The Jewel In The Crown
Dear Reader, When you think of India, is your first thought about the poverty that is often found there? That the literacy level is low in many places there? Is it your impression that India was (and recently was) a backward country and has only recently started to emerge as a world power? Is your impression that it is a country of a caste system and 100s of gods? In which case, you may be in for a few surprises, especially when it is taken into account that the Harappan civilisation of several thousands of years BC reveals signs of advanced water supply and effluent management systems. On literacy, American historian William Durant (1885-1981) declared that: When the British came, there was, throughout India, a system of communal schools managed by village communities. The agents of the East India Company destroyed these village communities. Instead of encouraging education, the Government encouraged drink. This observation has been ratified by many: literacy amongs