Knowledge Nugget | Macaulay and his ‘Minute on Indian Education’: As PM Modi urges for 10-year pledge to reverse colonial legacy, here’s what you must know

Why in the news?

Delivering the Sixth Ramnath Goenka Lecture, the Prime Minister set a 10-year timeframe—leading up to the 200th year of Macaulay’s campaign—to reverse that legacy. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said to “put the locks on” the Western mindset embedded in India since 1835 through Thomas Macaulay’s project of reshaping Indian thought by dismantling indigenous knowledge systems and enforcing colonial education. In this context, let’s know about the history of education in British rule and Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Education in pre-colonial India was characterised by a segmentation along religious and caste lines, under what was known as the Gurukul system. As one of the oldest educational structures, the Gurukul system favoured traditional knowledge and spiritual development. Women, lower castes and other underprivileged people were often barred from accessing education.

2. While not much is known about early Indian education, the 17th century French traveller and physician Francois Bernier, was scathing in his criticism of it. Of the holy city of Benares (or Varanasi), he said: “There was nothing there approaching a decent university; neither colleges nor classes, just small groups of disciples under religious gurus, housed in the homes of rich merchants.”

3. However, when William Adam, a Scottish missionary who travelled to India in the 1830s, was asked to report to the East India Company on the progress of Indian education, he had a far more favourable view. While he acknowledged that patshalas were limited in resources, he also noted that they seemed to meet the requirements of the time, with gurus deciding what to teach according to the needs of the students.

Education under British rule

1. Initially, the East India Company took on minimal responsibility for education in India. Eighteenth-century Orientalists were the first to take an interest in the matter. Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of Bengal; William Jones, a British jurist; and Jonathan Duncan, the Governor of Bombay were deeply enamoured by the study of ancient and medieval India and particularly the Sanskrit and Persian language cultures. Their efforts led to the formation of madrasas and colleges across the country along with India’s first literary society, the Asiatic Society of Calcutta.

2. It was only in 1813, that the British Parliament contributed to this development, enacting a provision of Rupees one lakh annually ‘for the revival and improvement of literature and encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences.”

3. Although the state funding initially went to institutions favouring traditional learning, in parallel, Christian missionaries began to open Convent Schools, which reformed and modernised educational standards.

4. These transformations in education were often unpopular back in London, with the directors of the East India Company expressing concern that the spread of Western education may encourage rebellion amongst Indians. However, Governor-General Lord Hastings dismissed these concerns.

5. As Western education flourished in India, politicians in London began to realise that this new group of Indians could actually operate in favour of the British. To administer a large colony like India, the British needed educated professionals to work for them in numbers that would be impractical to import from abroad.

6. It was under this backdrop that Macaulay drafted the legislation known as the English Education Act of 1835.

Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education

1. Around the time that Macaulay was preparing education policy, there was a debate among Indians and the British about the type of education needed in India. The Orientalists believed in the promotion of traditional Indian education in vernacular languages while their opponents, the Anglicists, thought that the government should spend money only on Western education, delivered in English.

Thomas Babington Macauley (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

2. Macaulay belonged to the latter camp, advocating for the creation of a pool of Indians capable of serving British interests. This group would be “Indian by blood and colour, but English by tastes, opinions, morals and intellect.” Entry into this group would also be limited to only a few Indians, who would then educate the rest of the population according to Macaulay’s controversial Downward Filtration Theory.

3. However, even amongst the British, Macaulay’s theory was controversial. After the British Crown took over from the Company following the revolt of 1857, Viceroy Lord Mayo made a scathing assessment of the country’s educational policy, lamenting that the British were educating a few hundred Babus at a great expense, who would then do nothing toward extending knowledge to the millions.

4. Viceroy Lord Mayo prioritised the recommendations of the 1854 ‘Wood’s Despatch,’ which called for the spread of education in both English and vernacular languages.

5. Notably, after centuries of colonial rule, by the early 1900s, there was a privileged class of Indians who had been educated in English, had adopted European mannerisms, and had been educated at Western institutions. The British hoped these Indians would be sufficiently anglicised to act as an intermediary between the Empire and its colonial subjects, but in an ironic twist of fate, the very class of Indians that the British intended to ‘civilise’ through Western education ended up being the pioneers of the Indian independence movement.Some attribute this inadvertent phenomenon to the educational policy laid forth by Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1835. 

BEYOND THE NUGGET: Macaulay and the Indian Civil Service (ICS)

1. Lord Cornwallis is considered as ‘Father of Civil Services in India’. The Charter Act of 1793 established covenanted civil services, which led to a more structured administration and pensions for employees. Until the mid-19th century, Directors of the East India Company nominated youth for civil service. The Covenanted Civil Service formed the European elite of Indian administration.

2. Lord Wellesley founded the College of Fort William in Calcutta in 1800 to educate young recruits for the Civil Services. But the directors of the Company, in 1806, replaced it with their own East Indian College at Haileybury in England.

3. Entry required passing a simple examination and through a system of patronage for admission to the Company’s College at Haileybury. Training at Haileybury included 2 years of study in Law, Political Economy, and Indian Languages.

4. Before 1853 EIC directors appointed Civil Servants. Board of Control members were allowed to make some nominations. Charter Act of 1853 abolished the patronage system and introduced open competitive examinations. Reformers like Sir Charles Trevelyan and Robert Lowe supported competitive exams as a way to select candidates with character and ability.

5. Macaulay Committee (1855) recommendations: Lord Macaulay’s Report introduced a merit-based civil service.

— Civil servants should be university graduates (preferably from Oxford or Cambridge).

— Emphasis placed on general academic education, not vocational or legal training.

— Recommended replacing the patronage system with competitive examinations.

6. A Civil Service Commission was established in London (1854). The age limit was kept at a minimum of 18 years and a maximum of 25 years. The syllabus was heavily focused on European classics, disadvantaging Indian aspirants. The first competitive exams for the Indian Civil Services (ICS) were held in London in 1855.

Post Read Question

With reference to the Orientalist–Anglicist debate, consider the following statements:

1. Orientalists supported the promotion of traditional Indian education through vernacular languages.

2. Anglicists argued that government funds should focus exclusively on Western education delivered in English.

3. Macaulay supported the Orientalist view and advocated spending on vernacular education.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 1 and 2 only

(c) 2 and 3 onl

(d) 1, 2 and 3

(Sources: PM Modi urges 10-year national pledge to shed colonial mindset rooted in Macaulay’s legacy,    Their own worst enemy; how Britain’s education policy cost it the Empire’s Crown Jewel, Knowledge Nugget | National Civil Services Day 2025)

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