‘that his authority was the Punjab Administration Reports,
and said that he had published in Young India a study of
the Punjab educational statistics.’^2
I wrote at once to Mr Gandhi asking him for precise
references. In response to my request he has been good enough
to furnish me with typed copies of two articles on the ‘Decline of
Mass Education’ by Mr Daulat Ram Gupta, published in ‘Young
India’ for December 8th and December 29th, 1920. These
articles do not, however, contain a single literacy percentage
either for the Punjab or Burma or for India generally, nor do they
contain any direct reference to Punjab Administration Reports.
They do, however, refer to the ‘History of Indigenous Education
in the Punjab’ by Dr G.W. Leitner, an educational official in the
Punjab, which refers to some of these reports. But Dr Leitner’s
Report was published forty-nine years ago, in 1882, and I have
been unable to discover in it any literacy percentages.
I have drawn Mr Gandhi’s attention to, these facts. The
present position is that Mr Gandhi has so far been unable to
substantiate his statement in any way. I have to add that in the
course of a friendly correspondence, and also at an interview
which 1 had with him on December 2nd, he has undertaken to
retract that statement if he cannot support it. I think it best to
postpone any further comment on the question until I receive his
promised communication.
Yours faithfully,
Sd/- P. J. Hartog
5 Inverness Gardens,
Vicarage Gate, W. 8.
December 14, 1931