Overview
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged India to liberate itself from T. B. Macaulay’s influence as part of a broader push to end a colonial mindset, while clarifying the government is not opposed to English as a language.
- One op-ed defends Macaulay as a modernizer who criticized caste in 1833 and whose English-based education widened access to science, law and administration, including for Dalits.
- A companion op-ed argues Macaulay became a symbol of cultural denigration and urges reforms across institutions, from curricula to courtroom mannerisms and administrative titles.
- The debate revisits selective readings of Macaulay’s 1835 Minute, including the widely cited ‘Indian in blood… English in tastes’ line and the ‘single shelf’ remark, which critics and supporters interpret in starkly different ways.
- Supporters of the government frame the National Education Policy and related initiatives, including promotion of mother tongues and a ten-year drive to shed colonial-era practices, as concrete steps away from Macaulay-era norms.