Lies, Deceit, and Distortions: Education Warfare of The British

When Bengal and Bihar fell under the rule of the East India Company in 1765, it became difficult for the British to administer the Hindu law of inheritance. Thus, in 1765, Manusmriti, previously considered the authoritative base of Indian justice, was translated into English as ‘A Code of Gentoo Law’ by English scholars with the help of Pandits (Hindu priests). Although Pandits were associated with British judges to administer Hindu civil laws, what was lost in this translation and what was 'added' is a question to be asked and thought about.

These initial efforts to understand the ancient laws and customs of Hindus eventually led to the establishment of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, which was set up by William Jones, a civil servant of the East India Company. Jones also translated the Abhijñānaśākuntalam into English in 1789. William Jones was the first person to suggest that Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek belonged to the same family of languages. He emphasised that originally, the European languages were very similar to Sanskrit and the Iranian language. This led to an increase in Indological studies in European countries such as Germany, France, and Russia. Even today, several countries boast of well-functioning and equipped indology departments, but, on the other hand, India severely lacks the study of its own history. Before elaborating on this point, let us look back at the development of the English Indological studies during the colonial period.

With the revolt of 1857, the British colonisers realised that to rule the Indian masses, they needed to learn about the customs, manners, and social systems of Indians. Simultaneously, Christian missionaries were working to understand, expose, and exploit the supposed shortcomings of the Hindu religion, to convert Indians to Christianity, and, to religiously as well as demographically strengthen the British Empire. As a result, ancient Indian scriptures were to be translated on a large scale, and the editorship of Max Mueller was selected. Any discussion of Indian history must mention F. Max Mueller, a German-born scholar largely based in England, who worked extensively on Indian scriptures and texts. Under his editorship, a total of fifty volumes (some in several parts) of ‘Sacred Books of the East’ were published.

Now, it is important to understand that these were not merely translations, but they also consisted of narratives like generalisations about the nature and patterns of Indian history and society from the Western point of view, including:

• Max Mueller and other Western scholars stated that ancient Indians lacked a sense of history, especially of time and chronology.
• They believed that Indians were accustomed to despotic rule. According to them, the only form of rule existing in India was monarchy. Vincent A Smith observed, “Autocracy is substantially the only form of government with which the historian of India is concerned.”
• For them, Indians were so engrossed in matters of spiritualism or life in the next world that they had no concern for the problems and issues of this world.
• They labeled Indians as lacking experience in terms of any sense of political unity until the establishment of British rule, which, according to them, became the first politically unifying factor in Indian society.

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Such generalisations can also be found in Vincent A Smith’s Early History of India written in 1904 and considered the “first systematic history of ancient India”. As a loyal member of the civil service, he used a pro-imperialist approach and highlighted the role of foreigners in ancient India. For him, India was a land of despotism, unknown to any political unity until the advent of British colonisers. Thus, British interpretation of Indian history not only served to denigrate the Indian character and achievements to justify the British rule, but also denied several facts and labelled them as myth or mythology. They removed and added several points on their own, which changed the nature of our texts. These generalisations, additions, and eliminations were either largely false or grossly exaggerated to justify British colonial rule. Let us see, for instance:

1. Denial of facts - The existence of structures like a benevolent monarchy in the Ramayan period, ancient democracy, republics, etc., in Indian society in ancient times is completely denied by colonial historians who believe that the world began after 0 CE. For them, nothing existed before that. Another perplexing example is the denial of the existence of the ‘Ram Setu’ and instead, it being named as ‘Adam’s Bridge’. This is only one example; the list continues endlessly.
2. Labelling history as myth or mythology - Since the ‘golden age’ of Europe began after its Industrial Revolution, the colonial historians cannot wrap their heads around pre-existing kingdoms, wealth, and structures in India. Texts like Ramayan and Mahabharat, which are geographically and historically accurate, are labeled as myth and mythology by colonial historians. This approach has largely reduced the colonised Indians’ faith in their own history and has served to cut us off from our roots.
3. Removed and added points - Max Müller stretched his interpretation to consider the Indian society till 2000 BC, thus essentially adding his own timeline and removing what actually existed.

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Sadly, even today, this history written or translated by the British imperialists serves as textbooks and is used by scholars to understand and explain India. Even the highest order of examinations in India, UPSC and PCS, that shape our bureaucracy and produce officers like IAS, IPS, IFS, etc., force aspirants to learn and memorise this colonial history, full of glorification of the invaders, attackers, and imperialist rulers.

Unfortunately, we still haven’t created an indigenous system to select and prepare our bureaucratic officers. We are still 'proudly' carrying forward the legacy of the Indian Civil Services created by the British colonisers in 1858 to streamline and professionalise the administration of British India.

The British administration in India was based on the main pillars, such as the civil service, the army, the police, the judiciary, etc. Administrative rules, regulations, and reforms consolidated British rule in India. Even though the Indian Civil Service (ICS) was considered an elite and prestigious service, in reality, this system was created to form slaves out of the English-educated Indian population. Sadly, Indians felt highly respected and dignified while joining these posts because of the colonial supremacy instilled in their minds. Hence becoming a slave of the British colonisers became the most reputable job for some English-educated Indians.

Mistakes of the past are one thing, but carrying forward the same mistakes even now, making our top officers (IAS, IPS, IFS, etc.) learn wrong facts and a denigrated perspective of India, is clearly reflected in the policies and politics formed in India, which are still not Bharat-centric.

Swami Vivekanand Ji said, “Do not be in a hurry, do not go out to imitate anybody else. This is another great lesson we have to remember: imitation is not civilization. I may deck myself out in a Raja’s dress, but will that make me a Raja? An ass in a lion’s skin does not make a lion. Imitation, cowardly imitation, never makes for progress. It is verily the sign of awful degradation in a man.”

Yet, we blindly follow the systems that British colonisers created and left for us. For all indigenous problems, instead of looking inside, we think of copying the West and its solutions, when in reality, their solutions are appropriate for their society, culture, climate, and people, but not for us. And so, Indian policy is full of copied material that makes no sense given India’s socio-political and cultural environments.

For instance, the architectural plans pursued by the West in the name of sustainable development are incompatible with Indian society, which has always worked hand-in-hand with religion and environmental protection. Thus, Indians do not need urban landscapes with incorporated planters; we would rather have houses with verandas and trees.

Another example is education - our systems were based on informal training and practical experience of Gurus and Acharyas, which focused on holistic development of the child. We do not need rote-learning models introduced by the West to train a class of robots. Even basic instances like the food and clothes we consume depend on our climatic conditions; we cannot ideally accept the clothes and food used by the West.

This completely goes in line with the vision and ideas of Thomas Babington Macaulay who came to India on a “civilising mission” to, “form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.”

This is the same Macaulay who believed that Indian literature was of no value and thus said, “…a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.” He also believed that Western science was far superior to Indian knowledge. “It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgements used at preparatory schools in England.”

These were, of course, a general stereotype in the entire West. As part of the ideological subversion designed by the colonisers, Indians accepted their viewpoint completely and saw themselves through the coloniser’s lens only.

This continues to this day, where our authorised textbooks glorify the invaders' attacks and colonisers' rule; where the UPSC syllabi teach that all development in modern India happened because of the colonisers; where NCERT textbooks glorify Aurangzeb as giving grants to support the building and maintaining of temples, and when asked about its source through PIL, they have no source to quote. It is often said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” This proves true in India’s case, which undermines itself owing to a colonised education and history.

We are still made to believe in supremacist theories like the Aryan Invasion Theory, which were created artificially to divide society and to foster discriminatory sentiments based on linguistics (Sanskrit vs Tamil Debate), origin, colour (white-black Divide), and region (north-south Divide).

Indians have always considered themselves superior in terms of high-order thinking capacity and knowledge, and so, Indian scriptures like the Ramayan and Mahabharat often use the term “Arya” to denote a superior person. In Ramayan, Maa Sita is often seen calling Shri Ram ‘Arya’. However, ancient Indian texts and scriptures are misappropriated to justify certain agendas. Hence, theories like Aryan Invasion, Caste Difference, etc., are artificially constructed outside of India and re-packaged and sold in India.

Additionally, colonisers have appropriated certain terms and concepts of ancient Indian scriptures to suit their needs. Thus we see the racialised languages like Sanskrit of Aryans and Tamil of Dravidians; we also see confused linguistic relations - but all of this was done to divide us both vertically (north-South divide) and horizontally (east-west divide), and to normalise brutal British colonisation as another superior race coming to rule and civilise us.

Thus, War Secretary Thomas Babington Macaulay was called to India to ideologically subvert India and to rule it for years to come. Thus, while the British colonisers failed in defeating us in the warfield, they succeeded in making education their warfare toolkit.

Today, we carry the burden of this colonised, elitist English education in ways unknown even to us. We are shaped by this education, our aspirations are formed by this education, and we work according to this education. To break the shackles, it is first important to understand them. It is necessary to understand the systematic dismantling of indigenous systems and replacement by colonial systems. Once this begins, only then can we truly call ourselves free.

This article attempts to unravel this systematic attack on the Indigenous education system. It is an attempt towards mental freedom and, consequently, freedom in the truest sense.