India, nation of rote learners, Why ?

I have always been passionate about building young. When I joined education field, I was jolted by widespread attitude of cracking exams in past, present or future with scant regard for learning and building self-awareness. I got fascinated to find out how and when we decided to focus on rote learning to crack exams and we became pure job seekers. I hoped this might throw a light on how to make a much needed course correction if we are to excel in science, technology and social change.

A bit of history

When British came to India, they were a band of rag-tag mercenaries and bounty hunters.  They worked as traders for years before demise of Aurangzeb in 1707. The disintegrating empire gave an opportunity to get a Shahi Farman issued in 1717 from then emperor Fahrukh Siyar (third emperor after Aurangzeb). Under this farman, the company was allowed to trade outside india from Bengal without paying taxes and company's servants were allowed to trade only within India. The company servant were paid low however they misused the farman and indulged in personal business making them individually very rich. This had a profound impact that better and educated manpower in England aspired to come to India, which in subsequent years enabled British to establish robust administrative system. This improvement resulted in ultimately Robert Clive winning the Battle of Plassey for which he earned bonus of Rs 40 Lakhs then. However company remained with trade surplus along with Industrial revolution gathering steam. 

In 1813, there was a sticky swing in company's fortune as it turned net import company and industrial revolution marching forward, company understood what it had to do next. While whatever way we might want to understand Lord Macaulay, as a CEO he wanted to reduce cost of operations and thus he started British education in India to produce clerks for british bureaucracy with allocation of meagre Rs 25 lakhs for education. The education was based on downward filtration theory and 1844 made English compulsory to secure government jobs. Macaulay was right that while we had own education system in literature, philosophy and arts, the languages were not mature to handle science and scientific thought. Meanwhile, British stockholders wanted more (as they had seen 32,000 GBP per share), in 1842-45 a financing plan was made to build railways in India so as to be able to introduce British goods across length and breadth of the colony. We know first train ran between Mumbai and Thane in 1853. 

We remember 1857 as the glorious year of mutiny starting at Meerut and spreading across whole of north India. Mutiny was brutally squashed but British were first time shaken and India passed on to the Crown. This incident gave some serious shocks to British rule. In panic, the british army in India was increased to almost four times its former size sky-rocketing the wage bill. The passing of colony to Crown further increased administrative expenses (imagine what happens on nationalization of a private company) and massive financial burden of expanding railways was breathing down.

The net outcome was a severe pressure on revenue from land. It was so crucial for British and so crushing for Indian that in three major land revenue systems Ryotwari in south, Mahalwari in north and Permanent settlement in east that by 1859 share of lagaan was often more than 50% of the produce !

And this changed our nation forever.

Soul crushing years

The lagaan created unprecedented massacre of people by man-made famines between 1860 and 1900. 26 major famines in India over almost two generations crushed the soul of the nation, starting with Gujarat in 1860 (killed 2 lakh), Orissa, Bihar and Bengal in 1865 (killed 10 lakhs), Madras in 1876 (killed 35 lakhs), country wide in 1896 (killed 45 lakhs) and country wide in 1900 (killed 25 lakhs). These are mammoth numbers. These famines obliterated the self-worth and pride of a nation, the misery moved even many British individuals. These famines were compounded by expanding railway. Railway lines were scimitar on the already emaciated body of the nation, wherever railway lines reached , in matter of months railway lines killed local skill based artisan jobs of blacksmiths, weavers etc. with cheaper imported goods.

Imagine the destitution and desperation in the countryside. The masses with no other skills had only one hope of saving the hearth and that was to turn to government jobs (predominantly in four establishment, non combat positions in british army, administration, postal service and railways). Society instructed its wards to throw all child building activities aside, walk miles to get to a school and cram up English and other subjects and pass 8th or 10th class to get that government job. A government job was family-saver with famine-proof salary. British also played a role as they knew that they were hiring for lowly positions, they only insisted on 8th or 10th class or BA certificates irrespective of how someone got it, rote or otherwise.

Incidentally, this was also the period when most of the prominent leaders of India were born and their sense of nationalism and revolt was an outcome of the society they grew up in. THE tallest man ever born on our Land was also of this period, Swamy Vivekanand. While other leader worked on the mechanics of how to get freedom, Swamy Vivekanand gave us self pride and aspiration for Freedom. I quote him here for a reason.

Aftermath

Early twentieth century through WWI and WWII remained challenging, with industrialization not being priority for British, government jobs were the prime motivation. Our incentive for government jobs and rote learning continued. In early 1920s Mahatma Gandhi also recognized with failure of non-cooperation movement that he overestimated people's general capacity and ability to give up jobs. He later corrected it in civil disobedience movement. The noticeable point about education in India was that there was scant attention on science and technology education.  British needed only lowly ranked Indians in administrative positions and hence you would realize that more often than not our forefathers even when educated were mostly BAs and LLBs and seldom BScs.

Post Independence

We should be thankful that we had a peaceful transition to an Independent nation and that too a vibrant democracy. This meant that many of the institutions which worked before Independence continued to work as before after Independence along with their method and processes. Indian Civil Services became Indian Administration Services with fundamentally same character. We were mostly an agrarian economy with vast population occupied in it. Nehru and others were rightly busy to improve this lot and recognized the need for industrialization and embarked on ambitious plans. He also opened places for science and technology learning but in finer details we never had experience of running places of scientific learning in wider spectrum. Their leadership appointed from other places of academic learning ran them just like other places of learning with same criteria for admissions and passing out barring few pockets of excellence.

You can witness more than 100 years of rote learning habits across small town India early summer when young boys and girls pace around their rooftops with a book trying to intensely memorize what they are reading without understanding for competitive exams. This is not a way to inspire a generation. A true scientific learning can not come this way nor the dream of "Make of India". It will not come from more IITs and more vocational and skill training. If anyone thinks that we have been able to establish framework for science and technology education then following questions need answers. Why is that after Independence we have only 3 Nobel laureates in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine wherein their affiliations has not been to Indian establishments at the time of award. How come we do not even have nominations to count on our fingers. How come we are still dependent on outside world for fundamental ingredients in mobile technology, pharma (we do only generics on expiring patents of west) and defense equipment.

We need a Swamy Viveknand who can help us imagine ourselves to scale peaks of scientific discovery and inventions irrespective of the mess we are in, it can not be as bad as what people had in 1860-1900 who at that time, they did not even believe in life without British rule. 

Bibliography (Literature which gave me insights for this article)

1. History of Modern India - Shri Bipin Chandra and several of his other books

2. Indian after Gandhi - Shri Ramchandra Guha

3. A case for India - Will Durant (A personal gift to me by Shri Mohan Das Pai)

4. Impact of Science on Society - Bertrand Russell

5. My Experiments with Truth - Shri M K Gandhi

6. Rousing call to a Nation, Swamy Vivekanand - Shri Eknath Ranade

8. Witness to an Era: India 1920 and present - Shri Frank Moraes

9. On Education - Bertrand Russell

10. Several Shikar Stories from Raj days. Shikaris while focused on narrating shikar they inadvertently end up giving a glimpse of social life in the area.

* There are several other books I read to understand "rote learning" phenomena. Unlike professional writers, I did not keep track of all of them for relevance to this article.

* This article is not a critique of leadership running institutions of scientific learning. Its an statement beyond purview of any one institute.

* Advance apology to all my friends and colleagues who are exceptionally bright self learners and I am proud of their company.

* I do not expect anything from parents. Just the way what parents did in 1860-1900 is what parents are doing today to help their children survive in deluge of competitive exams. Change has to be systemic.