Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
From the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the East India Company slowly acquired the area which is now called Uttar Pradesh. Territories were acquired from different powers by the company were initially kept under Bengal Province. However, in 1833 these, areas were separated and a new province called North-Western Provinces was created. Again, after the annexation of Oudh, this province came to be called in 1877 as North-Western Provinces. The United Provinces of Agra and Oudh was changed to United Provinces in 1902 which later became present Uttar Pradesh. Colonial rule wanted to control the knowledge systems of the colonized. The epistemology and knowledge systems produced by the colonial state sought to create the feeling of interiority among the colonized people. Education is one such area through which the colonial state wanted to justify their rule. The British argued that Indians were inferior and justified their monopoly of all higher posts. They, further, pointed out that untouchability, rigid caste system are some of the reasons for inferiority. In this article, I would like to discuss the colonial state policy towards education of lower castes and depressed classes in Kumaon division of United Provinces of British India. I argue that although the British professed that it wanted to educate all people, yet in practice the colonial state gave in to the caste prejudices of the society and also because of its own ambivalent policy towards depressed classes. Doms constitute majority of Dalit community in Kumaon division of United Provinces from whom Shilpakar community emerged gradually.

Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
The caste system in India got transformed as a consequence of the policies of the British Raj. The introduction of the census under the colonial government, among other things, made the most direct impact because for the first time the castes have been enumerated with great details. As a result, castes immediately not only organized themselves but also formed caste associations in order to get their status recorded in the way they thought was honourable to them. Caste associations emerged over the period to pressurize the colonial administration to improve their rank in the census. This process was especially prevalent among the lower castes in different parts of India. Shilpakar Mahashaba was a case in point in Uttarakhand. Shilpakar Mahasabha claimed new advantages from the state like reservations (quotas) in educational institutions and in the civil service. Subsequently, they also became mutual aid structures. Shilpakar Mahasabha founded schools and hostels for the children of Shilpakars and led a sort of co-operative movement. Some have argued that caste associations acted like a collective enterprise with economic, social and political objectives for their caste.