Part I: Forms of Discrimination in Education

1. Dalit Initiatives in Education, 1880–1992 (Eleanor Zelliot)
2. A College of One’s Own: An International Perspective on the Value of Historically Dalit Colleges (Laura Dudley Jenkins)
3. Silent Voices: Women’s Perceptions about Self and Education in Late Nineteenth-century India (Radha Gayathri)
4. Contested Domains: Restructuring Education and Religious Identity in Sikh and Arya Samaj Schools in Punjab (Mahima Manchanda)

Part II: Political Context of Education

5. Compulsory Education and the Political Leadership in Colonial India, 1840–1947 (Parimala V. Rao)
6. Education, Missionaries and the Indian Nation, c. 1880–1920 (Hayden Bellenoit)
7. Re-defining Work and Education as a Means to National Self -determination: A Comparative Study of Gandhian India and Peronist Argentina (Simone Holzwarth and Verónica Oelsner)
8. The Genesis of Curzon’s University Reforms, 1899–1905 (Suresh Chandra Ghosh)
9. The Transformation of Schooling in Colonial Punjab, 1854–1900 (Preeti)

Consolidated Bibliography

New Perspectives in the History of Indian Education brings together essays on the milestones in the development of modern education in India since the mid-nineteenth century. It offers readings on a wide range of interconnected themes and the debates which have shaped the contours of the educational policy of contemporary India.

The essays critique the existing anti-imperialist, postmodern and nationalist historiographers of Indian education, and bring forth the shortcomings of these approaches. Basing themselves on archival sources, they overturn the existing myths created by these historiographers and shed new light on the role of the colonial state, missionaries and Indian nationalist leaders.