1. Alternatives to Educating the Empire: A Study of Colonial Education and the Nationalist
Response to it in Colonial Punjab, 1890-1930
In the latter part of the 18th century, influenced by the ‘orientalist’ policy that dominated the
ideological positions of many colonial administrators, the colonial government in India aimed at
keeping intact the institutions of indigenous education already in existence. However, by the
nineteenth century, many colonial administrators began to argue for an ‘Anglicist’ knowledge
formation, basing their arguments on the idea of western knowledge being the harbinger of
modernity. The knowledge of English as a subject as well as language and Western Sciences began
to be seen as the most important aspects of acquiring Western knowledge. As English had become
the language of administration by the 1830s, it had become important to teach that language to the
natives in order to create a pool of cheap labour in the lower clerical order. This led to the creation
of a colonial educational apparatus aimed at producing labour for its administrative machinery.
In response to the ‘adverse’ cultural impact such kind of western education made on the native
youth, colonial Punjab in late 19th century saw the emergence of one of the widespread social
reform movements, the Arya Samaj. It sought to make an impact in northern India primarily
through providing an alternative to the colonial educational systems: the Dayanand Anglo-
vernacular Schools and Colleges and the Gurukul Kangri, which were based on the ideas of self-
help and self-reliance. The DAV College of Lahore was ‘established by the people, with the money
of the people, for the people’1 as the founders of the DAV College refused to take government
grants or conduct the examinations under the aegis of the Punjab University.
1 LajpatRai,Letter to the editor, The Tribune, 5 February 1890
2. Another notable point was that the teaching was done exclusively by Indians. The DAV College
also aimed at giving free education initially. Though paucity of funds, and government and
university regulations rendered this principle ineffective yet the fees at the college was generally
50 percent less than those in force in government schools and colleges.2 The institutions run by
the ‘gurukul party’ remained completely immune from government interference from their very
inception. Both of these educational institutions of the Arya Samaj were experiments in purely
indigenous enterprise which helped in developing a spirit of self-help, self-confidence and self-
reliance in a community which had lost these in due course of time. Through these institutions, a
great impetus was given to the study of Hindi and Sanskrit, which created a spirit of Hindu
consciousness manifesting itself in varying forms and degrees.
My paper would, therefore, explore ways in which colonial hegemony was challenged by these
two educational institutions of the Arya Samaj in the context of the social and political structural
changes that were being brought about by colonial rule. It would also articulate the continuities, if
any, that existed between the two countervailing educational systems and seek to establish the
foundation that the Arya Samaj was able to provide to an incipient cultural nationalism.
2 Ibid.
