Chapter 6: Civilising the “Native”, Educating the Nation

Answer.

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(a) True

(b) True

(c) False

(d) False

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William Jones shared a deep respect for ancient cultures, both India and the West. Indian civilisation, he felt, had attained its glory in the ancient past but had subsequently declined. In order to understand India, it was necessary to discover the sacred and legal texts that were produced in the ancient period. Only those texts could reveal the real ideas and laws of the Hindus and Muslims. William Jones believed that only a new study of these texts could form the basis of future development in India.

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James Mill and Thomas Macaulay felt that the knowledge of English would allow Indians to read some of the finest literature that the world had produced; it would make them aware of the developments in Western science and philosophy. The teaching of English could thus be a way of ‘civilising’ people, changing their tastes, values and culture. They also felt that the aim of education should be to teach what was useful and practical. So, Indians should be made familiar with the scientific and technical advances that the West had made, rather than with the poetry and sacred literature of the ‘Orient’.

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According to Mahatma Gandhi, education should be all-round, drawing out of the best in child and man, encompassing body, mind and spirit. His beliefs were that literacy is not the end of education and not even the beginning. He thought that literacy was only one of the means by which men and women could be educated. Therefore, he thought that the child’s education should begin by teaching them useful handicrafts and enabling them to create something from the moment they begin training. “I hold that the highest development of the mind and the soul is possible under such a system of education. Only every handicraft has to be taught not merely mechanically as is done today but scientifically, i.e. the child should know the why and the wherefore of every process,” quotes by Gandhi.

Answer.

Mahatma Gandhi argued that colonial education created a sense of inferiority in the minds of Indians. It made them see Western civilisation as superior and destroyed the pride they had in their own culture. Gandhi thought that there was poison in English education, that it was sinful, it enslaved Indians and cast an evil spell on them. Charmed by the West and appreciating everything that came from the West, Indians educated in these institutions began admiring British rule. Mahatma Gandhi wanted an education that could help Indians recover their sense of dignity and self-respect. During the national movement, he urged students to leave educational institutions in order to show to the British that the Indians were no longer willing to be enslaved.