Recently there's been a lot of controversy relating to Dina Nath Batra's bold move on inclusion of Sanskrit in School curriculum, opening a call centre for inculcating traditional values, culture and nationalism in students, etc. (link to news) Very good chances are that by now readers of this post would have developed an anti progress, orthodox and primitive image to this person Dina Nath Batra. Even I am also not a fan of his, infact I don't even recognize him either. However, I believe what is wrong in his proposition is his too steep approach and may be unrealistic references which look like fantasy. However, there exists a fair amount of factual data and accounts, of European officers themselves and books written during that period, that do advocate about the level of education, technology, societal order and intellectual prime of India till 1850. So we may question Batra's random and authoritative approach but there is some matter also in it which can't be out-rightly rejected.
Now let's take a rational look at the genesis of this proposition. But before that, if you might have read the news or followed any TV debate, you might already have a biased view against the propositions or the underlining issue. To answer for that, I would cite an example.
Lord Macaulay, the officer who was sent to survey the level of education in India around 1830 and device a policy for formalising education here, while addressing British house of Commons said "I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed, both here and at home, with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation of the orientalists themselves." What is particularly interesting to me about his statement is only the first line (in bold). This gentleman tries to analyse languages that were very well developed much before English evolved (Vedic Sanskrit was born around 1700 BC and Classical Sanskrit around 400 BC), so much so, that even today it is considered one of the very few languages suitable for development in Artificial Intelligence because of its rich grammar and its derived nature in which each word has been derived from its respective class. Words in Sanskrit are instances of pre-defined classes, a concept that drives object oriented programming [OOP] today.
[For example, in English 'cow' is a just a sound assigned to mean a particular animal. But if you drill down the word 'gau' --Sanskrit for 'cow'-- you will arrive at a broad class 'gam' which means 'to move. From these derive 'gamanam', 'gatih' etc which are variations of 'movement'. All words have this OOP approach, except that defined classes in Sanskrit are so exhaustive that they cover the material and abstract --indeed cosmic-- experiences known to man. So in Sanskrit the connection is more than etymological.]
It is almost the same case even now, when Journalists, mostly unaware of the untold history of India and our own languages are pounding themselves on this idea itself. Why untold? Because unfortunately we are simply dragging a very weak education system devised by the British with multiple amendments, which was originally designed only to produce clerks to serve the imperial system in India and not intellectuals who may rise up and ask for their rights from the govt.
And it was this study of his, that laid the foundation of Education Act, 1835 which still manifests in the present Education Act of our country. As Macaulay advocated for English while not knowing the value of Sanskrit, the same is being done by the present Journalists who are quite possibly unaware of the history of India. So by simple logic, if something has been built on such a weak foundation it may not be very much efficient.
Second comes the intent. It was definitely not meant to improve the level of intellect of Indians. It is clearly evident from the fact (1925-1926) while govt spent Rs. 25 per head on European population's education, it dolled out beggarly 4 Annas per Indian for education while the entire govt's revenue came from taxes collected from Indian soil. [Public Finance and Our Poverty, J. C. Kumarappa] Another fact that justifies that they were not doing things that would make us strong.
Rather the intent was to destroy the legacy of the system of Indian Education. This is evident from a statement that Macaulay mentioned in his report "Indian system is based on two pillars: Education and Culture. If we want to rule India, we need to break these two pillars" [Ruining of India, W. M Digby]. There must have been something really great about the education system of ours that led to this statement by the officer. Infact this isn't just the case with the education alone, but also technology, medical science, businesses, manufacturing, craft, art, architecture and above all spirituality as well which were at prime during that period in India.
So let me take you to a tour of India prior to around 1850. India had a well developed system of Gurukuls which means Family (Kul) of Teacher (Guru). The practice was similar to boarding schools where the students used to stay with their teachers as their families and learn not only courses of study but also general behaviour, logical application of mind on trivial cases, survival techniques, basics of farming and other hand crafts and usage of tools.[The truth about India, H. M. Hynmann] It was intended to make them efficient policymakers who know about almost all trades so that they may use their practical knowledge of various fields in policy making that is practically applicable.
Now let's look at the subjects that were taught in these Gurukuls. The common perception is that they were only taught about religion and rituals. Completely false. They were taught about Economics (Arth-shastra), Mathematics (Gannitt), Chemistry (Rasayan Shastra), Biology and Medicine/Naturopathy (Jeev-Vigyan and Ayurveda), Architecture (Vastukala), Physics (Bhautiki) [Village Government in British India, J. Matthai], and almost all present day subjects with a significant emphasis on Practicals. In terms of numbers, on an average every village had approx 2 high school level Gurukuls and 0.5 colleges of higher education which provided specialisation in streams of Arts, Science, Medicine or Business. The level of Indian education can be ascertained by the high degree of professional skills possessed by Indians of that time, let me give you a glimpse of the same.
Please watch this video for another glimpse on advancement of Indian knowledge: Link to video
Dhaka, in Bangladesh now, was famous for its finest quality silk all across the globe. It was producing silk of that rich a quality that a 10m silk width when pressed along its length could pass through a ring. While the world was getting to know about iron and its extraction, Indian blacksmiths could produce finest quality 'Steel', much better than the European standards as well. Ships were the most technically advanced machines of those times, and here's the text from a letter from English factories at Balasore to Court of Directors at London "Many English merchants and others have their vessels yearly built. Here is the best and well grown timber, in sufficient plenty, the best iron upon the coast; any sort of iron work here is ingeniously performed by the natives. Very expert master builders are several here; they build very well and launch with much discretion as I have seen in any part of the world." Even till 1802, ships and warships for Eng,and were 'designed and built' in India, and England burrowed the plans and designs from Indian ship builders.
Now let's take a rational look at the genesis of this proposition. But before that, if you might have read the news or followed any TV debate, you might already have a biased view against the propositions or the underlining issue. To answer for that, I would cite an example.
Lord Macaulay, the officer who was sent to survey the level of education in India around 1830 and device a policy for formalising education here, while addressing British house of Commons said "I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed, both here and at home, with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation of the orientalists themselves." What is particularly interesting to me about his statement is only the first line (in bold). This gentleman tries to analyse languages that were very well developed much before English evolved (Vedic Sanskrit was born around 1700 BC and Classical Sanskrit around 400 BC), so much so, that even today it is considered one of the very few languages suitable for development in Artificial Intelligence because of its rich grammar and its derived nature in which each word has been derived from its respective class. Words in Sanskrit are instances of pre-defined classes, a concept that drives object oriented programming [OOP] today.
[For example, in English 'cow' is a just a sound assigned to mean a particular animal. But if you drill down the word 'gau' --Sanskrit for 'cow'-- you will arrive at a broad class 'gam' which means 'to move. From these derive 'gamanam', 'gatih' etc which are variations of 'movement'. All words have this OOP approach, except that defined classes in Sanskrit are so exhaustive that they cover the material and abstract --indeed cosmic-- experiences known to man. So in Sanskrit the connection is more than etymological.]
It is almost the same case even now, when Journalists, mostly unaware of the untold history of India and our own languages are pounding themselves on this idea itself. Why untold? Because unfortunately we are simply dragging a very weak education system devised by the British with multiple amendments, which was originally designed only to produce clerks to serve the imperial system in India and not intellectuals who may rise up and ask for their rights from the govt.
And it was this study of his, that laid the foundation of Education Act, 1835 which still manifests in the present Education Act of our country. As Macaulay advocated for English while not knowing the value of Sanskrit, the same is being done by the present Journalists who are quite possibly unaware of the history of India. So by simple logic, if something has been built on such a weak foundation it may not be very much efficient.
Second comes the intent. It was definitely not meant to improve the level of intellect of Indians. It is clearly evident from the fact (1925-1926) while govt spent Rs. 25 per head on European population's education, it dolled out beggarly 4 Annas per Indian for education while the entire govt's revenue came from taxes collected from Indian soil. [Public Finance and Our Poverty, J. C. Kumarappa] Another fact that justifies that they were not doing things that would make us strong.
Rather the intent was to destroy the legacy of the system of Indian Education. This is evident from a statement that Macaulay mentioned in his report "Indian system is based on two pillars: Education and Culture. If we want to rule India, we need to break these two pillars" [Ruining of India, W. M Digby]. There must have been something really great about the education system of ours that led to this statement by the officer. Infact this isn't just the case with the education alone, but also technology, medical science, businesses, manufacturing, craft, art, architecture and above all spirituality as well which were at prime during that period in India.
Accounts by some European observers on conditions in India around 1800. [From Public Finance and Our Poverty, J.C. Kumarappa]
So let me take you to a tour of India prior to around 1850. India had a well developed system of Gurukuls which means Family (Kul) of Teacher (Guru). The practice was similar to boarding schools where the students used to stay with their teachers as their families and learn not only courses of study but also general behaviour, logical application of mind on trivial cases, survival techniques, basics of farming and other hand crafts and usage of tools.[The truth about India, H. M. Hynmann] It was intended to make them efficient policymakers who know about almost all trades so that they may use their practical knowledge of various fields in policy making that is practically applicable.
Now let's look at the subjects that were taught in these Gurukuls. The common perception is that they were only taught about religion and rituals. Completely false. They were taught about Economics (Arth-shastra), Mathematics (Gannitt), Chemistry (Rasayan Shastra), Biology and Medicine/Naturopathy (Jeev-Vigyan and Ayurveda), Architecture (Vastukala), Physics (Bhautiki) [Village Government in British India, J. Matthai], and almost all present day subjects with a significant emphasis on Practicals. In terms of numbers, on an average every village had approx 2 high school level Gurukuls and 0.5 colleges of higher education which provided specialisation in streams of Arts, Science, Medicine or Business. The level of Indian education can be ascertained by the high degree of professional skills possessed by Indians of that time, let me give you a glimpse of the same.
Please watch this video for another glimpse on advancement of Indian knowledge: Link to video
Dhaka, in Bangladesh now, was famous for its finest quality silk all across the globe. It was producing silk of that rich a quality that a 10m silk width when pressed along its length could pass through a ring. While the world was getting to know about iron and its extraction, Indian blacksmiths could produce finest quality 'Steel', much better than the European standards as well. Ships were the most technically advanced machines of those times, and here's the text from a letter from English factories at Balasore to Court of Directors at London "Many English merchants and others have their vessels yearly built. Here is the best and well grown timber, in sufficient plenty, the best iron upon the coast; any sort of iron work here is ingeniously performed by the natives. Very expert master builders are several here; they build very well and launch with much discretion as I have seen in any part of the world." Even till 1802, ships and warships for Eng,and were 'designed and built' in India, and England burrowed the plans and designs from Indian ship builders.
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Pages from Public Finance and Our Poverty, speaking of India's high valued skills and produce of those times that made west concerned about their internal economy
Apart from that, Indian cotton, art items, embroidery, ivory and stones were in large demand outside India, that made our trade one way and we were exchanging our goods against gold and silver from across the globe and that was the reason why we had so much of gold that the name of 'Sone ki Chidiya' (Bird of Gold) was given to us. This is also the reason why we still have this affection for gold, that is coming as a legacy from that era. In those times, the poor were the ones, who had comparatively less gold. There are far too many examples of the Indian high skillfulness such as the Iron Pillar in Qutub Minaar, the forts and palaces that still stand strong even after centuries, the most recent example being that of Kedarnath temple which faced the nature's fury that the entire state couldn't stand and still stood as if nothing has happened. That was the level of Science and Technology during that golden era. Even the 'Sushruta Samhita' of Ayurveda is believed to be penned down around 400 AD while the practice of the same can be traced back to approx 5000 years back. The second 'Charak Samhita' was written around 300 Years later by Maharishi Charak who also laid down the principles of Surgery (Shaliya-Chikitsa) in these manuscripts much before surgery got known to the Europeans (around 1750 through one of their officers Col. Koot, who got his nose amputated during a war with Hyder Ali near Mysore and was operated upon by a Vaidya who rejoined his nose). The practice of Surgery in western world started only in 19th century.
A famous quote by Albert Einstein says "I draw a lot of inspiration from an ancient Indian book called Bhagwad Gita". In Indian education, spirituality was central to the entire education and lives of the citizens, that prospered the nation to the level that was unthinkable by many. There are innumerous facts and examples of level achieved by the Indian skillful workforce at that time and we can only wonder for what happened that led to the present day scenario. So based on the facts that I could gather, here is the log. As was mentioned by Lord Macaulay, that it was necessary for the british to stem out Indian Gurukul education system, they did the same. They declared all the Gurukuls as illegal and framed the Acharyas (Teachers) in false criminal/civil cases to obstruct the running of Gurukuls. There was another reason as well, as many British officers and soldiers were working in India, they needed schools of their own for them as well. Now schools especially for them only wasn't a commercially good idea, so to meet their costs they needed Indian students as well studying there. However the People at that time were trained to be rational, and thus they restrained from studying in Schools that didn't teach their kids the subjects needed to live a healthy and meaningful life but were burdened with random subjects which were not even going to be of any use to them. So to argue with people and mould them for this decision, the englishmen backed backed Raja Rammohan Roy (who by virtue of english curriculum that we follow, is being seen as a great social reformer). However the first fall began from the higher sections of society which were infected with the virus of Imitation of west.
"Current Education suffers from the worship of the west. Current education
is of an imitative character. But knowledge in more than
imitation or analogy.
There is abroad, today, a cult of pride and comfort, a cult of imitation,
a cult of decadence. To its attractions succumb today, so
many of the youths of India. They
need a message of a simple yet meaningful life. In simplicity, is strength as in
imitation is weakness. And simplicity flowers into sacrifice"
~ Sadhu Vaswani
These words were so rightly said by Sir T. L Vaswani, a great reformer, academician, teacher and social activist, in 1930 that fit very rightly even today, 65 years after independence. Physical independence only, mental slavery still persists.
With time, the gurukuls in India vanished and were completely taken over by the Convent Schools (referred to as 'Free Schools' at that time). And thus began the process of generating clerks for the imperial system. Unfortunately, even today the education system is only producing clerks, people who only study to obtain a degree, employers who only rely on the weight of a degree. Literate people who succumb to the pressures of life so easily and find no help from all the education that they have accumulated in their heads through rote learning to solve the real problems in life.
So this is the story of evolution (?) of Indian education system whose backbone was spiritualism and which was taught in the mother tongue of students to the present day system where English is not only taught as a language to be known for convenience but has become an utmost necessity.
This question is not of only a language which we write or speak but to it is linked a much critical issue of nationalism, something that we are lacking badly in today's citizens who would go to any extent to rob the nation in all possible ways.
A common language instills a sense of oneness among people. English on the contrary, since it became a language of general communication and thus an invalid status symbol, has only created a divide among classes.
Knowing multiple languages is welcome, for that matter even English must also fall in the same category, however making it the backbone of all our lives and profession is not at all a justice to a very well developed system of education and society which had a proven track record.
It is known scientific fact that mind grasps, understands and think more quickly and rationally in mother-tongue than in a foreign language which to mind is just an interface to the external world while inside we only think in our mother-tongue. This is one of the basic reason why we have performed miserably in research in basic sciences.
If you are thinking about how can Hindi be used for teaching technical education etc., just remind yourself of Germany, Japan and China for the examples of countries who have maintained their mother tongue for all kind of education and they are also the countries which can boast of having its citizen as one of most nationalist ones in world.
At last I would like to maintain that while the Batra's recommendations seems to steep and to harsh to be applied at once without making a conducive environment for the same, however its not completely out of place to give a logical consideration to the idea being sold.
I would finish off with a statement given by an English officer when British were leaving India,
"We are leaving India only physically,
We have sown our seeds such that our culture would continue to remain in this country forever."
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