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Technical Knowledge and Its Institutions
I may be privileged to say a word on the microscopes turned out of your workshops. I tested them and found them in design and execution as good as anything I have used manufactured by British and German makers. The increase of pupils and the extension of the Research Laboratory of the National Medical College of India in the departments of Physiology and Bacteriology have made it incumbent on us to add to the microscopes and other instruments. We were thinking of indenting these from Germany but what I saw last night has inspired me with the hope that we might be able to satisfy our wants nearer home. Your boys have inaugurated a new era in the production of scientific instruments in India and I see no reason why we should not be a self-sufficing nation even in regard to these delicate instruments.
—Dr S. K. Mallik, M.D., C.M. (Edin.), Dean of the National Medical College, Calcutta, to Satish Chandra Mukherjee, Principal of the Bengal National College (1909)1
Presiding over the annual prize-giving of the Bengal Engineering College at Shibpur, Howrah, yesterday afternoon, the Hon. Khan Bahadur M. Azizul Haque, Minister of Education, said that India’s resources had not yet been fully trapped, and it would be the task of student engineers of to-day to realize those untapped resources for the good and betterment of this country. The Hon. Minister pointed out that though in the past former students of the college had done excellent work in later life, modern India would make even greater demands than had been made in the past.
— ‘Great Demand for Engineers: Minister’s Speech’, annual prize-giving at Shibpur College (1936)2
Institutional history is an emerging field within the broader – and yet nascent – field of the history of technology. This chapter elucidates the history of Bengal Engineering College, Sibpur, and the College of Engineering and Technology, Jadavpur. A brief account of the history of the two higher educational institutions will illustrate the complexity of the issues involved in the progress of technical education during the period 1880–1945. The importance of these two institutions will be easily granted, because until the first decade of twentieth century, the Bengal Engineering College was one of the four government-sponsored colleges that were imparting advanced engineering training (the other three being Thomason Engineering College in Roorkee, Madras Engineering College, and the College of
Science in Poona); and the upsurge of political, intellectual, and cultural activity associated with the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal found its educational expression in the formation of the College of Engineering and Technology, Jadavpur, which became an institute of advanced technical education in the 1920s. Back home in England, close to the end of the nineteenth century, there were no formal institutions for imparting technical education or producing engineers.3 Inspired
by a college in Glasgow, a civil engineering college was established at Roorkee, India, in 1847, while the Imperial College, London, was founded in 1879. The shortfall of textbooks and teaching materials for engineering schools in England was initially met by the periodically revised lecture notes, examples, drawings, and college manuals circulated amongst students at Roorkee. These materials codified Indian engineering practices as well and were ‘hailed as the most complete and satisfactory work on the subject in the English language’.4
As India emerged from decades of anti-colonial struggle, Dhruv Raina and S. Irfan Habib opine, her paths to modernization revealed a variety of political and cultural features. The modern structures of knowledge generation, such as the university and scientific institutions, that had appeared in Europe came to occupy a central place in the developmental projects of India, although these institutions carried the very cultural characteristics of their location.5 But the evolution
of engineering education somehow followed a different path. Modernization through techno-science and industrialization were the crucial ingredients of the developmental projects. All this had been preceded by a vociferous demand for techno-scientific education. The modernization was not to be achieved at the cost of peasants and artisans. A recent study shows how the significance of artisans and technicians was brought into focus in the early twentieth century.6 At the same
time, the demand for heavy industries was ably advocated and pushed by Indian interlocutors. All that was needed was a fine blend in the engineering curricula which could cater to both the future technologists and artisans.
What were the technical, economic, and institutional factors that allowed modern technology, first, to be adopted in India, then to be widely applied in the country while rapid technological development was proceeding in the West? The growth and development of technical education in India cannot be studied in isolation from colonial policies relating to technical and general education. These policies were conditioned by the policies of colonial expansion and the consolidation of British rule in India.7 What stimulus did the British
colonial administration give to education, research, and the adoption of modern technological practices? Contrary to the repeated claims by the British that the educated class of India showed no interest in technical or scientific instruction,
there is much evidence of a considerable stirring of indigenous activity in the second half of the nineteenth century,8 despite the equally evident lack of techno-scientific
employment opportunities offered by the Raj.9 The beginning of the twentieth
century witnessed a growing interest in technical and technological education, the establishment of a number of institutions at various levels, and was characterized by intense debates on the scope, character, and relevance of such education in the Indian context. What vision did the Bengali intellectuals have of ‘modern’ techno-scientific institutions? What new strategies did they think of?
Technological Education: Debate, Policy, and Practice
The Indian Famine Commission of 1880 recognized, perhaps for the first time, that apart from the economic advantages that were to be expected from the expansion of industry, it offered the promise of progress in other directions – scientific, social, and so on. The Education Commission of 1882 was struck by the complete neglect of the useful and practical studies that were calculated to help students establish themselves in life. The growing unemployment among the university-educated middle class was by now clearly visible in the uneven humanities-oriented educational programmes against which the public reaction was increasingly louder, aided by the example of a successful movement in western Europe, America, and Japan in favour of technological education.10 In consequence, the Commission
(1882) for the first time introduced a technical bias in the educational apparatus by its concept of bifurcation of studies at the stage of the entrance examination, a concept that started a new debate on the whole question of technical and technological education. The government circulated a new resolution on the importance of bifurcation of studies in 1884 to all provincial governments,11 and
shortly thereafter arranged for a full report on the state of technical education in the country. This was done by A. P. MacDonnell, Home Secretary, in July 1886, after examining the condition of technical education in the various provinces and the steps taken by each local government for the improvement of practical and industrial training. About engineering, MacDonnell pointed out:
The facilities afforded for University training in Engineering appear, as far as mere teaching goes, to be as extensive and complete as the circumstances of the time require. The Colleges at Calcutta, Madras, Poona, and Roorkee are well-equipped, and the theory of Engineering is all well taught as perhaps in England. The defects seem to lie in the too theoretical nature of the teaching, in the complete isolation of these
colleges, and in the want of facilities for practical instruction…. The workshops at Sibpur and Poona do much towards making the instruction in these colleges of a practical character.12
E. W. Collin investigated in 1890 the principal arts and industries of Bengal and in his report recommended the training of mechanical engineers in the workshops connected with the state railways, the institution of improved industrial schools and the encouragement of industrial classes, and the stimulation of native industries by the purchase of materials for public works in India, among others. But Collin ruled out the question of any large schemes for technical education claiming that the native industries were scattered and that it would be much easier to send students to Europe to study the improvements which had been made in the system of manufacture.13
In the beginning of the twentieth century, expressions like ‘technical’ and ‘technological’ education were used in the same sense despite subtle differences.14
The period also witnessed the formation of several state technical scholarships for the encouragement of Indian students in the higher branches of technical studies. These would enable students to receive a higher level of technical education and thus, in turn, qualify them to contribute to the improvement of the existing industries as well as the development of new industries.15 Sir E. C. Buck, Secretary
to the Government of India, was aware of the ripples in the minds of the local erudite class regarding promotion of technical education of the higher class, and so he recommended the constitution of a special enquiry committee in India, and, if necessary, in Europe, ‘to advise what if any, technological instructions for specialized training are required in the country, and to frame a working-plan which should be carried into effect when men and means are forthcoming’.16 The terms
‘technological education’ and ‘technological institutes’ were used in connection with the plans of technical education. The purpose of such an institute would be to provide scientific and technical instruction of an advanced character. Thus, Francis Spring, Under Secretary to the Government of Bengal in the Public Works Department (PWD), talked of technological education in the advanced sense and recognized the desirability of establishing a Central Technological Institute, of which the necessary elements already existed in the scientific departments of the Presidency College, the Bengal Engineering College at Sibpur, and the Calcutta Medical College.17
Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, Western-educated Bengalis were raising the demand for a full-fledged techno-scientific research system, a demand that was not accepted by the imperial administration until
1904, when the Indian Universities Act was passed that permitted post-graduate teaching and research in the humanities and the sciences.18 What impact did it
have on contemporary engineering education? Taking stock of the much-diversified system of instruction, length of the courses, and nomenclature adopted by the various engineering colleges, the Act asked for uniformity in the system and stated that further provision was needed for instruction in mining and electrical engineering.19 These recommendations were hotly debated in the official circle.
Spring was of the opinion that excellence in engineering depended chiefly upon racial and personal qualifications of the candidate, and next upon the quality of teaching in the colleges, and these had better be dissociated from the universities altogether. He further recommended that ‘the universities should leave on one side practical engineering, and should only test the men’s knowledge of scientific principles, while the college authorities should test practical ability’.20 H. W.
Orange, another official, thought that a technical institution should either be independent, like a higher polytechnic, and should grant its own degrees, or that it should be an organic part of a teaching university, instances of which were the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston and the German polytechnics. He ridiculed the idea of an institution for master’s in civil engineering, considering that in the previous 50 years no candidate had ever attained a master’s degree in Calcutta. At that time there were three engineering degrees, namely the licentiate, the bachelor’s, and the master’s.21 One R. Nathan remarked:
It is doubtful whether the universities have done, much to foster or improve the study of engineering. The main object of the four engineering colleges is to give a practical training to candidates for the engineering and subordinates grades of the PWD.… This must be always borne in mind and no arrangements should be introduced which will in any way interfere with the recruitment of the PWD.22
Major E. Atkinson, Principal of the Thomason College, Roorkee, while underlining the three essential qualifications of an engineer, stated the importance of specialization, and thought that it was necessary to recognize the different branches of engineering with an appropriate training for each and it was desirable that the degree should indicate the special branch in which the graduate was trained – civil, electrical, mechanical, or mining.23 As regards uniformity,
Atkinson opined that a great deal could be done towards standardizing syllabus, distribution of marks, standard of proficiency, and nomenclature without unduly interfering with the responsibility of individual colleges to regulate their policy, which would be decided by local requirements. To the advancement of technical
or technological education there were, of course, no objections on the grounds of policy. But although the significance of the progress in this direction was long recognized, little was achieved for many years. Four engineering colleges had been in existence for long and had been successful in training civil engineers, but these students mainly entered government employment and did little to foster the industries of the country.
J. G. Cumming, the officiating Commissioner of the Presidency Division, in his much celebrated report advised, among others, the following:
(1) improvement of technical instruction through a larger expenditure on central institutions, (2) subsidizing by the government of the associations for industrial or scientific education of Indians, (3) by giving of greater encouragement to district exhibitions of industries and industrial arts, (4) through increased dissemination among the public of information on industrial matters.24
During the same time, G. N. Gupta prepared another report for Eastern Bengal and Assam which for the first time suggested the creation of a new department of industries, the creation of a central technological institute, the opening of factories, instead of schools, with apprentice classes for imparting education regarding the manufacturing process, and the idea of direct state assistance for ‘pioneering’ new industries and by rendering pecuniary assistance to individuals willing to engage in any profitable industry.25
Very few of the recommendations of these reports were translated into practice. An indirect contribution of the Government of Bengal during this period was the publication of annual monographs to facilitate private individuals interested in the industry to benefit by its study. These monographs were written by qualified Indian and British officers based on reports submitted to them by various district and sub-divisional authorities and on personal tours and research.26 These monographs
were of special interest as these were written to cover almost all the minute details of the subject under study. Thus, for example, in the case of iron and steel works, it studied the extent of the industry, the methods of production, the raw materials used, condition of labour and wages, and the prospect of the industry. Here the writer also brought to the notice of prospective investors the benefit of the modern iron and steel industry in place of the primitive methods practised by the village blacksmiths.27 However, it would have been much more effective had these
to the large majority of the people. Moreover, these reports were hardly available in the mofussil area outside Calcutta.
Riding the wave of nationalism that marked the first decade of the twentieth century, enthusiasm for industrial advance became general among the educated Indians. The Indian Industrial Conference, which began in 1905, gave a forum to the leaders of this movement and they trenchantly criticized the official policy of confining technical education to the improvement of the work of carpenters, smiths, and other handicraftsmen, pointing out that Bengal already had enough skilled artisans. What the province needed were modern engineers. The main goal of technical education was thus the establishment of new, large-scale industries that would produce goods that were then imported. R. C. Dutt (1848–1909), in his presidential address at the first Indian Industrial Conference, stated that a shift in emphasis from cottage crafts to urban industries was inevitable and asked for modern industrial training.28 The tone was perhaps set by Dewan Bahadur
K. Krishnaswami Rao:
If India is to regain her lost place in her industries, she must learn to use steam, gaseous or electric power much more extensively than at present. Hand machines, however good they may be, will not meet the demand of the country for manufactured articles; and make us independent of imported goods. The use of steam, gas, and electricity require a thorough knowledge of mechanism, theoretical and practical, and of the scientific processes used in America, Europe and Japan in manufactures. It is a matter of deep regret that India is not yet blessed with an institution, in which required scientific and technical knowledge and training could be obtained to enable us to work our industries on advanced lines without foreign aid.29
This statement is important since it recognized the importance of science-based manufacturing industries with indigenous capital in national economic regeneration and the role of technological education in preparing the skilled workforce appropriate for such industrialization. But it was the statement of a well-meaning individual interested in technical and technological education; it did not reflect government policy. The establishment of indigenous manufacturing industries and industrialization in general ran counter to the interests of industries established in Britain and the overseas trading and business communities the government was pledged to support.30 Although the recommendations of various
education in general, technical education at the advanced level made little progress apart from the occasional lip service from the government.
Academic Engineering: The Search for a ‘Suitable Boy’
The term ‘academic engineering’ is used to describe the teaching of engineering within a university or college of higher education; it differentiates an institutional teaching framework from the broader assimilation of engineering working practices by the method of apprenticeship or pupillage. The growth of academic engineering, both in terms of student numbers and the variety of courses, profoundly influenced the structure of what we might call ‘practical engineering’,31 the status
of engineering as a profession searching for recognition within society, and the corporate relationship between the administrators, engineers, and places of higher education. The emerging discipline of academic engineering in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was by no means uniform and unvarying across the range of institutions of higher education. One might wonder why a college of engineering was opened at Roorkee (1847) at a time when Britain itself did not provide academic training to engineers except for military purposes. While in France the state had always played a key role in engineering, British engineering arose from below and the pioneers of industry there were working men trained by apprenticeship and self-taught in industrial science.32 It was only in the last quarter
of the nineteenth century that engineering education became a part of the university curriculum. Engineering education gradually moved away from the hands-on lab-oriented arts and practices of the old ‘apprenticeship’ approach to emphasize the fundamentals of technology. In other words, engineering education in western Europe and the United States had increasingly emphasized the conceptual, theoretical, and mathematical aspects of engineering.33 This development is partly
because the major engineering institutes there had become increasingly research oriented. The rise of research as an integral part of an engineering institute’s agenda meant that the universities began affecting the direction of industry. This easy movement between academia and industry gave rise to a new technological culture. This sub-section will highlight some of the relevant issues of academic engineering and its industrial linkages in the context of the Bengal Engineering College, Sibpur. The year 1880 was a major milestone in the history of the college, as in that year the college was restored to its former status of independent existence after an uneventful 14 years (1865–1879) under the administrative control of the Presidency College. The workshops of the PWD at Sibpur were attached to the college for the practical training of the students. At the instance of the Government of Bengal, the University
of Calcutta revised its regulations further in order to enable a candidate to obtain a License in Engineering or the degree of Bachelor’s in Engineering in either of the two branches: civil engineering and mechanical engineering.34
Though the college was founded for training civil as well as mechanical engineers, in actual practice, however, no proper arrangement was made for imparting training in higher mechanical engineering of the standard of the degree course. In November 1884, a Parsee student, Sarabji Shavaksha, applied for permission to take up the mechanical engineering course. He also expressed that the reason behind his joining the Sibpur college was to pursue this branch of engineering, as he could easily have learned civil engineering in Bombay. At this the principal communicated his inability to teach the mechanical engineering course ‘up to the university standard’ to the higher authority and proposed that ‘a properly qualified European should be appointed, upon whom would devolve the duties of superintending both Engineer and Apprentice students whilst engaged in the shops’.35 Ultimately, it was decided in July 1885 to appoint E. F. Mondy,
Professor of Physical Science, as also Professor of Mechanical Engineering. It was further decided that this arrangement would be applicable only when a class of at least six students had been formed for the study of mechanical engineering. No class, however, could be formed.
Here the attitude of the British Raj towards the technological calibre of their subject people is significant. The Superintendent of the Workshops, Sibpur Engineering College, was apprehensive as he found that a great many of the native students considered manual labour distasteful and endeavoured to avoid it. To stop such a tendency, he introduced rigorous rules for annual examinations that he hoped would ‘convert the idlers into earnest workers’.36 Such a negative attitude
remained throughout the colonial rule about the techno-scientific proficiency of Indians. Of course, there were loopholes in the system and were pointed out by several educationists and bureaucrats. In one such instance, Sir Alexander Pedler, Professor of Chemistry at the Presidency College and later appointed as the Director of Public Instruction, Bengal, remarked, ‘… the present constitution of the Engineering College, and the course of studies pursued in it, require to be thoroughly overhauled. There is no doubt that the College is, for some reason or other, not attractive to students….’37 His recommendation to the students was
to look for the private fields of employment where the modern, practical, and adaptable worker alone was valued.
Sibpur workshops, as has been mentioned earlier, were under the control of the PWD and run on a commercial basis. The college could not, therefore, utilize
the workshops solely for instructive purposes. When the advice of F. J. E. Spring, Engineer-in-Chief of the East Coast Railway and a member of the Board of Visitors of the College, was sought, he submitted a memorandum on the subject in January 1893:
It must be ever borne in mind that the problem with which we are dealing, when treating of Sibpur College matters, is not one which solely concerns the well-being of the College itself, but that it is a problem which is intimately bound up with the entire technical education pyramid of which, in Bengal, Sibpur is, of rather ought to be, the top stone…. Now when I pass for the handing over the shops to the College authorities, I do so far two principal reasons; because I am convinced from a careful study both at home and out there of the now fairly well understood subject of technical education that until the shops shall have become strictly and solely educational and no longer commercial shops, they will fail in efficiency for educational purposes.38
In May 1894, the government sanctioned the transfer of a part of the workshops to the Education Department and placed a grant of 50,000 rupees at the disposal of the principal of the Sibpur college to erect new workshops for it. The workshops were finally transferred to the Education Department in April 1897.39 An
important decision aimed at promoting the study of engineering as a career was taken in September 1891, and all appointments in the Upper Subordinate Grade of the PWD of the Government of Bengal were reserved for being filled by the graduates of the college.40 By this time, E. W. Collin, under the direction of the
Government of India, drew up a report on the arts and industries of Bengal, which contained certain comments and suggestions in regard to the Sibpur college.41
The establishment of a special class for the training of mining assistants was one of them. The Directorate of Public Instruction, Bengal, also suggested that an alternative course for mining engineers should be introduced into the university curriculum. It was decided accordingly that successful candidates would receive a ‘diploma of qualification as Mining Engineers issued by the Principal of the Sibpur College and countersigned by the Superintendent of Mine’.42 Subsequent
things, however, shaped slowly. The proposal took another 14 years to see the light of day. On the recommendation of a committee set up by the government in 1903 to consider the question of providing facilities for the training of qualified managers and assistant managers for the mines in India, a Mining Department for the college was sanctioned in 1905. Another committee under the chairmanship of the Commissioner of the Burdwan Division was appointed for finalizing the
