British Legacy in Education: Is it “Cultural Pollution”?

In an impressive seminar a noted Dalit columnist of The Pioneer, Chandra Bhan Prasad, had once said some years ago in Delhi that the Britishers “came too late to India and left too early”. India would not have been a modern state today with inclusion of all communities if the Britishers had not invaded the country with their language and culture was his argument. Without mincing words, he had asserted that the lives and cultures of the subaltern communities had no place as long as the Brahmanic education and culture was the only form of education that was existent. In contrast to Sanskrit education, English language has liberated the Indian minds and culture, he had opined.

There are others who have said that the established literature before the coming of the British was Brahmanic literature and all literature pertaining to subaltern classes had no place there. They have even questioned the entire concept of Indian literature and have raised questions on whose literature is it and what constitutes Indian literature. The engagement of the subaltern classes with literature of the times before the coming of the British and during the British era has made them to conclude that much of Indian literature has been elite, upper caste and Brahmanic. Even the anti-colonial literature did not have space for the writings of minority and subaltern communities. The purpose was perhaps to keep the traditional Indian society intact without changes since it allowed a group of people to be parasites living on the labour of the subaltern classes.

English have been Liberative

To the subaltern communities the coming of the British with a modern, universal and egalitarian agenda may have been socially liberative though the British had their economic agenda to transform India into a colony. That is why what Chandra Bhan said at that meet and other Dalit and minority scholars have been stating in recent years is not without basis. While one cannot deny substance in their argument since it contains partial truth, it may not be the full truth.

On the other hand Rajnath Singh, the BJP President’s statement that our education is a British legacy aimed at “subjugating Indian minds” that had led to “cultural pollution” may have a lot to do with the hidden agenda of the RSS and its affiliates who have never worked for a social transformation. As a representative of the RSS and its affiliates what does he mean when he says education has to be tuned to Indian thought and culture? Which Indian thought is he talking about?

In spite of some of the very positive aspects of English education, one may not be able to make a complete case for the bygone British rulers and the way they decided to get a hold on the country by using all kinds of devices including education. However, one needs to be more critical when Rajnath attacks British education as cultural pollution. What does he mean by cultural pollution? Does he mean that India should have remained a hierarchical society with Brahmanic education with its caste culture without the freedom of the mind? Is he aware that his so-called Indian culture silenced the voices of the subalterns and minorities and continues to do so?

English Language contains Universal Values

The prime attack of Rajnath and his associates on English education is because of its universalism and egalitarianism. Every attempt is made to hide these two characteristics of British education that united the country even for the freedom struggle. There would not have been the possibility of a united struggle without the English language. Of course, the freedom struggle does not matter for the RSS. They weren’t a part of it. Even after independence there is little the group has done to make India free from myths and dogmas. The group is still least interested in the social liberation of the weaker sections. To further their agenda, the Macaulay minutes and all the statements of British rule in India are misrepresented by the party and its associates. Not that one makes a case for British rule in India or its return. British rule had definite designs to loot and plunder as far economics was concerned. But it is quite different when misrepresentation of statements is continuously carried on for vested interests. Let us look at British education in the perspective in which it was offered. That would give us an insight into the real motives of English education in India.

Lord Macaulay, as the first Law Member in the Governor General’s Council, had advocated introducing the English system of education in the country. Governor General William Bentinck had agreed with Macaulay’s minutes and wrote: “The great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of European literature and Science among the natives of India.” Does that create ‘a new generation of English speaking Indians, loyal to the British crown, to act as an army of clerks’? To the Hindu Right every statement that is there has to be interpreted to suit their hidden agenda though the group has taken all advantage of English learning. What does that text mean? It is a practice among communalists to quote texts that suit their agenda and go on repeating them to make it enter into the consciousness of the people. Since there are hardly many persons who would go to the original text of Macaulay, it becomes easy for the children of Golwalkar and Savarkar to take sentences out of context and go on repeating the texts to suit their agenda. The purpose of course is to tell the country that they are patriots and the Britishers were foreigners who destroyed the very idea of a golden Indian that existed in their figment of imagination.

What is the Truth?

Let me quote some of those texts to bring out the truth of those texts. “It would be far better for us that the people of India were well governed and independent of us, than ill governed and subject to us; that they were ruled by their own kings, but wearing our broadcloth, and working with our cutlery, than that they were performing their salaams to English collectors and English magistrates, but were too ignorant to value, or too poor to buy, English manufactures… In order that India might remain a dependency, would make it a useless and costly dependency, which would keep a hundred millions of men from being our customers in order that they might continue to be our slaves.” (Minutes: July 10, 1833) Britain may have preferred India to be a country of traders and businessmen than a colony for business interests. They would have traded better and more profitably. At least both Macaulay and William Bentinck wanted the English language to open the Indian mind for better governance.

Unfortunately we have not looked at higher education in the country as an exercise in the training of the mind so that those who pass out of institutions of higher learning learn to be independent and autonomous in their thoughts and ideas. We have created a system where the mind is controlled with archaic views with ideologues of various hues and cries indoctrinating our minds. Faithfulness to the teachers and their views has become more important in universities and colleges for students than creating an atmosphere for the circulation and discussion of ideas.

When Rajnath talks about education what he desires from students is adherence to those norms of Indian culture that are manufactured—a set of myths, beliefs and dogmas—and through which his organisation desires to indoctrinate the country. We have seen that attempt during the regime of National Democratic Alliance in this country when Dr Murli Manohar Joshi presided over the Human Resource Development Ministry.

Let me once again quote a text from the Macaulay minutes. Further; [July 10, 1833] “It may be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown that system; that by good government we may educate our subjects into a capacity for better government.” To expand the mental horizon, new ideas and thoughts need to be listened to and responded. Will the RSS and BJP ever allow education to expand the minds of students so that they are able to question and interrogate the present system and work for change? The British education was a tool towards better governance whatever may have been the limitations of that governance. It would be damaging to Indian history to have a single factor explanation of colonial education.

Equality before Law

On the question of “Equality before Law” the minutes of July 10, 1833 read, “… the worst of all systems was surely that of having a mild code for the Brahmins, who sprang from the head of the Creator, while there was a severe code for the Sudras, who sprang from his feet. India has suffered enough already from the distinction of castes, and from the deeply rooted prejudices which that distinction has engendered. God forbid that we should inflict on her the curse of a new caste, that we should send her a new breed of Brahmins, authorised to treat all the native population as Pariahs! Should native Indians hold high offices...? We are told that the time can never come when the natives of India can be admitted to high civil and military office... I allude to that wise, that benevolent, that noble clause which enacts that no native of our Indian empire shall, by reason of his colour, his descent, or his religion, be incapable of holding office.”

Where then is the cultural pollution and subjugation? Is making a shift from a hierarchical system where those at the top of the ladder benefited and the lowest were brutally treated to an egalitarian system where everyone was to be treated as a human person cultural pollution? Why does Rajnath not make a critique of India’s cultural pollution of caste instead of subtly calling for its revival?

English and Freedom of the Mind

Was Macaulay attempting to create ‘intellectual slaves’ for the British Empire or men and women of open minds? Does the often quoted statement that “we must at present do our best to form a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect” a proof of it? Once again, the quote is twisted, taken out of context, and thus
presents Lord Macaulay as a villain. But one must read the full paragraph of February 1835 “Minutes” on Indian education. “It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present to 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. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.” One must once in a way pay a tribute to the broad under-standing of Macaulay’s goals of education.

The communalists practice their communalism against Macaulay by taking his quotes out of context. The British system wanted to create a group of persons who are open-minded and see beyond the rigid system of caste culture. In fact, the Britishers were critical of their own system and had learnt a lot from other systems. “The first instance, to which I refer, is the great revival of letters among the Western nations at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. At that time almost every-thing that was worth reading was contained in the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Had our ancestors neglected the language of Cicero and Tacitus; had they confined their attention to the old dialects of our own island; had they printed nothing and taught nothing at the universities but Chronicles in Anglo-Saxon, and Romances in Norman-French, would England have been what she now is? What the Greek and Latin were to the contemporaries of More and Ascham, our tongue is to the people of India.”

When the Britishers feel proud that they had learnt a lot from other cultures and traditions, we do not have to denounce colonial education entirely. The Britishers may have had their designs in introducing English education in the country. All those goals may not have suited us. But to say that English education polluted Indian minds is to insult Indian minds. Does Rajnath believe that students do not have the capacity to think differently from what is imparted to us? The comment demeans Indian minds.

Modernity in India

Macaulay wanted modernity in India. Some term him as a finest rationalist of his time. On English education in India, the British officials were divided into two camps. The powerful Orientalists wanted the indigenous system of education to continue, with Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian as the media of instruction. The Anglicist camp, led by Lord Macaulay, argued for the European kind of modern education, with focus on modern sciences. Macaulay won.

What if the indigenous education continued, with Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian as the media of instruction? Our minds might have become more attentive to the Talibanistic voices like that of Rajnath and the country might have been in various kinds of conflicts with plenty of violence on issues of caste, class, gender, religion and ethnicity. We would have been most probably like Afghanistan, some of the Arab states, Pakistan and present-day Syria. We would not have had a secular democracy premised on ‘one person, one vote and one value”, rational thought and interaction with the global knowledge and economy.

Chandra Bhan Prasad compares Macaulay to Gandhi and Nehru. If Gandhi epitomised freedom movement Lord Macaulay gave us a new freedom of the mind, he says. He was the late Jawaharlal Nehru, if Nehru epitomised modernity. Did English language open us to the wider world and make it possible to access classics and science? Why don’t we give credit when it needs to be given to the English language? If India is a global player today thanks to the global language of English offered to us by the colonial masters.

However, this is not to deny that the advancement of English language has caused other problems of lack of development of local languages and culture. But one does not have to brood over those problems as long as we are able to address them. What needs to be denounced is the romanticisation and glorification of ancient Indian culture as propagated and promoted by the RSS and its affiliates.

Dr Ambrose Pinto S.J. is the Principal of St. Aloysius Degree College, Bangalore.