November 2, 2007

Teaching Children in India

To the Editor:

In her excellent "The Education of Gayatri Spivak" (The Academic Life, September 14), Liz McMillen suggests that Spivak's schools were closed by "tribal leaders" who felt threatened by the idea of educating boys beyond their station, thereby denying those "tribal leaders" of "needed" labor. In fact, the person responsible for closing the schools was a caste Hindu and a former zamindar (zamindars are latifundists who were also tax collectors for the British).