Who is Afraid of Thomas Babington Macaulay

On November 17, 2025 our Prime Minister addressing an audience, accused them of displaying "a mentality that seeks to enslave people because of their exposure to Western education." The villain was Lord Macaulay or Thomas Babington Macaulay and his infamous 1835 Minute of Education. Lord Macaulay aimed at building "a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and intellect." The audience of Modi were fully westernised in dress and language. And Lord Macaulay never intended to enslave the people of India. And the parents of modern day India are running after English medium schools to enroll their kids. Native Indians from the time of Rajaram Mohan Roy insisted that education policy of East India Company be radically changed to give Indians the fruits of western learning through education in English. 

Our knowledge of avionics was limited to Pushpak Viman in the epics. And our knowledge of organ transplantation was limited to Ganesha's elephant trunks. These are not science but fiction, fiction is not a small thing. But, fiction cannot replace science. Every culture has stories rooted in men's aspiration. But we have a Prime Minister who project these stories as science. Conversely we have scientists who break coconut as oblation to their clan deity before launching rockets.

But I do not think Macaulay as an enemy will bring any benefits to the Prime Minister or his party. BJP has been trying to seat standardized Hindi as National language of India. Standardized Hindi was developed by an American Presbyterian missionary, Samuel Henry Kellog. Nationalists of Indian National Congress always wanted a National language, to embrace the whole of India. Perhaps they must have been influenced by the Russian language experience of U.S.S.R. On the eve of our independence Soviet Union was a rising super power. Within four decades, cracks appeared, and the Soviet Empire fell apart. 

Language Alone Cannot Replace Identity

A common language cannot eraze, ethnic, historical and cultural identities, much older than Russian. Armenians, Georgians, Ukrainians, Central Asians, and Baltic people had languages and cultures much older than Russian. India also is collection different nationalites: Ethnically, culturally, and linguistically. The binding factor is historical, and based on the constitution of India 

Evolution of "India" 

The word India is an exonym. It is derived from the proto Indo European word Sindh. The initial S sound often shifted to H in old Persian. Thus Sindh became Hind in Old Persian. Hind originally was a geographical region meaning the banks of River Sindhu. Greeks dropped the initial H sound and called Indus or Indos. The Romans transliterated it into India. And later the name was adopted by the East India Company in 1600. Written history of India began with East India Company. Pre-British history is blurred in legends, folklore and all of them fiction mixed with grains of facts: and the essence: We are great and others are not so great.

None of our earlier empires had India in their name. Maurya Empire, Gupta Empire, and the Mughal Empire etc carried ethnicity. The alternative name Bharat has ethnic or legendary trace.

In modern times James Mill and his son John Stuart Mill had ignited this spark. James Mill's 1817 work The History of British India shaped the British understanding of the subcontinent in ways that often clashed with the concept of Bharatvarsha. He divided Indian history into three distinct periods: Hindu, Muslim and British.  James Mill characterised Hindu period as an era of darkness, ignorance and superstition. His son, John Stuart Mill had worked for East India company for thirty five years. He  was of the opinion that India was semi barbarous and incapable of progress without British intervention. And that India was never a unified entity, but a collection of despotic rules that required civilizing mission of the British to bring order and modernity.

This provoked Indian nationalists to revive the narrative of Bharatvarsha.

Rajaram Mohan Roy advocated western education as a fundamental tool for social transformation and the modernization of Indian society. He found that traditional learning lacked practical and scientific knowledge necessary for progress in modern world. He found western education as a way to replace "darkness, ignorance and superstition" with scientific temper and rational thinking. He argued that subjects like Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics Botany and Anatomy were essential for the advancement of the nation.

He found education as the most effective instrument to eradicate deep rooted social evils such as Sati, child marriage and caste system. He was a staunch advocate for female education, viewing it as a means to achieve gender neutrality. He saw English as a bridge to modern world literature.

In an 1823 letter to Lord Amherst, he opposed the establishment of a traditional Sanskrit school, arguing that life-time spent on difficult Sanskrit grammar offered no practical benefit to society.

The preamble of our constitution emulates the visionary ideals of Rajaram Mohan Roy by enshrining fundamental principles of Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. 

The question whether the present regime moves in an opposite direction to the preamble of the constitution is subject of active debate in Indian political and academic discourse.

Strained Relations with US 

Recent developments in US and Europe, ethnic attack against Indian diaspora in these countries might have prompted the Prime Minister to articulate the tirade against Thomas Babington Macaulay.  The root cause of these attacks lay with the Indian diaspora. They import to these countries, that too into public places including roads and parks, their cultural marks, projecting it as a great tradition, but in fact promoting break of traffic rules and disturbing peaceful life. Perhaps Prime Minister might have addressed Indian diaspora in the US and Europe.