Though haphazard and unconfidently cited, I pray these notes be of interest.

The Killing Stroke

William Adam’s Reports on the State of Education in Bengal (1835-1838) is quite relevant to Persian language education in India. Teachers could instruct scholars in kachahris (court-houses), mosques, and baithak-khanas (drawing rooms) and even from house to house. The school-house could be built by the tea~her, by subscription of the parents or by private individuals, either out of benevolence, or with a view to advancing the cause of their children. He estimated 17 Persian schools in each Murshidabad, Birbhoom and Burdwan districts, with 279 in South Bihar and 234 in Tirhoot:

Some unpaid teachers “not only instructs gratuitously, but also gives his scholars food and occasionally cloths; three support themselves by farming, of whom two are in possession of lakharj land, and of these one is a retired darogha, a fifth gains his livelihood as a mulla, a sixth instructs gratuitously from religious motives, and the object of the seventh was to keep in recollection his former acquirements. Of the paid teachers, a few only are dependent upon individual patrons, and those patrons are both Hindus and Musalmans; several of the scholars of these salaries teachers receive gratuitous instruction. Some of the patrons and gratuitous teachers are men of great wealth or high characters, and the other, without possessing either of these, are holders of land by the tenure of Ayma which, was apparently regarded in several instances as involving an obligation to give gratuitous instruction. … “the number of Akhuns or inferior description of Mohammedans teachers is stated by Dr. Buchanan to have been 66, there being six districts that have none at all. The Persian or Arabic characters are taught without writing them which is made a separate study. By far the greater part of the people who in this district acquire the mastery of reading the Persian character, proceed no further, nor do they attempt to understand what they read. Many, however, study the Persian language, and it is supposed that there are about 1,000 men capable of conducting business by means of it; but in general they have confined their studies merely to the forms of correspondence and law proceedings. Few, indeed, are supposed to be elegant scholars, and none profess to teach the higher parts of Persian literature.” … Due to this he considered it “unfit for being employed as the medium of instruction to the people' and ‘Persian can never be regarded in this country as fit instrument of vernacular instruction’ because Persian is ‘foreign and unknown for natives”. “we must tum from the Persian to some of the vernacular dialects, Bengali, Hindi, or Urdu.” “up the whole, apart from the courts, the Persian language has a very feeble hold upon the district (Nattore in Bengal) and it would not be difficult not merely to substitute English for it, but to make English much more popular.”

On its later history:

In the early part of the century, especially during 1800-1835, prose grew in response to various sets of social and intellectual demands, one of which was the demand for educational or pedagogical material. The demand came from Fort William College, and also from other institutions such as the School Book Society of Calcutta (1817), the Madarsa School Text Book and Vernacular Society (1820), and the Native School and School Book Committee, Bombay (1820). The other stream of demand emanated from the religious and social movements. The Christian missionaries’ criticism of Hinduism and Indian culture left a deep impact on Indian intellectuals, and they launched various social and religious reform movements on the one hand, and defended their theological ideas on the other. In this debate over what was ‘authentic’ Indian culture, print played a central role.

Indian prose writings, free from any foreign intervention, first appeared as religious tracts and works on social problems. The trend started with the publication of Ram Mohan Roy’s Persian work Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin (1803). Roy wrote against idolatry and also defended the Hindu theological position against Christian criticism. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Persian apologetic book of Carl Gottlieb Pfander (1803-65), the Mizanu ‘1-Haqq (Balance of Truth), was widely discussed and refuted (discussed in chapter IV). The year 1813 marked yet another important step: the East India Company lifted all restrictions on the proselytism of Christian missionaries and from then, translations on the Bible in vernacular language were printed from Serampore in Bengal. Northern India and especially the Delhi-Agra area, witnessed vivid contests between Christian missionaries and Muslim divines through printed pamphlets and oral debates.

“But the substitution of our language for that of the Mussulman dynasty, would have been to the real advantage of India. The introduction of that language has done for Indian literally nothing; it has improved neither its morals, its philosophy, nor is literature. For Europe the introduction of a foreign language as an object of study, has done every thing; the cultivation of Latin and Greek has refined its taste, raised its literature in the North, and scarcely in Greece itself. But after the cultivation of Persian literature for so many ages, the mental darkness of India is as dense and as palpable as ever.” - Friend of India, No. XIII (1825) pg. 388 … “Persian is as much a foreign language to the people of India as it was a century ago. If the Mussulman dynasty acted rightly in employing the Persian language, it is not equally that we should retain it. It was the language in which they conversed with each other, and in which all their literature was contained. But this is not the case with us; Persian is not the language. in which we converse with each other, nor is it the depository of our literature. To employ of therefore instead of our own is a peculiar hardship on the nation confided to our care. It has been already urged, that it does not place them on. a level; .. it.gives the Mussulman a very great superiority over the Hindoo by continuing the language of his dynasty in all judicial proceedings; but surely under a paternal government, if they are not placed’·perfectly on .. a level;' the oppressed·are~the· nation· to be exalted, rather than their former oppressors.” pg.393

Sources

• Persian Print Culture in India: 1780-1880 - Dr. Mehrdad Ramezannia
• Friend of India Quarterly
• Reports on Vernacular Education in Bengall and Behar, Report 3, Persian and Arabic Schools