BD Sharma

Though about thirty High schools, at all the Tehsil headquarters, had been upgraded to Higher Secondary Schools in our State in the early 1960s yet the number of High Schools remained preponderant. High Schools remained the focal point of education. And passing the Matriculation examination in those days was considered to be an achievement of some sort. Majority of the youngsters culminated their educational career after passing this exam. Many pass outs were unable to continue their studies due to lack of resources because the Degree Colleges in Jammu province were located at Jammu, Kathua, Udhampur, Bhaderwah and Poonch, all far off places for many aspirants. Other reason was that one could get a Government job easily after passing Matriculation. Even for appearing in the prestigious NDA examination the basic qualification was Matriculation. Consequently many youngsters didn’t develop the urge to carry on further studies.

NOSTALGIA

Matriculating, as such, was thought to be a matter of prestige. Similarly the entry in the sixth class in a High School was no less significant for many like your present author. Though my two uncles had entered the realms of ‘Higher Education’- one was Matric pass and the other was Matric failed, yet my passing out of the Primary School from our small village and getting admission in the High school at my adjoining village, Smailpur, was an occasion of celebration for my parents. Some trivialities did also cast a spell in entering the higher portals of education.
One small reason was that we would be getting rid of ‘Taat’ (Jute mats) laid on the ground for sitting. We were looking forward to sitting on desks in the sixth class. Secondly the use of proverbial Takhti (Phatti in Dogri, a small thin piece of rectangular wooden plank with a handle) and Slate would be dispensed with in the sixth class because the exercise/rough work had to be done on a note book in the sixth class. Washing the Takhti every morning and pasting a wet layer of ‘Parola’- a type of whitish clay, on it and swinging it in the air to dry it, was detested. Then keeping an inkpot and a Qalam/Kaani- a reed pen, which often stained our little fingers daily, was much disliked. Similarly keeping an iron/stone Slate, with its paraphernalia of a ‘slaty’- a sort of small piece of chalk and a small duster of cloth for repeatedly cleaning the Slate after every mathematical calculation, was also a cumbersome task.
Thirdly going to High School provided us an opportunity to pay a daily visit to a large village, Smailpur-a sort of small town. Smailpur had even at that time a small bazar of about twenty shops as against two small shops in our village. Smailpur was an advanced village with modern amenities such as electric supply, drinking water through taps and city bus service, which didn’t fall in our favour at that time. In addition it had high rate of literacy and majority of the people were employees, a sign of progress, in contrast to our village where majority of the people were farmers. Smailpur had acquired a lot of prominence immediately after it had been founded by Raja Smael Dev of Jammu and it got the shape of a Jagir. The last recipient of this Jagir was Mian Zorawar Singh, grand father of Maharaja Gulab Singh. Though the Maharaja was born at Deon, a nearby village yet he spent his childhood at Smailpur. It was also the birth place of Pt Prem Nath Dogra, another Dogra luminary. Many prominent persons such as Brig Chattar Singh, Dogri poets Kishan and Tara Smailpuris, late Girdhari Lal Dogra, Prof Ishawar Sharma and Prof BD Mal Sharma, senior bureaucrat Surinder Sharma, famous engineers Hitbandhu and Preetbandhu Khajuria etc. had connection with this village in one way or the other. So it was a source of inspiration for the youngsters of even surrounding villages.
Young readers may be taking the narration of entering a High school as hyperbolic. It is, however, not so because there were not many High Schools in our State till 1950s. For instance, we had only two High Schools, at Samba and Gurha Slathia, in the vast area which presently constitutes the jurisdiction of district Samba. After 1953 Bakhshi Ghulam Mohd sanctioned High Schools at Ramgarh, Rahya, Smailpur, Birpur etc. in that area. Each High school would be fed by a number of Primary Schools of the surrounding villages. Thus Government High School Smailpur used to get students in the sixth class from Primary Schools of Bari Brahmana, Kadgal Kartholi, Meen Sarkar(Sarore Adda), Badhori, Tarore and Patti etc. Scarcity of High Schools was so much so that the two prominent towns of Jammu province, Bari Brahmana and Vijaypur had no High school till mid 1970s.
Interestingly there were only eleven High schools in the whole of Jammu province in 1940, three in Jammu City (Sri Ranbir High School, Hari Singh High school and Akabar Islamia High School), eight in the moffusil towns of Kishtwar, Bhaderwah, Udhampur, Kathua, Samba, Akhnoor, Mirpur and Bhimber. Equally interesting to the readers must be the fact that from all over Jammu province only 471 students appeared in the Matriculation examination in 1940 and 367 of them passed. Maybe the same number of students of Jammu province as get Ph.Ds each year now. By next year three more High Schools, namely Model Academy, Sanatan Dharm Sabha School and Vishwa Bharti Institute were established in Jammu City. In the light of these circumstances, the literacy rate in our State was very low. Entrance to a High school was, as a consequence, a matter of prestige.
For me, however, the entry in the High School didn’t prove to be a boon. I got anguished on the very first day in the High school when I lost my six Annas, which had become surplus after depositing my admission fee of Rupees two and Annas ten. I got terribly shattered on the loss of this princely amount as it deprived me of my pocket money for a long time. The small amounts of annual fee in the form of Building Fund, Games Fund, Poor Fund etc was very significant for meeting the sundry expenses of the school. Those were very hard times as compared to the present day when schools are aflush with funds under Sarva Shiksha and later Samagra Shiksha Schemes.
Secondly the number of students in our class exceeded the number of desks available. So the eagerness to sit on the desk had to wait for one year more. Thirdly I was in two minds while choosing the language subject in the sixth class. Six subjects were studied in the Middle classes. English, Mathematics, Science, History/Geography were compulsory and one language, Hindi or Urdu was the fifth subject. Drawing or Sanskrit would be the sixth subject. Majority of the students studied Urdu as a language up to 5th class and took Hindi as a language in the sixth class. This helped students to learn both Hindi and Urdu. I did also want to take Hindi as a subject in the sixth class but the Urdu teacher insisted upon me to take Urdu after seeing my proficiency in the language. It, however, proved to be a blessing in disguise as I later joined Revenue Department where most of the work is done in Urdu. However my desire to learn Hindi remained unfulfilled. Hindi was becoming popular as it had been adopted as the language for the Defence Forces after independence and the knowledge of Hindi was considered advantageous by the boys of Kandi area who preferred to opt for a career in the Defence Forces.
Syllabus for the Primary classes had been designed during Maharaja’s time on the recommendations of the Sayedin Committee which had found a plausible solution to the intricate Hindi-Urdu conundrum. Urdu studying students had to learn Hindi from the 3rd Primary and Hindi studying students had likewise to learn Urdu. In this way they had the knowledge of both the languages. This useful arrangement was tinkered with after some years and students began to study exclusively either Hindi or Urdu as a language.
Books prescribed in early 1940s on the recommendations of Sayedin Committee, continued to be taught till mid 1960s. We, as such, studied as per pre-1947 syllabus till our 6th class. Voices had started being raised for changes in syllabus and consequently it was done for the Middle classes in 1964.
For the High classes the old syllabus, adopted perhaps since the start of the last century, continued to be taught till late 1970s. In the High classes studying books with more than 500 pages was an experience in itself. Thus studying properly such voluminous books as Noordin’s Arithmetic, Ram Singh’s Algebra, Ram Lal Bargotra’s Geometry, Dudley Stamp’s Geography and RL Basur’s English Grammar etc would remove cobwebs, (or more appropriately Tabiyyat Saaf kar deti), from anybody’s brain.
It may be added that the syllabus had been designed very wisely. For instance, the basic terminology of geography was taught in 2nd Primary. In the next class geography of the State was taught in detail. Gradually geography of different States of India and then stepping up the geographical features of Asia, Europe, Africa , North America, South America and Australia were taught by 8th class. We came to know about almost every aspect of our State by 5th Primary. We had paid visits through our books to every nook and corner of the State, to Verinag, to Achhabal to Kokernag to Basholi to Bhaderwah, to Mirpur/ Bhimber(even though they had been illegally occupied by Pakistan) and to many other places. It was a pleasure to study the history of the State also, stretching from Kashyap Rishi and his conversion of the big lake into a beautiful Valley, to Avantivarman and his Wazir, Suyya who designed ingenious method for tackling the Jhelum floods by throwing golden coins in it, to Zain-Ul-Aabdin and why was he a Baddshah, to Jambu Lochan and his foundation of a city where a lion and a goat were seen drinking water together, to Raja Mal Dev and his carrying a huge black stone from river Tawi to dump it at Kaali Janni, to Maharaja Gulab Singh and his foundation of a unique State and the role of his 75 lakh Nanak Shahi rupees in its formation, had all the gradients to amuse and enthrall us, the young minds. Children in those days knew a lot about their surroundings as against the present generation who are familiar with the names of fifty States of USA but don’t know the names of twenty districts of our UT.
Teachers in those days taught their pupils with a lot of devotion and zeal. Even the Government Schools showed good results. One barometer of assessing the performance of a High school was the number of first divisions(or a Position, the merit rank in the State) the students got in the Matriculation examination. Twenty top ranks called Positions were determined by the University/Board. Securing one of these Positions in the Matriculation examination would bring laurels to the School. Though the number of Private high schools was negligible in those days yet the few of them such as Presentation Convent schools at Jammu and Srinagar, Tyndall Biscoe and Burn Hall schools of Srinagar, Model Academy and Sanatan Sabha school of Jammu etc would carry away almost half of the top twenty Positions. Government schools did their best to compete with these Private prestigious institutions. Unlike the present time when toppers secure even 98 percent marks in 10th class, the topper in those days reached barely the 85 percent mark. Normally the range of marks obtained by the top twenty Position holders would range from 600 to 700 marks out of 850. And these twenty Positions were shared by only about 30 students unlike the present time when the top ten Positions are shared by more than 100 students and the range of marks between them remains limited to 20/25 marks. Another glorious feature of declaration of Matriculation result was its broadcast through Radio stations Srinagar and Jammu. It was a treat to the ears to hear the roll numbers of successful candidates in English numerals in the resonant voices of the broadcasters.
Though the evil of private tuition had started raising its ugly head by 1960 yet there were many teachers who took extra classes beyond the school hours or on holidays without any monetary consideration. In fact some teachers had kept their doors open for consultation to any student of any school without any fee. Names of two such devoted teachers, one Master Jagdish Raj ji of Sanatan Dharm Sabha School, who taught English language and late Master Mohan Lal Gupta of Channi Himmat who taught Urdu language, come to mind readily.
Otherwise also teachers took lot of interest in sharpening the intellect of their students. If one of our teachers prompted us for frequent use of idioms and phrases while writing English and to infuse it with some proverb/saying /quote /verse to embellish it, another made us to learn by heart famous Urdu verses, such as Shahidon ki Chitaon par lagenge…, Amal se Zindagi banati hai….Khudi ko kar buland itna…Hazaron baras Nargis apni benoori, Khanjar kisi pe Chale… etc and to quote them at appropriate places in order to enrich our speech/writing.
Such was the worth and value of studying in a High school in those days and so much was the prestige of passing the Matriculation examination. Those were the days. Na Jaane Ab Kahan Gaye Wo Din.

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