Mazharul Haque: A Forerunner of Right to Education Act

Mazharul Haque alongwith Gokhale and others were demanding Right to Education in 1911.

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“Our ideal is that education should become universal in India, and that every unit of the community – young or old, man, woman or child – should know how to read and write his own language and to keep his own accounts. That is our ideal and we intend to work for it, live for it, till we secure it. We may not succeed to- day, we may not succeed tomorrow ; but we are bound to succeed sooner or later, if only the full force of public opinion is brought to bear upon the Government.” 

This is not some Indian lawmaker’s statement in the parliament at the drafting of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. The statement was made almost a century before the Act, in 1911, by Mazharul Haque, a freedom fighter from Patna, in the Council of the Governor General of India.

The constitutional parliamentary democracy has evolved in India over the time since 1857. In the initial years of the 20th century, Indians had been given a limited voice in administrative affairs by appointing them to a Council headed by the Governor General of India. A total of 54 members were there in the council of 1911, which included European officials, aristocrats, landlords and intellectuals and Mazharul Haque was one them along with Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, R. N. Mudholkar and others.

At a time when the literacy rate was abysmally low and graduates in the country were a handful, Mazharul moved a resolution which stated, “That this Council recommends that the grants to Local Governments be increased by such an amount as will enable them to remit the fees payable in Primary Schools for the coming year.” 

To support his argument Mazharul stated that Sir Herbert Risley had himself supported the view in 1906. He argued that Risley wrote to the Local Governments that the Government “desire to abolish fees as soon as the finances of the country permit Government to increase the funds available for primary education to such an extent as to counteract the loss of income which would thereby fall upon these schools.”

It was argued that the Government had enough funds needed to waive off the fees for primary classes but certain sections oppose it on one ground or the other. Mazharul said, “On an analysis of all the opinions on the subject, I find that Madras, Eastern Bengal and Assam and the North-West Frontier Province enthusiastically support the scheme for the abolition of fees in all primary schools, while Bombay, the United Provinces, Burma, the Central Provinces, my own province of Bengal, and the Punjab oppose it. So that out of 9 administrations consulted, only 3 support the measure and the rest are opposed to it. The opposition is mostly based upon the fact that the money would be better spent on the extension of the schools in backward areas and the bettering of the teaching staff and the inspecting agencies than in the abolition of fees. But these are the personal opinions of the heads of these provinces. The people are practically unanimous that education should be made free.”

Mazharul was not saying all this as a lone figure. He was representing the will of the nation. He said, “I have already referred to the resolutions passed by the two principal Associations in India, the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League, in favour of adopting a system of free primary education for the whole country. Thus we have a unanimous people backed by numerous high officials of the Government demanding this great reform.”

A few officials, like the Governor of Bombay, were opposed to the idea of free education on the ground that education must first be made compulsory or universal and only then free. Mazharul found this to be a trivial and non-issue. He said, “unless you make education free in this poor country, you cannot make it universal. Yes; primary education cannot become universal until you make it free. There remains the question of cost. In the last quinquennial report on education the sum of Rs. 32,06,000 is shown as realized from fees. Surely this is an amount which the Hon’ble Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson can easily afford for such a noble object.”  

Gokhale, who had raised a similar demand, said that Mazharul’s resolution was unrealistic as the government would not accept it. He said, “the resolution of the Government, to which my Hon’ble friend (Mazharul Haque) referred today, was issued after a discussion in this Council, initiated by myself….. It is a matter of 32 lakhs a year to begin with-this remission of fees ; and if the Government so choose, they can do it. This would mean making it free first and compulsory afterwards, or it might be made compulsory first and free afterwards, whichever way we begin ; we have all to advance towards the same goal, namely, free and compulsory education for all the children in this country.”

Gopal Krishna Gokhale

The government, Gokhale believed, would not accept the demand so for the time being he would not press for the resolution. Though, he agreed with Mazharul. In fact, in the Council they showed a great camaraderie on almost every subject.

Babu Bhupendranath Basu also supported the resolution. He argued that while economically well off would pay for education, such a provision would uplift economically weaker sections of the society. He said, “only the very poorest classes who are at present unable to pay any fees, or who pay very low fees, which do not swell our revenues to any appreciable extent, will be benefited, and in that view the question is surely one worthy of consideration.” 

Babu Bhupendranath Basu

Like Gokhale, Basu also had very few expectations from the Colonial government. He did not mince a word in front of the Governor General, Lord Hardinge, while telling, “Neither my friend Mr. Haque nor I expect that this resolution would be carried ; but I think it is fair to us to say that we want to have this question prominently before the country and the Government, and that we want to bring it forward every year, not in the hope that it would be carried , but in the hope that its cause may be advanced….”

Syed Shamsul Huda also supported the resolution and urged the government to introduce the measure in Bengal and Assam as an experiment which could be extended further. He said, “I am in sympathy with my Hon’ble friend Mr. Haque, and so far as Muhammadan opinion is concerned, it is at one with the Hindu opinion that primary education should be made free in India.”

Syed Shamsul Huda

Of course, as expected the Government did not accept the resolution giving excuses like there were not enough schools, burden on revenue etc. 

Mazharul told the Council that he was not expecting the Government to accept the resolution at that moment. His intention was to keep this discussion alive so that Indians did not lose sight of the objective. 

Mazharul said, “I never expected, while we non-officials are so much in the minority, that this resolution would be at once accepted. I said in my speech, and I repeat it, that we intend to bring this matter up before this Council year after year, because we have set our hearts upon providing free primary education for the people of the country and we shall not be satisfied unless they get it. Of course, we do not expect that we shall succeed at once, as it is difficult to make an impression upon the Government.”

He hoped that with the help of Gokhale, gradually the opinion of the colonial government could be tilted in favour of the Indians.

(The views expressed are personal of the author)


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Saquib Salim

Saquib Salim is a well known historian under whose supervision various museums (Red Fort, National Library, IFFI, Jallianwala Bagh etc.) were researched. To his credit Mr. Salim has more than 400 published articles on history, politics, culture and literature in English and Hindi. Before pursuing his research and masters in modern Indian History from JNU, he was an electrical engineering student at AMU. Presently, he works as a freelance/ independent history researcher, writer and works at www.awazthevoice.in