Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

When Kumar — who is said to have been the main mind behind Prof Yashpal's seminal report "Learning Without Burden" — mentioned Gijubhai, I vaguely recalled my father, Jagubhai Shah, also referring to him as a great Gandhian educationist. As often happens in youth, I didn’t pay much attention to what my father said about him. I vaguely remember my father telling me he had been associated as an art teacher at Ghar Shala, which later became Dakshinamurti Balmandir, founded by Gijubhai for his educational experiments.

My recent interest in Gijubhai, also known as “Mucchadi Maa” (mother with moustaches), stems from a contact I received from someone in Pune — of Mamata Verma, my school classmate. I was told she is Gijubhai’s granddaughter and had created a site: https://gijubhaibadheka.in. After leaving school in 1970, I met her sometime in the early 1990s after I joined The Times of India, Ahmedabad, as assistant editor. It was at the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), where I had been invited to speak on media and the environment. I was told she had spent around 35 years at CEE.

This prompted me to recall two contrasting viewpoints on Gijubhai that exist in Gujarat today. One, a critical perspective, is from top Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, who had written a critique of Gijubhai objecting to his views on Dalits several years ago.

During a recent interaction with Macwan, I asked him specifically about his objections. He said that while Gijubhai’s contributions to pedagogy were unparalleled (“he used the Montessori method of teaching in Indian circumstances”), he suffered from the same casteist attitudes that plagued most Gandhians of his time.

“My article was published in the journal Naya Marg (now defunct), edited by the late Indubhai Jani,” he said, and went on to describe a story written by Gijubhai for children. “The story is about a princess who falls in love with what Gijubhai calls a bhangi. The term itself is derogatory. The boy wants to marry the princess.”

Macwan continued, “Her brother, the prince, lays down a condition: she can marry the boy if he wins a gambling game. The prince loses, and the princess marries the boy, who lives in a low-lying area inhabited by so-called untouchables. She is unhappy with the place. Seeing her distress, the king attacks the locality, destroys it, and ‘frees’ the princess. The story ends with the ruler's family living happily ever after.”

“What message does this give, especially to young minds?” Macwan asked, adding, “Such views can be found in other stories by Gijubhai as well. I read many to understand his perspective.” A similar view, he said, is shared by Joseph Macwan, a well-known Gujarati litterateur, “who has also written critically about Gijubhai.”

Martin Macwan, Sukhdev Patel

He added, “And to those who say Gijubhai should be seen in the context of his times, I want to remind them that the couple Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule, also educationists and living a generation earlier (in the 19th century), strongly opposed untouchability and passionately advocated for Dalit and women’s rights in Maharashtra.”

The other viewpoint comes from Gujarat's well-known child rights leader Sukhdev Patel, who once told me that branding Gijubhai as casteist “overlooks” his immense contribution to pedagogy. A look at Gijubhai’s work suggests that while he opposed social discrimination and advocated inclusive education, there are no direct quotes in which he explicitly denounces caste discrimination.

At the institutions he established in Bhavnagar, it is said that Gijubhai promoted the inclusion of marginalized groups, encouraged Dalits to join in, and facilitated education for all, regardless of caste. His educational philosophy was centred on child-centric learning, freedom, and respect — challenging the rigid and discriminatory norms of his time.

However, the farthest he went was to say things like: “Every child has the right to a quality education, regardless of their background or circumstances,” “Education is not a privilege; it’s a fundamental human right,” or “Children are not vessels to be filled with knowledge but lamps to be lit.”

Gijubhai also said, emphasizing the need for schools to adapt to children’s diverse needs: “It is not that they are unfit for the school. Rather, the school is unfit for them. The school is unable to teach them what they have the aptitude for.” He was, his defenders point out, critical of the conventional, exam-driven schooling system that treated children as passive recipients, and instead advocated activity-based learning, storytelling, music, and hands-on experiences — something Prof Yashpal's report "Learning Without Burden" also emphasized.

It is precisely for this reason, it is pointed out, that Krishna Kumar, in a paper titled What is Worth Teaching?, laments: “We have failed to give Gijubhai the place he deserves in the national narrative of educational thought. His experiments in Bhavnagar were a far more radical challenge to colonial schooling than many better-known reform efforts.”