08-09-2008, 07:15 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->
The mining of the ancient fortress of Hindu custom was a major
achievement, for the reason that it was uniformly spread all over India.
Had the new education been through the Indian languages, the emphasis
of the movement would have been different from province to province,
according to the development, flexibility and character of the language
used. No doubt the reformation of Hinduism would still have come
about, but it would not have been on an all-India basis. There would
have been no 'master plan' of change and, instead of the Hindu com-
munity being unified, it would have split into as many different units as
there are languages in India, and would have repeated the pattern of
Europe with its conglomeration of mutually hostile units within the same
Christian community. From this development India was saved by the
common medium of education which Macaulay introduced into India.
<span style='color:blue'>
In the second place, it is a point of major significance in the evolution
of India as a single nation that this uniform system of education through-
out India through a single language produced a Uke-mindedness on
which it has been possible to build. That it gave to India a common
language for political thinking and action is of less importance than the
creation of this like-mindedness, this community of thought, feeling and
ideas which created the Indian nationality. The mind of India is united
spiritually by Hindu religious thought, by the binding force of the great
tradition which Sanskrit embodies and which, through the Indian lan-
guages that still reflect and convey that tradition, continues to be a
living factor, and by the new community of ideas and approach which
English education has spread among the dominant classes. Of these
three factors, the one which unites India politically, and makes it possible
for Indians to act as a single nation and build up a new society, is the last.
The first two are the permanent basis of Hindu civilization. They need
not and could not have by themselves created a unified nation without
the cementing force of like-mindedness in politics. The unity of Hindu
life and the common tradition of a Sanskrit culture are analogous to the
Christian religion and Latin tradition in Western Europe, and yet by its
emphasis on regional languages and the absence of a cementing factor in
secular life, Europe's development was through fragmentation. Except
for a hundred years of uniform education through the English language
the result would have been the same in India. </span>
Further, this education through the English language enabled India
to share, not derivatively or second-hand but directly, the results of the
great movement of Enlightenment in Europe. The historic and truly
magnificent work of the eighteenth-century thinkers of Europe had,Â
after a period of revolution and unsettlement, become the living thought
of the nineteenth century. Through a hundred channels it was fertilizing
the life of Europe at the very time that English education was spreading
in India. From explosive revolutionary slogans, 'liberty, equality and
fraternity' had become transformed into the respectable creed of
liberalism. Even in traditional England, law was undergoing a reform
which was soon to affect India also. The greatest good of the greatest
number had become an acceptable formula in a country to which an
exclusive Whig oligarchy had given prosperity, security and an Empire
spread over the four corners of the world. To this thought India became
an adopted heir, and though English administrators spoke contemp-
tuously of natives talking the language of their masters and aping the
manners and mannerisms of their betters and not understanding the
inner significance of the words by which they were swearing, it is un-
deniable that as time went on and one generation after another grew up
on these principles, the apparent contradiction of a Brahmin talking
about equality and fraternity became reconciled. The Hindu middle
classes had become acclimatized to European thought in a way that few
people had anticipated.
<b>
India emerged by a peaceful revolution as a modern society mainly
because the gradual penetration of ideas was through education spread
over a fairly large and representative class. It is often alleged against the
Indian system of education that it failed to filter through to the masses.
On a careful examination, this criticism will be found to be unjustified.
It is true that the authors of the scheme had hoped that, as a result of
infiltration, Hindu society, which was then considered to be in a process
of dissolution, would disappear and the population of India would be
saved for Christ. This was the Grand Design which made the mission-
aries ardent advocates of the scheme. That hope did not materialize. In
fact, far from India turning Christian, the progress of English education
only led, as we saw, to a large-scale reformation of Hinduism and a more
rational interpretation of its dogmas* It led to a remarkable strengthen-
ing of the hold of Hinduism on the masses and its own emergence as a
leading world religion. In that sense the theory of filtering down had the
very opposite effect from what Macaulay and his friends in their com-
placency had imagined.</b> It is therefore no matter for surprise that the
missionary educators should consider that the object on which they had
spent so much money and energy had failed.
The extent to which the theory of infiltration succeeded can best be
seen by the extraordinary growth of the vernaculars of India during the
last half-century. Few European scholars have tried to understand the
literary activity which transformed these languages into great and living
vehicles of thought and artistic creation entitling most of them to places
of honour in the literatures of the modern world. Languages like Hindi,
spoken by over a hundred millions; Bengali, the mother tongue of
seventy millions; Gujerati, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Kanarese and
Malaydam theleastof themspokenby a population of more thanfifteen
millions, have all, during the last half-centime witnessed an immense
amount of literary activity, the echoes of which have only very occasion-
ally reached the West. It will hardly be denied that this activity, which is
the genuine reflection of the new humanism which India has developed,
is the result of the infiltration of Western ideas and thought. Indian
intellectual effort has so far been judged by the work of Indian writers in
English. Insignificant in number and not too original, and with very
little distinctive quality to contribute, the poets, essayists and literateurs
of Indo-Anglian literature, as it is called, cannot claim to represent
either the modern Indian mind or be considered the examples of India's
creative capacity. The genuine results of English education in India, the
reaction of the Indian mind to the vital movements of European culture
introduced to them through English, are to be seen in the work of Tagore,
Iqbal, Buddha Deva Bose, Sarat Chandra Chatterji, Prem Chand, K. M.
Munshi, Vallathol, Sankara Kurup and a host of other great writers who
have enriched the literatures of modern Indian languages. Some idea of
the quality of their work reached the West through the popularity
achieved in Europe by the translations of Tagore's work; but, generally
speaking, it has been a closed book to European scholars.
Three stages may be observed in the development of these languages.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century each one of these languages
could boast of a literature which contained some of the masterpieces of
poetic inspiration. There were in Hindi the great works of Tulsidas,
Surdas and Kesavadas; in Bengali of Vidyapati, Chandidas and Krittibas.
In Tamil there was a classical literature which claimed to rival the glories
of Sanskrit. In Marathi, Gujerati and the rest the position was similar.
There was a poetic literature of undoubted excellence, which was greatly
cherished by the people; but all the same they were vernaculars, for
education was through tie classics, Sanskrit or Persian. Learning and
scholarship had relation only to the classical languages. It was therefore
true of all these languages that they had no books which could be used as
textbooks in the new educational scheme.
This period also witnessed the secularization of the vernacular
literature. As mentioned before, the development of literature in these
languages was almost exclusively in the realm of poetry and the themes
of such poetry were predominantly religious. All the great names in the
different vernacular literatures before the nineteenth century - Tulsidas,
Surdas, Kabir, Mira, Vidyapati, Chandidas, Tukaram - were of those
associated with devotional religion. In fact, historically, the revival ofÂ
religion in the Middle Ages and the growth of vernacular literatures
were two aspects of the same development. The popularization of the
Rama and Krishna cults, which constituted so important a feature in the
life of medieval India, was achieved through the work of vernacular
poets, and as a result the literatures of what became modern Indian
languages started in the nineteenth century, heavily overladen with a
religious tradition. The secular tradition in these literatures was confined
mainly to erotic poetry.
<b>
The secularization of literature was the work of the first part of the
nineteenth century, mainly as a result of the infiltration of English ideas.
For this development essential preparatory work, such as the production
of authoritative dictionaries and grammars, was done in most cases by
missionaries and other foreigners who had scientific training in other
languages. For example, it was the German missionary Gundert who, at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, wrote an authoritative diction-
ary of the Malayalam language.</b> It is Bishop Caldwell's Comparative
Grammar of the Dravidian Languages that formed the groundwork of
linguistic studies in the south. The work of the Serampore missionaries
in laying the foundation of the modern developments in Bengal is
generally accepted.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The mining of the ancient fortress of Hindu custom was a major
achievement, for the reason that it was uniformly spread all over India.
Had the new education been through the Indian languages, the emphasis
of the movement would have been different from province to province,
according to the development, flexibility and character of the language
used. No doubt the reformation of Hinduism would still have come
about, but it would not have been on an all-India basis. There would
have been no 'master plan' of change and, instead of the Hindu com-
munity being unified, it would have split into as many different units as
there are languages in India, and would have repeated the pattern of
Europe with its conglomeration of mutually hostile units within the same
Christian community. From this development India was saved by the
common medium of education which Macaulay introduced into India.
<span style='color:blue'>
In the second place, it is a point of major significance in the evolution
of India as a single nation that this uniform system of education through-
out India through a single language produced a Uke-mindedness on
which it has been possible to build. That it gave to India a common
language for political thinking and action is of less importance than the
creation of this like-mindedness, this community of thought, feeling and
ideas which created the Indian nationality. The mind of India is united
spiritually by Hindu religious thought, by the binding force of the great
tradition which Sanskrit embodies and which, through the Indian lan-
guages that still reflect and convey that tradition, continues to be a
living factor, and by the new community of ideas and approach which
English education has spread among the dominant classes. Of these
three factors, the one which unites India politically, and makes it possible
for Indians to act as a single nation and build up a new society, is the last.
The first two are the permanent basis of Hindu civilization. They need
not and could not have by themselves created a unified nation without
the cementing force of like-mindedness in politics. The unity of Hindu
life and the common tradition of a Sanskrit culture are analogous to the
Christian religion and Latin tradition in Western Europe, and yet by its
emphasis on regional languages and the absence of a cementing factor in
secular life, Europe's development was through fragmentation. Except
for a hundred years of uniform education through the English language
the result would have been the same in India. </span>
Further, this education through the English language enabled India
to share, not derivatively or second-hand but directly, the results of the
great movement of Enlightenment in Europe. The historic and truly
magnificent work of the eighteenth-century thinkers of Europe had,Â
after a period of revolution and unsettlement, become the living thought
of the nineteenth century. Through a hundred channels it was fertilizing
the life of Europe at the very time that English education was spreading
in India. From explosive revolutionary slogans, 'liberty, equality and
fraternity' had become transformed into the respectable creed of
liberalism. Even in traditional England, law was undergoing a reform
which was soon to affect India also. The greatest good of the greatest
number had become an acceptable formula in a country to which an
exclusive Whig oligarchy had given prosperity, security and an Empire
spread over the four corners of the world. To this thought India became
an adopted heir, and though English administrators spoke contemp-
tuously of natives talking the language of their masters and aping the
manners and mannerisms of their betters and not understanding the
inner significance of the words by which they were swearing, it is un-
deniable that as time went on and one generation after another grew up
on these principles, the apparent contradiction of a Brahmin talking
about equality and fraternity became reconciled. The Hindu middle
classes had become acclimatized to European thought in a way that few
people had anticipated.
<b>
India emerged by a peaceful revolution as a modern society mainly
because the gradual penetration of ideas was through education spread
over a fairly large and representative class. It is often alleged against the
Indian system of education that it failed to filter through to the masses.
On a careful examination, this criticism will be found to be unjustified.
It is true that the authors of the scheme had hoped that, as a result of
infiltration, Hindu society, which was then considered to be in a process
of dissolution, would disappear and the population of India would be
saved for Christ. This was the Grand Design which made the mission-
aries ardent advocates of the scheme. That hope did not materialize. In
fact, far from India turning Christian, the progress of English education
only led, as we saw, to a large-scale reformation of Hinduism and a more
rational interpretation of its dogmas* It led to a remarkable strengthen-
ing of the hold of Hinduism on the masses and its own emergence as a
leading world religion. In that sense the theory of filtering down had the
very opposite effect from what Macaulay and his friends in their com-
placency had imagined.</b> It is therefore no matter for surprise that the
missionary educators should consider that the object on which they had
spent so much money and energy had failed.
The extent to which the theory of infiltration succeeded can best be
seen by the extraordinary growth of the vernaculars of India during the
last half-century. Few European scholars have tried to understand the
literary activity which transformed these languages into great and living
vehicles of thought and artistic creation entitling most of them to places
of honour in the literatures of the modern world. Languages like Hindi,
spoken by over a hundred millions; Bengali, the mother tongue of
seventy millions; Gujerati, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Kanarese and
Malaydam theleastof themspokenby a population of more thanfifteen
millions, have all, during the last half-centime witnessed an immense
amount of literary activity, the echoes of which have only very occasion-
ally reached the West. It will hardly be denied that this activity, which is
the genuine reflection of the new humanism which India has developed,
is the result of the infiltration of Western ideas and thought. Indian
intellectual effort has so far been judged by the work of Indian writers in
English. Insignificant in number and not too original, and with very
little distinctive quality to contribute, the poets, essayists and literateurs
of Indo-Anglian literature, as it is called, cannot claim to represent
either the modern Indian mind or be considered the examples of India's
creative capacity. The genuine results of English education in India, the
reaction of the Indian mind to the vital movements of European culture
introduced to them through English, are to be seen in the work of Tagore,
Iqbal, Buddha Deva Bose, Sarat Chandra Chatterji, Prem Chand, K. M.
Munshi, Vallathol, Sankara Kurup and a host of other great writers who
have enriched the literatures of modern Indian languages. Some idea of
the quality of their work reached the West through the popularity
achieved in Europe by the translations of Tagore's work; but, generally
speaking, it has been a closed book to European scholars.
Three stages may be observed in the development of these languages.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century each one of these languages
could boast of a literature which contained some of the masterpieces of
poetic inspiration. There were in Hindi the great works of Tulsidas,
Surdas and Kesavadas; in Bengali of Vidyapati, Chandidas and Krittibas.
In Tamil there was a classical literature which claimed to rival the glories
of Sanskrit. In Marathi, Gujerati and the rest the position was similar.
There was a poetic literature of undoubted excellence, which was greatly
cherished by the people; but all the same they were vernaculars, for
education was through tie classics, Sanskrit or Persian. Learning and
scholarship had relation only to the classical languages. It was therefore
true of all these languages that they had no books which could be used as
textbooks in the new educational scheme.
This period also witnessed the secularization of the vernacular
literature. As mentioned before, the development of literature in these
languages was almost exclusively in the realm of poetry and the themes
of such poetry were predominantly religious. All the great names in the
different vernacular literatures before the nineteenth century - Tulsidas,
Surdas, Kabir, Mira, Vidyapati, Chandidas, Tukaram - were of those
associated with devotional religion. In fact, historically, the revival ofÂ
religion in the Middle Ages and the growth of vernacular literatures
were two aspects of the same development. The popularization of the
Rama and Krishna cults, which constituted so important a feature in the
life of medieval India, was achieved through the work of vernacular
poets, and as a result the literatures of what became modern Indian
languages started in the nineteenth century, heavily overladen with a
religious tradition. The secular tradition in these literatures was confined
mainly to erotic poetry.
<b>
The secularization of literature was the work of the first part of the
nineteenth century, mainly as a result of the infiltration of English ideas.
For this development essential preparatory work, such as the production
of authoritative dictionaries and grammars, was done in most cases by
missionaries and other foreigners who had scientific training in other
languages. For example, it was the German missionary Gundert who, at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, wrote an authoritative diction-
ary of the Malayalam language.</b> It is Bishop Caldwell's Comparative
Grammar of the Dravidian Languages that formed the groundwork of
linguistic studies in the south. The work of the Serampore missionaries
in laying the foundation of the modern developments in Bengal is
generally accepted.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->