The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c4.s5.t5.18

c4.s5.t5.18

In his Preface, after referring to ‘the imaginary basis for accusations not infrequently made in India that the British Government systematically destroyed the indigenous system of elementary schools and with it a literacy which the schools are presumed to have created’, Hartog observed: ‘When Mr Gandhi, in an address given at the Royal Institute of International Affairs on 20 October 1931, lent his powerful support to those accusations, and challenged contradiction, it was obviously necessary to re-examine the facts.’⁷⁶