Latest / The Hidden History of Bengal: Kingdoms, Empires, and Revolution — Fexingo History / The Calcutta Madrasa: Warren Hastings and Muslim Education in Bengal
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the political and military history of Bengal—the battles, the famines, the rebellions. But I want to shift gears today and look at something quieter, but just as consequential: the story of a single educational institution. The Calcutta Madrasa, founded in 1781. It's actually still around today—it's now Aliah University. Luna: Wait—a madrasa founded by the East India Company? That sounds almost contradictory. Lucas: Exactly. That's the fascinating tension at its core. Warren Hastings, who was then the Governor-General, wasn't acting out of some benevolent impulse toward Muslim education. He had a very practical problem: the Company's courts needed judges and legal experts who understood Islamic law. The British were ruling through existing legal systems, especially for personal matters like marriage, inheritance, and contracts. But they didn't have enough trained qazis and muftis to staff the courts. Lucas: So Hastings proposed a madrasa in Calcutta that would produce a steady stream of Muslim legal professionals. He even allocated funds from the Company treasury—about 30,000 rupees annually, which was a significant sum. The madrasa was housed in a building near the Hooghly River, and it initially offered instruction in Arabic, Persian, Islamic jurisprudence, logic, and philosophy. Essentially, a traditional madrasa curriculum but with a colonial twist. Luna: So it was like a vocational school for Islamic judges. Did the Muslim community embrace it? Lucas: It was complicated. On one hand, it offered a path to employment in the Company's administration, which was one of the few avenues for upward mobility under colonial rule. Many Muslim families saw it as a way to preserve their scholarly traditions in a changing world. But there was also suspicion—this was an institution created by non-Muslim rulers, and some feared it would dilute or control Islamic learning. The madrasa's first principal was a British orientalist named Francis Gladwin, though he was a noted Persian scholar. Lucas: Over the next few decades, the curriculum expanded. By the early 19th century, it included mathematics, geography, and even some English. But the real turning point came in the 1820s and 30s, with the great educational debates in British India. You had the 'Orientalists'—people like H.T. Colebrooke and William Jones—who believed in supporting traditional learning in Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic. And then you had the 'Anglicists'—led by Thomas Babington Macaulay—who wanted to create a class of Indians who were 'Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.' Luna: Macaulay's Minute on Education. That was 1835, right? Lucas: Yes, February 1835. Macaulay famously dismissed the entire corpus of Arabic and Sanskrit literature as inferior to a single shelf of European books. His view won out. The British decided to prioritize English-language education and gradually starve Oriental institutions of funding. The Calcutta Madrasa wasn't abolished, but its budget was cut, and it was increasingly sidelined. Persian was replaced by English as the language of the courts in 1837, which dealt a huge blow to the madrasa's original mission. Lucas: But here's the twist: the madrasa adapted. In the late 19th century, under a series of reform-minded principals, it began offering modern subjects alongside traditional Islamic ones. It became a model for what was called 'Anglo-Mohammedan' education—a synthesis of Western and Islamic learning. And it produced some remarkable alumni. One of the most famous is Maulana Shibli Nomani, the great historian and poet, who studied there in the 1870s. Shibli went on to write a pioneering history of Persian literature and later founded the Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama in Lucknow, another important madrasa. Luna: So the madrasa actually became a vehicle for Islamic intellectual renewal, not just colonial control. Lucas: That's the paradox. It was created as an instrument of empire, but it also became a space where Muslim scholars could engage with modernity on their own terms. The curriculum debates at the Calcutta Madrasa mirrored the larger struggles across the Islamic world: how to preserve faith and tradition while responding to the challenges of colonialism and Western science. In a way, the madrasa's history is a microcosm of Bengal's complex relationship with British rule—cooperation, resistance, adaptation, and ultimately, transformation. Luna: I had no idea that an institution founded by Warren Hastings would have such a lasting legacy. It really puts a human face on colonial education policy. Lucas: Absolutely. And it's a reminder that history isn't just about battles and treaties—it's also about the quiet work of education, the transmission of knowledge across generations, and the unexpected ways that institutions evolve. The Calcutta Madrasa, now Aliah University, still stands in Kolkata, a living link to that fascinating, contested past.