- Thomas Babington Macaulay imposed English in Indian education nearly 200 years ago
- PM Narendra Modi emphasized undoing the harm by 2035, the bicentennial year
- The new National Education Policy prioritizes education in local languages
It will be 200 years in 10 years since the time British historian and politician Thomas Babington Macaulay began a colonial campaign to uproot the cultural foundations of India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an event on Monday.
This decade is critical for the people of India because the nation needs to undo the harm that Macaulay's decisions had inflicted before 2035, when India will complete 200 years of imposition of the English language in education, PM Modi said at the sixth Ramnath Goenka Lecture in Delhi.
"Nations like Japan, China and South Korea adopted many western practices but never compromised on their native languages. This is why the new National Education Policy places special emphasis on education in local languages," PM Modi said.
He clarified the government was not opposed to the English language, but firmly supported Indian languages.
We take a look, briefly, into the context behind PM Modi's appeal to citizens.
What
In 1835, Macaulay decided to impose the English language in India's education system and called for introducing Western science and literature studies.
At that time, the colonial powers viewed the Indian education system as inferior to what they followed back home in Britain, the 'Western' model of education.
Macaulay's long-term goal aimed at creating a layer of a new class of Indians who would grow up on a diet of Western education and the English language. In other words, an English-speaking elite class in India.
The policy change in colonial India that favoured Western education and promised upward mobility led to support dying out for India's traditional education system and local languages.
Why
Historians say Macaulay believed that a new class of Indians who know English and are familiar with Western thinking would act as a bridge between the British colonial powers and the masses.
His quote in 'Minute on Indian Education' published in 1835 became controversial, and also somewhat distorted in recent years on social media. Here is the longer, relevant and nuanced quote that appears in 'Macaulay's Minute on Education, February 2, 1835':
"All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are moreover so poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable work into them. It seems to be admitted on all sides, that the intellectual improvement of those classes of the people who have the means of pursuing higher studies can at present be affected only by means of some language not vernacular amongst them.
"What then shall that language be? One-half of the committee maintain that it should
be the English. The other half strongly recommend the Arabic and Sanscrit [sic]. The whole question seems to me to be - which language is the best worth knowing?
"I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit [sic] or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit [sic] works. I have conversed, both here and at home, with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation of the orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is indeed fully admitted by those members of the committee who support the oriental plan of education..."
How
The immediate effect of Macaulay's introduction of the Western education system and the English language to overwrite India's traditional systems was the sudden fall in interest in the Indian system.
The more cultural and long-term harm involved division in society and sowing seeds of doubt on Indian knowledge.
The sum total of the results today of Macaulay's policy decided nearly 200 years ago was what PM Modi referred to as "psychological slavery" which must be removed permanently.
"Another important thing is complete freedom from the slave mentality. 190 years ago, in 1835, an Englishman named Macaulay sowed the seeds of uprooting India from its roots. Macaulay laid the foundation of slavery in India. Ten years later, in 2035, that unholy event will complete 200 years. For the next 10 years, we have to move ahead with the goal of freeing India from the mentality of slavery," PM Modi said.
