and so also the obiter dicta of people in the position to have clear
impressions. These people, also, generally obtained their
impressions of the state of education in the area under their
charge, only incidentally, while collecting information for Land
Revenue Settlement of their districts; and the primary object was
not to discover the real state of education in the country, but
something quite different. Hence even those impressions must
be held to give rather an underestimate than otherwise of the
true state of affairs in this behalf, in view of the considerations
mentioned already.
Yours truly,
Sd/-K.T. Shah...
5 Inverness Gardens,
Vicarage Gate, London,W.8.
9 March, 1932
M.K. Gandhi, Esq.,
Yervada Central Prison,
Poona,
India.
Dear Mr Gandhi,
Many thanks for your kind letter of February 15, which
reached me last night. I fully understand your difficulties in
carrying out your promise. I received by the same post as your
own a long letter from Professor K.T. Shah dated February 20,
which he has no doubt sent to you, but the letter contains
absolutely no data which would enable one to judge whether
literacy had advanced or declined during the last fifty years; it
contains not a single literacy percentage. I have been very much
pressed by other work, but I have in a rough state material for
two or three articles on the progress of literacy in Bengal during
the last hundred years, of which I will send copies both to
yourself and Professor Shah when they are completed. The
position is still that you are unable to supply the figure to which
you referred in your address at the Royal Institute of
International Affairs on October 20. I feel sure that you will be
convinced by the facts as stated in my articles, which are not in
any way converted by the statements in Professor Shah’s letter. I
enclose a copy of my reply to Professor Shah and also a copy of a
letter dated