RAJAMMA THUMBOO CHETTY
"Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive, easy to govern, but impossible to enslave".
Baron Brougham Henry 1778-1868.
EDUCATING BANGALORE
Among the best known facets of Bengaluru is its trained manpower, and by extension its emphasis on education. The underlying imaginations of what education should achieve does however reflect a number of very distinct choices. There is a distinct preference for education in English over learning in the mother tongue. This preference is itself related to a focus on higher education over mass literacy. And these preferences can themselves be traced to imaginations that date back to the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The imagination that created the Cantonment necessarily had a prominent place for English education, at least for its British residents. And this imagination was provided a twist by the emergence of Anglo-Indians.
By the middle of the nineteenth century there were young children in this community that did not have access to education or to church. In 1853 a chaplain of St Marks, Rev Possnet, decided to set up a small room that would act as a school in the mornings, a reading room in the evenings and a church on Sundays. When the British government was approached for support they initially did not think too much of the idea; but the Army which employed some of these children as drummer boys decided to step in. This was the beginning of an imagination that provided English education to the poor. The setting up of schools with some competence meant the focus was on some level of quality in education rather than a rudimentary mass literacy programme.
This imagination, not surprisingly, extended to educating others who were underprivileged. As Rajamma Thamboo Chetty's piece in this section tells us an effort was made at Zenana education that tried to get teachers into traditional households so that they could reach girls who were not allowed to step into a regular school.
The involvement of prominent local families as well as support from England ensured that this education too provided a place for English. Here again the imagination that led to reaching out to the underprivileged had place for the elite within it.
The imagination in the City at this time had as prominent a role for education and was no less concerned about the underprivileged. But it was an imagination that also had a prominent place for science and technology. By the beginning of the twentieth century Mysore was already working to get electric power to Bangalore. And there was a great emphasis on developing an academic culture that would be able to generate technology of its own. This mixture of concern for the underprivileged with high technology is perhaps best reflected in the speech by Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar when he laid the foundation stone for the building of the Indian Institute of Science in 1911. If the Mysore government's contribution of land and other resources to the institute was a sign of its commitment to research, his suggestion for scholarships in that speech was a tribute to his sensitivity to the less privileged that was evident in a number of his actions. This imagination was also reflected in the scholarships that were offered for education abroad. In the city too the emphasis was not on mass literacy but on making higher education available even to the underprivileged. The emphasis on quality also ensured there was some attention paid to the process of learning as well. Questions about the role of examinations were, for instance, raised by Dewan Mirza Ismail in the 1930s.
Extracted from the book :Bengaluru, Bangalore, Bengaluru : Imaginations And Their Times by NARENDAR PANI, SINDHU RADHAKRISHNA, KISHOR G BHAT (2010).
MISS MANNING AND ZENANA EDUCATION
The term Zenana refers to the part of the house where women were kept in seclusion. While the term has Islamic origins it was also practised by Hindu families. Women who were Zenana Missionaries gained access to these parts of the house in order to provide health care and education. In the initial years their activities were suspect as they also sought to proselytise. Later some of them developed a less sectarian character and gained greater acceptance. Elizabeth Adelaide Manning achieved a great deal of influence when she headed the National Indian Mission due to her insistence on non-interference in religious and social customs. She was noted for her tact and avoidance of public recognition, and she rigidly excluded politics and religion from her work and writing. Miss Manning visited Bangalore in August 1888 as a part of a larger tour of India. In keeping with her rather low profile her meeting in Bangalore was organised at Rugby Hall in the Cantonment, the residence of Mr Thamboo Chetty, a senior government official. Her host, Mrs Rajamma Thamboo Chetty, who presented her the address given below, was herself keenly interested in education and started the Rajamma Thamboo Chetty School for Girls.
Extracted from the book :Bengaluru, Bangalore, Bengaluru : Imaginations And Their Times by NARENDAR PANI, SINDHU RADHAKRISHNA, KISHOR G BHAT (2010).
RAJAMMA THUMBOO CHETTY
It affords me a great deal of pleasure to welcome you this evening in the presence of so many happy faces around me, who all heartily join in greeting a noble lady like yourself. Your philanthropic exertions to promote the education and to improve and develop the moral and social condition of my country-women, the very great assistance you have been, and are still, rendering by devoting both your time and money towards the advancement of the same cause, and the many virtues and good qualities that adorn you, have endeared you to us all, and have won for you our highest esteem and respect. I can only say that I am but feebly expressing the immense pleasure and joy with which we receive you on this auspicious occasion, and although we cannot give the same magnificent reception accorded to you both at Bombay and Madras, we can offer you equally warm hearts and cordially wish you God-speed in your good and most useful work. The Zenana teaching, introduced into Bangalore under your special patronage, is progressing, tough slowly, but steadily. There was great difficulty in inaugurating and working this system owing to various causes, the chief of which was the want of competent teachers of good caste, who could easily gain access to Zenanas of respectable families and make themselves familiar with the Home students. We hope, ere long, to surmount this difficulty, as Her Highness the Maharanee's Girls' School at Mysore and some of the Girls' schools in Bangalore, will soon be able to supply our want. The system of Zenana teaching is still in its infancy, but, with continued exertion and co-operation on the part of those interested in the movement, the system will gradually expand and develop itself to the permanent advantage and interest of this country. The earnestness and devotion which characterize your labours on behalf of the women in India, entitle you to our gratitude and strong and lasting love. Your conduct is worthy of emulation, and I doubt not that you will regard this gathering of intelligent and principal Native ladies of Bangalore to welcome you as a proof of the high estimation in which you are held by them, and of their willingness to support that cause which you have deeply at heart. We shall always speak and think of you as the best and dearest friend of India. You will carry our good wishes to your distant native land, where, we fervently pray, you may long continue to enjoy every happiness and the well merited respect of my country-women.
Extracted from 'A Brief Sketch of the Life of Raja Dharma Pravina TRA Thumboo Chetty' by T. Royaloo Chetty, Madras: Bob and Co, 1909, pp. 129-130.
THE RAJAMMAH THUMBOO CHETTY GIRLS' SCHOOL, CIVIL AND MILITARY STATION, BANGALORE.
It may be observed that Mrs. Thumboo Chetty, who admired the nobler exhibitions of mind and cultivated intellects of both Miss Manning and Miss Garland, was herself induced to do something in connection with female education. The Rajammah Thumboo Chetty Girls' School was opened in the year 1898 in a building in Narrain Pillay Street, which was made over by Mrs. Thumboo Chetty to the Roman Catholic Mission. It is under the management of a European Head Mistress, Sister Marie Cesarie of St. Joseph's Convent (who has passed her examination in Europe), assisted by six native nuns. The strength of the school at present is 160 pupils, who belong to different castes, most of whom are Mudaliars and Mahrattas. There are also some Brahmins, Lingayets and Native Christians. The school, which is in a crowded locality in the station, attracts all castes. There are classes from the Infants up to Form I. In each class all the subjects according to the Madras Education Code are taught, besides needle and fancy work, Kindergarden and singing.
Extracted from 'A Brief Sketch of the Life of Raja Dharma Pravina TRA Thumboo Chetty' by T. Royaloo Chetty, pp. 131.