English: Photograph of a private teacher at an indigenous school in Varanasi (Benares) in Uttar Pradesh from the Archaeological Survey of India Collections: India Office Series (Volume 46), taken in c.1870 by Brajo Gopal Bromochary.

A private teacher in one of the indigenous schools in Varanasi (Benares) teaching boys to write letters and figures on the ground. The standing boy with arms raised is undergoing punishment.

From the middle of the nineteenth century the government encouraged the improvement of indigenous and vernacular schools across the sub-continent. This view, showing a class in progress in front of cloth backdrop, was probably exhibited at one of the European Universal Exhibitions during the nineteenth century in order to demonstrate methods of teaching and discipline. The photograph is inscribed on the album page, 'Taken by the photographer in the service of H.H. the Maharaja of Benares...Exhibitor H.H. the Maharaja of Benares. After exhibition to be placed at the disposal of His Excy. the Secretary of State for India.'