The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c4.s5.t5.7

c4.s5.t5.7

The meeting held on 20 October 1931, under the auspices of the Institute, is reported to have been attended by influential English men and women drawn from all parts of England, and was presided over by Lord Lothian.⁶⁸ The subject on which Gandhiji spoke was ‘The Future of India’. Before describing this future, however, he dealt with several issues, like: (i) the Hindu-Muslim-Sikh problem, (ii) the problem of untouchability, and (iii) ‘the deep and ever deepening poverty’ of the 85% of the Indian people who lived in the villages. From this he moved on to the problems which required urgent attention and how ‘if the Congress had its way’ they would be dealt with. Amongst the foremost, he placed ‘the economic welfare of the masses’ as well as the provision of adequate occupations for those requiring them. He also addressed possible solutions to the problems of sanitation and hygiene, and of medical assistance which he felt not only needed packets of quinine, etc., but more so milk and fruit. Next, he turned his attention to education; and, from that, to the neglect of irrigation and the need for using long-known indigenous methods and techniques to achieve it. In conclusion, he stated that while he had told them ‘what we would do constructively’, yet ‘we should have to do something destructive also.’ As illustrative of the required destruction, he mentioned ‘the insupportable weight of military and civil expenditure’ which India could ill afford. Regarding the former, he stated that ‘if I could possibly have my way, we should get rid of three-quarters of the military expenditure.’ Regarding civil expenditure he gave an instance of what he meant: ‘Here the Prime Minister gets fifty times, the average income; the Viceroy in India gets five thousand times the average income.’ He went on to add: ‘From this one example you can work out for yourselves what this civil expenditure also means to India.’