The Calcutta Review, 3rd Series/Volume 16/Our Critics

by “Ajax”

OUR CRITICS

The Modern Review has again opened its campaign against the University with the indefatigable Professor Sarkar of Patna in the van. The gentle Professor made so many misstatements in his usual polite and courteous style that we felt inclined not to take any notice of them. The attack, we may tell our readers, is neither unexpected nor unforeseen. We were informed that two brown gentlemen holding high Government offices and a retired Government officer met in holy conclave at a certain place on Himalaya’s lofty brow where the animate holds constant communion with the inanimate and came to a unanimous verdict that they wasted a year for nothing and the campaign should be relentlessly carried till the Post-graduate Department is starved out of existence. The Knight, as usual, kept cautiously in the background, the would-be Knight of Magadha came out with a thundering article in the Modern Review and the squire of Mohenjo-Dero made his onslaughts from the hospitable columns of the local dailies. We preferred to wait and watch but we are afraid that silence, as in the past, may be construed as admission and an ex parte judgment may go against us.

In the present issue, the Modern Review has several notes on University affairs. What our contemporary really advocates it is very difficult for us to say. At one place it writes

In area, England is much smaller than Bengal; and the population of the British Isles is not greater than that of Bengal. England has many first class Universities and yet new Universities are being founded there. In India, particularly in Bengal, the Universities are starving. The Calcutta University cannot carry on the work of the Post-graduate Department effectively; it cannot extend the work of scientific and other department for want of funds.

The Treasurer of the Leeds University is planning to raise about 15,000,000 rupees to build new buildings alone. Rabindranath Tagore, appealing to all India, has not yet secured a few lakhs of rupees for the Viswa-Bharati—the International University. No nation can ever become great without increasing its national efficiency. India needs new and better Universities and a better educational system. This can be secured through the enlighted patriotism of the people, particularly of the rich, who can better afford to spend regularly at least a part of their income for the cause of national education.

At another place it quotes with approval an extract from the Times advocating retrenchment. And in a third case it emphatically lays down

“In their work of stabilisation and development of the Post-Graduate organisation, the question of how much money will be spent is of no importance compared to the more vital question of selecting the people on whom the money will be spent.”

However, we shall try to answer our contemporary’s friendly criticism as best as we can. The Modern Review complains

“The defenders of the University have always been discreetly silent where our criticism was unanswerable and have sometimes made a parade of the strength of their arguments where the information of critics has been deficient. This sort of proceedings has been rather funny.”

The defenders of the University plead guilty to the charge. Criticisms can be met with and discussed but a sneer is always unanswerable. For instance, the honest Professor of Patna solemnly asserts that the University speculated in Marks and land value. The statement is a typical amalgam of half truths and untruths in which our critics revel. The University purchased a number of scientific instruments from Germany and payment had to be made in German money just as payments to English creditors have to be made in English money. Now, if the Professor and his friends assert that it was a case of speculation we can only agree to differ. Similarly, the University never speculated in land value and we have no hesitation in placing all the facts before the public. But when he says that the University Lecturers are sluggards, sneaks, and sycophants and compare them with the dog of the Panjabi proverb we really find such “criticisms” unanswerable. Again, when we find a certain resolution standing in the name of Mahamahopadhyaya H. P. Shastri for the abolition of all the Pali groups and the Professor assures us from his Himalayan retreat that the Pandit has been misrepresented by the Press, well, we find his criticism absolutely unanswerable. But the Professor never listens to the protests of the other party. We have carefully gone through his articles in the Modern Review and we find him always repeating the same charges even when his information has been deficient, and the great majority of them has been refuted, with new terms of choicest expressions of abuse and vilification. The Professor asserts that the Dacca University teachers deliver eighteen lectures per week. We have been assured by a Dacca University Professor that he told Professor Sarkar that this was not a fact. Yet the great Professor made that statement in cold print for any stick was good enough to beat the dog. We have gone through the Inspection Reports of the Patna College when it was still under the Calcutta University and we find that the Professor did not permit himself to deliver so many lectures as he now demands from the University Lecturers although some distinction should always be made between under-graduate and Post-graduate teaching.

Let us now pass on to the next point. The Modern Review complains—

“We once formally applied to the University Registrar for a regular supply of all printed University Minutes and reports, etc., in lieu of payment or as a matter of courtesy such as that extended by Government to editors in the matter of free supply of Government reports, etc. But we failed to obtain what we wanted. So while the University wants public support, it will not keep the organs of public opinion supplied with information, unless they are “friendly.” If an organ is “friendly” it will be given such information or such inspired articles as may be necessary for advocacy of the clique which runs the institution. That is why we did not get a copy of the Report of the Post-graduate Reorganization Committee in time,”

The printed Minutes and Reports of the University are available in the market but our friend wanted that the Minutes of the Syndicate should be supplied to him every week before the Senate had considered the decisions of the Syndicate. Whether such a request was reasonable, let the impartial public judge. But we emphatically deny that friendly organs get such reports early. The first paper to publish the Report of the Post-Graduate Re-organisation Committee was the Statesman which can hardly be regarded as a friendly organ. How the Statesman got it we do not know. The Registrar said in the Senate that his office did not supply the Report. Naturally, the Reporters who come to attend the Senate meetings get such printed papers earlier than those to whom they are sent by post but all Reports are considered confidential until they are accepted or modified by the Senate and the Modern Review knows best how it had access to our confidential papers in the past.

The Modern Review finds fault with the last year’s budget because the estimated expenditure. fell short of and the estimated income exceeded the actual expenditure and income. No budget can be absolutely accurate. We are unable to see how the Government grant could be anticipated particularly when the Modern Review and Professor Sarkar had been strenuously opposing it. Nor could the framers of the budget anticipate the favourable results of the abolition of the Sole Agency of University Publications. The budget is framed by a Board of which the Accountant-General is a member. We do not know whether he is “a competent and reliable financial expert” but the Regulations, as they stand at present, do not permit the appointment of outsiders on the Board of Accounts.

Why the Calcutta Review (“in its present vulgar edition”) has been an eye-sore to our contemporary, we are unable to guess. Our readers will judge whether it has made “the publication of serial stories and other kinds of light literature and commonplace popular illustrations some of its main features”? We count among our contributors men like Rabindranath Tagore, Yone Noguchi, Sylvain Levi, Dr. Shama Shastri, Henry Beveridge, Sir George Grierson, Prof. Winternitz, Prof. Canney, Prof. Macdonell, Sir Henry Jackson Pope, Dr. Garner, Professor Solus, Professor Ward, Sir William Ridgeway, Dr. Craigie, Dr. Paranjpye, Sir Michael Sadler, Sir Visvesyara Iyer, Dr. Subramaniya Iyer, Sir Asutosh Mookerjee, Dr. Ganganath Jha, Sir Bipinkrishna Bose, Dr. Pillai, Sir Sivaswamy Iyer, Professor Willoughby. It is not for us to say whether their papers are of any academic value. As one of our contributors writes from England: “I know that excellent and helpful publication like the Calcutta Review does not generally prove profitable commercially.” But we have a staff of Honorary Editors and our contributors are not paid. We are, therefore, able to meet our expenses from the subscription and the advertisements we get. For obvious reasons, we are not prepared to give more detailed information about our finances to the public. The Calcutta Review is not a burden on the University and it does not add to its deficit. On the other hand, it has helped the University to reduce that deficit considerably by widely advertising the University publications.

None of its defenders has as yet claimed perfection for the University. But while its critics may make much of some isolated details it has to follow a consistent and comprehensive policy. For instance, when Professor Maulik was appointed, the Prabasi, the Bengalee counterpart of the Modern Review, maintained that the appointment ought to have gone to a Panjabi gentleman. But when the University employed a few Non-Bengali Indians on its teaching staff the same journal bewailed that the Bengalees were being deprived and defrauded of their legitimate rights in their own province. The Modern Review is never tired of proclaiming the inefficiency of our teachers but when the same teachers find more lucrative appointments elsewhere the Prabasi complains that the University cannot retain the services of their abler teachers (e.g. the case of M. K. G., son of J.C.G., to use the apparently enigmatical language of our contemporary). We. have not yet received any comprehensive scheme from the Modern Review or its expert Professor Jadunath Sarkar. The Modern Review made strictures against individual lecturers about which there is room for honest difference; the Professor once concluded one of his charming articles with the remark that the slaves under his scheme (University Lecturers) will continue to slave for their new master. That is all the reform he wanted. Substitute Sir Asutosh Mookerjee by another person, preferably Jadunath himself, and reform is achieved! Well, Sir Asutosh is no more, and we find the Professor and the Review now writing of a ruling clique. This is again an unanswerable criticism! But our critics lose sight of one important fact that the University cannot introduce all the necessary reforms without fresh legislation. The only practical suggestion that we have received from the Review is that we should cut our coat according to our cloth. We looked towards the Government for a little extra cloth and matured our scheme according to our light. We now find that we were not wrong. The Modern Review now realises that

“It is also desirable that Indian students be taught the fundamentals of the history of all the Asiatic nations, particularly China and Japan” (p. 231).

If we had accepted the policy, advocated by the Review in the past, it would have been impossible for the University to provide for the teaching of the History of China and Japan four years ago.

Space will not permit us to refute here all the misstatements of Professor Sarkar,—we will deal with his strictures in greater details in a future issue. But we cannot pass over one point here. He says that owing to a steady lowering of the standard of examination our students have failed to do well in the competitive examinations because the notes dictated by our lecturers are of no use in those examinations. Every teacher has his own individual method and notes are dictated even by the great critic himself, only—he writes them on the Black Board,—and a few years ago, typewritten copies of these notes could be purchased at Calcutta. It is also within the memory of many that the Calcutta University found it necessary to take notice of this fact. But that was in the days when the standard was high! Our students have in some years carried as many as fifty per cent. of the I. C. S. posts by competitive examination, they have done uniformly well in the Finance Examinations and even in the present year some of them passed the competitive examination for the Police Service. But it is not to the interest of the Professor to take notice of all these facts. We may also tell the public that some of our best students were medically disqualified for these examinations and as in a neighbouring province there is no age restrictions our boys have to compete with students who are much senior to them. At the same time our students commit one great mistake. Instead of confining their attention to the competitive examination alone they try to pass the M.A., B.L. and I.C.S. examinations, all at once. We are collecting figures for these examinations and shall publish them in these pages for the information of the public. The value of a Degree is nowhere ascertained by the percentage of passes. But even in that respect we are not worse off. This year, we are informed, 65 per cent. of the candidates passed the B.Sc. Examination at Patna where the Professor reigns supreme while at Calcutta the percentage of passes is 59 only. We do not grudge the Professor the opportunity we afforded him for singing the panegyrics of British peace, British order and British efficiency and we shall be very glad if the grateful British Indian Government, in its turn, showers fresh honours and emoluments on him and his.

The Professor says that the Majority Report has been a challenge to public opinion and he urges the Government not to make any fresh grant to the Calcutta University. How a Government Officer, ordinarily residing at Patna and spending his vacation in company of high officials at Darjeeling, could constitute himself the representative of public opinion in Bengal we do not know. But all the “Indian edited” journals have supported the Majority view and it was accepted by a overwhelming majority in the Senate. Even the Modern Review considered the demand of an annual grant of three lakhs as moderate. And we are glad to find that our contemporary agrees—“that it is mainly for the stabilisation and development of Post-graduate Studies that the Committee was appointed. That there is need for stabilisation as well as for development is true beyond doubt.” We also entirely agree with the Modern Review when it says—

“It is not desirable that the Government should be allowed to come into the field of University management, nor is it fair that the Government should allow the University to be controlled by vested interests and cliques. It is necessary that the Government pay for the advancement of learning; but they should see that things are done properly. We are not suggesting official management of the University. The scholars of the nation should control the University, but in this kingdom of scholars there must be democracy and not oligarchy or tyranny.”

In order to give effect to this wholesome principle our contemporary should urge for early legislation in the right lines.

But if we accept whole-heartedly the principle laid down by our contemporary (which indeed we ourselves have always advocated) we cannot accept its dictum that the University is run for the benefit of numerous worthless people. As a result of frequent migration our staff has now reached the irreducible minimum. Most of our lecturers are first class men with some original work and previous teaching experience to their credit. Some of them have obtained the much coveted Degree of Doctor of Philosophy and we may inform the public that the Doctorate theses are generally examined by European scholars of note. The published works of our lecturers have earned the encomiums of competent critics but, as we have already said, a sneer cannot be answered and here again we come across one of those numerous criticisms that our contemporary considers unanswerable.

“Ajax.”