On the
unfair criticism of Lord Macaulay in present day India.
It has become accepted wisdom to blame Lord Macaulay for all that ails the present Indian education system .The ubiquitousness of this rather simplistic opinion struck me, as it were, when the principal of a reputed engineering college in Bangalore started his address to the students by squarely laying the blame on Lord Macaulay for the mediocre nature of the current Indian educational scenario. This is clearly absurd, not merely because of the time-frames involved in the proposition, but also due to the construction of a convenient evil boogeyman who can take responsibility, thus saving those in-charge the torturous exercise of honest self-critique and the need to make exigent changes to the Indian education system.
Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, (1800-1859) is widely regarded as the greatest English historian of the Victorian era. He was a proud Englishman and like most learned men of his day, expresses a blatant Eurocentric world-view in his writings. It was accepted wisdom in the Imperialistic age that the “Orientals” needed European education for their upliftment, and the very project of colonization was rationalized as an exercise in bringing enlightenment values to the benighted heathen of the Orient. It must be noted that western notions of inherent superiority extends as far back as the Greeks and Romans, whose world was dichotomized into Greeks and Barbarians, and conquest implied Hellenizing the Barbarians and instilling Greek values in such societies.
It has become accepted wisdom to blame Lord Macaulay for all that ails the present Indian education system .The ubiquitousness of this rather simplistic opinion struck me, as it were, when the principal of a reputed engineering college in Bangalore started his address to the students by squarely laying the blame on Lord Macaulay for the mediocre nature of the current Indian educational scenario. This is clearly absurd, not merely because of the time-frames involved in the proposition, but also due to the construction of a convenient evil boogeyman who can take responsibility, thus saving those in-charge the torturous exercise of honest self-critique and the need to make exigent changes to the Indian education system.
Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay, (1800-1859) is widely regarded as the greatest English historian of the Victorian era. He was a proud Englishman and like most learned men of his day, expresses a blatant Eurocentric world-view in his writings. It was accepted wisdom in the Imperialistic age that the “Orientals” needed European education for their upliftment, and the very project of colonization was rationalized as an exercise in bringing enlightenment values to the benighted heathen of the Orient. It must be noted that western notions of inherent superiority extends as far back as the Greeks and Romans, whose world was dichotomized into Greeks and Barbarians, and conquest implied Hellenizing the Barbarians and instilling Greek values in such societies.
Thus, it is
easy to contextualize Lord Macaulay’s views in his famous “Minute on Education”
when he opines :
“ 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.
It was the “Minute on Education” speech that settled the education debate in the British Parliament and paved way for the introduction of English education in India.
It must be said that this article is not meant as a passionate defense of Macaulay. Rather, it’s an attempt to honestly evaluate Macaulay’s position and discuss his views in a rational manner. This discussion has become a rarity in the recent past due to post-colonial and ultra-nationalistic views as a reactionary defence to colonial racism and condescension. However, this discussion is of quite some importance, as it seeks to analyze the very roots of institutionalized education in the Indian subcontinent.
Lord Macaulay makes a compelling case for introducing English education in India in his famous “Minute by the Hon’ble” dated 2/2/1835. ( http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html )
There are two crucial points raised by Macaulay in this letter:
1) To educate the Natives (Indians) in the European sciences.
2) To use English as the medium of instruction.
I’m certain that no one shall argue with the less controversial former proposition.
To quote Macaulay - It is argued, or rather taken for granted, that by literature the Parliament can have meant only Arabic and Sanscrit literature; that they never would have given the honourable appellation of "a learned native" to a native who was familiar with the poetry of Milton, the metaphysics of Locke, and the physics of Newton; but that they meant to designate by that name only such persons as might have studied in the sacred books of the Hindoos all the uses of cusa-grass, and all the mysteries of absorption into the Deity.
One can see the false alternative employed here. It is dishonest to contrast secular knowledge and religious tradition of two countries. It would be not be entirely wrong to contrast Milton, Locke and Newton with Indian giants of the same genre – Kalidasa, Chankya(/Navya-Nyaya philosophers) , Aryabhatta/Bhaskara/ Nilakantha etc. Even this comparison is misleading as the aforementioned English and Indian philosophers are separated by centuries.
“ 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.
It was the “Minute on Education” speech that settled the education debate in the British Parliament and paved way for the introduction of English education in India.
It must be said that this article is not meant as a passionate defense of Macaulay. Rather, it’s an attempt to honestly evaluate Macaulay’s position and discuss his views in a rational manner. This discussion has become a rarity in the recent past due to post-colonial and ultra-nationalistic views as a reactionary defence to colonial racism and condescension. However, this discussion is of quite some importance, as it seeks to analyze the very roots of institutionalized education in the Indian subcontinent.
Lord Macaulay makes a compelling case for introducing English education in India in his famous “Minute by the Hon’ble” dated 2/2/1835. ( http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html )
There are two crucial points raised by Macaulay in this letter:
1) To educate the Natives (Indians) in the European sciences.
2) To use English as the medium of instruction.
I’m certain that no one shall argue with the less controversial former proposition.
To quote Macaulay - It is argued, or rather taken for granted, that by literature the Parliament can have meant only Arabic and Sanscrit literature; that they never would have given the honourable appellation of "a learned native" to a native who was familiar with the poetry of Milton, the metaphysics of Locke, and the physics of Newton; but that they meant to designate by that name only such persons as might have studied in the sacred books of the Hindoos all the uses of cusa-grass, and all the mysteries of absorption into the Deity.
One can see the false alternative employed here. It is dishonest to contrast secular knowledge and religious tradition of two countries. It would be not be entirely wrong to contrast Milton, Locke and Newton with Indian giants of the same genre – Kalidasa, Chankya(/Navya-Nyaya philosophers) , Aryabhatta/Bhaskara/ Nilakantha etc. Even this comparison is misleading as the aforementioned English and Indian philosophers are separated by centuries.
One can see the Hegelian view of history shining
through Macaulay’s thesis. He believes history to be a continuous series of
leaps of progress based on a teleological design. Thus, it can be argued that his
view of inferior/superior civilization is not based on a racial bias as many
Indians believe, but on the civilization being scientifically competent. This
can be inferred from the following argument put forth by him :
“Within the last hundred and twenty years, a nation which had previously been in a state as barbarous as that in which our ancestors were before the Crusades has gradually emerged from the ignorance in which it was sunk, and has taken its place among civilized communities. I speak of Russia. There is now in that country a large educated class abounding with persons fit to serve the State in the highest functions, and in nowise inferior to the most accomplished men who adorn the best circles of Paris and London. There is reason to hope that this vast empire which, in the time of our grandfathers, was probably behind the Punjab, may in the time of our grandchildren, be pressing close on France and Britain in the career of improvement. And how was this change effected? Not by flattering national prejudices; not by feeding the mind of the young Muscovite with the old women's stories which his rude fathers had believed; not by filling his head with lying legends about St. Nicholas; not by encouraging him to study the great question, whether the world was or not created on the 13th of September; not by calling him "a learned native" when he had mastered all these points of knowledge; but by teaching him those foreign languages in which the greatest mass of information had been laid up, and thus putting all that information within his reach. “
However, it must be noted that he completely ignores the large body of scientific work undertaken by the Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, Greeks, Chinese and the Islamic civilizations prior to 17th century Europe. Also, the diffusion of knowledge across civilizations was possibly unknown to, or ignored by, Macaulay. The existence of diffusion channels, by means of which cultural, philosophical and scientific exchanges took place (along with trade), is so interesting that it merits a separate discussion. It is possible to show that the entire scheme of the European enlightenment would have been impossible, if not severely delayed or impaired, if inputs from the hallmarks of other civilizations had not reached European shores. Neglecting these diffusion channels and labeling the entire scientific enterprise to have originated by purely European efforts is dishonest and an anti-thesis to one of Macaulay’s heroes, Isaac Newton, who famously remarked “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
However, in Macaulay’s time, the diffusion view of history was not mainstream and was mentioned only in passing by reputed scholars. Thus, one cannot entirely fault Macaulay’s position, brimming with chauvinistic patriotism and an inherited pride about his native English culture.
The second proposition has been more problematic. If one wants to educate the populace, why enforce a foreign language?
This has no easy answer, and it is here that Macaulay’s line of argumentation is rich with logical fallacies. He wrongly equates the geographical region where the scientific revolution took place with the language that happens to be spoken by its natives, and believes that the language somehow inspired an effusion of knowledge. This can be inferred from :
“The languages of western Europe civilised Russia. I cannot doubt that they will do for the Hindoo what they have done for the Tartar.”
“ It may safely be said that the literature now extant in that language(English) is of greater value than all the literature which three hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of the world together”
It is obvious to any reader that it is a mere historical coincidence that the European languages(especially English) have become the carriers of scientific and political knowledge. If the scientific revolution took place in China instead, I’d possibly be typing this article in a keyboard with a thousand keys!
It is unlikely that the European languages are necessarily more amenable to scientific enquiry as opposed to any other Oriental tongue, although the linguists can ascertain the truth of this.
The second reason for the introduction of English is more practical. By 1835, Europe had a clear monopoly on scientific and political discourse. For the institutionalized teaching of the sciences in the Indian subcontinent, one must translate the works of European scholarship into Indian languages. This is a problematic idea, for two reasons :
1) The translation must take place from English into Sanskrit and Arabic, as they were the languages extant in India during the 19th century. However, access to Sanskrit was not universal and restricted to certain castes. Thus, introduction of a universal educational scheme is rendered difficult. Instruction in Sanskrit and Arabic would mean a further, yet subtle reinforcement of the divisive acrimony between the Hindu-Muslim communities. It would not serve scholarly purposes ie. of discussion, exchange of ideas etc., to have two sets of intellectuals speaking two separate tongues. Thus, the introduction of a third, neutral tongue seems logical as it would ensure a universal medium of instruction and would homogenize differences of religion, caste etc.
2) To implement the aforementioned translation scheme, one would first require a body of scholars fluent in English and the Indic languages. These scholars can then translate the works of European scholars. However, it seems an unnecessary course of action and one might as well skip this step and introduce English along with scientific education. In fact, this is exactly what Macaulay sought to do. To quote Macaulay :
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 tastes, 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.
If the reader is magnanimous enough to overlook the disingenuousness of the first statement, we realize that Macaulay’s introduction of English might have been a temporary way of ensuring immediate scientific instruction in the subcontinent. It seems clear that his emphasis was not on the introduction of English, but science, and he vaguely references to the aforementioned translation scheme described in the second sentence of the above quote.
How Ironic then, that the so-called “Macaulay’s Children” of modern India are engaged in a life-style not advocated by Macaulay! Instead of enriching our vernaculars with European input and using them to teach science and reason, we seem to be busy forgetting our native dialects and adopt speaking accented English in a misguided attempt to seem ‘modern, civilized or cool’ . This culture of snobbery toward everything Indian, which many characterize as Macaulayism cannot be attributed to Macaulay.
By no stretch of imagination did Macaulay respect the Indian tradition. However, this is due to his dichotomized worldview , of civilizations evolving sufficiently to adopt science and civilizations languishing under superstition and barbarism. He saw India as fitting into the latter category, and this was due to 1) Lack of objectivity on his part. 2) Chauvinistic patriotism 3) Lack of knowledge about the Indian scientific tradition, of mighty scholars such as Aryabhatta, Bhaskara, Sushrutha, Varahamihira, Kalidasa, Banabhatta, and the giants of the Kerala school of mathematics.
However, it is an indisputable view, that in the 19th century, the European hegemony over scientific, philosophical and political thought was absolute. Whatever our illustrious past might have been, it did not measure up to European science in the 19th century and it would behoove us to admit it. Thus, it is a matter of pride that our ancestors readily adopted educating themselves in the forefront of knowledge at the time. This engineered collision of knowledge, between the east and west, produced an effervescence of talents rarely seen before ; stalwarts such as JC Bose, SN Bose, Mahalnobis, CV Raman, S Chandrasekhar, Tagore, Sardar Patel, Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi who would ultimately be responsible for the liberation and re-construction of our glorious country.
The supercilious Lord Macaulay might have been blatantly wrong on many counts; but the introduction of institutionalized education in the subcontinent has rightly earned him the appellation “that other great emancipator of Victorian England” (By Christopher Hitchens) . It must be noted that he did not support the conversion of natives to Christianity(We abstain, and I trust shall always abstain, from giving any public encouragement to those who are engaged in the work of converting the natives to Christianity)., believed in the separation of church and state, and adhered to enlightenment values such as reason, free inquiry etc. which have become the bedrock of the modern world.
Thus, it must be noted that while there is no dearth of colonial tyrants, it is utterly ridiculous to put Macaulay on the same pedestal as Robert Clive, General Dyer, Lord Curzon and Winston Churchill.
While it can be argued that the introduction of English served a practical colonial purpose, viz. to have a class of Indians to govern by British law, it ended up being used by the Indians to liberate themselves and aggrandize their standing.
To quote Hitchens “ The revenge for Amritsar is this: the Indians have annexed the most precious and subtle possession of their former conquerors—their language. Thus one of the things about India that is most different is one of those things that is—ostensibly at least—most the same. Indians have mastered the “tone of voice” that, not so long ago, mastered them”
So the next time you hear someone unfairly criticizing Macaulay or deliberately misquoting him ("“I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, 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 self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation") take it with a grain of salt, and demonstrate the falsity of their position!
“Within the last hundred and twenty years, a nation which had previously been in a state as barbarous as that in which our ancestors were before the Crusades has gradually emerged from the ignorance in which it was sunk, and has taken its place among civilized communities. I speak of Russia. There is now in that country a large educated class abounding with persons fit to serve the State in the highest functions, and in nowise inferior to the most accomplished men who adorn the best circles of Paris and London. There is reason to hope that this vast empire which, in the time of our grandfathers, was probably behind the Punjab, may in the time of our grandchildren, be pressing close on France and Britain in the career of improvement. And how was this change effected? Not by flattering national prejudices; not by feeding the mind of the young Muscovite with the old women's stories which his rude fathers had believed; not by filling his head with lying legends about St. Nicholas; not by encouraging him to study the great question, whether the world was or not created on the 13th of September; not by calling him "a learned native" when he had mastered all these points of knowledge; but by teaching him those foreign languages in which the greatest mass of information had been laid up, and thus putting all that information within his reach. “
However, it must be noted that he completely ignores the large body of scientific work undertaken by the Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, Greeks, Chinese and the Islamic civilizations prior to 17th century Europe. Also, the diffusion of knowledge across civilizations was possibly unknown to, or ignored by, Macaulay. The existence of diffusion channels, by means of which cultural, philosophical and scientific exchanges took place (along with trade), is so interesting that it merits a separate discussion. It is possible to show that the entire scheme of the European enlightenment would have been impossible, if not severely delayed or impaired, if inputs from the hallmarks of other civilizations had not reached European shores. Neglecting these diffusion channels and labeling the entire scientific enterprise to have originated by purely European efforts is dishonest and an anti-thesis to one of Macaulay’s heroes, Isaac Newton, who famously remarked “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
However, in Macaulay’s time, the diffusion view of history was not mainstream and was mentioned only in passing by reputed scholars. Thus, one cannot entirely fault Macaulay’s position, brimming with chauvinistic patriotism and an inherited pride about his native English culture.
The second proposition has been more problematic. If one wants to educate the populace, why enforce a foreign language?
This has no easy answer, and it is here that Macaulay’s line of argumentation is rich with logical fallacies. He wrongly equates the geographical region where the scientific revolution took place with the language that happens to be spoken by its natives, and believes that the language somehow inspired an effusion of knowledge. This can be inferred from :
“The languages of western Europe civilised Russia. I cannot doubt that they will do for the Hindoo what they have done for the Tartar.”
“ It may safely be said that the literature now extant in that language(English) is of greater value than all the literature which three hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of the world together”
It is obvious to any reader that it is a mere historical coincidence that the European languages(especially English) have become the carriers of scientific and political knowledge. If the scientific revolution took place in China instead, I’d possibly be typing this article in a keyboard with a thousand keys!
It is unlikely that the European languages are necessarily more amenable to scientific enquiry as opposed to any other Oriental tongue, although the linguists can ascertain the truth of this.
The second reason for the introduction of English is more practical. By 1835, Europe had a clear monopoly on scientific and political discourse. For the institutionalized teaching of the sciences in the Indian subcontinent, one must translate the works of European scholarship into Indian languages. This is a problematic idea, for two reasons :
1) The translation must take place from English into Sanskrit and Arabic, as they were the languages extant in India during the 19th century. However, access to Sanskrit was not universal and restricted to certain castes. Thus, introduction of a universal educational scheme is rendered difficult. Instruction in Sanskrit and Arabic would mean a further, yet subtle reinforcement of the divisive acrimony between the Hindu-Muslim communities. It would not serve scholarly purposes ie. of discussion, exchange of ideas etc., to have two sets of intellectuals speaking two separate tongues. Thus, the introduction of a third, neutral tongue seems logical as it would ensure a universal medium of instruction and would homogenize differences of religion, caste etc.
2) To implement the aforementioned translation scheme, one would first require a body of scholars fluent in English and the Indic languages. These scholars can then translate the works of European scholars. However, it seems an unnecessary course of action and one might as well skip this step and introduce English along with scientific education. In fact, this is exactly what Macaulay sought to do. To quote Macaulay :
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 tastes, 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.
If the reader is magnanimous enough to overlook the disingenuousness of the first statement, we realize that Macaulay’s introduction of English might have been a temporary way of ensuring immediate scientific instruction in the subcontinent. It seems clear that his emphasis was not on the introduction of English, but science, and he vaguely references to the aforementioned translation scheme described in the second sentence of the above quote.
How Ironic then, that the so-called “Macaulay’s Children” of modern India are engaged in a life-style not advocated by Macaulay! Instead of enriching our vernaculars with European input and using them to teach science and reason, we seem to be busy forgetting our native dialects and adopt speaking accented English in a misguided attempt to seem ‘modern, civilized or cool’ . This culture of snobbery toward everything Indian, which many characterize as Macaulayism cannot be attributed to Macaulay.
By no stretch of imagination did Macaulay respect the Indian tradition. However, this is due to his dichotomized worldview , of civilizations evolving sufficiently to adopt science and civilizations languishing under superstition and barbarism. He saw India as fitting into the latter category, and this was due to 1) Lack of objectivity on his part. 2) Chauvinistic patriotism 3) Lack of knowledge about the Indian scientific tradition, of mighty scholars such as Aryabhatta, Bhaskara, Sushrutha, Varahamihira, Kalidasa, Banabhatta, and the giants of the Kerala school of mathematics.
However, it is an indisputable view, that in the 19th century, the European hegemony over scientific, philosophical and political thought was absolute. Whatever our illustrious past might have been, it did not measure up to European science in the 19th century and it would behoove us to admit it. Thus, it is a matter of pride that our ancestors readily adopted educating themselves in the forefront of knowledge at the time. This engineered collision of knowledge, between the east and west, produced an effervescence of talents rarely seen before ; stalwarts such as JC Bose, SN Bose, Mahalnobis, CV Raman, S Chandrasekhar, Tagore, Sardar Patel, Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi who would ultimately be responsible for the liberation and re-construction of our glorious country.
The supercilious Lord Macaulay might have been blatantly wrong on many counts; but the introduction of institutionalized education in the subcontinent has rightly earned him the appellation “that other great emancipator of Victorian England” (By Christopher Hitchens) . It must be noted that he did not support the conversion of natives to Christianity(We abstain, and I trust shall always abstain, from giving any public encouragement to those who are engaged in the work of converting the natives to Christianity)., believed in the separation of church and state, and adhered to enlightenment values such as reason, free inquiry etc. which have become the bedrock of the modern world.
Thus, it must be noted that while there is no dearth of colonial tyrants, it is utterly ridiculous to put Macaulay on the same pedestal as Robert Clive, General Dyer, Lord Curzon and Winston Churchill.
While it can be argued that the introduction of English served a practical colonial purpose, viz. to have a class of Indians to govern by British law, it ended up being used by the Indians to liberate themselves and aggrandize their standing.
To quote Hitchens “ The revenge for Amritsar is this: the Indians have annexed the most precious and subtle possession of their former conquerors—their language. Thus one of the things about India that is most different is one of those things that is—ostensibly at least—most the same. Indians have mastered the “tone of voice” that, not so long ago, mastered them”
So the next time you hear someone unfairly criticizing Macaulay or deliberately misquoting him ("“I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, 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 self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation") take it with a grain of salt, and demonstrate the falsity of their position!
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