“We are Indians, but our minds and thoughts have become foreign. We must completely free ourselves from this foreign influence. Only then will we be able to access our knowledge tradition and understand its importance. ... We must free ourselves from the Macaulay Knowledge System.” - Dr. Mohan Bhagwat, Sarsanghachalak of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, in a speech. SUCH assertions often surface in India’s social discourse. Even Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has made a definitive statement against the Macaulian mindset and has set a national goal of 10 years (up to 2035 when the imposition of the Macaulay doctrine would complete 200 years) erase finally its ugly influence on the Indian mind. Each of the assertions against the Macaulian influence has its own importance and substance. Yet, most unfortunately, no serious efforts appears to have been made or is being made actually to erase the Macaulian influence on the Indian psyche.

 

This is because ‘We The People Of India (that is Bharat)’ have yet not started snapping the roots of what Dr. Mohan Bhagwat calls the “Macaulay knowledge system”. Until that task is nationally undertaken, no concrete progress would be achieved on this critical front. No matter the so-called new National Education Policy (which is often described to be indigenous in approach), no matter the political tall talk in this regard, the larger Indian society is still living merrily under the Macaulian influence -- day and day out -- unmindful of the harm, unbothered about the short term and long term ill-effects. And we cannot blame anybody -- since that may mean blaming the entire society. So, we make speeches, our Indic researchers bring out wonderful data from painstaking work in favour of the glory of India’s past, we organise festivals on Indic themes, we even make some films and stage plays and then we feel that we have achieved the goal.

 

This is how we touch the issue only superficially, but actually do nothing concrete. Our schools, our school-books, our families and homes, our social institutions show only a scant awareness of the very serious issue of the ugly Macaulian influence on our minds. It is not without reason, therefore, that a visionary like Dr. Mohan Bhagwat laments that “We are Indians, but our minds and thoughts have become foreign.” Every word in Dr. Bhagwat’s statement is unfortunately true. Every word of the Prime Minister’s statement, also, is true. But the larger society is unbothered -- because we have yet not even tried to tackle the problem of the totally undesirable educational feeding we are injecting the minds of generations of Indian children -- right from entry-level to post-doctoral levels. Our schools are unfortunately the channels that inject the Macaulian thought into young impressionable minds. There need not be any opposition to English as medium of instruction. But the worst victim of that is Indian languages -- about which no grief is socially and vociferously expressed. Because our kids are studying in English medium right from start, they get easily alienated from their mother-tongues.

 

This is universal experience. Yet, the larger society has refused to wake up to its terrible ill-effects. There are several facets and nuances of this approach to education -- about which the larger society is not even aware. Social leaders also appear not to make any conscious efforts to educate the larger society on this grave issue related to learning in a foreign language. The kids grow up without even basic and practical connect with their own languages. So, if somebody says 75 in Hindi as Pachahattar, countless numbers of young Indians do not understand what that may be meaning. For them, unfortunately, 75 is ‘Seventy-five’. If this is not one reflection of the Macaulian influence, then what is it ? Have we ever thought about this sad decline ? Thus, the issue is not as simple as some people may want to insist upon. The Macaulian influence has seeped so deep into the average Indian mindset ! Foreign music, foreign practices, foreign ideals, foreign foods, foreign films, foreign fashion, foreign books fill our lives to such an extent as to wean us away from our own culture and history. And then there is our ugly embrace of the stupid longing to send our children to foreign universities even for undergraduate levels of studies -- though all of us know that many, many among those young people never return to India -- because they find the foreign locations more attractive, more lucrative (mostly in money terms). The thought never occurs to them that in the past some time, India, too, is proving to be a great global destination in every term.

 

When all these Macaulian influences are operating on our minds under our official patronage, then how can we expect to erase all those in ten years, as the honourable Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi has said ? The malaise, thus, has gone too deep into our social psyche to be erased by acting superficially or giving speeches or writing scholarly articles. What is needed is a massive social movement with the help of the voluminous data stemming from massive research work into Indic subjects by countless numbers of scholars. The ten-year deadline by the Prime Minister for this goal to be achieved may be all right for political purposes.

 

What appears more important is a vigorous social activity in this regard so that Indic thought starts replacing the Macaulian influence on our minds. This may take a longer time, all right. But the start of such a movement is an urgent need of our larger society. In that movement, the average Indian home will have to be made the ground-level point of spreading the Indic thought to replace the Macaulay knowledge system, as Dr. Mohan Bhagwat put it -- provided ‘We The People Of India (that is Bharat)’ decide to erase the Macaulian influence or mindset earnestly.