Caste and the Politics of the Early ‘Public’ in Schooling: Dalit Struggle for an Equitable Education

Abstract

In this article, I draw attention to the early 1850s in the Bombay Presidency when the colonial government first assumed responsibility for mass education. I show that in the subsequent decades, publicly funded schooling was narrow and extremely exclusive as a result of the strong opposition of dominant castes to the education of the Dalits (‘Untouchable’ castes) as well as ambivalences and compromises of the colonial state to equality in education. I argue that in the efforts towards shaping of a more inclusive and ‘equitable’ public education, the struggles of the most excluded and stigmatised castes, the Untouchables, were crucial and have hitherto received little attention. Initiatives from within the community as well as the role of radical social reformers (I refer to Phule), Dalit activists and leaders such as Ambedkar in political and social spaces in relation to education also deserve far more serious study and acknowledgement. The neglect of the Untouchable castes in histories of education has resulted in failure to recognise their extraordinary efforts to spread education within their communities and significant contestations from below as well as in shaping discourses and practices around the ‘public’ in schooling. It also reminds us that as we defend the public in education today, we must understand the politics around it.