Is this true? Did Britain really replace India's education system and caused the decline of social values?

by mugen_is_here

I came across this image online: http://imgur.com/OxnPNtQ

I'm not sure how authentic this is and whether Britain really did replace India's ancient education system. I have heard about India's ancient education system which taught people how to deal with their emotions, how to behave with people and a bunch of other life skills being imparted directly.

Also, how authentic is the document above?

grafeldgetsstronger

This image does not appear to be accurate. I went and tried to look up the Parliamentary record for February 1835 and it seems that Parliament was in fact not in session on the 2nd February 1835. On the FAQs for the Parliamentary Archives the question of Lord Macaulay's alleged speech is actually dealt with specifically (they must have had a few enquiries about it already!): it doesn't address the question of when Parliament was in session in 1835 but advises that Lord Macaulay was not a Member of Parliament in 1835.

Helpfully, it goes on to add that Macaulay was a member of the Supreme Council in India in 1835, and on the 2nd February he did in fact deliver an education-flavoured Minute to the Supreme Council, on the subject of an Act of Parliament which apportioned public funds for teaching in India. I have no knowledge of the wider context here, but from reading the Minute it appears that there was at this time a controversy over whether the funds should go to "European" institutions which taught in English, or "Oriental" institutions which taught mainly in Sanskrit and Arabic. The wording of the Act itself appears to have been silent on this issue.

Anyway Macaulay was as contemptuous of Indian culture as this image suggests, but from a completely different direction: rather than fearing the rich, ancient culture of India, and desiring to destroy its traditional education so as to break the self-esteem of the Indians and thus better dominate them (as per the image), he in fact thought Indian education was essentially valueless, and that assigning public funds to the propagation of it was a waste of money and effort. He remarks (at paragraph 10 of the Minute as set out in the link above):

"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."

The Minute continues on in this theme, and to lift one more quote evocative of the whole, he remarks in his summing-up (at paragraph 33 of the link):

"I think it clear 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."

The actual quote in the image does not feature anywhere in the Minute and seems to have been entirely fabricated with a view to flattering Indian readers.

I hope somebody more intelligent than me can comment more generally on British educational policy in India in the period in question, but I can say that the linked image is very misleading: it claims Macaulay's remarks were given in a much more high-level situation than they actually were (a speech in Parliament as opposed to a minute delivered to the Indian governing body), and it claims that Macaulay was fearful of pre-existing education in India (most likely by completely fabricating a quote), rather than dismissive of it, as he actually seems to have been.

CanadianBeerCan

Mugen, where did you find the image in question?