Bad Language in the Raj: The ‘Frightful Encumbrance’ of Gottlieb Leitner, 1865–1888

Abstract This article traces the exceptional career of Gottlieb Leitner, one of the most significant European educators in north India in the second half of the nineteenth century. Leitner’s career is important because he was responsible for changing government attitudes about teaching in the local languages and he was pivotal in the foundation of the Punjab University. The article is also part of a move since the mid 1990s to rediscover the European educator in India. This has been necessary because postcolonial research has neglected such men and women and subalternist approaches have concentrated, instead, on using European‐constructed text to decipher the histories of mostly marginalised and oppressed indigenous groupings on the subcontinent. Leitner’s appointment as Principal of Lahore Government College in 1865 was a deliberate step on the part of authorities in Calcutta and London to see a language expert and educator take up the position. The Punjab, the province where the college was located, was of importance to the British. It had been annexed just fourteen years earlier and it contained the strategic North West Frontier, adjacent to Afghanistan. Its languages were especially difficult for the British to understand and Leitner’s expertise offered a chance to facilitate translations of Western knowledge into the local languages, and especially the medium of instruction which was Persian Urdu. However, his brash approach to raj governance soon provoked hostility from his superiors that was to endure until his departure from the province 33 years later in 1888. This article demonstrates that Leitner’s long career in the Punjab was part of a generally fruitless debate about education in the province. It also shows how other political agendas easily intervened in educational matters in British India in a way not found elsewhere in the empire. However, Leitner’s thinking, the strategic alliances he was able to form with indigenous groupings, and his ability to understand the politics of the raj, resulted in an important change in government attitudes, especially concerning university education taught in the local languages. The structure of the Punjab University and the local language degrees it could confer were unique in the raj at the time of its foundation in 1881. Much of this was the result of Leitner’s clever lobbying that Calcutta, despite its distaste for the troublesome Lahore College principal, ultimately could not afford to ignore. Most significantly, Leitner’s career is illustrative of how the British lost the initiative on the question of ‘language and education’ in little over one generation despite a deeper understanding of the subject in the early half of the nineteenth century. At the time of Leitner’s departure from India in 1888 this increasingly polemical issue was being incorporated, instead, into nationalist narratives that were to grow more stridently anti‐British in the early twentieth century. Notes 1 Bayley, C. A. Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870. New Delhi: OUP, 1997. 2 Minault, G. Secluded Scholars: Women’s Education and Muslim Social Reform in Colonial India. Delhi: OUP, 1998. 3 Whitehead, C. Colonial Educators: British India and Colonial Education Service, 1858–1983. London: I. B. Tauris and Co., 2003. 4 ‘Court of Directors’ Public Department Despatch to the Governor‐General in Council of Fort William in Bengal, dated 3 June, 1814,’ Bengal Draft Dispatches, OIOC F/3/31 pp. 25–43 in Zastoupil, L. and M. Moir (eds.). The Great Indian Education Debate. Surrey: Curzon Press, 1999: 93–97. 5 The views of the Orientalists changed over time and Bailey accommodates this by identifying a neo‐Oriental tradition dating from 1840s. Bailey. Empire and Information, 257–67. For more the most recent discussion of the views of both the Anglicists and the Orientalists see Zastoupil and Moir. The Great Indian Education Debate, 1–72. 6 “Minute…by Thomas Babington Macaulay, law member of the governor‐general’s council, dated 2 February 1835.” In Zastoupil and Moir. The Great Indian Education Debate, 161–73. 7 Ghosh, S. C. “Bentinck, Macaulay and the Introduction of English Education in India.” History of Education 24, no. 1 (1995): 17–24. 8 Some of these experiments, carried out on a limited scale, had already won the approval and funding by government, including a village schooling scheme called Halkabandi in the North Western Provinces and a 100 ‘vernacular’ school experiment in Bengal. 9 ‘Despatch from the Court of Directors of the East India Company to the Governor General of India in Council 19th July, 1854,’ no. 49, in Sharp, H. Selections from Educational Records. Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, 1920: part II, 368. 10 Ghosh, S. C. “Dalhousie, Charles Wood and the Education Despatch of 1854.” History of Education. 4, no. 2 (1975): 37–47. 11 ‘Minute of Sir Bartle Frere…’, November 24, 1860, no. 5, OIOC P/188/75; ‘Minute of Mr C. Beadon…’, November 22, 1860, no. 4, OIOC P/188/75. Frere argued for the local language case, Beadon for that of the medium of instruction. 12 This stipulation replaced an earlier, more informal, assumption that these officers could speak Hindustani or Bengali. 13 “Minute Paper 402,” February 11, 1860, OIOC L/PJ/3/1143, p. 465. 14 “The Quarterly Civil List for the Punjab, First Quarter 1880’” no. xxxi, 68, Oriental and India Office Collection, British Library (OIOC) V/13/989. 15 G. Leitner to Director, June 6, 1869, incld. in, Director to Sec. to the Government of the Punjab, June 16, 1869, no. 121, OIOC P/442/26; Wood to Governor‐General, August 15, 1864, f. 316, OIOC L/PJ/3/1145. 16 His starting salary was Rs 760 per month and included free accommodation. ‘The Quarterly Civil List for the Punjab, First Quarter 1880’, no. xxxi, 69, OIOC V/13/989. 17 H. S. Maine to J. Lawrence, August 7, 1868, J. Lawrence Coll. MSS Eur.F.90, vol. 36, f. 93. In fact, Lawrence conceded privately that Leitner’s accusations had ‘a good deal of truth in them’. J. Lawrence to McLeod, August 20, 1868, J. Lawrence Coll., MSS.Eur.F.90, vol. 54, f. 14. 18 D. C. MacNabb to Sec. to the Government of the Punjab, October 1, 1872, no. 13; Leitner to the Commissioner of the Peshawar Division, September 28, 1872, ‘Appendix H’, OIOC P/136. 19 This involved the offer of secret commissions to Leitner for encouraging the construction of branch railway lines. D. McLeod to J. Lawrence, June 15, August 21, 1867, J. Lawrence Coll., OIOC MSS Eur.F.90, vol. 52, ff. 16A, 19. 20 D. McLeod to J. Lawrence, December 2, 1867, ‘misc. letters’, J. Lawrence Coll., OIOC MSS Eur.90, vol. 63, f. 36. 21 The most recent survey of this earlier period can be found in Zastoupil and Moir. The Great Indian Education Debate, 1–72. 22 ‘Letter from Rammohan Roy to Lord Amherst, Governor‐General in Council, dated 11th December, 1823’ in Zastoupil and Moir. The Great Indian Education Debate, 110–3. See also 11–19. 23 Director to Sec to the Government of the Punjab, December 23, 1865, no. 3, reply, January 6, 1866, no.4, OIOC P/442/23. 24 Sec. to the Government of the Punjab to the ‘Committee of the Oriental University’, August 14, 1866, no. 8, OIOC P/442/23. 25 The aim was paraphrased in Holroyd, W. R. M. “Report on Popular Education in the Panjab… 1870/1,” 24–27, OIOC V/24/931; Ibid. 27, OIOC V/24/931. 26 A. R. Fuller to D. McLeod, June 14, 1866, no. 29, OIOC P/442/23. These texts are no longer extant. Two thousand copies of Alexander’s book were produced retailing at Rs 1 each. 27 G. Leitner to Sec. to the Government of the Punjab, October 28, 1870, no. 3, OIOC P/442/27. 28 Leitner, G. W. Introduction to a Philosophical Grammar of Arabic: Being an Attempt to Discover a Few Simple Principles of Arabic Grammar. Lahore: Indian Public Opinion Press, 1871): BL; Id. A Vocabulary of Technical Terms Used in Elementary Vernacular School Books: For the Use of European Educational Officers in the Punjab Preparing for the Departmental Examination in Hindustani. Lahore: Central Book Depot, 1879. 29 Dalmia, V. The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bharatendu Harischandra and Nineteenth‐Century Banaras. Delhi: OUP, 1997: 186–8. 32 The Punjab Educational Magazine 3 (March, 1865): 92, Burney Coll., BL. 30 ‘Memorandum no. 19A’, General Department NWP January 6, 1854, in Selections From the Records of Government, North Western Provinces. Agra: Secundra Orphan Press, 1855. Vol. III: 427, OIOC; Gupta, N. Delhi Between Two Empires. Delhi: OUP, 1981: 7, 73; Ramachandra, Y. A Treatise of Maxima and Minima Solved by Algebra. Calcutta: Government Printer, 1850, [reprinted London, 1859]. 31 Urdu could be written in either the Persian or the Devanagari script. Both elite Hindus and Muslims in the Punjab generally used the Persian script and this was the reason for it being chosen as the medium of instruction in the province’s schools. Towards the end of the century the rising political consciousness of Hindus led them to favour the Devanagari script instead. 33 Holroyd. “Report on Popular Education in the Punjab…1880/1,” OIOC V/24/933, esp. clauses xlii, xliii, xlv, xlvi, l, liv, lvii. 35 Director to the Sec. to the Government of the Punjab, February 6, 1878, no. 14, OIOC P/1148. 34 Holroyd, W. R. M. Tas‐hil Ul Kalam or Hindustani Made Easy. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1873: BL. 36 Holroyd. “Report on Popular Education in the Panjab… 1873/4,” 27–28, OIOC V/24/932. 37 Ibid. 38 Oberoi, H. The Construction of Religious Boundaries. Oxford: OUP, 1994: 238–41. 39 Holroyd. “Report on Popular Education in the Punjab …1880/1,” 18–19, OIOC V/24/933. 40 Holroyd. “Report on Popular Education in the Punjab …1879/80,” 27, OIOC V/24/933. 41 ‘Proceedings of the Hon’ble the Lieutenant‐Governor of the Punjab, in the Home Department (educational)’, December 20, 1881, no. 4622, incld. In Holroyd. “Report on Popular Education in the Punjab…1879/80,” 3, OIOC V/24/933. 42 E. C. Bailey to Northbrook July 10, 1874, [no procs. no.], Northbrook Coll., OIOC MSS Eur.C.144, vol. 17, p. 9a. Bailey was Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University and a member of the Viceroy’s council. 43 Dirks, N. “From Little King to Landlord: Colonial Discourse and Colonial Rule.” In: Id. (ed.). Colonialism and Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992: 199. 44 Leitner to Lytton, December 12, 1876, Lytton Coll., OIOC MSS Eur.E.218, vol. 29, Annexure f. 23 (a). 45 A good example of how the British conceived the application of Common Law to the peculiar circumstance of the Punjab at the time is Prinsep, H. T. The Code of Criminal Procedure and other Laws and Rules of Practice Relating to the Criminal Courts of British India. Calcutta: Thacker, Spinks & Co., 1875, OIOC. 47 Lytton to Leitner ‘Private’ January 1, 1877, Lytton Collection, OIOC MSS Eur.E.218, vol. 30, f. 23 (a). 46 The Times of India (November 11, [1876]), Lytton Collection, OIOC MSS Eur.E.218, vol. 163 (a); Leitner to Marquis of Salisbury, October 26, 1876, [no procs. no.], OIOC P/861; C. Pearson. “Report on Popular Education in the Punjab …1872/3,” 9, OIOC V/24/931; Bruce, J. F. A History of the University of the Panjab. Lahore: 1933: 61. 48 Ibid. 51 Leitner to Lytton, January 22, 1877, ‘Private’, Lytton Collection, MSS.Eur.E.218, vol. 30, f. 23 (a). Leitner’s ‘Kaum‐i‐Kaisari’ appears to be no longer extant in the BL collection or that of the OIOC. 49 A. W. Croft, offg. Director to Sec. to the Government of Bengal, June 29, 1878, no. 3586, OIOC P/1658. 50 Leitner to Lytton, January 22, 1877, ‘Private’, Lytton Collection, MSS.Eur.E.218, vol. 30, f. 23 (a). 52 ‘Annexure: A.H.’, [Arthur Howell], Home Department to Burne, February 28, 1877, Lytton Collection, OIOC MSS Eur.E.218, vol. 30, f. 23 (a); Leitner to Burne, March 2, 1877, Lytton Collection, OIOC MSS Eur.E.218, vol. 30, f. 58. 53 The document is no longer extant in England. However, Leitner describes it briefly in his letter to Lytton. Leitner to Lytton, June 1877, Lytton Collection, OIOC MSS Eur.E.218, vol. 31, f. 249. 54 Report of the Indian Universities Commission, 1902. Simla: Government Central Printing Office, 1902: 8–13 55 McLeod to Lawrence, September 13, 1867; October 22, 1867, ‘kept with ff. 176 & 177’, Lawrence Coll., OIOC MSS Eur.F.90, vol. 52. 56 G. W. Leitner, President of the Anjuman‐i‐Punjab, to the Sec. to the Government of the Punjab, March 18, 1868 no. 19A (& attached European Committee of Support for Lahore University), OIOC P/434/31. 57 D. McLeod to J. Lawrence, September 13, 1867; October 22, 1867 (no folio no.), ‘kept with 176 & 177’, [summarised letter], J. Lawrence Coll., OIOC MSS Eur.90, vol.52; J. Lawrence to Sir Charles Wood June 30, 1864 [no proc. no], OIOC L/PJ/3/1158, f. 21. 58 Director to Sec. to the Government of the Punjab February 20, 1865, no. 1, OIOC P/239/39. 59 D. McLeod to J. Lawrence, February 18, 1868, J. Lawrence Coll., OIOC MSS Eur.F.90, vol.52, f. 32; Major General R.G.Taylor to Sec. to the Government of the Punjab, May 30, 1870, no. 228, OIOC P/442/27. 60 Offg. Sec. to the Government of the Punjab to the Offg. Sec. to the Government of India, July 7, 1877, no. 2740, OIOC P/862. 61 Oberoi, The Construction of Religious Boundaries: 231–2; Bruce. A History of the University of the Panjab, 13 62 The Arya Samaj was to form the vanguard of resistance to the British in north India 20 year later. 63 Lala Piari Lal to Director, June 8, 1878, no. 1135, OIOC P/1148; offg. Sec. to the Government of the Punjab to the Sec. to the Government of India, April 8, 1878, no. 1475, OIOC P/1148. 64 Offg. Sec. to the Government of the Punjab to the Director, June 25, 1878, no. 1077, OIOC P/1148. 65 The Punjab Government gave Leitner special leave on the condition that the Anjuman, and not the department, would fund his expenses. Offg. Sec. to the Government of the Punjab to the Secs. of the Anjuamn‐i‐Punjab, July 3, 1876, no. 2284, OIOC P/861. 66 Offg. Sec. to the Government of the Punjab to the President of the Anjuman‐i‐Punjab, March 8, 1878, no. 975, OIOC P/1148; Leitner to Sec. to the Government of India, April 3, 1877, no. 17; reply, April 24, 1878, no. 1730. OIOC P/1148. See also G. W. Leitner to offg. Sec. to the Government of the Punjab, February 9, 1878, no. 5, reply, March 8, 1878, no. 975, OIOC P/1148. 67 Lytton to Salisbury, August 16, 1877, no. 6; Salisbury to Lytton, July 28, 1879, no. 10, OIOC L/PJ/3/148. 68 Lytton to Salisbury, August 16, 1877, no. 6, OIOC L/PJ/3/148. 69 Offg. Sec. to the Government of the Punjab to the Offg. Sec. to the Government of India, July 7, 1877, no. 2740, OIOC P/862. 70 Basu, A. University Education in India: Past and Present. Calcutta: The Book Emporium Ltd., 1944: 36. The first three universities were all based on the original University of London examining, non‐teaching model. 71 Mathur, Y. B. British Administration in the Punjab 1845–1875. Delhi: Surjeet Book Depot, 1973: 35–39; “Statement Showing the General Result of Criminal Trials in the Punjab in the Tribunals of Various Classes in the Year 1872.” In Punjab Administration Report 1872/3, lxiv, OIOC V/10/334. 72 “The Punjab Legal Code Consisting of the Bengal Regulations and Local Acts of the Governor‐General in Council in Force in the Punjab” (1878): 124, OIOC V/8/467. 73 Ibid., 52, OIOC V/8/467. 74 Ibid., 103, OIOC V/8/467. 75 Cited in ‘Meeting of the Senate of the Lahore University College,’ June 1, 1878, incld. in, Registrar to Sec. to the Government of the Punjab, June 1, 1878 no. 354, OIOC P/1148. See also Bruce. A History of the University of the Punjab, 34. 76 R. E. Egerton to Lord Lytton, January 1, 1880, Lytton Collection, OIOC MSS Eur.E.218, vol. 39(a), f. 29. The PUC senate had already complied with earlier requests regarding the matter. ‘Meeting of the Senate of the Lahore University College’, June 1, 1878, no. 8, incld. in, Registrar to Sec. to the Government of the Punjab, June 1, 1878, no. 354, OIOC P/1148. 77 Basu. University Education in India, 36–39. 78 Holroyd. ‘Report on Popular Education in the Punjab and its Dependencies for the year 1878–79,’ OIOC V/24/933, 9–10. 79 Sec. to the Government of the Punjab to the Sec. to the Government of India, July 7, 1877, no. 2740, OIOC P/1148. 80 Viceroy to Council of the Secretary of State June 11, 1881 no. 6; Sec. to the Government of India to the Sec. to the Government of the Punjab, September 1, 1881, no. 274, September 29, 1881, no. 305; Sec. to the Government of the Punjab to the Sec. to the Government of India, October 13, 1881, no. 3975, OIOC P/1335. 81 Leitner, G. W. History of Indigenous Education in the Panjab Since Annexation and in 1882. Patiala Languages Department, [reprint] 1971. 82 ‘Evidence of G. W. Leitner’ in Hunter, W. W. Report of the Provincial Committee for the Punjab of the Hunter Education Commission, 352–86. 83 Bagal, J. C. Radha Kanta Dev, 1784–1867.Calcutta: Government Printer, 1957: 47. 84 Although a founding aim, the sons of the princelings were not taught in the new college, their fathers continuing to opt to educate them abroad or by private tutor instead. 85 Whitehead, C. “The Medium of Instruction in British Colonial Education: A Case of Cultural Imperialism or Enlightened Paternalism.” History of Education 24, no. 1 (1995): 1–15. 86 Mangan, J. A. “Eton in India: the Imperial Diffusion of an Ideal.” History of Education 7, no. 2 (1978): 105–18. 87 Cuddy, B. and T. Mansell. “Engineers for India: the Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper’s Hill.” History of Education 23, no. 1 (1994): 108–11. 88 MacLagan, E. D. (ed.). “The Punjab and its Feudatories.” Part 1, in Census of India (1891). Calcutta: Government Printing India, 1892. Vol. XIX, OIOC. These figures were speculative and probably inflated. They were compiled in a decade when government reporting of its educational operations in general was at its most exaggerated and no definitions were given as to how literacy was measured. Female literacy rates struggled to be above 0.4 per cent.

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