Legal Commentary

Quo vadis South Asia ? Himal Southasian presents "Macaulay's Stepchildren" by Anjum Altaf : Indian & Pakistani Education and their Colonial Aspects

By Andis Kaulins

We have excerpted a few paragraphs from this extremely interesting piece:

"The colonial decision to utilise English in higher education was not one man?s decision ? and its legacy is far more complex than generally understood.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, commonly known as Lord Macaulay, is widely recognised yet inadequately understood in Southasia. While the legacy of his ?decisions? is correctly criticised, that criticism is often for the wrong reasons. Macaulay served on the Supreme Council of India from 1834 until 1838, during which time he sided with Governor-General William Bentinck in the adoption of English as the medium of instruction from the sixth standard onwards. Today, he is castigated for his infamous comment:

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.

This single sentence bears the burden of all the subsequent problems with education in India....

Two other intellectual trends need to be mentioned because they undoubtedly had a bearing on colonial thinking. Macaulay (1800-59) followed the economist Adam Smith (1723-90), whose very influential text The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, and the philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), whose equally influential treatise on utilitarianism came out in 1781. Bentham?s influence can be seen directly in the recommendation of James Mill, an employee of the East India Company. In a dispatch on behalf of the directors in 1824, Mill criticised the GCPI policy of working through the classical Indian languages, arguing that the ?great end should not have been to teach Hindoo learning or Mohamedan learning, but useful learning.? The purpose of education would certainly have been in Macaulay?s mind during his reflections on colonial policy....

Pakistan and India have diverged in significant ways since 1947. In Pakistan, the ideological imperatives of the two-nation theory (and the subsequent attempt to transplant its cultural roots to Arabia) succeeded in destroying even elite education, while also radicalising a significant proportion of the country?s population. India has suffered largely from the benign neglect of mass education. Thus, while Pakistan has spiralled into a ?failing? state with an empty mind and lethal limbs, India has been described as a ?flailing? state, in which its very capable head remains poorly connected with woefully weak arms and legs. In both countries, Macaulay?s children continue to deny the place of education as a basic human right, the primary purpose of which is to enable all citizens to think independently for themselves."

Full post as published by LawPundit on January 25, 2010 (boomark / email).