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Lockwood Kipling's Role and the Establishment of the Mayo School of Art (1875–1898)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2015

TAHIR KAMRAN
TAHIR KAMRAN*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridgetk393@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article sets out to delineate the process that led to the establishment of Mayo School of Arts in Lahore in 1875. It lays down the context within which the plan to set up art institutions in India was conceived. Contrary to Krishnan Kumar's view whereby the coloniser and the colonised constituted an adult-child relationship the coloniser, in that particular relationship took the role of the adult whereas the native became the child which had been a salient feature of the educational and academic landscape of British India. By challenging Krishna Kumar, this article while drawing on the inferences of Partha Mitter and Hussain Ahmad Khan, argues that in the realm of art instruction the analysis of colonial strategies of adjustment and readjustment provide useful insights about the administrative constraints and cognitive failures of the colonial administrators in the nineteenth-Century Punjab. Challenges like space-selection for MSA campus, appropriate Curriculum for the students and their inadequate language skills stared its founder Principal Lockwood Kipling (1837–19011) in the face. This forms the major focus of the article.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 2016 , pp. 443 - 461
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Writer is indebted to Prof. Ian Talbot, Dr Nevtej Purewal and Dr Hussain Ahmed Khan for their invaluable feedback which has enabled the writer to make certain improvements in the content and the language. I am particularly grateful to Prof. C. A. Bayly for his insightful observations on the earlier draft of this article that have been crucial in the formulation of this paper's argument.

References

1 Quoted in Pinney, Christopher, Photos of the Gods: The Printed Image and Political Struggle in India (London, 2004), p.24 Google Scholar.

2 Same argument is advanced by Eric Hobsbawm and Bernard Cohn. See for detailed reference, Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence (eds.), Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 1–14 Google Scholar. Cohen, Bernard, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge (Princeton, 1996)Google Scholar.

3 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Reports on Popular Education in Punjab and its Dependencies 1883–84”.

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5 Kumar, Krishna, “Colonial Citizen as an Educational Ideal” in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.24, No.04 (Jan 28, 1989), p.45 Google Scholar.

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9 Hussain Ahmad Khan, “Artisans, Sufis and Colonial Art Institutions in Nineteenth-Century Punjab” (Singapore National University, Unpublished PhD Thesis 2012), p.136. Tarapor, Mahrukh, “John Lockwood Kipling and British Art Education in India”, Victorian Studies, Vol. 24, No.1 (Autumn, 1980), pp.53–81Google Scholar.

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11 Guha-Thakurta, Tapati, “Recovering the Nation's Art”, in Chatterjee, Partha (ed.), Texts of Power: Emerging Disciplines in Colonial Bengal (Calcutta, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, 1995), pp. 63–92 Google Scholar and Dutta, Arindam, The Bureaucracy of Beauty: Design in the Age of its Global Reproducibility (London, 2007), pp. 32–33 Google Scholar.

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23 Quoted in Choonara, Samina (ed), “Official” Chronicle of Mayo School of Art: Formative Years Under J L Kipling (Lahore, 2003), p. 137 Google Scholar.

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25 From-Her Majesty “Secretary of State for India to the Governor General of India in Council” No. 46 dated India Office, London 24thSeptember, 1874.

26 Home Department Goverment of the Punjab, “Exhibition and Schools of Art and Design in India” by Richard Temple 24th Oct., 1873, p. 6.

27 Ibid ., p. 7.

28 Ibid ., p. 9.

29 From Her Majesty's Secretary of State in India to His Excellency the Governor-General of India, Proceedings of the Government of Punjab, Home Department, India Office, London, September 24,1874. Reprinted in Choonara and others, pp. 140–57.

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34 Ibid , p. 21.

35 From Finance Department to Home Department, “Endorsement by the Govt. of India” No. 6941, dated Fort William 30th Dec. 1874.

36 From T. H. Thornton, Secretary of Government, Punjab to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, Educational Department, “Industrial School of Art and Design at Lahore”, No. 30, dated 5th January 1875.

37 Chughtai, Abbas, “Mayo School of Art: A New Light”, Lahore Museum Bulletin, XIII (2000), pp. 99–104 Google Scholar. Cited in Tarar, Nadeem Omar (2011): From ‘Primitive’ Artisans to ‘Modern’ Craftsmen: Colonialism, Culture, and Art Education in the Late Nineteenth-Century Punjab, South Asian Studies, 27:2, pp. 199–219 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Tarapor, , “John Lockwood Kipling and British Art Education in India” Victorian Studies, Vol. 24, No.1 (1980)Google Scholar.

39 From J. L. Kipling, Principal, Lahore School of Art to the Secretary to Government, Punjab. 27th May, 1875.

40 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report of the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1879–80”.

41 Walker, G. C., Esquire, Gazetteer of the Lahore District, 1893–94 (Lahore, 2006), p.302 Google Scholar.

42 Ibid .

43 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report of the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1879–80”.

44 Ibid .

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47 Choonara, Samina (ed), “Official” Chronicle of Mayo School of Art: Formative Years Under J L Kipling (Lahore, 2003)Google Scholar.

48 From J. L. Kipling, Principal, Lahore School of Art to the Secretary to Government, Punjab. 27th May, 1875.

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54 Baqir, Muhammad, Lahore Past &Present (Lahore, 1952), p. 336 Google Scholar.

55 From J. L. Kipling, Principal, Lahore School of Art to the Secretary to Government Punjab, 27thMay, 1875.

56 From J. L. Kipling, Principal, Lahore School of Art, to the Secretary, Government of Punjab, Proceedings of the Government of Punjab, Home Department, May 27, 1875, “Proposed plan for the Organization of Mayo School of Art”. Reprinted in Samina Choonara and others, pp.158–162.

57 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report of the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1875–76”.

58 Ibid .

59 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report of the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1875–76”.

60 Ibid .

61 Ibid .

62 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report of the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1876–77”.

63 Ibid .

64 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report of the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1879–80”.

65 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report of the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1877–78”.

66 Ibid .

67 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Extract from the Report of the Principal, School of Art, Lahore for 1881–82”.

68 Vandal, Pervaiz and Vandal, Sajida, The Raj, Lahore & Bhai Ram Singh (Lahore, 2006), pp. 138–145 Google Scholar.

69 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report of the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1882–83”.

70 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Extract from the Report of the Principal, School of Art, Lahore for 1984–85”.

71 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1884–85”.

72 Ibid .

73 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1885–86”.

74 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Mayo School of Art, 1885–86”.

75 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1885–86”.

76 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1886–87”.

77 Ibid .

78 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Mayo School of Art, Lahore for 1886–87”, by Lockwood Kipling.

79 Ibid .

80 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Mayo School of Art, Lahore for 1888–89”, by Lockwood Kipling.

81 Ibid .

82 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1889–90”.

83 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Mayo School of Art, Lahore for 1888–90”, by Lockwood Kipling.

84 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Mayo School of Industrial Art, Lahore for 1890–91”, by Lockwood Kipling.

85 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Director Public Instruction Punjab, 1892–93”.

86 Home Department Government of the Punjab, “Report on the Mayo Industrial School of Art, Lahore for 1892–93”, by Lockwood Kipling.