Indian Education System

Turning Point of Indian Education and Social system

Lord Macaulay ‘s speech in british parliament famously referred to as Minute on Indian Education delivered in 1835 :

 I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a begger, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever counquer 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 loose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.  

 And to implement his plans he devised the strategy he explained as : 

 It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. 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. 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

I guess Thomas Babington Macaulay was very much successful in achieving his goal and thus created a class of  people born of Indian ancestry but who adopt Western culture as a lifestyle, or display attitudes influenced by colonisers. The term “Macaulay’s Children” is used as a pejorative term referring to the class of people who display disloyalty to one’s country and one’s heritage. This frame of mind or attitude is also referred to as Macaulayism.

There was a highly thoughtful process of undermining the achievements and capabilities of Indians at the time, taking away the morals and high self esteem of the people at large. This was carried out by demeaning the ancient Indian heritage, the education system and forcing the Indians to question and disown there own achievements and status in the society. India’s advancement in the field of science and medicine were unparalleled. The Copernicus’ theory of revolution of earth, the Dalton’s atomic theory and many other significant “modern achievements” were presented by the Indian scholars centuries ago.

 I may be a bit out of context but i don’t know if  I’ll be posting on the issue after this so i thought I should share with you an interesting fact that I read recently. There was a census conducted during the aforesaid period in the present day tamil nadu on the number of education institutes present in the region. The census provided an astounding figure which exactly I am unable to quote now but that related to the fact stating each and every village in the region had at least one center of higher education and more than five schools operational at that time.