Their own worst enemy; how Britain’s education policy cost it the Empire’s Crown Jewel | Research News,The Indian Express

In 1935, the British Government passed legislation introducing English education to the masses. Their intent was to create a generation of Indians who would aid the Crown in administering its colony but if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to independence was paved with bad ones. The very policy that was meant to further subjugate Indians catalysed free thought and questioned the notion of British superiority, eventually culminating in the Congress’ demand for full independence.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, reportedly told noted American economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, “You realise, Galbraith, that I am the last Englishman to rule in India.”

Although Nehru is seen as one of the seminal figures of the Indian independence movement, according to the man himself, after returning from University in the UK, he was “as much prejudiced in favour of England and the English as it was possible for an Indian to be.”

Nehru was not alone in this regard. After centuries of colonial rule, by the early 1900s, there was a privileged class of Indians who had been educated in English, had adopted European mannerisms, and in the case of people like Nehru, had been educated at Western institutions. The British hoped these Indians would be sufficiently anglicised to act as an intermediary between the Empire and its colonial subjects, but in an ironic twist of fate, the very class of Indians that the British intended to ‘civilise’ through Western education ended up being the pioneers of the Indian independence movement.

Some will attribute this inadvertent phenomenon to the educational policy laid forth by Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1835, but to truly understand the transformation of schooling under British rule, it is important to look further back into the history of pre-colonial India.

Education in pre-colonial India

https://indianexpress.com/article/research/britain-education-policy-crown-jewel-8090041/

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