SPECIAL ARTICLE

An Experiment in Nationalist Education: Satyavadi School in Orissa (1909-26)

Pritish Acharya, Shri Krishan

Education as a social phenomenon does not take place in a vacuum or isolation. A case in point is the Satyavadi School set up in Sakhigopal village, near Puri, in Orissa in 1909. It proposed an alternative and unconventional system of education autonomous of the colonial state that would train students in nationalism and in questioning orthodoxies. However, it was also dependent on the conservative sasani brahmins for resources and students and despite an excellent track record closed down in 1926.

1 Education, Colonialism and Indian Society

Pritish Acharya ( pritishacharya0123@yahoo.co.in) teaches history at the Regional Institute of Education, Bhubaneswar, and Shri Krishan (kind.krishan@gmail.com) teaches history at the MDU Postgraduate Regional Centre, Rewari and is currently at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.
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ducation is a means of cultural transmission from one g eneration to another in any given society and educational institutions are like micro-societies. Education as a social phenomenon does not take place in a vacuum or isolation; it takes place in the society and this normally begins with the family, which is one of the social institutions responsible for the education of the child.1 Durkheim saw education as a social pheno menon through which a society assumes its own continuity by socialising the young in its own image.2 Havighurst observed that the way to understand a societys education system is to understand how it is related to the other basic institutions of that s ociety, in particular the family, the religious institutions, the State, the polity and the economy.3 Many writers have argued that education is one of the causes of social change in the society, but another school of thought is of the opinion that educational change tends to follow other social changes, rather than initiate them.4 Another aspect of the relationship between education and society is through the arrangement of the entire society into a h ierarchical order. In other words, education reproduces social classes.5 Education involves all types of socialisation processes i ncluding one that occurs within family structure and educational institutions.6 The rise of colonial power in India was accompanied by the rise and growth of western style education and knowledge. Along with guns, modern technology and railways, modern education also came to India. A number of agencies like the British colonial government, the Christian missionaries, the Indian social reformers and nationalist leaders all contributed to the spread of this education. In the 1830s there was a keen controversy within the ranks of British ofcials whether to patronise oriental know ledge or encourage western European knowledge and literature through the medium of English language. The Anglicists saw I ndian or indigenous learning as mythic, superstitious, supercial and false. Macaulay said that Indian medical science would disgrace an English farrier and astronomy would move laughter in girls at an English Boarding school.7 After 1835 the British government spent a lot on spread of English education though initially it was conned to the elite sections of the society. In 1857, universities were also established at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras to further this objective. In their effort to dene themselves as superior, the British depicted themselves as hardworking, rational, enlightened and masculine while Indians were weak, superstitious, feminine, irrational and barbaric and in need of education and civilisation.8

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The introduction of western style education,9 and the gradual destruction and marginalisation and nal near-extinction of indigenous education in modern India proceeded simultaneously.10 The western education also increased consciousness of racism and injustice in Indians, leading to early and later radical nationalist efforts to create a history and a nation for themselves. A little-investigated problem of this history is the effort to create nationalist or Indian schools and ways of teaching, even while a stimulus-response relationship between education and nationa lism was often assumed.11 The history of education in India often leaves out the processes of social and cultural reproduction that take place outside the colo nial type schools especially the nationalist experiments in edu cation. The institutions of colonial education were important because persons educated in them got the opportunity to work in governmental services and legal and professional spheres. The colo nial education functioned as transmitting the social and economic structures from generation to generation through pupil selection, dening culture and rules and teaching certain cognitive skills.12 The other basic function of colonial education was to develop indigenous elites who served as intermediaries between metropolis and indigenous population. Such elites were used by the colonial rulers to help social structures to t in with European concept of work and social relations.13 Gauri Viswanathan has shown how the British colonial education and its schools, through their curriculum, propagated notions of western white male superiority and the superiority of western culture.14 Many British administrators as well as many Indian thinkers also believed that western education would help modernise India. The idea of national education emerged as a critique of the colonial pattern of education.15 Mahatma Gandhi argued that colonial education created a sense of inferiority in the minds of I ndians. It made them see western civilisation as superior, and destroyed the pride they had in their own culture. There was poison in this education, said Mahatma Gandhi, it was sinful, it enslaved Indians, and it cast an evil spell on them. He wanted an education that could help Indians recover their sense of dignity and self-respect. During the national movement he urged students to leave educational institutions in order to show to the British that Indians were no longer willing to be enslaved. Gandhi strongly felt that Indian languages ought to be the medium of teaching. Education in English crippled Indians, distanced them from their own social surroundings, and made them strangers in their own lands. However, the educated elites maintained double standards in relation to lower class and lower caste education and even in relation to patriarchy and the private sphere of homes. Gandhis as well as Tagores response to western education was linked to their critique of western civilisation. For them colonialism was not a symbol of progress but plunder and oppression. They were far from a xenophobic or revivalist gesture. Gandhis emphasis on a productivehandicraft curriculum was a radical rupture from age-old Indian brahmanical traditions.16 M ahatma Gandhi wrote: Literacy in itself is not education. I would therefore begin the childs education by teaching it a useful handicraft and enabling it to produce from the moment it begins its training I hold that the highest development of the mind and the soul is possible under such a system of

education.17 The a nxieties regarding colonial education led some indigenous initiatives at the local level too for a different pattern of education. In the following section an attempt has been made to study one such indigenous effort in Orissa.

2 The Satyavadi Experiment

The Satyavadi experiment took place in Sakhigopal village, 15 km from the pilgrim city of Puri on the way to Bhubaneswar. It is well known due to the famous Sakhigopal temple which is l ocated there. Pilgrims on their way to visit lord Jagannath at Puri often halt at Sakhigopal, before moving on to the town of lord Jagannath. Sakhigopal is also important in the sociocultural sphere of Orissa. It is the centre of the 16 brahmin sasans (brahmin villages) such as Sriramchandrapur, Birharekrishnapur, Birpratapapur, Birgovindapur, Birnarasinghapur and Birramchandrapur, etc, of Puri. Established by the different Gajapatis (kings) of Puri in medieval times, these villages had been exclusive brahmin settlements. People of other subordinate castes lived only on the periphery of the brahmin settlements. The kings promoted these sasans so as to nurture the brahminic culture, which gave a kind of social sanctity and legitimacy to the rulers. The brahmins represent the Mukti Mandap of Jagannath temple, the supreme court of brahminical justice in the state. The sasani brahmins claimed a superior social status even among the b rahmins.18 The Satyavadi gives a desired social distinctiveness to Sakhigopal and the area around it even today. Satyavadi was a unique experimental school in the history of modern Orissa. Established by Gopabandhu Das (1877-1928), popularly known as utkalmani (jewel of Utkal or Orissa) for his humanitarian and nationalist a ctivities, in the year 1909, the Satyavadi School had a very short existence. By 1926 it had been closed down. Even in this short lifespan, the institutes best time was limited to a period between 1912 to 1917 and 1921 to 1922. The school had quite extended stretches of hardships and nancial difculties. It could neither afford to have expensive concrete buildings nor did it believe in the necessity of such lofty buildings for the purpose of proper education. The land where the school stood was full of a variety of wild grass called bakul and chhuriana in the local language. Although Gopabandhu was the backbone of the Satyavadi until its closure in 1926, because of many other preoccupations he was never a regular teacher at the school. Despite his political pre- occupations as the member of the Bihar and Orissa Provincial Councils (1917-19), chief campaigner of the nationalist movement and the president of the Utkal Provincial Congress Committee (1920-28), he was the unofcial manager of the school, collecting funds locally, motivating the parents to send their wards to Satyavadi and guiding the schools course. His vision was of free access to education, which is possible only when schooling is not costly or exclusive. He said, The light of knowledge, like the physical light of the sun and the moon, should be freely shared by all, rich and poor, high and low.19 The Satyavadi project proposed an a lternative and unconventional system of education, autonomous of the colonial state and the operating cost in imparting education was drastically reduced in this new kind of pedagogical venture. This autonomous, self-regulating undertaking would facilitate mass education as well as education based on independence
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of thoughts and opinions. In Satyavadis philo sophy of education, the teacher, classroom and textbooks were not to be the nal source of knowledge and authority. They were simply seen as the tools to supplement learning provided by n ature itself. Another aim of the school was to humanise the society by inculcating a sense of dedication in the students for broader a ltruistic goals. The school was also called vana vidyalaya (forest school) for the schooling took place amidst trees. The regular classes were held in the open; the teachers common room and the boarders dining place operated in the open ground and in 1915 the school had over 300 boarders out of the total strength of 400 students. Mostly funded by local initiatives the only familiar concrete building of the school and its most important infrastructural facility was its library, the Harihar Pathagar. Started in a thatched house, the pathagar had a sizeable collection of books and journals on a wide variety of themes and subjects starting from Vedic philosophy to western literature and different languages from Sanskrit to English and Bengali to Oriya. Satyavadi was a synthesis of eastern traditions and western thoughts and its indigenousness was not in any way antithetical to western ideas. The school spent a relatively greater part of its meagre resources on the library. In 1916, the British school inspector observed that it (the library) had a collection of 2,388 books worth Rs 6,ooo, though it had spent only Rs 3,227 on maintenance. This was after the building had been set on re in March 1912, in which at least 1,000 valuable books were destroyed.20 It is obvious that most of the collected books and journals were donated. The teachers also b elieved that real schooling was possible only in the open, where nature acts as the teacher, and becomes the main learning material. Jogesh Chandra Ray Bidyanidhi, who taught in Cuttack College and had visited the school in 1915, noted that the students of Satyavadi were amazingly bright. They were unpretentious, but could engage a visitor in meaningful and evocative discussion on a variety of themes.21 Paulo Freire, the pedagogue of the o ppressed rightly stresses the role of dialogue, the interaction b etween learners and teacher in the process of learning in these words:
Critical and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action, must be carried on with the oppressed at whatever the stage of their struggle for liberation. The content of that dialogue can and should vary in a ccordance with historical conditions and the level at which the o ppressed perceive reality. But to substitute monologue, slogans, and communiqus for dialogue is to attempt to liberate the oppressed with the instruments of domestication.22

University. Nilakantha Das (1884-1967) joined the school in October 1911 after completion of postgraduation in philosophy. He was followed by Acharya Harihar Das (1881-1971), a serving teacher who joined Satyavadi in 1912. Godavarish Mishra (1886-1956) joined the school, after completing his postgraduation in English in 1913. The youngest of the panchasakhas was Kripasindhu Das (18861926), who joined in 1914 and became its headmaster from 1918 till 1926. These highly educated youths lived a life of voluntary poverty. Their monthly salary was b etween Rs 10 and Rs 40 in 1921. The highest paid teacher was Godavarish Mishra (Rs 40 a month) and not Nilakantha Das, the headmaster of the school, for the former had a large family. For all of them teaching in the Satyavadi was a public and national concern and service, rather than a form of employment.25 Since he joined in 1914 Kripasindhu gave all his time to school management and was teaching till the end. A fter his untimely death in 1926, the Satyavadi also met its demise in the same year. This probably symbolised the ardent identication of the individual with this much-loved institution. After Kripasindhus death, Gopabandhu tried to revive the school; re maining aloof from all other political and social activities and giving full time to the school management, but in vain.26

A Political School?
Satyavadi was a sort of political school, which trained the students in the ideology of nationalism. In the early decades of the 20th century the politics of the Orissa intelligentsia was greatly limited to the Utkal Sammilani or Utkal Union Conference (UUC) which strove for a linguistic and cultural identity of the Oriya-speaking population.27 Known as the Oriya or Orissa movement the UUC had been mostly dominated by the local princes and zamindars, many of whom were as highly educated but were also interested in safeguarding their feudal values and interests. The UUC also had a slightly parochial, especially anti-Bengali slant. It had distanced itself from the Indian National Congress (INC), which represented an all India outlook and was becoming overtly anti-colonial after the swadeshi movement in the rst decade of the 20th century. It was at such a critical juncture that the Satyavadi teachers and students and their friends, known as the Satyavadi gosthi (group) advocated the assimilation of the UUC with the Congress. Its leaders were committed to an all India outlook without overlooking the regional identity and culture. Fakir Mohan Senapati (1843-1918), the prominent novelist, generously praised these youths in different forums. In his last novel Prayaschita (1917) he said, The old people desiring to do good work for the nation, but are unable to do (due to old age), feel relieved that a band of enthusiastic youths has come forward. They [the youths] give up all material comfort for serving the interest of the nation.28 Finally, the merger of the UUC and the Orissa movement with the nationalist struggle took place at Chakradharpur in 1920 and the Utkal Provincial Congress Committee (UPCC) was founded while at the same time the noncooperation movement was launched in the state. Though there were many other forces as well, the Satyavadi, its community of teachers and students played a leading role in bringing about such a momentous change during the period. They advocated that the regional Orissa issue and the nationalist cause could complement each other; these were not conicting impulses.29

Living in close proximity to nature, the Satyavadi was also called a chalanta (movable) school, for the teachers often guided the students to the nearby places for close observations on the actual working of nature.23 These lessons were authentic, rst hand experiences about the environment and history and culture of the locality. Nilakantha Das, who often led the students on such outings, wrote epics like Konarke and Mayadevi. He credited the role of the students in such compositions.24 The panchasakhas or ve friends of the school gave a helping hand to run the school. The eldest among them was Gopabandhu Das, who founded the school and tried to actualise his dream project of institution-building and alternative education in 1909, when most of his younger friends were still studying in the C alcutta
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The launching of the non-cooperation movement helped the Satyavadi in various ways. The school, which was on the verge of closure in 1918 due to nancial and other crises, was revived and declared itself a national school by breaking all formal relations with the government. For this it had to decline a much needed grant of Rs 20,000 sanctioned by the government for the purpose of revitalising the institution.30 Besides, during this period, i e, 1921-22, and afterwards, it became the epicentre of the nationalist struggle in the state. All the national schools established in Orissa during the high days of the non-cooperation formed a league called the Utkal Swarajya Siksha Parishad of which the Satyavadi became the core centre, preparing the syllabus and conducting examinations in swadeshi style.31 Teachers like Nilakantha Das and Godavarish Mishra had been forced to quit the school as well as nationalist politics because of family demands and personal frustration in 1918 but returned into the fold of nationalism during the non-cooperation movement32 Nilakantha became the leader of the movement at Sambalpur. He took over the charge of the newly e stablished national school and edited the nationalist weekly Seba from Sambalpur, while Mishra transformed the Oriya school into a national one and started the non-cooperation movement in Chakradharpur. The inuence and authority of Satyavadi intensied with the surge of non-cooperation in Orissa.33

Satyavadi also served as the relief centre in times of contingencies like oods and drought in the locality. The students and teachers used to take the lead in collecting relief materials from the public and in distributing them among the sufferers. The tradition of organising relief at a non-government level got crystallised after the Satyavadi and the panchasakhas arrived on the scene in Orissa. In 1919, when Orissa suffered a severe famine the weekly Samaj was started from the Satyavadi School on 4 October with the immediate objective of coordinating the relief work. Focusing on the signicance of relief Gopabandhu Das later wrote that a little relief in the form of rice or chuda (dried rice) would in no way ease the suffering of the victims, but more than the quantity of relief, it was the sense of fellow feeling at the time of their [peoples] misery which is of the utmost importance.37 On another occasion he said:
it is not good to appeal to people outside Orissa for donations to the relief committee. The work should begin with relief materials collec ted within Orissa. If there is a need, appeals could be made outside Orissa at a later stage.38

An Exceptional Experiment
Satyavadi was also an exceptional experiment in carrying forward the movement of social reforms in an orthodox and conservative brahmin-dominated environment, like that of Sakhigopal in the early years of the 20th century. The panchasakhas, except G odavarish, were sasani brahmins, the brahmins of the highest order themselves. But, they audaciously broke many of the obnoxious and loathsome caste mores and earned the wrath of the local brahmin community. As staunch rationalists they walked the streets of the sasan villages without removing their sandals, grew moustaches without an accompanying beard like the low caste people and conveyed their pranam (salutations) with folded hands even to the people of lower social origin. They also organised pankti vojan or community feasts in the school premises on occasions like Saraswati puja, in which students irrespective of their castes served the dishes to the guests and students, who sat together without any caste distinctions.34 Much to the chagrin of their fellow caste men, Gopabandhu, A charya Harihar and N ilakantha wrote Das and not Dash in their surname. As Das is a common title used by people irrespective of castes, the brahmins generally write Dash to make it distinctive. Nilakantha also ploughed the eld himself, an act socially forbidden to the brahmins. All these acts created such a stir in that highly conservative environment that Nilakantha, the headmaster of Satyavadi and a llegedly the mastermind of all such unpardonable and deplorable acts was not allowed entry to the Puri temple. His 80-year old father, Ananda Das, was also declared a social outcaste, for he did not restrain his only son from such unbrahminical activities.35 The antagonism and hostility to the social reform programmes intensied so much that the thatched houses of the school, the only available buildings were set on re by the conservatives in March 1912. In the resultant re nearly 1,000 books, the greatest treasure of the Harihar Pathagar were burnt down.36

Through the instrument of Satyavadi, Gopabandhu tried to inculcate a sense of community feeling among the people. Quite far away from the four walls of the classrooms and written textbooks the students became a part of all these social activities and learnt the lessons of social-life and citizenship. They also joined the annual sessions of the UUC as volunteers and learnt the practical lessons of social and political life. Caring and treatment of patients (by giving homeopathy medicines) in and around Sakhigopal by the teachers, especially Nilakantha Das, and stu dents was also a regular activity of the school. As Sakhigopal and Puri were great pilgrim centres, epidemics had been quite frequent during the different festivals. On such occasions the Satyavadi students and teachers served as volunteers, provided rst aid medicines to the patients and removed and cremated the dead bodies, overlooking all caste restrictions.39 Satyavadi also became a sort of nationalist media house in Orissa during the nationalist struggle. The teachers regularly brought out a handwritten magazine, Vanavani through which the students were trained to write and express their thoughts. In 1913, a literary journal Satyavadi and in 1919, a weekly Samaj were published from the school campus. They were edited by Gopabandhu Das, the rst among the panchasakhas. Though Satyavadi was short-lived like the school, the Samaj grew and became a daily in 1927. In April 1921, the government ofcial report attributed the success of Samaj to its simple language, which it used to preach non-cooperation. As a result the circulation increased and it became one of the principal newspapers in Bihar and O rissa.40 Samaj was to become the main organ of the nationalists in the state in the years to come. Satyavadi symbolised a signpost in modern Oriya literature. Known as the Satyavadi yug all the panchasakhas except A charya Harihar Das were prolic writers themselves. Besides writing the editorials and regular columns in the Samaj, Gopabandhu, who aspired to become a poet in his childhood, composed a number of epics and poems such as Dharmapada, Nachiketa Upakshana, Bandira Atmakatha, Kara Kabita and Abakasha Chinta, etc. Dharmapada, the legendry sculptor boy, who was believed to have sacriced his life for saving the honour of his community during the construction
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of Konark temple in medieval times and Nachiketa, an young boy of Indian mythology, who could defeat Yama, the death god, by using the weapon of truth, were his ideals He emphasised the essentiality of self-sacrice of the individual for the cause of a broader community or mass. His pet project was named Satyavadi, for he believed that truthful means were the prerequisites for achieving any noble goal in life. Similarly, Nilakantha, a great literary critic himself, wrote Konarke, Atmajivani, Pranayini and Bhaktigatha, etc, and Godavarish mostly wrote prose such as Ghatantar, Abhagini, Athara Saha Satara, Ardha Shatabdira Odissa O tahinre Mo Sthana, and Nirbasita, etc, Kripasindhu with an orientation towards historical writing for inculcating a sense of pride among the people wrote Barabati D urga, Konarkar Itihas, etc. Even Acharya Harihar Das, who gave his full time to teaching and nothing else, wrote a primer titled Childs Easy First Grammar for the purpose of learning English at the school level. Like the nationalist press, simple language, rational thoughts, missionary zeal and a pro-people tilt were some of the basic features of the Satyavadi writings. But more than that, the Satyavadi writers had been engaged in a running battle with the old generation of modern Oriya writers represented by Madhusudan Rao (1853-1912) and Radhanath Ray (1848-1908). Their complaint was that the writers of Madhusudan Rao and Radhanath Ray style, locally called Madhu-Radhanath gosthi, underrated the traditional writings in Oriya and even imitated the Bengali forms for ushering a kind of false modernity in Oriya literature. Instead, they argued that the traditional writings represented by writers like Upendra Bhanja and Baladev Rath of the 18th century were the chief base of modern Oriya. If the tradition and their creators were ignored by the new trends of writings, the foundations of modern Oriya language and literature would be weakened. Seen from this perspective language was not only malleable, it was itself a tool for ideological and social change.41 This notion was reected in Gopabandhus homage to the poet Upendra Bhanja, who is popularly known as the kabi samrat (poet emperor) in Oriya literature, but was looked down upon as a writer of vulgar poetry.42 In a poem entitled Upendra Bhanja he (Gopabandhu) said that the poet and his birth place Ghumsar would always nd a place in the heart of all sections of the people for all times to come despite the disrespect shown to them by a few people.43 Further, the Satyavadi writers mostly banked upon the colloquial and rustic forms for enriching and establishing the distinctness of the regional Oriya language and literature, while the other group shied from it and emphasised the chaste form during the period.44

3 Before Satyavadi
The Satyavadi was not a sudden development. It had its origin in Sriramchandrapur, a sasani brahmin village in Sakhigopal. Some prominent teachers of Satyavadi such as Nilakantha and Acharya Harihar, Ananta Mishra and Gopinath Dash were from that v illage. They studied in the village vernacular school, which had been founded by Harihar Dassharma in 1865. That was the year of the great famine, which was locally known as the naanka durvhikshya. Dassharma (1842-74) concluded that imparting education could be a powerful social tonic in the face of such largescale social devastations. Education was seen as an instrument
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for social amelioration. He single-handedly started a vernacular school in his village Sriramchandrapur. Unlike a Sanskrit tol or a traditional chatsali (informal school) the new school emphasised the proper learning of subjects like history, geography, mathematics, and languages and literature. He believed that dependence on the government for imparting proper education would delay the process. Hence, he founded this school at his v illage Sriramchandrapur without government support. Harihar Dassharma was an erudite Sanskrit scholar and an e loquent speaker. He used to be invited by different princely houses to lecture on eastern philosophy in Sanskrit. He utilised the funds collected from such lectures for founding a Sanskrit school at Puri. He introduced Latin, Greek and English, eastern philo sophy, and modern subjects like history and geography, etc, in the syllabus of his school. The Puri Sanskrit School was an extension of his vernacular school of 1865. He believed in the synthesis of eastern thoughts and western knowledge. He taught Sanskrit and Oriya to the Europeans and, in turn, learnt Greek, Latin and English from them. He socialised with the Europeans, wore western clothes and hat much to the annoyance of the orthodox and conservative sasani brahmins. On the invitations of the Europeans, he once even planned to visit Europe to speak of the greatness of Oriental philosophy. Harihar knew Dayanand Saraswati and shared his ideas with him. He even lectured at the famous Bethune College in Calcutta in 1872. The conservatives opposition to Harihar intensied so much that brahmin conservatives were suspected to be involved in his mysterious and untimely death at the early age of 32 in 1874. Even after Harihars death the vernacular school survived, though with great difculty, partly because of local support. It began to receive a grant from the government.45 Harihar had not yet faded from public memory when the founders of Satyavadi were young. Besides, Gopabandhu and his friends such as Acharya Harihar, Nilakantha, Ananta Mishra and Gopinath Dash, who had passed out from that vernacular school, had heard about him from Ramchandra Das, a muktyar (pleader) at Puri. Ramchandra had also set up the Brahman Samiti to provide a little monetary and other social help to the brahmin students from sasani and karabada (peripheral brahmin villages; the brahmins of karabada were usually placed a little lower than the social rank of brahmins of sasani villages) areas. The Brahman Samiti was a discussion forum of young students, most of whom were brahmins. The members also did social service and acted as volunteers in times of need. It seems Ramachandra had a vision of desho (nation) and believed that it was undergoing a phase of durgati (evil days) because the people were not coming forward with a sense of commitment and dedication for social work. Besides, he had been discussing current politics and many other social issues with these young students with the objective of inculcating a sense of patriotism and nationalism in them.46 Through the Brahman Samiti he was trying to build volunteers who would dedicate themselves for the purpose of desho nirman (nation-making). To Gopabandhu and his friends he was adviser and guru. Inspired by him, Gopabandhu brought the locally managed vernacular school of Sriramchandrapur of 1865 to Sakhi gopal and renamed it Satyavadi in 1909.47 Probably one of the reasons for bringing it to Sakhigopal was its proximity to the

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road. The school would be rooted in tradition, but it would also be modern in outlook and orientation. The Fergusson College of Pune and the schools at Harrow, Rugby and Eton in England were models for the Satyavadi founders.48 Gopabandhu was inspired so much by Harihar that Satyavadi was started on 12 October, Harihars birthday and the library of the school was named Harihar Pathagar. Gopabandhu realised that what Harihar lacked was a group of dedicated people to carry forward his life mission. Hence, Gopabandhu and his friends always emphasised the building of a gosthi (group), which had been concretised in the form of satyavadi and panchasakha. During the aftermath of the non-cooperation movement they formed the core of the pro-changers and the Swarajist Party in Orissa. During the Quit India Movement (by then Gopabandhu and Kripasindhu were no more), they even came out of the Congress to join the ministry in the state. It was always the gosthi which gave a primary sense of afliation to them. Others like Ananta Mishra, popularly known as the pracharak (campaigner) for his efforts to start an Oriya linguistic and cultural identity movement, especially in Chakradharpur, Singhbhum, etc, and Gopinath Dash, a childhood friend of Gopabandhu Das, helped Satyavadis cause. After completing his studies Gopinath joined government service as a deputy magistrate, but contributed a major part of his salary to the Satyavadi School funds. Even before the establishment of the Satyavadi, he had been giving nancial support to the vernacular school at Sriramchan drapur, the precursor of Satyavadi. As a serving government ofcer he was also instrumental in the starting of the local George High School at Bargarh in Sambalpur district in 1921. The school was named after the king of England and had no qualms in taking government help. Thus, Gopinath Dash, on the issue of taking support from the government for opening schools, fundamentally differed with his friend Gopabandhu, a strong non-cooperator but continued to support the Satyavadi and remained a friend of the panchasakhas. His house in Puri was the meeting place of the nationalists.49 Similarly, the local businessmen like Bihari Ota and Dinabandhu Satpathy and Gopabandhus elder brother Narayan Das also had been assisting the Satyavadi in various ways. It is doubtful if such help would have come so generously, if the Satyavadi had been started by non-sasani youths.

Satyavadi at a later stage. While showering praise on Harihar for having such a great vision, Gopabandhu sang:
You Harihar, the worthy child of mother Utkal ... knew well about the samaj durgati (social calamities) and the timely remedy for that. Hence you had the desire to reform the society...In your absence, who would synthesise the old tradition with the new requirements...You knew well, when brahmins would give up social evils, all other [sub ordinate] castes would follow them soon...51

In another poem, he addressed the young members of Brahman Samiti:

You are born in the shresth vamsa [high caste]; your place is always the rst in the society; your task is reading and writing; your daily mission is to unveil the truth, your identity is self dedication and your greatness lies in modesty and gracefulness...When you do your duty, other castes would follow you as their ideals...You dedicate yourselves in the altar of India...A Hindu is not born for self-aggrandisement, every drop of his blood is for safeguarding the interest of the humanity. 52

4 The Outcome of Satyavadi

One of the major limitations of Satyavadi was its rootedness in the conservative sasani brahmanical culture of Sakhigopal. It is true that the Satyavadi leaders had broken some detestable caste rules, tried to bring social reforms, fought the social evils and, in return, had earned the wrath of the conservative sasani brahmin elements. However, they were not absolutely free from their caste bias. All of them were sasani brahmin themselves.50 Many of them had been groomed at the Brahman Samiti of Ramchandra Das, who visualised that the desho would prosper if the brahmins were educated. The desired variety of education and social reforms would percolate down to the rest of the society only through them. In fact, it was the vision of Harihar Dassharma, which Ramchandra had transmitted to the students in the premises of the Brahman Samiti. Many of these students became the close associates of

Thus, these leaders were deeply rooted in the brahminical culture. Nilakantha Das elaborated on the greatness of the sasani brahmins, though he was otherwise known for his rationalist approach.53 Godavarish Mishra described his indoctrination into the Satyavadi teaching community as a kind of second bratopanayan (thread ceremony), a function exclusive to the brahmins. Though it is inadvertently mentioned, it bears connotation, because he was from Banapur, a little away from the core of sasan brahmin villages. Despite being a brahmin himself, his entry into Satyavadi necessitated a kind of symbolic or ritual sanitisation, which he described as a thread ceremony.54 Further, it was not a sheer coincidence that in 1918, out of the 10 members of the executive committee of the school except Jagabandhu Singh, a pleader of Puri and a close friend Gopabandhu Das, all others were brahmins by caste.55 Similarly, in 1918, the school had as many as 17 teachers, out of whom only three were non-brahmins by caste. They were Dhaneswar Maharana, Bhagabat Sutar and Sumanta Patnaik teaching the peripheral vocational subjects like art, carpentry and agriculture respectively. Patnaik was a political rebel from Badamba gadjat or princely state. After being thrown out of the gadjat, he took political refuge in the school and taught there without taking any salary.56 The rest were all brahmin teachers.57 Though nding an educated person from the other castes to teach would have been difcult on account of near illiteracy among them, it was also partly due to the prevailing brahminical social milieu. Further, at times some of them probably also used their caste status for furthering their gosthi and personal interests. In 1925-26, when communalism reared its ugly head in Orissa where the non-Hindus formed a microscopic m inority, many of the Satyavadi leaders were found to be instrumental in the foundation of Hindu militant groups like the Hindu Mahasabha. Gopabandhu Das was the founder president of the eastern India chapter of the Hindu Mahasabha in 1927. Many of his Satyavadi friends including Nilakantha were with him in this mission of salvaging the Hindu religion and culture.58 The same zeal brought them together to defend the Hindu interests against the invading Muslim interests.59 Satyavadi was a male school. Not only the students but also the teachers were male. There is no evidence of any woman being associated at any level. This was obviously because of the high
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rate of illiteracy among the people, especially among the women. This also reected the conservative social milieu prevalent in the sasani brahmin areas then. But, what is surprising is that the Satyavadi reformers did not make any visible effort to bring the women into the scope of their alternative education. Even Fakir Mohan Senapati, who could be seen as an intellectual of the preceding generation, had forcefully argued that educating women meant educating the whole jati, mass of people. His celebrated story, Rebati, is about a girl childs intense desire for elementary education. It has often been read as a metaphor for female education and liberation. Outside the sphere of writing Fakir Mohan began a girls wing in the Balasore High School, where he taught in the 1860s. He felt disappointed that barring a few Christians, no parents would send their daughters to the school.60 Gopal Chandra Praharaj (1874-1945), a brahmin (not of the sasani variety) and known for his satirical writings, severely criticised the brahmins for opposing womens education. He said they feared that education would make the women, pleasure loving, self guided and outspoken and force the (sic) man folks to work in the kitchen. 61 Western education was linked especially in the nationalist discourses to the moral decline of the educated Indians. It was reected in the general anxiety about the results of modern education and how it failed to produce modern subjects it had presupposed or how it was spoiling the moral bre and character of society, particularly the women.62 The Satyavadi leaders were highly educated themselves, but probably did not have courage to resist the subjugation of women and did not envision the removal of female illiteracy. Here they had submitted to the sasani social conventions dictated by their conformist elders. In 1918, Gopabandhu in an editorial entitled Strisiksha, in the literary journal Satyavadi, felt relieved that the conservatives opposition to and misgivings about women education was on the wane. His tone was very mild towards the opponents.63 It is because of their nondeance of the prevailing social norms on the issue of womens education that the nationalist discourse even at a later stage, say from the later part of 1920s onwards, had a lmost no representative from among the women in the Satyavadi r egion. Most of the prominent nationalist women leaders like Rama Devi (18991985), Malati Choudhury (1904-97) and Sarala Devi (1904-86), who had been active since the 1930s, were non-brahmin by caste (Malati Choudhury was born in a Bengali brahmin family but was married to Nabakrishna Choudhury, a non-brahmin) and hailed from the Cuttack and Balasore districts of Orissa, respectively. Satyavadi was an attempt at imparting alternative education to all without taking any obligation from the government. C ontrol by any agency like the government was construed as a curb on autonomous thinking and the production of knowledge. It was a new kind of ashram, which was rooted in the indigenous t radition, but did not overlook the changing contemporary world setting. The Fergusson College of Pune and some other model schools in England were its ideal. The teachers lived with the students in the school, taught them the lessons in nationalism, patriotism and humanism in the best possible natural and practical environment. It was an amalgamation, a fair blend of ideas from both sources. The school functioned as a relief centre, a sort of nationalist media house and an association for rationalist and nationalist thoughts.
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Well known as Satyavadi yug, it also set a new trend in the development of modern vernacular literature. It was an epicentre of the emerging nationalist struggle and, above all, a forum for carrying on social reforms and social service in the state. Despite the lack of material resources it could grow unhindered for some time, because the teachers, who were also the managers of the institution, creatively utilised the human resources. Being decient nancially rarely deterred the process of teaching and learning in the school. The cost of learning was very little, partly because the teachers were satised with a mere t rie, though there were graduates and postgraduates among them. Besides, the schooling had been designed in such a manner that it did not require much outlay. However, in less than two decades the life of Satyavadi came to an end.

Absence of Appropriate Milieu

One of the main causes for this was the absence of an appropriate milieu for such nationalist schooling. Basing themselves at Sakhigopal in the midst of the sasani brahmin villages, the founders of Satyavadi had hoped that the local brahmin youths would take advantage of the new education provided by the school and, in turn, would impart education to the rest of the society with a sense of dedication and social commitment. They assumed that Satyavadi would become a centre for humanistic education and due to that the process of nation-making would accelerate. However, the reality appeared to be different. The students who passed out, and their guardians wanted the school to seek govern ment afliation so that the students could go for higher studies to some government institutions or seek government jobs. This was an issue that often put the Satyavadi group into a quandary. If the students had to eventually enrol themselves in government schools or join government ofces what was the point in blocking their educational advance by an independent, national and non-afliated institution like the Satyavadi? Further, if the school remained outside government control, the Satyavadi students would not be considered for admission or for jobs in government institutions. More than the want of funds it was this question that undermined the basis of the school. One way of tackling the problem was by introducing vocational subjects like agriculture, carpentry, spinning, weaving, and coir and cane work. In fact, spinning was made compulsory for all students. By 1924 with the help of nationalist industrialists like Bombays Jamnalal Bajaj, the school had 16 looms and 100 charkhas for weaving. It also a cquired 25 acres of unused land for agriculture.64 The objective was to make the students self-reliant at the end of their schooling. Despite all this, the mission of building a generation of socially committed and dedicated youth was in peril. The parents and the students pressurised the school management to seek government afliation. In January 1914, the management did apply for university afliation. It was delayed for almost a year. During this intervening period the guardians threatened to withdraw their wards from the school. Finally the afliation came in November 1914. But it was only for one year. The permanent afliation from Calcutta University came only in September 1917. Until then the school had lost its hard-earned credibility in the community. This was the period 1914-17 when on the one hand the Satyavadi was making great progress and was being hailed as a unique experimental school and on the other, was struggling for afliation

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and losing regard among the guardians and students.65 While succumbing to the pressure to adhere to normal educational practices, the school also appealed for monetary grants from the Bihar and Orissa governments, which went against its grain. The afliation came, but grants were delayed. Nilakantha and Godavarish were so disillusioned with this that they decided to quit the school. They felt the mission of the school had been defeated.66 After the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in the Punjab in 1919, the social and political environment in the country had swiftly changed. The majority of Satyavadi students, who had earlier lobbied for afliation with the government, now demanded that the school be declared a national school. They threatened to withdraw, if their demands were not met. The Satyavadi organisers who had been linked to the non-cooperation movement in the state, encouraged them.67 Once again all relations with the government were severed. The Satyavadi now became a guide to all the new national schools opened in the wake of the non-cooperation in Orissa. However,
Notes
1 A K C Ottaway (1980), Education and Society an Introduction to the Sociology of Education (New York: The Humanities Press), pp 51-53. 2 E Durkheim (1961), Moral Education, English Translation (London: Free Press), pp 34-35. 3 See R J Havighurst (1960), Education, Social M obility and Social Change in Four Societies (Homewood, III: Dorsey Press). 4 Ottaway, op cit, p 56. 5 S Boocock (1972), An Introduction to the Sociology of Learning (New York: Houghton Mifin), pp 123-24. 6 Piere Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron (1977), Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, London, pp 5-6 denes education to include the s ocialisation through public institutions and family. 7 Qouted in Sanjay Seth (2007): Subject Lessons: The Western Education and Colonial India, Duke University Press, p 1. 8 Thomas R Metcalf (1993), The New Cambridge History of India: The Ideologies of the Raj (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press), pp 9-11. 9 All the writing on the history of education and that on colonialism that touches on education, regardless of certain different emphases, follow a kind of stimulus-response relation. Some main works are: Lynn, Zastoupil and Martin Moir (ed.) (1999), The Great Indian Education Debate: Documents Relating to the Orientalist-Anglicist Controversy, 1781-1843, Richmond, UK, Curzon. Syed Nuru llah and J P Naik (1951), A History of Education in India [During the British Period], Bombay, and Aparna, Basu (1974), The Growth of Education and Political Development in India, 1898-1920 (Delhi: Oxford University Press). 10 For indigenous education the best studies remain Basu Aparna, (1982), Essays in the History of I ndian Education, New Delhi, Concept and Dharampal (1983), The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous I ndian Education in the 18th Century, New Delhi, Biblia Impex 11 See Bruce T McCully (1940), English Education and the Origins of Indian Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press). 12 Martin Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism, Longman, 1974, p 13. 13 Martin Carnoy, Education as Cultural Imperialism, p 15. 14 Gauri Viswanathan (1989), The Masks of Conquest: Literacy, Study and British Rule in India, New York. 15 Some ne examples of such studies are J P Naik and S Nurullah (1974), A Students History of E ducation in India, Delhi, Krishna Kumar, op cit, Aparan Basu, op cit, and Nita Kumar (1998), Why Does Nationalist Education Fail in Sabyasachi Bhattacharya (ed.), The Contested T errain: Perspectives on Education, Delhi, 1998, pp 229-53. 16 Krishna Kumar, Political Agenda of Education: A Study of Colonialist and Nationalist Ideas (New Delhi: Sage Publishers), 2005, pp 175-79.

after the decline of the mass movement once again gloom reasserted itself in 1923 and the school closed down in 1926.At a later stage, Gopabandhu had probably realised that the Satyavadi had become a game in the hands of the sasani brahmin society since the orthodox elements had begun dictating terms. The school was mostly dependent on them for resources as well as for students. In order to overcome this limitation Satyavadi tried to fall back on the enrolment of low castes students. Gopabandhu appealed to the non-brahmins, especially the asprushyas (untouchables or dalits) for admission in the school.68 He also developed contacts with the nationalists outside. But by then it was too late. He died in June 1928 after a hectic journey to Lahore and Calcutta. He had shifted the Satyavadi press and the Samaj to Puri in 1925 and then to Cuttack in 1927. All these efforts no doubt freed him from the dominance of sasani culture, but the Satyavadi had declined. In other words, a major reason for the decline of Satyavadi was the sasani environment within which the school was located.
practices and contestation as shown by Stuart Blackburn for Tamil language in his noteworthy work Print, Folklore, and Nationalism in Colonial South India (Delhi: Permanent Black), 2003. Pyarimohan Acharya in his Utkala Itihas written in 1879 described Bhanja as a writer of vulgar p oetry. See Pyarimohan Acharya, Utkala Itihas, (1879), Cuttack, 2008 (new edition). Gopabandhu Das, Gopabandhu Kabitavali, C uttack, 2003, pp 30-31. Nilakantha Das, Atmajivani, p 54. Vikram Das, Yugantakari, pp 10-15. Vikram Das, Yugantakar i, pp 16-17. Nilakantha Das, Atmajivani, pp 34-34 and 62. Nilakantha Das, Atmajivani, p 59. His son Sarveswar Das discussed this in great d etail. See Sarveswar Das, Mo Kahani (autobiography), Vol I, Bhubaneswar, 2009, pp 111-12. Jogesh Chandra Ray Bidyanidhi, Ja Manepade, (autobiography), Oriya translation, Rabindra Prasad Panda, Bhubneswar, 2006, p 47. Gopabandhu Das, Gopabandhu Kabitavali, C uttack, 2003 (reprint), pp 134-35. Gopabandhu Das, Gopabandhu Rachanavali, C uttack, 2003 (reprint), pp 161-63. See Nilakantha Das, Atmajivani in Nilakantha Granthavali, Cuttack, 1973, p 19. See Godavarish Mishra, Gopbandhu Smaranika, in Godavarish Granthavali, Vol IV, p 97. See Vikram Das, Yugantakari, p 58. Godavarish Mishra, Gopabandhu Smaranika, p 99. See Vikram Das, Yugantakari, pp 58-59. See Nilakantha Das, Atmajivani, p 96. Samaj (Cuttack), 11 June 1927; For a detailed d iscussion on this aspect see Pritish Acharya, N ational Movement and Politics in Orissa: 1920-29, New Delhi, 2008, pp 143-45 Fakir Mohan, Senapati, Atmajivana Charita (1917), Cuttack, 1969, 1991, 5th reprint, p 27. See Gopal Chandra Praharj, Bhagabat Tungire Sandhya (1903), pp 49-50 in Gouranga Charan Dash, Gopal Chandra Praharaj (Biography), Bhubaneswar, 1995, p 13. We have discussed more about Fakir Mohans ambiguous attitude in our article, in Representations and Images of Women in the Writings of Fakir Mohan Senapati (1843-1918) in Utkal Historical Research Journal, Bhubaneswar, Vol XXII, 2009, pp 243-61. See Radhanath Rath (ed.), Gopabandhu Rachanavali, Vol I, pp 115-17. Radhanath Rath (ed.), Gopabandhu Rachanavali, Vol I, p 24. Radhanath Rath (ed.), Gopabandhu Rachanavali, Vol I, pp 6-11 and 29-31. Nilakantha Das, Atmajivani, pp 59-63. Gopabandhu Das in Samaj, 5 September 1925. Samaj, 12 February 1927.

17 Mahatma Gandhi, Collected Works, Vol 45, pp 34-35. 18 See Nilakantha Das, Aatmajivani in Granthavali, Vol I, Cuttack, 1963, second edition, 1973, p 2. 19 This is quoted from an appeal brought out by the Satyavadi School in 1924. See Radhanath Rath (ed.), Gopabandhu Rachanavali, Vol I, p 27: Some of Gopabandhus writings on education and Satyavadi have been compiled in Pritish Acharya (ed.), Gopabandhu Chayanika, New Delhi, 2009, pp 305-81. 20 Vikram Das, Yugantakari, p 80. 21 See Jogesh Chandra Ray Bidyanidhi, Ja Manepade (autobiography tr into Oriya by Rabindra Prasad Panda), Bhubaneswar, 2003, pp 44-56. 22 Quoted from Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the O ppres sed, Chap I. The full text of this work is available at www.marxist.org/subject/education/ freire/peda gogy. 23 See Vikram Das, Yugantakari Satyavadi Gurukul, Bhubaneswar, 2000, p 110. 24 See Nilakantha Das, Aatmajivani in Nilakantha Granthavali, p 73. 25 See Radhnath Rath (ed.), Gopabandhu Rachana vali, Vol I, Cuttack, 1976, p 27. 26 Samaj, Cuttack, 12 February 1927 and 8 February 1928. 27 For details see Nivedita Mohanty, Oriya Nationalism, Quest for a United Orissa: 1866-1936, New Delhi, 1982; Pritish Acharya, National Movement and Politics in Orissa: 1920-29, Ch II, New Delhi, 2008. 28 See Fakir Mohan Senapati, Prayaschita (new edition), Cuttack, 1986, p 14. 29 Gopabandhu elaborated upon this aspect in a speech at Bolgarh, Puri, in 1925.See Samaj, 24 December 1925; also see Pritish Acharya, National Movement ... pp 123-24. 30 Radhanath Rath (ed.), Gopabandhu Rachanavali, Vol I, Cuttack, 1976, p 27. 31 Samaj, 11 March 1922. 32 Nilakantha had joined the Calcutta University as a lecturer and Godavarish, on the invitation of Oriya movement leaders, had gone to Chakradharpur to start a Oriya school in the outlying tract of Orissa. 33 Gadjat Basini (Talchar), 25 June 1921. 34 Godavarish Mishra, Gopabandhu Smaranika in Godavarish Granthavali, Vol IV , Cuttack, 1972, p 98. 35 Jogesh Chandra Ray Bidyanidhi, Ja Manepade, p 45. 36 Radhanath Rath (ed.), Gopabandhu Rachanavali, Vol I, p 5. 37 Samaj, 13 August 1927. 38 Samaj, 27 August 1926. 39 Radhanath Rath (ed.), Gopabandhu Rachanavali, Vol I, p 23. 40 File no 163 of 1921, 2 April 1921, Political Special, Bihar and Orissa government, Patna. 41 The script reform, the discursive forms to be used, the morphological and lexical structures of l anguage often become the sites of new literary

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