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What is the Third-Class Degree and the Colonial Education Dilemma
The introduction of Macaulay’s Minute on Education in 1835, followed by Wood’s Despatch in 1854, laid the foundation for a British-style education system in colonial India. Designed to produce a class of Indians who were “Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect,” this system emphasized English-language education, liberal arts, and European epistemology, effectively displacing indigenous systems of learning rooted in Sanskrit, Persian, and Tamil traditions.
Initially, Indian universities (established in Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras in 1857) adopted a rigid system of academic classification, with students qualifying for a first class at 60%, and second class at 45%. This system quickly exposed disparities in performance, particularly among students from varied caste backgrounds. While upper-caste Brahmin communities had long-standing access to education—especially in Sanskritic traditions—they struggled with the new colonial syllabus and pedagogy, which emphasized logic, Western literature, and sciences.
By the late 19th century, British educators were alarmed by the high failure rates among Indian students, especially in South India, where Tamil Brahmins—despite their traditional academic roles—were not performing well under the British evaluative framework. In an effort to boost the number of graduates and maintain a steady supply of clerks and civil servants, British officials proposed the creation of a “third class” degree with a pass mark of 33%. This move was formalized in the Indian Universities Commission Report of 1902.
What is notable—but often underemphasized—is how upper-caste Hindus, especially the Dwija castes (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, and Vaishyas), rallied behind the idea of introducing this lower threshold. Many of these groups, who had historically benefited from hereditary access to religious and scriptural education, were now struggling to adapt to modern, secular, and English-language education. The third-class degree became a lifeline—ironically endorsed by the very castes that later would oppose caste-based affirmative action, arguing for "merit" as the only valid criterion.
The creation of a third-class degree, thus, serves as an early historical example of structural adjustment to accommodate dominant castes—a form of affirmative accommodation before the term “reservation” even entered Indian political discourse. While it was framed as a meritocratic concession to help Indian students succeed, it was in fact a policy born of practical necessity and caste-based pressure, aiming to preserve the hegemony of upper castes in the emerging modern bureaucracy.
This irony becomes even more stark when viewed against the later history of Dalit and Bahujan struggles for access to education, especially in the 20th century. Leaders like Jyotirao Phule, Periyar, and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar would go on to expose how education remained deeply caste-coded. For centuries, the Dalits (Scheduled Castes) and Shudras had been denied access to learning altogether. When reservations were introduced to level the field post-Independence, these very upper-caste communities began to resist them, invoking the rhetoric of "merit"—a notion that was conveniently malleable when they needed the third class to survive colonial assessments.
Thus, the colonial education system did not eliminate caste—it subtly reinforced it by repackaging privilege under new labels. The introduction of the third-class degree exemplifies how colonial policy was not caste-neutral but often aligned with the interests of dominant castes. It laid the groundwork for ongoing debates around meritocracy, reservation, and educational justice in India—a legacy that continues to shape the nation's politics and social dynamics well into the 21st century.
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