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Macaulay’s ‘Minute on Education’

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In this article I have tried to explain in a historical context what Macaulay’s Minute on Education has come to mean to modern India. While it is much larger than the Preamble to the Constitution of India, this is arguably the shortest written document that has had so far reaching effects on the future. If today India has the largest English speaking population and is riding on the wave of IT and ITES, a large part of the fortunate credit goes to this document about which not many might be aware. Today, Indian English is more rampant than American English or the Queen’s English. Today India is ahead of China in the service sector much due to this early linguistic advantage. It would seem that through a quirk of fate the British gave the opium to the Chinese, and English and modern science to the Indians. Despite this springboard, it required the humongous incompetence of our culture to consign us to the dumpyard of many a world’s endeavours.

Macaulay was a master of English, and much like Machiavelli with whom he shares much in reputation, Macaulay is read both in English and Political Science classes. A simple read of what he wanted to bring about, and what we have in its place (take up any newspaper to gauge the pedestrian nature of its prose) brings the stark irony to the forefront. But then it is never too late to make a virtue of an incompetence. Since we could not master Queen’s, we created our very own demesne – Indian English.

For those who might not have come across this document elsewhere, I present Macaulay’s Minute on Education here:
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