Chapter VII: Sidelights on Some Native States

“Vulgarity is unknown in India. This alone is education and of the highest order. Reading and writing are minor to it.” From the _Indian Ladies’ Magazine_.

To the student of Indian problems the Native States present in many cases a survival of former conditions which elsewhere have been swept away under the more direct influence of British rule; in others freedom from the criticism to which an alien rule is liable has allowed advanced rulers to experiment on the most modern lines. The term “Native State” is itself capable of very diverse interpretation.[104] There are in all about seven hundred districts so-called, with a total population of over 62 million, and varying in size from the great southern State of Hyderabad, with an area of over 82,000 square miles, to parcels of land about the size of an average country estate in England. The British Government takes direct cognizance of some hundred of these in varying degrees of relationship. Some States are entirely responsible for their own internal government with a British Resident tactfully fulfilling his difficult office; in others the control is more direct, under an officer appointed as administrator by the Government till such time as the State finances or internal order may justify once more the revival of relative independence under an heir of the dynastic family. There is thus every variety of ruler, from the rajah who holds the time-honoured doctrine of “L’état c’est moi,” and whose State recalls the prejudices, barbarities, and general practices of the Europe of the Middle Ages, to the virtuous chiefs who strive to rule on modern principles of order and justice for the welfare of their people. There are rajahs whose women-folk are the strictest of _parda-nashin_ and others whose daughters may disport themselves in English society at home to their hearts’ content, a curious bye-product being the rani who is _parda-nashin_ in her own State but not when she comes out into the world abroad.

It is natural that only amongst the more progressive States is any opportunity found of studying the question of female education; in others even the first beginnings are totally absent. The present chapter is in no sense a complete survey, and only offers a few notes which may indicate the general trend. It is difficult in many cases to obtain exact information, as the British Government are wisely chary of giving too much. The official reports, as M. Chailley puts it, wrap up blame in velvet and distribute praise with a liberal hand, and a letter to a native diwan[105] will not always procure an educational report with the same promptitude as it would in British territory. There is also the never-to-be-forgotten fact that “All the world’s a stage,” and at times the temptation to play a part, to produce a semblance of things which speak of progress and yet lack reality, is too strong for the Oriental mind. Thus a school housed in a magnificent building with four hundred girls on its roll may prove to have less than two hundred in daily attendance, though each child is in receipt of a monthly “stipend” from the State for the honour of her attendance; and “God save the Queen” may be cheerily sung in honour of the beloved Empress of whose death all India has not yet heard!

Some of the smaller Native States are closely linked educationally with the adjacent British province; the Inspectors visit them, and their statistics are included in the Provincial Report. Thus the Quinquennial Survey includes over 150,000 square miles of Native State territory, chiefly in the Bombay Presidency. In others, with which the Government of India maintains direct political relations, the educational policy depends entirely on the native ruler, and reflects his personality and enthusiasm. A very striking instance of this is Baroda, a small state with a population of about two million. A policy of stringent reform was inaugurated there about 1875, during the minority of the present Gaekwar, and has had its effect on the position of women. Two acts, legalizing the re-marriage of widows and raising the marriage age to twelve, have marked the tide of progress during the last decade. The educational movement dates from 1871, and there is now a complete system for boys from free Primary education to scholarships in Japanese Universities. The scheme for girls is less ambitious, but there are Primary schools in every village, teaching the ordinary curriculum up to Standard IV., a fair proportion of Secondary schools in which cooking is also taught by the teacher or by a Brahman cook, and a central High school in the capital with a Training college attached. Any girl of promise can secure a scholarship to it after the fourth or fifth Standard, and after a five years’ course is certain of employment. The curriculum is very thorough, including astronomy, botany, mathematics, and the ordinary Normal course. There are at present about fifty students in the college, and a steadily increasing stream of applicants. My informant stated that there was no prejudice here against widows as teachers, and that even Brahman widows who were poorly off had entered the profession. The statistics are of special interest as showing the effect of compulsory education within a limited area. This experiment was introduced, for the first time in Indian history, in one district of Baroda in 1893, and was extended to the whole province in 1904. The age for girls is seven to ten, for boys from seven to twelve. The numbers in the girls’ case rose from 9% of school age at school in 1905 to 47% in 1910--an almost incredible rise in comparison with the slow movement in other parts of India. There is naturally a good deal to be said as to the wisdom of a policy which is so far in advance of the desire of the people. Some are said to be flying from Baroda into the adjacent British territory to escape what appears to them a meaningless tyranny.[106] The people are very poor and heavily taxed; they want the children to work, or to take charge of the other children while the women work in the fields. The richer parents, again, object to the girls leaving the house, as _parda_ is fairly strict. There are pathetic tales of school mistresses who, in addition to their scholastic duties, must start an hour and a half before the appointed time to compel unwilling feet into the path of knowledge, and stories of children who manage to arrive half an hour before the closing time in order to kindly swell the statistics of attendance. Then there is the usual prejudice against the unpractical nature of the curriculum, and its slavish similarity to the boys’ course. But after all discounting of statistics and allowance for the undercurrent of revolt, there is evidently a good deal of honest educational work being done in Baroda, with some measure of success. There is even some talk of creating a Central Women’s Department, where special needs might receive full consideration. One Inspectress, a Parsi lady, is at present working there, and assistants are shortly to be appointed.

In the great Mohammedan State of Hyderabad progress is naturally slower. Though the greater proportion of the inhabitants are Hindus, the Moslem influence, proceeding from the Nizam’s Court, is the predominating one. The Wesleyan and American Baptist missions began pioneer work in the Primary education of girls about 1880, and have steadily developed it by tactful measures to higher stages. Effort on the part of the Government has been made only in recent years, and is not yet a very important factor, though the Nizam’s _parda_ school at the capital is the beginning of better things. In 1905 there were only 4467 girls under instruction out of a population of over eleven million![107]

Mysore also owes its first movement towards female education to missionary influence. In 1840 the first mission school for girls was opened in Bangalore, and in 1868 the first Government school. As in other parts of India, girls are to be found in the _hobli_ or local boys’ school, but the usual difficulties prevent this method from being really effective. A great impulse was given to the whole enterprise not only in Mysore but in all southern India by the establishment, in 1881, of the Maharani’s Girls’ School in the capital. The Maharani has also taken a close personal interest in its progress. This school, raised to the dignity of a college, ranks as a first-class institution; its Head is a student from Newnham College, and the rest of the staff has proportional qualifications. The education is entirely free, but entrance at first was limited only to high-caste families, and its extension now to Christians and respectable girls of low caste is under various restrictions. As a result the college has done much to break the barrier which exists between high-caste women and education. The curriculum includes the Kindergarten stage and a department of domestic science. There are at present some 400 pupils, including many Brahman widows, who are being trained as teachers, and also some former pupils who return to complete their course, bringing their children with them. Besides this splendid effort in the capital, the Government has encouraged the formation of local committees for the development of education in the different districts. By 1904 there were 243 girls’ schools and colleges, with a creditable percentage of four girls in the hundred at school. The London Missionary Society and others have extensive work here, and contribute considerably towards these statistics. Probably the most striking feature in the educational situation in Mysore is the introduction, in 1908, of definite religious teaching in the Government schools. This subject is more fully treated in a subsequent chapter.

Next to Baroda, the southern State of Travancore has the highest percentage of girls at school, namely, 23.3%. This is largely due to the fact that 31% of the population are Christians, and to the thorough work of the London Missionary Society; but the present Maharaj stands for educational reform, and an official effort is also made for the advancement of women. A somewhat similar impetus to that lent by the Maharani’s College was given to the education of girls in Travancore by the establishment there of the Maharajah’s College for girls under a fully qualified English Head-mistress, who has since been succeeded by an Indian lady. These two Indian institutions stand out beyond all others as examples of progressive native policy on wise lines.

The great group of Rajput States in the heart of which the British Government holds under its direct control the key lands of Ajmer-Merwara, have a history of romance and chivalry which might well have augured a leading place for their women in the modern movement, and yet it is just this very chivalry which shields them from its touch. The Rajput princesses of the ancient days were no pale, languishing maidens. They sallied forth armed and on horseback to lead a forlorn hope, or closed the gates of the castle against a lord who returned without the spoil of victory from the field. When the doom of their tribe was at hand and the Moslem hosts surged round the sacred city of Chitore, they passed in solemn procession to one common nuptial fire, while their lords perished in the wild holocaust of _johār_.[108] What wonder that, where the women were of this temper, their husbands and sons were able to defy all odds![109] Children of the sun and of the moon with all the glory of a mythic ancestry, the Rajputs have held apart from the seeming decadence of literary culture. True, there is the story of Jey Singh of the one hundred and nine virtues, whose mathematical calculations in the seventeenth century rank with those of European scholars, but he stands alone and reveals by contrast the prevalent conditions. The character of the rulers has thus in modern times influenced educational progress amongst their people, though only a very small percentage of these are actually of Rajput descent. Alwar was the first State to move in 1842, and three years later Jaipur. It was not till some twenty years after that any official movement was made on behalf of women. The first girls’ school was opened at Bharatpur in 1866,[110] but the progress has been very slow with little headway. In 1901 only two women out of every thousand could read. In 1905 there were, over the whole group of States, only fifty-three girls’ schools, including the mission schools, and some of these were in a very poor state of efficiency. In Jaipur, which may be taken as the most advanced State educationally, the Government supports some eleven schools for girls. The principal one of these in the capital is supplied with splendid quarters. What money can do apart from personality has been done. The school, however, suffers most acutely from the prevailing difficulty of an inefficient staff. Some of the assistant teachers themselves are barely beyond the stage of being able to read and write, and thus the school as a whole lacks the attraction which is necessary to popularize education in a community where the hereditary tendency is against it. The marvel, however, is not that the school is not thoroughly modern, but that it is there at all; and if we remember the rapid strides which have been made in other parts of India from even smaller beginnings, it augurs well for the future of Jaipur. Mission-work in Native States depends greatly on the personal relations which the pioneers succeed in establishing with their rulers, and the United Free Church Mission has, since its first entrance in 1866 to the Native State of Rajputana, been exceedingly tactful in this matter. Its educational work for boys has been well developed and has helped very considerably in the general advance; on the women’s side a great deal of careful pioneer work has been done by means of small schools and zenana-visiting. There are at present sixteen of such schools with a total register of four hundred in six different States, also in Jaipur and elsewhere there is a considerable number of women under regular instruction in the zenanas. The efficiency of the schools varies according as they are more or less accessible to the regular visitation of an English lady worker. The work is entirely Primary as the _parda_ custom is strict, and the children are withdrawn at about eight years of age.

The British District of Ajmer-Merwara does not, strictly speaking, fall within the purview of this chapter, but as it is essentially the key to all Rajasthan, its conditions have a reflex influence on the States, and the relation of the educational problems is a very vital one. The Government, while upholding the necessity of women’s education, is greatly hampered in its efforts by financial considerations. The office of Inspectress, held since 1871 by a European lady educated in India, lapsed in 1892, and since then there has been no systematic effort to train teachers or effectually to supervise and co-ordinate the Government and independent schools. There are in all seven schools directly maintained by the Government, all of primitive type, quartered in rooms and courtyards rented in the bazaar, and of the 140 pupils only twelve are in the second Standard. The Government Report frankly acknowledges the inefficiency of these schools and urges the re-appointment of an Inspectress. The energies of the United Free Church Mission have been largely devoted in the past decade to the education of their famine orphans and the girls of the Christian community. Their Girls’ Boarding-School in Nasirabad is a well-equipped institution, and Normal work is under consideration.

The tradition of Primary schools for non-Christians, since the first was founded in 1862, and of systematic zenana teaching, has been well maintained, and there are now about thirteen such with over four hundred pupils. There is, however, no really first-class education provided for the women of the non-Christian community, nor any attempt to meet the educational need of the changed times. The new spontaneous element is to be seen in the educational scheme of the Ārya Samāj, which has apparently a more religious aspect here than in other provinces. They have two schools for girls in Ajmer: one an orphanage with twenty-eight pupils under an honorary mistress; another, the Ārya Putri Pathshala, is an excellent vernacular Primary school with some provision for further instruction. The Head-mistress is a fully trained teacher brought from another province, and the school throughout showed evidence of order and system. There are over sixty girls on the roll, and it seemed in every way the most efficient institution for non-Christians in the district. The most striking testimony to the new spirit and the new desire for progress was found in a private school conducted in her own house by the widow of a former leader of the Ārya community. It is true that in Ajmer the saying is still current that there cannot be two pens in one house, meaning thereby that to educate a girl is either to compass her own death or that of her future husband; but here some thirty-five girls, drawn not entirely from the Ārya Samāj but also from the leading orthodox castes, came daily at their own expense to get such learning as might help to fit them for life in its newer aspects. The Head-mistress, who had studied with her former husband, was a highly cultured Indian lady with a beautiful and attractive grace of manner, full of enthusiasm for her work, but almost pathetically conscious of the failure of her school to attain the ideals she had set before her. “I know geography ought to be taught but I cannot procure a teacher.” “I have never even had an opportunity of learning English.” “All my teachers teach for nothing; it is voluntary work, and education should not be otherwise.” The school to a large extent reflected the personality of the Head. The attendance nearly equalled the number on the roll; far from reward being given, any children who did not come were fined for absence; several older girls were there, including some who were married, and whose husbands were away from home also studying. The school is strictly _parda_, for the Ārya community itself is only gradually advancing to freedom in this respect, and in any case the older pupils from the orthodox families would necessitate it. The education given is a thorough grounding in the Hindi and Urdu vernacular, with a limited amount of Sanskrit and careful instruction in needlework.

The whole situation in Ajmer, taken as an index to the future development of the States of Rajasthan, points to the need for the establishment there of a first-class girls’ school with an English Head-mistress to set the standard for the whole district, and this is strongly advocated in the Government Report, without, however, any prospect of immediate action. The class from which its pupils would be drawn would be at first a limited one, but its presence would to a certain extent increase the demand which is slowly but surely coming from men who realize the new need, and who know an efficient school when they see it.

This very inadequate survey of the conditions in some of the leading Native States will have served its purpose if the reader has gathered from it that the modern movement for the education of women is felt throughout the whole of our vast Indian Empire, varying in degree, but commending itself to the best Indian thought of every phase. It is not now a question of sporadic missionary effort or of a policy enforced by Government, but of a stream which is influencing the life of the people with an ever increasing momentum.