A red herring called Macaulay

THE Ramnath Goenka Memorial Lecture, delivered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently, has opened a Pandora’s box regarding the enduring legacy Thomas Babington Macaulay left behind in India — his ‘Minute on Education’ (February 2, 1835) and the legal system framed in 1860 and later.

His legacy to India’s education system, which existed in diffused and disintegrated forms with a mix of excellence and ancient tradition, is claimed to be continuing despite a dozen changes suggested by various commissions and committees as well as new frameworks introduced in post-Independence India.

The focus has not merely been on pedagogy, which is value-neutral, but also in terms of what the students imbibed as ideas and practices through printed literature and other sources.

The PM accused Macaulay of ‘Shiksha vyawastha ka samool naash’ (destruction of the education system), breaking the back of kaushal (skill), shattering self-confidence, throwing the entire knowledge system into the dustbin, condemning Indian heritage and culture instead of taking pride in them and rejecting local languages. All these developments produced an inferiority complex among Indians, he claimed. Blaming previous governments, particularly those of the Congress, the PM said these tendencies were concretised after Independence.

It is indeed welcome that the Prime Minister is turning his attention to the state of education in the 12th year of his reign. Alas, the reality is not very bright. On October 19, 2020, addressing the centenary convocation of the University of Mysore, PM Modi highlighted the growth of higher education institutions such as IITs, IIMs, AIIMS and IIITs across the country during his rule. However, faculty appointments, admissions, funds and infrastructure as well as controversies regarding textbooks continue to cast dark shadows. The number of government schools has decreased (around 90,000 fewer between 2014-15 and 2023-24), while the number of private schools has gone up. These are serious imbalances.

As a Law Member of the Governor-General’s Council of India, British historian, poet and Whig politician Macaulay claimed to have presented his Minute on education that changed the entire course of education in India. Addressing the Committee of Public Instruction, he based his argument on the central theme of the Charter Act of 1813 that set aside a sum “for the revival and promotion of literature and the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British territories”.

However, it is doubtful whether he said what is being attributed to him: “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India… I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.” That’s because on February 2, 1835, he was in Calcutta, not in London.

Indeed, in referring to “the learned natives of India”, he set the tone for racial superiority even before he came to his central argument. The essential argument of his Minute was regarding not wasting public money on education in ‘Sanscrit’ and Persian. He stressed spending public funds on an education system that imparted education in science and the contemporary knowledge system in the West in English.

He mentioned in the document: “I would strictly respect all existing interests. I would deal even generously with all individuals who have had fair reason to expect a pecuniary provision. But I would strike at the root of the bad system which has hitherto been fostered by us. I would at once stop the printing of Arabic and Sanscrit books, I would abolish the Madrassa and the Sanscrit College at Calcutta. Benares is the great seat of Brahmanical learning; Delhi, of Arabic learning. If we retain the Sanscrit College at Benares and the Mahomedan College at Delhi, we do enough, and much more than enough in my opinion, for the eastern languages.”

He further said: “If the Benares and Delhi Colleges should be retained, I would at least recommend that no stipends shall be given to any students... The funds which would thus be placed at our disposal would enable us to give larger encouragement to the Hindoo College at Calcutta, and to establish in the principal cities throughout the Presidencies of Port William and Agra schools in which the English language might be well and thoroughly taught.”

He argued that a lac (lakh) rupees granted by the Government of India must not be wasted on scholarship for the students of ‘Sanscrit’ and Persian and on the publication of books in these languages, since the books in English sold more. Then came his aim, “We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect”. Further, his pithy remark, “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia”, indeed offends us as Indians.

Howsoever racist Macaulay must have been, the statement above sounds more from the pen of an administrator, contemplating a utilitarian logic for the fund having been allocated for education. The colonial administration he represented stood for extracting resources for the metropolis, not for charity. We should ask ourselves in the same spirit: did it harm us?

I will conclude with two personal experiences with two generations. A product of Macaulian education from my parents’ generation, a doctor was well-versed in Urdu, but he quickly learnt administrative Hindi. My father, an officer in the Bihar Police, had proficiency in English, Hindi and Sanskrit. Beginning my education in Bihar, I found that Hindi-medium textbooks inculcated nationalism.

Instead of drawing a red herring, we should keep building and refining an education system that is modern, contemporary, fosters scientific temper and creates an inclusive society.