A Clarification

I HAVE not pictured a poverty-stricken India, containing ignorant millions. I have pictured to myself an India continually progressing along the lines best suited to her genius. I do not, however, picture it as a third class or even a first class copy of the dying civilization of the West. If my dream is fulfilled, and every one of the seven lacs of villages becomes a well-living republic in which there are no illiterates, in which no one is idle for want of work, in which everyone is usefully occupied and has nourishing food, well-ventilated dwellings, and sufficient Khadi for covering the body, and in which all the villagers know and observe the laws of hygiene and sanitation, such a State must have varied and increasing needs, which it must supply unless it would stagnate. I can, therefore, well imagine the State financing all the education. And if the State has such requirements, surely, it will have corresponding libraries.

What, however, according to my view, the State will not have is an army of B.A.'s and M.A.'s with their brains sapped with too much cramming, and minds almost paralyzed by the impossible attempt to speak and write English like Englishmen. The majority of those have no work, no employment. And when they have the latter, it is usually clerkships at which most of the knowledge gained during their twelve years of High Schools and Colleges is of no use whatsoever to them.

University Training

University training becomes self-supporting when it is utilized by the State. It is criminal to pay for a training which benefits neither the nation nor the individual. In my opinion, there is no such thing as individual benefit which cannot be proved to be also national benefit. And since most of my critics seem to be agreed that the existing Higher Education, and for that matter both Primary and Secondary are not connected with realities, it cannot be of benefit to the State. When it is directly based on realities and is wholly given through the mother-tongue, I shall, perhaps, have nothing to say against it. To be based on realities is to be based on national, i.e., State, requirements. And the State will pay for it. Even when that happy time comes, we shall find that many institutions will be conducted by voluntary contributions. They may or may not benefit the State. Much of what passes for education to-day in India belongs to that category and would, therefore, not be paid for from the general revenue, if I had the way.

— Harijan : July 30, 1938