Colonial State as ‘New Manu’? Explorations in Education Policies in Relation to Dalit and Low-Caste Education in the Nineteenth-Century India

Abstract

The colonial state always asserted itself as a harbinger of ‘modernity’ and emphasised its role in India as a ‘civilising mission’. The 1811 Educational Minute of Governor General Minto, declared Hindus and Muslims of India as inherently corrupt and insisted on the British role as ‘civilising’. Conventionally the terms ‘modern’ and ‘civilising mission’ have been considered as offensive, and scholars have critiqued them as Eurocentric and racist. However, these terms have not been analysed at the implementation stage in India. The colonial government used these terms to actually strengthen the structures of the traditional hierarchy. When Minto declared that the education policy was to civilise Hindus and Muslims of India, it was through the ‘the dread of their religion in this world and the next’ and through strengthening and empowering the priestly class of Hindus and Muslims (Sharp, 1920, pp. 19–21). The colonial administration regarded this kind of education as the corner stone of its education policy. This article looks at the education policies of the colonial state towards lower castes in the nineteenth-century India and how these policies upheld and reinforced the caste system.