Before the British arrived, the overwhelming majority of students in Indian schools were Shudras and other lower castes — not Brahmins. Colonial historiography inverted this fact and taught the inversion as history.
Dr. J. K. Bajaj presents Dharampal’s The Beautiful Tree, a landmark work based on British administrative surveys of indigenous education compiled at the order of Governor Thomas Munro in the early 19th century — data collected by British collectors before the colonial education system was imposed. The surveys of 21 Madras Presidency districts reveal a functioning, locally-funded school system where Shudras formed the majority of students; where manufacturing communities had their own specialised texts beyond Ramayana and Mahabharata; and where education was not treated as an economic transaction but as a dharmic responsibility of the community.
One of the British colonial system’s first acts was to replace these locally relevant textbooks with new ones having no connection to the students’ own society. The grama — the village as a corporate entity with the attributes of a state — funded and organised this education. Dr. Bajaj makes the uncomfortable point explicit: the system we are still using today is the colonial replacement, not the indigenous original.

About the Speaker:
Dr. J.K. Bajaj is a physicist turned social scientist renowned for his work on Indian tradition, society, and polity. He has engaged deeply with tribal communities, served at JANSATTA, and contributed to the OBC Sub-categorization Commission. As an advisor to leading research bodies, he has authored 11 books and led the 9-volume Madhya Pradesh Resource Atlases. In 2022, he received the Padma Shri for his exceptional service to education.