INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION AND GENERAL CONDITION, 1906-1938

The growth of political consciousness among women is strikingly illustrated by the success of the Women’s Suffrage Movement since the day when the historic All-India Women’s Deputation waited upon Mr. Montagu in Madras on 18th December, 1917. Mrs. Annie Besant, Mrs. Sarojini Naidu and Mrs. Herabai Tata gave evidence before the joint Select Committee on the Government of India Bill, 1919, in support of the extension of the franchise to Indian women. Representatives of Indian womanhood took part in the Round Table Conferences in London. The Government of lndia Act, 1935, gave political rights to Indian women far in advance of those enjoyed by them before. They were allotted 6 seats out of a total of 156 reserved for British India in the Federal Council of State and 9 out of a total of 250 so reserved in the Federal Assembly. So far as Provincial Assemblies were concerned, women had reserved to them 8 seats in Madras, 6 in Bombay, 5 in Bengal, 6 in the United Provinces, 4 in the Punjab, 4 in Bihar, 3 in the Central Provinces and Berar, I in Assam, 2 in Orissa and 2 in Sind. The franchise qualifications affecting them were liberalised, so that more than 6 million women (against 315,000 under the Act of 1919) received the right to vote, compared with 29 million men.

With the spread of education among women, efforts have been made to train Indian sisters ministrant to serve the poor, the sick and the distressed. The Poona Seva Sadan, started in 1909 by the late Mrs. Ramabai Ranade, the late Mr. G. K. Devadadhar, and a few other ladies and gentlemen, and its branches in different parts of the country, have done much valuable work “with special reference to the training of nurses and midwives, the promotion of maternity and child welfare, and the finding of employment for widows”. Similar work has been done by another organisation also known as the Seva Sadan Society, started in July, 1908, by the late Mr. B. A. Malabari and Mr. Dayaram Gidumal. Important institutions to serve the same end were inaugurated by the wives of several Viceroys. The National Association for Supplying Medical Aid by Women to the Women of India, started by the Countess of Dufferin in 1883 and having subsequently twelve provincial branches and numerous local committees, had for its object “the training of women as doctors, hospital assistants, nurses and midwives, as well as the provision of dispensaries, wards and hospitals”. As a part of this Association, a special Women’s Medical Service for India was constituted in 1914. The Victoria Memorial Scholarships Fund was organised by Lady Curzon in 1903 with a view to training midwives. The Lady Hardinge Medical College at Delhi, opened by Lord Hardinge on 17th February, 1916, trains Indian women in medical science. The Maternity and Child Welfare Bureau, working in connection with the Indian Red Cross Society, has rendered useful services in training women for ministering work. The hospital known as the Chittaranjan Seva Sadan in Calcutta has done much valuable work in this respect.

A very important feature in the social history of modern India is the gradual change in the condition of the so-called Depressed Classes, who, like the women of India, are “waking from age-long slumber to a new consciousness”. Valuable philanthropic work has been done in this respect by the various Christian Societies, the Ramkrishna Mission and particularly the Arya Samaj, through the means of Suddhi, that is re-Hinduising people who had been converted to other religions, or Hinduising non-Hindus. The Depressed Classes Mission Society, started in Bombay in 1906 with the object of improving “the social as well as the spiritual conditions of the Depressed Classes”, has been sincerely devoted to its mission. The Bhil Seva Mandal, founded in 1922 by Mr. Amritlal Vithaldas Thakkar to elevate the condition of the Bhils and other aboriginals of India, has done a great deal of useful work. The influence of the “Harijan” movement, started by Mahatma Gandhi is potent in this sphere of social service. As a matter of fact, Indian youths of to-day are keenly alive to social service, as is manifest in their activities as members of the Boy Scout Associations, the junior Red Cross and St. John’s Ambulance Associations, the Seva Samiti Boy Scouts Association, and the Bratachari Association, started under the guidance of Mr. Gurusaday Datta, I.C.S.

Progress of Education and Cultural Renaissance

The general awakening of Modern India would not have been possible without significant changes in the educational ideas and institutions of the country. Much in the sphere of education was tried and achieved in India during the nineteenth century, and still more has been accomplished in the present century. Lord Curzon’s viceroyalty marks in this respect, as in several other matters, a turning-point. In January, 1902, he appointed a Universities Commission to investigate the conditions and prospects of the Indian Universities and to recommend measures to improve their constitution and working and standard of teaching. The Commission was presided over by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Thomas Raleigh, Law Member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, and included among its members two distinguished Indians, Mr. Syed Husain Bilgrami, then Director of Public Instruction in the Nizam’s Dominions, and Mr. (afterwards Sir) Gurudas Banerjee, a judge of the Calcutta High Court. Its report came out in June, 1901, and its recommendations were embodied in the Universities Act of 1904. This Act was intended to tighten Government control over the educational institutions of the country by limiting the number of senators and syndics and creating a majority of nominated members in the Senate. It assigned territorial limits to each University, laid down stringent conditions for the affiliation of new colleges, and prescribed a systematic inspection of colleges by the University. Such a “comprehensive scheme of officialisation” evoked protests from different quarters. But at the same time, the Act recognised the higher functions of the Universities including instruction of students, appointment of Professors and Lecturers, and equipment of laboratories and museums. Thus, though the late Sir Asutosh Mookerjee, then Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University, opposed its illiberal provisions, it was utilised by him to open the teaching section of the University of Calcutta, which has done much useful work for the cause of higher education, not only in Bengal, but also in other parts of the country.

In 1910 a Department of Education was established in the Government of India. It came to have an office of its own and a Member to represent it in the Executive Council. Sir Harcourt Butler was the first Member. The Resolution, dated 21st February, 1913 of the Government of India advocates certain measures for the advance of education and recommended the establishment of teaching and residential Universities. But the educational improvements foreshadowed in it were in most cases delayed by the War of 1914-1918 and other causes. The growth of communal consciousness and provincial patriotism greatly helped the establishment of new Universities during the period under review in various places, such as Patna, Lucknow, ‘Aligarh, Benares, Agra, Delhi, Nagpur, Waltair, Dacca, Mysore, Hyderabad, Chidambaram, Trivandrum and Rangoon. The Indian Women’s University at Poona was started in 1916 by Dhondo Keshav Karve, with Sir R. G. Bhandarkar as its first Chancellor. The Vishwabharati (1921) founded by Rabindranath Tagore at Santiniketan, Bolpur, is a unique educational institution, famous for its cosmopolitan outlook. It represents a happy blending of the East and the West, and of Old and New India.