The Gujarat King Who Made School Compulsory While the British Said India Wasn't Ready

In 1916, the British government's top education official told an American journalist that India was "not yet ready" for compulsory schooling, and in the same breath admitted that the Gaekwar of Baroda had "already" made it compulsory in his state, with results "altogether satisfactory." From DeWitt Mackenzie's The Awakening of India (1917): 94 per cent illiteracy, about one girl in a hundred in school, Gokhale's bill and the councils who wanted compulsion "everywhere else, but not just in their district", and the teacher who taught from the "Key" without ever seeing the book. 1916 में अंग्रेज़ सरकार के शिक्षा अधिकारी ने कहा कि भारत ज़रूरी पढ़ाई के लिए "अभी तैयार नहीं" है, और उसी सांस में माना कि बड़ौदा के गायकवाड़ अपने राज्य में स्कूल पहले ही ज़रूरी कर चुके थे, और नतीजे अच्छे थे। 1917 की किताब "द अवेकनिंग ऑफ़ इंडिया" से। From DeWitt Mackenzie, The Awakening of India (Hodder & Stoughton, 1917), public domain in the US. Jay narrates, with Soons and Meera, in English and Hindi. Images: book page scans, plus Wikimedia Commons public-domain photographs (list in art/raw/licenses.json). Gujarat, Vadodara and Surat are our additions; the book says only "Baroda."