A Peek in the History of English Education: A Weapon to Collapse the Cultures and Values of Indian Subcontinent

A man called Thomas Babington Macaulay is credited for introducing the English education system in India. Many people praise him for what he did. In reality, he was a very shrewd man with an inherent mission to make India a slave to Britain.

Thomas Babington Macaulay visited the whole of India for 17 years to understand the very fabrics and mechanics of the country. He found that the country was rich in its spiritual culture, religion, moral values, and ethical identity. Macaulay understood that this kind of India cannot become an enslaved mass until and unless they break their very backbone, that is, their spiritual culture and education system.

After his long journey, he tried to convince East India company governors to replace the Gurukulam education system of India with English education. However, the governor then was Lord Warren Hastings, well-versed in Bhagawat Gita, Vedas, and Tantras.

Lord Warren Hastings has openly praised Bhagawat Gita as the epitome of world religious literature for its unique perspective, creativity, and incomparable logic (Swami Ranganathananda).

There was another British-born professor Horace Hayman Wilson who translated Panchtantra and wrote commentaries on Vishnu Purana as well as Rigved. He was one of the firmest adversaries of the proposal that English should be made the only medium of instruction in schools in India. They were not willing to replace spiritual education because they knew the value of that education system.

When Macaulay could not convince the Indian governors and professors, he directly went to England to get the orders from Queen.

On February 2, 1835, he gave a compelling speech in front of the British Parliament. In that speech, he said that he has traveled across India and has not seen one person who is poor or a thief.

Macaulay was stunned to see such wealth in India and people of high moral values and capacity. He was assured that England would never be able to conquer India unless they destroyed the backbone of that nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage. Therefore, He proposed to replace India’s spiritual education system with English education. The motive was if the Indians thought that English was more significant than their own languages, they would lose their self-esteem, and they would become what they wanted them to be indeed a suppressed country.

There is a mixed review of this speech. Some say it is fake, and others say it is accurate. However, seeing the condition of India today, this speech is like a prophecy that has come true in modern times.

If we see today’s condition, Macaulay has succeeded in his mission. I would not write this article if it was relevant to Indians only. The same goes for us Nepalese too!

For the last 287 years, Indians have been taught the thought process of the English education system. In Nepal, English education started in the Rana Regime about 170 years ago when Mr. Rose, an English teacher, came to Nepal and started teaching English in Durbar High School to the so-called noble class of the time. He replaced the Sanskrit mainstream education of Durbar High School with that of English education (Swami Chandresh).

The spiritual tradition has been broken for many generations. We look like Nepalese, but we are like English people in our thought process. We think like them, dress like them, eat like them, and when we complete our education, we want to go to their country. None of the English educated children wants to stay home. The English-educated people go to Europe, America, Canada, etc., and never return. They create low value to the home country. Nepal’s economy, especially the dollar reserves, is held by the poor, uneducated laborers who toil in the middle east to earn their living.

This is the kind of slavery we are going through. We are not even aware of it. Millions of rupees are expended to educate a Nepalese in their home country.

When youths get a degree of some kind, what do they do out of it? They go to western countries and work for them. This Macaulay’s education system creates cogs for their machinery free of cost in the third world.

What a luxury to them? And, what a shame to us?

Definitely, there is weakness on the government side which cannot retain talents in Nepal. Nevertheless, the main issue is the education system which never teaches us about the possibilities in our country, about the techniques that can be applicable and profitable in Nepal. It doesn’t teach us about the glory of our country. It doesn’t teach about the spiritual giants of our country who are praised and followed by the whole world. We only read their language, history, geography, inventions, and so on. Then, how will children want to stay in their home country when they are not taught anything about their own country? This is nothing but part of Western diplomacy’s grand design, which rules the whole world by penetrating their education and culture.

Today, all the originality we had is gone. We do not follow the excellent life practices of Yog given by our ancestors. But when westerners publish the article on Nadi Sodhan Pranayama by translating it into ‘cardiac resonance breathing,’ we clap at their ingenuity.

We do not care it when our scriptures say to fast twice a month on the days of Ekadashi. But when a Japanese and an American do the research on intermittent fasting based on the same formula of Ekadashi, we start fasting with great zeal! Wow! What marvelous enslaved people have we become? We should be proud of it. Isn’t it true?

Despite all this vicious circle of slavery, there is a ray of hope to get out of it if we will to. For that, first, we need to know about the glorious past of our culture. We should study the great beings like Shiva, Rama, Krishna, Ved Vyasa, King Janak, Rishi Yagyavalka, and many other seers who connect to our nation’s Himalayas. Meditating in the Himalayas, they gained enlightenment and found the solution to the world’s burdens.

Start learning yoga, and meditation, read Bhagawat Gita, Upanishads, Yogasutras, and many other works of our rich literature. Please beware of their English translations. They mislead you in many ways. Once you connect with your source, then it doesn’t matter where you live. You will have a greater outlook on life, and you will never be a slave because by then, you will have found out your authentic nature.

The English education system forcefully invaded us. Being connected to the source, we can bombard the west with the indigenous knowledge and practical techniques of yoga and spirituality in their same language and take the beautiful revenge! What do you think?

Shreedhar Acharya

The writer is a published author of two books available in Amazon and is a spiritually inclined thinker and knowledge keeper.