‘Promiscuous Crowd of English Smatterers’: The ‘Poor’ in the Colonial and Nationalist Discourse on Education in India, 1835–1912

The encounter between the pre-colonial education system in India, dominated by poor teachers and students, and the British education system, which defended and perpetuated the ‘English class system’, created a complex and problematic relationship. This article explores this problematic relationship between poverty and education in the discourse of the colonial state as well as of Indian nationalists.