Libmonster ID: UK-1505

STATISTICS IN THE SERVICE OF THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENT IN INDIA 1

The article is devoted to the origin and process of institutionalization of the statistical service in colonial India; analysis of procedures and methods of collecting, systematizing and interpreting information by British officials. The center of the research is the problem of objectivity and scientific character of "colonial knowledge", its relationship with the authorities, their needs and requests. The article is based on a report on the state of local education in Bengal and Bihar (1838), which was the result of many months of field research conducted by an official of the East India Company, William Adam, in 1835-1837.

Keywords: colonialism, British India, statistics, information, colonial knowledge, education, Bengal, Bihar.

STATISTICS AS A MEANS OF THE COLONIAL POWER IN INDIA

The paper is devoted to the birth and process of institutionalization of statistic survey in the British India, methods and procedures of collection, systematization and interpretation of the information used by the British officers in the nineteenth century. The author focuses on the problems of "colonial knowledge " and its relations to the colonial power. This study is based on the "Report on the State of Education in Bengal; Including Some Account of the State of Education in Behar" (1838) resulted from two-year study tour and field research conducted by the officer of the East India Company William Adam in 1835-1837.

Keywords: colonialism, British India, statistics, information, informational order, colonial knowledge, education, Bengal, Behar.

The well-known British historian C. Bailey, in his study "Empire and Information" (Bayly, 1996), devoted to the organization and activities of the British intelligence service in colonial India, used the concept of "information order", borrowed from the Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells (Castells, 1989). In this case, the" information system " is understood as a set of institutions that collect and disseminate information, generators and carriers of certain knowledge, as well as discourses that arise in society under their influence. This aggregate forms

Svetlana E. SIDOROVA-Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, veta.sidorova@mail.ru.

Svetlana SIDOROVA, PhD (in History), Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS, Moscow, veta.sidorova@mail.ru.

1 This article was originally written for the collective volume "Collection, Storage and Dissemination of Information in the Traditional East", conceived by Russian orientalist Natalia Fomina. Natalia Ivanovna's premature death, unfortunately, did not allow this project to be implemented. The article is dedicated to the bright memory of Natalia Ivanovna.

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a kind of social formation that exists independently of political and economic structures, although it is dependent on them. Formed under the influence of the latter, as well as the prevailing ideological attitudes and religious practices, information orders in different societies differ from each other [Bayly, 1996, p. 4]. These differences, according to K. Bailey, explain the difficulties and problems that the British faced in mastering the alien and incomprehensible information space that developed during the time of their Mughal and pre-Mughal predecessors. Hence the distrust of local informants, their "tricks" and the constant fear of a lack of knowledge or misunderstanding of the local situation. Penetrating this space by creating an effective intelligence system was a vital necessity for the British, especially in the early stages of colonization of India. Intelligence information about the potential and correlation of political and military forces between and within individual Indian princedoms, land, dynastic and financial conflicts, etc. played a key role in the period of British territorial conquests and building various relations with local rulers.

With the expansion of British possessions in India and the increase in power potential, other tasks came to the fore. Military campaigns were replaced by a policy aimed at the systematic, orderly and large-scale development of the acquired economic, natural and human resources, as well as at further strengthening power by peaceful means - through reforms, diplomacy, and ideological influence. Against the background of these changes, information of a different kind was in demand. Beginning in the second half of the 18th century, and especially actively after the 1820s and 1830s, the British collected, recorded, and censored data on Indian agricultural land, land use and taxation systems, geographical and climatic conditions, flora and fauna, and population, and compiled descriptions of the peoples who lived in British India, their customs, and religious traditions Not only the content of the collected information, but also the form of its presentation changed. It was systematized and organized, grouped, divided into categories, presented according to a certain plan in the form of reviews, statistical reports, gazetteers, censuses, encyclopedias, etc.

Undoubtedly, the information boom in the colonies was influenced by the pan-European passion for collecting a variety of data, which in historical retrospect can be regarded as a characteristic feature, a kind of philosophy of the Art Nouveau era. In Great Britain, after 1800, when the "Bill of Population"2 was passed, this occupation became almost a national fashion and by the 1830s. It has reached such proportions that it is referred to in the literature as the "statistical movement" (Cullen, 1975). At this time, statistical science was rapidly progressing, accumulating and improving specific methods of collecting and processing information, turning into a modern scientific discipline. In the metropolitan area, this movement was aimed at accumulating data and further analyzing the relationship between state resources and social needs, which ultimately contributed to the formation of socially responsible government policies. In the colonial context, it was indicative of the Europeans ' attempts and desire to come to an understanding of their colonized subjects and integrate India, at least from an administrative point of view, into the British Empire. This comprehension and comprehension of the new world took place, in the words of N. Derks, through the "objectification"3 of India, i.e., through the representation of its history and modernity as a set of facts and data.

2 Population Bill (Act for Taking an Account of the Population of Great Britain and of the Increase or Diminution thereof) (подробно см.: [Glass, 1978, p. 91-94]).

3 Preface by N. Derks to [Cohn, 1996, p. xiv].

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he divided the various methods of collecting information used by the British into groups. He called them "research modalities" and distinguished among them such as historiography, observations or travelogues, surveys, enumerative classification (population censuses), museology and surveys [Cohn, 1996, p. 5-11].

Figuratively speaking, the British measured Indian reality with a European "ruler". The use of ready-made tools and mechanisms of cognition of the surrounding world, offered by European sciences, was convenient and practical from a practical point of view. In addition, these methods, reflecting the mental structure of the colonialists4, helped the British to translate the new reality they faced into the language of their own culture that was accessible to them, to squeeze it into a well-known and understandable scheme of the world and society. The objectification, differentiation, and codification of the Indian geographical, economic, historical, and socio-cultural space also served more utilitarian purposes, such as forming a unified administrative structure for the conquered territories, organizing unified systems of education, legal proceedings, taxation, etc., taking into account the characteristics of various localities in India, and generally pursuing a policy of state-building on disparate Indian lands. Ultimately, the metropolis was interested in transforming India into a country with a European vector of development and assimilating those forms of economic management and cultural and value relations that were acceptable to the British and made it convenient for management and economic exploitation.

The so-called colonial knowledge, defined by D. Ludden as " useful knowledge generated to maintain the mechanisms of colonial governance "[Ludden, 1993, p. 252], has become one of the central research objects of scientists whose work belongs to "postcolonial research". One of its founders, E. Said, considered M. Foucault's concept of the immanent connection between knowledge and power in the context of the relations between East and West in the colonial era, and introduced the idea of transformed, distorted, constructed knowledge, the skillful manipulation of which allowed Europeans not only to actually subdue and control the conquered territories, but also to ideologically substantiate and control them. justify their presence on these lands and the appropriation of power functions.

European orientalists of the colonial era, comprehending India through the usual meanings, symbols and concepts of their own culture and civilization, consciously or unconsciously created certain images of India, which, when replicated, for many years became its representation in the world, often seriously differing from reality. From this point of view, many interesting and deep studies were conducted, the authors of which saw their task as debunking Orientalist ideas about India. However, in the works of the most zealous supporters of the concept of E. Said, sometimes extreme views were expressed that Europeans never knew and could not know anything significant about native societies because of their "cognitive bias". What passes for European knowledge of "others" is nothing more than a set of rhetorical devices designed to give legitimacy to conquests (Bayly, 1996, p. 7) .5
The fascination with deconstructing orientalist discourse has led to some critical comments from a number of scholars, the essence of which can be expressed in words

4 Yu. N. Afanasyev, speaking about the peculiarities of Western knowledge about man and society in the Modern era, noted its "clear disciplinary division (economic sciences, sociology, political sciences) and pronounced, due to the specifics of Western European society... differentiation of the object of research itself...". In addition, the differentiated Western European society corresponded to an adequate type of social dynamics - gradual progressive development [Afanasyev, 2011].

5 Also see [MacKenzie, 1995].

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K. Bailey: "European power over Asians and Africans could not exist without a certain amount of understanding of the conquered societies. In India, colonial knowledge largely grew out of local, indigenous knowledge, although it was taken out of context and distorted by fears and prejudices" (Bayly, 1996, p. 7). Developing this criticism, some researchers have proposed a different approach to the study of colonial texts, which is based on the desire to identify the rational grain in "colonial knowledge". The methodological basis of this approach is the concept of the separation of powers and the maintenance of its knowledge and recognition of the latter as an independent scientific value. Thus, one of the proponents of this point of view, D. Ludden, noted:

"Indology, income data, and commission reports have emerged in the same epistemological space as positivist knowledge about societies, cultures, and political economies. Separate branches of knowledge about India could thus overlap and mutually enrich, and the facts obtained during the research of India could be combined with data on political economy and history collected from around the world" [Ludden, 1993, p. 258].

The British scientist P. Robb fully agreed with him. In an article about Colin Mackenzie, a colonial official who spent ten years exploring Mysore (1799-1810) and produced the voluminous work "Survey of Mysore", he noted:

"McKenzie was too focused on the quality of his research, the collection and classification of data, and the degree of their accuracy and reliability... He did not create the "colonial discourse" that emerged as a result and goal of European domination, which is essentially a juxtaposition of two imaginary entities, East and West. The task was not so much to define "others" as to describe and understand the universe as a whole. It seems that more significant than the concepts of power and possessions was the use of empirical science methods - in India, as well as in Europe, using the same assessment scale" [Robb, 2007, p. 98].

The following report is presented to the reader: Adama is interesting because it touches on the sphere of life of Indian society, which the colonial authorities had high hopes for in the process of Westernization of India and where they planned to carry out large-scale transformations. B. Cohn wrote in the mentioned work: "Together with the development of education... the state instilled official ideas about what the real state of affairs was, what it should have been. Schools became key institutions that were designed to perform civilizing functions and educate decent citizens and producers" [Cohn, 1996, p. 3].

Adam's report was preceded by an important decision. In 1835, after years of controversy between proponents (Anglists) and opponents (Orientalists) of a Europeanized English-language education, Thomas Macaulay 6 issued a famous memorandum, the provisions of which were approved and formally consolidated by the resolution of the Governor-General of India, W. Bentinck (1828-1835). The resolution stated that " the dissemination of Western European sciences and literature through the English language is the main task of the Government in the field of education and the funds allocated to them should be spent to achieve this goal." The proposed changes were aimed at creating in India, in the words of T. Macaulay, "a class of people, Indians by blood and skin color, but English by feelings, beliefs, ethics and intelligence, who would become a link between the British and millions of Indians" [Minute..., 1835, p. 1].

The specific reform plan developed by the education committee under the leadership of Charles Trevelyan clearly demonstrated that it was effective.

6 Legal Adviser to the Council of the Governor-General of India.

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it is focused on the development of higher education 7. This was dictated by a number of factors: the need for administrative staff and clerks to work in Anglo-Indian trading companies, the lack of funds for a full-scale reform of the education system, as well as the orientation towards an "alliance" with the Indian aristocracy and the need to ensure the loyalty of representatives of the noble and influential groups of society in the first place. The popular concept of "top-down filtering" and "penetrating theory" at that time, according to which a group of Indians who received a European education became an agent for transmitting knowledge to the population, was supposed to help spread education to the broad masses of the people without direct state participation and serious additional costs on its part.

After 1835, discussions took a different direction and focused more on the language of instruction rather than the content of education. Opponents of the" permeating theory "(vernacularists, from the English vernacular - zd. local language, dialect) expressed fears that English, following the traditional "learned" languages of India (Sanskrit or Arabic), which it was supposed to replace, would only increase the gap between the ordinary population of India and Western-educated Indians who are unable or unwilling to perform the agency functions assigned to them. They insisted on the simultaneous and parallel development of education in both local languages and English. This is the general outline of the situation and the balance of forces on the eve of and during Study 8.

The order of the Governor-General of India, W. Bentinck, to conduct the study was issued on January 22, 1835. C. Trevelyan wrote about the planned event as follows::

"In order to lay a solid foundation for the upcoming colossal work to spread education to the masses, it is necessary to know the people's aspirations and moods, difficulties and favorable conditions for the implementation of the plan, as well as local characteristics, which may lead to its partial adjustment. Our understanding of the intellectual state of the population in the main cities is quite extensive and accurate... but more detailed information is required before we dare to set foot outside the cities, in the countryside, and carry out our plans not only in relation to the few Indians with whom Europeans are directly connected, but also in relation to the mass of the people" [Trevelyan, 1838, p. 25].

An official of the East India Company, William Adam, was appointed as the executor. At the time of his appointment, Adam had already spent 17 years in India. He was born in 1796 in Scotland. After graduating from Bristol Baptist College and the University of Glasgow, he took holy orders and in 1818 arrived in Calcutta, where he joined the W. Carey Baptist Mission at Serampore. He served as a priest for several years. During this time, Adam learned Sanskrit and Bengali. Together with the well-known Indian public figure, educator and reformer R. Rai, he was engaged in improving the translation of the New Testament into Bengali. In 1821, he left the Baptist Society and, together with R. Rai and other Indian and European associates, founded the Calcutta Unitarian Society9, which lasted until 1828.

7 The division into higher, secondary and lower education in the first half of the XIX century is rather conditional. Their exact definition was formulated in English colonial documents later.

8 For more information, see [Sidorova, 2010].

9 Unitarians (from Latin unitas - unity) - a current in Protestantism that defends the idea of one god in contrast to the dogma of the trinity. A distinctive characteristic of unitarianism is an unbiased and individual attitude to religion, the right of an individual to develop their own religious ideas. In other words, the unifying basis of the members of this church is more anti-dogmatism than a single system of postulates. Unitarians allow free interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and advocate religious tolerance. In the XVIII-XIX centuries. Unitarians were strongly associated with campaigns for social and political reform.

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After its collapse, Adam, being in extremely tight financial circumstances, took up journalism and joined the East India Company, where he remained until 1838, that is, until the end of work on the report. Immediately afterwards, he left India, spending a total of 20 years there.

Adam's later life was connected with the activities of various branches of the unitarian Church in the USA and Canada, where the center of the Unitarian movement moved in the first half of the 19th century. In 1861, he abandoned unitarianism. Adam spent the last years of his life in England. He died in 1881, bequeathing all the money to a grammar school in his native Dunfermline, Scotland, for scholarships to students "regardless of their sex, religion, or lack thereof, origin, color or caste, nationality or political opinion."10
By the time Adam began his research, he had a good idea of India, and was familiar with educational activities firsthand (British missionaries in India, as a rule, combined traditional preaching with active efforts in the field of education). His commitment to Unitarian views and close cooperation with R. Rai allow us to think of him as a person far removed from Christian fanaticism. It should be borne in mind that in 1835, as indeed throughout the nineteenth century, the official position of the authorities was to adhere to a policy of neutrality in everything that concerns the religion of the peoples of India. This directly affected East India Company officials, who were not supposed to show their religious beliefs, much less openly insist on their advantages.

Adam was not a pioneer in this field when he set out to complete the task. The need for a study of the native educational system was first mentioned in 1814 in a dispatch from the Board of Directors of the company addressed to the Governor-General of Bengal, Lord Moira (1813-1823). However, these studies were initiated much later, in the 1820s, when the authorities began to purposefully build a policy in the field of education and affected only two territories of British India-the Madras (1822) and Bombay presidencies (1823). The reports presented (published in 1826 and 1832, respectively) were superficial and general in nature. Adam's study, which was conducted 15 years later, was qualitatively different from theirs, with a high degree of detail and reliability of data, as well as the ways in which the material was collected, organized, and presented. Undoubtedly, the colonial collectors of information borrowed and used the experience gained in this area in the mother country. However, the conditions under which research was conducted in India were very different from those in England, so the colonial statistical science was forced to develop its own methods.

One of the first researchers to put the process of collecting information on a scientific basis was Colin Mackenzie. N. Derks believes that the efforts and works of K. Mackenzie are not valuable in the historical perspective, since they served only to strengthen the colonial discourse, "undisturbed by other opinions and voices of Indians" [Robb, 2007, p. 100]11. Polemicizing with this point of view, P. Robb believes that K. Mackenzie, on the contrary, made a significant contribution to the development of scientific knowledge by developing and testing "methods and goals of integrated research" on the example of Mysore [Robb, 2007, p. 111]. Techniques that now seem obvious and natural as scientific methods were developed by Mackenzie specifically for his assistants, who were not "people of science". The key elements of his approach were direct observation, measurement/calculation, completeness of information coverage, standardization, report design and data storage system. He actively engaged local informants, agents, translators, and scribes in his work. Empiricism, understood in this case as obtaining first-hand information,

10 См.: [http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articlcs/williamadam.html].

11 See also [Dirks, 1993].

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It was one of the indispensable and fundamental conditions of his research: "observations made directly on the spot will be more important than speculative conclusions made at a distance "(cit. by: [Robb, 2007, p. 112]). He became the first Surveyor General of India and laid the foundation for the institutionalization of the Statistical Service of India and the creation of a staff of professional researchers. According to P. Robb, "future surveys, land management reports, district gazetteers, population censuses, surveys, state archives-all this K. Mackenzie could reasonably consider a continuation of his work and proof of its value" [Robb, 2007, p. 116].

These principles are fully reflected in the study of W. Adam. It lasted from 1835 to 1837. Directly" in the field " he spent 15-16 months. During this time, 7 territories were surveyed: 6 districts in Bengal: Rajshahi, Murshedabad, Birbhum, Burdwan; in Bihar: Gaya (South Bihar), Tirhut (North Bihar)12, and one provincial city-Murshedabad. Three reports were prepared. The first report, published in July 1835, collected all the information known to date from published sources regarding the state of local education in Bengal. The second report was made in December 1835. It contained data collected in the first of the districts studied - Rajshahi. The third report, which is the subject of this study, is the most extensive. It consists of two sections: the first provides statistical data for all territories (except Rajshahi), and the second provides Adam's thoughts and recommendations on measures to be taken to improve and disseminate public education. Considering the problems of the article, the main attention will be paid to the first section. The report was written in the last months of 1837 and published the following year.

The first two parts introduce the reader to the" kitchen " of the study. Adam explains in detail the process of its preparation, the chronology of his movements in Bengal and Bihar, describes the difficulties he encountered in collecting materials, explains the reasons and the degree of error in his calculations.

The goals of the study, as formulated by Adam himself, were to find out the level and condition of the: 1) school education; 2) home education; 3) adult education. Before setting off, Adam prepared "forms" (questionnaires, or questionnaires). They were compiled in the predominant languages of the districts studied - Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, and written using the Bengali, Nagari, and Persian alphabets, respectively. Separate forms with a different set of questions were developed for each group of schools: Bengali and Hindi schools, Sanskrit schools, Persian and Arabic schools, as well as for home-schooled and adult-educated students. At the very beginning, according to Adam, the forms were far from perfect, they were adjusted in the course of research under the influence of local circumstances and gained experience [Adam, 1838, p. 4]. So, some particularly active respondents, filled with a desire to please Adam, independently compiled a list of all the houses in their village with the names of the heads of families and a list of all residents, regardless of age. Adopting this practice, Adam ordered such lists to be created everywhere without exception and required additional information about the family's caste and professional employment. Adam believed that the fragmentary nature of the information collected would serve as a serious defense against errors and inaccuracies, since excessive detail provides more opportunities for conducting a comparative analysis of data and identifying omissions, unforgivable negligence, etc. committed by information collectors.

12 Adam was instructed to explore two districts in Bihar later in January 1837. Another district was Midnapur, Bengal He was examined by another official, O. W. Mallst, and his data is included in Adam's third report.

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intentional distortion. Honestly and diligently filling out forms, in his opinion, was much easier than inventing so much information.

As assistants, he hired two people, a pandit (a Hindu scholar) and a Maulavi (a Muslim cleric), who were to work directly under his direction and supervision. Initially, Adam was going to personally visit all the villages and communicate directly with the residents. However, this plan proved difficult to implement.

"The unexpected appearance of a European in a village often causes fear and terror among local residents, which is sometimes impossible to overcome," he wrote. - The most influential and informed people are often absent, and it takes a huge effort to explain the purpose of my visit to others. Even under the most favorable circumstances, the time spent on explanations that satisfy the villagers creates such delays that it becomes a serious obstacle to effective and economical research " [Adam, 1838, p. 6].

Based on these considerations, Adam began hiring waqifkar, local informants, and sending them forward. They had questionnaires with them, knew and understood their content, and their task was to prepare the residents for Adam's arrival and give them all the necessary explanations. This had an effect, and the work went faster.

Adam soon became convinced that Pandit, Maulavi, and Wakifkars were so successful in this field that it was possible to send them to their villages on their own to gather information. This allowed Adam to cover significantly more localities in the time allotted for the study. Adam had 4 or 5 permanent wakifkars at his disposal, who traveled with him through all the districts, and whose "remarkable mental abilities to some extent compensated for the lack of knowledge of the areas where they found themselves strangers" [Adam, 1838, p. 8]. Additionally, in each district, he hired assistants from among the numerous applicants for various administrative positions in the main cities of the district. However, they were reluctant to accept this job due to low wages (7-8 rupees per month), short-term employment and difficult working conditions associated with constant movement around the villages in unbearable heat or incessant rain. Adam managed to persuade them, promising to provide a large set of writing materials and recommendations for future employment free of charge. Those of them whose general level of education was satisfactory to Adam received questionnaires, which they had to carefully read and rewrite with their own hands. The pundit then explained the content of the questionnaires and how to work with them. After the briefing, the Wakifkars took the exam in front of Adam. In rare cases, he sent them for additional training, and refused the services of some of them altogether because of their "stupidity and ignorance" [Adam, 1838, p. 9].

After completing the training course, agents received a paper with a list of their duties and the amount of compensation. They also received letters signed by the District Magistrate, one addressed to the Chief of Police, thana13, and the other addressed to zamindars and talukdars (landowners) requesting their assistance and assistance in their work. In the course of their work, the wakifkars constantly exchanged correspondence with Adam, reported in letters on the progress of surveys and problems encountered. Upon their return, the forms they brought were carefully examined and if they found discrepancies, inconsistencies, mistakes made due to negligence or inattention, another agent was sent to the same village. And only after the paper was deemed satisfactory, a copy of it was created for the report. Payment was made by Adam himself and directly into the hands of the wakifkars.

13 Administrative division within a district - an area that belongs to one police division.

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Despite the use of a full staff of assistants, it was not possible to make a complete and comprehensive review of all districts. So Adam suggested that only one thana be studied in each district, which was approved by the education committee that oversaw the study. [14] When choosing the most typical thana for a particular area, Adam was guided by the recommendations of local residents and Europeans who are familiar with specific territories. However, in the first district of Murshedabad, the Thana Daulatbazar chosen for the study was, in Adam's opinion, not representative enough. He lamented that he didn't find any Sanskrit or Arabic schools there, even though he knew for a fact that such schools existed in the district. Therefore, in the future, he began to adhere to a different scheme, in which one thana was still investigated in detail by the forces of 5-6 wakifkars, and in the remaining thanas of the district, agents (one in each) collected information only about school education. In Murshedabad, a complete survey was conducted for all 19 thanes that were part of it.

Adam also explains the reasons for possible errors in the report. The main rule of work, which he insisted on strict compliance with, was to prevent coercion by word or deed, exerting pressure on local residents, using force against them, or collecting bribes from them during interviews. This requirement was spelled out separately in the papers that wakifkars received after completing the preparation for the study. Those wakifkars who were noticed using prohibited methods were immediately dismissed. However, in Adam's opinion, the flip side of the principle of loyalty and voluntariness was the excessive dependence of agents on the purely subjective and often differing opinions of local informants. For example, wakifkars were not allowed to enter homes to count women and school-age children. In this case, they had to be content with information provided by the heads of families or village elders, which was usually subject to serious adjustments by other curious residents who gathered in droves around Wakifkar. But despite cross-examination, the result was always that the number of boys aged 5 to 14 years significantly exceeded the number of girls of the same age, which undoubtedly indicated a concealment of the true state of affairs [Adam, 1838, p. 10].

Another reason for Adam's concern was the schools that were unaccounted for in his research. It was physically impossible to get around every single village in the district without extending the work indefinitely. Therefore, the task of the wakifkars was to visit only those localities where there were schools. To find out, the agents relied on their own awareness, as well as information received from local residents. If it turned out that the agents missed some villages with schools, they returned there. Nevertheless, Adam did not rule out the possibility that some schools had dropped out of his research, and expressed the hope that their number was insignificant [Adam, 1838, p. 11].

Finally, the difficulties of interacting with the local population also served as a source of possible inaccuracies in the report. Finding contact with the powerful and well-to-do members of society, in Adam's opinion, was sometimes more difficult than with the uneducated poor. The behavior of the former was characterized by selfishness, self-confidence-

14 To illustrate the scope of the study, I will present the following data: Midnapur district included 17 thanes, Murshedabad district 18 thanes (in one Daulatbazar thane studied, there were 183 cities and villages), Murshedabad city-19 thanes, in which a total of 372 msaals (mahala - a block that combines several streets, administrative districts) and villages, Birbhum District - 17 thans (267 villages in Thans Nanglia), Burdwan District-13 Thans (288 cities and villages in Thans Kulna), South Bihar District-9 Thans (803 cities and villages in Thans Jhanabad), Tirhut District-16 Thans (402 villages in Thans Bhawara).

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or, on the contrary, unjustified servility. Some demanded to see the magistrate's letters addressed to them personally before they would allow their dependents to be interviewed. They often turned the entire village population against the Wakifkars. There were villages in which there was not a single person who knew at least the basics of literacy. In such cases, there was nothing left but to go house by house, contenting himself with the extremely meager help of local residents. Sometimes teachers, motivated by some preconceptions, hid to avoid the "terrible interrogation" [Adam, 1838, p. 12]. However, Adam notes, despite these unfortunate situations, in most cases the local population showed a very friendly attitude to their work.

Adam concludes the introductory part of his report with these words:: "I tried to adhere strictly to the principle of accuracy in the smallest details and demanded the same from local residents and my assistants from among them, because only such an approach can turn assumptions into true and indisputable facts" [Adam, 1838, p. 12].

The 120 pages that follow the introductory section of the report are directly related to statistics. Most of them are taken up by data on school education, while a much smaller amount is devoted to information on home education and adult education. First, it provides general information on the number of schools in each Thane of each district and the average number of schools per Thane. Schools are divided into groups based on the language principle. The first, the most numerous, included schools teaching local and local languages (Bengali, Hindi), the second - Sanskrit schools, the third - Persian and Arabic schools. A special group that unites English schools, girls ' schools and orphanages stands out. The latter, as a rule, were opened, financed and supervised by Europeans.

The report is based on the language-territorial principle. So, the first block of information is devoted to schools with teaching in local (Hindi, Bengali) languages for each district separately. The material is presented according to a strictly defined plan, which includes the following points: the absolute number of schools in the district with teaching in Hindi and Bengali (two separate indicators), the average number of schools in each village, the number of teachers in the school (usually one), the average age of teachers, their religious and caste affiliation, the level and the form of payment, the premises used for conducting lessons, the total number of students in the district, the average number of students in each school, the average age of students, the religious and caste affiliation of students, school supplies (what they write on), the content and stages of education, and the textbooks used. Some of the material is presented in tables, while others are descriptive in nature. Adam does not resort to rounding and counts each student or teacher, even if he is the only representative of any denomination or caste in the focus group. The section ends with intermediate generalizing remarks. Data on Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic schools, as well as English schools, are presented in exactly the same way.

Adam's division of schools by language was not accidental. It fully reflected the real situation in which different types of education (conventionally lower and higher, or secular and religious) differed from each other not only in the content, but also in the language of teaching. For example, schools taught in local languages (Hindi, Bengali) were classified as village or bazaar schools, which provided some practical skills in writing, reading, and, most importantly, counting for children whose future activities would be related to agriculture, crafts, or trade. Both Hindus and Muslims taught and studied in such schools. At the same time, among the former, the overwhelming majority were members of the higher ones

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Although there were many members of the Brahmana or literary castes, there were many representatives of those castes, including the lowest ones, who were traditionally not supposed to receive an education. Sanskrit schools provided religious (higher) education, which was completely monopolized by the brahmins. Exceptions were extremely rare. Teaching was conducted in Sanskrit. These schools had nothing to do with village or market schools. Those who wanted to study there usually received their primary (preparatory) education at home.

The situation was different in schools with teaching in Persian (conditionally primary, secondary) and Arabic (conditionally higher, religious). languages. It took place within the same school and had continuity. However, as Adam writes, the language of everyday communication and business among the Muslims of the areas he visited was Urdu. But this language, if used for oral explanations in Persian-Arabic schools, was not specifically studied, and Adam did not find any textbooks in this language. This, in his opinion, was all the more surprising because compared to Hindi and Bengali, Urdu was richer, more expressive and refined. He believed that the lack of Urdu-based schools similar to those that taught Hindi or Bengali was the cause of increasing degradation and widespread ignorance among the lower classes of the Muslim population. In the Persian-Arab schools, along with Muslims, there were a lot of Hindus, who in some regions even numerically predominated. At the same time, the teachers were almost all Muslim.

Thus, language was one of the sources of stratification of local society, which was often noticed by the English and confirmed by Adam's research. The linguistic situation was strongly linked to religious and caste factors. Language, faith, and caste collectively proved to be the main system-forming elements of local education. They became the subject of special attention and close study on the part of Adam. Summing up his work, he writes::

"The previous sections cover all the most important information about the state of education, and omit many details that can distract the reader's attention and interfere with the clarity of ideas. For the same reason, I did not include the results of the local caste and employment censuses, the state of local medical practices, the prevalence of the most serious diseases, or information about specific educational institutions in a particular district, i.e. anything that can illustrate the physical, moral, and intellectual situation of people, but only indirectly It is connected with the problems of education" [Adam, 1838, p. 128-129]. I should add that the report also does not provide direct (quantitative) information about the property status of families.

Two parts are dedicated to home education and adult education. As for the first one, the data showed that this type of training is extremely limited. Adam provides comparative tables showing the ratio of the total number of children aged 5 to 14 years and children receiving education at home, as well as the ratio between the latter and those who attend schools.

Accounting for the number of educated people among the adult population is of particular interest to Adam, since this information was supposed to indicate the effectiveness of the local education system. In each area studied, Adam identifies groups and provides data on the number of "learned" people who work as teachers, and those who are not engaged in teaching, those who have skills greater than reading and writing, and who teach at school, and those who do not teach, those who can only write and those who can only understand written signs and sign them. Information is given separately for Muslims and Hindus. A simple conjugacy table has been compiled for all these groups.

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Adam includes a section "Population" in the report, which provides data for each of the thanes surveyed in relation to: the total number of villages and towns (for Murshedabad, general information is given for all 19 thanes); the number of families living in them and their religious affiliation; the per capita number of residents and their religious affiliation; the average number of members in the city of Murshedabad. Hindu, Muslim, Christian and other religious communities families; proportional ratio between different faiths; the number of male and female population, the number of men and women over 14 years of age, boys and girls aged 5 to 14 years, under 5 years of age - for each pair of indicators, a proportional ratio is calculated.

Comparing the collected data allowed Adam to calculate the percentage of literate and educated people in relation to the total population in the studied areas by individual age groups (children and adolescents from 5 to 14 years and adults over 14 years).

There is a section in the report where Adam uses the legal department's reports to compare the level of crime and the state of education among local residents in the areas studied.

The work done by Adam is an example of a thoroughly executed and scientifically based statistical study. The information collected in its report on the education system and process in Bengal is presented as a set of ordered, classified data. This became possible due to the use of special methods of research and processing of materials, which in terms of modern statistical science are designated as methods of mass statistical observations, groupings, averages, sample population, correspondence of dependent and independent variables.

This report has one obvious feature. The study of W. Adam was started after the adoption of the resolution by W. Bentinck. When he got to work, Adam had a good idea of the goals of the planned transformations. The task assigned to Adam by the Public Education Committee "in view of future transformations" was to identify and evaluate "opportunities and means to improve and increase the usefulness of any individual institution of local education or the entire system as a whole" [Adam, 1838, p. 131]. Therefore, Adam sought to recreate a real, as comprehensive as possible picture of the state of education in order to understand the prospects and determine the required efforts and costs for its reform. It was necessary to identify the reasons that prevent the unification of the education system on a new basis, as well as to identify those elements in the local education system that could be used. This explains his special interest in the religious-caste composition of teachers and students as a factor that divides local society. At the same time, he paid special attention to all cases, even the most insignificant ones, of the presence of representatives of different faiths and traditionally "unmixed" castes in schools, which, in his opinion, indicated a positive trend of blurring hard boundaries between social groups, eliminating existing prejudices and increasing desire for knowledge among the wider population.

Adam states that the brahmins of the Sanskrit schools are not inclined to spread their knowledge widely and will resist it. But he notes that "the plight of some of them will make them ready to implement any reform that does not affect their religious beliefs or require them to sacrifice their principles and status" (Adam, 1838, p. 60-61). He also tries to identify the rational grain in Sanskrit education. Noting its low practical usefulness, he draws attention to its value in the fields of philosophy, astronomy, medicine, Sanskrit grammar and literature. In the section on adult education, Adam identifies those groups of educated people from which you can recruit

page 69
teaching staff, draws attention to the insufficient workload of teachers who could teach more children. Based on his experience with local residents, he says that their

"consciousness, though dormant, is not dead... There are many examples of intellectual activity that is currently disoriented, but can be used for useful purposes. Ts people who have spent and continue to spend their energy and abilities on creating complex rhymes, rearranging absurd and absurd stories, endless reflections on metaphysical abstractions that have no beginning or end, openly admitted to me that they are ready for any kind of literary work under the patronage of the government. It is true that they do not have the knowledge that we would like to share, but the desire to share information on our part and receive it from them should remove all obstacles. There is no reason to consider them difficult to train, unyielding, intolerant of any subjects that do not belong to the religious sphere, since I have often witnessed how they, having a seemingly completely different system of thoughts, demonstrated a complete understanding and acceptance of my ideas" [Adam, 1838, p. 62].

Despite some positive trends identified by Adam in the context of the tasks set, the overall picture outlined by him testified to the utopian nature of the plans of the British authorities. It is on the basis of what he has seen and carefully collected information that Adam makes his proposals for the practical implementation of the reform, which imply a serious adjustment of its goals and methods of implementation. These proposals are outlined in the second part of the report. They were that the English language could serve only as one of the means of spreading Western-style knowledge, that it was necessary to actively develop the local education system, starting from the lowest levels, and use it as the basis for further transformation, using the experience of local teachers who have authority, influence and respect among local residents.

Following the results of the study and under pressure from vernacularists, the Governor-General of India, Lord Auckland (1836-1842), adopted a compromise document - the resolution of November 24, 1839, which softened the provisions of the Bentinck resolution. It proclaimed the following three basic principles of British public education policy:: 1) ensuring the full capacity of existing institutes for the study of classical Indian languages and ancient Indian literature, for which an annual amount of 25 thousand rupees was allocated; 2) institutes with teaching in English should be established for the study of European literature, philosophy, and sciences; 3) in primary schools, the study of local languages should be combined with the study of English, for which it was necessary to create favorable conditions [Hunter, 1891, p. 5].

However, despite the authorities ' statements about their serious attitude to the problems of developing education and literature in local languages, they were not supported by real activities. The recommendations of W. Adam mostly remained on paper. Officials continued to rely on a"penetrating theory." Over the next two decades, education spending in the Indian budget was almost doubled, but the bulk of it went to higher education. There were no major changes in primary education until the end of the 19th century.

If we return to the problem of colonial knowledge and its interpretation outlined at the beginning of the article and look from this point of view at Adam's report, the presence of colonial discourse can be found precisely in the "lyrical" digressions, comments and comments that reflect the author's attempts to find a rational grain and practical significance in the local system of knowledge and education in These are the fragments of the report that contain Adam's direct response to the" social order " of the authorities, formed under the influence of already made decisions. It seems that it is not the dry figures of statistical tables, but these policies-

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These decisions created and reinforced a colonial discourse about the superiority of English and Western sciences over Eastern knowledge, which was ideologically justified in the Macaulay Memorandum and legally formalized in the Bentinck resolution. Developing the methodological concept of the separation of knowledge and power in relation to many texts of the colonial era, it is often advisable to speak not about ignorance, misunderstanding or deliberate distortion of Indian reality by colonialists, but about the contradiction of scientific knowledge to the decisions and actions of the authorities dictated by considerations of political, ideological or economic benefit or expediency. In such cases, knowledge was not in the service of the authorities, but in opposition to them, which explained many of the failures of the British in India, in particular the failure of the reform of mass (primary) education.

Reports similar to the one reviewed appeared in India in dozens and hundreds, and their purpose was usually utilitarian. The scrupulous collection of information was intended not only to help legitimize English power in the colony and strengthen its policy, but also to create a clear and objective picture of the surrounding reality in which this power was to carry out its planned transformations. However, the picture of Indian life, which in British terminology was consistently defined as chaos, became clear to them after it was enclosed in English "frames", driven into tables and formulas, subordinated to the rhythm of numbers and categories. This inevitably raises the question of the degree of scientific objectivity of the obtained knowledge - its correlation with reality. It should be recognized that the sample of data collection and classification shown in the report indicates the inclusion of statistical discipline in the scientific discourse of its time, which was based on empiricism and the desire to unify and structure ideas about life around us. U himself. Adam claimed that he had added to his knowledge bank "reliable information about the moral and intellectual state of one of the groups of the human family" and regarded his work as a useful contribution to creating a general picture of the world [Adam, 1838, p. 12].

In the philosophy of science, there are various interpretations and assessments of the relationship between empirical material and theoretical attitudes, as well as the degree of theoretical loading of this material. One such approach is that "in those areas of knowledge... where the description of the research subject prevails, it is quite natural to have equal alternative theories" [Letov, 2012, p. 62]. If Adam's primary education system in Bengal and Bihar is classified as an observable phenomenon, then various judgments and interpretations can be applied to it. In colonial times, Adam's data became a source for claims about the backwardness/decline of local education. Already in modern India, Indian historians, having removed the colonial layers, used the same information to create a different version of the development of Indian education. Thus, the authors of the voluminous work "The History of Education in India under British rule" S. Nurullah and J. P. Naik positioned it as an attempt to interpret the history of the local education system over the past 160 years from an Indian point of view (Nurullah and Naik, 1943). Written in 1983. the book "The Beautiful Tree" about local education in the XVIII century. her goal was not to "blaspheme British rule," but to try to recreate Indian reality in the late 17th and early 19th centuries: society, infrastructure, customs and institutions, their advantages and weaknesses. Moreover, an attempt was made to include in the time context available information about the local education system and from this perspective compare it with the level and state of education in England at the same time " [Dharampal, 2000, p. 4-5]. In all cases, Adam's report served as one of the main sources for the authors, confirming that it is still possible to work fruitfully with his data.

page 71
The information collected as a result of scientific research did not turn into secret, sacred knowledge of the colonizers. On the contrary, this information was published in a certain way systematized and took the form of reports by order of the Government. Becoming available, they formed ideas about India not only among Europeans, but also among the Indians themselves (of course, we are talking about a narrow layer of the most educated representatives of the local population), who received the opportunity, studying in English educational institutions, to learn and see their country in a "new" light, described by " others "and " others".it's different."

Thanks to this kind of research and documents, the institutionalization of European forms and methods of cognition of the surrounding world in the colony, and the emergence of a certain layer of people - consumers, carriers and custodians of a new type of knowledge - a different information order gradually developed in India, which became the result of the collision and interpenetration of East and West.

list of literature

Afanasyev Yu. N. Is a liberal mission possible in Russia today? // http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/article/2346346.html, 2011.

Lstov O. V. The problem of scientific objectivity in postpositivist philosophy // Questions of philosophy. 2011. N 12. pp. 57-62.

Sidorova S.E. K voprosu o postanovke nachalnogo obrazovaniya v Indii v XIX v. [On the question of setting up primary education in India in the 19th century]. Alaev L. B., Zagorodnikova T. N. (ed.) "V Rossii nado zhit dolgo...": pamyati K. A. Antonova (1910-2007), Moscow: Vostochnaya literatura, 2010, pp. 411-448.

Adam W. Third Report on the Slate of Education in Bengal; Including Some Account of the State of Education in Behar, and a Consideration of the Means Adopted to the Improvement and Extension of Public Instruction in Both Provinces. Calcutta: G.H. Huttmann, Bengal Military Orphan Press, 1838.

Bayly C.A. Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Castells M. The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban Regional Process. Oxford, UK - Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989.

Cohn B. Colonialism and its Form of Knowledge: The British in India. Princeton New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Cullen M.J. The Statistical Movement in Early Victorian Britain: the Foundation of Empirical Research. Hassoks: Harvest Press, 1975.

Dharampal. The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century. Goa: Other India Press, 2000.

Dirks N. Colonial Histories and Native Informants: Biography of an Archive // C.A. Breckenridge and Peter van der Veer (eds.). Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament. Philadelphia: University of Pensylvania Press. 1993. P. 279-313.

Glass D.V. Numbering the People. The 18th century Population Controversy and the Development of Census and Vital Statistics in Britain. L.-N.Y.: Gordon and Gremonesi, 1978.

Hunter W.W. Ancient Civilisation and Modern Education - India // Hunter W.W. and others. State Education for the People. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1891. P. 1-24.

Ludden D. Orientalist Empiricism: Transformations of Colonial Knowledge // C.A. Breckenridge and Peter van dcr Veer (eds.). Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament. Philadelphia: University of Pensylvania Press, 1993. P. 250-278.

MacKenzie M. Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts. Manchester, 1995.

Minute by the Honorable T.B. Macaulay dated 2 February 1835 // National Archives of India. 7th March 1835, Home Department, Public Branch. N 15.

Nurullah S, Naik J.P. History of Education in India during the British Period. Bombay, 1943.

Robb P. Completing 'Our Stock of Geography', or an Object 'Still More Sublime': Colin Mackenzie's Survey of Mysore // Robb P. Liberalism, Modernity and the Nation. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. P. 93-126.

Trevelyan Ch.E. On the Education of the People of India. Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans. Paternoster-row, 1838.

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