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Since the beginning of colonial rule steps and measures began to be taken for establishing new mechanisms and institutions for facilitating the existence and prosperity of colonial power in India Following the promulgation of zamindari system (in 1793) old agrarian structure gradually began to be radically changed. The status of raiyat (peasant proprietor of pre-colonial days) was reduced to that of mere tenant. Intermediaries (zamindars) became permanent controllers of land whose conduct and policies led to the emergence of money-lending class as the richest group in the society<sup>1</sup>. Gradually the old structure of village was almost completely transformed. Village as a community eventually became too weak to overcome the divisive forces and the growing power of casteism and communalism in the twentieth century<sup>2</sup>. Along with all this, the education policy pursued by the colonial government was also directed against village institutions of vernacular education, which had been vigorously flourishing since probably Mughal days. However, the relationship of interdependence between village community and village school which facilitated the working of the peasant economy before, has, perhaps, received very little attention of the scholars of Indian history and sociology so far<sup>3</sup>. In the present paper, an attempt is made to describe the system of vernacular education which existed as a part of village structure and, then, discuss the way such an educational system was forced by socio-political circumstances to decline as village community gradually came to lose its force and become disintegrated in the nineteenth century due to the policies and measures taken by the colonial authorities.
Indigenous elementary or vernacular schools were found to be flourishing until the first few decades of the nineteenth century. William Adam conducted a survey of such schools in Bengal during 1830s. According to his estimate, about one lakh vernacular schools existed at that time in the villages of Bengal and Bihar<sup>4</sup>. In this context, Rev. F. E. Keay wrote on the basis of evidence furnished by British Indian records and British officials that “there was---, before the British Government took over the control of education in India, a widespread, popular, indigenous system. It was not confined to one or two provinces, but was found in various parts of India, though some districts were more advanced than others. In the inquiry made for the Madras Presidency in 1822-26, it was calculated that rather less than one-sixth of the boys of school-going age received education... In the similar inquiry made for the Bombay Presidency (1823-28), the number of boys under instruction was put down to about one in eight<sup>5</sup>...” A.P. Howell writing about education in India before 1854 on the basis of First Education Dispatch of the Court of Directors of the East India Company (1814) and other relevant documents mentioned that “There is no doubt that from time immemorial indigenous schools have existed... In Bengal alone, in 1835, Mr. Adam estimated their number to be 100,000; in Madras, upon an inquiry instituted by Sir Thomas Munro in 1822, the number of schools was reported to be 12,498, containing 188,650 scholars; and in Bombay, about the same period, schools of a similar order were found to be scattered all over the Presidency.<sup>6</sup>”
It is thus clear that indigenous elementary schools existed in most of the regions of India until about 1830s. There must have been variations in their structures due to regional and cultural differences. But, the prevalence of some common elements among them cannot be ruled out since all these institutions were recognized in different regions by different British officers and observers as indigenous schools of elementary education for village children. So, one can derive at least some ideas regarding their common structural aspects from different historical accounts available today. In this context, according to an anthropologist, Edward Hall, it is necessary to have data or information regarding the following : content of learning, the way learning is organized, the institutional setting, language used etc<sup>7</sup>.
So far as the content of learning is concerned, generally agricultural accounts, commercial accounts and some vernacular works were taught in local / regional languages. For example, in the Magadh belt of Bihar some Hindi books such as Dan Lila, Sudama Charita, Ram Janam based on the Ramayana of Tulshi Das were used<sup>8</sup>. In Bengal, the contents of instruction were the same as mentioned above. But, the vernacular works and the medium of instruction were Bengali. Similarly, in the north-eastern part of Tirhut, the contents of vernacular works and the medium of instruction were “Tirhutia” (Maithili)<sup>9</sup>. It is significant to note that neither Sanskrit nor Persian / Arabic books were used for teaching in these schools. Only the books available in vernaculars were included in the syllabus. The prevalence of vernacular education in all the Presidencies in the early nineteenth century indicates that it was a well institutionalized system. Its institutionalization at such a massive scale must have been backed and facilitated by the socio-economic conditions prevailing in the rural areas for a long time before colonial period.
Regarding the clientele of this education, William Adam observed that “Commercial accounts... are chiefly acquired by the class of money-lenders and retail traders, agricultural accounts... by the children of those families whose subsistence is exclusively drawn from the land, and both accounts by those... who expect to gain their livelihood as writers, accountants, etc<sup>10</sup>. Village schools, thus, used to impart such training to the children of peasants, artisans, craftsmen and traders that prepared them for carrying on the activities of their respective occupations, in future.
In this context, it is, pertinent to discuss the nature of village that afforded space for the existence of an educational institution for the mass of its members before the beginning of colonial rule. According to R.S. Sharma, “corporate unity” of “Village Community” became visible since early medieval era. He writes : “At least for four centuries or so from the sixth century onwards, this sense of ‘belongingness’ was strengthened by the blending of agriculture and handicrafts11” handicrafts<sup>11</sup>” Village as a community gradually grew to be quite strong. The harmonious combination of agriculture and handicrafts gave rise to the emergence of “self-possessing, self-working and self-sufficient peasants within the village community system”12system”<sup>12</sup>. Such a class of peasantry, according to Ramkrishna Mukherjee, also included “traders and the more or less self-sufficient and self-working artisans who owned their means of production and whose dominant role in society was to produce by employing their own labour’13labour’<sup>13</sup>. The structure of village community was chiefly constituted by this class in pre-British era14era<sup>14</sup>. The community had its own strong internal arrangement. Mukherjee contends in this context that “Indeed, so much was the ... strength of the village community system that although new forces had begun to emerge in society from about the fifteenth century in order to break through the institution, they could not...do away with it even by the middle of the eighteenth century.”15 ”<sup>15</sup> Due to the predominance of the (said) one class, perhaps, the village community was quite consolidated in spite of having caste heterogeneity. A number of bhakti movements and other anti-Varna / jati forces had been working in the society since medieval age16age<sup>16</sup>. Consequently, perhaps, Nicholas Dirks writes that “the units of social identity had been multiple ... Caste was just one category among many others... Regional, village... kinship groups, factional parties, chiefly contingents...could supersede caste as a ruberic for identity”17 identity”<sup>17</sup> (emphasis added). So, it seems that caste divisions were there but the force of village community was so strong that it contained or undermined effectively any divisive or antagonistic relationship based on caste consideration.
According to Irfan Habib, village used to have a panchayat with considerable authority, its own fund of money (collective fund) for expenditure at the time of damming water channels in the village and its own land (waste land and pasture, etc. which were most probably used as common property resources by the villagers)<sup>18</sup>. The strength of such a sociological reality of village was, it seems, taken to be quite striking by the British observers and authorities as well in the beginning decades of colonial rule.
Thomas Munro reported in 1806 that every village was a kind of “little republic” and the Fifth Report of 1812 quoted him “liberally in an endorsement of the view that village government had been in place from time immemorial19”immemorial<sup>19</sup>”. Mark Wilks wrote in 1810 about the continuity and vigour of the autonomy of internal management of village by villagers in spite of the changes of imperial dynasties and rulers from time to time20time<sup>20</sup>. Considering different historical records and reports of the British authorities of early nineteenth century in this context, James Ray Hagen contends that village “operated off itself, that is, physical and moral control was enforced from within rather than dependent on higher level of imperial authority21”. The observations of Jonathan Ducan, Colonel Sleeman and others also endorse this view of the nature of village in pre-British India22.
Considering the aforementioned accounts, one may contend that village structure before British rule was chiefly constituted by the peasants (who were owners of their lands and who themselves cultivated their lands), traders and artisans. This class had devised an autonomous system of management of its affairs as village panchayat. Village identity was, perhaps, most important for them in living their every day life. Agriculture was the chief occupation in the village. Besides, there were also traders and artisans. How did peasants and others continue to carry on their respective occupational activities from generation to generation? What was the source of the knowledge required for performing such activities? Which institution existed in village to impart any training for supporting the system of agriculture, trade and manufacturing that prevailed in the rural areas before the nineteenth century?
