilitate political success or does political suc¬
cess facilitate control of managing committees?
It is impossible at the present time to provide a final answer to this
question because enough studies are not available. However, it seems
likely that control of managing committees is both a factor in political
success and a measure of it. The political use of educational institutions
is affected by a combination of local conditions and the specific talents
and predilections of local political leaders. In Jalalpur constituency, for
example, the socialists’ strategy involved the use of the Acharya Narendra
Deo Intercollege as the focal point of a projected organizational effort
designed to culminate in control of an entire constituency. Evidently the
causal role of politicized managing committees is different, if not more
important, for the Jalalpur socialists than it was for the Congress party
in Milkipur constituency during the last election, where Ram Lai Bai,
with alternative political resources at his command, won decisively. The
fact that all private educational institutions but one were in the hands of
his political rivals was compensated for by his ability to use the Gandhi
Ashram depots for political purposes.
Despite difficulty in specifying the precise value of controlling managing
committees, we can accept the empirical findings of this study as evidence
that local politicians themselves regard such control as a political resource
that vitally affects political fortunes. Every managing committee in Faiza¬
bad district capable of being politicized has been seized by some group,
faction, or party. Control of managing committees is sufficiently prized
that attempts are constantly being made by political rivals to seize such
control.

The Prospect for Educational Goals

In the private higher secondary schools and intercolleges of Faizabad

district the managing committee is the ideal context for the fusion of edu-
Faizabad District 117

cational entrepreneurship and political ambition. Where government is

more directly involved in the management of educational institutions, the
convergence of politics and education occurs but to a lesser degree as well
as in a different manner. The private managing committee is autonomous,
while the control of the department of education is indirect and largely, it
would appear, perfunctory. In this kind of setting, the interests of the pro¬
fessional educator can be subordinated to the interests of the profes¬
sional politician. This need not be the case, and sometimes is not; nor
was it as much the case before independence as afterward. The motives
for creating the managing-committee approach were noble ones — to en¬
courage nonofficial groups to invest in the educational process, and to
create educational institutions where otherwise there would be none. But
the scramble for differential access to scarce resources through the instru¬
mentalities of politics has become such a pervasive impulse that all social
structures which can serve this impulse have been mobilized to do so.
Educational institutions are only part of a whole range of institutions (co¬
operative banks, charitable trusts, the Arya Samaj) which have been co¬
opted by the politically ambitious in search of ways of providing patronage
and special advantages to their clienteles. The present situation is a bane
to the men in Indian education who see their responsibility to be mainly
educational. These men often find that managing committees assess their
value to the educational institution in inverse ratio to the zeal they display
as educators.
Brij Nandan Prasad, for example, found this to be true when he was
principal of S.S.V. Intercollege of Faizabad. Early in his career as a
teacher, Prasad became the protege of an old landlord politician whose
support enabled him to acquire considerable prestige in district education
and to become closely identified with the C. B. Gupta-Madan Mohan
Varma faction of Congress in Faizabad. The post of principal of S.S.V.
Intercollege was made possible by Madam Mohan Varma, who was presi¬
dent of the school’s managing committee. Temperamentally, Brij Nandan
Prasad is not a politician. Although he has associated with politicians and
helped them in their elections, his real interest lies in utilizing their favor
to secure support for his educational schemes. He believes, for example,
that insufficient emphasis is placed in India on the leisure-time activities of
youth. Consequently, for years he endeavored to convince his political
sponsors in Faizabad that they should enable him to found a youth
center. But persuasion failed because the politicians were primarily inter¬
ested in the political uses of the educational institutions which they con¬
trolled.
S.S.V. Intercollege is a Khatri-dominated institution which long served
the political interests of Madan Mohan Varma. From Madan Mohan
Varma’s point of view, Prasad’s political affinities made him a highly
desirable appointee to the school’s principalship. But Prasad, primarily
concerned about educational goals and processes, eventually found con¬
ditions at S.S.V. Intercollege so bad that he accepted a position as princi-
118 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

pal of the Kayastha Pathshala Intercollege at Allahabad, where he was free

to give first priority to educational purposes.
In one sense, the seeds of Prasad’s departure from S.S.V Intercollege
were inadvertently sown by the U.S. government. In 1957-58, Prasad re¬
ceived a Fulbright teacher’s grant for six months’ study and observation
of the American secondary school system. When he returned to his job as
principal in Faizabad, he was brimming with ideas for improving the cur¬
riculum and standards of teaching at S.S.V. These efforts very quickly
brought him into conflict with both his teaching staff and managing com¬
mittee. The teachers accused him of being a martinet because he wanted
to reform the institution in the light of standards which he saw being main¬
tained in the United States. The teachers through their representatives and
contacts took their complaints to the managing committee.
Prasad also collided with a member of the committee who was in charge
of acquiring supplies for the school and whom he believed to be corrupt.
This was the confrontation that precipitated his decision to leave. The al¬
legedly corrupt committee member was a close associate of one of Madan
Mohan Varma’s chief political lieutenants. When Prasad encountered op¬
position to his desire that the member be removed, he put his own author¬
ity in the institution on the line. Either he or the corrupt member of the
committee must go. Madan Mohan Varma, though one of the more en¬
lightened men in Faizabad politics, was above all a politician fighting for
his survival against powerful enemies. Faced with a choice between a
capable professional educator or a trusted political lieutenant, Madan
Mohan chose to dispense with the former. He allowed Brij Nandan Prasad
to resign and take up his new position in Allahabad.
The managing committee of the Kayastha Pathshala Intercollege is dom¬
inated by Kayasthas. The president is a Kayastha, as are forty-eight of the
fifty-five faculty members. In this sense, the institution is more dominated
by a single community than is the Khatri S.S.V. Intercollege of Faizabad.
Yet when Brij Nandan Prasad transferred his administrative talents to this
institution, no efforts were made to subordinate his educational efforts to
community or political interests. He says he found conditions at Kayastha
Pathshala slack. Teachers and staff were doing their jobs lackadaisically,
not attending classes on time and not fulfilling other duties in a diligent
manner. When Prasad imposed discipline, some members of his teaching
staff went to the manager and complained against him just as some at
S.S.V. had done. In this instance the manager brusquely turned the dele¬
gation away with the remark, “If he is guilty of these things then he is
doing the job that we hired him to do.” Thus, Prasad had found an educa¬
tional institution where the talents of the professional educator mattered
more than the talents of the professional politician.
Prasad’s experience suggests that the line between educational and po¬
litical entrepreneurship is not firm and absolute, but a matter of degree
depending on varying conditions of management. The line can be deter-
Faizabad District 119

mined only by examining decisions actually made by the managing com¬

mittees when the chips are down. What do they defend and what do they
reject, in the last analysis?

Concluding Observations

To reduce political influence in private educational institutions to a “be¬

nign” level, as Susanne Rudolph has put it, it would be necessary to reform
the manner in which general bodies are selected and can be manipulated.
This may not prove so easy to achieve or so unmixed a blessing as it at
first might seem, however. The present system of selecting and manipulat¬
ing managing committees is an important source of educational motivation.
As things stand today, the noneducated layman and the politician not iden¬
tified with the missionary dedication of the professional educator have
reasons for turning their organizational talents to the founding or running
of educational institutions.
These reasons include mobility aspirations and demand for access to
scarce resources. In this sense Faizabad is India writ large. It is subdivided
into a multitude of social compartments whose boundaries have been de¬
termined by the rules of endogamy, by the conceptions of hierarchy and
caste inherent in the Hindu social order, and by allegiance to the coun¬
try’s various religions. The promulgation of a democratic constitution fol¬
lowing independence widened the scope of popular political participation.
In sociological terms this meant that the multitude of social compartments
whose traditional meanings had arisen from essentially religious considera¬
tions became the focuses of political organization. The “ethnic” character¬
istics of the people in these compartments came progressively to the fore,
while their “ritual” or orthodox characteristics became more and more
secondary or residual. The castes (and other endogamous communities),
in other words, have emerged as frameworks for the pursuit of group inter¬
ests through political action.
Educational development has, on the one hand, helped to promote the
“ethnicization” and politicization of the caste system and its structural ex¬
tensions and, on the other, become one of the chief preoccupations of
ethnicized groupings acting in the domain of politics. Educational devel¬
opment has “brought with it a movement towards a more literate popu¬
lation, open to new sources of influence and information.” 20 People have
learned what there is to ask for and how to ask for it (or demand it). The
asking has come from groups which politicization has activated and con¬
verted into interest groups, each one of which makes demands conditioned
by its particular vantage on the competitive process. Thus the demand has
not been for education in the general and abstract sense, but education
“for us,” that is, educational institutions accessible to the children of each
ethnicized social compartment and, wherever possible, under the adminis¬
trative control of its own leaders.27 One meaning of ethnicized education
120 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

is that so long as group mobility through political representation remains

a central preoccupation in India, educational institutions and processes (as
one of the chief instrumentalities of social mobility) can hardly be kept
insulated from political intervention. The temptation for a politician to di¬
vert educational resources to his constituents (who almost always include
at least one ethnic community in which he has a powerful political base)
in a manner which assures him a measure of political profit is irresistible,
just as is the inclination of any segment of the public to support a politi¬
cian whose educational entrepreneurship appears to offer them a chance
to gain ground in the fierce competition for status and its economic re¬
wards. As Joseph Gusfield puts it: “The school functions not only as a
homogenizer. It also serves to intensify political and group struggles.” 28
The relationship between politics and education in Faizabad district
shows how accurately Gusfield has perceived the situation. But it also
shows that general discussions of Indian education, however excellent,
often have not perceived the full extent to which instrumental attitudes to¬
ward education and the social structures in which it is propagated have
taken hold of both the public and the politicians alike. An investigation of
what the system of education does must explore dimensions of its opera¬
tion which range far afield from what the more pedantic observer would
care to mean by “education.”
8 / Caste and Community in the Private
and Public Education of Mysore State

T. N. Madan / B. G. Halbar

The preeminence of education as an instrument of modernization is

widely assumed in the contemporary literature on the so-called traditional
societies or developing nations. Thus, we are advised that, “the progress
of modernization will ... be directly related to the pace of educational
advance and the one sure way to modernize quickly is to spread education,
to produce educated and skilled citizens and train an adequate and compe¬
tent intelligentsia.” 1
Statements like the foregoing are uncritical, and therefore misleading,
in their excessive faith in the modernizing power of the content of educa¬
tion; they fail to pay sufficient attention to the organizational aspects of
educational institutions and to the wider social and political environment.
Anderson rightly complains “that over much of the world we are witness¬
ing a modernization of education that is not matched by an equal modern¬
ization by education.” 2
The claims made for education, therefore, have to be qualified. The
effectiveness of education varies according to the degree of underdevelop¬
ment. The introduction of literacy and inauguration of schools in the so-
called nonliterate folk societies is a revolutionary turning (or starting)
point in their modernization. These societies are not totally lacking in
extradomestic institutions for socialization, but such institutions (for ex¬
ample, the dormitory among some Indian tribes)3 are never exclusively
educational.
The condition of peasant societies is essentially different from that of
nonliterate societies in that the former have a tradition of literacy and
formal instruction.4 Although this tradition may generally make bigger
achievements possible, it may also impede the modernizing role of educa¬
tion in certain cases. Conflicts may develop between the traditional and
the modern content of education, and, more importantly, between modern
education and traditional social structure.
The educational system interacts with the social and political systems
and does not enjoy such autonomy within society that its modernizing
influence can operate without check or hindrance. The goals of the edu-

Thanks are hereby expressed to the National Council of Educational Research

and Training, New Delhi, for financial assistance between February 1965 and April
1966 to prepare a report (“Caste and Educational Institutions in Mysore State,” 215
pp., 1966); to Karnatak University, Dharwar, for sponsoring the research; and to
Shri D. C. Pavate, then the vice-chancellor of the University, for his keen interest
in the project. P. C. Verma helped condense detailed tables.
 122 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

cational system, and the policies and decisions regarding their implemen¬
tation, emanate at least partly from the social and political systems. What
is more, traditional social structures may not prove to be wholly suitable
environments for modern education. The policy of putting new wine in old
bottles may generally help in overcoming resistance to innovations, but
sometimes only new bottles are good enough for new wine. Thus, although
the content of traditional education and old methods of teaching may be
easily displaced by new curricula and trained teachers (particularly in
state-controlled institutions), the narrow social base of privately managed
institutions and the particularistic5 policies of their sponsors pose special
problems. Such institutions often discriminate in student admissions, staff
recruitment, and distribution of various types of patronage and facilities,
and although they do adopt modern curricula, the environment they create
may not be modern. If educational institutions fail to bring together in a
common setting the classes, castes and religious communities of neighbor¬
hoods or localities, they do not help promote social and national integra¬
tion. The sociocultural environment which spawns such institutions thus
acquires crucial importance in the success of educational programs.
This chapter discusses the role which caste and communal loyalties play
in the private educational institutions of the state of Mysore. More spe¬
cifically, it shows that the constraints of traditional social structure, and
the attitudes and values associated with it, limit the role of educational
institutions as agents of modernization and as supporters of universalistic
as against particularistic (communal, caste, or sectarian) values.
The content of education (subjects, curricula, methods of teaching) is
not discussed in this chapter. The reasonable assumption, supported by
some general inquiries of our own, is that the content is modern. What we
are concerned with is the social composition of private educational societies
and of the institutions managed by them. In this context a comparison
between private and public educational institutions will be instructive be¬
cause the latter, being under the control of the state or local authorities,
may be expected to be more demographically representative in their social
composition than those that are privately managed.

Historical Background

India has had a long and continuous tradition of literacy and of formal
educational instruction in the home of the teacher (Brahman, Buddhist
or Muslim) or in institutions supported by the king or private bodies like
monasteries.6 During the British period of Indian history, the variety and
number of public and private educational institutions increased consid¬
erably.
Education was included among the duties of the chaplains of the East
India Company as early as 1698, and the first “charity school” (modeled
on similar English schools) was founded in 1715 at Madras. These schools
Mysore State 123

however, did not cater to the needs of Indian children. Education of the
latter in the new schools began only with the arrival of European mission¬
aries sent out specially for this purpose early in the eighteenth century.
The company declared its interest in the education of the “natives” in the
First Education Despatch of 1814. But it “proposed to do little beyond
(i) leaving the learned natives of India to their old-time methods of
instruction and encouraging them in their literary pursuits and (ii) en¬
couraging its own officers to study Sanskrit with a view to improving the
efficiency of its administration.” 7
The Despatch granted recognition and gave a fillip to private educational
institutions. Between the first Despatch in 1814 and the second Despatch
in 1854, three types of private educational institutions flourished in the
country: those run by missionaries, by officials of the Company in their
individual capacity or nonofficial Englishmen resident in India, and by
Indians themselves. The last category included traditional as well as mod¬
ern institutions.8
The second Despatch (also known as Wood’s Despatch) “laid the foun¬
dations on which Indian education has since been built.” 9 Proclaiming
“that no subject could have a stronger claim to their attention than that of
education,” the directors of the Company recommended “that indigenous
schools should, by wise encouragement ... be made capable of impart¬
ing correct elementary knowledge to the great mass of the people,” and
“that in consideration of the impossibility of Government alone doing all
that must be done to provide adequately for the education of the people
of India they resolved to adopt, in India, the system of grant-in-aid . . . ,
the system being based on an entire abstinence from interference with the
religious instruction conveyed in the school assisted; that no government
colleges or schools should, therefore, be founded in future in any district
which had a sufficient number of institutions capable, with Government
grant, of supplying the local demand for education; and that they looked
forward to the time when any general system of education entirely pro¬
vided by Government might be discontinued with the gradual advance of
the system of grant-in-aid and when many of the existing Government in¬
stitutions, especially those of the higher order, might be safely closed or
transferred to the management of local bodies under the control of, or
aided by, the State.” 10
The “withdrawal” of the state from the field of mass education was moti¬
vated partly by financial stringency11 and partly by the policy of patronizing
missionary enterprise. Between 1854 and 1902, however, neither the mis¬
sionaries nor the government expanded their institutions to any notable
degree. In consequence, private Indian enterprise became the most impor¬
tant force in meeting the growing demand for education. “In 1854, the
modern educational institutions conducted by Indians were so few that
private enterprise really meant missionary enterprise. But as early as 1882,
the position was considerably changed,” (italics in the original) with
124 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

56,018 institutions (primary, secondary, and collegiate) run by Indians as

against 2,635 by non-Indians.12
In the closing years of the century, private enterprise in the field of edu¬
cation became a prominent part of various social and religious reform
movements, and in the twentieth century, of the national movement.

Table 27. Nongovernmental educational institutions as a percentage of all

educational institutions in India (1960-61) (by state and by stage or sector).
State Percentage Stage or sector Percentage

Andhra Pradesh 8.0 Preprimary 70.9

Assam 19.1 Lower primary 22.2
Bihar 74.0 Higher primary 27.1
Gujarat 36.0 Secondary 69.2
Jammu and Kashmir 1.7 Vocational schools 57.4
Kerala 61.6 Special schools 79.0
Madhya Pradesh 4.6 Institutions for higher general
education (B.A., B.Sc.,
B.Comm. Colleges) 78.8
Madras 33.0 Colleges for professional
education (engineering,
medicine, law, etc.) 49.8
Maharashtra 48.0 Colleges for special education 74.9
Mysore 34.3
Orissa 65.3
Punjab 7.4
Rajasthan 3.5
Uttar Pradesh 14.5
West Bengal 36.3

Total for India 33.2 Total for all sectors 33.2

Source: Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Education Com¬
mission, 1964-1966 (New Delhi, 1966), p. 446.

Table 27 suggests a great variation among states in the growth of private

education, depending on particular state histories. In some states under
the control of the princes, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, and the large
areas of Madhya Pradesh that were princely, there was very little private
effort of the sort which government aid and encouragement produced in
many states under direct British control. On the other hand, the British
India-princely India distinction was not decisive. The strong Christian in¬
fluence in Travancore and Cochin princely states produced a large num¬
ber of private institutions. Also, the states under direct British control too
differed among themselves, their governments being by no means uniform
either in respect to policy or administrative vigor. Finally, the percentages
of nongovernmental educational institutions vary depending on idiosvn
cracies of local history. 6 y
Table 27 also shows that state enterprise has been more marked in pri¬
mary education than in higher sectors. In the postindependence period, a
Mysore State 125

policy of greater state investment, notably in primary education but also in

other sectors, has led to a decline in private enterprise growth rates.13 The
policy in Mysore, however, may run counter to this national trend in view
of the interest in that state in pressing private education.

Scope

The data on which this chapter is based pertain to three districts in

Mysore state — Dharwar and Belgaum in the north and Mysore in the
south. The former two districts were transferred to the new state of Mysore
following the reorganization of the states of the Indian Union in 1956,
while the third district, Mysore, was inherited from the princely state of
that name. We studied these districts because, among other reasons,14 we
hoped thus to cover both the areas of active private enterprise in education
(represented by the districts transferred to Mysore from Bombay and
Madras) and the areas in which government and local authority institu¬
tions predominate (as in the areas formerly falling within the princely
states of Hyderabad, Mysore, and Coorg).
Under private enterprise we include organizations like educational co¬
operative societies with limited liability, educational trusts registered under
the Public Trusts Act, and educational societies registered under the So¬
cieties Act. In the residual category of local authority institutions we have
grouped together schools managed by local self-governing agencies such
as district school boards, municipal school boards, taluka (subdivision)
development boards, and panchayats (village self-government). For the
sake of convenience, schools managed by universities also have been in¬
cluded in this category.
All the recognized major sectors of education (general, professional, and
technical) at all levels but the postgraduate15 (that is, nursery, primary,
secondary, and collegiate) were studied. Also included in the study were
five special institutions (Shankarcharya Sanskrit Pathshala of Dharwar,
Tontadarya Sanskrit Pathshala of Gadag, Maharaja’s Sanskrit College of
Mysore, Shivarathreshwara Gurukula of Mysore, and the United Theo¬
logical College of Bangalore) that provide literary and religious instruc^-
tion to preserve the cultural traditions of various communities. Moreover,
we made intensive inquiries into the history and present educational activ¬
ities of three prominent private educational societies: the Karnatak Liberal
Education Society of Belgaum and the Jagadguru Shivarathreshwar Maha-
vidyapeeth of Mysore (both managed by Lingayats)16 and the Janata
Shikshana Samiti of Dharwar (managed by Brahmans). We also inquired
into the educational programs of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belgaum
and the Anjuman-e-Islam of Hubli.
Data were collected 17 from 210 educational institutions. Table 28 gives
the district, level of education, and type of management of these institu¬
tions.
126 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

Table 28. Distribution of institutions studied in Mysore state, by manage¬

ment, district, and level, 1965-66.
Local authority
Government management management Private management

DW» BMb MY' Total DW» MYb Total DW* BMb MY' Total
Level (District) (District) (District) Total

Primary 3 _ _ 3 _ _ - 13 - 9 22 25
Secondary 6 - 5 11 9 16 25 81 1 24 106 142
Collegiate 5 1 4 10 3 2 5 10 8 10 28 43

Total 14 1 9 24 12 18 30 104 9 43 156 210

° Dharwar district.
b Belgaum district.
c Mysore district.

The guiding principle in deciding the number of institutions to study was

the relative importance of private enterprise, which was found to increase
progressively from the primary to the collegiate levels and also to pre¬
dominate at the preprimary (nursery) level. (For details see the following
section.) Therefore, only 17 percent of the preprimary and less than 1
percent of the primary schools were chosen for study from the districts of
Dharwar and Mysore. For secondary schools, however, the percentage
chosen was 77 in Dharwar and 50 in Mysore. At the collegiate level, all
the institutions in Dharwar, 90 percent of those in Belgaum, and 80 percent
of those in Mysore were studied. The choice of institutions was the out¬
come of several considerations, of which cooperation of the respondents
and our own convenience were probably the most decisive.

Private Enterprise and State Policy

The limitation of space precludes us from going into the history of pri¬
vate educational institutions in the areas which now comprise the state of
Mysore or into the history of educational policy in the former states or
provinces.18 As table 29 suggests, Mysore is following a policy of encour¬
agement of private enterprise in education.
Of the 156 private educational institutions studied, 23 were founded
over seven decades of the 19th century (1830-1899), and another 39 over
the four decades preceding World War II, but by far the largest proportion,
70 percent, have been founded in the two and a half decades since 1940.
The data on degree colleges are a good index of the increasing im¬
portance of educational societies. Of the sixteen (out of twenty) colleges
studied in Mysore, four are government and two local authority col¬
leges, while ten are privately managed. Four of these ten colleges were
started after 1960, while no colleges have been started since that date in
the other two sectors. In Belgaum, of the nine (out of ten) colleges studied,
eight are privately managed, and two of the latter were started after 1960.
The data from Dharwar are particularly instructive, first, because we
covered all the colleges in our study, and second, because the government
Mysore State 127

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128 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

policy of encouragement of private enterprise in the Dharwar and Belgaum

districts before the reorganization of states has been adopted by the new
state of Mysore throughout its territories. There are eighteen colleges in
the district, and of these ten are privately managed, five are run by the
government, and three by local authorities. More significant is the distribu¬
tion of the founding dates of these institutions. The first college in the dis¬
trict was the Karnatak College in Dharwar town. It was started in 1917
by the Bombay government in response to public demand, and came under
the administration of the Mysore government in 1956 following the re¬
organization of states. The Mysore government in turn handed it over to
the Karnatak University in 1958 to be run as a “model institution.” The
College is a famous institution. Among its distinguished alumni are P. B.
Gajendragadkar, former chief justice of India, and D. C. Pavate, governor
of Punjab and former vice-chancellor of Karnatak University. In the decade
1940-1949, three private and two government colleges were started, and
in the following decade, four private and two government colleges were
begun. Between 1960 and 1965, one government, two local authority, and
three private colleges were started.
Private and local authority institutions anywhere in India would find it
difficult to survive without government financial support. In India, govern¬
ment funds account for 48.2 percent of the finances of privately managed
schools.19 The dependence of private institutions on the state is particularly
heavy in Mysore, where no tuition fees may be charged, under government
orders, for preprimary, primary, and (since 1966) secondary school stu¬
dents. Public donations, contributions from members of educational so¬
cieties, and student fees do not meet the financial requirements of these
institutions in full. Support of the government thus becomes crucial.
The proportion of the total income of private institutions coming from
government grants will, therefore, provide a significant clue to state policy.
In Mysore, this proportion is high, reflecting the policy of encouragement
of private enterprise. Table 30 gives the percentage share of government
grants and student fees in 1964-65 in the total income of the 156 institu¬
tions studied. The balance of the income accrued from other sources;
notably, bank deposits, securities, and donations. Note that the govern¬
ment proportion is lowest for colleges and highest for secondary schools.20
Grants-in-aid have been employed by the various Congress party minis¬
tries of the state of Mysore to encourage educational societies. In order
to maintain uniformity in the standards of education and to prevent mal¬
administration and misuse of funds, the government has exercised super¬
vision and control over such institutions by establishing criteria for “rec¬
ognition” of an institution as eligible for grants-in-aid. Periodic inspection
has been employed as a means of determining whether recognition and the
grants-in-aid are to be continued or withdrawn. Our inquiries revealed
several instances where recognition was refused or withdrawn. Recognition
of the Andhra primary school of Hubli was withdrawn by the deputy di-
Mysore State 729

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130 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

rector of public instruction, and the Shankar College of Yadgir was dis¬
affiliated by the Karnatak University in 1966, in both instances because
of charges of mismanagement. Similarly, grants were withheld from the
Municipal High School of Nipani (Belgaum district) and the Janata Eng¬
lish High School of Kalghatgi (Dharwar district), but the grants were
subsequently restored when the institutions mended their ways. The gov¬
ernment and university authorities whom we interviewed on this subject,
however, pointed out that the occasions for such drastic action are infre¬
quent and that most of the lapses are usually rectified by less stern
measures.
Mysore education corresponds to the national pattern in which private
management dominates all except the primary school sector. This cor¬
respondence is indicated by the following facts and figures relating to the
total number of institutions and the amount of grants-in-aid payable to
them by the government.21 Preprimary education is not the direct responsi¬
bility of the state government; therefore, liberal grants are advanced to
private bodies at the rate of 70 percent of the authorized expenditure for
rural schools and 50 percent of that for urban schools. Of the total of 465
preprimary schools in the state controlled by the department of education
during 1964-65, all but 7, or 98 percent, were run by private bodies. Of
these 7, 5 were government and 2 local authority schools.
Primary schools, however, are mainly a government responsibility. In
1964-65 there were 30,539 primary schools in the whole of Mysore. Of
these, 21,021 (69 percent) were government institutions. Most of the
remaining 9,518 schools were managed by district school boards and
municipal school boards in ex-Bombay and ex-Madras areas, thus leaving
only a small number in the hands of private managements. As for the
finances of district school boards, almost the whole of the expenditure is
met by government, the only other source being the boards’ share in the
local fund cess which is realized from the public along with land revenue.
Municipal school boards receive 50 percent of their total expenditure as
grants-in-aid from government. This overwhelming dominance of govern¬
ment in the field of primary education suggests that government takes
seriously Article 45 of the Constitution, which places the responsibility for
primary education on state governments.
In secondary education, the pattern is again reversed. During 1964-65,
910 of the 1,331 secondary schools, representing 69 percent of the total,
were privately managed. Government schools numbered 164 and local
authority schools, 257. The grants-in-aid code for these schools defines
their main objective as the extension and improvement of secular edu¬
cation in the state.22 Grants-in-aid provided 80 percent of the total ex¬
penditure on maintenance for urban high schools, and 85 percent for
rural high schools. Secondary schools also received miscellaneous grants.
College education also is mainly private. Of the total of 141 degree col¬
leges in the state in 1964-65, 68 percent were privately managed, 27 per-
Mysore State 131

cent were the responsibility of the government, and 4 percent were run as
“model colleges” by the two universities at Dharwar and Mysore.23 The
importance of private enterprise in the area of collegiate education is
clearly indicated in table 31 which shows that private colleges are not only
to be found in all but four subsectors, but also outnumber government
colleges in all but one of the subsectors in which they operate. The ex-

Table 31. Degree colleges in Mysore state, 1964-65, classified according to

management.
Management

Institution Government University Private Total

General education colleges

(B.A.; B.Sc.; B.Comm.) 15 3 53 71
Professional and technical colleges
Medical colleges 6 - 4 10
Commerce colleges 1 - 6 7
Engineering colleges 2 1 12 15
Law colleges 1 1 9 11
Veterinary colleges 1 - - 1
Agriculture colleges 2 - 2
Educational training colleges 7 1 8 16
Physical education colleges 1 - - 1
Technology colleges 1 - - 1
Oriental (Sanskrit) colleges 2 — 4 6

Total 39 6 96 141

Source: Government of Mysore, Handbook on Education 1964-65 (Bangalore, 1965).

ception is the medical college subsector, medical colleges being high cost.
It is of some significance that despite their high cost, engineering colleges
in these districts are predominantly private.
Private enterprise in collegiate education receives ample support from
government. According to the grants-in-aid code in force in 1964-65, gov¬
ernment was obliged to pay two-thirds of the deficit in the maintenance
expenses of the private colleges, while also providing miscellaneous grants.
Support for private education is likely to be part of future state policy.
Several high ranking officials, including the secretary in charge of the de¬
partment of education of Mysore, were interviewed by us in December
1965. They agreed with us that private institutions suffer from various
drawbacks, such as communal bias in the distribution of patronage.24 But
they also pointed out that so long as the Constitution of India permits
private organizations to form educational societies, the communal orienta¬
tion of private institutions must be accepted as inevitable and put up with
unless it assumes flagrant proportions. To prevent such developments, one
of the basic conditions laid down for an institution to fulfil, before any
grants to it can be sanctioned, is that no student should be refused ad-
132 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

mission “on the ground of the caste or community to which he belongs

(quoted from Rule 10(iii) of the code governing grants-in-aid to private
colleges).
Further, it was emphasized by the officials interviewed that many private
institutions had high reputations not only for prolonged public service in
the field of education, but also for the excellence of teaching standards.
They attracted wide public patronage because of their reputations, and
government had to recognize this. In providing educational facilities to
the people, the government felt hamstrung by limited financial resources.
The government was, on the whole, appreciative of the role of educational
societies and satisfied with their working. It was said to be seriously con¬
sidering whether it should not limit its own role in education to financial
support and supervision and control of the standards of education, and
withdraw from the direct administration of schools and colleges. (No final
decision had been taken by the middle of 1967, however. According to
informed circles, the government was examining the feasibility of con¬
stituting district education boards for both primary and secondary schools.
These boards would be statutory local authority bodies on the model of
the district school boards that are functioning in Belgaum, Dharwar,
and other districts which formerly formed part of Bombay state. It is
likely that the new boards may be entrusted with the supervision of private
educational institutions as well.)

Community Control of Private Institutions

The importance of private educational institutions is only part of the

story. We also studied the manner in which these institutions are influenced
by and interact with the social environment. To do this, we examined
the composition of the managements of educational societies and related
that composition to other structural and functional aspects of private edu¬
cational institutions as well as to some characteristics of the wider society.
The history of private enterprise in education in modern India is an
aspect of a more general adaptive process through which castes, sects, and
communities have tried to meet the challenge of changing times and to
exploit new opportunities for their own social and political advancement.
Caste associations25 and educational societies are expressions of this gen¬
eral process of “decompression” of traditional institutions. Such bodies
performed highly important secular functions and did not try to conceal
their caste- or communal-based organization. Many educational institu¬
tions were originally, and proudly, given caste or communal names, but
the practice had to be abandoned after independence because of the gov¬
ernment’s decision not to support nonsecular institutions. For example,
the famous and powerful Karnatak Liberal Education Society of Belgaum,
which had twenty-three institutions — eleven of them colleges_spread
over four districts in the two states of Mysore and Maharashtra under its
Mysore State 133

management in 1966, was formerly known as the Karnatak Lingayat Edu¬

cation Society. In spite of the new name, the president, the four vice-presi¬
dents, and the fifteen members of its management are Lingayats. (What
is more, the society continues to be popularly known by its unchanged
initials — the K.L.E. Society. The substitution of “Liberal” for “Lingayat”
cleverly succeeds in preserving the identity of the Society.)
Similarly, the president, the two vice-presidents and eight out of the nine
members of the governing body of the Janata Shikshana Samiti of Dharwar
are Brahmans, and all the seven members of the management of Sri
Shivarathreshwar Mahavidyapeeth of Mysore are Lingayats. The Roman
Catholic Diocese of Belgaum and the Anjuman-e-Islam of Hubli also are
under the exclusive control of their respective communities.
We have designated educational institutions by the name of the caste
group or religious community whose representatives either constitute the
majority of the members of the management or, failing that, occupy key
management positions because of their financial and social entrepreneur-
ship.26
The data on community management of educational institutions are
presented in table 32.
This table indicates that Lingayats, Brahmans, and Christians are most
active in educational private enterprise. Since Brahmans and Christians
are minority communities, educational entrepreneurship is not explained
by community size. This conclusion is supported by the fact that, although
Vokkaligas are the largest single community in the state and Mysore dis¬
trict is one of their strongholds, they are quite inactive in educational pri¬
vate enterprise, even in the area where their population is most concen¬
trated. Similarly, Marathas, who constitute almost 20 percent of the popu¬
lation of Belgaum, have been comparatively inactive. It may be paren¬
thetically added here that the Christian institutions derive their financial
support partly from a non-local, and extra-national, source — international
missionary societies.
Of the other minorities, Muslims are the most enterprising in the districts
studied. Not only do they run their own institutions, but, as we will show
later, also avail themselves of the facilities offered by other private institu¬
tions.
Important data which would be relevant to an analysis of the compo¬
sition of managements, namely, a breakdown by caste of the population in
the state, unfortunately is unavailable after the 1931 census. Though more
than three decades old, the 1931 figures (see table 33) may reasonably
be expected to reflect the present distribution of castes, as there have
been no recent major demographic upheavals in the concerned areas.
While Brahmans are more or less uniformly distributed in all three dis¬
tricts, Lingayats, Christians, and Muslims predominate in the two northern
districts of Belgaum and Dharwar, and Vokkaligas in the southern district
of Mysore. It would be erroneous, however, to expect an exact corre-
134 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

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Mysore State 135

Table 33. Number and proportion of selected castes and communities in

Mysore state, by district, 1931.
Belgaum district Dharwar district Mysore district

Caste or community No. %a No. %a No. %a

Brahman 33,521 3.11 39,231 3.56 34,228 2.44

Christian 7,887 0.73 8,409 0.76 3,375 0.24
Lingayat 292,942 27.21 374,981 34.00 199,730 14.22
Maratha 212,713 19.70 52,843 4.80 4,919 0.40
Muslim 93,224 8.66 158,431 14.36 43,485 3.10
Vokkaliga 0 - 0 - 382,352 27.23

Total population15 1,076,701 - 1,102,677 - 1,403,984 —

Source: Government of India, Census of India, 1931: Bombay Presidency, vol. 8, pt. 2,
table 5; Mysore State, vol. 25, pt. 2, table 17.
a Percentage of the total population of the district belonging to the caste or community.
b Of the district.

spondence between the population of a caste or community and its po¬

sition in the field of education because of the difference in their educational
traditions, Brahmans and Christians having relatively old traditions com¬
pared to the Vokkaligas. The differences are reflected in the 1931 figures
for literacy in what was then Mysore state. The percentage of literacy for
Brahmans was 57.3; for Christians, 43.2; for Muslims, 21.2; for Lingayats,
16.4; for Marathas, 14.7; and for Vokkaligas, only 6.5.27
The composition of managements can now be examined in the light of
the above demographic data. Table 34 shows that one of the two major
communities of the state, the Lingayats, and the minority communities of

Table 34. Composition of management of private institutions in Mysore

state, 1965-66 (percentage).
Institution, Caste or community of members of managing boards
by managing
Brahman Christian Lingayat Other Total
community

73.8 1.4 11.0 13.8 100.0

Brahman (N = 49)
(322) (6) (48) (60) (436)
94.5 0.5 5.0 100.0
Christian (N = 35)
(206) (1) (ID (218)
(0)
9.3 0.2 75.0 15.5 100.0
Lingayat (N = 60)
(52) (421) (87) (561)
(1)
3.1 96.9 100.0
Muslim (N = 5)
(0) (2) (63)a (65)
(0)
12.9 16.1 71.0 100.0
Other (N = 7)
(0) (10) (44) (62)
(8)
Note: Numbers in parentheses are numbers of caste or community members on each

ma AU these 63 persons are Muslims. There are eight and six Muslims respectively on the
managements of Brahman and Lingayat institutions.
136 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

Brahmans, Christians, and Muslims invariably dominate the management

of their own educational institutions. The second major community, the
Vokkaligas, and other minorities, the Kunchatigas and Kurubas, are often
compelled to seek the cooperation of politically, socially, and educationally
advanced communities, and even, in extreme cases, to yield managerial
control to them. The mutual acceptance or rejection of the various com¬
munities is indicated in the accommodation of “outsiders” on the manage¬
ment. Thus, no “untouchable” is a member of a private management; but
five such persons sit on the managements of taluka board high schools in
Mysore district and a few on primary school boards in Belgaum and
Dharwar districts. The inclusion of scheduled caste representatives on
such boards is, of course, a statutory requirement.
There is contrast between the managements of local authority institu¬
tions and of private institutions. Beginning with the district and municipal
school boards, which play a dominant role in primary education in the
northern districts, we find that the five boards studied in the districts of
Belgaum and Dharwar had seventy-one members. There were thirty-six
Lingayats, eight Muslims, seven Marathas, five Brahmans, five scheduled
castes, three Christians, and seven others. Lingayats predominate over
the others on four boards, but in the fifth — the municipal school board
of Belgaum — Marathas are in a majority.28 Also, the important post of
board chairman is occupied by a member of the dominant community in
each case. The correspondence between the positions of the various castes
and communities on the boards and in the general population (see table
33) is remarkable, as is the presence of representatives of scheduled castes.
We were told that, ever since the inception of the boards in the 1920’s,
their membership has never been dominated by Brahmans. Involvement
of these boards in local and caste politics has been noted by Pavate,29
who came to know them intimately, and may be expected because the
principle of elective membership exposes them to communal and political
pressures. In consequence, the social composition of these boards is more
representative than that of the private managements.
So far as secondary schools and colleges are concerned, it will be seen
in table 35 that Lingayats, who are the largest community in Dharwar dis¬
trict, dominate the managements of local authority institutions. Brahmans
displace Muslims from the second position, which they, in view of their
larger population, might have occupied but for their educational back¬
wardness. Similarly, and for the same reasons, Vokkaligas in Mysore dis¬
trict occupy the second place after Brahmans, who are fewer in number
than Vokkaligas, Lingayats, and Muslims (in that order). It is particularly
noteworthy that the latter three communities occupy positions in the man¬
agements of secondary schools which exactly reproduce their relative
positions in the population: this correspondence indicates that the com¬
munities are democratically represented.
The above data show that in the management of local authority institu-
Mysore State 137

Table 35. Composition of management of local authority institutions in

Mysore state, by district, 1965-66.
Caste or community of members of managing boards

Dharwar district Mysore district

Brah¬ Linga- Vokka- Mus¬ Brah¬ Linga- Vokka- Mus-

Institution man yat liga lim Other man yat liga lim Other

Secondary
school11 4 30 0 3 12 21 16 17 5 30
Collegeb 1 12 0 0 0 - - -

a There were twenty-five secondary schools, nine in Dharwar district and sixteen in Mysore district.
b There were five colleges, three in Dharwar district and two in Mysore district. The two colleges in Mysore
district were managed by Mysore University, a stronghold of Brahmans.

tions educationally and socially advantaged minority communities lose

their importance and the principle of representation based on numerical
size emerges as decisive, or nearly so. Political power related to numerical
dominance replaces or competes with economic and cultural advantage.
It may be noted, however, that Brahmans seem to be able to hold their
own better when their competitors are really backward communities such
as Vokkaligas.

Social Composition of Staff and Students

The control of an educational institution by a society or management,

all or most of whose members belong to a single caste or religious com¬
munity, may not by itself represent a situation inimical to the sociopolitical
ideal of equality of educational opportunity. But if it can be shown that
the majority on the management dictates a policy of discrimination, favor¬
ing its community or caste in the appointment of teachers, admission of
students, and distribution of scholarships and other resources, then a
serious problem exists. The argument that equality of opportunity is
guaranteed by the freedom which all communities enjoy to run their own
educational institutions is fallacious. First, only the economically powerful
or culturally advanced communities seem to be able to operate effectively
as managers of educational institutions. Second, the activity of many com¬
munities in fostering particularistic values and communal attitudes, and
in practicing discrimination within their institutions, does not improve the
situation, but actually worsens it. Third, the fact that government foots
most of the bill for both public and private institutions makes this a
problem of public policy as well as of private initiative.
The data on the composition of teaching staff and students are crucial
to our analysis but in view of their bulk, have to be presented in a con¬
densed form. Table 36 deals with the composition of staff and table 37
contains the data on the composition of students.30
Table 36 shows that the teaching staff among the institutions run by
Brahmans, Christians, Lingayats, and Muslims is dominated by the manag-
138 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

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Mysore State 139

ing community itself. Thus, Brahmans constitute 54.2 to 74.0 percent of

the teaching staff in Brahman institutions; Christians, 46 to 75 percent in
Christian institutions; and Muslims, 91 to 93 percent in Muslim institutions.
Lingayats account for 55.6 and 60.4 percent respectively of the teachers
in their institutions in Belgaum and Dharwar. In their Mysore institutions,
however, they have fewer teachers (31.3 percent) than the Brahmans
(46.9 percent). This situation and similar situations in the various mi¬
nority community institutions are due to the lack of enough trained per¬
sonnel from the managing community.
The conclusion that recruitment of staff in private institutions takes
place on a communal basis is borne out by the outstanding fact that, irre¬
spective of the social structure of population in each district, each com¬
munity is better represented in its own institutions than in those managed
by other communities. (This tendency is more pronounced in urban areas
than in rural areas.)31
Other considerations besides communal loyalty — especially kinship
ties, linguistic affinities, economic motives (for example, donations), and
political pressures — may be responsible for various appointments. But
judging from the results, these other considerations generally operate
within the framework of communal interests.
Appointments are made according to government rules, but ways to
circumvent the rules are found whenever necessary in the interests of the
managing community. The usual justification offered is that people with
common interests and aims contribute to harmony and that such a com¬
munity of interests is natural among members of the same caste. Further,
the managers argue, since private institutions are the fruit of the combined
efforts of a particular community, so-called favoritism in appointments is
justified so long as the eligibility conditions are fulfilled. These consider¬
ations represent an excellent example of the traditional particularistic
point of view.
Discriminatory appointment is a vicious circle. Managements maintain
that they make appointments out of the available applicants, and usually
more applications are received from candidates belonging to the manag¬
ing community. The reason for this is the disinclination of people from
other communities to apply because they discount their chances of being
selected. Informants from numerically or socially weak communities main¬
tain that in a struggle with strong communities the former are ignored.
Among teachers, the head master or principal obviously occupies a
pre-eminent position. The data on heads of institutions conform to the
familiar pattern. Seventeen of the 22 heads of preprimary and primary
schools, 85 of the 106 heads of secondary schools, and 24 of the 28 col¬
lege principals belong to the managing community of their respective in¬
stitutions. Our inquiries reveal a similar picture with regard to key admin¬
istrative posts such as superintendent, accountant, and head clerk.
In the composition of students, one would expect demographic factors
 Educational Institutions in Their Environment
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Mysore State 141

to be decisive, but the enrollments in private educational institutions reveal

a mixed picture of communal loyalty, social and educational backward¬
ness, and the compulsion of numbers. Table 37 shows that among Brahman
institutions, Brahman students are the single largest group in all the three
districts, rising up to 54.3 percent of the total student population of Brah¬
man-managed institutions in Mysore. Lingayat schools and colleges pre¬
sent a similar picture.
Hardly any other community sends its children to Muslim institutions.
(The principal reason seems to be that Muslim institutions use Urdu as
the language of instruction, while other institutions use Kannada or, in
some cases, English.) In all the other private institutions, however, stu¬
dents belonging to the managing community are not even the single largest
group. In Christian institutions Brahman students are the dominant group,
in Vokkaliga schools, Muslims, and in Kunchatiga, Kuruba, and Reddy
institutions, Lingayats. Among Christians, the lack of numbers is the rea¬
son for this phenomenon, but among the other minority communities the
relative absence of an educational tradition seems to be an additional
factor. (The Kunchatiga college in Mysore is the creation of a single indi¬
vidual of the community, and not of any collective effort.) Why, then, do
such communities sponsor educational institutions? Social service, prestige
in society, political power, and even, in some cases, monetary gain, seem
to be the principal reasons.32
There is a contrast between the composition of staff and students in
government and local authority institutions on the one hand, and in pri¬
vate institutions on the other. The data are presented in condensed form
in tables 38 and 39.
The data on staff (table 38) in government institutions show that,
whereas in the two northern districts numerical preponderance and social
advantage emerge as competing determinants of recruitment, in Mysore the
numerically preponderant Vokkaligas fall behind Brahmans and Lingayats.
In the local authority institutions of both Dharwar and Mysore, with the
sole exception of Brahmans, staff composition reflects the relative numeri¬
cal strength of the various communities in the district population. This
implies that the more local the control, the more faithfully staff will reflect
population distribution. So far as the social composition of the students is
concerned, table 39 shows that, while in Belgaum and Dharwar all the
communities with the exception of Brahmans hold their own position in
the schools, in Mysore social advantage is still more important than nu¬
merical strength. The impressive presence of other students, representing
backward communities such as the Adi-Karnatakas in Mysore, among
others, however, is a noteworthy indicator of the inclusiveness of public
institutions.
The above data confirm our earlier conclusions: first, that compared to
private institutions, public (government and local authority) institutions
tend to be more representative of the population; second, that the process
142 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

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144 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

of representativeness seems to have made greater headway in the northern

districts than in Mysore and more in local than in state government in¬
stitutions; and third, that Brahmans are still a force to reckon with in the
field of education all over the state of Mysore, despite the fact that the
reservation of seats for backward castes has diminished the number of
seats they can occupy in government educational institutions.

Student Facilities

Educational societies make student facilities available to their pupils

in a discriminatory manner. Pupils belonging to the managing community
have either exclusive or preferential claims to these facilities.
Lodging and board facilities almost equal in importance such requisites
as classrooms, libraries, laboratories, play grounds, and so forth. In India,
such facilities become increasingly indispensable as one moves from the
primary to the secondary and collegiate levels, and from rural to urban
areas. The number of students studying away from home at urban, upper
level institutions is considerable.
In Mysore lodging and board facilities are provided mainly by two types
of agencies, hostels and boarding houses attached to the institutions them¬
selves, and those maintained by philanthropic individuals or organizations.
The latter are mostly free and quite prominent in this part of the country,
and the practice of starting boarding houses was an important feature of
the efforts of various community leaders to educationally uplift their peo¬
ple. Consequently almost all the free boarding houses which started in
the early years of this century were exclusively meant for particular com¬
munities. Among these, the hostels started by the Lingayats in the north
Karnatak area and by the Vokkaligas in the princely state of Mysore are
particularly noteworthy. In the Vokkaliga-dominated regions each land-
owner had to give several measures of paddy at harvest time to the hostels
run by the community.33
It is only recently that a few students of other communities have been
taken into these boarding houses. We made a close study of four free
boarding houses (one Lingayat, one Jain, and one Kuruba in Belgaum,
and one Lingayat in Dharwar). Two of these are still exclusive and do not
admit boarders from other communities. It also came to our notice that
some boarding houses which admit lodgers from more than one com¬
munity do not permit mixed dining; low caste boarders are made to sit
for their meals at a distance from the others. This is a pity because such
institutions could work effectively in eradicating caste and communal dif¬
ferences, since they deal with children in their formative years.
Financial concessions (freeships) and assistance (scholarships) for stu¬
dents are important educational facilities in public institutions. There are
several bases for award, notably financially underprivileged position, merit,
community or caste, sex, region, language, and area of academic spe-
 Mysore State 145

cialization. In addition to government scholarships and freeships (special

and merit-based), there are endowments created by philanthropic dona¬
tions. Usually such endowments are administered by trust committees ap¬
pointed for the purpose, and the benefits are bestowed according to the
wishes of the donors. As may be expected, such sources of financial assist¬
ance have often been applied restrictively. Since the middle of the last
century a common grievance of the non-Brahman castes has been that
they have been denied the privilege of education and thus left behind in
the race for highly prized government appointments. Hence the special
efforts of the leaders of these communities to help their own people. There
are, however, instances of enlightened donors who have stipulated merit
as the basis for award.
The Mysore University Calendar for 1956-57 (university endowments
and aids) shows that, of the total of 171 endowments and prizes for
undergraduate students accepted between 1916 (when the university was
founded) and 1957, 45 were restricted to a particular caste, community,
or sect. The Karnatak University does not accept such offers of endow¬
ments for restricted distribution of awards, but its constituent colleges do.
Thus, the prospectus for the Karnatak University Arts and Science Col¬
leges for 1967-68 lists three awards for specified communities, while
others are reserved on the basis of residential area, parental occupation,
or sex.

Concluding Remarks

This paper opened on a skeptical note, doubtful that a mere increase in

literacy and in modern educational institutions in a country such as India
could be regarded as a sufficient condition of the modernization of the edu¬
cational system as a whole. Similar reservations have been expressed re¬
garding the effectiveness of programs of educational expansion in some
other developing countries, and the widespread view of education as “a
magic medicine that can by itself transform a society,” 34 or as “the master
determinant of all aspects of change,” 35 is now being questioned. It has
been found that modern education in developing countries has not always
succeeded in playing the same role in social and occupational mobility
and in the emergence of a less rigid system of social stratification as it
has in the western countries.36
Our concern in this study has been primarily with the role of private
educational societies in the state of Mysore. There can be no denying that
they have been a powerful progressive force wherever they have been
active during the last hundred years or more. They have not only provided
modern education in regions where government or local authority insti¬
tutions were conspicuous by their small numbers, or total absence, but
have also provided new areas for the operation of traditional communal
or sectarian organizations, bringing about a certain degree of “decompres-
146 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

sion” of these organizations in the process. Srinivas has commented that

“the processes of secularization and politicization have also affected . . .
pre-British monasteries such as those of Smarthas, Sri Vaishnavas, Ma-
dhavas [all three are Brahman castes], and Lingayats. Gradually the feel¬
ing has grown among the Hindus that the wealth and prestige of these
organizations should be used for promoting educational and social welfare
of the people. . . . The Lingayats, a highly organized sect, have shown
much sensitivity to this new demand, and Lingayat monasteries operate
their own hostels, schools and colleges.” 37
Although this is also what we have found in the course of our inquiries,
it represents only one side of the picture. In our view, modern curricula,
modern methods of teaching, modern buildings and laboratories, well-
trained teachers with Indian and foreign qualifications, and so forth do
not guarantee that traditional particularistic values and communal loyalties
will not persist in such a seemingly uncongenial environment. The main
basis of our contention is the data on the composition of the management,
staff, and students of private educational institutions, which does not cor¬
respond to the relative numerical strength of the various communities in
district population. Unequal demand for education may partly explain
these disparities in public educational institutions, but their nature and
extent in private educational institutions clearly points to the existence of
communal discrimination. Reference was also made, though briefly, to the
discriminate distribution of various student facilities. In the course of our
inquiries we also heard allegations of favoritism on communal lines in
examinations, but could not verify them.
There are two ways in which the persistence of traditional particularistic
values and communal loyalties in educational institutions may be related
to the process of modernization. If we proclaim universalistic values and
complete social equality as necessary conditions of modernization, we
can dismiss the claims of private educational institutions (including engi¬
neering, medical, and science colleges) to being modern in any sense what¬
soever. This seems to us too harsh a judgment. The very fact that private
educational institutions do bring together people from different castes and
communities, though not without discrimination in favor of a particular
community, is itself a departure from the social exclusiveness of the verti¬
cally organized traditional society. Private educational institutions may
not be as inclusive as public institutions are, but, being horizontal struc¬
tures, they are certainly less particularistic than the traditional social struc¬
ture.38
The alternative is to treat the discriminatory practices prevalent in pri¬
vate educational institutions as evidence of the tenacity of particularistic
values and of the gradual nature of modernization. This does not mean,
however, that we retreat from our earlier position that these institutions
fail in a crucial manner to advance the modernization of the educational
system and society. What seems to be indicated, therefore, is that the
Mysore State 147

powers of the state must be used more vigorously to control private edu¬
cational societies so that they may become better instruments of mod¬
ernization. In view of the substantial public funds that are allocated to
private educational institutions, the state has a responsibility to ensure
that such funds are used in ways that visibly benefit all communities — not
only the communities managing such institutions — and to guard against
the use of public funds to subsidize narrow communal interests.
In this connection it is important to note that a private educational so¬
ciety by its very nature is committed to a policy of discrimination, and
the social and educational advancement of communities other than the
one managing it does not concern it. By contrast, government and local
authority institutions are in principle equally open to all social groups,
although a particular community may be able to benefit more from them
and even gain control of the management of some of them. But such con¬
trol need not prove permanent. Thus, there are already signs that the
Brahman domination of the government and local authority educational
institutions in Mysore district will weaken considerably in the foreseeable
future.39 We cannot say the same for private institutions, including Brah¬
man institutions, in the same district that will continue to be run by caste
or sectarian communities, primarily for the benefit of those communities.
At present government’s ability to exercise effective control of private
educational societies is limited and the provisions of the grants-in-aid code
can be easily circumvented. Further, as already stated, the Constitution
does not forbid the formation of such societies, and rightly so, because
they protect the special interests of small minorities, which would other¬
wise be completely neglected. (For example, instruction in the Urdu
language, which Muslims regard as their mother tongue, is provided in
Mysore only in Muslim schools.) Private educational institutions, however,
also foster antidemocratic, antiequalitarian, and nonsecular values. The
dilemma of the situation is obvious.40 The vast financial and administrative
resources which a state takeover of private educational institutions and the
consequent responsibility to meet all future demand for education would
require are just not available.41 Aided by the state policy of withdrawal
from direct responsibility for providing the educational requirements of
the people,42 private educational institutions are bound to continue to
exist and prosper as the demand for education from all sections of society
gathers momentum. Hence the urgency of the need for well-defined and
strict state control of private enterprise in the field of education in India.
9 / Rural Local Politics and Primary School
Management

Iqbal Narain

This chapter1 explores how far the effort to maintain a depoliticized

zone for education is empirically vindicated in the light of the experience
of the management of primary schools under panchayati raj (PR), an in¬
stitutionalized mechanism of decentralized and democratic local govern¬
ment in rural India.2 The exploration proceeds by focusing on rural local
politics as a factor in the management of primary schools. It is being in¬
creasingly realized that association of local leaders with the management
of primary schools is desirable for recognizing local conditions and aspi¬
rations and for on-the-spot supervision and control. It is also being rec¬
ognized that if such association tends to involve the teachers in local
politics, it may do more harm than good. Thus the possibility of a depoliti¬
cized zone seems to require association of local political leaders with the
management of primary schools on the one hand and protection of the
schools against appropriation by local politicians on the other.

The Experiment in Local Control of Primary Education

Before their management was transferred to PR institutions, primary

schools in Rajasthan were managed by the education department of the
government of Rajasthan, which was responsible for administrative con¬
trol and technical supervision. As a result of the transfer, administrative
control is now vested in PR institutions, mainly 232 panchayat samitis,
elected bodies paralleling the development block, a subunit of Rajasthan
state’s twenty-five districts. Technical supervision and guidance continue
to be the obligation of the education department. Thus there is now a
pattern of dual control and supervision.
Teachers are recruited and transferred by the concurrent action of the
BDO (block development officer), an administrative officer attached to
the panchayat samiti, and the elected pradhan (chairman) of the panchayat
samiti. Disciplinary action against the panchayat samiti teacher can be
taken by the district establishment committee, one administrative and po¬
litical layer above the panchayat samiti, of which the district education
officer is a member. All the subdeputy inspectors of schools (SDI) have

My associates in the research for this study were: K. C. Pandey, senior re¬
search associate, Election Research Project, Political Science Department, Uni¬
versity of Rajasthan, Jaipur; and Mohan Lai Sharma, research scholar, De¬
partment of Political Science, University of Rajasthan, Jaipur.
Rural Politics and Primary Schools 149

been transferred on deputation to panchayat samitis for inspection and

supervision of the primary schools and are designated as extension officers,
education (E.O.’s, education). They are under the administrative control
of the BDO and under the technical control of the education department.
The E.O.’s, education, write the confidential report on the primary school
teacher. The panchayat samitis get grants-in-aid on a 100 percent basis
for salaries and allowances of teachers. In regard to other items of ex¬
penditure, aid is provided on a 50 percent matching basis. There are about
19,000 schools, 45,000 teachers, and 2,000,000 students under the 232
panchayat samitis in Rajasthan.3
The Naik Committee, which reported on Rajasthan primary education
in 1963-64, and which was otherwise fairly critical of the management of
primary schools under PR, found that PR helped to expand and improve
primary education in Rajasthan. The state education minister gave the
following summary of the committee’s verdict. “Attendance of the teachers
has improved. The disbursement of the salaries has been more regular.
There is awakening among the rural population to get primary education.
A new leadership has to emerge in the rural areas in the development of
primary education. In addition, there are certain areas where develop¬
ment has taken place only because of the efforts of the individual Pradhan
and the B.D.O.” 4

Table 40. Progress of primary education in Rajasthan.

Students Trained
teachers
Year Primary schools Male Female Teachers (%)

1950-51 4,336 245,000 55,000 8,733 30.2

1965-66 18,600 1,460,000 400,000 42,400 60.0
Source: Statement of Nathu Ram Mirdha, education minister, in the Rajasthan legis¬
lative assembly. Rajasthan Legislative Assembly Proceedings, vol. 7, no. 12 (21 March 1965),
p. 4308.

An overview of progress from 1950 to 1966 can be obtained from table

40. The governor’s address of 4 May 1967 noted continued strides (though
somewhat less than in 1966) in primary education. Although Rajasthan
had started with one of the lowest primary school attendance records
among the states of independent India, 50 percent of the children in the
age group of six to eleven years, he stated, were now enrolled (against a
national average in 1965-66 of 78.59 percent).5 Although the growth in
primary school enrollment has not been due exclusively to PR, even the
most severe critics of PR management of primary schools admit that it has
played an important part in popularizing primary education in the villages.
Other measures of progress under PR management include a jump from
Rs. 500 to Rs. 1,300 between 1950-51 and 1965-66 in the average
amount spent per primary school teacher, and an increase in the total
 150 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

amount spent on primary education, from Rs. 8,400,000 in 1950-51 to

Rs. 60,800,000 in 1965.6
PR institutions may not, however, have fully succeeded in enrolling
children from the weaker (poorer) sections in primary education. In 1966,
Bhairon Singh, Jan Sangh state legislator, made the following allegation.
“To-day only 8.5% and 5% of the total primary students belong in
scheduled castes and scheduled tribes respectively whereas it should have
been 16% and 17% respectively in accordance with their population.” 7
Nor have standards in primary education kept pace with the increase in
numbers of students and teachers and the growth of available resources.
Some allege that they have even fallen. The failure of standards to keep
pace with growth cannot be entirely attributed to the management of pri¬
mary schools by PR institutions, however. It is also due in part to the
emphasis on quantitative growth irrespective of quality considerations, the
laxity in technical supervision and control, want of equipment in schools,
financial cuts in educational expenses, a too heavy work load for teachers,
the phenomenon of single teacher schools, and the lack of adequate train¬
ing and training facilities for teachers. Yet the PR institutions cannot be
entirely absolved of responsibility; according to the Naik Committee there
has been a “general demoralization in the ranks of the teachers because
of transfer of primary schools to panchayati raj institutions” 8 where, ac¬
cording to an opposition MLA (member of the legislative assembly),
“they are used as footballs in the game of politics.” 9
The disillusionment with the management of primary schools by PR
institutions seems to have started rather early. Hardly one year after the
launching of the experiment, the leader of the opposition Jan Sangh party
moved the following unofficial resolution. “In the opinion of the house
the powers of appointments and transfers of the teachers of primary
schools given to the panchayat samitis should be withdrawn.” 10 In the
eyes of the teachers, the situation has become more grave with the passage
of time. By July 1968, the Rajasthan teachers association had decided to
start a statewide agitation to press the state government to take over con¬
trol of primary education from the panchayat samitis.11
The politicization of primary education must be viewed in the light of
the emerging nature of rural politics under panchayati raj. PR politics
has, in contrast to the personalized politics of the traditional past, an in¬
stitutionalized and, relatively speaking, impersonal character. The pull
and swing of politics is largely built around the institutionalized power
structure of PR rather than around the personal rivalries and family feuds
of the past, though the latter still sometimes play at least a marginal role
in village politics under PR.
PR politics also has a distinct orientation toward material benefits, and
its elected leaders are the media for channeling the material benefits.12 In
addition, PR politics is democratic, competitive, and bargaining. As a
corollary to its democratic character, politics under PR has assumed pro-
Rural Politics and Primary Schools 151

nounced partisan overtones. The politics of PR institutions are at once a

manifestation of the pulls and pressures of the social infrastructure of
village life and a catalytic agent of change in relation to that infrastruc¬
ture.13 Thus one can suggest, by way of a descriptive hypothesis, that
politics under PR may ultimately turn out to be a modernizing agent.
Finally, politics under PR should also be treated as a case of “link
politics” 14 built on vertical alliances that serve as the proverbial hyphen
that joins and the buckle that fastens the state level and rural local poli¬
ticians. If one were to treat this development as legitimate, one should
also accept as its logical corollary the entry of political parties in the arena
of local politics.

Legislative Perceptions of Local Control

It is with this perspective that we turn to the perceptions and images

that members of the Rajasthan legislative assembly have of PR manage¬
ment of primary schools. These can be summarized under five headings:
partisan involvement of teachers; politically motivated personnel actions;
teacher participation in election politics; the deterioration of educational
standards and administration; and partisan distribution of benefits.

Partisan involvement of teachers

It has often been argued on the floor of the assembly that primary
school teachers have no option but to involve themselves in partisan local
politics if they wish to escape victimization and protect their jobs and
their schools. The Jan Sangh leader described the situation in the follow-
lowing words.

To-day democratic decentralization has generated instead of initiative, a

struggle for power. And in the wake of struggle no personnel can live
happily. And one can observe how the teachers, whose interests and loy¬
alties are in clash with the competition for power, have been greatly vic¬
timized by the local politicians.
In this struggle every party tries to build up its strength and for that
seeks help from the teachers, because they are directly in touch with the
people. The tragedy is that even if they remain neutral and do not support
this or that faction they are harassed and transferred to distant places.
This is all aimed at strengthening one’s own factional group.15

Politically motivated personnel actions

The charge that appointments and placement are politically motivated
has been made in the assembly by many members, irrespective of party
alignment. A Congress party MLA alleged in 1963 that ‘since the teach¬
ers are selected by the samitis, the appointments are not impartial. The
B.D.O.’s and the pradhans can easily be influenced by relations, money,
or recommendations.” 16
 152 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

Transfers appear to be the most common method of political reward or

victimization; those transferred against their wishes suffer expense, incon¬
venience, and psychological upset. “By the threat of transfers the teachers
are made to propagate for and distribute the posters on behalf of the
party in power. Many who dare to refuse are transferred or their salaries
are not paid,” alleged the Jan Sangh leader.17 Illustrating statistically the
“abuse of authority to transfer teachers,” the Naik Committee cited figures
from 184 of 232 panchayat samitis (table 41) that showed that one out of

Table 41. Frequency of transfers of primary school teachers.3

Number of transfers
Teachers
Within Within After transferred
Year 1 year 2 years 2 years Total (percentage)

1960- 61 1,354 1,511 1,466 4,331 26.6

1961- 62 2,008 1,599 1,909 5,516 27.0
Source: Government of Rajasthan, The Report of Rajasthan State Primary Education
Committee (Jaipur, 1965), p. 61.
a Teachers in 184 panchayat samitis (blocks).

four teachers are transferred in any one year and that a substantial pro¬
portion of the transfers occur contrary to education department regula¬
tions; that is, before the teacher has served two years in one post.18
According to Mahendra Singh (Jan Sangh) it is a teacher’s political
connections, not his performance, that affects his chances of being trans¬
ferred against his wishes. “All the villagers may be dissatisfied with a
school teacher, yet if he is in the good books of the sarpanch [chairman of
a village panchayat] and pradhan he is not transferred. But the honest
teachers who do not side with any party are transferred to distant places
even if they are liked by all.” 19 According to Jai Narain Salodia (Swa-
tantra), speaking in 1966, transfers are often made in midsession, regard¬
less of the cost to students.20 The Naik Committee report concluded: “The
transfers are frequent and excessive. In several instances, they have been
also absolutely unjustified. We came across the case of a teacher who was
transferred ten times in one year.” 21
The merits of these allegations could be more easily ascertained if
comparative figures were available on transfers of teachers by the educa¬
tion department before management of primary schools was shifted to PR
institutions. It is generally believed that transfers are more frequent under
PR than under the management of the education department, and that this
is rooted in personal whim and caprice. These transfers violate the rules.
The education department has laid down that no teacher should be trans¬
ferred before he has put in two years of service at a particular place, a
standard that the data in table 41 indicate is not taken seriously. Transfers
Rural Politics and Primary Schools 153

of teachers in the middle of a session and more especially when the session
is about to close are also against the rules. Education department and
teacher association spokesmen indicate that these rules are honored more
in the breach than in the observance by the authorities managing primary
education under PR.22
It has also been alleged that politics has vitiated the process of dis¬
ciplinary action. A somewhat exceptional case gleaned from the question
hour in the Rajasthan legislative assembly throws light on this allegation.23

Shri Natthi Singh (Independent) :

1. Is it true that Shri Raghunath Singh, head master of primary school,
Helak, has been dismissed by the panchayat samiti, Kumher, with¬
out the prior consent of the district establishment committee? If yes,
when?
2. Is it true that after the countermanding of the orders of the Kumher
samiti by the state government, the teacher was again dismissed?
If yes, what action has been taken against such arbitrary use of
powers by the Officials?
3. Is it true that the teacher was suspended under the charge of 342
T.H.? 24
4. Is it true that the court had dismissed the charges as allegedly made
out of political considerations?
5. Is it also true that still the teacher is under suspension?
Panchayat Minister (Shri Bheeka Bhai):
1. Yes Sir. On 21-2-1962.
2. Yes Sir. The second dismissal order of the standing committee has
also been countermanded by the government. However, there are
not enough reasons to take disciplinary action against the members
of the standing committee.
3. Yes Sir.
4. Yes Sir.
5. Yes Sir. The enquiry into the charges alleged by the panchayat
samiti is still going on.
Shri Natthi Singh:
Since when is the enquiry going on and in what stage is it?
Shri Bheeka Bhai:
Since 12-2-1964. There is no information in regard to the stage of en¬
quiry.
Shri Natthi Singh:
Is it true that the B.D.O. had submitted an enquiry report by September
1964 and he had asked the standing committee six times to arrive at a
decision, but the committee had taken no decision till now in spite of
the fact that the teacher has been found innocent?
 154 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

Shri Bheeka Bhai:

The committee seems prejudiced against the teacher. But since no legal
action can be taken in the matter, some administrative measures will be
taken.
Shri Natthi Singh:
On the ground that the teacher was dismissed out of political motives,
two times the dismissal orders were countermanded. The vigilance com¬
mission25 was approached. That too proved of no help. This is because
the sarpanch of the same panchayat is also the chairman of the standing
committee. And consequently the teacher is under suspension from
17-5-1962. The court, government orders, all have proved helpless. The
teacher should be paid for the period.
Shri Murli Dhar Vyas (Praja Socialist Party):
Please state the reason.
Shri Bheeka Bhai:
As far as the orders are concerned, they have been cancelled. Our sym¬
pathies are with the teacher.
Shri Raghunath Singh Vishnoi {Congress):
Why is the committee not dissolved?
Shri Jai Narain Salodia (Swatantra) :
For three years the government have taken no decision in regard to that
samiti.
Shri Bheeka Bhai:
The government have tried and will try to do everything to ensure that
justice is done.
Shri Umrao Singh (Samyukta Socialist Party):
The administrative powers lie with the B.D.O. The standing committee
cannot even transfer a teacher without the consent of the B.D.O. How
could that happen then?
Shri Bheeka Bhai:

The standing committee is empowered to give minor punishment. For

major punishment the case is referred to the district establishment com¬
mittee. In this case the standing committee acted at its own discretion.
Therefore the orders were cancelled.

Politics, like bureaucratic rules and powerful unions, can serve as a

protective umbrella for negligent teachers, enabling them to be apathetic
and indifferent to their teaching obligations. Another case which was
noticed on the floor of the assembly in the question hour illustrates this
point.26
Rural Politics and Primary Schools 155

Shri Hari Prasad Sharma (Jan Sangh):

1. Is it true that Shri Nemi Chand Jain of village Roteda (district
Bundi) is a teacher in the same village?
2. If yes, for how many years?
3. Is it true that his behavior with the villagers is rude and many cases
of abuse and beating are pending against him?
4. Is it also true that the gentleman lives 15 days in a month out of
the village on account of fighting cases and other work and yet he
is marked present?
5. Is it true that the school is a centre of one party and on duty hours
the teacher remains looking after his farm?
6. Is it also true that many complaints have been made against the
teacher and he had been suspended too, and that still he has not
been transferred?
7. Is there any obstacle in the way of government transferring such
teachers?
8. Has the zila parishad [district committee] also recommended to
transfer the teacher and to investigate into the complaints?
9. Why have the recommendations of the zila parishad been neglected
in favour of one teacher?
(Congress) :27

1. Yes Sir.
2. For seven years.
3. Partially true.
4. The enquiry is being held in that matter.
5. No complaint of that type has been received.
6. Yes Sir.
7. The transfers are to be made by the panchayat sarniti or Rajasthan
Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishad Service Selection Commission.
The government cannot help in the matter.
8. The zila parishad has recommended an enquiry which is being held.
9. It does not appear that the directives from the zila parishad have
been neglected.

The teacher’s position is made more difficult because of the multiple

control by the BDO’s and the extension officer, education (E.O., educa¬
tion), on the official side and the pradhan,, the sarpanch, and the panchas
(elected members of the panchayat) on the unofficial side.28 When the
official and nonofficial wings conspire or stand at daggers drawn,29 his
plight becomes pathetic.

Teacher participation in election politics

A charge has been made rather frequently, though often without cor¬
roboration, that teachers are drawn into election politics. “The teachers
are continuously taking part in politics, propagating in elections,” asserted
a Congress MLA as early as I960.30 The trend appears to have gained
 156 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

strength and momentum in the last three general elections.31 After the
1967 elections, an independent MLA asserted on the floor of the assembly
that “the primary schools have become the centre of politics. The teacher
actively participates in the election. He thus has the upper hand over the
panchas who abide by his instructions.” 32
This charge suggests primary school teachers are not passive instru¬
ments in the local political process but use local politicians for ends of
their choosing, such as improvement of the local primary school or en¬
hancement of their careers.

The deterioration of educational standards and administration

It has also been alleged on the floor of the assembly, though not very
frequently, that educational standards suffer as a result of politico-adminis¬
trative interference. Participating in the debate on budget demands for
community development projects, a Jan Sangh MLA cited an exceptional
case in which a BDO is said to have manipulated a promotion by misuse
of his authority, and in which a subdeputy inspector had been involved.33
A Congress MLA believed the parties encouraged such interference.34
“The political parties themselves are responsible for falling standards. They
have let politics intrude there. Many teachers are R.S.S. minded 35 and join
the Shakhas. Many students are misguided and when they are checked
they beat the authorities. Who is responsible for that?”
Politico-administrative interference, together with other factors, has also
tended to weaken the span and quality of technical supervision and con¬
trol.36 The Report of the Fourth National Seminar on Compulsory Primary
Education37 in 1964 summarized the situation in the specific context of
Rajasthan. “Primary education has been transferred to the Panchayat
Samitis. The recruitment of the teachers is made by the B.D.O. and the
Pradhan of the Panchayat Samiti. Education department is not represented
at the time of recruitment. There is no member of the education depart¬
ment associated with the transfers of primary school teachers either at the
block level or at the district level. Disciplinary action against the Panchayat
Samiti teacher can be taken by the District Establishment Committee
where the District Education Inspector is a member. But at no time is the
District Education Inspector consulted while inflicting punishment against
the Panchayat Samiti teacher. All the sub-deputy Inspectors of schools
have been transferred on deputation to the Panchayat Samitis for inspec¬
tion and supervision of the primary schools. They are under the adminis¬
trative control of tne B.D.O. It is pointed out that the sub-deputy In¬
spectors of schools . . . carry out the duties other than education and,
therefore, it is felt that the primary education is suffering at the hands of
Panchayat Samitis. . . . The standard of education has deteriorated be¬
cause the loyalty of the teacher is shifted more towards the Education
department [sic]. The sub-deputy Inspector of schools has the power to
write a confidential report of the primary school teacher. But the sub-
Rural Politics and Primary Schools 157

inspector of schools does not write it faithfully because he himself is under

the control of the Panchayat Samiti and he does not feel safe.”
Partisan distribution of benefits
The interplay of politics and management of primary schools has also
resulted in partisan distribution of benefits insofar as political connections
have become a factor in the opening of new schools and the upgrading of
old ones. It is not clear, however, whether state or samiti level forces are
the dominating influence. The charge made by a PSP legislator, who in his
speech on budgetary demands in 1962 said, “Political motives get undue
weight while opening new primary schools,” 38 has been frequently re¬
peated. MLA’s have charged that the population criteria for locating
schools are violated.39 It is also alleged that state level political decisions,
which are discriminatory, supercede block level decisions. “The samitis are
not more than post-men conveying to the school what is sent by the educa¬
tion department. . . . Experience gained as pradhan tells that in regard to
opening of new schools the recommendations of samitis are not paid heed.
The schools are opened by the educational department in the villages which
have returned Congress Sarpanchas.” 40 There are also allegations of state
level discrimination in favor of the district in which the chief minister’s
constituency falls.41
In sum, many opposition members of the legislature believe that politics
has thoroughly demoralized the primary school teacher,42 whose status and
prestige stands eroded,43 and who often has to put up with the maltreat¬
ment and misbehavior of nonofficial PR leaders.44 The situation has been
summed up in a pointed manner by an independent MLA. “The handing
over of primary schools to the samitis is like putting a child before a wolf.
The uneducated village leaders and sarpanchas guide the teachers and take
the attendance of teachers like a sub-inspector taking attendance of a
kanjar.'1'1 45
The foregoing analysis of the interaction of politics and the management
of primary schools tends to support the view of Bhairon Singh (Jan Sangh),
a leading opposition figure in the assembly, that “the primary school teach¬
ers .. . are merely political agents. . . . They are under too many mas¬
ters from panchas, S.D.I.’s, B.D.O.’s and even V.L.W.’s [Village Level
Workers], Politically motivated interference makes them apathetic in re¬
gard to the discharge of their duties. Their pay scale is very low. Through
transfers, sanction of leave, and suspension, they are victimized if they re¬
main aloof from politics.” 46 This overview of the situation is qualified by
the elements of bias and exaggeration natural in the rhetoric of partisan
observations on the floor of a legislative assembly, and by the tendency to
emphasize politicization at the expense of effective use of political influence
by teachers. Yet the evidence marshalled in the foregoing analysis and the
near unanimity among all parties in the Rajasthan assembly about most of
the problem areas identified above justifies taking Bhairon Singh’s charac-
158 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

terization seriously. The Rajasthan teachers’ union, in July 1968, agreed

with this “legislative” view — that panchayat samitis harassed teachers,
particularly by abusing the authority to transfer. They seemed equally con¬
cerned, however, that teachers were being overworked, made to take up
adult literacy classes in the evenings, compelled to make deposits in a small
savings scheme, and often not paid on schedule because panchayat samitis
were short of funds.47 These grievances were not necessarily related to or
the result of local political control of primary education.

Local Officials’ Perceptions of Local Control

Further empirical exploration of the effects of local control on primary

school management was made with the help of an opinion survey in two
panchayat samitis of Jhalawar district in Rajasthan, where primary school
teachers, officials, and elected PR leaders were interviewed about their re¬
actions to PR management of primary schools.48 Two separate question¬
naires were used, one for teachers and the other for the officials and the
elected leaders. Because of the small total number of teachers and PR
officials, the findings are suggestive rather than conclusive. The more im¬
portant findings of the survey are summarized here.
Teachers’ involvement in politics
Table 42 shows the responses to the question of whether primary school
teachers took part in politics.

Table 42. Response to question: “Do primary school teachers take part in
politics?” (by position of respondent).
Yes No Non-response Total
Position
% No. % No. % No. % No.

Elected PR
representatives 42.6 23 42.6 23 14.8 8 100.0 54
PR officials 69.2 9 23.1 3 7.7 1 100.0 13
Teachers 50.0 9 33.3 6 16.7 3 100.0 18

Average 48.2 41 37.7 32 14.1 12 100.0 85

Forty-eight percent of the teachers answered affirmatively, 38 percent

negatively, and the rest did not answer. The elected representatives seemed
evenly divided on the issue, with twenty-three affirming the phenomenon
and an equal number denying it. Some of the elected representatives who
denied it seemed to think that they themselves were in the dock, and as
such, must deny the involvement of teachers in politics.49 Among the offi¬
cials, nine gave an affirmative answer, three replied in the negative, and
Rural Politics and Primary Schools 159

one was not sure. It is interesting to note that the teachers’ response50
seems broadly to correspond with that of the officials, with nine teachers
agreeing, six denying, and three not answering.

Reasons for involvement

A follow-up question about the reasons for teacher participation in poli¬
tics yielded the responses shown in table 43. Most of the teachers (55
percent) and elected PR officials (65 percent) seemed unwilling or unable
to give reasons for teacher involvement in politics. What responses there
were to this question suggest that teacher involvement is a two-way rather
than a one-way street; teachers involve themselves in politics in order to
protect or advance their own needs and interests or “to secure better fa¬
cilities” for local schools. Political activity by teachers is more frequently
explained by such motives than by “pressure from panchas” or by the de¬
sire “to please sarpanchas.” The response to this question also throws a
rather different light on the reasons for a high rate of transfers — teachers
may get involved in politics “to secure transfer to desired place” (or to
improve the local school).
One interesting finding that emerges from table 43 is that it may not
be correct to say that teachers are dragged into politics; in the view of
officials, they are, more often than not, drawn to it on their own with a
view to securing personal or local advantages. Political involvement is not
so much the pursuit of self-interest as it is a means of self-protection. The
line between the two is rather thin, however, and one could well argue that
teachers are not as apolitical as their normative image postulates.51

Ways and forms of participation

A question relating to the ways and forms of teacher participation in
politics evoked the responses shown in table 44.62 As in the previous ques¬
tion, most (57 percent) of the elected PR officials were unwilling or unable
to respond. The response that teacher participation in politics was largely
confined to elections should not lead one to conclude that such involvement
in politics begins and ends with the election period. Rural politics is a con¬
tinuing process; once a teacher enters the political arena, he is constantly
taken as a participant, sharing in the political rewards and the punishments,
at times even in spite of himself.

Teachers’ involvement in politics and their performance

The questionnaire also asked whether teachers’ involvement in politics
adversely affected their performance as teachers. (See table 45.) Of the
twenty-three elected PR representatives who thought teachers were in fact
involved in politics, sixteen believed that this involvement had a negative
effect on performance, four thought it did not have a negative effect and
three did not answer. Of the nine PR officials who thought teachers were
involved in politics, eight thought their involvement had a negative effect
160 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

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Rural Politics and Primary Schools 161

Table 44. Ways in which primary teachers take part in politics (by position
of respondent).5
Participa¬ Participa¬
Canvassing Canvassing tion in tion in
openly indirectly general PR and
in PR in PR elections general Non¬
Position
elections elections only elections Other response Total

% No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No.

Elected PR
representa¬
tives 7.6 4 22.2 12 - 11.1 6 1.7 1 57.4 31 100.0 54
PR officials 15.4 2 15.4 2 23.0 3 7.7 1 38.5 5 100.0 13

Average 9.0 20.9 13.4 3.0 53.7 100.0 67

• Teachers were not asked this question. See chapter 9, note 52.

and one did not. Finally, of the nine teachers who thought teachers were
involved in politics, six thought involvement had an adverse effect on per¬
formance, one thought it made no difference and two did not respond.
The generally negative view of the effect of teachers’ political involve¬
ment on their performance was qualified, however, by responses to a ques¬
tion about the effect of politics on the management of primary schools.
Although respondents were given an opportunity to list two effects, most
cited only one and some failed to respond. In all, there were sixty-nine
responses. Thirty-three percent of the responses mentioned the effect of
politics on transfers; 23 percent mentioned the effect on grants of money
and equipment by the samitis to primary schools; 16 percent mentioned
the effect on disposal of complaints against primary school teachers; 13
percent mentioned the effect on appointments and dismissals; and 15
percent identified other miscellaneous effects, including more favorable
responses to requests for teachers allied with PR politicians. These re¬
sponses suggest that teachers’ political involvement can be important in

Table 45. Estimated effect of political involvement on teachers’ performance

(by position of respondent).
Distribution of opinion among those who
believe teachers are politically involved 8

Adverse No Non-
Position effect effect response Total

No. % No. % No. % No.

%

Elected PR
representatives 69.6 16 17.4 4 13.0 3 100.0 23
88.9 8 11.1 1 — — 100.0 9
PR officials
66.7 6 11.1 1 22.2 2 100.0 9
Teachers
73.2 14.6 12.2 100.0 —
Average

a See table 42.

162 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

furthering the interest of particular primary schools. Particularly significant

in this regard is the 23 percent of the responses that found that good po¬
litical connections enhanced a school’s bargaining position with respect to
resource allocation.
The observations of the legislative elite and the survey data from local
teachers, officials, and politicians both suggest that PR has infused politics
into the management of primary schools. The quest for more depoliticized
managerial systems which could enlist the support, enthusiasm, and vigi¬
lance of elected representatives in the management of primary schools with¬
out heavily involving teachers and their institutions in rural local politics is,
therefore, not a mere academic pastime but a useful exercise in policy-
oriented social research. Policy-makers are not inclined to abandon local
control of primary education, but would like to improve administration and
implementation. Thus, the joint director of primary and secondary educa¬
tion in Rajasthan wrote to the honorary joint secretary, All-India Federa¬
tion of Educational Associations that his own feeling was “that instead of
pressing for transfer of control it might be better to think of ways to redress
the harassment being meted out to teachers in Panchayati Samitis.” 53
The Naik Committee reached a similar conclusion. “On a very careful
consideration of the problem, we find that the negative results of the ex¬
periment are neither inherent in the system nor irremediable. They have
crept in mainly because the careful planning and preparation essential for
this important experiment was not done. We, therefore, recommend that
the experiment of the administration of primary schools by Panchayati Raj
Institutions should be continued with modifications which are essential to
overcome the weaknesses which have been so far noticed in actual prac¬
tice.” 54
Suggestions of modifications have not been wanting. The “Jaipur District
Report” (1967) recommended autonomous school management, separate
from the samitis, which would be an adaptation of the American autono¬
mous school board;55 that is, a separate political authority and process to
govern primary education in which teachers and government-nominated
experts would have a two-to-one majority over elected members. A few
years earlier, J. P. Naik, member and secretary of the Education Commis¬
sion, 1964-66, and chairman of the Rajasthan State Primary Education
Committee which reported in 1964, suggested in a book on elementary
education that control of primary school teachers should rest in a body
further removed from the immediate village community. “If association
of local bodies at any level higher than the local community is wished at all,
the lowest level at which it should be attempted would be the district. The
Block is too close to the village and the leadership now available at that
level is of a low calibre. Consequently, the teacher’s position is most weak¬
ened when control over him is vested at the block level. At the district level,
there is generally a great distance between him and the members of the
local body and the adverse results on his morale are not so great. Even in
Rural Politics and Primary Schools 163

this case, however, I would very strongly urge that control over the services
of the teacher should be vested in officers of the government who should
be loaned to local bodies as chief executive officers and not in the local
bodies themselves. This will ensure justice and maintenance of order.” 56
In 1965, the Naik Committee, presumably reflecting the views of its
chairman, recommended that control of primary education be moved up
the administrative hierarchy from the block to the district and that the
elective principle be balanced by government nomination of experts.

For administration of primary education in rural areas, a District Edu¬

cation Committee of the Zila Parishad should be constituted in each
district by a suitable amendment of the Rajasthan Panchayat Samitis
and Zila Parishads Act. This Committee should consist of twelve per¬
sons, of whom not more than half, would be elected members of the
Zila Parishad (including the Pramukh who should be an ex-officio Chair¬
man). Among the remaining six members, the District Inspector of
Schools, should be nominated ex-officio and the remaining five should
be persons interested in education on the lines we have suggested for
the bigger Municipal Committee.57
A whole-time officer of the status of Deputy Inspector of Schools
should be appointed in each district as the Secretary of the District Edu¬
cation Committee. He should be a government official whose services
are given on deputation to the Zila Parishad but who should draw his
salary and allowances from Government. He should be under the tech¬
nical control and supervision of the Director of Education. The strength
of the Rajasthan Education Service would have to be increased suitably
to include these posts.
Relations between the Zila Parishads and the District Education Com¬
mittee should be defined precisely and in detail. The broad policy should
be to leave only financial matters and broad policy questions to the Zila
Parishads. The day-to-day administration of primary education should
be carried on by the District Education Committee as an autonomous
body.58

The problem is not so much constructing models of management, which

are forthcoming in several reports, as it is convincing politicians that there
are good reasons to surrender to government-nominated experts and ad¬
ministrators a substantial portion of the authority they now possess over
the personnel, policy, and resources of primary education. The need for
depoliticization has to be established before they will support any of these
models. Local political leadership helps to create, and is supported by,
vested interests that operate through a network of linkages more parochial
than enlightened. Rural local politics in India is no exception. There is a
built-in resistance to depoliticization in the political process itself. This
resistance, however, can arise not only out of a concern on the part of
local leaders to protect new-found political resources but also out of a
realization on their part that the original goals of panchayati raj — to ad-
164 Educational Institutions in Their Environment

just the goals and operation of local government to local conditions, needs
and interests — cannot be realized if, in the name of depoliticization, pri¬
mary schools are managed by experts, teachers, and administrators. If
state level political leaders were to opt for depoliticization (more evenly
balancing popular and professional authority in the management of pri¬
mary education), it would signal the emerging autonomy of the political
process. This process tends to mature, not through breaking linkages, but
through developing strength and capability to live with them and yet to act
independently of them in the larger interests of the community.
Part III / Political Dimensions of University Government
Introduction to Part III

The collegiate education discussed in the first chapter of this section —

three premier colleges at the end of the nineteenth century — is passing
away in India as it is in the rest of the world. The college as community,
even as “happy family,” shaped by visions elaborated at the top by dedi¬
cated and competent teachers and willingly accepted by admiring and
devoted students, is a paradigm of elite education as it existed prior to
the democratic demand for expansion of higher education; prior to the
revolution in generational relations that makes the acceptance of visions
from the top more difficult; prior to the class and cultural diversity and
the press of numbers that make “community” increasingly difficult to per¬
ceive, much less to realize.
College or university autonomy takes its meaning from the settings in
which these institutions exist and from the goals they pursue. Like the
meaning of values such as justice and freedom, that of autonomy varies
with the society, institutional complex, and goals that give it meaning. For
example, in India colleges function within the constraints of a university
system that prescribes the content of education through its control of syl¬
labi and examinations. Autonomy under such circumstances has a different
meaning than in the United States where such a system of outside control
would itself be regarded as a limitation on autonomy. The meaning of
autonomy varies too with the expectations of those most critically involved
with higher education. In the United States, the meaning of autonomy
differs for private sectarian colleges and universities such as Notre Dame,
Southern Baptist, or Haverford, governed by boards representative of
church or sect, and broadly responsive to their purposes; for private secu¬
lar institutions, such as Columbia or Chicago, whose governing bodies are
composed largely of wealthy laymen with greater or lesser propensities or
capacities to influence top administrators or interfere with faculty decision
making; and for state colleges and universities affected by the actions of
state legislatures and politically appointed or elected regents. The meaning
of autonomy is related too to the purposes of colleges or universities to
produce character regarded as virtuous by Methodists, or to produce the
knowledge, technology, and skills appropriate to an agricultural state.
Autonomy, then, cannot be discussed apart from context and purpose,
from the identity of the founders, from the composition and authority of
governing boards, from the sources of funds, and from the publics and cli¬
ents that take an interest in or are served by the college or university.
Irene Gilbert shows how, in India, the issues of autonomy were posed
differently in government colleges and in privately managed institutions.
Not only was the source of directives different — the official bureaucracy
168 Introduction to Part III

of the provincial education ministry as against private trustees — but so

too was their content. Government intervention at Presidency College,
Calcutta, a government college, was mainly in the interest of larger po¬
litical considerations. Even though the provincial government was not
subject to democratic controls, it acted with concern for the political con¬
text, responding to the interests of the educated Indian community in Cal¬
cutta. Trustee intervention at Aligarh, a private Muslim college, while
partly related to the general concerns of liberal Muslims, reflected attempts
by various trustee factions to build bases of political influence in the Mus¬
lim community. Although both the public and private colleges discussed
in chapter 10 were affected by political considerations, the differences
between them are significant. The government college was sensitive to the
general demands of the political community, while private educational
management was more attuned to influential groups and individuals within
the community or communities represented on governing boards.
When the various publics and clients relevant to an educational institu¬
tion are in agreement on its goals, the issue of autonomy is not apt to
arise. The members of the small educated Indian public, who were also
the potential political class, [Irene Gilbert writes] were grateful to the
Presidency professors for the educational opportunities and results they
provided. In consequence, they tended to respect their opinions on the
senate and boards of the university. And so long as Presidency was pro¬
ducing a body of competent professionals loyal to the empire, the British
authorities too were content to leave professors to themselves and to allow
them to manage and to reform the internal life of the college.”
It is when those concerned with the university, both inside and outside
it, begin to differ with respect to its goals, and come into conflict with one
another, that autonomy becomes problematic. The president and faculty
of an American sectarian college may feel quite “autonomous” under a
fundamentalist sectarian board until they begin to believe that secular sci¬
entific views in social and physical sciences are an essential part of their
roles as teachers, scientists, and scholars. So long as the Aligarh professors
f „ ,th® Aligarh trustees were broadly in agreement, the trustees’ guidance
tell lightly on the college and was willingly accepted inside. When their
goals began to diverge, trustee guidance began to be felt as intervention.
The same was true at Presidency, where the internal and external definitions
of the college s role began to diverge, leading to a belief inside the college
that undue intervention had been exercised. By focusing on the breakdown
of consensus, Irene Gilbert has suggested a perspective that allows us to
anticipate the point at which autonomy is likely to become an issue
,t°ry10f h!gher education in the second half of the nineteenth
ry makes clear that the problems of autonomy and politicization were
not novel to postmdependence India, the crises of the late 1950’s marked
the beginning of a new era for these problems. In these years, the univer-
mes discussed m this section. Osmania (Andhra Pradesh) and Zoda

of demand froZbel °therS’ began ‘° exPerience the double impact

o ensures fromZh^ “ for coUeSe education doubled, and
p ssurts fiom above, as state governments sought to satisfy the popular
demand for educatton, to consolidate support by education^ aZTons
Introduction to Part III 169

and policies, and to satisfy developmental and welfare goals through edu¬
cational means.
Carolyn Elliott demonstrates that autonomy becomes an issue when
authorities inside and outside the university cease to agree on goals and
what had been a consensus ceases to be one. In India as elsewhere, one
reason for the breakdown of consensus seems to be the movement from
elite to democratic higher education. When Osmania University was con¬
trolled by the princely state of Hyderabad, government influence was as
great or greater than it was after independence and the formation of
Andhra Pradesh, but because the government of the princely state and
the university community were in general agreement, this control was not
felt as a threat to or a diminution of autonomy. Since the incorporation of
Hyderabad with Andhra Pradesh in 1957 this consensus has been eroded
and challenged. Rather than being a small haven in which Urdu culture
could be protected and nurtured, Osmania University began to conceive of
itself as a cosmopolitan institution capable of encompassing a wide variety
of teachers, students, and educational programs. But the government of
Andhra, responsible to a democratic electorate and committed to promote
the development of the backward Telengana region, came to view the uni¬
versity as capable of serving a wider variety of uses, some of which were
extraacademic if not extraeducational. The university was to be responsive
to government’s conception of goals. The unfolding visions of the meaning
and uses of the university held by government on the one hand and that
of the new leadership of the university on the other came into conflict.
These circumstances are not unlike situations in the United States where
state or city universities that have transcended more populist beginnings
by upgrading themselves into major intellectual centers have been con¬
fronted with demands for open admissions and for relevant curriculum by
constituencies, such as blacks, chicanos, and Puerto Ricans, left out of the
earlier popular waves of demand for higher education.
In Andhra, the divergence of goals between government and university
has been accentuated by emerging differentials in the social composition
of political and intellectual elites. The rural-oriented kulaks controlling
the government of Andhra have not always gotten on well with academic
intellectuals drawn from the remnants of an old Hyderabad courtly culture
or from among modern educated and sometimes foreign educated aca¬
demics recruited outside Andhra Pradesh. Andhra’s kulak class politicians
would prefer to see Andhra people manning an Andhra university, and
resent “aristocratic” pretensions based on class, culture, or professional
knowledge. If there is a declining consensus at Baroda, the pressures pro¬
ducing dissension come more from the city of Baroda than from the state
government speaking for the mobility aspirations of a democratic elector¬
ate. Baroda political and lay interests want more service from the university
_meaning both more admissions and a greater responsiveness to munici¬
pal and industrial needs. Baroda administrators and some of Baroda’s
faculty have differed with respect to such city-university collaboration.

Three factors: low levels of internal factionalism and its correlate, high
levels of “collegiality”; maintenance of professional, scholarly, and in-
170 Introduction to Part III

tellectual authority; and government self-restraint based on a broad con¬

sensus on goals have been the immediate conditions for a sense of auton¬
omy. One or another of these conditions has given way at Osmania; at
Baroda all three were still intact, if precariously so, at the time of our
study. In some Uttar Pradesh and Bihar universities, a growing degree of
external control has been related to rising levels of internal conflict that
have so weakened self-government as to invite legislative, judicial, and ex¬
ecutive intervention. Declining levels of professional and intellectual au¬
thority have resulted in shifting the criteria in faculty appointments and
promotions from professional to bureaucratic considerations, and in lo¬
cating the source of judgment increasingly in outside, nonprofessional,
authority (courts). In those universities where going to court has become
common, professional academic authority has evidently lost or failed to
achieve the capacity to command respect, much less compliance. Reliance
on the courts advances the trend of which it is a reflection, pressing uni¬
versities toward a bureaucratic model in which faculty can be judged by
a nonprofessional authority (such as a court) on the basis of paper criteria,
at the expense of the professional model, in which professional colleagues,
in the light of their knowledge, consider whether a candidate not only
commands the learning in their field but also can add to it. As a result of
the growing willingness of government to exercise authority and wield
influence within the university, many universities have become another
arena in which the party or factional struggles of state politics are con¬
ducted.
At Osmania, levels of internal conflict were low in the era of vice-
chancellor D. S. Reddi; the influence of academic and professional au¬
thority over university processes was strong and on the increase with the
recruitment of outstanding scholars from throughout India and abroad.
The key factor in the struggle over autonomy at Osmania was the lack of
self-restraint on the part of the government of Andhra. Legislation designed
to correct malpractices and the decline of professional and academic
authority at another state university was extended to Osmania, not because
Osmania was suffering from similar difficulties, but rather because of a
propensity to impose bureaucratic uniformity for its own sake.
At Baroda, the conditions for autonomy — low levels of factionalism, the
hold of professional authority, and self-restraint by the state government
(if not by the city) — are being maintained, but not without considerable
difficulty. Professional authority is difficult to establish and maintain when
teachers are needed to man preuniversity and some first degree production
lines rather than to push forward the frontiers of knowledge, and when the
nonacademic skills and culture of the educational entrepreneur-administra¬
tor, who is required to manage the logistics and politics of expansion, chal¬
lenge those of the academic. The government of Gujarat continues to sup¬
port academic excellence at Baroda and to respect its autonomy even
though there are pressures to deprive the university of some of the elite
characteristics that distinguish it from other Gujarat universities. It re¬
mains to be seen whether the Gujarat state commission, established to draft
uniform legislation for all universities, will respect or ignore Baroda’s dis¬
tinguishing characteristics.
Introduction to Part III 171

In the light of traditions of government intervention laid down in the

days of the raj, the strengthening of the Andhra government’s authority
through the universities amending acts of 1965 and 1966 does not ap¬
pear very extraordinary. The acts in Andhra reduced the number of
academics in the university senate; reduced, after first trying to eliminate,
the number of academics in the syndicate (supreme governing body of the
university); increased the number of politicians and officials of the educa¬
tion ministry in both bodies; replaced a university-influenced system of
selecting vice-chancellors by a system of government appointment; and re¬
moved from government directives, which could previously be issued to
the university, some safeguards and consultative procedures that had pre¬
viously surrounded them. These measures are less severe than similar ones
instituted by Lord Curzon in his university acts, discussed in chapter 2.
Furthermore, the Andhra measures were justified in part on grounds similar
to those cited by Englishmen at the beginning of the century, that is, that
the appropriation by university authorities of educational resources for
political or private purposes should be reduced. As in Curzon’s time, there
was in Andhra some justification for such corrective action; government
was not persuaded that university independence from government admin¬
istrative control was essential for the successful performance of its function.
The vice-chancellor of Andhra University had conspicuously misused his
discretion to favor caste and kin, giving the state “cause” to intervene. The
state’s remedy included strengthening its control over a worthy institution
in order to regulate one that was not. The case illustrates one way in which
the genetic imprint of bureaucratic culture and control, discussed in chapter
2, continues to have an ambiguous influence on Indian university adminis¬
tration, restricting creative variety in order to control undesirable deviance.
If bureaucratic uniformity is an important aspect of the genetic imprint
that was impressed on the Indian educational system, democracy has served
to reinforce the propensity to uniformity. Andhra officials, like officials in
other states, are likely to think uniformity a self-evident virtue. The union
ministry of education, in establishing a national committee to formulate
a “model act” for all universities, reflected India’s educational heritage.
The committee’s charge contained bureaucratic notions that uniform rules
might “neaten up” the confusion and conflict and perhaps “cure” the dis¬
eases that seemed to afflict academia. That the committee refused its charge,
framing suggestions but avoiding an act, was a credit to its understanding
of the virtue of diversity. But democratic notions of equality in India today
may well strengthen bureaucratic notions concerning uniformity. Differ¬
ences suggest the possibility of privilege and invite uniformity as a possible
cure.
10 / Autonomy and Consensus under the Raj:
Presidency (Calcutta); Muir (Allahabad);
M.A.-O. (Aligarh)

Irene A. Gilbert

The efforts of professors at three Indian colleges, the Presidency College

in Calcutta, the Muir Central College in Allahabad, and the Mohammedan
Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh, to approximate the autonomy of the
British college system provide the subject matter for this chapter. Auton¬
omy was easier to achieve in the nineteenth century, when British profes¬
sors were left relatively free in their colleges, than in the twentieth, when
the bases of Indian politics were changing, and the educated public was
pushing the Indian university system toward new definitions. The emer¬
gence of new publics affected both a private college such as M.A.-O. and
a government one such as Presidency, constraining principals and teachers
alike by the more complex demands of multiplying constituencies. So long
as there was a consensus about collegiate functions among faculty, college
sponsors (public or private), and the educated public, as there was through¬
out much of the nineteenth century, autonomy was no issue. It became one
when this consensus faded.
In 1857, universities were established at Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras;
some years later, two more were established, at Lahore in 1882 and Alla¬
habad in 1888. These were the only universities in India until 1916.1 The
provincial governors, or in the instance of Calcutta, the governor-general,
were the chancellors of the five universities, and through their powers, the
institutions were legislatively enabled and reformed over time.2 The gov¬
ernment of the university was vested in the senate to which the chancellor
belonged. It was a large public body designed to facilitate discussions of
educational policy and university requirements. From among its member¬
ship were elected the members of the smaller university bodies, the syn¬
dicate (supreme governing body of the university), the faculties, and the
There were many persons in India and England who gave generously of their
time, materials, and facilities, but I should especially like to thank those who made
available to me materials and facilities not usually requested by visiting research
scholars. In Uttar Pradesh, the director of education kindly permitted me to see the
records in his office at Allahabad, as did the authorities at the university there. In
the same state, Mr. Muzaffer Ali, the librarian at the Azad Library, Aligarh Muslim
University, displayed the same generosity in making available the materials in the
library’s own collection. In Calcutta, my special thanks are due to Justice A. N. Ray,
president of the governing body of Presidency College, Principal Bose, Professor a'.
Tnpathi, as well as the librarian and his staff, for making available to me the
principals’ reports upon which I have drawn so freely. The authorities and the
librarian of Calcutta University displayed the same generosity, and thanks are due
to them. They are not responsible for the uses to which I have put the materials and
many would probably disagree. ’
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 173

boards of study. The senate, however, always retained the right to pass on
the decisions of these executive and academic bodies. Significantly, the
senate had no authority to determine the composition of its own member¬
ship: a number of government offices were specified in the original enabling
legislation and their incumbents appointed fellows of the university in their
ex-officio capacities, while the majority of fellows were the lifetime nom¬
inees of the chancellor. Succeeding chancellors used their powers respon¬
sibly, and missionary educators, Indian notables, and professional men
joined government college professors, high court justices, civil surgeons,
and chief engineers on the four faculties of arts and sciences, law, medicine,
and engineering into which the senate was divided.
The executive arm of the university was the smaller syndicate. Some of
its members were elected by the senate, and the rest were appointed in their
ex-officio capacities, as was the senior educational official of the provincial
government, the director of public instruction. Its chairman was the vice-
chancellor of the university, whose position was honorific, without salary,
and often filled by the chief justice of the provincial high court. The syn¬
dicate was primarily responsible for the organization and coordination of
the university degree examinations. It also had the power to initiate major
changes in university policy, subject to the senate’s approval.
The colleges in the university were not research institutions, but vehicles
for the diffusion of modern knowledge in India. Their purpose was to
create a class of Indian professionals qualified to serve in the administra¬
tion and modern professions. From the 1840’s, college certificates were
preferred for entrance to the public services, and after 1857, university
degrees were required for admission to the law and medical colleges.3 In
consequence, many Indian managers were content to operate arts colleges
merely to prepare boys for the university degree examinations and for the
later vocations which required them. Other colleges, however, were main¬
tained for special purposes. The missionaries maintained colleges in order
to infuse a Christian morality into Indian society. The provincial govern¬
ments maintained special colleges in the districts to supply local educational
needs. They also maintained special colleges at the seat of the university,
to serve as model or “premier” colleges setting standards and equipped on
the whole with the finest teaching facilities to be had in the province. And
some Indian leaders maintained colleges in order to regenerate the vitality
of their religious communities.
British professors were often employed at these Indian colleges. They
were members of their respective colleges rather than the university be¬
cause Indian universities were not teaching institutions; they were merely
affiliating bodies with the power to grant degrees and conduct examina¬
tions. The boards of study (into which the faculties were divided) stipu¬
lated curricula, courses, and books. After receiving the sanction of the ap¬
propriate faculty, the syndicate, and the senate, professors in the affiliated
colleges were required to teach the stipulated courses. Professors were also
174 Political Dimensions of University Government

expected to prepare their students for the university-wide first arts,4 bache¬
lors, and masters first degree examinations. Although individual professors
belonged to the senate and served on the boards of study and examination,
the majority of college professors in India were obliged to teach and to
prepare their students for examinations on the basis of academic decisions
taken elsewhere.5 Furthermore, these British professors were subject to
the conditions of service laid down by their employers: the government on
the one hand or Indian managers on the other. The efforts of the professors
to secure autonomy in this new environment and to preserve it amidst the
changes of the early twentieth century, will be explored in this chapter.

Presidency College, Calcutta

The most famed, and certainly the oldest, of the government arts col¬
leges in India was Presidency College, Calcutta. It began as the Hindu
College, founded in 1817 by the first generation of Hindu reformers in
Bengal. They raised the necessary funds, joined the managing committee,
and sent their sons to the new institution.6 Their purpose was to diffuse
modern knowledge among the Hindu community by encouraging the study
of the English language, European history, and science.7 Within three
months of its founding, there were some sixty-nine students attending
classes at the Hindu College, and in 1824, it employed its first British
professor.8
But the managers soon had financial difficulties and turned to the British
government for aid. The government helped financially, and increasingly
granted funds to the college, enabling it to move to new quarters, appoint
additional European professors to the staff, and extend, the number of
student scholarships.9 By 1841, the Hindu College with its attached high
school had grown to more than twelve times its original size, and the gov¬
ernment’s interest, as well as investment, in the institution had increased.10
In the early 1850’s, when the authorities decided that they should maintain
a college of their own, open to all religious communities in India, their
attention turned to the Hindu College as a likely possibility. The govern¬
ment entered into a long series of negotiations with the institution’s man¬
agers, and in 1854 the transfer was consummated. One year later, the
Bengal government’s premier Presidency College opened its doors for the
first time.11
With the founding of Calcutta University in 1857, Presidency soon be¬
came the only affiliated college in the province capable of teaching up to
the full requirements of the university curriculum, and remained so. As the
senate legislated new degree requirements, succeeding principals constantly
approached the Bengal government for the increased budget allocations
necessary for the expansion of staff, or the purchase of new equipment. The
government usually responded generously. In 1874, the college was moved
to expensive new quarters — which it still occupies today — and in 1910,
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 175

the size of its physical plant was doubled with the opening of the Baker
science laboratories.12 From a staff of sixteen and a student body of 430
in 1884 (teaching up to the newly formed masters degree level in English,
history, mental and moral philosophy, and natural and physical science),
Presidency had grown in 1916 to include a staff of nearly sixty instructors
and a student body of over 950.13 Furthermore, it was in that year the only
college in the university offering courses in all postgraduate subjects —
English, history, political economy, mixed mathematics, physics, chemistry,
and physiology.14 In 1919, the members of the Calcutta University Com¬
mission found the college unrivaled in eastern India: its facilities, the
strengths of its staff, and the quality of its students all compared favorably
with the finer collegiate institutions of Europe and America.15
Because of its staff, facilities, and reputation, Presidency attracted the
best students in the province from shortly after its founding. James Sut¬
cliffe, the first principal, noted that the college had grown from 285 stu¬
dents in 1866 to 338 in 1869, and that these were “the picked students of
Bengal.” 16 These students were not drawn from the landowning groups
made rich by the permanent settlement, as the government had hoped.
They came, instead, from a newly rising professional class of lawyers and
doctors, government servants, and poorer zamindars (land owners).17 And
they were, as the director of public instruction, William S. Atkinson, noted,
from the only class that seemed to be taking effective advantage of the
opportunity for higher education in Bengal. He might have gone on to add
that they were the only students who would have to earn their living by
using that education.18
Presidency continued to draw its students from these “middle classes,”
as the principals termed them.19 In what became an accepted educational
pattern, the brighter boys from the districts and middle class Calcutta
tended to seek admission to Presidency after gaining a first in their matric¬
ulation examinations or the later intermediate examinations (taken at the
end of the second postschool year), and the college experienced a steady
but controlled growth. By 1872, there were some 440 students on its rolls,
most from the middle classes; in 1832, their number had expanded by
only ten, but by 1896, student numbers had swelled to 620. Twenty years
later, the student body had grown to nearly 1,000.20 In consequence, the
principal was able to use his discretion in admissions to advantage. By the
turn of the century, it was known that the Presidency principal admitted
“firsts” first, and others second — and tuition fees were never set so high
as to keep these students away.21
At Presidency, students received the finest education, mainly because of
the efforts of their professors. Like professors at other arts colleges, the
members of the Presidency staff were compelled to prepare their students
for the university examinations. But the Presidency professors were also
dedicated to enhancing the intellectual qualities of college life. They strove
to instill in their students a respect for the standards of excellence and an
176 Political Dimensions of University Government

appreciation for the discipline and skills they would need in later life.22
Mostly they lectured — tutorials and seminars came much later in the
twentieth century. They added personal and informal touches to their lec¬
tures, however, by interjecting questions, discussions, and exchange, and
by being available for student inquiry and interview both in and after class.
Presidency professors groomed their boys for firsts and seconds in the uni¬
versity lists by demanding first-rate work in class assignments and exer¬
cises, demonstrations of exactness and fluency in the use of English on
essay and composition, and thoughtful answers to the questions on class
and college exams. And they often used these as the criteria for admitting
students to the university’s degree-granting examinations and prize com¬
petitions. Of the thirty-two Premchand Roychand studentships, the highest
prize in Calcutta University, awarded between 1860 and 1900, Presidency
students took twenty-five.23 The professors’ efforts were also reflected in
the repeated success of Presidency students on the university examinations,
as well as the latters’ success in the professions and government service.
(See tables 46 and 47.)
The members of the small educated Indian public, who were also the
potential political class, were grateful to the Presidency professors for the
educational opportunities and results they provided. In consequence, they
tended to respect their opinions on the senate and boards of the university.
And so long as Presidency was producing a body of competent profes¬
sionals loyal to the empire, the British authorities, too, were content to
leave the professors to themselves, and to allow them to manage and re¬
form the internal life of the college.
In line with their own educational traditions (generally those of the
colleges of Oxford and Cambridge), the British professors sought to make
the college a community. At Presidency, they created a community in
which staff and students might participate in continued traditions of ex¬
cellence. The effort to reform the institution began slowly: a few attempts
at organizing games in the 1870’s, a debating club which met intermit¬
tently, occasional prize-giving days or gatherings with the old boys.24 In
1905, the Eden Hindu Hostel was firmly placed under the supervision of
the principal, and with that a number of organized activities began to
appear. Games were played more often and the boys formed into teams;
magazines were issued occasionally and then regularly; clubs and discus¬
sion groups were founded and later elaborated.25 From the hostel, the
activities became college-wide, and students had the opportunity to join
any number of them. Principal Henry Rosher James set down the ends of
his policy in the early years of the twentieth century. “[The college is] an
independent commonwealth, which within the limits of the conditions of
student-life offers all the elements of complete living. Its end is education
for the ultimate purposes of life on a high plane; its means are the common-
life in subordination to the interests of all its members. On the one side it
is an enlargement of family life, which for the educational purpose is too
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 177

Table 46. Presidency College results compared to total results in Calcutta

University B.A. examinations.

Candi¬
dates Per¬
ad- Ab¬ centage
Year College/university Course mitted 1st 2nd 3rd sent passing

1869 Presidency College —

46 7 13 7 0 59
Calcutta University11 - 128 7 20 23 0 39
1876 Presidency College - 102 11 9 7 7 28
Calcutta University3 - 179 7 27 8 3 26
1882 Presidency College Arts 42 3 6 4 0 31
Calcutta University3 Arts 152 2 10 19 7 21
Presidency College Sciences 33 3 9 3 1 47
Calcutta University3 Sciences 131 11 24 11 3 36
1886 Presidency College Arts 46 2 3 27 3 74
Calcutta University3 Arts 252 10 22 172 7 80
Presidency College Sciences 34 3 10 13 1 79
Calcutta University3 Sciences 86 0 6 43 1 58
1891 Presidency College Arts 114 3 29 35 7 63
Calcutta University3 Arts 787 11 58 252 24 42
Presidency College Sciences 33 5 16 8 3 97
Calcutta University3 Sciences 148 0 4 50 6 50
1896 Presidency College Arts 75 4 20 25 4 69
Calcutta University3 Arts 884 0 37 185 44 26
Presidency College Sciences 84 6 12 27 3 56
Calcutta University3 Sciences 393 7 26 115 18 39
1901 Presidency College Arts 94 1 23 23 7 54
Calcutta University3 Arts 1,117 3 33 255 116 29
Presidency College Sciences _b - - - - -
Calcutta University3 Sciences _b - - - - -
1906 Presidency College Arts 139 3 25 27 5 49
Calcutta University3 Arts 1,217 0 28 232 105 23
Presidency College Sciences 111 0 7 31 8 37
Calcutta University3 Sciences 742 0 15 163 76 27

Source: Derived by subtracting the Presidency totals from all the university affiliates and
dividing the gross number of examination passes by the number admitted to the examina¬
tion, less those who failed to attend. They are drawn from the following volumes of the
university minutes: University of Calcutta, Minutes Jor the Year 1868-69 (Calcutta, 1869),
p. 148; Minutes for the Year 1875-76 (Calcutta, 1876), p. 59; Minutes for the Year 1881-82
(Calcutta, 1882), pp. 162-163; Minutes for the Year 1885-86 (Calcutta, 1886), pp. 106-107;
Minutes for the Year 1890-91 (Calcutta, 1891), pp. 114-115; Minutes for the Year 1895-96
(Calcutta, 1896), pp. 47-48; Minutes for the Year 1900-01 (Calcutta, 1901), pp. 93-94;
Minutes Jor the Year 1905-06 (Calcutta, 1906), pp. 285-286.
a Data for Calcutta University are exclusive of Presidency College figures.
b Page giving science results for the 1901 examinations is missing from the records.

narrow, too concentrated, too closely allied to personal interest; on the

other, it is an intensified and more easily comprehended form of the life
of the state or commonwealth. It should be at the same time a large family.
Its wider aims and interest enlarge and ennoble the narrow intensity of
family life. The work and play in common are a mimic representation of
 178 Political Dimensions of University Government

Table 47. Career patterns of Presidency College graduates.

1857-1884 1885-1908 1909-1917

Career No. No. No.
Training abroad4 15 90 70
Law:
Bar 265 415 200
Bench, and other legal
services for government 150 190 30
Government service in British
and princely India 90 300 110
Education 80(40)b 250(130)b 210(65)b
Medicine 10 (5)b 30 (20)b 40(20)b
Engineering 2 (2)b 15 (10)b 10 (5)b
Commerce and management 15 (5)<> 45 (15)o 45(15)0
Literature and journalism11 2 10 3 (l)b
Source: Surendrachnandra Majumdar and Gikilnath Dhar, eds., Presidency College
Register (Calcutta, 1927).
Note: The table takes into account only the careers actually pursued by Presidency
College graduates. (There were approximately 675 students who had taken the bachelors
degree and reported no further careers during the seventy year period, 370 with the masters
degree, and 615 more with the B.A. degree.) Thus, for example, a member of the civil
service who had received a B.L. degree and did not pursue a judicial career is included
under the government service category, while a member of the civil service who acted
as a judge is included under the bench and other legal services category, along with public
prosecutors and the like. All figures are rounded off to the nearest multiples of five, except
in the obvious instances.
a Includes graduates who received their legal training at the Inns of Court, and thus
is the only category which duplicates information found elsewhere on the table.
b The number in the parentheses is the total in British government employment.
0 The number in the parentheses is the total managing their own estates.
d Includes only those who indicated no other sources of income.

the life of the state or nation, only in an intense and more concentrated
form, comparable, we may fancy, to the life of the city-state of classical
or medieval times. It is a working object lesson of the value of disinterested¬
ness and public spirit. It should teach by example the uses of co-operation
and the advantage of forming part of an integral whole.” 2G

Muir Central College, Allahabad

The history of the Muir Central College in Allahabad is significantly

different, in its way a reaction to diverging local conditions and the seeming
unsuitability of the Calcutta University syllabus. Unlike Calcutta, which
was one of the first centers of British dominion in India, the North-Western
Provinces was a relatively late administrative creation. The lieutenant-
governorship was not formed until 1834, and contained within its boun¬
daries the last remnants of Moghul rule at Delhi and Agra, as well as the
more important centers of the Hindu religion at Banaras and Allahabad.
Its capital was located at Agra. The government maintained a small college
there, two others at Delhi and Bareilly, and a lightly attended English class
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 179

at the Sanskrit College in Banaras. These were affiliated to the University

of Calcutta after 1857.27
In the shock of the Sepoy Mutiny and the slow recovery of the province,
all this changed. The Delhi districts were ceded to the Punjab, and the
college there fell under the purview of that government’s educational de¬
partment. In 1860, the capital was moved from Agra to Allahabad — one
of the few centers in the upper provinces to have resisted the mutineers —
and virtually a whole new administrative city was planned. As yet, there
were no provisions made for an English college at the new capital. Instead,
the provincial educational authorities were straining to meet the exacting
demands of the Calcutta University English curriculum. In the heartland
of traditional India, Muslims were not coming to the government colleges,
while Hindus, unlike their counterparts in Bengal, seemed to respond
positively to educational efforts in the vernacular. In consequence, the
colleges remained little more than high schools and their showing on uni¬
versity examinations remained poor. In 1868, Bareilly managed to pass
only one student in the third division of the first arts degree examination,
while Agra could pass only three in the first and second divisions, and at
Banaras only four of eleven sent up managed to pass in the third division.28
By 1869, it was felt that some compromise with the Calcutta system was
necessary. The lieutenant-governor, Sir William Muir, expressed the con¬
sensus of opinion in the education department.

The system of requiring certain proficiency in English as the condition of

University training and University distinctions, is sound and unassailable;
but it may be that the condition is pushed too far and made too stringent.
By the present rules, no honors in Oriental literature can be secured until
the student shall have passed the B. A. Standard. But to produce a bene¬
ficial action upon the national mind it is perhaps too much to require so
severe a standard in English and in science. The great want of the people
is a Vernacular literature: —works in History, Art, and Science, contain¬
ing sound knowledge, written in an elegant style, and composed on models
of thought and expression agreeable to the Native mind. For this end, a
body of students is needed who, by the study of the Oriental classics, shall
possess the faculty of composing in such a style; and high proficiency in
Oriental literature, itself requiring much study, can hardly be looked for in
combination with the very high standard in English and in science required
for the B. A. Degree. It is therefore a matter for serious consideration
whether a greater national benefit would not be secured by offering Honor
Degrees in the Oriental languages to students of a certain lower standard
in English and in science, than as now by insisting on the pre-requisite of
a B. A. Degree.29

Sir William went on to suggest that a branch of the university senate be

established at Allahabad, and the province’s educational needs be met in
locally formulated degree requirements. Both the vice-chancellor of the
university and the Government of India rejected the idea.30
180 Political Dimensions of University Government

The provincial authorities were not content, and official opinion increas¬
ingly favored the establishment of a government college at Allahabad, lead¬
ing, perhaps, to an independent university in the North-Western Provinces.
After a long series of negotiations, a compromise was reached in 1872.
The government of India consented to the founding of a government college
at Allahabad, and so long as the English requirements of the Calcutta
University curriculum were met, the provincial government might use the
new institution to promote the development of higher education in the
vernacular.31 When the Muir Central College opened shortly thereafter, it
was the task of Muir’s first principal, Augustus Harrison, to organize and
administer a new province-wide vernacular examination.32
By the time Muir moved into its permanent quarters in 1886, however,
the vernacular exam was of minor proportions.33 By then, classes in English
had superseded it. Small at first, and composed in large part of young
Kashmiris and Bengalis whose fathers had come to Allahabad to find em¬
ployment in the new city, the classes in English grew as the administrative
center, with its networks of courts and subsidiary services, expanded.
As local Hindu groups began to take advantage of these increased oppor¬
tunities, the new middle classes began to send their sons to the English
language college, much as their predecessors had done in Bengal two gen¬
erations before.34
Like Presidency, the Muir Central College provided its students with the
finest instructional staff in the province, and as the establishment at Allaha¬
bad grew, the ones at Bareilly and Agra were reduced. (Eventually the
latter were given over to private managers on the advice of the Educational
Commission of 18 82.)35 Like his counterpart at Presidency, the Muir prin¬
cipal reaped the benefit: he was usually free to select the best students in
the province for admission to the college. By 1883, it had become the
second-ranking college in the University of Calcutta, its student body hav¬
ing increased from the meager 13 of 1872 to 105. Among its graduates it
numbered fourteen high court pleaders, five holders of the B.L. degree,
four of the M.A., and sixteen of the B.A. Only Presidency, which was much
larger, surpassed it in university honors and awards: of the 156 honors and
awards won between 1877 and 1883, Muir’s students took 21 to Presi¬
dency’s 7 8.36
On the strength of the Muir record, the provincial authorities once
again approached the government of India, this time for permission to es¬
tablish an independent university. The government of India agreed to the
proposal, and in 1888, the University of Allahabad was formed.37 The
Muir College was its premier affiliate. In its enhanced position, the North-
Western Provinces government treated the college with the same generosity
that the Bengal government treated Presidency: budget allocations were
slowly increased as the Muir principals repeatedly approached the govern¬
ment for more professors and facilities when new university requirements
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 181

necessitated them. From the modest curriculum of 1890, which offered

courses at the masters level in the fields of English, philosophy, Sanskrit,
mathematics, and physical science, Muir expanded to meet the demands of
the more sophisticated curriculum of 1920, and offered courses in English,
Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, philosophy, history, economics, physics, chemis¬
try, zoology, and botany at the masters level.38 In consequence, it con¬
tinued to draw the best students in the province, and its rate of growth
compared favorably with that of Presidency. Its staff of twelve in 1890 had
expanded to forty by 1920, while its student body had more than doubled
in size to 550.39 And the Muir staff’s success in sending students through
the university examinations, and qualifying them for later careers (as the
incomplete records show) was equally favorable. (See tables 48 and 49.)
With the support of the government and the educated Indian commu¬
nity, the British professors were left free to enact the same reforms at
Muir as their colleagues at Presidency. Because Muir was smaller, they
were able to create the same sense of community that existed at Presidency,
but earlier and without the organizations needed at the larger Calcutta
college. As a student of 1879 recalled, “No visitor, European or Indian,
was seen to come and inspect the college. Quiet work was done and there
was no display or demonstration — no prize distribution. There was how¬
ever no lack of prizes. First-Divisioners got a scholarship each and the
Principal never failed to give reward to a deserving student out of his own
pocket. . . . Limited accommodation — and a limited number of pupils
enabled the College to work smoothly — cheaply and effectively like a
family — like a happy family.” 40 In later years as the college grew, the
same extracurricular activities and organizations were elaborated, each
guided by an appropriate member of the staff. The first hostels were or¬
ganized in 1906. In 1907, intramural athletic associations were formed,
and clubs, literary societies, and a college magazine followed shortly there¬
after.41 But the English professors’ first aims were still to enhance the intel¬
lectual aspects and disciplines of college life. Another student recalled the
quality of the education he received from Muir’s principal, J. G. Jennings,
before the institution’s conversion to a residential university in 1922: “He
was an artist, and he had a great sense of technique, of proportion, of
architectonics. He hated loose thought, vague vocabulary, mere showing
off. In my first essay on the Lake poets, he cut off three of my last pages,
in which I had brought in the minor writers of the school, Lamb, Lloyd,
etc., simply saying, ‘This is an essay, not a historical treatise.’ When he
gave me Beta minus at the end, I felt as if the spirit of an essay had been
graven on my tabula rasa with a stylus of steel. I always got Alpha or
Alpha plus from him ever after. He had a Black Book and he noted there
what every one of his students did. And he never forgot it. He was very
fond of Terminal Examinations and he had three each year for the under¬
graduates. But we graduates had an option. He left the matter to us. When
182 Political Dimensions of University Government

Table 48. Muir Central College results compared to total results in the
Allahabad University B.A. and B.Sc. examinations.

Candi¬
dates Per¬
Course/ ad¬ Ab¬ centage
Year College/university exam mitted 1st 2nd 3rd sent passing

1889 Muir College Arts 26 1 15 4 1 80

Allahabad University3 Arts 38 0 10 11 1 55
Muir College Sciences 4 0 1 0 0 25
Allahabad University3 Sciences 10 1 4 2 0 70
1893 Muir College Arts 54 2 19 7 1 53
Allahabad University3 Arts 149 3 59 25 1 59
Muir College Sciences 14 2 5 2 1 69
Allahabad University3 Sciences 31 1 10 6 0 55
1898b Muir College B.A. 51 1 21 6 0 55
Allahabad University3 B.A. 274 2 86 57 5 54
1904 Muir College B.A. 49 0 14 18 1 67
Allahabad University3 B.A. 271 2 58 116 4 66
Muir College B.Sc. 13 0 4 6 0 77
Allahabad University3 B.Sc. 6 0 2 2 0 67
1909 Muir College B.A. 45 1 11 16 0 61
Allahabad University3 B.Sc. 475 1 70 124 12 42
Muir College B.Sc. 38 1 10 8 0 50
Allahabad University3 B.Sc. 103 0 6 15 3 21
1915 Muir College B.A. 58 0 10 15 0 43
Allahabad University3 B.A. 973 1 87 233 19 34
Muir College B.Sc. 40 1 6 10 0 43
Allahabad University3 B.Sc. 122 3 17 43 4 53
1920 Muir College B.A. 79 1 15 32 0 61
Allahabad University3 B.A. 1,313 2 88 382 21 37
Muir College B.Sc. 33 4 16 9 0 88
Allahabad University3 B.Sc. 162 2 31 51 4 53
Source: University of Allahabad, Minutes for the Year 1889 (Allahabad 1889) d 95-
Mhiutes for the Year 1892-93 (Allahabad, 1893), pp. x-xi; Minutes for the Year 1898-99
(Allahabad, 1899), pp. v-vi; Minutes for the Year 1903-04 (Allahabad, 1904) pp vi-ix'
Minutes far the Year 1909 (Allahabad, 1910), pp. vii-xi; Minutes for the Year ’l915 (Alla¬
habad, 1916), pp. xiv-xix; Minutes for the Year 1920 (Allahabad, 1921), pp. xiv-xvii,
XX XXI.

a Data for Allahabad University are exclusive of Muir College figures.

b Only one student, from Canning College, Lucknow, appeared for the new B.Sc. degree
in this year, and he failed the examination.

we voted for it, he was obviously pleased. When we got back the examined
books, the experience really proved valuable for the University examina¬
tion.” 42 J

Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh

The Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College in Aligarh in the North-

Western Provinces was nearly contemporary with the Muir Central College.
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 183

Table 49. Career patterns of Muir Central College graduates, 1872-1922.

Career Number

Law:
Bar 17
Bench, and other legal services for government 23
Government service in British and princely India 59
Education 61a
Medicine 4b
Engineering 10b
Commerce and management 7°
Source: W. H. Wright, The Muir Central College, Allahabad, Its Origin, Foundation and
Completion (Allahabad, 1886), Appendix 1, passim; Jha, A History of the Muir Central
College; Mehrottra, University of Allahabad, Seventieth Anniversary Souvenir, pp. 83-113;
University of Allahabad, Old Students' Who's Who (Allahabad, 1958).
Note: There is no complete record for the careers of Muir College graduates, and the
above has been drawn from varying, and scanty sources. Further, the distribution of infor¬
mation is uneven for the fifty year period, the more complete record covering the very
early years. Suffice it to state, however, that the career patterns of the Muir students fol¬
lowed, in general outline, those of the Presidency students.
a Thirty of the sixty-one were in British government employment.
b In British government employment.
0 One of the seven managed his own estates.

In 1873, Syed Ahmed (later Sir Syed Ahmed Khan) wished to found an
English language school and college with which to regenerate the life of his
religious community in India. Disturbed because so few Muslims seemed
to be attending the government colleges, he sought to provide the members
of his faith with modern learning, while yet assuring them of the continued
sanctity of Islam. Like the Hindus in Bengal two generations before him,
he thought the solution lay in a community-sponsored institution, offering
instruction in secular subjects, without, at the same time, offending the
group’s religious sensibilities. Unlike the Hindu college, the Muslim college
would therefore offer its students instruction in religious subjects. Sir Syed
turned to the North-Western Provinces government for financial aid.43
The provincial authorities responded generously, agreeing to contribute
to the support of the college’s secular classes. The original grant of Rs. 350
per month was increased to Rs. 500 in 1878, and renewed again in 1882.
It was the largest grant-in-aid accorded to a private institution in the
province, and with increases over time, continued to remain so. The lieu¬
tenant-governor was named visitor and patron to the college.44
The institution’s financial position assured, the board of trustees, dom¬
inated by Sir Syed, proceeded to draw up its plans. In May 1875, Aligarh’s
first school classes met, attended by sixty-six Muslim students. They were
instructed by seven Indian masters, under the supervision of the college’s
first headmaster and principal, K. G. Siddons, formerly of the North-
Western Provinces education department.45 Under Siddons, the school was
run like any other private institution in the province; it was affiliated to
 184 Political Dimensions of University Government

the university at Calcutta and prepared its students for the university ex¬
aminations. By 1881 when Aligarh was affiliated to the B.A. level, it had
259 students, and the staff had been expanded to include a second Euro¬
pean professor and an increased number of Indian assistant professors and
masters. Its results until then on university examinations had been re¬
spectable: thirty-five of the fifty-six students sent up for the entrance exam
and nine of the seventeen sent up for the intermediate exam passed.46
When Siddons retired from the principalship in 1882-83, there was little
to distinguish the M.A.-O. College except for the personality of Sir Syed,
the Muslim character of the board of trustees, and the religious training
afforded both Sunni and Shia students.
All this changed with the appointment of Theodore Beck to the prin¬
cipalship in 1883. Unlike Siddons, Beck had been specially selected in
England for the post, almost directly upon his graduation from Cam¬
bridge.47 He was a young man who brought to his task a sense of dedica¬
tion and enthusiasm — almost a sense of mission, to which Sir Syed and
the board responded. In consequence, Beck was given the freedom to re¬
form the internal life of the college. His model was the British public
school and the character of its graduate. “Considering the needs of the
country, we should at present I think devote our attention to the active,
rather than the contemplative side of human nature, and work more at
developing strength of character, a sense of public duty, and patriotism,
than at cultivating the imagination, the emotions or the faculty of pure
speculation. And thus hope to achieve success, we must reluctantly aban¬
don the cultivation in the majority of our students, of the poetic, artistic,
or philosophic temperament, and devote our attention to turning out men
who in appearance are neatly dressed and clean, of robust constitution and
well-trained muscles, energetic, honest, truthful, public spirited, courteous
and modest in manner, loyal to the British government and friendly to
individual English men, self-reliant and independent, endowed with com¬
mon sense, with well-trained intellects, and in some cases scholarlv
habits.”48 J
Reversing the order of priorities at the government colleges, Beck
turned first to reorganizing student life at Aligarh. He managed to attract
to the staff a number of young Englishmen as dedicated as he, and ready
to participate in student activities, associations, and clubs. Theodore Mori-
son, his successor, joined the college in 1889; T. W. Arnold, author of
The Preaching of Islam, joined in 1888; and Walter Raleigh, later professor
of English at Cambridge, joined in 18 8 5.49 They reformed the hostels
into houses, and Aligarh became the first college in India to have a system
of student prefects. Games became a required part of daily life, and cricket,
tennis, and other teams were formed. The student body was organized into
a college-wide union, and a number of clubs and magazines were founded,
many of them dealing with aspects of Islamic faith and history.50
Beck attempted to disabuse the Aligarh students of their misplaced aris-
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 185

tocratic notions and to transform their new sense of corporate loyalties into
the wider one of community service. He therefore directed student efforts
toward work in the Muslim community. The Duty or Anjuman-al-Farz was
founded to collect college funds for scholarships for poorer students, while
other students collected information for the Mohammedan educational cen¬
sus, and still others contributed their labor to local famine relief drives.51
Beck and the British staff’s goal was to have a regenerated Muslim com¬
munity make a vital contribution to the empire. Sir Syed supported Beck
when the latter stated, “I attach the utmost importance to implanting in
the minds of our students a conviction of the inestimable benefits India
has derived from the British rule, and to fostering in their hearts a senti¬
ment of loyal devotion to the British Crown.” 52 On the one hand, such a
conviction was implanted by the relations of mutual confidence and trust
which obtained between the European staff and Indian trustees and by
the easy and respectful relations the students felt free to assume with their
British teachers. On the other hand, it was implanted by the continued
demonstrations of support the British government extended to the college
authorities: financial aid, official attendance at college functions, and the
yearly appearance of the lieutenant-governor as patron of the college at
Aligarh’s prize-giving day.
During Beck’s tenure as principal, Aligarh achieved a respectable show¬
ing on the examinations of Allahabad University (to which the college
was affiliated after Allahabad’s foundation in 1888), but as opposed to the
government colleges, its students succeeded in the easier arts courses
rather than in the more difficult sciences. The graduates of the smaller col¬
lege, however, were as successful as the government college graduates in
gaining admission to the government services and modern professions. (See
tables 50 and 51.)
Theodore Beck died one year after Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, in 1899. The
same relation that had existed between Sir Syed and Beck obtained be¬
tween Sir Syed’s son, Justice Syed Mahmood, the new honorary secretary,
and Theodore Morison, the new principal; and Morison was able to carry
on with Beck’s old authority in the college. Syed Mahmood soon resigned
from the honorary secretaryship, however, and shortly after, Morison left
India in 1905.
Through the nineteenth century, British professors were left relatively
free in their colleges; the government was satisfied with the competence
of the new professional class being trained in them, and religious com¬
munities such as the Muslims were glad of the opportunity to participate
once again in the mainstream of a changing Indian life. For the quality of
their work, European professors received the approbation of the modern
educated Indian community generally; their opinions were respected on
the senate and other bodies of the university, and in consequence, the
academic organization of the colleges was little interfered with. But could
the same relationship, the same trust, exist in the twentieth century, when
186 Political Dimensions of University Government

Table 50. M.A.-O. College results compared to total results in the Allahabad
University B.A. and B.Sc. examinations.
Candi¬
dates Per¬
Course/ ad¬ Ab¬ centage
Year College/university exam mitted 1st 2nd 3rd sent passing

1889a M.A.-O. College Arts 8 0 2 3 0 63

Allahabad University15 Arts 56 1 23 12 2 67
1893a M.A.-O. College Arts 15 1 7 1 0 60
Allahabad University15 Arts 188 4 71 31 2 57
M.A.-O. College Sciences 1 0 1 0 0 100
Allahabad University15 Sciences 44 3 14 8 1 58
1898a M.A.-O. College Arts 36 1 14 5 0 56
Allahabad University15 Arts 211 3 51 49 3 50
1900° M.A.-O. College B.A. 30 0 11 12 1 79
Allahabad University15 B.A. 230 4 77 27 6 48
Source: University of Allahabad, Minutes for the Year 1889 (Allahabad, 1889), p. 95;
Minutes for the Year 1892-93 (Allahabad, 1893), pp. x-xi; Minutes for the Year 1897-98
(Allahabad, 1898), pp. v-vi; Minutes for the Year 1899-1900 (Allahabad, 1900), pp. v-vi.
a No M.A.-O. College students took the Sciences examination this year.
b Data for Allahabad University are exclusive of M.A.-O. College figures.
0 No M.A.-O. College students took the B.Sc. examination this year.

the bases of Indian politics were changing and the educated public was
pushing the Indian university system toward new definitions?

The Decline of Consensus at Presidency:

Government and University Intervention

By the time Henry Rosher James assumed the principalship of Presi¬

dency College in 1908, Bengal’s new professional public had been effec¬
tively radicalized. The partition of the province in 1905 had raised a storm
of protest, some violence, and had led the leaders of the Indian public to

Table 51. Career patterns of the M.A.-O. College graduates, 1890-1900.

Career3 Number

Law:
Bar 30
Bench, and other legal services for government 7
Government service in British and princely India 57
Education 27b
Engineering 2°
Source: Theodore Morison, The History of the M.A.-O. College, Aligarh From its
Foundation to the Year 1903 (Allahabad, 1903), pp. 68-73.
a Thirty-six students did not list any employment or further education after receiving
their B.A. degrees. s
b Seven of the twenty-seven were in British government employment.
0 In British government employment.
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 187

extend the bases of their political appeals and organization. They chose
for their platform and rallying point College Square, the intellectual heart
of the city, directly opposite Presidency and its hostels. Inevitably, the
students were drawn to the meetings, mingled with the crowds, and dis¬
cussed political events among themselves on quieter evenings. For many,
it was a period of romance and exhilaration. Some students joined the
more radical organizations, recruiting members for them in the college
hostels. The government of India tried to stop the students’ activity in
1907 by threatening the disaffiliation of their different colleges from the
University of Calcutta.53 But some students maintained their contacts with
radical political organizations after protest ebbed, and the Presidency stu¬
dents at the Eden Hostel were among them.54
Although the British eventually reamalgamated the province, the protest
left a legacy of distrust in the community, even among its older and more
conservative elements. Rather than cooperate easily with the British au¬
thorities as they had done before, some members of the public elected to
secure control of the institutions afforded them. The University of Cal¬
cutta was one such institution. During the vice-chancellorship of Sir
Asutosh Mukherji, efforts were made to expand the powers of the uni¬
versity and enhance its central organs with a real teaching authority.
Sir Asutosh was a brahman. As a youth, he had had a brilliant academic
career at Presidency, and his exceptional mathematical talents won him the
Premchand Roychand studentship, the highest prize in the university.
(Later, he was elected to memberships in both the Royal Astronomical
Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh on the strength of his con¬
tinued mathematic attainments.)55 After his graduation, he took up the
study of law and became one of the most eminent members of the Calcutta
bar. When he was appointed to his first vice-chancellorship in 1906, he
was justice of the Calcutta high court.56 Sir Asutosh was the second Indian
vice-chancellor of the university. It fell to his administration to enact the
reforms called for by the Indian Universities Act of 1904. The purpose of
the act was to improve the quality of teaching in the affiliated colleges by
strengthening the affiliating powers of the university. Secondarily, it pro¬
vided for the beginnings of postgraduate teaching in the university proper
with the establishment of university professorships.57 Sir Asutosh empha¬
sized the latter purpose and used his new, more flexibly formulated affiliat¬
ing powers to subvert the former purpose.
Sir Asutosh, a scholar in his own right, by tradition and achievement,
came to feel a great respect for learning. He wished to make the University
of Calcutta a great center of scholarship. Moreover, he wished to provide
Bengali youth with the opportunity to pursue their studies further, as well
as to develop their own scholarly abilities. The expansion of the new
research departments of the university was a national and political aim
for both Bengal and India. On retiring from the vice-chancellorship in
1914, Sir Asutosh stated in a convocation address: “Let us, therefore, ad-
188 Political Dimensions of University Government

vance the banner of progress in hand, with bold but not unwary steps,
drawing confidence and inspiration from the consciousness that so many
of the best and truest men of our people are in full sympathy with us; that
the rising generation has availed itself with eagerness, nay enthusiasm,
of the new opportunities we have created for higher students; that the
sparks of the new inextinguishable fire kindled in our midst have already
leapt to all parts of India, and that the sister universities are eager to
imitate and emulate what we have boldly initiated. I feel that a mighty new
spirit has been aroused, a spirit that will not be quenched; and this con¬
viction, indeed, is a deep comfort to me for so many weighty reasons. I
thus bid farewell to office and fellow workers, not without anxiety for the
future of my University, but yet with a great measure of inward content¬
ment: and — let this be my last word — from the depths of my soul,
there rises a fervent prayer for the perennial welfare of our Alma Mater
— for whom it was given to me to do much and suffer to some extent —
and of that greater parental divinity to whom even our University is a
mere hand-maiden as it were — my beloved Motherland.” 58 During Sir
Asutosh’s vice-chancellorship, the fulltime staff of the university expanded
to include approximately 100 members, and by 1916, there were 1,258
students enrolled in the university’s postgraduate classes, as compared to
the 326 at Presidency and the 25 at the Scottish Church College (the only
other institutions offering advanced instruction in Calcutta).59
These policies increased Sir Asutosh’s stature in the community as well
as his powers for patronage. He was able to elicit substantial donations
from Calcutta’s wealthier citizens, and invested these in semiautonomous
institutes administered by boards controlled by the vice-chancellor rather
than the senate. The British professors in the senate protested this new
mode of university organization, especially when the University College
of Science was planned in 1916.60 But Sir Asutosh was parliamentarily
adept, and pursued his policy of expansion with the support of the Indian
members of the senate. He frequently called meetings with little advance
notice, or when his opponents were likely to be away, as Messrs. Archbold,
Watson, and Biss claimed at a senate meeting in 1914.61 In 1913, Princi¬
pal James of Presidency commented upon the procedures which had come
to characterize the decisions of the senate. “For the last two years the
Senate has been giving their consent to sporadic proposals of this nature
without detailed information and without a comprehensive scheme of
Post Graduate teaching in the various subjects which the University had
undertaken. He thought it would have been more satisfactory if the Senate
were supplied with full and detailed information as regards organisation,
staff, library and accommodation while they were asked to give their con¬
sent to the above proposals [to appoint two lecturers in economics].” 62
James was voted down, as he was a year later when he once again put
forward the same suggestion.63
The government of Bengal acceded to these innovations, and, to the
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 189

chagrin of the government of India, repeatedly supported the vice-chancel¬

lor s requests for increased financial aid when Indian benefactions did not
suffice.64 Inevitably, these sanctioned extensions of the university’s teach-
ing powers impinged upon the postgraduate teaching being conducted in
the colleges, raising the whole question of the structure of higher educa¬
tion. British professors found themselves in opposition to Indian aspi¬
rations.
James was a senior member of the Indian Educational Service and one
of its most respected members. “Most members of the Indian Educational
Service, are, I think,” stated Sir George Anderson, “in agreement that
Mr. James is about the best man in that service on the professorial side.
He has written the most helpful book in recent times on the subject of
Indian education.” Go A former Queen’s scholar at Westminster, James had
gone on to win the Westminster scholarship to Christ Church College,
Oxford. At Oxford, he took a first in classical moderations and went on
to take his greats degree in the first class in 1885. The quality of his ex¬
amination and a beginning translation of the works of Boethius won him
election to a junior tutorship at Christ Church. He joined the Indian
Educational Service in 1890 and was appointed to the staff of Patna Col¬
lege. In 1905, he became its principal. Two years later when the Presi¬
dency College principalship fell vacant, James was appointed to the post;
Sir A. H. Frazer, the lieutenant-governor of Bengal, named him, “the
fittest man in the department for the permanent appointment.” 66
Meticulous and exacting, James gave himself up wholeheartedly to all
the details of college administration. From the point of view of the sec¬
retariat, his inability to delegate authority to subordinates reflected poor
executive talents. In 1913, a bureaucrat in the Bengal education depart¬
ment noted that “the duties of the Principal of the college are very heavy,
but Mr. James certainly does take a degree of satisfaction in doing with
his own hand unimportant matters of which he could be easily relieved
by the Steward who is a competent assistant.” 67 Many of his students,
however, remembered these small efforts on their behalf with gratitude and
affection. Writing some years later, Sir Jadunath Sarkar, the historian, re¬
called James’ attempts at “licking raw Indian lads into shape at Patna.”
He lectured, graded their class exercises, and even remained behind one
hot season to catalogue the college library, “removing the books from the
shelf himself and writing it out by hand.” 68
Putting much of himself into his work, James hoped, almost yearned,
for public recognition. But his efforts went unrewarded. Independent and
strong-willed, he persisted in making his case for a stronger educational
policy: at the university, in the press, in his own monographs — even when
the new governor, Lord Carmichael of Skirling, would have wished other¬
wise. Taking into account James’ uncooperative behavior, the provincial
government chose to look outside Bengal for its new director of public in¬
struction. In 1913, W. W. Hornell, an assistant director of examinations
190 Political Dimensions of University Government

at the Board of Education in London, was selected for the directorship.69

This was too much for the rather austere and reserved James, who by
this time was taut and high-strung, his nerves on edge. In an unguarded
moment, he penned the following in a letter to Hornell.

You must also be fully aware of the extreme personal injury you have
done me. I have, or at least I had, no reason to suppose that you nourished
any malice against me, or that it would gratify you to see me brought down.
If, however, you do you may have that gratification. Not only am I de¬
prived of a recognition which I had every reason to suppose I had attained,
but it is with the greatest difficulty that I can hold to what has long since
been in my possession. For reasons strong enough to overcome the hate¬
fulness of it, I force myself to the necessity of such official relations with
you as are unavoidable. I pray you to spare me anything beyond that.
I ask you, then, kindly to understand that our relations must be in the
strictest sense of official. You have recently written two letters to me. I
cannot prevent your writing demi-officially, if you think good, but I must
ask you to refrain from addressing me personally by name. That at least
you can avoid. I also hope that you will intervene as little as possible in
Presidency College affairs. Officially I must endure you as best I can.70

From that time, relations between the government and the principal of its
most important college were, to say the least, tense.
By any standard, James was a conservative. He believed in the need for
empire, Englishmen, and modern education in India. He held the view that
India’s educational and political goals could be achieved in collegiate com¬
munities, organized on autonomous and residential lines. In his book Edu¬
cation and Statesmanship in India, he wrote: “When fully developed the
sentiment called forth by the institution may be even more powerful in its
sway over conduct than the influence of individual teachers. Here a de¬
partmental system is to some extent a hindrance, because to a department
a college or school is necessarily not a self-contained whole, but one mem¬
ber of a group. Recent tendencies, however, have all been in the direction
of giving fuller recognition to the organic unity of the institution and a
measure of autonomy is already attained by the colleges within the bounds
of the department. It is on this ground as well as on the ground that stu¬
dents living uncared for and insufficiently supervised in “messes” are ex¬
posed to dangers, physical and moral, that the immediate prospect of a
large provision of hostels in Calcutta is so greatly a matter of congratula¬
tion. In order that the full benefit may be realized, it is essential that this
provision of hostels should be based on the unity of the college as an in¬
stitution. This is indeed part of the ideal of the complete residential col¬
lege, now fully accepted by the University. The members of the college
not only study in the same class rooms, but share a social life which ex¬
tends to all three sides of education, intellectual, physical and moral.” 71
When he was appointed principal, James began to reconstruct the entire
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 191

Presidency organization. He wished to absorb student interests in college

activities rather than political ones. He therefore proposed that the col¬
lege’s physical plant be expanded to include better residence halls, play¬
ing fields, and increased leisure time facilities for Presidency’s students.
(The government agreed, but was later compelled to postpone the pro¬
posed expansion because of the financial shortages caused by World War
I.)72 He also proposed that a student government be formed, so that each
student might feel obliged to live up to the responsibilities of the delegation
of trust. Thus Presidency became the first government college in India to
have a representative student council with the authority to make its own
recommendations to the principal. The Bengal government agreed to the
suggestion reluctantly.73
James also believed that students derived their standards of conduct and
probity from the model of their professors’ behavior. “Only through the
personal influence of the teacher can these great moral results be attained.
A high moral tone cannot be communicated to an institution by any
rescript, decree or ordinance of State. Rightly devised rules of life will do
a great deal, but even these must be informed by the right spirit; a mere
lifeless conformity will effect little; even the conformity is sure to be lax
without a desire to conform. The right spirit must grow up among the body
of students that can be communicated, so far as it is capable of communica¬
tion, only by the teachers. So the ideals of the teachers and the faithful¬
ness with which they live by them are the real source of moral vitality in
school and college.” 74 James felt that in the larger Presidency, with its
nearly sixty staff members divided into some twelve academic departments,
professors’ efforts were too easily diffused among the student body of
1,000. To bring the members of the staff in closer touch with the students
and coordinate their efforts, James formed an academic council. Com¬
posed of the senior British and Indian professors in the college’s major
departments, it met regularly with the principal to allocate the institution’s
teaching and extracurricular work. With the consent of the government,
the council decided to expand the lecture system to include tutorials, to
form special seminars for interested students, and to direct more attention
to the students’ own academic clubs.75 James said of its working in 1913:
“This at all events has been the policy undeviatingly followed: to devise
means of making the College feel and act together, share common aims
and interests. The chief instrument has been the College Council, the pur¬
pose of which is to keep the different sides and departments of the College
in touch. That purpose is, I believe, accomplished, if what has been done
is not let go again. Studies are now properly organized and held together
through the close co-operation of the teaching staff, subject by subject,
and through the apparatus of class exercises, tutorial work, college ex¬
aminations and seminars.” 76 Due to James’ initiative, Presidency became
the first government college in India to foster a real collegiality.
Like Sir Asutosh, James realized that academic institutions should be
192 Political Dimensions of University Government

responsive to the needs of the community and informed of the views of

their educated members. To gain the support of the Bengali middle classes
for a reformed Presidency, James suggested that some of its members be
involved in the management of the institution and contribute to the formu¬
lation of its educational policies. The Bengal government responded to
the suggestion and in 1909 sanctioned the creation of a governing body
for Presidency. It was composed of the principal, some British and Indian
staff members, Indian representatives of the university and of the legisla¬
tive council, as well as some government officials. It was empowered as
the institution’s final policy-making body, and had the authority to decide
on the allocation of funds within the college, the organization of its aca¬
demic programs, and significantly, “to deal with all serious breaches of
discipline.” 77 Correspondingly, the government consolidated its diverse
budget allocations into a single block grant for the college, also adminis¬
tered by the new governing body.78 For James, the establishment of a gov¬
erning body marked the beginning of Presidency’s autonomy as an institu¬
tion of higher learning in Bengal.79
Under James’ management Presidency had grown, as the director of
public instruction noted, into, “as it were, a small university; it [taught] a
variety of subjects from the matriculation stage right through the M.A.
or M.Sc. examination.” 80 Presidency posed the one real challenge to the
success of Sir Asutosh’s policies and the university’s newly formed post¬
graduate classes. Of the university’s affiliates, it was virtually the only one
that could offer advanced teaching in nearly every subject. And while
Presidency’s fees were higher, its teaching was better. In James’ time, it
offered smaller classes, tutorial instruction, seminars, and the finest labo¬
ratory and library facilities in the province. James made the following
comparison of the origin and quality of the postgraduate instruction avail¬
able at the two institutions:

The Presidency College organization was also first in the field. Its
classes, as now organized, date from 1908, and have been carried on with¬
out any complete break in continuity from a much earlier date, in fact from
the time when definite M.A. studies were first instituted under Calcutta
University (that is, 1885). There is thus attaching to the Presidency Col¬
lege classes that very valuable thing, an academic tradition.
The organization of the Presidency College classes had not then to be
brought into being for the first time in 1908; it already existed. It has been
carefully modified and improved since. It is based on the principles of (1)
the fitness of the student for the course of studies undertaken; (2) careful
individual training; and (3) such a limitation of numbers as the conserva¬
tion of these two principles render necessary.
. . . The problem of what to do with B.A. graduates who wished to take
up an M.A. course of study and could not be received into the Presidency
College and Scottish Churches College classes began to command anxious
attention in 1910. Although the necessity for providing higher teaching for
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 193

B.A.’s and B.Sc.’s irrespective of their fitness for it was not recognized at
the Presidency College, the efforts of the University to meet the growing
demand for M.A. instruction were sympathetically viewed, and . . . very
substantial help . . . was given, voluntarily and gratuitously by members
of the Presidency College staff, who delivered courses of lectures to the
University classes apart from their work at the Presidency College. . . .
At the same time the University organization was acknowledged to be de¬
fective. It was confined to lecture-courses; and the class room accommo¬
dation was also most inadequate. . . . For the University arrangements
were based on large numbers, low fees, and a disregard of standards.81
(Italics in the original.)

Located just opposite the university’s own classrooms, Presidency tended

to deter the better students from attending them.
Sir Asutosh sought to eliminate the competition of Presidency through
the restriction of all postgraduate teaching in the city of Calcutta to the
university. He used his influence in the senate to call into question the
quality of the teaching at Presidency. Professor Wordsworth of the Presi¬
dency staff noted the following: “Certainly it has long been a cardinal
belief among the staff of the Presidency College that there is in university
policy a tendency to diminish the prestige, importance and efficiency of
the college in the interests of easy administration. I may instance recent
inspection reports, in which after a few hours’ inspection the inspectors
attacked the carefully considered policy of the governing body in the mat¬
ter of numbers and the combination of subjects permitted; in one of which
also they attacked by name, as not fitted for his position, a gentleman of
considerable academic distinction and experience, whom one of the in¬
spectors had himself recommended in the highest terms.” 82 James pro¬
tested vigorously. Defeated in the senate, he turned to his own solution.
He thought the future lay in the evolution of Presidency from a college to
a nonaffiliating university, independent in its own right; otherwise the
strengths of its old traditions and new reforms would come to nothing.83
Both Sir Asutosh and James were seeking educational reform and the re¬
organization of the Indian university system; the Bengal government had
the authority to choose between their differing conceptions of what that
system should be.
By 1914, the Bengal government had changed. Sir A. H. Frazer, the
lieutenant-governor who had originally brought James to Presidency from
Patna, was retired. In 1912, Lord Carmichael of Skirling, whose policy
differed from that of Frazer, had been appointed to the newly raised gov¬
ernorship. His aim was to consolidate the position of the British govern¬
ment in the recently reamalgamated Bengal. He decided that this could
best be done through a policy of appeasement. Seeking the support of in¬
fluential allies among the rising Indian political classes, he attempted to
recognize loyalty to his regime with concessions in lesser political arenas,
one of which was education. In 1913, the Bengal government embarked
194 Political Dimensions of University Government

upon a policy of conciliating Sir Asutosh. In his position as rector of the

university, Lord Carmichael acceded to the vice-chancellor’s repeated re¬
quests for expansion and reform. In March 1916, Lord Carmichael’s gov¬
ernment found the opportunity to acknowledge the cooperation of the
“Tiger of Bengal.”
As James’ critics were quick to point out, his administration of the col¬
lege was flawed. He was not inclined, for example, to use the principal’s
coercive powers arbitrarily, but preferred to rely upon the use of reason.
He called the students together once a term to address them, regularly
visited their clubs and hostels, and was usually available for student inter¬
views.84 He met their requests when he could, and explained why when
he could not. He attempted to gain the students’ trust by listening to their
complaints and treating them fairly; he expected the students, and the
staff, to reciprocate with the same standards of behavior. The following
incident, recounted by the first editor of the college magazine, was typical.
“As editor I was faced with a great crisis. My Professor and Tutor Mr.
E. F. Oaten who subsequently became Director of Public Instruction,
Bengal, had in course of his speech, called certain students of the Eden
Hostel “barbarians.” I knew my Professor well; he was deeply versed in
classical lore and he used the expression “barbarians” in the Greek sense
of the term. He was however misunderstood. Our Eden Hostel corre¬
spondent strongly protested against the expression used by the Professor,
in the columns of the College magazine. The correspondence was pub¬
lished under the authority of the editor. Mr. Oaten got very annoyed and
went up to the Principal and asked for the deletion of the offending para¬
graph. He further demanded an apology from the correspondent. The
veteran student-editor, following well-known journalistic etiquette, declined
to disclose the name of the correspondent. He declined further to publish
an apology. The Principal upheld the liberty of action on the part of the
editor. He requested Mr. Oaten, if he chose, to insert a contradiction in
the correspondence column.” 85 When reason failed, James felt there was
little he could do, and situations were often left unresolved — Oaten never
inserted the contradiction because, as he put it, “the basic idea was so
absurd, that I thought of my students as barbarians, students with whom
I spend hours on the cricket field, and whom I in many cases made my
friends. It was just too silly.” 86 And the student editor continued to en¬
joy “absolute freedom.” 87
James was also constitutionally minded and conscious of the correct¬
ness of due procedures. He always recognized the authority of Presidency’s
governing body and put consultations with its members before quick, per¬
sonal decisions, even when situations demanded them. These attitudes
may have been to Presidency’s ultimate good, but they appeared as a lack
of firmness when a small, volatile group of student dissidents disrupted
the life of the college.
On 10 January 1916 a number of students had been permitted to leave
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 195

their classes early to attend a prize-giving day ceremony, at the Hindu and
Hare schools on the opposite side of the quadrangle, at which the gov¬
ernor was scheduled to appear.88 On their way they milled noisily about
the corridors chatting among themselves, some in front of Professor
Oaten’s door. His lecture disturbed, Oaten came out with his arms out¬
stretched, in order to stop the students temporarily and to admonish them
for breaking the college’s rule of silence in the corridors.89 Some students
thought they had been pushed about. Subhas Chandra Bose (later presi¬
dent of the Indian National Congress and organizer of the Indian National
Army), class representative on the Presidency students’ consultative com¬
mittee, formed a student delegation to lodge a complaint with the principal.
The principal replied that it was the students’ responsibility as gentlemen
to approach the history professor themselves. Disturbed by James’ seem¬
ing lack of sympathy, Bose and his friends organized the students instead.
On January 11, the students in the Eden Hostel struck. They were firm in
their resolve to stay away from classes and refused to accede to the pleas
of their British and Indian professors.90
Unknown to the students, James had immediately contacted Professor
Oaten and had advised him to discuss the matter with the affronted stu¬
dents. The professor did so the next day, and the dispute seemed to have
come to an amicable end. Oaten, however, “sick to death” because the
students in the advanced class to whom he had given his “best” had not
lived up to the responsibilities of the authority delegated them, told his
students that he chose not to lecture to them on that day.91 With the
approval of the governing body, the principal was compelled to intervene
again.92
One month later, the incident was repeated.93 A class was dismissed
early and noisily passed by Professor Oaten’s room. The history professor
again came out, and was alleged this time to have grabbed a student by
the scruff of the neck. Oaten denied the charge; the student, however,
immediately went to the principal’s office, where James asked him to set
down his complaint in writing and then advised him to consult with his
parents if he wished.94 James also sent a note to Oaten, making arrange¬
ments to meet with Professor Oaten later in the day. But a small group of
students had already rejected the procedures of delegation and constitu¬
tional protest as futile. “Meanwhile about two hours after this incident
and shortly before 3 o’clock Mr. Oaten went to the ground floor of the
college premises to post a notice on the notice board. He observed a num¬
ber of students (his own estimate is from 10 to 15) who were assembled
near the foot of the staircase. They at once surrounded him, threw him on
the floor and brutally assaulted him. Mr. Gilchrist, who was on the first
floor, heard a noise and rushed down to help Mr. Oaten, but the assailants
disappeared before he could reach the spot.” 95 James immediately in¬
formed the government of the assault on Professor Oaten and called a
meeting of the college’s governing body for the next day.
196 Political Dimensions of University Government

The meeting began at noon. When it was adjourned at 6:30 P.M.,

James was informed that the Bengal government had, “on its own initiative
and without consulting the Governing Body of the college, issued orders
closing the college from the afternoon of the 18th February.” Responsi¬
bility was removed from the hands of Presidency’s constituted authorities
and given over to an independent committee of enquiry established by the
provincial government. “It appeared to Government that the course of
events at the college demanded an exhaustive enquiry by an authority
free from any such attachment to the institution as might cause it uncon¬
sciously to hesitate in exposing the full extent of the evil or to fail to ap¬
preciate the necessity which might exist for radical measures of reform;
... it became the more apparent that while the Governing Body might
usefully continue to investigate the circumstances of the assault on Pro¬
fessor Oaten, it was not an authority which could be depended upon to
deal with a larger enquiry into the state of discipline in the college with
efficiency and weight.” 96 Sir Asutosh Mukherji was appointed chairman
of the committee of enquiry, and the director of public instruction, W. W.
Hornell, was included among its members. James was also named to the
committee.
Tired, upset, and feeling that both the institution and his efforts had
been betrayed, James demanded an interview with P. C. Lyon, secretary to
the Bengal government in the general department and controlling authority
in educational affairs. A meeting was arranged for that evening. The ex¬
change between the two men must have been heated, for Lyon claimed to
have been “grossly insulted,” and James withdrew his name from the
planned committee.97 Sir George Anderson, an educational service officer
in Bombay, analyzed the situation. “In any case, it seems clear that in
going to see Mr. Lyon, Mr. James had no intention of being abusive or
rude. He went for the purpose of discussing the closing of the Eden Hindu
Hostel. If he erred, it was in the heat of the moment. Human nature being
as it is, such errors are regrettable, but not unpardonable. Moreover, Mr.
James had been submitted to a very severe strain. Everybody admits that
he was a sympathetic and efficient Principal of a college. Everyone who
has been connected with a college knows how tedious is the task of deal¬
ing with serious disciplinary cases. Mr. James states that on the day of
the interview he had presided over a meeting of the Governing Body of the
College which lasted from 12 o’clock till half past six, at the close of
which two students were expelled and two rusticated. There can be little
wonder that his nerves were all wrong at the time of his interview with
Mr. Lyon that evening.” 98
James submitted his formal resignation from the committee two days
later, on February 22. “I shall be glad to forward the Committee’s en¬
quiry by every means in my power, but seeing that the subject of enquiry
is in part, and even mainly, my administration of Presidency College, I
hereby lodge an objection against two members, whose names are given
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 197

in the Resolution under reference, to that of the Hon’ble Sir Ashutosh

Mukharji, President of the Committee, and to that of the Hon’ble Mr.
W. W. Hornell, Director of Public Instruction, Bengal. I think it should
suffice that in a matter in which my good name and reputation are at
stake as well as the credit of the Governing Body and of Presidency Col¬
lege, such an objection should have validity on the mere statement. My
reason for it, put generally, is that, I do not consider that either of these
gentlemen could enter on the work of the Committee free from bias.” 99
In reply, the Bengal government released the following public communique
on February 24. “We are desired by Government to state that as soon as
Mr. James, Principal of the Presidency College, received information of
the appointment of the Committee of Enquiry into discipline at Presidency
College, with a request that he would serve on the Committee, he paid a
visit to the Hon’ble Mr. Lyon, Member of Council in charge of Education,
and subjected him to gross personal insult. Mr. James also sent to the
Secretary of the Committee, with the request that it should be placed be¬
fore the Committee, a copy of the letter which he wrote to Government
accusing two members of the Committee of bias against himself. The Gov¬
ernor in Council consider that Mr. James has shown himself to be unfit to
retain the post of Principal of Presidency College; he has accordingly
transferred him from that post, and placed him under suspension pending
further orders. Mr. Wordsworth, Inspector of Schools, Presidency Division,
has been appointed Principal of the Presidency College.” 100
James stayed on to submit his evidence before Sir Asutosh’s committee
of enquiry. When the committee finally presented its report, it not only
vindicated James, but also suggested that a number of his reforms be in¬
stituted at the college on a permanent basis. The members of the commit¬
tee approved James’ reorganization of the college staff into stronger de¬
partments and the representation of staff on the academic council, and
agreed with him as to the need for extended residential and leisure time
facilities for the Presidency students. The report, however, stated little
more about academic matters.101 One year later — within six months of
the intended sitting of the Calcutta University Commission in 1917 — all
postgraduate teaching in the city of Calcutta was removed to the uni¬
versity’s own classrooms. Presidency’s principal at the time, William
Christopher Wordsworth, offered this comment. “I believe whole heartedly
in the value of the collegiate connection for students, and I believe that
the Presidency College was doing well its share of the post-graduate work
under the old arrangement. It limited its work to its resources, and the
work was done with devotion. ... I signed the report on post-graduate
teaching with something of a wrench.” 102
The students’ interpretation of Professor Oaten’s behavior was the cause
of much of the trouble at Presidency, and James’ methods of discipline
were clearly inadequate to cope with the trouble.103 Communications be¬
tween British professors and Indian students broke down as some students
198 Political Dimensions of University Government

confused the personal behavior of one man with the political issues of
imperial dominance and racial slur. They followed their elders of a few
years before in disregarding the slower methods of constitutional pro¬
cedures for the more disruptive tactics of agitation and immediate reward.
The government used the opportunity to rid itself of an obstinate employee,
save its face at Presidency, and give in to Indian demands for an expanded
university system under Indian control. The substantive educational ques¬
tions of the nature of postgraduate study, its quality, and its proper place
in the Indian university system had been bypassed in favor of an expedient
political policy. The member of the Indian Educational Service who had
raised these questions in Bengal was publicly humiliated and retired to
England.
Classes resumed at Presidency shortly thereafter, and the college con¬
tinued its work as the premier affiliate of the university. Future principals
were rarely as innovative as James: rarely did they have to confront such
challenges. In a redefined educational situation, the members of the staff
could usually rely upon the government to provide financial support and
to delegate educational authority to professors in a wholly undergraduate
institution.104 Members of the Indian middle classes still sent their sons
to Presidency. Even though their support of the British empire might be
growing hesitant, they still appreciated the quality of education and the
opportunities offered at the government college. Thus, professors in the
government colleges were able to carry on with their educational work.
It was otherwise for their British colleagues at privately managed Indian
institutions.

The Decline of Consensus at M.A.-O.:

The Rise of Management and Its External Constituents

William A. J. Archbold succeeded Morison as the principal of the

M.A.-O. College in 1905; he was specially recruited for the post in Eng¬
land. After taking his degrees from Cambridge, he had assisted Lord
Acton in the organization of the Cambridge Modern History, and later
had done the same work for the editors of the Dictionary of National
Biography. When he was appointed to the Aligarh principalship he was
nearly forty years of age and had already taught for a period in South
Africa.105 Unlike Beck, he had come to the position in his maturity, and
unlike Morison, had come without the prior experience of Aligarh; his
experience of education and scholarship had been profounder than that
of Beck or Morison.
Like the citizens of Calcutta, the leaders of India’s Muslim community
were beginning to hold new political aims and aspirations. The change was
observed by William S. Marris, the district commissioner, shortly after Arch¬
bold’s arrival in India. “How far the Aligarh movement has taken on a
political colour is plain to any onlooker. The prominence of Aftab Ahmad
 Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 199

among the trustees, and of demagogues like Muhammad Ali and Shaukat
Ali; the inception of the university movement as a counterblast to the
Hindu University scheme; the enlisting of all national leaders like the Aga
Khan; its association with the All India Muslim League and All India
Muslim Educational Conference — these are all symptoms of one policy.
Aligarh is destined to be the focus of all Muhammadan intelligence and
activity in India. Begun as a defensive move, it is already acquiring an
offensive character. ... It is an all Indian Muslim and distinctly anti-
Hindu movement. It has already lost its reliance on Englishmen and its
trust in English methods and ideals. The danger I foresee is that if it is
indulged and uncontrolled it will develop rapidly on decidedly anti-English
lines.” 106
The college had not yet found its new direction, however, and Archbold
was able to establish confident relations with the members of the board
of trustees and the honorary secretary, Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk. He be¬
came the political advisor and confidant of the trustees, if not their ambas¬
sador to the British government. In 1906, he drafted the document which
a delegation led by the Aga Khan presented to the Viceroy, Lord Minto.
It argued the case for reserved Muslim electoral constituencies in India,
and the Viceroy gave his consent to the proposal.
But functional alliances among the trustees were changing, and there
was no one with the force of personality of Sir Syed to control the trustees.
As the activities of the trustees gained more prominence in a politically
awakening Muslim community, their activities only brought more attention
to themselves and criticism of the administration of the college. Politically,
the principal was already associated with the more conservative grouping
around the Aga Khan, the group that still dominated at Aligarh. In 1907,
an “old boy” complained of the dominant faction in the columns of the
Indian Daily Telegraph. “In the first place [the trustees] have elected in
the majority of cases such people only as were not qualified to give an
opinion on matters educational; secondly the system in Aligarh was such
that the outside trustees had nothing else to do but to say yes to the pro¬
posal sent to them. The ‘family party’ at Aligarh had the decision of every¬
thing. If one dared to disagree, he was a marked man, and was pronounced
blind to the interests of the college; thirdly, even those out of the 70 trus¬
tees who wanted to take an active and intelligent part in the business of
the college were not allowed to do so, unless they were prepared to face
the whole of the dominant party, always ready to attack such as questioned
their right to manage the affairs of the college. If there was a trustee who
refused to accept the dictum of the party in power, he was removed; if
there were any senior students who grumbled loudly and made complaints
to the authorities, they were turned out bag and baggage; if there were any
members of the Central Standing Committee of the Conference who were
independent enough to express views antagonistic to the views of the clique,
they were publicly insulted and turned out of the room, where the meeting
200 Political Dimensions of University Government

was being held in spite of all the rules and regulations: and the cry for
redress up to now has been a cry in the wilderness.” 107
The trustees’ greatest source of strength within the community was their
control of the college and the opportunities they were therefore able to
provide the more ambitious sons of their coreligionists. Increasingly, edu¬
cation was looked upon as being less regenerative and more instrumental
than it had been in Sir Syed’s day; Marris noted that the trustees were
“not thinking of education in itself at all, but of more boys, more sub¬
scriptions, more candidates for government employment, more lawyers to
fill seats in Council, and more political power generally.” 108 To retain
their support in the Muslim community, the conservative trustees involved
themselves more frequently in campus affairs and student activities. As
the director of public instruction commented, a system of “dual control”
had grown up, which had “the fatal consequences of undermining the au¬
thority of the staff, by setting up the resident Trustees as a court of appeal
against [the staff].” 109 Archbold, like James at Presidency, was the victim
of his employers’ aspirations when the Aligarh students struck in 1907.
In February, the town of Aligarh was celebrating its annual fair, which
the students attended in large numbers. A small group of them pushed
past a policeman in order to enter an enclave barred to the public. The
constable remonstrated with them, and a student, Gulam Husain, assaulted
him.110 The injuries incurred by the constable were minor, but the deputy
superintendent of police (DSP) thought the action serious enough to com¬
plain to the principal. The next day, Archbold called Gulam Husain to
his office and informed him that the DSP contemplated court action; he
advised the student to return to his home in the Punjab for three months
for the student’s own protection. Husain, however, thought he had been
suspended. After some negotiations with the deputy superintendent, Arch¬
bold changed the student’s punishment: Husain was fined twenty-five
rupees, told to write a note of apology to the DSP, and required to report
to the principal’s office every evening. The students thought that an earlier
intervention on their part had led to Husain’s lighter punishment. “The
complaint of the students that the orders about the punishment of Gulam
Husain were issued in instalments by the Principal must be due to a mis¬
apprehension on their part. The desire of the Principal throughout was to
save Gulam Husain from the disagreeable consequences of the latter’s
alleged assault on the constable.” 111
Some further incidents occurred with the police at the fair on the next
day, and the students once again appealed to the principal. Archbold
promised to look into the matter, but as at Presidency, communications
between British professors and Indian students began to break down.
Gulam Husain was confined to his hostel because he had violated his
punishment and had earlier left the college grounds. The students thought
Archbold had gone back on his word and, like their Hindu counterparts
at Calcutta, attributed his supposed action to the racial snobbery of their
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 201

British teachers. They called a meeting for the night of February 15 and
resolved to consider a student strike.
The situation deteriorated when the proctor, Gardner Brown, and his
Indian assistant, Mir Wilayat Hussain, decided to attend the meeting.
“Some boys asked Mr. Brown not to come to the meeting as it was pri¬
vate. Mr. Brown in spite of warning did go to the meeting and told the
students to disperse within two minutes. This they did not do, but on the
contrary used insulting language towards him and Mir Wilayat Hussain,
Assistant Proctor, who was suspected of being in league with Mr. Brown.
Mr. Towle, another professor was there. He said that certain students
even threw missiles and stones at Mr. Brown which the students totally
deny. In the meantime the Principal, Mr. Archbold, arrived on the scene.
In the beginning the students were respectful to him; they asked him to
rescind his order about Gulam Husain. On this being refused, certain of¬
fensive words were used towards the Principal.” 112 Archbold decided to
close the college.
Before the principal actually closed the college, the honorary secretary,
Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk, intervened to contain the conflict. Without con¬
sulting Archbold, he promised the striking students they would be absolved
of all guilt and punishment. The students submitted their apology to the
principal on the twentieth. Not knowing of the Nawab’s promises, Arch¬
bold promptly proceeded to take disciplinary action.113 The students left
in a body, the college was closed, and the trustees convened a committee
of inquiry to save the reputation of the board in the Muslim community:
both the Nawab and Principal Archbold were included among its mem¬
bers.
The committee made few substantial recommendations as to future re¬
lations between the British staff and the Muslim trustees; it only suggested
that the college principal and the honorary secretary keep in closer touch.
Instead of making recommendations, the Muslim members of the com¬
mittee harkened back to the “golden” days of Beck, Morison, and Sir Syed.
“[The students] were accustomed to free, frank, and almost familiar inter¬
course with the English teachers. Messrs. Beck, Arnold and Morison had
accustomed them to such social relations and engendered a belief that
the observance of social relations was a distinctive feature of the Moham¬
medan College and the principal means of promoting the three ideas men¬
tioned above. The want of social intercourse between the staff and the
students argued in the minds of the latter a want of sympathy and a de¬
parture from the policy of the Great Founder of the College and his no
less great coadjutors Messrs. Beck, Arnold and Morison.” 114
But in earlier days, Sir Syed, the trustees, and the members of the British
staff had all been taken with the idea of creating a revitalized Islam. More¬
over, the British professors possessed a degree of knowledge and educa¬
tional expertise not yet to be found among the Muslims. Sir Syed and the
trustees were dependent upon the British professors. Confident of the lat-
 202 Political Dimensions of University Government

ter’s dedication to Muslim aspirations, they were willing to delegate edu¬

cational authority to the British members of the staff. By 1907, the trustees
were no longer willing to delegate that authority. In 1909, Archbold re¬
signed over the issue. “My view is that the Principal ought to be the supreme
and final authority in the internal affairs of the College. In particular that
his authority should be unquestioned as regards discipline, as regards ad¬
missions, as regards promotions, as regards the number of hours that the
staff ought to teach. He ought to be consulted before negotiations are en¬
tered into for engaging new members of the Staff. When I have said this
and when I add that I do not consider that a man has the proper authority
if he is obliged to refer to someone else before he comes to a decision, it
will be at once evident to you how impossible it is for one to work under
the present system.” 115
The very success of Beck, Morison and their generation of British pro¬
fessors had changed the situation at the college. Beck had transformed the
college into a political instrument designed to produce a new Muslim po¬
litical elite. As that elite grew in sophistication, some of its members began
to question the need for cooperation with the British. The college became
the board’s means by which to gain support for its conservative position
within the community: by offering enhanced admissions rates, easier stu¬
dent controls, and lighter academic standards. In consequence, students at
Aligarh, as at Presidency, turned from the educational authority of their
teachers to the political authority of their elders. At the same time, a body
of educated Muslims was being produced in India, sufficient to meet the
teaching needs of an affiliated college. British professors, like Archbold,
tended to be too independent to accept the role of “an agent only,” in
mediating the trustees’ relations with the Aligarh student'body.116 And as
in Calcutta, pride in the community’s accomplishments seemed to justify
an increased Muslim staff as aspirations moved toward an independent
Muslim university. In reply to Archbold, the members of the board cited
the legal rights of the trustees to educational control of the institution. “Ac¬
cording to rules 119 & 120 the Hony. Secretary was the chief executive
officer of the Trustees and was responsible for management of their affairs.
... It was also necessary to point out that the post of the Hony. Sec¬
retary of the College Trustees was not a ministerial office but so far as its
occupant had been regarded as the leader of the community, which looked
upon him as their chief representative. Thus, whether as the accredited
representative of the governing body of the College or as the leader of
the Indian Musalmans, it was the Hony. Secretary of the College that the
Chief management and control of the institution was entrusted. For one
holding such a responsible position as that of the Hony. Secretary of this
College, the desire ‘to obtain information in matters’ connected with the
functions of the Principal, was not only natural and reasonable but abso¬
lutely necessary. Whatever might be the scope of the Principal’s jurisdic¬
tion it could not extend beyond the aims and objects of the College, which
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 203

it was the duty of the Trustees, through their accredited representative, to

guide and control. So far as obtaining more information was concerned
every Mohamedan was entitled to ask for it about any part of the manage¬
ment of the College, for, this institution was the property of the whole
community.” 117
There were no such disturbances at the Muir Central College in Allaha¬
bad, and in 1922, the college was quietly converted into a new, unitary
University of Allahabad.

Strains in Autonomy: Professors, Sponsors, and Public Diverge

There were three groups involved in the running of the Indian colleges:
British professors, the college sponsors, and the educated Indian public.
Professors were brought out to impart modern knowledge, and they saw
that as their main role in India. When that role was questioned in 1910,
Principal James defended the professors’ work. “It will be for some of us
a dismal result, if we have to confess that we have been wrong from the
beginning; that we never should have attempted to introduce into India
knowledge, as knowledge has been understood in Europe since the times
of Descartes and Bacon; that we never should have encouraged the study
of English literature and European science; and that we should have held
fast to traditional learning and pre-Copernical sciences, and have based
any more popular education which there was scope for strictly in the
vernaculars: that it was a bad policy, and folly little short of a crime to
introduce the races and people of Hindustan to the heights and depths of
Western speculation, and to the principles that underlie discovery in natural
science.” 118 Their purpose was to bring the Indian students to a closer un¬
derstanding of modernity and the assumptions on which it is built. In conse¬
quence, they thought that their students would come to appreciate the
benefits of British rule in India. James believed that in at least one sense
they were right. “Education has certainly not produced in India hatred of
all things English; not obviously of English literature, English games, Eng¬
lish standards of conduct, English institutions; because the political party
which voices the aspirations of the educated classes in India, and is charged
with being disaffected or allied with disaffection, is founded on almost
slavish imitation of English standards and methods.” 119 Professors hoped
their students would eventually take their places alongside Europeans,
participating together in the administration of the empire. In Britain, these
professors would have accomplished their work in independent institutions;
in India, they were employees of the government or of Indian communities.
The members of the civil service who composed the government tended
to look less to new solutions than to traditional problems. Their percep¬
tions of India were largely the outcome of their early training in the dis¬
tricts. Mindful of the need for decisive leadership in the countryside, they
tended to stress the themes of ordered governance and paternal rule. In
204 Political Dimensions of University Government

the cities, their contact with the educated classes was limited, largely re¬
stricted to the narrower sphere of official relationships. The government
wanted its colleges merely to produce a body of competent professional
men and public servants, loyal to the British government.
The sponsoring communities were generally part of the Indian educated
public. In the view of that public, modern knowledge was the leaven by
which traditional society could be reconstructed to a new and better pat¬
tern. They were therefore eager for the spread of western learning and
were in a hurry to open up its benefits to ever-increasing numbers of Indian
youth. For themselves, this meant the expansion of the educated public,
and in a sense, the enlargement of their constituency in British India.
The views of the three groups were not very far apart, and for many
years they were able to work together: at Aligarh, at Presidency, and at
Muir. But the Indian university had not been endowed with structures to
safeguard the working relationships and perpetuate them over time. British
professors were not members of autonomous institutions, merely employees
in affiliated colleges. The university system worked to separate professors
from the knowledge it was their duty to dispense.
A professor’s educational authority derives from his relationship to
knowledge; he usually knows more in selected intellectual areas than other
men. He passes a portion of that knowledge on to students, seeks to pro¬
tect it from false application, and perhaps tries to elaborate it. In India,
professors were not responsible for the content of knowledge. The au¬
thority was vested in a senate composed of public men, government of¬
ficials, and some professors. The senate decided what would be taught,
to what degree levels, and with what sophistication, and imposed these
decisions upon the members of the teaching community. Moreover, there
was no provision made for research or the elaboration of knowledge at its
higher levels in the Indian universities. Academic work was entirely re¬
stricted to undergraduate and masters teaching, levels at which educated
laymen feel competent to judge, contribute, and interfere. Without the
safeguards afforded by the boundaries of knowledge and the determination
of its contents, the instrumental aspects of education came into prominence
in India, and professors came to be looked upon more instrumentally by
their employers — some professors, like Beck, Morison, and Arnold at
Aligarh, took that role upon themselves.
Through the nineteenth century, the British professors’ educational au¬
thority derived from their association with the colonial regime and the
knowledge that regime brought to India. When a substantial number of
Indians educated in the same knowledge emerged in the twentieth century,
however, British professors began to lose their authority to Indians who
might offer students the same training, but in universities that were not the
intellectual dependents of foreign ones. At Aligarh, they began to lose their
authority to Muslims who would be more amenable to the trustees’ policies.
In Calcutta, Indian members of the senate, like the trustees at Aligarh,
Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh 205

pressed the case for lighter standards, lower passes, and easier degree re¬
quirements, especially at the postgraduate level. British professors seemed
to deny these aspirations when they argued for honors programs, stiffer
examinations, and more stringent degree requirements. In changed politi¬
cal circumstances, students followed their elders — though not perhaps as
their elders would have wished 120 — and interpreted their professors’ ac¬
tions as anti-Indian. At Presidency and Aligarh they rebelled. For the sake
of loyalty, the provincial governments gave in to Bengal educational de¬
mands, and at Aligarh, found a place for Archbold in the Indian Educa¬
tional Service.
At the Muir Central College, the consensus among British professors,
governors, and the educated Indian public held, and students did not riot.
In Allahabad, the members of the Muir staff were respected and influential
members of the senate. Local politics and the university up to the 1920’s
were dominated by men who shared the political persuasions of a Sir Tej
Bahadur Sapru and a younger Moti Lai Nehru. They were convinced of
the worth of the contribution the British had made to life in India, the
values of liberalism, and the soundness of notions of constitutional and
parliamentary procedures. And they considered the questions of examina¬
tion standards and student numbers to be negotiable. Few British or Indians
questioned the basic purposes and organization of the higher educational
system. Unlike Calcutta, it was a British professor at the university who
protested the weakness of Allahabad in face of the strength of Muir and
the other colleges. In 1917, L. F. Rushbrook-Williams, professor of history
in the university, described the system of higher education in the follow¬
ing way. “It is economically wasteful, on account of its failure to utilize
the available teaching resources in an efficient manner. Not only is the
work of an able teacher at present confined to the college to which he be¬
longs, instead of being at the disposal of the University as a whole; but,
in addition, many College Professors are teaching the same subject in dif¬
ferent colleges at the same time. There is thus small opportunity for spe¬
cialisation and much waste of energy. . . . The Colleges, dominated by
individual and competing interests, are far too strong as compared to the
University.” 121 In 1922, Rushbrook-Williams’ criticisms were met with
the conversion of the Allahabad University into a teaching university.
In every society, universities serve instrumental purposes: dispensing
knowledge, qualifying technical and professional men, or perhaps merely
modeling a cultural style. But many universities contain structures within
them which separate the areas of society’s legitimate interest in the work¬
ing of the university from that which pertains to the professor s relation
to his knowledge. That distinction was recognized early in their history
(the segregation of the faculty of theology in the university in the middle
ages) and continues to this day (the contemporary distinction between un¬
dergraduate and research-oriented graduate departments). Professors gain
their educational authority from their work at the higher levels, which the
206 Political Dimensions of University Government

members of society do not usually feel qualified to judge. Because the

members of society feel that society might be enriched by the professors’
discoveries, they delegate responsibility for the content of knowledge to
them and generally restrict their interest to questions of its use, who shall
receive it, for what purposes, and the like.
The Indian universities did not have these distinctions built into them.
When they were formed, affiliation seemed a cheap and effective method
to diffuse modern knowledge in India, and the first attempts at reform did
not begin until the twentieth century. Professors were therefore compelled
to derive their educational authority from other sources: from their con¬
nection to the colonial regime, from the knowledge they brought with
them from foreign universities, from the quality of their teaching. When
the professors’ own purposes in the colleges were more instrumental, they
were not able to approximate any of the safeguards of the European in¬
stitution; that happened at Aligarh. Where they were able to infuse higher
academic standards in their undergraduate instruction, they gained the
respect of the Indian community and the approbation of government; that
happened at Presidency in its restricted role as an affiliated institution, and
at Muir. The standard was an elusive one, imported by small groups of
professors to a few scattered colleges. Beyond the model of their own teach¬
ing, there were no structures in the university to engender habits of restraint
and discipline on the part of the public and the government. Without the
higher levels of instruction which organize professors in relation to then-
knowledge and establish them in traditions of learning for learning’s own
sake, the ambitions of the nonteaching community prevailed. The standards
of national pride, public policy, and vocational opportunities prevailed in
the nonteaching, undergraduate university in India. These standards con¬
tinued to prevail in some even after their conversion to teaching, post¬
graduate institutions; as at Allahabad, Calcutta, and the Aligarh Muslim
University.
11 / Parochialism and Cosmopolitanism
in University Government:
The Environments of Baroda University

Susanne Hoeber Rudolph / Lloyd /. Rudolph

Assisted by Joan Landy Erdman and Janet Guthrie

An Introduction to MS University of Baroda

and Its Environment

The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, or MSU, is representative

of India’s best universities. It is the only English language university of
the seven universities in Gujarat, and concentrates more on opportunity
fields — science, technology, medicine, special professional departments
— than do the other state universities. Because of its unitary and residen¬
tial character, it is spared many of the problems that universities with het¬
erogeneous affiliated colleges face.
Located in the prosperous western Indian state of Gujarat, MSU is
named after Sayajirao, an enlightened ruler of the former princely state of
Baroda. A Mahratta prince known for his intelligent and imaginative re¬
forms, Sayajirao founded an arts and science college in 1881. Other edu¬
cational institutions were added later.1 These were consolidated into a
university in 1949 just before the maharaja at that time, Sir Pratap Singh,
surrendered his powers and agreed to merge his state with the state of
Bombay. MSU’s initial funding was part of the agreement between Maha¬
raja Sir Pratap Singh and the States Ministry of the government of India
under which the maharaja agreed to surrender his powers as ruling prince.
Sir Pratap Singh received an annual tax free privy purse of Rs. 2,600,000
and “agreed to set apart the corpus of two State trusts of Rs. 1 crore [ten
million rupees] each, the creation of which had been announced by his
predecessors.”2 Among the principal beneficiaries of the income from
these trusts was to be the new university, realizing thereby the intentions
of Maharaja Sayajirao, who in the mid-nineteen twenties had planned for
a university at Baroda.
MSU’s first vice-chancellor was Hansa Mehta, the vigorous and enter-
The research plan for this study was prepared by the Rudolphs in 1966. Joan
Erdman and Janet Guthrie carried on field work in Baroda in 1966-67, conducting
some forty-five structured and open-ended interviews with faculty, students, syndics,
and administrators, and preparing field notes and memoranda. They also gathered
data from Gujarati and English newspapers and from university records and publi¬
cations. After submitting in advance the draft of this chapter to the interviewees,
Lloyd Rudolph conducted re-interviews in November 1969. Lloyd and Susanne
Rudolph did so again in February 1971 on the basis of yet another revision. The
feedback interviews proved particularly helpful in writing the study. The Rudolphs
composed the chapter. We are grateful to Howard Erdman for giving us the benefit
of his knowledge of Gujarat and Baroda politics and society. Former Vice-chancellor
C. S. Patel very kindly facilitated our research.
208 Political Dimensions of University Government

prising wife of Jivraj Mehta. (Jivraj Mehta headed the only popular minis¬
try in the princely state of Baroda, and was later chief minister of Gujarat.)
Hansa Mehta possessed the imagination, personal force, political skills,
and connections to raise funds, recruit a lively, highly qualified faculty, and
see to the creation of unusual departments and schools. In a relatively fa¬
vorable environment, her contribution to launching a university of the first
rank was considerable.
MSU lies in a rimland area once ruled by principalities that lay on
the trade routes to the Middle East and Africa. Gujarat was open to sea
traffic through the port cities of Surat and Cambay until the nineteenth
century when Bombay reduced the significance of those ports. Its sons have
traded and emigrated abroad, especially to Africa. Gujarat was also the
site of some of India’s earliest important industrialization, notably the tex¬
tile industry of the city of Ahmedabad. Gujarat’s traditions of economic
cosmopolitanism are balanced by a certain cultural parochialism and re¬
vivalism. The impact of English culture and education (anglicization) was
not as powerful in Gujarat as it was in and around the three great presi¬
dency capitals of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, nor did the British raj
generate as large and influential a class of political and cultural collabora¬
tors in Gujarat as it did in and around the presidency capitals. Pre-British,
local, Hindu and Muslim religious movements have created a diverse tra¬
dition. Many Ahmedabadis have managed to become modern industrial
entrepreneurs without abandoning the life styles and values of merchant
castes in western India and of the Jain and Vaishnavite sects.3 Gujarat’s
most famous son, Gandhi, combined some of the state’s most conspicuous
Hindu and Jain cultural traditions in his simultaneous commitment to rad¬
ical nationalism, social reform, and cultural revitalization.4.
In most indicators of development, Gujarat stands high. In 1961, it
stood fourth among the states in per capita income and third in the pro¬
portion of its population living in districts falling in the top two quartiles
of levels of development.6 The politics of Gujarat have been in the hands
of the Congress party, and of a state government, which, although subject
to factionalism, until recently maintained a considerable internal stability
and effectiveness. The political climate for higher education is affected by
the following facts: that the industrial-commercial forces in the state are
interested in modern education;6 that the dominant, formerly agricultural
caste in the state, the Patidars, and, increasingly, other groups are eager
to see their sons and daughters educated; and that the state’s Gandhian
traditions and cultural conservatism have endowed it with an enthusiasm
for the regional language (Gujarati) or the official language (Hindi)
which is uncharacteristic of states of Gujarat’s degree of development and
rimland location. As elsewhere, the concerns of those interested in a cos¬
mopolitan and high quality education are to some extent at variance with
the concerns of those interested in more plentiful and accessible education
in the regional language.
Baroda University 209

MSU, then, is an English speaking university in a state that has favored

regional language. It is a unitary university among affiliating ones.7 It
stresses science, technology, and professions where other universities offer
mainly B.A.’s and B.Sc.’s. It benefits from the fact that elite consumer de¬
mand for English, the key to opportunity professions, is rising even while
the political demand increases for regional language. Because qualifying
for MSU often depends on having the means to pay for good, private, Eng¬
lish language secondary education; and because MSU’s education, if de¬
clining, remains more desirable than that elsewhere; the university is a
conspicuous target for democrat levellers.
MSU’s more immediate environment is Baroda, a city of 300,000, for¬
merly capital of the princely state of Baroda. It is rapidly becoming one
of west India’s most important industrial cities, following immediately be¬
hind the Bombay area and the city of Ahmedabad in the number of in¬
dustrial licenses issued between 1954 and 1961 (greater Bombay, 1071
licenses; Ahmedabad, 110; Thana — the district adjoining Bombay —
106; Baroda, 89).8 The main industries in the city are chemicals and
chemical products; forty-four of Baroda’s eighty-nine industrial licenses
were issued for drugs and pharmaceuticals, and the city has the largest sin¬
gle share of the ninety-five licenses issued throughout India for drugs and
pharmaceuticals.9 The university lies in the northwest corner of the city,
and its institutions there are scattered across almost one-eighth of the city’s
area. The environment for MSU, the modern and burgeoning industry of
Baroda city and its adjoining prosperous environs, stands in marked con¬
trast to the environment surrounding many other Indian universities.

The Framework of Analysis

The government of a university is shaped by the dual influences of its

internal and external environments, but it may be more or less independent
of one or both of them. The internal environment encompasses the cultural
and organizational imprint of the university’s founding; the formal struc¬
ture of the institution; the social, geographic, and cultural composition of
its student body; the relative distribution of influence among degree levels
of education on the one hand and departments and schools on the other;
and the qualifications, reference groups, and values of its various faculties
and students.
We think of the external environment as being organized in three con¬
centric circles, local, state, and national-international. The external in¬
cludes the public and private sources of university funds and the degree of
influence on university affairs such sources conventionally exercise: the
economic, cultural, and political milieu in which the university is located;
the active and potential clients and publics who are served or believe they
should be served by the university (such as parents or potential parents of
students, state producer interests, and local industries and governments);
 210 Political Dimensions of University Government

public authorities with legal and administrative powers over university af¬
fairs; and objective social factors, such as levels of education, wealth, and
professionalism in the region or nation. This chapter examines the degree
to which and the ways in which the inner and outer environments of MSU
affect its government and its organizational life; that is, its policies, lead¬
ership, decision-making processes, and goals.
A university’s inner and outer environments are linked by two processes,
“compression-decompression” and “parochialization-cosmopolitanization. ”
These terms refer to continua whose poles represent parameters for dif¬
ferences of degree. Compression has two dimensions, the physical extent or
reach of the university’s boundary and the permeability of the boundary.
A state of compression (as contrasted with the process) is one in which
the university’s boundary is both narrow and closed.
Compression describes a primarily physical condition; parochialism and
cosmopolitanism describe a primarily ideological condition that has insti¬
tutional and behavioral aspects. The degree of compression and parochiali-
zation (and decompression and cosmopolitanization) is affected by the
relationship of the university’s inner and outer environments to each other;
the more congruent (in physical and qualitative terms) the inner and outer
environments, the more parochial and compressed (closed) the institution;
the less congruent, the more decompressed (open) and cosmopolitan. We
differentiate and operationalize the cosmopolitan end of the continuum into
three dimensions; horizontal (or geographic), vertical (or social and cul¬
tural), and substantive (the content and quality of education and research).
The goal orientation of a university influences both the type of its lead¬
ership and the possibility and nature of cosmopolitanism, particularly sub¬
stantive cosmopolitanism. In order to explore these relationships we first
distinguish four types of goal orientation — cultivation (of knowledge and
character), research, training, and service — and then relate them over
time to the fate and nature of substantive cosmopolitanism and, later, to
four types of leaders; the “politician,” the “judge,” the “administrator,”
and the “broker.” Goal orientations in turn are affected by the differential
impact on university resources and policy of the three dimensions of its
outer environment, local, state, and national-international. These relation¬
ships, too, are examined.
Three propositions follow from the relationships and associations among
these various concepts. The more congruent the two environments, the less
likely that a university’s government will be differentiated from and inde¬
pendent of its environments, able to defend itself against politicization, and
able to use political influence to defend and foster its academic independ¬
ence and interests. (Conversely, the more incongruent the two environ¬
ments, the more likely it is that there will be conflict between elements of
the university community, for example, faculty, students, administration,
and the authorities of one or more of the outer environments.) Although we
are prepared to advance and defend these propositions, we are not prepared
Baroda University 211

to reduce university government to its environmental circumstances. Uni¬

versity government is not, per se, epiphenomenal, but extraordinary men
and conditions are required to enable university governments to transcend
environmental circumstances inimical to academic values and cosmopoli¬
tanism.

Inner Environment: Structure

MSU is a unitary, residential university. It was not modeled on the

paradigm first expressed in the presidency universities at Calcutta, Ma¬
dras, and Bombay. They were established to serve as examining bodies
and to recognize and affiliate colleges across entire presidencies and be¬
yond. A unitary, residential university can be a community, itself the focus
of educational activity. The affiliating university served initially (and some¬
times even today) as the central office of a dispersed network of potential
communities in which educational activity was decentralized. For sixty
years affiliating universities did no teaching; gradually after World War I,
they began to set up postgraduate departments and to include constituent
or university colleges.10 MSU has been from its founding in 1949 a teach¬
ing institution that educates its undergraduate and postgraduate students
in constituent and postgraduate departments. Americans used to university-
college structures such as Yale or Chicago would find MSU’s structure
familiar. In India such structures are less common than in the U.S.: in
1965-66, affiliating universities outnumbered unitary universities by better
than two to one and students (including preuniversity and postgraduate)
enrolled in affiliating colleges outnumbered students enrolled in university
departments and colleges by six to one.11
The faculty and staff of MSU on the whole attribute the high standing
and independence of their university and its relative immunity from the ills
afflicting many other universities to MSU’s unitary, residential character.
Relatively compact and intimate, MSU protects students from some of the
worst aspects of the impersonality and anomie that afflict students else¬
where by accommodating them in faculty-led hostels or in local, private
housing; by associating them in a variety of curricular and extracurricular
activities; and by bringing them into informal touch with their faculty, who
live in the university compound in staff quarters. MSU’s unitary structure
keeps the curriculum and teaching in the hands of the university faculty
and makes it easier to protect standards and to strive for excellence. Affili¬
ating universities, MSU faculty believe, are less fortunately placed. First
degree (bachelor), and often a large proportion of second and third de¬
gree (masters and doctorate), teaching is in the hands of outlying affiliated
colleges of varying quality; curriculum is controlled by boards of study
usually dominated by affiliated college members who set syllabi attuned to
the needs of mediocre teachers out of touch with their disciplines; and uni¬
versity government reflects the aspirations of representatives of local and
212 Political Dimensions of University Government

academic vested interests entrenched in distant colleges. Baroda faculty

tend to believe that the university’s structure will help to protect them from
the parochialism, factionalism, student disorders, decline of standards, and
politicization that have subverted many other universities.
Structural factors are important in the life and consciousness of MSU
and distinguish it from other universities in Gujarat and India. It is not
clear, however, that they are as decisive in warding off evil and encourag¬
ing good as teachers and administrators tend to believe. A unitary as op¬
posed to an affiliating university structure is a helpful but not a sufficient
condition for university government that can maintain standards and guard
autonomy. Environment has proved strong enough to penetrate and ad¬
versely affect unitary as well as affiliating universities.
Of the twenty four universities founded up to the time of MSU’s crea¬
tion, seven (including MSU) were residential and unitary. All but one of
the residential universities had (in 1966-67) as few or fewer students than
MSU (14,200).12 One fifth of MSU’s students resided in hostels while at
all but one of the other six unitary universities one fourth to one half re¬
sided in hostels.13 The seven unitary universities have common structural
characteristics, strong traditions of academic excellence, and outstanding
departments (and in addition, two of them are centrally administered).
Yet five of them — Allahabad, Banaras, Aligarh, Lucknow, and Patna —
have suffered over the last fifteen years from a combination of educational
deterioration, disruptive factionalism, destructive and immobilizing student
disorders, and politicization.14 Of the seven, only Baroda and Annamalai
have been spared the kind of subversion that these five have experienced.
However important and helpful structural characteristics may be in coun¬
teracting adverse environmental influences, they do not explain by them¬
selves the differences between viable and subverted universities.
The structural dimension of a university’s inner environment, although
analytically distinct, cannot be treated independently of the university’s
outer environment if the relative success or failure of the university in
maintaining itself as a viable educational institution is to be understood
and explained. The rising and intense demand for degrees (what Jencks
and Riesman call educational certification),15 the increased conscious¬
ness and political capabilities of educational and research consumers, and
the paradoxical rapid growth and acute scarcity of publicly and politically
supplied resources affect all universities. How these forces in the external
environment affect the university, what shape and direction they take, de¬
pends in large measure on the economic circumstances, political system,
and governmental policies of the state in which the university is located.
Baroda and Annamalai, the two unitary universities that have been rel¬
atively free from crisis, are located in rimland states (Gujarat and Tamil
Nadu) with high levels of economic and political development and effec¬
tive stable governments, while the five that have been afflicted with crisis
are located in heartland states (Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) with low levels
Baroda University 213

of economic and political development and relatively unstable and ineffec¬

tive governments. (See chapter 5 for details.)
Between the 1967 and 1971 elections, the governments of Gujarat and
Madras were among the most stable and effective in India, and the govern¬
ments of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar among the least. The former have been
among the few states to be ruled by one party governments since 1967 and
have not suffered from frequent and destabilizing defections. Coalitions,
defections, and changes of government have been the rule in Uttar Pradesh
and Bihar since 1967.16 The 1969 by-election that followed president’s
rule in the two states, as well as the 1971 parliamentary election, did not
produce markedly more stable political alignments or legislative behavior.
There is a marked and revealing contrast in the resource allocations,
educational pyramids, and university populations of the four states. Guja¬
rat and Tamil Nadu not only spend a higher proportion of their consider¬
ably higher per capita income on education than do Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar (see chapter 5, table 20, columns 3, 4 and 6, giving data for 1961)
but also have created educational pyramids and university populations
more conducive to high quality, high benefit, nonpoliticized university edu¬
cation.
The educational pyramids of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are top-heavy
compared to those in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, resulting in less efficient
organization of the educational system and lower social rate of return
(which systematically declines from lower to higher levels of education).17
Per capita university and school enrollments in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar
are larger relative to the primary and middle school enrollments than they
are in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu. The contrasting educational pyramids of
the four states provide some evidence for the view that educational policy
in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu as compared to that in Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar is more the product of educational considerations and objectives and
less a reflection of the pressures of political demands and influence.
This evidence is re-enforced by the pattern of enrollments at the univer¬
sity level, with Gujarat’s and Tamil Nadu’s enrollments more concentrated
in high cost, high benefit faculties less susceptible to politicization and
those in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar concentrated more in low cost, low bene¬
fit faculties more susceptible to politicization.18 Taking arts faculty enroll¬
ment as an indicator of low cost, low benefit distribution of the university
student population, we find that Gujarat and Tamil Nadu (in 1965-66)
had 35.5 and 30.6 percent of total university enrollment in arts degree
programs while Uttar Pradesh and Bihar had 42.4 and 52.4 percent in the
same programs. Using engineering-technology and medical college enroll¬
ments as indicators of high cost, high benefit distribution of the university
student population, we find that Gujarat and Tamil Nadu (in 1965-66)
had 11.9 and 14 percent of total university enrollment in these two fields
of study while in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar the percentages were 3.4 and
8.1.19 These contrasting indicators reflect pronounced differences in the
214 Political Dimensions of University Government

way educational policy in the two sets of states has been shaped by their
respective educational and political systems and has benefited these sys¬
tems.
For all the differences that exist between rimland and heartland states
and between Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, on the one hand, and Uttar Pra¬
desh and Bihar on the other, Gujarat remains a society divided against
itself culturally and to an extent territorially in ways that link one side to
some of the conditions and forces that dominate Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Its modem industrialists and progressive farmers wear a pragmatic face
and talk about production and profit while its princely traditionalists and
cultural revivalists wear a puranic face and talk of the wisdom and achieve¬
ments of India’s ancient civilization. These orientations often overlap in
the same social group and even in individuals, sometimes producing the
kind of work ethic and cultural revitalization that Gandhi raised to a
world historical level. But they also produce debilitating cultural and po¬
litical contradictions. There is, too, a territorial dimension to Gujarat’s two
faces and idioms. Kathiawad or Saurashtra are the home of princely tradi¬
tionalism, Ahmedabad the center of cultural revivalism (and revitalization),
Kaira the home of Patidar progressivism, and Ahmedabad and Baroda
the centers of modern industrialism.

Inner Environment: Social Composition

We began our investigation of Baroda university with the view, de¬

rived from opinions pervasively expressed in interviews with the Baroda
faculty, that the university’s quality was declining as a result of a process
best termed parochialization. We began our analysis by attempting to make
both concepts, decline of quality and parochialization, operational, to es¬
tablish one or more empirical indicators for them, and to measure and
test the relationship between them. This effort made us take a more differ¬
entiated view of the decline in quality and, because we found parochializa¬
tion a much more complicated concept than we (and those we interviewed)
assumed it to be, made us less confident about the relationship between it
and the putative decline in quality.
Our thinking about parochialization and our initial assumption that it
was a most useful explanatory concept were shaped by our and other re¬
search on British and postindependence India. Since independence, the
boundaries of leading traditional structures, especially caste but also vil¬
lage and family, have broadened physically and become more permeable
to external influence. Many traditional functions have atrophied or died
while new, more modern ones have been added. Such changes in boundary
conditions and in functions have been associated with pronounced struc¬
tural and cultural changes that often contributed to political and social
modernization.
Extra-village economic opportunities and new occupations, new sources
Baroda University 215

of political power and influence, and status and reference groups that par¬
alleled or contradicted those found in the sacred world of caste hierarchy
and the secular world of land ownership have modified village and family
life and transformed the meaning of caste. Decompression and deparochi-
alization have helped to free rural society from many local constraints and
definitions of reality.20
Our initial assumptions about the causes and consequences of compres¬
sion and parochialization at MSU led us to hypothesize that they were
intimately linked to the causes and consequences of decompression and
deparochialization of caste, village, and family. As a result of the mod¬
ernization of these traditional structures, the boundary of the university
seemed to be contracting and becoming less permeable; local needs, issues,
and prestige were becoming more relevant and weighty in university life;
local and regional reference groups were replacing national and interna¬
tional ones; and academic, intellectual, and professional concerns were
being joined or replaced by the need to serve local interests. We thought
in short that a certain compression and parochialization of a modern in¬
stitution such as the university was the price Indian society was paying for
expanding the boundaries and reference groups of local and traditional
institutions and groups. A more complicated conception of the meanings
of cosmopolitanism and parochialism has since obliged us to modify this
rather too orderly and symmetrical explanation.
The cosmos is the universe; “cosmopolitanism,” says the dictionary, has
reference to that which includes all the world. To determine an educational
institution’s degree of cosmopolitanism or parochialism, we must have ref¬
erence not only to the students and faculty who make up its inner environ¬
ment but also to what the institution cultivates, transmits, and creates.
Geographic space is one obvious referent of cosmopolitanism and paro¬
chialism. In India one often assumes that geographic spread promotes not
only national integration but also cosmopolitanism because it includes stu¬
dents and faculty from different linguistic and cultural areas of that vast
and diverse subcontinent. Yet geography is obviously an insufficient refer¬
ent. Kansas State University, which recruited 84 percent of its students in
the fall semester of 1966-67 from within Kansas, reaches further in space
than City College of New York for the bulk of its students. Yet the class,
ethnic, religious, and cultural heterogeneity of New York City, as well as
its greater Cultural (with a capital “C”) opportunities, may provide a
richer mix than the wide spaces of Kansas. It is not merely the size of a
university’s catchment basin that tells about its cosmopolitanism but also
the variety of fish swimming in that basin.
What is a “national” university by the sole criterion of geographic di¬
versity? In the U.S. in 1938-39, 15 and 16 percent of the students at¬
tending state universities and land grant colleges were from out of state
compared to 42 and 30 percent of students from out of state in private
universities and colleges which were members of or accredited by the As-
216 Political Dimensions of University Government

sociation of American Universities. The Harvard class of 1970 drew 30.6

percent of its students from New England (22.6 from Massachusetts), the
University of Chicago class of 1971, 25 percent from Illinois (the next high¬
est states were New York and Pennsylvania), and the University of Sussex,
now a strong competitor to “Oxbridge,” 21.3 percent from the “South-
Eastern Region” of England (the immediately surrounding counties of
Kent, Sussex, and Surrey). A recent study done in Germany, which is
smaller than India, and has more highly developed communications, a sin¬
gle language, and historical traditions that make movement between uni¬
versities in the course of a student’s career normal, provides yet another
norm. It indicates that students tend to come predominantly from the state
{Land) in which their university is located: the most locally oriented uni¬
versity, Cologne, draws 87 percent of its students from the state in which
it lies while Freiburg, the most cosmopolitan, draws only 45 percent from
its state. The median of the twelve universities studied falls at 60 percent.
The German study also indicates that in most cases the three immediately
adjoining districts supply more than half the students, with a median of
55 percent for the twelve universities studied. By these standards, the per¬
centage of MSU’s arts and sciences students who are residents of Gujarat
(85 and 89 percent respectively in 1965-66) correspond to past and pres¬
ent levels of in-state enrollment in American state universities and col¬
leges, while enrollment in MSU’s professional and specialized postgraduate
faculties more closely approximate aggregate proportions of the more hor¬
izontally parochial contemporary German universities. But horizontal cos¬
mopolitanism is an inadequate and insufficient guide to knowledge about
so multidimensioned a concept as cosmopolitanism.21
Indeed, geographic diversity may mask class or community homogene¬
ity. “Mere diversity of geographic origins,” Jencks and Riesman observe,
“will not produce much diversity in . . . outlook and aspiration. . . .
When for example, Princeton recruits upper-middle class Protestant sub¬
urbanites from outside Baltimore, Chicago, and San Francisco as well as
New York, or when Notre Dame recruits the children of white-collar Irish
Catholics from all over the country rather than just from Indiana — the
result is a very modest increase in diversity” despite the claim that they are
“national” universities.22
English speaking students from Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, and Delhi
attending India’s nationally recruited IIT’s (Indian Institutes of Technol¬
ogy) display a similar class uniformity, which is also called diversity by
virtue of geographic distribution. Yet in India, where the idea of the na¬
tion is novel and fragile and faces challenges from linguistic and cultural
diversities, horizontal cosmopolitanism, even if it masks class uniformity,
is important in maintaining a national society and political community.
Sociocultural variety, by contrast, provides a measure of vertical cos¬
mopolitanism. As educational institutions begin to draw from more lim¬
ited geographic areas, they may attract a wider social mix by recruiting
Baroda University 217

from more classes, castes, or religious and linguistic communities than

they had previously. Such a mix, Jencks and Riesman pointed out in the
context of American state and municipal colleges, provides extraordinary
educational opportunities, but these are rarely well exploited.
A third measure of an institution’s cosmopolitanism — we shall call it
substantive cosmopolitanism — has reference to the kind of knowledge it
cultivates, transmits, and creates and the kind of intellectual environment
that results. This intangible is very difficult to measure when what is de¬
fined as knowledge is itself changing.
Factors which lend themselves to the more precise methods of quanti¬
tative measurement are horizontal and vertical cosmopolitanism; that they
lend themselves to measurement does not assure that they are the most
significant factors.
Using this more differentiated notion of cosmopolitanism and parochi¬
alism, we hypothesized that there were long range features in the Indian
environment operating to reduce horizontal and increase vertical cosmo¬
politanism. The proliferation of Indian universities has altered educational
market conditions both for consumers of education and for seekers of aca¬
demic jobs. So long as universities were relatively few, they drew students
from wide catchment basins. So long as the demand for faculty was mod¬
est, staffs had to go far afield in search of jobs. The leap from twenty uni¬
versities in 1947 to eighty-six universities and “deemed” universities in
1968 and from 437 university-recognized colleges in 1947 to 2572 such
colleges in 1966 has meant that students in search of colleges and faculty
in search of jobs can often find opportunities near home. That they are
likely to favor such opportunities is apparent not only from the data we
present below, but also by analogy with the choices expressed by members
of a high status and cosmopolitan profession, the Indian Administrative
Service. The top men, who are given a choice of postings, normally choose
their home states rather than distant ones.23 The academic professional
who is strongly oriented toward his discipline may choose a distant metrop¬
olis for the sake of its intellectual advantages, but he represents only a small
portion of academic manpower. Sentimental as well as economic factors
favor home areas. Given a free market, both faculty and students are more
apt to choose a nearby university; with the proliferation of institutions,
they are more likely to find one than they were before.
The proliferation of universities and colleges, as well as the great in¬
crease in primary and secondary education, has been a precondition for
vertical cosmopolitanism. Providing more educational opportunities at the
pre-university stage and opening universities in many sub-regions in most
states have made higher education a possibility for lower castes, lower
classes, and rural communities. New students and faculty come increas¬
ingly from backgrounds in which they are the first of their families to have
university education.
But the exceedingly rapid proliferation of education at all levels has
218 Political Dimensions of University Government

probably diluted the average quality of secondary preparation of univer¬

sity students and helped to lower the quality of collegiate education. We
say probably because, as we point out in our discussion of standards (chap¬
ter 4 above), all discussions of quality in education teem with a priori gen¬
eralizations which have no solid base in rigorous diachronic comparisons.
To test our more complex formulation of cosmopolitanism and paro¬
chialism, we turned to MSU. We did not know to what extent it would or
would not bear out the hypothesis that horizontal cosmopolitanism was de¬
creasing and vertical cosmopolitanism increasing. The meaning of the MSU
findings, in any case, would eventually have to be read in the context of
data drawn from other universities which may show different patterns.
While the faculty of MSU believe that their university is declining, be¬
coming less cosmopolitan and more parochial, they believe it is declining
from a cosmopolitan standard which is still visible. They consider the de¬
cline in recruitment of students from beyond the state an important meas¬
ure of the university’s decline. Our data have not confirmed that such a
decline is occurring. As one measure of horizontal and vertical cosmopoli¬
tanism, we drew time series data on birthplace, residence, and caste of
students from a 10 percent sample of student records in two general and
three specialized faculties of the University of Baroda — arts, science,
education and psychology (mainly a postgraduate faculty), fine arts, and
social work (a postgraduate faculty).24 We should like to have extracted
data as well for urban-rural origins, but locating each residence repre¬
sented more formidable work than our time and resources allowed.
We found no evidence of a decline in the horizontal cosmopolitanism of
students. In fact, the reverse is the case — student origins are slightly
more cosmopolitan now than ten or fifteen years ago. The hypothesized
(and romanticized) point in the past when Baroda drew a geographically
more wide-ranging student body never existed. We also found only a slight
increase in vertical cosmopolitanism. The hypothesized recent enrichment
of social composition by lower castes never occurred in more than a mar¬
ginal way. If a decline in horizontal cosmopolitanism and an increase in
vertical cosmopolitanism are national trends, as we believe them to be,
they were not strongly in evidence at Baroda. Within the interstices of
these larger findings, other findings proved of interest.
Since 1955-56, and probably earlier, most MSU students have come
from the local, or at least the linguistic, area. Tables 52, 53 and 54 show
that in the large bread and butter faculties of arts and science, Gujarat resi¬
dents or native born were approximately 80 to 90 percent even in the
mid-fifties, prior to the great jump in enrollment.25 This finding is sup¬
ported by Ramashray Roy’s data, which show that 91 percent of the
students at Patna College in Bihar in 1936 and in 1963 were from Bihar,
although the percentage of students from Patna city climbed from 20 to 50
percent in the same twenty-seven year period.26 It is quite likely that B.A.
degree student bodies in India have never been widely recruited beyond the
Baroda University 219

Table 52. Birthplace of students in the faculties of arts and science M.S.
University of Baroda (percentage).

Year

1955/56® 1960/61 1965/66

Birthplace (N = 107) (N = 145) (N = 190)

Baroda state 44.0 42.0 42.7

Gujarat (excluding Baroda) 46.8 35.9 37.9
Maharashtra 3.8 4.9 5.3
Other Indian states’3 0.9 2.8 2.1
Africa 0.9 3.5 7.3
Pakistan 1.8 0.6 3.2
Overseas (except Africa) 0.9 - 0.5
Not known - 10.3 1.0
Source: These figures and those in tables 53-60 represent a 10 percent sample of students
in the three-year degree course of the respective faculties, drawn from student records.
a Does not include first-year arts faculty students.
b Andhra, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Madras, Mysore, and Madhya Pradesh.

political unit in which they are located, and that the assumption of con¬
siderable student mobility in the past is unfounded. This impression of
mobility may be based on the experience of elite colleges such as St.
Stephen’s in Delhi or Madras Christian College in Tamil Nadu, which
have a cross-regional reputation among the small English speaking elite
educated in convent, missionary, and (English) public schools. Or it may
be based on the fact that cities like Delhi, Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta
attract a cosmopolitan population which is reflected in the enrollment of
a college that recruits mainly locally. In the latter case it is the environ¬
ment, not the institution, that is responsible for the cosmopolitanism of the
student body.
We had expected that even a narrow initial base of “outsiders” would

Table 53. Residence of students in the faculty of science M.S. University of

Baroda (percentage).

Year

1955/56 1960/61 1965/66

Residence (N = 70) (N = 61) (N = 73)

Baroda state 40.0 49.2 46.5

Gujarat (excluding Baroda) 30.0 41.0 42.5
Maharashtra 1.4 4.9 —

Other Indian states - 1.6 2.7

Africa - 3.3 5.5
Pakistan - - 1.4
Overseas (except Africa) - — 1.4
Not known 28.6 — —
 220 Political Dimensions of University Government

Table 54. Residence of students in the faculty of arts, M.S. University of

Baroda (percentage).
Year

1955-56a 1960/61 1965/66

Residence (N = 37) (N = 84) (N = 117)

Baroda state 51.4 77.3 65.8

Gujarat (excluding Baroda) 37.8 16.7 19.6
Maharashtra 2.7 1.2 1.7
Other Indian states'5 —
1.2 2.6
Africa0 —
2.4 7.7
Pakistan — — —

Overseas (except Africa) - - 0.9

Not known 8.1 1.2 1.7
a Does not include first-year students.
b Includes Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Rajasthan.
0 Uganda, Dar-es-Salam, Kenya, Tanzania.

shrink over time. Contrary to expectations, the figures concerning student

residence show, in a rapidly expanding universe, a constant, not increas¬
ing, proportion of state (Gujarat) residents between 1955-56 and 1965-
66 (tables 53 and 54).27 However, these residence figures understate the
diversity of the student body. Baroda students represent a larger variety
of birthplaces than they do of residences. The combined figures for arts
and science faculties on student birthplace (table 52) show a trend oppo¬
site to what might be expected: a 10 percent increase in “foreign” born
(non-Gujarati) persons, from 9 percent in 1955-56 to 19 percent in
1965-66. The increasing number of “foreign” born (non-Gujarati), come
from a variety of places: Maharashtra, the neighboring state; other Indian
States; Africa — the site of large Indian settlements from Gujarat; and
Pakistan — presumably refugees. The African students are especially im¬
portant for the tone of MSU, since the East Africa Gujaratis tend to be
much more worldly than the homegrown ones. A delicate and interesting
theoretical point, which illustrates the slipperyness of indicators of cosmo¬
politanism, is whether a Gujarati speaker born in Africa should be counted
as contributing more or less to cosmopolitanism than a native Tamil
speaker born in Baroda city.
The rather puzzling juxtaposition of a constant proportion of outside
residents and an increasing proportion of “foreign” born among MSU
students leads back to our discussion of the extent to which geographic
reach or the mix within the immediate environment is more determinative
of cosmopolitanism. These figures suggest that while MSU’s geographic
reach has remained relatively static, the content of that reach is in motion:
the residents of Gujarat, especially of Baroda city, often come from outside
the state, and the university’s relatively narrow catchment basin is enriched
by migration from outside.
Baroda University 221

In 1961, 15 percent of Baroda city’s population was born outside Guja¬

rat,28 as opposed to 10 percent of the population of all of Gujarat’s urban
areas.29 About 3.5 percent of Baroda city residents were Pakistani refu¬
gees, many were born in Maharashtra, and others came from various ad¬
joining states. These figures suggest that a growing industrial center, draw¬
ing populations from elsewhere, provides a more diverse geographical mix
than residence data alone would imply.30
Total “foreign” (by residence or birth) student enrollment in the special¬
ized faculties of the university never exceeds about 25 percent in any fac¬
ulty. The small postgraduate faculty of education and psychology and the
small but significant undergraduate and postgraduate faculty of fine arts,
which together accounted for only about 5 percent of MSU’s 12,000 stu¬
dents in 1965-66, constitute part of the university’s specialized and less
conventional postgraduate studies. In education and psychology, out-of-
state residents constituted about 11 percent of the student body in 1950-
51 and in 1965-66 even though enrollment expanded considerably over
the fifteen year period (table 55). In the small and very specialized fine

Table 55. Residence of students, faculty of education and psychology, M.S.

University of Baroda (percentage).
Year

1950/51 1955/56 1960/61 1965/66

Residence (N = 27) (N = 34) (N = 38) (N = 42)

Baroda state 22.2 44.2 44.7 42.8

Gujarat (excluding Baroda) 66.6 50.0 47.3 45.3
Maharashtra 3.7 - 2.7 2.4
Other Indian states5 7.5 5.8 5.3 9.5
Africa - - - -
Pakistan - - - -
Overseas (except Africa) - - - -
Not known - - - -
a Includes Uttar Pradesh, Assam, and Himachal Pradesh.

arts faculty, one of two in India (the other is at Banaras), about 20 per¬
cent of the students were out-of-state residents in 1960 and in 1965 (table
56). We did not draw figures for the large undergraduate and postgraduate
faculty of technology and engineering because it is subject to a 25 percent
reservation on behalf of out-of-state students. This reservation is related
to advice the University Grants Commission attaches to its financial grants
to the technical faculties.31
The evidence that the proportion of outsiders has not decreased mark¬
edly and may even have increased (as measured by birthplace) contra¬
dicts what would be expected on the basis of admissions procedures. These
discriminate against outside students, those living beyond the ten-mile ra¬
dius for which MSU has statutory responsibility. Faculty report that out-
 222 Political Dimensions of University Government

Table 56. Residence of students, faculty of fine arts, M.S. University of

Baroda (percentage).

Year

1960/61 1965/66
Residence (N = 25) (N = 32)

Baroda state 52 31.2

Gujarat (excluding Baroda) 28 46.8
Maharashtra 8 9.4
Other Indian statesa 12 12.6
Africa — _

Pakistan — —

Overseas (except Africa) — —

Not known - -
Includes Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Bengal, Assam, Delhi, Nepal.

siders must have marks approximately ten points higher than those re¬
quired of applicants from within a ten-mile radius. (If local students are
admitted with marks of 55 percent in science, outside students may not be
admitted with marks less than 65 percent; arts and commerce, which ad¬
mit with lower marks, maintain a similar differential.) Yet tables 53 and
54 suggest that the percentage of students from beyond the ten-mile radius
increased between 1960 and 1965. Several explanations may account for
the discrepancy between expectation and data. It may be that a fairly uni¬
form 10 percent discrimination is a recent phenomenon, not apparent in
our 1965 figures. A second possible explanation is that at MSU, an Eng¬
lish language institution, outsiders with a good English language education
— for example, students from good Bombay schools — have a better
chance of admission, even within a scheme of Baroda city preference, than
local boys without a good English language education. The trend noted at
one IIT, that Bombay boys do well in admissions because of their superior
English language education, probably holds at MSU as well.32
Faculty familiar with the admissions process believe that the main rea¬
son for the present distribution between local residents and outsiders, how¬
ever, is the pattern of applications (recruitment) rather than any marked
preference for locals. For the science and technology faculties, the Uni¬
versity Grants Commission’s pressure to persuade universities to reserve
25 percent of the seats for outsiders coincides with high demand by out¬
siders to be admitted. But for the nonspecialized faculties, where most ap¬
plications are from local residents, only a more aggressive policy of outside
recruitment and incentives would be likely to increase the proportion of
nonlocals applying.
Vertical cosmopolitanism is increasing slightly by one measure, caste, al¬
though patterns differ significantly among faculties. Brahmans and Banias,
the traditional literate castes, have retained their proportion in the arts
Baroda University 223

Table 57. Caste of students in the faculty of arts, M.S. University of Baroda
(percentage).

Year

1955/56a 1960/61 1965/66

Caste (N = 37) (N = 89) (N = 117)

Brahman 29.7 23.8 30.8

Bania 16.2 26.2 16.2
Patidar 18.9 27.4 23.1
Otherb 35.2 14.3 17.9
Backward classes0 and castes - 1.2 9.4
“Hindu” or not given - 7.1 2.6
a Does not include first-year students.
b Maratha, Jain, Sikh, Parsi, Muslim, Christian, Rajput, Prabhu, Sindhi, and C.K.P.
0 Kahwal, Lohana, Kacchia, Vaishar, Tamboli, Kharadi, and scheduled castes.

faculty (table 57); the dominant rural caste, the Patidars, has increased
its percentage in the same faculty, as have the backward classes and castes.
Their increases have been at the expense of marginal groups, some perhaps
from outside the state, including Maratha, Jain, Sikh, Parsi, Muslim, Chris¬
tian, Rajput, Prabhu, Sindhi, and C.K.P. In the science faculty, on the
other hand, the proportions of students from the traditional literate castes
and from the Patidars have both declined markedly; their place has been
taken by the same marginal castes and sects (“Other”) that appear to be
declining in arts (table 58). The representation of the backward classes and
castes seems to have declined.
One explanation that might cover the differential between these two
faculties is that the greater competition for high opportunity science seats
favors groups that can afford not only to pay for good, often English lan-

Table 58. Caste of students in the faculty of science, M.S. University of

Baroda (percentage).
Year

1951/52 1955/56 1960/61 1965/66

Caste (N = 61) (N = 70) (N = 61) (N = 73)

Brahman 26.3 20.0 29.6 15.1

Bania 27.9 24.3 16.4 21.9
Patidar 31.2 27.1 32.8 23.3
Othera 9.8 22.9 13.1 31.5
Backward classes and castesb 3.2 5.7 4.9 -
“Hindu” or not given 1.6 - 3.2 8.2

a Maratha, Muslim, Christian, Sindhi, Sikh, C.K.P., Jain, Rajput, Parsi. The first three
groups are numerically preponderant.
b Includes a category given in the records as “Backward Classes and Tribes and Lower
Castes.”
224 Political Dimensions of University Government

guage, primary and secondary education for their children but also to in¬
culcate them with the discipline and ambition to do well academically.33
It is possible that the traditional literate castes and the dominant rural
Patidar caste have been less informed and calculating in using family re¬
sources and socialization to buy such preliminary education and to instill
educational and career goals than have the groups comprising the category
“Other.” All of the groups in this residual category are characterized by a
certain ancient or recent marginality. The category includes: castes and
religious minorities that are not an integral part of traditional Gujarat
social structure (Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Sindhis); groups that have tra¬
ditions of geographic mobility or of special flexibility in relation to new
opportunities (Parsis, Sikhs, Muslims — many Gujarat Muslims come from
minorities within a minority, that is, they belong to entrepreneurial minor¬
ity sects within Islam itself); and groups that are refugees or permanently
settled “foreigners” in Gujarat (Muslims from Pakistan, Sindhis, Sikhs,
Marathas). These groups may have increased their numbers in science by
finer sensitivity to new opportunities, the wherewithal to prepare for them,
and the transmission of an achievement culture that focuses on academic
performance. The decline of the backward castes may be related to their in¬
ability to meet the stiff minimum requirements for science seats that apply,
at a lower level, to seats reserved for them. On the other hand, the lower
standard for arts seats is within reach of prosperous rural castes such as
Patidars who lack strong educational traditions and whose established po¬
litical and economic position may act as a disincentive to the pursuit of
academic goals or achievement; it is also within reach of backward castes,
for whom seats are reserved.
In the specialized faculties of fine arts and education and of psychology,
there has been a slight increase in lower and scheduled castes, from 4 to 9
and 4 to 12 percent respectively (tables 59 and 60). The data are confused
by the fact that a large proportion of students, 28 percent and 21 percent

Table 59. Caste of students, faculty of fine arts, M.S. University of Baroda
(percentage).

Year

1960/61 1965/66
Caste (N = 25) (N = 32)

Brahman 24 12.5
Bania _ 18 7
Patidar 16 94
Other3 36 21.8
Backward classes and castes 4 94
“Hindu” or not given 20 28.2
a Muslim, Christian, Parsi, Maratha, Sikh, Jain.
Baroda University 225

Table 60. Caste of students, faculty of education and psychology, M.S.

University of Baroda (percentage).

Year

1950/51® 1965/66®
Caste (N = 27) (N = 42)

Brahman 37.1 30.9

Bania 14.8 9.6
Patidar 22.2 14.2
Otherb 18.5 11.9
Backward classes and castes 3.7 11.9
“Hindu” or not given 3.7 21.5
a Figures were available for these two years only.
b Sikh, Jain, Muslim, Parsi, Christian.

in 1965-66 in fine arts and education respectively, did not give their caste
or merely reported “Hindu.” This may itself be a sign of the changing
ideology concerning caste identities. Those who did not report their caste
are probably of higher caste; were they of the backward and scheduled
castes, they would sacrifice the advantages of reserved seats by not report¬
ing. (Those capable of sufficiently high academic performance to free them
from the need to rely on reserved seats and wishing to abandon their
scheduled caste identity may also have listed themselves as “Hindu.”)
We do not have time series data about trends with respect to urban-rural
background of students or with respect to their parents’ education. But
B. V. Shah in 1957-58 found MSU very much an urban university in terms
of student enrollment, given the fact that 75 percent of the people from
Baroda district and adjoining districts lived in rural areas. According to
Shah’s sample, only 26 percent of MSU’s students at that time came from
rural areas; that is, from villages below 10,000. Fifty-three percent came
from cities of 100,000-500,000.34 Since Shah’s sample excluded non-
Gujarati outsiders, who were even more likely to be city people, the urban
balance may have been even higher.
We can only speculate about subsequent trends. Less well-educated
rural students have gone to Vallabhai Patel and Gujarat universities, both
mainly Gujarati language. MSU faculty anticipated that the founding of
Saurashtra University and South Gujarat University would drain off addi¬
tional rural students. It may be that these new universities have allowed
Baroda to continue its urban-biased recruitment of the better educated in
the face of rising educational demand by rural groups.
In 1957-58, at the time of Shah’s study, 64 percent of his sample were
the first in their families to finish college. This figure conforms to the find¬
ings in 1965-66 of Dr. N. B. Tirtha, professor of education at Osmania.
Sixty-one percent of the sample of male students in Osmania’s urban col-
226 Political Dimensions of University Government

leges were the first in their families to finish college.35 We expect, but can¬
not establish, that rural and first generation proportions will increase
further.
One significant change in the population of MSU, whose effect on any
index of cosmopolitanism is probably positive, is the rise in the proportion
of women. This proportion has gone from 10 percent in 1950-51 to
slightly less than 30 percent in 1966-67.36 The women who go to college
in India tend to be of higher socioeconomic status than men and bring
with them a better education; while rural and modest-status families will
struggle to send their boys to college, urban and better-off families often
will also send their girls. Hence, even though women students may have
had a less adventuresome socialization, they probably are more educated,
“cultivated,” and sophisticated (and in these senses, cosmopolitan).
The over-all import of these figures, taken together, is that there has
been relatively little change in the university’s geographic reach for students
but that the population within that reach now includes more people born
outside of Gujarat, and that the student body includes slightly more mem¬
bers of lower castes than before, mainly in the lesser opportunity faculties.
If experienced faculty at Baroda believe there has been a decline in the
cosmopolitanism of their students, it is likely that this is due less to the
parochialization of MSU recruitment and more to inferior preparation —
both linguistically and substantively — among the expanding numbers com¬
ing to MSU’s faculties at all levels. The “cure” would appear to lie more
with stricter admission and examination standards and the improvement
of education at the school level than with horizontal or vertical enlarge¬
ment of the university’s recruitment pools.
Although the quantitative data suggest relatively little change in the
composition of the student body, the data suggest marked changes in the
composition of the faculty. Our data here refer solely to the source of de¬
grees of MSU faculty, which we have taken as indicators of the extent to
which MSU recruits teaching and research talent locally, nationally, or
internationally. We have been able to gather time series data only on the
specialized faculties, which may recruit in a more cosmopolitan fashion
than others (table 61).
MSU is increasingly drawing its faculty from its own students. At the
same time, however, a large proportion of the faculty hold foreign degrees.
Although the percentage of foreign degrees has declined in some faculties,
the proportion remains significant.
Because these figures refer to the specialized faculties, one must exercise
a certain caution in interpreting them. Home science, helped by Ford
Foundation support, is one of the leading faculties in its field in the coun¬
try. It has been producing its own faculty, a fact that may be related to
the lower quality of training provided by the few other home science
faculties. To an extent the same may be true of social work. Technology
and engineering has drawn faculty from elsewhere but rivalries among
Baroda University 227

Table 61. M.S. University of Baroda staff with M.S. University of Baroda
and overseas degrees.
MSU Overseas
degrees degrees
Faculty (%) (%) Number

Home science3
1956-57 35 40 20
1961-62 50 30 30
1966-67 55 29 49
Social work
1951-52 0 40 15
1956-57 28 33 18
1961-62 57 14 21
1966-67 72 24 25
Technology and engineering
1951-52 38 9 55
1956-57 33 9 83
1961-62 56 11 164
1966-67 65 15 183
Polytechnic
1958-59 43 _b 21
1960-61 73.1 _b 61
1966-67 90 _b 81

Source: The figures are based on the highest degree taken. They were compiled by Janet
Guthrie from the Prospectus published annually by the university for each faculty.
a The first of the four five year intervals has been omitted for Home Science which
had not then been founded.
b Negligible.

local, regional, and national engineering colleges (IIT’s) sometimes make

communication and recruitment difficult.37
We do not have time sequence figures for the arts faculty, but in
1966-67 44 percent of its teachers held MSU degrees, 30 percent held
Bombay University degrees, and most of the remainder held degrees from
other Indian universities. Foreign degrees were sparse — less than 5 per¬
cent. These figures make the arts faculty less local in composition than the
more specialized faculties. The main explanation is that those arts faculty
members who received their advanced degrees prior to the university’s
founding in 1949 had to acquire them elsewhere, but few if any universities
in India were producing advanced degree holders for specialized faculties
at that time.
Although the prevalence of foreign degrees makes it evident that in the
specialized and professional faculties MSU continues to look well beyond
its own borders, the pressures toward localization in faculty recruitment
are considerable. The main reason for the trend toward localization, the
rise of many new universities throughout the country and the changed
geographic parameters of the academic market that it is producing, has
already been cited. Another reason given by some faculty is that MSU
 228 Political Dimensions of University Government

failed to revise its salary scales when other universities raised theirs, en¬
abling other universities to recruit faculty away from MSU by high bidding.
Such recruitment is said to have affected outside faculty more than those
who had local roots because the economic advantages of a higher salary
would not be so marked for local people with nearby family-based re¬
sources. We have not been able to confirm this hypothesis in detail, but it
makes sense a priori. By 1968-69, localization of faculty could be meas¬
ured by the fact that twenty-five of forty-four professors (60 percent)
were Gujaratis.
Some of those who influence MSU appointments believe it is to the
advantage of the university to appoint local people to the faculty. Several
of the nonacademic syndics (trustees) hold this view. One told us, “Mem¬
bers of the selection committees prefer the local man if all else is equal.
They feel that if he is a local man he will stay . . . whereas an outsider
might decide to return to his home place when he was experienced.” And
another echoed virtually the same argument: “If they appoint an outsider
he may stay ... for a few years and then when experienced and most
useful will go back to his home town.”
Conventional opinion at the university holds that the university may
more easily lose its investment in training faculty when they are mobile
outsiders, a point of view which, among other things, increases faculty im¬
mobility and institutional dependence by giving a higher priority to teach¬
ing experience than to research and publication and by rewarding institu¬
tional commitment more than professional commitment.
The selection procedures at Baroda have tended to favor local appli¬
cants, at least at the lower levels and possibly at the higher ones as well.
Selection for readers and professors is made by a statutory committee or
board which must include, in addition to the vice-chancellor, pro-vice¬
chancellor, dean of the relevant faculty, and head of the relevant depart¬
ment, four experts in the relevant subject, at least two from outside the
university.38 These boards meet in Bombay in order to be conveniently
located for outside experts and in order to escape local pressures and can¬
vassing. Higher posts are advertised on a nation-wide basis and attract
outside applications. There has been some criticism of appointment pro¬
cedures even at this level, as when, in a banking and commerce department
appointment, a local banker and syndic was asked to serve as an expert.
The main pressures toward localization have come from the selection com¬
mittees for lecturers and assistant lecturers, which until recently lacked the
outside experts found on the statutory selection committees for readers and
professors. Until recently, lecturer and assistant lecturer committees in¬
cluded nonacademic syndics whose connections with the community were
stronger than their understanding of the professional subjects for which
they selected candidates. Thakorbhai V. Patel, the most conspicuous poli¬
tician among the syndics, served on these committees for more than a
decade. Some of the syndics were known to canvass local people about lec-
Baroda University 229

turer appointments. Notices for lecturer posts are not nationally advertised;
limited to Gujarati newspapers, such notices normally attract only local
applicants. One faculty member claimed, in what was probably an over¬
statement, “It is these obviously unobtrusive assistant lecturers who, in
course of time are mostly promoted to be Head of the departments and
whose entry into the academic line is not always strictly on academic
considerations.” 39
Nonacademic syndics and some academic or administrative ones with
strong ties to local interests often display little understanding or apprecia¬
tion for professional certification of academics by academics, either because
the reasons for such certification are not recognized or because faculty
members at MSU are not thought capable of such professional judgment.
An influential syndic gave us his judgment concerning teachers. “They
are all gold seekers; they are not interested in intellectual matters or in
academic matters; all that interests them is whether or not they will get
promoted. A lecturer is only interested in becoming a reader, a reader in
becoming a professor, a professor in becoming a dean, a dean in becoming
a member of the syndicate, so that he will have a chance to become the
pro vice chancellor and ultimately vice chancellor. Of course, there are a
few exceptions, thank goodness! But this is the general pattern. They have
no real interest in academic matters of the students; they are only inter¬
ested in themselves and their finances. They do as little as possible as far
as these matters are concerned; but they will make enormous efforts to
forward themselves by being in with the right people.”
A similar view, probably from a similar source, though leavened by the
perspectives of comparative education, was expressed in a series of articles
on MSU in the Western Times. One article held that if academics plead
for certification by academic professionals and oppose lay intervention in
selection, it must be for reasons of monopoly. “Does Mr. R. T. Leuva [who
proposed that experts sit on lecturer selection committees], who is ‘shocked’
at the Syndicate’s powers to choose the teacher, advocate a ‘closed shop’
policy? Any one who knows even a little of what is happening in the
teaching profession today would think twice before suggesting . . . that
teachers themselves should select their colleagues. . . . That growing
realization that university affairs are of vital concern to the community is
reflected in the fact that in the Cantons of Switzerland, entire community
elects its teachers [sic]. . . . This may not be ideally suited to India. But
that the society must have its say is amply clear.” 40
Despite such populist views among some syndics, faculty pressure from
heads of departments in the arts faculty and others led a vice-chancellor s
committee, set up to consider the university’s founding act, to recommend
in 1969 that two experts, one an outsider, be appointed to selection com¬
mittees for lecturers. The committee resisted extending the principle to
selection committees for assistant lecturers.41 The recommendations have
not yet eventuated in a new act.
230 Political Dimensions of University Government

It is likely that over time the trend toward local candidates and appoint¬
ments at the lower levels of the faculty will affect the higher levels. Even a
conscientious selection board which means to keep some eye on the na¬
tional academic market and professional standards will have to keep in
mind the importance of internal promotion in order to keep up morale
and hope in the lower ranks. If the pool from which such promotions are
made is mainly local, the more cosmopolitan quality now characteristic of
higher level faculty will be affected. In the faculty of engineering and tech¬
nology, for example, twenty-one of the professors and readers have non-
MSU qualifications, eleven have studied at MSU and then added outside
qualifications, and three have MSU qualifications only.42 But those with
non-MSU qualifications are professors, while the tendency is for readers
to be MSU students who have added outside qualifications. If these readers
in due course replace a substantial number of the present professors, the
engineering and technology faculty will gradually become locally and in¬
ternally recruited.
How should one judge the process of present and potential localization
of the faculty? From the point of view of standards, there is no reason to
believe that in most fields MSU products are inferior to those of other
Indian universities. In certain specialized faculties they are probably better.
Furthermore, because many professors have additional, often foreign, quali¬
fications, MSU men are being exposed to non-Baroda influences, both
intellectual and social, as part of their training. Nevertheless, there is a
potential hazard in the situation we have described. As faculty are increas¬
ingly recruited from the immediate vicinity, the life of the university and
that of the community begin to overlap, and the educational goals and
purposes of the former are likely to be swamped by the Concerns, demands,
and relationships prevailing in the latter. It is this process of increasing
congruence that heightens compression. The problem of university auton¬
omy can be formulated in social terms by saying that there must be enough
incongruence between the administration, faculty, and students of an edu¬
cational institution and its local environment to insure that the concerns of
all do not coincide.

Inner Environment: Substantive Cosmopolitanism

Our investigation of faculty qualifications and the social and geographic

composition of the student body neglects many features which constitute
the spirit and quality of the university. Neither of these indicators focuses
on the patent rather than latent functions of the university, the organiza¬
tion of knowledge in faculties and departments or the quality of teaching
and research.
It is difficult to specify precisely what “substantive cosmopolitanism”
in a university might consist of. But an attempt can be made in the context
of four broad orientations that have characterized Indian and other uni-
Baroda University 231

versities: cultivation of knowledge and of character (as in Weber’s usage

of the phrase and as expressed in the English collegiate model); research
by independent scholars that adds to knowledge (German university
model); training for the professions and for the occupational needs of
society; service to state (or national) producer interests, governments, and
education consumers (the U.S. land-grant university model).
We are uneasy about too romanitic or purist a view of The University
(in capitals) as the seat of a universal intellectual ideal and the guardian
of ultimate concerns, partly because real universities have often served
parochial interests, calling them cosmopolitan, and partly because no real
university has ever devoted itself to cultivation (including guardianship) of
knowledge and research to the exclusion of training and service. Yet we
would argue that the first two orientations (perhaps without the “char¬
acter” dimension in these less morally confident days) are essential for
the cosmopolitan claims proper to a university. (Even these orientations
could presumably be “parochial” in content.) The normative conception
of a university requires these orientations, even while the empirical reality
often does without them. That does not mean the other two orientations
cannot be present as well in an institution calling itself a university. But
where they alone exist or dominate, it becomes difficult to distinguish the
university from a training or applied research institute or a Lok Sevak
Sangh (Community Service Club).
MSU’s greatest emphasis over the years has been on the third orienta¬
tion, training for the professional and occupational needs of society. Its
strength has vested in the quality of its professional schools, and its cos¬
mopolitanism in the pioneering of new professional fields — home science,
social work — before they were fashionable. Furthermore, MSU has fo¬
cused on the high opportunity or high standard professional fields. It has
stressed professional training as against the humdrum and devalued B.A.
and B.Sc. programs which today constitute the bulk of most Indian uni¬
versity teaching.
Table 62 shows that the largest single faculty is technology and engineer¬
ing, high cost and high standard relative to other faculties. Table 63 shows
that more than one third of the students are enrolled in high opportunity
professional schools or postgraduate programs and another quarter study
in ordinary professional and technical programs. Together, these profes¬
sional and technical courses outweigh the preuniversity and low oppor¬
tunity first degree programs.
A comparison made in 1963-64 between MSU and the two other
Gujarat universities existing at that time showed that enrollment in the low
opportunity arts and science programs was much lower at MSU (39 per¬
cent) than at the others (Gujarat University, 74 percent; Sardar Patel
University, 61 percent).43
The tables also show a relatively small percentage of the student body —
19 percent — in the preparatory units. In chapter 3 we discussed the effect
 232 Political Dimensions of University Government

Table 62. Students3 at M.S. University of Baroda, by faculty, 1968-69.

Faculty Number Percentage

Arts 1,351 9.40

Science 1,030 7.10
Education and psychology 250 1.70
Commerce 1,571 11.00
Medicine 635 4.40
Technology and engineering 2,224 15.40
Fine arts 80 0.60
Home science 525 3.60
Social work _b —

Law 343 2.40

Preparatory unit, arts and commerce 1,693 11.70
Preparatory unit, science 1,072 7.40
Shri M.K. Amin Arts and Science College, Padra 419 2.90
College of Indian Music, Dance and Drama 68 0.50
Baroda Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya 11 0.07
Polytechnic (diploma only) 1,218 8.50
Diploma (nonpolytechnic) 537 3.60
Postgraduate 1,359 9.40

Total 14,386 100.00

Source: The calculations in this table are based on MS University of Baroda, Twentieth
Annual Report, 1968-69 (Baroda, 1969), Appendix 1, p. 188.
“ The figures given against each faculty are those for undergraduate students only.
Diploma course students and postgraduate students have been separately noted.
b Postgraduate students only.

on the quality of Indian higher education of the 40 percent national norm

for Pre-University Course enrollment, pointing out that because the PUC
year more closely approximates school than higher education and because
it occupies an enormous proportion of faculty time and talent, it has a
debilitating effect on university level education. At MSU the PUC is taken
much more seriously than at most other universities and occupies a smaller
proportion of student enrollment. Both factors have important conse¬
quences for the over-all quality of intellectual life at MSU.
Within MSU’s orientation toward training for the professions a shift in
a more “democratic” direction is evident. Table 64 shows the emergence
of the polytechnic and the law school, both training at a relatively lower
standard than some of the other schools, and jointly capturing 15 percent
of the enrollments by 1966-67. Commerce, also a more modest standard
field, increased its share of enrollment by 5 percent. To the extent that
these schools recruited a high proportion of those students who used to
go into the B.Sc. in 1950-51, which was then a low resource program
including students aiming only for the intermediate degree, they may repre¬
sent a sensible diversification at the lower levels of training. But they lack
the resources to provide education equivalent to MSU’s best. Two of these
faculties taught students in 1966—67 with less than half the per student ex-
 Baroda University 233

Table 63. Students at M.S. University of Baroda, by faculty, grouped by

type.

Faculty Percentage

High opportunity professional courses

Education and psychology® 1.70
Medicine 4.40
Technology and engineering 15.40
Fine arts 0.60
Home science 3.60
Postgraduate 9.40

35.10
Ordinary professional courses
Commerce 11.00
Law 2.40
Polytechnic 8.50
Diploma (nonpolytechnic) 3.60
Music 0.50
Sanskrit 0.07

26.07
Pre-University and low opportunity degree courses
Arts 9.40
Science 7.10
Pre-University Course, arts, commerce 11.70
Pre-University Course, science 7.40
Padra 2.90

38.50

Source: Table 62.

a Education would normally be ranked in the second category, but as Baroda has the
Center for Advanced Studies in this field, we have ranked it in the first category.

penditure that constitutes the average for MSU students (per student ex¬
penditure in the law and commerce faculties was 30 percent of the MSU
average), and one, the polytechnic, taught with slightly higher, but still
below average (80 percent) resources. No one can quarrel with India’s,
and Baroda’s, need for middle range technical training, but whether a
university is the appropriate seat for it is quite another question. Although
the orientation to “training,” by responding to manpower needs, always
overlaps with a service orientation, a shift into or increase in these three
fields is less an expression of a university’s orientation toward high quality
professional training and more a response to increased local demand for
easy access to occupational training and educational certification.
The university’s orientation toward cultivation of knowledge and char¬
acter was never primary, but it was a noticeable part of its program in the
fifties. Table 64 provides some evidence for a shift away from this orienta¬
tion. When the university began, the arts degree to a considerable extent
234 Political Dimensions of University Government

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Baroda University 235

still had the status it developed in the preindependence era, when it was a
vehicle for general cultivation. Enrollment in arts was modest (6.7 per¬
cent) and per student annual expenditure relatively high, more than
double (2.3:1) the average per student expenditure at the university. By
1966-67, the situation had reversed itself. Arts enrollment had jumped to
12.2 percent and the resources had declined to a ratio of 0.7:1 of average
annual per student expenditure. Arts had become, as it is elsewhere in
India, an easy access, low resource field, representing a concession to a
service orientation that makes education generally available rather than a
vehicle for cultivation.
The establishment and activities of the fine arts, music, dance and drama,
and Sanskrit faculties, although in one sense specialized professional train¬
ing within the arts, can also be regarded as an indicator of the viability of
the cultivation orientation at MSU. Fine arts has a higher enrollment and
lower per capita resources (table 64), music a lower enrollment and re¬
markably higher per capita resources. (The drop in enrollment and rise
in per capita expenditure may be a danger signal rather than a sign of en¬
hanced quality and capability.) The first two faculties represent some of
Hansa Mehta’s original innovations; both have India-wide reputations.
The decline of the general education program suggests a shift away from
the cultivation orientation. MSU in 1953 inaugurated an effort to break
through the specialization parameters of education for the first degree by
instituting general education courses. These were required of students in
the arts, science, commerce, technology and engineering, fine arts, and
home science faculties, as well as in the two PUC units. The courses include
general surveys in the humanities; human civilization; social, political and
economic problems of India; science and its impact on life; and values of
life. The university is known for its pioneering of American-style (Uni¬
versity of Chicago or Columbia) general education, an effort that in effect
placed MSU at the forefront of a movement to replace or modify the
British legacy, which limited general education to the first degree in arts
or science.44 The goal of this education is the development of the culti¬
vated, concerned, and critical generalist. Ford Foundation support en¬
abled the program’s director, K. S. Yajnik, to visit the U.S. on several
occasions to study general education programs. Such support also enabled
Professor Richard McKeon of the University of Chicago to advise on the
program’s organization in its early years.45 Like general education else¬
where, the program has encountered considerable student scepticism with
respect to its “usefulness,” and when examinations were made voluntary,
students ceased to attend classes.
Science in contrast to arts has improved its standing in the university.
In 1951-52, it had 30 percent of the enrollment, but at a low resource
level, per student expenditure running lower (70 percent) than average
per student expenditure. Abolition of the old intermediate program thinned
down the B.Sc. enrollment. By 1966-67, science had fewer students
 236 Political Dimensions of University Government

(10.6 percent) and higher proportionate resources, more than two and a
half times the average per student expenditure (table 64). It had become
a smaller but relatively more privileged field in the university, to an extent
a counter current to the demand for mere accessibility. This development
can be counted as a new opportunity for students to cultivate knowledge
while escaping the devalued arts field, but to an even greater extent it can
be counted as an aspect of training (pre-professional) for the higher op¬
portunity science fields.
Some indicators show a shift away from an orientation toward research.
Research is now less pursued and less funded than it was in the early years
of the university. A purely quantitative count of the number of research
projects taken up in each faculty over successive five-year periods shows a
decline in all faculties except medicine, technology and engineering, and
home science (science remains steady). This is true in spite of a staff in¬
crease in every faculty.46 Expenditure on research as a percentage of total
expenditure has always been sufficiently low to make a serious research
orientation doubtful. In spite of increased resources, however, expenditure
on research, which was 3.6, 2.3 and 2.2 percent of total expenditure in the
years 1954-55 to 1956-57, had fallen to .9 and .7 percent of total expendi¬
ture in 1965-66 and 1966-67.47
Another index of research orientation, however, shows an increase
over the years. For the three-year period 1952-53 to 1954-55, there were
3.6 Ph.D.’s per ten thousand students, for the five-year period 1955-56 to
1959-60, 13.7 Ph.D.’s per ten thousand, and for the six-year period 1960-
61 to 1965-66, 18 per ten thousand.48 This compares with a national norm
in the period 1960-61 to 1963-64 of 8 Ph.D.’s per ten thousand enrolled
students.49 This does not, of course, tell us about the relative quality of
these Ph.D.’s.
Another positive index for research orientation is the student distribu¬
tion by levels. In a growing universe, the postgraduate program at Baroda
accounted for a slightly larger proportion of total students in 1966-67 (10
percent) than in 1950-51 (9 percent).50
There are some indicators of university quality whose variation affects
university performance regardless of goal orientation. Annual per student
expenditure has declined. Such expenditure rose slightly from Rs. 682.8 in
1949-50 to Rs. 717.1 in 1966-67; at constant prices, however, this
amounted to a decline to Rs. 466.05.51 The staff-student ratios remained
steady for the university as a whole between 1952-53 and 1966-67
(1:15.7 and 1:15.4) but declined markedly from the improved position
established in the mid-fifties (1:13.7). The situation of specific faculties
differs. Among the large faculties, science, technology, and medicine have
improved their positions (science, 1:22 to 1:7) while the positions of arts
and commerce have worsened (arts, 1:14 to 1:18; commerce, 1:31 to
1.49). The polytechnic faculty-student ratio deteriorated sharply between
1965-66 and 1966-67 (from 1:10.6 to 1:15.8).52
Baroda University 237

Other intangibles, the precise weight of which it is difficult to assess, in¬

clude the relatively conspicuous nature of some MSU departments which
have attracted foreign and government of India support or collaboration
(Ford Foundation aid to the home sciences and general education; Uni¬
versity of Michigan assistance to education and psychology and recogni¬
tion of that department by the UGC as an advanced center qualifying for
special assistance; WHO and University of Edinburgh collaboration with
the medical college). Other intangibles include a high level of institutional
self-consciousness and self-study.53
The overall conclusions from this evidence seem to be that while MSU
has continued to focus on training for the professions, it has also responded
to the consumer demand for easy access professional and occupational
training at more modest standards. The first two goals, research and cultiva¬
tion of knowledge and character, which we posited as essential ingredients
of a university which claimed substantive cosmopolitanism, were never
first among MSU’s goals. Cultivation and research have been weakened
to some extent by a decline in the resources allocated to them. Despite this
decline some indicators of research remain positive although the overall
impact of research remains limited. Despite the continuing influence of
cultivation and research, training for professions and jobs and its related
orientation, service to the community, are the university’s principal goals.
In many ways, MSU has more to recommend it academically than many
other universities in India. At the same time, academic and intellectual
values do not enjoy a teaching and research environment that enables them
to be the decisive factors in university policies, leadership, and decisions.
Academic self-confidence enables members of a university to distinguish
between those outside pressures that are benign and those that are not.
Academic self-confidence at MSU is sufficiently strong to resist blatant
forms of infiltration and appropriation but not strong enough to identify,
much less resist, more subtle claims made in the name of service, social
needs, or historical necessity.

The Vice-Chancellor and Politics at MSU: An Empirical Standard of

Judgment

Three elements of the university’s organization — the senate, the syndi¬

cate, and the vice-chancellor — are, by virtue of their function or composi¬
tion, formally and directly involved with forces in the university’s external
environment. Of the three, the vice-chancellor is most continuously and
conspicuously engaged in such relationships. He plays a dual role; as a
spokesman for the university to the publics outside, and as a principal
interpreter to the university of the manifest concerns of such publics. His
position is both strategic and vulnerable: strategic for managing the inter¬
play of purposes and interests from within and without in ways that pre¬
serve or enhance cosmopolitanism, independence, and educational capa-
 238 Political Dimensions of University Government

bility; vulnerable because he is exposed to those pressures that result in

parochialization and politicization.
The word “politics” has on the whole a negative connotation in India, as
well as in some other countries. This connotation is undiscriminating and
ill-informed. By focusing on the partisan, opportunistic, and self-serving
aspects of politics, it ignores the constructive and creative consequences of
the politician’s role in using political resources and skill to gain desirable
ends. The word assumes an even more sinister meaning when it is used in
connection with education. We have pointed out earlier in this volume that
it deserves this sinister meaning when and where educational goals and
processes are clearly subordinated to or appropriated by political ones.
Harold Gould’s chapter analyzes how and to what degree such results can
occur. But political resources, skills, and influence are essential to the in¬
ternal management and external relations of a university. In many instances
where politics enters into education, motivations are by no means clear cut
or easily discernible and the relationship between intention and conse¬
quence is not always consistent. One observer’s self-serving or partisan
politician may turn out to be another observer’s patron of learning. We
attempted to construct some standards of judgment that avoid abstract
moralism because they are related to the needs and requirements of par¬
ticular institutions and to the context of at least one university.
When our respondents at MSU used the word “politician” in a negative
sense, as they usually did, what they had in mind was a man who used
the educational structure as a political resource, that is, to benefit personal,
partisan, or factional fortunes. There was general agreement that politics
in the sense of furthering party interest was not really an issue at MSU. In
this sense MSU presents a sharp contrast to the picture that has been
drawn in earlier chapters for school education in Faizabad district or
piimary education in Rajasthan. But there was also general agreement that
people used the university for personal advancement, a charge which is
harder to deal with — is the department chairman who succeeds in finding
ample funds for science subjects self-interested, as an embittered humanist
might claim, or is he advancing science? At MSU, at least, it was assumed
that educational goals might be subordinated to personal and group rather
than party interest, although it was also believed that the personal and
group interests could find their home in a party.
We disaggregated the backgrounds of likely candidates for the office of
vice-chancellor in order to understand the meaning particular vice-chan¬
cellors might give to their office. We think of four analytic types of vice-
chancellors, each of which is associated with a certain kind of recruitment,
skill, and expected benefit: (1) the “politician,” whose connection with a
party, faction, or political leader promises strong support for university in¬
terests from government and some of its publics; (2) the “judge,” whose
reputation for fairness and concern for the public interest suggest that for¬
mal rationality and procedural legitimacy will be maximized in the govern-
Baroda University 239

ment of the university; (3) the “administrator” (he might be a distin¬

guished civilian or an experienced educationist), whose command of bu¬
reaucratic processes, influential connections, and skill in dealing with offi¬
cials promises organizational leadership and access to outside support; and
(4) the “broker” (often an administrator-professor from within the uni¬
versity), whose skill in bargaining and sensitivity to and knowledge of
competing forces suggests that conflicts will be avoided and interests recon¬
ciled. A residual category which goes beyond these would contain the
“leader,” whose vision of the needs and possibilities of the educational
enterprise and command of some of the qualities associated with the other
types promises institutional independence, reform, and creativity.
Earlier we identified four broad orientations that have characterized
Indian and other universities: cultivation of knowledge and of character;
research; training for the professions; and service to producer interests,
governments, and education consumers. The role of a vice-chancellor can
be fruitfully assessed in the context of interactions between the possible
types of leaders and such university orientations. These interactions pro¬
vide another conceptualization, in addition to parochialism and cosmopoli¬
tanism, of the relationship between the inner and outer environments. Be¬
cause MSU’s orientation has changed over time, affecting the tasks of its
vice-chancellors, at least some of the problems we originally conceived of
as “politicization” turned out to represent conflicts inside and outside the
university over its orientation.
Only one of the four vice-chancellors came to the university as some¬
thing of a professional politician. Mrs. Hansa Mehta, the first vice-chan¬
cellor, had been president of the Bombay Pradesh Congress Committee,
member of the legislative council in 1937 and 1940, and a member of the
constituent assembly between 1947 and 1950. Bombay presidency, where
Mrs. Mehta was active in nationalist and democratic roles, adjoined the
princely state of Baroda where her husband, Dr. Jivraj Mehta, was prime
minister. She was appointed for a three-year term prior to the demise of
Baroda state and the termination of her husband’s government there. Her
subsequent effectiveness suggests that the fruits of a type 1 (politician) ap¬
pointment (and one based on kinship at that) are not invariably sour.
Although Mrs. Mehta explicitly resigned her membership in the Con¬
gress party when she became vice-chancellor because she believed the vice-
chancellor should be nonpartisan, she retained, through her husband, a
better than indirect connection to the party. As prime minister of Baroda
at the time of its integration into India, her husband assumed a more co¬
operative and nationalist role than the prince of Baroda, who considered
reopening the accession of the princely order to the government of India.
Jivraj Mehta’s relations with national and Gujarat Congress party leaders
were, in consequence, cordial. He was an influential member of the senate
in MSU’s early years. When Bombay was divided into the states of
Maharashtra and Gujarat in 1960, he became chief minister of the latter.
240 Political Dimensions of University Government

His appointment to this post suggests that his influence in party life was
considerable earlier on, when his wife was vice-chancellor.54
Hansa Mehta had considerable administrative talent and influence (type
3). She understood the possibilities of legislation and administrative regula¬
tions both within the university and in the university’s relations to state
and national educational agencies; and had enough personal influence to
persuade others to interpret legislation and rules in favorable ways. (Her
understanding of legislative and administrative possibilities was evidenced
in her opening statement on “Financial and Business Administration of
Universities” at the Vice Chancellors Conference on University Education
convened by the ministry of education in 195 7.55
Hansa Mehta avoided the role of political broker (type 4). Rather than
compromising and aggregating the demands of various interests within the
university, or developing a sharp sensitivity to demands from below or
outside, she acted like a law-giver shaping a young institution, and built the
university’s structure and spirit during its critical formative years. At that
time, what some faculty thought of as her authoritarian manner caused
little trouble, partly because people valued her capacity to lead and build
while the university was young, partly because influence in the university’s
governing bodies, notably the syndicate, was not yet valued by prominent
figures in the Baroda community; and partly because the authoritative style
common to public figures in the pre-independence period, especially in
princely states, was more tolerated than it is now.
Although Hansa Mehta’s identity “objectively” included her role as a
professional politician, faculty do not remember her as a “politician.” In¬
stead, “she protected the University from politics,” as one faculty member
put it. The apparent anomaly is a function partly of Mrs. Mehta’s character
and motivation. She used her political access and influence to further edu¬
cational goals rather than the reverse. It is also a function of the changing
meaning of politics in India. The nationalist movement included a sub¬
stantial number of persons who were more liberal and nationalist than
populist and leveling in their political orientation. Prior to the enormous
postindependence explosion in political consciousness and participation, it
was easier to formulate public policy generally and educational policy
specifically free of political pressures. To be a vice-chancellor then did not
require the elaborate effort that it does now to establish one’s policies and
mobilize the support of proliferating and increasingly organized and active
constituencies, including faculties and students.
Finally, Mrs. Mehta undoubtedly provided leadership by making edu¬
cational innovations that went beyond the demands made on her by either
the university community or the state of Bombay.
Neither of the other two vice-chancellors at MSU have been professional
politicians in the sense in which Mrs. Mehta was. Yet both are seen in the
university as more political. The designation refers mainly to a broker
(type 4) who manages demands made by groups and interests in the uni-
 Baroda University 241

versity and the community. There is some question, however, whether Dr.
Jyotindra Mehta possessed one of the qualities of the broker vice-chan¬
cellor under increasingly democratic conditions, sensitivity to demands from
below.
Jyotindra Mehta seems to have been chosen vice-chancellor at least in
part in the expectation that he would provide the benefits associated with
an administrative leader (type 3). He spent most of his career as an
“educationist,” a word frequently employed in India to convey a combina¬
tion of roles: a professionally qualified man who teaches, does a certain
amount of research and writing, and expects his career to be crowned by
recognition in eminent and influential positions of educational authority
rather than by renown in the more abstract world of intellectuals and
scholars. (The ambitions and motivations associated with such a career are
critical for keeping up the supply of institutional managers; Irene Gilbert,
in her chapter on the Indian Educational Service — chapter 13 below —
suggests the origins of a culturally patterned career ladder with administra¬
tive authority as its apex.) Dr. Mehta was professor of history at Elphin-
stone College, Bombay, from 1920 to 1922. In 1931 he became principal
of Baroda College, and thereafter commissioner of education of Baroda
state — a post in which he was influential in shaping the statutes of MSU.
Subsequently he became director of public instruction for the state of
Bombay, the most influential position in a state’s educational service. He
moved into noneducational administration as chairman of the public service
commission during the time of the short-lived state of Saurashtra, which
has since become part of Gujarat. He is related to Hansa and Jivraj Mehta.
Like Hansa Mehta, he is remembered as a man who cared for academic
values. When Dr. Mehta became vice-chancellor in the late fifties, Gujarat
and Bombay were still one, and his position as former director of public
instruction provided lines of influence and connection. These lines con¬
tinued when Jivraj Mehta, husband of former vice-chancellor Hansa Mehta,
became chief minister of the new state of Gujarat, although Jivraj’s idea of
financial control was more detailed than some university people thought
good. When he ceased to be chief minister, the Gujarat government sought
closer control of the university, a development Dr. Mehta and his successor
resisted.
Dr. Jyotindra Mehta’s position at MSU was comparable to that of
George III. Dr. Mehta hoped to govern in the traditional manner (Mrs.
Mehta’s), more as king than as king-in-parliament. During his first term,
there was very little dissent from the guidance he gave the syndicate. But
finding university authorities increasingly obstreperous with the emergence
in the syndicate of persons strong in the community, and experiencing a
decline of the rather automatic acceptance previously given the vice-chan¬
cellor’s views and wishes, he was obliged, like George III, to mobilize
forces to protect his authority. This step, like George Ill’s organization of
loyalist forces to combat radical ones, constituted recognition of the ex-
 242 Political Dimensions of University Government

istence and legitimacy of a more conflictual politics. The vice-chancellor

now had to involve himself in a political process within the university, a
process that drew him into the very internal politics that Dr. Mehta had
been anxious to do without. In 1963, two city syndics, Thakorbhai Patel
and Nanalal Choksi, both at various times mayors of Baroda, organized to
elect a different vice-chancellor who, Dr. Mehta feared, would be ex¬
cessively responsive to them. The political environment in which these
events occurred was affected when, in September 1963, Balwantray Mehta
replaced Dr. Jivraj Mehta — friend and protector of MSU — as chief
minister. Dr. Mehta hoped to stop the attempt to elect a new vice-chan¬
cellor by revising the statutes to allow a vice-chancellor (himself) to oc¬
cupy his office for more than the sanctioned two terms. In this effort he had
the backing of the central government’s education minister, M. C. Chagla.
The effort, however, failed, and Dr. Mehta did not retain his position in the
syndicate after leaving the vice-chancellorship. The term of Jyotindra
Mehta proved a watershed. The shift from the politics of deference and
command to the politics of opinion and mobilization proved irreversible;
the relatively peaceful and benevolent autocracy of Hansa Mehta is no
longer a viable alternative at MSU. The question has now become whether
brokers can be found who are also educational leaders.
Dr. C. S. Patel, the former pro-vice-chancellor, succeeded Dr. Mehta
in 1964 after a bitter battle for the position, and was re-elected in 1967,
to a second term. He took his Ph.D. in chemistry at Leeds University in
1930, began his academic career as a lecturer, and in time became profes¬
sor of chemical technology and dye house superintendent at Kalabhavan
Technical Institute (an educational institution of the former princely state
of Baroda which has since been absorbed into MSU). From 1941 to 1949,
he was director of the institute and an industrial chemist, key roles in a
city dominated by the chemical industry. In 1950, he joined MSU as
professor of chemistry and served as dean of the science faculty until
1953, when he became pro-vice-chancellor.
C. S. Patel s career reflected a growing tendency at MSU to connect the
technological and scientific faculties more closely with Baroda’s growing
industries. Something of a broker, he saw service as an important part of
the university s orientation. “We are part of the community we are cater¬
ing to. Many courses like social work and the specialized industrial courses
run by the University would not have been possible without the help of the
local industries and others.” 56
C. S. Patel elicited none of the strong feelings that Jyotindra Mehta did;
his faculty and syndicate saw his style as reconciliatory, a quality about
which feelings were mixed. By comparison with his autocratic predecessors,
he was milder, more easygoing, and more responsive — although it was
apparent even in his case that the vice-chancellor’s opinions and initiatives
still won compliance. Some believe that having been pro-vice-chancellor
under two strong vice-chancellors, Dr. Patel was accustomed to holding
Baroda University 243

second position, with the result that he was too easily influenced by others,
notably syndicate politicians. Others interpreted his role as responsive,
accommodating, and appropriate to the “multiversity” functions MSU now
serves.
The selection of Nasarvanji K. Vakil, a retired Gujarat high court judge,
with relatively little controversy in March 1970 reflected a dominant pref¬
erence for the consensual values and disinterested leadership associated
with type 2 (judge) vice-chancellors. It also reflected a reaction against the
prevailing stress on community relations.
The faculty, particularly the Baroda University Teachers Association
(BUTA), in the discussions and deliberations that preceded N. K. Vakil’s
election, stressed the importance of choosing a vice-chancellor who favored
academic as against service values and who was independent of the com¬
munity. The chief minister of Gujarat and the chief justice of Gujarat were
said to be concerned to protect MSU’s academic standing. The leading
candidates frequently mentioned in the press and organized discussions be¬
forehand were mostly natives of Gujarat who had achieved distinction in
the larger, more cosmopolitan national setting: I. G. Patel, special secre¬
tary for economic affairs in the finance ministry; the late J. J. Anjaria,
deputy governor of the economically powerful and politically influential
Reserve Bank of India; and Vakil, who was then a member of the Com¬
munal Riot Inquiry Committee appointed to look into the disasterous
Hindu-Muslim riots of September 1969 in Ahmedabad (and elsewhere in
Gujarat). When the name of Ishwarbhai Patel, vice-chancellor of neigh¬
boring Sardar Vallabhai Patel University, was mentioned early in Feb¬
ruary as a candidate favored by influential members of the syndicate
with close ties to city and state publics, “his name had to be dropped,”
Loksatta reported, “due to objections by most university teachers.” 57
Among the attributes that marked off N. K. Vakil was his apparent
capacity for disinterestedness. Not only was he a high court judge thought
worthy of sitting on so sensitive a panel as one charged with investigating
large scale, bloody Hindu-Muslim riots, but he was also from a marginal
community, the Parsis, Zoroastrians who immigrated from Persia to India
in the eighth century. A tiny minority of several hundred thousand, the
Parsis as a community are highly educated and well-to-do but not politi¬
cally powerful in Gujarat. N. K. Vakil conducted the affairs of the Parsi
Panchayat (a Parsi community organization) with assets running over
thirty million rupees and played a leading role for thirty-five years in the
Surat Public Education Society (a community organization in the field of
education).
Though he had the support of some important political figures at the
state level, Vakil’s selection was perceived as one that would, by com¬
parison with more partisan possibilities, provide the university with fair,
disinterested, and consensually based leadership. “It is a pleasure to wel¬
come Nasar Vanji Vakil as new VC,” Champaklal Shah wrote in Loksatta
 244 Political Dimensions of University Government

on March 5, the day it became clear that he would be the next vice-chan¬
cellor. “It is understood that his selection is consented to by all. Not a
word has been uttered against his choice till today. Hence it is hoped that
he will improve the polluted atmosphere both inside and outside MSU.” 58
The typology of educational leaders can be used to assess MSU’s vice-
chancellors in a way that relates their orientations and performance to an
empirical standard of judgment. No one at MSU alleges, as some Uttar
Pradesh University faculty allege, that their vice-chancellors are an ex¬
treme version of type 1, party or factional allies of the government of the
day. Nor does anyone at MSU allege, as some faculty at Kurukshetra have
of their former vice-chancellor, since then education minister of Haryana
state and aspiring to become chief minister, that the university and the
office of vice-chancellor were used to further the political ambitions of an
incumbent vice-chancellor. From such perspectives as these, Hansa Mehta’s
political position and connections had the reverse effect; she used her con¬
nections while she was vice-chancellor to assure that the flow of benefits
and influence were heavily in favor of education.
In interviews with us and in press reports, university faculty and mem¬
bers of the governing bodies revealed attitudes favorable to type 2 (judge)
and type 3 (administrator) and unfavorable, if not antipathetic, to type 4
(broker). There was fairly broad agreement that an effective vice-chan¬
cellor must be fair and possess administrative skills and an ability to deal
with elected and appointed officials, qualities most clearly associated with
types 2 and 3. Most thought that the three former vice-chancellors demon¬
strated these qualities in varying measure. There was much less support
for the necessity or legitimacy of a vice-chancellor being a broker (type 4).
Since the careers of Jyotindra Mehta and C. S. Patel involved elements of
the broker role, reluctantly and unwillingly in Mehta’s case, more affirma¬
tively and willingly in Patel’s, a gap seems to have opened between aca¬
demic attitudes toward university leadership and the imperatives and be¬
havior associated with the role.
Faculty members who discussed with us the sort of person they thought
would make a good vice-chancellor frequently mentioned a high court
judge and directly or by implication contrasted what they saw as his virtues
with the difficulties attending the broker type of vice-chancellor. What
they wanted was someone who would be fair and impartial but not neces¬
sarily democratically representative or responsive. The judge was seen as
representing the interests of the university per se, rather than as acting as
a common denominator of the most vociferous pressure groups within or
without. Procedural rationality, such as that to which a high court judge
was dedicated, would, many thought, produce a commonly perceived and
accepted substantive rationality, and allow him to transcend (or escape)
the pressures of specific interests on university government and policies
and to avoid the conflicts that competition for influence and resources
Baroda University 245

engenders. These views, whether realistic or not, played an important role

in the choice of the fourth vice-chancellor.
Conflict cannot, however, easily or for long be avoided. Its appearance
brings to the foreground the possibility of coping with conflict by perform¬
ing the functions of a broker. If universities are not to be organized in
terms of procedurally legitimized conflict (on the model of legally pre¬
scribed collective bargaining in good faith between employers and unions,
or on the model of competitive parties with one or several governing and
the others for a time in loyal opposition), they will require some brokerage
functions to satisfy or integrate the conflicting claims of their diverse inter¬
ests and publics. Vice-chancellors cannot easily or often avoid the broker¬
age role. Even when educational communities were more hospitable to
autocratic vice-chancellors, the more effective vice-chancellors leavened
their direction of university affairs with attention to the voices that spoke
from below, outside, and above. Today, paying attention to such voices is
less a matter of grace than of necessity; a vice-chancellor who tries to lead
his university without being responsive to faculty, community, and govern¬
mental opinion and interests risks being overrun by them.
At the same time, a vice-chancellor who is merely a broker, bringing
natural harmony out of competing interests, recognizes no hierarchy of
interest. Since all pressures are equal in his eye, he can not act to preserve
those values that are unique to a university as against those that are de¬
manded by various constituencies both internal and external. The efforts
of the distinguished economist, K. N. Raj, to provide leadership transcend¬
ing brokerage at what is probably India’s best university, Delhi, provide
a telling cautionary tale. He gave up partly in despair and partly in dis¬
gust when teacher and student organizations tried to force him into a
broker role exclusively. Taking the position that not all interests and forces
are equally worthy, he feared that successful conciliation and brokerage
would compromise the goals of a great university.59
The choice of N. K. Vakil as vice-chancellor suggests that the univer¬
sity’s movement toward congruence with its outer environment (compres¬
sion) may be slowed. He is not, as were the two other nominees of the
syndicate and the three previous vice-chancellors, intimately connected
with lay community or political interests in the city and state; at least those
in the university who canvassed his name and supported his election (par¬
ticularly BUTA) did not consider him to be so connected. But the type of
leadership he provides as vice-chancellor will be affected not only by the
trajectory of historical forces that brought him to the post but also by the
conditions and circumstances of the university’s existence. And these con¬
tinue to include a strong service orientation reflected in the allocation of
resources and prestige within the university and the nature of support to
the university from outside. The brokerage role and a service orientation,
we have argued, tend to go together. If we are right, Vakil, who was se-
 246 Political Dimensions of University Government

lected because he could bring to university leadership the attributes of the

judge and, to a lesser extent, the administrator, will also have to play the
broker role. It remains to be seen whether he does it in a way that pre¬
serves the vigor and independence of educational purposes and leaves ade¬
quate scope for the other types of leadership implied in his selection.

Leadership Selection and Autonomy

The structure of Indian universities corresponds more to the bureau¬

cratic paradigm of a hierarchical command organization than to the model
of a loose federation of self-governing departments and faculties united in
a common institution. In consequence, even though departments are more
self-governing and autonomous at MSU than at some other universities,
the role of the vice-chancellor, as head of the hierarchy, is significant both
for the institution’s internal life and its external relations. The selection of
the vice-chancellor is a critical issue in university government. At MSU,
the formal arrangement for selection is an election contest, confined to the
university, among three competitors for the post. The actual arrangement
is uncontested consensus on a single candidate nominated within the uni¬
versity. The avoidance of contest and the confinement of selection to uni¬
versity circles are related features that have probably helped protect
Baroda against the sort of state intervention that a later chapter on Os-
mania documents.60
The reasons for the divergence between statute and practice reveal some
of MSU’s strengths. A major rationale for the principle of election by the
senate is that this assures university autonomy. The main reason given for
avoiding elections in practice is that they disrupt university life. Appoint¬
ment by the chancellor, a common alternative method of selection, gives
the decisive voice in most states to the state government. Because the
chancellor is often the governor of the state, he is expected to act with
the advice of the state ministry of education, although there is some feeling
t at in choosing a vice-chancellor he should act independently. At MSU
unlike at Osmania, government control through the chancellor was not an
issue when we studied the university, since the former Maharaja of Ba¬
roda, not the state governor, was chancellor.61
Normally, the syndicate nominates three persons for the position of
vice-chancellor (a procedure designed to meet the formalities of the stat¬
utes), two of whom resign before the senate meets to elect the vice-chan¬
cellor. In the early years of the university it was feared that election would
undermine the vice-chancellor, who should have unanimous support Al-
though this feeling is no longer so strong, and some believe that the senate
s ould have a real choice, others continue to favor consensualism. A
s arply contested election, many of those we interviewed believed pro¬
duces bitterness and disruptive conflict that can weaken and even destroy
the educational hfe of a umversity. A contest adversely affects the vice-
Baroda University 247

chancellor’s subsequent relations with those faculty and deans who are
known to have opposed him; it may also make him too dependent on his
supporters. Because a contested election requires campaigning and other
efforts, it diverts faculty attention and energies from the educational proc¬
ess. Furthermore, where professional and intellectual authority is weak and
administrative and organizational authority strong, winning may become
an overwhelming preoccupation since so much depends on the outcome.
A contrary argument has been made by D. C. Pavate, a former vice-
chancellor of Karnatak University, and an educational entrepreneur of
considerable skill. He argues that contested elections oblige a vice-chan¬
cellor to cultivate the support and cooperation of his faculty. “I maintain
it is useless to have a Vice Chancellor who does not pull his weight in the
Syndicate, the Academic Council, and the Senate. ... It is difficult for
a nominated person to carry out projects. On the other hand, an elected
Vice Chancellor does have authority behind him.” 62
Pavate’s argument holds especially in contexts where those whose good
will the vice-chancellor must keep are amenable to appeals on behalf of
educational goals. Where the professional commitments of faculties are
low and their connections to political and community goals high, a vice-
chancellor may not be able to command support without compromising
educational goals. In such contexts, it may be impossible for a vice-chan¬
cellor to be an educational leader.
At the time of our study, MSU’s ritual election of the vice-chancellor
helped keep the selection process within the university but avoided the
travail of contested elections.63

Political and Academic Interests in Governing Bodies

The composition and functions of the syndicate and senate are at the
center of university government, highly salient to the university’s relation¬
ship to the community and potentially important in the process of univer¬
sity politicization. Our interviews revealed the belief (expressed also about
student and faculty composition) that these governing bodies were both
more local and more parochial (compressed) than they had been in the
past, and that as a consequence the university was more susceptible to
outside political influence. This belief, however, was more a product of
subjective inferences than of objective changes. University and Baroda
city affairs have always been congruent. At the time of our study, seventy
of ninety-seven senators were residents of Baroda city,64 but the composi¬
tion of the syndicate and the senate was no more local in the mid-sixties
than it had been in the early fifties. Both bodies have always been mainly
controlled by Baroda city and district residents. If there is an increase in
parochialism and politicization, as MSU faculty believe, the explanation
lies elsewhere than in a change in senate and syndicate composition.
When Baroda was a princely state, the structure of power was relatively
 248 Political Dimensions of University Government

simple and overlapping. Power was restricted to a few persons, and its
exercise on the whole was unproblematic. As the university’s first vice-
chancellor, Hansa Mehta profited from remnants of the political culture
of a princely state which respected hierarchical authority (what we have
called in Rajasthan the hukum culture). But democratization and political
competition overtook Baroda city and the university in the course of the
fifties, dissolving the attitudes of princely India in a sea of participation
and mobility. Admissions and services at MSU increased, as did conflict
over the disposition of the university’s resources. Jivraj Mehta, prime min¬
ister of the state of Baroda when the university was created, had an ex¬
tremely important voice in university affairs. His influence in the university
was less contested, however, than the influence in the sixties of Baroda
city mayors Nanalal Choksi and Dr. Thakorbhai Patel. Today, there is
more competition for influence and control, and politics is partisan, not
autocratic. Whether the university is more subject to political influence
and appropriation today than before, as those we interviewed generally
believed, is not so easily determined.
There seems little doubt, however, that there is more democracy and
conflict in its internal government. Increasingly, all decisions in the uni¬
versity are contested. The election of members of both the senate and the
syndicate has been affected. The election of faculty representatives is no
longer a formality decided in the dean’s office. As one MSU syndic de¬
scribed the trend: “It is now necessary to meet people on the senate and
be nice to them if you are to be elected. Jyotindra Mehta was not elected
to the syndicate because he refused to do this — he was used to having
influence and did not realize election campaigning was necessary. He
thought his service would be enough. ... I went to talk with a lot of
people before the election and got their votes. People are more likely to
vote for a person they have met and talked to.” The former mayor of
Baroda accounted for his temporary loss of a syndicate seat by saying, “I
was in the villages and could not go and get the votes that year.” The or¬
ganization of BUTA in December 1966, under the leadership of Raojibhai
Patel, was welcomed among many faculty as a means to challenge the
hitherto uncontested and administration-dominated voice of the senate
and syndicate. While it represents opinion among both senior and junior
faculty, younger faculty hope, through it, to increase their strength in uni¬
versity affairs.
On the one hand the increasing meaningfulness of the election process
and the increasing conflict imply an opening up and leveling of hierarchi¬
cal authority in the university, where collegiality has often been blocked
by age and status grading. But these processes do not invariably benefit
academic values. Political competition tends to politicize everyone and to
reallocate the faculty energy from teaching and research to university gov¬
ernment and politics. A talented scholar who left MSU believed that peo¬
ple who wanted to do their own work there found that academic politicians
Baroda University 249

could make things difficult for them professionally if they did not defend
their own interests. But to defend them resulted in neglect of their proper
work in favor of politics. There is also a possibility that teacher-politicians,
like some administrators, will abandon specifically academic values in
favor of political brokerage and reconciliation, becoming intent on “rec¬
onciling” even those elements which are specifically anti-academic.65
The syndicate, MSU’s leading decision-making body, in 1967 consisted
of seven university people and eight outsiders.66 It would be misleading to
suppose that the university representatives are more clearly academic than
some of the outsiders. The most notable political figure on the syndicate
was a faculty member, Dr. Thakorbhai Patel, dean of the faculty of medi¬
cine. As president of the Baroda city Congress party committee; deputy
mayor and subsequently mayor of Baroda city; director of Kalpana Clinic,
a private hospital; and first chairman of the Baroda dairy, he combined
academic, political, and private business roles in an enormously energetic
career. University people tended to think of him less as one of themselves
than as a man of public affairs. He had made himself extremely valuable
to the university as a successful spokesman for it with the state govern¬
ment, particularly in financial matters. Because he was thought to be in¬
fluential, faculty turned to him to exercise that influence in their behalf,
sometimes even in minor matters such as leave. Prior to his election as
mayor, his name came up most frequently as prospective vice-chancellor.
Anyone familiar with the swashbuckling style and political skill in handling
a state legislature of John Hannah as president of Michigan State Univer¬
sity might recognize in Thakorbhai Patel a Gujarati variant of the same
type. It is not a style that generally commends itself to academic intellec¬
tuals, but in a democratic era it is an important and useful one in American
and Indian public universities.
The academic members of the syndicate are said to be too diffident in
articulating their views, preferring to go along with the vice-chancellor’s
views and opinions. This may be because they are normally in agreement
with those views; it may also bear out the fear, expressed in connection
with the composition of the syndicate of Andhra University (see chapter
12, below), that faculty representatives are unduly dependent on the vice-
chancellor. (One would need to sit in such meetings in order to form an
opinion on this matter.) The academic syndics in 1966-67 consisted, in
addition to vice-chancellor C. S. Patel and pro-vice-chancellor P. J. Ma-
dan, of the dean of the faculty of arts, V. Y. Kantak, a professor of Eng¬
lish; the dean of the faculty of medicine, Dr. Thakorbhai Patel; the dean
of the faculty of technology and engineering, Prof. L. B. Shah; the dean of
the faculty of law, Prof. H. C. Dholakia; and the chairman of the depart¬
ment of chemistry, Prof. S. M. Sethna. Representation among the academic
syndics was weighted toward the professional subjects. This weighted rep¬
resentation reflects the balance of power among the university faculties in
financing and status.
 250 Political Dimensions of University Government

Four of the outsiders can be ranked with Thakorbhai Patel as significant

politicians in the city of Baroda. Nanalal Choksi, like Patel from an old
Baroda district family, was mayor of the city of Baroda and a leading
Congress party member when we began our research. He was defeated for
the Lok Sabha (parliament) seat for Baroda city while we were there, and
subsequently yielded the mayoralty position to Patel. C. C. Mehta became
chairman of the Baroda city Congress party committee. These three were
Congress party members, while two other members of the syndicate were
prominent in the conservative Swatantra party. One of these was Nanu-
bhai Amin, director of Jyoti Engineering, an independent firm spun off by
Alembic Chemicals, one of Baroda’s leading industries. Brother of Ramin-
bhai Amin, director of Alembic and former chairman of the Federation
of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, he was a reluctant public
figure who was said to have been persuaded to join the Baroda syndicate
to save it from politicization. Although a prominent political figure,
N. Amin was more oriented toward professional than political goals in
his relation to the university. The other Swatantra figure was P. C. Hathi,
a lawyer who handled much of the university’s business.67
Other outsiders were less explicitly political. They included K. G. Bad-
lani, director of education of Gujarat state, who is a statutory member of
the syndicate by virtue of his office; Amar Patel, a woman with a home
economics degree from Howard University in the U.S. who is generally
believed to have been elected because she is Thakorbhai Patel’s nephew’s
wife (he campaigned vigorously for her in the senate); J. S. Parikh, man¬
ager of the bank of Baroda, which helped MSU substantially in its finan¬
cial crisis in 1967-68; and Dr. C. B. Patel, an officer of the joint public-
private Gujarat state fertilizer company.
The involvement of politically interested persons in the syndicate is
widely deplored among MSU faculty. However, no one claims that political
figures explicitly further their party viewpoint in the syndicate. It is gen¬
erally understood, for example, that one of the important Congress party
members on the syndicate does not share the Gujarat state Congress party’s
strongly held view that English must be replaced as the regional language
in education. No one claims that syndics in the same party necessarily act
together. N. Amin and P. C. Hathi, both of the Swatantra party, ended up
on different sides of the debate in the summer of 1967 over whether to
revise the university statutes.68 In the numerous claims that Patel and
Choksi have acted “politically,” there was no implication that either of
them sought to annex MSU to the interests of a faction in the state or
municipal government. The political interests were seen as personal, as one
leading politician not on the syndicate told us: “When I say [that the Uni¬
versity is being politicized], I do not mean party politics — that would be
fine what I do mean is that it is dominated by individual politicians
who hope by dominating the syndicate to enhance their own prestige. Here
there is no ideological-political discussion, merely a personal power strug-
Baroda University 251

gle. They just use the syndicate as a platform for their own personal gain.
In England in a similar situation you might get a heated dispute between
a Labour and a Conservative member of an educational committee on the
merits of the public school versus the community school or something like
that. . . . These are not to promote party ideals but their own interests.”
Many of those we interviewed held theories about the formation or ex¬
istence of groups in the syndicate, but our inquiries produced descriptions
of so many different and shifting forms of alignment that none of these
group theories seemed very satisfactory. There was, for example, a theory
of the emergence of a “Patidar group,” implying solidarity along caste
lines. We were told that the earlier dominance of the mercantile and bu¬
reaucratic caste which the Mehtas represented had now been superseded
by the dominance of the Patidars, represented by the Patels. It is probably
true that the Patidars, the dominant agricultural caste in Gujarat, impor¬
tant in cotton, tobacco and dairying, are increasingly taking on urban
importance which is reflected in the significance of Patels in many roles
and offices. This increased importance, however, does not necessarily rep¬
resent a supersession of other castes. The Patidars appear now to have
been added to the urban elites of Baroda, and this is reflected in the uni¬
versity. No evidence for joint action among the four Patels on the syndi¬
cate was offered, except possibly between Thakorbhai Patel and his niece,
an alliance better explained on kin lines.
A more likely explanation of Patel influence is that T. V. Patel, a dy¬
namic and energetic person, has been able, with the support of like-minded
lay elements and university administrators interested in close relations with
the town, and in the absence of vigorous counterefforts by either the aca¬
demic elements on the syndicate or by differently inclined lay elements, to
persuade the syndicate of his view on most issues. In American state uni¬
versities, presidents and deans who understand reality as seen by state
legislatures often command support in similar ways. The academics at
MSU, as at some American state universities, at once recognized and re¬
sented that some of this realism is necessary for their institution’s survival.
Their dilemma, not well understood by vigorous lay syndics, is that mobi¬
lizing counterefforts is at the same time necessary to and destructive of the
academic concerns they espouse.
The suspicion of lay influence and of syndicate power has produced
some constitutional proposals. When the revisions of the university act
were under consideration in 1969, some argued for raising the proportion
of teachers in the syndicate; others argued for an academic council con¬
sisting of teachers only, to which certain decisions now taken by the syn¬
dicate could be referred. The academic council, which has drawn criticism
in other universities for undermining departmental innovativeness, was
seen at MSU as a possible counterweight to excessive lay influence in the
syndicate, and as a way of removing decisions on politically loaded issues
such as language of instruction or examination standards from that more
252 Political Dimensions of University Government

community-oriented body.69 A demand from faculty members that the

number of teachers on the syndicate be increased relative to the lay ele¬
ment was met by a minuscule concession from the Vice-Chancellor’s Com¬
mittee of 1969, raising the number of teachers, including deans, from five
to seven in a syndicate increased from fifteen to seventeen.70 This commit¬
tee’s recommendations have not, however, been implemented so far.
Although the senate is formally “the supreme governing body and au¬
thority of the university,” the syndicate, as the “executive authority of the
university,” performs all of the senate’s significant functions, and its rec¬
ommendations form the basis of most senate actions. It is by no means
easy to assess the extent to which the syndicate’s decisions reflect academic
or nonacademic perspectives. By virtue of its power to choose the three
candidates from which the vice-chancellor is selected, the syndicate is in
a position to select the vice-chancellor.71 This power is insignificant at the
end of the first term of a vice-chancellor because a second term has be¬
come conventional. The syndicate did, however, oppose Jyotindra Mehta’s
attempt to extend his own term beyond two by change of statute, and
selected C. S. Patel, so it would be incorrect to think of syndics as depend¬
ent in this function on the incumbent vice-chancellor.
The syndicate plays a critical role in the making of the university’s
financial and academic decisions, notably decisions about appointments
and establishment of new departments, establishment of new courses, al¬
location of research funds, language of instruction, and size of the univer¬
sity. If there are “academic” or “political” ways to take these decisions,
academicians and town people cannot be clearly identified with either al¬
ternative. Insiders and outsiders do not divide consistently on policy issues
such as regional language or expansion. An industrialist and a professor
of engineering might both favor English, while an orientalist and a city
lawyer might both favor regional language. Younger faculty in search of
senior posts and election-minded syndics may both favor expansion. Nor
are there clear town-gown divisions on the exercise of academic discretion.
A technologically minded administrator and a city official might both favor
close town-university relations. Politically oriented syndics do try to influ¬
ence the extent to which Baroda city and Baroda district applicants get
preference at MSU, but they sometimes do so with the collaboration of
deans who are eager for the syndics’ support of a new course or appoint¬
ment, or who have a distaste for argument.
There has been a shift of influence over the university’s financial affairs
to the syndicate, and notably to a committee of its more politically knowl-
edgable members. The previous vice-chancellor, Jyotindra Mehta, on the
whole conducted relations with the state government independently of the
syndicate. The state government’s attempt to exercise detailed control over
finances led to a considerable deficit, and a committee consisting of Tha-
korbhai Patel, N. D. Choksi and Nanubhai Amin was set up to advise the
vice-chancellor in financial affairs. Everyone in the university, including
Baroda University 253

the vice-chancellor, credited Patel with an important role in the university’s

financial relations with government, a role which evidently increased both
the indispensability and the power of Patel.
The syndicate is said to have only minor influence in “strictly” academic
decisions. As is apparent from previous remarks, not only are there many
exceptions, but also certain general policy issues, such as medium of in¬
struction, size of the university, and questions of affiliation have the most
profound academic implications. For example, the preparatory, or first,
year of the university is organized in 125 student sections. Operationally,
expansion is carried out by adding new sections, a decision which lies with
the syndics. The syndics influence the appointment of lecturers, who con¬
stituted 293 of Baroda’s 713 faculty members in 1966. Its members on the
selection committee were pictured as being influenced by local opinion with
respect to these selections. There were relatively few stories of syndic inter¬
vention at other appointment levels, those of reader and professor, al¬
though there were some.
Grades are also affected by the decisions of the syndics. In 1969, 70
percent of those sitting for the final exams of the PUC course failed. One
must assume that this rate of failure is related to an excessively generous
admissions process of the sort which has also been known at some Ameri¬
can state universities, leading to similar rates of attrition. The political
pressures which led to more generous admission at MSU also operated at
subsequent points. Student agitation, which was viewed sympathetically by
many affected parents, led to a syndicate meeting which allotted “grace
marks” so that only 50 percent failed. Those who failed even with the
extra marks were allowed to enter classes pending a second try at the same
examination in October 1969.72
With respect to courses and new departments, the recommendations of
the boards of study, the board of visitors, and the registrar tend to be rati¬
fied, but there are exceptions. A discussion in the syndicate concerning
new courses in sociology followed when the department suggested a new
course in research methods with an academic orientation. Some city syn¬
dics thought Baroda needed persons trained in community development,
and suggested a paper in that area. They also suggested that the sociology
department might take responsibility for training people in propaganda
methods. The suggestion that MSU start training petroleum geologists
when Gujarat state began to drill for oil is of the same order. On the one
hand, too instrumental an orientation, whether proposed by syndics or the
university departments themselves, may weaken more theoretical academic
effort. On the other hand, it was in part because of the results of relevant
research, such as the Babcock fat test, that the University of Wisconsin
convinced the state legislature to let it build some great academic depart¬
ments. Steering between applied and pure research and training poses a
delicate problem.
Other decisions in which the requirements of the university and those of
254 Political Dimensions of University Government

its environment have been in conflict concerned the establishment of a law

faculty at MSU and the affiliation of new colleges. Hansa Mehta had given
rather little importance to the law faculty, keeping it under the arts faculty.
She was influenced by the fact that law faculties in India have declined in
quality relative to other faculties, and tend to attract students who cannot
qualify for the high opportunity professions. Since then, pressures from the
town have reversed Mrs. Mehta’s policy, winning an independent status
for the law faculty. She also resisted the affiliation of a new college at
Padra, because it would dilute MSU’s status as a residential university.
Padra was incorporated as a “constituent college” under Jyotindra Mehta.
The chief minister at that time, Balwantray Mehta, pressed by the state
legislator from Padra, favored the affiliation.
Although these decisions may have strengthened the service as against
the academic functions of the university, it is not apparent that they have
divided academic from nonacademic syndics. On many issues on which the
syndicate has been too responsive to the political pressures of the commu¬
nity, it has acted with at least the passive consent of the academics, and,
in recent times, the active consent of the administrators.
It is likely that a real division among syndics could give the senate
greater importance than it now has. Academics constitute more than half
of the senate, outweighing the non-academics. The academic membership
consists of present and past vice-chancellors at MSU, vice-chancellors of
other Gujarat universities, deans and heads of schools at MSU, and rep¬
resentatives elected by the various faculties.73 The nonacademic member¬
ship consists especially of civil servants and judges (twelve), some of
whom are required by statute to be members of the senate and some of
whom are appointed by the government, which has the right to appoint
twenty-five members. The remainder of the nonacademic membership are
professional people from Baroda, some elected by special statute-desig¬
nated constituencies, some elected as representatives of the registered grad¬
uates of MSU. Almost all of them live in Baroda city. The annual meetings
are not normally marked by sharp debate. The meetings which we wit¬
nessed in 1967 and 1968 were on the whole mild and orderly affairs, con¬
ducted mainly in Gujarati. With the exception of a few critical and horta¬
tory outbursts, they were more informational and ceremonial than divisive.
The potential for controversy in the senate was illustrated, however, by a
requisition in the summer of 1967 for a special meeting of the senate that
August. The senate would be asked to appoint a select committee to amend
the statutes of the university. Members of the requisition group included
former vice-chancellors Jyotindra Mehta and Hansa Mehta. They were
among those proposed for the select committee. The requisition was inter¬
preted as an effort by those who believe the present syndicate is political
to counteract its influence. N. Choksi and T. V. Patel were not associated
with the move. The requisitioners plainly meant to weaken the syndicate.
Baroda University 255

They proposed setting up an academic council which would dilute the

syndics’ academic authority; reducing the number of nominees of the
Gujarat government — a move which would, in the short run, weaken
the vice-chancellor who recommends these nominations, but would provide
a long run security against the possibility of government packing the sen¬
ate; and taking the nomination of vice-chancellor candidates out of the
hands of the syndics and placing it in those of a high court judge, the min¬
ister for education, and the vice-chancellor — a move which might have
weakened the syndics and strengthened the government.
A symposium sponsored by the university in April 1967, bringing to¬
gether university teachers and administrators, had already responded to
requisitionist pressure by foreshadowing changes in the university act.74
The requisitionists’ subsequent move in the senate was pre-empted by the
vice-chancellor, who offered to establish a committee to reconsider the act.
His initiative eventuated in the vice-chancellor’s committee that reported in
1969. The committee did not include the persons proposed by the requi¬
sitionists,75 nor did it include any of the vigorous critics of expansion, affilia¬
tion, and the influence of lay interests in the university, except for B. B.
Yodh (who was unable to serve). BUTA mounted a massive effort to in¬
fluence the committee report. Its recommendations were conveyed to the
committee through BUTA president Raojibhai Patel in December 1967.76
BUTA pressed for provisions that would diminish lay and increase teacher
influence. Among teachers it sought to increase the power of junior fac¬
ulty. The effort to influence the report on the whole failed, but it indirectly
affected the elections to the syndicate held in December 1969, when
BUTA-backed candidates did well. This victory in turn probably influ¬
enced the outcome of the vice-chancellor election in 1970.
The final committee report generally stressed the importance of lay in¬
fluence and of responsiveness to democratic and welfare demands from
city and state. “While taking every necessary precaution to ensure within
it the entry of students with adequate scholastic attainment, [the modern
university] constantly endeavors to enlarge its numbers in response to the
manpower needs of the rapidly developing Indian economy.” 77
In summary, the senate and syndicate of MSU at the time of our inves¬
tigation as often took a public and political as an academic view of issues.
But MSU was then relatively free of intimate involvement with the parti¬
san politics of the state. The politically oriented syndics had connections
with their state counterparts, but did not allow these connections to sub¬
sume MSU to the interests of party factions, as had happened in Uttar
Pradesh, or to annex MSU to the jurisdiction of the state ministry of edu¬
cation, as had been attempted at Osmania. The problem of politicization
was defined by the degree to which MSU should be generous in its admis¬
sions standards for Baroda city, the extent to which it should be responsive
to the claims made on it by the producer and municipal interests of the city,
256 Political Dimensions of University Government

and the amount of political influence that some lay and academic individ¬
uals might gain for themselves and their friends by a judicious use of the
resources and posts (faculty, student, administrative) of the university.

Public Policy Issues at MSU

As has been suggested before, major policy issues at MSU raise the
question of how far the university should be responsive to the demands
of its outer environments, particularly the local community, and how far
it should be responsive to general notions of cultivation and scholarship
which may or may not mesh with the felt requirements of the outer envi¬
ronments. Relating to the community has two dimensions: the public de¬
mand for more, and more accessible, education; and the university’s rele¬
vance to its technological, social, and economic needs. The first dimension
is expressed in the policy problems of expansion and language of instruc¬
tion; the second is expressed in MSU’s responsiveness to industrial and
governmental needs in the city. On both dimensions, the community tends
to demand relevance.
Expansion is a major policy issue on which the interests of university
and government, or the claims of academic values and democratic social
mobility, may clash. When we started interviewing at MSU in 1966, the
university had about 12,000 students; at the end of 1966-67, it had 14,000
and further growth was expected. The student population had grown be¬
tween 1961 and 1965-66 by 30 percent (from 9,000 to 12,000), while
the staff had grown by less than 20 percent (from 588 to 713).78 Oflflcials
at MSU envisioned a 15,000 limit on expansion; they hoped they had re¬
futed an argument by the state that MSU should expand to 30,000 stu¬
dents. One high university official thought the Gujarat government might
press the university to go to 20,000, and that MSU “might have to do
this.” In 1968-69, however, expansion virtually stopped for the first time
in six years.79
Baroda is under pressure either to expand or to affiliate new colleges
established within its ten-mile radius. With some exceptions, unitary uni¬
versities in India not only tend to be smaller than affiliating universities
(whose size is continuously swelled by new colleges seeking affiliation),
but also tend to have better control over the quality of education. The
prospect that new colleges formed to take care of the growing demand for
higher education in Baroda city will be affiliated to MSU is a threat, there¬
fore, not only to the size of the institution but also to its standards and
ultimately to the quality of its administration.
MSU has staved off pressure for expansion partly by stressing its spe¬
cial status as a residential, teaching university. But its statutes threaten
that principle: MSU’s jurisdiction runs to a ten-mile radius, and colleges
within that area may press for affiliation, thus altering the teaching nature
of MSU.80 Although the new college of Padra was integrated as a constitu-
Baroda University 257

ent, not an affiliated, college, allowing the university closer control over it,
admission marks were about ten points below those at MSU proper. The
danger is the same as that which has become real at Delhi University,
where twelve inferior affiliating colleges created by the Delhi municipal
corporation and to an extent under the political control of the corporation,
threaten in turn to influence standards through the colleges’ role on aca¬
demic and governing bodies of the university.81
The Vice-Chancellor’s Committee of 1969, pressed to maintain the uni¬
tary character of the university, rejected the representations, declared
expansion inevitable, and cited the need for a university to “honour its
social obligations and ... to function like other institutions of democ¬
racy, in the welfare of society.” S2 It hoped to maintain standards under
conditions of affiliation by imposing stringent criteria for faculty and stu¬
dent qualification. The present example and evidence from Delhi Univer¬
sity suggest that this will not be effective.
City of Baroda interests have vigorously pressed the university to ex¬
pand and to ease admissions standards for Baroda students. In 1959-1960
the municipal corporation gave the university two lakh (200,000) rupees
to expand classroom space. There has been an informal convention that
the corporation should have representation on the syndicate — which it
has had in mayors Choksi and Patel. The municipality in 1966-67 ex¬
pressed its interest in “a second seat,” which it did not get. One can imag¬
ine a circular process, with municipal councilors on the syndicate on the
one hand helping MSU financially but on the other requiring responsive¬
ness in terms of admissions (quantity and quality).
The worst thing that could happen to MSU on the “expansion front”
— and some administrators fear it may happen — is to be obliged to
affiliate not only in the ten-mile radius, but also beyond, in rural Baroda
district or the low literacy Panchmahal area. The colleges that would be
founded in these areas, Baroda administrators believe, would “strangle
standards.”
Positions on expansion do not divide neatly between inside (academic)
and outside (lay) interests any more than on other issues. Expansion re¬
quires more faculty in the higher reaches as well as in the lower, and raises
hopes for advancement. Expansion sometimes takes the form of fission in
old departments, so that new professorial posts are created, and readers in
the old departments can hope for upgrading to professor. Administrators
of an entrepreneurial frame of mind may welcome expansion because it
increases the finances and real estate available to the institution. When
Mayor Choksi in 1964 pursuaded the heads of science departments to
expand admissions from 450 (which they had desired in 1963) to 1000,
they explained their consent partly on the ground that they were appre¬
hensive of public opinion in Baroda.
A certain amount of expansion has taken place by the establishment of
new fields, departments, and levels of education (i.e. postgraduate). Such
 258 Political Dimensions of University Government

expansion may signify differentiation and upgrading. The MSU syndicate

and senate in 1967 sanctioned sixty-eight new faculty positions, of which
thirty-five were professorial and readership posts. Most of these posts re¬
sulted from the creation of new departments or the development into de¬
partments of what were previously subunits of other departments (for
example: introduction of a postgraduate course in engineering; a three-
year degree course in electrical engineering; development of an architec¬
ture department; postgraduate teaching and research in home sciences).83
Only a careful quantitative and qualitative review over time could estab¬
lish to what extent expansion is of the innovative type — new departments
— and to what extent it is merely quantitative — expansion in bread-and-
butter fields like arts and sciences.
The major ideological and political reason for expansion is the equaliza¬
tion of opportunity. To some extent, educational expansion at MSU meets
this goal. However, parallel with the educational socialism which increased
admissions implies, there is at MSU, as at other universities, a countervail¬
ing free market educational sector that preserves plutocratic access to in¬
tensive if not high quality education. This countervailing plutocratic trend
is most noticeable in the high opportunity medical and engineering facul¬
ties and is organized around private coaching. Students are admitted to the
medical college and the technical and engineering faculties after taking
exams given at the end of the preparatory science year that precedes the
normal three-year degree or professional course. Top students in the pre¬
paratory science exam have the advantage in admission to the engineering
and medical faculties. For a fee, some lecturers in the science faculty give
private coaching beyond the normal college teaching to groups of students.
The groups may contain about ten students; a lecturer.might have two
classes of ten or so. Some students pay as much as Rs. 150 per month,
which supplies a large salary increment for assistant, junior, and senior
lecturers whose monthly pay in 1967 ranged from Rs. 400 to Rs. 800.84
Some of this money may find its way to the examiner to make sure that
preparatory students will do well. The tuition system affects all faculties,
but its economic advantages are highest in the preparatory science faculty.
The advantages of dual sectors, one socialist and one free market, to teach¬
ers are such that lecturers are said to turn down readerships which make
tuition difficult. The actual prevalence of the tuition system is difficult to
determine because its instances cannot be counted and because informal
reports probably exaggerate both the numbers and the gains.
Except for the bribery of examiners, the tuition system at Baroda as
well as at other Indian universities is considered a normal, if faintly irregu¬
lar, part of the academic scene. There is some unease, however: a com¬
mittee headed by Dr. I. S. Gulati investigated the problem for the Baroda
University Teachers Association.85 Its existence made teachers more vul¬
nerable to the contemptuous view of their craft held by a few of the syn¬
dics. The existence of the tuition system suggests that while democratiza-
Baroda University 259

tion and expansion work to increase teacher-student ratios and to decrease

the attention that teachers can give to students, in the countervailing free
market it is still possible to buy intensive education. The function of free
market educational supplements is unofficially to preserve to the econom¬
ically privileged some special attention while the goal of more equal access
to higher education is officially pursued.
Language of instruction is another major political issue in Gujarat. The
Gujarat government has been notably fierce in its encouragement of re¬
gional language instruction in schools that receive government funds. In
1965 the Gujarat Pradesh Congress party commitee executive suspended
a prominent Congress party member for three years because he had criti¬
cized party and state government policy stipulating that institutions receiv¬
ing government aid could teach English from the eighth standard only. The
Ahmedabad municipal election in November 1964 turned in part on the
question of English in schools, and it became apparent that Congress party
members were deeply divided on the issue.86 It is striking that, until re¬
cently, MSU has been pressed relatively little by the state government to
alter its status as the only English language university in the state. Earlier
in MSU’s history, in 1956, when nationalism and the enthusiasm for Hindi
as the official language were still high, the senate of MSU voted to change
from English to Hindi as the language of instruction. (An alternative mo¬
tion that Gujarati should be the language gathered only four votes in a
senate with approximately ninety members.) But the motion to change the
language of instruction remained a dead letter.87 In the 1960’s, Jyotindra
Mehta exerted himself at the capital to block the government effort to insist
on Gujarati.
There is a general feeling among MSU faculty that incoming students
are now more poorly prepared in English than were students some years
ago (which is not surprising for those who start English in the eighth stand¬
ard) and that they cannot be taught successfully in English alone. Particu¬
larly in the preparatory unit, faculty often lecture in English but conduct
question periods in Gujarati. The science and technology faculties are
more heavily dependent on English than are other faculties. A senior fac¬
ulty member in the faculty of engineering and technology predicts that
English would have to remain the language of instruction for another dec¬
ade to satisfy the requirements of his department. He was an examiner at
Gujarat University, a Gujarati language university, where students have
an option of English or Gujarati for their technology and engineering
exams. He said that he had yet to see a paper which was not answered in
English. His view was shared by an outside examiner from Southern
Gujarat University’s regional engineering college. The syndics on the
whole, as well as most of the deans with whom we spoke, either believe
that English will remain for some time, or that it should. Even those syn¬
dics most sensitive to political pressures in Baroda city and outside tend
to favor English on the ground that Gujarat is an important industrial and
260 Political Dimensions of University Government

commercial state and must have one university to train persons to handle
its relations with the world community.
The efforts of former education minister Triguna Sen to establish as
national policy the adoption of regional language in five years affected
opinion at MSU. The pressures from Sen began in the spring and summer
of 1967. Re-interviews in the fall of 1967 and the spring of 1968 showed
increasing pessimism at MSU concerning the prospects for English. Al¬
though no one had changed his view that English was important to MSU’s
special mission, a number of senior officials said that if the state insisted
on the use of a regional language, the university would of course have to
comply. One powerful syndic, who in an earlier interview had expressed
himself strongly in favor of English, said that he believed Baroda “would
have to move with the country.” He added, however, with Tolstoyan in¬
sight: “Ours is sometimes an inefficient country; it may be that if we wait,
nothing will happen.”
Some of our final interviews were conducted during the reverberation
of former education minister M. C. Chagla’s resignation in the fall of 1967
from the central cabinet in protest against Sen’s policy, and the recommen¬
dation of the Inter-University Board (an association of vice-chancellors)
that the decision should be left to university discretion. These interviews
made it more apparent than anything else to us that national policy-mak¬
ing, although not always effective, can change the climate of opinion in
marginal ways that can swing a closely balanced policy division from one
side to the other.

It is difficult to anticipate the consequences for the university of respon¬

siveness to industrial and governmental needs. In the Indian context, where
excessively formalistic education is often criticized for being neither aca¬
demic nor relevant, some connection with local problems may well lend
reality to the educational experience. On the other hand, much depends on
the tone and quality of the relationship: on whether the university is
merely dotting the “i’s” and crossing the “t’s” of the local production proc¬
ess (producing hybrid seed in Iowa; testing concrete for the public works
department in Gujarat), or whether its professionals are increasing knowl¬
edge while serving local producer and municipal interests. American land-
grant colleges, at least until World War II, drifted toward the first possi¬
bility; presumably some institutions in India will wish to adopt such a
self-definition. Some American universities serve both tendencies, with
more or less conflict. It is unclear whether MSU has explicitly asked itself
what tendencies it can serve or means to serve.
Interests within the university are apt to be divided on these issues. At
MSU, the professional schools, which dominate the university (see table
62), have a greater interest in responsiveness to the community than those
faculties concerned with postgraduate or general (B.A. and B.Sc.) educa¬
tion. The heads of departments in the arts faculty at MSU were most artic-
Baroda University 261

ulate in criticizing lay influence in the syndicate and other bodies, although
some heads of professional schools — law and commerce — also favored
arrangements that would somewhat weaken the lay element.88 Many arts
faculty members do not see their concerns as substantially furthered by
such responsiveness. Thus a program to improve municipal services in
Baroda, which would involve collaboration between MSU and the Baroda
Community Council, drew criticism because some department chairmen
saw it as committing the research time of their faculty members without
compensating the faculties in time or money. Agreement on the program
had been reached between MSU, the Baroda Community Council, and the
Ford Foundation — which would provide experts only — under the lead¬
ership of Thakorbhai Patel in his roles as university syndic and mayor of
Baroda. In the absence of provisions for additional resources some faculty
saw this agreement as an example of university resources being appropri¬
ated by municipal interests.
On the other hand, the dean of the engineering and technology faculty
saw his department’s close collaboration with local industries, particularly
for the purposes of “sandwich courses” (on the job training), as strength¬
ening his faculty’s educational capabilities. His best students received bet¬
ter training and access to better jobs in the new courses, and university
and industry alike benefited from the technical collaboration between the
science and technology faculty and local plants. Similarly, the school of
architecture viewed positively its involvement in a development plan for
Baroda. Collaboration has two aspects: the university acts as a sort of
minor CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research — a govern¬
ment-financed applied research operation) for industry, and industry pro¬
vides training opportunities and provides technical apparatus to the univer¬
sity.89 For example, the public health engineering section has helped the
Baroda municipal corporation and several major chemical firms (Jyoti
Ltd., Sarabhai Chemicals, Alembic Chemicals) design processes for
treating wastes; the highway engineering section has designed mixes for
Baroda roads; the mechanical engineering department has helped Hindu¬
stan Machine Tools survey the application, tooling, control and storage
systems of machine tools; applied mechanics has tested many thousands of
welded joints during the construction of the Gujarat refinery; electrical
engineering has run tests for the Gujarat electricity board; the department
of architecture has prepared a development plan for Baroda city which has
influenced the master plan for the town, and has prepared a scheme for
slum eradication; the V. T. Krishnamachari Institute for Rural Develop¬
ment has trained welfare officers and panchayati raj office bearers and sec¬
retaries for the government of Gujarat; and the department of social work
has placed its students in the community for practical training.
Much of this collaboration brings returns: Jyoti Ltd. has donated ma¬
chine tools and materials worth Rs. 65,000 to the mechanical engineering
department; the Gujarat electricity board sends engineers to lecture to the
262 Political Dimensions of University Government

electrical engineering department and to familiarize students with the

Gujarat grid; and the Gujarat oil refinery and Gujarat state fertilizer enter¬
prise provide facilities for practical training during vacations. In April
1969 the faculty of engineering and technology began a series of sandwich
courses involving in-service training at various Baroda and Gujarat indus¬
tries, beginning with syndic Nanubhai Amin’s Jyoti, Ltd.
It is likely that these close relations not only help close the gap between
university education and practical employment — a gap frequently de¬
plored in India — but also put students in touch with potential future
employers, a matter of the greatest interest to both. These efforts are evi¬
dently viewed positively by many in the university and in the town. It is
also evident that such efforts rest on a conception of university education
as primarily applied professional training. They do not necessarily appeal
to the less professional faculties concerned with general education and
research. Many of these efforts represent an urban equivalent of the Amer¬
ican land-grant college’s extension efforts, which are apt to command more
admiration among “applied” than “pure” academicians and to orient the
university toward training and service rather than cultivation and creation
of knowledge.

Differential Impact of the University’s Outer Environments

MSU’s outer environment has at least three dimensions which we con¬

ceptualize as three concentric circles, each having a differential impact on
MSU’s financial, social, cultural, and intellectual milieu. These circles are
identified with Baroda city, Gujarat state, and national and international
agencies, particularly those (such as the UGC and the Ford Foundation)
active in financing new educational ventures. We now turn to the relevance
of these dimensions of the outer environment for MSU’s future.
Throughout this chapter, we have referred to the considerable overlap
between the life of Baroda city and MSU. Although, contrary to our ex¬
pectations and the conventional wisdom among university people, the stu¬
dent body had not become notably more “Baroda city” in origins (birth or
residence) over the fifteen-year time span covered by our investigation, the
university is very much a city affair. Syndics and members of the senate
are overwhelmingly Barodans; faculty are increasingly locally recruited.
The administrators of the university explicitly see themselves in a com¬
radely and cooperative relationship with the city, its government, and its
industries. Strong mutual ties are created by the considerable interchange
of technical, scientific, and social scientific talent between city and univer¬
sity; the significant role on the syndicate of city officials, party politicians,
and industrialists; the university’s statutory obligation to colleges in the
ten-mile radius and its informal sense of obligation to Baroda highschool
students; and the Baroda municipal corporation’s (modest) subventions
to the university budget. As the list of relationships suggests, the connec-
Baroda University 263

tion has benign and harmful possibilities, depending on which university

goals are thought most important.
In 1969 an agreement was concluded between the city corporation and
the university syndicate to transfer some university land to the city, at
nominal cost, for the purpose of widening a street.90 The explosion which
followed — student riots and some faculty protest — took everyone con¬
cerned by surprise. Although the world-wide atmosphere of student protest
(Herbert Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man was referred to in student lit¬
erature) and the political partisanship of some student leaders may have
played a role, the transfer became a symbol for the latent discontents about
university-town relations. As an issue, it was much less important, but
much more concrete, than large issues such as admission or expansion.
The riots were protesting alleged exploitation of the university by the
city. Thakorbhai Patel, as mayor, syndic, and moving spirit in the transfer,
found himself made an example of the relationship’s least positive aspects.
Although the issues involved were complex — how much was the univer¬
sity land worth? would the university benefit or suffer from the transfer? —
their symbolic meaning was not.
Some in the university, notably the vice-chancellor, C. S. Patel, argued
that the relationship to the city was valuable because it had made many
things possible that MSU could not ordinarily have. “I envisage a day
when the corporation would bear the major part of the university’s finan¬
cial needs,” he told the Western Times, in a statement that may be too
sanguine about municipal finance.91
MSU sees itself and is seen as having a special tie to the city dimension of
its outer environment. Such a relationship has clear consequences for its
inner environment (student and faculty recruitment; programs of study;
research; membership of governing bodies) and thus for its government.
Pressures not of a strictly academic or educational nature are more likely
to come from the city than from the state and beyond. On the other hand,
the city’s relative cosmopolitanism and growing industrial sector make
many of its demands less damaging (or more constructive) to a profession¬
ally oriented university than comparable local pressures on universities
located in rural, less economically developed environments. At Osmania
University, by contrast (see chapter 12, below), the university’s explicit
and special responsibility for its backward Telengana hinterland has gen¬
erated powerful environmental pressures that run counter to the cosmo¬
politanism of its immediate Hyderabad city environment. Even more clear
are the powerful effects, detailed in its 1958 and 1969 inquiry reports, that
eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar have had on Banaras Hindu Uni¬
versity (detailed in the reports of the 1958 and 1969 inquiries into the uni¬
versity) .
C. S. Patel’s expectation that the university in the future may come to
depend more on the city implies its present dependence on Gujarat state
and the national government. The state and national government agencies
264 Political Dimensions of University Government

and environments, together with the cosmopolitan features of the city en¬
vironment, give MSU considerable potential maneuverability in its rela¬
tionship to the parochializing aspects of its local environment.
The relationship between MSU and the government of Gujarat is af¬
fected by the fact that higher education in Gujarat state constitutes a
system in which MSU is only a part. The system is not formalized by leg¬
islative act and explicit bureaucratic structure as it is, say, in California.
Gujarat, unlike Andhra state (discussed in the Osmania University study
below), has not yet insisted on uniform acts for all its universities, and
institutional diversity remains formally possible. The state has seven uni¬
versities, ranging from the tiny (472 students in 196S-69) “deemed”
university, Gujarat Vidyapith, to the 60,000 student Gujarat University.
Three of these have been founded since 1966. None has the academic
standing of MSU.
The Gujarat universities affect each other in numerous ways some of
which depend on direct governmental intervention. Lecturers and readers
in older universities often welcome the establishment of new ones that in¬
crease the pool of professorships and readerships. MSU has lost good fac¬
ulty to the new institutions. On the other hand, students transferring from
the newer universities to MSU postgraduate departments are often handi¬
capped by their preparation in Gujarati language. It is believed that because
of their language training only MSU graduates, not the graduates of other
Gujarat universities, can qualify for admission to foreign degree programs
and scholarships. Some faculty hope, however, that the establishment of
new universities will relieve pressure on MSU to admit rural and other
students with moderate secondary preparation, and indeed relieve the pres¬
sure on MSU for expansion, thus affecting the student body positively. At
the same time, many worry about how MSU will manage in the competi¬
tion for funds as more state-supported universities open. MSU’s future will
be affected by whether there is a division of functions between MSU and
the newcomers, with MSU falling heir to its traditional role as the English
language institution with a special responsibility for professional education.
There are contrary pressures toward homogenization of the university
system, which would deprive MSU of the competitive advantage that it
derives from English language and the special role of its professional de¬
partments.
Periodic conferences of the vice-chancellors of Gujarat’s seven universi¬
ties have acted as a clearing house among the vice-chancellors on certain
common problems, such as the state government’s response to the demand
for a “dearness” allowance [cost of living allowance] for university staff.
The vice-chancellors are potentially a countervailing power to arbitrary
action by the state government, as they were when the government of
Gujarat insisted that Gujarat University affiliate six colleges, which it was
reluctant to do. Although conditions among the universities are sufficiently
Baroda University 265

diverse that their interests will not always be common, such conferences
may prove useful in some cases.
MSU, like all universities in India except those supported by the na¬
tional government, is heavily dependent on the state government for its
finances. In the 1960’s the state government contributed between 30 and
40 percent of MSU’s income, with another 7 to 10 percent coming from
the University Grants Commission and some 50 percent from the univer¬
sity’s own fees and income.92 The state’s contribution in the sixties repre¬
sented a decline from the 40 to 50 percent supplied prior to 1960-61,
when the financing came from Bombay state. MSU has fared less well since
the division on linguistic lines of Bombay into two states, Gujarat and Ma¬
harashtra.93
The dependence on state grants is presumably enough to lay the basis
for substantial government direction of university affairs. But subvention
does not necessarily mean intervention. The extent to which a state gov¬
ernment is willing and able to intervene in a university’s affairs depends
on the government, the university, the current state of public opinion, and
the conventions that have grown up to govern relations among them. In
India, government aid to schools and colleges is the normal state of affairs.
As in England, where University Grants Commission financing of univer¬
sities is not presumed to imply intervention, government aid is not in itself
regarded as a threat to university autonomy. The different states have de¬
veloped different conventions. Gujarat state’s conventions with respect to
MSU, if not with respect to other state universities, are sufficiently self-
restrained to guarantee considerable autonomy. Senior officers at MSU
believed that “there is a lot of understanding between MSU and the Gu¬
jarat government. Even a change in the ruling party of Gujarat would make
no difference to MSU.”
In its relations to MSU the state has not duplicated the intervention of
some other states, states such as Andhra, which passed legislation (subse¬
quently declared unconstitutional) to replace the vice-chancellor of Os-
mania University and which proposed the exclusion of all academics from
the syndicate because of their dependence on the vice-chancellor; or Uttar
Pradesh, which legislated qualifications for teachers appointed to the uni¬
versities of Allahabad and Lucknow; or Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, which
vested authority to recruit university teachers in the state public service
commission (this is true only for the medical college at MSU). But the
enormous new demands on the educational system are straining old con¬
ventions, and the present situation is no guarantee for the future.
The government of Gujarat is now considering uniform legislation for
all seven of the state’s universities. Such legislation is thought desirable
because it would simplify government procedures and minimize areas of
discretion that might prove politically awkward. Whether it is desirable
for universities, whose differing needs and capabilities require differential
266 Political Dimensions of University Government

treatment, is quite another question. The trend is in line with developments

throughout India, and with the just and unimaginative bureaucratic para¬
digm of Anglo-Indian university administration discussed in chapter 2
above. However, the prospect of such standardization is not a live issue at
MSU, nor is standardization seen as potentially damaging.
Faculty and officials of MSU like to point out that the government’s
right to nominate twenty-five of the ninety-seven members of MSU’s senate
is always exercised on the recommendation of the vice-chancellor. On one
occasion the government of Gujarat is said to have raised a question about
a vice-chancellor’s suggestion for a nomination, and to have retreated when
the vice-chancellor held his ground. The Vice-Chancellor’s Committee of
1969 recommended that the number nominated by government be reduced
from twenty-five to twenty,94 a modest reduction in potential influence.
When the Gujarat government has not provided adequate or timely sup¬
port in the past, MSU officers have attributed such behavior to financial
stringencies rather than to any unfriendliness toward the university. For
example, University Grants Commission moneys are usually seed moneys
(development grants) representing commitments which the respective
states have to pick up after an initial period of five years. The UGC gave
MSU moneys for engineering and technology, with the agreement of the
Gujarat government that it would step in at expiration of the grant and
assume financial support. It did not. The Gujarat government has not been
the only state government to fail to honor such a commitment.95 The state
government provides matching funds to universities for approved develop¬
mental schemes, D. M. Desai noted, “to the extent possible after meeting
all its obligations for elementary and secondary education.” 96 In 1970,
the committee of vice-chancellors of Gujarat universities asked the state
government to take full responsibility for supporting UGC initiated pro¬
grams. Influenced by the improved financial position in 1970, they were
hopeful government would henceforth meet its commitments.
When Gujarat state was formed, and Dr. Jivraj Mehta, husband of
MSU’s first vice-chancellor, became its first chief minister, Gujarat provi¬
sionally took over the custom of triennial block grants from Bombay state.
In September 1963, after a bitter factional fight, Jivraj Mehta was suc¬
ceeded by Balwantray Mehta. The new Gujarat government inaugurated
fresh financial procedures, allocating money by heads of expenditure, a
measure designed to assure more detailed control of expenditure than was
possible under the system of block grants. The new and old vice-chancel¬
lors, C. S. Patel and Jyotindra Mehta, both resisted this new departure.
Government also refused to make available funds required for certain
projects whose five-year UGC grants were expiring, arguing that it had
not approved those projects. In consequence, the state contribution to the
budget plummeted in 1963-64 to the lowest absolute figure since 1957-58,
and to the lowest percentage of the university budget ever (24 percent).97
In subsequent years, government was persuaded to restore informal block
 Baroda University 267

grants. However, deficits smaller than that of 1963-64 continued. The

1965 war with Pakistan and the food shortages of 1966-67 created finan¬
cial stringencies which affected university finance as it did so many other
areas of national life.
In 1967-68, MSU’s considerable deficit was not covered by government,
but by an overdraft on the Bank of Baroda.98 By 1968, government
finances were sufficiently improved that a committee consisting of vice-
chancellor C. S. Patel, Syndic Thakorbhai Patel, and the chancellor, the
Maharaja of Baroda, persuaded the state government to cover the deficit.99
It is not clear for how long or to what degree the government of Gujarat
will be willing or able to maintain MSU’s high quality education for rela¬
tively better off English speakers. In November 1969, when a number of
leading university administrators were re-interviewed, they again expressed
confidence that the government of Gujarat would continue to provide,
within the resources available, the kind of support MSU needs to maintain
its distinctive character and mission. They cited the agreement between
the state government and all Gujarat universities on a three-year block
grant with a 3.5 percent annual escalator as evidence for their confidence.
The end of expansion at MSU in 1968-69 is of considerable significance
to the university’s ability to maintain its standards; not every university in
India is in a position to relate admissions to available resources.
The problems likely to arise from MSU’s relation to the state dimension
of its outer environment are different from those that arise from its relation
to the city dimension of that environment. Given present trends, lay inter¬
ests, publics, and political ambitions at the state level are less likely to be
of importance than they are at the city level. MSU has not become an
issue in the state’s partisan politics as Osmania did for a time in Andhra
Pradesh and as Uttar Pradesh universities have been repeatedly over the
past fifteen years. The problems that are likely to arise in MSU’s relation
to the state government are of a different order. The government of Gu¬
jarat may be tempted to impress a common bureaucratic standard on all
its universities with respect to structure, funding, or language (as govern¬
ments have done in other states). This may happen if the effort to cope
with the competing demands of present and new universities leads the state
government to believe that for reasons of political prudence (or expedi¬
ency) treating all alike (in ways that count MSU’s “extras” against her)
is the best policy. A leading educational planner cautioned us against be¬
lieving that legislatively imposed uniformity will necessarily result in de
facto financial or educational uniformity among the units involved. The
experience of so integrated a state system as California’s, where substantial
differences in funding and in academic standards exist among the nine
university campuses, suggests that there is considerable merit in this cau¬
tion.100 Nevertheless it is not clear that MSU will be able to remain the
Berkeley of the Gujarat system if a policy of legislative uniformity and
integration is adopted.
268 Political Dimensions of University Government

National and international interest in and support for educational pro¬

grams at MSU have been especially important for innovation and excellence.
The university’s ability to attract such attention and help has been impor¬
tant in its identity and self-esteem (as well as a source of inner tension).
In 1968, MSU was one of the fifteen universities (out of a total in 1968
of eighty-six universities or “deemed” universities) to have special UGC
support for an advanced center (in education).101 For some years its home
sciences and social work departments were unique in the country and sup¬
plied founding faculty to new departments elsewhere. Its fine arts and its
music, drama, and dance faculties similarly were unique and had national
reputations. MSU has been especially favored over the years by the Ford
Foundation, which has extended help to its home science department and
to general education, and by the World Health Organization, which has
contributed to strengthening its medical school. However vital such sup¬
port from the national and international dimension of MSU’s outer envi¬
ronment is for maintaining a desire for excellence and connections with
professional reference groups, the conditions for attracting such support
cannot be created or sustained unless the state government is prepared to
maintain a university of national standing. The three dimensions of the
outer environment are interlinked; they can reinforce each other (on the
analogy of a vicious or beneficial circle) in ways that contribute to or
detract from educational goals and creativity.

Conclusion

Our research began with the hypothesis that a general process of com¬
pression and parochialization was affecting the quality of education and
the government of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. We hy¬
pothesized that the university’s outer environment, represented by com¬
munity, regional, and populist pressures, was transforming its inner envi¬
ronment. The growing congruence (compression and parochialization)
between the university’s outer and inner environment was bringing about
changes in the goal orientation of university government, shifting its em¬
phasis from cultivation of knowledge and scholarly research toward train¬
ing for professions and occupations and toward service to local producer
and civic interests. Growing congruence and shifts in goal orientation, in
turn, were affecting requirements for university leadership (the office of
the vice-chancellor) by strengthening the need for the functions and skills
associated with the broker role.
In order to investigate these relationships we examined various indica¬
tors of a putative parochialism-cosmopolitanism continuum and sought to
relate the findings to the policies and behavior of university officials and
governing bodies. Certain changes in the university’s inner environment
that we expected would help to explain educational and governmental
changes — more modest class and caste backgrounds of the students, more
Baroda University 269

local geographic origins of students, the localization of faculty training and

recruitment — either had not occurred, had occurred only marginally, or
had more complex meanings and ambiguous effects than we had antici¬
pated. Data showing parochialization were clearer with respect to faculty
than to students. At the same time certain factors in the university’s outer
environment not directly connected with changes in its inner environment
proved to be important variables in explaining changes in educational
quality, goal orientation, and university government. Most obvious was
the effect of rapid expansion. In addition to the entrepreneurial skills re¬
quired to expand, the increase in organizational scale that resulted from
expansion enhanced the scope of and the need for management. The result
was to strengthen administrative authority and values within the university.
Expansion also played a major part in spreading resources more thinly;
per capita expenditure showed a marked decline (in constant prices) while
the student-teacher ratio showed a discernible though less precipitous
downward drift. At the disaggregated level, expansion as a process also
involved marked shifts in the distribution of prestige and resources among
the teaching and research units of the university (for example, the sharp
decline in the per capita resources available to the arts faculty; the growth
of low-resource-per-capita professional training; and the proportional de¬
cline in the already meager resources for research). These shifts had some
bearing on changes in over-all organizational orientation from cultivation
and scholarship to training and service.
Another facet of expansion was the rise of new universities. The new
Gujarat universities, opened (or recognized) in 1950, 1955, 1963, 1966,
and 1968, emphasized by contrast MSU’s special mission of English lan¬
guage education for a relatively cosmopolitan, well-off student body, and
may have affected its inner environment by draining off Gujarati language
educated, less affluent, and less able students from MSU’s Gujarat recruit¬
ment pool.
The proportion of MSU’s budget that the state government has been
able and willing to supply declined with the multiplication of universities.
Although this proportion fluctuated over the years since 1949, it was ap¬
preciably higher before division of Bombay state in 1960-61. The division
brought a change in parameters from an average over the twelve “Bombay
years” (1949-50 to 1960-61) of 47 percent to an average over the six
“Gujarat years” (1961-62 to 1966-67) of 35 percent. Within the six Gu¬
jarat years, which saw the creation of new universities and the expansion of
enrollments, the drift was downward, from 40 percent in 1961-62 to 35
percent in 1966-67.
Rapid institutional growth affects the relative balance between scholarly
and administrative values in an educational organization. By placing a
premium on the production and management tasks of the university,
growth is apt to favor administrative power. If it does, it reinforces those
historical forces in Indian higher education that have allocated higher re-
270 Political Dimensions of University Government

wards and status to administration than to scholarship. Three present or

former MSU faculty members put the problem this way: “Within our uni¬
versities a bureaucratic class has arisen which is not confined to the ad¬
ministration alone. It includes those teachers who specialize in university
administration and assume accordingly the characteristics of professional
bureaucrats. . . . Those outside [this group] aspire either to ‘rise’ and
become part of it or to receive the favours of those within it.” 102
Some academic bureaucrats have been the institution builders that aca¬
demic expansion requires, others merely bearers of the raj's bureaucratic
imprint. How many of them have appreciated and supported academic
values, professional concerns, or teaching requirements is a question whose
answer can be only partially suggested by the evidence of this book.
One sociologist suggests that “professionals are the organization group
closest to the goals of [universities], while administrators are closer to
values such as economy, balanced budget, efficiency — what can be re¬
ferred to as instrumental values.” 103 But if a professional scholar’s values
are closer to the goals of a university than an academic administrator’s
are, his loyalties, commitments, and reference groups are unlikely to be.
According to another proposition, the scholar’s “standing as a competent
professional cannot be validated by members of his own organization, since
they are not knowledgeable about it. . . . The expert is more likely than
others to esteem the good opinion of professional peers elsewhere; he is
disposed to seek recognition and acceptance from ‘outsiders’.” 104 Herein
lies an important contradiction in the organizational structure and values
of a university; those who occupy roles whose values are at best neutral
and sometimes inimical to the university’s values (that is, administrators)
are most likely, for reasons of self-interest and reference-group recogni¬
tion, to be committed to the university as an institution, while those in
roles whose values are most congruent with the university’s (that is, schol¬
ars) are least likely, for the same reasons, to be committed to the univer¬
sity.
This contradiction in university organization is not fully operative in
Indian higher education because of the considerable imbalance between
administrative and scholarly values, with the former usually dominant. And
administrators have not always (in India or elsewhere) acted in ways con¬
sistent with the administrative values of their roles, or if they have, they
have interpreted those values as requiring (for whatever reasons) a defense
of academic or scholarly interests. Thus, in so far as MSU has preserved its
standing as one of India’s better universities, it has done so on the basis of
administrative rather than scholarly leadership. Although two of its four
vice-chancellors were former professors, they made their reputations in
public life or educational administration rather than in scholarship. D. S.
Reddi, the “hero” of Osmania’s struggle for autonomy in 1965-66 (see
chapter 12), was an educational administrator. At Delhi University, India’s
best, three eminent scholars resigned before their first terms as vice-chan-
Baroda University 271

cellor expired while C. D. Deshmukh, an eminent civil servant (Indian

Civil Service) and former cabinet minister, stayed the course for two terms
and strengthened the university.
The contradiction between the values associated with administrative
roles and those associated with scholarly roles in university organizations
takes the following form in India: administrators sometimes defend aca¬
demic values but they cannot always or easily be relied upon to do so,
while scholars have great difficulty providing academic leadership or repre¬
senting academic values in the governing and faculty bodies of the univer¬
sity. Teachers find that the production tasks of training students undermine
their scholarly vocation; that they are unsupported by institutionalized
scholarly authority because professional associations and reference groups
have little influence; that departments headed by a single professor-admin¬
istrator strengthen hierarchical and command relationships more than they
do peer and professional relationships; and that defending and promoting
academic values in university government can overwhelm the “real” work
of teaching and research. (Professor K. N. Raj, in his resignation state¬
ment, expressed one side of this dilemma when he observed that “the fu¬
ture of Delhi University depends . . . largely on how far teachers are
prepared to . . . involve themselves actively in neutralizing the elements
within and outside [the university] which apparently do not care for the
academic values and purposes which this University has stood for.”)105
It is generally true of university organizations that a scholar’s “standing
as a competent professional can not be validated by members of his own
organization, since they are not knowledgeable about it.” In India, it can¬
not be easily validated by “peers elsewhere” either. The academic market
place in economic and status as well as in achievement terms plays too
marginal a role in university decisions for policy and personnel to counter¬
act the influence of administrative values and institutional commitment
within and demands for certification and service from without.
Under such circumstances, institutional commitment and service which
strengthen administrative values and authority more than scholarly values
become dominant not only in the government but also in the professional
life of the university. When the institutional loyalty of scholars displaces
their professional commitment; when administrative values and authority
dominate scholarly values; and when parochialism drives out cosmopoli¬
tanism, as in many Indian universities today, it becomes extremely difficult
to maintain the viability of the university as an organization devoted to the
cultivation of knowledge and scholarly contributions to knowledge.
Among the principal causes of this state of affairs at MSU (and else¬
where) has been the differential weight with which the university’s various
environments influence its goals. Baroda city has been the main source of
demands for articulation with local producer and municipal interests and
for “easy access.” Gujarat state has been a significant source of pressure
for use of the regional language rather than English and for expansion of
272 Political Dimensions of University Government

colleges and universities in the face of declining per capita resources. The
central government, particularly the University Grants Commission, and
international agencies have been the principal source of activity and sup¬
port designed to strengthen the university’s capacity to perform academ¬
ically. If MSU, and Indian universities generally, are to preserve some
measure of cosmopolitanism, the influence of this third dimension of their
outer environment will have to be strengthened.
In the face of continued parochialization and expansion, the influence
of the national and international dimension of the outer environment can
help to upgrade Indian universities professionally and to differentiate them
in qualitative terms. Academic professionals will have to be paid more
relative to other professionals if universities are to make up the ground
lost as a result of expansion and inflation and if, more importantly, univer¬
sities are to attract a better share of the available talent. The UGC pro¬
grams providing for advanced centers and clusters of advanced centers
provide a ready means for professional upgrading through symbolic and
financial means. Student as well as faculty talent can be more systemati¬
cally concentrated by extending the practice, established by the IIT’s, of
using a national examination to select students for some masters and doc¬
toral degree programs (for example those at advanced centers). The result
will be some degree of inequality among departments, colleges, and uni¬
versities. The legitimization and funding of the aristocratic values that a
visible hierarchy of talent and achievement implies in the face of the pow¬
erful current of populist leveling that is running in India today106 may not
be beyond the wisdom and skill of India’s national political leadership.
12 / The Problem of Autonomy:
The Osmania University Case

Carolyn M. Elliott

Autonomy Revisited

On 25 November 1965, the Andhra Pradesh legislature passed identical

amendments to the acts governing the state’s three universities. As a re¬
sult, one of the three, Osmania, feared for its independence. Under the
new legislation, the governor, as chancellor of Osmania, Andhra, and Sri
Venkateswara universities, and acting on the advice of the Andhra Pradesh
government, would directly appoint the vice-chancellor of each university,
rather than choose him from a panel submitted by the university. The
government of Andhra Pradesh would also have authority to give manda¬
tory instructions to the universities regarding major educational policy.
P. V. Narasimha Rao, the law minister who piloted the amendment bills
through the legislature, defended them by arguing that autonomy was not
a fundamental right, that a university should not grow in isolation into an
“ivory tower,” and that autonomy should have relevance to the dictates of
the times.1 Challenged in the name of autonomy by the university com¬
munity and its ally, the central government, the government of Andhra
Pradesh gave ground in a second amendment bill, modifying the first bill
but legislating new authority to dismiss Osmania’s popular and effective
vice-chancellor, D. S. Reddi. Action under this legislation was declared
invalid by the supreme court of India, reversing the decision of the Andhra
high court.
The controversy became a national issue; newspapers carried detailed
accounts of several confrontations; the prime minister discussed it in par¬
liament; ultimately the supreme court intervened. In Hyderabad, the
Osmania senate organized an action committee that led a mass demonstra¬
tion and strike. The entire university community — faculty, students, em¬
ployees — was mobilized in a remarkable display of unity.
The conflict between the government of Andhra Pradesh and Osmania
I wish to express my gratitude to D. S. Reddi, former vice-chancellor of Osmania
University; Ravada Satyanarayana, vice-chancellor of Osmania University; P. V.
Narasimha Rao, chief minister, government of Andhra Pradesh; B. P. R. Vithal,
secretary for planning, government of Andhra Pradesh; Rasheeduddin Khan, pro¬
fessor of Political Science, Nehru University; Gautham Mathur, professor of Eco¬
nomics, Osmania University; A. D. Bhogle, reader in French, Osmania University;
P. V. Rajagopal, principal, Secunderabad College of Osmania University; Sudarshun,
principal, New Science College; Amrik Singh, secretary, Inter-University Board; and
many others for extensive interviews expressing their different points of view, and for
making available several documents on the issue. Responsibility for the analysis
remains my own.
274 Political Dimensions of University Government

University provided the occasion for a nation-wide debate that raised basic
issues regarding the nature of the university in a democratic society. Pat¬
terns of university autonomy based on British models are being challenged
by radical changes in the environment, composition, and purposes of uni¬
versities. As is being increasingly recognized in the United States as well
as in India, the university plays a role of great political significance because
of its critical relationship to values and opportunities. When politically
influential elites find the university no longer in touch with these central
concerns, they are likely to question the relevancy of the university’s re¬
lationship to its environment, and to raise issues of autonomy and control.
Osmania’s environment has changed from one dominated by an urban
culture to one dominated by rural concerns. The urban culture of Hyder¬
abad city incorporates a number of caste, linguistic, and religious com¬
munities that have connections to many cities throughout India, but few
roots in the surrounding Telengana villages. The university has remained
part of this urban culture while political power has shifted to predomi¬
nantly Telugu speaking rural areas. The sensitivity of rural representatives
to the university’s aloofness from their concerns provided the basis for
the antagonism raised during the autonomy conflict.
This conflict could not have arisen, however, without changes in the
nature of the university. Government regulation had been considered nor¬
mal under an earlier princely regime. The Osmania case demonstrates how
the university’s development as a separate institution with its own vital
interests and values helps to generate a propensity to resist incursions from
outside.” Osmania evolved from a small, Urdu language university closely
allied to the dynastic interests of the princely state of Hyderabad into a
large, English language, academically sophisticated university set in the
diverse, complex society and popular, competitive politics of Andhra
Pradesh. Its new-found ambition for development and its sense of influence
focused in the oflSce of the vice-chancellor. It is in this dual context, the
institutionalization of the university and the changing political environ¬
ment, that the autonomy issue of Osmania must be understood.
Osmania was the first modern university in India to use an Indian lan¬
guage of instruction. Urdu, the language used, was the aristocratic lan¬
guage of the Muslim court of Hyderabad, the largest of India’s princely
states. As a result of the administrative reforms carried out in the nine¬
teenth century by prime minister Sir Salar Jung, the Hyderabad aristocratic
culture lost its central place in the administration of the state to modern
administrators from northern India. In 1918 the Hyderabad interests con¬
vinced the nizam to found a university which they viewed as a means to
reinvigorate Hyderabad Urdu culture and, more specifically, to regain ac¬
cess for native Hyderabadis to administrative posts in the state.2 The uni¬
versity’s Urdu emphasis served primarily to acculturate aspirants to an
urban ruling class; it did not meet the educational needs of the 89 percent
Osmania University 275

of the population of princely Hyderabad who were Telugu, Marathi, or

Kannada speakers. The university was no more concerned with the needs
of villagers than were the English language universities of British India.
Osmania’s environment changed significantly with the coming of inde¬
pendence and the subsequent reorganization of states. Hyderabad’s Muslim
rulers were replaced in 1949 by centrally appointed administrators, follow¬
ing a police action in which government of India troops marched on the
city to force the state’s accession to the Indian union.3 In 1952, after the
first general election, the appointed cabinet was replaced by a Congress
party ministry predominantly responsible to Hindu interests. Finally, in
1956 the multi-lingual state was divided into three portions according to
the majority language of the various districts; the nine Telugu speaking
districts, called Telengana and including Hyderabad city, were joined to
Telugu speaking Andhra state to form Andhra Pradesh. This merger
brought many new Telugu speakers to Hyderabad city, the new capital,
where a state government with no previous connection to the old Hydera¬
bad culture or to the university took up residence. The influx of Telugu
speakers provided a further dimension to the conflict at Osmania: what
might have been a simple cleavage between a Hyderabad city Urdu cultural
elite and Telugu speaking democratic politicians from the hinterland was
mitigated by the division among the Telugu speakers between those from
the Telengana districts and those from former Andhra state. Those from
the Telengana area of old Hyderabad were much more attached to the tra¬
ditions of Osmania than were the newcomers from Andhra.

University Relations with Hyderabad State

The university enjoyed a close and unproblematic relationship with the

princely state throughout the periods of the nizam’s rule and the appointed
Congress party ministry of pre-merger Hyderabad. The university was es¬
tablished by a royal fiat and made a department of the nizam’s govern¬
ment. Because the nizam was proud of his creation, the university pros¬
pered under government direction. On ample lands just outside the city,
a beautiful campus was constructed. Devoted to the purposes of the state,
the university had little contact with universities elsewhere in India. Stu¬
dents were drawn entirely from within the state. Recruitment of faculty
was restricted by the use of Urdu to local personnel and those drawn from
Urdu speaking areas of northern India, from which many government per¬
sonnel were also recruited. The university’s government reflected its close
relationship to the state government. The board of governors, called the
syndicate, was appointed by the state ministry, and the minister for edu¬
cation was exofficio vice-chancellor. Most of Osmania’s vice-chancellors
had held other positions in government and were from families closely as¬
sociated with the nizam’s regime. The last but one before independence,
276 Political Dimensions of University Government

Ali Yawar Jung (later ambassador to the USSR, the U.S., and several
other countries), came from government to the university and then re¬
turned to government as home secretary.
During this period there was little conflict between the university and
its governors.4 Most matters were handled informally among persons who
knew each other as members of the small ruling elite of the state. Cultural
life in the state was centered in Hyderabad city, the city elites moved in
small arenas, and they met often. Hindu faculty at the university were
part of these circles. They were drawn primarily from the cosmopolitan
population of the city, spoke Urdu, and had few village connections.
Therefore relations between the Hindus on the faculty and Muslim gov¬
ernors were relatively free of communal overtones or tensions.5
The most dramatic change brought by independence was the change
in language of instruction from Urdu to English. In the short run, many
faculty were forced to teach in a language with which they were unfamiliar;
ultimately, because the university could recruit faculty from other uni¬
versities in India, competitive standards for university appointments were
raised. Yet the change was not overtly resisted, for it brought a breath of
fresh air to a faculty that felt increasingly restricted by dependence on
out-of-date translations. Furthermore, English had been a required sub¬
ject for all students since the founding of the university.
Politically, it is significant that the change was not brought about by the
popular, predominantly Hindu government, but rather by a Muslim vice-
chancellor, Nawab Ah Yawar Jung, who had earlier served as vice-chan¬
cellor under the nizam. He sensed the importance of the change and
worked to ease the transition.6 His position vis-a-vis the Muslim com¬
munity was helped by the prevailing mood of discouragement in that com¬
munity.7 Extremist leadership had promised strong resistance to incorpora¬
tion into the Indian union, but in the end it vacillated, and then launched
civil disorder that led to a forcible takeover by the central government.8
After this experience Hyderabad Muslims had neither the will nor the
political means to protest the university’s new policy.
University involvement in politics was rare before the late fifties. Until
the amalgamation of the Telengana area of Hyderabad with Andhra state
in 1957, political issues relating to the university were settled without much
conflict. But issues which would become political in the future were
emerging. The issue of university expansion was related to the larger
question of reorienting the university toward its backward Telengana
hinterland. During the nizam’s regime the affiliation of private colleges had
been prohibited. Consequently at the time of independence there were
only three colleges outside Hyderabad city, and these were two-year inter¬
mediate institutions whose students had to come to Osmania to complete
a bachelors degree.9 A vast expansion seemed necessary and not all of it
could be undertaken by government. In 1950, the vice-chancellor allowed
private colleges to affiliate with Osmania. Subsequently, the Congress party
Osmania University 277

education minister vigorously encouraged the founding of private colleges

with a tacit understanding from the vice-chancellor that the new colleges
would be given time to meet university standards for affiliation.10 Later,
the government established a series of colleges in the districts that soon
became part of Andhra Pradesh, thereby committing the new Andhra
Pradesh government to a high level of expenditure on education in the
Telengana area of old Hyderabad.
Another emerging political issue was that of the guarantees given to
Telengana students when the Telugu portions of Hyderabad state were
amalgamated in 1957 into Andhra Pradesh. Under an agreement reached
between political leaders of the two regions to be joined, a Telengana
committee was established to protect the interests of Telengana personnel
who might suffer in competition with the more qualified personnel from
the Andhra districts formerly in Madras. This committee, composed of all
legislators from Telengana constituencies, was empowered to recommend
such modifications in pending legislation as might be necessary for the
application of that legislation to the Telengana region.11 One of these
matters was the regulation of admissions to the public institutions of higher
education in the Telengana region, which, under an informal gentleman’s
agreement, were to be restricted to Telengana students.12 Thus, a com¬
mittee of the legislature, the Telegana committee, was empowered to give
directions to the university on admissions policy.13 The university has
persuaded the committee to relax its central over admissions somewhat, but
has not yet pressed hard for the abolition of such control.
One reason there has been little conflict between the committee and the
university is that the university has generally agreed with the committee’s
policy. University teachers themselves had looked forward to some change
in the language of instruction. Similarly, in the matter of expansion it was
difficult to question in principle that in a state with 21 percent literacy an
increase in educational facilities was desirable. Many university teachers
were as concerned as the politicians to protect the interests of Telengana
students in admissions, and tended to agree with the committee regarding
the need for safeguards against encroachment by Andhra students.
Cooperation between the university and political leaders was facilitated
by the frequent intermingling of university and political personnel in Hy¬
derabad, which continued as it had under the nizam. The ruling Congress
party leaders were urban high caste founders of the party who had been
born or raised in Hyderabad and who shared the university’s culture. When
issues affecting the university did arise, they dealt with them informally.
This pattern of close interaction was strengthened by direct participation
of politicians in university affairs. The education minister of Hyderabad
sat on the syndicate, not ex officio, but because he had been elected from
a graduates’ constituency. The university was the subordinate partner, how¬
ever, in this interaction. Because several members of the syndicate had
strong ties to the ruling Congress party, the politicians’ views rather than
278 Political Dimensions of University Government

the vice-chancellor’s tended to dominate university decisions. The univer¬

sity’s responsiveness to the government continued for a decade after inde¬
pendence, for little had yet happened to make it conscious of itself as an
institution with a purpose, an identity, and interests separate from those
of government.
When the political elite suddenly expanded with the amalgamation of
Telengana and Andhra in 1957, the system of personal interactions could
no longer be sustained. The amalgamation had provoked great controversy,
leaving Telengana politicians divided. Furthermore, there was no trusted
intermediary who could work among both Telengana leaders and the
Andhra newcomers. Because of these circumstances the appointment of
the next vice-chancellor, Dr. D. S. Reddi, which took place soon after the
amalgamation, brought great strain. The Andhra politicians who had as¬
sumed leadership of the state made the appointment on the basis of their
own political perspectives and needs. Against the resistance of Telengana
leaders, they used the Osmania appointment to accommodate a former
director of public instruction from their region. Doing so helped ease a
possible conflict over a vice-chancellor’s post in one of the Andhra uni¬
versities. No mediator was able to unite all Telengana politicians behind
D. S. Reddi. The Telengana politicians who did accept the appointment
probably did so on caste grounds, for both the candidate and the negotiat¬
ing politicians were of the same Reddy caste. One of the dissatisfied Telen¬
gana leaders, also a Reddy but from an opposing Congress party faction,
took the issue to the university arena and mobilized opposition. Students
demonstrated and burned the new vice-chancellor in effigy — a swift
politicization of university affairs. The mobilization of opposition signifi¬
cantly expanded the political channels between the university and its politi¬
cal environment. The personal interactions of Hyderabad courtly politics
were replaced by the group affinities of popular, competitive politics.

Patterns of Influence and Constraint within Osmania

The balance of power between Osmania University and the state has
been directly related to the power of the vice-chancellor within the uni¬
versity. The focus of internal power has shifted from the university syn¬
dicate to the vice-chancellor. When the syndicate contained men of power
in government or party circles, the vice-chancellor exercised little control
over university policy; as the vice-chancellor became stronger, he played
the major role in the syndicate’s deliberations. The development of the
office of the vice-chancellor has been crucial to the articulation of the
institutional distinctiveness of the university, for it has been the vice-chan¬
cellors, not the syndicate, who have been sensitive to the distinct goals and
needs of the university. The increase in the power of the vice-chancellor
was made possible by a systemic change, an expansion of the university’s
environment that gave university personnel more access to levels of power
Osmania University 279

and influence outside the state. The early postindependence vice-chancel¬

lors, however, did not exploit the potential of the newly constituted uni¬
versity environment. Not until D. S. Reddi assumed office in 1957 did a
vice-chancellor use the available sources of influence and power within and
without the university to self-consciously assert the interests of the univer¬
sity as an independent institution.14
The imprint of the raj on higher education and a legacy of the Indian
Educational Service are expressed in Reddi’s career. He came to the vice¬
chancellorship after many years of government service as director of public
instruction (DPI) in Madras. As DPI he had administrative responsibility
for government colleges. His experience with universities was confined to
his student years at Madras University, where he received an M.A., and
at Oxford, where he took a diploma in anthropology. His longstanding
attachment to government continued during his career at Osmania.15 Reddi
was proud that there were no quarrels between the university and the gov¬
ernment before the 1965-66 crisis. On such policy matters as new courses
of instruction and new colleges, the university agreed to government re¬
quests. Following government initiative, it established a new course to train
officials for responsibilities in panchayat raj, a new pattern of decentralized,
popularly elected local government inaugurated in Andhra Pradesh in 1959.
And in the matter of admissions to government colleges, the question of
final authority did not arise because disagreement was so slight. Reddi
found his relationship with government prior to the crisis to be one of
reciprocity and mutuality, with little pressure from government, even in the
potentially troublesome matters of appointments and examinations.16
This mutually satisfactory arrangement was not above criticism by sev¬
eral faculty members who found instances when Reddi did not, in their
view, adequately defend university interests. Some were disturbed that he
had not resisted the Telengana committee’s restrictions on admissions.
Others were critical of his willingness to raise student fees under govern¬
mental pressure to bring them to the level of the other universities, despite
the backwardness of the Telengana region that Osmania serves. In both
instances, it was not clear that Reddi had alternatives, or, if he did, whether
his choice had avoided unpleasant confrontations. In neither instance did
Reddi reveal a propensity to assert his own authority or raise the issue of
university autonomy.
Given the circumstances of his career and his incumbency as vice-
chancellor, it is ironic that Reddi should have become the heroic defender
of university autonomy. There were, however, several important elements
in Reddi’s handling of university matters that made his stand possible,
once external challenges were identified and resisted. Most significantly,
he was able to win the loyalty of the faculty by fair-minded, efficient ad¬
ministration. Teachers soon saw that he displayed no regional favoritism
in promotions and recruitment, which removed a great source of tension.
Furthermore, Reddi showed astute political skill in his relations with pro-
280 Political Dimensions of University Government

fessors and members of the syndicate. He sensed which persons would be

most valuable to him and brought them into his confidence, forming an
inner circle of loyal supporters. Among these was a college principal known
for his careful work in drafting schemes, preparing budgets, and doing
necessary committee work. Another was an articulate young reader who
effectively advocated the vice-chancellor’s policies in the governing bodies
of the university. These choices showed Reddi’s ability to identify impor¬
tant political roles and find persons appropriate to them — the mark of a
good leader and administrator. Furthermore, the longer he remained in
office, the more he could draw upon the support of those who owed their
appointments to him. Several faculty members were appointed after an all-
India search, and had no local ties in Hyderabad; others were internally
promoted after Reddi secured appropriations for second professorial chairs
in several departments. Most appointments made under his aegis were good
ones that raised the quality of the faculty and expanded the number of
higher positions, a nice instance of wise policy that made good politics.
His handling of the syndicate was similarly astute. In consultations with
individual syndicate members Reddi presented his ideas and developed
supporting arguments. His programs were subsequently presented by syn¬
dicate members and approval secured without active intervention by the
university administration.17 Reddi claims not to have encountered difficulty
even when he brought politicians on the syndicate into the consultations;
indeed, they were often very useful in carrying his wishes to the ministry.
Reddi by no means sought to avoid politics: the delegations of professors
and students who went to the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh to argue
for his reappointment in 1964 are thought to have gone with his approval.
An experienced national observer of universities noted that Reddi dealt
effectively with politicians, had friends among them, met them often, and
worked with them for the university. He decided cases on merit most of
the time, but when necessary, in the greater interest of the university, he
was not unmindful of political factors as well.18 In this he showed a sense
of priorities which seems to have redounded to the benefit of the university
and to have helped him continue as vice-chancellor.
His internal position was strengthened by his remarkable success as an
educational entrepreneur in attracting new programs to the university. In
Delhi his urbanity and sophistication helped him to gain the confidence
of University Grants Commission (UGC) and foreign aid officials. He was
known for well-prepared proposals and for arguing his case well. Through
careful building of contacts he secured new professorships for several de¬
partments, won the competition for an American Studies Center, started
French and German language programs staffed with foreign instructors
and won recognition as a center of advanced study for the astronomy de¬
partment, to list only a few accomplishments.19 This entrepreneurship
strengthened his political position in at least two ways. First, expansion of
the university provided more funds and positions for allocation within the
Osmania University 281

university and, more importantly, demonstrated his ability to serve the

university well and increase its stature. Second, Reddi’s Delhi contacts
proved important for rallying national support when it became necessary
to do so. The variety and weight of institutional support that he was able
to mobilize is a fascinating and revealing part of the 1965-66 “autonomy”
crisis.
Finally, D. S. Reddi’s position was enhanced by his relationship with
politicians in the non-Telengana areas of Andhra state. In contrast to the
previous two vice-chancellors, Reddi had long-standing ties of kinship,
caste, and friendship with important leaders in that area. It was the
strength of these ties that enabled him to gain the vice-chancellorship. Caste
ties had helped also to make him more acceptable to Telengana politicians
than another candidate of a minority caste. After his appointment, D. S.
Reddi maintained his contacts with the politicians who aided him in attain¬
ing his position. His reputation throughout Andhra Pradesh Congress party
circles as a sounding board and adviser on strategies in state politics had
given him an independent source of power to use in dealing with govern¬
ment and the chief minister on behalf of the university. When Reddi’s
friends were friends of chief minister Sanjiva Reddy, it undoubtedly helped
the position of the university. But when the state Congress party leadership
split into factions, Reddi’s identification with one group helped to exacer¬
bate the university’s conflict with the government. Reddi’s independence,
based on his influence in the university and with the national government,
led state politicians to become actively concerned about limiting the uni¬
versity’s growing assertiveness.

Legal constraints establish the channels within which controversies in¬

volving the university take place and the norms of such conflict. The
Andhra Pradesh legislature created the university through the Osmania
University Act of 1959. The legislature retained the power to amend the
university’s constitution at any time by ordinary enactment. It was the
attempt to amend this act that provoked the controversy between Osmania
and the government. The most important sections of the 1959 act as they
affected the controversy were those governing the selection of the vice-
chancellor and the composition of the governing bodies of the university.
The selection of Osmania’s vice-chancellor was to take place according to
the common Delhi pattern in which the syndicate selects two persons to a
nominating panel and the chancellor (in Andhra Pradesh the governor)
selects one. This panel then proposes three candidates to the chancellor
(governor) who makes the final decision. State governors are appointed
by the president of India. They are constitutionally bound to exercise their
functions on the advice of the elected ministry; whether this applies to the
governor’s role as chancellor was at issue in 1965-66.20
The 1959 act of the Andhra Pradesh legislature did not alter the unique
feature of Osmania’s government, established from the time of its founding
282 Political Dimensions of University Government

by the nizam — the inclusion of all professors and all principals of con¬
stituent and affiliated colleges on the policy-making body, the senate. This
made the senate larger than in many universities and gave it a greater
proportion of academic representation, 80 of 134 members.
In addition to determining the composition of university governing
bodies, the 1959 act provided for two important substantive constraints
on university autonomy. One is an inspection and inquiry clause which
gives the government the right to make an inspection into any matter con¬
nected with the university, and to issue directives if the advice tendered
after the inspection is not adopted within a specified time. Procedures for
the inquiry are provided: that the university be given notice, that it be rep¬
resented, and that the syndicate be given a chance to respond before the
government tenders its advice. It was the absence of these procedures in
the University Amendment Acts of 1965 which aroused opposition. The
inquiry clause in the 1959 act has never been applied to Osmania Uni¬
versity but has been used for an inquiry into Andhra University (Waltair)
affairs.
Secondly, the university act specifically provides for restrictions on ad¬
missions to accommodate Telengana students. In making regulations for
admissions, the academic council, the body of academics responsible for
courses, admissions, and examinations, is instructed to give effect to the
recommendations of the Telengana committee. At the behest of the com¬
mittee, the academic council laid down restrictions not only on admissions
from outside Telengana but also on the number of urban students admitted
to professional schools.21
The university is also constrained by legislation in the form of authoriza¬
tion and appropriation of funds. Sixty-four percent of the’university’s non-
developmental expenditure in its 1966-67 budget was funded by the state
government. These funds are usually negotiated for a five-year period and
paid annually as a block grant, a procedure modeled on that of the British
and Indian University Grants Commissions.22 Thus the legislature does not
discuss specific items of the university budget in making the grant, as is the
case in twenty-four U.S. states, where line expenditures are reviewed by
state legislatures. Government does, however, influence crucial questions
of university salaries and student fees by the amount it sanctions in block
and annual grants and, because of their effect on university employees, by
the salaries and “dearness allowances” [cost-of-living allowances] it sanc¬
tions for state employees.

Emergence of Conflict: University Amendment Acts of 1965

Patterns of accommodation between university and state were chal¬

lenged dramatically in 1965 when the government sought to pass legislation
which the three Andhra universities, particularly Osmania, considered
inimical to their institutional autonomy. The events that precipitated
 Osmania University 283

Osmama’s conflict with the government arose in the context of a quarrel

between the government and another of the state’s vice-chancellors, Dr.
A. L. Narayana of Andhra University. When a judicial probe into his
alleged corruption and nepotism did not result in a recommendation that
he be removed, the government had no legal means to dismiss him.23
Meanwhile the government had grown more determined to remove him,
for public criticism was increasing.24 In this situation, the government felt
that it must have adequate means to remove vice-chancellors. Political
leaders reasoned that even supreme court judges could be removed by
specific procedures, yet no procedures existed for the removal of vice-
chancellors. The vice-chancellors of the other two universities shared this
view because Andhra University affairs harmed the public image of vice-
chancellors. In the course of regular consultations the vice-chancellors
created a committee to consider procedures for removal and appointment,
which, in due course, recommended that the existing procedures be
changed.
The government had other reasons as well for amending the university
acts. The panel system for nominating vice-chancellors provided an oppor¬
tunity for incumbent vice-chancellors to secure their own re-election by
influencing the choice of members for the nominating panel.26 An able or
self-serving vice-chancellor was usually able to assume a powerful position
in the university syndicate and thus secure the selection of persons known
to be sympathetic to his goals and interests. The chancellor, who made the
final choice, retained the option of refusing the nominations and requesting
a new set of names but had never done so. On several occasions the gov¬
ernment felt its choice was unfairly restricted by the university’s role in the
panel system. In 1964 when D. S. Reddi was given a third term, the other
nominees had been K. P. S. Menon, an eminent diplomat with no interest
in the job, and a brahman from outside the state who was unlikely to win
support from the Reddy-dominated state ministry. The government, in
the person of the governor, was hesitant to reappoint D. S. Reddi, but it
had no real alternative.
On the other hand the government was definitely opposed to election
of the vice-chancellor by the university senate (as at Baroda and Allaha¬
bad), for it feared outside political interference (as happens in cooperative
societies, panchayat raj institutions, and other formally self-governing
bodies). As one state minister candidly declared: “We are at the stage in
Indian society now that the politicians are everywhere and they just can¬
not keep off, for these institutions become a base of support for them.” 26
In preparation for proposing amendments to the university acts, the
chief minister, Brahmananda Reddy, convened a conference of vice-chan¬
cellors, educationists, UGC representatives, and state politicians interested
in education.27 Legislators at the conference proposed making university
governing bodies more democratic by increasing the number of elected
representatives of university graduates on the senate and reducing the rep-
284 Political Dimensions of University Government

resentation of academic personnel from almost two-thirds to half. They

also wished to secure at least one elected politician on the syndicate, either
an MLA (member of the legislative assembly) or MP (member of par¬
liament), to be elected by the senate.28 On the issue of the vice-chancel¬
lor’s appointment, the conference opted for government appointment to
avoid the extramural politics of an electoral procedure. No mention was
made in the final report of the issue of removing a vice-chancellor.
Nine months later, in the summer of 1965, three bills were introduced
into the two houses of the Andhra Pradesh legislature amending the sepa¬
rate acts of the three state universities. The single most important provision
in the acts was the change in the manner and term of appointment of the
vice-chancellor, as recommended by the conference. The government’s mo¬
tivation seems to have been not so much desire for control over the post
as discomfort with both of the other available systems for filling the post.29
Secondly, the bill provided for the removal of the vice-chancellor. As
first written, it placed on the vice-chancellor the burden of proof against
removal and gave him virtually no procedural safeguards.30
The third significant provision was the alteration of the composition of
the university syndicate and senate according to the conference recom¬
mendations. By cutting university representation on the senate to 50 per¬
cent, the provision necessitated the introduction of some principle of rep¬
resentation for university professors and college principals, all of whom
had previously sat on the senate.
As the bills emerged from the education department of the government
secretariat, more drastic changes were included. The number of govern¬
ment officials on the sixteen-member syndicate was increased from two to
four. These provisions also grew out of the situation at Andhra University;
the official in charge of drafting the bills for the government had served
as registrar in Andhra University where he apparently became convinced
that persons outside the control of the vice-chancellor were needed to
counterbalance the vice-chancellor’s powerful position. Finally, the act re¬
served a seat for an MLA or MP on the syndicate, no longer requiring
election from the university senate in competition with other members for
such a seat. This provision also was a response to problems at another
university where politicians in the senate had long complained that the
vice-chancellor allowed them no voice in its affairs.
The immediate response of the legislature was to send the three bills to
a joint select committee for further consideration. In that committee the
bill reached its most extreme position, and included many clauses inserted
by individual committee members that the government later withdrew.31
Academic representation in the senate was to be further reduced from 50
percent to 40 percent; academic persons were to be prohibited from con¬
testing for the syndicate on the ground that the syndicate dealt with person¬
nel matters in which “employees” should not participate;32 and, in a clause
 Osmania University 285

reflecting the provincial pride of rural politicians, experts consulted on a

professorial candidate’s competence were to be drawn from within the
state. These clauses were the first to be withdrawn when pressure was
brought from university and central government sources, and they were
not included in the final act. They suggest, however, the mistrust and low
regard in which some legislators held academics and intellectuals.33
The most important modification the joint select committee made in the
bill was the insertion of a clause empowering the government to issue policy
directives to be followed by the university. No one questioned the right of
the legislature to issue such directives; the granting of this right to govern¬
ment without the procedural safeguards provided in the existing act was
unprecedented, however. Though suggested by a legislator concerned with
the language of instruction, the subsequent incorporation of this clause
does not seem to have been directly related to the language issue. The
language of university education had not been an issue in Andhra politics;
the university’s policy of “delaying” the linguistic transition from English
to Telugu was not sufficiently different from government policy to require
the directives clause.34 As the dispute progressed the issue of language of
instruction became more central to the chief minister’s argument in favor
of giving government the authority to issue policy directives to the uni¬
versity.30 The use of the issue of language policy,36 however, appears to
have been primarily a means for the chief minister to reach the larger
problem of insuring university responsiveness to society.
The procedure for appointing the vice-chancellor drew the most severe
criticism: appointment by the chancellor really constituted appointment by
government. The recent appointment to two posts on semiautonomous
bodies of a defeated exminister and a former minister debarred from con¬
testing elections because of corrupt practices raised the fear that university
posts would also be used to accommodate unemployed members of the
ruling group. Even with good appointments, government responsibility
for the appointment would make the vice-chancellor undesirably dependent
on government authorities.37 In the face of these anticipated dangers, a
proposal that the senate elect the vice-chancellor gained support among
the bill’s opponents.
Another major issue was that of representation on the senate and syndi¬
cate, a matter of special interest to the Osmania professors, all of whom
sat in the senate. Faculty members objected to greater representation of
political and government personnel on both bodies, fearing “groupism,
intrigue, corruption and nepotism,” and vehemently protested being re¬
duced to the status of employees by the prohibition against their sitting
on the syndicate.38 Finally, some objected to the greatly increased repre¬
sentation of graduates on the university bodies, arguing that this would
provide another channel for political control of the university. As evidence
they pointed to the Osmania University Graduates Association which has
286 Political Dimensions of University Government

provided substantial support to the veteran Congress party politician (now

president of the separatist Telengana samiti) who has headed it for many
years.39
In Delhi, the removal clause aroused most concern. Critics argued that
government already had the power under the general clauses act to dis¬
miss any person it had appointed.40 They feared that further specifying
the procedures for dismissal would weaken if not destroy the vice-chancel¬
lor’s authority by affecting his independence in office and by discouraging
good men from accepting the post. At the time of these discussions, there
was no precedent for removing vice-chancellors and considerable doubt
existed about whether and how it could be done. According to influential
spokesmen among the vice-chancellors, this very vagueness, supported by
convention, gave vice-chancellors more protection than specific favorable
procedures. These spokesmen compared vice-chancellors to judges, arguing
that judges, for whom removal procedures are specified, occupy an ex¬
alted, independent position which society has agreed to protect, while uni¬
versity autonomy is less well established and more vulnerable to encroach¬
ments.41
These objections were intensified by the harsh nature of the original
removal clause in the 1965 acts.42 When this clause was modified after
discussion with the universities and the central government, objections
subsided. Current legal opinion is that the amended clause is a good law,
protecting the vice-chancellor more than the general clauses act because
it makes provision for an inquiry and for representation.43 Now that the
courts have upheld the right of the appointing authority to dismiss a vice-
chancellor, as they did in the dismissal of the vice-chancellor of Kuruk-
shetra University, the formal specification of procedure will protect the
university more than convention.
The directives clause further aroused all-India opinion. Friends of the
university argued that the government already possessed the power to
implement major policy changes through the legislature and that legislative
pressures would ensure that the university remained responsible to the
public. The attempt of the government to short circuit the legislature
could only mean that it desired to step beyond policy directives to more
active intervention in daily administration. Not only would government
decide the content of policy directives, it would also be the sole judge of
what was to be defined as a policy matter, strengthening the possibilities
for political interference. Others raised the fundamental question of the
government’s right to issue policy directives at all. Proposing self-govern¬
ment, they argued that the university was composed of representatives
from a broad spectrum of society who were aware of public needs; there¬
fore the university community should have the freedom, within certain
broad limits, to determine educational policy.
In the ruling Congress party there was opposition to the amendment
acts, though it was not openly articulated. Opponents of the bill claim that
Osmania University
287

many Congress party members would have preferred its defeat but could
not state their views because of the government’s firm position.44 Passage
of the bills did not represent a general political feeling against the uni¬
versities. Rather, because few Congress party members felt strongly enough
committed to the universities to oppose the bill effectively, the few persons
who pushed the bill were able to win out. The universities did not have
many enemies but neither did they have many powerful friends willing to
take political risks on their behalf.
University opposition was ultimately more effective than that of political
parties. In late October 1965, a group of professors went to the chief min¬
ister of Andhra Pradesh to explain their misgivings and inquire about his
intentions. This meeting went badly. The teachers came away convinced
that the chief minister had no understanding of a university’s need for
autonomy nor any appreciation for its capacity to govern itself, while the
chief minister interpreted their questions as a demand for university sover¬
eignty within the sovereignty of the state. Two assurances did result from
this meeting. The chief minister declared that he wished to have academic
men share in the government of the university and that he would entertain
the possibility of compromise on any matter except that of the appointment
of the vice-chancellor. Then the revenue minister, who had previously been
a member of the university syndicate, met the delegation to assure them
that government had no intention of using the bill in the way the teachers
feared it would be used.45
The effect of these assurances was destroyed the next day, however,
when the joint select committee, under the chairmanship of the chief min¬
ister, decided to further reduce faculty representation on the senate and to
eliminate faculty entirely from the syndicate. In consequence the uni¬
versity senate devoted the major part of its next meeting to consideration
of possible actions. A large number of persons spoke against the bill, in¬
cluding several members of the legislature who were also senate mem¬
bers. This meeting was widely reported in the press, and the reports were
accompanied by several editorials echoing the protests of the university
against lack of consultation and undue haste. After prolonged discussion
the senate resolved to request that the bill be deferred and empowered a
committee of fourteen to take action. Among those on the committee were
two MP’s, one MLA, principals, and professors. This senate committee, in
collaboration with representatives of the Osmania University Teacher’s
Association, met the chancellor, cabinet ministers, chairman of the Telen-
gana committee and the secretary of the joint select committee. It could
not, however, obtain permission to appear before the joint select com¬
mittee.
Discouraged by this failure and further alarmed by the insertion of the
directives clauses into the bill, a group of professors sought to mobilize
higher authorities. They approached the chairman of the Inter-University
Board, an advisory body representing most Indian universities.46 Although
 288 Political Dimensions of University Government

the IUB has no official or statutory standing, its status as a “club of the
vice-chancellors” gives its voice considerable weight in government educa¬
tional circles. Sir C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer, the IUB’s chairman in 1965,
sent a telegram to the chief minister asking him to defer action until a
standing committee of the IUB could meet and give its views. Copies of
this telegram were sent to the prime minister, the government education
minister, and the chairman of the University Grants Commission.
A small group of professors also went to Delhi to plead their case di¬
rectly. The president and vice president of India offered their sympathy,
but declared themselves constitutionally unable to interfere with state legis¬
lation. The education minister, M. C. Chagla, gave the strongest support,
promising to do all that he could. He wrote to the chief minister of Andhra
Pradesh asking for a reply to a letter written earlier requesting that the bill
be deferred until state and central government authorities could discuss
the matter.47 Presumably he also consulted with the prime minister, Lai
Bahadur Shastri, because the next day the prime minister telephoned the
chief minister asking for postponement of the legislation until the IUB
could meet and discuss the all-India implications of the bill.
Despite these moves, the state government announced that the bills
would be discussed in the legislature on 22 November 1965. Dismayed by
its lack of success in securing a postponement, this group of professors
organized a meeting of deans, professors, and principals of university col¬
leges to plan further resistance. This meeting was heated and dramatic.
There was much discussion, all condemning the government but a good
bit of it questioning the wisdom of extreme stands in the light of the uni¬
versity s dependence on the government. The resisters won the day, con¬
vincing the gathering to sign a statement of noncooperation in which
each signatory pledged to resign from the university seriate and from all
university administrative duties if nine obnoxious provisions were not with¬
drawn from the bill. The vice-chancellor sent his support, declaring that
he would resign his office if government did not pay heed to their requests.48
With this endorsement, a group of thirty went directly to the chief minister’s
house unannounced and demanded a hearing. It was agreed, however, to
hold back the statement until further negotiations were attempted.
The chief minister was quite reasonable. He explained his stand and
then agreed to discuss the matter further with a smaller group of professors
on the following day. At that meeting he made important concessions
which were inserted in the bill then pending in the legislature. The pro¬
vision forbidding academic representation on the syndicate was changed;
the provision limiting faculty selection committees to Andhra personnel
was deleted; and the procedure for removal of the vice-chancellor was
changed by a provision that a high court judge be included in the panel
of inquiry required by the procedure. Finally, and most important for
the subsequent dispute, the chief minister is said to have assured the teach¬
ers that passage of the act did not imply an intention to cut short the term
Osmania University
289

of the existing vice-chancellor.49 Later he modified the bill further in re¬

sponse to the assembly debate, replacing the very general directives clause,
which had aroused much public criticism, with a clause providing for in¬
structions in three specified areas, language of instruction, postgraduate
centers, and the pattern of education.50
It is difficult to know how much university pressure had to do with
these concessions. The law minister of Andhra Pradesh, who was piloting
the bills, stated that the government resented Chagla’s interference and his
taking the issue to the prime minister.51 The chief minister told the vice-
chancellor that he suspected ulterior motives in the university’s agitation,
particularly in the protest of Class Four university employees (attendants
and lab technicians) who had staged a demonstration.52 In general he dis¬
missed the opposition as coming only from university circles and as being
understandable when old patterns are done away with,” thereby under¬
cutting the substantive content of the criticism.53 Yet the threat of the vice-
chancellor s resignation and the professors’ noncooperation was one which
could not be taken lightly. The chief minister found himself being held
responsible for designs on Osmania’s autonomy that were far beyond his
intentions; he was said to harbor personal motives. As the opposition
mounted, however, his priorities became apparent; on the issue of the vice-
chancellor he was not willing to move.
Leaders of the university opposition noted the concessions, but wished
to press further on the issues of the appointment of the vice-chancellor,
the curtailed representation of professors, and the directives clause. When
the university senate gathered in an emergency meeting in late November
to consider the concessions, its members were uncertain about continuing
the agitation. After much debate, the senate decided that the major issues
remained unsettled, and a unanimous resolution was passed to continue
the opposition.

The University’s Political Resources

The next initiative for a change in the amending acts came from outside
Andhra Pradesh. The standing committee of the Inter-University Board
met and decided that the removal and directives clauses constituted in¬
fringements of university autonomy. Therefore they announced to the press
that they would raise before the full board the question of disaffiliating all
three Andhra universities from the IUB.54 The Hindustan Times gave this
news banner headlines throughout India and there was a spate of editorial
comment that warned the Andhra government to change the legislation
before the February IUB meeting if it wanted to avoid gravely endanger¬
ing higher education in the state.
Just what disaffiliation would mean is unclear for it has never happened
to an Indian university.55 In the main it would mean a loss of standing
within the university community. The chief minister in his reply in the
 290 Political Dimensions of University Government

legislative council to the IUB’s threat, observed: “We are not aware of the
Board’s powers in this regard,” ignoring the issue of reputation and stress¬
ing instead the lack of authority or resources, an interpretation the press
noted.56
At this point the central government became much more directly in¬
volved. When the matter was brought up in parliament, the education
minister, M. C. Chagla, announced that the Andhra chief minister, Brah-
mananda Reddy, had ignored requests from the central government not to
proceed with legislation which “constituted a serious violation of uni¬
versity autonomy.” 57 Explicitly recognizing the IUB threat, he cautioned
the state government that disaffiliation would further arouse students and
teachers to oppose the Andhra government. Later Prime Minister Shastri
intervened in the parliament discussions to say that he would ask Chagla
to meet the chief minister to try to arrive at a compromise. The next day
Shastri again intervened to say that he had just received an assurance by
phone from the chief minister that the state would not proceed to secure
the governor s assent to the amending acts until after the chief minister
had talked with the government education minister.
The controversy not only had become more bitter, but also now involved
issues which were more political — system level differences, constitutional
issues, issues affecting national interests and authorities. Most dramatic
was the polarization between the central government and the state of
Andhra. Lined up against the state were the government education min¬
ister, the chairman of the Inter-University Board, the University Grants
Commission, and most of the national press.58 Facing this array, the chief
minister declared that changing the bill meant “bowing to Delhi,” and
declared he would do so only on one condition, that all states agreed to
a uniform pattern of university government.59 Later in the week he dis¬
missed his earlier assurances to the prime minister, saying that there was
no need for discussion with the government education minister because
no changes were being contemplated.60
Why had the dispute reached such an impasse? Clearly the chief min¬
ister felt that he was being misrepresented by central authorities and the
national press.61 Everything he said about his intentions was called into
question, and he saw no recourse except to stand firm on a “states rights”
position. He felt most abused by Chagla, whom he accused of not reading
the bill carefully before publicly expressing an opinion.62 These remarks
suggest a degree of personal antagonism which would have made negoti¬
ation difficult.
The conflict was exacerbated and made more personal on 8 December
1965, when D. S. Reddi released a statement. Reddi had so far abstained
from speaking publicly on the issue, although he had advised the professors
on their efforts. Angry and arrogant in tone, his statement impugned the
motives of the politicians and accused the state government of failing to
understand the purpose of a university. In obvious reference to his own
 Osmania University
291

position as vice-chancellor, he asked “whether the government [had] an in¬

tention of removing an existing vice-chancellor who [had] not found favor
with them for not being very accommodating or of appointing a particular
individual in a resulting vacancy.” 63 Why did Reddi now inject m igsue
into the controversy? 61 It appears he was convinced from the beginning
that the chief minister continued to resent the circumstances and bargains
that accompanied his initial appointment as vice-chancellor in 1957 65 and
wanted to replace him. His wariness was increased by changes in state
Congress party politics that found his close friends in a faction opposed to
the chief minister.
D. S. Reddi’s statement served as a direct challenge to the chief min¬
ister, who responded immediately in what the press termed an “outburst.”
He chided the vice-chancellor for making derogatory remarks about the
nation’s leadership and asked him to make amends.66 This exchange
marked a turning point in the dispute. General issues of autonomy became
less prominent and the specific matter of the vice-chancellor’s tenure be¬
came more prominent. At the same time, the central government increased
its pressure on the government of Andhra to substantially modify if not
withdraw the amendment bills that still awaited the governor’s signature.
Prime Minister Shastri, in widely publicized remarks to a convocation at
Allahabad, reminded the chief minister of his promise to consult with the
central government. “It would be a good thing if the measures affecting
education were taken by states in consultation with the center. This would
not mean any erosion of states’ autonomy in the administration of educa¬
tion, but certainly ensure a certain uniformity in the national education
field.” 67 A week later it was announced that the chief minister had invited
representatives of the UGC and the government education ministry to dis¬
cuss the bill.68 A few days later, V. K. R. V. Rao, then the education
member of the planning commission, used the occasion of a convocation
address at Osmania to note the delay in the governor’s assent to the bill
and to speculate about the effect of public protest on the chief minister’s
views.69
These events seemed to indicate that the pressure from the central gov¬
ernment would produce a negotiated settlement. Talks were held. The
chief minister agreed to change the legislation by introducing new amend¬
ing legislation at the next session of the legislature rather than by recom¬
mitting the existing bills. Acknowledging that the directives clause pro¬
vided no procedural guarantees to the university, he agreed to withdraw
it. These assurances might have ended the issue. Indeed, many at the uni¬
versity urged that efforts to resist the legislation be abandoned in the in¬
terest of future peace with the government.
The leaders of the university delegation remained wary, however. Prime
Minister Shastri died in Tashkent in January 1966, and the resulting con¬
fusion in Delhi diverted attention from the Andhra case. Because the as¬
surances of the chief minister to introduce new amending legislation had
292 Political Dimensions of University Government

been given to Shastri personally, they were not necessarily valid after his
death. No information was available from government circles about the
bill to be introduced in the next session of the legislature. Sensing the in¬
creasing animosity between the chief minister and D. S. Reddi, some pre¬
dicted an effort would be made to remove the vice-chancellor.
At this juncture, some Osmania professors asked the new prime minister,
Mrs. Indira Gandhi, to intervene. They were much less successful than
they had been with Shastri, for Mrs. Gandhi was busy preparing to go
abroad. She did, however, instruct Dinesh Singh, a member of the develop¬
ing “kitchen cabinet,” to ask the chief minister to delay the legislation. The
chief minister would not be dissuaded. He found the efforts of the central
government puzzling: it first convinced him to introduce new legislation to
correct bad features of the old, then suddenly asked him to delay. Having
made plans, he now would not change them.
The second amendment bill, introduced in the March budget session
of the legislature, confirmed all the fears of the university leaders. It con¬
tained not only the two promised amendments, but also another which
appeared directly aimed at the Osmania vice-chancellor: the terms of the
sitting vice-chancellors were to cease within ninety days of enactment. An
ulterior purpose was made more obvious by the fact that the term of one
of the other vice-chancellors was about to expire in any case; furthermore,
there was a provision declaring that terms of the other university governing
bodies would not be affected by the legislation. The new amendment bill
was passed by the Congress party majority and signed into law on 17 May
1966. Immediately thereafter the chief minister announced that he would
appoint new vice-chancellors to all three Andhra universities by the begin¬
ning of the new academic year in July.70 This was the, chief minister’s
response to D. S. Reddi’s December challenge. The conflict was now openly
a personal one, and the nature of the struggle shifted.

The first round of the contest between Osmania and the government of
Andhra, particularly its chief minister, Brahmananda Reddy, was clearly
won by the university. The chief minister had been forced to amend the
amending legislation soon after its enactment. Critical to this outcome were
the impressive political resources the university was able to mobilize.
Calling attention to these resources does not imply that the conflict was
merely a power struggle; the substance of the issues was of primary im¬
portance. But what was remarkable about the university’s opposition was
the powerful way in which it could force recognition of its cause. University
leaders were aware of this. An economics professor who participated in
several of the delegations to Delhi, put the case this way: “The success of
the university teachers has come as a surprise to those immature politicians
who, thinking of the simplified slogan ‘one man, one vote,’ seem to consider
university teachers as political non-entities. . . . However, in all demo¬
cratic countries the scholars and men of learning form an estate by them-
 Osmania University 293

selves which cannot easily be trifled with. For one thing, the mere fact that
they have accessibility (direct as well as through their well-wishers among
the political influential persons) to the highest authorities in the country,
invests them with a privilege which is denied to many.” 71
The formal structure of the university must be counted among its re¬
sources for action. Other chapters in this volume point out how permeable
educational institutions can be to outside influence.72 At Osmania, by con¬
trast, the majority position of academics on the senate helped that body
to speak unanimously in support of resistance, adding moral weight to the
university s position in state and national public opinion. This was im¬
portant during the first phase of the conflict, and even more so during the
second, when the senate voted to continue recognition of D. S. Reddi as
vice-chancellor despite the chief minister’s appointment of a replacement.
Seldom was the senate as a body involved in the conflict; the active work of
representing the university s case was done by an ad hoc body of the senate,
a committee of professors, with some advice from the vice-chancellor.
However, the ability of the professors to go to Delhi on the authority of the
senate of the university, which had constituted them as a committee of
fourteen and given them a mandate, undoubtedly added to their case.
In the national arena, the Inter-University Board was important. Its
head, Sir C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer, was a respected national leader whose
views received widespread attention in the national press. He placed the
prestige of the IUB behind the issue of university autonomy by threatening
to disaffiliate Andhra Pradesh universities. He also put his sixteen years of
experience as vice-chancellor of various Indian universities behind this
issue. After the second amendment bill (to be discussed below) became
law in February 1966, he again wrote to the chief minister urging recon¬
sideration of the act on the grounds of its conflict with common justice and
equity. This letter also was released to the press and received national cov¬
erage.
Amrik Singh, secretary of the Inter-University Board, also helped.
Frankly a “trade unionist by sentiment,” Singh immediately saw the all-
India implications of the legislation and pledged his support to Osmania.
Throughout the controversy, he served as a consultant to the professors
and the vice-chancellor, helped them to arrange interviews and secure pub¬
licity, and devoted an entire issue of his journal, the Journal of University
Education, to the problem. Finally, the IUB lent institutional support,
bringing the matter to the attention of its member vice-chancellors at IUB
meetings.
Direct appeals to college and university faculty members throughout
India resulted in additional useful publicity. The professors enlisted the
support of the All-India English Teacher’s Conference, which passed a
resolution supporting the cause of the teachers in safeguarding autonomy
and academic freedom. Teachers of Bombay University, under the aus¬
pices of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, passed a resolution requesting
294 Political Dimensions of University Government

the governor of Andhra Pradesh to refuse his assent to the acts.73 Later,
teachers at Lucknow University passed a resolution congratulating the
Osmania teachers on their “bold stand ... in defense of university au¬
tonomy.” 74 Finally, the issue was raised by prominent speakers at two
important academic occasions: by supreme court Chief Justice G. B. Gajen-
dragadkar at the Lucknow University convocation and Vice-Chancellor
D. R. Gadgil of Bombay University at the National Convention of Univer¬
sity and College Teachers at Lucknow University. These events called
more attention to the national consequences of the legislation, spurring the
central government to intervene.
Cultural affinities between the professors and the elite in the central gov¬
ernment added to the professors’ persuasiveness. Most university professors
are members of a cultural elite that encompasses upper level civil servants,
judges, and some of the central ministers. This elite is relatively cosmo¬
politan in its attitude and connections as a result of having been educated
abroad and in institutions of all-India stature. In talking together they can
draw upon common symbols, including that of the British university, which
provided them with a model for autonomy. State politicians appear to
them provincial and suspect, concerned with patronage and power, and
without an understanding, much less an appreciation, of the values of
university life and freedom.

The Court Cases

The second phase of the dispute was even more tense and dramatic than
the first. The issue was simplified; attention focused on preserving the vice-
chancellor in office rather than on fine points of legislation. Action in this
phase was more restricted to Hyderabad, and the university fared less well.
Many of the political resources it could mobilize on the general substantive
issue of autonomy were not available for a personal conflict. The first
phase had demonstrated the capacity of the Indian federal system to modify
state initiatives on matters of principle, but for the personal conflict of the
second phase, action stronger than persuasion was required. The vice-
chancellor turned to the courts and the university organized for direct
action.
The second amendment act, passed in March 1966 and signed by the
governor in May, provided for the removal of D. S. Reddi from office in
ninety days, abrogating his contract and denying him the procedures to
appeal his removal that the first amendment act had established. The
amendment act clearly raised constitutional issues that could be contested
in court. D. S. Reddi chose for his lawyer Narsa Raju, a former advocate
general of Andhra Pradesh whose previous conflicts with the chief minister
had led to his resignation from that post. The case was argued in the high
court of Andhra Pradesh for thirty-one days, the longest hearing to that
date.
Osmania University 295

The high court rejected Reddi’s arguments. It ruled that the act did not
deprive the vice-chancellor of his constitutional right to property because
the office of vice-chancellor could not be considered personal property.
Reddi had argued that the act was motivated by personal animosity aroused
by the vice-chancellor’s opposition to the first amendment act, but the
court held that motives cannot be attributed to a legislative body and that
neither the chief minister nor any nonlegislative authority should be mis¬
taken for the legislature. Most crucial was the question of procedures for
removal. Reddi argued that he was denied use of the procedures set forth
in the unamended act, and that such denial constituted discriminatory use
of legislative powers. The court, however, ruled that the second amendment
act provided for cessation of term of office, not removal from office, a
matter of policy which the legislature could change from time to time. The
policy at issue was in line with the purposes of the act, the limitation of a
vice-chancellor’s tenure to six years. Since D. S. Reddi had already served
more than six years, there was reason to differentiate him from subsequent
vice-chancellors who would be able to appeal through the removal pro¬
cedures.75
When D. S. Reddi’s writ petition was struck down by the high court on
13 October 1967, he appealed to the supreme court. Without considering
the other arguments, it decided in his favor on the grounds of discrimina¬
tion. There was, the supreme court held, no intelligible difference in the
circumstances of D. S. Reddi and future vice-chancellors that had a rational
relation to the object sought to be achieved by the statute. The powers and
duties of vice-chancellor had not changed; the fact that he was appointed
through a different method and had already held office for seven years did
not justify discriminatory treatment.76 Therefore the act violated article
fourteen of the Constitution providing for equality before the law.

Direct Action: Faculty, Students, and University Employees

The university began to mobilize while it awaited the high court’s judg¬
ment. A hurried meeting, attended by seventy-five teachers, passed a reso¬
lution urging the government not to appoint a new vice-chancellor even
if the judgment went against D. S. Reddi; in the event that the government
did so, the teachers would refuse to cooperate. To enforce this decision,
they collected letters of resignation to be held in abeyance pending nego¬
tiation with the government. The Osmania University Teachers’ Associa¬
tion (OUTA), which had not previously taken an active interest in uni¬
versity government nor been previously involved in the conflict over D. S.
Reddi’s tenure as vice-chancellor, formed a council of action which took
the noncooperation resolution to the chancellor (governor). He tried to
assuage them by suggesting that the post might be offered to the senior
university professor. This professor was a powerful, determined man,
known for his courage in conflict against authorities. He declared that he
 296 Political Dimensions of University Government

would refuse the post under the prevailing conditions, setting the mood for
the others to do the same. Subsequently, he was elected president of OUTA
and became the leader of the struggle.
With the announcement of the high court judgment on 13 October 1966,
the professors’ position was bleak. The judgment legally ended Reddi’s stay
in office, and news was received that a new vice-chancellor would be ap¬
pointed any day. The OUTA president asked a former chief minister of the
state, who often acted as a mediator in political quarrels, to intervene, but
the present chief minister would not listen to further discussion. With diplo¬
matic channels exhausted, the OUTA president made public the offer of
the vice-chancellor’s post, declared his refusal, and began to mobilize the
teachers.77 An emergency meeting of OUTA, called for October 15, passed
a remarkable resolution: each member promised to donate 1 percent of
his salary for three months to fund the autonomy struggle.
The teachers action council was a fascinating arena for the working
out of political conflicts among the teachers. Behind the unanimity of the
resolution to donate salaries were many differing opinions of the struggle
and the personalities leading it. The most significant division until this
time had been between professors and teachers (reader and lecturer ranks).
Almost all the action had been carried on by a small group of professors
and principals working at higher levels. Teachers had not been antagonis¬
tic, but simply uninvolved. The OUTA general body had not met since the
year before because many members felt that they had little to lose by the
new legislation they had little representation on university bodies any¬
way.
The professors had also been divided. A group of moderates had urged
that the senate recognize the two major concessions by the government,
arguing that because the remaining issues had as much to do with the man
as the office the university should not unnecessarily antagonize government.
The senior professor, who subsequently led the fight, refused at an earlier
stage to sign the public appeal for retention of the vice-chancellor, arguing
that the appeal insulted the university by making it appear to be dependent
on one man. Others did sign the appeal, but argued against extreme means
of protest. Throughout the second phase of the struggle, they were anxious
that the teachers activities emphasize the constitutional issues rather than
personal loyalty to the vice-chancellor — though to the public and the
government, these were inevitably tied together.
The social composition of this moderate group was significant. Promi¬
nent were three Andhras who had supported D. S. Reddi when he first
became vice-chancellor in the face of opposition from many Telengana
teachers. These Andhra faculty members sought to maintain tolerable re¬
lations with the Andhra government, possibly because they felt culturally
sympathetic with the Andhra chief minister and his government.
The professorial group in the forefront of the struggle was less tied to
the surrounding Telugu culture. Among this group were two Muslims, one
Osmania University 297

a member of an old Hyderabad family, the other from northern India.

Another professor in this group had joined the university as an economics
professor only two years before, after an assignment in Paris. Several
brahmans from Hyderabad city or outside the state were also involved.
By background and career they shared the values of the national elite cul¬
ture which upheld the ideal of university autonomy from local pressures.
They also had little standing in the emerging rural environment of the
university and looked to the vice-chancellor for support for their interests
and academic needs.
Many of the younger teachers now also joined in the struggle. The new
OUT A president, who had won the respect of teachers through his earlier
conflicts with university administration, was instrumental in recruiting many
of them. Others saw the occasion as an opportunity to bargain with the
professors for more democratic relations within the university and joined
the council to bring forward their demands. Such teachers had no strong
loyalty to the vice-chancellor, the symbol of a hierarchy they opposed, but
they became strongly opposed to what they regarded as the dictatorial
methods of the government. They joined the most committed group of the
council, and two were made its secretaries.
The problem of internal autonomy, as these young teachers called the
issue of internal democratization, had been raised before in the form of a
demand for regular meetings of the full staff of teaching departments, but
it had never received much support.78 With considerable political skill these
young teachers formed a subcommittee of OUTA under the chairmanship
of a senior professor to discuss the issue and make recommendations.79
This committee observed that “a teacher subject to humiliation is an unfit
instrument for autonomy,” and suggested changes in university adminis¬
tration. It proposed the rotation of deanships among the professors and,
quoting the observation of the Education Commission, 1964—1966, about
“the temptation to oligarchy of senior professors,” recommended that com¬
mittees of teachers be set up to assist department heads in their administra¬
tion. It asked them to take the advice of such committees on teaching and
research programs, timetables, subject assignments, and allocation of ex¬
amination work. Furthermore, all adverse comments about a teacher’s
work were to be conveyed to the teacher concerned, instead of only being
noted on his confidential record. These proposals, if implemented, would
have brought great changes in university norms and administration.
The first meetings of the OUTA action council were given over to tire¬
some trials of strength among these groups. Finally one of the most re¬
spected moderates, the principal of the science college, made a suggestion
that galvanized the group to action —- to test the commitment of the
teachers to the issue, the action council would call for all teachers to join
in a mass casual leave on the next day.80 The call was a marked success.
More than 90 percent of the teachers of the university and its constituent
colleges refrained from holding classes or attending college; the vice-
 298 Political Dimensions of University Government

chancellor supported them, saying that the move was consistent with the
dignity of their office.81
Without plan, the mass casual leave demonstration took place on the
same day that the government appointed a new vice-chancellor of Osmania
University, Dr. Narsimha Rao, principal of Guntur Medical College.82
When the faculty heard of the appointment, they were stunned. At a large
gathering of teachers, only two persons recognized his name, for he had
never been mentioned as a possible candidate. The teachers immediately
passed a resolution urging him not to accept the office.83 The next day,
28 October 1966, was the most dramatic of the conflict. The new vice-
chancellor was to take office, having just arrived from Guntur under police
escort. Because students were demonstrating on the university campus, he
was advised not to come to the university. Instead the governor requested
that the university registrar bring the official papers to the governor’s house,
so that Narsimha Rao could take office there. Having heard through uni¬
versity circles that the registrar would comply, students surrounded his
office and prevented him from doing so. The governor sent a police escort,
but it was unable to enter the premises of the arts college where the regis¬
trar was being kept. Then the students led the registrar away to one of their
cars, “kidnapping” him for the day so that he could not hand over papers
to the new vice-chancellor. He was returned at six o’clock in the evening.
Meanwhile the university senate met to express its support for the vice-
chancellor. At the start of the meeting, the vice-chancellor announced that
the registrar had received a message from the governor announcing that
he, D. S. Reddi, was no longer vice-chancellor because Narsimha Rao had
just been invested with office without benefit of official papers. The chan¬
cellor had asked that he not preside over the senate meeting. But then D. S.
Reddi followed with an announcement of a supreme court injunction re¬
straining the new vice-chancellor from assuming office. With this news, the
senate voted unanimously to express their confidence in D. S. Reddi.84 At
this point, Osmania officially had two vice-chancellors.
The university continued its political pressure. The Council for Univer¬
sity Autonomy, successor to the OUTA action council formed earlier,
sent telegrams to a large number of central authorities and political leaders
requesting their intervention.85 Then they authorized the president of the
council to write a personal letter to Narsimha Rao asking him to step
down, stating that they could not cooperate with any vice-chancellor “ap¬
pointed in disregard of the mode of appointment which [they advocated]
as a fundamental right of university members.” 86
And the agitation continued. The president of the Council for Univer¬
sity Autonomy issued a direct appeal to all teachers to continue their
strike for one more day; when the council met subsequently, it decided to
continue the strike for a third day. At that meeting, it called upon pro¬
fessors of Osmania and educationists throughout the country to refuse any
offer of the vice-chancellorship of Andhra’s third university, Sri Venkates-
 Osmania University 299

wara University, which was to be announced any day. Furthermore, they

passed a resolution of appreciation for the students’ spontaneous reaction
of support, complimenting them on their sense of discipline despite many
provocations.87

Students were deeply involved during the four days of the strike. As
soon as they heard the new vice-chancellor had been appointed, they went
around the city urging students in university and affiliated colleges to
strike. When the bus service to the university was cancelled to prevent
demonstrations, they commandeered trucks to take students to the campus
some eight miles from the city.
For the leaders who came forward from the student community, the
strike provided an arena in which they could test political skills which they
hoped to develop into a career. The leader of the students supporting the
vice-chancellor was from a rich peasant family in Telengana. Many mem¬
bers of his family have been active in politics; his brother is now an ML A,
an uncle is a member of the legislative council, and another uncle is a
former MLA. In 1965-66 all were opposing the chief minister because of
factional conflicts in their district.88 The leader of the students supporting
the state government was a former president of the university-wide union,
subsequently president of the Andhra Youth Congress, the student wing
of the Congress party. He also was from a rich peasant family and planned
a political career, though as a strong supporter of the chief minister.
As it did for the teachers, the autonomy issue provided a vehicle for the
students to elaborate other issues which concerned them as an academic
interest group. They presented eleven demands to the chief minister, en¬
compassing a wide range of issues of which university autonomy was only
one: food ration cards for city students; police not to enter the campus un¬
less requested; retention of previous regulations for exams; bus concessions
for evening college students; and abolition of the rank of third class in
postgraduate examinations. And in sympathy with the concurrent student
strike elsewhere in Andhra they inserted a demand that the central gov¬
ernment award the fifth public sector steel plant to Andhra Pradesh rather
than to Madras or Mysore.
Once in motion, the strike attracted many outside the university with
little interest in the autonomy issue. Many high school students joined the
demonstrations, forcing the closing of the schools. An American student
observer commented that it was the high school students who caused most
of the violence: “for them the strike had merely set the stage for a mo¬
mentary outcry against social oppressions.” 89
Were the students instigated by the “teacher-politicians” who are so fre¬
quently blamed for student strikes in India? There was a previous history
of student involvement in university politics at Osmania: a group of student
leaders had gone to the governor to urge the vice-chancellor’s reappoint¬
ment in 1964, probably at the suggestion of others in the university. Now
300 Political Dimensions of University Government

students and teachers worked along parallel lines, though OUT A was not
formally identified with student activities. Liaison was maintained by two
of the young militant teachers who advised the students of the teachers’
decisions. In this situation the collaboration between teachers and students
may have helped responsible student leaders control what could have be¬
come a much more explosive situation. In the larger context, however,
mobilization of students may have contributed to problems of indiscipline.
The teachers at Osmania recognized that students did things that teachers
could not do, such as “kidnapping” the registrar. To the extent that stu¬
dents later felt the vice-chancellor beholden to them for his continuation
in office, university administration could suffer. Indeed, there has been
some complaint that students have become bolder in their personal de¬
mands, making daily administration more difficult.90
University employees offered support by abstaining from work. Class
Four employees, the peons and lab assistants, were the most active. They
had been the first to launch a public demonstration in 1965 when amend¬
ing bills were initially considered. With a long history of pressure against
the vice-chancellor over pay scales, the Class Four Employees Union
claimed that it was acting in support of autonomy rather than on behalf of
the vice-chancellor personally. To Class Four employees autonomy meant
better working conditions than those they anticipated under tighter gov¬
ernment control.91 Despite this dissociation, however, their support for the
vice-chancellor at a time when it was not at all certain that he would be
retained — the supreme court had not yet made a decision — was a meas¬
ure of the vice-chancellor’s ability to mobilize his university.
The strike was called off after four days when students, in marked con¬
trast to the teachers, succeeded in negotiating with the chief minister. They
demanded a conference to discuss changes in the act and threatened a
hunger strike to be conducted in front of the government secretariat. The
chief minister was so annoyed with the students initially that he refused to
contemplate any concessions or to allow teachers at the discussions. Even¬
tually, he met some of the student demands (for ration cards and bus
concessions) and offered to convene a conference to discuss the report of
the Education Commission, 1964-1966, with the possibility of changing
the act if an all-India policy were developed. With these “concessions” in
hand, the strike was called off and the supreme court verdict awaited.

Personal and Factional Dimensions of the Conflict

How did the issue of university autonomy gain so much support at

Osmania? 92 In the immediate context, the catalytic agent was the appoint¬
ment of the new vice-chancellor. Teachers were insulted by the disdain
shown to their interests, preferences, and “right” to participate, and
alarmed by the implications of a government appointment when the issue
was before the courts. Furthermore, they resented the appointment of a
 Osmania University
301

nonentity. Because Narsimha Rao was a nonentity, they could only con¬
clude that the appointment was made on personal grounds to spite D. S.
Reddi and please politicians in the chief minister’s home district.93 Leaders
of the teachers admit that the appointment of either a Telengana man or a
more eminent educationist might have split their ranks.94
Much credit also must be given to the vice-chancellor’s political success
in the university. From the object of active antagonism, he had become a
focal point of loyalty through wise use of the many powers of the vice-
chancellor. He had increased this loyalty through his handling of the pay
scales for teachers and staff employees. Class Three and Four employees
had been demanding that the pay scales granted in 1961 be made retro¬
active to 1958, giving them large amounts of arrears; this demand was met
in principle in February 1966, though only a portion of the amount was
paid because of financial stringency. The teachers also had been asking that
their scales be raised to those recommended by the UGC during the third
plan period, eliminating the differential between teachers in constituent col¬
leges and those teaching on the university campus. The vice-chancellor had
previously granted the increased scales to all those holding Ph.D. degrees;
he later granted the increased scales to all teachers.95
The conflict gained intensity because of several other issues. One of the
most immediate causes was the personal animosity that developed between
the chief minister and the vice-chancellor. Both were proud independent-
minded men from families that have long participated in rural politics as
members of the dominant caste of Andhra, the Reddis. Such families are
known for their willingness to pursue conflicts over status and power, even
to the extent of large material loss. D. S. Reddi showed his determination
at the time of his first appointment to secure what he believed due to him.
The autonomy issue engaged these men in a similar manner. The chief
minister saw the vice-chancellor as an arrogant man asserting independence
in an institution “as though it were his own.”96 Similarly, the vice-
chancellor took the contest as a prestige issue that had to be fought through
successfully even though doing so involved a financial loss as a result of
expensive litigation.97
Many in Hyderabad believe that university actions regarding the chief
minister’s nephew crystallized this antagonism. One incident involved the
nephew’s attempt to transfer from a district medical college to one of the
university medical colleges. It is said that the vice-chancellor was inclined
to permit the transfer, but that the syndicate, in comparing the boy’s case
with those of forty-five others also requesting transfers, could find no
ground for making an exception. He was therefore refused the transfer,
which may have annoyed the chief minister. However, no action followed
directly from this incident, which occurred a year before the autonomy
issue.
A second incident concerning the same student occurred after the au¬
tonomy issue arose. The boy’s paper was marked incorrectly, giving him a
302 Political Dimensions of University Government

first class grade when he had done poorly on the examination. After the
marks were published, the matter was brought to the syndicate and an
inquiry commission established. After investigation the syndicate decided
that nothing could be done to the student, but that the lecturer would be
deprived of his examinership.
Undoubtedly these incidents contributed to some ill feeling. The first
incident showed what politicians may have felt was arrogance, the univer¬
sity refusing to adjust its standards to political realities, even in small
matters.98 With so many important public and political reasons for the
chief minister’s opposition to Reddi, however, it is difficult to believe that
this incident itself motivated that opposition.
The second incident appears to be more a result than a cause of the au¬
tonomy struggle. There have been many cases of upgrading student exam¬
inations, presumably due to influence exercised on the grader, that have not
received the public notice that this case did. The vice-chancellor took a
long time to bring the case to syndicate notice, possibly in order to conduct
his own investigation before making such an allegation about an important
examination. But his action delayed the inquiry until after the marks had
been published, therefore making the matter more public. The university
acted properly in the issue, but it did not seek channels which would have
prevented embarrassing publicity.
That the incidents are believed to have played a crucial role in the strug¬
gle is in itself instructive about political attitudes. Though there were strong
public and factional reasons for the conflict between the chief minister and
Reddi, many people personalized the issue. The proclivity to discount in¬
stitutional ties and constraints in favor of personal ones as explanations of
political events is common in Indian politics.
Underpinning the personal conflict was the increasing factional split
within the Congress Party. Andhra politics had been dominated by a
curious alliance between the former chief minister, Sanjiva Reddy, and
his follower Brahmananda Reddy. Though Sanjiva Reddy was soon taken
into the central cabinet, he was able for a time to maintain his control over
state politics. Soon, however, an increasing strain between the central and
state leaders, brought on by a series of small incidents in which the chief
minister failed to consult the central minister, resulted in mistrust. D. S.
Reddi had a long-standing association with one of the ministers associated
with Sanjiva Reddy. Through him he had come to know many of Sanjiva
Reddy’s group as well, and had entertained them during their stay in
Hyderabad. Therefore when Andhra politics split into factions, D. S. Reddi
was immediately associated with the dissident group opposing the chief
minister. This does not mean that the vice-chancellor participated in the
factional maneuvering; he had never directly taken positions in state poli¬
tics. His association with the dissidents, however, served to accentuate the
symbolic importance of the university conflict by relating it directly to the
factional struggle for ascendance in the Congress party."
The conflict was intensified by the absence of mediators respected by
Osmania University 303

both sides but identified with neither. At the central level, the IUB, the
UGC, and the education minister were clearly aligned with the university.
Within the university the politician members of the senate and syndicate
were equally identified with the university’s position, which they upheld
firmly in public speeches denouncing the government. Their position re¬
sulted from their long-standing identification with the university as grad¬
uates and as members of Hyderabad’s elite families; their feelings as Telen-
gana politicians confronting an Andhra chief minister who appeared to be
operating with little respect for revered Hyderabad institutions; and their
political alignment with the leader of the Telengana dissidents against the
chief minister. From the university side the only possible mediator was an
old brahman Congress party leader from Hyderabad, a member of parlia¬
ment (Lok Sabha) and a widely known philanthropist. As a member of
the older Congress party generation which now wields little power in the
state party, he was not identified with any group in state politics. Though
strongly identified with the university on the autonomy issue, he was able
to gain an interview with the chief minister at a time when no one else
could do so. Without political support to provide sanction for his efforts,
however, he could do little.
Nor could the government contribute any mediators. Civil servants most
concerned with education were themselves too closely identified with one
of the parties. The director of higher education had a long-standing asso¬
ciation with the vice-chancellor, who had helped him attain his director¬
ship. On the other hand, the director of public instruction was the author of
the government bill and not trusted by the university.
The only persons with sufficient stature and independence to mediate
were the two prime ministers and the former chief minister of Hyderabad
state, B. Ramakrishna Rao. Through Shastri, the chief minister had agreed
to introduce new amending legislation that incorporated changes suggested
by central government authorities. Through the offices of Ramakrishna Rao,
the teachers agreed to call off their strike on the understanding that a con¬
ference would be held. But this happened only after the conflict had run
its course and the “second” vice-chancellor had been prevented from as¬
suming office by supreme court injunction.
Without mediators the conflict was conducted almost entirely in public.
Throughout the dispute university senate meetings were well covered in
the press, and leaders from both sides used the press to talk to each other.
Informal channels which were available, such as the office of the director
of public instruction, were used primarily for passing along information,
rather than for effecting a settlement.

University Budget Crisis

With the supreme court verdict the Andhra Pradesh government dropped
its efforts to unseat D. S. Reddi and allowed his term to run its course.
Meanwhile the university autonomy dispute shifted from the appointment
 304 Political Dimensions of University Government

issue to the question of finance. On 31 August 1967, D. S. Reddi an¬

nounced that the university would face closure within six months if the
government did not pay it rupees seventy lakhs (Rs. 700,000), the balance
due it as a result of the increase in the block grant for the two financial
years after 1966-67.100 Government made no provision in its budget for
payment of such a sum, and compounded the university’s financial crisis
by releasing its funds in monthly installments, a practice that did not take
into account the disproportionately large expenditure of funds that occurs
at the beginning of the academic year.101 The university was forced to
rescind half of its pay increases to employees and to raise tuition and ex¬
amination fees, moves that risked alienating two important constituencies
within the university. Even with these adjustments, the vice-chancellor
feared that reserves and interest from the endowments fund might not be
sufficient to meet expenditures for more than six months.
The university saw these difficulties as a direct result of the conflict with
government over autonomy. Clearly the conflict was a sensitive issue in
government circles; the government’s defeat was public and decisive.
Whether the government s actions were vindictive, however, must be con¬
sidered in the larger context of state finances. The Andhra Pradesh gov¬
ernment was in financial straits. Its overdrafts on the reserve bank were
being called in by the central government and its commitment to enhance
the dearness allowances of state employees would cost an estimated rupees
ten crores per year.102 Its difficulty was compounded by the temporary loss
of revenue that followed invalidation by the supreme court of the Land
Revenue Act of 1967. The state had to cut back drastically on its plan ex¬
penditures. It retrenched more than a thousand young engineers on public
works projects, decreed a 10 percent cut in expenditure for education at all
levels, and reduced outlays for rural development by large amounts. In
this context, the university’s current grant (the old block grant), minus a
10 percent cut, plus half of the increment requested, was probably in line
with the stringency in other areas. At the same time, there may have been
some vindictive postponement of decisions on university financing. The
university budget was not decided in 1966, when its previous five-year
grant expired, even though the state was not then in a financial crisis. Sub¬
sequently, the university shared the financial suffering of the state.103 The
issue of finance is a very serious one, for it highlights the dependence of
the umversity on government resources, another means for limiting uni¬
versity autonomy.104

Autonomy in Perspective

Though D. S. Reddi was allowed to complete his term, the new pro¬
cedures were used to choose his successor. By then circumstances had
changed, and all of Telengana was engrossed in a conflict over separation
of the region from Andhra Pradesh. In an attempt to mollify separatist
Osmania University 305

opinion the leader of the Council for University Autonomy, Ravada Sat-
yanarayana, was chosen vice-chancellor. In these circumstances the univer¬
sity accepted what must be considered a political appointment, though
Satyanarayan had many qualifications that might have won him the post
under other circumstances as well.105
Osmania did not change fundamentally, even though the autonomy dis¬
pute lasted more than one year and had so dramatic a climax. It is not
likely that the professors could be rallied again for such an issue if there
were not strong backing again by a vice-chancellor, and the demand for
internal autonomy has only now, three years later, begun to make progress.
The personal ground on which the autonomy dispute was conducted led
many to interpret it as a struggle for power and prestige between indi¬
viduals, the chief minister and the vice-chancellor. Yet to reduce the issues
to the personal level would be to ignore the fundamental divergences un¬
derlying the conflict which enabled each side to gather such support and
made mediation so difficult. It is the articulation of these divergences be¬
tween goals, between elites, and between purpose and performance which
makes the Osmania case an incisive revelation of the tensions inherent in
modernization.
In the debate surrounding the conflict fundamental views of university
autonomy were articulated. One side argued that liberty depends on the
university having autonomy as a matter of right.108 Assimilating the uni¬
versity into the theory of checks and balances, it argued that universities
must have the same independent standing as the judiciary if liberty is to
be preserved. Constitutional sanctity is especially necessary during the dif¬
ficult stages of development, when “the backwardness of economy, con¬
tinuance of quasi-traditional institutions and social obscurantism, . . .
leads to an inchoate situation resulting among other things in the emergence
of a certain type of political elite, and the first-phase spectacle of faction-
ridden and personality-oriented ‘tug-of-war’ politics. . . . Faced with such
a political reality it becomes almost imperative for centers of culture and
learning, like the universities, to take necessary precautions in resisting
political influence and control.” 107
The purpose of autonomy is not, however, to isolate the university from
the public. Indeed, this side argued that the university is as true a repre¬
sentative of the general will as the legislature. As an institution creating
knowledge and values, it acts as a trustee of the nation, not only of its
present but also of its future. In this role it must act as a critic of current
actions, seeking to educate public opinion and to change it. “Autonomous
universities are the watchmen of the democratic community.” 108
An alternate view links autonomy more directly with the university’s
contribution to democracy and development. This is the view of the model
act committee, which argued that “a university needs autonomy if it is to
discharge properly its functions and obligations to society and play an ef¬
fective part in the development and progress of the country.” 109 This
 306 Political Dimensions of University Government

formulation takes the interpretation and defense of autonomy out of the

hands of the university as a self-governing institution and places autonomy
in the charge of public authority responsible to the people. It makes the
university’s autonomy contingent on its fulfilling certain functions deemed
necessary by the society as articulated by its government.
Arguing from this position, some socialists have suggested that a planned
society devoted to rapid change cannot allow universities the independence
they were allegedly given in an older, presumably more stable British so¬
ciety. Surrounded by poverty and backwardness, India’s leaders must con¬
centrate their efforts for change, mobilizing all institutions for service to
social goals.110 Thus A. D. Bhogle of Osmania argued: “The fact is, emerg¬
ing countries have a logic all their own. . . . There is no need to protect
the university from the popular will and the state, for these are the prime
movers in our social dynamics. Instead of resisting popular and govern¬
mental intervention, the universities must try to improve the quality of
these interventions. This it [sic] can do by a more vigorous participation
by the academics in the social life of the country.” 111 Though less ex¬
plicitly socialist in his orientation, the chief minister made a similar argu¬
ment in justifying the legislation to education minister Chagla. “While no
one disputed the need for giving complete autonomy to the universities in
their internal matters and day-to-day administration, I think no one can
seriously argue that this autonomy should be absolute covering every item
of major educational policy with which the aspirations of the people as
also their future are inextricably interlinked.” 112
Even when the universities are not asked to be quite so socially re¬
sponsive as this view implies, they must prove themselves worthy of au¬
tonomy or suffer restrictions on it. If they become, for example, political
rotten boroughs for self-serving caste groups then autonomy has little
meaning. Pluralists who endorse voluntary associations as the foundations
of democracy and liberty assume that they can provide just and orderly
self-government that contributes to public good, but such associations may
not be capable of doing either. There are many instances of maladministra¬
tion in Indian universities, of which that at Andhra university was only one
example. The public does not have great confidence in universities, nor
do university administrators have confidence in the integrity of their teach¬
ers, as the resistance to internal examinations suggests.
Pluralists also assume that the ordering of society rests on a consensus
of what constitutes the public good, shared by all such voluntary associ¬
ations and public authorities. Whether this consensus exists in India, di¬
vided as it is by communal, regional, and other cleavages that seem to
have little common ground, is hard to ascertain. The university argues
that it represents the whole society, yet to the rural-based politicians of
Andhra it appears to be an interest group dedicated to maintaining the
position of an urban cultural elite. The conflict over goals represents a
new era in Osmania’s history, a history distinguished in the earlier period
 Osmania University 307

by the felicitous relations between university and state. Only as goals di¬
verged as rural peasants began to demand democratization of modern
institutions and the university gained a sense of institutional distinctive¬
ness from its new windows on the English-speaking world — did the ques¬
tion of autonomy arise.113 Osmania’s demand for autonomy was reinforced
by the support of the central government, whose own goals of nation¬
building aroused its concern for Osmania’s future. In 1951 Prime Minister
Nehru sought to make Osmania a national (that is, centrally administered
and financed) Hindi-speaking university. In the autonomy controversy of
1965-66 the central government intervened on the side of universalism
against the provincialism of state politicians.114
The university’s contribution to societal goals is problematic, however
the goals be conceived. Some societal demands made on Indian universities
do appear to be deleterious to more “academic” goals. But is the Indian
university contributing to the goals of social uplift in ways which are con¬
sonant with its talents, and is it upholding the academic standards under
which it takes shelter? 115 Osmania’s record on the language of instruction
issue is perhaps instructive. The university has not, on the one hand, re¬
sisted the goals espoused by state political leaders, but it has not, on the
other, developed plans which would smooth the changeover to Telugu
language, nor has it initiated a translation program to provide texts in
Telugu. There is some redirection toward more social relevance at Os¬
mania. To cite only two examples, the geography department is pursuing
a comprehensive study of metropolitan Hyderabad, and the political sci¬
ence department is engaged in a long-term study of electoral trends in the
city. Such projects are consonant with the academic skills and interests of
a university faculty, yet they clearly also contribute to public concerns.
Divergence in goals has been accentuated by the differing social compo¬
sition of university and political elites. The distance of university repre¬
sentatives from their political environment goes beyond the isolation from
daily concerns that scholars usually desire, resented though that is in many
societies. Profound differences in cultural and social backgrounds separate
scholars from those in power. The university faculty draws heavily on
groups in Hyderabad that have lost political influence to rising peasant
groups.116 Reinforcing the differences in social composition is the resent¬
ment by Hyderabadis of the wealthier Andhras whom the Hyderabadis see
as unequal competition for jobs and services. Also, the new faculty are more
attuned to the modern national culture of foreign-trained intellectuals, the
press, and the national leaders to whom they appeal for support against
provincialism117 than to the needs of the Telugu people in the university’s
hinterland.118
The cleavage between political and university elite helps to explain why
so few public organizations in the state offered support to Osmania. With
the exception of the Communist members, MLA’s from Telengana did not
speak out in Osmania’s defense, nor did the graduates’ association or the
308 Political Dimensions of University Government

administrators of the college which is supported by the graduates’ associ¬

ation. More noticeable was the failure of the other two universities in the
state to come forward. Though they also were affected by the first of the
amendment acts, including the directives clause, they had neither the strong
vice-chancellor nor the faculty will to resist. These two universities are
much closer to their political and social environment than is Osmania.
More of their faculty have strong loyalties to values and interests outside
the university, providing crosscutting cleavages that preclude or mitigate
conflict with the environment over academic issues. In contrast, Osmania’s
separation from its social and political milieu made it more conscious of
its autonomy and more willing to fight for it.
Public support for the university’s academic goals and processes might be
augmented by development of better institutional mechanisms for relating
the university to its environment. The graduates’ association is concerned
primarily with sponsoring a public exhibition to finance a college but does
not otherwise participate in the university activities. More significantly, the
senate of the university does not provide a link with the environment. Its
twice-yearly meetings sometimes last only an hour and cannot be an ef¬
fective forum for discussion. Vice-chancellors have become adept in per¬
suading university senates to adopt their policies, but they have neglected
to persuade public representatives in the senate to defend university policies
in public arenas. Conversely, public representatives on the senate rarely
criticize university policies from within and when they do they often feel
uncomfortable because such criticism is too readily taken as political in¬
terference.119 The result is to deprive the university of channels for hear¬
ing lay criticism from within.
Like so many other roles in the university, that of representing the pub¬
lic has fallen on the shoulders of the vice-chancellor. At Osmania, D. S.
Reddi was most effective, partly because his own strong ties to the sur¬
rounding society enabled him to maintain an independent position vis-a-vis
public men. Yet it was these same ties that inadvertently involved the uni¬
versity in the quarrels of state factional politics. Perhaps the solution is
greater attention to development of institutional channels that would do
for the university what the vice-chancellor has done personally through
his own leadership. Indian universities today are too dependent on the
wisdom and skill of their vice-chancellors; it is this circumstance that made
D. S. Reddi’s tenure so large an issue at Osmania.
Government also might profit from rethinking the issues of the conflict.
Its haste in pushing through amending legislation and its refusal to consult
the university until pressed by threats and higher authorities deflected sup¬
port from the quite tenable changes it sought to make. Originally the gov¬
ernment wished to correct widely recognized shortcomings in university
governance. Yet the manner in which the government pursued university
reform created the impression that it had ulterior purposes. Government’s
proposals for removing vice-chancellors and giving directives showed little
Osmania University
309

sense of fair procedure because they neglected accepted canons of repre¬

sentation of parties in a dispute. The effort to replace D. S. Reddi with a
nonentity wounded the pride of academics who identified themselves with
the university s leadership. These actions did not necessarily indicate ma¬
licious intent, as many government critics charged, but they did highlight
the importance of respect for conventions and procedure in administrative
and political life in maintaining a workable relationship between the edu¬
cational and political systems in India.
■
Part IV / Professional Constraints on Politicization
of Education
* *
 Introduction to Part IV

The relationship between education and politics is affected by the pro¬

fessionalization of learning. Professionalism creates mediating structures
and communities — professional organizations and “colleagues” — and me¬
diating ideologies — rational and irrational beliefs in the virtues of profes¬
sionalism — that interpose their own goals and standards between those of
the educational and political systems. Professionalism as an identity, ide¬
ology, and institutional arrangement can provide reference points for
faculty members and constrain partisan, nepotic, and group considerations
in appointments and resource allocations. To the extent that professional
standards and interests are socially respected, they can influence extra¬
university persons and institutions upon which the university is dependent
(for example, state governments and community associations that manage
education). Professional standards, interests, and ideology can protect edu¬
cation against politicization. But professional influences are not invariably
benign. They can lead to overspecialization, trained incapacity, monopo¬
listic practices, and the appropriation of educational goals and resources.
In India, however, these dangers are still largely in the future; professionali¬
zation augurs educational benefits more than it does liabilities.
Historically, professional learning in higher education has had a number
of meanings. One meaning, quite old in Europe and embodied in profes¬
sional schools, views knowledge instrumentally, as a device for conveying
the technique of the literate crafts, notably law and medicine. A second
meaning is specialized education directed to research and the advancement
of knowledge “for its own sake”; this meaning had its strongest specific
expression in German university education in the nineteenth century, as
libraries, museums, and laboratories grew up to serve expanding intellec¬
tual frontiers. Both aspects of professionalization may mediate between
the political and educational systems if they convince politicians and edu¬
cators that the criteria and standards they represent are important.
Many of the arrangements in India which are hospitable to politicizing
education are also found in the United States, where publicly governed and
financed institutions also operate in the context of democratic politics.
In the United States, in fact, state universities not only receive their moneys
from state governments, as is to a considerable extent true in India, but
must justify their budgets annually before the state legislature, a develop¬
ment that has been resisted in India.1 But the historical development of
professionalization in America2 — the political strength of professional in¬
terest groups, the wide belief in the mystique of professional learning, the
strength of the German model of specialized learning — alters the picture.
The American universities — as distinct from American colleges — estab-
314 Introduction to Part IV

lished at the end of the nineteenth century (Johns Hopkins, Chicago,

Brown, Clark, and Harvard) incorporated German patterns of disciplinary
professionalism. These patterns were strengthened by the emergence of
powerful professional associations for the various disciplines, allied with
journals, meetings, “markets,” and other communication networks.3 The
idea of professional learning and status has been popularized with sufficient
success that state legislators who vote appropriations are obliged to con¬
sider not merely whether the state university admits enough local residents
and services state producer interests but also whether it can attract pro¬
fessors distinguished enough to raise the institution’s position in the de¬
partmental rankings compiled by professional associations.4 The national
reputation of state educational institutions has become an item in local
chauvinism and in the demand schedule of local voters.5
India also founds and funds the bulk of its higher educational institutions
through public means and operates them in the context of a democratic
politics. In India, however, political pressures meet with less counter
pressure from well-established professional disciplines than in the U.S.
This tends to make Indian higher education more vulnerable to partisan
social and political infiltration and appropriation.
It is significant for the role of professionalization in Indian university
education that the nation’s modem educational transplant came from
Britain rather than from, say, Germany. English universities avoided the
impact of professionalization, both in the sense of training for the learned
crafts (law and medicine) and in the sense of research and Wissenschaft,
longer than did those on the continent. The domination of the university
scene by Oxford and Cambridge meant the rule of classical scholarship
and literary culture,6 which were inimical to useful and specialized profes¬
sional training. Scientific and technological learning were suspect because
of their association with trade and were considered to be contaminated by
their connection with industry and profit. Systematic and applied knowledge
threatened the more diffuse and humanistic generalist style favored for
gentlemen. Science and technology and, later, the social sciences, occupied
the lower rungs of the intellectual status ladder.7 Such learning was for
second rate minds inept at classical education, although an energetic school
reformer like Thring at Uppingham could allow that one might find com¬
petent teachers to teach “extra subjects” (botany, natural history, physical
sciences, chemistry) as “filling-up work.” 8 Proper training in law, engi¬
neering, medicine, accountancy, and architecture remained a matter of
private arrangement rather than systematic courses of university study
much of the century, even after qualifying examinations were es¬
tablished for many of these fields.9 Students of law or medicine or archi¬
tecture would seek out an eminent practitioner and train under him.10 In
consequence, the mainstays of English higher education were relatively
insulated from professional influence until the twentieth century.
The University of London provided the structural but not the cultural
model tor Indian higher education. It placed some emphasis on profes-
sional traimng — King’s GoiJege had a Department of Engineering in 1838,
both King s and University College provided medical education — but such
Introduction to Part IV 315

emphasis was not carried over to Indian universities.11 Irene Gilbert’s ac¬
count of the Indian Educational Service shows us, rather, a service whose
members, due to internal and external constraints, often created institu¬
tions modeled on the English universities Matthew Arnold described:
“where the youth of the upper classes prolong to a very great age, and
under some very admirable influences, their school education. . . . They
are in fact still schools.” 12
Leading sectors for professionalization in the U.S. and Europe were
science and technology. Because the mystique of science and technology
is often as powerful as that of democracy, it is capable of legitimizing
abstract knowledge and elite higher education in the face of democratic
impatience with “useless” learning and meritocratic admission standards.
For these reasons, the presence of a strong scientific and technological
sector in universities can be significant for the maintenance of the profes¬
sional idea. In this respect too, however, India has to an extent followed
Britain in placing much of its scientific effort in specialized independent
research institutes outside the universities. The twenty-nine national labora¬
tories and institutes established under the Council of Scientific and In¬
dustrial Research, for example, command facilities and research talent
which, were they located in the universities, could strengthen professional¬
ism. This aspect of university organization not only weakens university re¬
search and teaching and its capacity to serve society in direct and obvious
ways, but also weakens the university’s capacity to resist politicizing pres¬
sure and appropriation by depriving it of the protections of professional
authority.
Finally, as the Education Commission, 1964-1966, pointed out, 40 per¬
cent of the students enrolled in Indian colleges are enrolled in the pre¬
university course or its equivalent.13 These courses and, according to the
commission, the courses leading to the first degree (B.A., B.Sc., B.Comm.)
are often the intellectual and academic equivalents of high school educa¬
tion in “advanced” countries.14 Such education does not command the
respect given to specialized expertise. It is not beyond the reach of laymen
and politicians, who may feel competent to form judgments on the nature
of the education imparted and to intervene in the educational process.
Because Indian colleges and universities perform high school functions,
many persons are recruited whose expert knowledge suffices for this level
of teaching only, and the more advanced professional knowledge of others
who teach at these levels is rendered purposeless. In either case, the sig¬
nificance of specialized knowledge is diminished and professional au¬
thority accordingly downgraded.

In her chapter on the Indian Educational Service, Irene Gilbert illumi¬

nates obstacles in the early growth of professionalization of higher educa¬
tion. The service was formed in 1896 to increase the number and quality
of able young Englishmen available to teach in the new government col¬
leges. The conditions of service, it was hoped, would offer attractions
similar to those of the Indian Civil Service, which had become a desirable
career capable of commanding superior talent.
316 Introduction to Part IV

To an extent, the IES accomplished this purpose by improving the status

of college teachers, regulating their benefits, promotions, and pay. But
there was much in the structure which was inhospitable to the creation of
academic professionalism, especially in the broader sense of research, pub¬
lication, and the advancement of knowledge through institutionalized spe¬
cialization. From the beginning, the service suffered from a confusion be¬
tween administrative roles on the one hand and teaching and intellectual
ones on the other. Its members were expected to serve both as college
teachers and as administrators in colleges and in the provincial depart¬
ments of public instruction. As college teachers, most emphasized the
“school” goals of character building through extracurricular as well as
curricular activities and through serving as models for the young men they
taught. Nor was specialization required or emphasized; quite the contrary.
The role of teacher was not the significant one for promotion, prestige,
and pay. The grading of posts available for staffing by members of the
service made administrative jobs the most senior, lucrative, and desirable.
To achieve them was the culmination of a man’s career. An appropriate
analogy would be that the administrators in the New York City department
of education and professors at Columbia University not only shared the
same career ladder but also that most Columbia professors aspired to be
superintendent of education in the city or state of New York, or perhaps
United States commissioner of education, as the highest measure of per¬
sonal success.
In consequence, the status expectations of the service were skewed in
favor of administration and moral education (including manners and
style) rather than research. The bureaucratic paradigm on which the
service was formulated and the “school” dimension of collegiate education
militated against academic professionalization in other respects. Seniority
and institutional contributions counted more than professional contribu¬
tions and those who made them were often promoted to a government de¬
partment that could use their skill or knowledge. Professors were obliged
to meet administrative requirements for office work — for example, knowl¬
edge of the vernaculars, which were not then used in higher education —
but were not obliged to meet professional requirements — particularly pub¬
lication — which could have served as incentives for intellectual production
and as a means to connect teachers to professional (as well as institutional)
colleagues. If teachers did publish, and they did, it was despite the structure
of incentives.
Until 1916, when postgraduate research degrees were introduced at
Calcutta, Indian universities were not postgraduate teaching and research
institutions, even though masters degrees began to be awarded in the
1870’s. Prior to 1916, and for some time afterward, most remained pri¬
marily examining bodies, designed to test boys educated in a variety of
colleges. This circumstance further constrained the members of the service.
Those experienced in English university teaching were shocked by the
limitations of the examination system and by the set syllabi. Irene Gilbert
quotes W. W. Homell, a member of the Service, who noted in 1914: “[A
professor] has practically no say in what he shall teach. His business is to
Introduction to Part IV 317

train for certain examinations, over which he has neither influence nor
control.” Irene Gilbert points out that “the curriculum used in his college
was legislated in the university senate, the books used in his courses re¬
quired by the university boards of study, and his teaching always indirectly
subject to decisions of the university’s board of examiners.” When one con¬
siders that better paid and more secure teachers from England, armed no
doubt with some imperial hubris, did not revolt against this system, it
becomes less surprising that Indian academics have been so long willing to
put up with it.
The IES professors did not specialize. They taught various subjects,
“lecturing continuously on basic topics at unsophisticated levels of scholar¬
ship.” 15 There was a tendency, heightened by the strong administrative, as
against professional, incentives in the service, to value contributions to the
institutional life more highly than external repute.16
Irene Gilbert believes that the reforms contemplated for the Indian Edu¬
cational Service in 1924 — to shear it of some of its bureaucratic features;
to separate administrative and teaching functions — would have strength¬
ened its contributions to the scholarly dimensions of higher education. But
these reforms were forestalled with the abolition of the IES in 1924. Al¬
though the IES shaped the intellect and character of generations of India’s
professional and political classes, it did not further the institutionalization
of professional standards and ideology in Indian higher education.
Professionalism may insulate the educational system from the political
when its criteria — intellectual formulations and research; the qualifica¬
tions required in a particular discipline or profession — command respect
both inside and outside academia. But not every nominally professional
association is primarily committed to the creation and application of rele¬
vant knowledge and skills. Professional associations may, for example, be
more interested in protecting or enhancing their members’ economic inter¬
est.
Paul Brass analyzes the struggle of three professional medical groups —
the modern medical practitioners; the traditional Ayurveds; and the pro¬
ponents of a “mixed medicine” — to influence the standards of their
profession through the curricula of colleges and the giving and recognition
of degrees. In a way, his study illustrates the potential of professionaliza¬
tion. These professional bodies, instead of standing as mediating structures
and cultures between education and politics, use politics as an entree into
the educational system. The demand for Ayurvedic medical training arises
not only from a belief in a special theory and method of healing but also
from the demand to create medical colleges that is made by those who can¬
not qualify for the “modern” ones. If we measure the relative professional
standing of Ayurvedic and modem medicine in India by the preferences of
consumers and students who apply to study, the professional authority of
modern medicine is higher.17 Ayurvedic interests have attempted to estab¬
lish professional authority equivalent to that of modern medicine, or at least
to win the economic fruits of such standing by having state governments
and the national government officially declare Ayurvedic educational insti¬
tutions equivalent to modern medical colleges. The Ayurvedic profession,
318 Introduction to Part IV

rather than resisting political interference in professional matters, wel¬

comes it as a principal means to professional respectability and benefits.
Paul Brass’ study, like Carolyn Elliott’s study of Osmania, suggests the
relevance of different political system levels and their interrelationship for
educational policy by examining the struggle among the three professional
groups as they prod ministries and policy makers at the state and national
levels to define professional standards in ways congenial to their particular
outlook and economic interest. His account of competing power and policy
structures, reaching from senior national ministers with rival notions of
correct medical procedure through competing medical interest groups
seeking to impose their visions of science on national and state govern¬
ments; to the ministries of different states, some committed to one vision
of medical professionalism and some to another, gives one of the first
glimpses students of Indian politics have had of the way an interest can
aggregate support vertically through layers of the federal system.18
The conflict that Paul Brass’ study describes is not over the direct con¬
version of educational institutions into political resources. The conflict is
over the definition of the public interest in medical education, a conflict
that involves, among other things, judgments by public authorities on ques¬
tions of scientific knowledge and professional legitimacy. Its outcome will
affect profoundly not only the pattern of resource allocation by the states
as well as the national government but also the quantity, quality, and
“availability” of medical service in India.
13 / The Organization of the Academic Profession
in India: The Indian Educational Services,
1864-1924

Irene A. Gilbert

The Indian Educational Service (1896-1924), by combining adminis¬

trative and teaching responsibilities in one public organization, expressed
and in turn profoundly influenced the structure and culture of academic
life in India. The government of India in 1864 had established in each
province “superior” graded educational departments and separate “infe¬
rior” ungraded ones. These organizations were reformed in 1896 into the
Indian Educational Service and Provincial Educational Services.1 The
members of the superior service (from 1864) were employed in the Brit¬
ish-administered provinces of India and Burma, occupying the highest po¬
sitions in their systems of public education. Some served in administrative
capacities, inspecting and overseeing primary, Indian language schools and
higher, English language secondary schools; others served occasionally as
headmasters in the higher schools and training colleges. The greater num¬
ber of them, however, served as principals and professors in the English
language colleges and oriental institutes maintained by the provincial gov¬
ernments.
Originally most members of the superior service were British, but by the
1920’s the balance had altered, and nearly half were Indian. In the inferior
services, Indians predominated. The younger members of the inferior
service were employed in the system’s lesser positions as deputy inspectors,
high school masters, and assistant professors. Senior members held posi¬
tions as inspectors, professors, and occasionally as principals.
Educational authority passed into Indian hands after the Montagu-
Chelmsford reforms of 1919 established at the provincial level the princi¬
ple and practice of dyarchy. In 1924, with the abolition of the Indian
Educational Service, the distinction between superior and inferior service
membership was eliminated, positions in the superior service were incor¬
porated in the provincial cadres, and provincial educational services were
rapidly “Indianized” when English recruitment halted.
The professors in the service taught in colleges, not universities. The
universities established at Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras in 1857 were
modeled on the early University of London, an affiliating university that
examined and granted degrees but did not teach or support research. The
Indian university was composed of educational policy-making and admin¬
istrative bodies only. University bodies determined the degree requirements
of affiliating colleges, what courses would be taught throughout the uni¬
versity, and what books would be used in particular courses.2 Furthermore,
320 Constraints on Politicization of Education

the university tested the preparations of the students in the system, and
indirectly the work of the professors who taught them, by holding degree¬
granting examinations at three two-year stages in the student’s career: at
the matriculation or entrance examination (and in this way, the university
also controlled the content of the high school curriculum); at the first arts
or intermediate examination; and at the B.A. and B.Sc. examinations. Al¬
though the universities were not research institutions, postgraduate instruc¬
tion was inaugurated in the 1870’s by introducing a fourth and final
examination stage for the M.A. and M.Sc. degrees.
Members of the Indian Educational Service were employed at a small
number of arts colleges maintained by the provincial governments. Each
provincial government maintained a model or “premier” college attached
to the local university.3 The purpose of the premier colleges was twofold.
First, they were to provide the teaching and training standards of the uni¬
versity, acting as a model for the other affiliated colleges and especially
their staffs to emulate. Second, they were to function as elite colleges, ad¬
mitting the best students in the province, giving them the best training
possible, and preparing them for eventual responsibilities in the govern¬
ment services and new professions. Thus, the role of educational service
professors in British India was crucial: they were to set professional
standards in higher education and to help create modern professional elites
intellectually and morally prepared to man the modern professions and to
assume the highest positions available under the British raj. This chapter
examines how IES professors pursued these goals within a service whose
origins, structure, and culture were not always compatible with them, and
indicates the legacies that the IES left for higher education in independent
India.
- -

The Civil Service Paradigm in Educational Employment

The service organization was not an unusual one in British India. It

was the policy of the British government in India to import its professional
talent from home. Doctors, engineers, and some barristers, along with
professors, were hired in Great Britain. The professions in India were
organized into a series of official departments commonly known as the
uncovenanted services, such as the medical service, the public works de¬
partment for the engineering service, and the smaller judicial service.4
Staffs for the government’s medical colleges were drawn from the medical
service and were responsible for their curricula. Members of the public
works department staffed the government engineering colleges and high
court justices supervised the teaching of law.5 Such courses of study were
arranged to fulfill the requirements of service membership. In the absence
of alternative standards provided in Britain by professional or qualifying
associations, qualifying for admission to the various government services
came to provide the measure of professional competence in India.6
Indian Educational Services, 1864—1924 321

Only gradually were Indians admitted to the uncovenanted services, and

then at subordinate service levels. The distinction between the races, how¬
ever, did not reflect upon the professional ability of a service member,
British or Indian, as demonstrations of professional competence were the
sine qua non of admission to service employment. It reflected, instead, the
segregation of positions which carried administrative and policy responsi¬
bilities from those which did not; the former were reserved for Europeans.7
For those Indians who did not care to join the uncovenanted services, the
government legislated equivalent standards on the advice of the different
services’ European members. Thus, the colonial government became both
the dispenser of professional knowledge and the custodian of professional
standards. It acted through the technical services. Could the same structure
work for the academic profession?
Prior to the establishment in 1854 of departments of public instruction
in the five Indian provinces, the provincial governments had employed
professors on an individual and ad hoc basis.8 They were hired as needed,
in England or in India, and their salaries varied from province to province.
In the North-Western Provinces, for example, a European professor be¬
gan at Rs. 350 a month, and might rise to Rs. 600 if promoted to the
Banaras principalship; in Bengal, on the other hand, salaries ranged from
Rs. 380 a month for an assistant professor to Rs. 1,300 for the principal
of the Presidency College, and in Bombay, the Elphinstone College prin¬
cipal received an equivalent amount, but only because he also served as
educational inspector of the presidency division.9
Professors continued to be employed on the same terms after 1857,
even though the establishment of universities had enhanced the respon¬
sibility and scope of their work. The university curriculum led to a gen¬
eral expansion of the course of study offered at each college and a standard¬
ization of its content at a higher level of sophistication.10 The nub of the
problem was set down by William S. Atkinson, the director of public in¬
struction in Bengal in 1864. “The establishment and maintenance of the
Government Colleges, and still more the foundation of the University of
Calcutta, with the avowed object of encouraging emulation and marking
and honoring successful study, afford convincing proof that the Govern¬
ment are determined to make effectual provision for securing a high stand¬
ard of liberal education as well as the knowledge and training that fit men
for employment in the various active professions for life. These objects
cannot be secured without the aid of highly cultivated instructors. . . .
Now such men are not likely to come out to India on Rupees 400 a
month.” 11
Further, the enactment of the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms in 1854
placed new competing demands on the sources of likely government col¬
lege professors. Before competitive examinations for the civil service were
established in 1854, civil servants were recruited directly from the public
and grammar schools and trained at the East India Company’s college at
322 Constraints on Politicization of Education

Haileybury. With the reforms, candidates to the examination were ad¬

mitted at a later age, and drawn from the colleges at Oxford and Cam¬
bridge Universities, from Edinburgh, from the new University of London,
and from Trinity College at Dublin. The colleges had been irregular
sources of recruitment for the government colleges in India and the new
reforms seemed to close them off; or at least, as Atkinson thought, if a
university man was inclined to serve in India, “the attractions of power
and political usefulness [would] always tempt the more aspiring minds into
the Civil Service.” Atkinson concluded that educational appointments in
India offered “only a bare subsistence, with the slenderest prospects of any
future promotion.” He added, “I do not think we need wonder that men
with trained intellects prefer to struggle (if there is to be a struggle) at
Home within the reach of the sympathy of their friends.” 12
Atkinson was in charge of the largest educational department in India,
that of Bengal. It maintained seven arts colleges and employed twenty-
seven men, eighteen of them professors and principals.13 To run the
department “in unimpaired efficiency,” Atkinson suggested modeling edu¬
cational employment in Bengal on the employment system in other gov¬
ernment services.14 Positions in the department were to be graded and
members of the department promoted from one grade to another as va¬
cancies occurred. Their salaries were to be increased accordingly, from a
new starting rate of Rs. 500 a month to an enhanced eventual maximum
of Rs. 1,500, excluding the director’s salary of Rs. 2,000-2,500, which
was to remain outside the grades. Within each grade, salaries were to be
increased automatically for the first five years and promotion was to re¬
main a matter of seniority. Between the grades, promotion was to be at the
discretion of the provincial government, decided on the, basis of both in¬
dividual merit and seniority of service.15 Atkinson’s proposed reorganiza¬
tion of the department of public administration was as follows: director,
starting rate of Rs. 2,000, rising by increments of Rs. 100 to a maximum of
Rs. 2,500; first grade, Rs. 1,250, by increments of Rs. 50 to Rs. 1,500;
second grade, Rs. 1,000, by Rs. 50 to Rs. 1,250; third grade, Rs. 750, by
Rs. 50 to Rs. 1,000; and fourth grade, Rs. 500, by Rs. 50 to Rs. 750.16
He also suggested that the positions in the three higher grades be distrib¬
uted among the six principals, five inspectors, and five Presidency profes¬
sors; the lowest grade would be filled entirely by government college
professors.17
The Government of India approved the plan, and with the sanction of
the secretary of state, the Bengal department was graded in 1865.18 At a
cost of Rs. 25,350 per month, the government of Bengal appointed one
inspector and one principal (of Presidency) in the first grade; two princi¬
pals, two inspectors, and two Presidency professors in the second; three
principals, two inspectors, and five professors in the third; and seventeen
professors in the fourth. No Indians were among the first appointments.19
The Bombay government maintained the second largest educational es-
Indian Educational Services, 1864—1924 323

tablishment — two arts colleges with a total staff of two principals and
eight professors, five educational inspectors, and the provincial director.
Sir Alexander Grant, principal of the Elphinstone College and director of
public instruction in Bombay, faced the same problems of recruitment20
that Atkinson faced in Bengal and came to a similar conclusion: “It is, I
think, impossible to deny that, from the nature of the conditions above
stated, the Educational Service in this Presidency is a very poor, precari¬
ous, and, in fact, miserable sphere, into which one can hardly dare to ad¬
vise any young man of ability and cultivation to enter.” 21 Like Atkinson,
Sir Alexander wanted to reform the department into a service. His pro¬
posals for the reorganization of the Bombay department were put up in
1867 and were more far-reaching than Atkinson’s. Rather than divide the
members of the department among grades, Grant thought to divide them
among categories appropriate to their different educational tasks. The cate¬
gories were parallel rather than hierarchic, and each related to the other
in logical fashion. Furthermore, Sir Alexander sought to eliminate unnec¬
essary competition among the members of the department for positions of
seniority and higher salaries by establishing automatic increments within
each category. Sir Alexander’s suggestions were as follows: director, Rs.
2,500 (without increment); principal, starting rate of Rs. 500, rising by
increments of Rs. 50 to Rs. 1,500; professor, Rs. 500, rising by increments
of Rs. 50 to Rs. 1,200; educational inspectors, Rs. 500, by Rs. 50 to Rs.
1,500; and high school masters, Rs. 500, by Rs. 50 to Rs. 800. As different
talents and experience were required of inspectors in the vernacular lan¬
guage school system and principals in the English language colleges, the
mastership was envisioned as a period of training for the inspectorship,
and the professorship a period of training for the principalship. But Sir
Alexander allowed that individual masters and professors could be pro¬
moted to higher positions before the maxima in their respective categories
were reached. He also expected that the high school masters would be
university men.22
Although the Bombay government supported the proposals, the govern¬
ment of India advised the secretary of state in London to reject them.23
The Bengal government had already given effect to Atkinson’s less expen¬
sive plan, and the members of the departments of public instruction in the
North-Western Provinces and the Punjab were beginning to press the gov¬
ernment of India to sanction a similar reorganization in their own prov¬
inces so that they would have the opportunity to benefit from the new
increased salary scales as well.24 A unitary system for all of India seemed
the easier one to manage, and the secretary of state acted upon the advice
of the government of India. In 1869, the Duke of Argyll sanctioned the
establishment of graded educational departments in all the Indian prov¬
inces, including Bombay.25
The governments in Bombay, the North-Western Provinces, and the
Punjab reorganized their departments almost immediately. In Madras, the
324 Constraints on Politicization of Education

government chose to wait until 1881 when the provincial authorities felt
that the presidency’s revenues could finally afford the added expenditure.26
The distribution of educational personnel in India and the varied costs to
all the provincial governments for maintaining graded departments in 1879
are shown in table 65.

Table 65. Distribution of educational personnel, 1879.

Monthly
cost of
graded
Grade Grade Grade Grade departments
Province D.P.I. I II III IV Total (Rs.)

Bengal 1 2 5 12 18 a 38 28,300
Bombay 1 2 4 5 6 18 17,825
Madras 1 1 2 6 5a 15 12,200
North-Western
Provinces 1 la 4 3 6 15 15,450
Punjab 1 — 2 3 3 9 9,900
Central
Provinces lb - - 2 1 4 4,100
British Burma - - 1° 1 - 2 2,250
Assam - 1° - - 1 1,050

Total 6 6 19 32 39 102 91,075

Source: Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Education Branch,
A-June 1879, nos. 16-40.
These figures were actually gathered by the government of India in 1879, and although
the members of the Madras department were divided among four grades, their pay scales
were still slightly less than the all-India averages. There was also at that time an Indian
director of public instruction in the ceded districts of Hyderabad; he, was a second grade
officer in the Bombay department, receiving Rs. 1,000 a month.
a Vacant positions included.
b Official title, inspector-general of education.
0 Served as director of public instruction, and recruited from the Bengal cadre.

The grading served its purpose. As time passed, there were fewer pro¬
fessors without university degrees than there had been in earlier days. At
first, the provincial authorities were able to hire university men in India.
But as the structure of the Indian government became more bureauc¬
ratized, there were fewer career opportunities for the unemployed uni¬
versity graduate in India, and less came out to seek them. Increasingly,
recruitment for the government colleges was carried out by the secretary
of state in London, who had the complete monopoly of Indian educational
appointments in Britain. Acting through local intermediaries, both at the
major universities and the board of education in Whitehall, the staff of the
India Office was able to locate graduates fresh from the universities or
younger men with teaching experience at colleges, public schools, or gram¬
mar schools. The prospect of an adequate salary and eventual promotion
proved sufficient to attract to a teaching career in India specialized honors
Indian Educational Services, 1864-1924 325

graduates with first or second class degrees. They were still hired on an
ad hoc basis, either as vacancies occurred or the size of the provincial
cadres expanded.27
But as Sir Alexander Grant had implicitly foreseen, the graded structure
was an inappropriate one for a department of public instruction and
worked to hasten the unnecessary bureaucratization of the educational
service. In the larger departments where the lower grades had been ex¬
panded to meet increased educational demands, the higher grades were not
proportionately enlarged. Thus later appointees were compelled to spend
long periods in the lower grades, in many cases far longer than the five
years allotted for automatic increments. In Bengal, for example, there
were thirty positions in the third and fourth grades, all filled by professors
in 1879, and only seven in the first and second grades (excluding the di¬
rectorship), and these were reserved for inspectors and college principals.
The balance was more even in Bombay where the cadre’s seventeen posi¬
tions were divided into six positions in the higher grades and eleven in the
lower, but the distribution of offices was largely the same. In the smaller
departments, on the other hand, the higher positions remained unfilled.
The one first grade position in the North-Western Provinces was sanc¬
tioned only as a long-term vacancy, and in the Punjab there had been no
first grade sanctioned for the department.28 The situation naturally cre¬
ated discontent. To avoid contention for the rare vacancy, governments
often found it easier to make their promotions on the basis of seniority
rather than merit. As in any bureaucracy, there were likely to be protests
if it were otherwise.
More to Sir Alexander’s point, however, the graded structure tended to
confuse the administrative and teaching functions of the department of
public instruction and to divert ambitions from teaching. Although the
departments were staffed mostly by college professors, the departments’
tasks were primarily administrative; that is, to organize and oversee the
province’s vernacular language school system.29 In consequence, provin¬
cial governments were likely to prefer the administrative experience of the
inspector to the teaching experience of the professor (or principal) when
making their selections for the directorship. There were few inspectorships
and they were largely concentrated in the higher grades (alongside the
principalships). Some professors and principals questioned a system which
affected their chances for ultimate promotion.30 Kenneth Deighton, prin¬
cipal of the Agra College in the North-Western Provinces, compared the
qualities needed by the incumbents of the two offices.

But neither in the administrative, nor in the inspectional duties of his office,
is there any demand for great talent or much learning. . . . The Inspector
does little more than gather information, and throw it into shape; super¬
vise the work of his Deputies, make the inferior appointments; dispense
punishment for offenders, and rewards for good service; check accounts;
326 Constraints on Politicization of Education

and listen to petitions. His more properly inspectional function is that of

examining schools. None of these, however, affects anything higher than
the training stage for the University matriculation; of which a large ma¬
jority of them are mainly vernacular and, therefore of a lower class.
The case is widely different with a Principal of a College. On the one
hand, the administrative functions are less important, or, rather, less
laborious than those of an Inspector; on the other, his position as a teacher
requires in him a trained intellect, ripe scholarship, and literary tastes. In
the earlier days of the Department, there was less need of such abilities
and requirements; but the expansion of the Calcutta University in granting
Honour Degrees in various branches of learning, has materially altered the
conditions of fitness requisite in the Head of an affiliated Institution. An
Inspector, on the contrary, now finds a narrower field for the display of a
power to organize and originate than when the education of the masses
was yet in its infancy. . . . For an appointment of this nature no officer
ought to find any difficulty in qualifying himself. For the duties of a
Principalship, the fit and proper persons will be comparatively few.31

Gottlieb Wilhelm Feitner, principal of the Lahore Government College in

the Punjab, carried Deighton’s argument to its logical conclusion: “The
men who have left their mark on Indian education have been Principals
rather than Inspectors. ... It is neither just nor expedient to confine
promotion to the Directorship to one Class,” that of inspectors.32 In 1879,
there were only two department heads who had once been principals, and
one of them, Chatfield in Bombay, had served as an inspector immediately
before his appointment to the directorship.33 By 1887, there were no prin¬
cipals serving as directors, and the discontent among the members of the
departments had grown.

Formation of the Indian Educational Service

and the Provincial Educational Service

In an effort to deal with these problems and remove the discontent, the
government of India decided to reorganize the service. Acting on the rec¬
ommendations of the Public Service Commission, 1888, the government
of India entered into a long series of discussions with the provincial gov¬
ernments. In 1896, the secretary of state sanctioned the formation of the
Indian Educational Service. Like the other superior or “Imperial” services,
the new educational service was an entirely European one, and all the
more remunerative positions in the departments of public instruction were
reserved to its members.34 The old grades were officially abolished, and a
structure approximating Sir Alexander Grant’s earlier suggestions was in¬
stituted. In place of the third and fourth grades, members of the new IES
were now assured guaranteed annual increments of fifty rupees for ten
rather than five years, until salary maxima of Rs. 1,000 a month were
reached. New recruits still took up their appointments at salaries of Rs.
Indian Educational Services, 1864—1924 327

500 a month. The first and second grades gave way to junior and senior
allowances, paying the same scales (Rs. 1,000, rising by Rs. 50 to Rs.
1,250; and Rs. 1,250, rising by Rs. 50 to Rs. 1,500 respectively), and
largely attached to the same positions. To add some flexibility to the new
system, a small proportion of the allowances was made independent of
the cadres’ major inspectorships and principalships.35 But Sir Alexander’s
main point was still unmet: the distinction between teaching and admin¬
istrative functions remained confused on a consolidated departmental list.
Essentially, the IES was merely a new form of the old graded structure.
The distribution of the new service’s members (excluding the directors)
among the major Indian provinces, as compared to the old, is shown in
table 66.
The reorganization’s major innovation, enacted on the advice of the
Public Service Commission, was a new level of service: the Provincial
Educational Service, composed of Indian personnel. On the one hand, the
new PES secured the status of the majority of the Indian employees of the
departments of public instruction by bringing them into a parallel, if in¬
ferior, service. Previously, they had been retained as high school masters,
deputy inspectors, or assistant professors on a fairly unregulated basis
which varied from province to province. Now, they were brought into a
regular graded structure on salaries ranging from Rs. 150 to Rs. 700 a
month, with larger increments in higher positions.36 On the other hand,
the PES reduced the status of the small number of Indians who had
worked alongside British colleagues as professors or inspectors in the old
graded departments.
The provincial education departments had provided opportunities for
a few Indians to gain appointments in the same service as Englishmen, and
from 1881, when the salaries of Indians in all the government services
were generally reduced, at two-thirds the European wage scale.37 Now, In¬
dians were to do the same work with less status as well as less remuneration.
Moreover, the reform came at a time when more Indians had the same
intellectual qualifications as Englishmen.38 With the institution of the In¬
dian and provincial services, the meaning of academic achievement and its
rewards in career terms were further confused with the issues of race and
imperial dominance.
Like its predecessor, the IES succeeded in its major purpose: the salary
scales it offered sufliced to attract British university graduates to the teach¬
ing career in India. They were still recruited by the authorities in London
on an ad hoc basis as provincial cadres expanded and vacancies occurred.
They were probably better qualified on the whole than the recruits of an
earlier generation, having taken their degrees either at improved provincial
universities or at an Oxford and Cambridge which had been consistently
reformed during the latter half of the nineteenth century.39
In 1910 efforts were made to improve the recruitment process (one of
Sir Alexander Grant’s original suggestions) by giving responsibility for
328 Constraints on Politicization of Education

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-d
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c o CO vq, <N °0~ CO
o o PS CN (NH ri oT vcT oo"
CN 1"H r-
s

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o 04 r-H j—H r-
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& co ts m <N t-4 <N
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& M CN M on
O
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OO oo to CO 00 vo ON
CO C/5 VO^ co^ CN co vo
c o
O O P4 co" co" r—H l>" co" co"
CO rH 00
rH
s

d
<D
a
s-> d
Table 66. Distribution of educational personnel, 1896.

Ui On \sO T) M OO tJ
O CO i-H t-H
nearest rupee, eliminating paisaa and annaas in the calculation.

03 ON
Q, H
Q-)
id
13
d <D .
_o Td T3 1-H CO o
d dd vo <n On
d L*
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a Serving as inspector-general of education.

T3
CD <D
id
Td
d
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Ih VO (N CO (N H
o o
CD
7d
d HH <N CN I *
o

00
o> |-I s £
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d 00
(D
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*-» 00 *>
d o d
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W)^d P Si- c? d
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S£oO^ 3 CD
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Indian Educational Services, 1864-1924 329

selection of personnel to a special committee of the board of education.

The board of education in London started to admit third class graduates
with teaching certificates to serve as headmasters in India, prior to their
eventual promotion to inspectorships. Headmasters were correspondingly
included on the IES provincial lists, still consolidated ones.40 By 1914,
there were 170 graduates from British or continental universities in the
Indian Educational Service: thirty-three of forty-two members in Bengal,
twenty-eight of thirty-one in Bombay, twenty-eight of thirty-two in Ma¬
dras, twelve of fifteen in the Punjab, and ten of fourteen in the Central
Provinces. In the United Provinces (earlier the North-Western Provinces),
Burma, Bihar and Orissa, and Assam, all the members of the provincial
cadres were university men (twenty-five, fifteen, fourteen, and five respec¬
tively).41
Similarly, as a result of the reform of 1896 more Indians with the
training or stature of European professors joined the PES, whose members
were locally recruited, often on the advice of directors of public instruc¬
tion and government college principals:42 Dr. P. C. Ray of Presidency in
Bengal, who took his doctorate at Edinburgh and had an international
reputation for his research in chemistry; B. M. Sen, professor of math¬
ematics at Dacca, who had been a second Smith’s prizeman at Cambridge;
Jadu Nath Sarkar, a graduate of the University of Calcutta on the staff of
the Ravenshaw College at Cuttack in Bihar and Orissa, who was winning
scholarly acclaim for his investigations in the area of Moghul history; and
Samuel Sathianadhan, an Indian Christian teaching at Presidency College
in Madras, who was a graduate of Cambridge.43
But the new structure did not solve the old problems, which persisted
into the twentieth century. Although salaries had been made steadily in¬
cremental to the old third grade maxima, the junior and senior allowances
allocated each province proved to be as proportionately insufficient as the
earlier first and second grade positions. Cadres expanded, and IES men
found themselves often waiting long periods before their promotions to
the allowance levels. As prices rose and the rupee declined in value, com¬
plaints from the cadres increased. Provincial governments were finally
compelled to grant individual allowances to service members by way of
temporary relief.44
The administrative complexion of the service grew more pronounced
with the passage of time, as provincial governments elaborated plans for
the expansion of vernacular education in the twentieth century. In the
United Provinces, the director, Claude de la Fosse, had been an inspector
for many years; in Burma, James Covernton, the director, was an inspector
imported from the Bombay cadre; in Bengal, the Presidency principal,
George Kuchler, had been made to serve as an inspector before his pro¬
motion to the directorship, and the provincial government found his execu¬
tive abilities so wanting that they decided to bring out a man from England
to succeed him.45 Promotions based on seniority rather than merit and a
330 Constraints on Politicization of Education

failure to distinguish structurally between teaching and administrative func¬

tions continued to characterize the bureaucratic side of the educational
service after the reform.

The IES and the Charge of Racial Exclusion

The reforms of 1896 also made the educational service vulnerable to

charges of racism. As the new Indian elite gained confidence in its abilities,
sought more political freedom, and took pride in the modern intellectual
achievements of Indians, they began to demand membership in the Indian
Educational Service. In part, it was a matter of economics. With the re¬
turn to India of increasing numbers of young men trained abroad, the
feeling grew that these young Indians should hold teaching posts in gov¬
ernment colleges. In a difficult employment situation, the limitations on
opportunities that European professors represented was resented. When
another commission on the public services met in 1914, the Indian wit¬
nesses presented a whole series of subsidiary arguments on that theme to
the commissioners: many Indians had taken better European degrees;
Indian professors could communicate more effectively with their Indian
students than men of British origin could; the high cost of bringing a
European professor out to India was prohibitive and detrimental to the
economic development of the country.46 The crux of the matter, however,
was status, the recognition of Indian achievement which appointment to
the IES would confer. In public discussions and press comments there were
a growing number of statements such as the following, which appeared in
a July 1914 number of the Amrita Bazar Patrika, Calcutta: “The Editor
remarks that it is sad that the Government should refuse a scholar like
Mr. Bhupati Sen an appointment in the Indian Educational Service, while
scores of indifferent men are imported almost every three months from
the United Kingdom into the service for no better qualifications than the
possession of a white skin. Mr. Sen is the second Smith’s Prizeman of the
year, and any Englishman in this position would have his fame and for¬
tune made in England. The Indian who now seeks admission into this fac¬
simile of the Indian Civil Service is asked to wait till the Public Service
Commission completes its labours. No such difficulty, however, stands in
the way of British candidates. The Indian Educational Service is their
birthright.” 47
Teaching in India was becoming more subject to public scrutiny as the
pressure for Indian admission to the superior service continued to grow.
This pressure increased greatly after 1914, when the members of the pro¬
vincial service began to officiate in the reserved IES positions of Europeans
fighting in the war. Indians were demonstrating their teaching ability in the
imperial service, but still without the recognition the educated Indian pub¬
lic thought was their due.48
The public services commission headed by Lord Islington met to con-
Indian Educational Services, 1864-1924 331

sider all these problems, and in 1916 presented its recommendations to the
secretary of state and the government of India. The government of India
was not able to act upon them until after the war, when salaries in the incre¬
mental scale were immediately raised to Rs. 1,250 a month, and the junior
and senior allowances converted to two new selection grades, carrying sal¬
aries of Rs. 1,250, rising by Rs. 50 to Rs. 1,500, and Rs. 1,500, rising by
Rs. 50 to Rs. 1,750 respectively. At the same time, recruitment to the IES
was opened to both Indians and Britons, whether resident in India or the
British Isles.49 The Islington Commission had originally recommended that
only one-third of the positions in the expanded IES cadres be reserved to
Indians, but when the secretary of state gave his retroactive sanction to the
reforms in 1922, the provincial cadres were quickly being filled with Euro¬
peans and Indians holding the same qualifications, at an even ratio, as
table 67 shows.

Table 67. Europeans and Indians in the Indian Educational Service.

Province Europeans Indians Total

Bengal 34 33 67
Madras 27 27 54
Bombay 23 23 46
United Provinces 24 23 47
Punjab 19 17 36
Bihar and Orissa 17 17 34
Central Provinces 16 16 32
Assam 7 5 12
North-West Frontier 4 1 5
Province

Total 171 162 333

Sources: Government of India, Proceedings in the Department of Education and Health,

Education Branch, A-October 1922, nos. 1-3, and Great Britain, Royal Commission on the
Public Services in India, Report of the Commissioners, vol. 1 (London, 1916), pp. 114-118

The increase in the size of the cadres was accounted for by the transfer
of positions from the provincial to the Indian service cadres. The incum¬
bents of these positions, however, were not named to the higher service
unless their qualifications or experience entitled them to the promotion.50
From these major reforms, a series of subsidiary reforms emerged. Start¬
ing salaries in the superior service were reduced to Rs. 350 a month, or
Rs. 50 a month above a received provincial service salary for those ap¬
pointed in India; it remained at Rs. 500 a month for those appointed in
England whether they were British or Indian.51 Pay-by-age scales were
legislated so that older men, perhaps with some specialized academic ex¬
perience, could be appointed at higher salary levels appropriate to their
years.52 Flexibility in the terms of educational service employment was
further enhanced by the drawing up of more liberal retirement rules and
332 Constraints on Politicization of Education

proportionate pension plans.53 Potentially most significant for the future

autonomy of the academic profession was the belated decision to give
effect to Sir Alexander Grant’s proposal of 1867 to divide the service into
two parallel branches, administrative and teaching.54
Yet within two years of its final enactment, the reorganization came to
nothing. In 1924, at the recommendation of the Lee Commission on the
superior civil services in India, recruitment to the Indian Educational Serv¬
ice ceased. With the institution of dyarchy under the Montagu-Chelmsford
reforms, education became a provincial subject under the control of Indian
ministers. An all-India educational service, whose members’ positions were
protected by the secretary of state, seemed out of place under these politi¬
cal circumstances.55
The IES was abolished when it had been reformed to its greatest poten¬
tiality: the administrative function separated from the academic; Indian
and British professors established as equals; and, following the expansion
of postgraduate teaching in the Indian universities, terms of service made
flexible enough to attract research scholars to India without committing
them to an Indian career. Had the service continued, it might have laid
the basis for the emergence of a confident academic profession in India,
just as the continued existence of a reformed Indian Civil Service led to
the creation of a competent administrative class in the postindependence
years. (At the same time that it recommended the abolition of the IES,
the Lee Commission recommended the rapid “Indianization” of the civil
service.) Instead, for most of its eighty year history, the IES retained many
of the features of a bureaucratic organization in which seniority of service
and administrative talents rather than intellectual quality were recognized
and rewarded. Yet the legitimacy of the service was rarely questioned by
the educated Indian public, whose members in 1924 were seeking entry
into its higher grades rather than its abolition. Other highly bureaucratized
academic services, such as those in France and Germany, have carried out
their academic functions successfully. In India, however, there were special
circumstances, including the colonial regime, the university structure, and
the orientation of the service’s members, that strengthened the bureau¬
cratic at the expense of the academic component of the IES.

Civil Service Rules as Constraints on Academic Performance

British professors in India did not gain the respect and approbation of
their own (Anglo-Indian) community as did professors in Europe; instead,
they were an intellectually isolated group. Members of the police, engineer¬
ing, and other uncovenanted services typically lacked university degrees
or had graduated from the technical or professional institutes in Britain.
Members of the Indian Educational Service, like members of the Indian
Civil Service (ICS), were university graduates.56 The academic qualifica¬
tions of IES officers separated them from the other uncovenanted services,
Indian Educational Services, 1864-1924 333

yet the latter were accorded an equal rank on the lists of precedence. At
the same time, the uncovenanted service rank of IES members placed them
in an inferior status in relation to the only other group in the British offi¬
cial class who shared the same educational experience, the ICS officers.57
Bureaucratic norms so permeated the outlook and behavior of the Anglo-
Indian community that such official judgments carried over into informal
ones. The result was that the valuation placed on the professor’s work
and on the quality of his degree was different than it would have been in
Britain. This fact was noted by J. G. Covernton, the Bombay director,
when he sought to account for the complaints which perennially arose from
the new recruits to the service. “Allowances must be made for young men
fresh from the univerities where they have done well, better very likely
than many of those whom they find the chances of a competitive examina¬
tion have placed in a superior position in this country. Allowances, too,
must be made for the fact that whereas in England a police officer, a local
magistrate, a collector of revenue does not necessarily rank in popular
estimation and actual status before a professor, a schoolmaster, or an in¬
spector of schools, the new arrival finds the position here quite different
from that in England.” 58 For Covernton, there was only one solution for
both British and Indian professors alike: “the sensible educational officer
settles down to his work and tries to realize its interests and possibili¬
ties.” 59
But professors were subordinates in a larger governmental structure.
The members of the civil service received their first intensive training in
the rural districts, and after being promoted to collectorships still in the
mofussil (country districts), were perhaps promoted to offices in the pro¬
vincial government secretariat. As generalist administrators, they thought
in terms of the needs of all the services rather than the peculiarities of one,
and their conceptions of those needs were often tempered by their own
early experiences of rural India. In consequence, they frequently legislated
rules for the educational service which were inappropriate to a professor’s
requirements, and seemed to prevent him from settling down to his work.
Members of the service were, for example, liable to transfer. In this way
Professor J. A. Cunningham was transferred from the Presidency College
to a Bengal inspectorship, just after he had reorganized the chemistry
laboratory and had begun joint researches with Professor P. C. Ray.co Also,
professors were expected to learn the vernacular language of their province
within two years of their arrival in India — their promotions and salary
increments were dependent upon their doing so — though most of their
work was in the cities, and in English.61 The same Professor Cunningham
protested this stricture and its cost to his teaching time. “For I have the
honour to submit that any knowledge of the vernacular which I could by
the neglect of other and far more rational and useful demands upon my
time and energy, have acquired in two years would be no real help what¬
ever to the principal part of my legitimate duties in Calcutta. ... I am
334 Constraints on Politicization of Education

able to assert, therefore, without the smallest fear of contradiction, that my

whole time has been very fully occupied since my arrival in India with
work for which I was, I repeat with apologies, in some degree specially
fitted. Such has been the pressure of this work, becoming daily overwhelm¬
ing, that I can further assure you that while myself subscribing to four
scientific journals in English, French and German, and having a standing
order with my Cambridge bookseller to supply me with all new books
dealing in any one of those languages, with my own special subject of
Physical Chemistry, yet I have read not a single scientific paper and only
small portions of a few of those books, during the last six months. Now
I submit that it would be far more in the real interests of higher education
in this country that I, and others in a similar position to mine, should
have leisure enough to read these books and papers than that we should
cram up a smattering of Bengali or any vernacular language.” 62
Cunningham was eventually exempted.63 His case, however, demon¬
strates the effects of the confusion of teaching and administrative functions
in the structure of the IES. Professors were liable to transfer to an inspec¬
torship where the language requirement was a sensible one from the point
of view of the secretariat: an inspector’s effectiveness depended in large
part on his ability to examine students in the vernacular and communicate
with their teachers.

The Structure of Universities and Professional Performance

Not only the rules of the service, but also the structure of the university,
constrained professors in their tasks. To men with European educational
experience, the universities seemed hardly to be universities at all. The
senate was largely a public forum of nominated members, many ill-
equipped to discuss the range of educational issues that body had the au¬
thority to decide. The senate’s executive arm, the smaller syndicate, dealt
mainly with the details of university examinations and administration, re¬
porting now and then to its parent body. There were some colleges near
the university but most were dispersed over extended geographic areas.
Affiliated colleges were often run to different purposes by the bodies (mis¬
sionary, private, or governmental) which managed them. The ties of com¬
mon location, purpose, and activity which bound together the colleges at
Oxford and Cambridge were lacking. Nor were there the ties created by
shared participation in strong, discipline-oriented departments, such as
those coming to characterize academic life at the University of London,
the older provincial universities, and the more recently formed newer ones.
W. W. Hornell, the Bengal director in 1914, recalled his surprise as a col¬
lege professor newly arrived in India. “Let us take then the case first of
all of a young Englishman who having had a successful career at the Uni¬
versity, and having done some stimulating teaching work for two or three
years makes up his mind to accept an appointment in the Indian Educa¬
tional Service. If the opening which he accepts is on the teaching side of
Indian Educational Services, 1864-1924 335

the Service, it must be realized that which he is offered is a Professorship

or Chair in some subject at a University College. No amount of explana¬
tion in London by those who know the facts will ever make him grasp
the vast difference between the work he will be called upon to do and the
conditions under which he will be called upon to do it, with anything that
he has ever associated with University teaching in England, especially with
the tenure of a professorship. ... In the great majority of cases such an
officer has got to adjust himself to an environment of which he had pre¬
viously no conception. Moreover, he finds himself part of a gigantic ex¬
amination system. He has practically no say in what he shall teach. His
business is to train for certain examinations, over which he has neither
influence nor control, students whose careers in after life depend, to an
extent absolutely unknown in most walks of life in Great Britain, on their
success in these examinations.” 64
With Covernton, Hornell agreed that the new professor, “probably
[settled] down and having determined to make the best of it [did] really use¬
ful though unostentatious work,” but the Bengal director added as an after¬
thought that the new professor was probably always conscious of the
pressure of a system which [was] practically external not only to himself
but also practically to the college of which he [was] a member.” 65 The cur¬
riculum used in his college was legislated in the university senate, the books
used in his courses were required by the university’s boards of study, and
his teaching was always indirectly subject to the decisions of the uni¬
versity’s boards of examiners.66 Nevertheless, despite the dual constraints
imposed by governmental regulations and university dominance, most of
the members of the service made their college work the touchstone of their
educational careers in India.
In part, the concentration on college work was explained by the edu¬
cational service’s members’ own university training. They were not re¬
search specialists in the contemporary sense, but prepared to lecture
broadly in any one of a number of related subjects, as the university cur¬
riculum required. The model was thoughtfully set down in 1888 by Sir
Alfred Croft, the greatest of the Bengal directors. “For the teaching of
English literature there is no better preparation than the study of the Latin
and Greek classics. When to that knowledge the professor has added, by
private study, a survey of the field of English literature and an acquaintance
with grammar and forms of Early English speech, he is fully equipped
for his duties, and is a specialist in the highest sense: much more fully
equipped, I maintain, and much more of a specialist, than if his studies
had been confined to English literature and the English language. So again,
there is no better preparation for teaching history and philosophy than
the philosophical and historical course which a student at Oxford gets
through in reading in Uteris humanioribus; and it is men who have been
so trained that are commonly selected to teach these subjects in the col¬
leges of Bengal.” 67
Significantly, the professional Orientalists, who not infrequently came
336 Constraints on Politicization of Education

out with definite scholarly purposes and specialized German training,

thought in much the same way about their teaching work in India. Charles
H. Tawney, principal of the Calcutta Presidency College, felt obliged to
defend the integrity of the educational service from the criticisms of his
fellow Orientalists abroad. “So when Dr. Garbe in the Deutsche Revue
characterizes the administration of Public Instruction in India as thoroughly
rotten (durchaus korrupt), and proceeds to say that he fears his readers
will scarcely believe him when he comes to give a detailed account of it,
apparently because Dr. Thibaut is set to teach various subjects besides
Sanskrit, he no doubt hits a blot in our Indian system, but perhaps rather
overlooks the difficulty of administering a department so limited in number
as ours. It is owing to our not being specialists that we are able to do
the work we do. ... I myself have been compelled to teach more than
one subject.” 68
At the same time, the members of the service were not unaware of the
latest educational trends in Europe, of the increasing specialization in
modern university life in Germany, and the similar reforms being enacted
in the British university system. But the Indian university structure pro¬
vided little place for increased specialization. The Indian universities were
transformed into unitary, departmental institutions only in the 1920’s at
the same time that the IES was undergoing its last period of reform. In
consequence, the government college staffs were still bound to teach a
wide-ranging syllabus at the undergraduate and masters levels until well
into the twentieth century. As Sir Alfred Croft noted in 1888, under these
conditions, specialists of the newer sort just would not come to India.69
Some thirty years later, a young specialist, L. F. Rushbrook-Williams, at¬
tached to the University of Allahabad, elaborated upon the constraints of
the university system. Reflecting upon his experiences as a professor of
Moghul history at Allahabad, Rushbrook-Williams wrote in a “Draft
Minute on Indian University Organisation from the Teaching Point of
View”: “How can one or two Professors, able and hardworking though
they may be, give their students the same teaching, as a properly organised
staff of specialists? Instead of sitting at the feet of a number of experts,
each thoroughly acquainted with a particular branch of knowledge, the
Indian student has to content himself with the lectures of two or three un¬
fortunate Professors, who have to cover so much ground that they can¬
not possibly attain to a standard of even modern efficiency in every direc¬
tion. And yet the capacity for specialization and the taste for it, are there.
Organise these scattered teachers into a centralised department; divide up
the subject among them so that each is responsible for a single branch of
knowledge; and without engaging a single extra professor, an efficient
teaching instrument will be produced” 70 (italics in the original).
Although lecturing continuously on basic topics at unsophisticated levels
of scholarship might easily have led service members to lose interest in
teaching, few government college professors seem to have done so — even
Indian Educational Services, 1864-1924 337

in the service’s later years when the pressures for specialization grew. In
part, they maintained interest because of the ideas and commitments most
members of the service carried to India from their own educational ex¬
perience. For most, the wider purposes of education were served by the
moral training and character building of the young that resulted from close
association of teacher, tutor, and student in a closed educational milieu.71
These were the ideas bequeathed to generations of British educators by
Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby and his son Matthew. The younger Arnold’s
Culture and Anarchy might have been called the “bible” of the educational
service and this passage its motto: “culture [is] a pursuit of our total per¬
fection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most con¬
cern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world.” 72
With their Indian colleagues in the provincial services, British principals
and professors sought to cultivate less official relationships, hoping in this
way to overcome the distinctions created by differences in type and con¬
ditions of service.73 Their aims were neither social nor intimate: British
and Indian professors usually went their separate ways after college hours.
Nor were they markedly professional: there were few shared intellectual
endeavors within a common discipline. Their concern was to enhance
the college’s sense of community. They brought with them to India the
traditions of the British common room. The proprieties and courtesies ob¬
served by gentlemen in such a setting came to characterize the broader
patterns of staff relations. In particular, judgments about work and the
quality of contributions to college life, as well as the adjustments made by
a number of varying personalities to one another, determined individual
relationships. At Presidency, for example, where both Indians and English¬
men participated in the formulation of the institution’s academic policy,
Sir J. C. Bose, whose scientific stature was international, was criticized by
his colleagues for neglecting his duties to the college. The director of pub¬
lic instruction described the situation: “Dr. Bose has of late years been
so absorbed in his scientific investigations that he has lost touch with the
other duties ordinarily devolving upon a college professor of science, and
there can be little doubt that the direction of the physical laboratory must,
if it is to prove a success, be placed in the hands of a professor more
specially qualified for the task.” 74 The principal described the situation
as “impossible.” 75 P. C. Ray, on the other hand, whose scientific reputa¬
tion also spread beyond India, earned the special respect of his colleagues
because of his efforts to put the chemistry laboratories of Presidency on a
sounder and more advanced footing. Dr. Bose was in the IES; P. C. Ray
was in the PES. In the end, Indian professors came to hold the same views
as their British colleagues. At the premier government colleges, participa¬
tion in college life came to be one with participation in a tradition of
corporate academic excellence — as it is still today at the remaining
premier colleges; Presidency in Calcutta and Madras, Elphinstone in Bom¬
bay, and the Lahore Government College in Pakistan.
338 Constraints on Politicization of Education

Conclusion: The IES and Academic Professionalism in India

In the smaller world of the Indian government college, the organization

of the educational service was undoubtedly a success. It brought to India
men whose training and ideas converged with the ends of Indian college
education: to train a class of Indians qualified to fill posts in the adminis¬
tration, courts, and colleges as civil servants, magistrates, and professors.
For the most part, government college graduates filled such posts as their
professors would have wished, with probity and professional competence.76
Moreover, in the microcosm of the college, the dedication of the service’s
members to teaching was emulated by Indian officers. In the graded
service, in the provincial service, and later as equals in the IES, Indians
with the stature of Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar and Ganganatha Jha
in Sanskrit, Sir Jadu Nath Sarkar in history, and Sir J. C. Coyajee in eco¬
nomics joined Britishers at the colleges. After 1924 many less eminent
men who were as dedicated carried on in the tradition of the IES in the
expanded provincial cadres.77 Despite states differences created by dif¬
ferent service membership and the daily manifestation of those differences
in separate commons rooms, private rooms for IES men, and annual din¬
ners for superior service officers, a gentlemanly style helped make credible
and worthy to Indians the academic values of Oxford and Cambridge
graduates.78
But from the larger point of view, was the service structure the ap¬
propriate model for the organization of the academic profession in India?
It is a question one would hardly ask about some of the other professions
in India. The practice of medicine is, for example, so well established
that, as Brass demonstrates in chapter 14, the practitioners and would-be
practitioners of Ayurveda are seeking the same standing as practitioners
of modern medicine by emulating the symbols, knowledge, and procedures
of the modern profession.79
Medical knowledge, or knowledge in the field of engineering, is based
upon a systematic and principled methodology which all the members of
the profession must master before taking up their various specialties. All
members of the profession therefore undergo the same preliminary train¬
ing: doctors are required to learn the principles of physiology, bacteriology,
and pharmacology; engineers, those of mechanics and other related sci¬
ences. The techniques of the two professions emerge logically from these
bodies of knowledge, and can be applied in a variety of institutional situ¬
ations: in a surgery or hospital, at a dam or canal site, in a professional
or technical college, and even in an administrative office, assigning others
to any one of these institutions and supervising the execution of their
skills. The members of the medical and engineering services were obliged
to serve in all these situations, and though there were distinctions of status
among Britons and Indians, the professional competence of any member
could be measured against easily ascertainable objective standards derived
Indian Educational Services, 1864-1924 339

from the same bodies of knowledge. As such, the standards could be ap¬
plied to other Indian professionals with the same training who were practic¬
ing outside the two services.
None of these characteristics holds for the academic profession. There
is no systematic methodology for the art of teaching, and the members
of the profession share no common body of knowledge. They come to the
profession with diverse preparations, and according to the British system,
with specialties taken up at the very beginning of their university careers.
There are, in consequence, no easily agreed upon criteria by which to
measure the standard of a professor’s work. Today such criteria are
emerging with the growing emphasis placed on disciplinary professionalism,
on methods of research, and on contributions to knowledge; that is, on the
demonstrations of intellectual and professional competence that professors
demand of one another in order to determine their different capabilities
and standing. These notions of professional competence were not wide¬
spread in nineteenth century India or Britain. In their absence, the service
structure did not readily lend itself to the diffusion of standards of profes¬
sional competence and achievement in Indian higher education. Indian
professors were judged instead by the success of their students on the uni¬
versity examinations.
The service structure followed logically upon the decision to import
professors. The initial decision grew out of Indian demands for increased
western knowledge. In the 1820’s, Rammohun Roy expressed the hopes
of reform-minded Indians for English education: “We were filled with
sanguine hopes that [a] sum would be laid out in employing European
gentlemen of talent and education to instruct the natives of India in
Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Anatomy, and other useful
sciences which the nations of Europe have carried to a degree of per¬
fection that have raised them above the inhabitants of other parts of the
world. . . . [We] looked forward with pleasing hope to the dawn of
knowledge thus promised to the rising generation.” 80 The British govern¬
ment eventually responded to the demands expressed by Roy. In time,
pressures to form a service arose from the educators themselves. Teaching
work in India committed professors to lifelong careers, as “Indian experi¬
ence in educational matters had no value whatsoever in the English mar¬
ket.” 81 The British authorities in India were therefore faced with the prob¬
lem of drawing relatively young men out to the subcontinent and making
an academic career in the government colleges seem attractive. At the
suggestion of the director of public instruction in Bengal, the government
of India formed the graded educational service in 1864, with its promises
of adequate salaries — sometimes more than could have been expected
for the equivalent work at home — guaranteed increments, and eventual
promotions.
As succeeding public service commissions pointed out, the service re¬
tained a bureaucratic character for most of its life in India. Emphases were
340 Constraints on Politicization of Education

placed on incremental salaries, promotions, and advancement on the basis

of seniority rather than on academic or scholarly achievement. Within the
department, the positions of principals and professors were regarded as
inferior. So long as inspectorships were included alongside principalships
in the proportionately few superior grades and high allowance levels, pro¬
fessors’ ambitions were likely to be diverted from teaching to administra¬
tion. This tendency was enhanced by the emphasis civil servants gave to
administrative rather than academic talents and by the series of rules that
were legislated to foster administrative talents. Administrative experience
and ability were usually the prerequisites for appointment as director of
public instruction. The directorship was out of the question for Indians.
They were also excluded during the period of the PES from all the educa¬
tion department’s higher offices. British and Indian professors alike came
to feel that their profession was not regarded by the authorities and by
society at large as a worthy one. If educated Indians could, they chose
careers in the administrative services or the law over those in the teaching
profession.82
The association with government did lead to the creation of a modern
academic profession and the possibility of an honorable and respected
career. Under colonial rule, the government is an agent, and often the
legitimator, of change in the traditional society. Those who want political,
social, or intellectual reform often ally themselves with the colonial au¬
thorities or seek to move them toward policies of change. It was the citizens
of Calcutta who prompted the British government to import professors in
the 1820’s. By spending the money to bring out graduates from the finer
British universities, establishing them in superior colleges, and ultimately
associating them with its own authority, the British government demon¬
strated at an early date that modern knowledge was difficult to obtain and
its cultivation deserving of special treatment. The service was the example.
With its image before them, graduates of Indian universities began to
consider teaching in affiliated colleges a worthy career.83
The bureaucratic aspects of the service coincided with the situation of
most Indian college professors. The majority of the professors in India
(excluding the missionaries) were “in service” to the governing committees
of particular private colleges. The security, both financial and otherwise,
of a bureaucratic organization helped to enhance the value of an academic
career in the eyes of these professors. The continued dependence upon
bureaucratic rights and status within the university was also related to
the genetic imprint of university founding in India84 and to the style of
scholarship brought out to India in the nineteenth century.
The educational service members’ idea of scholarship centered, for the
most part, on notions of cultivation of an individual’s intellect and sensi¬
bility that found institutional expression in the life of the college. To sus¬
tain the idea and practice of scholarship required sustained personal con¬
tacts between members of the service and incipient and active Indian
Indian Educational Services, 1864-1924 341

members of the academic profession. Universities did not provide such

opportunities. Unlike British universities, Indian universities were not for
some time allowed to support professorial chairs.85 Nor were they em¬
powered to promote joint intellectual or teaching programs among their
affiliated colleges, even where the colleges were clustered together in a
provincial capital or major district headquarters. Universities provided for
only intermittent contacts among professors of different colleges. Such
specific business purposes as drawing up a syllabus by a board of study,
settling a question on an examination board, or perhaps fixing a new
degree requirement at the annual gathering of the senate brought profes¬
sors into contact, but little else did so. Because professors remained isolated
in their colleges, the influence of government college professors was, for
the most part, confined to their own educational communities.
Their success there has been emphasized. The places and prizes taken
by government college students on university examination lists, and the
later eminence attained by many of them as lawyers, doctors, civil servants,
and scholars, all attest to the service professors’ success. So too does the
persistence of their colleges as institutions of relative academic excellence
in independent India and Pakistan.
Another aspect of their success is more difficult to gauge. The Indian
Civil Service brought British notions of law and justice, progress and con¬
stitutional government to India, but its members were distant figures whose
contact with educated Indians was confined to the narrow orbit of official
relations. Indians in government colleges experienced a different, less dis¬
tant relationship with British values and practice in the close relations be¬
tween government college professors and their pupils. To what extent did
the professors’ vivid and near representation of a new way of life create
in the government college students a deep regard for courts, colleges, and
parliaments? No precise answer can be given to such a question. That
such modern institutions took root and flourished in India is in part due
to the commitment of government college graduates and to the quality
of their work. The professors who prepared them for their eventual re¬
sponsibilities in administrative, professional, and political office added a
layer to India’s rich cultural heritage.
14 / The Politics of Ayurvedic Education:
A Case Study of Revivalism and
Modernization in India

Paul R. Brass

The movement to revive, restore, and develop Ayurveda, India’s ancient

system of medicine, a major revivalist movement in modern Indian his¬
tory, has largely been ignored by contemporary social scientists.1 Yet this
movement has struck deep and permanent roots throughout the Indian
subcontinent, led to a great development of educational institutions, gov¬
ernmental organizations, and professional interest groups, and acquired
powerful political support throughout the political system. The Ayurvedic
movement provides those interested in problems of political development
in former colonial societies with an extremely interesting case of an attempt
by a traditionalistic interest group2 to legitimize itself and achieve recog¬
nition and status in a modernizing society through the establishment of
educational institutions, through internal professionalization, and through
government patronage. The Ayurvedic revival provides an example of
the professionalization of an indigenous medical system which parallels
the system of modern professional medicine and draws its inspiration from
the particular traditions of ancient Indian science rather than from the
cosmopolitan traditions of the world system of modern medical science.3
The attempt to achieve legitimacy and recognition for Ayurvedic students
and practitioners through professionalization has in turn raised for policy¬
makers a serious problem of establishing satisfactory educational and pro¬
fessional standards suited to the needs of modernization and development
in a society where nationalist sentiment demands the revival and restoration
of an ancient culture as a value for its own sake.
To formulate the problem in terms of the relationship between the po¬
litical system and the educational system, the Ayurvedic movement may
be seen as an educational interest group which has attempted to acquire
Research for this case study was carried out in India during 1966-67 with the
assistance of grants provided by the American Institute of Indian Studies and the
American Council of Learned Societies. It would be impossible to acknowledge the
help of all those who gave me their time and provided me with the materials for
this study. However, I cannot fail to acknowledge the extraordinary kindness shown
to me by Dr. G. S. Pendse, Dr. C. Dwarkanath, Pandit Shiv Sharma, Mr. Tilak Ram
Sharma, and Kaviraj Ashutosh Majumdar.
Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph provided invaluable assistance in the preparation and
revision of this manuscript. Charles Leslie commented extensively on the entire
manuscript and his very helpful criticisms have been taken into account during revi¬
sion at several places in the text.
The subject discussed here is a controversial one, on which people who assisted
me hold different viewpoints. The responsibility for the statements and opinions ex¬
pressed in this chapter is entirely mine.
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 343

legitimacy and professional status through political methods. In this at¬

tempt, professionalization has been used partly as a mechanism to develop
uniform standards considered desirable in themselves, but also very largely
as a political instrument to create an organized body of practitioners able
to apply political pressure upon the state and central governments to in¬
fluence public policy relating to Ayurveda and simultaneously to counter¬
act the influence of the organized modern medical profession, which has
been viewed as an entrenched and hostile force. However, the attempts to
achieve legitimacy have been hindered by the inability of the Ayurvedic
institutions to attract students dedicated to the study of Ayurveda. The
attempts to acquire professional status have been hindered by internal con¬
flict within the Ayurvedic movement. In consequence, the advocates of
Ayurvedic education have had to seek support among political leaders in
the legislatures and in the state and central governments. Ultimately, the
success of the movement has depended less on the proven value of the
system of education provided in Ayurvedic institutions than upon the
ability of prominent leaders in the movement to identify the goals of
Ayurvedic education with a form of indigenous modernization adapted
more to the needs and cultural values of India than to borrowed inter¬
national standards. The consequence has been the creation of a large and
entrenched educational establishment producing hundreds of graduates
annually who are qualified neither in Ayurvedic nor in modern medicine
but who demand the status and privileges of modern medical graduates.
Thus, the Ayurvedic movement presents an unusual case of penetration
of the political system by educational interests who have failed to estab¬
lish a viable educational structure and who make use of the political sys¬
tem to maintain themselves.

The Nature and History of Ayurveda

The importance of Ayurveda as an ancient and well-developed medical

system has been recognized by only a few western medical historians.4
Until recently, western histories of the development of medical science
have completely ignored the existence of Ayurveda.5 Yet there is no doubt
that Ayurveda as taught and practiced in ancient India was at least as well-
developed as any other ancient system of medicine. At the same time,
Ayurveda, like other ancient systems of medicine, belongs to a prescientific
age in which scientific methods of analysis, investigation, and treatment
were developed but were never completely freed from superstition, religion,
and astrology.
The basic principles of the Ayurvedic system have no relation to most of
the discoveries of modern medical science. For example, the Ayurvedic
explanation of health and disease is based upon a humoral theory of con¬
stitutional balance and imbalance among various elements in the bodily
system and does not accept the germ theory of disease. It also lays much
 344 Constraints on Politicization of Education

greater stress upon the individuality of man, whereas modern medical dis¬
coveries have been made and applied on the assumption that most men
have a great deal in common and that the same symptoms can usually be
treated effectively in the same way.6 Nevertheless, there is a widespread
belief in India that Ayurvedic remedies are effective in the treatment of
many bodily disorders, a belief which has been confirmed by modern medi¬
cal practitioners in India who find certain Ayurvedic drugs useful in their
practice.
In any discussion of the Ayurvedic revivalist movement, it is essential
to distinguish between the traditional systems of Indian medicine still prac¬
ticed in some areas of contemporary India and the ancient medical science
revealed in the classic Sanskrit texts.7 Attitudes of revivalist leaders toward
contemporary traditional medicine are frequently ambivalent. As with all
revivalist movements, part of the ideology of the Ayurvedic movement is
that contemporary traditional practices reflect a long period of decadence.
Contemporary practitioners may know some Ayurvedic remedies but they
do not have a theoretical knowledge of the ancient science. Moreover, it
is frequently noted that contemporary Ayurvedic physicians tend to treat
their knowledge as private lore rather than as universal science to be made
available for all. Consequently, while revivalist leaders have great respect
for the truly competent traditional physicians,8 for their abilities to heal
and some of their methods of healing, and for the traditional guru-disciple
(or pupilage) system of teaching, the primary orientation of the supporters
of Ayurveda is toward the revival, restoration, and further development of
the ancient science rather than to the maintenance of contemporary tradi¬
tional practices. Although many of the leaders in the Ayurvedic movement
have acquired their knowledge of Ayurveda by traditional methods (from
a guru) and wish to maintain as much of the traditional method of teaching
as possible, the primary thrust of the Ayurvedic movement over the last
forty years has been toward the building of modern educational institutions
for which the historical precedent is the classical system of university edu¬
cation in India as it is believed to have existed in the ancient universities
of Nalanda and Taxila.9
Revivalist movements in modern South Asian history, which have usu¬
ally been religious movements,10 tend to share certain common features.
There is first a recognition that contemporary traditional practices do not
reflect the highest achievements of the ancient civilization. Second, there
is the belief that the decline of indigenous culture, science, and religion is
in great measure attributable to their suppression during long periods of
foreign rule and the imposition of alien cultures. The third feature follows
logically from the second; that is, the demand for state patronage from the
new nationalist regimes for the restoration of indigenous values. The con¬
sequence of these attitudes is the development of a political orientation on
the part of revivalist leaders, of a demand for governmental interference
in areas from which most modern secular states have either tended to re-
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 345

move themselves or in which they have been prevented from imposing

political criteria by the existence of independent interest and professional
organizations.
These common features of revivalist movements are apparent in the
Ayurvedic movement. All the proponents of Ayurveda in contemporary
India share a belief — not unsupported by objective evidence — in the
pristine excellence and scientific character of Ayurveda as revealed in the
ancient classics of the science. It is noted that the ancient science was a
complete system of medicine comprising eight branches of medical science,
including surgery.11 This great science, however, suffered with the general
decline of ancient Indian civilization and the subsequent imposition of first
Muslim, then British, rule. Two important consequences flowed from these
developments. One was the gradual decline of Ayurveda, especially in the
knowledge of surgery and other specialties, until only general practitioners
were left.12 The other was the introduction of alien medical systems — first
the Muslim Unani system13 and then, most importantly, the western system
of medicine.
The controversy between Orientalists and Anglicists14 in the early period
of British rule affected British attitudes toward the remnants of the Ayur¬
vedic tradition which they found in Bengal. In 1822, the School of Native
Doctors was established in Calcutta in which both Ayurvedic and western
medical subjects were taught. However, in 1835 the School was abolished
and replaced by a modern medical college on the grounds that the basic
principles of the two systems of medicine were incompatible and could not
be combined.15 It is worth noting that this decision was taken in the year of
Macaulay’s Minute on Education, which is a landmark in the ultimate
victory of the Anglicists over the Orientalists in determining the pattern of
higher education in India for the next century.16
From this period onward, the western medical system became firmly
established in British India and asserted its supremacy at least in India’s
urban centers. The Ayurvedic system, however, continued to receive gov¬
ernment patronage in some of the princely states, where either prominent
vaidyas (Ayurvedic physicians) carried on instruction through the tradi¬
tional guru-disciple system or, in some cases, Ayurvedic colleges were
established.17 The revivalist movement in British-ruled India asserted itself
in 1907 with the establishment of a professional interest group of indige¬
nous practitioners known as the All-India Ayurveda Mahasammelan
(Ayurvedic Congress), which is still the leading organization of vaidyas
in India. The revivalist movement first received political support in the
Indian National Congress, which passed annual resolutions from 1920 on¬
wards demanding government patronage for Ayurveda.18 With the gradual
development of representative institutions in the British-ruled provinces
and the increasing entry of Indians into the executive councils and legisla¬
tures in the provinces, the provincial governments began to grant assistance
to Sanskrit Mahavidyalayas imparting instruction in Ayurveda and to help
 346 Constraints on Politicization of Education

in establishing new Ayurvedic educational institutions. In this period also,

a number of state governments passed acts of legislation regulating indige¬
nous practitioners and establishing government institutions for this purpose,
usually known as boards of Indian medicine. Each of the provinces also
had either branches of the Ayurvedic Congress or independent provincial
organizations of the vaidyas and hakims (Unani physicians) to represent
the needs and demands of the indigenous practitioners before the provincial
governments. Thus, even before independence, the Ayurvedic movement
had entrenched itself in the provincial political and educational systems.
Before independence, there were already more than sixty recognized Ayur¬
vedic colleges or Mahavidyalayas spread over the country.19 In addition,
boards of Indian medicine had already been established in Bombay,
Madras, and West Bengal and one was about to be established in Uttar
Pradesh.20
The leaders of the Ayurvedic movement viewed the achievement of in¬
dependence as the dawn of their own emancipation and began to make
increasingly vociferous demands for full-fledged support to Ayurveda on
the part of both the central and state governments. The response of the
central government was disheartening to many Ayurvedists. As in other
areas of central government policy, the reaction of the central government
was the appointment of a succession of committees, a process which has
continued up to the present.21 Initially, the central government was reluc¬
tant to grant significant support, but it was gradually won over by con¬
tinued political pressure to a policy of granting support for research and
postgraduate training in indigenous systems of medicine.22 In July 1956,
the Central Institute of Research in Indigenous Systems of Medicine and
the Post-Graduate Training Centre for Ayurveda began functioning at
Jamnagar in what is now Gujarat state. Similar institutions'were established
later at Banaras and Trivandrum. At the governmental level, an honorary
adviser on indigenous systems of medicine was appointed in the ministry
of health in 1956. Later, on the recommendation of the Udupa Commit¬
tee,23 a Central Council for Ayurvedic Research was established to promote
scientific research on drugs and medicinal plants and literary research on
the theories and principles of Ayurveda. In the planning commission, a
panel on Ayurveda was established to recommend policies and programs
to be included in the five-year plans. In the third plan, Rs. 9.3 crores in a
total health plan of Rs. 341.9 crores were allocated for the development of
indigenous systems of medicine, including Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Yoga,
homeopathy, and nature cure.24 The steps taken by the central government
have, however, fallen far short of the hopes and expectations of many of
the leading advocates of Ayurveda, who have demanded equality with, if
not preeminence over, the modern medical system, the establishment of a
central council of Ayurveda under the control of Ayurvedists to establish
uniform educational and professional standards, and greatly increased allo¬
cations of funds for the development of Ayurveda.
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 347

In the states, the progress of Ayurveda has varied considerably. There

has been a notable increase in the number of Ayurvedic colleges, which in
1964 numbered ninety-five in the country as a whole;25 boards of Indian
medicine have been established in most of the states; separate directors of
Ayurveda have been established in a majority of the states; and in Rajas¬
than and Kerala there are separate ministries for Ayurveda. In addition,
thousands of Ayurvedic and Unani dispensaries have been set up by state
and local governments throughout the country. Nevertheless, the response
of most of the state governments has not come up to the hopes of many
Ayurvedic leaders. The proportion of the total medical budget devoted to
Ayurveda has varied from less than 1 percent in West Bengal to more than
13 percent in Kerala.26 In general, the states which have been devoting
the greatest attention to Ayurveda are Rajasthan, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh,
Punjab, and Gujarat; the least responsive state governments have been
those in West Bengal, Madras, and Bihar. Although there is some correla¬
tion between a state’s general modernity, progress in economic develop¬
ment, and spread of modern medicine and its response to Ayurveda, there
is great variation even among the more modern and progressive states, not
all of which have been unresponsive to Ayurveda (for example, Kerala,
Gujarat, and Punjab), and among the less developed states, not all of
which have been more receptive to Ayurveda (for example, Bihar, whose
support for Ayurveda has been minimal). There are other important varia¬
bles which account for these variations — the general strength of the re¬
vivalist tradition (which, for example, may account for the strong response
to Ayurveda in Gujarat); the administrative performance and financial
position of the state government (which accounts for the minimal support
for Ayurveda in administratively weak Bihar); the success of the Ayur¬
vedic movement in entrenching itself strongly in some states even before
independence (as in Uttar Pradesh); and the existence of a strong and
continuous Ayurvedic medical tradition and a large number of indigenous
practitioners (as in Kerala or, outside India, in Ceylon). In short, there is
no simple and immediate explanation for the strength or weakness of the
Ayurvedic movement in each state, but rather, as in all things Indian, great
regional variation. Nor is there any basis for the assumption that the grad¬
ual spread of modern medicine will inevitably supplant Ayurveda in each
state. Modern medical administrators in the two most progressive states
— Madras and Punjab — have asserted that the indigenous systems will
have a permanent place in the provision of medical relief with or without
state patronage.27
The consequences of three quarters of a century of efforts to revive and
restore Ayurveda have been to create in the Indian subcontinent a dual
system of institutions of medical education and medical relief and a dual
administrative structure to administer them.28 Table 68 summarizes some
of the available data on medical institutions in India, both modern and
Ayurvedic, showing the number of practitioners, colleges, annual student
348 Constraints on Politicization of Education

Table 68. Comparative status of the modern and Ayurvedic systems of

medicine in India.

Modern Ayurvedic
Status indicators (No.) (No.)

Practitioners 108,240 a 116,865°

Colleges 85 ° 95 d
Annual admissions (students) 11,5000 1,375e
Hospitals and dispensaries 12,600 o 5,471 °
Rupees crores allocated for education, training
and research in third planf 56.3 9.8
a Times of India, June 13, 1967, citing survey conducted by the Institute of Applied
Manpower Research.
b Bulletin of the Council of State Boards and Faculties of Indian Medicine, 1, no. 1
(December 1962), p. 34. The comparison between the numbers of modern and Ayurvedic
practitioners is not an exact one since the Ayurvedic figure has been inflated by the inclusion
of practitioners who have not been institutionally trained. The figure for institutionally
trained Ayurvedic practitioners is probably closer to 30,000.
c Government of India, Planning Commission, Annual Plan, 1966-67, p. 79.
d Government of India, Ministry of Information, India 1964 (Delhi, 1964), pp. 474-475.
e Government of India, Planning Commission, Third Five Year Plan (Delhi, 1961),
p. 652. Although the number of Ayurvedic colleges is comparable to the number of modem
medical colleges, there is a great discrepancy in the number of students admitted annually
to the two types of institutions. The reason is that there is very wide variation in the size
and facilities of the Ayurvedic colleges, which may be tiny Sanskrit colleges teaching the
Ayurvedic shastras to seven or eight students or colleges of the integrated type serving
several hundred students. In a tour of twenty-seven Ayurvedic institutions in India and
Ceylon, Charles Leslie found that “many of them had no facilities other than a house,
and that they had no students or very few students.” Letter of March 13, 1968.
f Government of India, Planning Commission, Third Five Year Plan (Delhi, 1961),
p. 651. The total health plan was 341.8 crores. In the figures listed above, other health
plan expenditures (such as for water supply and sanitation, primary health units, control
of communicable diseases, and family planning) have been excluded.
•
admissions, hospitals, and dispensaries. Although the state and central
governments are more heavily committed to the modern system of medi¬
cine, the Ayurvedic system must be considered a fully entrenched com¬
ponent of the medical, educational, and administrative structure of the
country.
Charles Leslie has pointed out that, although there are dual systems of
professional medicine in India, there are also important connections be¬
tween the two systems.29 The most direct connection is through the domi¬
nant system of Ayurvedic institutional training itself, in which both Ayur¬
vedic and modern medical subjects are taught. Second, practitioners of
Ayurvedic medicine frequently use modern medicines and modern medical
practitioners make use of some traditional remedies. Third, many fully
qualified modern medical doctors and scientists are among the leading
supporters of both research and training in Ayurveda.30 Fourth, the sons
and grandsons of many of the most prominent leaders of the Ayurvedic
movement have become modern medical doctors.31 Fifth, most people in
India from villagers to sophisticated urban intellectuals do not make ideo-
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 349

logical distinctions between the two systems of medicine, but use which¬
ever system is readily available and which they consider effective for their
ailments. Many people will use modern medicine for acute diseases and
Ayurvedic medicine for minor problems and chronic illnesses.32 Moreover,
many Ayurvedic physicians claim that modern medical men refer to them
patients with diseases considered incurable or not subject to treatment by
modern medicine. Finally, it is important to keep in mind that both systems
are institutionalized forms of medicine, primarily urban and professional in
orientation, training, and practice.
The simultaneous existence in a poor developing country of two massive
systems of medical education and medical administration, developing side
by side in the urban areas, must give pause to those analysts of the process
of modernization who argue that all the developing countries are engaged
in a process of westernization or “acculturation” 33 toward a more or less
uniform set of goals. The history of the Ayurvedic movement presents an
example of a dual approach to the question of modernization in a society
engaged simultaneously in a process of technological development and cul¬
tural revivalism. This dual approach is reflected not merely in the ambivalent
attitudes of the modernizing elite but in the creation of dual structures giv¬
ing institutional and bureaucratic form and expression to those ambivalent
attitudes and to opposing conceptions of the nature of the modernization
process as it applies to India. The ambivalence and duality of approach
toward Indian medical development are clearly demonstrated in the rela¬
tions between the advocates of the two systems of medicine and in the
internal efforts of Ayurvedists to establish uniform educational and pro¬
fessional standards.

Conflict over the National System of Medicine: The Struggle for

Government Support and for Equality with Modern Medicine

Although the Ayurvedic movement succeeded in establishing a large

network of educational institutions throughout the subcontinent even be¬
fore independence, it did not succeed in establishing uniform educational
and professional standards. The courses of training, the degrees awarded,
the professional opportunities available to graduates, and the methods of
practice followed by graduates varied from state to state and from institu¬
tion to institution within the same state. Moreover, the modern medical
system occupied a clear position of superiority in government allocations,
in educational standards, and in the extent of professionalization.34 In order
to change the balance between the two systems, after independence the
leaders of the Ayurvedic movement adopted the political strategy of de¬
manding full state support for Ayurveda. One of the main tactics in this
political strategy was to identify Ayurveda with nationalism, national in¬
dependence, and national aspirations. In other words, the strategy of the
Ayurvedic leaders was to confront the leadership of independent India with
 350 Constraints on Politicization of Education

political demands which had nothing to do with educational or scientific

standards.
Specifically, immediately after independence the demand was made that
the political emancipation of the country should be followed by the eman¬
cipation of Ayurveda through wholehearted government patronage and
the declaration by the government that henceforth Ayurveda would be the
national system of treatment. Those “allopaths” (practitioners of modern
medicine)35 who opposed this demand were asked, like the British, to
quit India.” Ayurveda was described as the Indian system of treatment
and opposition to it was castigated as an insult to “the Indian people, the
Indian culture, the Indian health and the vaidyas of the country.” 37 The
lack of response from the central government to Ayurvedic demands and
the opposition of modern medical men brought forth comments such as
this: In face of the statements made by the Father of the Nation, our
National Government is bent upon making us slaves of modern civilization
resting on apparatuses, instruments, injections and inventions. Taking ad¬
vantage of the stand which the Indian Government has taken, Dr. Cha-
manlal, President of the All India Medical Council exclaimed loudly at
the Allahabad Session of the council, ‘that large amounts of money were
being wasted in starting Ayurvedic and Unani Colleges and Hospitals and
in maintaining them. Our advice to Dr. Chaman Lai [sic] is to leave our
country and to proceed to England with the foreign pathy [sic] which he so
dearly hugs to his bossom [sic]. We love that system of treatment which
has been so near and dear to Mahatma Gandhi. We are out for that system
of treatment which wants to keep us healthy independently of drugs and
medicines. We shall accept only that system of treatment the promulgators
of which ask the Government to turn out of the land those physicians and
surgeons who aim at collecting and amassing money. There is now no
place in the country for those medical practitioners who have squeezed
crores of rupees out of the life blood of millions of our poor countrymen
and have dignified themselves with Degrees and Knighthood.” 38
The extreme Ayurvedic argument, based on an appeal to nationalist
sentiment, has had two important additional elements. First, it has been
argued that Ayurveda is the only system of medicine suited to the habits,
diet, and climate of the Indian people and that, perforce, the modern
system is a foreign system not suited to Indians. Second, it has been ar¬
gued that modern medicine, in any case, has failed to penetrate effectively
the rural areas and is not likely to do so in the foreseeable future and that
the vast bulk of the population still depends upon the indigenous systems
of treatment. Therefore, it is argued, Ayurveda deserves full state patronage
for both cultural and practical reasons.
The reply of the modern medical men has been that there can be no
such thing as an Indian or a foreign system of treatment, that modern
medicine is not tied to any culture, but is universal. It is also argued that
India cannot hold on to a system of treatment which is out of date simply
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 351

for sentimental and nationalistic reasons. Moreover, it is claimed that rural

people are entitled to the same care as urban people and that they prefer
modern medical treatment when they can get it. It is pointed out that most
of the Ayurvedic practitioners make use — or misuse — of modern drugs
and instruments themselves. It is argued, therefore, that modern medical
relief of the highest standard should be extended as rapidly as possible
throughout the countryside.
The arguments of the extreme proponents of pure Ayurveda and pure
allopathy have so far not been based on a realistic assessment of the pros¬
pects of either system of medicine. Pure Ayurveda cannot possibly cope
with the major public health needs of rural India — the control and cure
of infectious and communicable diseases. Moreover, for the last forty years,
the system of medical education in Ayurveda which has been predominant
in most of the Ayurvedic colleges has been an integrated or mixed system,39
in which both Ayurvedic and modern medical subjects are taught. Both the
pure Ayurvedists and the pure allopaths agree that this system has pro¬
duced practitioners of medicine unqualified in either system, making use
of dangerous drugs of which they have inadequate knowledge.
On the other hand, the penetration of modern medicine into the coun¬
tryside has been so slow that there is no real prospect of providing medical
relief in the rural areas of India of a standard approaching that of the
developed countries or of India’s own urban centers for generations to
come. The overwhelming proportion of medical colleges, hospitals, re¬
search institutes, and modern medical practitioners remain concentrated in
India’s urban centers. The latest survey of medical manpower in India
reveals that nearly 68 percent of the total number of doctors in the country
practice in urban areas. At the end of 1964, it was estimated that there
were 108,737 doctors in India, which would mean 73,941 in the urban
sector and 34,796 in the rural sector. Taking India’s current total popula¬
tion at approximately 500 million with an 80 percent to 20 percent rural-
urban ratio, one arrives at an approximate doctor-population ratio of
1 to 1350 for the urban areas and 1 to 11,500 for the rural areas. When
one considers that, of the total of 108,737 doctors, only 57,571 hold
M.B.B.S. degrees, the rest being Licentiates, and that the more qualified
doctors are in private urban practice, then the true dimensions of the
paucity of effective modern medical relief in the Indian countryside become
apparent.40
The extension of modern medical relief to the countryside has so far
made minimal progress, on the one hand because of the unwillingness of
modern practitioners to five in the rural areas, which lack amenities and
educational facilities for themselves and their families, and on the other
hand, because of the unwillingness or inability of the state governments to
provide sufficient incentives to make rural practice worthwhile. Spokesmen
for the Ayurvedic movement frequently argue that Ayurveda is the tradi¬
tional form of medical relief for the vast masses of rural India and note
352 Constraints on Politicization of Education

the failure of modern medicine to penetrate the countryside. In fact, how¬

ever, neither of the professionalized forms of medicine have spread widely
in the rural areas, where people have to depend upon a diverse assortment
of allopaths, vaidyas, hakims, homeopaths, “biochemists,” practitioners of
yoga and nature cure, witch doctors, and outright quacks.
Between the extreme positions of the proponents of pure Ayurveda and
pure allopathy, there has been a middle position which advocates the de¬
velopment of a national system of medicine that would integrate and syn¬
thesize the best elements of both systems.41 It has been argued by the sup¬
porters of the integrated system of Ayurvedic training and practice that
some knowledge of modern medicine is necessary to supplement the gaps
in Ayurveda and to make it possible for indigenous practitioners to provide
effective medical relief in the rural areas. There have also been modern
medical men who believe that modern medicine may be able to benefit from
an absorption of those aspects of Ayurvedic treatment which have been
proved effective through scientific and clinical research.
However, the obstacles to effective integration of the two systems of
medicine have so far proved insurmountable. Given the fundamental dif¬
ferences in the basic principles of the two systems, it is not surprising that
the first obstacle has been controversy over the terms on which integration
should take place. The Chopra Committee de-emphasized the differences
in the fundamentals of the two systems and argued for mutual cross¬
fertilization leading to an ultimate synthesis.42 Many modern medical men,
however, view integration as a process of absorbing into modern medical
science whatever is of proven value in Ayurveda, which has meant in prac¬
tice simply that they are willing to make use of any Ayurvedic drugs
which have been proved effective. On the other side, many supporters of
Ayurveda have argued that Indian medicine should incbrporate whatever
is of proven value in modem medicine while maintaining its distinct char¬
acter and its fundamental theories.
Thus, the Journal of Ayurveda announced its support for a scheme of
integration which “would preserve that unique characteristic of Indian
Culture throughout the ages which has enabled it to go on assimilating the
valuable and significant features of other cultures; while it has remained
all the time fundamentally rooted in its own cultural excellences. It would
build upon these [sic] most valuable and foundational knowledge of Pan-
chabhuta, Tridosha and other theories which are basic and vital to Indian
Medicine.” 43 On the other hand, the report of the Mudaliar Committee
argued as follows: “An integration of Modern Medicine and Ayurveda is
eminently desirable and all steps toward achieving that end should be pro¬
moted. Such integration should result in the development of a system of
medical knowledge and practice based on all the best that is available in
Modem Medicine and in Ayurveda. To us the idea of a concurrent devel¬
opment and maintenance of different systems of medicine for all time is
unacceptable. ... A synthesis of the type that we envisage will ... be
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 353

through the incorporation in Modern Medicine of all that can be tested

scientifically and proved to be useful in the Ayurvedic system.” 44
The government of India has been faced over the last two decades with
two series of reports, published under its own auspices, that reflect dif¬
ferent viewpoints. The Chopra and Udupa Committees have emphasized
the desirability of ultimate integration and synthesis. The Bhore Committee
Report of 1946 touched only briefly on the indigenous systems of medi¬
cine45 and recommended the rapid extension of modern scientific medicine
throughout the country. The Mudaliar Committee Report of 1961 pro¬
posed support for shuddha (pure) Ayurveda rather than the concurrent
system of training, and recommended ultimate absorption of whatever was
useful from Ayurveda into modern scientific medicine.
The central government has made substantive concessions on the recom¬
mendations of the Ayurvedic committee reports, but has adhered to the
ideology of the reports prepared by the modern medical committees. The
response of the central government to the Chopra Committee recommen¬
dations was almost wholly negative. The government of India felt that
integration of the two systems of medicine was not possible because of the
fundamental differences in their underlying principles, but said that re¬
search should be carried out to discover what is useful in the indigenous
systems. The government declared unequivocally that “the Central and
Provincial Governments should decide that modem scientific medicine
should continue to be the basis for the development of the National Health
Services in the country.” 46 The central government has not so far de¬
parted from this stand, but it has gradually adopted a policy of supporting
research and postgraduate training in Ayurveda and any attempts by
Ayurvedists themselves to define and establish uniform educational and
professional standards. A form of central government recognition was
given to the indigenous systems of medicine even before the Chopra Com¬
mittee report in a resolution passed by the First Health Ministers’ Con¬
ference47 in 1946 “that provision should be made for training and research
in the indigenous systems and that practitioners of these systems should be
utilized in State health programs.” 48 The varied response of the state gov¬
ernments to this recommendation has been mentioned above. Although a
few states have given considerable support to the indigenous systems, no
state government has yet declared Ayurveda as the state system of medi¬
cine, nor has any effective integration anywhere taken place.
During the first two decades after independence, the central and state
governments in India followed a policy of denying Ayurveda the status of
the national system of medicine but encouraging and supporting scientific
research relating to Ayurveda and providing employment to the graduates
of the Ayurvedic colleges in the state health services in order to extend
some form of medical relief to the countryside. However, it has been a
major grievance of the Ayurvedic students and graduates that they have
been employed only in inferior positions in the state health services at
354 Constraints on Politicization of Education

salaries far below those given to graduates of modern medical colleges.

In consequence, the students in Ayurvedic colleges throughout India have
engaged in strikes, agitations, and demonstrations during the last decade
demanding equality in status and pay with the graduates of the modern
medical colleges. Moreover, in their efforts to improve their life prospects,
the Ayurvedic students have made demands which have threatened the
viability of the entire structure of Ayurvedic education built up in India
during the last forty years. One of the main methods used by student leaders
to rectify the imbalance between themselves and the modern medical grad¬
uates has been to demand a condensed M.B.B.S. course after graduating
from the Ayurvedic colleges. This demand has intensified the conflict with
the modern medical profession and has forced policy-makers to reconsider
the utility of maintaining the Ayurvedic colleges at all.
Student demands have played a decisive role in the development of atti¬
tudes and policies toward Ayurvedic education in recent years. In most
states Ayurvedic graduates spend as much or nearly as much time in train¬
ing as do modern medical graduates, but when they come out they are
poorly paid and suffer from handicaps to their practice and insults to their
prestige.49 There is a widespread feeling, however, that the vast majority
of the students are failures in secondary school who have not been able to
gain admission to a modern medical school or to some other modern pro¬
fessional school and who have gone to the Ayurvedic colleges as a last
resort.50 The obvious inequalities in the status and pay of the Ayurvedic
graduates compared to their modern medical counterparts have created the
conditions for student demands. The inferior caliber of the students has
created a justification for the rejection of their demands.
Student agitations have not been confined to the poorest institutions, but
have affected even the best. By most accounts, the College of Integrated
Medicine in Madras was the preeminent institution teaching indigenous
medicine in India. Founded in 1925 as the Government School of Indian
Medicine, it was converted into a College of Indian Medicine in 1947.
Until 1955, the method of concurrent teaching was followed in the college
in which roughly 60 percent of the course was Ayurvedic in content and
40 percent was modern. However, in 1955, under the instructions of a
health minister unsympathetic to Ayurveda, the curriculum began to shift
toward a greater emphasis on modern subjects until, by 1958, the curricu¬
lum was about 80 percent modern. Although the students were, therefore,
taking a predominantly modern medical course, they were not offered the
same status and pay in the Madras health services as the graduates of
modern medical colleges. In 1959, the students of the college struck, de¬
manding equality in status and pay with the M.B.B.S. graduates. The
Madras government refused to concede the main demands, but offered the
students the choice of giving up their integrated course and taking a wholly
modern course leading to a D.M. & S. (Diploma in Medicine and Surgery)
degree or going back to the college. It is reported that “every student with-
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 355

out exception opted for the D.M. & S.” The Madras government then
acceded to the wishes of the students and converted the College of Inte¬
grated Medicine into a modern medical college.51
Student demands for equality with modern medical graduates or for the
condensed M.B.B.S. course reflect not only a desire for increased emolu¬
ments, but also in many places a rejection of the Ayurvedic curriculum
itself as it has been taught. For example, in February and March 1958 the
students of the Fucknow Ayurvedic College in Uttar Pradesh struck on
the same issues which arose in Madras. In addition to demands for equality
in emoluments and conditions of practice after graduation, the students in
Fucknow demanded fundamental changes in the curriculum — demanding
that “the allopathic department [of the Lucknow Ayurvedic College]
should be made as complete with material as is the Medical College” and
“only such subjects from Ayurveda should be taught as are desired by the
students.” 52 The response of the Uttar Pradesh government to the student
demands was, however, different from that of the Madras government. The
Uttar Pradesh government responded to the strike by pointing out that the
college had been founded for the purpose of promoting the study of Ayur¬
veda; that the place of Ayurveda in the curriculum would, therefore, have
to remain predominant; and that “no resolution . . . opposed to this basic
policy would ever be acceptable.” 53 Instead of closing down the college,
the Uttar Pradesh government increased the emphasis on courses in Ayur¬
veda. Over the years, concessions granting increases in status and pay were
made. However, the Uttar Pradesh policy was ultimately no more suc¬
cessful than the Madras policy. In 1967 the students of the Lucknow
Ayurvedic College again struck for the same demands. This time, the
Uttar Pradesh government responded as the Madras government had done
earlier and closed down the college. The college was, however, re-opened
after intervention by a committee of citizens and student guardians on the
undertaking that the students would end their agitation and resume their
studies.54
The student strikes in Madras and Lucknow are but two examples of a
widespread condition in the indigenous medical colleges throughout India.
In the period 1958 through 1964, there were at least fifty-five strikes or
other demonstrations in the indigenous medical institutions of India, affect¬
ing thirty-four Ayurvedic and four Unani institutions.55 In a period of seven
years, then, more than 40 percent of the indigenous medical institutions
experienced incidents of student indiscipline. Forty-one of the fifty-five
strikes were focused upon issues relating to student demands for equality
with modern medical graduates, for employment, and for modernization
and improvement of college facilities and curricula.56 The most persistently
repeated demand in these strikes was for equalization of the pay scales of
indigenous medical graduates in government service with the pay scales of
modern medical graduates. Other frequently recurring demands on the
issue of equality were demands to upgrade or change the name of the
356 Constraints on Politicization of Education

degrees granted in the indigenous institutions from inferior diplomas or

traditional-sounding degrees such as Ayurvedacharya to degrees bearing
English titles similar to and equal in status with the M.B.B.S. degree; de¬
mands to permit indigenous medical graduates to be registered as medical
practitioners and to practice modern medicine in their states; and demands
for equal privileges in the Army Medical Corps.
The student strikes reflect a widespread sense of dissatisfaction among
the Ayurvedic students throughout the country, involving in many cases a
rejection of the more traditional Ayurvedic curriculum and a desire for
more modern subjects and facilities. Interviews and discussions with Ayur¬
vedic college students indicate, however, that the basic underlying issue
for the students is less an ideological confrontation between modernity and
tradition than a desire for economic opportunity and improvement in their
life prospects.
The demand of the Ayurvedic students for equality in status and pay
has met with partial success. Many state governments have created new
medical positions for the Ayurvedic graduates and have increased their pay
scales. In Gujarat, the pay scales of the modern and Ayurvedic graduates
have been equalized. However, the demand for a condensed M.B.B.S.
course has foundered on the opposition of the modern medical profession.
The modern medical argument has been that this demand is nothing but an
attempt by people who have failed to gain admission to modern medical
colleges to get an M.B.B.S. degree through the back door.
The Medical Council of India, which regulates educational standards in
the modern medical colleges, has insisted that Ayurvedic graduates must
pass the entrance examinations and go through the full four-year course
before they can take the M.B.B.S. degree. The only concession the Medical
Council has been willing to make is to permit graduates of Ayurvedic
colleges to take a condensed licentiate course in modern medicine pro¬
vided that the Ayurvedic institutions from which the graduates come agree
to terminate the integrated course. In other words, the Medical Council of
India has offered a minor concession in return for a promise to abolish the
integrated system of Ayurvedic education.
The stand of the Medical Council of India reflects a continued insistence
on the part of many representatives of the modern medical profession on
maintaining the purity and separateness of modern medicine. From this
standpoint, modern medical men have found it possible to give support to
pure Ayurveda but not to the integrated or concurrent system. The con¬
current system of training represents a threat not only to the ideal stand¬
ards of the modern medical profession, but also to the economic status of
the modern medical graduates, since the integrated graduates frequently
provide the same kind (if not quality) of treatment to their patients at
lower fees.
Although the central and state governments continue to provide support
and have made some concessions, the Ayurvedic movement has achieved
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 357

neither its maximum demand for a declaration of Ayurveda as the national

system of medicine, nor the more modest demand for equality in status
and pay. In the meantime, the viability of the entire Ayurvedic educational
structure has been thrown into doubt by the demands of the students for
an M.B.B.S. degree.
Two questions arise logically out of the failure of the Ayurvedic move¬
ment to achieve its main demands: why have the demands been refused,
given the existence of widespread sympathy for Ayurveda among the intel¬
lectual and political elite of the country; and why do the state and central
governments continue to provide significant support to the system of Ayur¬
vedic education and research without conceding the main demands? Part
of the answer to the first question has already been given: the Ayurvedic
movement has been unable to overcome the opposition of the relatively
more powerful modern medical interest group. The failures of the Ayur¬
vedic movement, however, are as much attributable to internal conflict
within the movement on educational and professional goals as to external
conflict with the modern medical profession. The answer to the second
question is that, despite external opposition and internal conflict, the
leaders of the Ayurvedic movement have gained the support of powerful
political leaders and control over a segment of health administration in the
states.

Conflict within the Ayurvedic Movement: Controversy over Uniform

Educational and Professional Standards

It is universally recognized by leaders of all shades of opinion in the

Ayurvedic movement that Ayurvedic education and practice can be placed
on a sound footing only if uniform educational standards are established
for the Ayurvedic institutions and professional standards are established
for the graduates. However, the main obstacles to the achievement of uni¬
form educational and professional standards have not come from the op¬
position of the modern medical men but from internal divisions among
Ayurvedists themselves. Ayurvedists agree that educational standardization
and professionalization are the instruments for achieving a viable modern
structure of Ayurvedic education and practice. Profound disagreement
exists on the content of the curriculum and, hence, on the qualifications
necessary for professional status. These disagreements have been articu¬
lated by powerful interest organizations, whose leaders have sought to
settle the issues through the political system by acquiring decisive political
support and by establishing political structures which would impose uni¬
formity on a divided movement. The result has been not uniformity but
the transference of the divisions in the Ayurvedic movement into govern¬
ment itself.
Superficially, the conflict between the two wings of the Ayurvedic move¬
ment appears to be between those who favor modernization in the cur-
 358 Constraints on Politicization of Education

riculum and those who favor reliance on ancient texts. Moreover, at times,
the leaders of the two wings of the movement have been trapped into tak¬
ing positions in which they do not fully believe. However, the basic conflict
within the Ayurvedic movement is between two modernizing wings — one
of which favors complete integration with modern medicine and the other
of which favors permanent separation from modern medicine.
For the last forty years, the dominant form of Ayurvedic education has
been the integrated or concurrent system; that is, a course of studies which
includes both Ayurvedic and modern medical subjects in varying propor¬
tions, depending on the institution, the time, and the place. This course
was designed to train students in the fundamental principles of Ayurveda
while simultaneously providing them with a knowledge of modern medicine
sufficient to enable them to play a role in public health activities. It is
nearly universally recognized even within the Ayurvedic movement that
this system of training has been a dismal failure which has produced prac¬
titioners qualified in neither system of medicine. The consequence has been
the increasing strength in the last decade, under the leadership of the
Ayurvedic Congress, of a movement to abolish the integrated system and
replace it with a curriculum of shuddha Ayurvedic studies, in which mod¬
ern medical subjects, if taught at all, will be taught only for comparative
purposes. The supporters of the integrated system, rebuffed in their efforts
at effective integration with the modern medical colleges and having a
large vested interest in the network of integrated institutions and their
products, have been forced to defend a system in which they do not fully
believe. In addition, there is considerable difference of opinion among
the supporters of the integrated system as to how much Ayurveda and how
much modem medicine should be taught. Some people believe that the
integrated colleges should teach primarily modern medicine, with Ayur¬
vedic subjects as a supplement, whereas others feel that the reverse should
be the case. The result is that there is great variation in the curriculum from
institution to institution and frequent changes in the curricula of individual
Ayurvedic colleges.
Since 1952, the divisions in the Ayurvedic movement at the national
level have been expressed primarily through two interest organizations —
the Ayurvedic Congress, led and dominated by Pandit Shiv Sharma, and
the Council of State Boards and Faculties of Indian Systems of Medicine.57
The Ayurvedic Congress was founded in 1907. The Council was founded
in 1952 after a split in the Ayurvedic Congress. The Council immediately
became a formidable rival to the older, parent organization. Whereas the
Ayurvedic Congress is a voluntary interest organization of individual prac¬
titioners and of local, provincial Ayurvedic associations, the Council is a
semi-official agency whose members include the heads of the Ayurvedic
colleges, the members of the state faculties and boards of Indian medicine,
and the directors of Ayurveda in the health administrations of the several
states. The Ayurvedic Congress is the representative of the shuddha Ayur-
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 359

vedic school, whereas the Council represents the integrated viewpoint. It

holds “that integrated education will enable a scientific approach to the
study of the Ayurvedic and Unani systems paving the way for the much
needed research, fill up the gaps left in the systems especially in the fields
of surgery and obstetrics and enable these physicians to give the best of
both the systems to the people according to the needs and exigencies of
practice.” 58 The viewpoint of the Congress is:

So far as the integrated system of education is concerned, it is absolutely

unsuited to Ayurveda; it is not only unsuited, it is harmful as well. . . .
The basic principles of Ayurveda and modern science are so very differ¬
ent that it is very difficult to integrate the necessary parts of one with those
of the other, if not impossible. . . .
It is the result of this propaganda in favor of an ill-advised integrated
system that the learned men of Ayurveda were compelled to prefix the
word “pure” before Ayurveda. . . . For students of Ayurveda, it is neces¬
sary that a course of study, which is basically of Ayurvedic subjects, should
be prescribed. For this, it would be proper to present modern science only
on the basic principles of Ayurveda.59

The conflict between these two interest organizations has been a major
obstacle to the establishment of educational uniformity and professional
standards. Although leaders of both interest groups have agreed that the
primary need of Ayurvedic education and practice is the establishment of
a central council of Indian medicine60 which would regulate educational
and professional standards for the indigenous systems of medicine in the
same way that the Medical Council of India does for modern medicine,
each has been fearful of the consequences if its rival should gain control
of such a council. And although both interest groups would like to see
professional standards established to eliminate widespread quackery from
Ayurvedic practice, the standards of one group would disqualify the prac¬
titioners of the other.
In 1955 the Central Council of Health recommended the appointment
of a committee by the Government of India “to formulate a uniform policy
in respect of the education and regulation of the practice of Vaidyas,
Hakims and Homeopaths.” 61 The committee, known as the Dave Com¬
mittee, submitted its report in the following year. The report recommended
the adoption of a uniform pattern of Ayurvedic education throughout In¬
dia and prepared a model syllabus for an integrated course. To implement
its recommendations and maintain control over educational standards, the
Dave Committee further recommended the establishment of a central
council of Ayurvedic and Unani systems of medicine.
The report of the Dave Committee and its recommendations brought
the internal controversy in the Ayurvedic movement to a head, for it was
immediately apparent that the appointment of such a council with powers
to regulate teaching in the Ayurvedic colleges would determine the issue
360 Constraints on Politicization of Education

between the advocates of the shuddha and integrated systems of teaching.

The recommendations of that committee were never implemented because
of the existence of a stalemate in the Ayurvedic movement on this issue.
In the meantime, conditions in the integrated colleges began to deteriorate
and student unrest began to spread in the Ayurvedic colleges throughout
the country.
In the years following the report of the Dave Committee, two circum¬
stances combined to shift the emphasis of central government policy from
the integrated system to the shuddha system. On the one hand, there was
increasingly outspoken recognition that the integrated system had failed.
Simultaneously, the advocates of shuddha Ayurveda recruited powerful
political support in the central government, winning to their cause two
powerful central ministers, Morarji Desai and Gulzarilal Nanda. As a
result, the stalemate in the Ayurvedic movement reached the central gov¬
ernment itself. The health minister, Dr. Sushila Nayar, and the honorary
adviser in indigenous systems of medicine, Dr. Dwarkanath, supported the
integrated cause. At the same time, Gulzarilal Nanda was made chairman
of the panel on Ayurveda of the planning commission, and Pandit Shiv
Sharma, president of the Ayurvedic Congress, was made honorary adviser
on Ayurveda to the planning commission. In October 1962, at the Central
Council of Health annual meeting, the advocates of shuddha Ayurveda won
their first major concession. Under the leadership of Mohanlal Vyas, health
minister of Gujarat state, the following resolution was passed: “In so far
as the practice of Ayurveda is concerned, it should be developed, as the
Planning Commission have urged, on purely Ayurvedic lines, involving
deep and intense study of the Classical Ayurvedic literature including its
materia medica and pharmacy. Subjects of Modern Medicine in any form
or language should not be included in the course.” 62 In response to this
resolution, the health ministry appointed still another committee, under
the chairmanship of Mohanlal Vyas, whose main term of reference was
“to draw up a curriculum and syllabus of study in pure (unmixed) Ayur¬
veda extending to over four years, which should not include any subject
of modern medicine or allied sciences in any form or language.” 63
The report of the Vyas Committee is a document of exceptional interest
to students of the modernization process in developing societies. Noting
that the integrated system had failed to produce graduates with a deep
knowledge of Ayurveda but had instead created further demands for allo¬
pathic training by the students themselves, the committee argued that this
problem arose not only from defects in the system of integrated teaching,
but also from the precollege training, which did not require sufficient
knowledge of Sanskrit as a qualification for admission. In order to place
Ayurvedic training on a proper footing, the committee recommended a
course of pure Ayurvedic training with a good knowledge of Sanskrit as a
prerequisite for admission. The committee was undismayed by the knowl¬
edge that there would be few students in the country with both the requisite
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 361

knowledge of Sanskrit and the desire for pure Ayurvedic training. The
committee declared that government support for the integrated system had
“caused a famine of proficient Vaidyas in the country” and that the aim of
the government should now be “to nurture and develop Ayurveda and to
produce Vaidyas of high quality.” 64
The committee denied, however, the clear directive in its terms of refer¬
ence that the course of pure Ayurvedic training should not include “any
subject of modern medicine or allied sciences in any form or language.”
It declared that the pure Ayurvedic course should have “the benefit of
equipment or the methods used by other systems of medicine,” that “some
knowledge of comparative medicine and, particularly, its fundamentals in
their relationship to Ayurveda, must be made available to the students,”
and that, “in the study of anatomy the Ayurvedic coll[e]ges should continue
the practice of employing the present day methods of dissection of dead
bodies.” 65 It also declared that it was not practical to revive the traditional
guru-disciple or pupilage system of Ayurvedic teaching.
In justification of these recommendations, the committee presented prac¬
tical reasons as well as arguments concerning the meaning of modernity
and the meaning of science — arguments of considerable interest to stu¬
dents of modernization. On the practical side, it argued, as the proponents
of integration have been arguing for the last forty years, that modern
methods would have to replace ancient methods where the latter had
fallen into disuse (as in the dissection of dead bodies). A practical, but
sophistic, argument was also adduced that modern medical drugs often
produce side-effects more serious than the diseases which they are supposed
to cure and that the Ayurvedic practitioners must have sufficient knowledge
of modern medicine to deal with such cases.
The committee felt that the terms “modernity” and “science” could not
be the sole property of the western or allopathic system of medicine and
that the latter two terms — western and allopathic — should preferably be
used to describe modern scientific medicine. The committee denied the
validity of chronological considerations and invoked the universality of
scientific truth in defense of its argument: “If the chronological considera¬
tions are to decide the application of the terms ‘modern’ and ‘ancient,’
homeopathy is far more modern than Ayurveda and allopathy. And since,
consistent with its fundamental principles, no system of medicine can ever
be morally debarred from drawing upon any other branch of science, . . .
unless one denies the universal nature of scientific truths, the word ‘mod¬
ern’ too, cannot be reserved in the opinion of the Committee for any one
medical science” (emphasis added).66
The italicized phrase in the above quotation holds the key to the mean¬
ing of modernity and science for the proponents of shuddha Ayurveda
and, in fact, for many revivalists in the Ayurvedic movement as a whole.
For the believers in Ayurveda, modernization means the adoption of the
techniques of practice, the methods of teaching, and the means of organi-
362 Constraints on Politicization of Education

zation of whatever system is most advanced. The pursuit of scientific truth

means the maintenance of the fundamental principles and theories of the
existing body of knowledge and the integration into it of any discoveries
made by other systems which do not contradict those principles and theo¬
ries.67 Every western schoolboy has been taught that if science means
anything at all it means the constant questioning and testing of funda¬
mental principles and theories and that the history of science is replete
with examples of the overthrow of theories which had been accepted for
centuries. For the Ayurvedic revivalist, the last point is the most curious,
for he cannot understand how westerners can have such unshakeable faith
in a system which produces no constant truths. Ayurvedists who accept
the metaphysical basis of Ayurveda argue that science is truth and truth
is nothing if it is not eternal. Any theory of the modernization process
which assumes that one of its end products must be the widespread ac¬
ceptance of the premises of western science must confront the widespread
acceptance of the premises of the Ayurvedic revivalists among the most
modern of Indian intellectuals and among powerful policy makers in the
state and central governments.
Ultimately, the government of India and the state health ministers ac¬
cepted the recommendations of the Vyas Committee, if not its philosophy.
A special meeting of the Central Council of Health held in New Delhi in
April 1963 recommended the introduction of the shuddha Ayurvedic
course into all Ayurvedic colleges in the academic year 1963-64. To su¬
pervise the implementation of the shuddha Ayurvedic curriculum, the Cen¬
tral Board of Shuddha Ayurvedic Education was established, composed of
the members of the Vyas Committee.
There is little doubt that the acceptance by the government of India of
the recommendations of the Vyas Committee amounted to a submission
to political pressure. The policy which Dr. Nayar attempted to follow dur¬
ing her tenure in the health ministry was one of encouraging scientific re¬
search on the principles and practice of Ayurveda. Her closest advisers,
including the honorary adviser on indigenous systems of medicine and the
members of the Central Council of Ayurvedic Research, ultimately de¬
veloped the view that the Ayurvedic colleges ought to be converted into
modern medical colleges in which Ayurveda would be introduced at the
end of a four-year course and in which the teaching of Ayurveda would
be closely related to the results of contemporary research in indigenous
medicine. From the point of view of a modern scientific outlook, this policy
was unexceptionable.
Pandit Shiv Sharma and his associates succeeded, however, in convinc¬
ing central government ministers far more powerful than Dr. Nayar that
government policy was “killing Ayurveda in the name of Ayurveda.” And,
because student agitations were bringing matters to a head, the health
ministry succumbed to the political pressure. The moves to abolish the in¬
tegrated system of education and replace it with the shuddha system were
actively encouraged by the modern medical profession. Thus, government
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 363

policy toward shuddha Ayurveda was the result of successful interest group
influence over educational policy formulation. The interests of the purist
wing of a medical revivalist movement and the interests of the modern
medical profession in controlling standards and eliminating potential pro¬
fessional rivals combined to determine government policy.
In India, however, it is often a long way from policy to practice. For
one thing, it is clear from the report of the Vyas Committee analyzed
above that the concept of shuddha Ayurveda does not exclude modern
medicine entirely. Second, because health is a state subject, the recom¬
mendations of the Central Council of Health and of the central govern¬
ment are not binding upon the state governments. Third, there have been
reports of student resistance to the shuddha curriculum in places where
the integrated course had previously been taught and of low enrollments
in new shuddha institutions.68 Consequently, the decision of the central gov¬
ernment has by no means settled the issues of Ayurvedic education and
practice in India. Rather, it has widened the split in the movement and
has encouraged further interest group conflict between the two wings of
the Ayurvedic movement, thus making professionalization as impossible
to achieve as a satisfactory educational policy.
Ayurvedists of both the pure and integrated schools share a desire for
the establishment of standards and structures which will modernize and
professionalize the practice of Ayurvedic medicine. There is universal
agreement that standards must be established for the practice of Ayurveda,
that the qualified practitioners should be registered by the state govern¬
ments, that uniform national standards must be developed which would
permit interstate registration, and that the practice of Ayurvedic medicine
by unqualified and unregistered practitioners must at some point be ended.
There is also general agreement that unethical practices such as the use of
secret remedies, the tendency to advertise in the press promising cures
for everything from the common cold to cancer, and the awarding of “half-
baked professional degrees” must be stopped.69 There is also agreement on
the structures which must be established or strengthened at both the central
and provincial governmental levels to achieve these ends — a central coun¬
cil of Ayurveda, separate directorates of Ayurveda and effective boards of
Indian medicine in the states, and, most important, the control of these
institutions by Ayurvedists themselves. It has been pointed out above that
present difficulties of the Ayurvedic movement in establishing such struc¬
tures and making them effective does not lie in the unsympathetic attitudes
of the central and state governments, but in the failure of the Ayurvedists
to agree amongst themselves on the goals to be pursued and the standards
to be established.
This disagreement has intensified to such an extent that the organizations
and institutions representing the two wings of the movement have been at¬
tempting to disqualify each other from professional standing. The view¬
point of the shuddha Ayurvedists toward the professional standing of the
integrated graduates was stated clearly in the Vyas Committee report:
364 Constraints on Politicization of Education

“the term ‘qualified’ or ‘highly qualified’ Vaidya does not include graduates
of the mixed Ayurveda and allopathy the discontinuation of whose further
production is the specific aim of the present syllabus.” 70 From the in¬
tegrated side, several measures have been taken to oppose the shuddha
Ayurvedists. First, the Council of State Boards and Faculties has advised
the state governments not to implement the recommendations of the Cen¬
tral Council of Health with regard to the shuddha Ayurvedic course. Sec¬
ond, the Council of State Boards and Faculties has demanded that a statu¬
tory central council of Indian medicine should be established which would
be composed of “representatives of the University Faculties, Statutory
Faculties, recognized educational institutions and Directorates of Indian
Medicine” or, in other words, a central council which would be dominated
by the supporters of the integrated wing and which would “put an end to
all these controversies.” 11 Third, several of the state boards of Indian medi¬
cine have attempted to withdraw recognition from institutions awarding
shuddha Ayurvedic degrees. Most notably, recognition has been with¬
drawn by several state boards from the All-India Ayurveda Vidyapith,
which is a private examining body of the Ayurvedic Congress and the
preeminent institution in India awarding degrees in the shuddha Ayurvedic
course.72
For the time being, therefore, the movement for professionalization of
Ayurvedic education and practice has been subordinated to the internal
controversy within the Ayurvedic movement over the standards to be
adopted. The problems of professionalization of Ayurveda are greater than
those faced by the modern medical practitioners, who have simply ap¬
pealed to international standards and have imposed those standards upon
the country, simultaneously resisting all efforts by politicians to provide
for shorter requirements for medical degrees to meet the’ immediate need
of the country for more rapid extension of medical relief to the country¬
side. Thus, the modern medical interest group has interposed itself between
the politicians and the medical profession as an effective restraint upon po¬
litical interference in the establishment of educational and professional
standards. In this, they have followed the pattern established by medical
associations in the U.S. and Great Britain. The movement for Ayurvedic
professionalism has followed an entirely different course. Failing to agree
amongst themselves on appropriate standards and torn by a bitter internal
ideological controversy,73 the Ayurvedic interest groups have entered the
political arena directly in an effort to win political support for government
imposition of professional standards.

Ayurvedists and the Political Process

The influence of the political system on the educational system in India

in the sphere of Ayurvedic education has not been benign. Political inter¬
ference in the establishment of Ayurvedic educational standards, however,
has in no way represented an attempt by political leaders to establish po-
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 365

litical bases or political patronage in education. In Ayurvedic education,

the penetration has been in precisely the opposite direction. Educational
interests have attempted to penetrate the political system and establish
spheres of influence in politics and sources of patronage for the mainte¬
nance or establishment of educational structures. This process of pene¬
tration has taken place at several levels of the political system and has in¬
volved political leaders who are not at all connected with Ayurvedic or
any other form of education. Such involvement by noneducationists has
been justified on two grounds — the need to provide medical relief to the
people by means other than the modern system of medicine and the de¬
sirability of preserving an aspect of ancient culture in modern India. By
their involvement on behalf of the advocates of shuddha Ayurveda, promi¬
nent political leaders provided decisive support against the entrenched
structure of integrated Ayurvedic education and the policy of the central
ministry of health. In the process, competing political forces and institutions
have been brought into existence at every level of the political system.
Ayurvedic interests have made use of the full spectrum of constitutional
political methods — including interest group representation; infiltration
into government institutions; the use of politicians to advocate their cause
in government, parliament, and the state legislatures; and opposition to
government officials who are viewed as opposing their cause. The Ayur¬
vedic interest organizations publish journals containing political propa¬
ganda. They also hold annual conferences and foundation-laying cere¬
monies to which prominent politicians are invited. They present their causes
through correspondence with official government institutions and through
the sending of deputations to the ministers of health and the directors of
Ayurveda. Prominent interest group leaders advise the ministry of health
and the planning commission. Copies of important official correspondence
and of public statements on issues concerning the Ayurvedic movement are
sent to prominent political personalities and well-known political sup¬
porters of Ayurveda. Interest group leaders may also be appointed as
members of government committees established to prepare reports on
Ayurveda.
More important than mere representation, however, is control of gov¬
ernment institutions dealing with Ayurveda. The Central Council of Ayur¬
vedic Research (CCAR), for example, was formed on the recommendation
of the Udupa Committee, which favored integration. The CCAR has been
composed predominantly of supporters of the integrated school and has
included modern medical scientists interested in carrying on scientific re¬
search on Indian medicinal plants. Control over the CCAR has meant
control over the allocation of funds to research institutes. The CCAR has
acted as an interest group supporting the integrated cause. A report of a
subcommittee on Ayurvedic education of the CCAR gave its approval for
continuation of the integrated system of training, with certain improve¬
ments.74
On the other hand, by achieving representation on the planning com-
 366 Constraints on Politicization of Education

mission panel on Ayurveda and the support of Gulzarilal Nanda, the sup¬
porters of shuddha Ayurveda effectively neutralized the influence of the
ministry of health and the CCAR. It was in the planning commission
panel meetings of 1962 that the decision was taken to give government
support for a course in shuddha Ayurveda. This decision was followed by
the resolution of the Central Council of Health in 1963 supporting shuddha
Ayurveda and by the appointment of the Shuddha Ayurvedic Education
Board, with Mohanlal Vyas as chairman, Anant Tripathi Sharma, a former
president of the Ayurvedic Congress as one of the members, and Pandit
Shiv Sharma as member-secretary.
In the states, the principals and heads of the Ayurvedic colleges act
as interest groups before state planning committees. Here the integrated
colleges are clearly in a superior position, but a vigorous principal devoted
to or converted to shuddha Ayurveda may succeed in receiving state sup¬
port for a change in the curriculum. Such an attempt has been made, for
example, by Pandit Krti Sharma, the brother of Shiv Sharma and the prin¬
cipal of the Punjab Government Ayurvedic College at Patiala.75
Another important arena of conflict between the shuddha and integrated
Ayurvedists is the boards of Indian medicine in the states. These boards
have two important powers — registration of vaidyas and recognition of
institutions and degrees. Given the refusal of the two wings of the Ayur¬
vedic movement to recognize the qualifications of each other’s graduates,
the power of registration is of considerable importance. The same is true
of the power to recognize or refuse recognition to institutions and degrees.
It was mentioned above that the Ayurveda Vidyapith, a shuddha Ayurvedic
degree-granting body associated with the Ayurvedic Congress, has been
engaged in a struggle with the boards of Indian medicine in several of the
states, which have either refused to recognize or have Withdrawn recog¬
nition from the degrees granted by the Vidyapith. Many of the boards con¬
duct elections from an electorate composed of practicing vaidyas. The
provincial vaidya sammelans (associations) contest these elections in an
effort to gain control over the boards.76
The Ayurvedic interest groups also use the parliamentary and electoral
arenas to present their case. In their confrontation with the health ministry,
the leaders of the Ayurvedic Congress launched a “Dr. Sushila Nayar
Hatao” (Get Rid of Dr. Sushila Nayar) campaign, which filled the pages
of the Ayurvedic Congress journal month after month during 1966 and
1967. During the 1967 elections, the Ayurvedic Congress urged the vaidyas
of the country to proceed to Jhansi, Dr. Nayar’s constituency, to work for
her defeat. A local vaidya ran against her with the support of the Ayurvedic
Congress, but was defeated.
In the parliament, during the question periods and during the debates
on the demands for grants by the health ministry, many members of
parliament have supported the demands of Ayurvedic practitioners for in¬
creased pay and status and for increased allocations for indigenous medi-
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 367

cine in the health plans. One of the past presidents of the Ayurvedic Con¬
gress has been a member of parliament since 1957 and has introduced
into the Lok Sabha a bill for the establishment of an Ayurvedic medical
council. Pandit Shiv Sharma was elected to the Lok Sabha in the 1967
elections with the support of the Rajmata of Gwalior and the Jan Sangh.
The Jan Sangh election manifesto for 1967 included a statement demand¬
ing support for Ayurveda as the national system of medicine.77 Other
parties, including the Communists, have supported the demands of Ayur¬
vedic students in the state assemblies.
Most important for the cause of shuddha Ayurveda, however, has been
the support which the Ayurvedic Congress has won from some of the most
powerful national leaders of the Congress party. The roster of prominent
politicians who have actively supported the cause of shuddha Ayurveda
includes Morarji Desai (former deputy prime minister of India), Gulzarilal
Nanda (former home minister in the government of India), U. N. Dhebar
(former president of the Indian National Congress), Mohanlal Vyas (for¬
mer health minister of Gujarat state), Dinesh Singh (former minister for
commerce in the government of India), and Dr. Sampurnanand (former
chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and exgovernor of Rajasthan). For the
most part, the support given by these political leaders has been based on
noneducational criteria. Morarji Desai has based his support simply on his
belief that in India “the cause of the people can be served better through
Ayurveda than through any other system of medicine.” 78 Other politicians
have been outspoken in identifying the cause of Ayurveda with national
sentiment. Mohanlal Vyas, for example, has declared, “Ayurveda is es¬
sentially a part of our ancient culture and our rich heritage. It is a way of
life.” 79 Dr. Sampurnanand went so far as to see the exclusive extension of
modern medicine to the countryside as an evil to be combatted. He char¬
acterized the primary health unit scheme of the government of India which
“visualises that the whole country will be covered by a network of . . .
units which will invariably include a [modern] doctor” as a scheme for
the “murder” of Ayurveda.80
Through the support of such prominent politicians, the supporters of
shuddha Ayurveda neutralized the policies of the central health ministry
and established alternative governmental structures of support. On the in¬
tegrated side, lines of policy formulation and implementation between the
health ministry and the integrated colleges and research institutes in the
country were developed in which the key interests and institutions were
the honorary adviser on indigenous systems of medicine in the ministry of
health, the Central Council of Ayurvedic Research, the Council of State
Boards and Faculties of Indian Medicine, and the two states of Uttar
Pradesh and Maharashtra, where the integrated system has been dominant
(see figure 3). This structure of influence and control supporting the
cause of integration has been paralleled by an alternative structure in
which there has been a similar pattern of cooperation among semi-gov-
368 Constraints on Politicization of Education

ernmental institutions and advisory bodies, interest groups, and state gov¬
ernments. This alternative structure of policy formulation received its main
support in the central government from Morarji Desai and Gulzarilal
Nanda and had its apex in the planning commission where a panel on
Ayurveda was established in which Gulzarilal Nanda was the chairman
for a time and Pandit Shiv Sharma was honorary adviser to the planning
commission. The panel on Ayurveda became the instrument of the views
of the Ayurvedic Congress, which achieved its strongest political support
in the state of Gujarat. It was in consequence of decisions made by the
planning commission panel, sanctioned by the Central Council of Health,
that the Central Shuddha Ayurvedic Education Board was established.
How long this state of affairs will continue remains problematical. Given
the nature of India’s federal system, it is likely that both viewpoints in the
Ayurvedic movement will continue to receive support for the indefinite
future from different state governments. Political intervention has not
solved the controversy, but has rather provided the institutional basis in
government itself for a permanent division in the Ayurvedic movement.

Conclusion: Ayurvedic Education and Modernization in India

The politicization of Ayurvedic education has been caused very largely

by the nature of the Ayurvedic movement itself. As a revivalist movement,
it has tended from the beginning to be strongly oriented toward politics.
Its spokesmen argued that alien rule led to the suppression of indigenous

Support for integrated medicine Support for shuddha Ayurveda

Health Ministry Morarji Desai - Gulzarilal Nanda

Honorary Adviser Planning Commission

(Panel on Ayurveda)
Chairman: Gulzarilal Nanda
Honorary Adviser-. Pt. Shiv Sharma;
Central Council of Health
Central Council of Central Board of
Ayurvedic Research Shuddha Ayurvedic Education

Council of State Ayurvedic Congress

Boards and Faculties
of Indian Medicine;
National Medical Association
Uttar Pradesh Gujarat
Maharashtra, and
other states

Figure 3. Structure of support, integrated medicine and shuddha Ayurveda.

Politics of Ayurvedic Education 369

medical knowledge and practice and that the patronage of the national
government was necessary for their revival. The leaders of the Ayurvedic
movement adopted modern methods of organization and political strategy
to achieve their ends, including interest group formation and internal pro¬
fessionalization. In a direct confrontation with Ayurvedic interests, the
modern medical profession was able to maintain its preeminence because
it was more firmly entrenched, more cohesively organized, and able to
refer to international standards to support its predominance. In contrast,
the Ayurvedic movement was weakened by the poor quality of its edu¬
cational institutions, the inferior caliber of the students, and the failure of
the movement to provide satisfactory economic opportunities for Ayur¬
vedic graduates. The movement was also divided ideologically on the best
means to revive the ancient knowledge while simultaneously engaging in
modernization.
External opposition and internal divisions notwithstanding, however,
the Ayurvedic movement has operated in a sympathetic political environ¬
ment in which concrete achievements have not been necessary to win
political support. The proponents of shuddha Ayurveda won the patronage
of powerful political leaders and thereby brought about a change in gov¬
ernment policy toward Ayurvedic education in India. This policy change
involved the government of India in the political arbitration of an educa¬
tional controversy. Ayurvedic educationists proved unable to evolve a
viable educational structure and to formulate acceptable uniform educa¬
tional and professional standards. Government was asked not to give edu¬
cationists the statutory power to enforce standards generated by the
educationists themselves, but to choose between competing standards. In
making its choice, government was guided neither by educational criteria
nor by criteria oriented toward satisfying the medical needs of the country.
The decision to adopt a curriculum of shuddha Ayurvedic studies was
ultimately related primarily to the political influence brought to bear on
the key decision-makers.
The controversy concerning Ayurvedic education in India has implica¬
tions which go beyond the specific question of the relationship between
the educational and political systems in a developing society. The ability
of the Ayurvedic movement to create a large educational establishment
teaching an ancient system of medicine in a modernizing society and to
win political support at the highest levels of government for its ends sug¬
gests some conclusions about the nature of the process of modernization
in India.
The impact of colonialism upon a society with an ancient and glorious
cultural tradition, particularly the efforts to modernize a traditional society
under colonial auspices, produces on the one hand ambivalence toward the
process of modernization among the westernized and on the other tra¬
ditionalistic — or better “modernistic” — revivalism among those most de¬
voted to the ancient culture. It has been argued that the ambivalent atti-
370 Constraints on Politicization of Education

tudes of modernizing elites in developing countries toward the process of

modernization tend to produce ineffective political and administrative
leadership.81 At the same time, it is claimed that, however ineffective and
slow, the process of modernization is irresistible in developing countries
and that the modernization process is a process of acculturation to a world
culture of science and technology.82
It has also become conventional to view the tensions facing developing
societies as deriving from a fundamental dichotomy between a modernizing
elite and traditional social forces. This dichotomous characterization of
the development process does not pay sufficient attention to the importance
of revivalist movements which are neither traditional nor modern in the
conventional terminology, but are rather “traditionalistic,” promoting and
making use of traditional symbols and values while engaging in technologi¬
cal and organizational modernization. It is precisely this latter process
which is taking place in the Ayurvedic movement and which has produced
not a confrontation between a modernizing elite and a traditional elite
but an internal conflict within the modernizing elite, reflecting different
conceptions about the nature of the modernizing process.
The history of the Ayurvedic movement demonstrates that there are
important interests in Indian society, supported by powerful political lead¬
ers, who, with considerable sophistication, reject the notion that mod¬
ernization must mean westernization or acculturation to any other culture.
There are two approaches to modernization in Indian society and politics
—one emphasizing the introduction of the most advanced techniques of
western science as well as the premises of that science and the other insist¬
ing that the techniques can be accepted but not the scientific or cultural
premises. It is important to recognize that both these approaches favor
modernization in technology, in the development of educational and pro¬
fessional standards, and in principles of organization. In other words, a
process of dual modernization is taking place in Indian medical education
and practice which is reflected in the creation of a dual political and ad¬
ministrative structure. This dual structure cannot be dismissed as a tempo¬
rary and ephemeral phenomenon which will wither away as the moderniza¬
tion of India proceeds. Nor can the Ayurvedic half of it, at least, be easily
viewed as moving in the direction of acculturation to a world medical
culture.
There is ambivalence as well as duality in India’s medical politics, how¬
ever. This ambivalence has affected the proponents of integration more
than other interests. With the pure Ayurvedists, the proponents of integra¬
tion share the desire to revive India’s ancient medical culture for its own
sake, but they also believe that this must be done by the application of
methods of modern scientific investigation to Ayurvedic principles, theories
and remedies. They view the outcome of the application of such methods
with an open, if anxious, mind. In principle at least and to some extent in
practice, however, many supporters of integration have adopted the atti-
Politics of Ayurvedic Education 371

tude, associated with modern scientific method, of willingness to question

fundamental theories.
This ambivalence has also affected their attitudes toward the proper sys¬
tem of Ayurvedic education, with viewpoints among the integrationists
ranging across a broad spectrum, from those who favor the abolition of
the integrated colleges and the introduction of a few courses in Ayurveda
into the modern medical colleges to those who come close to the pure
Ayurvedic position in demanding a predominant emphasis on Ayurveda
in the integrated curriculum. However ambivalent the integrationists may
be, they also would reject the idea that they are engaged merely in a process
of acculturation to a world medical culture. What they demand is an in¬
tegrated system of medicine, drawing the best from both the western and
Indian systems of medicine and oriented to specifically Indian climatic,
dietetic, and health conditions. What they oppose is “blindly following
and copying the methods followed by the United Kingdom and the United
States of America.” 83
The development of such a national system of medicine has been pre¬
vented by both the shuddha Ayurvedists and the shuddha allopaths. The
former have insisted upon the development of Ayurveda at all costs and
the latter have insisted upon adherence to international professional stand¬
ards at all costs. The cost to India’s medical development has been the
failure to provide effective medical relief to the rural areas. The mainte¬
nance of shuddha allopathy has predominantly benefited India’s urban
residents. The failure to develop adequate educational and professional
standards in the Ayurvedic colleges has meant the production of thousands
of new, poorly qualified practitioners, if not quacks, providing a low
quality of medical relief to both urban and rural residents. Thus, dual
modernization in India is a wasteful process which, in the medical sphere,
has not provided effective medical development in the rural areas of the
country. In the politics of medical education and development in India,
the question of how to make the best use of the country’s available medical
resources to extend effective medical relief to the countryside has been
subordinated to the demands for both modern professionalism and tra¬
ditionalistic revivalism.
Notes

Index
Notes

1. Studying Education and Politics

1. Edward Shils’ “The Academic Profession in India,” Minerva, vol. 7, no.

3 (Spring, 1969), appeared after chapters 1 and 2, which cover the same
ground but with a rather different perspective, were first written. We have
benefitted from this and other of Professor Shils’ published work on higher
education in India, and from the opportunity to discuss some of our work on
the same subject with him and other members of the Committee for the Com¬
parative Study of New Nations, University of Chicago.
2. See H. Sharp, Selections from Educational Records, Part I, 1781-1839
(Calcutta, 1920) for Minute of February 2, 1835. For an account of the con¬
frontation between orientalism and Macaulay’s perspective, see David Kopf,
British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance (California, 1969).
3. T. H. Marshall, Class, Citizenship and Social Development (New York,
1965), chap. 4. See also Ernest Barker, The Development of Public Services
in Western Europe 1660—1930 (Hamden, 1966), chap. 5; Brian Simon, Stud¬
ies in the History of Education (London, 1960); and Richard Hofstadter and
Wilson Smith, Documentary History of Education in America (Chicago, 1961).
4. Henri Taine, Les Origines de la France Contemporaine, Le Regime Mo-
derne (Paris, 1894), pp. 184-186.
5. Ibid., pp. 156-160. See also Henry W. Ehrmann, Politics in France
(Boston, 1968), pp. 65-74.
6. For the military dimension of educational policy in France and Germany
in the nineteenth century, see Ernest Barker, Public Services in Western Eu¬
rope, pp. 79-93. On civilizing and ruling the lower classes, see Robert Webb,
The British Working Class Reader (1790-1848) (London, 1955). See also
Reinhard Bendix, Work and Authority; Ideologies of Management in the
Course of Industrialization (New York, 1956) for a somewhat different em¬
phasis, one that stresses ideology but does not exclude education in explaining
how industrial “masters” came to rule industrial workers. In Western Europe
and the United States education, unlike ideology, was subject to state interven¬
tion and control. In Russia, particularly under Soviet rule, both education and
ideology came under state supervision.
7. For a pioneering critique of the disembodied quality of the concepts of
capital and labor and of their resultant failure to take account of education’s
contribution to production, see Theodore Schultz, The Economic Value of
Education (New York, 1963); see also John Vaizey, The Economics of Edu¬
cation (London, 1962) for another early study. Two more recent empirically
based studies of the economics of education in India analyze a variety of its
dimensions; see H. N. Pandit, Measurement of Cost Productivity and Effi¬
ciency of Education (New Delhi, 1969) and Mark Blaug, Richard Layard,
376 Notes to Pages 7-8

and Maureen Woodhall, The Causes of Graduate Unemployment in India

(London, 1969).
8. Of the forty-four countries with populations of five million or more
which gave figures to the United Nations for publication in Statistical Year¬
book, 1967, twenty spent most on defense and eighteen spent most on educa¬
tion. Of the twenty that spent most on defense, fourteen listed education as
their second largest expenditure. See United Nations, Statistical Yearbook,
1967 (Louvain, 1968).
9. Harold Gould’s essay in this volume (“Educational Structures and Po¬
litical Processes in Faizabad District, Uttar Pradesh”) provides a probing
analysis of the causes, processes, and consequences of politicization of inter-
colleges. Robert Gaudino has also distinguished the various uses of educational
politics in a useful discussion. See his The Indian University (Bombay, 1965),
p. 17. For the student dimension of these processes and relationships see
Joseph DiBona, “Indiscipline and Student Leadership in an Indian University
[Allahabad]” in S. M. Lipset, ed., Student Politics (New York, 1967), pp.
372-393. Report of the Allahabad University Enquiry Committee (Lucknow,
1953) also throws some light on Allahabad’s situation and problems. Particu¬
larly revealing of community and kin factionalism within the university and
of the university’s link with extrauniversity political forces is Government of
India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Banaras Hindu University Enquiry
(Delhi, 1958). For some of the problems of politicization at Aligarh Muslim
University, Uttar Pradesh, see Theodore P. Wright, Jr., “Muslim Education at
the Crossroads: The Case of Aligarh,” Pacific Affairs 39, nos. 1 and 2 (Spring-
Summer, 1966), pp. 50-63.
There is similar evidence and analysis for Bihar, also a backward state with
poor governmental performance. See Amar Kumar Singh, “The University and
the Indian Society: The Case of Ranchi University,” in Philip G. Altbach, ed.,
Turmoil and Transition: Higher Education and Student Politics in India (Bom¬
bay, 1968), where he observes that “for the politicians . .t. the University is
seen as a colony to be exploited in order to promote their political power”
(p. 216) and “the private colleges in rural areas are important sources of po¬
litical power and control’ (p. 218). See also Report of the University Enquiry
Commission, Bihar, on the Working of Patna University, 1966 (Patna, 1966).
10. See Paul Brass, Factional Politics in an Indian State; The Congress
Party in Uttar Pradesh (Berkeley, 1965), and “Uttar Pradesh” in Myron
Weiner, ed., State Politics in India (Princeton, 1968).
11. For example, a dispute at Lucknow University over the morals of a
dean who was expected to be advanced to vice-chancellor became the center
of a Congress party factional struggle as the incipient vice-chancellor’s friends
in government and an exminister of an opposing faction mobilized faculty and
students within the university (DiBona, “Indiscipline and Student Leadership,”
p. 375, and personal interviews with Lucknow faculty). Amar Kumar Singh
analyzes the political dimensions of vice-chancellor appointments as well as
the political pressures on and the political behavior of a particular vice-chan¬
cellor in The Case of Ranchi,” pp. 209-212. In the newly formed state of
Haryana, a former director of public instruction and vice-chancellor (of
Kurukshetra University), Hardwari Lai, used his educational connections and
dependents as political resources in a meteoric career associated with
Notes to Pages 9-14 377

the extreme political instability that marked the first year (1966-67) of that
state’s political existence. Another Haryana “educationist,” Sher Singh, used
his Arya Samaj (“College section”) and Jat connections to establish his lead¬
ership of the successful movement for a separate Haryana state (the Haryana
Prant) and subsequently became a union minister of state for education.
Political pressures on vice-chancellors by parties, government, and organ¬
ized interests; the political activity of teachers and students; the various dimen¬
sions of vice-chancellor selection, particularly nomination versus election; the
parochial pressures associated with teacher recruitment and selection; and the
political difficulties associated with student admissions are frankly discussed by
the vice-chancellors themselves in Government of India, Ministry of Educa¬
tion, Indian University Admission; Proceedings of the Vice-Chancellors’ Con¬
ference on University Administration . . . from July 30 to August 1, 1957
(Delhi, 1958). See particularly chap. 3.
12. Joshi’s successes at Punjab were followed, however, by notable failure
at Banaras Hindu University.

2. Historical Legacies: The Genetic Imprint in Education

1. For a discussion of the European universities at their founding, see

Hastings Rashdell, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, edited by
S. N. Powicke and A. B. Enden, 3 vols. (London, 1936).
2. On the principle of making salient comparisons that fit into a frame¬
work of meaningful alternatives, we stress the non-plebiscitary European and
American examples. We are mindful of the French, German, Russian, and
Chinese alternatives.
For the impact of medieval constitutional growth (“feudal liberty”) on the
non-plebiscitary political development of certain European nations, preemi¬
nently Britain, see Guido de Ruggiero, The History of European Liberalism
(Boston, 1959). For the definition of the concept “plebiscitary,” the contrast¬
ing concept “non-plebiscitary” (that is, representation based on independent
private associations, local authorities, and other bodies that mediate the
relationship between central public authority and the subject or citizen), and
the use of both concepts in the study of political development, see Reinhard
Bendix, Nation Building and Citizenship (New York, 1964). J. L. Talmon
makes a similar distinction when he contrasts “liberal ’ and “totalitarian de¬
mocracies (pp. 1—■3) in his analysis of Jacobin and Babouvist plebiscitarism
in France. See his The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (New York, 1960).
3. Particular patterns of government have, of course, changed over the
years. German universities today are ultimately governed by the education
ministries of the several states. For an account of the evolution of the govern¬
ment of German universities see Helmut Schelsky, Einsamkeit und Freiheit
(Hamburg, 1963). For a discussion of the weaknesses of university govern¬
ment by the federal states, see pp. 180-182.
4. See Richard Hofstadter and W. P. Metzger, The Development of Aca¬
demic Freedom in the United States (New York, 1955).
5. The recent critiques of the government of Columbia University have
rested on the ground that the faculty, to some extent by default, has taken
378 Notes to Pages 14-17

control of its own affairs less than in other institutions. Archibald Cox, et al.,
Crisis at Columbia (New York, 1968) (the Cox Commission report).
6. For an account of early private enterprise in education, see Syed Nu¬
rullah and J. P. Naik, History of Education in India During the British Period
(Bombay, 1943), pp. 211-213.
7. “In the denominational era a great proportion of the schools in the U.S.
that called themselves ‘colleges’ were in fact not colleges at all, but glorified
high schools or academies.” Hofstadter and Metzger, Academic Freedom in
the United States, p. 224.
8. K. S. Vakil and S. Natarajan, Education in India, 3rd rev. ed. (Bombay,
1966), p. 69.
9. For Sir Edward’s account of the founding meeting, see S. C. Chakra-
varti, ed., The Father of Modern India (Commemoration Volume) (Calcutta,
1935), p. 329, and Iqbal Singh, Ram Mohan Roy (Bombay, 1958), pp. 124-
128. For references to the events of 1832, see B. T. McCully, English Educa¬
tion and the Origins of Indian Nationalism (New York, 1940), p. 22.
10. “Dispatch of the Court of Directors of the East India Company to the
Governour General of India in Council” (no. 49, dated 19 July 1854), in
J. A. Richey, Selections From Educational Records, pt. 2 (Calcutta, 1922;
reprinted by offset, New Delhi, 1965), p. 378.
11. Government of India, Calcutta University Commission, 1917-19, Re¬
port (Calcutta, 1919), vol. 1, pp. 42, 62.
12. Vakil and Natarajan, Education in India, p. 73.
13. For the education of Christian gentlemen, see Rupert Wilkinson, Gen¬
tlemanly Power (London, 1964). The concern with gentlemanly character and
style for India is primary in T. D. Macaulay’s famous Minute. (See Wm.
Theodore de Bary [ed.], Sources of Indian Tradition [New York, 1958], pp.
596—601 for a substantial selection.) But Lord Elphinstone, as governor at
Bombay, had a more practical as well as “popular” orientation stressing mass
and vernacular education. For a discussion, see Nurullah and Naik, History
of Education in India, pp. 79-83.
14. Abraham Flexner, Universities, American, English, German (New
York, 1930), pp. 231-232.
15. For a recent discussion of Humboldt’s ideas, see Schelsky, Einsamkeit
und Freiheit, especially pp. 66—70. Schelsky characterizes the university as
devoted to “the development of all of man’s potentialities to the high point of
self-conscious individuality”; it aimed at “education through wissensclmft
(learning, science) ; it hoped to institutionalize the spirit of investigation (p.

16. Sir Asutosh was vice-chancellor from 1906 until 1914, and again from
1921 to 1923. He effected most of the postgraduate reforms, however, from his
position on the senate in the intervening years. John H. Broomfield, Elite Con¬
flict in a Plural Society: 20th Century Bengal (California, 1968), pp. 191-192.
See also Irene Gilbert, “Autonomy and Consensus under the Raj: Presidency
(Calcutta), Muir (Allahabad); M.A.-O. (Aligarh),” chap. 10, this volume.
17. R. D. Mangles, commenting on the draft dispatch before the Court of
Directors, cited in Eric Ashby (in association with Mary Anderson), Universi¬
ties: British, Indian, African: A Study in the Ecology of Higher Education
(London, 1966), p. 60, fn. 38.
Notes to Pages 17-18 379

18. Ashby, Universities, p. 62.

19. Ibid., p. 140; B. B. Misra, The Indian Middle Classes (London, 1961).
Before the 1904 reform there were 181 senators, the majority of whom were
elected; after it, there were 84, of whom only 20 were elected. Of the 84 sena¬
tors (fellows of the senate) 43 were Indian and 41 “European.” See chart on
p. 287 of Misra, Indian Middle Classes.
20. Ashby, Universities, p. 140. The government of Bengal did not soften
the reality of government influence by conventions of self-restraint. In March
1923 Lord Lytton as governor of Bengal wrote a letter warning Sir Asutosh
Mukherji, who was running up William Raney Harper-style deficits for post¬
graduate education in the face of government efforts at retrenchment, that he
would not reappoint the vice-chancellor unless his opposition to government
policy ceased. Broomfield, Elite Conflict, p. 194.
21. Lord Curzon, writing in “Minutes by H. E. Viceroy on University Re¬
form,” 23 February 1901. Cited in Ashby, Universities, p. 389.
22. “The chief merit of the Universities is that their constitution is leav¬
ened by a large admixture of the popular element composed not merely of
Indians but Anglo-Indians as well, which serve to soften the severity of action
of the official element, so that in the end the course of action generally taken
is the right middle course lined between the extremes of leniency and strin¬
gency. This is the reason why the public in this country are so anxious to have
the jurisdiction of the Universities extended instead of being curtailed.” Sir
Gooroo Das Banerjee, The Educational Problem in India, p. 39, cited in Cal¬
cutta University Commission, Report, vol. 1, p. 313.
23. Broomfield notes that “educational politics, particularly the politics of
Calcutta University, assumed extraordinary importance for the bhadralok
(gentry) as one of the few avenues of constructive public endeavor open to
them in their circumscribed colonial society” (Elite Conflict, p. 8). The Cal¬
cutta University Commission cited Sir Gooroo Das Banerjee’s assertion that
“the universities are composed of Indian and European members who have
coordinate authority, while in the Government Education Department Indian
members occupy only a subordinate position, so that the control exercised by
the university is likely to be better adapted to Indian conditions and to be more
regardful of Indian requirements than the control of the Education Depart¬
ment.” The Educational Problem in India, p. 39, cited in Calcutta University
Commission, Report, vol. 1, pp. 312-313.
24. For development of this view, see Irene Gilbert, chap. 10, this volume.
It is perhaps a fault in Sir Eric Ashby’s account of Indian educational policy
that he does not credit the political nature of Curzon’s work. This leads to a
certain inconsistency in Sir Eric’s valuation, as when he damns the govern¬
ment’s failure to exert itself sufficiently in the University of Calcutta (Univer¬
sities, p. 70) but eventually comes to the conclusion that government intervened
too much. Broomfield notes that the government of India decided to “teach
the ‘traditionists’ by refusing to confirm the appointment of three men, Abdul
Rasul, Dr. Abdulla-al-Mamud Suhrawardy, and K. P. Jayaswal, who had al¬
ready taken up their posts at the University of Calcutta with the government
of Bengal’s sanctions. The government of India refused to confirm their ap¬
pointments on the ground that they had been active in politics and could not
be trusted to refrain from expressing anti-British sentiment. The government
380 Notes to Page 18

had also issued orders aimed at the tightening of official control over schools
and colleges in Bengal.” Broomfield, Elite Conflict, p. 78.
25. Flexner points out that the conservatism of German universities was to
an extent balanced and corrected by government direction. He also suggests
that many important academic appointments in Germany were consummated
at the initiative of government rather than at the initiative of unimaginative
faculty. Flexner, Universities, pp. 321-324. For a striking contrast in the role
of government with respect to universities in Germany, see Die Deutsche Uni-
versitat im dritten Reich, eine Vortragsreihe der Universitdt Miinchen, un¬
edited collection (Munich, 1966) and Free University of Berlin, Universi-
tdtstage, Nationalsozialismus und die Deutsche Universitdt (Berlin, 1966),
both collections of essays. An early study along the same lines is the book by
Edward Yarnall Hartshorne, Jr., The German Universities and National So¬
cialism (London, 1937). For student enforcement of their definition of the
public interest, see for example the demand at Kiel by Nazi students that twenty-
eight professors be dismissed, and their subsequent attack on three of them,
Professors Gerhard Husserl, Kolm, and Rudolf Hober (Hartshorne, German
Universities, pp. 55-56).
For an analysis of how the ground was prepared for National Socialist pene¬
tration and appropriation of German universities, see Fritz Ringer, The De¬
cline of the German Mandarins; The German Academic Community, 1890-
1933 (Cambridge, 1969). For an earlier effort of a similar although more
philosophical kind, see Frederic Lilge, The Abuse of Learning; the Failure of
the German University (New York, 1948).
The controversy between Governor Ronald Reagan and presidents of Uni¬
versity of California Clark Kerr and Charles J. Hitch over whether or not the
university should charge tuition for “resident” students provides a less dra¬
matic but undoubtedly significant example of a struggle between those within
and those without the university to control educational policy and resources.
Such a struggle makes evident the extraordinary difficulty of defining the
meaning of university autonomy and of identifying the public interest in edu¬
cation. By January 1970, Governor Reagan had succeeded through a series of
appointments to the Board of Regents in overcoming that body’s opposition to
his pro-tuition policy. Because of this shift in the composition of the Regents
and because of Reagan-induced budget cuts that brought the university’s build¬
ing program “to a halt” and jeopardized student financial aid and services,
President Hitch found himself in a situation which compelled him to take a
step he was “very reluctant to take” — in effect to charge tuition for resident
students (and to raise substantially the tuition for out-of-state students). New
York Times, 14 January 1970, and California Journal, January 1970, p. 9.
26. The recommendations of the Gajendragadkar Committee, which in¬
vestigated the breakdown of order and authority in 1968-69 at Banaras Hindu
University (B.H.U.) under Vice-Chancellor J. C. Joshi, included filling not
only top administrative posts but also the membership of the various governing
and academic bodies by nominations. The implication was clear; B.H.U. had
lost its capacity to govern itself. See Government of India, Ministry of Edu¬
cation, Report of the Banaras Hindu University Inquiry Committee (Gajen¬
dragadkar Committee) (New Delhi, 1969). See particularly pp. 74-82, which
detail the degree to which the university had become subject to influence of
Notes to Pages 19-20 381

contending student factions with connections to organized partisan political

interests.
Because B.H.U. is a centrally administered rather than a state-administered
university, the nominating authority is the government of India rather than the
government of Uttar Pradesh. If the latter had been put in the position of “sav¬
ing” B.H.U. it is not at all clear that the remedy would have been better than
the disease. It is doubtful that even under the direct influence of the govern¬
ment of India (via its nominating party) B.H.U. can be sufficiently freed from
the discouraging effects of its eastern Uttar Pradesh environment and its use
as an arena for ideological and political partisan struggles.
The response of the United States government to the controversy in the late
1960's over whether or not it or state governments (or both) should assert
their legal and administrative authority to reach into campuses in response to
student campus protests and disorders seems to point in the opposite direction
from the recommendations of the Gajendragadkar Committee. Secretary Rob¬
ert Finch (Department of Health, Education and Welfare) and President Rich¬
ard Nixon have held (in the president’s words) that the federal government
must avoid interference in the “internal affairs of our colleges and universities
... I am gravely concerned, of course, about the problems of student unrest.
At the same time, I have recognized that the enforcement of discipline and
maintenance of order ... is primarily the responsibility of the schools them¬
selves. The Federal Government is ill-fitted to play the role of policeman on our
college and university campuses.” New York Times, 30 December 1969. Some
congressmen and state legislatures have taken the opposite view by requiring
the withdrawal of financial support to students involved in disorders, often
without a requirement of due process (see, for example, Section 706 of a bill
appropriating $2.4 billion for the Departments of State, Justice, and Com¬
merce for the fiscal year 1970) and by authorizing police intervention on
campuses and providing resources (additional police) to do so. The Nixon
administration’s cooperation via the Justice Department’s Law Enforcement
Assistance Division (funded under the omnibus Crime Control and Safe
Streets Act of 1968 and intended to provide economic and technical assistance
to local and state law enforcement agencies) in breaking the back of a suc¬
cessful student boycott at all-black Mississippi Valley State College may have
signaled a change of policy toward campus disorders. Chicago Sun-Times, 19
February 1970.
27. This characterization of Mouat’s scheme is from Ashby, Universities,
p. 54.
28. See below, chap. 3, especially note 30.
29. Lee Warner, director of public instruction in the Bombay government,
described the Deccan Education Society and the College as follows: “The Col¬
lege wishes to be largely independent of any European elements in its lecture
rooms, and to impress upon its students the patriotic sentiments of its independ¬
ent founders.” Cited in E. M. Limaye, compiler, The History of the Deccan
Education Society (Poona, 1935), p. 52.
30. Madho Prasad, A Gandhian Patriarch: A Political and Spiritual Biog¬
raphy of Kaka Kalelkar (Bombay, 1965), pp. 83-84.
31. S. S. Dikshit, Nationalism and Indian Education (Delhi, 1966), p. 145.
32. Kashi Vidyapith was started in connection with the civil resistance
382 Notes to Pages 20-21

movement of the early 1920’s, with a generous donation from that philanthro¬
pist politician, Shri Shiva Prasad Gupta. Sampurnanand, Memories and Re¬
flections (New York, 1964), p. 23.
33. Ibid., p. 38.
34. The Gandhian doctrine of “constructive work” (including education)
that legitimized educational entrepreneurship before independence remains
strong in the Congress party to this day. “For both the 1957 and 1962 general
elections,” Ramashray Roy writes, “the Central Election Committee (CEC)
issued to the Pradesh Congress Committees (PCC’s) circulars which discussed
in detail the principles which were to govern the selection of candidates.” In
addition to being a primary member of two years’ standing, a prospective can¬
didate’s “past record of service in the areas of constructive work and legislative
bodies” were among the most important criteria. The CEC stressed that “the
field of constructive work . . . not be interpreted in a rigid narrow sense” and
specifically mentioned education as an area that fell within this ambit. Ramash¬
ray Roy, Election Studies: Selection of Congress Candidates (Bombay, 1967);
reprinted from the Economic and Political Weekly, 31 December 1966; 7, 14
January and 11, 18 February 1967, pp. 5 and 7; quoted from “Note on Con¬
structive Work” in All-India Congress Committee, Proceedings of the Meet¬
ings of the President and Secretaries of the Pradesh Congress Committees,
March 30 to 31, and April 1, 1957 (New Delhi, 1957), appendix 7.
35. For Gould’s analysis, see chap. 7. Carolyn Elliott finds that our and
Gould’s contrast of the ideal goals that characterize foundings and manage¬
ment in the nationalist period with the interested character of such activity
after independence is too sharply drawn because it underestimates the admix¬
ture of interest and ideology associated with nationalist educational activity in
the preindependence period. Personal communication.
36. For a general account of caste associations which considers their edu¬
cational role, see our The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in
India (Chicago, 1967), pt. 1. The role of Brahman, Vaishya, Kayasth, Rajput,
Jat, and Ahir foundings is illustrated by the caste colleges of Punjab and Agra
universities cited below. The Nair Service Society was founded in 1914 mainly
with a view to starting high schools that would allow the community to com¬
pete with Syrian Christians whose schools and colleges were giving them social
and economic advantages. V. K. S. Nair, “Communal Interest Groups in
Kerala, in Donald E. Smith, ed., South Asian Politics and Religion (Princeton,
1966), p. 177. Nadar educational activities are discussed by Robert L. Hard-
grave, The Nadars of Tamilnad; The Political Culture of a Community in
Change (Berkeley, 1969), pp. 145-147. The first Nadar college was founded
in 1947, and since then the community has established two additional colleges,
including one for women, and founded a polytechnic. SNDP, the community
organization of the caste, founded Ezhava colleges in the University of Kerala.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, leader of the Mahars and many other untouchables,
founded Siddharta College in 1946; the Mahars founded Milind College in
1951. Eleanore Zelliott, “The Revival of Buddhism in India,” Asia, 10 (Winter
1968), p. 4. The role of Lingayats and other castes is illustrated in the article
by T. N. Madan and B. G. Halbar, below.
37. For a discussion of the origins of these institutions, see Lala Lajpat
Rai, The Arya Samaj (Lahore, 1932).
Notes to Pages 21-25 383

38. The DAV School, dedicated to teaching both English and classical
Hindu learning, opened on 1 June 1886. In 1888, intermediate classes were
opened. See Sri Ram Sharma, Mahatma Hans Raj, Maker of the Modern
Punjab (Lahore, 1941), pp. 45-56, for an account of the founding. The
gurukula at Hardwar was founded in 1902. See also Prakash Tandon, Punjabi
Century (London, 1961).
39. See Charles Heimsath, Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform
(Princeton, 1964), pp. 296-297 and notes.
40. The Sanathana Dharma Sabha, growing out of the circles surrounding
Pandit Din Dayal Sarma, which vigorously attacked the Arya Samaj, was
founded in 1895 in Delhi and at Hardwar. Ibid., p. 318.
41. See Irene Gilbert, chap. 10 below. M.A.-O. College was not the only
outgrowth of Muslim community efforts. Delhi College (now in Delhi Uni¬
versity), founded in 1824, grew out of the Madrasah Ghaziyuddln (a tradi¬
tional teaching institution), and gave a secular education to Muslims.
M. Mujeeb, The Indian Muslim (London, 1967), p. 519. Dar-ul ’Ulum of
De’oband (a movement of Muslim orthodoxy) which developed during the
ten years after the mutiny, vigorously resisted English and western culture.
Ibid., p. 409, and Zuya-ul Faruqi, The Deoband School and the Demand for
Pakistan (Bombay, 1963).
42. There were approximately 2500 colleges in 1965-66. There were 129
Christian colleges in 1967. Richard and Nancy Dickinson, Directory of In¬
formation for Christian Colleges in India (Madras, 1967), p. 129. A reputation
for academic excellence and constitutional protection has preserved their im¬
portance in the postindependence period.
43. Our account is taken from Government of India, University Grants
Commission, Handbook of Universities in India, 1963 (New Delhi, 1964). We
have determined the sectarian or caste community affiliation of management
by inspecting the names of the colleges, a somewhat rough and ready method
that undoubtedly understates the number of institutions that have such affilia¬
tions.
44. For an analysis of the most important example of how this problem
has troubled Indian political life and of the terms of its “resolution” circa 1959
see John C. English, “Federalism and the Kerala Education Act (1958).”
Seminar paper for Political Science 398, Modern Indian Politics: The New
Federalism, Fall Quarter, 1969, The University of Chicago.

3. The Public Interest and Politicization under Conditions

of Popular Higher Education

1.See Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Educa¬

tion Commission, 1964-1966 (Delhi, 1966) (hereafter cited as Education
Commission), appendix 1, table 9, p. 590, for 1950-51 enrollments. For 1967-
68, see Government of India, University Grants Commission, University De¬
velopment in India, Basic Facts and Figures, 1967-68 (New Delhi, 1971),
table, p. 6. Our totals include preuniversity and intermediate students, who
numbered 221,000 in 1950-51 and 829,078 in 1966-67.
Some sense of the Indian rate of growth is provided by comparing it with
developments in Britain and the United States. In Britain during the last pre-
384 Notes to Page 25

war year (1938-39), 69,000 students were enrolled full time in higher educa¬
tional institutions. In 1962-63, the year of the Robbins Report on higher
education, there were 216,000 enrolled, an increase of 213 percent. Great
Britain, Committee on Higher Education, Higher Education, Report of the
Committee Appointed by the Prime Minister under the Chairmanship of Lord
Robbins, 1961/63 (Cmnd. 2154, London, 1963) (hereafter cited as Robbins
Report), table 3, p. 15. In the United States, the number of students enrolled
in higher educational institutions increased from almost 2.7 million in 1950
to 5.5 million in 1965, an increase of approximately 100 percent. U.S., De¬
partment of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United
States, 88th ed., table 147, p. 109.
The problem of comparisons in educational statistics is a thorny one and
perhaps a few qualifying observations are in order. Who should be counted an
enrolled student in higher educational institutions? The exclusion of PUC (Pre-
University Course) and intermediate students makes sense if the problem is to
compare students at comparable academic levels. They are, in fact, students
in classes XI and XII, what the Education Commission, 1964-1966, refers to
as the higher secondary stage. Education Commission, para. 2.20, p. 32. It
recommended that all such courses be transferred from the universities and
colleges to the schools. Education Commission, p. 32. For the variations among
the states and union territories with respect to the location of classes XI and
XII in relationship to PUC and intermediate courses see bar graphs on pp.
26 and 27, and for a general discussion of the background and nature of the
problem, see Education Commission, pp. 23-38.
“In international comparison,” the commission writes, “it would be wrong
to compare our first degrees in arts, commerce or science with the correspond¬
ing first degrees of educationally advanced countries. What is really comparable
is our second degrees in arts, commerce and science and first degrees in agri¬
culture, engineering and medicine with the first degrees given by universities
in the educationally advanced countries.” Education Commission, p. 302. At
the same time, it is also true that as of 1967-68, 37 percent (829,078 of 2.2
million) of the students in institutions classified in the category of higher edu¬
cation were enrolled in PUC and intermediate courses. UGC, University De¬
velopment in India, 1967-68, p. 6. Judged from the perspectives of educational
and political sociology rather than that of internationally comparable educa¬
tional standards, this characteristic of the Indian educational system is of prime
significance. Almost all of these students are under the jurisdiction of uni¬
versities and affiliated colleges and are their responsibilities.
The Uttar Pradesh “Inter-College” is something of an exception. The inter¬
mediate colleges of Uttar Pradesh are supervised by the Board of High School
and Intermediate Examinations. Education Commission, p. 32. In 1967-68
intermediate college enrollment, which is almost entirely located in Uttar
Pradesh s inter-colleges, totalled 300,000. UGC, University Development in
India, 1966-67, appendix 3, p. 270. Uttar Pradesh intermediate students con¬
stitute about 30 percent of the 37 percent among students enrolled in universi¬
ties and colleges who are in pre-degree programs. With the possible exception
of the Uttar Pradesh Inter-College, we conclude that classes XI and XII are
likely to continue to be sociologically and politically, if not educationally, part
of higher education in India.
Notes to Page 25 385

2. For the count through 1970 see Inter University Board of India and
Ceylon, Universities Handbook; India and Ceylon (New Delhi, 1971). Nine
institutions are “deemed” universities under Section 3 of the University Grants
Commission Act. See Government of India, Ministry of Education, Education
in Eighteen Years of Freedom (Delhi, 1965), p. 10, where the institutions are
listed. In addition, there are nine “institutions of national importance” giving
postgraduate degrees, including five Indian Institutes of Technology. They
can be counted as universities in the same sense that the Massachusetts Insti¬
tute of Technology or the California Institute of Technology can; that is, they
offer advanced degrees in basic science as well as technology and have some
training or advanced degrees or both in the humanities and social sciences.
For particulars as of 1964 see Government of India, Ministry of Education,
Facilities for Technical Education in India, vols. 1 and 2 (combined) (New
Delhi, 1965). Vol. 2 gives details concerning courses. Also included among
“institutions of national importance” are two advanced medical research insti¬
tutions (New Delhi and Chandigarh), the Indian Statistical Institute (Cal¬
cutta), and the Dakshina Bhavat Hindi Prachar Sabha (Madras), which spe¬
cializes in advanced degrees and research in Hindi.
3. For a listing of Indian universities by date of founding see UGC, Uni¬
versity Development in India, 1967-68, appendix 10, pp. 318-319.
4. For the number of affiliated colleges in 1947 see Ministry of Education,
Education in Eighteen Years of Freedom, p. 28; for the number of affiliated
colleges in 1967-68, see UGC, University Development in India, 1967-68,
p. 21.
5. For example, the Education Commission, 1964-1966, expects total en¬
rollment in higher education to be 2.2 million in 1975-76 and 4.16 million in
1985-86. It would like to slow the annual rate of growth of first degree courses
in arts, sciences, and commerce from 9 percent (during the first three five-year
plans) to 5.3 percent over these two decades by replacing “open-door access”
with “selective admissions.” In professional education, including engineering,
medicine, teaching, and law, it wants to slow the annual growth rate from
10.6 to 7.9 percent but wants to accelerate slightly the annual rate of growth
at the postgraduate level from 11 to 11.5 percent. Education Commission, pp.
303-304. Events over the past five years (1966-1971) suggest that such pro¬
jections seriously underestimate actual and potential annual growth rates.
However, financial limitations in the seventies may slow the rate of growth
experienced in the sixties.
6. See Anil Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism; Competition and
Collaboration in the Later Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 16-22.
Seal observes that “when after 1835 the government at last began to set up
western-style schools and colleges of its own, it could not cope with the de¬
mand” (p. 18). The grants-in-aid system of 1854 was devised in part to cope
with this situation but the result was to further accelerate expansion as demand
continued to outstrip supply. In the two decades between 1881-82 and 1901-
02 the number of colleges in British India increased from 63 to 140 and the
number of students in them from 5,442 to 17,148. Seal, Emergence of Indian
Nationalism, table 3, p. 22.
The demand for places one hundred years ago was more for arts than science
seats. Today science and professional college seats, including PUC and inter-
386 Notes to Pages 25-26

mediate seats that lead to admission to professional colleges and institutes, are
in greater demand. As they are today, standards one hundred years ago were
less rigorous and degree programs shorter in arts than in sciences, but the pattern
of opportunities no longer favors the distinguished arts graduate, as it did then.
7. See Seal, Indian Nationalism, chap. 3, and Ellen E. McDonald, “English
Education and Social Reform in Late Nineteenth Century Bombay,” Journal of
Asian Studies, 25, no. 3 (May 1966).
8. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Survey of Living Condi¬
tions of University Students (Delhi, 1961).
9. At least 63.9 percent of India’s first degree holders end up in govern¬
ment service (local, state, or national) and a large proportion (70.8 percent as
of 1960) earned less than Rs. 300 per month (below Rs. 100, 8.2 percent; Rs.
100 to Rs. 199, 41.6 percent; Rs. 200 to Rs. 299, 21 percent). Government of
India, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Directorate General of Employ¬
ment and Training, Report on the Pattern of Graduate Employment (New
Delhi, 1963), tables 5 (8), p. 35, and 6 (1), p. 38. The findings are based on
an all-India sample survey conducted in 1960 of 1954 graduates. For particu¬
lars of the universe and sample, see p. 68 of the report.
The five centrally administered and financed Indian Institutes of Technology
(at Madras, Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur, and Kharagpur), probably the most at¬
tractive educational institutions in the country, are still filled with able and
relatively well-to-do students, but there is official and political pressure to
democratize the enrollment. Students are assured of high paid, secure, and
prestigious jobs. A common admissions examination insures that the competi¬
tion is intense and national. The education commission, however, argued for
sacrificing standards in order to promote equality when it observed that “as
examination marks figure largely as a basis for selection, in most cases, the
students admitted [to the IIT’s] . . . generally come from urban areas from
good schools or from well-to-do homes.” A special study of the IIT’s (and
other technical institutions) revealed that 87.2 percent df the IIT students
came from urban areas (12.8 from rural areas); 61.2 percent had parents
whose occupation was “service” (7.2 professional, 20.1 business, 4.3 agricul¬
ture, and 7.2 others); and 58.7 percent had parents whose income was over
Rs. 500 per month (less than Rs. 140, 6.9; Rs. 151 to 300, 13.8; Rs. 301 to
500, 20.6). Education Commission, table 6.4, p. 119. These findings are con¬
firmed by A. D. King’s “Elite Education and the Economy: IIT Entrance:
1965-70,” Economic and Political Weekly, 5, no. 35 (August 29, 1970).
Kings study of one IIT suggests increasingly elite recruitment: in 1970, 80
percent of entrants came from families earning Rs. 501 and above per month,
while 49 percent had come from such backgrounds in 1966—a rise which
cannot be wholly accounted for by inflation and rising incomes. He surmises
that the change may be due to the decreased opportunities for engineers (a
result of the overproduction of engineers), and that the decrease discourages
risk-taking among the lower income groups. The Education Commission, 1964-
1966, was moved by its findings to observe that “the admission examinations
to the institutes of technology are held in English. This gives undue weightage
to students from English medium schools to which the rich send their children.”
See also Government of India, Ministry of Education, Education Commission,
Socio-Economic Background of Students Admitted to Institutions of Profes-
Notes to Pages 26-27 387

sional, Technical, and Vocational Education, 1965,” mimeo (New Delhi, 1965),
p. 111. The commission favored distributive justice over (class related) merito¬
cratic criteria, recommending that examinations be held in the regional lan¬
guages as well as English and that “the best students from each linguistic
group should be selected, if necessary, on the basis of a quota related to popu¬
lation.” Those whose English is weak should be given intensive training in
English during their first year of study. Education Commission, p. 120. It was
similarly critical of other technical institutions on distributive grounds: “the
rural areas which form 80 percent of the total population, get only 41.4
percent of the seats in . . . [Institutes of Technology, Regional Engineering
Colleges and Engineering Colleges, Medical Colleges, Agricultural Colleges,
Polytechnics, and Industrial Training Institutions]. Families with an income
of less than Rs. 150 per month, who again form about 80 percent of the total
population, get 50.5 percent of the total seats available.” Education Commis¬
sion, p. 120. The same evidence, given different expectations, could be inter¬
preted as indicative of surprising mobility opportunities.
10. Hindustan Times, 6 June 1967. The ministry of education has a more
direct concern for the University of Delhi since it is one of four centrally ad¬
ministered universities that get their operating as well as their development
funds from the University Grants Commission. As of 1962, the University of
Delhi governed forty-nine colleges (including constituent professional, and
affiliated colleges) and thirty-six postgraduate teaching departments. Inter
University Board, Universities Handbook, pp. 251-257.
11. Hindu (Madras), 16 June 1967.
12. See Government of India, Election Commission, Report on the First
General Elections in India, 1952, Statistical, vol. 2, pp. 9 and 188, and Report
on the Fourth General Elections in India, Statistical, vol. 2, pp. 18 and 118.
The percentage voting in parliamentary and state assembly elections in 1952
was 45.7 and 45, respectively, in 1967 61.33 and 61.43. In the U.S. presidential
elections of 1960 and 1964, voting participation was 64 and 63 percent respec¬
tively. In the national elections for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1960,
1962, 1964, and 1966 the voting percentages were 59.6, 46.7, 58.7 and 46.8.
India’s parliamentary system precludes voting for a national political office
such as the U.S. presidency. In this sense, it is important to compare U.S. and
Indian voting participation in legislative elections. In 1967, Indian participa¬
tion in elections for both parliament and state assemblies (over 61 percent)
exceeded American participation in the election for the House of Representa¬
tives (below 60 percent). The U.S. participation data can be found in U.S.,
Statistical Abstract of the United States 88th. ed. (Washington, 1967). For a
more generalized analysis of American voting patterns and levels see Walter
Dean Burnham, “The Changing Shape of the American Political Universe,”
American Political Science Review, 59 (1965) and “Party Systems and the
Political Process,” in W. N. Chambers and W. D. Burnham, The American
Party Systems; Stages of Political Development (New York, 1967).
13. “One of the major reforms we envisage,” the Education Commission,
1964-1966, stated, “is to vocationalize higher secondary education and to
raise the enrollment in vocational courses [in classes XI and XII] to 50 percent
of total enrollment.” “It is fundamental . . . that such courses ... be pre¬
dominately terminal.” Education Commission, pp. 173 and 371.
388 Notes to Pages 27-28

Between 1950-51 and 1965-66, the proportion of students in secondary

education classes VIII—X to the relevant age cohort expanded from 6.5 to 19.1
percent and those in classes XI—XII from 1.9 to 7 percent while the proportion
of students in these classes enrolled in vocational education declined from 3.1
to 2.2 and from 44.2 to 40.3 respectively. Education Commission, tables 7.6
and 7.7, pp. 167 and 172. The figures for 1965-66 were estimated in the
secretariat of the commission.
There are six principal institutions for technical and vocational education in
India. (1) Polytechnics (admission after matriculation; that is, the senior
school leaving certificate after class X), of which there were 370 in 1964,
offering three year diploma programs in such fields as civil, mechanical, elec¬
trical, and chemical engineering. Government of India, Ministry of Educa¬
tion, Facilities for Technical Education in India (New Delhi, 1965). (2)
Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT’s) (admission at sixteen until 1966, there¬
after at fifteen; matriculation required for training in twelve of the trades
offered, and middle school (class VII) pass for the remaining thirty-nine), of
which there were 356 in 1966, with a total intake of 113,000. (3) Junior
technical schools (JTS’s) (admission at fourteen with a pass from class VIII;
in fact, most applicants are matriculates), of which there were 103 in 1966,
with an intake capacity of 18,000. JTS’s require a three- or four-year course
that combines general education with technical training and workshop practice.
The Education Commission, 1964-1966, recommended that the JTS’s be re¬
named technical high schools. (4) The technical, commercial, and agricultural
streams of multipurpose secondary schools. (5) Technical high schools, mostly
in the area of the old Bombay state. (6) Private and government trade schools.
Education Commission, p. 371.
14. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Education Commission,
“Evidence Led before the Education Commission; Professional, Vocational &
Technical Education,” supplementary vol. 4-B, mimeo (New Delhi, 1966), p. 3.
15. “Despite repeated exhortation,” the Education Commission, 1964-
1966, observed, “it is unfortunately still widely felt that vocational education
at the school level is an inferior form of education, fit only for those who fail
in general education and the last choice of parents and students.” Education
Commission, p. 369. See chap. 15, particularly pp. 369-376, and Education
Commission, “Professional, Vocational & Technical Education” for detailed
analyses of these problems.
The Education Commission, 1964-1966, cited a planning commission study
that showed, inter alia, that “a significant percentage of those passing out [of
junior technical schools] do not enter employment but rejoin the educational
stream, either in polytechnics or PUC courses” (p. 372). This phenomenon
may mean that the graduates could not find “suitable” jobs rather than that
they did not wish to use their training.
16. Government of India, Pattern of Graduate Employment, table 5 (4),
p. 30; Education Commission, p. 373. The commission found India’s “pyramid
of trained manpower . . . top heavy.” India’s ratio of engineers to techni¬
cians was 1 to 1.4 while the ratios in “advanced industrialized countries”
ranged from 1 to 3 to 1 to 6. Education Commission, p. 373.
17. See, for example, Subbiah Kannapan, “The Economics of Structuring
an Industrial Labour Force: Some Reflections on the Commitment Problem,”
Notes to Page 28 389

British Journal of Industrial Relations 4, no. 3 (November 1966), where he

observes that “there can be no quarrel with the argument that the main bottle¬
neck in industrial development is the supply of ‘skilled’ labour. The real prob¬
lem is the determination of what is ‘skilled’ and what is ‘unskilled.’ ” Technical
proficiency may or may not be available to employers but may in any case be
much less important to them than “intangible, but ignored, abilities which go
to make up a skill” (p. 403). “The discipline of the formal educational environ¬
ment seemed to be far more important than generally recognized, and the
specific subject matter a good deal less.” Kannapan, personal communication,
14 August 1968. See also Anna Bezanson, “Skill,” The Quarterly Journal of
Economics (August 1922), pp. 626-645.
18. Government of India, Pattern of Graduate Employment, table 5 (8),
p. 35.
19. Philip J. Foster has cogently presented the “vocational school fallacy
in development planning” and attacked the “myth” that it is white collar
aspirations that dull or kill vocational aspirations. “In the initial stages,” he
writes, technical and vocational instruction is the cart rather than the horse
in economic growth, and its development depends upon real and perceived
opportunities in the economy.” Philip J. Foster, “The Vocational School Fallacy
in Development Planning,” in C. Arnold Anderson and Mary Jean Bowman,
eds., Education and Economic Development (Chicago, 1966), p. 153.
In relating economic development (as measured by growth in per capita
income) to changes in occupational structure, James G. Scoville finds that
“professional [including technical] and clerical workers possess the highest
growth rate projections for the developing regions” and, “in the early stages of
economic growth, they have extremely high income elasticities.” James G.
Scoville, “The Occupational Structure of Employment, 1960-1980,” paper for
the Inter-Regional Seminar on Long-term Economic Projections for the World
Economy, Elsinore, 14-27 August 1966, pp. 34, 20.
Scoville’s projections further suggest that with respect to “net requirements”
(that is, policies concerned with education, training, retraining, and labor
mobility), the professional (especially technicians) and clerical categories will
grow fastest (219 and 68 percent respectively between 1960-70 and 1970-
1980). Such expansions should “have primary relevance to the educational
systems of the countries involved” (p. 35, table 11).
20. Total educational expenditure per capita has grown from Rs. 3.2 in
1950-51 to Rs. 12.1 in 1965-66 and total educational expenditure as a per¬
centage of national income expanded from 1.2 in 1950-51 to 2.9 in 1965-66.
Education Commission, table 19.1, p. 465.
In 1962-63, Great Britain spent 4.8 percent of its gross national product
on education and in 1960—61 France, Germany, and the U.S.S.R. spent 3.4,
3, and 4.4 percent respectively. Robbins Report (appendix 5), Higher Educa¬
tion in Other Countries (Cmnd 2154-V), table 5, p. 17, col. 2. These figures
are hardly precise or strictly comparable but do give some notion of magni¬
tudes and relationships.
21. Hindu Weekly Review, 24 June 1968. “It is stated,” the Hindu Weekly
Review reported, “that the Education Ministry’s draft policy has the support of
an influential section of the Cabinet. The Planning Commission also would ap¬
pear to concur with the proposals.” By comparison, defense expenditures
390 Notes to Pages 28-29

constituted 3.15 percent of gross national product in 1967-68 and were ex¬
pected to drop below 3 percent in 1968-69. Actual figures (provisional) for
defense expenditure for 1968-69 were Rs. 1015 crores or $1,353 billion. India
News, 7 June 1968, p. 6.
22. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Education Commission,
Inequalities in Educational Development (States and Districts), mimeo (New
Delhi, 1966), table 2, p. 12. Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, and Orissa, whose
backward road systems pose problems for economic development and national
security, spend more on public works than education. Government of India,
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Publications Division, India, 1966
(Delhi, 1966), chap. 16, pp. 394-473.
23. Indirect includes direction and inspection, buildings, scholarships,
hostels, and miscellaneous.
24. Education Commission, table 19.4, p. 468.
25. Assuming that “recurring expenditure on education” and “direct and
indirect expenditure on education” are comparable, the next highest after India
would be the United States with 27 percent followed by Brazil (20 percent),
Pakistan (19.6 percent), Ghana (17.2 percent), and Yugoslavia (16.1 per¬
cent). Among the more highly industrialized nations (in addition to the
U.S.A.) the percentages were: United Kingdom, 14.1; U.S.S.R., 13.3; West
Germany, 13.2; Japan, 13.1; and France, 8.3. These figures are taken from
Education Commission, table 19.6 and 19.5 (Japan only), p. 469. All figures
except those for Japan were compiled by the commission’s study team from
documents available in the UNESCO Secretariat, Paris. The Japanese figure
was taken by the commission from Japan, Ministry of Education, Japan’s
Growth and Education (Tokyo, 1963), table 10.
26. Funds from local authorities dropped from 10.9 to 6.3; fees dropped
from 20.4 to 15.3; and other sources from 11.6 to 7.2 percent in the same
period. Education Commission, table 19.8, p. 471.
27. Robert Ulich observes that “English universities were virtually self-
supporting until World War I, as were some of the richly endowed higher
institutions in other countries. Today . . . most countries subsidize their uni¬
versities completely.” The Education of Nations; A Comparison in Historical
Perspective, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), pp. 338-339. In 1953-54,
British universities drew 5.9 percent of their income from endowments, dona¬
tions, and subscriptions. Fees accounted for another 12 percent, bringing the
total from private sources to 17.9 percent. Government of India, Ministry of
Education, University Administration in India (Delhi, 1958), p. 46.
By 1957-58, the proportion of income available in the United States to uni¬
versities and colleges (public and private) from endowment earnings had
dropped to 4.8 percent. Income from private gifts and grants contributed 8.6
percent, bringing the total proportion of “private” support to 13.4 percent of
total income. When tuition and fees were added (25 percent), the proportion
of private support rose to 38.4 percent. In private higher education institutions
(whose income in 1957-58 represented 42 percent of total income available
to higher education), the proportions from private sources were higher: en¬
dowment earnings 10.5 percent; private gifts and grants, 16.1 percent; tuition
and fees, 41.9 percent; for an over-all proportion of 67.5 percent. Harold A.
Notes to Pages 29-31 391

Haswell, Higher Education in the United States, UNESCO, Educational Studies

and Documents, no. 47 (n.d.).
28. For an important analysis of this controversy and recent tendencies to¬
ward congruence of the public and private sectors, see Christopher Jencks and
David Riesman, The Academic Revolution (New York, 1968), chap. 7.
Lawrence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (Chicago,
1965) provides a brilliant account of the heyday of such controversies.
29. See Brian Simon, Studies in the History of Education (London, 1960).
30. See Education Commission, table 18.1, p. 446 for these and other
proportions. In 1960-61 there were 1,751 affiliated colleges of all kinds of
which 1,140 were managed by private bodies and 611 were managed by gov¬
ernment (national, state, or district or municipal board). Of these, 809 colleges
were arts, science, or arts and science (general education) colleges, 640 being
privately and 169 being government managed; 755 were colleges for profes¬
sional education (mainly engineering and medicine), 363 being privately and
392 being government managed; and 187 were colleges for special education
(music, dancing, fine arts, oriental studies, sociology, etc.), 137 being privately
and 50 being government managed. These calculations are based on data found
in Government of India, Ministry of Education, Education in India, 1960-61,
vol. 2, All India Tables and Appendices (Delhi, 1966), table III, p. 6.
Education Commission, table 18.1, p. 446, reports that in 1960-61 institu¬
tions for higher general education were 78.8 percent privately managed; colleges
for professional education were 49.8 percent privately managed; and colleges
for special education were 74.9 percent privately managed. The low propor¬
tion of professional colleges privately managed (and founded) is presumably
a function of their high cost.
31. The breakdown of expenditure on all universities and colleges, both
private and public, by sources, in 1961 was: 53.1 percent government funds;
.4 percent local boards funds; 34.8 percent fees; and 11.7 percent other sources
(endowments, gifts, etc.). Government of India, Ministry of Education, Educa¬
tion in India, 1960-61, vol. 2 (Delhi, 1966), table 157, p. 310. Since this
figure lumps together private and government colleges, it does not give a full
picture. Such a picture would have to be pieced together out of the grant-in-aid
policies of various states. However, the pattern in Madras suggests that the
45 percent figure may not be far off. There, the recurring grant-in-aid is “two-
thirds of the [government] approved net cost of maintenance of the college —
the net cost being the excess of approved expenditure . . . over the fee income
calculated at the [government] standard rate.” (Fees cover about one-third of
expenditure so that government pays for 2/3 of 2/3, or 4/9 — 44 percent —
of expenditure.) Non-recurring grants for building and equipment are avail¬
able on a 50/50 basis. Government of Madras, Department of Education,
General Education in the Madras State (Madras, 1966), pp. 60—61.
32. See Harold Gould, “Educational Structures and Political Processes in
Faizabad District, Uttar Pradesh,” in this volume.
33. J. P. Naik, “The Role and Problems of Private Enterprise in Educa¬
tion,” in I.S.S.-Feres Consultation of Principals of Christian Colleges, Tam-
bram, 1967, The Christian College and National Development (Madras, 1967),
p. 129.
392 Notes to Pages 31-32

34. For an editorial on these events by Amrik Singh, Secretary of the In¬
ter-University Board of India and Ceylon, see University News (New Delhi),
July 1967, p. 1. Vice-Chancellor Joshi’s statement appears in the same issue,
pp. 8-9. By 1969, the government view had been accepted by at least one of the
vice-chancellors who had signed the 1967 statement, Dr. C. S. Patel of Baroda
University. Interview, November 22, 1969.
35. See Times of India (Delhi), 18 September 1970, for the rejected nom¬
inations. Swarup Singh replaced K. N. Raj as vice-chancellor in January 1971.
Statesman (New Delhi), 7 January 1971. The dismissal in January 1970 of
Javeed Alam from his lecture’s post at Salwan College helped to precipitate
university action. Alam, a Muslim, had married a Hindu. The Hindu gov¬
erning committee allegedly acted for this reason. For Education Minister
V. K. R. V. Rao’s statement in parliament on the Alam dismissal see States¬
man, 21 November 1971. For the amendment of the university statutes in May
1971 see Times of India, 17 May 1971. Other reforms included having prin¬
cipals of colleges share their authority with elected teacher councils; rotating
the chairman of postgraduate departments every three years and electing him
from a panel of the professors and readers; and having departmental chairmen
share their powers with departmental councils.
36. For the data on PUC and intermediate students, see chap. 3, note 1,
above.
High school teachers “have less charisma, on the average, than profes¬
sors . . . ,” Amitai Etzioni argues, “not only because they have less profes¬
sional training, their knowledge is considered less forbidding and their roles
involve communication of knowledge rather than its creation or application,
but also because they are in more frequent, continuous and close contact with
their ‘subordinates’.” A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations (New
York, 1961), p. 220, fn. 32.
37. See New York Times, 20 December 1969, “Regents Endorse Open
Admissions,” and two editorials, “Sense on Open Admissions,” 16 October
1969 (dealing with the majority and minority reports of the City University’s
Commission on Open Admissions) and “Faculty Independence at C.U.,” 16
December 1969, which attacks the administration of City University for pro¬
posing to deprive academic departments of their right to elect their chairmen
because such a policy, particularly in the context of the pressures generated by
the open admissions policy, would undermine an essential of academic self-
government.
The second batch of freshmen admitted under the open admission program
included 59 and 56 percent who required remedial mathematics and reading
respectively. Students numbered over 200,000 and faculty over 16,000 (New
York Times, 12 September 1971).
The conflict between utilitarian and professional goals in universities is
developed by Amitai Etzioni. “In direct contrast to utilitarian organizations,
the development of charisma in top administrative positions is dysfunctional
for [colleges and universities],” Etzioni observes. “It gives the administrator
additional power, which may be used to overemphasize values such as econ¬
omy, efficiency, and instrumental expansion, while direct service of the pro¬
fessional goals of the organization is neglected. It tends to introduce lay inter¬
ference with professional decisions and goal-related activities — for example,
Notes to Pages 32-37 393

in the recruitment and promotion of personnel — which is likely to inhibit

the organization’s pursuit of its dominant goal.” Etzioni goes on to observe
(in a footnote) that “in organizations owned and managed by public repre¬
sentatives [such as universities] in which professionals enter as private entre¬
preneurs, the administrators may have to force some professional norms on
the professionals. But, in general, professionals are the organization group
closest to the goals of these organizations, while administrators are closer to
values such as economy, balanced budget, efficiency — what can be referred
to as instrumental values.” Etzioni, Complex Organizations, p. 220. For addi¬
tional observations on this point see Amitai Etzioni, “Authority Structure and
Organizational Effectiveness,” Administrative Sciences Quarterly, 4 (1959),
pp. 43-67.
38. For the quotations from the first conference of vice-chancellors see
Government of India, Ministry of Education, Indian University Administration;
Proceedings of the Vice-Chancellors’ Conference . . . July 30 to August 1,
1957 (Delhi, 1958), pp. 25, 29, 31, 37, and 38.
39. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Proceedings of the Vice-
Chancellors’ Conference, June 15-16, 1960 (Delhi, 1961), pp. 24—25.
40. For a detailed description of such activities see Government of India,
Ministry of Education, Educational Activities of the Government (Delhi,
1963). Eighteen ministries or departments are active in the educational field.
41. Government of India, University Grants Commission, Centres of Ad¬
vanced Study in Indian Universities (New Delhi, 1964).
42. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Conference of Vice
Chancellors, 1967, p. 47.
43. Recent years have seen continuing spurts of university foundings: 1966
— Kanpur, Meerut, Madurai, Saurashtra, South Gujarat; 1967 — Berhampur,
Sambalpur; and 1968-69, Awadesh Pratap Singh University, Rewa; K. S. Dar-
bhanga University; Maharashtra Agricultural University; University of Calicut;
Nehru University, New Delhi; Guru Nanak University, Amritsar.

4. Outputs: “Standards” in Democratized Higher Education

1. See Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, “Student Politics

and National Politics in India,” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 6, no. 31
(31 July 1971), for an empirical examination of the levels and causes of stu¬
dent unrest.
2. Government of India, Report of the Calcutta University Commission,
1917-1919 (Calcutta, 1919), vol. 1, pt. 1, p. 327.
3. Cited in ibid., pp. 327-328.
4. Ibid., p. 331.
5. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Education
Commission, 1964-1966 (Delhi, 1966), p. 42. “The holders of the first de¬
gree of our universities in arts and science are now generally equated with
matriculates in the important universities of western countries and are eligible
for admission only to the first year of their first degree course.”
6. In 1952-53, the enrollment was 512,000 students, including the figures
for the Intermediate Boards. Government of India, University Grants Com¬
mission, University Development in India, Basic Facts and Figures, 1962—63
394 Notes to Pages 37-44

(New Delhi, 1963), p. 72. The figure for 1964—65, including Intermediate
Boards, was 1,528,227. Government of India, University Grants Commission,
University Development in India, Basic Facts and Figures, 1964—5 (New
Delhi, 1966), p. 24.
7. UGC, University Development in India, 1964-5, p. 63.
8. These levels cover the years X to XII.
9. For increased rates of failure at some bachelor level exams, see chap. 4,
table 14, this volume. The increased first degree (bachelor) enrollment has
been associated with a small increase in “wastage,” the inability of the enrolled
to pass the bachelor level exams.
10. UCG, University Development in India, 1964-65, p. 149.
11. Personal communication from Donald Rosenthal, and Government of
India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-66, p. 310.
12. See chap. 4, table 6, this volume.
13. Admissions to the arts programs in the three-year degree courses fell
between 1957 and 1961 from 47 percent to 24 percent, while admissions in
science rose from 53 percent to 76 percent. K. C. K. E. Raja, “The Changing
University,” Educational Quarterly (India), 14, no. 56 (December 1962), p.
219. See also Hindu Weekly Review, 6 July 1964.
It was estimated that there were 70,000 unemployed engineers in 1969. In¬
stitute of Applied Manpower Research, New Delhi, “Employment Outlook
for Engineers, 1969-70” IAMR Working Paper no. 11 (1969), cited in A. D.
King, “Elite Education and the Economy,” Economic and Political Weekly, 5,
no. 35 (29 August 1970). The IIT figures are from the same article.
14. UGC, University Development in India, 1964-65, p. 149.
15. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Education in Eighteen
Years of Freedom (Delhi, 1965), p. 28. For example, M.A .’s in chemistry
have gone from 930 in the period 1941-1945 to 3,634 in 1956-1960. Gov¬
ernment of India, University Grants Commission, Chemistry in Indian Uni¬
versities (New Delhi, 1963), p. 7.
16. See A. D. King, “The IIT Graduate: 1970; Aspirations, Expectations,
and Ambitions,” Economic and Political Weekly, 5, no. 36 (5 September
1970), for a picture of the dim view among IIT students of arts, which are
seen as having no future.
17. UGC, University Development in India, 1964-65, pp. 155, 156 159
166, 172, and 175. r
18. Of the twenty-five universities that awarded 165 degrees in economics,
Agra awarded 62, Bombay 24, Delhi and Poona, 12 each, Calcutta and Ra¬
jasthan 6 each, Mysore, Nagpur, and Vikram 4 each, Banaras, Punjab and
Saugar 3 each, and others, 20.
Of eighteen universities that awarded 112 degrees in political science (or
politics), Agra awarded 26, Saugar 19, Delhi 17, Allahabad and Rajasthan 6
each, Bombay 4, Aligarh, Madras, Patna and the Indian School of Interna¬
tional Studies 3 each, and others, 11.
Of the twenty-five universities that awarded 96 Ph.D.’s in history, Patna
awarded 15, Rajasthan 13, Agra 10, Calcutta and Delhi 7 each, Bombay and
Punjab 6 each, Lucknow and the Indian School of International Studies 4 each
Aligarh and Gauhati 3 each, and others, 18.
Notes to Pages 44-45 395

Nine universities awarded 45 Ph.D.’s in psychology. Six were awarded by

Banaras, 5 each by Agra, Aligarh, Baroda, Lucknow and Madras, 3 each by
Mysore and Gujarat, and 8 by others.
Eight universities granted 28 Ph.D.’s in geography. Thirteen were awarded
by Agra, 7 by Banaras, 2 each by Calcutta and Patna, and 4 by others.
One university, Lucknow, awarded 4 Ph.D.’s in anthropology.
The Indian School of International Studies (ISIS) awarded 2 Ph.D.’s in
international relations and Punjab awarded 1 in public administration. UGC,
University Development in India, 1964-5, p. 150.
19. The following universities had set up independent departments of po¬
litical science by 1947: Lucknow (1921), Allahabad (1922), Banaras (1929),
University of the Punjab (1936), Madras (1937), Nagpur (1946), and Saugar
(1946).
As of 1967 there were thirty-six departments teaching political science in
universities and an additional sixty-nine affiliated colleges providing postgradu¬
ate instruction. Government of India, University Grants Commission, Political
Science in Indian Universities (New Delhi, 1967), pp. 4-9.
See also G. N. Sarma, “The Growth of Political Science in India,” in S. P.
Aiyar and Usha Mehta, Essays on Indian Federalism (Bombay, 1965), pp.
xxi-xxxiv.
20. See Government of India, University Grants Commission, Sociology
in Indian Universities (New Delhi, 1966), p. 5 and the more recent product
of a seminar at the University of Rajasthan, T. K. N. Unnithan, Yogendra Singh,
Narendra Singh, and Indra Deva, eds., Sociology for India (New Delhi, 1967).
21. Annamalai (1953), Baroda (1951), Osmania (1946), Delhi (1959),
Gujarat (1964), Patna (1951), Agra (1956), Poona (no date), Rajasthan (no
date). See UGC, Sociology in Indian Universities, pp. 4-5. Only inspection
would reveal how many departments, due to the close alliance of anthropology
and sociology in India, are what Americans would call social anthropology
and how many sociology. For a discussion of sociology in India by two for¬
eign observers see Marshall B. Clinard and Joseph W. Elder, “Sociology in
India: A Study in the Sociology of Knowledge,” American Sociological Re¬
view, 30, no. 4 (August 1965), pp. 581-587, and the important response to
this by Imtiaz Ahmad, “Note on Sociology in India,” The American Sociologist,
1, no. 6 (November 1966).
For some Indian views of the development of this field see M. N. Srinivas,
Y. B. Damle, S. Shahani, and Andre Beteille, “Caste: A Trend Report and
Bibliography,” Current Sociology, 8, no. 3 (1959).
22. For these developments, see Department of Sociology (University of
Delhi), Annual Report: 1968-9 (Delhi, 1969).
23. UGC, Sociology in Indian Universities, p. 6. See also Bernard S. Cohn,
“Notes on the History of the Study of Indian Society and Culture,” in Milton
Singer and Bernard S. Cohn, eds., Structure and Change in Indian Society
(Chicago, 1968).
24. Edward Shils, The Intellectual Between Tradition and Modernity: The
Indian Case (The Hague, 1961).
25. Edward Shils noted this shift in the paper he gave at the conference
on “Social Structure and Social Change in India,” University of Chicago, June
396 Notes to Pages 45-54

5, 1965. For the problem of academic colonialism see Seminar, no. 112 (De¬
cember 1968), number on “Academic Colonialism,” and the New York Times
report on it dated 12 January 1969.
26. Together Hindi and Sanskrit accounted for 472 (34 percent) of all
arts degrees and surpassed the total number of Ph.D.’s in all other Indian
languages and literatures (including English with 62 Ph.D.’s) by 264 degrees.
Two hundred eight Ph.D. degrees were awarded in eighteen Indian languages
and literatures (including English) other than Hindi and Sanskrit in the pe¬
riod 1960-61 to 1963-64. See chap. 4, table 7, this volume.
Among the non-social science arts degrees, Hindi was by far the most nu¬
merous with 329 Ph.D.’s (24 percent of all arts degrees). Eight universities
granted 273 of these degrees (Agra, 88; Saugar, 38; Lucknow, 37; Allahabad
and Rajasthan, 27 each; Banaras, 20; and Delhi and Punjab 18 each). The
remaining 56 degrees were divided among thirteen other universities. Sanskrit
ranked second with 143 degrees, five universities granting 74 (Agra, 29; Ba¬
naras, 14; Calcutta, 12; Bombay, 10; and Delhi, 9) and nineteen other univer¬
sities granting the remaining 69.
27. Government of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-
1966, p. 309.
28. The 1966-67 Presidency College strike at Calcutta was organized ini¬
tially by students in the Eden hostel, whose first demands dealt in part with
hostel living conditions. See Jayabrata Bhattacharjee, “Presidency College; Tra¬
dition and Legend in the Troubled Sixties,” prepared for the Conference on
Education and Politics in India, New Delhi, 28-30 June 1967 (mimeo).
29. See Irene Gilbert’s “Autonomy and Consensus under the Raj: Presi¬
dency (Calcutta); Muir (Allahabad); M.A.-O. (Aligarh),” chap. 10 of this
volume.
30. A recent study by Raj Narain, professor of psychology and philosophy
at Lucknow University, attempts to clarify the term “standards” by undertak¬
ing a content analysis of responses to a questionnaire by interviewees at Luck¬
now and Madras and by correspondents in India and abroad (how or why
these particular respondents were selected is not clarified), and of newspaper
references from the National Herald. See his Falling Educational Standards;
an Analysis (Agra, 1970). The analysis takes as its main evidence those com¬
monly held views which we tend to regard as rhetorical obstacles to a serious
examination of “real” data, a perspective at which the Narain study arrives in
its conclusion, when it calls for, inter alia, “comparing the percentages of
passes.” Such data is presented in chap. 4, table 14, this volume.

5. Regional Patterns of Education

1. See Anil Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism; Competition and

Collaboration in the Later Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1968), chaps. 2
and 3.
2. Ibid., pp. 57-59.
3. In 1879-80, 80 percent of the undergraduates and 70 percent of high
school boys were from the Tamil districts; 10 percent and 14 percent were
from the Telugu districts. Ibid., p. 104.
4. Efforts by CABE (Central Advisory Board for Education) to shape
Notes to Pages 54-63 397

policy in this area are discussed in chap. 6 of this volume. See also William
Richter, “National Politics and Educational Language Policy” (typescript),
which is devoted entirely to national policy with respect to medium of instruc¬
tion.
5. See note 3 above.
6. Seal, Indian Nationalism, p. 104.
7. Ibid., p. 104.
8. In consequence of substantial pressure to convert education from Eng¬
lish to regional language in the universities, the Madras government announced
in 1959 that it would allow B.A. students to study for their degree in Tamil
beginning in 1963-64. (They did not, it may be noted, recommend a switch¬
over for the B.Sc.) Asian Recorder, 1959 (New Delhi), p. 2,631. In pursuance
of this intention, the Madras government experimentally introduced Tamil as
the language of instruction in the city of Coimbatore’s colleges. Student re¬
sponse to this opportunity was notably unenthusiastic (Times of India [New
Delhi], 19 October 1962), and in 1963 the government announced that it
would not effect the proposed switchover. Instead, the government proposed
to offer Tamil as an optional language if a specified number (ten to fifteen)
demanded it (Express [New Delhi], 5 April 1963). Such sections were opened
in the Government Arts College and Queen Mary’s College of Madras city,
and the Government Arts College at Kumbakonam, for the humanities (Edu¬
cational India, 29, nos. 11 and 12 [May-June 1963], p. 390). These trends
have been strengthened since 1967 when a DMK government assumed office.
It too has tried to strengthen Tamil language collegiate education by, among
other policies, reserving certain government jobs for Tamil language graduates.
It is too early, however, to judge what success it will have in this effort.
9. See Janet Guthrie, “Shiv Sena; Opportunism or Nationalism,” paper for
Sociology 350, “Political Sociology,” University of Chicago, Winter Quarter,
1969, and Mohan Ram, Hindi Against India, The Meaning of the D.M.K.
(New Delhi, 1968).
10. Government of India, Department of Commercial Intelligence and
Statistics, Statistical Abstract for British India, for the years 1920-21 and
1939-40 (Delhi, 1941).
11. Government of India, Official Language Commission, Report of the
Official Language Commission, 1956 (New Delhi, 1957), p. 456.
12. Except in Saurashtra. Ibid., p. 459.
13. J. P. Naik, “The Role and Problems of Private Enterprise in Educa¬
tion,” in I.S.S.-Feres Consultation of Principals of Christian Colleges, Tam-
bram, 1967, The Christian College and National Development (Madras, 1967),
p. 129.
14. See V. K. S. Nayar, “Communal Interest Groups in Kerala,” in Donald
Eugene Smith, ed., South Asian Politics and Religion (Princeton, 1966), pp.
176-190. See also Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, The Mod¬
ernity of Tradition; Political Development in India (Chicago, 1967), pp. 71-76
for an analysis of Kerala politics that helps to explain this pattern of allocation.
15. See chap. 3, this volume.
16. See chap. 5, table 15, this volume.
17. For the 1949-50 to 1958-59 data, see George Rosen, Democracy and
Economic Change in India (Berkeley, 1966), table E3, p. 307. The rank order
398 Notes to Pages 65-69

of the states after Rajasthan in growth per capita was: (2) Madhya Pradesh
(also a poor state with a better than average rate of investment in education);
(3) Punjab; (4) Madras; (5) Bihar; (6) Bombay; (7) Andhra; (8) West Ben¬
gal; (9) Mysore; (10) Uttar Pradesh; (11) Orissa; (12) Kerala; (13) Assam.
For the 1960-61 to 1967-68 data, see Marshall Bouton, “Economic Develop¬
ment, Regionalism and Political Stability in a Federal State,” paper for Politi¬
cal Science 398, “Modern Indian Politics,” University of Chicago, Fall Quar¬
ter, 1969, table 15, p. 48. Bouton’s table is derived from figures published in
Indian Institute of Public Opinion, Quarterly Economic Report, 15, no. 4
(April 1969).
18. For the industrialization of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, see Kenneth L.
Gillion, Ahmedabad; A Study in Indian Urban History (Berkeley, 1968),
especially pp. 99-100 for the origins of technical education in Ahmedabad.
Aspects of industrialization in Madras are analyzed by James J. Berna in
Industrial Entrepreneurship in Madras State (Bombay, 1960), and Milton
Singer, “The Indian Joint Family in Modern Industry,” in Bernard S. Cohn
and Milton Singer, eds., Structure and Change in Indian Society (Chicago,
1968), pp. 423-452. Other important recent studies of industrialization in¬
clude George Rosen, Industrial Change in India; Industrial Growth, Capital
Requirements, and Technological Change, 1937—1955 (Bombay, 1959), which
focuses on the cement, paper, cotton textile, sugar, and iron and steel indus¬
tries in prepartition Bombay, and Morris David Morris, The Emergence of an
Industrial Labor Force in India; A Study of the Bombay Cotton Mills, 1854-
1947 (Berkeley, 1966).
19. See Richard P. Taub, Bureaucrats Under Stress; Administrators and
Administration in an Indian State (Berkeley, 1969), pp. 116-118 and tables
11 and 12.

6. National Educational Policy in a Federal Context:

A Proximate Goal

1. Constitution of India, Seventh Schedule, details the legislative authority

involved.
2. Nine had been so declared as of 1966. Constitution of India, List 1,
Item 63. Under section 3 of the University Grants Commission Act the fol¬
lowing institutions were “deemed to be universities” for the purposes of cen¬
tral grants by the government of India: Indian Agricultural Research Institute,
New Delhi; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Indian School of Interna¬
tional Studies, New Delhi; Gurukul Kangri Vishvavidyalaya, Hardwar; Jamia
Millia Islamia, New Delhi; Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad; Kashi Vidyapith,
Varanasi; Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay; and Birla Institute of Sci¬
ence and Technology, Pilani. Government of India, Ministry of Education,
Education in Eighteen Years of Freedom (Delhi, 1965), p. 10.
3. Constitution of India, List 1, Item 64.
4. Other institutions administered by the ministry of education include the
School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi; the Indian School of Mines,
hanbad; the National Institute for Training in Industrial Engineering, Bom-
Notes to Pages 69-71 399

bay; the All-India Institutes of Management at Calcutta and Ahmedabad; and

the Lakshmibai College of Physical Education, Gwalior.
5. Constitution of India, List 1, Items 65 and 66.
6. For example, the All-India Council for Technical Education, through
its four regional committees and seven boards of technical studies, provides
policy and technical guidance to the national and state governments. The Uni¬
versity Grants Commission grants for technical education are given on its rec¬
ommendation. The National Council of Educational Research and Training,
together with its various research and training institutions, provides new ideas
and encourages experiments in the field of education.
7. The case is reported in All India Reporter, 1963, sc. 703. For an ac¬
count of the case see David S. Lelyveld, “Education, Language and the Courts,
The Gujarat University Case.” Background paper for the Conference on Edu¬
cation and Politics, India International Centre, New Delhi, June 28, 29, and
30, 1967; and Indian Law Institute, for Government of India, Ministry of
Education, Education Commission, “Major Trends in Law Cases on Educa¬
tion, Decided by the Supreme Court of India and All High Courts (1960—
1964),” mimeo (New Delhi, 1966), vol. 1, pp. 2-10.
8. For the state authority, see Constitution of India, Entry 11, List II (state
list), Seventh Schedule.
9. The Indian Law Institute study (see note 7 above) observed that the
states have “exclusive jurisdiction to prescribe medium of instruction in pri¬
mary and secondary stages” and “may indicate medium of instruction in higher
education”; where doing so has an impact on coordination and determination
of standards, the central government only has the authority to act. In making
such a determination the quality of reading material and “the facility of teach¬
ing and understanding” in a particular language are supposed to be taken into
consideration.
10. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Commit¬
tee of Members of Parliament on Higher Education (Delhi, 1964), p. 13.
11. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Education
Commission, 1964-1966 (Delhi, 1966), p. 453.
12. J. P. Naik, Educational Planning in India (Bombay, 1965), p. 2.
13. The report of Sir John Sargent, educational commissioner to the gov¬
ernment of India, 1944, was the first comprehensive plan for educational de¬
velopment. For a history and critique of educational planning by the man who
took a leading role in the research and perspectives represented by Report of
the Education Commission, 1964-1966, see Naik, Educational Planning in
India, pp. 8-10. The report of 1948 is to be found in Government of India,
University Education Commission, The Report of the University Education
Commission, 3 vols. (Delhi, 1951); that of 1964-1966 in Government of In¬
dia, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-1966.
14. For a picture of the alternatives between rhetorical agreement and
actual resistance, see Government of India, Ministry of Education, Proceedings
of the 28th Meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education, and subse¬
quent Proceedings through the 32nd meeting, especially Proceedings, 29th
meeting, appendix A; “Statement Issued by the Chief Ministers Conference
(1960) Regarding Education, Medium of Instruction and Script,” pp. 34-40,
400 Notes to Pages 71-72

and “Steps to Be Taken to Implement . . . pp. 55-66. The following report

conveys some sense of the difficulties of gaining compliance for the three-
language formula, which was to an extent resisted by Madras, which did not
wish to adopt Hindi, and by Hindi area states, which did not wish to adopt a
South Indian language and were not particularly enthusiastic about English
either. “The Committee noted with satisfaction,” wrote CABE’s committee to
implement the three-language formula, “the decision of the Madras govern¬
ment to make Hindi an examination subject in which the marks secured,
though not yet counting for eligibility for university courses of study [i.e. not
compulsory for university admission] will be taken into account for modera¬
tion [i.e. to improve chances of admission], and the decision of the U.P. gov¬
ernment to make English a compulsory subject of study at the school stage
and to make increasingly greater provisions for teaching other modern Indian
languages in addition to Sanskrit in the school curriculum.” Government of
India, Ministry of Education, Proceedings of the 30th Meeting of the Central
Advisory Board of Education (Delhi, 1964), p. 296. The Uttar Pradesh deci¬
sion making English compulsory was reversed after the 1967 election by the
coalition government headed by Charan Singh. Bihar and Madhya Pradesh,
but not Rajasthan, also dropped English as a compulsory subject for university
admission. See Asian Recorder, 1967 (New Delhi), p. 7734.
15. See Government of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-
1966, pp. 35-38 for problems of reorganizing the structure of education.
16. Seventeen of eighty-nine universities and institutions “deemed” univer¬
sities in India and Ceylon were not members of the IUB in 1969. Inter-Univer¬
sity Board of India and Ceylon, Universities Handbook, 1969 (New Delhi,
1969).
17. For the number of universities and institutions deemed universities in
1966 as well as the number of affiliated colleges see Government of India, Re¬
port of the Education Commission, 1964—1966, p. 298. For particulars con¬
cerning the universities see Government of India, Education Ministry, Univer¬
sity Grants Commission, Handbook of Universities in India, 1963 (New Delhi,
1964). We have estimated the number of teachers by projecting the 7 to 8 per¬
cent annual increase reported in India 1966, table 35, p. 71, to 1965-66. En¬
rollment figures are from Government of India, Report of the Education Com¬
mission, 1964-1966, table 9, p. 590.
18. Government of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-
1966, chap. 13.
19. Ibid., pp. 343-344.
20. In calculating the UGC’s proportion of expenditure on higher educa¬
tion, we have used the totals of plan (development) expenditures, excluding
nonplan (maintenance) expenditure on the ground that the latter, most of
which supports the proportionally small national sector in higher education,
does not directly affect innovation, standards, or growth. Unless and until the
national sector is expanded under UGC auspices, UGC nonplan (maintenance)
expenditures will not substantially affect educational policy or growth. See
chap. 6, note 35, this volume, for the legal distinction between maintenance
and developmental grants. In 1960-61, UGC plan expenditure was Rs. 5.5
crores ($7.15 million). Government of India, Estimates Committee (1965-66),
Hundred and Second Report (Third Lok Sabha); Ministry of Education, Uni-
Notes to Page 73 401

versity Grants Commission (New Delhi, 1966), p. 42. Direct and indirect
central government expenditure on higher education in 1960-61 amounted to
Rs. 20.23 crores ($26.3 million).
Direct government of India expenditure on higher education in 1960-61
was Rs. 9.2 crores ($11.96 million). See Government of India, Report of the
Education Commission, 1964-1966, table 19.16, p. 493. Indirect government
of India expenditure on higher education in 1960-61 was approximately Rs.
11.03 crores ($14.3 million). We have calculated the government of India’s
indirect expenditure on higher education by using the proportions given in
table 19.3, Government, of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-
1966, table 19.3, “Indirect Expenditure at School and University Stages,” p.
468. In 1965-66, 80 percent of the expenditure on hostels and 50 percent of
the expenditure on miscellaneous was allocated to higher education. We have
applied these proportions to the amounts given under the same heads in Gov¬
ernment of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-1966, table
19.16, “Educational Expenditure Through Central Funds by Objects (1950-51
to 1960-61),” p. 493.
21. For a description of the origin, organization, and functions of the
University Grants Commission, see Government of India, Hundred and Second
Report (Third Lok Sabha), chap. I, Introductory, pp. 1-22, particularly pp.
1-13. For a brief account of the 1968 legislation, see Hindu Weekly Review,
August 12, 1968. The Education Commission, 1964-1966, had resisted the
recommendation to exclude vice-chancellors, which came from the Govern¬
ment of India, Report of the Committee of Members of Parliament on Higher
Education, p. 45. See Government of India, Report of the Education Commis¬
sion, 1964-1966, p. 344. For a knowledgeable analysis of the 1968 legislation
see Amrik Singh, “The Reconstituted UGC,” Economic and Political Weekly,
5, no. 33 (August 15, 1970).
22. Singh, “The Reconstituted UGC,” p. 8. The legislation of 1968 was
designed to “streamline” the UGC so that it coud cope more readily with its
expanding burdens. Three members may now be fulltime; previously only the
chairman was. The legislation also reduced the term of members from six to
three years to “facilitate rotation,” and it increased membership from nine to
twelve, a move in accord with the recommendation of a parliamentary com¬
mittee, but which may convert an efficient body into a more ceremonial one.
23. Personal communication, April 1968.
24. Government of India, Ministry of Education, University Grants Com¬
mission, Some Facts and Figures (New Delhi, 1966), p. 2. A private member’s
amendment to the University Grants Commission Act of 1968, which would
have blocked central aid to universities set up without UGC approval, was not
accepted by the government. Hindu Weekly Review, August 12, 1968.
25. The following were founded without or against UGC advice through
1966: Varanaseya Sanskrit Vidyalaya; Marathwada University; K. S. Darbhanga
Sanskrit Vidyalaya; U. P. Agricultural University; Udaipur University (as an
agricultural university); Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University; Bhagalpur
University; Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana; Rabindra Bharati, Cal¬
cutta; Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology; University of Agricul¬
tural Sciences, Bangalore; Jawahar Lai Nehru Krishi Visvavidyalaya, Jabalpur;
Indira Kala Visvavidyalaya; Gorakhpur University; Jabalpur University; Ku-
402 Notes to Pages 73-75

rukshetra University; and Vikram University, Ujjain. List compiled from the
following reports: Government of India, Hundred and Second Report (Third
Lok Sabha), pp. 30-31; Government of India, University Grants Commission,
Report of the University Grants Commission, April 1958-March 1959 (New
Delhi, 1960), p. 2; and UGC, Report, April 1957-March 1958, p. 1.
26. Government of India, University Grants Commission, Report of the
University Grants Commission, 1964-5 (New Delhi, 1966), p. 19.
27. The opinion of state political forces with respect to educational found¬
ings cannot be easily disregarded. The battle over whether a new university in
Gujarat should be located at Rajkot or Bhavnagar led to resignations from the
Gujarat Congress parliamentary party which nearly toppled the ministry. A
massive agitation which led to the replacement of the Kerala Communist gov¬
ernment in 1959 was occasioned by the Kerala education bill which sought to
provide state control over privately managed schools. The immediate cause
bringing the powerful Nair Service Society (NSS) into the agitation was gov¬
ernment refusal to permit the NSS to found an engineering college in Palghat
District, a stronghold of Communist party electoral strength. V. K. S. Nair,
“Communal Interest Groups in Kerala,” in D. E. Smith, ed.. Religion and
Politics in South Asia (Princeton, 1966), p. 180.
28. Since its founding, the UGC has been empowered to disburse funds to
universities “as it may deem necessary for the development of such universi¬
ties.” Government of India, University Grants Commission, Some Facts and
Figures, pp. 1-2. It could presumably argue that development of universities in
line with UGC responsibility for maintaining standards requires limitation of
university growth unless state governments are prepared to allocate enough
resources to such universities to meet certain basic requirements.
29. Government of India, Hundred and Second Report (Third Lok Sabha),
P-31.
30. Ibid., pp. 9-10.
31. Ibid., p. 10.
32. Government of India, University Grants Commission, University De¬
velopment in India, Basic Facts and Figures, 1966-7 (New Delhi, 1969), p.
246. See Government of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-
1966, p. 309, for a discussion of conditions in colleges with less than 100 stu¬
dents. In the same year, five colleges “died,” suggesting some expire prior to
disaffiliation.
33. “In practice, there has grown up a system of provisional or temporary
recognition as a method of nursing schools to efficiency. As the main reason
why a school desires recognition is that it may present its pupils at the matric¬
ulation examination, and as this privilege is granted by temporary recognition,
and a temporary recognition may be renewed year after year, the promotion
of efficiency is not necessarily secured by this means.” Testimony of Mr. W. C.
Wordsworth before the Commission. Government of India, Report of the Cal¬
cutta University Commission, 1917-1919 (Calcutta, 1919), vol. 1, pt. 1, p.
307.
34. Government of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-
1966, pp. 344—345.
35. Ibid., p. 345. Again, it should be noted that D. S. Kothari headed both
organizations, and, in this sense, was speaking to and judging himself.
Notes to Pages 75-78 403

36. The University Grants Commission Act of 1956 empowered the com¬
mission to make grants for “maintenance and development” of central univer¬
sities (those founded by an act of the central legislature), but only for the
“development” of all other universities. See provisions of the act in Govern¬
ment of India, University Grants Commission, Some Facts and Figures, pp.
1-2. For an interpretation of these provisions by the attorney general of India,
see Government of India, Hundred and Second Report (Third Lok Sabha), pp.
191-192. Under the University Grants Commission Act of 1968, the commis¬
sion was authorized to make expenditures for maintenance in special cases.
37. Ibid., p. 58. The pay scale enhancements are discussed in Government
of India, Ministry of Education, University Grants Commission, Development
Programmes Sponsored by the U.G.C. (New Delhi, 1964), pp. 18-19.
38. Government of India, Hundred and Second Report (Third Lok Sabha),
pp. 55-56.
39. New legislation obliging states to take UGC advice with respect to
foundings if they want to qualify for federal funds may be desirable. Although
such legislation would mean that the UGC would lose its capacity to influence
all types of institutions for the better, it would also mean that it could pro¬
ductively concentrate its funds. Inspection by UGC teams could indeed, as
the Education Commission, 1964-1966, suggests, be more vigorously pursued.
If UGC inspection teams are clearly academically, not politically, motivated
and represent professional rather than bureaucratic authority, they need not be
seen as any more of a threat to autonomy than are the inspection teams of
American regional accreditation organizations. Although the latter also neither
impose a very rigorous standard nor intervene in the details of university life,
they help to insure minimum standards.
40. Government of India, University Grants Commission, Centres of Ad¬
vanced Study in Indian Universities (New Delhi, 1964). Twenty-six centers
were established in 1964, fifteen in science (three in physics; two in chemistry;
two in botany; two in zoology; two in geology; three in mathematics; and one
other) and eleven in humanities and social sciences (three in economics; one
in history; three in philosophy; one in Sanskrit; two in linguistics; and one in
education). In 1968, the UGC approved a twenty-seventh center by agreeing
to support sociology at Delhi University.
“The scheme,” the UGC wrote in inaugurating it, “is intended to encourage
the pursuit of ‘Excellence’ and team work in studies and research and to ac¬
celerate the realisation of ‘International Standards’ in specific fields. With this
object in view it is proposed to give active support and substantial assistance
to promising departments in the universities carefully selected on the basis of
quality and extent of work already done by them, their reputation and con¬
tribution to research, and their potentiality for further development.” Govern¬
ment of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-1966, pp. 279-284.
For a more recent, quasi-official interpretation of the policy see D. S. Kothari,
Education, Science and National Development (Bombay, 1970), chap. 6,
“University Matters, and Centres of Excellence,” particularly pp. 63-67.
41. Government of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-
1966, p. 280.
42. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Committee
of Members of Parliament on Education, 1967 (Delhi, 1967), p. 1.
404 Notes to Pages 79-86

43. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Conference of Vice-

Chancellors, 1967 (New Delhi, 1968), pp. 47 and 42.
44. Government of India, Hundred and Second Report (Third Lok Sabha),
p. 69.
45. Government of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964—
1966, p. 283; Government of India, Report of the Committee of Members of
Parliament on Education, 1967, p. 16.

Introduction to Part II
1. See chap. 3, note 33.
2. Latter-day versions of these memoirs, good reading for those who wish
to remind themselves about the quality of life in English private entrepreneur¬
ial education, are George Orwell’s “Such, Such Were the Joys” in Shooting an
Elephant and Other Essays (New York, 1950), and The Clergyman’s Daugh¬
ter (New York, 1960).
3. See chap. 5, table 23 and its note for the basis of this ranking.
4. The problematic relations between politics and education in California,
where such indicators would be very high indeed, provides at least a cautionary
example, reminding us that universe indicators may not always be useful in
specific cases or that very high indicators (as against high) may be associated
with outputs not unlike those associated with low measures of key independent
variables.
5. See Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Educa¬
tion Commission, 1964-1966 (Delhi, 1966). “In spite of the offer of Central
assistance, only five States have implemented the proposal so far, while the
others have either not accepted it at all, or having decided to accept it in the
first instance, have gone back on their earlier decision. Only about 25 percent
of the total number of secondary schools in the country were converted to the
higher secondary pattern by the end of the third plan. Many of these conver¬
sions are purely notional. . . . No uniform pattern of school and college
classes has emerged as a result of the reorganization and there is almost as
great a variety of patterns today as there was when the scheme of reorganiza¬
tion was first launched” (pp. 24-25). Table 2.1, page 25 of the report presents
this variety in organized form.
6. For the problems Uttar Pradesh’s categories raise in ascertaining total
enrollment in higher education, see chap. 3, note 1, this volume.
7. Government of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-1966,
p. 251.
8. There is a considerable literature that relates the problem of learning by
the children of poor and subject classes and cultures to the organization of
government and the policies pursued by it. The three main solutions to the
problem are: integration, which involves the assimilation of the subjected in
the culture of the dominant; more resources, including a more equitable dis¬
tribution of those presently allocated to education and the allocation of larger
proportions of public resources to education; and the decentralization of power
over education in ways that enable local communities to control it in the cen¬
ter cities (as well as in the suburbs). An important document for this ongoing
Notes to Pages 87-89 405

debate is the Coleman Report (U.S., Commission on Civil Rights, Racial Iso¬
lation in the Public Schools, vol. 1 (Report) and vol. 2 (Appendices) (Wash¬
ington, 1967). Although the report has been subject to a variety of interpreta¬
tions (see for example Christopher Jencks, “A Reappraisal of the Most Con¬
troversial Educational Document of Our Time,” New York Times Magazine,
10 August 1969), Coleman has maintained, “School integration is vital not
merely for some vague, generalized social purposes, but because it is the most
consistent mechanism for improving the quality of education of disadvantaged
children.” See the New York Times, 9 March 1970. Whether or not integration
is the best way to enable disadvantaged blacks to learn, it seems increasingly
clear that for the foreseeable future integration is a political failure. See for
example David Rogers, 110 Livingston Street; Politics and Bureaucracy in the
New York City School System (New York, 1969), and the New York Times,
8 March 1970.
For alternate views that stress the relationship of power to “the quality of
education of disadvantaged children” see Herbert J. Gans, “We Won’t End
the Urban Crisis until We End ‘Majority Rule,’” New York Times Magazine,
3 August 1969 and Jason Epstein, “The Politics of School Decentralization,”
“The Brooklyn Dodgers,” and “The Issue at Ocean Hill,” in the New York
Review of Books, 6 June, 10 October, and 21 November 1968. Gans advocates
political reform (“pluralistic democracy”) that will enable poor and subjected
minorities to become majorities in their own subjected bailiwicks; Epstein
argues that “the children will not learn . . . until a substantial shift of power
has taken place within the city.”
9. The supreme court handed down its judgment on May 22, 1958.
10. Government of India, Committee on Plan Projects, Report of the Team
for the Study of Community Projects and National Extension Service, 3 vols.
(New Delhi, November 1957). Balvantray Mehta, head of the study team, was
a Gandhian, an important leader in the Praja Mandal (States’ Peoples Freedom
Movement) and, later, chief minister of Gujarat. He died tragically in an air
crash during the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965.
11. Government of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964-1966,
p. 52, for example, where government and local authority schools are criticized
for average performance, below that of the best private schools, in spite of
many advantages; for isolation from and indifference to their communities; and
for complacency and lethargy resulting from “over-security” of service rules.
12. See Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report ... on .. .
The Administration of Primary Education (Delhi, 1948), pp. 113-114, and
Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Committee on the
Relationship between State Governments and Local Bodies in the Adminis¬
tration of Primary Education (Delhi, 1954), p. 111.
13. In 1969 there were 5,265 community development blocks (at various
“stages”) covering 566,900 villages and over 400 million people. See Govern¬
ment of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India, 1969; A Refer¬
ence Annual (New Delhi, 1969), table 126, p. 257. For the experimental
origins of community development in India, see Richard L. Park and McKim
Marriott, eds., Pilot Project India (Berkeley, 1958). For an excellent micro¬
study of community development in operation, see S. C. Dube, India’s Chang-
406 Notes to Pages 90-92

ing Villages (London, 1958). For a comprehensive analysis of the two pro¬
grams, including an extensive bibliography, see S. C. Jain, Community Develop¬
ment and Pane hay at Raj in India (Bombay, 1967).
14. For the Jacobins of the national convention period, see Robert J.
Vignery, The French Revolution and the Schools; Educational Policies of the
Mountain, 1792-1794 (Madison, Wisconsin, 1965). The Common School or
Public School movement is described and analyzed in Lawrence A. Cremin,
The American Common School (New York, 1951). Aspects of Maoist edu¬
cational populism, particularly as it was expressed in the red-expert contra¬
diction, are admirably analyzed in Mitchell Meisner, “Revolution and Mod¬
ernization: The Three Revolutionary Movements for Class Struggle, Production
Struggle, and Scientific Experiments,” M.A. paper, Department of Political
Science, University of Chicago, 1968. For the official proposal to decentralize
the New York school system, see Mayor’s Advisory Panel on Decentralization
of the New York City Schools, McGeorge Bundy, Chairman, Reconnection
for Learning; a Community School System for New York City (November 9,
1967). For a critical but sympathetic analysis of the Bundy Report, see Rogers,
110 Livingston Street, pp. 475-486. See also Maurice Berube and Marilyn
Gittell, eds., Confrontation at Ocean Hill-Brownsville; The New York School
Strikes of 1968 (New York, 1969).
15. See Narain, “Rural Local Politics and Primary School Management,”
chap. 9, this volume, note 1, for his and other studies that make recommen¬
dations for reform.
16. For the progressive education movement see Lawrence A. Cremin, The
Transformation of the School; Progressivism in American Education, 1876-
1957 (New York, 1961). The leading critic of the progressive education estab¬
lishment probably was Arthur E. Bestor. See his Educational Wastelands: The
Retreat from Learning in Our Public Schools (Urbana, Illinois, 1953), and
The Restoration of Learning (New York, 1955), which incorporates a good
bit of Educational Wastelands. In the postsputnik era, the most popular critic
of education along these lines was Admiral Himan G. Rickover. See his Edu¬
cation and Freedom (New York, 1959).
17. Marilyn Gittell, Participants and Participation; A Study of School
Policy in New York City (New York, 1967), p. 57.
“In New York City,” Jason Epstein reports, “nearly 50,000 children in the
third grade, about 60 percent of the total, read so poorly that according to
the Board of Education, ‘their success in the higher grades is highly unlikely.’
. . . Their failure to learn to read marks the first of a series of failures whose
cumulative effect must be devastating and permanent.” In 1967, only 700 of
30,000 academic diplomas awarded to graduates of the city high schools went
to Negroes. Jason Epstein, “The Politics of School Decentralization,” New
York Review of Books, 6 June 1968, p. 29.
18. Mario D. Fantini, in his foreword to Marilyn Gittell’s Participants
and Participation, pp. vii-viii. Fantini, a Ford Foundation official, was execu¬
tive secretary of the 1967 Mayors [Lindsay] Advisory Panel on Decentrali¬
zation of the New York City Schools. McGeorge Bundy, Ford Foundation
president, was the panel’s chairman.
19. See George Rosen, Democracy and Economic Change in India (Berke¬
ley, 1966), table E3, p. 307.
Notes to Pages 92-102 407

20. See, for example, William Munroe Newton, History of Barnard, 1761—
1927 (Vermont Historical Society, 1928), vol. 1, pp. 199-209.
21. See chap. 5, this volume, for other dimensions that help explain Raja¬
sthan’s rapid rate of growth.
22. It is in the interest of the opposition to build a record against the
government in legislative debates. The opposition is therefore likely to empha¬
size negative features of local management of primary education.

7. Educational Structures and Political Processes in Faizabad District,

Uttar Pradesh
1. J. P. Naik, “The Role and Problems of Private Enterprise in Educa¬
tion,” in I.S.S.-Feres Consultation of Principals of Christian Colleges, Tambram,
1967, The Christian College and National Development (Madras, 1967), pp.
124-125.
2. Personal communication, March 29, 1967.
3. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Education
Commission 1964—1966 (New Delhi, 1967).
4. An unambiguously negative view of primary and secondary education
by an observer whose concerns are with quality judged by professional stand¬
ards is to be found in an article by Edward Shils, “On the Improvement of
Indian Higher Education,” in A. B. Shah, ed„ Education, Scientific Policy and
Developing Societies (Bombay, 1967). “The students are ill-prepared by their
secondary schools for work at the level of higher education. They come in¬
creasingly from families with little background; their vocabularies are limited,
their capacity for assiduous application to their studies is untrained. They
have had little experience of independent study; they have learnt by unthinking
memorization and their curiosity has not been encouraged.”
5. Anil Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism; Competition and Col¬
laboration in the Later Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1968), p. 18.
6. Ibid., p. 20, quoted by Seal from Government of India, Home Depart¬
ment (Education), Resolution of the Government of India on State Aided
Education (18 June 1888). Home Department Proceedings (Education), P.P.
1888,77, pp. 375-386.
7. Seal, Emergence of Indian Nationalism, p. 21.
8. A large, intradistrict subdivision employed for administrative and judicial
purposes. Faizabad district has four tehsils.
9. See H. A. Gould as follows: “Traditionalism and Modernism in U.P.:
Faizabad Constituency,” Economic Weekly, August 18, 1962, pp. 1342-1350
(reprinted in Myron Weiner and Rajni Kothari, eds., Indian Voting Behaviour
[Calcutta, 1965]); “The Incident of the Fish: A Sociological View of Con¬
temporary Politics,” in Robert F. Sakai, ed.. Studies on Asia (Lincoln, Ne¬
braska, 1963); “Religion and Politics in a U.P. Constituency,” in Donald E.
Smith, ed., South Asian Politics and Religion (Princeton, 1966), and Chang¬
ing Political Behavior in Rural Indian Society,” Economic and Political Weekly,
Special Number, Bombay, 1967. m
10. See the Rudolphs’ observation in “Regional Patterns of Education,
chap. 5, this volume. “Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which rank ninth and fifteenth
with respect to per capita income and eleventh and twelfth with respect to per
408 Notes to Pages 102-113

capita expenditure on education, tie for fourth position with respect to sec¬
ondary school enrollment.”
11. Higher secondary schools take the student through the eleventh year
of education. Intercolleges are institutions which take the student up through
his intermediate arts degree, which comes three years after higher secondary
school or, in other words, at the fourteenth year of education. Obtaining the
intermediate arts degree, then, is roughly equivalent to completing junior col¬
lege in the United States. The Education Commission, 1964-1966, has recom¬
mended that in states such as Uttar Pradesh, where higher secondary education
now extends to the eleventh year, an extra year be added prior to commence¬
ment of matriculation.
12. For more details on these aspects of Uttar Pradesh politics, see Paul
Brass, Factional Politics in an Indian State: the Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh
(Berkeley, 1965).
13. About $350 to $400. (The exchange rate at the time of this writing is
Rs. 7.5 = $1.)
14. Susanne Rudolph points out in a private communication, “It is well
to keep in mind that the conditions for founding and maintaining institutions
are probably less onerous in U.P. than in at least some other states with
stronger administrative and political traditions. Thus Madras State required
that all private aided schools opened after 1948—9 provide an endowment of
Rs. 35,000 (Rs. 15,000 for the middle school stage, Rs. 20,000 for the high
school stage). Schools opened since 1965-6 must provide Rs. 70,000 of en¬
dowment. Nor are these requirements easy to circumvent.” She cites Govern¬
ment of Madras, Department of Education, General Education in the Madras
State (Madras, 1966), p. 16.
15. Interview, 12 March 1967.
16. A middle-range peasant caste variously ranked as “Vaisya” or “Touch¬
able Sudra” in the local culture.
17. See Brass, Factional Politics in an Indian State.
18. A Punjabi business caste widely distributed throughout India.
19. See Brass, Factional Politics in an Indian State.
20. The name indicates that he is of the Ahir caste, which like Jai Ram
Varma’s Kurmi caste is in the backward classification of castes.
21. For a useful study of the manner in which Congress tickets are ap¬
portioned, see Rameshray Roy, Economic and Political Weekly, 31 Decem¬
ber 1966; 7, 14 January, 11, 18 February 1967.
22. The Legislative Council, the second legislative or upper house in Uttar
Pradesh, is equivalent in structure to the Rajya Sabha in Delhi and the House
of Lords in England.
23. Prior to 1967, many of the constituencies in Faizabad district had
other names and slightly different boundaries. For simplicity’s sake, however,
I have used the current names only. Further precision is unnecessary for the
purposes of this chapter.
24. For the best account of the ideological and factional differences be¬
tween the Gandhians and the socialists in Uttar Pradesh, see Paul Brass,
Factional Politics in an Indian State.
25. Most of his support among Muslims was generated by the Majlis-e-
Mushawarat. The Majlis-e-Mushawarat is an organisation which came into
Notes to Pages 119-123 409

being prior to the 1967 general elections for the purpose of representing Mus¬
lim interests in India through political action. The Majlis is a political pressure
group whose purpose is to induce Muslims to cast their votes in elections for
candidates of any party who subscribe in fact or in principal to the “People’s
Manifesto” which the organization has issued. In the words of the “Manifesto”:
“We decided that the Muslims should give up weeping and wailing and should
try to regain their lost energies and strive for a change in the prevailing con¬
ditions" (p. 3, italics in the original).
26. Joseph R. Gusfield, “Equality and Development: Education and Social
Segmentation in Modern India,” forthcoming in a volume based on papers
prepared for the Comparative Education Conference, University of California,
Berkeley, California (March 25-27, 1966), ms. p. 8.
27. See T. N. Madan’s and B. G. Halbar’s contribution to this volume for
a more detailed discussion of this matter.
28. Joseph R. Gusfield, “Equality and Development: Education and Social
Segmentation in Modern India,” ms. p. 41.

8. Caste and Community in the Private

and Public Education of Mysore State

1. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Education

Commission, 1964—1966 (New Delhi, 1966), p. 18.
2. C. Arnold Anderson, “The Modernization of Education” in Myron
Weiner, ed., Modernization: The Dynamics of Growth (Washington, D.C.,
1966), p. 78.
3. See D. N. Majumdar and T. N. Madan, An Introduction to Social
Anthropology (Bombay, 1956), pp. 137-140.
4. See Robert Redfield, The Primitive World and Its Transformation
(Ithaca, 1953), and Peasant Society and Culture (Chicago, 1956).
5. “Particularism” and “universalism” are used throughout this paper in the
sense bestowed upon these terms by Parsons and his colleagues. See Talcott
Parsons and Edward A. Shils, eds., Toward a General Theory of Action (Cam¬
bridge, Mass., 1952), p. 82.
6. See A. L. Mudaliar, Education in India (Bombay, 1960) and R. K.
Mookerji, Ancient Indian Education: Brahmanical and Buddhist (London,
1951).
7. K. S. Vakil and S. Natarajan, Education in India (Bombay, 1966), p.
96.
8. Syed Nurullah and J. P. Naik, A History of Education in India (Dur¬
ing the British Period) (Bombay, 1951), p. 164.
9. Vakil and Natarajan, Education in India, p. 143.
10. Ibid., pp. 137, 140-141.
11. Writes B. B. Misra in The Indian Middle Classes: Their Growth in
Modern Times (Bombay, 1961), p. 283: “The Government thus adopted a
policy of laissez-faire in education. As a result, educational expenditure, espe¬
cially on government secondary and primary schools, registered a marked de¬
cline. In about three years local taxation and popular endowments took over
nearly three-fourths of the burden. Encouraged by this result, the Government
reaffirmed its policy ‘to avoid entering into competition with private enterprise’.
 410 Notes to Pages 124-131

It declared that its duty was to pioneer the way; ‘but, having shown the way,
it recognizes no responsibility to do for people what people can and ought to
do for themselves’ (Government of India, Education Department, Education
in India, Quinquennial Review, 1886-1904).”
12. Nurullah and Naik, A History of Education in India, p. 260.
13. See J. P. Naik, The Status of Private Enterprise in Indian Education
{in the Post-Independence Period), mimeo. (New Delhi, 1965), p. 12.
14. The senior author was at that time teaching at the Kamatak University,
Dharwar, and therefore Dharwar district was chosen primarily for reasons of
convenience. Belgaum district was included in the study at a later stage when
the authors became aware of the importance of the Kamatak Liberal Edu¬
cation Society which has its headquarters in Belgaum city.
15. Postgraduate institutions were excluded according to the terms of the
grant from the National Council of Educational Research and Training.
16. Lingayats, also known as the followers of Virashaivism, are a sect
whose Hindu status is being debated among themselves. Non-Lingayats regard
them as Hindus, however. The founder of the sect, Basava (A.D. 1132-1168),
was bom a Brahman. See Hardekar Manjappa, Basava: The Dimension of
Universal Man (Dharwar, 1966). They are the most numerous community in
the state of Mysore (about 20 percent of the population), and dominate its
politics. Their rather weak rivals are the Vokkaligas, a Hindu peasant caste,
who constitute about 14 percent of the total population. See M. N. Srinivas,
Caste in Modern India and Other Essays (Bombay, 1962), pp. 32-34.
17. Interview schedules were the principal instrument employed to gather
data. In addition, records and reports of various kinds were studied. These
included prospectuses of educational societies, annual reports, minutes of meet¬
ings pay bills, admission and school attendance registers, audited statements
of accounts, annual statistical returns, and personal staff files.
18. For Mysore state, particularly the old Mysore areas, see G. S. Halappa,
History of the Freedom Movement in Kamatak, vol. 2 (Bangalore, 1964),
and also, Government of Mysore, Report of the Educational Survey in Mysore
State, 1958, pt. 1 (Bangalore, 1961). D. C. Pavate’s Memoirs of an Educa¬
tional Administrator (New Delhi, 1965) contains many insightful observations
on the former Bombay Presidency.
19. Government of India, Report of the Education Commission 1964—
1966, p. 251.
20. For details of the data and the sources, see B. G. Halbar and T. N.
Madan, “Caste and Educational Institutions in Mysore State,” mimeo. (Dhar¬
war, 1966), pp. 137-143.
21. The facts and figures are taken from Government of Mysore, Hand¬
book on Education 1964-65 (Bangalore, 1965).
22. A revised grants-in-aid code was announced in June 1967, following
the government’s decision to make secondary education free beginning in the
academic year 1966-67.
23. Source: unpublished statistics made available by the Office of the
Director of Public Instruction in Mysore, Bangalore. There are four universities
in Mysore state, one each at Mysore, Dharwar, Bangalore, and Hebbal. The
last of these is an agricultural university.
24. Cf. Government of India, Report of the Education Commission 1964-
Notes to Pages 132-146 411

66, p. 253: “Their [private educational institutions] main assets are: strong
ties with the local community on whom they depend for support. . . . Their
main weaknesses are two: a precarious financial position . . . , and, very
often, a bad and even unscrupulous management.”
25. See Lloyd I. and Susanne H. Rudolph, “The Political Role of India’s
Caste Associations,” Pacific Affairs, 33, no. 1 (1960), pp. 5-22, and T. N.
Madan, “The Changing Political Functions of Caste in India” in B. Singh and
V. B. Singh, eds., Social and Economic Change (Bombay, 1967), pp. 208-
225.
26. For the manner in which managements of educational societies are
constituted, see chap. 7 in this volume.
27. Government of India, Census of India, 1931, Mysore State, vol. 25,
pt. II, table 14.
28. The proportion of Marathas in the population of Bel gaum city is con¬
siderably higher than in the district as a whole and is partly responsible for
the border dispute between the states of Maharashtra and Mysore.
29. See Pavate, Memoirs of an Educational Administrator, pp. 118-132.
30. Data on the religion and caste of members of the management and
teaching staff are not maintained by any of the educational societies or their
institutions, and had to be collected through interviews.
Similar data on students are also not available, and had to be looked up in
admission registers and application forms. There is a ban now on the mention
of caste in any application or other records, unless statutorily obligatory or
administratively essential, as in the case of the so-called backward classes,
scheduled castes, and scheduled tribes. In view of these new laws, it may be
difficult in future to conduct research on all aspects of the interaction between
educational institutions and their social environment. Luckily the present study
was conducted during the transitional period, just when data on caste were
beginning to be left out of records.
For comprehensive statistical tables on the composition of managements,
staff and students, see Halbar and Madan, Caste and Educational Institutions
in Mysore State, pp. 91-136.
31. Of the 156 private institutions studied by us, only 19 (12 percent) are
located in rural areas (17 in Dharwar and 2 in Mysore). The smaller number
of educational institutions in rural areas as compared to urban areas limits the
choices open to entrants.
32. See chap. 7, this volume.
33. Personal communication from Professor M. N. Srinivas.
34. Anderson, “The Modernization of Education,” p. 76.
35. See C. Arnold Anderson and Mary Jean Bowman, eds., Education and
Economic Development (London, 1966).
36. See, for example, Philip J. Foster, Education and Social Change in
Ghana (London, 1965), and Hans W. Weiler, ed., Education and Politics in
Nigeria (London, 1965).
37. M. N. Srinivas, Social Change in Modern India (Bombay, 1966), p.
140.
38. Susanne H. Rudolph, “Transcript, Conference on Politics and Educa¬
tion,” New Delhi, June 28-30, 1967, discussion on draft of the present paper
by T. N. Madan and B. G. Halbar, mimeo., pp. 17-18: “Now it is the same
412 Notes to Page 147

sort of development that we discover as we look at caste in politics. The

meaning of caste today is different from what caste meant in the political sys¬
tem of traditional villages. . . . What it meant to some extent was that . . .
people were related to one another as superiors and inferiors. The caste struc¬
tures that move into politics tend to be groups of peers horizontally organized,
and in that sense quite a different cultural construct.”
39. Glynn Wood, who knows the old Mysore region better than we, writes
in a personal communication to the senior author: “The situation has deterio¬
rated from the Brahman point of view so that domination is hardly apt. When
one considers that well over half of all university students in princely Mysore
in 1945 were Brahman, it is not surprising that large numbers have turned
up on the staff of the public (educational) institutions. However, it should
be noted that the position of the Brahman on the staff of these institutions
since World War II has not been particularly happy. While Brahmans have
been hired because of the general lack of qualified persons in other communi¬
ties, as you point out about the Lingayat institutions in Mysore district, po¬
sitions of power and prestige (department chairmanships and principalships)
have almost invariably gone to the non-Brahman.”
40. See Lloyd I. Rudolph, “Transcript, Conference on Politics and Edu¬
cation,” p. 12: “You want everyone to be equal citizens and use the educa¬
tional system for this purpose, and you want citizens to have the freedom to
associate, educate, etc. as they like. These objectives come into conflict. And
this is what is in conflict in Mysore.”
41. Thus, itself unable to satisfy the demand for higher technical education,
the government is unable to prevent even such undesirable practices as the
realization of the “capitation fee” from students who are admitted to private
engineering and medical colleges. Though the government has fixed a ceiling
of Rs. 5,000 per seat, we were told by some responsible informants that the
usual practice is to charge between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 20,000. The student,
however, is given a receipt for Rs. 5,000 only and the balance is credited to
the revenues of the management under “Miscellaneous Receipts.” Part of the
capitation fee, often running into four figures, is thus a kind of graft.
During the financial years 1964—65 and 1965—66 direct government ex¬
penditure on education was 19.7 and 23 percent respectively of the total esti¬
mated expenditure on revenue account.
42. The recommendations of the Education Commission, 1964-1966, are
not clear on the policy to be adopted, as may be seen from the following
quotation in which recommendations (a) and (b) are contradictory.

“The Role of Private Enterprise. (1) The future role of private enterprise in
education should be broadly on the following principles; (a) as most private
enterprise has played an important role in the development of education in
modern India, the State should make all possible use of the assistance that
can come from the private sector for the development of education, (b) The
State has now rightly assumed full responsibility to provide all the needed
educational facilities and private enterprise can, therefore, have only a
limited and minor role.” Government of India, Report of the Education
Commission 1964-1966, p. 667.
Notes to Pages 148-149 413

9. Rural Local Politics and Primary School Management

1. This chapter is a trend analysis in the specific context of Rajasthan. The
analysis is based on the following sources: Panchayati Raj Research Project,
Department of Economics and Public Administration, University of Rajasthan,
“Report on the Management of Primary Schools under Panchayati Raj, a
Study in the Jaipur District,” mimeo. (Jaipur, 1967); cited hereafter as “The
Jaipur District Report”; Cell of Applied Research in Rural Politics and Ad¬
ministration, Department of Political Science, University of Rajasthan, “An
Opinion Survey Report on the Management of Primary Schools under Pancha¬
yati Raj, a Study in the Jhalawar District,” mimeo. (Jaipur, 1967); referred
to henceforth as “The Jhalawar District Opinion Survey”; Government of
Rajasthan, The Report of Rajasthan State Primary Education Committee (Jai¬
pur, 1965); henceforth cited as Naik Committee Report, after the name of its
chairman, J. P. Naik; Government of Rajasthan, Report of the Study Team
on Panchayati Raj (Jaipur, 1964), popularly known as Sadiq Ali Committee
Report, after the name of its chairman, and hereafter cited as such; a content
analysis of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly Proceedings, hereafter referred to
as REAP; and a set of select informal but intensive interviews.
2. Panchayati raj was introduced in Rajasthan in November 1959. As an
institutionalized mechanism of rural local government, it treats the block as
the key unit of decentralization and has a three-tier institutional structure
which consists of: the panchayat at the village level with its members (pan-
chas) elected on a ward basis and its chairman or head (sarpanch) elected
by all the adult residents of the panchayat, both on the basis of universal
adult franchise; the panchayat samiti at the block level with the sarpanchas of
the constituent panchayats as its ex officio members and its chairman or head
(pradhan) elected by an electoral college of the sarpanchas and panchas of
its area; and the zila parishad at the district level with the pradhans of the
panchayat samitis as its ex officio members and its chairman or head (pra-
mukh) elected by an electoral college consisting of all the sarpanchas, pra¬
dhans, members of the state legislative assembly (MLA), and members of
parliament (MP) of the area. The block development officer (B.D.O.), popu¬
larly known as Vikas Adhikari (in charge of development) is the administra¬
tive officer attached to the panchayat samiti.
3. See table 40. We have made very rough extrapolations of the 1965
figures given there.
4. RLAP, 1, no. 21 (June 12, 1967) (Barkatulla Khan, minister for edu¬
cation). The quotations have been translated from Hindi.
For further details see Naik Committee Report, pp. 56—58. The “Jaipur
District Report” (with which I was associated as deputy director of the project)
earlier reported on similar lines, stating:

The transfer of the management of primary schools to the Panchayati Raj

institutions has meant:

i) Mobilisation of local leadership in boosting up the cause of primary edu¬

cation and consequently the increase in the primary schools and the rais¬
ing of local resources to a limited extent;
414 Notes to Pages 149-151

ii) Organization of a better system of on the spot supervision and control;

and
iii) Facilities to teachers in terms of regular and more convenient payment of
salaries, better access to authorities and quicker redress of difficulties (p.
23 ) •

5. For the governor’s speech, see RLAP, 1, no. 3 (4 May 1967), pp. 59-
60. For data on primary school attendance in 1965—66, see Government of
India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Education Commission, 1964—
1966 (Delhi, 1966), table 9, p. 590.
6. RLAP, 1, no. 21 (12 June 1967) (Barkatulla Khan, Minister for Edu¬
cation).
7. RLAP, 9, no. 20 (22 March 1966) (Bhairon Singh, Jan Sangh), pp.
4447-4456. 6 ^
The difficulty in enrolling children from the poor and subjected is partially
explained by the persistence of “untouchability” in village India. The commis¬
sioner for scheduled castes and tribes in his report covering 1966-67, noted,
untouchability persists in Gram Panchayats.” For a summary of the report
by a staff correspondent, see the Statesman (Delhi), 1 July 1968, p. 7.
For an over-all view of the problem see Barbara Ravene’ll (Joshi), “The
1965^U^e<^ <~aS^eS an<^ Panchayati Paj>” M.A. thesis, The University of Chicago,

8. Naik Committee Report, p. 16: “To sum up, the Committee found that
the quality of education has been adversely affected during the last 15 years.
This is due to several factors. To begin with, there has been an unprecedented
expansion of education and a large majority of children in elementary schools
belong to the first generation to be educated. The fall in standards due to
this social cause cannot probably be helped at this stage of our development.
But the deterioration has been also due to a number of avoidable available
factors such as the failure to provide adequate buildings and equipment, the
non-provision of text books and writing material to all children, the failure to
develop an adequate and high quality programme of training elementary teach¬
ers, ineffective supervision and the general demoralization in the ranks of
teachers because of transfer of primary schools to Panchayati Raj institutions”
(Emphasis added).
9. RLAP, 7, no. 12 (1 March 1965), p. 4543 (Man Singh Mahar,
Swatantra). 6
10. RLAP, 8, no. 8 (7 March 1960), p. 1799. The “Jaipur District Report”
also noted as early as 1962: “The first and in order of priority certainly the
most important problem is how to safeguard the management of primary
schools against the baneful effects of politics” (p. 23).
11. The Statesman (Delhi), 1 July 1968, p. 5.
12. For an elaboration of the point in the context of rural leadership,
see: Iqbal Narain, “Democratic Decentralization and Rural Leadership in
1013 :1022 R^aSt^an ExPeiarnent,” Asian Survey, 4, no. 8 (August 1964), pp.

13. For an empirical probe of the process of interaction, see Iqbal Narain
and Associates, “Political Behaviour in Rural India: The Case of a Panchayat
Notes to Pages 151-153 415

Election in Rajasthan,” Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, 5, no. 2

(July 1967), pp. 109-129.
14. For an empirical discussion of the process, see G. B. Mathur, “Link
Politics: A Case Study,” in Iqbal Narain, ed., State Politics in India (Meerut,
1967), pp. 608-618.
15. RLAP, 8, no. 5 (7 March 1960), p. 1799. See also RLAP, 1, no. 18
(4 April 1962), pp. 2963-2964 (Laxmi Chand, Jan Sangh), 2972-2975 (Hari
Prasad Sharma, Jan Sangh), 3071-3072 (Govind Sahai, Jan Sangh); 4, no. 15
(21 August 1964), pp. 150-152 (Jodh Singh Chauhan, Jan Sangh); 5, no. 38
(4 April 1964), pp. 11-14 (Shrimati Sumitra, Congress); and 9, no. 25 (28
March 1966), p. 108 (Maharawal Laxman Singh, Swatantra).
16. RLAP, 3, no. 16 (19 March 1963), pp. 3277-3278 (Govind Singh,
Congress). See also RLAP, 18, no. 8 (7 March 1960), p. 3302 (Digvijaya
Singh, Swatantra); 1, no. 12 (30 March 1962), p. 1674 (Amar Singh, Swa¬
tantra); and 7, no. 12 (21 March 1965), p. 4747 (Kedar Nath, Independent),
where, after accepting the existence of the phenomenon, the speaker also
struck an optimistic note: “The growing awakening among the masses would
provide the internal checks which would ensure that the teachers are not used
as stooges to fulfil political interests.”
17. RLAP, 8, no. 8 (7 March 1960). Also see RLAP, 10, no. 35 (4 April
1961), p. 8 (Prithvi Raj, Independent); 1, no. 6 (18 March 1962) (Govind
Sahai, Jan Sangh); 1, no. 18 (4 April 1962), pp. 2996-3001 (Mathuresh
Bihari Mathur, Independent); 3, no. 16 (19 March 1963), pp. 3228-3240,
where Jodh Singh of Jan Sangh alleged that Har Lai Chaudhary of Mavali
had been transferred nine times within two and a quarter years. See also RLAP,
3, no. 16 (19 March 1963), p. 3268 (Shyopat Singh, Communist); and 9,
no. 9 (9 March 1966), pp. 1453-1457, where Jai Narain Salodia (Swatantra)
pointed out, “The teachers who keep away from politics are transferred to
distant places.”
18. In the light of the experiences of other state, central, and all-India
services, the experience of Rajasthan’s primary school teachers with respect to
transfers is neither unique nor extraordinary. To politicians, transfer is an
immediately effective and legally legitimate means to gain compliance from
civil servants.
19. RLAP, 1, no. 21 (12 June 1967) (Mahendra Singh, Jan Sangh).
20. Jai Narain Salodia cited the following case, “The newly elected pra-
dhan of Niwai is doing the same. The B.D.O. who resisted the mid-term trans¬
fers on the ground that they would harm teaching was transferred. The pradhan
then had a free hand in the transfers, which were made on political grounds.
The secretary, zila parishad, and the collector were approached to exercise a
check. But they too failed and subsequently more transfers were made.” RLAP,
9, no. 9 (9 March 1966), pp. 1453-1457.
21. Naik Committee Report, p. 22. RLAP, 1, no. 18 (4 April 1962), pp.
3072-3074 (Pohu Mai, Congress).
22. Interviews with the officers of the education department at the state
and district levels and a review of representations made by Rajasthan Shikshak
Sangh (an all-Rajasthan association of primary school teachers) has led me
to draw these conclusions.
416 Notes to Pages 153-156

23. RLAP, 1, no. 12 (10 March 1965), Q. no. 275, pp. 2366-2367.
24. T. H. is the short form of Tazirate Hind (Indian Penal Code). Accord¬
ing to Article 342 of the code, whoever wrongfully confines any person shall
be punished with imprisonment of up to one year or with a fine of up to Rs.
1000, or both.
25. To fight against mounting corruption the Rajasthan government, on the
pattern of the central government, set up a vigilance commission in 1964 to
examine the complaints made by the citizens and suggest action against de¬
faulting officers. It is usually a one-man commission, the vigilance commissioner
being a person of the status of a high court judge appointed by the state gov¬
ernment. The commission, though an independent body, is only advisory in
character. It submits an annual report to the state legislature; since its juris¬
diction excludes politicians, its importance in fighting corruption is reduced.
26. RLAP, 5, no. 20 (18 March 1964), Q. no. 513, 296-298. See also
RLAP, 8, no. 8 (7 March 1960), p. 1799, where the Jan Sangh leader com¬
plained: “The teachers who are used to further the interests of and propagate
for the ruling faction, do not care to take the classes. They travel with the
pradhan in his jeep and are marked present for that.” Also, see RLAP, 1, no. 21
(21 June 1967), where Mahendra Singh of the Jan Sangh alleged: “The pri¬
mary school teachers . . . have to take into account and abide by the wishes
not only of the pradhans and the sarpanchas but of their ‘yes man’ as well.
Naturally the teachers find less time to devote to their business. The teachers
are also developing a taste for politics. They side with the party in power in
order to secure more facilities and to assure less control over irregular open¬
ing of the schools.”
27. The name of the person who replied on behalf of the government is
unavailable.
28. See RLAP, 2, no. 2 (22 October 1962), p. 2098, where Shri Man
Singh Mahar (Swatantra) said: “The teachers, the poor fellows, have to suffer
a lot. Earlier, they had to please only one master, the inspector. But now they
have to seek the pleasure of not only the pradhan and the B.D.O., but of all
the panchas and sarpanch as well.” A more telling observation has been made
by the Jan Sangh leader, Bhairon Singh. “Earlier only one, the inspector, was
a raja, but now there are too many rajas.” RLAP, 8, no. 8 (7 March 1960).
29. RLAP, 8, no. 8 (7 March 1960). Also, see RLAP, 1, no. 26 (24 April
1962), p. 4803, where Ghasi Ram Yadav (Congress) described PR as an
irresponsible government within a responsible government.
30. RLAP, 8, no. 4 (1 March 1960), p. 793 (Narottam Lai Joshi, Con¬
gress).
31. RLAP, 1, no. 3 (16 March 1962), pp. 127—128 (Maharawal Laxman
Singh, Swatantra); also 1, no. 19 (19 April 1962), p. 3131 (Man Singh Mahar,
Swatantra), where the speaker alleges that the teachers were advised to can¬
vass for the Congress candidates in general elections; 7, no. 24 (27 March
1965), p. 6045 (Amar Singh, Swatantra, who found fault with the appoint¬
ment of teachers as polling officers as they are politically involved); and also
p. 6103 (Umrao Singh Dhabaria, Samyukta Socialist Party).
32. RLAP, 1, no. 21 (6 June 1967) (Badri Prasad Gupta, Independent).
Fateh Singh (Swatantra) also alleged: “The teachers of primary schools along
with other teachers had participated in electioneering on behalf of Congress
Notes to Pages 156-157 417

candidates in Beawar constituency. They travelled in jeeps and organized

meetings. Complaints were made against them during the period of election¬
eering to the Returning Officers, I.O.S., and Director of Education. But no
action has been taken against them. Does it mean that higher officials are also
a party to it? The teachers openly said that they had instructions from the
chief minister and education minister to do so.” RLAP, 1, no. 21 (6 June
1967).
33. RLAP, 3, no. 16 (19 March 1963), p. 3236, where the Jan Sangh
MLA alleged: “How manipulation and interference goes on in the samiti
schools is evident from the following letter [of a B.D.O. to the head master
of a primary school]:

You have not followed the instructions from the office. Neither has the said
student been promoted, nor has his character been mentioned as satisfactory.
Now this is the last warning. Do in accordance with the instructions.
In case you fail to do that, you will be considered suspended by July 16.
You are guilty of that now. The student has already been granted special
promotion.

And in spite of that, the teacher has been transferred at 25 miles distance and
his increment has been stopped for 2 and a half years.”
The details of the case, however, could not be obtained and therefore it
could not be verified whether the headmaster was guilty of corrupt practice,
which would have invited administrative intervention. The case was quoted on
the floor of the house as a case of politico-administrative interference in edu¬
cational administration.
34. RLAP, 4, no. 8 (28 October 1963), p. 79 (Gokul Prasad Sharma,
Congress).
35. A militant wing of the Hindu-oriented Jan Sangh party.
36. See the verdict of the Naik Committee Report: “Worst of all, political
pressures have come into the picture and the inspection of schools is no longer
the purely academic function it once was or should always be” (p. 15).
37. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of Fourth Na¬
tional Seminar on Compulsory Primary Education (New Delhi, 1964), pp.
81-82.
38. RLAP, 1, no. 26 (29 April 1962), p. 4803 (Murli Dhar Vyas, PSP).
39. See RLAP, 3, no. 12 (3 March 1963), pp. 2258-59, where Man Singh
Mahar (Swatantra) makes a plea to close unproductive schools (that is, schools
with fewer than forty students) without any party considerations; 4, no. 9
(9 March 1966), p. 1473, where Shankar Lai (Congress) alleges that “the
samitis open new schools to take political advantage without considering the
number of students; and 1, no. 21 (17 June 1967), where Kedar Nath (Sam-
yukta Socialist Party) calls “the expansion of primary education as totally
unplanned and haphazard” because “the schools have been opened on political
considerations.”
40. RLAP, 4, no. 15 (21 October 1964), pp. 123-138 (Umrao Singh
Dhabaria, SSP).
41. For example, Murli Dhar Vyas (Praja Socialist Party), citing Educa¬
tion in Districts of Rajasthan, pointed out that Rs. 147,600 have been spent
418 Notes to Pages 157-158

in primary education in Udaipur, the chief minister’s home district, while in

Bikaner, only Rs. 34,000 have been spent. (RLAP, 8, no. 14 [16 March 1960],
p. 3009.) The significance of this discrepancy could only be fully determined
by investigating the relative populations and previous educational progress in
the two districts, which has not been done here. It is generally known that
Bikaner state was ahead of Udaipur in education at independence.
42. See the observation of the Naik Committee: “After assessing the
situation from every point of view, the Committee feels that, during the last
15 years, the morale of the elementary teachers has been adversely affected,
especially after the transfer of primary education to the Panchayat Samitis”
(Naik Committee Report, p. 13). In this connection, J. P. Naik said elsewhere:
“We must realize that the quality of elementary education is just proportional
to the morale of the elementary teachers and that this would be the highest
in government service and lowest in the service of a local body where every
teacher is forced, willy-nilly, to become a pawn in a local political game.” J. P.
Naik, Elementary Education in India: The Unfinished Business (Bombay,
1966), pp. 47-48.
43. For elucidation of the point see RLAP, 9, no. 2 (9 March 1966),
p. 1489, where Chosar Singh (Swatantra) alleges that the teachers in the
samitis have become the servants of the pradhan and the BDO; and RLAP,
1, no. 4 (5 May 1967), p. 106, where Maharawal Laxman Singh (Swatantra)
finds “primary schools under the samitis” to be “a mockery of the whole of
the eductional system. The teacher who should be given high regard is con¬
sidered as a servant by the local leaders. This is a tragic situation.”
44. For examples of exceptional misbehavior, see RLAP, 9, no. 3 (24
October 1960), Q. no. 87, pp 480-488, where Dr. Bahadur Singh (Congress)
poses the question of misbehavior of a sarpanch and an upsarpanch with a
woman teacher, which the panchayat minister confirms; RLAP, 10, no. 10
(20 September 1966), pp. 102—207, where Ramanand Agarwal (Communist
Party of India) moves a motion of adjournment on the beating of a teacher
in a panchayat samiti with the connivance of police and where the government
promises an immediate enquiry; and RLAP, 9, no. 36 (14 March 1966), pp.
126-127, where a call attention motion is moved on an allegation of a teacher
having been badly beaten by a sarpanch.
45. RLAP, 1, no. 5 (5 June 1967) (Manohar Singh Mehta, Independent).
See chap. 9, note 32, this volume.
46. RLAP, 14, no. 14 (11 March 1964), pp. 127-130 (Bhairon Singh,
Jan Sangh).
47. The latest position with regard to the teachers’ grievances was summed
up by a spokesman of the Rajasthan Teachers’ Association in a press confer¬
ence and reported in the Statesman (Delhi), July 1, 1968.

The teachers were completely fed up with the panchayat samitis which
harassed them by transferring them from one place to another. The teachers,
he added, had to work for 12 hours a day.
Besides teaching the students in school, they were forced to take up adult
literacy classes in the evenings. Also every teacher had to compulsorily de¬
posit money in small savings and if he refused, he was transferred.
Most of the teachers, the spokesman added, were not paid their salaries for
Notes to Pages 158-162 419

three or four months because the panchayat samitis were short of funds.
Arrears of pay and allowances amounting to nearly Rs. 50 lakhs had not been
paid since 1959, he said.
The spokesman also said that the Association had drawn attention of the
department authorities in this connection. According to him, meetings had
been called thrice in this connection but nothing had been done.

48. Eighteen teachers were interviewed; four of these were managing single
teacher schools; of these, two were women. In all, thirteen officials and fifty-four
elected PR officials were interviewed.
49. Impression as recorded by our interviewer.
50. It is interesting to note that two out of five women teachers (already
included in the total in table 42) said that they did not know, while one denied
involvement and two affirmed it.
51. Protection against transfer to distant places can be cited as an ex¬
ample. Teachers are sometimes more concerned to cover irregularities than to
protect their legitimate interests. For example, teachers do not always stay at
the headquarters, as they are required to do under the law. Consequently they
often are late in reaching the school. They can live away from headquarters
only with the connivance of the elected representatives and block officials.
52. The question was not put to teachers, as it was rather delicate for them
to answer.
53. Letter No. EDB/P1/III/23742/12/67 (by courtesy of the Jt. Secre¬
tary).
54. Naik Committee Report, pp. 115-116.
55. “Jaipur District Report,” appendix 4, which embodies a note on the
control of the schools, develops the idea of the autonomous managerial pattern.

In order to insulate the school management from political influences, the

Panchayat Samiti might be relieved of all their administrative responsibilities
in matters of school management. As we have separate Nyaya Panchayat so
we could have separate school Panchayat also. While suggesting this, it is cer¬
tainly not the intention to take education away from the hands of the repre¬
sentatives of the local community. The local community would still be in the
overall control of it, because it will elect members of the school Panchayat or
school Panchayat Samiti. This will have two-fold advantages:

(i) The local community will have a tendency to elect people who are in¬
terested in education since they are to administer only schools and noth¬
ing else.
(ii) As has been the experience elsewhere in such an election, politics is
likely to have only a secondary role to play. The suitability of the per¬
sons concerned will be a primary consideration for the present day Pan¬
chayat and Panchayat Samiti election. This is just the other way at
present.

Thus for educational purposes the community will have a separate chain of
institutions — School Panchayat, School Panchayat Samiti, and School Zila
Parishad, etc.
On average a School Panchayat should have three members, School Pan¬
chayat Samiti might have five to seven members, and School Zila Parishad
might have 15-20 members. The small numbers will ensure integrity and effi-
420 Notes to Pages 163-173

ciency. In a Panchayat area it might not be difficult to select three good per¬
sons who are really interested in providing good educational system. If larger
number of persons are to be elected at this level, standards must of necessity
be lowered.
At all the levels that this could be provided for at least Vs of total member¬
ship should come from teachers. In these school Boards Vs members should
be elected by the local community, another Vs should be nominated from
amongst the persons employed in these educational institutions as teachers.
These bodies will be separate statutory bodies and should not be subor¬
dinate to the Panchayat or Panchayat Samiti, otherwise their very purpose is
likely to be defeated. Their term of office may be two years. Normal practice
should be that they are not paid for serving on the Boards. However, a small
fee to meet the out of pocket expenses might be admissible.

56. Naik, Elementary Education in India, p. 48.

57. The cross reference is to an earlier recommendation which reads:

The remaining persons should not be elected members of the Municipality

and should have any one or more of the following qualifications:

(1) A Graduate of a University (or a person with an equivalent qualifica¬

tion) with three years standing;
(2) A teacher in a college with not less than two years experience;
(3) A Headmaster of a Secondary School with five years experience or an
Assistant Master in the Secondary School with 10 years experience;
(4) The Headmaster of a Primary/Middle School with 15 years experience
or a primary/middle school teacher with 20 years experience; and
(5) A retired officer of the Education Department in the State.

58. Naik Committee Report, pp. 118-119.

10. Autonomy and Consensus under the Raj:

Presidency (Calcutta); Muir (Allahabad); M.A.-O. (Aligarh)

1. The description which follows is based on the enabling acts of the three
older universities; the later universities were founded on the same pattern.
James Alexander Richey, ed., Selections from Educational Records, pt. 2, 1840-
1859 (Calcutta, 1922), pp. 408-423.
2. The office of rector of the Calcutta University was later created for the
lieutenant-governor of Bengal. For the particular histories of the five univer¬
sities, see Pramathanath Banerjee, ed., Hundred Years of the University of
Calcutta (Calcutta, 1957); S. R. Dongerkerry, A History of the University of
Bombay, 1857-1957 (Bombay, 1957); University of Madras, History of Higher
Education in South India, vol. 1, University of Madras, 1857-1957 (Madras,
1957), K. K. Mehrottra, ed., Seventieth Anniversary Souvenir, University of
Allahabad (Allahabad, 1957); J. Bruce, A History of the Punjab University
(Lahore, 1933).
3. The bachelors degree was required for admission to the university law
classes, and the first arts degree usually required for admission to the medical
college.
Notes to Pages 174-178 421

4. This was an intermediate examination taken after the first two of four
years devoted to the bachelors degree.
5. The same was true for the masters in the anglo-vernacular high schools,
who taught the university curriculum and prepared students for the university
matriculation or college entrance examination.
6. Presidency College, Calcutta, Centenary Volume, 1955 (Alipore, West
Bengal, 1956), pp. 1-3 (no author given).
7. Banerjee, Hundred Years of the University of Calcutta, pp. 10—11.
8. Presidency College, Calcutta, Centenary Volume, pp. 1-3.
9. Ibid., p. 4.
10. Ibid.
11. India Office, Notes to Public Despatches to Bengal and India, vol. 35,
despatch dated 12 September, 1854, no. 62 Public (Educational).
12. Presidency College, Calcutta, Centenary Volume, pp. 15, 22, 23.
13. John Eliot, Presidency College, Annual Report for the Year Ending
31 March 1893 (without publishing information), in the Presidency College
Library; W. C. Wordsworth, Quinquennial Report on the Presidency College
and the Attached Institutions for the Quinquennium ending 31st March 1917
(Calcutta, 1918).
14. The only other affiliates which offered masters degree courses were
the colleges at Dacca and Gauhati (both government colleges), in English,
and the Scottish Church College in Calcutta and the Victoria College in Cooch
Behar, in philosophy. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education De¬
partment, Deposit-November 1916, no. 19.
15. Calcutta University Commission, 1917-19, Report, vol. 1, pt. 1, Analy¬
sis of Present Conditions (Calcutta, 1919), p. 414.
16. Government of Bengal, Proceedings in the General Department, Edu¬
cation Branch, A-22, May 1869, nos. 25—31.
17. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Educa¬
tion Branch, A-14, August 1869, nos. 19-22.
18. Ibid.
19. From the principals’ annual reports, on file in the Presidency College
Library.
20. James Sutcliffe, Presidency College, Annual Report for 1872-73, and
Alexander Pedler, Presidency College, Annual Report for the Year Ending
31 March 1896 (without publishing information), both on file in the Presi¬
dency College Library; Wordsworth, Quinquennial Report on the Presidency
College.
21. Rs. 12 was the tuition fee through most of the nineteenth century,
supplemented by a scholarship program financed by the Bengal government.
22. The following is drawn from information gathered from interviews,
memoires, and reminiscences of government college students and professors.
23. Presidency College, Calcutta, Centenary Volume, p. 18.
24. Presidency College Magazine, Silver Jubilee Number, 25, no. 2 (March
1939).
25. Presidency College Magazine, 2, no. 2 (September 1915), pp. 126-
134.
26. Henry Rosher James, Problems of Higher Education in India (Cal¬
cutta, 1916),pp. 78-79.
422 Notes to Pages 179-184

27. Premanath Banerjee, ed., Hundred Years of the University of Cal¬

cutta, Supplement (Calcutta, 1957), p. 1.
28. University of Calcutta, Minutes for the Year, 1868-69 (Calcutta,
1869), pp. 146-147.
29. Government of the North-Western Provinces, Proceedings in the Gen¬
eral Department, A-November 1870, nos. 17-23.
30. Ibid.
31. Government of the North-Western Provinces, Proceedings in the Edu¬
cation Department, A-November 1872, nos. 29-47.
32. Government of the North-Western Provinces, Proceedings in the Edu¬
cation Department, A-November 1873, no. 8.
33. There is no mention of the vernacular examinations in the provincial
education records in connection with the Muir Central College after 1884;
the examinations may have been transferred to a different set of institutional
auspices.
34. This is largely an educated guess. The university records, including the
Muir records, were destroyed in 1960 for want of storage space; nor were the
Muir principals’ annual reports reprinted in the North-Western Provinces ga¬
zette until well into the twentieth century. The information is drawn from
impressions based upon settlement patterns and social patterns in Allahabad,
some family histories, and a number of interviews which seemed to confirm
these impressions.
35. Government of India, Indian Education Commission, Report of the
Indian Education Commission (Calcutta, 1883), pp. 585-602 (“Recommen¬
dations”) .
36. Government of the North-Western Provinces, Proceedings in the Edu¬
cation Department, B-February 1884, nos. 1-4.
37. Government of the North-Western Provinces, Proceedings in the Edu¬
cation Department, A-September 1887, nos. 1-62.
38. University of Allahabad, Calendar for the Year 1893-94 (Allahabad,
1894), pp. 155-157; Calendar for the Year 1920 (Allahabad, 1920), pp. 417-
421; Minutes for the Year 1890 (Allahabad, 1890), p. 95; Minutes for the
Year 1920 (Allahabad, 1921), pp. v, xi.
39. Amaranatha Jha, ed., A History of the Muir Central College, 1872-
1922 (Allahabad, 1936), pp. 111-47.
40. Jha, A History of the Muir Central College, p. 17.
41. Ibid., pp. 129-147.
42. Mehrottra, Seventieth Anniversary Souvenir, University of Allahabad
p. 98.
43. Government of the North-Western Provinces, Proceedings in the Edu¬
cation Department, A-June 1873, nos. 29-41.
44. Government of the North-Western Provinces, Proceedings in the Edu¬
cation Department, A-June 1873, nos. 29-41; B-January 1879, no. 1; A-Jan¬
uary 1883, nos. 3-9.
45. The day was Queen Victoria’s birthday. Theodore Morison, The His¬
tory of the M.A.-O. College, Aligarh, From its Foundation to the Year 1903
(Allahabad, 1903), pp. 60, 62.
46. Ibid., pp. 25, 65, 66, 67.
Notes to Pages 184-189 423

47. Times (London), 7 September 1899, p. 8.

48. Theodore Beck, The Principal’s Annual Report for 1895-96 (Aligarh,
1896), pp. 2-3.
49. Arnold later joined the Indian Educational Service in the Punjab,
and Morison went on to become a member of the secretary of state’s India
council in England. During Beck’s time, a total of twelve British professors
joined the Aligarh staff for varying periods; Morison, History of the M.A.-O.
College, Aligarh, p. 67.
50. Letter from Theodore Beck to Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, dated March
19, 1896; in the Azad Library, Aligarh Muslim University.
51. File in the record room, council house, Lucknow, marked only File
no. 40 of 1918, a block file in the education department relating to Aligarh.
52. Theodore Beck to Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, 19 March 1896.
53. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Educa¬
tion Branch, A-June 1907, nos. 76-79.
54. Interviews, especially with Mr. Nirmal Chandra Bhattacharyea, Cal¬
cutta, May 1967.
55. N. K. Sinha, Asutosh Mookerjee, A Biographical Study (Calcutta,
1966), pp. 7-8. I have used the spelling used in the government records, and
found most often in the contemporary press.
56. Sir Asutosh was vice-chancellor from 1906 to 1914, and again from
1921 to 1924, but during the intervening years, he was still the controlling
force in the formulation of university policy. Sinha states, “The two Indian
Vice-Chancellors had walked in the footsteps of Sir Asutosh Mookerjee and his
ascendency in university affairs was never shaken.” A commentator in the
Times of London was less polite, calling him a “virtual dictator.” Sinha,
Asutosh Mookerjee, pp. 6, 7, 32, 121; Times (London), June 3, 1931, p. 11.
57. The act was based on the recommendations of the Raleigh commission
of 1902; see Government of India, Indian Universities Commission, Report
of the Indian Universities Commission (Simla, 1902).
58. Banerjee, Hundred Years of the University of Calcutta, pp. 248-249.
59. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-
January 1917, nos. 41-45.
60. University of Calcutta, Minutes for the Year 1916, Senate and the
Faculties (Calcutta, 1917), pp. 93-109.
61. University of Calcutta, Minutes for the Year 1914, pt. 1 (Calcutta,
1915), pp. 200-229.
62. University of Calcutta, Minutes for the Year 1913, pt. 5 (Calcutta,
1914), p.1818.
63. Ibid., p. 1819, and University of Calcutta, Minutes for the Year 1914,
pt. 3 (Calcutta, 1915), pp. 572-574.
64. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-
March 1914, nos. 26-32.
65. The book was Education and Statesmanship in India, 1797 to 1910
(Calcutta, 1910). Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Depart¬
ment, A-November 1916, nos. 4-6.
66. From James’ service history published annually by the Bengal govern¬
ment, and the Times (London), June 3, 1931, p. 11; William Christopher
 424 Notes to Pages 189-194

Wordsworth, “Principal Henry Rosher James,” Presidency College Magazine,

25, no. 2 (March 1939), p. 117; Government of Bengal, Proceedings in the
General Department, Education Branch, B-December 1907, nos. 7—13.
67. Government of Bengal, Proceedings in the General Department, Educ-
cation Branch, A-November 1913, no. 24.
68. Presidency College Magazine, 38, no. 1 (September 1953), pp. 15-20.
69. Homell was a retired member of the Bengal education department.
70. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, De¬
posit-April 1914, no. 21.
71. James, Education and Statesmanship in India, p. 139.
72. James, “Progress, 1906-1916,” Presidency College Magazine, 3, no.
3 (January 1917), pp. 179-189; Government of Bengal, Proceedings in the
General Department, Education Branch, A-May 1910, nos. 28-9.
73. The students’ consultative committee was formed in 1913 to bring the
students and principal in closer touch with one another. Wordsworth, Quin¬
quennial Report on the Presidency College, p. 4; Government of Bengal,
Proceedings in the General Department, Education Branch, A-November 1913,
no. 24.
74. James, Education and Statesmanship in India, pp. 137—138.
75. Government of Bengal, Proceedings in the General Department, Edu¬
cation Branch, A-November 1913, no. 24.
76. Henry Rosher James, Report on the Presidency College and the At¬
tached Institutions for the Year 1912-13 (Calcutta, 1914), pp. 5-6.
77. Government of Bengal, Proceedings in the General Department, Edu¬
cation Branch, A-March 1909, nos. 51-54.
78. Ibid.
79. Henry Rosher James, Report on the Presidency College for the Quin¬
quennium and Year Ending 31 March 1912 (Calcutta, 1913), pp. 11-12.
80. Government of Bengal, Proceedings in the General Department, Edu¬
cation Branch, A-March 1915, nos. 1-3.
81. University of Calcutta, Minutes of the Year 1917, Part V (Calcutta,
1918), pp. 1840-1871.
82. Calcutta University Commission, 1917-19, Report, vol. 7, Evidence
and Documents, General Memoranda and Oral Evidence, p. 435.
83. Calcutta University Commission, 1917-19, Report, vol. 10, p. 416.
84. Government of Bengal, Proceedings in the General Department, Edu¬
cation Branch, A-November 1913, no. 24.
85. The word actually used by Oaten was “barbaroi” which, as he ex¬
plained to the students, meant non-Greek speaking. Presidency College Maga¬
zine, 25, no. 2 (March 1939), p. 116; Edward Farley Oaten, My Memories
of India (unpublished manuscript, Archives, Centre of South Asian Studies,
Cambridge University), p. 42.
86. Oaten did not recall the incident concerning the correspondence de¬
scribed by P. N. Banerjee, the student editor, but in a recent interview he pre¬
sumed that if he had been annoyed it would have been because the editor ap¬
parently expected him “to enter into a correspondence on a very serious
accusation with an anonymous contributor.” Oaten, My Memories of India,
pp. 42-43; interview with Mr. E. F. Oaten, Walton on Thames, Surrey, Eng¬
land, 26, 27 February 1969.
Notes to Pages 194-198 425

87. Presidency College Magazine, 25, no. 2 (March 1939), p. 116.

88. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-
June 1916, nos. 122-27.
89. Oaten, My Memories of India, p. 43.
90. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-
June 1916, nos. 122-27.
91. Interview with Mr. E. F. Oaten, Walton on Thames, Surrey, England,
26, 27 February 1969; Oaten, My Ale modes of India, p. 45.
92. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-
June 1916, nos. 122-27.
93. Oaten had no recollection of the second incident, and it is not men¬
tioned in his My Memories of India. In a personal letter, however, he recalled,
“I suffered repeated infringements of the rule about noise in the corridors. . . .
The Committee referred only to two incidents that had been brought to their
notice. This was natural, as on the other occasions there were no incidents. . . .
The fact [was] that I was intolerably provoked, quite possibly by the political
element in the College, the result being frequent disturbance of my lectures.”
Letter from Mr. E. F. Oaten, dated 24 March 1969.
94. Oaten, My Memories of India, pp. 43-45; interview with Mr. P. K.
Basu, the student who claimed to have been assaulted by Oaten. Mr. Basu de¬
scribed Principal James’ treatment of him as fair and courteous throughout.
Calcutta, May 1967.
95. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-
June 1916, nos. 122-27.
96. Ibid.
97. Ibid.
98. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-
November 1916, nos. 4-5.
99. Ibid.
100. Eventually, on condition of a public apology, the Bengal government
agreed to retract the suspension, and place the fifty-four year old James on
long leave preparatory to retirement. Government of India, Proceedings in
the Education Department, A-June 1916, nos. 122—27; A-November 1916,
nos. 4—6.
101. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-
June 1916, nos. 122-27.
102. Calcutta University Commission, 1917-19, Report, vol. 7, p. 229.
103. The charges against Oaten were never proved. When the college re¬
opened in July of 1916, he returned to find an amicable situation, and taught
there for two and one-half months. In mid-September, because the war in
Europe had depleted the Indian Army of British officers, he was given a com¬
mission in Probyn’s Horse, an elite Indian Cavalry regiment, and served for
two and one-half years on the North-West Frontier and in the Punjab. He
returned to Bengal in April of 1919 as principal of the Hughli College, and
eventually rose to be director of public instruction in Bengal in 1924. Govern¬
ment of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-June 1916, nos.
122-127.
104. The masters students enrolled at Presidency took their courses at the
university after 1917.
426 Notes to Pages 198-207

105. The Times (London), 16 June 1947; The Muir Central College
Magazine, 5, no. 1 (September 1918), p. 2.
106. Marris eventually rose to become governor of the United Provinces.
File in the record room, council house, Lucknow, marked only File no. 40 of
1918, a block file in the education department relating to Aligarh.
107. Government of the United Provinces, Selections from the Native
Newspapers Published in the United Provinces, Received up to the 16th Febru¬
ary 1907 (without page number or publishing information).
108. Government of the United Provinces, File no. 40 of 1918.
109. Ibid.
110. The following narrative is a reconstruction drawn largely from Com¬
mittee of Inquiry, Report of the Committee of Inquiry at Aligarh (Aligarh,
1907), pp. 7-17.
111. Ibid., p. 17.
112. From the Lucknow Advocate of March 7, 1907; Government of the
United Provinces, Selections from the Native Newspapers Published in the
United Provinces, Received up to the 16th March, 1907 (without page num¬
ber or publishing information).
113. Archbold revoked his rustication order for six students when he
was informed of the Nawab’s promise, but by that time the students had al¬
ready left the college. Committee of Inquiry, Report of the Committee of
Inquiry at Aligarh, p. 17.
114. Ibid., p. 11.
115. A place was found for Archbold in the Indian Educational Service
as principal of the government college at Dacca. Collection of printed papers
in the Azad Library, Aligarh Muslim University, Dated 25 March 1909.
116. Government of the United Provinces, File no. 40 of 1918.
117. Minutes of the Proceedings of a Consultation Meeting of the Trust¬
ees, held on the 24th, 25th, and 29th of April 1909 at the house of the
Hon’ble Nawab Sir Faiyez Ali Khan Bahadur, Aligarh, p. 1 (in the collection
of the Azad Library, Aligarh Muslim University).
118. James, Education and Statesmanship in India, pp. 83-84.
119. Ibid., pp. 121-122.
120. Sir Asutosh opposed Chittaranjan Das in the early 1920’s when the
latter called upon the Calcutta University students to leave their classrooms for
political action. Sir Asutosh told the students to stay in their classrooms.
121. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, B-
October 1917, no. 112.

11. Parochialism and Cosmopolitanism in University Government;

The Environments of Baroda University

1. These included the Central Library, the Oriental Institute (1927), the
Kalabhavan (Polytechnic), the College of Indian Music, Dance and Dramatics
(1881), the Baroda Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya (1915), the Pratap Singh College
of Commerce and Economics (1942), and the Secondary Teachers Training
College (1935). See Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Thirteenth
Annual Report, 1961-62 (Baroda, 1962). Other sources of university history
are the records of the K. M. Munshi Committee, Government of Baroda, Re-
Notes to Pages 207-211 427

port of the Baroda University Committee (Baroda, 1948); Saraswati S. Pandit,

“A Study of the Development of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda
(1949-1965),” M. Ed. Dissertation, MS University of Baroda, 1966; and Gov¬
ernment of Baroda, The Report of the Baroda University Commission (Ba¬
roda, 1927), the report of an earlier, aborted attempt to establish a university.
2. The university’s founding preceded by a year the “derecognition” of the
last ruling maharaja for attempting, in a manner characteristic of the energy,
if not the prudence, of his line, to create a combination of princes who might
reconsider accession to the Indian union. V. P. Menon, The Story of the Inte¬
gration of the Indian States (Calcutta, 1956), pp. 425-430. Menon quotes
Baroda’s contention that the merger agreement (to accede to India) “was with
the Dominion Government and not its successors,” that is, the Republic of
India (p. 427). Menon also discusses the other causes of Baroda’s loss of
recognition.
3. For the industrial development of Ahmedabad, including the traditional
quality of its merchants, see K. L. O. Gillion, Ahmedabad: A Study on Indian
Urban History (Berkeley, 1968).
4. See Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, The Modernity of
Tradition, Political Development in India (Chicago, 1967), pt. 2, “The Tradi¬
tional Roots of Charisma: Gandhi.”
5. See chap. 5, table 20, this volume.
6. For the partisan commitments and ideological orientations of Baroda’s
industrial elite see Howard L. Erdman, “Political Attitudes of Baroda Indus¬
trialists,” in the “Review of Management” section of the Economic and Po¬
litical Weekly, 4, no. 29 (29 November 1969), pp. M 117-M 122.
7. Gujarat Vidyapith is the other exception.
8. The other districts in west India (Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and
Madhya Pradesh) with high license rates are Poona, eighty-one; Surat, fifty-
one; Jamnagar, twenty-eight; Rajkot, twenty-three; Bhavnagar, twenty-two;
Kaira, twenty-two. No other west Indian district tops twenty. See Government
of India, Census of India, 1961, General Report on India, vol. 1, pt. 1A (i),
“Levels of Regional Development in India,” and table 15, “Industrial Licenses
Issued between January, 1953 and March, 1961, under the Industries (Develop¬
ment and Regulation) Act, Classified by Major Industrial Groups and by Dis¬
trict to which Issued,” (no page).
9. Ibid., p. 298.
10. Of the 2572 university-recognized colleges in 1965-66, 163 were uni¬
versity colleges. One hundred of 163 were associated with 27 affiliating uni¬
versities and 63 with unitary universities. There were 1,327 university teaching
departments functioning in 1965-66, 766 associated with 56 affiliating uni¬
versities (an average of 13.6 per university) and 561 associated with 18 unitary
universities (an average of 31.2 per university). These calculations are based
on Government of India, University Grants Commission, University Develop¬
ment in India; Basic Facts and Figures, 1965-66 (New Delhi, 1968), appendix
1(c), “University Colleges,” pp. 225-226, appendix 1(d), “Affiliated Col¬
leges,” pp. 227-228, and appendix 2(a) “University-wise Distribution of Teach¬
ing Departments,” pp. 229—230, read together with table 2, “Location, Year
of Establishment, Type and Territorial Jurisdiction of Universities as on 1, 7,
1966.”
 428 Notes to Pages 211-213

11. There were twenty unitary and forty-four affiliating or federal uni¬
versities in 1966. See UGC, University Development in India, 1965-66, table
3. Enrollment figures are given in appendix 4(b) and (c), pp. 236 and 237.
The respective totals are 207, 558, and 1,281,215.
12. Lucknow had 17,528 students in 1966-67. See Government of India,
University Grants Commission, University Development in India; Basic Facts
and Figures, 1966-67 (New Delhi, 1969), table 7, “University Enrollment,”
p. 27.
13. Ibid., pp. 189-190. Lucknow with 18.3 percent had fewer than one
fifth.
14. See Joseph DiBona, Change and Conflict in the Indian University
(Durham, N.C., 1969), and Philip Altbach, ed., Turmoil and Transition:
Higher Education and Student Politics in India (Bombay, 1968).
15. Christopher Jencks and David Riesman, The Academic Revolution
(Garden City, N.Y., 1969), pp. 61-64.
16. For a detailed analysis of this period see Subhash Kashyap, Politics of
Defection; A Study of State Politics in India (New Delhi, 1969).
Tamil Nadu and Gujarat are among the eight (of sixteen, excluding Naga¬
land) states that have been governed by the same party or coalition since
March 1967, when governments were formed after the fourth general elec¬
tion. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are the most and next most unstable among
the remaining eight with seven governments and two spells of presidential
rule, and five governments and two spells of presidents rule respectively. There
was a change of government in the technical sense in Tamil Nadu when M.
Karunanidhi became chief minister in February 1969, after the death of C. N.
Annadurai. We are indebted for this information to Vraj Mohan Sinha, “The
Challenges of 1970 s for Public Administration,” a paper presented at the
Annual Conference of the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New
Delhi, 24 October 1970, cyclostyled, appendix 1.
17. See chap. 5, table 20, columns 2, 4, and 6, this volume. For the social
rates of return to education, see Amartya Sen, “The Crisis in Indian Educa¬
tion, (The Lai Bahadur Shastri Memorial Lectures, delivered March 10 and
11, 1970), cyclostyled.
Sen also argues that enrollment data based on education ministry reporting
is likely to be substantially inflated and cites census data for 1961 that show
primary school enrollment in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar not only to be the lowest
in the country but also at about half the level shown in chap. 5, table 20,
column 2; that is, they had 30 and 29 percent respectively of the relevant age
group (six to eleven years) enrolled compared to a national average for 1960—
61 (based on education ministry figures) of 62.8 percent.
In 1965, university enrollments per million were, Gujarat, 3,990; Tamil
Nadu, 2,800; Uttar Pradesh, 4,614; and Bihar, 2,437. UGC, University De¬
velopment in India, 1965-66, table 13, “University Enrollment and Popula¬
tion,” p. 38. We have not used the summary measures of university enrollment
in chap. 5, table 2, column 10, this volume, because the Uttar Pradesh figures
do not include students enrolled under the Uttar Pradesh Board of High School
and Intermediate Education, which has jurisdiction over intermediate edu¬
cation (classes XI and XII). Of the 374,447 university enrolled students in
Uttar Pradesh in 1965-66, 240,000 (approximately two-thirds) were under
Notes to Pages 213-216 429

the Board. This proportion holds for the 1960-61 data, raising the figure in
chap. 5, table 20, column 10, this volume, from 1.5 to 4.5. For enrollments
under the Uttar Pradesh Board, see UGC, University Development in India,
1965-66, appendix 3, “Enrollment Statistics Relating to Intermediate Board,
U.P., 1963-64, 1964-65, 1965-66,” pp. 232-234.
18. The higher benefits that accrue to engineering and medical as against
arts education are both individual and collective (social). We recognize the
difficulties involved in establishing how and to whom or to what benefits ac¬
crue at the collective levels. Incomes of engineers and doctors are higher than
those of arts graduates, and we assume here that their potential contribution
to “productivity” under favorable conditions of employment and of economic
growth is higher too. Under the conditions of unemployment for engineers and
even doctors that characterized the Indian economy in the late 1960’s, it is a
wasteful investment from a social if not from a political point of view to subsi¬
dize at the margin such expensive professional education. But the failure of
government policy to expand production and welfare at rates that absorb the
output of engineers and doctors is as much the “cause” of such waste as is the
pressure of political demand to provide access to seats that yield high private
benefits.
19. Calculations based on UGC, University Development in India, 1965-
66, table 21, “State-wise and Faculty-wise Distribution of Enrollment,” p. 93.
On a per million basis, the figures for arts faculty enrollment in 1965-66 were:
Gujarat, 1,417; Tamil Nadu, 856; Uttar Pradesh, 1,954; and Bihar, 1,277. Per
million enrollment for engineering and technology and for medicine in 1965-
66 was: Gujarat, 476; Tamil Nadu, 391; Uttar Pradesh, 156; and Bihar, 197.
Gujarat’s higher per million enrollment in arts than Bihar’s is a reflection of
Gujarat's over-all higher enrollment levels, and of the fact that Bihar’s edu¬
cational pyramid is not as top-heavy as that in Uttar Pradesh. Although Gujarat
has more B.A.s per million enrolled than does Bihar it also has more than
twice as many engineering and technology and medical students enrolled (476
to 197).
20. For an extended version of this argument and a survey of the relevant
literature, see Rudolph and Rudolph, The Modernity of Tradition, especially
pt. 1, “Traditional Structures and Modem Politics: Caste.”
21. These data are drawn from Kansas State University, “Enrollment by
State and Protectorate, Fall Semester, 1966-67,” mimeo. (n.d.), kindly sup¬
plied to us by William Richter; U.S., Office of Education, Residence and
Migration of College Students (Washington, D.C., 1939), table B, p. 6; Report
of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments, 1965-66
(Cambridge, 1967), table 9 of the report of the Admission and Scholarship
Committee; University of Chicago, Director of Admissions and Aid, “A Bio¬
graphical Sketch of the Class of 1971,” (Chicago, 1971, mimeo.), p. 2; The
University of Sussex, “Admissions: Annual Statistical Report (Shortened Ver¬
sion), 1964-65,” (Sussex, n.d., mimeo.), table 13, p. 12, kindly supplied to
us by Professor Anthony Low; and Clemens Geissler, Hochschulstandorte,
Hochschulbesuch (Hanover, 1965), tables 26.1 to 26.14, pp. 42-55, kindly
supplied to us by Mrs. Paul Fischer.
22. Christopher Jencks and David Riesman, The Academic Revolution
(Garden City, 1968), pp. 179-180.
430 Notes to Pages 217-226

23. Interviews with IAS probationers studying at the National Academy of

Administration, Mussoorie, November 1962.
24. The records were made available due to the courtesy of officials of the
various faculties and the support extended to the research by the vice-chancel¬
lor.
25. Until 1956-57, average annual growth at MSU was 300 students; since
then, the average annual growth has been 700-800.
26. The figures, based on a one-fifth sample of students admitted to the
B.A. program, are thirty-one Bihar students out of the sample of thirty-four
in 1936 and sixty-three out of sixty-nine in 1963. For the city of Patna, the
figures are seven of thirty-four in 1936 and thirty-five of sixty-nine in 1963.
Personal communication from Ramashray Roy.
27. Table 54 (arts faculty) shows a slight decline in Baroda and Gujarat
residents from 88 percent to 85 percent of all students between 1955—56 and
1965-66. There may even have been more residents in 1955-56; 8 percent
failed to give residence. The science figures (table 53) are inconclusive be¬
cause of the high percentage (28 percent) unknown in 1955-56. If we use
the arts records as guidance and predict on the basis of their distribution, these
unknowns are locals. But we cannot with certainty allocate the science un¬
knowns anywhere. It would not be proper to conclude, however, that the
number of local residents has been rising.
28. Of the city’s 284,705 residents, 43,999 were bom out of state or out
of India. Government of India, Census of India, 1961, vol. 5, “Gujarat,” pt.
2 C, cultural and migration tables, pp. 410 and 616.
29. Of Gujarat s 5,316,624 urban dwellers, 500,187 were born out of
state or out of India. Ibid., pp. 218-221.
30. Discussion of a preliminary version of this chapter at the Sociology
Seminar, Delhi School of Economics, Summer 1967, first drew our attention
to this point. The seminar included a number of distinguished ex-Barodans.
We are specifically indebted to Arvind Shah.
31. This appears to be one area in which UGC advice, which, as we have
suggested in the introduction, is not always adhered to, appears to be taken
seriously. MSU of Baroda, Faculty of Technology and Engineering, Prospec¬
tus, 1966-67 (Baroda, 1966), p. 26. S P
32. For the pattern at IIT’s, see A. D. King, “Elite Education and the
Economy: IIT Entrance, 1965-70,” Economic and Political Weekly (Bom¬
bay), 5, no. 35 (29 August 1970).
33. The preparatory science course, which is a precondition for entrance
to the Science B.Sc. course at Baroda, requires that the Senior School Leaving
Certificate exam of Gujarat, or its equivalent, be passed with English, physics,
chemistry, algebra, and geometry as subjects. It is likely that high standard
English language public (private) schools provide better training in these fields
than do state schools. See MSU of Baroda, Prep Unit, Prospectus, 1965-66
(Baroda, 1965), p. 3.
i cf' B' V- Shah’ Social Change and College Students of Gujarat (Baroda,
1964), p. 18. ’
35. United Nations, Patterns of Social Requirement and Occupational
Choice in an Apex Educational Institution, typescript (UNESCO Research
Notes to Pages 226-236 431

entre, New Delhi, 1965-6), table 3, p. 9A. Rural colleges may well show
different figures. In Osmania’s rural affiliates, 89 percent of the students were
the first in their families to go to college. See table 7, p. 15.
36. D. M. Desai and S. S. Pandit, Growth and Development of Maharaja
Sayajirao University of Baroda, 1949-1967 (Baroda, 1968), p. 27.
37. W. S. Titus, writing about “Warning Signals from IITs” in the Hindu¬
stan Times of 26 September 1970, reports that fear of mutual talent grabbing
discourages contacts and communication among the five IIT’s, and between
them and regional engineering and local colleges.
38. Baroda Act XVII of 1949, chap. 7," Article 48. MSU of Baroda, The
Handbook 1961, pt. 2 (corrected up to 1 February 1961) (Baroda, 1961),
p. 31.
39. MSU of Baroda, The Report of the Vice-Chancellor’s Committee on
the Amendment of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda Act (Baroda,
1969), letter from N. Chaudhuri, Dean, Fine Arts Faculty, p. 63.
40. Western Times (Ahmedabad), 31 August 1969.
41. MSU of Baroda, Report of the Vice-Chancellor’s Committee, p. 45.
42. MSU of Baroda, Faculty of Technology and Engineering, Prospectus,
1966-67 (Baroda, 1966), pp. 1-10.
43. D. M. Desai, “Enrollment Trend and Behaviour in Higher Education
in the Gujarat State,” Education and Psychology Review (Baroda), 6, no. 1
(January 1966), p. 14.
44. The ethos and aspiration of the movement are well represented in
MSU of Baroda, General Education Centre, Report of the Regional Seminar
on General Education (December 10 to 14, 1963). This seminar may repre¬
sent the crest of the wave as far as the general education movement in India
is concerned.
45. For some of the program’s difficulties in its early years see MSU of
Baroda, Department of General Education, General Education Annual Report,
1957-58 (Baroda, 1958), pp. 140-153. Some of the difficulties mentioned
there (for example, the need for synopses to provide students with reading
material preparatory to discussion and lecture classes on “great books”) have
been alleviated by the production of syllabi or selections by the General Edu¬
cation Centre on such topics as “Comparative Study of Epic Eastern and
Western with Reference to Homer, Vyasa and Valmiki.”
46. Desai and Pandit, Growth and Development, table 39, p.92.
47. Ibid., table 40, p. 93.
48. The calculations are based on ibid., table 10, p. 40 and table 44, p. 101.
In each case we have related the number of Ph.D.s in a given period to cumu¬
lative annual enrollments in the same period.
49. For the total Ph.D. production in the period 1960-61 to 1963-64, see
chap. 4, tables 2 and 4, this volume. For enrollments during this period, see
Government of India, India, 1969, table 33, p. 66.
50. Desai and Pandit, Growth and Development, table 11, p. 41.
51. The figure for per student cost comes from ibid., table 47, p. 105. The
calculation of real prices is based on a conversion ratio derived from the
statement of 1966-67 values at 1948-49 prices, adopted by the Economic
Survey of 1968-69, cited in Government of India, India, 1969, p. 160.
432 Notes to Pages 236—247

52. Desai and Pandit, Growth and Development, table 32, p. 68. The
figures for science are partly accounted for by the abolition in the mid-1950’s
of the old intermediate course, which had a large number of science students.
53. These efforts, in part a consequence of the presence of the faculty of
education and psychology, its department of educational administration, and
the Centre of Advanced Study in Education (CASE) include: D. M. Desai,
Vital Statistics of the Growth and Development of the Maharaja Sayajirao Uni¬
versity of Baroda (1949-50 to 1966-67), (Baroda, 1967); A. S. Patel, Prob¬
lem of Student Unrest and Indiscipline; a Symposium Report (Baroda, 1967);
D. M. Desai, Some Problems of Education in the Gujarat State (Baroda, 1967);
P. J. Madan and A. S. Patel, eds., Report of the Symposium on University
Administration (Baroda, 1968).
54. The biographical facts come partly from curriculum vitae of the vice-
chancellors made available to us by the vice-chancellor’s office, and partly from
interviews. For an apt discussion of vice-chancellors see Robert Gaudino, The
Indian University (Bombay, 1965), pp. 173-182.
55. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Indian University Ad¬
ministration (Delhi, 1958), pp. 43-48.
56. Western Times (Ahmedabad), 30 August 1969.
57. Loksatta (Baroda), 21 February 1970.
58. Champaklal Shah went on to thank the chief minister of Gujarat,
Hitendra Desai, the chief justice of the Gujarat high court, P. M. Bhagvati,
and the chancellor of MSU, the (ex) Gaekwad of Baroda, Fatehsingh Rao,
“for the interest they have taken and for smoothing the road of selection of
the new vice-chancellor.” The array of persons thanked suggests that external
procedures and voices were involved in the canvassing and selection processes.
59. K. N. Raj’s public letter submitted at the time of his resignation is an
essay on the problems of the Indian university and the vice-chancellor’s role.
“The University and Its Future; an Open Fetter to the Teachers of the Uni¬
versity,” mimeo. (Delhi, 6 October 1970).
60. For a thoughtful discussion of problems concerning vice-chancellor
roles, see D. M. Desai, “Some Recent Thinking on the Role and Appointment
of Vice Chancellors and Pro-Vice-Chancellors in Indian Universities,” in Madan
and Patel, eds., Report of the Symposium on University Administration, pp.
42-47. See also Baroda Act No. XVII of 1949, Clauses 10(1) and (2), 12(1);
and MSU of Baroda, The Handbook, 1961, pt. 2, pp. 8 and 9.
61. The subsequently reversed derecognition of the princes by ordinance in
1970 did not affect the chancellorship of Baroda. In November, the university
senate voted that the Maharaja of Baroda should continue in view of the
services rendered by him and his family to the university. Although the maha¬
raja served as health minister in the government of Gujarat after March 1967,
he did not hold the same constitutional position as a governor acting as chan¬
cellor.
62. Government of India, Indian University Administration, p. 39.
63. In 1967 and 1968, a substantial number of Baroda faculty began to
favor, and the vice-chancellors committee supported, a more complex process
of selection. It would have removed election from the senate and asked the
government (or governor) of Gujarat to choose from a panel of three formu-
Notes to Pages 247-257 433

lated by a committee composed of nominees of the state government, of the

vice-chancellors of Gujarat, and of the senate.
64. “Members of the Senate, MS University of Baroda,” Baroda, no date,
mimeo.
65. K. N. Raj at Delhi believed that the elected teacher members of Delhi’s
academic council, who asked for a review of the case of students he had rusti¬
cated, were asking him to pursue a brokerage function inimical to academic
work.
66. MSU of Baroda, The Handbook, 1961, pt. 2, pp. 15 and 16.
67. For an account of Patel’s election as president of the city Congress
committee, see Loksatta (Baroda), 27 March 1967; for Amin’s and Hathi’s
roles in the Baroda municipal election which was due in 1967 but held in 1968,
see Loksatta (Baroda), 18 March 1967.
68. Swatantra Sarjan (Baroda), 20 August 1967, and miscellaneous inter¬
views.
69. The heads of departments in the arts faculty favored an academic
council, to deal with “courses of studies, medium of instruction, tutorial system,
methods of examination.” MSU of Baroda, Report of the Vice-Chancellor’s
Committee, 1969, p. 59. The academic council was also favored by the sym¬
posium on university administration held in April 1967. Madan and Patel, eds.,
Symposium on University Administration, p. 87.
70. MSU of Baroda, Report of the Vice-Chancellor’s Committee, 1969,
pp. 33 and 53.
71. MSU of Baroda, The Handbook, 1961, pt. 2, p. 11.
72. Interviews and Western Times (Ahmedabad), 31 August 1969.
73. MSU of Baroda, The Handbook, 1961, pt. 2, p. 11-13, and official lists
of the senate.
74. Madan and Patel, eds., Symposium on University Administration.
75. MSU of Baroda, Report of the Vice-Chancellor’s Committee, 1969,
pp. 1-2.
76. Baroda University Teachers’ Association, untitled leaflet (Baroda, 1969).
77. Ibid., p. 7. The committee did not recommend an academic council,
although both the symposium and heads of departments in the arts faculty
favored it. The committee recommended a minuscule increase in teacher repre¬
sentation on the expanded syndicate, from five to seven in a syndicate increased
from fifteen to seventeen. It defended the principle of state nomination of
senate members, but recommended that nominated members be reduced from
twenty-five to twenty members.
78. MSU of Baroda, Seventeenth Annual Report, 1965-66 (Baroda,
1966), p. 173. We have also consulted Ninth Annual Report, p. 7; Eleventh
Annual Report, p. 7; Fourteenth Annual Report, p. 7. The exact figure for
1965-66 was 11,629.
79. MSU of Baroda, Twentieth Annual Report, 1968-69 (Baroda, 1969),
p. 3. The growth in this year was 1.1 percent.
80. MSU of Baroda, The Handbook, 1961, p. 39.
81. See K. N. Raj, “The University and Its Future.”
82. MSU of Baroda, Report of the Vice-Chancellor’s Committee, 1969,
p. 13.
434 Notes to Pages 258-270

83. MSU of Baroda, Statement of Business, Senate Meeting, 31 March

1967 (Baroda, 1967), pp. 6-7.
84. MSU of Baroda, Budget Estimates for 1967-68 (Baroda, 1967). (Sub¬
mitted to the Senate 31 March 1967.)
85. Western Times (Ahmedabad), 31 August 1969.
86. Link (Delhi), 7 February 1965; 14 March 1965; 21 March 1965.
87. Loksatta (Baroda), 2 May 1956.
88. For the opinion of heads of arts faculty departments, see MSU of
Baroda, Report of the Vice-Chancellor’s Committee, 1969, pp. 57-60.
89. See MSU of Baroda, Faculty of Technology and Engineering, Synopsis
of Research and Development Projects in Collaboration with Industries (Ba¬
roda, 1969).
90. The syndicate voted on April 19, 1969, to give 300,000 square feet of
university land to the Baroda municipal corporation, at nominal cost, “for the
purpose of widening of the roads necessary for development, and improvement
of traffic facilities on the road in and around the university campus.” Copy of
the resolution published in Emester (Baroda), 15 August 1969.
91. Western Times (Ahmedabad), 30 August 1969.
92. The proportions for 1965-66 were 40 percent, state government; 7
percent, UGC; and 53 percent, universities own income from fees and endow¬
ments, mostly the former. MSU of Baroda, Budget Estimates for 1967-68,
pp. 2 and 4, “Actuals,” 1965-66.
93. Desai and Pandit, Growth and Development, table 56, “Block Grants
of the State Government to the Baroda University,” p. 116.
94. MSU of Baroda, Report of the Vice-Chancellor’s Committee, 1969, p.
28.
95. The university’s budget memorandum suggests the nature of the three-
cornered relationship between the UGC, MSU, and the state government. MSU
of Baroda, Budget Estimates for 1967-68, p. 146.
96. Desai and Pandit, Growth and Development, p. 117.
97. Desai and Pandit, Growth and Development, table 56, p. 116. The
average percentage of state contributions from 1961-62 to 1966-67, the ter¬
minal date of the table, was 35.
98. MSU of Baroda, Budget Estimates for 1967—68, p. 141.
99. The details are the result of interviews, and may be verified in MSU
of Baroda, Budget Estimates for 1967-68, p. 146.
100. An interview with chancellor William McGill (now president of Co¬
lumbia) in November 1969 confirmed what is apparent from budget alloca¬
tions and manifest differences in size, distribution, and quality of faculty and
students, particularly at the postgraduate level. Such differences arise, in Cali¬
fornia’s case at least, from differential treatment by the president’s office and
by the regents rather than from the legislature.
101. The UGC, to be sure, has also been significant for bread and butter
matters. Its role in “development expenditures” — the buildings for the de¬
partments— has been crucial. From 1953 to 1967 it contributed 71 percent
to such university construction. See Desai and Pandit, Growth and Develop¬
ment. The calculations are based on figures in table 1, p. 22.
102. I. P. Desai, R. F. Kothari, and I. S. Gulati, “Our Universities,”
Seminar (Bombay), March 1960, p. 13.
Notes to Pages 270-276 435

103. Amitai Etzioni, A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations

(New York, 1961), p. 220.
104. Alvin W. Gouldner, “Cosmopolitans and Locals: Towards an Analy¬
sis of Latent Social Roles,” Administrative Sciences Quarterly, 2 (1957), p
288.
105. Raj, “The University and Its Future,” pp. 23-24.
106. In response to the recommendation of the Education Commission,
1964—1966, that selective admission be adopted for higher secondary and
undergraduate institutions, the parliamentary committee that reviewed its re¬
port argued that “every effort should be made to provide admissions to insti¬
tutions of higher education to all eligible students who desire to study further.”
Government of India, Report of the Committee of Members of Parliament on
Education, 1967: National Policy on Education (New Delhi, 1967), p. iv.

12. The Problem of Autonomy: The Osmania University Case

1. Asian Recorder, 1965 (New Delhi), p. 6826.

2. The historical part of this study has benefitted greatly from comments
and sources supplied by Karen Leonard. In her Ph.D. dissertation she traces
the rise of feelings of native Hyderabadis against the influx of outsiders, the
mulki movement, of which the founding of the university was an expression.
For this background see her “The Kayasths of Hyderabad City; Their Internal
History and Their Role in Politics and Society from 1850 to 1900,” Ph.D.
thesis. Department of History, University of Wisconsin, 1969.
3. For further information on this period, see Arthur Lothian, Kingdoms
of Yesterday (London, 1951) and V. P. Menon, The Story of the Integration
of the Indian States (Bombay, 1956), chap. 19.
4. Whether this lack of conflict meant that there were no undesirable
informal consequences of government control — patronage appointments, ad¬
mission of favored students, intervention in teaching curricula — or that these
practices were an accepted part of Osmania and so did not become issues is
not known. Nostalgic teachers looking from the present dispute into the past
argue that the university then had more freedom, but I am dubious.
5. The major exception to the general calm was the Vande Mataram move¬
ment, in which Hindu students went on strike for the right to sing nationalist
prayers in the university hostels and were suspended from the university.
6. Jung personally opposed English as a medium of instruction except for
medicine and engineering. He secured Nehru’s approval for a plan to convert
Osmania into a centrally administered Hindi language university; since spoken
Hindi is very similar to spoken Urdu, this would have effectively maintained
the position of Urdu and Urdu speakers in the university. The plan was dropped,
however, because of opposition from the new political leaders in the state who
feared that a central university would not serve the educational needs of the
surrounding region.
7. The fact that Jung was appointed vice-chancellor even though he had
served the old regime is an indication of his preeminence. One of the few men
in the state with an Oxford degree, he was a good choice to guide Osmania in
its transition.
436 Notes to Pages 276-282

8. See Menon, Integration, chaps. 17-19, and Susan G. Hadden, “The

Telangana Revolt, 1946-1951; The Failure of a People’s National Liberation
Struggle in India,” M.A. paper, The University of Chicago, Spring Quarter
1968.
9. Government of Hyderabad, Department of Statistics and Census, Statisti¬
cal Yearbook, 1941-1945 (Hyderabad, 1946), p. 194.
10. The procedure for affiliation is as follows: the founders of the college
make an application to the university for affiliation. (Affiliation means that the
university agrees to examine and grant university degrees to students of the
college.) In response to this request, the university sends out an inquiry com¬
mittee, chosen by the syndicate, to examine the college facilities and make
recommendations of improvements to be undertaken before affiliation. In al¬
most all cases, the college is affiliated immediately after making a promise to
fulfill the conditions. If the college does not comply, the university may dis¬
affiliate the college, but has never done so.
11. Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Andhra Pradesh Re¬
gional Committee Order, 1958 (Delhi, 1958), schedule 1, clause 4.
12. “Gentleman’s Agreement,” Telengana Mahasabha, typescript, 1958,
point 3. This was an agreement between eight prominent ministers and chief
ministers of the two regions; it has no legal status but is expected to be honored.
The same document also assured that revenue surpluses from Telengana would
be spent only in the region, and that government service posts would be re¬
served for Telengana personnel wherever qualified people were available. Fail¬
ure to observe these provisions generated grievances which erupted in 1969
in a movement to separate Telengana from the state. The employment issue
caused much concern among university students, who initiated the movement.
13. This includes admission into all postgraduate courses, except those
recognized and funded by the UGC as all-India centers, of which there is one
at Osmania. The UGC’s potential influence through other grants has not been
used on this issue.
14. Inter-University Board secretary Amrik Singh agreed that the per¬
sonality and skills of the vice-chancellor are the most important factors in
university administration. Interview, New Delhi, August 1967.
15. The identification with administration is, in part, a legacy of the Indian
Educational Service, and, in part, a manifestation of the “genetic imprint”
that British rule and British founding of Indian universities left on Indian
higher education. See chaps. 2 and 13, this volume.
16. Interview, Hyderabad, September 1967.
17. A former member of the syndicate and admirer of D. S. Reddi’s astute¬
ness declared he did not remember an occasion when the syndicate opposed
the wishes of the vice-chancellor. Interview, Hyderabad, September 1962. This
does not mean, however, that Reddi dominated faculty and other syndicate
members. Many faculty appreciated his willingness to adopt ideas suggested
by them.
18. Interview, New Delhi, August 1967.
19. Osmania is the only Indian university, excepting the Delhi School of
Economics, with four professorships in economics.
20. See Constitution of India, Article 163.
21. Seventy percent of the seats in professional schools are reserved for
Notes to Pages 282-284 437

students from outside Hyderabad city. Osmania University, “Rules of Admis¬

sion,” mimeo. (Hyderabad, 1968), p. 26.
22. Regarding the UGC in Britain see Robert O. Berdahl, “British Uni¬
versities and the State: A Contrast with the American Scene,” appendix B of
Malcolm Moos and Francis O’Rourke, The Campus and the State (Baltimore:
1959), pp. 339-370. For the functioning of the UGC in India, see chap. 6,
this volume.
23. It had been alleged in political and educational circles throughout the
state that vice-chancellor Dr. A. L. Narayana favored his relatives in hiring
staff and interfered in examination results to benefit friends able to help him
with control of the university administration.
24. The text of the report had been serialized in the daily newspapers. An
exacerbating factor in this case was the resentment of the increasing brahman
population of the university, strengthened by the appointment of Narayana’s
relatives. Many of the ministers, who were predominantly Reddis, were from
Andhra, where antagonism between brahmans and non-brahmans arose dur¬
ing the nationalist movement. At about this time the vice-chancellor of Andhra’s
third university, Sri Venkateswara University, also was becoming known for
favoritism toward his caste, the Naidu community. Thus both universities raised
caste issues which aggravated the politicians’ distrust of educationists.
25. For a general discussion of this and other dimensions of vice-chancellor
selection, see chap. 11 and pt. 3, “Editors’ Introduction,” this volume.
26. Interview with P. V. Narsimha Rao, minister of law during the con¬
flict, Hyderabad, August 1967.
27. The three vice-chancellors had been having annual meetings since
1962 to discuss matters of common interest with the state education minister,
but this was a much larger conference.
28. Government of Andhra Pradesh, “Report of the Conference of the
Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh with the Vice-Chancellors and Educationists
on Collegiate and Secondary Education, October 23 and 24, 1964,” mimeo.
(Hyderabad).
29. In a subsequent letter to national education minister, M. C. Chagla,
the chief minister noted that the Radhakrishnan report on higher education
in 1951 had recommended abolition of the election system because of the em¬
barrassing effects of canvassing. Brahmananda Reddy, “Letter to M. C. Chagla,”
released to the press and extensively quoted in Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad),
7 December 1965.
30. By virtue of a five-year contract the Indian vice-chancellor has much
more protection than the American university president. When Clark Kerr was
dismissed from the presidency of the University of California by the regents
at the behest of Governor Ronald Reagan, there were no procedural safeguards
available in what was openly recognized as a politically motivated action.
Similarly, the dismissal in August 1970 of Texas Dean John R. Silber by
regent board chairman Frank C. Erwin Jr. lacked any procedural safeguards.
31. Because this committee was chaired by the chief minister, it could make
significant changes in the bill.
32. This was reported in “Why We Oppose the Amendment Bill,” pam¬
phlet published by the teachers of Osmania University (Hyderabad, November
1965).
 438 Notes to Pages 285-286

33. For similar attitudes in the United States, see Richard Hofstadter, Anti-
Intellectualism in American Life (New York, 1963).
34. Both D. S. Reddi and the law minister who piloted the bill report that
there was no specific reference to future policy issues when the clause was
formulated. Government language policy, as outlined in the chief minister’s
official statement in March 1965, was most concerned with the problem of
securing an equitable division of central government posts among different
language groups. This suggests that the state government did not intend to
press the university for regional language instruction until employment of stu¬
dents trained in regional languages was more secure. Enrollments in courses
in languages other than English bear out the chief minister’s concern for em¬
ployment first. In 1966, the university reported that out of 35,640 students,
only 110 students were enrolled in Hindi language sections, 92 in Urdu lan¬
guage, and 24 in Telugu. These figures did not represent a significant increase
over previous years. “Vice-Chancellor’s Report to the Annual Convocation,”
pamphlet published by Osmania University (Hyderabad, 23 December 1966).
35. Interviews, Hyderabad, August and September 1967.
36. The locus of authority over the language of instruction in higher edu¬
cation has been a subject of national political and judicial debate. See M. C.
Chagla’s resignation as external affairs minister in September 1967, when na¬
tional education minister Triguna Sen tried unsuccessfully to bypass university
and state authority over language of instruction in an effort to replace English
with regional languages within five years. Asian Recorder, 1967 (New Delhi),
pp. 7930, 7932. Note also the supreme court case denying the state government
of Gujarat authority to impose Gujarati as a language of instruction on the
ground that doing so touches the maintenance of national standards in educa¬
tion, a subject reserved for the central government. See chap. 6, this volume,
regarding Gujarat University case.
37. “Why We Oppose the Amendment Bill.”
38. Gautham Mathur, “Autonomy and Osmania University Legislation,”
unpublished pamphlet (December 1965), p. 41.
39. There were several minor provisions which were disputed, also in the
name of autonomy. The clause restricting the choice of outside experts on se¬
lection committees to Andhra natives was clearly unworkable and opposed by
both university and central government authorities. A clause giving the govern¬
ment control over the service conditions of teachers in affiliated colleges was
supported by the university. Thirdly, there were strong objections to the re¬
duction of the vice-chancellor’s term to three years, though others suggested
that this provided a way of insuring his responsibility which was preferable to
a removal clause.
40. Under the Hyderabad general clauses act (Act No. Ill of 1308F) an
appointing authority has power to suspend or dismiss, unless otherwise ex¬
pressly provided. D. S. Reddi, Writ Petition.
41. Interviews with C. D. Deshmukh and Amrik Singh, September and
August 1967. Since the initial passage of the acts the procedures for dismissal
of a vice-chancellor have been tested in court. The vice-chancellor of Kuruk-
shetra University was dismissed when it was discovered that he had not re¬
vealed to the university syndicate at the time of his appointment his compulsory
Notes to Pages 286-290 439

retirement from government service. He took the case to court, which upheld
the syndicate’s right to dismiss a vice-chancellor.
42. D. S. Reddi declared in a meeting of the university senate that the vice-
chancellor was not even accorded the protection and dignity given a minor
employee of the university. Indian Express (Vijayawada), 30 October 1965.
43. Interview with Narsa Raju, advocate for D. S. Reddi, and former ad¬
vocate general of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, September 1967.
44. Several members of the joint select committee were unhappy with the
procedures of the committee and with the results they produced. Three mem¬
bers, all non-Congress party members, none Communists, wrote dissenting
opinions which raised most of the issues that have been discussed above. Among
the spokesmen of political parties, the secretary of the Hyderabad city Com¬
munist party was one of the first to speak out in favor of the teachers. His
statement represented a reversal of the earlier Communist position as expressed
by the state leader, P. Sundarayya, at the 1964 educationists’ conference, where
he had supported provisions that increased political controls. Communists had
been critical of the university for its isolation from society, but found that the
government bills pushed intervention, at least by a Congress government, too
far.
45. This sequence of events conforms with that given in Mathur, “Au¬
tonomy and Osmania University Legislation.”
46. A few of the new universities have failed to meet the rather modest
qualification criteria that IUB inspection committees require, so the IUB
membership does not include all universities. See chap. 6, this volume, for
details.
47. Hindustan Times (New Delhi), 19 November 1965.
48. Statesman (Calcutta), 22 November 1965.
49. Mathur, “Autonomy and Osmania University Legislation,” p. 50. The
vice-chancellor repeated this assurance to an emergency senate meeting the
next day; Daily News (Hyderabad), 24 November 1965.
50. The ambiguity of this third area was what most alarmed university
protagonists.
51. Times of India (Bombay), 23 November 1965.
52. The motive alluded to was their demand that recent pay increases be
made retroactive, a demand which the union had been making for some time.
Daily News (Hyderabad), 24 November 1965.
53. Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad), 22 November 1965.
54. IUB Chairman, Sir C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer, declared, “The committee
felt that vesting of power in the government to give directives or instructions
to the university on matters of educational policy was a serious distraction from
autonomy.”
55. See chap. 6, this volume, for some discussion of this point.
56. Maharastra Times, 6 December 1965 (translated).
57. Patriot (New Delhi), 8 December 1965.
58. The press had given wide coverage to a letter from C. P. Ramaswamy
Iyer, chairman of the IUB, which harshly criticized the acts for violating the
“university’s inherent right to freedom.”
59. Patriot (New Delhi), 10 December 1965.
440 Notes to Pages 290-297

60. Indian Express (Vijayawada), 13 December 1965; Statesman (Cal¬

cutta), 14 December 1965.
61. His news statements in this period were almost a ritual recitation that
his government had no intention of interfering in university autonomy, and
that there were reasons for the bills which no one would acknowledge. Indian
Express (Vijayawada), 6 December 1965.
62. The chief minister said he had a feeling, “that the controversy is a
result of subjective attitudes of interested friends.” Times of India (Bombay),
9 December 1965.
63. D. S. Reddi, press statement, Statesman (Calcutta), 9 December 1965.
64. The professors had raised this issue earlier with the chief minister and
he had declared that he had no intention of removing Reddi. However, the
chief minister had declined to make a public statement to this effect. Mean¬
while there were rumors in Hyderabad that the removal of D. S. Reddi had
been discussed in the select committee hearings. Ibid.
65. Reddi had been interested in becoming vice-chancellor of Thirupathi
University, located in his home region. When chief minister Sanjiva Reddy, of
the same region, refused to appoint him, D. S. Reddi decided to contest the
post, which was formally filled by election. His family and caste ties in the
area enabled him to mobilize a large number of state legislative assembly mem¬
bers on that university’s senate. It was to avoid such a contest that the chief
minister offered D. S. Reddi the Osmania position.
66. D. S. Reddi had remarked that the government had enough other
urgent problems and had unwisely chosen to give priority to a bill which had
been condemned unequivocally. Statesman (Calcutta), 8 December 1965. For
a report of Brahmananda Reddy’s reaction, see Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad),
10 December 1965.
67. Statesman (Calcutta), 19 December 1965.
68. Statesman (Calcutta), 26 December 1965.
69. Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad), 28 December 1965.
70. Indian Express (Vijayawada), 19 May 1966.
71. Mathur, “Autonomy and Osmania University Legislation,” pp. 13-14.
72. See particularly chaps. 1 and 3, and pt. 2.
73. Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad), 14 December 1965.
74. Mathur, “Autonomy and Osmania University Legislation,” p. 27.
75. It is interesting that the attorney general argued on behalf of the state
government that the government had always intended to remove the vice-
chancellor because he had served more than six years, but had found that it
needed new legislation to carry this out. Writ Petition #835 of 1966, in the
High Court of Judicature, Andhra Pradesh at Hyderabad, 13 October 1966
p. 98.
76. Supreme Court of India, Civil Appeal No. 2313 of 1966, D. S. Reddi
vs. Chancellor, Osmania University and others, pp. 27-28.
77. Andhra Reporter (Hyderabad), 22 October 1966.
78. The modesty of the demand suggests the seriousness of the problem.
Such problems are not unique to Indian universities; many departments in
American universities also do not hold such meetings, and there is no forum in
which concerns of junior faculty may be expressed.
79. See “Report of the Committee for Internal Autonomy,” Report of a
Notes to Pages 297-300 441

Sub-committee of the Osmania University Teachers Association, mimeo

(Hyderabad, n.d.).
80. Every teacher has the privilege of taking a specified number of days
per year for any purpose he wishes by securing prior permission. This practice
is common in many Indian institutions.
81. Indian Express (Vijayawada), 28 October 1966.
82. The government could have appointed a new vice-chancellor immedi¬
ately after the stay was lifted by the high court decision, but refrained for one
week while the leave for appeal to the supreme court was being debated. When
that week expired on October 27, it announced the appointment.
83. Indian Express (Vijayawada), 28 October 1969.
84. The next day the OUTA held a mass meeting which adopted a resolu¬
tion that no university could function unless the proper atmosphere was cre¬
ated and maintained. Appointment of the new vice-chancellor in complete dis¬
regard of the teachers’ wishes was unfortunate and could not be binding on the
teachers. We do not recognize it,’ they said.” Indian Express (Vijayawada),
30 October 1966.
85. Telegrams were sent to the speaker of parliament, prime minister,
home minister, education minister, University Grants Commission, Inter-Uni¬
versity Board, Bhupesh Gupta of the Communist party, Madhu Limaye of
the Socialist party, N. G. Ranga and Minoo Masani of the Swatantra party,
Atul Bihari Vajpayee of the Jan Sangh, Ram Manohar Lohia of the Socialists,
C. Setelvad, a respected legal scholar and lawyer, and Sanjiva Reddy, former
chief minister of Andhra Pradesh. Copies of the telegrams were shown to me
by Manzur Alam, professor of Geography, and head of the Hyderabad Metro¬
politan Project, Osmania University, September 1967.
86. Letter from Ravada Satyanarayan to Dr. Narsimha Rao, 31 October
1966 (typed). This letter made it clear that the opposition of the Committee
for Internal Autonomy rested not on personal grounds, but on the lack of con¬
sultation with the university. They urged him not to appeal to judicial sanctions,
but to withdraw in the interest of higher education.
87. Indian Express (Vijayawada), 31 October 1966.
88. Interview, Hyderabad, September 1967.
89. Robert C. Shaw, “Student Unrest in an Indian University,” paper sub¬
mitted to University of Wisconsin College Year in India Program, 2 April 1967.
90. The phenomenon of university administration being intimidated by
student demands has been observed in many different contexts. The situation
at Osmania does not appear as serious as elsewhere, but the trend could be¬
come serious if authorities do not act to curb it.
91. The president of the Class Four Employees Union declared, “In the
university we are able to get many small considerations which we would not
get in government service, such as credit when we need it in a hurry, some
loans, etc. And within the pay scales, set by the syndicate, there is more room
for consideration, for a professor of science has more understanding that a
lab attendant has more work and should be raised to a higher pay scale than
the government would have.” Interview, Hyderabad, September 1967. The
much weaker Class Three Employees Union (the non-gazetted officers asso¬
ciation), also offered their support by abstaining from work.
92. Framing the question in this manner is not meant to suggest that con-
 442 Notes to Pages 301-302

victions about university autonomy were not of prime importance. Rather, 1

wish to focus the analysis here on those who entered at the later stage when
interests within the university were deciding whether, how, and when to act.
93. Dr. Narsimha Rao is from Guntur district, the home district of the
chief minister.
94. Government tried to secure the services of Humayun Kabir and C. D.
Deshmukh, respected national figures in the education field, and B. Gopal
Reddy, a well-liked and cultured former chief minister. When they refused,
the chief minister was still committed to making an appointment, very possibly
against the wishes of advisers in the education department. It is known that
he did not consult the education minister. Indian Express (Vijayawada), 22
November 1966.
95. The situation at Osmania University is different from that at other
universities, for Osmania is the only university with constituent colleges out¬
side the university campus which are run directly by the vice-chancellor. At
the time of the amalgamation with Andhra the university was allowed to keep
these colleges, all but one of which are in the city, as a concession to Telengana
people. The UGC scales are recommended pay scales for university, not col¬
lege, teachers. The UGC agrees to pay the increment for the first five years,
providing the state government agrees to take up the burden after that point.
Due to Osmania’s unique organization, these scales potentially applied to many
more teachers than the UGC intended. When the UGC became aware of this,
it asked the vice-chancellor to suggest some way of differentiating among
teachers. It was therefore decided to amend the new scales on the basis of
merit; then from January 1966 they were applied to all. Whether the extension
of these scales to the whole body of university teachers was purposely done to
mobilize support behind the vice-chancellor is a matter of debate, but the raise
does seem to have contributed to the vice-chancellor’s support in the uni¬
versity.
96. This sentiment was expressed by an opposition leader who said that
the vice-chancellor seemed to think he was the only man in the state who
knew anything about education. Interview, Hyderabad, August 1967.
97. Though the vice-chancellor argued before the high court that the
position should be considered personal property, he spent more money on the
supreme court case than he gained in salary by remaining in office.
98. One thinks, for example, of Harvard’s willingness to make’special ar¬
rangements for scions of old or prominent families and foreign notables, such
as the readmission of Edward Kennedy, who had had his “connection severed”
for having a friend take an examination for him. The action was not unique,
but did at least use discretion in a favorable manner; also the admission of the
son of the then chief of staff of the Pakistan army, General Musa, later gov¬
ernor of East Pakistan, at the behest of the Aga Khan, a graduate and bene¬
factor of the university, even though the son did not have strong secondary
school credentials. It should be added, however, that these arrangements tend
to be limited by the propensity of most faculty not to adjust their standards.
The general’s son did not survive his first year.
99 Another channel for transmitting outside politics to the university arena
was through the politician members of the syndicate: it was they who urged
rejection of the chief minister’s nephew’s medical school transfer. This need not
 Notes to Pages 304-305 443

suggest that their stand on the university issue was motivated by Congress party
factional politics, but it may suggest that their experiences in state politics dis¬
inclined them to trust the motives of the chief minister in the university or to
allow him any more room than they might have received from him in the
state arena.
100. Hindu (Madras), 31 August 1967.
101. Increased funds were needed partly in order to grant the same dear¬
ness allowance to university employees that the state had given its own em¬
ployees. This is an example of the escalation of wage demands throughout the
country. When central rates were increased, state employees went on strike to
have theirs increased, and won their demand just before the 1967 election.
The pressure on the university followed. The total wage bill for university
employees would increase to more than eighteen lakhs in the following year,
1967-68. Osmania University “Note on the Block Grant of Osmania Uni¬
versity,” (n.d.).
102. C. V. H. Rao, “Andhra’s Unsound Finances,” Economic and Political
Weekly, 1 April 1967, p. 632.
103. The vice-chancellor argued, however, that because university requests
are taken into account by the periodic finance commissions that allocate cen¬
trally collected revenues to the states, education’s share of such funds should
be secure rather than subject to arbitrary cuts. The state government held that
finance commission allocations are not tied to specific items in the state budget,
and that therefore the state government is free to appropriate funds as it deems
necessary. For the role of the finance commissions see D. T. Lakdawala, Union-
State Financial Relations (Bombay, 1967).
104. To the credit of the government the university never before complained
of financial limitation, except in such matters as student fee increases. In com¬
parison with many American state universities, Indian universities are much
more financially independent. Their grants extend for five years, eliminating
the annual waiting period before the state legislature acts which many American
state universities must endure. The rhetoric about the need to separate financial
controls from academic decision-making in India shows, however, the increas¬
ing nervousness of educationists about such control. See Moos and O’Rourke,
The Campus and the State, particularly chaps. 4, 10, and 11, for an account
of the financial relationships of U.S. state universities to state governors and
legislators.
105. Some of the roots of the Telengana conflict can be traced back to the
Osmania dispute. University faculty complained of the same feeling of mis¬
understanding and domination by an Andhra-based government, a feeling
which later erupted into the separatist movement. This movement was launched
by Osmania students who complained that they were not getting their share
of jobs, as promised in the agreement which joined Telengana with Andhra.
(All government positions in Telengana were to be filled by Telengana per¬
sonnel. Students complained that many jobs had been given to Andhras; the
government rebutted that Andhras had been employed only when no qualified
Telengana people were available. The roots of the problem extend far beyond
job discrimination, as the similar dilemma over Negro employment in the
United States makes clear.) The pride with which student leaders described
their role in the Osmania dispute suggests that that organizing experience con-
444 Notes to Pages 305-307

tributed to their ability to launch the separatist movement. The Telengana

movement quickly passed out of student hands, however, as political leaders
tapped a number of other grievances and took the movement far beyond the
employment issue to a full separatist demand.
106. See Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Edu¬
cation Commission, 1964—1966, pp. 326—331, for its view of this issue.
107. Rasheeduddin Khan, “The Concept of University Autonomy,” Journal
of University Education, 4, no. 2 (December 1965), pp. 99-104.
108. Gautham Mathur, “Autonomous Universities in a Democratic Com¬
munity, ’ Conspectus, Quarterly Journal of the India International Center,
no. 4 (1966).
109. Model Act, p. 8.
110. Brian Simon, Studies in the History of Education, 1780-1870 (Lon¬
don, 1960), chap. 4, notes that in a time of similar rapid change in Britain,
the parliamentary reports of 1852 on Oxford and Cambridge made arguments
similar to those of Osmania’s socialists: “the universities were national insti¬
tutions ; the colleges were “wholly unable to take the necessary steps”; the
university was in the hands of a “narrow oligarchy,” so that parliament had
every right to intervene.
111. A. D. Bhogle, “Autonomy in a Plan-oriented Society,” Journal of
University Education, 4, no. 2 (December 1965), pp. 104-107.
112. Reddy, “Letter to M. C. Chagla.”
113. Lor a comparative analysis, see chap. 10, this volume, where Irene
Gilbert shows how Muir Central College was saved the conflict over autonomy
to which Presidency was subjected.
114. Theodore P. Wright points out the similarity between Chagla’s inter¬
vention in a dispute at Aligarh Muslim University and his handling at the same
time of the Osmania controversy; in both he upheld secularist cosmopolitan
vice-chancellors. It is interesting that the Aligarh vice-chancellor was Ali
Yawar Jung, who earlier had piloted Osmania through its transition from Urdu
to English and had sought to make it a Hindi-speaking university. Private com¬
munication. See Theodore P. Wright, “Muslim Education in India at the Cross¬
roads: The Case of Aligarh,” Pacific Affairs, 39, nos. 1 and 2 (Spring and
Summer 1966), pp. 50-63. 5
115. Indian universities are not entirely at fault for their failure to engage
in research and contribute to knowledge. Much of the financial support for
these activities has been given to special research institutes or agencies. This
attempt to bypass tradition-bound, politics-ridden universities may have been
the quickest way to enable the recently trained sophisticated modern pro¬
fessionals to get on with their work, but it has deprived the universities of
crucial reinvigoration. See chaps. 4 and 6, this volume.
116. A representative from the government observed, “Our universities
and particularly Osmania have been functioning in isolation, cut away from
the social life, aspirations and frustrations, the song and drama of Andhra
Pradesh. It has been gloating over its own traditions and living on old laurels
making much of the abused expression, cosmopolitan atmosphere” Andhra
Reporter (Hyderabad), 8 January 1966.
117. Theodore P. Wright points out that less than half of the university
Notes to Pages 307-314 445

faculty would be able to teach in Telugu. Many of the Hyderabad Telugus

were educated in Urdu and do not even read Telugu. Private communication.
118. The press seems to have been unanimously on the side of the uni¬
versity. Even the Telugu newspapers, which one might expect to be more sym¬
pathetic to the Andhra politicians, ran articles upholding the university posi¬
tion.
119. Interview, Hyderabad, August 1967.

Introduction to Part IV

1. See Malcolm Moos and Francis E. Rourke, The Campus and the State
(Baltimore, 1959), for an overview of financial procedures and relationships.
For particulars of state budgets in the U.S. see the annual review by M. M.
Chambers for the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant
Colleges entitled “Appropriations of State Tax Funds for Operating Expenses
of Higher Education.” (Washington, annual, mimeo).
2. See, for example, Everett C. Hughes, Men and Their Work (Glencoe,
HI., 1958).
3. For these developments see Laurence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the
American University (Chicago, 1965); Christopher Jencks and David Riesman,
The Academic Revolution (Garden City, N.Y., 1969), chaps. 1, 5, and 12;
Richard J. Storr, The Beginnings of Graduate Education in America (Chicago,
1953), and Harper’s University (Chicago, 1966); and Theodore Caplow and
Reece J. McGee, The Academic Marketplace (Garden City, N.Y., 1965).
4. See for example Allan M. Cartter, An Assessment of Quality in Gradu¬
ate Education (Washington, D.C., 1966), sponsored by the American Council
on Education.
5. Ronald Reagan’s success in running “against” the university when he
won the California governorship in 1966, and the firing of Dean John R. Silber,
who had raised the level of scholarship and teaching, by Texas Board of Re¬
gent’s chairman Frank C. Erwin, Jr. in August 1970, qualify but do not contra¬
dict this observation. See New York Times, 17 August 1970, and Time, 10
August 1970.
6. See C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures (Cambridge, England, 1959) and
the subsequent controversy. For the reception of engineering at Cambridge,
see T. J. N. Hilken, Engineering at Cambridge University, 1783-1965 (Cam¬
bridge, 1967). A chair in engineering was established in 1875, and Isaac
Milner, “dabbled in” the subject in the late eighteenth century. See Brian
Simon, Studies in the History of Education, 1780-1870 (London, 1960), for
an overview of this period. W. J. Reader, Professional Men, The Rise of the
Professional Classes in Nineteenth Century England (London, 1966), discusses
the reports of the Oxford University Commission of 1852, the Cambridge Uni¬
versity Commission of 1852, the Public Schools Commission of 1864 (Claren¬
don Commission), and the Schools Enquiry Commission of 1868 (Taunton
Commission). These reports provided the impulse for re-evaluation and re¬
form.
7. See the articles by Tom Burns and A. H. Halsey on the social sciences
in British government and higher education together with “commentary” on
 446 Notes to Pages 314-319

them in the Times Literary Supplement, 5 March 1970, pp. 249-250, 252, and
257-258. The Burns article details the very recent academic growth of the
social sciences in British universities.
8. Reader, Professional Men, p. 108.
9. Examinations in medicine were conducted before 1880; examinations
in civil engineering began in 1897; examinations in law in 1836-37; in archi¬
tecture in 1863 (voluntarily) and 1882 (compulsorily); in pharmaceutical fields
in 1842; in veterinary science in 1881; in mechanical engineering in 1913; and
in insurance in 1850. Geoffrey Millerson, The Qualifying Associations; A Study
in Professionalization (London, 1964), p. 121.
10. Reader, Professional Men, p. 118; Millerson, The Qualifying Asso¬
ciations, p. 130.
11. Reader, Professional Men, p. 176.
12. Cited in Eric Ashby, in association with Mary Anderson, Universities:
British, Indian, African: A Study in the Ecology of Higher Education (Lon¬
don, 1966), p. 6.
13. Government of India, Ministry of Education, Report of the Education
Commission, 1964-1966 (Delhi, 1967), p. 32, and section 3. For a discussion
of these enrollment figures, see chap. 3, note 1.
14. Government of India, Report of the Education Commission, 1964—
1966, p. 302.
15. See chap. 13, this volume.
16. For the implications of these circumstances in the light of role theory
set in the context of educational institutions, see Alvin W. Gouldner, “Cosmo¬
politans and Locals: Toward an Analysis of Latent Social Roles—I,” Adminis¬
trative Sciences Quarterly, 2, no. 3 (1957-58), pp. 281-306.
17. See T. N. Madan, “Who Chooses Modern Medicine and Why,” Eco¬
nomic and Political Weekly (Bombay), 13 September 1969 and Charles Leslie,
“Modern India’s Ancient Medicine,” Trans-Actions, 6 (June 1969), pp. 46-55,
for the appeals and relative standing of modern and traditional medicine. The
ambiguity of their standing and relationship is reflected in Madan’s empirical
finding among his sample in Ghaziabad (about twenty kilometers from Delhi)
that although a “four-fifths majority of [his] interviewees have a first preference
for allopathy,” professionals among them “show the lowest preference for al¬
lopathy . . . [combining] various types of treatment more than others
on the ground of effectiveness” (p. 1483).
18. For one recent study that does so, see Robert Stern’s analysis of the
goldsmiths and jewellers’ lobby that emerged in response to the government’s
effort to regulate trade in and the use of gold, The Process of Opposition in
India; Two Case Studies of How Policy Shapes Politics (Chicago, 1970).

13. The Organization of the Academic Profession in India:

The Indian Educational Services, 1864-1924

1. The terms “superior” and “inferior” are taken from British usage, and
were used to mark the difference between higher and lower positions within
each government service. The distinction between the elite Indian Civil Service
Notes to Pages 319-321
447

and the superior services, on the other hand, was marked by the use of the
terms covenanted” and “uncovenanted”; all members of the civil service signed
covenants, while members of the other services merely signed agreements.
For the sake of convenience, I have used the term “educational serice” gen-
erally, except when referring to particular periods in the service’s history.
2. See any one of the standard histories of the Indian universities: Pre-
mathanath Banerjee, ed., Hundred Years of the University of Calcutta (Cal¬
cutta, 1957); S. R. Dongerkerry, A History of the University of Bombay,
1857-1957 (Bombay, 1957); University of Madras, History of Higher Edu¬
cation in South India, vol. 1, University of Madras, 1857-1957 (Madras, 1957).
3. Many provincial governments also maintained arts colleges in the dis¬
tricts. The premier colleges were usually located in the capital city near the
seat of the university, and often served as university buildings for senate and
syndicate meetings, examinations centers, and convocation halls until these
were built. The district colleges, on the other hand, were smaller, with fewer
students and staff, and designed to fill local educational needs where the mis¬
sionaries or Indian initiative had failed to do so.
4. The government of India brought out barristers from “home” to serve
as justices in the high courts and assigned members of the civil service or the
Indian-filled judicial service to serve as magistrates in the district courts.
For a fuller discussion of the organization and founding of the uncove¬
nanted services, see H. H. Dodwell, ed., The Cambridge History of India,
vol. 6, The Indian Empire, 1858-1918 (Cambridge, 1932), pp. 357-378.
5. After 1857, these responsibilities were vested in the appropriate facul¬
ties of the universities, to which many members of the technical services were
appointed in their ex officio capacities.
6. The situation thus came to resemble that in France or Germany, where
university or grandes ecoles courses were the means of professional qualifi¬
cation.
7. Dodwell, The Cambridge History of India, vol. 6, pp. 357-378.
8. The Punjab government was the exception; it did not contribute to the
support of higher education in English until the establishment of the Lahore
Government College in 1864.
9. The provincial governments calculated their general establishment costs
on a monthly basis. For the sake of convenience, I have used the same method.
In the 1850’s, the rupee was valued at ten to the British pound, and retained
that value through most of the nineteenth century. Government of the North-
Western Provinces, Proceedings in the General Department, A-September 1865,
nos. 145-161; Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department,
Education Branch, A-20 December 1862, nos. 14-15; India Office, Public Let¬
ters from Bengal and India, vol. 47 (1855), Letter from Government of India,
dated 13th August 1855, no. 67 (Education).
10. For a detailed outline of the curriculum and syllabi required in the
three universities shortly after their founding, see Sir Alexander Grant, Report
by Sir A. Grant, Director of Public Instruction at Bombay, on the note of
Mr. A. Monteath on the State of Education in India (London, 1867).
11. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Edu¬
cation Branch, A-3 June 1864, nos. 1-7.
448 Notes to Pages 322-323

12. Ibid.
13. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Education
Branch, A-20 December 1862, nos. 14-15.
14. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Education
Branch, A-3 June 1864, nos. 1-7.
15. Although no permanent increase in salary attached to it, seniority
within a grade was important because it opened the way to temporary or act¬
ing promotions as vacancies occurred in the higher grades in consequence of
their incumbents’ leaves or furloughs. According to the rules of uncovenanted
service employment, salaries were also increased temporarily. Ibid.
16. Atkinson did not make any suggestions as to pension and leave rules
for the members of the educational department, but by the 1870’s the same
rules that generally obtained for members of the uncovenanted services were
adopted. Members of the department were permitted to retire on medical certifi¬
cate after twelve years’ service at one-third their average salary for the pre¬
ceding five years if they entered the service after the age of twenty-five; after
twenty-two years at one-half the average; and without medical certificate, after
twenty-seven years, also at one-half the average of their salary for the pre¬
ceding five years. If they entered service before the age of twenty-five, they
were obliged to work fifteen, twenty-five, and thirty years before receiving their
respective pensions. Professors, who received yearly vacations, were not per¬
mitted the annual one month’s privilege leave except in the instance of ill
health, but they were permitted furloughs to Europe on full pay after eight
years’ service. Ibid.; and Government of India, Proceedings in the Home De¬
partment, Education Branch, A-June 1879, nos. 16-40.
17. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Education
Branch, A-3 June 1864, nos. 1-7.
18. The secretary’s final, retroactive sanction to the scheme was accorded
in November 1865. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Depart¬
ment, Education Branch, A-12 January 1866, no. 7.
19. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Education
Branch, A-27 July 1865, nos. 26-31.
20. Sir Alexander’s title was not a reflection of his services to India, but
was one he inherited as a Scottish baronet. He retired from India in 1868 to
become principal of Edinburgh University. The information is drawn from a
variety of sources, including the service histories of all officers published
annually by the provincial governments, the civil and military list published
annually by the India Office, C. E. Buckland’s Dictionary of Indian Biography
(London, 1906), and the different editions of the Dictionary of National Biog¬
raphy. Since they are drawn from collated sources, the references to one man
are not usually cited. See Government of India, Proceedings in the Home De¬
partment, Education Branch, A-21 March 1867, nos. 24-25.
21. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Education
Branch, A-21 March 1867, nos. 24-25.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Government of the North-Western Provinces, Proceedings in the Gen¬
eral Department, B-April 1866, no. 86; and, Government of India, Proceedings
in the Home Department, Education Branch, A-4 November 1871, no. 24.
Notes to Pages 323-329 449

25. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home uepartment, Education

Branch, A-June 1879, nos. 16-40.
26. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Educa¬
tion Branch, A-Iune 1881, nos. 61-65.
11. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Education
Branch, A-16 May 1864, no. 23.
28. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Education
Branch, A-June 1879, nos. 16-40.
29. The university was responsible for supervising the work of the colleges;
the provincial governments merely staffed and financed their own collegiate in¬
stitutions. See the standard university histories.
30. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Education
Branch, A-June 1879, nos. 16-40.
31. Deighton himself was transferred to an inspectorship in 1884, and com¬
pleted his career in India in that position. Government of India, Proceedings
in the Home Department, Education Branch, B-December 1870, nos. 37-39.
32. Leitner was a naturalized British citizen of German origin who had
been professor of Arabic at King’s College, London, before his appointment
to the Lahore principalship in 1864. Ibid.
33. The other, Griffiths in the North-Western Provinces, formerly principal
of the Sanskrit College, had officiated from time to time as inspector of the
Banaras division. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department,
Education Branch, A-June 1879, nos. 16-40.
34. A general reform of all the European uncovenanted services was
enacted at this time, and the services called the imperial or all-India services.
Dodwell, Cambridge History of India, vol. 6, pp. 357-378.
35. Government of India, Selections from the Records of the Government
of India, Home Department, No. CCCLVIII, Home Department Serial No. 24,
Papers relating to the Re-organization of the Educational Service in India from
1891-1897 (Calcutta, 1898), pp. 166-169.
36. Ibid., pp. 179-193.
37. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home Department, Educa¬
tion Branch, A-June 1881, nos. 52-58.
38. Indian members of the graded departments were permitted to continue
on under the old rules, being promoted to higher positions in the diminished
grades at two-thirds the regular pay. Unlike their European colleagues, they
were not given the option of joining the IES, even at two-thirds the salary. An
exception was later made in the case of J. C. Bose of Presidency College in
Bengal, however, who was appointed to the imperial service and knighted for
his contribution to science. Government of India, Proceedings in the Home
Department, Education Branch, A-October 1891, nos. 99-103.
39. For a description of the changes enacted in British higher education
at this time generally see the relevant portions of J. W. Adamson, English Edu¬
cation 1789-1902 (Cambridge, 1964); for the reforms at Oxford and Cam¬
bridge in particular, see C. E. Mallet, A History of the University of Oxford,
vol. 3, Modern Oxford (New York, 1928), and D. A. Winstanley, Later Vic¬
torian Cambridge (Cambridge, 1947).
40. Great Britain, The India Office List for 1913 (London, 1913), pp.
211-212.
450 Notes to Pages 329-332

41. The discrepancies arose because some cadres carried positions for
which no university training was required; for example, the heads of the Cal¬
cutta School of Art in Bengal and the Sir J. J. School in Bombay, as well as
the staffs of the princes’ corps. Government of India, Proceedings in the Edu¬
cation Department, B-May 1914, nos. 172-186.
42. Government of India, Selections, pp. 179-193.
43. Sen and Sarkar were both promoted to the IES at a later date, and
Sarkar knighted for his contributions to the study of Indian history.
44. The Government of India approved the measure on all-India terms in
1915. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-
February 1915, no. 87-91.
45. De la Fosse was later knighted, and Covernton was called back to Bom¬
bay as director some years after. W. W. Hornell, a retired inspector of the
IES, was appointed by the Bengal government in 1913 from the board of edu¬
cation, where he had been assistant director of examinations. Government of
Bengal, Proceedings in the General Department, Education Branch, A-August
1906, nos. 71-78.
46. These themes were all touched upon by the Indian witnesses before the
commission. Great Britain, Royal Commission on the Public Services in India,
Evidence, vol. 20 (Fondon, 1916).
47. Government of Bengal, Report (Part II) of Indian-Owned English
Newspapers in Bengal for the Week Ending Saturday, 1st August 1914, no. 30
(1914), p. 441.
48. Members of the PES received an acting allowance of Rs. 100 per
month for officiating in the higher service.
49. Government of India, Proceedings in the Department of Education
and Health, Education Branch, A-October 1922, nos. 1-3.
50. Government of India, Proceedings in the Department of Education
and Health, Education Branch, A-October 1922, nos. 1-3.
51. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-
March 1918, nos. 40-42.
52. Government of India, Proceedings in the Education Department, A-
May 1920, nos. 7-9.
53. Government of India, Proceedings in the Department of Education
and Health, Education Branch, B-June 1923, “Notes and Orders,” (no pro¬
ceedings number).
54. Government of India, Proceedings in the Department of Education
and Health, Education Branch, A-October 1922, nos. 1-3.
55. The members of the service were given the choice of retiring on the
new pension plans or remaining on with their positions still guaranteed by the
secretary of state. In 1931, the IES positions officially reverted to the provincial
cadres, some still filled by British and Indian IES men. Great Britain, Report
of the Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India (London
1924), p. 16.
56. The members of the educational service did not, however, seem to have
been drawn from quite the same levels of the British middle class as the ICS
officers. Fewer of them attended the more prestigious public schools, or be¬
longed to the same great Anglo-Indian families. These are only impressions
 Notes to Pages 333-337 451

based on a preliminary reading of the recruitment records. More precise in¬

formation will be available after I have had an opportunity to analyze research
done in England on the social background of IES officers.
The directors of public instruction in the larger provinces were in¬
cluded in the forty-sixth rank of the second class of the warrant of precedence,
along with inspectors-general of police and accountants-general; directors in
the smaller provinces were in the sixty-seventh rank of the third class, along
with inspectors-general of police, comptrollers, deputy auditors-general, and
the deputy director of the criminal intelligence department. Members of the
civil service, on the other hand, were forty-first in the second class if they had
twenty-three years' service, and fifty-sixth in the third class if they had eighteen
years. Great Britain, India Office List 1913, pp. 194, a, b, and c.
58. Covernton s statement about degrees remains to be measured empiri¬
cally. Royal Commission on the Public Services in India, Evidence, vol. 20,
pp. 98-99.
59. Ibid.
60. Cunningham described his work at the college in a petition to the Bengal
government. Government of Bengal, Proceedings in the General Department,
Education Branch, A-May 1908, nos. 10-13.
61. See Great Britain, India Office List for 1913, p. 211. It was the same
for the earlier period.
62. Government of Bengal, Proceedings in the General Department, Edu¬
cation Branch, A-May 1908, nos. 10-13.
63. Ibid.
64. Royal Commission on the Public Services in India, Evidence, vol. 20,
p. 108.
65. Ibid.
66. Many members of the educational service did serve on these university
bodies, but in their individual capacities rather than as the appointed repre¬
sentatives of their particular colleges, which is the main point of Hornell’s
argument. Ibid.
67. Government of India, Proceedings in the Elome Department, Educa¬
tion Branch, A-October 1891, nos. 99-103.
68. Ibid. Thibaut was principal of the Muir Central College in Allahabad.
69. Ibid.
70. The minute was prepared for Sir Sankaran Nair, education member of
the Imperial Legislative Council. Government of India, Proceedings in the
Education Department, B-October 1917, no. 112.
71. All these themes are discussed at length in my “Autonomy and Con¬
sensus under the Raj: Presidency (Calcutta); Muir (Allahabad); M.A.-O.
(Aligarh),” chap. 10, this volume.
72. Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, An Essay in Political and
Social Criticism (London, 1903), p. xi.
73. What follows is based on information gathered in interviews with re¬
tired Indian members of the Indian Educational Service and the Provincial
Educational Service cadres in Bengal, the United Provinces, and the Punjab.
74. Government of Bengal, Proceedings in the General Department, Edu¬
cation Branch, B-September 1909, nos. 203-204.
452 Notes to Pages 337-342

75. Ibid.
76. Tables 47 and 49, chap. 10, this volume, outline the career patterns of
Presidency and Muir College graduates.
77. The former president of India, Sarvapelli Radhakrishnan, was also a
member of the IES in Madras, but spent most of his time in the service up to
1924 on loan to the new university of Mysore.
78. The classrooms were most often used as private rooms; the annual
dinner for superior service officers seems only to have been practiced in the
Punjab. Interviews with G. C. Chaterjee and Hrish Candhra. New Delhi, No¬
vember 1966.
79. See Paul Brass, “The Politics of Ayurvedic Education: A Case Study
of Revivalism and Modernization in India,” chap. 14, this volume.
80. Banerjee, Hundred Years of the University of Calcutta, p. 14.
81. Statement by Sir Alfred Croft in 1888, quoted in Government of India,
Proceedings in the Home Department, Education Branch, A-October 1891,
nos. 99-103.
82. For the career patterns of the Presidency, Muir, and Aligarh college
graduates, see chap. 10, this volume. Most chose law.
83. Such graduates were still significantly fewer than those who entered
the legal profession or the government services, but that is true in most coun¬
tries, especially in those that inherit an elitest tradition of public service.
84. See Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, chap. 2, this
volume.
85. University chairs in academic subjects began to be established in 1910;
law professorships were created a few years earlier. For the particular dates of
their founding at each university, see the standard university histories.

14. The Politics of Ayurvedic Education: A Case Study

of Revivalism and Modernization in India
1. I am indebted to Charles Leslie for pointing out to me the importance
of studying Indian medicine from the viewpoint of social science. See his
“Professional and Popular Health Cultures in South Asia: Needed Research
in Medical Sociology and Anthropology,” in Ward Morehouse, ed., Under¬
standing Science and Technology in India and Pakistan, Occasional Publication
no. 8, University of the State of New York Foreign Area Materials Center
(1967), pp. 27-42, and “The Professionalization of Ayurvedic and Unani
Medicine, Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, series 2, vol.
30, no. 4 (February 1968), pp. 559-572.
2. The term “traditionalistic interest group” is used here to describe an
interest which uses traditional symbols and which favors the revival of ancient
values, but whose clientele does not necessarily come exclusively or even pre¬
dominantly from the traditional sectors of contemporary Indian society and
whose goals are not necessarily opposed to some forms of modernization.
3. Leslie, “Professional and Popular Health Cultures in South Asia,” p.
27. The example is not unique to India. A recently published work by Ralph C.
Croizier, Traditional Medicine in Modern China: Science, Nationalism, and
the Tensions of Cultural Change (Cambridge, 1968) and an unpublished manu¬
script by Edwin J. Allen, Jr., “Medicine in Communist China,” indicate that
Notes to Pages 343-345 453

there are striking similarities, as well as some differences, in the development

of traditional medicine in China.
4. See, for example, J. Filliozat, The Classical Doctrine of Indian Medi¬
cine: Its Origins and Its Greek Parallels (Delhi, 1964) and Henry R. Zimmer,
Hindu Medicine (Baltimore, 1948). For some studies of Ayurvedic medicine
by Indian scholars, whose interpretations are frequently sharply at variance
with those of western scholars, see C. Dwarkanath, The Fundamental Principles
of Ayurveda (Mysore, 1953); P. Kutumbiah, Ancient Indian Medicine (Bom¬
bay, 1962; and Shiv Sharma, The System of Ayurveda (Bombay, 1929).
5. For example, the Oxford history of medicine contains nothing on Ayur¬
veda. See Charles J. Singer and E. Ashworth Underwood, A Short History of
Medicine, 2d ed. (New York, 1962).
6. This is an oversimplification, but substantially true. On the relationship
between theory and treatment in Ayurveda, see Filliozat, Classical Doctrine of
Indian Medicine, pp. 29—30 in which he argues that, in practice, Ayurvedic
treatment was based on experience, to which the theory was adjusted. Modern
medicine also recognizes variations in individual constitutions and in individual
reactions to medical treatment, depending upon the general condition of the
patient and his sensitivities or allergies to certain drugs.
7. This distinction was emphasized by Dr. C. Dwarkanath, former adviser
in indigenous systems of medicine to the ministry of health in an interview on
17 August 1966: “Now, the kind of medical attention [people] get in the rural
areas is from what is called a traditional medicine. I’m underscoring the word
traditional. This is the opposite of what is called classical medicine. The tra¬
ditional medicine does not proceed on the well-known principles or theories of
the medical classics.” Personal interview document IM 3: 14.
8. The following quotation expresses the mixed feelings of many Ayurvedic
revivalist leaders toward the traditional Ayurvedic practitioners. “And now, there
are only a very few learned Vaidyas who, inspite [sic] of adverse circumstances
are keeping the meagre flame of learning alive, while the practice of the art
has fallen into the hands of persons, a great majority of whom have neither
fully studied the subject nor are competent enough to minister to the needs of
the people.” Government of India, Ministry of Health, Report of the Com¬
mittee on Indigenous Systems of Medicine, vol. 1 (Delhi, 1948), p. 3; here¬
after referred to as Chopra Committee Report.
9. Government of India, Ministry of Health, Report of the Committee to
Assess and Evaluate the Present Status of Ayurvedic System of Medicine
(Delhi, 1959 [?]), p. 25; hereafter referred to as Udupa Committee Report.
10. For example, see J. N. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements in
India (New York, 1915); W. Howard Wriggins, Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New
Nation (Princeton, 1960), chap. 6, “Religious Revival and Cultural National¬
ism.”
11. For descriptions of the eight branches of Indian medicine, see C.
Dwarkanath, “The Indian Systems of Medicine,” Indian Express (Delhi), 30
December 1951 and Udupa Committee Report, p. 1.
12. Udupa Committee Report, p. 154.
13. The Muslim Unani or “Greek” system of medicine is today widely
practiced in India by both Muslims and Hindus and is undergoing a process of
revival similar to that of the Ayurvedic system.
 454 Notes to Pages 345-347

14. That is, between those who favored imparting education in India ac¬
cording to Indian cultural traditions and through Indian languages (the Ori¬
entalists) and those who favored the introduction of western education and
its instruction through the English language. H. H. Wilson, a leading Oriental¬
ist and Sanskritist in this period published an essay “On the Medical and
Surgical Sciences of the Hindus,” Oriental Magazine, vol. 1 (February 1823),
pp. 207-212; see also Zimmer, Hindu Medicine, p. lxxi. Macaulay, the most
vitriolic of the Anglicists, attacked the Orientalists for their desire to “teach
false history, false astronomy, false medicine”; Thomas Babington Macaulay,
“Minute on Education,” in William Theodore de Bary (ed.), Sources of Indian
Tradition (New York, 1958), p. 600.
15. Udupa Committee Report, p. 25; Leslie, “The Professionalization of
Ayurvedic and Unani Medicine,” p. 566.
16. From 1835, which is also the year in which Macaulay became presi¬
dent of the committee of public instruction, “higher education in India be¬
came, and has since always remained, education in western knowledge of all
kinds”; George Anderson, “Education,” in Edward Blunt, ed., Social Service
to India: An Introduction to Some Social and Economic Problems of the Indian
People (London, 1938), p. 247.
17. For example, a government school of Ayurveda was established in
Travancore as early as 1887. See Government of India, Ministry of Health,
Report of the Health Survey and Planning Committee (Delhi, 1962), vol. 1,
454; hereafter referred to as Mudaliar Committee Report.
18. Udupa Committee Report, p. 2.
19. A list of Ayurvedic colleges and their dates of starting is given in
Udupa Committee Report, appendix ii, pp. 198-205.
20. Ibid., pp. 149-150.
21. The important reports on Ayurveda published under the auspices of
the Ministry of Health of the Government of India are as follows: Chopra
Committee Report (Delhi, 1948); Report of the Committee Appointed by the
Government of India to Advise Them on the Steps to be Taken to Establish a
Research Centre in the Indigenous Systems of Medicine and Other Cognate
Matters (Pandit Committee Report) (Delhi, 1951); Report of the Committee
Appointed by the Government of India to study and report on the question of
establishing uniform standards in respect of education and regulation of prac¬
tice of Vaidyas, Hakims and Homoeopaths (sic) (Dave Committee Report)
(Delhi, 1956) (this report was preceded by an interim report with the same
title published in the same year); Udupa Committee Report (Delhi, 1959 [?]);
Report of the Shuddha Ayurvedic Education Committee (Vyas Committee Re¬
port) (Delhi, 1963). In addition, there have been separate reports on the de¬
velopment of modern medicine (which contain references to the subject of
indigenous medicine), Unani, and homeopathy.
22. There are constitutional limitations on the central government’s ability
to act in the sphere of medicine and public health. Although regulation of the
medical profession comes under the concurrent list in the Constitution of India,
public health and education are state subjects.
23. Udupa Committee Report, p. 109.
24. Mudaliar Committee Report, vol. 1, p. 32.
25. Government of India, Ministry of Information, India 1964 (Delhi,
 Notes to Pages 347-349 455

1964), pp. 474-475. However, see table 68, footnote e, chap. 14, this volume.
26. Udupa Committee Report, p. 136.
27. Interviews in Chandigarh on 8 October 1966 and in Madras on 20
January 1967.
28. Leslie, “Professional and Popular Health Cultures in South Asia,” p
27. r'
29. Ibid., pp. 34-35; “The Professionalization of Ayurvedic and Unani
Medicine,” p. 563; and a letter to me of 13 March 1968.
30. In this category are, among others, Dr. C. G. Pandit, Dr. K. N. Udupa,
and Dr. G. S. Pendse.
31. The son of Pandit Shiv Sharma, president of the Ayurvedic Congress,
is a modern medical physician in Canada. The son of Ashutosh Majumdar,
president of the Council of State Boards and Faculties of Indian Medicine, has
an M.B.B.S. degree and has done postgraduate work in Ayurveda at Banaras.
32. This distinction, which was frequently reported to me in India, has also
been noted by Charles Leslie and Harold A. Gould. See Leslie, “Professional
and Popular Health Cultures in South Asia,” where Gould’s article, “The Im¬
plications of Technological Change for Folk and Scientific Medicine,” Ameri¬
can Anthropologist, 59, no. 3 (1957), is also cited.
33. The notion of “acculturation” appears in Lucian W. Pye, Politics, Per¬
sonality and Nation Building: Burma’s Search for Identity (New Haven, 1962),
chap. 1; in his “Democracy, Modernization, and Nation Building,” in J. Roland
Pennock, ed„ Self-Government in Modernizing Nations (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J., 1964), pp. 13—18; and in his Aspects of Political Development (Boston,
1966). The general identification of modernization with westernization is ex¬
tremely common, if not always explicit, in the theoretical literature of non¬
area specialists, but is increasingly spumed by field workers, especially in India.
There is a growing gap between the theoretical literature on modernization and
development, which grows apace, and empirical research on developing coun¬
tries, which grows more slowly. One example of this easy identification of
modernization and westernization can be found in Alfred Diamant, “Political
Development: Approaches to Theory and Strategy,” in John D. Montgomery
and William J. Siffin, eds., Approaches to Development: Politics, Administra¬
tion and Change (New York, 1966), p. 25. “At this point it should not be
necessary to define precisely what is meant by modernization except to say it
is the sort of transformation which we have come to know in Europe and
North America and in less complete forms in other parts of the world. The
details might vary, but there is little disagreement about the types of goals
involved.” In fact, there is hardly an aspect of Indian development policy
making which does not involve fundamental disagreement on the goals of
modernization. See Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Modernization of a Traditional
Society (Bombay, 1965), for a trenchant criticism of “the facile fallacy that
‘modernization’ and ‘westernization’ are interchangeable terms.”
34. This does not mean, however, that the modern medical profession in
India does not have its own problems. The Indian Medical Association is the
Indian counterpart of the American Medical Association, but it by no means
approaches the AMA in scope of membership coverage and control over edu¬
cation and practice. A constantly recurring problem for the modern medical
profession in India has been to ward off attempts by government leaders and
456 Notes to Pages 350-353

groups oriented both to Ayurvedic and to modern medical practice to reduce

the qualifications for medical practice in order to extend medical relief more
rapidly to the countryside. A national statutory body to regulate medical edu¬
cation, called the Medical Council of India, was created under the Govern¬
ment of India Medical Council Act of 1938 and the Medical Council has
been largely successful in imposing international professional standards in
modern Indian medical education. One of the main demands of the Ayurvedic
movement has been the establishment of a similar council for indigenous medi¬
cine. The demand, for long unmet, largely because of internal conflict in the
Ayurvedic movement itself on the standards to be enforced by such a council,
was finally conceded in 1969 with the establishment of the Central Council of
Indian Medicine and Homeopathy,
35. Most Ayurvedic supporters prefer to use the archaic and incorrect
terms “allopaths” and “allopathy” to describe modern medical practitioners and
the modern system of medicine, respectively.
36. “Whither Are We Going” (editorial), Journal of Ayurveda 2, no. 2
(February 1950), p. 6.
37. Ibid., pp. 1-2.
38. Ibid., pp. 5-6. The invocation of Gandhi’s name in the quotation is
not justified by Gandhi’s own views toward medicine and toward Ayurvedic
medicine in particular. Gandhi personally favored nature cure. His advice to
Ayurvedic practitioners in 1925 was to imitate the “scientific spirit” of western
doctors and to “frankly acknowledge and assimilate that part of Western medi¬
cine which they at present do not possess.” Young India, 11 June 1925, cited
in The Bulletin of the Council of State Boards and Faculties of Indian Medi¬
cine, 2, no. 1 (December 1963), pp. 12-13.
39. The system is also called the concurrent system. Proponents of inte¬
gration distinguish the ideal of integration of the concepts and methods of
modern and Ayurvedic medicine from the merely concurrent or side-by-side
teaching of the two systems without any real efforts to reconcile them, which
has been the predominant manner of instruction in the Ayurvedic institutions.
I am grateful to Dr. G. S. Pendse, who has urged me to make this distinction
clear.
40. Figures on medical manpower are from The Bulletin of the Coun¬
cil of State Boards and Faculties of Indian Medicine, 4, nos. 8-10 (May and
June 1967), p. 14, citing Institute of Applied Manpower Research paper no.
6 (1965), pt. 1.
41. This was the view of both the Chopra and Udupa Committee Reports.
42. Chopra Committee Report, vol. 1, chap. 6.
43. “A Rejoinder to the Editorial of the Journal of Indian Medical As¬
sociation Published in the Month of June 1949 on the Report of the Chopra
Committee,” Journal of Ayurveda, 2, no. 2 (February 1950), p. 41.
44. Mudaliar Committee Report, vol. 1, pp. 456-457.
45. See Government of India, Ministry of Health, Report of the Health
Survey and Development Committee (Bhore Committee Report) (Delhi, 1946),
vol. 1, pp. 455-457, where it is argued that the indigenous systems of medi¬
cine are out of date and cannot give the best medical relief available, that
modern scientific medicine should be extended throughout the country, and
that a chair in the history of medicine should be established at the All-India
 Notes to Pages 353-358 457

Medical Institute for the purpose of investigating the possible contribution of

these systems to the sum total of medical knowledge.”
46. Udupa Committee Report, p. 5.
47. The annual meeting of the central and state health ministers, now called
the Central Council of Health.
48. Mudaliar Committee Report, vol. 1, pp. 453-454.
49. The Udupa Committee found that the starting salary for an Ayurvedic
graduate in government service in most states ranged between Rs. 60 and Rs.
80 or not much more than the salary of a clerk in a government office. The
maximum salaries ranged from Rs. 120 to Rs. 375. These figures compared
very unfavorably with those of modern medical graduates who, in the lower
grades, began at about Rs. 200 and might reach Rs. 400 and, in the higher
grades, would start at Rs. 400 and could reach Rs. 1150 per month. In ad¬
dition, the Ayurvedic practitioners were found to suffer from various handicaps
in their practice, including prohibitions against their right to use modern drugs,
and refusal of the central and state governments to recognize medical certifi¬
cates given by Ayurvedic practitioners or to reimburse government employees
for medical expenses incurred by them on Ayurvedic medical treatment. The
Udupa Committee was distressed to find that “no organised attempt had been
made by the members of the Ayurvedic profession themselves to approach
Government to revise their status” and that, “in the circumstances,” the Ayur¬
vedic practitioners “resort to malpractices and end up as quacks of modern
medical science. To remedy this situation, the Udupa committee recommended
that the Ayurvedic practitioners should unite and form a single All-India or¬
ganization of all Ayurvedic practitioners to professionalize themselves and pre¬
sent their case effectively and that the government should grant equality of
pay to the Ayurvedic practitioners in government service. Udupa Committee
Report, pp. 63, 155, 161, 170.
50. Udupa Committee Report, p. 60; interviews with faculty and students
at the Government Ayurvedic College, Patiala, 19 October 1966, and at the
Tilak Ayurved Mahavidyalaya, Poona, 16 January 1966.
51. Interview in Madras, 21 January 1967. The college is now known as
the Government Kilpauck Medical College. The curriculum is wholly modem,
but there are three research officers in indigenous medicine in residence on
the campus and the Medical College hospital has an Ayurvedic ward.
52. Ayurveda Sandesh (Lucknow), 15 March 1958. Translated from the
Hindi by Dr. Hori Lai Saxena.
53. Ibid.
54. National Herald (Lucknow), 22, 24 September; 11, 12, 22, 23, 24, 26
November; 3 December 1966; 6 January 1967; Times of India (Bombay), 27
October 1966; Statesman (Delhi), 17 November 1966.
55. The data in this and the following paragraph were derived from the
materials on student indiscipline in India compiled by Lloyd and Susanne
Rudolph from seven national and regional newspapers and generously pro¬
vided to me.
56. For the remaining fourteen strikes, the issues were either not made
clear in the press reports, were related to internal college politics, or were re¬
lated to external politics on public issues other than education.
57. A third national organization representing the integrated medical gradu-
 458 Notes to Pages 359-366

ates, but less powerful than the Council, is the National Medical Association.
In addition, there are many provincial organizations of vaidyas and hakims,
and many lines of conflict at the state and local level which do not necessarily
parallel the grand ideological conflict at the national level. In this chapter, the
emphasis has been placed upon ideological conflict and national interest group
organizations influencing policy-making at the center. However, this dimension
of the conflict is only one among many.
58. Bulletin, 1, no. 2 (March 1963), p. 3.
59. Krti Sharma, “Ayurvedic Course of Study,” Ayurveda Mahasammelan
Patrika, 48, no. 1 (January 1961), pp. 13-16. Translated by Dr. Hori Lai
Saxena.
60. Such a council, called the Central Council of Indian Medicine and
Homeopathy, was formed in 1969, after this manuscript was completed.
61. Interim Dave Committee Report, p. 7.
62. Vyas Committee Report, p. 16.
63. Ibid., p. 14.
64. Ibid., p. 7.
65. Ibid., pp. 5, 8, 10.
66. Ibid., p. 11.
67. For example, the report mentions as concepts compatible with Ayur¬
veda those of “psychosomatic medicine, infection, immunity, susceptibility,
endocrine metabolism,” and welcomes Dr. Sheldon, the psychologist and so-
matotypist as a “neo-Ayurvedist” (ibid., p. 9).
68. Interview in Chandigarh, 8 February 1967; Rudolph data on strikes in
the Dayanand Ayurvedic College, Jullundur, from January 6 to 16, 1964, and
in the Ayurvedic Degree College, Rohtak, 21 January 1964; unrecorded con¬
versations with Dr. C. Dwarkanath and others on the introduction of the
shuddha curriculum in Madras.
69. Udupa Committee Report, pp. 154, 160, 161.
70. Vyas Committee Report, p. 8.
71. Council of State Boards and Faculties of Indian Medicine, A Case
for Ayurvedic and Unani Education and Practice (memorandum submitted to
the prime minister of India, 3 December 1963), p. 4.
72. Information on the question of withdrawal of recognition was drawn
from the office files and correspondence of the Ayurvedic Congress.
73. Leslie points out that the inability of the Ayurvedists to acquire the
internal agreement and cohesion necessary to achieve true professionalization
is not simply an ideological problem. The failure goes deeper and reflects the
widespread absence of professional norms among Ayurvedic practitioners and
the presence of “spurious elements” interested in promoting personal antago¬
nisms and factional rivalries in the Ayurvedic movement. See his “The Profes¬
sionalization of Ayurvedic and Unani Medicine.”
74. Cited in Mudaliar Committee Report, vol. 1, p. 456.
75. Interviews at the Government Ayurvedic College, Patiala, 19 October
1966.
76. In the states, the national ideological conflict between the shuddha and
integrated causes is much less sharp. Politics in the state boards are more likely
to follow lines of local factional cleavage, which may become integrated with
the national conflicts but have an independent existence. The situation is similar
 Notes to Pages 367-371 459

to the structure of party politics in India, in which there are “national” parties,
regional parties, and independents. For example, in the December 1966 elec¬
tions to the Board of Indian Medicine in Uttar Pradesh, some of the candidates
were backed by the National Medical Association and by the Uttar Pradesh
Vaid Sammelan, which is affiliated with the Ayurvedic Congress. One candidate
was identified with a regional interest organization called the Ashtang Sanrak-
shini Sabha. There were also several independents. Interview in Lucknow in
December 1966 with the registrar and a member of the Board of Indian Medi¬
cine, Uttar Pradesh.
77. “In the sphere of medicine, Bharatiya Jan Sangh is not bound to any
particular system. It will encourage them all. Ayurveda . . . will be accorded
the status of the national system of medicine.” Bharatiya Jan Sangh, Election
Manifesto 1967, reprinted in R. Chandidas et al. (eds.), India Votes (New
York, 1968), p. 25.
78. Morarji R. Desai, Inaugural Address ... at the 40th All Indian Ayur¬
vedic Congress held at Trivandrum (Travancore-Cochin) on May 22-24, 1955
(Delhi, n.d.), p. 5.
79. Mohanlal P. Vyas, Problems Relating to Future Development of Ayur¬
veda (Ahmedabad, 1964), p. 1.
80. Letter of Dr. Sampurnanand to all members of the panel on Ayurveda
of the planning commission, Lucknow, 12 July 1960.
81. Pye, Politics, Personality, and Nation Building, and Aspects of Political
Development, p. 13.
82. Pye, “Democracy, Modernization, and Nation-Building.”
83. Udupa Committee Report, p. 145.
*
Index

Academic council, 191, 251, 255, 433 Amin, Nanubhai, 250, 252, 262
“Acculturation,” 349, 370, 455 Amrita Bazar Patrika (Calcutta), 330
Acharya Narendra Deo Intercollege, Anderson, C. Arnold, 121, 389, 409, 411
110-111 Anderson, Mary, 446
Adamson, J. W., 449 Anderson, Sir George, 189, 196
Administration, university, 19, 271, 316, Andhra Pradesh, 52-53; government of,
325-326, 332-334, 340 169-171; university policy of, 10, 171,
Admissions policy, 26, 31, 32, 35-36, 265, 273, 275-279, 281-289, 304
103, 175, 221-222, 226, 257, 277, 279, Andhra University, 273, 282-284
385-386, 392, 435. See also Universities Anglicists, 345
Advanced study centres, 33, 77-79, 403 Anjaria, J. J., 243
Affiliating universities, 5, 18, 23, 29-31, Annamalai University, 212
58, 75" 173, 206, 211, 254-259, 276- Archbold, William A. J., 198, 202, 205,
277, 319-320, 334, 385, 391, 427, 428, 426
436 Arnold, Matthew, 315, 337, 451
Aggregative comparison, 11-12 Arnold, T. W., 184
Agra University, 22, 38 Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 337
Ahirs, 21-22 Arren, S. P., 94n
Ahmad, Aftad, 198 Arya Samaj, 21
Ahmad, Imtiaz, 395 Ashby, Sir Eric, 17, 378-389, 446
Ahmad, Mrs. Karuna, 58 Assam, 53
Ahmed, Syed (Sir Syed Ahmed Khan), Atkinson, William S., 175, 321-323
97,183-185 Aurobindo, Sri, 19-20
Ahmedabad, 208-209 Autonomy, university, 13-14, 17-18, 22-
Aiyar, S. P., 395 23, 31, 72, 76-77, 167-171, 192, 246-
Alam, Javeed, 392 247, 265, 273-308 passim
Ali, Muhammad, 199 Ayurvedic movement, 317, 342-371
Ali, Sadiq, 413
Ali, Shaukat, 199 Badlani, K. G., 250
Aligarh University, see Muslim Univer¬ Baldeo Vidyapith Higher Secondary
sity (Aligarh) School, 107-108
Allen, Edwin J., Jr., 452 Balwantray Mehta Report, 89, 91
All-India Ayurveda Mahasammelan Banaras Hindu University, 9, 263, 377,
(Ayurvedic Congress), 345-346, 358- 380-381
359, 366-368 Banerjee, Pramathanath, 420, 422, 447
All-India Ayurveda Vidyapith, 364, 366 Banerjee, Sir Gooroo Das, 379
All-India Council for Technical Educa¬ Banias, 222-225
tion, 399 Barker, Ernest, 375
All-India English Teachers Conference, Baroda city, 209, 220-221, 247, 250-251,
293 257, 260-271 passim, 434
All-India Institute of Medical Science, 41 Baroda College, 19. See also Maharaja
All-India Medical Council, 350 Sayajirao University
All-India Muslim Educational Confer¬ Baroda Community Council, 261
ence, 199 Baroda, Maharaja of, 267, 432
All India Muslim League, 199 Baroda University, see Maharaja Saya¬
Allopathy, 350-352, 360, 371, 456. See jirao University of Baroda
also Medical systems Baroda University Teachers Association
Altbach, Philip, 428 (BUTA), 243, 245, 248, 255, 258
Ambedkar, Dr. B. R., 382 Basu, P. K., 425
 462 Index

Beck, Theodore, 184-185, 422 Cartter, Allan M., 445

Belgaum district (Mysore), 125-127, Caste groups, 20-22, 88-89, 119, 121—
132-133, 136-139, 141 147, 222-226, 411-412. See also Spe¬
Bendix, Reinhard, 375, 377 cific caste names
Bengal, 20, 186-189; educational reform Caste associations, 132, 382
in, 193-194, 322-325; and Presidency Central Advisory Board of Education
College, 195-198 (CABE), 68, 70-71, 396-397
Bengal National College, 20 Central Board of Shuddha Ayurvedic
Berdahl, Robert O., 437 Education, 362, 368
Bema, James J., 398 Central Council for Ayurvedic Research
Berube, Maurice, 406 (CCAR), 346, 362, 365-367
Bestor, Arthur E., 406 Central Council of Health, 359-360, 362-
Beteille, Andre, 395 364, 366, 368
Bezanson, Anna, 389 Central Council of Indian Medicine and
Bhai, Shri Bheeka, 153-154 Homeopathy, 456, 458
Bhan, Suraj, 21
Central Institute of Research in Indige¬
Bhandarkar, Ramkrishna Gopal, 338 nous Systems of Medicine, 346
Bhartiya Kranti Dal (B.K.D.), 104 Centres of advanced study, see Advanced
Bhattacharjee, Jayabrata, 396 study centres
Bhattacharyea, Nirmal Chandra, 423 Chagla, M. C., 70, 242, 260, 288-290,
Bhogle, A. D., 273n, 306, 444 303, 306, 437
Bhore Committee Report (1946), 353 Chakravarti, S. C., 378
Bihar, 30, 52, 59, 170, 212-213, 428 Chambers, W. N., 387
Bihar Vidyapith, 20
Chancellor of the university, 17, 172-173
Blaug, Mark, 375 Chaterjee, G. C., 452
Block Development Officer (BDO), 92 Choksi, Nanalal, 242, 248, 250, 254, 257
148-149, 156
Chopra Committee report, 353
Block grant, 192, 266-267, 282. See also Christianity, 14, 16, 52, 88
Financing of education, University Christian schools, 22, 122-123, 133-143,
Grants Commission
Boards of study, 173-174
aciviee examinations, 321-322
Bombay presidency, 14-16, 51, 322-325 Class Four Employees Union, 289, 300-
Bombay Native School Book and School 301,441
Society, 14
Clinard, Marshall B., 395
Bose, Sir J. C., 337
Cohn, Bernard S., 395
Bose, Subhas Chandra, 195
Coleman Report, 404-405
Bouton, Marshall, 398
College of Integrated Medicine (Madras)
Bowman, Mary Jean, 389, 411 354-355
Brahmans, 88, 133-144, 146-147 222-
225, 412 Colleges: privately-managed, 15 23 29-
30, 85-86, lOlff, 122-131, i£m68
Brass, Paul, 317-318, 342ff, 376, 408
173, 190, 277, 391, 412; government-
British professors, see Professors, Brit¬
managed, 30, 167-168, 173-175 179-
ish
180, 203-204, 315-316, 319-341; “pre¬
Broomfield, John H., 378, 379
Bruce, J., 420 mier , 173. See also Universities, Au-
Buckland, C. E., 448 tonomy, Financing of education
Commerce courses, 46-47
Burnham, Walter Dean, 387
Burns, Tom, 445 Committee for the Comparative Study of
New Nations, 375 J
Communalism, 131-132, 134 139 ua
198-199 ’ ’
Calcutta, 18, 51-52
Communist Party, 107, 11 Iff, 115, 402
Calcutta University, see University of
Calcutta J Compression-decompression” 210 ?i<
216ff, 230, 268 ’ ’
Calcutta University Commission of 1917-
Congress Party, 84, 98-99, 345, 367; in
1919,35-36,75,197
Candhra, Hrish, 452 Uttar Pradesh, 8, 100-101, 106-111
Caplow, Theodore, 445 ■r -/I? i* Guj'arat’ 27> 250, 402; in
Career patterns, 27, 178, 183, 186, 231- Tamil Nadu, 56; in Andhra Pradesh
233, 386, 394 275-278, 281, 286-287, 302
Carmichael, Lord, 194 Constitution of India: Article 246 69-
Article 30(1), 87; Article 45, 130 '
 Index
463

Cosmopolitanism, 5-6, 207ff, 230-237, Economic development, and education

263, 268-269
levels, 7, 62-63. See also Heartland
Council of Scientific and Industrial Re¬ states and Rimland states
search, 315 Eden Hostel, 187, 194-196, 396
Council of State Boards and Faculties of Education Act of 1904, 17
Indian Systems of Medicine, 358-359, Education Commission, 1964-1966, 26,
364, 367
30-31, 33, 37-38, 47, 70, 72, 75, 78-
Courts, and universities, 170, 294, 303- 79, 85-86, 95-96, 297, 300, 315, 383-
304 391 passim, 401-403, 408, 412
Covernton, J. G., 333-335, 451 Educational Commission of 1882, 180
Cox, Archibald, 378 Educational entrepreneurship, 15, 19, 66,
Coyajee, Sir J. C„ 338 96-98, 101-120, 280-281
Cremin, Lawrence A., 406 Educational societies, 132, 144, 147
Croft, Sir Alfred, 335, 336, 452 Ehrmann, Henry W., 375
Croizier, Ralph C., 452 Elder, Joseph W., 395
Cunningham, J. A., 333-334, 451 Elections, 27; 1946, 100; 1952, 92, 100,
Curriculum, 181, 358-359 387; 1967, 108, 112-113, 366-367;
Curzon, Lord, 17-18, 77, 171, 379 1971, 93, 213; 1969 by-elections, 213;
teachers in, 155-156, 159; for vice-
Daily Telegraph, 199
chancellor of M.S.U. Baroda, 246-247;
Damle, Y. B., 395 Ahmedabad municipal (1964), 259
Dave Committee Report (1956), 359 Eliot, John, 421
Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College (Jullun- Elliott, Carolyn, 10, 169, 273ff, 382
dur), 21 Elphinstone College, 14-16, 56
DeBary, William Theodore, 378, 454 Elphinstone, Mountstuart, 14, 378
Deccan Educational Society, 19-20, 381 Elphinstone Native Education Institution,
Degrees awarded, 36-42, 394-395 see Elphinstone College
Deighton, Kenneth, 325-326, 449 Employment of degree holders, 27-28.
Delhi Metropolitan Council, 31 See also Career patterns
Delhi University, see University of Delhi Enden, A. B., 377
DeRuggiero, Guido, 377 Engineers, 41, 429
Desai, D. M., 266, 431, 432 English, John C., 383
Desai, I. P., 434 Enrollment, 25-26, 37, 213, 384-386,
Desai, Morarji, 360, 367-368, 459 393-394, 428-429; by state, 63-66; in
Deshmukh, C. D., 271, 438 Uttar Pradesh, 102; in Rajasthan, 149;
Dev, Acharya Narendra, 20, 99 M.S.U. Baroda, 232-233
Deva, Indra, 395 Epstein, Jacob, 405, 406
Development funds, see University Grants Erdman, Howard L., 207n, 427
Commission Erdman, Joan Landy, 207ff
Dhar, Gikilnath, 178n Estimates Committee of Parliament, 74-
Dharwar district (Mysore), 125-127, 76, 79
132-133, 136-139, 141 Etzioni, Amitai, 392-393, 435
Dhebar, U. N., 367 Examination results, 177, 186
Dholakia, H. C., 249 Examination system, 5, 316-317 335
Diamant, Alfred, 455 394
DiBona, Joseph, 376, 428 Expansion policy, 256-259, 269
Dickinson, Richard and Nancy, 383 Extension officers, education (E.O.s),
Dikshit, S. S., 381 149
Discrimination, 146-147. See also Com- Ezhavas, 21-22, 382
munalism
Dodwell, H. H., 447 Faculty: recruitment, 8, 222, 226, 228-
Dongerkerry, S. R., 420, 447 229, 324, 327-328; -student ratios, 45-
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), 47, 50; at M.S.U. of Baroda, 211, 218,
30, 56, 397 226-230, 248, 252; and vice-chancel¬
Dube, S. C., 405 lor, 244. See also Teachers, Professors,
Dutt, R. C., 44 Universities
Dwarkanath, Dr. C., 342, 360, 453 Fantini, Mario D., 406
Farquhar, J. N., 453
East, Sir Edward Hyde, 15 Fergusson College, 19
East India Company, 15, 17, 122-123 Filliozat, J., 453
464 Index

Financing of education: public, 7, 10, Grant, Sir Alexander, 323, 325-327, 332,
13-16, 22-24, 28-29, 59-61, 157, 162, 447-448
174, 180, 189, 345-346, 349, 389-391; Grants-in-aid, 15-16, 23, 29, 89, 102,
private, 86-87, 147; in Mysore, 128— 105, 123, 128, 131-132, 149, 183, 385,
130; at Muslim University, 183; at 391. See also Financing of Education
M.S.U. Baroda, 207, 234-235, 252- Gujarat: Congress government in, 27, 31,
253, 265; at Osmania University, 282, 208, 213, 428; enrollment in, 63-65;
304. See also Colleges, Educational en¬ and M.S.U. Baroda, 252-253, 246-247,
trepreneurship, Government of India, 271-272; language policy in, 259-260;
Grants-in-aid, University Grants Com¬ university legislation in, 265-266
mission Gujarat University, 31
Finch, Robert, 381 Gujarat University Act of 1949, 69
First Education Despatch (1814), 123 Gujarat Vidyapith, 20
First Health Ministers’ Conference Gulati, Dr. I. S„ 258, 434
(1946), 353 Gupta, C. B., 107-108
Fischer, Mrs. Paul, 429 Gupta, Shiva Prasad, 382
Flexner, Abraham, 16, 378, 380 Guru-disciple system, 344-345, 361
Ford Foundation, 226, 235, 237, 261, “Gurukala section,” 21
268 Gusfield, Joseph, 120, 409
Foster, Philip J., 389, 411 Guthrie, Janet, 207ff, 397
Founding of universities, see Universities
Frazer, Sir A. H., 189 Hadden, Susan G., 436
Funding of education, see Financing of Hakims, 346, 352
education Halappa, G. S., 410
Halbar, B. G„ 23, 85-86, 88, 121ff, 410
Gadgil, D. R., 294 Halsey, A. H., 445
Gajendragadkar, G. B., 294 Hardgrave, Robert L., 382
Gajendragadkar Committee, 380 Hare, David, 15
Gandhi, Mrs. Indira, 292 Harison, Augustus, 180
Gandhi, Mahatma, 20, 97-99, 208, 214, Harper, William Raney, 16
350, 456 Hartshorne, Edward Yamall, Jr., 380
Ganganath Vidyalaya, 19 Haswell, Harold A., 390-391
Gans, Herbert J., 405 Hathi, P. C., 250
Gaudino, Robert, 376, 432 Heartland states, 51-57, 63, 212-214
Geddes, Patrick, 44 Heimsath, Charles, 383
Geissler, Clemens, 429 Hilkin, T. J. N., 445
Ghurye, G. S., 44 Hindu, The, 26
Gilbert, Irene, 9, 35, 56, 167-168, 172ff, Hindu College, see Presidency College,
241, 315-317, 319ff Calcutta
Gillion, Kenneth L. O., 398, 427 Hinduism, 4, 21-22
Gilman, Daniel Coit, 16 Hindus, 20-21, 174, 179, 275-276. See
Gittell, Marilyn, 91, 406 also Brahmans
Gokhale, G. K., 19 Hindustan Times, 289
Gould, Harold, 8, 20, 23, 83-86, 88, 94ff, Hitch, Charles J., 380
238, 376, 382, 407, 455
Hofstadter, Richard, 14, 375, 377, 438
Gouldner, Alvin W., 435, 446 Homeopathy, 346, 352
Government colleges, see Colleges, gov¬ Hornell, W. W., 189-190, 196, 316, 334-
ernment-managed 335, 450
Government of India: educational policy Hostels, 4, 7-8, 144, 181, 190, 211-212.
under raj, 14-18, 22-23, 44,~'^2r96, See also Eden Hostel
172-206; post-independence policy, 5, Hughes, Everett C., 445
69, 77ff, 85, 326-327, 353, 400-401, Husain, Dr. Zakir, 9, 20
409. See also Indian Educational Serv¬ Hyderabad state, 169, 274-275
ice, Financing of education
Government School of Indian Medicine Indian Administrative Service (IASI 55
354 217 ’
Governments, state, 5, 34, 59, 66, 87, Indian Civil Service (ICS), 41 332-333
128-130. See also Specific states 341, 450-451
Grading system, 322-324, 326-328, 338- Indian Educational Commission of 1882,
341, 448
 Index 465

Indian Educational Service (IES), 19, Kothari, D. S., 75, 402

279, 315-317, 319-341, 446-452 pas¬ Kothari, R. F., 434
sim Kunzru, H. N., 33
Indian Institutes of Technology (IlTs), Kurmis, 107-109
12,41,69, 78,386-388, 431 Kurukshetra University, 21, 286
Indian Medical Association, 455-456 Kutumbiah, P., 453
Indian National Congress, 195, 345. See
also Congress Party Lakdawala, D. T., 443
Indian Universities Act of 1904, 17, 187 Lai, Hardwari, 376
Inter-colleges, 83, 85, 94ff, 384, 408 Lai, Shankar, 417
Inter-University Board of India and Cey¬ Language of instruction, 31, 69, 71, 285,
lon (IUB), 68, 71, 260, 287-290, 293, 399-400; English as, 3, 54-58, 141,
303, 385, 400, 439 179-180, 207-209, 276-277; regional,
Islington, Lord, 330-331 33, 51, 54-58, 208-209, 260, 397;
Urdu, 141, 274-276; issue at M.S.U.
Jain, S. C., 406 Baroda, 250, 259-260, 264; issue at
Jaipur District Report (1967), 162 Osmania University, 276-277, 307,
James, Henry Rosher, 176-178, 186-198, 435, 438
203, 421, 425 Law, 46-47
Jamia Millia Islamia, 20 Law faculty, at M.S.U. Baroda, 254
Jammu and Kashmir, 29, 53, 390 “Lay government” of universities, 14, 18-
Jan Congress party (U.P.), 104 19
Jan Sangh party, 31, 367 Layard, Richard, 375
Jats, 21-22 Lee Commission, 332
Jencks, Christopher, 212, 216, 391, 405, Legislative Council (U.P.), 408
428, 445 Leitner, Gottlieb Wilhelm, 326, 449
Jennings, J. G., 181 Lelyveld, David S., 399
Jha, Amaranatha, 422 Leonard, Karen, 435
Jha, B. N., 32 Leslie, Charles, 342n, 348, 446, 452, 455
Jha, Ganganatha, 338 Lilge, Frederick, 380
Johns Hopkins University, 16 Limaye, E. M., 381
Joshi, J. C., 377, 380, 392 Lingayats, 21, 88, 133-143, 144, 146, 410
Joshi, Umashankar, 31 “Link politics”, 151
Joshi, Dr. V. S., 70 Literacy, 52, 103, 121-123. See also Lan¬
Journal of Ayurveda, 352 guage of instruction
Journal of University Education, 293 Localization, of M.S.U. faculty, 228-229
Jung, Nawab Ali Yawar, 276, 435, 444 Loksatta, 243
Jung, Sir Salar, 274 Lothian, Arthur, 435
Junior technical schools (jts’s), 388 Low, Anthony, 429
Jyoti, Ltd., 261-262 Lucknow University, 376
Lucknow Ayurvedic College, 355
Kannapan, Subbiah, 388-389 Lyon, P. C., 196-197
Kantak, V. Y., 249 Lytton, Lord, 379
Karnatak Liberal Education Society of
Belgaum, 132-133, 410 Macaulay, Thomas, 3
Karnatak University, 128, 130, 145 Macaulay’s Minute of 1835, 3, 345, 378
Kashi Vidyapith (U.P.), 20, 99, 381-382 Madan, P. J., 249, 432
Kashyap, Subhash, 428 Madan, T. N., 23, 85-86, 88, 121ff, 409-
Kayastha Pathshala Intercollege of Al¬ 410, 446
lahabad, 97, 117, 118 Madhya Pradesh, 30, 52, 58
Kayasths, 21 Madras, 21, 51, 212-213, 323-324, 397.
Kerala, 21, 29, 52, 59, 62-65, 87 See also Tamil Nadu
Kerala University, 25-26 Mahar, Man Singh, 414, 416-417
Kerr, Clark, 380, 437 Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda,
Khan, Barkatulla, 413-414 42, 168-170, 207-272
Khan, Rasheeduddin, 444 Maharashtra, 21, 59, 63-65
Khan, Sir Syed Ahmed, see Ahmed, Syed Mahars, 21, 382
King, A. D„ 386, 430 Mahmood, Justice Syed, 185
Kirpal, P., 70 Maintenance grants, 75-76
Kopf, David, 375 Majlis-e-Mushawarat, 408-409
 466 Index

Majumdar, D. N., 409 Moos, Malcolm, 437, 445

Majumdar, Kaviraj Ashutosh, 342n Morehouse, Ward, 452
Majumdar, Surendrachnandra, 178n Morison, Theodore, ,184-185, 422
Mallet, C. E., 449 Morris, Morris David, 398
Managing boards, 104, 106, 113-119, Mouat, Dr. F. I., 19
134-137, 139. See also Colleges, pri¬ Mudaliar, A. L. 409
vately-managed Mudaliar Committee Report of 1961,
Mangles, R. D., 378 352-353
Manjappa, Hardekar, 410 Muir Central College, 56, 172-206
Marathas, 133-138 Muir, Sir William, 179-180
Marcuse, Herbert, 263 Mujeeb, M., 383
Marriott, McKim, 405 Mukherji, Sir Asutosh, 9, 16, 187-188,
Marris, William S., 198, 200 192-194, 196-197, 378-379, 423, 426
Marshall, T. H„ 7, 375 Muslim University (Aligarh), 22, 168,
Matching funds, 76. See also Financing 172-206, 376, 383
of education, University Grants Com¬ Muslims, 3, 20-22, 88, 133-143, 147,
mission 168, 179, 183-185, 198-204, 223-225,
Mathur, G. B., 415 274-276, 383, 408-409
Mathur, Gautham, 273n, 438, 444 Mysore, 21, 23, 53, 64-65, 85, 88, 121-
McCully, B. T., 378 147
McDonald, Ellen E., 386 Mysore district, 125-127, 133, 137-139,
McGee, Reece J., 445 141
McGill, William, 434
McKeon, Richard, 235
Medical colleges, 41, 355-357 Nadars, 21
Medical Council of India, 356, 359, 456 Naidus, 437
Medical systems: western, 317, 342-343, Naik Committee Report, 149-150, 152,
345, 348-349, 351, 369; “mixed,” 317, 162-163
348-349, 351-352, 358, 363-364; Naik, I. P., 30, 58, 94, 162, 378, 391,
Unani, 345-347, 359, 453; Siddha, 346; 397, 399, 407,409-410, 413, 418
shuddha Ayurveda, 358, 360-371, 458- Nair Service Society, 382, 402
459; integrated, 361-371 passim, 456 Nair, Sir Saukaran, 451
Medicine, boards of Indian, 346-347 Nair, V. K. S., 382, 397, 402
Medium of instruction, see Language of Nairs, 21-22
instruction Nanda, Gulzarilal, 366-368
Mehrotta, K. K., 420 Naoroji, Dadabhai, 44
Mehta, Balwantray, 242, 254, 266, 405 Narain, Iqbal, 8, 89-90,92, 148ff, 414
Mehta, C. C., 250 Narain, Raj, 396
Mehta, Hansa, 9, 207-208, 235, 239-242, Narayana, Dr. A. L., 283, 437
244, 248, 254 Natarajan, S., 378, 409
Mehta, Dr. livraj, 208, 239, 241, 248, Nath, Kedar, 417
266 National Council of Education, 20
Mehta, lyotindra, 241-242, 244, 248, 252, National Herald (Lucknow), 102-103
254, 259, 266 National Medical Association, 458
Mehta, Mohan Sinha, 9 Nationalism, 5, 19-20, 54, 349-350
Mehta, Usha, 395 Nayar, Dr. Sushila, 360, 362, 366
Meisner, Mitchell, 406 Nedunchezhian, V. R., 30
Menon, V. P., 427, 435 Nehru, lawaharlal, 97, 99-100, 307
Metzger, W. P., 377 Nehru, Moti Lai, 205
Milner, Isaac, 445 Newton, William Munroe, 407
Minto, Lord, 199 Nixon, Richard, 381
Mirdha, Nathu Ram, 149n Northcote-Trevelyan reforms, 321
Misra, B. B., 379, 409 North-Western provinces, 323-325
Missionary schools, see Christian schools Nurullah, Syed, 378, 409
Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College,
see Muslim University (Aligarh) Oaten, Edward Farley, 194-197, 424-425
Mohsin-ul-Mulk, Nawab, 199, 201 Orientalists, 335-336, 345
Montagu-Chelmsford reforms (1919), Orissa, 52, 53, 59, 64-66, 390
319 O’Rourke, Francis, 437
Montgomery, lohn D., 455 Orwell, George, 404
 Index
467

Osmania University, 10, 168-171, 263- Presidency College (Calcutta), 15, 56,
264, 273-309 168, 172-206, 396
Osmania University Act of 1959, 281— Presidency College (Madras), 56
282
Press, 243-244, 290, 303, 418-419, 445
Osmania University Teachers’ Associ¬ Pre-University Course (P.U.C.), 31-32,
ation (OUTA), 287, 295-297, 300 37, 50, 232, 235, 253, 315, 384
Osmania University Graduates Associ¬ Primary schools, 8, 29, 89-92, 125-126,
ation, 285-286, 308 130, 148-171, 414
Princely states, 92, 345
Private colleges, see Colleges, privately-
Panchayati raj, 89-90, 148-151, 413 managed
Panchayati samitis, 89, 92-93, 148-152, Professional schools, 40-41, 231-233
156-157, 413 260-261
Pandey, K. C., 148n
Professionalization, 4, 313-317, 342-343,
Pandey, Ram Krishna, 94n 349, 357, 364, 371
Pandit, H. N„ 375
Professors, 172ff, 191, 203-206, 287-288,
Pandit, Saraswati, S., 427, 431 292-297; British, 172-174, 176-178,
Parikh, J. S., 250
181, 188-189, 195-198, 200-202, 320-
Park, Richard L., 405 321, 330-332, 337-338, 340-341; In¬
Parochialization, 6, 55-56, 207-210, 214- dian, 322, 330-332, 337-340. See also
226, 238, 268-269, 271-272 Faculty, Teachers
Parsis, 243
Provincial Educational Services (PES)
Parsons, Talcott, 409 319, 327, 329, 450
Patel, A. S„ 432 Public interest in education, 9-10, 28, 30
Patel, Amar, 250 32, 34, 318, 357
Patel, Dr. C. B., 250 Public Service Commission (1888), 326-
Patel, Dr. C. S., 207n, 242-244, 249, 327
252, 263-267, 392 Punjab, 21, 52, 63-65, 323-325
Patel, I. G., 243 Punjab University, 22
Patel, Ishwarbhai, 243 Pupilage system, 344, 361
Patel, Raojibhai, 248, 255 Pye, Lucian W., 455
Patel, Thakorebhai V., 228, 242, 248-
250, 252-254, 261, 263, 267
Patel, Sardar, 99 R.B.N. Intercollege (U.P.), 109^-110
Patidars, 208, 223-224, 251 Radhakrishnan, Dr. S., 9, 452
Patna College, 218 Rai, Lala Lajput, 382
Patna University, 376 Raj, K. N., 31, 245, 271, 392, 432-433
Pavate, D. C., 9, 33, 121n, 128, 136, 247, Rajagopal, P. V., 273n
410
Rajasthan, 8, 29, 52, 62, 89-92, 148-171
Pedler, Alexander, 421 Rajasthan Teachers Association, 150,
Pendse, Dr. G. S., 342n, 456 153, 158, 418-419
Pennock, J. Roland, 455 Rajputs, 21
Per capita expenditure, see Financing of Raju, Narsa, 294, 439
education Raleigh, Walter, 184
Planning Commission, 390 Ram Lai Bai (Ram Lai Mishra), 107-
Political science departments, 395 109
Politicization, 8-10, 13-16, 23, 28, 30, Ram, Mohan, 397
33-34, 83-84, 87-88, 92-93, 103, 115, Ramaswamy Iyer, Sir C. P., 32, 288, 293,
150, 163-164, 238-239, 248, 250, 255- 439
256, 278, 313, 317 Rao, B. Ram Kishan, 303
Polytechnics, 388 Rao, C. V. H., 443
Postgraduate studies, 17, 33, 37-39, 42- Rao, P. V. Narasimha, 273, 298, 301,
45, 50, 78-79, 192-193, 197-198, 320 437
Postgraduate Training Center for Ayur¬ Rao, V. K. R. V., 291, 392
veda, 346 Rashdell, Hastings, 377
Powicke, S. N., 377 Ravenell, Barbara (Joshi), 414
Pradhan, 14, 48-49, 92 Ray, lustice A. N., 172n
Prasad, Brij Nandan, 94n, 117-118 Ray, Dr. P. C., 329, 333, 337
Prasad, Madhu, 381 Reader, W. J., 445
Presidency College (Bombay), 14 Reagan, Ronald, 380, 437
468 Index

Recruitment, see Faculty, recruitment; Scheduled castes, 105-106, 136, 150,

Students 223-225
Reddi, Dr. D. S„ 71, 170, 273, 278-283, Scheduled tribes, 150
288-298, 301-304, 308-309, 436, 438- Schelsky, Helmut, 377
440 Schultz, Theodore, 375
Reddy, Brahmananda, 283, 287-293, Scholarships, 145
301-303, 437, 440 School of Native Doctors (Calcutta),
Reddy caste, 278, 301, 437 345
Reddy, Sanjiva, 281, 302 Science and technology programs, 42,
Redfield, Robert, 409 314-315
Regional language, see Language of in¬ Scoville, James G., 389
struction Seal, Anil, 96, 385, 396, 407
Report of the Educational Commission, Secondary Education Commission (1953),
1964-1966, see Education Commission, 85
1964-1966 Secondary schools, 15, 29, 35, 66-67, 83-
Report of the Fourth National Seminar 87, 94ff, 125-126, 130, 388, 408
on Compulsory Primary Education, Sectarian institutions, 88-89, 121-147
156 “Seed money” programs, 75-76, 266. See
Residential university, 211-212, 256-257 also University Grants Commission
Revivalists, Ayurvedic, 344-345, 362, Sen, Amartya, 428
368-369, 371 Sen, B. M., 329, 330
Richey, James Alexander, 378, 420 Sen, Triguna, 9, 260, 438
Richter, William, 73, 397, 429 Senate, university: composition of, 17-
Rickover, Admiral Hyman G., 406 18, 172-173, 204, 266, 282-285, 334;
Riesman, David, 212, 216, 391, 428, 445 at Calcutta, 17-18, 188, 193; at M.S.U.
Rimland states, 51-57, 208, 212-214 Baroda, 237, 246, 248, 254-255, 266;
Ringer, Fritz, 380 at Osmania, 282-285, 287, 289, 292,
Rogers, David, 405 308
Rosen, George, 397, 406 Sethna, S. M., 249
Rosenthal, Donald, 394 Shah, Arvind, 430
Rourke, Francis E., 445 Shah, B. V., 225, 430
Roy, Ramashray, 218, 382, 408, 430 Shah, C. B., 249
Roy, Raja Ram Mohan, 15, 339 Shahani, S., 395
Rudolph, Lloyd I., 342n, 394, 397, 411- Sharma, Anant Tripathi, 366
412, 427 Sharma, Hari Prasad, 155
Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber, 95, 119, 342n, Sharma, Mohan Lai, 148n
394, 397, 411, 427 Sharma, Pandit Krti, 366, 458
Rushbrook-Williams, L. F., 205, 336 Sharma, Pandit Shiv, 342n, 358, 360,
362,366-368, 453
Saiyidain, K. G., 32 Sharma, Ram, 383
Sakai, Robert F., 407 Sharma, Tilak Ram, 342n
Salary scales of teachers, 321-324, 326- Sharp, H., 375
329, 331. See also Grading Shastri, Lai Bahadur, 20, 288, 290-291,
Salodia, Jai Narain, 152, 415 303
Sampurnanand, Dr., 20, 99, 367, 382 Shaw, Robert C., 441
Samyukta Socialist Party (SSP), 30 Shils, Edward, 44-45, 375, 395-396, 407,
Sanathan Dharma movement, 22 409
Sanskrit, 360-361 Shri Prabhudas Thakkar Commerce and
Sapru, Sir Tej Bahadur, 205 Science College (Gujarat), 31
Sapru Committee, 69-70 Shukla, B. S., 94n
Sargent, Sir John, 399 Shuddha Ayurveda, see Medical systems
Sargent Committee Report of 1948, 89 Shuddha Ayurvedic Education Board,
Sargent Plan of 1944, 70 366
Sarkar, Sir Jadunath, 189, 329, 338 Siddons, K. G., 183-184
Sarma, Pandit Din Dayal, 383 Siffin, William J., 455
Sarma, G. N., 395 Sikhs, 22
Sarpanch, 152 Simon, Brian, 375, 391, 444
Sathianadhan, Samuel, 329 Singer, Charles J., 453
Satyanarayan, Ravada, 273n Singer, Milton, 398
Sayajirao, Maharaja, 207 Singh, Amar Kumar, 376
 Index 469

Singh, Amrik, 273n, 293, 392, 401, 436, University, 249; at Osmania Univer¬
438 sity, 278, 280-281, 284-285, 287
Singh, Avadhesh Pratap, 94n, 115-116
Singh, B., 411 Taine, Henri, 375
Singh, Bhairon, 150, 157, 414, 416 Talmon, J. L., 377
Singh, Charan, 104, 107 Tamil Nadu, 54-55, 63-65, 428. See also
Singh, Chosar, 418 Madras
Singh, Dinesh, 292, 367 Taub, Richard P., 398
Singh, Iqbal, 378 Tawney, Charles H., 336
Singh, Jagdamba Prasad, 110-111 Teachers, 85; in Rajasthan, 90, 92, 148,
Singh, Maharawal Laxman, 418 150-160, 162-163, 415, 418; in local
Singh, Mahendra, 152, 416 politics, 148, 151-161, 416-417; col¬
Singh, Mata Prasad, 111-113 lege, 316-317, 325, 332-334, 340. See
Singh, Narendra, 395 also Faculty, Professors
Singh, Natthi, 153-154 Telengana Committee, 277
Singh, Ram Harsh, 94n Telengana districts (A. P.), 275-279, 282,
Singh Sir Pratap, 207 305, 436, 443
Singh Sardar Kairon, 21 Thakur, Kapuri, 30
Singh, Shamboo Narain, 112 Thapar, P. N., 9
Singh, Sher, 21, 377 Three-language formula, see language of
Singh, Swamp, 31, 392 instruction
Singh, Yogendra, 395 Tilak, B. G„ 19
Singh, V. B., 411 Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapith, 20
Sinha, N. K., 423 Tirtha, Dr. N. B., 225
Sinha, Vraj Mohan, 428 Titus, W. S., 431
Smith, Donald E., 382, 407 Tiwari, R. D., 112
Smith, Wilson, 375 Tripathi, Kamalapathi, 20, 107
Snow, C. P., 445 Tripathi, Ram Narain, 109-110
Socialist Party (U.P.), 109-110 Trustees, boards of, 14, 168, 199-203.
Sociology, 44, 395 See also Managing boards, Senate,
Sri Ram Ballabha Bhagwant Vidyapith Syndicate
Intercollege, 105-106 Tuitions system, 29, 258-259
Sri Venkateswara University, 273, 298-
299 Udaipur State, 9
Srinivas, M. N., 146, 395, 411 Udapa Committee, 346, 353, 457
Standards in education, 5, 10-12, 35-40, Ulich, Robert, 390
42-46, 48-49, 69, 103, 150, 156, 230- Unani system of medicine, see medical
231, 256-257, 357-359, 363-364. See systems
also Vyas Committee report Uncovenanted services, 320-321, 333,
State of Gujarat v. Shri Krishna, 69 447-448. See also Indian Educational
Stem, Robert, 446 Service
Storr, Richard J., 445 Underwood, E. Ashworth, 453
Students: background of, 25-26, 137— Unitary university, 211-212, 427-428
138, 140-141, 143, 175, 218-222; un¬ United States, 13-14, 18-19, 90-91, 167,
rest, 35, 187, 191, 194-198, 200-202, 313-314
298-300, 360, 362-363, 381; in hostels, Universities, 3-6, 341; founding of, 5,
48; performance of, 48-49; -staff ra¬ 13-20, 25, 73-74, 126-127, 385, 393,
tios, 45-47, 50, 231; community at 401-402; structure of, 17, 172-173,
M.A.-O. College, 184-185; council, 336; as teaching institutions, 205-206;
191; in university politics, 299-300; German, 216, 377-378. See also Ad¬
missions policy, Autonomy, Adminis¬
Ayurvedic, 353-356, 360, 362-363; re¬
tration, Affiliating universities, Residen¬
cruitment of, 386
tial university, Unitary university
Subdeputy inspector of schools (SDI),
University Amendment Acts of 1965,
149
282-289
Sutcliffe, lames, 175, 421
University Education Commission of
Swatantra Party, 250 1948 (Radhakrishna Report), 70, 72
Syndicate, university, 172-173, 334; at University Grants Commission (UGC),
M.S.U. Baroda, 228-229, 237, 241- 33, 68, 72-78, 221, 237, 266, 268, 272,
242, 246-253, 255, 257; at Andhra 280, 290, 303, 387,398-407, 434
 470 Index

University Grants Commission Act of ences of, 32, 78-79, 377, 393; types of,
1956, 403 237-246; term of, 242, 292, 295; re¬
University Grants Commission Act of moval of, 283-286, 288, 291, 295-298,
1968, 401 438-439
University of: Allahabad, 56, 180, 185, Vice-Chancellor’s Committee of 1969,
203; Baroda, see Maharaja Sayajirao 257, 266
University of Baroda; Bombay, 16, 44. Vidya Mandirs, 111
See also Presidency College, Elphin- Vignery, Robert J., 406
stone College; Calcutta, 16-18, 174- Vithal, B. P. R., 273n
175, 178, 180, 184, 187, 195-198, 321, Vocational courses, 27, 387-388
379-380. See also Presidency College Vokkaligas, 133-138, 141, 144, 410
(Calcutta); California, 380; Chicago, Vyas, Mohanlal P., 360, 366-367, 459
16; Delhi, 26, 31, 38, 44, 77, 270-271, Vyas, Murli Dhar, 417
387; Edinburgh, 237; Kerala, 22; Lon¬ Vyas Committee report, 360-364
don, 5, 17-18, 314-315, 319-320; Ma¬
dras, 16, 55; Michigan, 237; Rajasthan, Warner, Lee, 381
9 Webb, Robert, 375
Unnithan, T. K. N., 395 Weiler, Hans W., 411
Uttar Pradesh, 8, 21, 52, 56-57, 63, 83- Weiner, Myron, 409
86, 94ff, 170, 212-213, 408, 428 West Bengal, 64-65
Western Times, 229, 263
Vaidyas, 345-346, 350, 352, 361, 364, Wilkinson, Rupert, 378
366 Wilson, H. H., 454
Vaidya sammelans, 366 Winstanley, D. A., 449
Vaisyas, 21 Women, at M.S.U. Baroda, 226
Vaizey, John, 375 Wood, Glynn, 23, 412
Vakil, K. S„ 378, 409 Wood, Sir Charles, 17
Vakil, Nasarvanji K., 243-246 Woodhall, Maureen, 376
Vakils, 17 Wordsworth, William Christopher, 197,
Varma, Babu, Sarvjit Lai, 110-111 402, 421, 423-424
Varma, Jai Ram, 107-109 World Health Organization (WHO),
Varma, Madan Mohan, 107-108, 117— 237, 268
118 Wriggins, W. Howard, 453
Varma, Mahadeo Prasad, 109-110 Wright, Theodore P., Jr., 376, 444
Venkataraman, R., 65
Verma, P. C., 121n Yadav, Dhorey Ram, 108
Veysey, Lawrence R., 391 Yagnik, K. S., 235
Vice-chancellors: selection of, 8, 10, 17, Yoga, 346, 352
171, 246-247, 252, 255, 281, 285, 287,
291, 376, 432-433; role of, 9, 32-33, Zelliott, Eleanore, 382
173, 278-281, 283-284, 308; confer¬ Zimmer, Henry R., 453
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