Dear Senthil:
Whatever "facts" you may serve up about education in India, (it would be
helpful to have cited sources so that we can also have access to them) please
do remember that the rare writings of women of the 19th century which have
survived paint a bleak picture. If this was the fate of those who had access to
some literacy, imagine the situation of those who did not. Read their accounts
in the 2-volume collection "Women Writing in India" by B.Lalitha and Susie
Tharu. Also many eyewitness accounts survive.As I always say, the silenced
voices - whether of women, the lower castes, the adivasis, the children, the
differently abled - always have a different take from the "history" written and
perpetrated by the status-quoists, or those who want to hark back to a
golden era in the past, till modernity interfered with their blissful state. We
need to also listen to these voices to get a fuller picture of our past.
Cynthia Stephen
Independent Researcher and writer
Bangalore, India
