Why this blog

This blog is to give readers an idea of the social, economic and political issues across India and the world, supported with facts and data. To begin with most of my articles are India centric, but I would write about issues across the whole world because I consider myself a citizen of the world. Writing is just a way of creating awareness, however we must all step out of our houses and take-up service projects in groups in our respective localities to make the world a better place. The idea would be of "global vision and local action". We are a one world family and we all must Volunteer For A Better World.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Macaulay and the Indian education system

 Thomas Babington Macaulay was a British historian who was instrumental in introducing English medium education in India. However in the process the original Indian education system was gradually replaced with English education system. When Macaulay visited India, he was astonished at the prosperity and cultural richness of India. He noticed that the basis of India's cultural strength was in the strong spiritual roots of India. So he concluded that in order to rule over India, her cultural and spiritual roots have to be weakened, and hence the English-medium education was introduced in India. According to wikipedia, a word was coined called "Macaulayism" which means the conscious policy of liquidating indigenous culture through the planned substitution of the alien culture of a colonizing power via the education system. That is exactly what was done in the erstwhile British India.

With the above premise in place, the irony is that after India became independent in 1947, the then ruling party and people continued the use of Macaulayism in India and till today the same education system is being systematically promulgated. Though the current education system has metamorphosed with tid-bits of different Indian regional cultures, if one looks at the text books of C.B.S.E/NCERT one would find that the history has been considerably manipulated. The ancient Vedic civilization is hardly properly described. There is very little emphasis on "Vedanta" which is millions of centuries old. There is absolutely no mention of spiritual history and scriptures. Ramayana and Mahabharata are considered as mere mythology, which in reality are actual historical events.

Also Sanskrit is being systematically kept at a lesser importance level. Today people from different states cannot converse with each other because there is  no common Indian language that is being popularised across India. English is the only common medium of communication across India, but it is only the middle/upper class who can converse fluently in English. The lower and poor class cannot converse in English and they constitute 70% of the Indian population. So lower classes are always behind in terms of access to developmental information. Hindi though is popular in few of the north Indian states, is not at all popular in the southern Indian states. Hence just because of the systematic elimination of Sanskrit, today the regional mindset is becoming more predominant in India. In ancient days pilgrims from south India would visit north India like Varanasi etc., and they could easily converse with each other in Sanskrit. Hence Sankrit served as a source of national integration as well as gave people the tool of convenience in communication across entire India.

India being a secular country is an amalgamation of various religions i.e., Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and many more different religious sub-categories. And all the religions are equally respectable. Hence Indian education system should have the gist of all religions being taught at the secondary education level, so that each and everyone should be able to appreciate every religion in its essence and should be able to develop a harmonious intellectual concept of all religions. And the essence of every religion is nearly the same. Hence there would be no religious conflicts in the society.

As a summary I would like to put forward three important changes in the Indian education system that can transform the Indian society as a whole :-
  1. Nurturing Sanskrit as a national language all across India and giving Sanskrit the importance of a national language
  2. Reviving ancient Indian knowledge which is being lost and updating the curriculum with this knowledge
  3. Gist of all religions being made part of the curriculum
The benefits of the above three points are :-
  1. National integration and a sense of oneness being developed among societies irrespective of diversity in religions and regions
  2. Poorer sections being able to come to mainstream development
  3. Revival of ancient knowledge and culture

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