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Institutionalization of agricultural education in the nineteenth century colonial India: its imperatives and models

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Abstract

The industrializing nations in the nineteenth century witnessed the expansion of the dominion of new knowledge which was formally produced within institutional sites such as universities, laboratories, academic societies, colleges, museums and many more. These institutional forms were instrumental in the production and dissemination of this knowledge. This new knowledge form not only generated new technologies for modern industries, but informed conventional forms of agricultural practices, transforming it from subsistence forms of agricultural production into cash cropping, shifting from the use of organic manure to synthetic fertilizers and from mass selection to plant breeding. The scientific development of agriculture and the dissemination of new agricultural practices paved the way for the institutionalization of agricultural education. The history of this process in the colonies was inflected by colonial rule, as the ignorance of local agricultural practices conflicted with colonial interests of the maximization of profit through agriculture. The present paper commences with an overview of scientific agriculture and agricultural education in the western world, followed by relationship of colonial state with Indian agriculture and its imperative for introducing scientific agriculture in India.

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Notes

  1. Priestly was born in Yorkshire, England and trained in philosophy, science, language and literature at Dissenting Academy at Daventry. He discovered oxygen in 1774 by heating red mercuric oxide and called it ‘dephlogisticated air’ based upon the belief that ordinary air became saturated with phlogiston once it could not support combustion and life. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Priestley 3/11.

  2. He was a French scientist. His initial training was in law but due to his interest in chemistry and physics, he dedicated his life for research in chemistry. His long experiments in chemistry replaced the phlogiston theory with oxygenation theory. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antoine-Laurent-Lavoisier.

  3. He was a German chemist, widely acclaimed for the development of analytical organic chemistry. Considered as the father of agricultural chemistry. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Justus_von_Liebig.

  4. John Bennet Lawes and G.H. Gilbert examined the effect of different fertilizers on crop which led to the formation of first Experimental Station at Rothemsted in 1843. Lawes a determined businessman and Gilbert a dedicated scientist together worked for 57 years leading to 300 published papers and scientific letters. See Catt, A. John and Henderson, Ian F. 1993. “Experimental Station 150 Years of Agricultural Research the Longest Continuous Scientific Experiment”. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 18(4) pp. 365–78.

  5. William Henry Perkin (1838–1907) synthesized mauve or aniline purple- the first synthetic dyestuffs discovered from chemicals derived from coal tar. See https://www.chemheritage.org/historical-profile/william-henry-perkin.

  6. On July 2, 1862, the United States’ Congress passed a bill granting to each state 30,000 acres of land for each senator and representative in congress for the purpose of endowing institution for teaching such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts. This gave great impetus to the cause of technical education. The institutions formed through this endowment were referred to as Land Grant Universities. See Washburn, Charles G. 1906. “Technical Education in Relation to Industrial Development”. Science New Series: 24(604), pp. 97–112.

  7. The Native Medical Institution was established in 1822 at Calcutta where medical teaching was imparted in vernacular.

  8. The history of canal irrigation in the district dates back to the construction of the Ganges canal in 1842. The twin objective of irrigation and navigation, led to the construction of the Ganges canal originating in Haridwar and going up to Nanau in Aligarh district, where it bifurcated to form the Kanpur and Etawah canals, the former discharging into the Ganges in the city and the latter emptying into the Yamuna either in this district or in Fatehpur. The task for constructing the Kanpur branch, a stretch of 65 miles was undertaken by C.W. Hatchinson in 1849–1850. The canal was opened in 1854, but very little water reached the lower section till 1861, the first year in which the undertaking showed profit. The imbalance between the demand and supply of water led to modification of the project and in 1869 it was contemplated that a reservoir would be build at Narora in Bulandshahr district, the canal traversing the country between Pandu and Rind rivers at Kanpur, together with a supply channel for the Kanpur and Etawah branches as well as the Bhognipur branch for the benefit of the dry tracts of land along the Yamuna. The work was contemplated in 1872, but was modified time and again as the work progressed, but the Kanpur and Etawah branches were an integral part of the Lower Ganges canal system. The Kanpur branch of the lower Ganges Canal first touched the northern borders of the Bilahaur Tahsil at mile 95, and then flowed in the south-easterly direction through Bilhaur, Sheorajpur and Kanpur tahsil, tailing into the Ganges at Kanpur cantonment after traversing 43 miles in the district. The canal and its distributaries commanded almost the whole of the Bilhaur, Sheorajpur, portions of Kanpur and Narwal. The average area irrigated from 1902–07 was 29,179 acres of Kharif and 60,380 acres in the Rabi. See Nevil (1909). Cawnpore: A Gazetteer Vol. XIX, Allahabad, Superintendent Press, p. 51.

  9. From A. Calvin dated 8 September 1890 Home Education A Proceedings December 1892 No. 50, Papers related to Technical Education in India (1886–1904) in Bhargava K.D. 1968. Selections from Educational Records of the Government of India Vol. IV, Delhi, GOI, p. 92.

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  1. School of Education, Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, 176215, India

    Prakrati Bhargava

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Bhargava, P. Institutionalization of agricultural education in the nineteenth century colonial India: its imperatives and models. Indian J Hist. Sci. 58, 129–143 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43539-023-00080-6

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