* It was February, 1835, a time when the British were striving to take 
control of the whole of India. Lord Macaulay, a historian and a 
politician, made a historical speech in the British Parliament, 
commonly referred to as The Minutes, which struck a blow at the 
centuries old system of Indian education. His words were to this 
effect: 

I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I 
have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth 
I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such 
calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, 
unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her 
spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we 
replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the 
Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater 
than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native 
self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated 
nation.

(Source: The Awakening Ray, Vol. 4 No. 5, The Gnostic Centre) 
Reproduced in Niti issue of April, 2002 at p. 10 - a periodic 
publication of Bharat Vikas Parishad, Delhi.

----

What is Sanskrit's Status Today?

Source: Hindu Press International

MUMBAI, INDIA, August 5, 2002: A recent BBC report by their 
correspondent, Sanjeev Srivastava, begins, "One of the oldest 
languages in the world, Sanskrit, is in danger of becoming extinct in 
India, the country of its origin. Although most Indian languages still 
use the basic grammar of Sanskrit, no more than a few thousand people 
in a country of more than one billion can claim to read, write and 
speak it fluently." The article goes on to say that Mumbai's Bharatiya 
Vidya Bhavan has few students for its Sanskrit courses, and that those 
students face poor job prospects upon graduation. The BBC article 
states that Sanskrit "lacks relevance," although it fails to mention 
that the Hindu scriptures are in Sanskrit or that Hindu temple worship 
is conducted in the language. The article states, "There is a school 
of thought which believes that teaching and learning Sanskrit is a 
complete waste of time and resources, especially as most Sanskrit 
colleges are publicly funded." HPI recalls the origin of this school 
of thought: the 1835 document entitled "Macaulay's Minute on Indian 
Education," in which Lord Macaulay argued successfully to curtail 
British government funding of Sanskrit colleges because "What we spend 
on the ... Sanskrit colleges is ... a dead loss to the cause of 
truth." Macaulay added that it would be wrong for the government to 
"encourage the study of a literature admitted to be of small intrinsic 
value, only because that literature inculcates the most serious errors 
on the most important subjects."

But modern scholars worldwide find great value in Sanskirt. <a 
href="http://imp.lss.wisc.edu/~gbuhnema/study.html"Click here</a to 
view a list of 53 major colleges and universities in the world which 
have departments of Sanskrit or offer courses in it. They include the 
great universities such as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Leiden, Oslo, 
Kyoto (which has a large department), and more. Germany has more 
universities teaching Sanskrit, 14, than India itself, ten, at least 
according to this list. The BBC article shows the continued impact of 
Macaulay's plan set forth 167 years ago to, "form a class who may be 
interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern [in India]; a 
class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in 
opinions, in morals and in intellect." And toward this end, Macaulay 
argued that ridding India of its great institutions of Sanskrit 
learning would be a significant step. As a result of his Minute, the 
British rulers closed all Sanskrit colleges in India except at 
Banaras. Hindus should not let the same thinking prevail today, 
rather, India should lead the world in the study of Sanskrit.

----

In the words of Macaulay, the pope of British schooling in India: "We 
must at present do our best to form a class, who may be interpreters 
between us and the millions we govern, a class of persons Indians in 
blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in 
intellects." Macaulay had very little regard for Hindu culture and 
education: "All the historical information which can be collected from 
all the books which have been written in the Sanskrit language, is 
less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgement 
used at preparatory schools in England." Then: "Hindus have a 
literature of small intrinsic value, hardly reconcilable with 
morality, full of monstrous superstitions." 

----

Macaulay made no secret of his intentions. In a famous letter to his father
he wrote: "Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully. The effect of 
this education on the Hindus is prodigious. ...It is my belief that if our 
plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolator among
the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected 
without any efforts to proselytise, without the smallest interference with 
religious liberty, by natural operation of knowledge and reflection. I heartily 
rejoice in the project."


Urmila dd:

Please accept my obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

After exhaustive research and consulting with some of our devotees in
academia, I would conclude that this quote is a fabrication.

Lord Macauly was responsible for deciding that English would be the medium
for the schools set up by the British Empire in India. He also clearly
thought that British culture was highly superior to the Indians. He felt
that Sanskrit and Arabic, the medium for education at the time, were useless
languages. His opinion of local languages, such as Bengali, etc. was even
lower. He would not have "glorified" Indian culture in any way; doing so
would be inconsistent with his writing.

Here is a quote from his "Minute" which nicely describes his attitude:

from : http://www.languageinindia.com/april2003/macaulay.html

MACAULEY, THOMAS BABINGTON (1958) Minute on education, in: W. T. DE BARY et
al. (Eds) Sources of Indian Tradition (New York, Columbia University Press),
p. 601

We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters
between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in
blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in
intellect.. I have never found one among them [Indians] who could deny that
a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native
literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western
literature is, indeed, fully admitted..It may be safely said, that the
literature now extant in that language [English] is of far greater value
than all the literature which three hundred years ago was extant in all the
languages of the world together.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Damana Krishna (das) JPS" <Damana.Krishna.JPS@pamho.net>
To: "Free Forum (Announcements)" <Free.Forum@pamho.net>
Cc: "BVMS" <BVMS@pamho.net>
Sent: Saturday, December 25, 2004 7:58 AM
Subject: Why India is Degraded?

> The original source is:
> From Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Minute of 2 February 1835 on Indian
> Education," Macaulay, Prose and Poetry, selected by G. M. Young (Cambridge
> MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), pp-721-24,729.
>
> This is quoted in the following web pages:
> http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1833macaulay-india.html
> http://www.mssu.edu/projectsouthasia/history/primarydocs/education/Macaulay0
> 01.
> htm
> This second one doesnt seem to work anymore?? Hmmmmm.
> Thanks a lot to iysmumbai for posting it.
> I think this should be posted as much as possible to cover up the demoniac
> plans to destroy the wonderful vedic culture.
> Your servant
> Damana Krishna dasa