Is An Oft-Quoted Speech of Baron Macaulay, Actually a Misquote?
Source: ttp://sundayposts.blogspot.com/2008/01/lord-macaulays-quote-on-india.html
KAUAI, HAWAII, May 30, 2008: The May 27, 2008 email from HPI carried a quote from Baron Macaulay, Member of Governor-General’s Council in India during the British rule. The passage is often quoted and deserves a closer look from HPI, as a reader kindly pointed out.
We could not find a source for this, raising doubts about its accuracy: “Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully. The effect of this education on the Hindus is prodigious. No Hindu who has received an English education ever remains sincerely attached to his religion.”
It is informative to know that reliable sources show a more nuanced approach from the British Baron. He advocated the supremacy of European culture, but thought teaching it would eventually create a group of Indians who thought like Englishmen with legitimate claims to holding political offices, an idea he supports.
Baron Macaulay’s influence was so decisive that this “colonized mindset” is today known as Macaulayism. His “Minute on Indian Education,” delivered in 1835, reads “It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. 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 color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.”
Some quotes from his other speeches elaborate on that. “A single shelf of good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.” “Are we to keep the people of India ignorant in order that we may keep them submissive? Or do we think that we can give them knowledge without awakening ambition? Or do we mean to awaken ambition and to provide it with no legitimate vent? Who will answer any of these questions in the affirmative? Yet one of them must be answered in the affirmative, by every person who maintains that we ought permanently to exclude the natives from high office. I have no fears. The path of duty is plain before us: and it is also the path of wisdom, of national prosperity, of national honor.”
You can read more about it by clicking on the link above and looking at the Wikipedia article here.
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