Reworking Knowledge Systems
Varadarajan Narayanan
TAGORE’S UNIVERSITY: A HISTORY OF VISVA-BHARATI, 1921-1961 by Swati Ganguly Permanent Black, Ranikhet, 2022, 488 pp., 1200.00
December 2022, volume 46, No 12

In the period between 1850 and 1947, parallel to the slow expansion of a public education system set up by the colonial administration, the subcontinent witnessed several experiments in both school and higher education. Almost all of these experiments were in one way or another a response to the crises brought about by the colonial experience (including the colonial policies on education). While some of these sought to revive elements from the past that their proponents thought had come under savagely brutal assault, others attempted to welcome the possibilities that colonial modernity offered. The latter approach was thought of as a means to emancipation from the oppressive indigenous structures that had for centuries consistently marginalized large sections of the society. The various responses to the Hunter Commission on Education provide ample instances of both these views.

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