the city of colleges

8/12/2019 the city of colleges

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‘Nakhoda Mosque,’ Calcutta, 1944, photograph by Glenn S Hensley.Photograph Courtesy: Hensley Photo Library, University of Chicago,

The Digital South Asia Library.



Chapter 5

THE CITY OF COLLEGES:

THE BENGALI-MUSLIM1

IN COLONIAL CALCUTTA

Sipra Mukherjee

A hint of an education and next he’ll be suffixing a ‘Khan Sahib’ or prefixing a ‘Syed’ to his name.

Mohammad Yaqub Ali, Jater Barai .2

Calcutta has, for the past hundred years or more, been looked upon as thecity to which thousands have travelled for education and employment.The founding of the Calcutta Madrassa (later Alia Madrassa) in October1780 and the Calcutta University on 24 January 1857 by Warren Hastings,by the incorporation of an Act of the Legislative Council, establishedCalcutta as the centre of education in the east. These institutes of highereducation attracted students from all over Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Orissa and many other states. Education, in the changed context of the post-Mutiny period, was the route through which many discovered the tools tocreate a new, and more desirable, identity. It was the key of access to

employment, and thence to privileges that had been till then closed tomany. With its numerous schools and colleges set up by either the Christianmissionaries3 or the native wealthy landlords and later the government,with its mercantile promise and its colonial institutions of power, ‘no otherIndian city dominated its hinterland as completely as Kolkata dominatedBengal’.4 People from the far-flung rural regions of Bengal journeyed tothis distant centre of power, braving the terror of thugs and enduring thelack of proper inns along the way, the extremes of weather, the discomfortsof transport. With a letter of recommendation from a distant relative orinfluential friend, he trekked, hiked and rode his way to Calcutta. Thisessay looks at the function of the city in shaping the education of theBengali-Muslim around the beginning of the twentieth century. It attemptsto trace how the city attracted hundreds from East Bengal, brought them



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geographically nearer to the centres of political power, gave them accessto the printing presses and publishing houses of North Calcutta, andenabled them to establish their identity as Bengali andMuslim, simultaneously.

Though it is the babu , the middle class, upper caste Hindu bhadralok ,who is the most commonly associated figure with nineteenth centuryCalcutta, the Bengali-Muslim population resident in Calcutta was not negligible. In the 1830s, the Bengali-Muslims ‘numbered about 45,000 –one-third of the city’s total Bengali Hindu population’.5 This aggregate,

however, did little to enhance the position of the Muslim community at large, since the majority of this population was poor and belonged to thelabouring class. Yet, a small though influential ashraf 6 Muslim society didexist within the city of Calcutta. According to the 1872 census, 20 per cent of Calcutta’s population was Muslim.7 As Debasis Bose writes, by 1856,there were at least 28 thoroughfares in Calcutta named after Muslims.8

However, unfortunately he says, the linguistic identity of these stalwartshas not been ascertained. This was particularly difficult within the precinctsof the city because within a generation or so of residing in Calcutta, theMuslim would adopt the Urdu culture completely. Most Muslims, whatevertheir ethnic origin, aspired to the culture of the upper ashraf class whowere Urdu-speaking and more North Indian than Bengali in their culturalorientation. Despite this, among the many influentials whose socialpositions are corroborated by the street names, were two Bengali-Muslimsrecognizable by their titles, Noor Muhammad Sarkar and Sooker Sarkar.Though most Bengali-Muslims were engaged in family occupations liketailoring, selling fruits and vegetables, working as cooks in rich Bengalihouseholds or driving carriages,9 there were also the hakims , the maulvis ,the munshis and the vakils . At the beginning of the twentieth century, a

self-conscious and educated Bengali-Muslim middle class began to formwithin the city. The changes that were to be wrought in the system of public education over the coming decades of the 1900s were largely dueto the efforts of this community.

The Bengali-Muslims and the Ashrafs

Though the Bengali-Muslims were lesser privileged, considered sociallyinferior, and keen to imitate the Urdu-speaking ashraf, the twentieth centurysaw a transformation in their character and stance – a change that was

gradually revealed in the increasing role they played in the planning,controlling and imparting of education – a sphere that grew intenselypolitical from around this time. Following the Islamization of the BengalMuslim community that occurred in the latter half of the nineteenth



The City of Colleges 113

century, it often became impossible to distinguish the Urdu-speaking Muslims from the originally-Bengali-but-now-Urdu-speaking Muslims of Bengal. Both their personal and family names show signs of Arabicization.10

Abdul Karim describes how school registers were often used as theinstrument for recording this change of surname.11 Many among theBengali-Muslims adopted the Urdu culture of the ashrafs and preferredUrdu as the medium of instruction for their children.12 The Islamizationencouraged Muslims to view Bengali with ‘contempt and perhaps disgust’and consider Urdu the ‘language of their jat’.13 This distaste for Bengali

was aggravated by the fact that the Bengali language itself, with itsSanskritized words, was viewed as being peculiarly Hindu. The belief that adopting the Islamic languages would grant them an easier entry into theashraf circles prompted many who used Bengali at home to embrace theUrdu culture. Some of the Muslim families who came to Calcutta wereoriginally distant relatives of the royal families of East Bengal. But therewas a larger number which, though belonging to the ashraf class, did not belong to the Urdu-speaking community. However, since a verticalmovement through the class structure was possible in the Muslimcommunity, unlike the more rigid caste-bound society of the Hindus, manyfamilies ‘rose’ to the Urdu-speaking class either through prosperity ormarriage. The Report of the Muslim Female Education in the Metropolitan City of Calcutta writes: ‘Although Bengali was the language of the district population, yet it was found, that Bengali-Muslims settled in the metropolisbecame bilingual and eventually adopted Urdu within a few generations.’14

It was thus almost impossible to differentiate the Bengali-Muslims fromthose whose mother tongue was Urdu. This inclination of the Muslims of Bengal to be counted among the Urdu-speaking population was a consequence of the belief in the ‘basic contradiction between Bengali and

Muslim identities’ and this ‘appears to have been accepted by all Bengali-Muslims, Bengali-Hindus and even the British’.15 When The Mahomedan Observe r wrote, ‘The Bengalis have at last succeeded in extorting a firman against cow-killing from the ruler of Bengal’,16 the writer was equating theBengali with the Hindu. Thus, the findings of the 1911 census of the city of Calcutta which showed an abnormal increase over 1901 in the number of Urdu-speakers within the city and its suburbs, was attributed to ‘the attitudetaken up by a large number of Mussalmans with regard to their language.They insisted that they spoke Urdu and were strongly averse to the entryof Hindi, considering that the former meant the language of theMussalmans and the latter the language of Hindus, though as a matter of fact, in a large number of cases, neither community spoke either Hindi orUrdu, but Bihari.’17



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Table 1: Distribution of Linguistic Groups in Calcutta and its Suburbs in the Years 1901 and 1911

Language 1901 1911

Bengali 494,420 512,579

Hindi 353,786 365,339

Urdu 27,627 70,558

English 28,979 28,430

Source: Census of India, 191118

The ratio of the Hindu–Muslim population in the city began to changerapidly with the Muslim community gradually awakening to the needs of

English education. The inflow of Bengali-Muslim students into Calcutta increased, and with this also changed the ratio of the Urdu–Bengali speakerswithin the Muslim community itself. Despite the quotient of glamour that the Urdu ashraf culture carried, Bengali students were finding it difficult to master the increased number of ‘new’ languages that the syllabusdemanded. In 1902, the Bengali-Muslim periodical Islam Pracharak writesthat the load was unusually heavy on a Bengali-Muslim boy because as a Muslim he would have to learn Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Bengali and English:‘While the Hindus have to learn only two or three languages, the Bengali-Muslims have to master five...’ and therefore, ‘many are now abandoning three of our traditional languages (Urdu, Persian and Arabic) and preferring to educate their children in only Bengali and English to prepare them forthe world’.19 Though most Bengali-Muslims accepted the superiority of the Urdu culture, the practical difficulties involved in learning a syllabusof such huge proportions sometimes discouraged students. The desire tosee one’s child grow up as a ‘good Muslim’ (acquainted with Arabic to‘read the Quran correctly’, with Persian so as to be well versed in nationalculture and etiquette, and with Urdu so as to be able to ‘converse withurban, aristocratic Muslim’20 ) was therefore tempered by the realization

that emphasis on Islamic languages would greatly increase the burdenand impede the advancement of general education.

Dynamics within the Community

There was a difference within the Bengali-Muslim community in theirattitudes towards the available education. The rural ashraf, especially thosewho were relatively prosperous, preferred an education that gave emphasison religion and Persian culture. In 1869, for example, more than three-quarters of the students of the Arabic department of the Calcutta Madrassa

were children of petty landholders, talukdars , munsiffs , kazis and munshis ,who came mostly from the districts of East Bengal. They continued toview education as a consecrated privilege, leading to pure knowledge,




rather than as a secular means of learning. Rafiuddin Ahmed writes that the ‘weakness for the Islamic languages’ had always been present inthe countryside.21

The Bengali writer Rajsekhar Basu or ‘Parashuram’ satirizes thisfondness in the character of Maulvi Bachhuiruddi:

He, Bachhiruddi, was no ordinary mortal. He was an aristocrat of noblelineage. Mughal blood flowed in his veins. Though people called himBachhiruddi, his true name was Medram Khan. His father’s name was

Jahabaaz Khan, his grandfather’s name was [...] their original home was not in Faridpur, but in the Arab lands, – what is called Turkey. There everybodywore lungis and spoke Urdu...22

The urban and suburban families of somewhat better means, however,were attracted to the more secular education and the English classes.23

The popular image of the culturally rich, sharif Muslim was built on theurban, aristocratic, Urdu-speaking Muslim. In reality though, under thepressures of the new economy, the urban Muslim was fast changing. Manyof the Muslim Government officials and members of the Bar had left thecity of Calcutta subsequent to the abolition of Persian as the Court

language.24 The status of the Madrassa Alia had declined and Mr Chapman,the Acting Principal of Calcutta Madrassa observed that though ‘the Arabicdepartment’s roll strength had increased and the syllabus standardized,yet its popularity had eroded a good deal...’25

In 1853, there was even a proposal (that was finally rejected) to closedown the Madrassa. In 1882, Syed Amir Ali, speaking before the Craft Commission asserted that from 1860–1870, Muslim education haddeteriorated and that Arabic and Persian departments were no longerattracting students: ‘In 1855 the number of students offering Arabic and

Persian was 150 to 200; in 1860 it dropped to 30 only; in 1868 there were10 or 15 students reading Persian in the Anglo-Bengali Dept of HooghlyMadrassa.’26 This was after reforms of a relatively radical nature had beencarried out in 1853. These changes were in accordance with the suggestionsof a Committee formed after agitation by the Calcutta Madrassa studentsin 1851. The enquiry committee which submitted its report on 4 August 1853, recorded that besides the Arabic Department and the EnglishDepartment of the Madrassa, an Anglo-Arabic department had also beenfunctioning since 1849. It recommended that these departments be closedand an Anglo-Persian Department, with sufficiently qualified teachers, be

opened.27 It was also recorded that many among the Muslim ashraf preferred to send their wards to St Paul’s School or the Parental Academywhere the syllabus was more ‘modern’. Students, after completing the



116 Calcutta Mosaic

Madrassa education, also sought admission in the Metropolitan Collegeat Lower Chitpore Road.28 The explanation offered was that: ‘Thoughtheir urge for English education is not as intense as that of the Hindus, yet the Muslim intelligentsia and the gentry of the society are fully alive to itsutility, and this awakening is to be exploited in the proper way.’29

This was the beginning of a new development, entirely different fromthe situation twenty years back when, between 1826 and 1851, AbdulLateef and Wahidun Nubee had been the only two junior scholars to beproduced from the English class of the Calcutta Madrassa at a cost of Rs

103,794. The class had been a complete failure. Discipline wasunsatisfactory and at least two of the staff, an Arabic professor and theEnglish Librarian, were reported practising as hakims in the city during their class hours.30

Regarding the question of female education, both Bengali- and Urdu-speaking Muslims remained conservative in thinking. An interesting incident, which revealed the cautious approach of liberal leaders, occurredat a meeting of the Bengal Social Science Association in Calcutta, whereAbdul Lateef was reading a paper on Muslim education:

In the discussion which ensued at the meeting, Peary Chand Mitra enquiredif similar efforts at female education were underway in the Muslimcommunity as in the Hindu. The reply came from Maulvi Abdul Hakim of the Calcutta Madrassa. He said that the scriptures had ordained educationfor both boys and girls and to this end many Muslim women were renownedthroughout history for their learning. But such education was imparted withinthe home. It was unthinkable that Muslim girls following the example set by girls in other communities, should go outside the home for education,violating the ‘purda’ enjoined in religion. Abdul Lateef did not say anything.31

Consequent to more debates and developments regarding the Calcutta Madrassa, a Managing Committee was constituted in 1871 for the Calcutta and Hooghly Madrassas.32 This Committee proposed that the Arabicbranch of the Madrassa be called Anglo-Arabic Department, among othersignificant changes. This development however, does not appear to havebeen appreciated by all the Bengali-Muslims and Mujibur Rahman,referring to the reforms, writes:

It appears that the spirit that guided the committee to thrash out thedeliberations was aimed at abolishing the classical way of teaching Arabic

and Persian, and paved the way for a full-fledged institution to impart education on English pattern [...] this was the view of those who were dressedwith western ideas. But the Muslim masses of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa (which constituted Bengal in those days) were rightly of opinion that Islamic




culture and learning would enormously suffer [...] The committee knew themind and general feeling of the Muslim masses, hence they did not daredenounce the utility of the classical learning...33

Neither were the ashraf Muslims of Calcutta unanimous in their stanceregarding the preferred system of teaching. In 1882, in his observations tothe High Power Commission for Education, Nawab Abdul Latif KhanBahadur said: ‘That in regard to Islamic culture and religious knowledge,it is essential to learn Persian and Urdu without which a man cannot maintain his position in Muslim society. If possible he must learn Arabicas well which is indispensable for performing religious duties and functions.’Caught in the centre of these conflicting needs was the Calcutta Madrassa.The relevance of this institution as a centre of study had been rapidlydiminishing. As Sir Syed Ahmed said in 1882, the institution ‘neitherimparts English education of an accepted standard, nor makes that education compulsory, and the result has been that some three hundredof the Muhammadan scholars reading in it have remained destitute of English education’.34 In 1884, based on the findings of the 1882 EducationCommission, the Madrassa students were allowed to attend classes at any

Calcutta college, public or private, on a payment of one-third the usualfee, the balance being met by the Mohsin Fund.35 In 1887, the collegedepartment of the Madrassa was merged with the Presidency College, thearrangement being that Muslims would pay the same fees as at the Calcutta Madrassa and 35 seats would be reserved for them. In addition, 20 placeswould be reserved for Muslims in the Hooghly Branch School, 50 in NawabBahadur Zilla School, 51 in Krishnanagar Collegiate School, 62 in JessoreZilla School, 30 in Dhaka Collegiate School, 50 in Rajshahi CollegiateSchool, and 10 in Darjeeling High School.36 This opportunity wasextensively used by the students, thus confirming the need felt by theMuslims for a ‘modern’ education. ‘As a consequence the number of Madrassa students in the Madrassa college classes never exceeded twenty– and in 1888 it was proposed to close these classes.’37

The Bengali Initiative

The move to make Persian and Arabic optional would come much laterwhen the burden of the many languages on the Bengali-Muslim student was formally acknowledged by the Report of the Committee on MuslimEducation in 1915.38 In a near echo of the 1902 Islam Pracharak , the Report

said that the burden of five languages was unfair to the Bengali-Muslimand decided that, besides Bengali and English, the learning of Urdu, Persianand Arabic would no longer be compulsory. A deputation of Muslims



118 Calcutta Mosaic

submitted a memorandum to the Calcutta University from the ‘Muslimsof Calcutta’, signed among others by Fazlul Haq, Maulvi Abdul Karimand Abdur Rahman, and observed that:

Though we cannot drop the study of any of the five languages, it is not necessary for every individual boy to study all of them. The Muhammadanboy whose mother tongue is Bengali should receive his primary educationin Bengali and should study a classical language, Arabic, Persian or Urdu...39

Some years earlier, in 1908, the Earl Committee in its meeting

had commented:Urdu had been accepted to be the mother tongue of the Muslims of Bihar,Chotanagpur, and Orissa.40 In Presidency and Burdwan Divisions of Bengal,the mother tongue of the Muslims is Bengali, but in certain parts of Bengal,as for e.g. Calcutta, Murshidabad and Hooghly they speak Urdu. Thereforeat these places, Urdu should be the medium of instruction as is current inMadrassa Alia and its Anglo-Persian Department.41

This formal policy of 1915 was the consequence of years of canvassing,continued through the pages of a number of Bengali-Muslim periodicals,

printed in the city. Educated Bengali-Muslims gathered together, anddebated whether the effects of ‘modernization’ could be termed Islamicor not. They wrote innumerable articles on the need for education andthe consequences of the education system in periodicals which werepublished from the city’s Baithak Khana Road, Collins Street, the ‘SealdahPalli’,42 the Colinga Mohalla and the Kareya area. These Calcutta periodicals were the Samachar Sabharajendra (begun in 1831), Jagaduddipak Bhaskar (begun in 1846), Muhammadi Akbar (begun in 1877), Mussalman Bandhu (begun in 1885), Naba Sudhakar (begun in 1886), Sudhakar (begun

in 1889), Mihir o Sudhakar (begun in 1895), Naba Nur (begun in 1903),Moslem Hitaishi (begun in 1911) and Kohinur (begun in Kustiya in 1898,but continued in Calcutta from 1911). The first of these periodicals, theSamachar Sabharajendra , was in Bengali as well as Farsi, and the second,the Jagaduddipak Bhaskar , carried writings in Urdu, Farsi, Bengali, Hindiand English. The first entirely Bengali-Muslim periodical was MirMusharraf Hussain’s Azizun Nehar , published from Chinsurah. The‘Sudhakar group’ of writers drew the attention of the contemporary literaryworld as Bengali-Muslim writers who used pure Bengali without any traceof the ‘Mussalmani Bangla’ in their writings. (Their use of pure Bengali,

however is even more interesting because they were using the languagefor a communal purpose. Anxious at the conversions to Christianity that




were taking place among Muslims dissatisfied with their language andreligion – two significant markers of identity – the ‘Sudhakar group’ weredetermined to liberate the moral and intellectual life of their community.)The use of the Bengali language in these periodicals frequently drewremarks of censure or praise from the contemporary Hindu Bengaliperiodicals. The following comment, quoted in the Bengali-Muslimperiodical Mihir (1892) is taken from the contemporary Bengali Hindupaper, Samay :

Even a few days ago, the Mussalmani Bangla was unreadable to the Hindus;but with the progress of education, the difference in writing between theHindus and Mussalmans is fast disappearing. The Mussalmans are writing pure Bangla like the Sanskrit-learned scholars of the Hindus. This is a subject of pride for the land of Bengal.43

It also quotes the Hitakari who writes of Mihir : ‘Grace and lucidity of language is the unique feature of this periodical. In reality, this featuremay be found in quite a few Mussalman-written newspapers and journalsthese days.’44 The Muslim periodical Pracharak had quoted the Hinduperiodical Samay : ‘In many essays, if the name of the author is not specified,

it is not possible to imagine that the writing flows from the pen of a writerwho is of a different religion or different language.’45 Quoted without anyapparent feelings of indignation at the openly patronizing tone, this maysuggest that such reviews were appreciated by the Bengali-Muslims andthat the literary world of the Bengali language was rapidly becoming onewhich the Bengali-Muslim wanted to claim as his own.

Education in Bengali, however, introduced other difficulties. ThePresident of the Rangpur Association, Khan Abdul Majid Chowdhurywrites that ‘the Muhammadan parents also do not like to educate their

children in Bengali only, as the language is full of Hindu polytheistic ideasand thoughts, and tends to denationalise their youths.’46 Syed Nawab AliChowdhury,47 in his speech at the Muhammadan Educational Conferenceheld in Calcutta emphasized that an increasing number of Muslim boyswere attending ‘the Vernacular schools and that Muhammadans now speakBengali more correctly than before.’48 When he published this speech, heappended to it an Appendix of 49 pages. In this, he described with excerptsfrom the question papers and text books the difficulties that the generalsyllabus posed for the Muhammadan boys:

‘A specimen question illustrative of the fact that in the vernacular School

Exam all students, including Mussalmans and Hindus, are generallyrequired to have a thorough consequence with Hindu mythology:






Governing Body of the Madrassa Alia in 1917 – that regarding the teachers’appointments, duly qualified Bengali-Muslims should get preference. It was only after the Partition of 1905 that a reasonable number of schoolsand colleges began to be established in East Bengal. Before this, asMuhammad Abdur Rahim writes: ‘the educational development of East Bengal was in total neglect... Most of the educational institutions werecentred in and around the capital city of Calcutta.’52 Not much help wasreceived from the ‘Hindu zamindars who had their estates in the Muslimmajority districts of East Bengal’ because the zamindars ‘lived at Calcutta

and promoted education of Hindu Bengalis in West Bengal.’53 With theacceptance of Bengali as a rightful language for the Muslims, the earlierequation of Bengalis with Hindus gradually began to recede. Sir SyedAhmed, on the conflict between the communities and the role of theCongress in 1909, wrote: ‘[...] if you take the population of the whole of Bengal, nearly half are Mahomedans and something over half areBengalis.’54 That such an equation was not acceptable to the Bengali-Muslims is made clear by many articles. The Pracharak , writing of the1901 census, says that the eighth column on ‘jati-parichay’ ‘required theMuslim to write Sheikh, Sayyid, Moghul or Pathan – one of these 4 titles.In the rural areas, some of the census officials entered Ashraf or Atrap inthese columns’. Protesting against this, the editor writes:

Sheikh, Sayyid, Moghul and Pathan – these four titles are not the indicatorsof ‘jati’. They are merely ancestral titles. Therefore, if the eighth columnidentified the Bengal Muslims as Bengali, the Punjab Muslims as Punjabi,etc, – then the necessary identification would be served.55

Around 1917, however, the issue of the language of the Muslims wascomplicated by the other controversy regarding the State language of India.

With Gokhale and Tilak supporting Hindi as the State language, theMuslims put forward Urdu as the lingua franca.56 This resulted in a greaterimportance to the Urdu language and served as an encouragement to thesupport for Urdu in Bengal. In 1917, the Al-Eslam, in an article advocating Bengali for Bengali-Muslims wrote:

That does not mean Bengali Muslims should desist from learning Urdu...Hindu politicians are striving to introduce the Hindi language and the Nagriscript [...] on the off-chance that it will become the State language throughout the whole of India when India becomes self-governed. Under these

circumstances, is it not the duty of Muslims to attempt to place upon thehead of their own language and script (i.e. Urdu language and Arabic script)the prestigious crown of the future State language of India by disseminating it everywhere?57



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However, many articles in the Bengali-Muslim periodicals continuedto articulate the claim of Bengali as their mother tongue. In 1918, theBangiya Mussalman Sahitya Patrika wrote:

There cannot be any argument regarding the fact that Bengali is the mother-tongue of the Bengali Muslims. Though some may be infatuated with Urdu[...] both Hindus and Muslims have an equal right to claim Bengali as theirmother-tongue.58

This demand for Bengali by the Bengali-Muslims was repeatedly linked

to the need to introduce education in their mother tongue in the madrassas:The only way a nation can acquire greatness is through its mother-tongue.Yet, above the madrassas of our country we have written in bold letters,‘Entry to the mother-tongue is forbidden’.59

The other contentious issue was the introduction of English as a compulsory subject in the madrassas. The D P I’s report of the Madrassa Alia during the period 1902–1907 read:

[...] the medium of instruction is Urdu; in five topmost classes lessons are

imparted in Persian; besides Arabic and Persian literature Arabic Dept teaches Fiqha, Mantiq, Balaghat, Hiqmat, Theology, Tafsir and Hidith.English is an optional subject which is read by 56 p.c. of the students.60

In 1903, Archdale Earle, who served as the Director of Public Instructionin Bengal from 1906– 08, strongly recommended that English be not madecompulsory and that the classical course remain unencumbered by English:‘we do not wish to prevent students, who so desire, from adhering strictlyto Oriental studies’.61 Despite Earle’s view, however, it needs to be notedthat the proposal was repeatedly placed before the Committee of theEducation Conference from its very first meeting. The Conference onEducation held at Calcutta in December 1907, brought togetherrepresentatives from the five Divisions of Bengal and from the Provinceof Eastern Bengal and Assam. (This was during the period of Bengal’spartition in 1905, when the Dacca, Chittagong and Rajshahi Divisions,and the districts of Malda and State of Hill Tippera were joined withAssam to form the Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam). Therepresentatives from the Presidency Division (which included Calcutta)were five Europeans and 23 Indian Muslims. Among the Europeans were

Chapman and Ross, both associated with the Calcutta Madrassa, theSecretary to the Board of Examiners, and two representatives of the IndianEducational Service. Among the Indians were Ataur Rahman, Maulvi




Ahmad, Lutfur Rahman, Abdur Rahman, Syed Amir Hussain, ShamsulHuda, two representatives of the Central National MuhammadanAssociation and the Muhammadan Literary Society, a Judge and threevakils of the High Court, Professors from the Calcutta Madrassa and thePresidency College, Barristers-at-Law, and other eminent personalities fromthe Muslim community of the Presidency. Besides these, there were sixmembers from the Burdwan Division, eight from the Patna Division, twoeach from the Bhagalpur Division and Orissa Division, and seven membersfrom the Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam.62 A compromise regarding

the introduction of compulsory English was reached and provision wasmade for a two-year course in English after a student passed the standardexamination of the higher madrassa.

It was in this context that a clear difference became visible between theopinions of the representatives from Eastern Bengal and Assam and thosefrom the rest of Bengal. The former, who included Abdul Karim, AbuNasr Waheed, Kamaluddin Ahmed and Syed Nawab Ali Chowdhury,refused to accept this compromise, demanding a thorough change in favourof English education. Regarding this, Archdale Earle reports that:

There is a school, calling itself, ‘progresssive’ which aims at ‘modernising’the madrassas. This school would like to see English taught compulsorily inthese institutions, and the courses of studies arranged, so that there shouldbe no difficulty in transferring a student from a madrassa to a high school.63

This group of ‘progressives’ though, added Archdale Earle, was not heeded in Bengal. The ‘archly’ dismissed ‘progressives’ were however not to be defeated easily. The seven members who represented the Provinceof Eastern Bengal and Assam were all Muslims from Eastern Bengal andin 1909–1910, they convened a meeting at Dacca where a new syllabus

and curriculum, including compulsory English, was drawn up for themadrassas on modern lines. This syllabus was reluctantly recommendedby the then D P I Mr Norton, for introduction on an experimental basis inone selected madrassa. In 1912 occurred the rearrangement of the districtsand divisions of Bengal, bringing East and West Bengal together again toform a Presidency. This change in the territorial distribution typicallybrought about a redistribution of powers as its corollary, and the syllabussuggested by the ‘progressives’ was viewed more favouarably in 1913.This year, the Dacca Scheme of Madrassa education, after somemodifications, was given the assent by the D P I. In the junior classes, the

subjects taught would henceforth include the Quran, Urdu, Bengali,Mathematics, Geography, History, English, Arabic, Drawing, Crafts andDrill. The senior classes would see a greater emphasis on Arabic Literature,



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English and Mathematics. On 3 July 1914, the necessary order for theimplementation of this new reformed curriculum from 1 April 1915was issued.

The Reform Scheme was introduced with the orders from theGovernment-in-Council that preference regarding grants be given tomadrassas that had accepted the Scheme. The Madrassa Alia howeverwas kept outside its purview and it continued, as before, as a centre of Islamic learning. A distinction between the madrassas under the OldScheme and those under the Reform Scheme aggravated the already

strained relationship between the traditional Muslims who favoured anOriental education, and those who were spearheading the movement formodern, secular education. Though the Dacca Scheme for madrassas hadbeen an effort largely inspired by Bengali-Muslim leaders, an aligning of the Bengali- and Urdu-speaking Muslims as supporters of liberal andconservative education respectively would of course be simplistic. Thelinking of Government grants and recognition with the acceptance of thenew curriculum naturally made it difficult for the madrassas to reject it.This not-so-subtle enforcement of the Reform Scheme by the Government was, in fact, resented by the majority of Muslims.64 Most of the 214madrassas that existed before the Reform Scheme, of which 11 were Seniorand 203 Junior Madrassas, accepted the Scheme. The recognition of at least one madrassa, the Bashiria Ahmadia Madrassa was withdrawn sinceit refused to come under the Reform Scheme. During 1917–1922, only theDarul-ulum Madrassa of Chittagong and Islamia Madrassa of Noakhaliwere awarded recognition.65

Gradually, however, over the next decade, a large number of madrassaswere established in various parts of East Bengal.66 Through 1922–1927,three madrassas in Dacca, at least six in Noakhali, and four in the

Chittagong area were established. The years 1927–1932 saw theestablishment of two more in Dacca, seven in Mymensingh, and five morein Noakhali, two in Pabna, one in Chittagong, one in Faridpur, and somemore in other districts. In 1931, the Muslim Education Advisory Committeeunder the Chairmanship of Khan Bahadur Abdul Momin recommendedthat all madrassas, whether Reform Scheme or Old Scheme, should followthe same curriculum as used in the Middle and High English Schools.The syllabus for the subjects of English, Vernacular and Mathematics shouldbe similar in all these schools and Arabic should be taught through themedium of the Vernacular from Class V. The 1914 Committee onMuhammadan Education had noted that a greater number of Muslims,especially from the eastern rural belt, were attending school. The recent profits reaped from the jute trade were cited as one of the main reasons




for the increased interest in English education. Over the next two decades,a growing number of Muslim students from ordinary rural families beganto send their sons to local schools. Muslim education in East Bengal alsoreceived tremendous encouragement with the establishment of the Dacca University. This was despite strong opposition from the Calcutta-basedbhadralok community who, anxious to safeguard the importance of theCalcutta University, contested the establishment of a new university withinBengal. But the Bengali-Muslims had voiced their dissatisfaction with thelargely Hindu-dominated administration and bias of the University of

Calcutta. They recognized the need for a university in East Bengal tofacilitate higher education among the Bengali-Muslims. A Muslimdeputation consisting of A K Fazlul Haq, Sir Nawab Salimullah, NawabSyed Nawab Ali Choudhury and several other Muslim leaders, met theViceroy, Lord Hardinge on 31 January 1912. They argued that the partitionof Bengal, 1905–1911, had enabled the administration to focus on theeducation in the districts of East Bengal, a sphere that had seen muchprogress during this phase. The fear was that the bringing together of thetwo large Bengal divisions would once again detract attention from East Bengal. The Viceroy promised to recommend the formation of a Universityin Dacca and on 2 February 1912, the Indian government published a communique, stating the decision of the government to establish theUniversity of Dacca. The Secretary of the State approved this decision.On 27 May 1912, the Government of India appointed the NathanCommittee of 13 members with M R Nathiel, Bar-at-Law, as President toframe the scheme of the new university.67 The Committee published itsreport in December 1913. The outbreak of the War placed financialrestrictions on the Government and in 1916, to cut costs, it decided that the new university should start with four colleges only. The ongoing war

however stalled the progress and when, in 1917, the matter was taken upagain, it was felt that a report from the Calcutta University would be needed.The Calcutta University Commission, appointed by its Chancellor in 1917,refused to accept the proposal for an affiliating type of university. Itsproposed autonomy was also debated, and many educators from Dacca wrote to the Commission arguing that the future university should beautonomous. Among these were Professor F C Turner, Principal, Dr NareshChandra Sen, Vice Principal of the Law Department, and ProfessorT T Williams, all of the Dacca College. In 1921, the Dacca University wasfinally established as a teaching and residential type of university. However,it was not granted the power to be an affiliating university. Otherwise, it would enjoy complete autonomy and the Governor of Bengal would bethe Chancellor.



126 Calcutta Mosaic

Higher education for the Bengali-Muslim outside the metropolis of Calcutta had begun to concretize into a reality.

NOTES1 The term ‘Bengali Muslim’ is used as an acknowledgement of both ethnic and

religious identity of that community which is both Muslim and Bengali, andnot as a comprehensive term for all the Muslims residents in Bengal.

2 Ali, Muhammad Yaqub, Jater Barai , No place of publication given, 1908, p. 4.3 ‘The Baptist Missionary Society and the Church Missionary Society established

many vernacular schools in Calcutta and its suburbs’, Lateef, Nawab Abdul, A Short Account of My Humble Efforts to Promote Education , Ali, Mohammad Mohar,ed., pp. 206–10. No publication details available, pages missing.

4 Gallagher, J A, ‘Congress in Decline1930 to 1939’, Modern Asian Studies , Vol.7, No. 3, 1973, p. 596.

5 Banerjee, Sumanta, The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta , Seagull Books, Calcutta, 1998, p. 116.

6 Ashraf (sing. sharif) refers to the upper class Muslim community which tracedits lineage to the descendants of the Arab immigrants.

7 ‘In Calcutta itself, Muslims were in a distinct minority, not more than perhaps20 per cent. Of these the majority were day laborers-cooks, coachmen, and[...] in government service rose from 4.4 per cent in 1871 to 10.3 per cent in

1901 while for Hindus the figures were 32.2 per cent rising to 56.1 per cent during the same period’, Dutta, Krishna, Calcutta: A Cultural and Literary History (Cities of the Imagination) , Interlink Books, Massachusetts, 2003, p. 140.

8 ‘Sadaruddin-Dedar Buksh-Alimullah Munshi, Imdad Ali-Golam SobhanMoulvi, Lal-Budhu-Gulu-Nawabdi Ostagar, Karim Buksh Khansama, RafiqueSerang, Anis Barber, Nazir Nazibullah, Sharif Daftari, Imam Buksh Thanadar,Khairu Methar had all lent their names to streets despite their varied socialpositions. There is, however, indirect evidence of their financial solvency. Evenbeing a scavenger and a tailor respectively, Khairu and Gulu erected imposing mosques’, [banglapedia.search.com.bd], entry on Calcutta at the address [http://banglapedia.search.com.bd].

9

Siddiqui cites the many areas where the Bengali-Muslims stay ‘bearing namesof ethnic character such as, Mominpur, Tantibagan, Churipara, Kasai Bustee,Kasai Mohalla, Patua Para, Patua Tala, Nikari Pada...’, Siddiqui, M K A, Muslims of Calcutta: A Study in Aspects of Their Social Organisation , Anthropological Surveyof India, Calcutta, 1974, p. 11.

10 Ahmed, Rafiuddin, The Bengal Muslims, 1871-1906: A Quest for Identity , OxfordUniversity Press, Delhi, 1981, p. 113.

11 Karim, Abdul, Some Political, Economical and Educational Questions , Calcutta,1917, p. 6.

12 Hunter, William The Indian Musalmans , Rupa and Co., Delhi, 2004, p. 173.13 Bengal Education Proceedings, Calcutta, 1872, p. 78.14

Muslim Female Education in Metropolitan City of Calcutta, Ministry of HumanResource Development, Department of Education, New Delhi, 1987, p. 8.15 Murshid, Tazeen, The Sacred and the Secular: Bengal Muslim Discourses 1871-

1977 , Oxford University Press, Calcutta, 1995, p. 87.




16 The Mahomedan Observer, 18 January, Calcutta, 1894, p. 28.17 O’Malley, L S S, Census of India, Vol. 6, Part II, Bengal Secretariat Book Depot,

Calcutta, 1913, p. 48.18 Ibid .19 Ma’az, Ebne, ‘Musalman Boarding ba Chhatrabas’, Islam-Pracharak , Year 4,

No. 9–10, Falgun-Chaitra , BS 1308 (1902).20 Ibid .21 Ahmed, Rafiuddin, The Bengal Muslims 1871 -1906: A Quest for Identity, Oxford

University Press, Delhi, 1981, p. 123.22 ‘Parashuram’, ‘Birinchibaba’, Kajjali , M C Sarkar and Sons Pvt Ltd, Calcutta,

1986, p. 23.23 Ahmed, Rafiuddin, op. cit., p. 139.24 Karim, Abdul, Muhammaden Education in Bengal , Metcalfe Press, Calcutta, 1900,

p. 36.25 Rahman, Mujibur, History of Madrassah Education: With Special Reference to

Calcutta Madrassah and W. B. Madrassah Education Board , Rais Anwar RahmanBrothers, Calcutta, 1977, p. 164.

26 Rahman, op. cit ., p. 132.27 Sufia Ahmed writes of these efforts: ‘the only practical results of these efforts

at modernisation were the introduction of English as an optional subject inthe Arabic department in 1829, and the formation of the Anglo-Persiandepartment in 1854’, Ahmed, Sufia, Muslim Community in Bengal 1884 -1912 ,

University Press Limited, Dacca, 1996, p. 58. 28 This college had been established by a wealthy philanthropist from the Dutt

family of Wellington Square, Calcutta, in 1853. The college was allegedlydestroyed during the Sepoy Mutiny.

29 Rahman, op. cit ., p. 99.30 Haque, M Azizul, History and Problems of Moslem Education in Bengal , Thacker,

Spinck and Co., Calcutta, 1917.31 Chakraborty, Ashoke Kumar, Bengali Muslim Literati and the Development of

Muslim Community in Bengal , Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, 2002,p. 58. The text of Abdul Lateef’s paper, ‘Muhammadan Education in Bengal’,may be found in Transactions of the Bengali Social Science Association , Calcutta,

1868.32 The Committee members included Hon’able Mr Justice Norman, Mr J Sutcliff,Mr H L Harrison, Captain H S Jarret, Prince Md Rahimuddin, Qazi AbdulBari, Munshi Abdul Latif Khan Bahadur, Maulvi Abbas Ali Khan and HajiMd Zakaria.

33 Rahman, op. cit., p. 111.34 Appendix to the Report by the North-Western Province and Oudh Provincial

Committee at the Education Comission 1884, p. 298. Quoted in Ahmed, Sufia,op. cit., p. 59.

35 For a brief history of the Mohsin Endowments Fund, see Report of theMuhammadan Educational Endowments Committee 1888, pp. 32-5.

36 Khan, Abdul Rashid The All-India Muslim Educational Conference: Its Contribution to the Cultural Development of Indian Muslims, 1886 -1947 , Oxford UniversityPress, Karachi, 2001, p. 226.

37 Ahmed, Sufia, op. cit., p.59.



128 Calcutta Mosaic

38 Report of the Committee appointed by the Bengal Government to ConsiderQuestions Connected with Muhammadan Education, Calcutta, 1915, para.94.

39 Report of the Calcutta University Commission 1917-1919, pp. vii, 212, Calcutta 1919–1920.

40 According to the Government Circular No. 1639/T G dated 14 September1902, and No. 908 dated 23 February 1904, all students should be taught intheir mother tongue.

41 Rahman, op. cit., p. 151.42 Mohammad Akram Khan in his speech at the Third Bangiya Musalman Sahitya

Sammelan, referred to the journal Muhammadi Akbar , published from Sealdah,the suburb of Calcutta, in the 24 parganas, as the ‘Sealdah Palli’. Quoted in

Hossain, Talim, ed., Muslim Bangla Samayik Patra , Pakistan Publications, Dacca,1966, p. 18.

43 Samay’s article entitled ‘The Views of this Newspaper on Mihir’. Quoted inRahim, Munshi Abdur, ed., Mihir , Feb. 1892, p. 41.

44 Ibid .45 Mia, Madhu, alias Ahmed, Munshi Moezuddin, ed., Pracharak , 1899, page

number torn off. The quote is from ‘Samay’, 8 Agrahayan, BS 1307.46 Khan Bhadur Abdul Majid Chowdhury to Govt of Bengal, 30 November 1902,

Para.1, Bengal Education Proceedings, September 1903. Quoted in Ahmed,Sufia, op. cit., p. 25.

47 Syed Nawab Ali Chowdhury, educated at Rajshahi Collegiate School and at

St Xavier’s College was a signatory to the Simla Address, Vice-President of the Muslim League’s 3rd Session, founder-president of Muslim BengalFederation, 1921, and father of future Prime Minister of Pakistan, MuhammadAli Bogra.

48 Chowdhury, Syed Nawab Ali ‘Vernacular Education in Bengal’, (speechdelivered at the 13th Session of the Muhammadan Educational Conference,Calcutta), W Newman and Co. (Caxton Press), Calcutta, 1900, pp. 18–19.

49 Ibid ., pp. 2, 3, 47.50 ‘After the death of Syed Ahmed, the Conference was supported by many

Muslim leaders who had previously opposed it for one reason or another’,Khan, Abdul Rashid, op. cit., p. 50.

51

The Moslem Chronicle , 9 April 1904.52 Rahim, Muhammad Abdur, Muslim Society and Politics in Bengal 1757-1947 ,University of Dacca, Dacca, 1978, p. 138.

53 Footnote 1, Government Records, quoted in Mallick, A R, British Policy and the Muslims of Bengal 1757-1856 , Dacca, 1962, pp. 277–82.

54 Ahmed, Sir Syed, ‘An Indian Mussalman’, Part 1 of ‘Indian Mussalmans andIndian Politics’, The Hindustan Review, January, 1909, p. 52.

55 ‘Aadamsumari o Mussalman’, Pracharak , Chaitra, BS 1307. This editorial isreferred to as ‘significant’ by Abdul Kadir in his essay on Pracharak in Hossain,Talim, ed., op. cit.

56 As Mustafa Nurul Islam writes, ‘[...] tinged with communalism, the Hindi-Urducontroversy finally became a political issue, Hindus identifying with Hindi andMusalmans with Urdu. Thus the advocacy of Urdu began partially to symbolise




Muslim nationalism’, Bengali Muslim Public Opinion as Reflected in the Bengali Press,1901-1930 , Bangla Academy, Dacca, 1973, p. 195, Footnote 49.

57 Islamabadi, Manirazzaman, ‘Bangiya Musalman o Urdu Samasya’, Al-Eslam ,Year 3, No.6, Aswin, BS 1324 (1917).

58 Ali, Syed Emdad, ‘Banga Bhasa o Musalman’, Bangiya-Musalman-Sahitya- Patrika , Year 1, No.2, Sraban, BS 1325 (1918).

59 Ahmed, Mozaffar, ‘Banga Deshe Madrassar Shiksha’, Bangiya-Musalman- Sahitya-Patrika , Year 2, No.3, Kartik, BS 1326 (1919).

60 Rahman, op. cit., p. 163.61 Earle to Government of Bengal, 10 June 1908, Para.22, Bengal Education

Proceedings, August 1908, quoted in Ahmed, Sufia, op. cit., p. 65.62 ‘Appendix A: List of Persons who attended the Muhammadan Educational

Conference, held at Calcutta in December, 1907’, Ahmed, Sufia, op. cit., p.295.

63 Earle to Government of Bengal, 10 June 1908, Para.12, Bengal EducationProceedings, August 1908, quoted in Ahmed, Sufia, op. cit., p. 66.

64 This was echoed by Fazlul Haque’s statement in 1939 when, speaking at thePrize Distribution Ceremony at the Madrassa Alia, he said that thediscrimination in matters of grants between the madrassas of the Old Schemeand the Reform Scheme was entirely unacceptable.

65 Rahman, op. cit., p. 185.66 Around 17 new madrassas were established between 1922–1927, and around

30 between 1927–1932. These numbers vary slightly among the books orperiodicals consulted.

67 The other members of the committee were G W Kichler, Director of PublicInstruction, Bengal, Dr Rash Behary Ghose, Advocate of the High Court,Calcutta, Nawab Syed Nawab Ali Chowdhury, Nawab Sirajul Islam, Ananda Chandra Roy, Pleader and Zaminder, Dacca, Mohammad Ali, Aligarh, H R James, Principal of Presidency College, Calcutta, W A T Archibald, Principalof Dacca College, Satis Chandra Acharji, Principal of Sanskrit College,Calcutta, Lalit Mohan Chatterjee, Principal, Jagannath College, Dacca, C WPeake, Professor Presidency College and Samsul Ulama Abu Nasr MuhammadWaheed, Superintendent of Dacca Madrassa.

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