India-Britain

Pintu

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Great Find johnee, simply a treasure for all of who are avidly interested in the pre independence history of the motherland.

Regards
 

Flint

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Sorry to disappoint you guys, but that is a fake.
 

Flint

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I guess, that means the authenticity is debatable. We cant conclude that its fake, can we?:wink:
You can't quote anyone without a source. Why don't you read the discussion on wiki and follow the hyperlinks given there. Its very thorough.
 

johnee

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You can't quote anyone without a source. Why don't you read the discussion on wiki and follow the hyperlinks given there. Its very thorough.
I just made a tongue-in-cheek comment in the last post. But while I agree that he cant be quoted, I would have to say that there is no proper refute either(including the discussion on wiki). So, at best the authenticity is debatable untill its decisively proven in this or that side.
 

johnee

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It seems that the date was wrong, since Lord Macaulay was in India(according to some unvalidated comments on net) at that time. Also, those were not his words, it seems to be a paraphrasing of his comments. That quote must be preceded by "Lord Macualay said to this effect", then that quote would make sense.
 

johnee

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Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 1
by Macaulay

Some Excerpts :


His competitor was a Hindoo Brahmin whose name has by a terrible
and melancholy event, been inseparably associated with that of
Warren Hastings, the Maharajah Nuncomar. This man had played an
important part in all the revolutions which, since the time of
Surajah Dowlah, had taken place in Bengal. To the consideration
which in that country belongs to high and pure caste, he added
the weight which is derived from wealth, talents, and experience.
Of his moral character it is difficult to give a notion to those
who are acquainted with human nature only as it appears in our
island. What the Italian is to the Englishman, what the Hindoo is
to the Italian, what the Bengalee is to other Hindoos, that was
Nuncomar to other Bengalees. The physical organisation of the
Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in a constant
vapour bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his
movements languid. During many ages he has been trampled upon by
men of bolder and more hardy breeds. Courage, independence,
veracity, are qualities to which his constitution and his
situation are equally unfavourable. His mind bears a singular
analogy to his body. It is weak even to helplessness for purposes
of manly resistance; but its suppleness and its tact move the
children of sterner climates to admiration not unmingled with
contempt. All those arts which are the natural defence of the
weak are more familiar to this subtle race than to the Ionian of
the time of Juvenal, or to the Jew of the dark ages. What the
horns are to the buffalo, what the paw is to the tiger, what the
sting is to the bee, what beauty, according to the old Greek
song, is to woman, deceit is to the Bengalee. Large promises,
smooth excuses, elaborate tissues of circumstantial falsehood,
chicanery, perjury, forgery, are the weapons, offensive and
defensive, of the people of the Lower Ganges. All those millions
do not furnish one sepoy to the armies of the Company.
But as
userers, as money-changers, as sharp legal practitioners, no
class of human beings can bear a comparison with them. With all
his softness, the Bengalee is by no means placable in his
enmities or prone to pity. The pertinacity with which he adheres
to his purposes yields only to the immediate pressure of fear.

Nor does he lack a certain kind of courage which is often wanting
to his masters. To inevitable evils he is sometimes found to
oppose a passive fortitude, such as the Stoics attributed to
their ideal sage. An European warrior who rushes on a battery of
cannon with a loud hurrah, will sometimes shriek under the
surgeon's knife, and fall in an agony of despair at the sentence
of death. But the Bengalee, who would see his country overrun,
his house laid in ashes, his children murdered or dishonoured,
without having the spirit to strike one blow, has yet been known
to endure torture with the firmness of Mucius, and to mount the
scaffold with the steady step and even pulse of Algernon Sydney.

-----------

Such or nearly such was the change which passed on the Mogul
empire during the forty years which followed the death of
Aurungzebe. A succession of nominal sovereigns, sunk in indolence
and debauchery, sauntered away life in secluded palaces, chewing
bang, fondling concubines, and listening to buffoons. A
succession of ferocious invaders descended through the western
passes, to prey on the defenceless wealth of Hindostan. A Persian
conqueror crossed the Indus, marched through the gates of Delhi,
and bore away in triumph those treasures of which the
magnificence had astounded Roe and Bernier, the Peacock Throne,
on which the richest jewels of Golconda had been disposed by the
most skilful hands of Europe, and the inestimable Mountain of
Light, which, after many strange vicissitudes, lately shone in
the bracelet of Runjeet Sing, and is now destined to adorn the
hideous idol of Orissa.
The Afghan soon followed to complete the
work of the devastation which the Persian had begun. The warlike
tribes of Rajpootana, threw off the Mussulman yoke. A band of
mercenary soldiers occupied Rohilcund. The Seiks ruled or the
Indus. The Jauts spread dismay along the Jumna. The highlands
which border on the western sea-coast of India
poured forth a yet more formidable race, a race which was long
the terror of every native power, and which, after many desperate
and doubtful struggles, yielded only to the fortune and genius of
England. It was under the reign of Aurungzebe that this wild clan
of plunderers first descended from their mountains; and soon
after his death, every corner of his wide empire learned to
tremble at the mighty name of the Mahrattas. Many fertile
viceroyalties were entirely subdued by them. Their dominions
stretched across the peninsula from sea to sea. Mahratta captains
reigned at Poonah, at Gualior, in Guzerat, in Berar, and in
Tanjore. Nor did they, though they had become great sovereigns,
therefore cease to be freebooters. They still retained the
predatory habits of their forefathers. Every region which was not
subject to their rule was wasted by their incursions. Wherever
their kettle-drums were heard, the peasant threw his bag of rice
on his shoulder, hid his small savings in his girdle, and fled
with his wife and children to the mountains or the jungles, to
the milder neighbourhood of the hyaena and the tiger. Many
provinces redeemed their harvests by the payment of an annual
ransom. Even the wretched phantom who still bore the imperial
title stooped to pay this ignominious black-mail. The camp-fires
of one rapacious leader were seen from the walls of the palace of
Delhi. Another, at the head of his innumerable cavalry, descended
year after year on the rice-fields of Bengal. Even the European
factors trembled for their magazines. Less than a hundred years
ago, it was thought necessary to fortify Calcutta against the
horsemen of Berar, and the name of the Mahratta ditch still
preserves the memory of the danger.
 

johnee

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X posting from another Forum.

From :
Imagined communities{**Read Online** : Google Book}
By Benedict Anderson
Pages : 90 - 91






Download :
Imagined Communities - Benedict Anderson
Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Paperback)

# Publisher: Verso; Revised edition (July 1991)
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0860915468
# ISBN-13: 978-0860915461


-----


India As A Secular State (1963) {**Read Online (Chapter 12 : EDUCATION AND RELIGION )**}
Author: Smith, Donald Eugene
Subject: RELIGION. THEOLOGY; Prehistoric and primitive religions
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Year : 1963
Language: English
Call number: 33124
Book contributor: Osmania University

Txt Version (1.3 Mb)
PDF (35 Mb)
 

Flint

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You know, we've been fretting about our supposed Macaulay-zation since independence. I myself got sucked into that wormhole of despair not too long ago. But its time we moved on, accepted that yes, colonization changed us forever, and nothing we do or think can bring us back to where we were before the British landed on our shores.
The fact is that our culture is not dying, its thriving. Our economy has enabled us to resurrect long-lost Indian arts - like temple building, music, etc. and we are taking it to even greater heights.
Prosperity has meant that we have the money to conserve our heritage.

I think its time we stop resenting our colonial past, use its gifts wisely, and build a new India that doesn't need to quote 18th century historians to realize its greatness.
 

johnee

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You know, we've been fretting about our supposed Macaulay-zation since independence. I myself got sucked into that wormhole of despair not too long ago. But its time we moved on, accepted that yes, colonization changed us forever, and nothing we do or think can bring us back to where we were before the British landed on our shores.
The fact is that our culture is not dying, its thriving. Our economy has enabled us to resurrect long-lost Indian arts - like temple building, music, etc. and we are taking it to even greater heights.
Prosperity has meant that we have the money to conserve our heritage.

I think its time we stop resenting our colonial past, use its gifts wisely, and build a new India that doesn't need to quote 18th century historians to realize its greatness.
Hmm...The posts were never intended to make anyone fret, they just remind us of what happened in history(and take precautions that they dont happen in future), also if there are some side-effects of the past, then stem them now(instead of continuing to suffer). I agree with you that our wealth gives us the oppurtunity to resurrect ourselves to old glory(perhaps surpass it), at the same time history acts as a guide to stop us from making the past mistakes.
The history(infact, much of our education) we are taught in Text Books is still macualite in many ways. That makes ppl respect the foreign stuff above the Indian stuff. That mindset needs to be changed.

Of course, our culture may not be dying, but its definitely eroding with the youth(and indeed the entire society) aping the west blindly.

PS: oh, the real intention of those posts was to show that making 'alleged' quote was not beyond him(as his excerpts have shown).
 

johnee

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Some interesting and insightful posts. Cross posting from another forum. Would be interesting to discuss the relevance of the ideas. Firstly, the background: UK frequently sermonises about human rights, ethics....blah blah to India(on Kashmir), Sri Lanka(on LTTE) ....etc. Recently, David Milliband was lecturing India on terrorism and Kashmir. So, here are some thoughts of a fellow Indian about them. UK(and its media) have in past(and in present) as well tried to lecture Asian(including India) about human rights, religious freedom, minorities, poverty.....etc without remembering the brutal treatment that Britain had meted out to its colonies(including India). Forgetting that many problems that these nations now face, have their roots in the misrule of imperial Britain.
So, these are ideas to counter such moral sermons from UK to India.

My hunch is that the former colonies decided to keep good relations with UK, simply because for many Independence was like falling into cold water. Suddenly they were 'masters' of their own destiny but in a scary global environment, with the second world war just having ended, the tug-of-war between USA and Soviet Union just beginning, and a new world order being set, partly under the aegis of United Nations. Also there was the question of trade, with most of it previously being conducted through the colonial power. One still needed foreign exchange. There were many devils you did not know.
UK was the devil one knew, and one probably hoped that a shared history would make the devil you knew, support you in international fora and trade. That was the reason, one wished to normalize one's relations with UK post-colonialism and not to pick a fight on that score.

Since then much water has flowed down the Ganga and the Thames. UK is on its way to becoming a financial mess, being popped up by loans from abroad. Its manufacturing is gone. In another 5 years, it may overtake Italy on its way down. In another 15 it could be a third-world country.

The former colonies do not need Britain anymore. Britain cannot give anybody any further respite. Its special status for the USA is on the decline as well, and in an expanded EU, it would not form the core.

There is nothing wrong in now pouncing upon Britain and make it account for all its colonial sins, to compensate the country for all its atrocities.

Full compensation for colonial follies should now become the prime issue of discussion and negotiation between India and UK.

That should serve as the basis for keeping all Western countries on their toes. Britain, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy should all be targeted by the various ex-colonies. All the mischief and atrocities the colonial powers committed should now be brought into the public domain and discussed. No reason to hide anything.

This will keep the Europeans on their toes, it would bring down this hot-air balloon of morality, human-rights, non-proliferation, etc. of the Europeans. It would send a signal to the current super-power that it should tread carefully lest the weaker powers of today extract their revenge tomorrow.

There is no more reason to keep quite.
Expressions of regret are by a few and momentary and fleeting. Such expressions have been taking place every once in a while from this corner or that, but that did not stop David Milliband to come to India, treat our leadership like little schoolboys, and lecture us on Kashmir.

If we want to change this behavior of Britain, we have to keep it for ever on the defensive. That means one keeps on pounding the country with historical charges of murder, subjugation, theft, etc. and keep on forcing the head of the country down into the ground.

64 years after the WW II ended, the Germans are still taken to task for their historical wrongs, and they are taken to task by all the sundry, by the Jews, by the Poles, by the Russians, by the Americans, by the Brits, by the French, by the Dutch, etc. etc. The Germans still have to pay the most into the EU budget, all out of a sense of historical sins. They still have to treat the Jews with kid gloves and keep on paying compensations.

One just has to look at how PRC has treated Japan. Can the Japanese ever think of going to China and lecturing them on Taiwan, or on Tibet, or on human rights, or anything else?! Never! PRC has been able to cower down Japan for an eternity. Japan has been sending aid to PRC in the billions to win back Chinese favor and forgiveness. But the Chinese have decided that to not be too forgiving, because that keeps the pressure on Japan. Have we no self-esteem? Weren't the hardships of our grandparents and their parents and their parents not real? {Simply rhetorical}

One could contest that Germany and Japan were defeated powers, and as such were far more accommodating of other's charges. After Iraq, Afghanistan and the Financial Crisis, Britain too is becoming a defeated power, and that is why now is the time to "Ek dhakka aur!".

Expressions of Regret a la Britain, is a momentary thing and would not change their behavior. They have to be kept under incessant accusations and on the defensive for ever. Reparations and compensation is only a tool, a means to an end.

In the end, one does not negotiate with them about reparations simply to get reparations, but to keep them on the defensive. Do you think, Dawood Mulli-in-Bund would be lecturing us on Kashmir, if at every meet, we were demanding reparations and compensations and charging them in public? The more the charges, the more vocal the charges, the more the British will be willing to see the world India's way, especially questions of Kashmir! Wouldn't you like to see the British owning up to their follies on the Indian Subcontinent? Follies like giving away Chittagong to Bangladesh, or like allowing NWFP to become part of Pakistan, or letting Pakistan invade Baluchistan?

The next step is for Britain to start questioning the integrity of Pakistan and Bangladesh! For this the British need to be treated like scoundrels and criminals!

No need to forget. No need to forgive. But let's deal with them nevertheless in a mature way, and force them to make strategic concessions from being Pakistan appeasers to following India's agenda.
 

Sridhar

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Minute on Education (1835) by Thomas Babington Macaulay

Minute by the Hon'ble T. B. Macaulay, dated the 2nd February 1835.


[1] As it seems to be the opinion of some of the gentlemen who compose the Committee of Public Instruction that the course which they have hitherto pursued was strictly prescribed by the British Parliament in 1813 and as, if that opinion be correct, a legislative act will be necessary to warrant a change, I have thought it right to refrain from taking any part in the preparation of the adverse statements which are.now before us, and to reserve what I had to say on the subject till it should come before me as a Member of the Council of India.

[2] It does not appear to me that the Act of Parliament can by any art of contraction be made to bear the meaning which has been assigned to it. It contains nothing about the particular languages or sciences which are to be studied. A sum is set apart "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." 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. This does not appear to be a very satisfactory interpretation. To take a parallel case: Suppose that the Pacha of Egypt, a country once superior in knowledge to the nations of Europe, but now sunk far below them, were to appropriate a sum for the purpose "of reviving and promoting literature, and encouraging learned natives of Egypt," would any body infer that he meant the youth of his Pachalik to give years to the study of hieroglyphics, to search into all the doctrines disguised under the fable of Osiris, and to ascertain with all possible accuracy the ritual with which cats and onions were anciently adored? Would he be justly charged with inconsistency if, instead of employing his young subjects in deciphering obelisks, he were to order them to be instructed in the English and French languages, and in all the sciences to which those languages are the chief keys?

[3] The words on which the supporters of the old system rely do not bear them out, and other words follow which seem to be quite decisive on the other side. This lakh of rupees is set apart not only for "reviving literature in India," the phrase on which their whole interpretation is founded, but also "for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British territories"-- words which are alone sufficient to authorize all the changes for which I contend.

[4] If the Council agree in my construction no legislative act will be necessary. If they differ from me, I will propose a short act rescinding that I clause of the Charter of 1813 from which the difficulty arises.

[5] The argument which I have been considering affects only the form of proceeding. But the admirers of the oriental system of education have used another argument, which, if we admit it to be valid, is decisive against all change. They conceive that the public faith is pledged to the present system, and that to alter the appropriation of any of the funds which have hitherto been spent in encouraging the study of Arabic and Sanscrit would be downright spoliation. It is not easy to understand by what process of reasoning they can have arrived at this conclusion. The grants which are made from the public purse for the encouragement of literature differ in no respect from the grants which are made from the same purse for other objects of real or supposed utility. We found a sanitarium on a spot which we suppose to be healthy. Do we thereby pledge ourselves to keep a sanitarium there if the result should not answer our expectations? We commence the erection of a pier. Is it a violation of the public faith to stop the works, if we afterwards see reason to believe that the building will be useless? The rights of property are undoubtedly sacred. But nothing endangers those rights so much as the practice, now unhappily too common, of attributing them to things to which they do not belong. Those who would impart to abuses the sanctity of property are in truth imparting to the institution of property the unpopularity and the fragility of abuses. If the Government has given to any person a formal assurance-- nay, if the Government has excited in any person's mind a reasonable expectation-- that he shall receive a certain income as a teacher or a learner of Sanscrit or Arabic, I would respect that person's pecuniary interests. I would rather err on the side of liberality to individuals than suffer the public faith to be called in question. But to talk of a Government pledging itself to teach certain languages and certain sciences, though those languages may become useless, though those sciences may be exploded, seems to me quite unmeaning. There is not a single word in any public instrument from which it can be inferred that the Indian Government ever intended to give any pledge on this subject, or ever considered the destination of these funds as unalterably fixed. But, had it been otherwise, I should have denied the competence of our predecessors to bind us by any pledge on such a subject. Suppose that a Government had in the last century enacted in the most solemn manner that all its subjects should, to the end of time, be inoculated for the small-pox, would that Government be bound to persist in the practice after Jenner's discovery? These promises of which nobody claims the performance, and from which nobody can grant a release, these vested rights which vest in nobody, this property without proprietors, this robbery which makes nobody poorer, may be comprehended by persons of higher faculties than mine. I consider this plea merely as a set form of words, regularly used both in England and in India, in defence of every abuse for which no other plea can be set up.

[6] I hold this lakh of rupees to be quite at the disposal of the Governor-General in Council for the purpose of promoting learning in India in any way which may be thought most advisable. I hold his Lordship to be quite as free to direct that it shall no longer be employed in encouraging Arabic and Sanscrit, as he is to direct that the reward for killing tigers in Mysore shall be diminished, or that no more public money shall be expended on the chaunting at the cathedral.

[7] We now come to the gist of the matter. We have a fund to be employed as Government shall direct for the intellectual improvement of the people of this country. The simple question is, what is the most useful way of employing it?

[8] 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.

[9] 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. The whole question seems to me to be-- which language is the best worth knowing?

[10] I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit 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 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.

[11] It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.

[12] How then stands the case? We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign language. The claims of our own language it is hardly necessary to recapitulate. It stands pre-eminent even among the languages of the West. It abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us, --with models of every species of eloquence, --with historical composition, which, considered merely as narratives, have seldom been surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles of ethical and political instruction, have never been equaled-- with just and lively representations of human life and human nature, --with the most profound speculations on metaphysics, morals, government, jurisprudence, trade, --with full and correct information respecting every experimental science which tends to preserve the health, to increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect of man. Whoever knows that language has ready access to all the vast intellectual wealth which all the wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the course of ninety generations. It may safely be said that the literature now extant in that language is of greater value than all the literature which three hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of the world together. Nor is this all. In India, English is the language spoken by the ruling class. It is spoken by the higher class of natives at the seats of Government. It is likely to become the language of commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the language of two great European communities which are rising, the one in the south of Africa, the other in Australia, --communities which are every year becoming more important and more closely connected with our Indian empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value of our literature, or at the particular situation of this country, we shall see the strongest reason to think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is that which would be the most useful to our native subjects.

[13] The question now before us is simply whether, when it is in our power to teach this language, we shall teach languages in which, by universal confession, there are no books on any subject which deserve to be compared to our own, whether, when we can teach European science, we shall teach systems which, by universal confession, wherever they differ from those of Europe differ for the worse, and whether, when we can patronize sound philosophy and true history, we shall countenance, at the public expense, medical doctrines which would disgrace an English farrier, astronomy which would move laughter in girls at an English boarding school, history abounding with kings thirty feet high and reigns thirty thousand years long, and geography made of seas of treacle and seas of butter.

[14] We are not without experience to guide us. History furnishes several analogous cases, and they all teach the same lesson. There are, in modern times, to go no further, two memorable instances of a great impulse given to the mind of a whole society, of prejudices overthrown, of knowledge diffused, of taste purified, of arts and sciences planted in countries which had recently been ignorant and barbarous.

[15] 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 everything that was worth reading was contained in the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Had our ancestors acted as the Committee of Public Instruction has hitherto noted, had they neglected the language of Thucydides and Plato, and 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 ever 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. The literature of England is now more valuable than that of classical antiquity. I doubt whether the Sanscrit literature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and Norman progenitors. In some departments-- in history for example-- I am certain that it is much less so.

[16] Another instance may be said to be still before our eyes. 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. The languages of western Europe civilised Russia. I cannot doubt that they will do for the Hindoo what they have done for the Tartar.

[17] And what are the arguments against that course which seems to be alike recommended by theory and by experience? It is said that we ought to secure the co-operation of the native public, and that we can do this only by teaching Sanscrit and Arabic.

[18] I can by no means admit that, when a nation of high intellectual attainments undertakes to superintend the education of a nation comparatively ignorant, the learners are absolutely to prescribe the course which is to be taken by the teachers. It is not necessary however to say anything on this subject. For it is proved by unanswerable evidence, that we are not at present securing the co-operation of the natives. It would be bad enough to consult their intellectual taste at the expense of their intellectual health. But we are consulting neither. We are withholding from them the learning which is palatable to them. We are forcing on them the mock learning which they nauseate.

[19] This is proved by the fact that we are forced to pay our Arabic and Sanscrit students while those who learn English are willing to pay us. All the declamations in the world about the love and reverence of the natives for their sacred dialects will never, in the mind of any impartial person, outweigh this undisputed fact, that we cannot find in all our vast empire a single student who will let us teach him those dialects, unless we will pay him.

[20] I have now before me the accounts of the Mudrassa for one month, the month of December, 1833. The Arabic students appear to have been seventy-seven in number. All receive stipends from the public. The whole amount paid to them is above 500 rupees a month. On the other side of the account stands the following item:

Deduct amount realized from the out-students of English for the months of May, June, and July last-- 103 rupees.
 

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continued

[21] I have been told that it is merely from want of local experience that I am surprised at these phenomena, and that it is not the fashion for students in India to study at their own charges. This only confirms me in my opinions. Nothing is more certain than that it never can in any part of the world be necessary to pay men for doing what they think pleasant or profitable. India is no exception to this rule. The people of India do not require to be paid for eating rice when they are hungry, or for wearing woollen cloth in the cold season. To come nearer to the case before us: --The children who learn their letters and a little elementary arithmetic from the village schoolmaster are not paid by him. He is paid for teaching them. Why then is it necessary to pay people to learn Sanscrit and Arabic? Evidently because it is universally felt that the Sanscrit and Arabic are languages the knowledge of which does not compensate for the trouble of acquiring them. On all such subjects the state of the market is the detective test.

[22] Other evidence is not wanting, if other evidence were required. A petition was presented last year to the committee by several ex-students of the Sanscrit College. The petitioners stated that they had studied in the college ten or twelve years, that they had made themselves acquainted with Hindoo literature and science, that they had received certificates of proficiency. And what is the fruit of all this? "Notwithstanding such testimonials," they say, "we have but little prospect of bettering our condition without the kind assistance of your honourable committee, the indifference with which we are generally looked upon by our countrymen leaving no hope of encouragement and assistance from them." They therefore beg that they may be recommended to the Governor-General for places under the Government-- not places of high dignity or emolument, but such as may just enable them to exist. "We want means," they say, "for a decent living, and for our progressive improvement, which, however, we cannot obtain without the assistance of Government, by whom we have been educated and maintained from childhood." They conclude by representing very pathetically that they are sure that it was never the intention of Government, after behaving so liberally to them during their education, to abandon them to destitution and neglect.

[23] I have been used to see petitions to Government for compensation. All those petitions, even the most unreasonable of them, proceeded on the supposition that some loss had been sustained, that some wrong had been inflicted. These are surely the first petitioners who ever demanded compensation for having been educated gratis, for having been supported by the public during twelve years, and then sent forth into the world well furnished with literature and science. They represent their education as an injury which gives them a claim on the Government for redress, as an injury for which the stipends paid to them during the infliction were a very inadequate compensation. And I doubt not that they are in the right. They have wasted the best years of life in learning what procures for them neither bread nor respect. Surely we might with advantage have saved the cost of making these persons useless and miserable. Surely, men may be brought up to be burdens to the public and objects of contempt to their neighbours at a somewhat smaller charge to the State. But such is our policy. We do not even stand neuter in the contest between truth and falsehood. We are not content to leave the natives to the influence of their own hereditary prejudices. To the natural difficulties which obstruct the progress of sound science in the East, we add great difficulties of our own making. Bounties and premiums, such as ought not to be given even for the propagation of truth, we lavish on false texts and false philosophy.

[24] By acting thus we create the very evil which we fear. We are making that opposition which we do not find. What we spend on the Arabic and Sanscrit Colleges is not merely a dead loss to the cause of truth. It is bounty-money paid to raise up champions of error. It goes to form a nest not merely of helpless placehunters but of bigots prompted alike by passion and by interest to raise a cry against every useful scheme of education. If there should be any opposition among the natives to the change which I recommend, that opposition will be the effect of our own system. It will be headed by persons supported by our stipends and trained in our colleges. The longer we persevere in our present course, the more formidable will that opposition be. It will be every year reinforced by recruits whom we are paying. From the native society, left to itself, we have no difficulties to apprehend. All the murmuring will come from that oriental interest which we have, by artificial means, called into being and nursed into strength.

[25] There is yet another fact which is alone sufficient to prove that the feeling of the native public, when left to itself, is not such as the supporters of the old system represent it to be. The committee have thought fit to lay out above a lakh of rupees in printing Arabic and Sanscrit books. Those books find no purchasers. It is very rarely that a single copy is disposed of. Twenty-three thousand volumes, most of them folios and quartos, fill the libraries or rather the lumber-rooms of this body. The committee contrive to get rid of some portion of their vast stock of oriental literature by giving books away. But they cannot give so fast as they print. About twenty thousand rupees a year are spent in adding fresh masses of waste paper to a hoard which, one should think, is already sufficiently ample. During the last three years about sixty thousand rupees have been expended in this manner. The sale of Arabic and Sanscrit books during those three years has not yielded quite one thousand rupees. In the meantime, the School Book Society is selling seven or eight thousand English volumes every year, and not only pays the expenses of printing but realizes a profit of twenty per cent. on its outlay.

[30] The fact that the Hindoo law is to be learned chiefly from Sanscrit books, and the Mahometan law from Arabic books, has been much insisted on, but seems not to bear at all on the question. We are commanded by Parliament to ascertain and digest the laws of India. The assistance of a Law Commission has been given to us for that purpose. As soon as the Code is promulgated the Shasters and the Hedaya will be useless to a moonsiff or a Sudder Ameen. I hope and trust that, before the boys who are now entering at the Mudrassa and the Sanscrit College have completed their studies, this great work will be finished. It would be manifestly absurd to educate the rising generation with a view to a state of things which we mean to alter before they reach manhood.

[31] But there is yet another argument which seems even more untenable. It is said that the Sanscrit and the Arabic are the languages in which the sacred books of a hundred millions of people are written, and that they are on that account entitled to peculiar encouragement. Assuredly it is the duty of the British Government in India to be not only tolerant but neutral on all religious questions. But to encourage the study of a literature, admitted to be of small intrinsic value, only because that literature inculcated the most serious errors on the most important subjects, is a course hardly reconcilable with reason, with morality, or even with that very neutrality which ought, as we all agree, to be sacredly preserved. It is confined that a language is barren of useful knowledge. We are to teach it because it is fruitful of monstrous superstitions. We are to teach false history, false astronomy, false medicine, because we find them in company with a false religion. 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. And while we act thus, can we reasonably or decently bribe men, out of the revenues of the State, to waste their youth in learning how they are to purify themselves after touching an ass or what texts of the Vedas they are to repeat to expiate the crime of killing a goat?

[32] It is taken for granted by the advocates of oriental learning that no native of this country can possibly attain more than a mere smattering of English. They do not attempt to prove this. But they perpetually insinuate it. They designate the education which their opponents recommend as a mere spelling-book education. They assume it as undeniable that the question is between a profound knowledge of Hindoo and Arabian literature and science on the one side, and superficial knowledge of the rudiments of English on the other. This is not merely an assumption, but an assumption contrary to all reason and experience. We know that foreigners of all nations do learn our language sufficiently to have access to all the most abstruse knowledge which it contains sufficiently to relish even the more delicate graces of our most idiomatic writers. There are in this very town natives who are quite competent to discuss political or scientific questions with fluency and precision in the English language. I have heard the very question on which I am now writing discussed by native gentlemen with a liberality and an intelligence which would do credit to any member of the Committee of Public Instruction. Indeed it is unusual to find, even in the literary circles of the Continent, any foreigner who can express himself in English with so much facility and correctness as we find in many Hindoos. Nobody, I suppose, will contend that English is so difficult to a Hindoo as Greek to an Englishman. Yet an intelligent English youth, in a much smaller number of years than our unfortunate pupils pass at the Sanscrit College, becomes able to read, to enjoy, and even to imitate not unhappily the compositions of the best Greek authors. Less than half the time which enables an English youth to read Herodotus and Sophocles ought to enable a Hindoo to read Hume and Milton.

[33] To sum up what I have said. I think it clear that we are not fettered by the Act of Parliament of 1813, that we are not fettered by any pledge expressed or implied, that we are free to employ our funds as we choose, that we ought to employ them in teaching what is best worth knowing, that English is better worth knowing than Sanscrit or Arabic, that the natives are desirous to be taught English, and are not desirous to be taught Sanscrit or Arabic, that neither as the languages of law nor as the languages of religion have the Sanscrit and Arabic any peculiar claim to our encouragement, that it is possible to make natives of this country thoroughly good English scholars, and that to this end our efforts ought to be directed.

[34] In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them that 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 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.

[35] 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 Mudrassa and the Sanscrit College at Calcutta. Benares is the great seat of Brahminical learning; Delhi of Arabic learning. If we retain the Sanscrit College at Bonares and the Mahometan College at Delhi we do enough and much more than enough in my opinion, for the Eastern languages. If the Benares and Delhi Colleges should be retained, I would at least recommend that no stipends shall be given to any students who may hereafter repair thither, but that the people shall be left to make their own choice between the rival systems of education without being bribed by us to learn what they have no desire to know. The funds which would thus be placed at our disposal would enable us to give larger encouragement to the Hindoo College at Calcutta, and establish in the principal cities throughout the Presidencies of Fort William and Agra schools in which the English language might be well and thoroughly taught.

[36] If the decision of His Lordship in Council should be such as I anticipate, I shall enter on the performance of my duties with the greatest zeal and alacrity. If, on the other hand, it be the opinion of the Government that the present system ought to remain unchanged, I beg that I may be permitted to retire from the chair of the Committee. I feel that I could not be of the smallest use there. I feel also that I should be lending my countenance to what I firmly believe to be a mere delusion. I believe that the present system tends not to accelerate the progress of truth but to delay the natural death of expiring errors. I conceive that we have at present no right to the respectable name of a Board of Public Instruction. We are a Board for wasting the public money, for printing books which are of less value than the paper on which they are printed was while it was blank-- for giving artificial encouragement to absurd history, absurd metaphysics, absurd physics, absurd theology-- for raising up a breed of scholars who find their scholarship an incumbrance and blemish, who live on the public while they are receiving their education, and whose education is so utterly useless to them that, when they have received it, they must either starve or live on the public all the rest of their lives. Entertaining these opinions, I am naturally desirous to decline all share in the responsibility of a body which, unless it alters its whole mode of proceedings, I must consider, not merely as useless, but as positively noxious.

T[homas] B[abington] MACAULAY

2nd February 1835.

I give my entire concurrence to the sentiments expressed in this Minute.

W[illiam] C[avendish] BENTINCK.
 

Flint

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..and the point is? The British thought they were the bees knees, and that Indian education system was crap? What did you expect?
 

johnee

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Flint(and others),
what do you think of the suggestions in post #16 of this thread?
 

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