|
Facts and Opinions Volume I – Oct. 9, 1909 – Number 16 The Apostasy of the National Council
We have received an open letter from some teachers of the Rangpur National school in which they warn the President of the National Council of Education of the evil effects likely to ensue from the recent National Risley Circular and protest strongly against the policy underlying it. For reasons of space we are unable to publish the letter. The signatories point out that the movement took its birth in the boycott movement and was from the first, closely associated with it in nature and sympathy, that the participation of young men in the national awakening has been one of the chief causes of its rapid progress and success and that the new policy of the Council not only divorces education from the life of the country, but destroys the sympathy and support of the most progressive elements in the nation. It is also pointed out that the donation made by Raja Subodh Mullik, from which the practicability of the movement took its beginning and the sacrifices made by the teachers and students of the first established schools were intimately connected with the revolt against the Risley Circular, and yet the same circular is repeated in a more stringent form by the Council itself. There were two conditions attached to Raja Subodh Chandra’s gift; the first that the maintenance of the Rangpur and Dacca schools, which were created to give shelter to students who persisted in taking part in politics in spite of all prohibitions, should be assisted out of his donation, and second that no form of Government control should be submitted to by the Council. It would be mere hypocrisy to deny that the issue of the prohibitory telegrams by the Secretary was the result of the Government circular previous to the seventh of August. We do not know by what morality or law of honour the Council clings to the donation while infringing in the spirit its most vital condition. Perhaps these things also, no less than courage and sincerity,
Page – 229 are considered unessential in this new "national" education. We notice that Sj. Hirendranath Dutt at Dacca seems to have openly proclaimed the abjuration of all connection with politics as part of the duty of a "National" school. We must therefore take the divorce of the National Council from the national movement as part of a deliberate and permanent policy, and not, as it might otherwise have been imagined, a temporary aberration due largely to the fact that the President and the most active of the two Secretaries are members of Legislative Councils and therefore parts of the Government which is supposed to have no control over the institution. All that we can now expect of the Council is to be a centre of scientific and technical education; it can no longer be a workshop in which national spirit and energy are to be forged and shaped.
A recent article in the Amrita Bazar Patrika gives a picture of the enormous educational progress made by China in a few years. In the short time since the Boxer troubles China has revolutionised her educational system, established a network of modern schools of all ranks, provided for a thorough modern education for her princes and nobles, and added to the intellectual education a thorough grounding in military knowledge and the habits of the soldier, so that, when the process is complete, the whole Chinese people will be a nation trained in arms whom the greatest combination of powers will not care to touch. On another side of national development, a railway has just been opened which has been entirely constructed and will be run by Chinese. When the process of education is well forward, it is intended by the Chinese Government to transform itself into a constitutional and Parliamentary government, and in its programme this great automatic revolution has been fixed to come off in another eight years. No other race but the Chinese, trained by the Confucian system to habits of minute method, perfect organisation and steady seriousness in all things great and small, could thus calmly map out a stupendous political, social and educational change, as
Page – 230 if it were the programme of a ceremonial function, and carry it out with thoroughness and efficiency. Once the Chinese have made up their minds to this revolution, they are likely to carry it out with the greatest possible completeness, businesslike method, effective organisation, and the least possible waste and friction. In the history of China, no less than the history of Japan, we are likely to see the enormous value of national will-power using the moral outcome of a great and ancient discipline, even while breaking the temporary mould in which that discipline had cast society, thought and government. We in India have an ancient discipline much more powerful than the Chinese or Japanese; but where is the centre of sovereignty in India which will direct the national will-power to the right use of that discipline ? Where even is the centre of national endeavour which will make up for the absence of such a Government ? We have a Government manned by aliens, out of touch with and contemptuous of the sources of national strength and culture; we have an education empty of them which seeks to replace our ancient discipline by a foreign strength, instead of recovering and invigorating our own culture and turning it to modern uses; we have leaders trained in the foreign discipline who do not know or believe in the force that would, if made use of, revolutionise India more swiftly and mightily than Japan was or China is being revolutionised. It is this and not internal division or the drag of old and unsuitable conditions that makes the work in India more difficult than in any other Asiatic country.
Partition Day comes round again on the 16th October. Last year, executive caprice prevented the day from being celebrated with all its accustomed ceremonies; this year, there is not likely to be a similar interference, and we trust that all the usual circumstances of the occasion will be observed without any abridgment. On the 7th of August the official organisers were afraid to start the procession from the College Square; now that Sj. Surendranath is with us, we trust that no such unworthy considerations
Page – 231 will be allowed to mar the fullness and imposing nature of this feature. From no other centre in Calcutta is an effective procession at all probable, and it was seen last August that the only result of trying to change it was to break up the procession and mar its effect. The two most essential features, however, of the Partition Day are the Rakhi Bandhan and the reading of the National Proclamation; it is above all a day of the declaration of Bengal’s indivisible unity and these two functions are for that reason the very kernel of the observances. It is unfortunate that the celebration should coincide this year with the Puja sales, as this may interfere with the closing of the shops, which is the most salient sign of protest against the dismemberment. We hope the official organisers are taking steps to counteract this unfavourable factor.
Page – 232 |