Education Policy and Its Dual Legacy

5.1 The Orientalist-Anglicist Controversy

The British were divided on how to educate Indians, producing a fundamental debate:

• Orientalists (led by H.H. Wilson, Horace Hayman Wilson): Support traditional Indian learning — Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian — in state-funded colleges. Reasoning: respect for Indian tradition and practical utility for governance.
• Anglicists (led by Macaulay, Bentinck): Replace Oriental learning with English-medium Western scientific education. Reasoning: English is the language of global science and commerce; "native literature" is inferior.

Macaulay's Minute (1835) settled the debate in favour of Anglicism — William Bentinck's resolution on education in 1835 adopted English as the medium of instruction.

The "Downward Filtration" Theory

Education would "filter down" from the educated elite to the masses — but it never did. English-medium education created a thin layer of anglicised Indians who governed for the British but did not educate the masses. Primary education in Indian languages remained neglected throughout the colonial period.

5.2 Unintended Consequences

The English-educated Indian elite used their Western education — including ideas of liberty, democracy, nationalism, and self-determination — against British rule itself. The founding generation of the Indian National Congress (Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Surendra Nath Banerjee) were all products of English education who used Western concepts to demand Indian self-rule.

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