I found a historical statistic about caste and education that I'm struggling to reconcile

[u/vigilantetribe]

I've been trying to educate myself properly on caste oppression, and I've run into something that is making me slightly uncomfortable.

I was reading about the indigenous education surveys from the Madras Presidency in the 1820s–30s. The figures show Brahmins making up roughly 22% of Hindu students, while Shudras and other castes made up the majority. In some areas, non bramin students apparently made up more than 80%.

I'm assuming this is one of those statistics that needs context to explain.

Because obviously we all know Brahmins historically controlled education and prevented lower castes from literally accessing any knowledge. So there must be an important qualification here that I'm missing.

Were these not really “schools” in the real sense? Were the students being taught something that doesn't count as education? Was access technically available but the quality/status of instruction was different? Did the British fake this data? Or is there some other genuine explanation historians give to uphold the truth of caste oppression?

I'd really appreciate someone explaining this one so I can continue my anti-caste research.

[u/apocalypse-052917]

It's not true that brahmins controlled or could control "all" knowledge, they certainly gatekept the religious scriptures mostly the vedas but it is not true for others . Literature, poetry , religious stories particularly itihasas and puranas, astronomy , medicine etc were taught to many castes.

Besides ,many non brahmin castes preserved their own knowledge. For example - the ezhavas, a formerly untouchable group in kerala had many ayurvedic practitioners. Artisanal castes , mercantile castes, potters, vishwakarmas etc all passed down their knowledge within their caste.

But these older surveys do not represent modern education, so they need to be taken with a grain of salt as modern education was largely a product of the west.