Macaulay’s children

My uncle often tells me I’ve trained myself in distraction, constantly streaming video content in the background while doing chores or assignments. Last week, as I began researching for my article on colonialism, I followed my usual pattern—playing a conversation between Indian filmmakers in the background while I worked. At one point, I cringed as a particular filmmaker spoke in broken English, and I skipped past the sections where they were talking without a second thought. As I got absorbed in my research, I lost track of the video until something they said caught my attention, and I found myself captivated by the depth and insight of their words. They were endearing, smart, and brilliant at their craft. Yet, I had almost dismissed them entirely—simply because of their language. 

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Here I was, researching for a piece on colonialism while unconsciously embodying a colonial mindset myself. How telling it was that, even as someone born in a country free from colonial rule for nearly 80 years, I had internalized these remnants so deeply. At the same time, my nagging sense of self doubt about my own fluency in English ability to communicate is constant as a foreigner in New York City. 

My reflexive prejudice toward this filmmaker’s English and my subconscious self-valuation based on language was a stark reminder of how ingrained colonial attitudes still are in our perceptions. As I reflected on my reaction, I acknowledged this bias isn’t a new concept to me, but being confronted with it in myself was bitter. This experience made me think more deeply about the invisible hand of language and its power to shape how we view others and ourselves. The way we judge, almost unconsciously, who is worthy, who belongs, and who doesn’t. So, let’s explore what made us this way. 

Cultural and Lingusitic Imperialism leading to hegemony

The colonial history of India is a little different in the sense that the British Raj adopted a brutal yet softer approach to the colony, in comparison to the more direct, inhumane, violent repression in West Africa that was accompanied by the brutal repression with systemic economic depredation and exploitation in India. This piece focuses on the cultural and linguistic imperialism that contributed to English becoming one of the Lingua Franca of the globe. 

English becoming a language of the elite and intellectual class in India was not an organic process or an unintended consequence of colonial rule but rather a deliberate action to manage the administration of the British Raj over the vast territory and population by creating a class of Indians who are “Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect” [Macaulay’s Minute on Education (1835)]. Therefore, English was not merely a language used for administrative ease but also a tool for cultural dominance. Education policies systematically made English the language associated with power, respect, and prosperity, or rather the only way to break from the role of the servant to progress. The patronage extended to colleges that instructed in English, and deliberation shut down of other schools led to the marginalizing of the region’s indigenous languages. This was reflected in the choices of the colonized. For those excluded from power in the feudal and caste system, English Western education was a means of social mobility and economic opportunity.

Schools often promoted a hidden curriculum that perpetuated english thought, morality and society shaping the self-perception and therefore identities of the colonized, slowly while people retained their sense of cultural identity this melded with the qualities of the colonizer that were considered ideal and superior. These ideals were also reflected in popular perceptions of competance. Fluency in english was seen as sign of intellectual superiority and often led to people educated in “regional language medium schools” as inferior. 

Unintended Consequences 

One of the biggest consequences for the colonizer was that the primary foreruners in the independence movement were the first generation of Macaulay’s Children i.e., the English intellectual modernized milieu who thought like the colonizer. They based their arguments and ideology on Western thoughts of liberty, freedom justice, utilitarianism, nationalism and socialism. They didn’t see the Indians as being any lesser than the colonizer. For example, Gandhi was resonated with Leo Tolstoy’s view on state violence and Thoreau’s idea of civil disobedience. BR Ambedkar, studied in Britain where he learned democratic principles, his PhD from Columbia Univerisity where he found basis for his movements and reforms from John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. He also drafted the Indian Consitution which reflected individual liberty and rights, social justice, particularly for marginalized groups. 

Post Independence Politics 

While the thought process and perceptions of the intellectual and political leaders of the time was heavily infuenced by western thoughts and morals, which is not necessarily a negative attribute, it also resulted in these leaders seeking the approval of the coloizer, proving to the foreign colonizer that they were worthy of independence. This need to prove and be a legitimate state of capable civilized individuals continued post independence. The national leadership making attempts to stick with the noble non-violent stance taken by their independence leaders while appeasing the west and advanced society of their capability as a modern democracy, while adhering to the internalized colonial societal morality, upholding the supremacy of English in all structures and institutions, aiding the marginalization of the local languages. 

The heigtened sense of leaders in new India, made them view their language and cultural identity as something to protect and use a political issue to win in electoral politics, pitting english against hindi and other languages. In the South of India, particularly Tamil Nadu, the colonial mindset plays a very interesting role. The politics accepted English as the foreign language of the master, an unfortunate inheritance that they accept for pragmatic reasons, but also a lesson that nade them determined to stop invasions and cultural supremacy and hegemony of Hindi. They would prefer the imposition of English with Tamil rather than accept the language of the north, whom they saw as invaders according to the Dravidian race, and Aryan Invasion Theory. 

Societal Heirarchy

The long-lasting and pervasive nature of this linguistic hegemony, the dominance of the English language, is seen clearly in the inherited imperial civil, administrative structure that we now know as the Indian Civil Services. A recent movie called 12 Fail is a remarkable movie that clearly depicts societal structures and hypocrisy. In this movie, a young man educated in a government/public Hindu medium school devotes his entire being to clearing the civil service exams. When confronted with failure, he approaches someone he admires to get advice, only to be told that he doesn’t have it in him because he isn’t fluent in English. His reaction was, however, more telling, where he didn’t feel insulted by the flawed nature of English Supremacy or the need for it, but rather a reflection of class and took it as a challenge, becoming a part of the system in defiance of the perception of his capabilities. He says in his final interview, how does it matter if the water is served in a steel tumbler or a glass, as long as it is clean and serves the intended purpose? Met with a reaction, “he is arrogant; I hate these Hindi medium people.” 

The internally confused Indian battles between seeking Western approval and, at the same time, vociferously advocating for their “Indian” identity, struggling between being practical and traditional. These issues were more apparent in the previous generations, but now, as the memory of colonialism fades, they are more accepted in the present generation. Our confused perception, which may or may not be a colonial mindset, is also reflected in who we find admirable and attractive. The only thing that perfectly sums up this weird but natural balance for many Indians is what Shabana Azmi said in a casual interview when asked who she finds the sexiest man in India. She said, “There isn’t any one man, but what I find sexy is when a man is wearing a sherwani and speaks beautiful English and when he is wearing a three-piece suit and speaks beautiful Urdu, that I find very sexy.” The ideal Indian male stereotype of many in a generation, and perhaps the prime example of the confused Indian. I am not that different, which makes all of us privileged enough to have been accorded the much coveted English education, another who descends or is closely related to those known as “Macaulay’s children.” 

References

Al-Kahtany and Alhamami, Linguistic hegemony and English in Higher Education, 2022.

Koffee with Karan, Season 1, episode 14

Pervaiz et al, Linguistic Imperialism, 2019

Tietze et al., The Victorious English Language, 2012

Przymus et al., The Hidden Curriculum of Monolingualism: Understanding Metonymy to Interrogate Problematic Representations of Raciolinguistic Identities in Schoolscapes, 2021.

Wilkinson, The Undisciplined Youth and a Moral Panic in Independent India, Circa 1947‐1964, 2022

Macaulay’s Minute on Education (1835)