The Englishman who became Indian Childhood: Fredrick Gordon Pearce was born on March 24 in 1890 in London to a middle class family who for a period of time during Queen Victoria’s reign lived a life of some wealth. There were carriages and servants and a life probably reminiscent of a Jane Austen novel. My father spoke of the happy days he spent in Ilkley—at their country manor house on the beautiful Yorkshire moors. The wealth for this life style came from my enterprising grandfather, who owned a company that imported foods from Denmark, Australia etc. He was connected to Pearce Duff, the family concern that manufactured blancmange, custard powder etc. wisechoiceuk/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=6119 Financial reversals to the business made my grandfather have to sell his company. As a result, the fairly rich life into which my father was born would end while he was still very young. With it ended the plan my grandparents had to send my father to Cambridge. They were very happy when he won a scholarship to attend London University. Student Days and Akka: As a student in London University, my father became interested in Indian Philosophy and then in Theosophy. This interest in India brought him in contact with an Indian student at Cambridge who would come to London to go to meetings at the Theosophical Society. Pat, as he was known (shortened by the English from Patwardhan, his family name,) was the second son of the Raja of Sangli. This friendship would eventually influence the direction taken by my father’s personal life. Sangli was one of the few Indian kingdoms with a Brahmin Raja. My maternal grandfather, Govind Narayan Paranjpe, was an advisor to the Raja and tutor to his children, and came from a family of Chitpavan Brahmins. He was one of the first of his family to get a formal education and graduated in the late 1800’s from Wilson College (the oldest college in Bombay --and which predates the University.) Over the years, he began to get disenchanted with the caste system and his spiritual search led him to an interest in Theosophy. In the early 1900’s he began to take his family to the Theosophical conferences in Adyar where he became friends with Annie Besant and began to take part in the lectures and discussions held there. During these conferences he became good friends with a wealthy Theosophist English couple, well known to Annie Besant. They urged him to let his oldest daughter, Malathi, return with them to England, and offered to be her guardians while she was there. My grandfather, though a very progressive man, had to give careful thought to the suggestion, since in the early 1900’s, sending a Brahmin girl of 12 or 13 to England was unheard of. Destiny prevailed and she went to study and to live with this English couple, and of course went to the meetings held at the Theosophical Society headquarters in England. She later went to Bedales, a famous public school and the first to be co-educational. It was considered very progressive. Old Bedalians include Malcolm MacDonald, British High Commissioner to India, Daniel Day-Lewis, the Oscar winning actor, Minnie Driver, the actress--and both children of Princess Margaret of England went there. Malathi was the oldest of the three Paranjpe girls. Pat as one of the Sangli princes, would have known her when they were little children playing together in the Sangli palace. In the years Pat was studying in England, the girls were growing up. Whether it was Pat’s interest in Theosophy, or whether he was captured by the charismatic Malathi, is open to debate. But it was through Pat that my father first met Malathi at a Theosophical Society meeting in England. Later, when my father came to India, this prince’s introduction gave my father entry to my mother’s Brahmin family. Such intimate family access was very difficult in those days for an Englishman---and my father often told how lucky he was to have met and won my mother, Anasuya. Annie Besant and the Early Years During his London student years, Annie Besant, befriended and mentored my father. After he graduated from London University, he tried to go into the business world to satisfy his father, but it quickly became clear that this was not what he was meant to do. So, when Annie Besant asked him if he would help the Theosophical Society (TS) by going to Ceylon and to help run Mahinda College as Vice-Principal, since its Principal had fallen ill, he accepted. Around 1913, he left for Ceylon to begin his new life. Mahinda College, Galle, was a TS residential school. It was during his time at Mahinda that it became clear to my father that he was going to be an educator--- and when he fell in love with the Indian subcontinent. He would spend around 4 years or so running Mahinda College, and immediately began impacting the lives of children. He started a small boy-scout troop in the college almost right away, (and later became the first scout Commissioner for Ceylon,) and soon saw how it gave children the confidence and self-esteem that they did not previously have. (Some of you will remember J.P. Gunawardhana who was one of his Mahinda College students. He taught in Rishi Valley and later was on the Board of the Blue Mountains School.). At one of the Theosophical Society meetings held in Adyar, my father talked to Annie Besant about the success he had had in encouraging young children through Scouting. She told him that the British had banned scouting for Indian boys (except in Anglo Indian and British schools) ---perhaps fearing that the discipline and confidence it built could be used against their authority. She asked him if he would be willing to do the same thing but on a massive scale in India, to help the Indian Freedom Movement. He soon came to India and organized the Indian Boy Scouts Association (IBSA) with a mission of “Seva”. He decided to base each scout troop in villages or small towns, with the goal of each troop to be of help to the community in which they lived. Coming each summer during the summer holidays from Ceylon (he was still running Mahinda College), he organized state training conferences, where scout masters from each village were trained in scouting but with emphasis on first-aid, fire-fighting and other “Seva” skills, and asked them to go back to their villages and start their scout troop. The desire for self-help had begun with the Indian Freedom movement, and scouting gave the young people in the villages a real purpose. IBSA spread across India growing in strength by tens, hundreds and then finally thousands of scouts every month. Over the next 3 years he traveled by train from one end of India to the next. He traveled 3rd class, inspecting scout troops everywhere he stopped, and organizing new scout master trainings. Krishna Menon was one of my father’s first senior scout masters (when I met him many years later as Defense Minister, he told me of the great impact my father had had on his life). What my father had achieved in such a short time was nothing short of astonishing. Within a few years there were over a thousand of boy-scout troops, with tens of thousands of scouts involved. My father was the first commissioner of the new Indian Boy Scouts Association, and spoke of the rallies and scout jamborees where 10,000 or more scouts marched. (Photo of original Scout Charter) As his Scouting success became known to the British, they began to see that unless they welcomed the new Indian scouts into their movement, they would have created exactly what they feared. So, Lord Baden Powell (the founder of the boy scouts) again contacted my father. Since there never was a desire to create a militant arm against the British, (my father was never anti-British, he just wanted full equality for all,) when Lord Baden Powell agreed to letting the Indian boy scouts have full rights, the movement became part of the formal Baden Powell scouting movement, with my father remaining commissioner for a while. During this period there were numerous meetings at the Theosophical Society and where Annie Besant introduced my father to J Krishnamurthi. They began a friendship and dialog that lasted for many years. Annie Besant J. Krishnamurthi With his work as head of the IBSA needing him to spend more and more time in India, Annie Besant asked him to take over as Principal of the Theosophical College in Madanapalle, and this would be his introduction to the area surrounding Rishi Valley. The TS College was founded in Madanapalle because it was the birth place of Krishnamurthi, and my father spent some happy days there, getting the college organized and running smoothly. It was during this period 1918-1924 that it became clear to my father that the British were using their education system as another way to keep Indians from positions of leadership. The British used the Public School system as the source of their future leaders. This applied particularly to the leaders they chose to run and control India. Unless a person was very wealthy and could send their children to Eton or Harrow (as Jawaharlal Nehru’s father did), they were essentially barred from positions of power in India. Though the British had created a few schools in India based on the Public School model, they were open only to children of British origin and were essentially closed to Indians. In 1929, the Maharaja of Gwalior asked my father to come to start the Scindia School using the military buildings in the famous Scindia Fort. He agreed to do so, but only if was open to all (and not just open to the Sardar’s as the Maharaja planned,) and if he could run it on Public School lines. SCINDIA FORT—Home of Scindia School The success of the school was rapid, and my father began to see that India needed a way for parents to know the quality of school to which they were sending their children. He put together a preliminary charter for the Indian Public Schools Conference and contacted the Principal of the Doon School (and the Principal of Daly College,) to ask them to join him as founding members of the Indian Public Schools conference. theipsc/about.php. That is how the Indian Public School System was born. Scindia School Buildings (scindia.edu/tour_the_school/image_gallery.php Nana Paranjpe My grandfather disliked many Indian customs, including the concept of the dowry. He told his daughters that his dowry to them was an education, urged his girls to keep studying and following their interests—and did everything to broaden their outlook. All through this time period my father had stayed in contact with the Paranjpe family, seeing them regularly at Theosophical gatherings. With the introduction he had through Pat and having met Malathi in England, even though there were 2 young girls in the family, he was allowed into the Brahmin household. There was about a 16 year difference between my parents, so my father would have been about 24 when he first met my mother in 1916 as an eight year old child running around in pigtails (with Sushila just six). Eleven years later when my mother was 19 and my father 35, this relationship turned to love. I often wonder if my grandfather would have been as liberal to opening his doors to my father, if they had been closer in age-- even with all the introductions. The Paranjpe Girls Not only were the three girls beautiful, but they would go on to live extraordinary lives. Sushila, the youngest daughter, went to medical school in Madras, and would later go to England and do her post-doctoral work. Later, she would fall in love and marry Shashi Gore. Shashi was a student in England (played cricket for Oxford,) and would eventually join the Indian Railways. Sushila came back to India to practice medicine, focusing on the needs of women—especially poor women. She tried to find ways to give them control and freedom over their own bodies and lives. Aruna (Gore) Malik is her daughter. Sushila would continue to foster the needs of women and eventually would become head of family planning for South East Asia. Malathi would be the only one of the Paranjpe girls to have an arranged marriage. Pat had fallen in love with her while in England, and though she was not attracted or interested in him, agreed to marry him when her father suggested it—no doubt flattered to be made a Sangli Princess. She was a Patwardhan only for a short while, because once she knew she could not love him, (and after my grandfather died,) she asked Pat for a divorce. He was a kind man, and went and took residence in Baroda (apparently the only state which allowed divorce then), and helped her get a divorce from him. She became the first Brahmin to get a divorce in India. By this time, Akka had become interested in J Krishnamurthi’s work and began to become part of the inner circle of JK supporters. Some years after her divorce, she met and fell in love with Jal Naoroji, (Dadabhai Naoroji’s grandson or nephew, I dont remember which). Jal was part of the extended Tata Family and a director of Tatas. She was deeply in love, and came to experience everything she had missed in her first marriage. But tragedy befell them. Jal was misdiagnosed for an illness, and given the opposite treatment to what he needed. He died just 6 months after they were married. Akka then devoted herself to finding ways to help the Krishnamurthi foundation. Without Malathi Naoroji, and her devotion to J Krishnamurthi and my father, Rishi Valley would never have been possible. With her on the board, and with her skills at raising money, Rishi Valley survived the critical early years. Few, if any people in Rishi Valley know or acknowledge the enormous debt to her, because like my father, when politics began to blurr the vision they had for the school, she too resigned from the trust and left without fuss. My mother was the quietest of the three sisters, and the one my father fell in love with. He said that she had more “grit” than anyone gave her credit for!. Anasuya: Montesorri and Marriage By the 1920’s my mother’s father left his job with the Raja of Sangli and became Headmaster of a school for the TS, and later accepted the position of Principal of the Theosophical College, Kanpur. He was not in the position very long, when he died of a massive heart attack in about 1928. Soon after, my mother and grandmother left Kanpur to live for a few months with relatives in Gwalior. My father was already in contact with the Maharaja Scindia, and visiting Gwalior --and it was during this period they must have fallen in love. In those days, the display of affection was unheard of. I expect that with a 16 year difference in age between my mother and father and the old family history of friendship, my grandmother suspected nothing. However, when my father asked her to marry him, my mother must have known how difficult if not impossible it was going to be for a Brahmin to marry an Englishman. The sudden death of her father (who left little money at his death), and her determination that she would only marry for love, made her want to be sure that she could take care of herself and her mother. My mother had become interested in the new methods available to teach young children and heard about a new method called the Montessori system. She borrowed money and went to England --to be trained by Madame Montessori in person. When she returned after a couple of years, my father was as fervent in his love as before. When she asked her mother for permission to marry, it was denied as she had expected. My grandmother knew and respected my father---but she knew that there would be ostracism from both the English and Indian community if they persisted. My mother told my grandmother that she would of course not marry without her permission and blessing, but she would not agree to an arranged marriage either. With her new Montessori certification, she knew she could take care of them both and pay back the loan. My grandmother later relented –and the rest is history. In 1930, my mother would be the second Brahmin to marry and Englishman, (Rukumani Arundale, I think being the first). First Montessori School Soon after they were married, my mother persuaded the Maharani of Gwalior to give her one of the summer palaces to use as the location of one of the first Montessori schools in India. She was very proud to tell me that she paid back the within a year, from money she earned. My mother would have two twin boys in 1932 (Jai and Vijai) while my parents lived in Gwalior Fort. During this time my father built up the reputation of Scindia School to be one of the top Indian Public Schools. I was born ten years later in 1942, after my parents moved from Gwalior Fort, to Gwalior City to take over the State’s education system.. Inspector General of Gwalior State The Maharaja Scindia now asked for my father’s help on a grander scale, and asked him to become Inspector General of Education for Gwalior State. Here, we lived the “palace” life that came with my father being a senior minister in one of India’s biggest princely states. My mother especially became a close friend of the Maharani. I remember this period only vaguely, because in 1946-47, with Independence coming and the princely states soon to disappear, my father accepted the urging of the Birla’s to start Birla Vidya Mandir, a public school in Nainital, and we moved there in 1947. Birla Vidya Mandir Nainital birlavidyamandir/ Birla Vidya Mandir and some notable friends My father laid the educational foundations of the new school over the next two years, continuing to write books for use in Indian Schools (The Struggle of Modern Man, Footprints on the Sands of Time and many others.) During the time from 1918 onwards he continued to develop friendships with George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, Jawaharlal Nehru, Lady Mountbatten and others and the admiration and love of the thousands of students who went to his schools or were influenced by his kindness. Ceylon: Under Secretary of Education and Return to India After about two years setting up and getting Birla Vidya Mandir functioning smoothly, my father agreed to the request from the new Government of Ceylon that had just gained its freedom from the British. They asked him to return to the country where he started his journey in the East, and help reorganize the country’s education system. He was offered the post of Permanent Under-Secretary of Education (the top non political position in the government,) and we left for Ceylon in late 1948. About nine months after he arrived in Ceylon, J Krishnamurthi contacted my father with an urgent request. He told him that without his help, the Rishi Valley School, previously run by the JK Foundation and closed for a year or so, would have to be closed for ever. He wanted him to use his stature as an educationist to restart it as a public school, but with children living in an environment that was free from fear, and without coercion, punishment and competition so prevalent in the educational systems of the time. Rishi Valley: First Looks My father’s greatest wish was to apply Krishnaji’s teachings in an educational setting, since so many of his ideas coincided with JK. Unfortunately, he had signed a four year contract with the Government of Ceylon. Going to Rishi Valley would mean breaking the contract and result in great financial hardship. My parents had not accumulated any wealth, and both my brothers were starting college--- and I was six or seven and still had to be educated. In spite of this, energized at the thought of implementing this great educational experiment, and supported by my mother, my parents decided to take the challenge. So, in 1949-50, we boarded a ship in Colombo and started our journey for Madras. A few days later, we arrived in Kurabalakota station by a slow train—and took a bullock cart that moonlit night to the completely dark surroundings of Rishi Valley. I was only about 7 years old at the time, and Rishi Valley was a lonely place. When we arrived the school had been completely closed for some time and the only person still there was Raju Mama. FG Pearce: The man My father was known for his fairness and kindness. It is what everyone remembers—that, and his blue eyes and white hair. It was not that he was weak, or permitted unkind behavior or bullying, but he had a way of empathizing with each person, so they felt that he heard and understood them. It was this great gift that helped him change even the most hardened people. Over the last 50 years, wherever I go, people tell me how profoundly he impacted them, of his gentleness, and his unassuming ways. How he used his power and authority with kindness, and always believed the best in everyone he met. It was his spirit of “we can do it”, that helped him motivate both teachers and children to do extraordinary things. And over the years throughout India, he became known as the educator who could transform and change the people he touched. F.G. Pearce: The Practical Visionary The word went out all over India that F.G. Pearce was starting a new school that would be based on Krishnaji’s philosophy and his own vision for education. It was going to be a school full of possibility, where children would be loved, and without any corporal punishment. It would be a place where no teacher would be permitted to use fear and coercion. Class sizes would be small so each child could have individual attention, and children would learn by “doing”—instead of by rote. It would be a place where the excitement of learning would be nurtured (the kind of excitement that one sees in every 2 year old child experimenting with the world around him,) and made part of the life of every child in the school, from 6 to 16. It would be a new kind of place, where the school fit the child, rather than the child fit the school. Even though he was a visionary, my father was a practical educator. He understood the importance of Rishi Valley being identified as a Public School. He knew that this “stamp” was needed to draw students from all over India, especially the cities. He was aware that most parents would not really understand the vision he had for the school, but needed to know they would get a good education. As a founding member of the Indian Public School Conference and with his national stature as an educator, even though the school was not ready, my father was able to get RVS accredited as a Public School. Accreditation was (and is) a long and involved process, and without his reputation and influence to accelerate things, the accreditation would have not have occurred before funds ran out, and Rishi Valley would have had to close even before it ever got going. Rishi Valley: The Early Years With the national stature my father as an educator, and the love people had for him, it was not long before a dedicated group of teachers began to gather. Great teachers began to join him, energized by his vision and his willingness to discuss and implement new ways to teach. David Horsburgh joined. (he later started the Neel Bagh village schools). So did Sardar Mohamed who previously taught at the Doon School and many others like him. They all came, ready to take part in a grand experiment in new education. Malathi Naoroji left her farm in Bombay, ready to do whatever was needed to help and to generate funds. And so it began, with my father and his whole team hard at work, designing and defining the school plan, and setting up a new set of education criteria. There was no money, my father took no salary, and Malathi (Naoroji) Akka worked tirelessly to gather funds for the school. Vahni Paranjpe and her husband (my mother’s oldest brother) joined my parents. Vahni took charge of the kitchen, so children could have good food, and my uncle took charge of the library that had been allowed to fall apart, with no organization and with books piled everywhere. In parallel with all this startup activity, the word went out to parents everywhere. People who knew my father or were friends of the family, told everyone they knew of this brand new Public School that was going to give their children a new kind of education. Parents had no idea about what this meant, but knew if it was a Public School run by FG Pearce, their children would be fine. Most, if not all of us here today, are from that initial group whose came to Rishi Valley because of my father’s reputation. Neterhat: A Public School for Each State For many years, my father had lobbied every state governor he met, to consider starting a truly “Public” School. He wanted each state to have a school supported with state and scholarship money, that would provide bright but less fortunate children with the kind of Public School education only the very well-off could afford. When the Bihar Government agreed with him, he helped them design and build such a school. Using the old hunting lodge of a British Governor in the hills of Netarhat near Ranchi, he built the Neterhat Public School. In the summer of 1952 during the RVS summer holidays, I went with my parents to Ranchi by train. Then we drove up to the hills of Netarhat to the old hunting lodge. Over the next few months my father helped design the buildings, created the framework for the school organization and developed the curriculum. The school was opened in 1954 and from its inception, has flourished. netarhatvidyalaya/ Sri. F. G. Pearces scheme finally received the general approval of the Bihar Govt. in 1952 and the Residential School was opened on 15th November, 1954 at Netarhat with Sri. Charles Napier as its First Principal. The School admitted the first batch of students numbering 60 in 1954 for a six-years course. From 1982 onwards, the strength of Boys was raised up to 100. It is interesting that Neterhat, a school in which he spent just a few months, honors F.G. Pearce by having his picture and description on the very front of their website. Even without his active participation, they were able to recognize the great contribution he made to them. It is sad that RVS which could never have existed without him, and got ten years of his devotion, barely recognizes his existence. The first RVS Students Nina Merchant, Yeshwant, Viyayalaksmi Rao, Aruna Reddy, Nattu Sundaram and I, were a few of the first students. And each term we grew a little more, gaining the critical mass of students and teachers that was needed to let us start functioning as a school. My Mother and Father in RVS. Photo given to my father by Vijaylakshmi Rao, 1956 As we grew, we needed even more money for equipment, infrastructure repair and teachers. So Akka decided we would have our children do a recital in different cities, and she would use all her contacts to get them to pay large amounts to advertise in the program. Many of you were in these recitals with Shobha and Rewa Gokhale, and Aruna Gore, among them. By 1957 we had a hundred children and a five year waiting list. The fame and reputation of RVS had spread. It seemed as if my father’s and Krishnaji’s vision was being fulfilled, and that the ten hard but exciting years he had spent had created a school that everyone could be proud of. RVS had turned into a place of love, harmony, and cooperation, where new experiments in education continued and where the learning process for teachers and students never stopped. In 1958, before my 16th birthday and soon after my Senior Cambridge examinations in India, I left for England to go to Leighton Park School to do my “A” Levels. By then, RVS was firmly established as a great school. Devoted to RVS and to this new form of education, my father was never complacent and constantly involved teachers and others interested in exploring new ways of learning. However the more famous the school became, the more others wanted to be involved in the direction the school was to take. Many of them preferred to return to more conventional school goals, and were at odds with his vision. My father was by this time almost 70. He had always been a prolific writer ( many of his books published by Oxford University Press were widely in use in India) and he and my mother decided it was time to retire. They moved to Ooty where he intended to write some more, (including his autobiography). Of course, others would not let him retire! Malathi Naoroji , my mother’s older sister formed the F.G Pearce Educational and Charitable Trust, and would then buy a property in Ooty to house the new school . It was the hunting lodge built in the early 1900’s, by the then Governor of Burma. By the 1960’s it had become the summer home of the Maharaja of Vijayanagaram and would soon be The Blue Mountains School. My father was too ill by then to run the school, but the vision for education that he started in Rishi Valley continues in this school today. . Unfortunately, as a young man in India, my father contracted amoebic dysentery. It damaged parts of his gastro intestinal system and in 1960, he underwent multiple surgeries to try to correct the intestinal adhesions that had been causing him severe pain. By then I had been away for almost 3 years (I could not come home from England as funds were limited), and studying Electrical Engineering at the University of Manchester. In the summer of 1961, I returned to India for the first time in 3 years, not yet 19 years old. It was not to be happy reunion as I came home to a dying father. I was at his bedside with my mother and many of his family and loved supporters beside him. He died in Bombay to which he had come in the summer of 1961, and my brothers and I took his ashes and spread them in the sea. The “Englishman who became Indian” was going to be the title the autobiography my father would not have time to write, but his legacy to India continues. It is in the Indian Scouting Movement he started, in the Indian Public Schools conference he founded, and in the many schools he helped create that continue to thrive and educate India’s leaders. An even better gift to me than the book my father would not write, are the loving comments made by his former students, and by others who remember him, each time I come home to India. I now live in the US with my wife Tonja and we have four children, who are of course fully grown. Our connection to India continues as two of our two daughters Allyn and Malini have both lived and taught at the Blue Mountains School. Tonja (herself a prolific author and educator), and I come every year to visit the School and for the annual meeting of the F.G Pearce Educational and Charitable Trust. Like my father before me, I had hoped to go to Oxford or Cambridge, but like him could not do it because of a lack of funds. Allyn has done that for me by not only getting a MSc at Oxford, but also by joining the F.G. Pearce Trust. We now have the next generation ready to continue the Indian legacy of the Pearce family, for many years to come. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix: Letters from some notable people Aldous Huxley George Bernard Shaw One of many letters from Jawaharlal Nehru
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 07:19:48 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015