LITERATURE- LIGHT AND DELIGHT
81. UNDERSTANDING CONTEXTS
Corruption is a popular topic in the media. I am sure most readers would have heard of the quotation of Lord Acton:
'Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."And yet, I am also sure that most of us have not seen the full statement. Or the context in which it was made. The fuller statement is:
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg, first Baron Acton- in short, Lord Acton for us, wrote this in a letter to a religious figure who was also a scholar, in 1887.
The effect of the statement read as a whole is much more damaging than we originally thought. It would seem that great men- men in authority- had almost an innate tendency to be corrupt.
Lord Acton was a scholar and his knowledge of history was formidable. Though he was a Roman Catholic, he did not subscribe to all Church dogmas, in the light of his own study and understanding of history. In the 1870s, the Roman Catholic Church was trying to promulgate the doctrine of the Infallibility of Pope in the First Vatican Council. Lord Acton journeyed to Rome and canvassed against it, but he did not succeed. In this letter he was giving his reason as to why people in high authority, whether King or Pope, should not be judged differently than other men, as advocated by the churchman. Citing specific examples of Elizabeth and William III, he said how greatest names were coupled with greatest crimes!
Lord Acton
By Allen &Co [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons
High office has no sanctifying effect on the holders of the office. No one in power should be automatically trusted. When we understand the context, the full gravity of the situation dawns on us. The situation is more hopeless than we like to think, and all solutions appear puerile. Something more than, higher than, education is involved here, seeing that it is mostly educated people holding high office who are also highly corrupt. No country, under any system, is totally free, though the extent and methods vary. Indira Gandhi once famously said that corruption was, after all, an international phenomenon! So, we had already embraced globalism then!
Lord Acton
By Allen &Co [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons
High office has no sanctifying effect on the holders of the office. No one in power should be automatically trusted. When we understand the context, the full gravity of the situation dawns on us. The situation is more hopeless than we like to think, and all solutions appear puerile. Something more than, higher than, education is involved here, seeing that it is mostly educated people holding high office who are also highly corrupt. No country, under any system, is totally free, though the extent and methods vary. Indira Gandhi once famously said that corruption was, after all, an international phenomenon! So, we had already embraced globalism then!
The administration under the British at the higher levels was almost totally free of corruption- a fact recognised by even Peter Drucker as contributing to the stability of the regime. But they were indifferent to the lower ranks. Certain departments- like education, police, revenue- were recognised as affording opportunities for the lower officials for frequent contact with the public, and thus providing chances for unofficial gratification! Hence their salaries were deliberately fixed low! But after Independence, it assumed much greater proportions, in spite of steady increase in official remuneration.
It was Rajaji who first pointed out the seriousness of the problem, in the 60s- half a century ago! He also explained its genesis and growth under the Permit-Licence-Quota raj administered by the politicians and bureaucrats in the name of the Socialist pattern of society. We are now supposed to be having a ''reform '' regime, but corruption is still with us. It has now pervaded every aspect of our public life at all levels.We can only raise our hand, and cry with the poet:
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par, woh kahan hai?
Education for Enslavement
Our present education system is a legacy from the colonial sarkar. How many people understand it in context?
In all old cultured societies, learning was an end in itself- not a means to something else. Scholarship was valued in and for itself. This had taken the form of "classical education" in England, consisting of the teaching of Greek and Latin,through grammar schools. But by the 19th century, some people had come to think of "useful learning" (utilitarian)through English, rather than appreciating classic poetry.
In India too learning was highly valued, but not for practical ends. It was in fact not necessary to be literate to earn a living. The East India Company's charter was subject to renewal by Parliament every 20 years, and while renewing the charter in 1813, the Parliament had required the company to encourage the revival and promotion of literature and encouragement of the learned natives of India., earmarking 1.00.000 rupees for the purpose. This had taken the form of supporting the traditional forms of scholarship of both Hindus and Muslims - through Sanskrit and Arabic.
With sentiments rising in England against Classical learning, thinkers like James Mill said that the objective should be not to encourage oriental learning, but to encourage 'useful' learning through English. It was however felt by some that native education being an expression of the cultural and religious beliefs of the people, its replacement by English education might lead to adverse reaction.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, the legal member of the Council of India and was to take over as the president of the committee of Public Instruction now powerfully intervened. He did not have a high or favourable opinion of the native learning of India (especially of the Hindus) and considered them little more than superstition. ( One does not know how much he really knew in the matter).He thought that modern subjects could not be taught through Indian languages. In his now famous Minute of 1835, he dismissed the whole of the Indian and Arabian knowledge as being less than a " single shelf of a good European library". He advocated European subjects through English medium. He clearly understood the difficulty of educating the whole population; so he hit upon the idea of creating a class of "interpreters" between the natives and the rulers-
" a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste , in opinions, in morals,in intellect".
That is, a class of Anglicised Indians who would convert the rest!
William Bentinck, the Governor General, concurred with Macaulay and decided on 7 March 1835 that
" the great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of European Literature and science among the natives of India."
He also decided that thenceforth govt funds should not be spent for printing books of oriental knowledge. This became law in 1836. Indigenous education and its institutions gradually declined.
Several points require attention in this connection.
1. Macaulay thought of Indians as barbarians, their knowledge no more than a bundle of superstitions. In introducing European education through English instruction, he thought he was attempting to civilise India. This he considered to be triumph "followed by no reverses." He was trying to establish in India "imperishable empire of our arts and our morals,our literature and our laws."
2.He was also aware that having access to European knowledge, Indians might demand European institutions!
3.In a letter to his father in 1836, Macaulay said:
This shows the hidden agenda of the whole scheme of education!
4. Whatever might have been his educational attainments , Macaulay seems to have been a complete idiot concerning India. Just 50 years before his educational efforts in India, when English rule had not been firmly established in the country, other Englishmen , uninfluenced by any official 'vision' or mission, were discovering the merits of Indian knowledge! ( which Macaulay decried without knowledge) Sir William Jones, a Judge at Calcutta, studied Sanskrit and on 2 February 1786 observed:
Even before learning Sanskrit, he had studied Indian scriptures through Persian translations and he said:
Sir William Jones
After Joshua Reynolds [Public domain] via Wikipedia Commons.
German scholars and thinkers were also discovering the greatness of Sanskrit and its literature. Frederick von Schlegel (1772-1829), his brother Wilhelm August (1765-1845), Humbolt (1767-1835) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1776-1860) were great admirers of India and its heritage. Humbolt declared in 1827:
"The Bhagavadgita is perhaps the loftiest and the deepest thing that the world has to show."
Schopenhauer read the Upanishads in Latin, translated by a French scholar from the Persian translation of Dara Shikoh. He was so moved that he considered it the "production of the highest human wisdom" and declared:
This shows how ignorant was Macaulay of the stirrings in the intellectual circles of Europe about India and its heritage. He was but serving the shopkeepers- the East India Company. And he was the first of a new breed of colonialists who wanted to suppress the intellectual attainments of the indigenous people, in order to show his own culture in better light- a task in which the dubious scholar Max Muller was to be engaged later. Such are the origins of the English educational enterprise in India.
But education by itself could not have become such a pervading force but for its linkage with jobs. It is this linkage which has made this educational system such a strong social and political force, defying all attempts at reform or even improvement.
But one insight of Macaulay need not be denied. It was that Indian native languages were not adequate or suitable for teaching modern subjects. This is the position even today,especially in the light of the explosion in knowledge and information in all areas of mental effort and investigation. However this could have been achieved without denying ancient achievements and decrying the heritage as a whole. The unfortunate result is that we have all become Macaulay's children, brought up in complete ignorance of our own heritage. The position has not changed a wee bit in over 60 years of independence.
The whole situation is not without its ironies and tragedies. In 1836, the year indigenous education was replaced by English education, with the hidden idea or expectation of de-Hinduising India, in the very month it was introduced, was born Sri Ramakrishna. And from Calcutta, the then seat of imperial capital, he spoke against a mere 'bread winning' education. Without formal education, he held the 'Englishmen' ,as he called the English -educated youngsters of Bengal, spell bound with his native wisdom, educating them on the strengths of Indian tradition. In 1893, his chief disciple Vivekananda went to US and planted the flag of Vedanta there. He used Macaulay's language to proclaim and interpret Hindu wisdom, which macaulay had derided!
But this message has been lost on India subsequently! English is indispensable for modern education, but it also continues as an instrument of cultural enslavement- cultural colonialism. This is the most serious damage inflicted by Macaulay and the English colonialists on India. The average educated Indian today lacks any conception of the historical achievements of India in any field, and lacks pride in his country and its civilisation. Education is seen as the means to Westernisation and this for him is civilisation!
Sri Aurobindo pointed out in December,1918:
Sri Aurobindo
Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson
(But since 1918, the British govt also changed its strategies and indulged in "deliberate and purposeful social pressure" when it encouraged Hindu-Muslim rift, and also communal divisions within the Hindu fold. ) However, the over-all effect of their education system has been to perpetuate intellectual poverty and a sense of cultural inferiority among Indians, especially Hindus. That the so called Independent govt of India has simply followed the colonial policy is the most unkindest cut of all!
Note:
It is necessary for an educated and nationalistic Indian to study, in some detail, the "Minute on Indian Education" drafted in 1835, which has decided the educational fate of India . It shows the full extent of Macaulay's ignorance and the full force of his prejudices. It can be read in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol.E, p.1640. I give some salient points below in his own language.
1."the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India contain neither literary or 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."
2. " I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic."
3. " a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia."
4."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 Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations."
5."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."
6."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."
7. (Sanscrit and Arabic ) "literature of small intrinsic value" .."that literature inculcates the most serious errors on the most important subjects"
8."We are told 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 see a man here, ignorant of Sanskrit and Persian ( it was Persian, the court language which was written in Arabic script) but arrogant enough to pronounce judgement on the worth of the literature without having read anything in the original! ( Condemnation without study of the original is not literary criticism) Even the most illiterate and idiotic person will not tolerate if his mother is abused.. Yet we have an ignoramus here condemning our Motherland- and there are people in India who still hail him!
And the free Indian govt shamelessly follows the educational policy raised on his foundations!
Thomas Babington Macaulay who laid the foundation for officially liquidating Indian knowledge systems, and de-Indianising Indians.
Education for Enslavement
Our present education system is a legacy from the colonial sarkar. How many people understand it in context?
In all old cultured societies, learning was an end in itself- not a means to something else. Scholarship was valued in and for itself. This had taken the form of "classical education" in England, consisting of the teaching of Greek and Latin,through grammar schools. But by the 19th century, some people had come to think of "useful learning" (utilitarian)through English, rather than appreciating classic poetry.
In India too learning was highly valued, but not for practical ends. It was in fact not necessary to be literate to earn a living. The East India Company's charter was subject to renewal by Parliament every 20 years, and while renewing the charter in 1813, the Parliament had required the company to encourage the revival and promotion of literature and encouragement of the learned natives of India., earmarking 1.00.000 rupees for the purpose. This had taken the form of supporting the traditional forms of scholarship of both Hindus and Muslims - through Sanskrit and Arabic.
With sentiments rising in England against Classical learning, thinkers like James Mill said that the objective should be not to encourage oriental learning, but to encourage 'useful' learning through English. It was however felt by some that native education being an expression of the cultural and religious beliefs of the people, its replacement by English education might lead to adverse reaction.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, the legal member of the Council of India and was to take over as the president of the committee of Public Instruction now powerfully intervened. He did not have a high or favourable opinion of the native learning of India (especially of the Hindus) and considered them little more than superstition. ( One does not know how much he really knew in the matter).He thought that modern subjects could not be taught through Indian languages. In his now famous Minute of 1835, he dismissed the whole of the Indian and Arabian knowledge as being less than a " single shelf of a good European library". He advocated European subjects through English medium. He clearly understood the difficulty of educating the whole population; so he hit upon the idea of creating a class of "interpreters" between the natives and the rulers-
" a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste , in opinions, in morals,in intellect".
That is, a class of Anglicised Indians who would convert the rest!
William Bentinck, the Governor General, concurred with Macaulay and decided on 7 March 1835 that
" the great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of European Literature and science among the natives of India."
He also decided that thenceforth govt funds should not be spent for printing books of oriental knowledge. This became law in 1836. Indigenous education and its institutions gradually declined.
Several points require attention in this connection.
1. Macaulay thought of Indians as barbarians, their knowledge no more than a bundle of superstitions. In introducing European education through English instruction, he thought he was attempting to civilise India. This he considered to be triumph "followed by no reverses." He was trying to establish in India "imperishable empire of our arts and our morals,our literature and our laws."
2.He was also aware that having access to European knowledge, Indians might demand European institutions!
3.In a letter to his father in 1836, Macaulay said:
"The effect of this education on the Hindoos is prodigious.No Hindoo who has received an English education ever remain sincerely attached to his religion.Some continue to profess it as a matter of policy; but many profess themselves pure deists, and some embrace Christianity. It is my firm belief , that if our plans of education are followed up,there will not be a single idolater among the respectable classes of Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected without any efforts to proselytise, without the smallest interference with religious liberty...I heartily rejoice in the prospect."
This shows the hidden agenda of the whole scheme of education!
4. Whatever might have been his educational attainments , Macaulay seems to have been a complete idiot concerning India. Just 50 years before his educational efforts in India, when English rule had not been firmly established in the country, other Englishmen , uninfluenced by any official 'vision' or mission, were discovering the merits of Indian knowledge! ( which Macaulay decried without knowledge) Sir William Jones, a Judge at Calcutta, studied Sanskrit and on 2 February 1786 observed:
"The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure;more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity.
Even before learning Sanskrit, he had studied Indian scriptures through Persian translations and he said:
"I am in love with Gopia, charmed with Crishen [Krishna], an enthusiastic admirer of Raama and a devout admirer of Brihma [Brahma],Bishen [Vishnu], Mahisher [Maheshwar]; not to mention that Judishteir,Arjen, Corno [ Yudhishthira, Arjuna, Karna] and other warriors of the M'hab'harat [Mahabharata] appear greater in my eyes than Agamemnon, Ajax and Achilles appeared when I first read the Iliad."
He also said:
" I am no Hindu but I hold the doctrine of the Hindu concerning a future state to be incomparably more rational, more pious and more likely to deter men from vice than the horrid opinions inculcated by the Christians on punishment without end."
Sir William Jones
After Joshua Reynolds [Public domain] via Wikipedia Commons.
German scholars and thinkers were also discovering the greatness of Sanskrit and its literature. Frederick von Schlegel (1772-1829), his brother Wilhelm August (1765-1845), Humbolt (1767-1835) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1776-1860) were great admirers of India and its heritage. Humbolt declared in 1827:
"The Bhagavadgita is perhaps the loftiest and the deepest thing that the world has to show."
Schopenhauer read the Upanishads in Latin, translated by a French scholar from the Persian translation of Dara Shikoh. He was so moved that he considered it the "production of the highest human wisdom" and declared:
It is the most satisfying and elevating reading (with the exception of the original text) which is possible in the world; it has been the solace of my life and will be the solace of my death.
This shows how ignorant was Macaulay of the stirrings in the intellectual circles of Europe about India and its heritage. He was but serving the shopkeepers- the East India Company. And he was the first of a new breed of colonialists who wanted to suppress the intellectual attainments of the indigenous people, in order to show his own culture in better light- a task in which the dubious scholar Max Muller was to be engaged later. Such are the origins of the English educational enterprise in India.
But education by itself could not have become such a pervading force but for its linkage with jobs. It is this linkage which has made this educational system such a strong social and political force, defying all attempts at reform or even improvement.
But one insight of Macaulay need not be denied. It was that Indian native languages were not adequate or suitable for teaching modern subjects. This is the position even today,especially in the light of the explosion in knowledge and information in all areas of mental effort and investigation. However this could have been achieved without denying ancient achievements and decrying the heritage as a whole. The unfortunate result is that we have all become Macaulay's children, brought up in complete ignorance of our own heritage. The position has not changed a wee bit in over 60 years of independence.
The whole situation is not without its ironies and tragedies. In 1836, the year indigenous education was replaced by English education, with the hidden idea or expectation of de-Hinduising India, in the very month it was introduced, was born Sri Ramakrishna. And from Calcutta, the then seat of imperial capital, he spoke against a mere 'bread winning' education. Without formal education, he held the 'Englishmen' ,as he called the English -educated youngsters of Bengal, spell bound with his native wisdom, educating them on the strengths of Indian tradition. In 1893, his chief disciple Vivekananda went to US and planted the flag of Vedanta there. He used Macaulay's language to proclaim and interpret Hindu wisdom, which macaulay had derided!
But this message has been lost on India subsequently! English is indispensable for modern education, but it also continues as an instrument of cultural enslavement- cultural colonialism. This is the most serious damage inflicted by Macaulay and the English colonialists on India. The average educated Indian today lacks any conception of the historical achievements of India in any field, and lacks pride in his country and its civilisation. Education is seen as the means to Westernisation and this for him is civilisation!
Sri Aurobindo pointed out in December,1918:
"English rule has by its general principle of social and religious non-interference prevented any direct and violent touch, any deliberate and purposeful social pressure; but it has undermined and deprived of living strength all the preexisting centres and instruments of Indian social life and by a sort of unperceived rodent process left it only a rotting shell without expansive power or any better defensive force than the force of inertia."
Sri Aurobindo
Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson
(But since 1918, the British govt also changed its strategies and indulged in "deliberate and purposeful social pressure" when it encouraged Hindu-Muslim rift, and also communal divisions within the Hindu fold. ) However, the over-all effect of their education system has been to perpetuate intellectual poverty and a sense of cultural inferiority among Indians, especially Hindus. That the so called Independent govt of India has simply followed the colonial policy is the most unkindest cut of all!
Note:
It is necessary for an educated and nationalistic Indian to study, in some detail, the "Minute on Indian Education" drafted in 1835, which has decided the educational fate of India . It shows the full extent of Macaulay's ignorance and the full force of his prejudices. It can be read in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol.E, p.1640. I give some salient points below in his own language.
1."the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India contain neither literary or 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."
2. " I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic."
3. " a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia."
4."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 Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations."
5."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."
6."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."
7. (Sanscrit and Arabic ) "literature of small intrinsic value" .."that literature inculcates the most serious errors on the most important subjects"
8."We are told 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 see a man here, ignorant of Sanskrit and Persian ( it was Persian, the court language which was written in Arabic script) but arrogant enough to pronounce judgement on the worth of the literature without having read anything in the original! ( Condemnation without study of the original is not literary criticism) Even the most illiterate and idiotic person will not tolerate if his mother is abused.. Yet we have an ignoramus here condemning our Motherland- and there are people in India who still hail him!
And the free Indian govt shamelessly follows the educational policy raised on his foundations!
Thomas Babington Macaulay who laid the foundation for officially liquidating Indian knowledge systems, and de-Indianising Indians.
"
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