Revisiting Macaulay’s Children
To be Indian, our pursuit of knowledge must be rooted in an appreciation of the values of our 5,000-year civilisation based on interdependent castes and acceptance of the religious in our lives
Mohan Ramanan 02 July 2021, Last Updated at 10:32 am outlookindia.com 2021-07-02T10:32:48+05:30
Many years ago I wrote an essay for the titled ‘Macaulay’s Children’. Thirty-five years on, I am pleasantly surprised that I still essentially think the same way. The main ideas of that essay were the need for roots, the English educational system that had made us into brown sahibs, the seductive attraction of English literature that I teach, and the need for an Indian perspective on that literature. I asked for a historic-minded criticism that would enable us to read ‘Indianly’. On this last point I have a different view now as will become apparent.