Vice President Naidu calls for rejecting Macaulay’s education

Calling for rejection of the Macaulay system of education in the 75th year of Independence, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu said it imposed a foreign language as the medium of education in the country and confined education to the elite.

“Centuries of colonial rule taught us to look upon ourselves as an inferior race. We were taught to despise our own culture, traditional wisdom. This slowed our growth as a nation. The imposition of a foreign language as our medium of education confined education to a small section of the society, depriving a vast population of the right to education,” the VP said in his address after inaugurating the South Asian Institute of Peace and Reconciliation at the Dev Sanskriti Vishwa Vidyalaya, Haridwar.

Thomas Babington Macaulay was a British historian who played a major role in the introduction of English as the medium of instruction for education in India.

“We should feel proud of our heritage, our culture, and our forefathers. We must go back to our roots. We must give up our colonial mindset and teach our children to take pride in their Indian identity. We must learn as many Indian languages as possible. We must love our mother tongue. We must learn Sanskrit to know our scriptures, which are a treasure trove of knowledge,” the Vice President said.

Encouraging youngsters to propagate their mother tongue, he said, “I am looking forward to the day when all gadget notifications are issued in the mother tongue of a respective state. Your mother tongue is like your eyesight, whereas your knowledge of a foreign language is like your spectacles.”