Who Introduced English Education In India?
Lord Willaim Bentinck English was introduced by Lord Willaim Bentinck as a medium of higher education in India on the advice of Thomas Babington Macaulay who was also his council member.
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Who first introduced English education in India?
On this day in 1835, Lord Macaulay successfully westernised education in India; English was made the official language for the government and courts, and was adopted as the official medium of instruction. – Macaulay v/s traditional languages : Ever wondered why we use UK English in India? Thomas Babington, better known as Lord Macaulay, is the man who brought the English language and British education to India. His highly debatable introduction of the English language and the approach to minimalise the use of traditional languages makes an interesting read.
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Who introduced English education in India in 1834?
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) lived in India just for four years, from 1834 to 1838. Yet he left unerasable footprints on Indian soil. During his time in India, he decided to introduce English into the education of Indians by deploying government resources in schools and colleges.
- He argued that Sanskrit and Persian, which were the medium of instruction under the East India Company before the British Crown took over the Indian administration, should be done away with from schools.
- Today, many English-educated Indians deride Macaulay, perhaps for giving that language to them and what they also call the ‘un-Indian’ English culture.
Only very few who are also English-educated admire him occasionally. Those who criticise Macaulay come from all schools of thought: extreme right, extreme left and centrist liberals. But vast numbers of Indians who are outside the English-speaking milieu – food producers, such as the Shudra, Dalits and Adivasis, who work in the fields – do not think about Macaulay.
For them, their local languages – Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarathi or tribal languages and so on – are the medium of instruction in schools and colleges. The English language, with its global accessibility, is too far away from them. Yet, Macaulay also has admirers among Dalits and OBCs who feel that English is a language of liberation and have taken to it as a way of progressing in life and in their careers.
Now, with the new National Education Policy somewhat demoting the status of English by giving a priority to Indian languages for the first few years of school education, the issue becomes pertinent. Are Macaulay and his ideas irrelevant and un-Indian? Is Macaulay’s presence fine in private English medium schools but not good for government-run schools, where the poor children study? Quite consciously, from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru, the so-called ‘anti-national Macaulay’ English education has been confined to expensive private schools, where only very rich Dwijas could afford to educate their children. Representative Image. Photo: PTI What was the state of education before Macaulay? There was hardly any modern college that used Sanskrit and Persian as the medium of education until 1834. Anyway, education in Sanskrit and Persian was meant for the Hindu Dwijas (Brahmin, Bania, Ksatriya, Kayastha and Khatris) and Muslim feudal lords, who perhaps were either Pathans or Arabs or Dwijas who converted.
- Unlike the Christians, Muslims never allowed the non-Muslim Shudras and Dalits into their schools.
- Some Dwijas – mainly Brahmins – managed the system of education in Persian, in collaboration with rich Muslims.
- But that did not help them with employment, even when it was the official language, because the bureaucracy and legal systems were dominated by Brahmins.
School education in these languages was not available to Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis of India, who were the main food producers then, as they are now. Actually the earliest missionary teaching of the English language to Dwija children was started in 1817, as a private affair, by William Carey (1761-1834) in association with Rajarammohan Roy in Culcutta.
He came to India in 1793 and died here in 1834, the year in which Macaulay arrived. Carey established the Serampore College in 1818, the region’s first degree college in the English language. Which caste and class of youth were able to access this college? Would it have been Bengali Shudras and Namashudras? No way.
Also Read: Language Policy: Education in English Must Not Be the Prerogative of Only the Elites What Macaulay proposed to the British administration was to make English part of the state education policy to replace Sanskrit and Persian. While Indian Muslim feudal lords refused to send their children to English medium schools at the cost of their Persian and Urdu education, the Brahmins of Bengal and Kerala had no such inhibitions.
They were among the earliest to do so, setting aside Sanskrit education. Dwija Hindus wanted to become pleaders, officials and clerks in the government offices as ‘middlemen’ (not many women were allowed to hold these positions then) between the British colonial rulers and the Indian Shudra-Atishudra masses.
The term Shudra-Atishudra was first used by Mahatma Jotirao Phule, the first Shudra person to be educated in the English language. In the Bengal region, whether any Shudra or Namashudra was allowed to go to school – leave alone one with English as the medium – is not known. Busts of Mahatma and Jyotiba Phule. Why is Macaulay important? Why is Macaulay dear to the Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis now? The Indian state and civil society have to move towards a mode of education that imparts global and Indian knowledge – even within the framework of competing nationalisms – to all children in the English language.
It is also important to remember that the ideological attack on Macaulay did not lead to a total divorce from the English language. Among the ruling classes, whatever is their ideological and political position, their children are educated in English medium schools. But quite consciously, this language has been kept away from the rural agrarian, productive masses.
This has led to the creation of two nations—English-speaking India and mother tongue-speaking Bharat. A small number of English-educated Indians, in this globalised world, have taken the lead in every sphere of life. The rural masses cannot catch up with the globalised, English-educated Indian ruling and business classes unless they too acquire that language, right from their time in school.
- From tribal areas to our metropolitan urban centres, Indian school and college education has to be in one common language, with the same content and course levels.
- Unless all children do not read and write one national and international language – English – the creation of a national, advanced intellectual discourse will not be possible.
Even the production of new scientific knowledge is linked to a globally communicable language. Teaching children science in their mother tongue is not going to help. ‘Will alienate people from Indian culture’ The common argument that English medium education will alienate people from Indian culture has proved to be deceptive propaganda.
- The Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis have had a very bad experience with the ‘divine distancing’ of Sanskrit, which was the ‘national language’ in ancient and medieval times, from their lives.
- The agrarian masses have been deceived on the issue of language for quite a long time.
- Now these same forces are trying to deceive these productive masses by keeping their children away from English, by labelling it Macaulay’s “colonial conspiracy”.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has broken the myth that Macaulay’s English is anti-national or un-Indian. He has decided to introduce English as the medium of instruction in all government schools. When the same Macaulayputras tried to oppose it, the rural productive masses responded by saying, “You hypocrites, send your children to Sanskrit medium schools, but our children need to study in English.” The diabolical nature of Hindutva is all around us.
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Who is known as the father of English?
News Who is known as the father of the English language?
This story is from July 15, 2006 Who is known as the father of the English language? Geoffrey Chaucer. He was born in London sometime between 1340 and 1344. He was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat (courtier), and diplomat. He is also referred to as the father of English Literature.
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Who is the father of modern English education?
John Amos Comenius, Father of Modern Education | Moravian College.
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When was English first taught in India?
History – The English language established a foothold in India with the granting of the East India Company charter by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600 and the subsequent establishment of trading ports in coastal cities such as Surat, Bombay (called Mumbai since 1995), Madras (called Chennai since 1996), and Calcutta (called Kolkata since 2001).
- English-language public instruction began in India in the 1830s during the rule of the British East India Company (India was then, and is today, one of the most linguistically diverse regions of the world ).
- In 1835, English replaced Persian as the official language of the East India Company.
- Lord Macaulay played a major role in introducing English and Western concepts into educational institutions in India.
He supported the replacement of Persian by English as the official language, the use of English as the medium of instruction in all schools, and the training of English-speaking Indians as teachers. Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, primary, middle, and high schools were opened in many districts of British India, with most high schools offering English language instruction in some subjects.
- In 1857, just before the end of East India Company rule, universities that were modeled on the University of London and used English as the medium of instruction were established in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras.
- During the British Raj (1858 to 1947), English-language penetration increased throughout India.
This was driven in part by the gradually increasing hiring of Indians in the civil services, At the time of India’s independence in 1947, English was the only functional lingua franca in the country. After Indian Independence in 1947, Hindi was declared the first official language, and attempts were made to declare Hindi the sole national language of India.
Due to protests from Tamil Nadu and other non-Hindi-speaking states, it was decided to temporarily retain English for official purposes until at least 1965. By the end of this period, however, opposition from non-Hindi states was still too strong to have Hindi declared the sole language. With this in mind, the English Language Amendment Bill declared English to be an associate language “until such time as all non-Hindi States had agreed to its being dropped.” This has not yet occurred, and English is still widely used.
For instance, it is the only reliable means of day-to-day communication between the central government and the non-Hindi states. The view of the English language among many Indians has changed over time. It used to be associated primarily with colonialism; it is now primarily associated with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India.
While there is an assumption that English is readily available in India, studies show that its usage is actually restricted to the elite, because of inadequate education to large parts of the Indian population. The use of outdated teaching methods and the poor grasp of English exhibited by the authors of many guidebooks disadvantage students who rely on these books, giving India only a moderate proficiency in English.
In addition, many features of Indian English were imported into Bhutan due to the dominance of Indian-style education and teachers in the country after it withdrew from its isolation in the 1960s.
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