‘We intend to set up one school, if not in every village, at
least in every circle of villages, so that at least there should be
something throughout the land in which the children do attend
some rudimentary school.’
How far policy was actually carried out will be explained in
another article.
...
5,Inverness Gardens,W.8.
17 November 1931Dear Mr Gandhi,
I beg to acknowledge with thanks the undated letter
received on November 14th, written on your behalf by Mr M.
Desai in which were enclosed typed copies of two articles on
Indian education by Mr D.R. Gupta published in Young India for
8th December 1920 and 29th December 1920.
I understand that it is on the evidence adduced in those
articles and on a Punjab Administration Report to which you
have not given me the reference, that you base the sweeping
statement that literacy had diminished in British India during
the past fifty years, and that you could prove this from official
statements.
I have examined the articles and can find nothing in them
to support your contention. The articles do not contain a single
percentage of literacy. The chief authority quoted is the ‘History
of Indigenous Education in the Punjab’ by Dr G.W. Leitner, a
Punjab Official. I feel sure that when you made your assertion
you cannot have been aware that that book was published
nearly fifty years ago, in 1882. Mr D.R. Gupta does not mention
the fact. Nor does he point out that so far from regarding the
Punjab as typical, Leitner compares that Province educationally
to its disadvantage with the Central Provinces and with Lower
Bengal (loc. cit. p.3). It is only within the past ten or fifteen years
that the Punjab has made the rapid advances in primary
education to which I referred in my letter of 21st October.
I am still awaiting the reference which you promised to a
Punjab Administration Report. I have consulted recent Punjab
Administration Reports, but can find nothing in them relating to
literacy in British India, and it is obviously unlikely that any