Lord Macaulay’s Minute (1835)

The famous Lord Macaulay’s Minute settled the row in favour of Anglicists—the limited government resources were to be devoted to teaching of Western sciences and literature

through the medium of English language alone. Lord Macaulay held the view that “Indian learning was inferior to European learning”—which was true as far as physical and social sciences in the contemporary stage were concerned.

The government soon made English as the medium of instruction in its schools and colleges and opened a few English schools and colleges instead of a large number of elementary schools, thus neglecting mass education. The British planned to educate a small section of upper and middle classes, thus creating a class “Indian in blood and colour but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect” who would act as interpreters between the government and masses and would enrich the vernaculars by which knowledge of Western sciences and literature would reach the masses. This was called the ‘downward filtration theory’.

Modern ideas, if not education, did filter down to the

masses, though not in a form desired by the rulers, but through political parties, press, pamphlets, public platforms, etc. Modern education only helped this process by making available the basic literature on physical and social sciences to nationalists, thus stimulating their capacity to make social analysis—otherwise the content, structure and curricula of modern education served colonial interests.